UBB.Developers Forums Announcements Announcements U-Zine Interviews May 2002: Content Rulez Winner: Seahorse.org

This month marks the beginning of our newest contest: "Content Rulez", where fellow UBBers get the chance to show some substance over style. Competition was fierce as many of the entrants were of high quality. In the end Seahorse.org narrowly beat out RobKamphausen.com for first place as our Content Rulez winner. UBBDev caught up with Chris Burns (a.k.a. Raconteur ) for a little horse-talk about his outstanding community and website

Seahorse.org's forum can be found at: http://www.seahorse.org/cgi-bin/UBB/ultimatebb.cgi .

Interview by: tackaberry
Interviewee: Raconteur

UBBDev:
Tell me about the history of Seahorse.org and when you got started.

Raconteur:
I have been keeping saltwater fish tanks for about 13 years, and had always been interested in seahorses. About 9 years ago I began working with seahorse in earnest, but found myself in a virtual vacuum of information.

After doing a lot of work on my own, a lot of trial and error, and a lot of independent research, I found a couple of email lists on the net. Sadly, these sorts of environments are not conducive to information sharing and capture, so my partner, Karen Etling, and I got together on a mutual vision of the site.

This vision centered around UBB, as it appeared, at the time, to be the best format for threading conversations and capturing knowledge exchange.

We launched on 1/1/01 and have rapidly become the Internet's largest and most diverse community of hobbyists, researchers, and aquaculturists for seahorses.
UBBDev:
How many members are on your forum/site?

Raconteur:
We currently have close to 600 active posters on our boards, however there are other areas of the site that require membership. The cumulative total of all membership is around 1400 people.

UBBDev:
What percentage of them are hobbiests versus researchers?

Raconteur:
The vast majority of our population are hobbyists, however, there are a growing number of university professors, aqua-farms, public aquariums, and independent researchers discovering the site every day. Currently, I would say about 15%-20% of the community are more "professional" than hobbyist.

UBBDev:
How large is your board "staff", in terms of Admins and Moderators?

Raconteur:
We currently have 12 moderators (we call them Directors), including one MegaModerator and two Administrators (Curators), governing 28 forums (including archives). There is a great need to add a handful of new moderators, however the picking process takes some time. We also have 2 people that help run and administer the IRC rooms.

UBBDev:
Which are the most popular forums on your board?

Raconteur:
By number of posts, it would be Basic Seahorse Keeping (where new keepers can come to get the info they need), Emergency!! (where the moderators provide immediate feedback and assistance to emergencies - time is critical in healing a sick horse), and General Discussion (plain ol' off-topic chit-chat). However, the fastest growing forums are probably Tankmates (talk about co-habitants) and Dwarf Seahorses (talk about a specific species that only grows to 2").