FB A4 group has engine for sale

[Boat]

Newport Owners group has a site there as well. Not a book face guy either but tag on with some others log in info. Some info there is good, but most of it just causes me to shake my head in wonder that these folks are actually going to take a boat out on some body of water. At least the coast guard and Tow Boat US folks are keeping busy.

[Dave Neptune]

To FB is "no look". I believe it is based more on most users social inabilities and not just for info and camaraderie like here.

My wife is on FB for hours every day a real social being. I just don't "get it" or want to waste my free time staring at a screen and gossiping.

Dave Neptune

[tenders]

I'm a light FB user, and generally consider it a waste of time. It has impressive "convening" capabilities - gathering a group of similarly-minded people together to do something constructive over a short period of time, for example, overthrowing a government, planning a reunion, sharing vacation pictures. It is really not that good for maintaining specific relationships, for example, an assembly of boat or engine owners. There are exceptions, but in general there are too many distracting/competing interests on FB, too many ads, not enough moderation/curation, and is not designed for archiving.

I recently picked up another DIY-maintenance hobby not as cool as sailing, but still pretty cool. After three months I removed myself from a prime message board forum behind it, in favor of Reddit, another social network that is inferior to this "forum" format but is not quite as bad as FB. This has given me a new-found appreciation for why this forum works so well, and in keeping with the holiday season would like to express thanks to our sponsor and fellow members for creating such a helpful and interesting destination. Here is why I think this place works so well:

- Moyer Marine's commercial interest and sponsorship puts somebody clearly in charge. This seems like a simple thing, but forum management by committee, or by a federation of otherwise unrelated users, or by nobody, turns everything to rust. Also, the low but constant degree of maintenance that has been applied here over time really shows when you have other things to compare it against: links, embedded graphics, search, etc. virtually always work.

- Up-front user screening. We don't see a lot of whacko/spam posts, but my God are there a lot of them out there. Kudos again to Bill for what is surely a high degree of thankless, faceless, constant filtering.

- Constructive-only feedback option ("thanks"). It is tempting to think a "thumbs-down" option would be helpful on chatboards to keep people in line (not that this has ever been needed here, in all seriousness), and maybe track users' net thumbs-ups and thumbs-down to gather public "karma" scores - nosiree, this is not a good thing. It stirs constant confusion, misunderstanding, and discontent. Keep the tallies positive, handle any negatives with direct feedback/discussion or behind-the-scenes.

- Absence of pointless discussion of polarizing topics like politics, religion, and guns.

- Peerless expertise. From the baseline of the biblical Moyer Manual, and extending to thousands of posts especially from a few dozen high-quality, high-involvement, high-EQ individuals, this is a definitive, searchable repository of incredible depth of A4 operation and maintenance expertise.

So: let it be known how thankful I am that this forum exists and how much I appreciate its design and execution. My first years with an A4 from 1991 through about 1995 were pre-internet, and those were dark and confusing times indeed when anti-A4 sentiment was at a peak and was not without basis. I would never have been able to keep this puppy running so nicely without the internet connecting me to Moyer parts support and, ultimately, to this group of sage and supporting experts. Happy holidays.