A few months back, we wrote about a couple of Wikipedia-style resources for cruisers: ActiveCaptain and CaptainWiki.

Jeffrey and Karen Siegel continue to refine ActiveCaptain. Most recently they’ve added support for “local knowledge” markers. Today, it only supports bridges, locks, dams, and ferries, but I imagine they will add templates for notes about changes in depth or bottom conditions, vessel traffic patterns, and current, tide, and atmospheric idiosyncrasies.

This morning, I added a new marina (Port Townsend Boat Haven), and a rating/review of an existing marina (Point Hudson Resort and Marina). Adding a rating and review is pretty straightforward, and I would encourage users to add their own observations and opinions to the database. But adding a marina is a bit of work; after adding one, I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to add another unless I was a stakeholder in that marina or facility. Otherwise, copy/pasting (from marina website to ActiveCaptain data record template) is a task one would only undertake as a labor of love. It’s a wiki, so user contributions are welcomed and encouraged, and ActiveCaptain features a “point system” to recognize those who contribute. After my efforts this morning, I’ve got 14 points! I’m not really sure if that’s a lot…

I’m sure the Siegels recognize this obstacle. They’ve made it as easy as possible to create new records. The interface and data templates are, with a few minor exceptions, coherent and reasonably intuitive. But clearly, they know they can’t rely on the public at large to populate the database; not at this stage, anyway. They’ve done an admirable job of “seeding” the database with marina info, but of course there’s still a good deal of work to do.

As a data architect and digital content management specialist in my own right, I applaud their progress so far, and wish them luck. With continued attention and growth in the user base, it will develop its own “organic” momentum, and we’ll all wonder how we got along without it.