Bahamas Chatter: Regarding the Active Captain Comments
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Bahamas Chatter: Regarding the Active Captain comments on its Facebook site about Explorer Charts:
Regarding the Active Captain comments on its Facebook site about Explorer Charts:
Posted: 01 Feb 2016 07:36 AM PST
I recently returned to the Active Captain Facebook page, and I cannot locate the initial post from Mr. Jeff Siegel, or his later amended one, or even a number of the negative comments about the post from Active Captain users. I hope I am wrong, but it appears it has all been removed.
(You can learn about that initial posting, and read some direct quotes from it, on the Explorer Charts Bahamas Chatter site.)
One of the more disturbing comments from Mr. Siegel was his accusation that the people at Explorer Charts had made “errors (that) are CRIMINAL in the high traffic areas”; (reported at Explorer Charts; emphasis added)
The posting went on to push Active Captain’s superior methodology of depth reporting:
“Even the most meager attempt to crowd-source depth data is going to blow away all of these chart-producing companies.” Two weeks later, on January 27, 2016, as a member of Active Captain, I received one of Mr. Siegel’s periodic e-mails, and this sentence jumped from the page:
“All crowd-sourced data needs interpretation – it’s the nature of the medium.”
More about that later.
I have been a member of Active Captain for many years, and find the marina reports very useful, as long as you accept the information with an understanding that it may contain the same kind of bias or inaccuracy you might see in a restaurant review on Yelp. There are many very experienced, well-qualified cruisers who use Active Captain, and many who are not so experienced.
I’ve been critical of reports that some of the “crowd” make on Active Captain regarding depths. As an example, the “crowd” often reports something like this: “I had 5’ of water all the way in”. But the “crowd” does not report whether that was 5’ under the keel, or 5’ of actual depth, or what the state of the tide actually was at that moment, or whether there were any other factors which affected the tide that day, or – equally important, what was their exact location by lat/lon at the precise moment of the sounding? Were they REALLY in the “middle” of the channel? And of course there is no way to know whether their depth sounders were accurately calibrated.
I have absolutely no confidence in such information. It is off-handed, undisciplined, and unreliable.
I have used the Explorer Charts for years while cruising the Bahamas, and find them to be incredibly accurate. I’ll take the Explorer Chart data any day over anything else.
So Active Captain has two positions: 1) Meager (their word) attempts at crowd source depth data will “blow away” all of the chart producing companies, and 2) ALL crowd-source data needs “interpretation”.
In looking at Mr. Siegel’s world, the real question is just WHO will be making the “meager” attempt to interpret the crowd-sourced data? The crowd? Mr. Siegel?
It’s also interesting that Mr. Siegel doesn’t go after the electronic chart companies…including those with which he already has a business relationship. Ask yourself, just WHERE does the electronic chart data come from?
Explorer Charts is clearly a competitor to Mr. Siegel’s Active Captain, and his tactic of accusing a competitor of criminality says a great deal about his approach. Before Mr. Siegel apparently removed his comments from the Active Captain Facebook site, he made some vacuous explanations for his posting, but never issued an apology to Monty and Sara Lewis and their daughter Kate at Explorer Charts. He needs to do that now.
Greg Allard
Comments from Cruisers (2)
Hear here. I love Active Captain, but take most comments with a cautious eye. Folks such as Explorer Charts are based on real information. Not saying that AC does not include real data, I just agree with Greg on how to use the information. I am a huge contributor to AC and have noticed that even some of my posts have errors (I know, hard to believe isn’t it – LOL?!)
I agree with Mr Allard completely. I use Active Captain and like it. I have also seen countless warning markers on the ICW where people swear they ran aground while in the middle of the channel. Sometimes that’s true but I think mostly people aren’t where they think they are when they run aground. I’ve been over many of those spots at all states of tide with my six foot draft boat and never found those shoals. It tends to diminish ones faith in crowd sourcing. I doubt it will ever replace professionally produced charts ,paper, electronic or otherwise.