One of the biggest issues we have in our hobby is our inability to efficiently and easily access specific information on specific products, techniques, combinations and other aspects of a hobby that can be complex (think fuel systems, electric power consumption, detailing, etc.).
We all "grew up" online with forum software. We cannot think of a worse way to archive and retrieve knowledge. Forums have become bloated with too many topics and threads. Worse, the search tools yield far too many irrelevant results. Facebook is even worse. Built to capture and maintain your attention over long stretches, Facebook has no interest in helping you find specific bits of information. Its aim is to just have you browsing. Facebook groups are a bit better, but given that ANYBODY can create a group, we are now seeing a splintered approach to our hobby, which makes finding relevant information extremely tedious.
RCPilot was designed to permit members to:
- Browse leisurely within their favorite hobby specialties (e.g. EDF Jets or Scale Helis)
- Drill down into specific topics within a hobby specialty
- Use product brand and model names to find posts that deal specifically with that product
- Use combinations of the filters to find discussions, advice posts, build stories and articles that target their interests.
The key to making this paradigm work lies with each member's ability to classify their content using the selection controls we provide. We limit posts to no more than 2 specialties and 2 topics to keep the index from being polluted over time. We also have a crack team of moderators, who can instantly adjust the categorization provided by members. Our specialties and topics were developed to prevent substantial overlaps; this contributes to the discoverability of member content.