[Sugashane]

Originally Posted by Biter

I agree with this assessment. I recently had a conversation with a real life friend who occasionally posts over there. Hopefully I've can convince him to come over, as he's a good guy.

I tried to explain to him the difference between the sites, and how valuable the advice is. I gave him a parable to work with.

Say you want to learn to swim well, even go so far as compete. You had two choices where to learn.

The first place is small, indoors, and has some very good professionals who work there. They understand competition and can guide the swimmers very well. Aesthetically, it's pleasing and the place is kept clean. The focus is on swimming, but a good amount of fun is had as well. It shows with the swimmers. The coaches are world class and you get the frequent appearance by Olympic level competitors.

The second place is outdoors. The swim coach is the fat teenage lifeguard who barely pays attention to what he is doing. He might achieve getting some of the kiddies to learn how to swim in the shallow end, but that's it. The pool is public, and overused. Crowded, water hasn't been changed in awhile and is too warm from crowding. No place to put your towel down poolside. Even if there was, it would probably get ripped off. There is a lot of socializing... but the quality of it is questionable. The people running the place are only concerned with getting bodies in the door. If you pay for swim lessons, good luck.

I explained it this way. This is the difference between these sites, with AF being the indoor, well kept pool and EF the crappy one.

Thats actually a great and accurate analagy.