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rphunter · 21 hours ago

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all oc, mostly mxm fantasy plots

Howdy! River, 21+ yrs, just use all the pronouns. Lit writer with looots of experience. PST. LF 18+. Thanks mods!!

My requests are finite:

1. Be confident in your willingness/ability to communicate. You don't have to be perfect, just Make an Effort.

2. Here's a doc linked with random (sfw) examples of my writing yoinked from my actual rps. GO READ IT!!! Look at my writing style, pacing, world building, ect. Get your own writing examples handy.

3. Be ok with multi-musing and doing complex-ish stories. I rp because I LOVE writing & collaborating in the writing process, not for the smut or wish fulfillment. Please love writing too!

4. I consider the first day/week of a rp with Strangers on the Internet to be a blind date. Sometimes you strike gold, but mostly it doesn't work out and interest is lost. If we dont wanna write after exchanging rp examples or a few replies, no hard feelings!

5. If you're inconsiderate, lazy, pushy about your opinions, or otherwise make me regret not having a longer list of rules, I reserve the right to drop your ass on the curb w/o warning.

I write on docs, ellipsus, or discord. I mostly make my blorbos from scratch. I don't mind any reply times/lengths. I don't do AI bullshit.

If interested, contact me @flosadonis and introduce yerself!

A few plots:

1. A fated prince/knight situationship in which the knight is majicked to be *immortal (*some restrictions apply) and spends most of his time in a vault sleeping, awakening only when the current monarchs are in gravest need of his protection. He's roused too late this time, however, and the kingdom is almost utterly razed to the ground- only the crown prince is left alive, and needs to be rescued. I'd like to write the knight.

2. A cocky, second-rate magician summons a cocky, second-rate demon and binds them together (accidentally, or by making a deal) and now they're stuck with each other until they can absolve the bond. Urban modern fantasy, I don't have a preference who I play, but bonus points for a 'brat with self worth issues x annoyed dom who'll bully him into loving himself' type dynamic and for that I'd love to write a dom wizard.

3. A prince who's country was seized by an enemy has had to grow up with a false identity to avoid being killed. When said enemy captures him, they don't know who he is and turn him into a slave to fight gladiator style for their amusement. He's plucked out of this life by the only person who recognizes him for who he really is: the cruel prince of the enemy nation. Enemies to lovers. This is a blatantly Captive Prince inspired plot but it's not required reading. No preference who I write.

4. A kidnapped prince is being smuggled over the mountains to an unknown fate. He finds an unlikely rescuer in a ranger and his pack of dogs, and manages to break free with their help, and the discovery of his own latent magic. However, getting back home is another story; as it turns out, wild men of the mountains don't care much for princeling waifs ordering them around. Enemies to lovers, dog & cat coded, low fantasy wilderness. No preference who I write.

5. FxF. In a world where vampires used to be considered vile animals to be exterminated, and has just begun trying to integrate them into human society as equals, a newly appointed vamp watchguard meets a former vampire hunter who now works at a senior home that houses elderly vampires. The two struggle to see eye to eye, yet inexplicably begin to fall for each other as they learn the other's history. I'd like to write the ex-hunter.

Or come at me with your own plots if you have them! I'm down for just about anything as long as it's compelling and fun to write. Okay now stop being insecure about ur writing skills and go dm me bitch byeee mwah <3

#flosadonis #see how this user combines their OC plots into one ad #very demure #very mindful #oc roleplay #oc rp #mxm #fxf

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lowrezbonuslevel · 11 months ago

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oc ask game!!! :DD im obsessed with your ocs omg 😭😭

🕸️/🥀 for tillda

🧋/🪄 for zed

Omg thanks that's a big big compliment :,)

Here are the answers:

--- (For Tillda) ---

Q: "🕸️ (Spiderweb) - Create a bouquet inspired by your OC! It can be based on their colour palette, flower language and symbolism, whatever they like best, or any combination of the three."

A: I wonder what Tillda's favorite flower is? Forget-me-not? Ha ha ha. ...But seriously, I put 'em in there.

White lilies are the national flower of Italy. Supposedly, chrysanthemums represent mourning there?

Mimosas are said to represent women.

I just added lilacs because of her color scheme.

Common understandings of flower symbolism seem kinda shaky and varied at best, except for the REALLY popular ones (roses for love, etc.), so I didn't take the "deeper meanings" here too seriously.

(rest of the answers under the cut)

Q: "🥀 (Wilted Rose) - Do they have a Soul form? What would it look and act like? How much control over themselves do they have? Is it still possible to save them, or are they too far gone?"

A: Well... I wonder how she'd become "Tillda Soul" in the first place. In the Kirby series, "soul forms" usually come about because of plot-defining magic shenanigans (messing with ancient artifacts, toying with destructive power, etc.), which Tillda tends not to involve herself in. But I could see her flying to close too the sun for the sake of Zed or her brother. For fun, I've drawn up what a "Tillda Soul" might look like.

I don't think Tillda's soul form would be "beyond saving" by any means. She's brash, but she's squishy on the inside. Hugs melt her.

Let's see: Tillda is stubborn, and if anything, trying to fight her would push her further away from the light, so to fix things, we'd better just give her a glass of warm milk and put her to bed. Hope you feel better in the morning, Tillda!

--- (For Zed) ---

Q: "🧋 (Boba Tea) - Come up with a Kirby Café item themed around your OC! It can be a savoury dish, a drink, a dessert, or something else entirely."

I would pick a bento box because it seems like something Zed would take to work :) And fish is one of their favorite things to eat. Made a few sketches but nothing big.

Possible blurb:

"Enjoy a balanced meal with fluffy rice, baked fish, tasty melon, and an assortment of nutritious vegetables. It's a practical lunch for hard-working felines everywhere, and it comes in a sturdy, decorated box that looks just like the one owned by a certain N-Z."

(Yeah while brainstorming/researching this one I found out that, as a species, cats really like melon? And scientists think it's because melons give off a scent similar to something in meat that cats like?? Who discovered this and why??? I guess all those videos of cats utterly destroying watermelon weren't flukes... Zed is 70% honeydew confirmed)

Q: "🪄 (Magic Wand) - Are they capable of wielding magic? Is it a learned skill, or is it innate? What sorts of spells can they cast? Do they possess any magical items or artifacts? [e.g. the Dimensional Mantle]"

Zed is kind of inherently "magic" since they're made of Dark Matter, but they don't have any flashy spell-casting abilities a la Magolor or Taranza (or Tillda herself, to a lesser extent). Maybe Zed would be a decent magic user if they practiced, but they've never really cared to.

Their shape-shifting abilities mean flying is easy enough.

Their visor is hand-made and probably has some magic properties. I won't reveal its name or why Zed wears it (partly because "spoilers!" but mostly because I still need some time to work it out lmao), but it does come in handy often and is capable of more than meets the eye. (Or the zero, I guess. Hardy-har.)

That's everything answered, I hope! Thanks for your submission, and thanks again for enjoying my posts about these two! :)

#kirby #kirby oc #lrblev art #sketch #lrbbox #original character by: lowrezbonuslevel #tarantillda #zed #text post #sorry it took a while!

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professorpalmarosa · 6 years ago

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4, 5, 6

How do you explain rpto someone in the real world?

Most people I’m friends with are online and very aware of whatRP is. In fact, most of them are current (or former) RP partners.

However, for people who don’t know what it is or don’t getit, I tend to say that I am “working on collaborative writing projects.” Whenthey ask who I’m doing it with, I tell them my partners are “a combination of close friends andaspiring authors who like the content I create.”

Every thread is “a writingexercise, either self-assigned or assigned by someone else in the community.”

Do you preferinteracting with male muses or female more? Why?

I don’t have apreference for one particular sex or gender identity over any other. A well crafted muse is a well crafted muse, period.

A lot of my preferences depend more on the writer and proposed plotsthan the actual character. You could have the most intriguing, amazing, andbrilliant muse in the world…and make them as spicy and interesting as unseasonedchicken if you don’t know what you’re doing. Conversely, you can make acharacter with the personality of wet cardboard the hottest commodity in thecommunity if you DO know what you’re doing. If you want me to dish some dirt onthis, ping me on IM. I’ll give a few examples (good and bad) without droppinguser names.

I’m currently not actively roleplaying, mostly because Iwant to finish my Pokémon Hammer &Sickle series as a gift to myself and hone my skills. That said, some of mybeta readers miss RPing with me so I’ve added a caveat:

Readers and reviewers for active passion projects can request RPs with me on the IM.

They’reencouraging my passion project (something the Naruto community failed to do forthe Vines series, and this was the biggest cause for my creative burnout), so I want to reward good behavior. Even when I get back into RPing, these types of mutuals will ALWAYS get preferential treatment.

One of my beta readers has an amazing Lusamine muse, butalso has a strong grasp on Lillie and Gladion. Another has a Malva muse whooften gets me to laugh or make my skin crawl, but also has an Alainmuse I’m just starting to get to know. Both of these people have had a chanceto see what my Lysandre is like probably well over a year before anyone elsewill.

Do you prefer writingmale muses or female more? Why?

I tend to write morecanon males and more OC females. I think the reason for this is that mostof the media I consume (unfortunately) doesn’t spend as much time developingits female characters as it does for its male characters. There’s more diversity among themen and I’m more likely to find my favorite “type” of canon character among themen.

Most of my female OCs aren’t what you typically see in mostmediums, particularly anime. Let me list a few examples:

Kazusa (Naruto) wasa frizzy-haired, cat hoarding beefcake who kept piling on the pounds after she hada son. Her best friend (Naho) looked a bit more like a traditionally prettyolder lady on the surface, but tended to wear cheongsams to hide the fact thateverything from her ribs to her chin had been badly incinerated. Naho had a gravelly, hoarse voice, smoked menthols to “smooth her pipes,” and couldn’teven raise her voice anymore without everything turning into loose air. Bothwere over the age of 40, mothers, and in arranged marriages.

Alexandra CatherineBellamy (Batman Beyond) was the former head of PR for Daggett Industriesbut wormed her way into the CEO seat after marrying and divorcing the heirapparent to the Daggett family fortune. She was a voluptuous, curvy woman witha reputation as a professional bus-thrower. This woman even convinced an oldcollege friend to test a new drug on a corporate rival so he’d show dementia-likesymptoms in public and be pressured by his board of directors to retire. It almost worked.

Lulu (Pokémon) isa recurring support character for the two main protagonists in the Hammer & Sickle series. ThisMauville City native is a short, skinny, awkward-looking girl with long limpbrown hair, puffy lips, thick glasses, and a fondness for oversized yellowflannel shirts. Although she and her Abra never battle, she regularly criticizesother trainers for not best utilizing their Pokémon’s EVs and makes pages-long “masterplans” for gym battles. Lulu is an auditor for the International Pokémon Leagueand makes a living making sure regional league members adhere to the enforced standards.Not only is this girl a total hag, but she’s also a smarmy know-it-all and thesort of person you’d just love to punch in real life. I love her, though! Thepart where she warns Cynthia and her friends they do NOT want to visit a nudebeach was one of the latest arc’s highlights.

If any of these women had been canon; the fact that theyaren’t conventionally attractive, somebody’s love interest, and are far fromthe cute, sweet, and pleasant girls we tend to expect from our ladycharacters…I bet you anything they’d all be cast as villains. And yet only half of the women I listed are people I’didentify as bad. Lulu’s one of the good guys, Kazusa is a loving mother, and Naho’s more a byproduct of a bad upbringing than anything truly malicious. And even with Alex (who definitely is a villain), she’s still a good stepmother and is surprisingly loyal to friends who don’t work for her.

If the provided canon female roles were as dynamic and diverse as the male roles, I’d pick up more female canons. But we aren’t there yet, so I’lljust continue to predominantly select canon males and make the female world abit more diverse.

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fyrapartnersearch · 6 years ago

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[insert catchy title here]

hey, i'm tea (like the beverage). i'm in my early 20’s, and i live in midwestern USA so my timezone is central. i roleplay exclusively through email. i’ve tried other mediums and they just don’t stick for me. there will be an ooc thread for plotting/planning/talking and an rp thread for the actual roleplay. my ads never fully format properly after i submit them so i’m sorry if some stuff bleeds together or if there are huge blocks of text.

for the rp itself, well. i’m looking for a small array of things, so i figured i’d make an ad as a catch-all instead of doing something like one ad per request. i will only do oc/oc romance, and i only do m// and/or f//.

i’m currently looking to roleplay ocs in the following universes: fallout, percy jackson, harvest moon, and atla/lok. and for a purely original setting, apocalypse/post-apocalypse (zombies are good in my book! i like ‘em with a creative twist, though) or horror romcoms.

style; ☆third person. ☆past tense. ☆novel or multi-paragraph; i can snap out four paragraphs or 20, usually novel but like i can work w/ anything. ☆good handle on grammar, maybe some spelling errors if i’m responding from my phone. i’m very relaxed with typing OOC as u can tell but i go all out with actual writing, don’t worry.

characters; ☆varied in personality and backstory, i usually make new ones for rps but sometimes a character sticks with me. ☆i can handle various roles at once; side characters or recurring roles aside from mains are welcome. ☆doubling or tripling is alright. ☆i don’t use FC’s and prefer written descriptions, but i’m a hoe for pinterest and moodboards and use that for character references. i’m super into aesthetics. ☆i get attached to our characters so i’m into talking about them and making content. expect me making pinboards or drawing things or sending u vines/songs and being like “this is them.”

smut; ☆required. i don’t fade to black. ☆switch characters by default. i will die if you come to me with the intention of only playing bottom characters. ☆no incest, pedo, bestiality, toilet stuff, noncon, mpreg. please don’t contact me if u support any of that stuff in any way. i’ve had people contact me who have links online and i’ve found out they’ve written incest or pedo fanfics, so like… in general, stay away plz.

i prefer my partners to be 18+ minimum, 20+ is best case scenario. none of the characters will be underage and would be in their twenties or older.

AND NOW… ONTO THE UNIVERSE RELEVANCE… i’d looove to play any of these, but asterisks are for particular cravings.

FALLOUT; i’ve only played F3 and a little bit of F4 i know i’m a newbie. 😞 everyone tells me to play NV and i will! i’m working on it. i have no plot in mind other than it could be fun to make our own setting/area of the US they haven’t explored in canon, like mountains or something. but otherwise staying in canon areas is good! ☆ghoul/non-radiated person ☆fresh-outta-the-vault/wasteland veteran ☆sole-survivor/oc ☆lone wanderer/oc ☆regular oc/oc!

PERCY JACKSON;*** i never read heroes of olympus or any other riordan book beside the original PJO books. BUT i love the original series so that will be my focus. for the plot, i don’t have anything, but i’ve seen a couple ads floating around with some interesting plot bunnies? so anything is good! there is one proposal i’ve seen around that i think would be really fun, which is ocs in pjo in another time period. what can i say, the combination demigod/mythology + aesthetics from the 18th or 19th century just gets to me, i’m rlly into it atm! dashing adventures on cobblestone streets and deadly weapons hidden in skirts and tucked into the lining of carriages. PLUS U CANNOT DENY HOW PERIOD PINING KILLS U… brushing pinkies… longing gazes… i’m so down. but any time period to be honest, from ancient greece BCE to modern day. i’ve got a couple plot ideas + character ideas i’d like to try out so i’m ready when u are. some pairings ideas: ☆big three demigod/extremely minor demigod kid ☆demigod/satyr or spirit ☆demigod/someone who can see through the mist ☆demigods with a parental rivalry ☆BEST FRIENDS bro CHB is like. peak best friends to lovers scenario

STORY OF SEASONS/HARVEST MOON; alright, this one is pretty different. this would be very video game-like: heart events, character gift preferences, festival events, the whole nine yards. i have a couple of ideas for a town setting, but mostly i’d like to make one with my partner:

☆fantasy-based, like rune factory. along with humans, there could be dwarves, elves, mermaids/mermen, selkies, magic-users… maybe a shape-shifting dragon ☆supernatural-based, maybe a halloweentown vibe? or something more sinister. along with humans, there could be vampires, werewolves, demons, witches, ghosts, et cetera. ☆pokemon-based. instead of regular farm animals, they’re pokemon! miltank, combee, mareep, sudowoodo, et cetera. this could be suuuuper cute and fun. ☆LOZ-based, in hyrule. there could be hylians, rito, zora, et cetera.

A:TLA/LOK;** i’d prefer something set either before a:tla or after lok with our own avatar and group. could be fun and interesting to explore and make our own story. i have an idea for an avatar just because i’ve been thinking of avatar in general but i really don’t have a preference for the role so lmk if you’d rather play it. i also have a few little plot ideas, depending on what the timeline we shoot for is. ☆avatar/bender helping them master an element ☆avatar/non-bender ☆airbender/firebender ☆any/any!

APOCALYPSE/POST-APOCALYPSE;*** what can i say? every once in a while, i get bitten by the apocalypse bug. i’m used to doing post-apocalypse, where people are living on in the world after it’s ravaged, with it being the only world they’ve ever known. which is fun! but i’m also down for a current apocalypse, where people live their daily lives and are forced to adjust to the world following a catastrophic event. i’ll be honest, i prefer this genre with some sort of monster. usually zombie and I KNOW they’re overrated and everywhere ok but it’s a classic. i’m into zombies mostly in the vein of tlou or have a more creative twist but i’m cool with any. and that said, doesn’t have to be zombies! i’d love to do an apocalyptic rp with a different monster, from the supernatural to the paranormal to the extraterrestrial. a character being immune to whatever’s going down would be fun too.

HORROR/SUPERNATURAL ROMCOM; i prefer horror-comedy like the addams family with quirky horror stuff, so i’m not looking too much for anything genuinely frightening (but that could be super fun too! lmk how u feel). accidentally summoning a demon, someone accidentally selling their soul, vampires who have only been vampires for like a year, horribly unlucky witches, people investigating mysterious supernatural happenings in their town, roadtrips to hell, stuff like that. any and everything is good, my options are beyond open. also in general i prefer human/non-human pairings, so anything along those lines in a setting like this will work. werewolves, demons, vampires, witches, send them all my way.

email; ☆[email protected]

#oc rp #multiple paragraph #long term #email #smut rp #submission

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jeantparks · 8 years ago

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Charting Changes: NOAA’s plans for the future of charts (Poll)

Have you ever wondered why your depth sounder and chart do not agree on the suitability of a planned anchorage, or why all of the charts you have onboard show four mooring balls in that remote island cove you’ve chosen for the night and there are only two — both of them occupied? If so, you might be interested in the plans that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (or NOAA’s) Office of Coast Survey has for the future of coastal navigation. As it turns out, they are interested in hearing what you think as well.

First, a bit of rough history. If you have paper charts aboard (and the US Coast Guard recommends that you do), they were likely first drawn by NOAA in the 1940s, after World War II. Some of the information on your charts dates back to then. No problem, you say, I also have electronic charts aboard. In fact, I just updated them. The transfer from paper to electronic began in the 1980s. That electronic chart you just updated, in fact, likely carries a mixture of “raster” (converted paper) and “vector” (drawn from electronic data points) charts. As a result, much of the “updated information” displayed on your chartplotter came from those very same paper charts, drawn in the 1940s, modified along the way, in part. Further, your chartplotter/computer is designed to not show you the difference between what is drawn from paper and what is drawn from recent data points. There’s a lot more to understand about this, and an excellent book by Nigel Calder that does the explanation, but we’ll leave it there for now.

Back to your anchoring plans. What if, the week before, someone else had discovered the same 10 foot discrepancy, and had, with a few well-placed clicks and choice words, decided to let everyone else who uses charts know about it — in real time? And what if your chart auto-updated once a week — which is how often NOAA updates its chart information. Or as one recreational boater recently said, “What if NOAA had a plan to use the Internet?”

These kinds of questions were flying around a room in the basement of Seattle’s Hotel Monaco in mid-April, as the NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey held a panel discussion during a two-day stakeholder meeting designed to solicit input on their plans for the future of coastal charting. There were about 60 people in the room, most of them representatives of formal stakeholders, ranging from the United States Coast Guard to Rose Point Navigation Systems, who supply commercial vessels with proprietary chart-plotting software. The discussion was presided over by Rear Admiral Shepard “Shep” Smith, who as director of the Office of Coast Survey, is the Chief Hydrographer of the United States. That means he’s responsible for the nation’s charts.

OCS’ parent agency NOAA is itself an agency of the United States Department of Commerce, so it should come as no surprise that their main concern is commercial traffic. Since 90 percent of US trade is conducted on the sea, it follows that this traffic is also a concern of the Federal Government in general, especially (one might assume) under the current administration.

“We’re at a major pivot point at OCS,” Admiral Smith pointed out in a recent interview. “The paper era is finished.” For years, NOAA has focused on delivering accurate charts, ocean and wind forecasts to mariners. “We’re already out of the chart publishing business,” Smith elaborated, “we farmed that out to the private sector a while ago, when it became clear that we were losing money on the publication.” He fingered the polished corner of his iPad. “Now we have to decide if we are publishing data, or supplying it, and to whom. And the form of that data is changing. The draft plan presented at the meeting heralds the end of feet and inches — depth will now be measured and displayed in meters.” NOAA attempted to do this years ago. There was pushback. Now they declare, it’s really happening.

“We also have to decide what our best capabilities are. The world we are responsible to document is changing faster than we can survey it. Even when one includes our robotic surveying methods — underwater and surface drones using the latest bathymetric technology, it is impossible to keep up with rising water levels and shoaling in inland waterways. Here in the Pacific Northwest, you are well-served by recent surveys , but the East Coast and the Gulf Coast in particular, are not. The small craft charts for every region have to be re-thought.”

Smith went on to note that NOAA agencies have created some excellent tools using data from buoys and manned and unmanned vessels. “We have operational forecast systems that can give an individual user forecast data combining tide, current, water temperature and salinity.”

And these forecast tools are customized, based on user feedback. NOAA maintains partnerships with regional organizations such as the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observational Stations (NANOOS). The purpose of these partnerships is to provide regional datasets to NOAA, but also to create useful and user-friendly ways of delivering this data to local mariners and those concerned with the health of local waters. Jan Newton, the executive director of NANOOS and a professor at the University of Washington, presented a number of web-interface tools that NANOOS has created for local mariners. “We talked to people in the tuna fishery business,” she said during the panel discussion, “and discovered that water temperature is great predictor of the presence of tuna. So we created a forecast tool for fishermen that shows them when and where the ocean temperature in the Pacific Northwest will be favorable for tuna fishing.” But NANOOS’s work also serves the general goals of efficient and safe passagemaking. Dr. Newton displayed a web interface that makes it possible to plot a PNW course along a set of waypoints and calculate the most efficient way to use tides and currents along the course at a specific date and time. There’s also a link to a weather forecast probability map from the University of Washington.

A recreational boater who wants to know the most efficient way to travel from Seattle to the San Juan islands and back over a specific set of days could use this data now.

And all of this is already paid for. “We exist because we are funded by the US taxpayers,” Shep Smith points out, “All of the data we provide is free to the user.” NOAA does this in sharp contrast to its European counterparts, as Jeff Hummel, Marketing Director of Rose Point Systems, remarked to the gathering. European mariners, for instance, pay well for updated hydrographic information.

A number of people pointed to the problem of federal mandates and jurisdictions that did not seem to make sense. Mr Hummel mentioned that it became legal “only last week” for commercial ships to use (the more updated) electronic charts as their primary navigation tool. He added that the standards for electronic charting are set by the US Coast Guard. As the primary gatherer and aggregator of the information, he opined, “NOAA is the proper guardian of such standards.”

Active Captain’s Jeff and Karen Siegel.

But the speaker who created the most stir at the meeting was an invited guest from the recreational boating community: Jeff Siegel, a serial entrepreneur whose Active Captain (URL) is an online charting information add-on and boater network with 1.5 million members worldwide. In the process of creating and serving its community, the Active Captain team (Jeff and his wife Karen), discovered a large number of boaters who were very interested in creating and using crowd-sourced data for their navigation. The overlay created by that data is available in a wide variety of major chart-plotting software, for worldwide locations.

Thanks to these pro-active users, “We process 1800 updates a day, many of them providing information on hazards to navigation that do not appear or are not apparent on charts,” Siegel said, adding: “Three and a half years ago, at NOAA’s invitation, we began providing NOAA chart makers with that information.” And the data flow is not in a single direction. “We also post changes from the NOAA’s Notice to Mariners on Active Captain.” Smith had invited Siegel to present the value of real-time crowd-sourcing for charting in general, and Siegel did not disappoint. Nor did he stop there.

Siegel provided a provocative bombshell when he presented his recommendations to the meeting: “NOAA should signal that it is getting out of the recreational boating industry. It’s the only way to spark developers to create new private-sector products that use data developed by NOAA.” (The commercial users noted separately that the recreational boating industry was not NOAA’s main concern, anyway.) Siegel also tweaked the trunk of the elephant in the room: “Where is the Internet in NOAA’s long-term planning?” He had polled his user base before attending, and received replies from 450 users who said that the most important thing that NOAA could do for them was to provide more accurate depth information. The same users were willing to share what their own depth transducers were telling them, at specific waypoints, in real time.

“There’s a privacy issue,” in sharing that real-time data, Siegel commented later. ‘Not everyone is willing to let the world know that they are boating in Key West while their mansion in Boston sits unoccupied.” But Active Captain has the ability to verify the reliability of individual users while retaining their anonymity. It’s a small problem that is seemingly overcome. Siegel also sees no medium-term obstacle in having affordable, continuous Internet access aboard recreational boats: “Wait four years,” he predicted. There are well-heeled corporations who have a great deal of motivation to ensure that the entire globe can be connected, reliably and affordably.

What else does the future look like? NOAA is asking users for their opinion. A full text of their Office of Coast Survey draft plan is available here. You’ll find instructions on how to comment online or via snail mail here. Comments from the public are due by June 1st.

For those of you who are less inclined to tell a government agency what they should do, perhaps you’d like to tell Three Sheets Northwest. Fill out the survey below, and we’ll pass your anonymous opinions on.

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