Are there North American sailors out there willing to contribute to Zulu Waterways?

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Herreshoff

A quick update. We are moving ahead with the integration of the NOAA charts to Zulu Waterways. It will be complete by early next week and will be displayed as a map option for the US region. We are also making some improvements to performance and increase functionality of the site/app.

We have just heard the news that Active Captain will no longer supply its information to (some/all?) third party services. We are happy to step up and provide a similar service as AC did and would be interested in talking with services who are looking for a new source of information, like that which AC supplied them. We encourage boaters to give Zulu Waterways a go and test the functionality of the site/app. If you would like to see this platform grow in your region (particularly the US region) to the point where it could be applied to your other platforms, then we encourage you to start adding information to your local waterways. We are working from our side to constantly improve the performance and functions of Zulu and feel it’s a good platform which now needs support from the community to grow in the US region.

Nicholas Baillie Jackson
Zulu Waterways.

What is the terms of use and license for zuluwaterway? I can't find it on the site or when you register

[Herreshoff]

Originally Posted by Paul L

What is the terms of use and license for zuluwaterway? I can't find it on the site or when you register

Funny you ask. We are putting the terms of use on the website as we speak. If you download the app (avaliable as android or iOS) the terms of use are there when you first open the app. Apologies for not having it avaliable on the website version yet. In short, the terms are pretty similar to what AC had or what most crowd sourced platforms have. For example: We have the right to modify or remove information. The site is a collection of opinions and should not be taken as fact (always seek multiple sources of information before making a decision that could put you or your vessel at risk). Information on the site can not be replicated in mass for commercial reasons but can be used and shared for personal use. Etc. We need to do some more work on it. At the moment it is a fairly standard document for a crowd sourced platform.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Herreshoff

Funny you ask. We are putting the terms of use on the website as we speak. If you download the app (avaliable as android or iOS) the terms of use are there when you first open the app. Apologies for not having it avaliable on the website version yet. In short, the terms are pretty similar to what AC had or what most crowd sourced platforms have. For example: We have the right to modify or remove information. The site is a collection of opinions and should not be taken as fact (always seek multiple sources of information before making a decision that could put you or your vessel at risk). Information on the site can not be replicated in mass for commercial reasons but can be used and shared for personal use. Etc. We need to do some more work on it. At the moment it is a fairly standard document for a crowd sourced platform.

As with all these contracts the devil is in the details.

[Herreshoff]

Originally Posted by Paul L

As with all these contracts the devil is in the details.

Well I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on any particulars that you feel would help protect the user.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Herreshoff

Well I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on any particulars that you feel would help protect the user.

Sure, show me the license and I'd be happy to give you some feedback.

[Herreshoff]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Sure, show me the license and I'd be happy to give you some feedback.

Will do. I’m not at home at the moment (I’m replying from my phone) but I’ll send it through when I get back at the computer.

I honestly empathise with the commitment made by users to contribute their time and knowledge and feel there should be a way to protect against them having the rug pulled out from underneath them, so to speak. I would be interested to hear from you and other users as to how to achieve this. As in, what can be included into the terms and license to make users confident that their information, and that of others, will be freely accessible to them. Obviously there are certain things we must protect against however I feel a good compromise between ‘you the user’ and ‘me the service provider’ can be found. We do intend for this to remain a free service and any sort of monetisation will never come at the expense of the user. Putting some version of this in writing is an option.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Herreshoff

Will do. I’m not at home at the moment (I’m replying from my phone) but I’ll send it through when I get back at the computer.

I honestly empathise with the commitment made by users to contribute their time and knowledge and feel there should be a way to protect against them having the rug pulled out from underneath them, so to speak. I would be interested to hear from you and other users as to how to achieve this. As in, what can be included into the terms and license to make users confident that their information, and that of others, will be freely accessible to them. Obviously there are certain things we must protect against however I feel a good compromise between ‘you the user’ and ‘me the service provider’ can be found. We do intend for this to remain a free service and any sort of monetisation will never come at the expense of the user. Putting some version of this in writing is an option.

It's not actually that obvious. So much depends on your business model. If you plan on an open, crowd sourced site that relies on advertising your needs are different than if you plan a business and it's data assets you will sell off in the future.

[Badsanta]

I didn't know what Zulu was so I just bypassed this. Finely stopped by for a look. Interesting,
I'll keep an open eye on this. Hope it works out.
Thanks

[Herreshoff]

Originally Posted by Paul L

It's not actually that obvious. So much depends on your business model. If you plan on an open, crowd sourced site that relies on advertising your needs are different than if you plan a business and it's data assets you will sell off in the future.

A good point Paul, it does make a big difference depending on the business model. There is no plan to sell Zulu Waterways and we do not have any investors so are under no pressure to do so. It is a crowd sourced site that will rely on monetising in some way. At this point we are not sure in what form that will take. One thing we will never compromise on is that Zulu Waterways.com and the apps to date will always remain active and free to its users.
Transparency is important to us and we will update the community as we make progress in this area.

[Herreshoff]

Apologies to anyone who had trouble accessing Zulu Waterways over the past 3 days. We had a server issue which saw the service unexpectedly down. We have resolved the problem which was a issue to do with the amount of data the server was trying to store due to the growth of Zulu Waterways. This issue has been resolved.

Lots of great improvements coming over the next 2 days to Zulu including the ability to save your filter icon settings and map settings. With this function, if you are often in low reception areas you can set the map to plain google map rather than satellite map which will run faster. Your icons can also be set to only the ones that are relevant to you.

There are a bunch of other additions also which I will announce when complete.

[Herreshoff]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

Tying all the data from charts AND reviews together is what gives the real value.

NOAA Charts...coming soon to a Zulu near you.

I'm just doing some final testing today and tomorrow to make sure it works seamlessly with the other map types.

Should be released before the weekend.

[Herreshoff]

I got the NOAA charts working on Zulu, although only on desktop versions and some tablets at this stage. I'm struggling to get the charts working with the app version but I'm sure I'll find a solution soon.

Anyway it should work fine if using a desktop/laptop version of Zulu Waterways if anyone wants to check it out.

zuluwaterways.com

[CaptTom]

Looks great! Thanks!

Using a laptop on a high-speed WiFi connection, scrolling in and out seems very smooth.

Trying to "over-zoom" brings up the satellite view. I'm not sure how I feel about that. There are times when you want to zoom a chart in "too far." Other times, the satellite view is actually preferable. It depends on what you're trying to see. Also, on a smaller screen like a tablet or cell phone, sometimes those of us with older eyes need a little more "zoom" that normal. Overall, on the laptop, for areas with good larger scale charts, I think the current implementation switches to satellite at about the right scale.

However, for the Northeast US, my overwhelming first impression is that there are virtually no POI's (anchorages, moorings, harbors, fuel docks, etc.)

I think what needs to happen is what I think AC did starting out. It seemed to me that they seeded the system by entering everything in the US Coast Pilot (available free on line, and in the public domain.) Next they added a bunch of known anchorages, possibly from their own experience, or maybe they purchased the rights to some other data.

Technically, I don't know any way to automate this. Maybe someone has compiled a list including lat/lon in digital format, but I haven't looked. The other option is to painstakingly generate that list from sources like the Coast Pilot. Are you working on a strictly volunteer basis, or are there resources to pay for this effort?

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

I think what needs to happen is what I think AC did starting out. It seemed to me that they seeded the system by entering everything in the US Coast Pilot (available free on line, and in the public domain.) Next they added a bunch of known anchorages, possibly from their own experience, or maybe they purchased the rights to some other data.

Technically, I don't know any way to automate this. Maybe someone has compiled a list including lat/lon in digital format, but I haven't looked. The other option is to painstakingly generate that list from sources like the Coast Pilot. Are you working on a strictly volunteer basis, or are there resources to pay for this effort?

I had a quick look at the NOAA US Coast Pilot, but I didn't see the sort of information in there that would have been useful in a POI db like AC. Do you have a sample link of such data, or have I misunderstood?

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

I had a quick look at the NOAA US Coast Pilot, but I didn't see the sort of information in there that would have been useful in a POI db like AC. Do you have a sample link of such data, or have I misunderstood?

No, it's just that the Coast Pilot isn't laid out like a "normal" cruising guide. It's a government publication, after all. And it's very weak on specific lat/long locations. You sort of need to follow along on the chart to make sense of it.

Here's an excerpt from Coast Pilot #1, Page 295:


It seems to me like it would take a lot of effort to key all that in. I just noticed a lot of the wording on AC seemed to be taken directly from the port descriptions in the Coast Pilot, and figured there must be a connection.

Edit: It looks like the forum shrunk the image down quite a bit, but here's where you can download the whole thing.