Time to do this right

I’ve seen a few really bad examples of SUP etiquette lately, on a large scale. It seems likely to me that if this continues then there will be a substantial backlash from other surfers. We as a community would be wise to remember that SUP is a new aspect of surfing with a few thousand devotees while surfing is estimated to have 2.5 million practitioners (though that includes bodyboarders). We can expect grumbling and resistance–breaks are a scarce resource. Surfers are tribal. They don’t like change and they don’t want company. That can be overcome. If nothing else, time and familiarity will work away at the resistance. Shortboarders might not like longboarders, but they don’t go nuts every time they see one.

What can’t so easily be overcome is a righteous backlash brought on by SUP surfers acting badly. There are lots of opportunities for that, some of which are inherent in the nature of SUP surfing.

Communities set standards that become accepted parts of the culture. some happen automatically, some intentionally. They aren’t necessarily rules. Just ways to act if you’re cool, and ways you act if you aren’t. The surf tribes have a lot of unwritten standards about sharing waves, respecting locals and accomplished surfers, how beginners behave, and how experts behave. That works in a well-established culture because the overwhelming majority of the members know the rules–the newcomers are a tiny fraction of the community, and their low status is obvious even to outsiders: They don’t reflect badly on the general surfing community.

In an emerging tribe like ours it’s better if the newbies understand the standards from the start. In these early years they will comprise a large percentage of SUP surfers, and their actions will reflect significantly on the community. It’s also good to have a core reference–a place where the tablets are stored. It makes it easier to point someone who is misbehaving to a source for understanding what’s cool in the tribe.

I propose that we as a community create that repository. To that end I have acquired the URL www.supright.com. I intend to create a self-perpetuating place to store the standards of our community. No advertising, no links, no sponsorship,no forum, no blog. Just a place to refer newbies to where they can learn what the SUP community deems to be appropriate behavior.

I think the best place to talk out what gets placed there is http://www.standupzone.com which is the place that the community gathers when they aren’t in the water.I will repost this article there in the etiquette section.

Anyone–a board manufacturer, surf shop, individual, school, etc. can print the URL on their products, make stickies, freely reproduce the information that gets placed at that site, and use or distribute it as they see fit. I will eventually put Google Adwords on the site so it will generate enough pocket change to pay for it’s url registration and hosting.

We’ll seed the site with basic rules and let it evolve from there.