The history of the online road community

[J N Winkler]

I do remember the crossposts, not just from APU but also MTU-T and driving newsgroups like RAD and ca.driving.  Some of the debate, especially on APU, was interesting at an intellectual level, but crossposting got in the way of building social capital.

I remember the Gross-Kozel-Lansford flamewars that went on for hundreds of posts (Kozel is still part of the community, and used to be active on this forum, but has not posted for years; I think Lansford has retired; and I have not seen a post from Larry Gross in a number of years).

Most of all I remember MTR as a place where one went to get irritated.  We had:

*  Endless topic recycling

*  Trolling:  Carl Rogers comes most immediately to mind in this regard, but we also had Richard Bullis, Judy whatever-her-real-name-was (favorite posting handle:  "Laura Bush Murdered Her Boyfriend"), various inhabitants of AUK, and a handful of apparently well-meaning posters--like Patrick Humphrey, who is now dead--who brought their enemies along for the ride

*  Off-topic political discussion

It was possible to make friendships over MTR, but it was very difficult because the climate simply didn't favor it.  On this forum it is much easier to find common cause and get along with other people whose political viewpoints seem at first glance to be diametrically opposed to your own.

I left MTR after I had had Carl Rogers killfiled for about a year.  I realized I did not want to see any of Larry Sheldon's posts, which put me on a fork in the road between adding more and more names to my killfile and simply quitting MTR altogether.

[Scott5114]

*  Trolling:  Carl Rogers comes most immediately to mind in this regard, but we also had Richard Bullis, Judy whatever-her-real-name-was (favorite posting handle:  "Laura Bush Murdered Her Boyfriend"), various inhabitants of AUK, and a handful of apparently well-meaning posters--like Patrick Humphrey, who is now dead--who brought their enemies along for the ride

This was the main reason I left MTR and was enthusiastic about a moderated forum when it was created. Because my ISP did not offer a Usenet feed, the only options I had were to pay for one or use Google Groups, which has no killfile. Without being able to plonk Carl Rogers, Judy, and Randy Hersch (who toward the end of my time there seemed to exist only to slander H.B. Elkins), the signal-to-noise ratio was horrendous. While the absolute freedom angle was fun for a while, if you were there because you wanted to learn what was going on with roads, it was about as useful of a tool as a pair of scissors is for hammering in a nail.

[bandit957]

*  Trolling:  Carl Rogers comes most immediately to mind in this regard, but we also had Richard Bullis, Judy whatever-her-real-name-was (favorite posting handle:  "Laura Bush Murdered Her Boyfriend"), various inhabitants of AUK, and a handful of apparently well-meaning posters--like Patrick Humphrey, who is now dead--who brought their enemies along for the ride

The AUK criminals were by far the worst. I complained to their ISP's time and time again, and they wouldn't do anything about it because lololol True Free Speach Now (tm).

Yet they kept deleting my posts even as they claimed their free speech was being violated.

[J N Winkler]

Because my ISP did not offer a Usenet feed, the only options I had were to pay for one or use Google Groups, which has no killfile.

Actually, you had (and, as far as I can tell, still have) the option of subscribing to MTR through a free news service.  This is how I read the newsgroup after I killfiled Carl Rogers.  The service I used was based in Ukraine and I simply used Thunderbird on my Windows PC as my news client.  With a different client on Linux, you would have been able to choose from some really powerful tools for news filtration.  (Thunderbird had the key limitation of being unable to filter by content.)  I think many people recommended pay news services because they wanted to be able to download from binary newsgroups, but it wasn't really that difficult for me to find a news service that would give me free access to the text-only newsgroups.

Of course, none of this would have done anything about the fact that since MTR was (and is) unmoderated, norms of civilized behavior were optional.  This is why I am sorry Randy Hersh's first contact with the wider roadgeek community was through MTR.  If it had been through this forum instead, he might have felt more motivated to share his knowledge rather than "give as good as he got," a defense mechanism I suspect he learned in high school (he told me some years before he died that he was 6' 1" and 300 lb when he graduated).

The AUK criminals were by far the worst. I complained to their ISP's time and time again, and they wouldn't do anything about it because lololol True Free Speach Now (tm).

Yet they kept deleting my posts even as they claimed their free speech was being violated.

I suspect there is some backstory I'm not familiar with, but I was under the impression the AUK denizens lost interest when a few of us put on a huge show of admitting defeat, telling them that we saw how they had made our newsgroup a wasteland and that we would leave forthwith.  I dimly remember a post from one of them telling us how worthless we were for sporting purposes, but it is not turning up in a Google Groups search on MTR.

[hbelkins]

I was one of the kids who rooined mtr.

Your MTR persona was a lot more pleasant than your AA Roads persona. What happened? 

*  Trolling:  Carl Rogers comes most immediately to mind in this regard, but we also had Richard Bullis, Judy whatever-her-real-name-was (favorite posting handle:  "Laura Bush Murdered Her Boyfriend"), various inhabitants of AUK, and a handful of apparently well-meaning posters--like Patrick Humphrey, who is now dead--who brought their enemies along for the ride

This was the main reason I left MTR and was enthusiastic about a moderated forum when it was created. Because my ISP did not offer a Usenet feed, the only options I had were to pay for one or use Google Groups, which has no killfile. Without being able to plonk Carl Rogers, Judy, and Randy Hersch (who toward the end of my time there seemed to exist only to slander H.B. Elkins), the signal-to-noise ratio was horrendous. While the absolute freedom angle was fun for a while, if you were there because you wanted to learn what was going on with roads, it was about as useful of a tool as a pair of scissors is for hammering in a nail.

I don't think Bullis intended to be a troll. He still posts on MTR, and I honestly think he's one of those whose enemies came to find him and give him a hard time wherever he posted.

Hersh kept me busy plonking his various identities. I wasn't his only target. He loved to go after Scott Kozel, Adam Prince (Princee), SP Cook and CC Slater as well.

At one time, someone floated the idea of a MTRM (misc.transport.road.moderated) but it never got off the ground, for reasons of which I'm unsure. I know that when a moderated version of rec.autos.sport.nascar was born, it didn't get much traffic at all.

There are some old-time MTR participants such as Mark Roberts who refuse to have any part of this forum. I'm not sure if it's the moderation aspect, or if Mark has something against PHP-based boards, since he's mentioned PHP on numerous occasions, or what. He's active on Facebook, yet there are others (like Oscar Voss and some others here) who don't want anything to do with FB.

It was possible to make friendships over MTR, but it was very difficult because the climate simply didn't favor it.  On this forum it is much easier to find common cause and get along with other people whose political viewpoints seem at first glance to be diametrically opposed to your own.

I'd disagree. Most of the long-term friendships among the roadgeek community were forged via MTR, and most if not all of the early meets were organized on MTR and the Roadgeek Yahoo group.



As for the subject of moderation in general, I'm not really in favor of it. I am the "owner" (translated: moderator) of Roadgeek now, but there's not a lot of traffic there and the conversation is generally civil. People have the ability to read what they want, ignore what they want, and discretion is the better part of valor in responding to certain things. Moderation can also lead to strains on friendships. I know that I was banned from here for an innocuous comment about the Kentucky basketball team by someone whom I consider a friend.

And as to the subject of a history of the online road community, that might be something that the keeper of the current FAQ might want to undertake. Marc Fannin used to maintain a FAQ for MTR but he's been MIA for some time.

[GCrites]

For me, crossposts from RAD made MTR more unpleasant for me as time went on, especially red light camera discussion. I never learned how to use a lot of newsreader functions like killfiles and crosspost blocking. I also didn't like racial discussion creeping in because outside of road-related sociological factors such as minority neighborhoods being destroyed for highways, race discussion just didn't belong. The early days of MTR were really fun though because it stuck to roads, at least if I remember right (been almost 20 years).

[froggie]

and I have not seen a post from Larry Gross in a number of years).

Larry moved on to other media.  One can see him occasionally comment on Virginia and DC-area planning and political blogs (most notably Bacon's Rebellion and Greater Greater Washington) but I've also seen him (rarely) comment on WaPo articles.

[J N Winkler]

At one time, someone floated the idea of a MTRM (misc.transport.road.moderated) but it never got off the ground, for reasons of which I'm unsure. I know that when a moderated version of rec.autos.sport.nascar was born, it didn't get much traffic at all.

MTR discussed the possible establishment of a MTRM in 2003.  Mark Roberts was the principal advocate, but there were others.  The proposal failed because it lacked a broad basis of support.  The troublemakers were of course against it, but the two regulars who identified themselves as PEs in their signature lines (John Lansford and Richard Moeur) were both against it, and there was some concern that, depending on the moderation model chosen, discussion could be stifled.  One participant in the discussions who had experience with a moderated Usenet forum dedicated to baseball mentioned that some members hadn't posted for five years for fear of being shot down in ridicule.

I don't think it was very helpful that Scott Kozel was all in favor of it, since it was all too easy to imagine that if he were one of the moderators, he would see his brief as ensuring that no-one was allowed to say a thing that he considered wrong, not merely enforcing civility.

There are some old-time MTR participants such as Mark Roberts who refuse to have any part of this forum. I'm not sure if it's the moderation aspect, or if Mark has something against PHP-based boards, since he's mentioned PHP on numerous occasions, or what. He's active on Facebook, yet there are others (like Oscar Voss and some others here) who don't want anything to do with FB.

I rather doubt Mark's objections to this board are based on its being a PHP platform or to moderation itself (especially since he pushed the idea of a MTRM back in 2003).  I suspect a shift in interests since I have not noticed that he is particularly active on any of the Facebook regional road-related groups.  Moreover, he doesn't seem to hang around Facebook that much in the first place; I sense it's something he checks as and when.

My main concerns with this forum have to do with accountability and archiving.  As a group of users we don't pay too much attention to whether the moderators are fair or to back-office issues like whether the database is backed up regularly.  In the past I have suggested that moderators should be elected and that their recruitment should be transparent.  It is logical that elections should also include technical posts whose holders have to report to the membership regularly, but no action (as far as I know) has been taken on either suggestion.  All things considered, I feel we have been well served by the current moderation team, but as time goes on, some turnover is inevitable while technical difficulties with hosting become more likely to develop.  I would hate for us to try to make progress on these governance issues in a crisis atmosphere.

It was possible to make friendships over MTR, but it was very difficult because the climate simply didn't favor it.  On this forum it is much easier to find common cause and get along with other people whose political viewpoints seem at first glance to be diametrically opposed to your own.

I'd disagree. Most of the long-term friendships among the roadgeek community were forged via MTR, and most if not all of the early meets were organized on MTR and the Roadgeek Yahoo group.

I don't think I speak entirely for myself when I say I have found it easier to think about going to road meets now that this forum (and Facebook) have largely replaced MTR as the preferred watering hole for road enthusiasts.

Here is how I see it:  when a person travels somewhere to meet with strangers who have in common a rather unusual hobby, he or she looks for some sign that those other people are, for lack of a better word, housebroken--that they understand the basic norms of civilized behavior and will not use a face-to-face social occasion to rehash enmities developed over an unmoderated Usenet forum.  MTR often failed to reassure in this regard.  I can remember Kozel threatening to call the cops (and press charges) on Lansford, and C.C. Slater telling Randy Hersh that if Randy ever showed up at a road meet where he (C.C.) was also present, he would throw him out.  Regardless of the rights and wrongs of either situation, it is not terribly appealing to spend scarce leisure time in even the same county as that kind of strong feeling.

I don't know how unusual I am in this respect, but I also like to get to know people as people when I meet them face to face.  Other people just seem more accessible and easier to get to know when the shared context is not limited to an unmoderated Usenet forum where somebody is flaming someone else every single day of the week.  Those who have been going to road meets since the early noughties can bootstrap prior acquaintance and so have a ground-floor advantage, but the AARoads forum lowers the barrier to entry for everyone else.

[Pete from Boston]

Usenet discussion of roads was not limited to MTR.  In New England, ne.transportation was a healthy group for many years, many of whose posters shared some familiarity from other ne.* groups.

In one of those episodes typical of the explosive growth of the internet, a troll chose to put the light-volune group on his seemingly nonstop post list, overwhelming it and effectively landing its death blow. 

However, it and a few specialist boards like railroad.net formed most of the meaningful public discussion about local transportation.  Today it's a topic on more sites than any one person probably even knows.

Again, this is just the continued explosion of the internet.  Mass adoption of broadband was one step, and now moblie internet has made the breadth of involvement exponentially greater.  People play internet conversation in every moment and location there is.  Those of us of who used Usenet at all are a small and proportionally-shrinking minority.

[bugo]

As I recall, even in the early days there was still some drama, so I'm not sure where bugo was going with that comment.

There was far less drama amongst the originals. There were crosspostings and what not, but we just ignored them and/or killfiled them.

[bugo]

As far as buzzkill ops go some overzealous bitch on a power trip with no sense of humor or history deleted my TFO post. Thanks for proving my point, jerk. Goddamn I miss MTR

I'm not really on a power trip. Your post had 0 merit and only served to insult others, so I removed it. The entire discussion was turning ugly, so I removed everything that stemmed off of the browser history discussion. You can call me overzealous, power-hungry, buzzkill, whatever you honestly want (I know you've called me other derogatory terms here), but I'm just simply allowing people to browse this forum without reading anything that is overly rude and possibly hurtful to other members here.

It's your opinion, and you're entitled to it. However, Alex thinks that this forum should have moderation in order to maintain a sense of balance and to uphold peace for the greater forum community. I don't disagree.

If moderation didn't exist here, imagine all the political, religious, racial discussions that could stem and then rile everybody up to the point where they actively avoid each other and kill the health of the forum. Most people don't want that.

You're just a sad, pathetic manchild who has zero power in life besides this forum.

[bugo]

How would you know who I am in real life? We've never met. How this is going so far, I'd also prefer it to stay that way.

I've met many members of this forum, and most of them like me and consider me a friend. They all say that I'm a lot cooler in person than I am online. I go to roadmeets and had a blast just bullshitting. Obviously I don't want to meet you either. You don't go to roadmeets, you just sit in your mother's basement playing cop. If you went to roadmeets, everybody would see how pathetic you are and you would be shunned. You'd be the one that nobody wanted to ride in their car.

Dig what grave deeper? Alex has told me all the history about AARoads and MTR. I'm well aware of your past in this community, but that's the thing - it's the past. I live life in the present. What exactly am I doing wrong here?

You're deleting posts that Alex himself said that you shouldn't have deleted. You're overstepping your bounds. You should shut the fuck up because you are just making things worse for yourself. You have no respect for hilarious MTR traditions. You contribute very little to this forum. You have no sense of humor.

I've had some correspondence with other forum mods and they said your actions were completely out of line. The last person who crossed me got deoped permanently (even though we patched things up and are great friends now).

[bugo]

If anybody wants to write a history of aaroads, they need to remember that it wasn't just Alex and Andy that started the forum, regardless of revisionist history lies that have been spread over the years. In other words, this forum wouldn't exist without me.

[Scott5114]

If anybody wants to write a history of aaroads, they need to remember that it wasn't just Alex and Andy that started the forum, regardless of revisionist history lies that have been spread over the years.

Yeah, didn't V'Ger help too?

My main concerns with this forum have to do with accountability and archiving.  As a group of users we don't pay too much attention to whether the moderators are fair or to back-office issues like whether the database is backed up regularly.  In the past I have suggested that moderators should be elected and that their recruitment should be transparent.  It is logical that elections should also include technical posts whose holders have to report to the membership regularly, but no action (as far as I know) has been taken on either suggestion.  All things considered, I feel we have been well served by the current moderation team, but as time goes on, some turnover is inevitable while technical difficulties with hosting become more likely to develop.  I would hate for us to try to make progress on these governance issues in a crisis atmosphere.

The staff considers such a large change to the management structure above its paygrade. Since Alex owns the site and all moderation authority is derived by delegation from him, he would have to be the one to order the change.

I am not certain that election is the best way to go about selecting moderators in a community this size. Since everyone has at least a general awareness of one another, it would be possible for someone who feels personally slighted by a moderator to beat the drums against their re-election. As an example, there was an incident where I misguidedly applied what was, in retrospect, too heavy of a hand in moderating the chat. My botched execution of the situation has led to a lot of hard feelings against me (or against my role as a moderator, if not me personally), and while I feel like I've learned from the experience and would do things differently, I doubt I'd be too successful in a re-election bid, despite having been a moderator here for upwards of five years at this point. I would be concerned that forum politics might result in a milquetoast band of moderators who are ineffective in their positions due to fear of being tossed from office if they are forced to moderate a popular figure.

As it is, I think we have handled turnover fairly well. Apart from the rough transition from the V'Ger era to the Jake era (which was of course entirely the fault of the outgoing staff), we have had several moderators come and go over the years and have managed to keep the seats filled fairly well. The current moderation team has a lot of members who specialize in various niches (rickmastfan, for instance, tends toward the more technical side of things, keeping the forum software updated and maintaining the database; David Backlin is instrumental in rejecting spam accounts, etc.) and while we sometimes disagree on things (sometimes uncomfortably publicly!) I think we've always managed to form a decent team.

[Pete from Boston]

This thread has degenerated into exactly what made MTR unreadable for me in the end. Truly a living history of the "online roads community."

[US71]

This thread has degenerated into exactly what made MTR unreadable for me in the end. Truly a living history of the "online roads community."

At least we're not spending 20 pages flaming people for their political or religious beliefs

{No, that is NOT an invitation. You want to argue politics, go to Facebook}

[Rothman]

This thread has degenerated into exactly what made MTR unreadable for me in the end. Truly a living history of the "online roads community."

As I remember MTR, there was a lot more fire in that than this little spat going on in here.

[bandit957]

Bugo is one of the leaders of the road hobby.

[J N Winkler]

I am not certain that election is the best way to go about selecting moderators in a community this size. Since everyone has at least a general awareness of one another, it would be possible for someone who feels personally slighted by a moderator to beat the drums against their re-election. As an example, there was an incident where I misguidedly applied what was, in retrospect, too heavy of a hand in moderating the chat. My botched execution of the situation has led to a lot of hard feelings against me (or against my role as a moderator, if not me personally), and while I feel like I've learned from the experience and would do things differently, I doubt I'd be too successful in a re-election bid, despite having been a moderator here for upwards of five years at this point. I would be concerned that forum politics might result in a milquetoast band of moderators who are ineffective in their positions due to fear of being tossed from office if they are forced to moderate a popular figure.

In SABRE we elect our moderators and technical staff and this issue has never amounted to much in practice.  I can think of at least two moderators who successfully campaigned for and won re-election despite being quite controversial (both resigned under pressure at one point or another).  I also don't think an overt attempt to sabotage someone else's re-election bid would fly here, since it would be obvious to others that some kind of vendetta was going on, and there is no benefit to third parties to take one side or the other at the expense of good governance.

I think the bad result you describe is actually more likely to happen when one person has plenary power to appoint moderators and is accessible through a back channel.  Look at this thread, where Bugo has more or less told Zeffy that he will have him removed from his moderator position, and has bragged about having this done in the past.  I actually think Zeffy's position is secure unless he loses his nerve and resigns first, but this situation generates a lot of awkwardness (especially for Alex) which does not arise when appointment of moderators is in the hands of a committee or, better yet, the membership at large.

As it is, I think we have handled turnover fairly well. Apart from the rough transition from the V'Ger era to the Jake era (which was of course entirely the fault of the outgoing staff), we have had several moderators come and go over the years and have managed to keep the seats filled fairly well. The current moderation team has a lot of members who specialize in various niches (rickmastfan, for instance, tends toward the more technical side of things, keeping the forum software updated and maintaining the database; David Backlin is instrumental in rejecting spam accounts, etc.) and while we sometimes disagree on things (sometimes uncomfortably publicly!) I think we've always managed to form a decent team.

This is a fortunate result, but there is one shortcoming with the current system, which is recruitment.  If I want to give back to the community, how do I serve?  Who do I approach?  If moderators were elected, then the obvious way of doing this would be to run for election, as I did years ago in SABRE without having previously been a co-opted member of SABRE Committee or otherwise part of the power structure.

[Brandon]

Bugo is one of the leaders of the road hobby.

He, like me, is one of the earlier online members.  We have no leaders.

[Bickendan]

How would you know who I am in real life? We've never met. How this is going so far, I'd also prefer it to stay that way.

I've met many members of this forum, and most of them like me and consider me a friend. They all say that I'm a lot cooler in person than I am online. I go to roadmeets and had a blast just bullshitting. Obviously I don't want to meet you either. You don't go to roadmeets, you just sit in your mother's basement playing cop. If you went to roadmeets, everybody would see how pathetic you are and you would be shunned. You'd be the one that nobody wanted to ride in their car.

A Reason You Suck Speech and this is the best you can do? Lighten up with the personal attacks; it's beyond petty.

Dig what grave deeper? Alex has told me all the history about AARoads and MTR. I'm well aware of your past in this community, but that's the thing - it's the past. I live life in the present. What exactly am I doing wrong here?

You're deleting posts that Alex himself said that you shouldn't have deleted. You're overstepping your bounds. You should shut the fuck up because you are just making things worse for yourself. You have no respect for hilarious MTR traditions. You contribute very little to this forum. You have no sense of humor.

I've had some correspondence with other forum mods and they said your actions were completely out of line. The last person who crossed me got deoped permanently (even though we patched things up and are great friends now).

Come on now, bringing up a fight over staff actions in a for all to see and going behind their backs to complain to their colleagues is piss poor form. Take it up in private, man to man, and work something out or bring it up in the Suggestions forum if absolutely needed. Otherwise, this looks like a tantrum derailing your own thread, and while I enjoy a good troll, this isn't. I'm not sure why anyone would want to channel a fraction of the Keith vs. Chris Bessert snipe fests.


Back to the thread's topic, I'm sure the likes of Judy would throw a tantrum at the idea of the number of states raising their speed limits and enforcing lane discipline. If memory serves, I remember her saying she'd deliberately brake-check someone if she had any suspicion they were too close behind her.

[bugo]

This thread has degenerated into exactly what made MTR unreadable for me in the end. Truly a living history of the "online roads community."

At least we're not spending 20 pages flaming people for their political or religious beliefs

{No, that is NOT an invitation. You want to argue politics, go to Facebook}

Those goddamn Whigs are ruining the country.

[hbelkins]

I don't know what prompted the current spat between Jeremy and Zeffy, as it appears that some posts got deleted between my visits to the forum, but you guys do have one thing alike and could find common ground if you wanted to. Or does atheism have denominations the same way Christianity does that leads to heated discussions of theology? 

One of the issues I have with the moderation setup here is that we don't know who all the moderators are. Yes, they're listed in the staff list by username, but I don't know the real names and backgrounds of all of them. And I'm guessing I'm not the only one. Of the "Admin" group, I personally know or am acquainted online with four of the five (and am seeing one name missing from that list that I expected to see, so I guess he must have stepped down from a leadership role). Of the "Global Moderators," I know one of the two. And of the regional mods, there are a handful that I don't have a clue who they are other than by their identities here. I'd like to see more extensive bios of the staff here -- who they are, what they do, why they're qualified to be in those positions.

I'm also getting to that grumpy old man stage of my life, I suppose, but I see a whole lot of youth on the moderator list -- people who weren't around for the heyday of MTR, don't have the wealth and breadth of real-life experience that others do, etc. That's not necessarily a slam on them; it's just that I tend to like new ideas to be tempered with the experiences of those who've been there and done that (and have the East Coast Hive Mind t-shirt to prove it). New blood isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I'm one of those who places a very high value on experience in just about everything in life. Sometimes I wonder why Person A may have gotten the keys to the AA Roads kingdom while Person B or C has been around a whole lot longer.

[bugo]

Bugo is one of the leaders of the road hobby.

Why thank you. You resemble that remark as well. Your website was one of the pioneering sites in the Roads Scholaring community.

[bugo]

I don't know what prompted the current spat between Jeremy and Zeffy, as it appears that some posts got deleted between my visits to the forum, but you guys do have one thing alike and could find common ground if you wanted to. Or does atheism have denominations the same way Christianity does that leads to heated discussions of theology? 

One of the issues I have with the moderation setup here is that we don't know who all the moderators are. Yes, they're listed in the staff list by username, but I don't know the real names and backgrounds of all of them. And I'm guessing I'm not the only one. Of the "Admin" group, I personally know or am acquainted online with four of the five (and am seeing one name missing from that list that I expected to see, so I guess he must have stepped down from a leadership role). Of the "Global Moderators," I know one of the two. And of the regional mods, there are a handful that I don't have a clue who they are other than by their identities here. I'd like to see more extensive bios of the staff here -- who they are, what they do, why they're qualified to be in those positions.

I'm also getting to that grumpy old man stage of my life, I suppose, but I see a whole lot of youth on the moderator list -- people who weren't around for the heyday of MTR, don't have the wealth and breadth of real-life experience that others do, etc. That's not necessarily a slam on them; it's just that I tend to like new ideas to be tempered with the experiences of those who've been there and done that (and have the East Coast Hive Mind t-shirt to prove it). New blood isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I'm one of those who places a very high value on experience in just about everything in life. Sometimes I wonder why Person A may have gotten the keys to the AA Roads kingdom while Person B or C has been around a whole lot longer.

Good post. I agree with everything you said.

The spat started over a Tom From Ohioesque post I made that Zeffzi removed. He overstepped his bounds and I'm not the only person who said that he did.