News:

Thank you for your patience during the Forum downtime while we upgraded the software. Welcome back and see this thread for some new features and other changes to the forum.

Main Menu

MTR

Started by Brandon, December 17, 2009, 03:03:29 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

CanesFan27

Jonathan, I think I can sum up your post in regards to mtr in a few words, "You just don't care for it anymore." 

Jake, it will take for a forum like this to evolve.  What has made it a success here is really all the younger than 25 folks and the trivia/fantasy highways/sign geeks.  In the late 90's to about 2001 or 2002,  MTR was full of discussions like this.  Plus even now, this forum is nowhere near as active as mtr was in it's heyday.  But to use a legal phrase they all have been "asked and answered".  So the newer folks don't have a spot for that anymore.  Plus, the folks that maintain those lists have come, gone passed it to someone else, that person came and went an it's gone. 

I think an issue is - and this was brought up years ago in mtr - a lot of people in this hobby want one place.  (the mtr thread was why not have one big site and everyone does there thing on it.)  But it's difficult for a hobby with so many interests and subinterests to have jsut one place.  This forum may develop to more of the trivia/fantasy highways/sign geek place and other discussions on regional, policy, and other issues may go elsewhere.  SERoads, admittedly highly NC focused, is more discussed on news items than I found a cutout shield in South Carolina.  Here, the place would go crazy...elsewhere not so much. 

It really comes down to what your interest is in the hobby.  If you appreciate signs and a photo of every sign on I-95 in South Carolina - this is the place to be.  If you don't, other forums may be better at this time.  In Jonathan's case if you don't want to do a link to your site and just post them here...obviously this is better.

It really just matters what your interests is/are and how you want to participate.  Time will either bring other interests here or not.  I don't sweat it...and honestly neither should anyone else.


agentsteel53

Quote from: CanesFan27 on December 23, 2009, 10:45:43 AM
I think an issue is - and this was brought up years ago in mtr - a lot of people in this hobby want one place.  (the mtr thread was why not have one big site and everyone does there thing on it.)  But it's difficult for a hobby with so many interests and subinterests to have jsut one place.

I would be happy to have one place.  And given that our forum is divided up into sub-boards, and is generally threaded, I do think we have the technological capability to evolve towards this being the one place.  It's just a matter of getting the necessary influx of other interests. 
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

hbelkins

My two cents, for what they are worth...

MTR is like the Rose Bowl. It's the granddaddy of them all. I do not fall into the camp of those who think it's useless or past its prime or not worth visiting anymore. In fact, it is still my preferred medium for roads discussions and most times I will post things to MTR that I don't post to the Yahoo groups or here.

I agree with those others who have commented on the decline of MTR and other Usenet groups in general and their conclusion that it's the result of larger ISPs dropping their Usenet feeds. And in turn this causes smaller, local or regional ISPs to also drop Usenet because they carry the AT&T newsgroup feed. And I blame much of that on an over-reaction to trying to get child porn-based binary newsgroups off their servers. Instead of blocking those specific groups hosting illegal content, they just do away with Usenet altogether. (I pay for Usenet access, Newsguy in particular, because I make heavy use of the music binary groups. There is a free Usenet service that hosts only text groups, Eternal September -- formerly Motzarella -- that others are using).

The thing I like best about MTR is the fact that it's not moderated. In all honesty, the moderation here and in some of the other avenues of information is a little too heavy-handed for me. I recently became the moderator of Roadgeek (the Yahoo group) and will be much less involved in moderation than my predecessor was. The best moderation is a killfile. I keep Carl Rogers alive for purposes of humor and have long since quit responding to his trolling and his taunts, but I plonked Randy because he is a repugnant human being. It works fine for me.

If I had to choose one forum, I'd choose MTR over all. It's still the original and best. But thankfully we're not forced to make that choice and if we don't like the way a discussion is going in one forum, we can take it to another one and continue it there.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

Alex

I left MTR as a regular for good in July 2004, after about two years of off and on participation/lurking. MTR had its usefulness; it was where I first discovered that there were other roadgeeks in 1997. But the negativity there chased me away years ago and I never read it now...

Scott5114

Quote from: hbelkins on December 23, 2009, 02:46:20 PM
The thing I like best about MTR is the fact that it's not moderated. In all honesty, the moderation here and in some of the other avenues of information is a little too heavy-handed for me.

Hey, well, we're always interested to hear how we're doing as mods. Do you think we're being too harsh as a result of some specific instances of moderation? Or is it just a preference for lack of moderation in general?

When it comes to moderation in a place like this we have three roles as mods. One is to act as a bouncer, keeping out people who harm the community (people like Calrog, Randy, and spammers). The other is to act as a custodian, cleaning up threads, locking topics, splitting and merging them as needed. Finally we need someone to act as peacekeeper. I believe at the current time the last role is something we need to work on, as we have had limited experience with this–most discussions here are pretty friendly–but in those few flareups we've had I think we could stand to improve in our response some. Hopefully we can improve in that way in the future. I have seen other forums where the moderators have bred a culture of rational, advanced debate without it becoming an argument. Controversial subjects could be discussed without incident because the membership was well trained to always debate each other on their points and not their personalities. This is what I'd like this forum to be, and if we can create a culture like that, I'm sure we'll be able to have some great discussions on some of the advanced topics in roadgeeking, like the political situations that arise due to road construction.

I'm actually rather surprised and overwhelmed by the number of non-U.S. posters we have here. You guys make this place better by providing an international viewpoint, helping us see things we might have missed because we're so used to the U.S. way of doing things.

I think that as we approach our one-year anniversary, so far our forum is doing pretty great, and I expect it will continue to improve next year. I'm glad for all of our members, and hope to keep seeing all of you around :)
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

agentsteel53

#30
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 23, 2009, 07:19:57 PM
our one-year anniversary

I for one am firmly in favor of a Stalin-esque rewriting of history, remanding anything that may have occurred during the Nonexistent Regime of the Nonexistent One (may any concept of him continue to be mathematically impossible to formulate)
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

froggie

Those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it...

Dougtone

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 23, 2009, 07:19:57 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 23, 2009, 02:46:20 PM
The thing I like best about MTR is the fact that it's not moderated. In all honesty, the moderation here and in some of the other avenues of information is a little too heavy-handed for me.

Hey, well, we're always interested to hear how we're doing as mods. Do you think we're being too harsh as a result of some specific instances of moderation? Or is it just a preference for lack of moderation in general?

When it comes to moderation in a place like this we have three roles as mods. One is to act as a bouncer, keeping out people who harm the community (people like Calrog, Randy, and spammers). The other is to act as a custodian, cleaning up threads, locking topics, splitting and merging them as needed. Finally we need someone to act as peacekeeper. I believe at the current time the last role is something we need to work on, as we have had limited experience with this–most discussions here are pretty friendly–but in those few flareups we've had I think we could stand to improve in our response some. Hopefully we can improve in that way in the future. I have seen other forums where the moderators have bred a culture of rational, advanced debate without it becoming an argument. Controversial subjects could be discussed without incident because the membership was well trained to always debate each other on their points and not their personalities. This is what I'd like this forum to be, and if we can create a culture like that, I'm sure we'll be able to have some great discussions on some of the advanced topics in roadgeeking, like the political situations that arise due to road construction.

I'm actually rather surprised and overwhelmed by the number of non-U.S. posters we have here. You guys make this place better by providing an international viewpoint, helping us see things we might have missed because we're so used to the U.S. way of doing things.

I think that as we approach our one-year anniversary, so far our forum is doing pretty great, and I expect it will continue to improve next year. I'm glad for all of our members, and hope to keep seeing all of you around :)

I'm an owner/moderator of the Northeastroads mailing list at Yahoo Groups, and most of my moderation has to keep the mailing list free of spammers trying to sell up in order to sell male enhancement pills, get rich quick schemes and well, you get the idea.  At this forum, most of the moderation activity I see from the moderators has to do with moving topics when necessary in order to keep a focused discussion group in shape.

agentsteel53

Quote from: froggie on December 23, 2009, 07:37:34 PM
Those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it...

there is nothing to repeat.  :sombrero:
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

agentsteel53

Quote from: dougtone on December 23, 2009, 07:39:50 PM

I'm an owner/moderator of the Northeastroads mailing list at Yahoo Groups, and most of my moderation has to keep the mailing list free of spammers trying to sell up in order to sell male enhancement pills, get rich quick schemes and well, you get the idea.  At this forum, most of the moderation activity I see from the moderators has to do with moving topics when necessary in order to keep a focused discussion group in shape.

luckily, having to register and have your membership approved by a real human being really cuts down on the spambots here.  Does Yahoo have anything of the sort, or is that by definition impossible given the ability to post without being pre-approved?
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

Dougtone

Yahoo has an option in place where members to a Yahoo Groups mailing list have to be approved by an actual person.  This is what I do for Northeastroads, and what I have done is that a prospective group member has to basically explain why they want to join the group (a sentence such as "I like roads." works for me).

agentsteel53

oh okay; I misread your previous post and thought by "keep out" you had to individually delete spam messages, lest it turn into MTR.  looks like you have a similar system of pre-approval as this forum. 

(that said, I don't think I've approved a new member in months.  I tend to rearrange posts into more relevant topics, make sure images are sensibly sized and not broken, and keep the Ginger population down  :sombrero: )
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

Dougtone

Quote from: agentsteel53 on December 23, 2009, 07:58:28 PM
oh okay; I misread your previous post and thought by "keep out" you had to individually delete spam messages, lest it turn into MTR.  looks like you have a similar system of pre-approval as this forum. 

(that said, I don't think I've approved a new member in months.  I tend to rearrange posts into more relevant topics, make sure images are sensibly sized and not broken, and keep the Ginger population down  :sombrero: )

It sounds more like your role in moderating the forum is essentially maintaining the day-to-day operations of the forum, which is similar to what I do, but at a larger scale.

agentsteel53

indeed.  I might be one of the few people that gives *every* post at least a casual glance.  I use the "Recent Posts" view as my default.
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

J N Winkler

Quote from: CanesFan27 on December 23, 2009, 10:45:43 AM
Jonathan, I think I can sum up your post in regards to mtr in a few words, "You just don't care for it anymore."

I certainly don't care enough any longer to try to follow it in real time.  Now I think of it more as a resource I can access massively in arrears.  The garbage then falls away since it becomes visible only if I do a Google Groups search for it specifically.

Quote from: hbelkins on December 23, 2009, 02:46:20 PM
I agree with those others who have commented on the decline of MTR and other Usenet groups in general and their conclusion that it's the result of larger ISPs dropping their Usenet feeds. And in turn this causes smaller, local or regional ISPs to also drop Usenet because they carry the AT&T newsgroup feed. And I blame much of that on an over-reaction to trying to get child porn-based binary newsgroups off their servers. Instead of blocking those specific groups hosting illegal content, they just do away with Usenet altogether. (I pay for Usenet access, Newsguy in particular, because I make heavy use of the music binary groups. There is a free Usenet service that hosts only text groups, Eternal September -- formerly Motzarella -- that others are using).

I disagree.  "My ISP no longer provides a Usenet feed" is just an alibi.  In order to hook up to Usenet in the first place through their ISPs, they had to find the address of the ISP's news server, which is no more difficult than finding a free third-party news server--I found mine through a Google search.  I think the real reason is that they see the atrocity exhibition MTR has become and are voting with their feet.

QuoteThe thing I like best about MTR is the fact that it's not moderated. In all honesty, the moderation here and in some of the other avenues of information is a little too heavy-handed for me. I recently became the moderator of Roadgeek (the Yahoo group) and will be much less involved in moderation than my predecessor was. The best moderation is a killfile. I keep Carl Rogers alive for purposes of humor and have long since quit responding to his trolling and his taunts, but I plonked Randy because he is a repugnant human being. It works fine for me.

Yes, and you haven't gone to a lot of trouble to hide that from Randy, have you?

Think about the "killfile as moderator" concept for a minute.  When people say they are leaving MTR because their ISPs no longer provide Usenet news feeds, they are in effect admitting that they are not willing to do a single simple Google search to find a new news server.  If they are not willing to do this, then why do you think they would take the time to do something far more complex, like making a list of all the people on MTR whose posts they don't want to see and add them to a killfile, or implement score-based filtering?

QuoteIf I had to choose one forum, I'd choose MTR over all. It's still the original and best. But thankfully we're not forced to make that choice and if we don't like the way a discussion is going in one forum, we can take it to another one and continue it there.

If MTR were the only choice (fortunately it is not), I think I would give up roads-related discussion altogether, except through private email and the like.  There is a sufficient wealth of resources independent of MTR (and indeed other road-related discussion groups) that I would lose relatively little by walking away.  In fact, posting on newsgroups takes up probably a minority of the time I dedicate to this hobby.  The name of the game is exchange of information and it is fundamentally unrealistic to expect the knowledge base to troll-proof itself before it sets foot in MTR.  This, combined with the support for rich content, is the reason I think AARoads bids fair to pull ahead of MTR over the long run.

In regard to Scott's post about moderation on this forum, I would not characterize it as overly aggressive.  I have some experience as a moderator since I served as SABRE Site Manager for 1 1/2 years and was also President for one year, which meant I had to supervise a formal complaints process which, among other things, was designed to address members' complaints about the moderators' performance (or, more commonly, lack of it).  I found that the easiest moderating decisions to make had to do with closing down open quarrels, and I think the AARoads moderators have done well by this standard.  The really difficult moderating decisions have to do with shutting down the dimwits, idle drivelers, and other low-value posters who are not bad-intentioned and are often not even that obnoxious but are dragging down the forum for everybody.  (Jake gets at part of this problem when he talks about the "Ginger factor."  In SABRE we also had to contend with what might be called the "Motoral factor" . . .)  I think the AARoads moderators have also done well by this standard.  However, in some specific cases such as the banning of simguy228, I think my opinion is probably in the minority.

One thing to consider as the forum grows bigger is whether benevolent dictatorship is a viable model for forum management.  Many roads-related Web forums have introduced external mechanisms for accountability as they have grown.  SABRE started out as privately owned (much like AARoads is now), but eventually became a sort of constitutional democracy with checks and balances.  AARoads may not want to go down that road (our decision-making processes are often unwieldy, and the Philosopher King approach has good credentials--Plato, The Republic, all that), but one option might be to introduce an ombudsman, elected by board members at large, who would be able to review controversial moderating/banning decisions.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

hbelkins

How many free third-party Usenet servers are there out there? Eternal September is about the only one I know. I used to bounce around quite a few of them when I first got on Usenet, seems the ones with free access to both read and post got shut down on a frequent basis. Usenet in total is worth $100 a year to me, which is why I subscribe to a pay service. The only time i really used my ISP's server (I'm on BellSouth/AT&T DSL at home) is when I had the need to "sock up" and post something.

As for moderation, I started to type a big rant here but decided against it. Suffice it to say that if you want to see my philosophy on moderation in action, watch how I handle the Roadgeek group now that I'm in charge of it via winning the election among the members. I was not one of the ones who was opposed to a moderated MTR (in fact, when the NASCAR Usenet group got filled with junk, I voted "yes" on rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated) but there is still good ol' RASN to look at. (And I've honestly quit reading that group because I've lost so much interest in NASCAR since February 2001.)

I guess it's just the "open marketplace of ideas" concept that sticks with me ever since my Mass Communications 101 class oh so many years ago.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

J N Winkler

The news server I used for about two years (after I decided to killfile Carl and had to move to a different platform to make that possible) is news.ett.com.ua.  It was reliable and allowed me both to post and to read.  It was also free, with no special signup procedure required.  I will grant you, however, that it was not the first Usenet news server I tried.  I think there were one or two others I tried for about fifteen minutes before I discovered limitations on the service offered, such as reading only (no posting) and the like.

$100/year is somewhat larger than my annual budget for collecting traffic signing plans, which these days is my main road-related activity.  Keep in mind also that many users are accustomed to Usenet as a free service and are therefore unwilling to spend large amounts of time troll-proofing their newsreaders, whereas people such as yourself who actually pay have more of an incentive to make best use of the sunk money cost.

There are many different conceptions of the "open marketplace of ideas."  MTR and unmoderated Usenet newsgroups in general are one model, which is predicated on open access and zero trust among the users, and is therefore susceptible to trolls.  But freedom to contract is also part of the "open marketplace of ideas," and that includes the ability to establish a trust-based contract between users and moderators whereby access to a venue for communication (say, a Web forum) is open, but supervised, and continued membership is contingent on an expectation of good, meaningful, on-topic posts.  I agree that the "walled garden" model of content provision is objectionable, but that is not what we are doing here.  Nor are the moderators imposing prior restraint.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

Scott5114

Another model is the Wikipedia way of doing things, which is for potential moderators to be nominated in front of the community, which conducts an up-or-down vote on the promotion. That way only trusted members of the community are made moderators.

The problem is determining a method for removal of moderators that are no longer making good decisions. Moderators cannot exactly serve at the pleasure of the community, as moderators that put themselves in the midst of controversial decisions can easily upset a faction of the community that disagrees with their decision, which could result in them taking action to have the moderator in question dismissed. On Wikipedia, administrators cannot be easily removed once elected; they are generally only removed upon executive decision by Jimmy Wales or by a finding of wrongdoing by the Arbitration Committee, the "Supreme Court" of sorts for Wikipedia.

Regardless of whatever type of mechanism evolves in the future here, it is likely that Alex will always retain some type of executive override authority over it, as the "AARoads" brand belongs to him and he would like to keep the forum focused on topics that fit in with the name. This is why after the regime change you saw much fewer game-related and off-topic posts–Alex did not feel comfortable with these type of things existing on a forum that carries his brand name.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

hbelkins

from another thread...
Quote from: agentsteel53 on December 24, 2009, 07:26:37 PM
no more bickering about the van.  any other discussion on the topic is greatly welcome (for example Joseph's post) but any further back-and-forth about this one example will be deleted.


Exhibit A for the plaintiff.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

Scott5114

In a situation such as this, a moderator can either let the situation possibly degenerate into people shouting the same things over and over at each other, or they can move the conversation forward by limiting debate on a particular point. The question is the difference between whether you feel the community's sense of freedom or a quality debate is more important. Obviously this is a subjective decision on the point of the mod involved. You would probably handle it differently on your list than we would here because you have a different moderation style and different values than we do.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

74/171FAN

I normally read MTR on a regular basis to see if I've missed something not posted here.  However, I haven't actually posted since June and I only made an account to comment when the forum was offline thanks to Cody.
I am now a PennDOT employee.  My opinions/views do not necessarily reflect the opinions/views of PennDOT.

hbelkins

Just curious: What's the average age of the moderators here?


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

J N Winkler

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 25, 2009, 03:04:56 AM
In a situation such as this, a moderator can either let the situation possibly degenerate into people shouting the same things over and over at each other, or they can move the conversation forward by limiting debate on a particular point. The question is the difference between whether you feel the community's sense of freedom or a quality debate is more important. Obviously this is a subjective decision on the point of the mod involved. You would probably handle it differently on your list than we would here because you have a different moderation style and different values than we do.

In SABRE we typically sidestepped the censorship question (which arises when posts are deleted) by adhering to a rule that posts would be deleted only in exceptional circumstances, but by locking threads for preannounced cooling-off periods when we felt discussion had become too heated.  This worked well, although we had to be alert for situations where a moderator became involved in a heated discussion and then locked the thread to shut up an opponent; obviously that is a glaring conflict of interest.

In regards to H.B.'s question, I think emotional maturity rather than chronological age is the key variable.  It has also been my experience that people vary in their ability to keep changes in their personal circumstances (such as the death of a close relative, chronic illness, etc.) from affecting their moderating style.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

Bickendan

Usenet's accessibility was a challenge for me when I first started researching highway systems several years ago. I can't remember how I got started, but m.t.r was referenced in several pages that my research had led me to (and I want to say froggie's Minneapolis-St Paul pages was one of them, but I'm not sure). It took a good amount of effort to find and access m.t.r, and once done, figuring out how to participate in the discussions, particularly since I was (am) very active in the phpbb board scene.

Who was the troll du jour when I finally got in... Bukovich is the name coming to mind, but he had a bone he kept picking at Chris Bessert; and then there was the 'One above the [speed] limit is a criminal!' Kathy... Point is, the trolls were active then, though those two were tame compared to the flame wars that erupted on m.t.u-t over Portland's Yellow MAX line. It came to the point where m.t.r and m.t.u-t were pointless to participate in (I managed to miss most of Carl Roger's shenanigans), save for doing searches through Google to find any relevant topics, and even that's become more and more difficult.

I was at a balance point in terms of online roadgeekery: My research (which essentially targets Los Angeles, Portland and the Twin Cities) could easily be sated through a handful of sites and by trawling my county library and now alma mater's library. I had tried doing some of the Yahoo groups, but I find the Yahoo groups, like MSN, to be very archaic and counter-intuitive. I much prefer the phpBB style of boards, but there didn't appear to be any such boards for roadgeeks at the time (and there were suggestions on m.t.r to have such boards, but the consensus was m.t.r was the way to go) save for Skyscraper City, but it didn't ping on my radar.

Ironically enough, it was the (Interstate) Clinching Project that brought me to this board and active participation on the roadgeek end. I volunteered there to add the Canadian highways (and now Oregon), and as we started to delve in Europe, Spain and Portugal proved to be real nightmares in terms of documentation of their motorway systems. Tim referred me here and Sabre, and... well, I'm here.

The true irony of all this is that trolls helped discourage my participation in online roadgeeking, yet I myself am a troll; I reserve my trolling at a troll board, specifically targeting the idiots that... As far as moderation goes, it depends on the purpose of the location. A place like m.t.r and m.t.u-t would have greatly benefited from moderation. Sure, placing a troll on ignore/killfiling them might work, but where I troll, placing someone on ignore is considered 'letting the trolls win' (don't worry, that's troll bs; ignoring a poster doesn't work in the sense that another person quoting the blocked troll defeats the ignore and the post is merely blocked with a 'Click here to see post' that ends up being clicked anyway).

Moderation-extreme boards tend to self-destruct, are filled with Yes Men or are hypocritical because they'll target the elements they don't like (trolling the trolls, in a sense); I don't really see that being the case here. I've seen a couple members here that look like got hit with the banhammer; but that's the case on even my home board, where I've done my share of adminning. This isn't a 'heavily moderated' board by any measure.

I can see this board being a good focal point and a good alternative to the behemoths like Skyscraper City. It's more focused here, but there's enough diversity in interests that people should feel at home.

DanTheMan414

Quote from: hbelkins on December 25, 2009, 08:12:43 PM
Just curious: What's the average age of the moderators here?

Someone please correct me if I'm incorrect, but I believe the moderators fall into the age range of late teens to around 40.



Opinions expressed here on belong solely to the poster and do not represent or reflect the opinions or beliefs of AARoads, its creators and/or associates.