Somebody with more knowledge than I needs to write a brief history of the road community from its beginnings when everybody on MTR got along great and there was no drama. Geocities, Xoom, Angelfire, and all the free web hosting services. Online mapping in its infancy. Tom From Ohio and other trolls. The entrance of young posters who destroyed the dynamic that made us all get along. Who wants to do it?
Quote from: bugo on June 16, 2015, 07:54:01 AM
The entrance of young posters who destroyed the dynamic that made us all get along.
I'd believe this if I didn't already see enough conflict on the MTR archives without any of the so-called younger members. I stand firmly against discriminating against age considering roads and highways is a topic that is allowed to be enjoyed by anybody.
Read some old MTR posts from 1997 or 1998. It was after that that the children came in and acted like they owned the place. I know you're jealous that you're not an MTR original and all, but there's no reason to rewrite history.
Quote from: bugo on June 16, 2015, 09:21:04 AM
Read some old MTR posts from 1997 or 1998. It was after that that the children came in and acted like they owned the place. I know you're jealous that you're not an MTR original and all, but there's no reason to rewrite history.
I have read a large amount of MTR posts. What I'm saying is that while MTR is part of the roadgeeking legacy, I'm quite confident that most of the members here are content with AARoads' forum over the Usenet based MTR. The forum has so many more features that Usenet never had, such as embedding images into your posts. Who wants to click a link every time when they can just see it when the post loads?
I'm not jealous that I'm a "new" member and not an MTR original. I loved this place since I found it, and I have learned so much more than I knew a year (or two?) ago when I first joined. Personally, I don't care if you don't like me, because you're entitled to your own opinions, and frankly, I just ignore all the negative ones said about me anyway.
We're not rewriting history - we're just simply living life in the present.
I was one of the kids who rooined mtr.
MTR had many advantages over this forum. First, you had total freedom of speech. Here, if you call somebody a mean old poopyhead the post will be modified if not deleted and you could even be banned. On MTR you could flame to your heart's content. Legends in the road community like Tom From Ohio and Randy Hersh simply could not exist on this forum because of the buzzkill moderators. If I ran this forum there would be no censorship.
Quote from: NE2 on June 16, 2015, 09:49:55 AM
I was one of the kids who rooined mtr.
Nah, you were one of the valued early contributors. The kids I'm talking about (who are probably pushing 30 now) came in thinking they knew everything and picked fights with some of the OGs. Most of these kids have moved on and are on the fringes of the community or have left altogether. I'm not an ageist - most of my friends are younger than me but it seems like on MTR and the other forums that came later that the younger a person is, the more likely they are to be clueless retards.
There's censorship, and then there's keeping it civil. Without censorship, guaranteed you would wind up having an entire forum that debates politics and becomes so far removed from the subject material that you would just create another MTR. The valued members would give up and move on.
I've seen this on many other forums as well. Travel forums are a great example: In their infancy, generally there's a core group of people that know and love a city. They assist people. They create a bond...but really it's more of a clique. They'll even host "meet-and-greets" in their city among each other. When newer people show up and start answering the questions, there's a bit of resentment towards these people. The clique eventually starts responding less and less, figuring if there are know-it-alls that want to take over the forum, then by all means have at it...even though the know-it-alls are just as good as the originals. They treated the travel forum website as their own, even though they were nothing but visitors living rent-free.
On a more local forum to me, same thing: It was supposed to be about the county, but yet a few people kept bringing up national politics. I actually suggested a few times for them to bring it to another appropriate forum, but the one or two guys would basically claim that if it's happing in Washington DC, then it's relevant for the county or town (it wasn't). And then there's the guy that posts nothing but youtube videos to supposedly back up his views. In the end, the forum was nothing but links to youtube videos and politics bashing, and valued people stopped posting about things relevant to the subject.
Politics is one thing. Being a funny troll who makes others laugh is a different matter.
Quote from: bugo on June 16, 2015, 09:21:04 AM
Read some old MTR posts from 1997 or 1998. It was after that that the children came in and acted like they owned the place. I know you're jealous that you're not an MTR original and all, but there's no reason to rewrite history.
Not all Trolls were young, but many Trolls did act immature... like they do on Facebook ;)
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.
I think many of us look back fondly on the old days whenever we were first getting started. So many threads and posters with brand new information. So many questions to answer, mysteries to unravel, old maps and documents to track down.
Now the community's a lot bigger. Information is easier to find. There's not enough time to read all the threads, but frankly there are some corners of the hobby you don't care much about and can leave that to others. But you have online maps of almost anywhere; street view of the same (and if there's an interesting road feature anywhere, chances are someone here has a pic); driving videos; illustration tutorials; more and more DOT plans, historical documents, AASHTO minutes, etc. online; and a free-beer, substantially free-speech forum where we're not worried about spammers or trolls or haters chasing all the good people out.
If you're looking for a golden age, there's a good argument that it's right now.
I read MTR occasionally but never posted there. I avoided posting to USENET in general. Among other things, I prefer the overall civility here (except for one rude forum member and another who can be a bit too much of a know-it-all) and I note the lack of spam here compared to USENET groups that are overrun with it. You also don't have to put your e-mail address out there for all to see (yes, I know you could just set up a dummy account or "spam account" for USENET).
I don't feel anyone should be looked down upon for not having posted on MTR. Some people didn't know it existed or didn't know how to access newsgroups. Nothing wrong with that.
I remember the problems with Usenet in general happened in the late '90s. It didn't hit MTR as badly, but occasionally it would spill over into MTR from other newsgroups.
The personal and classist attacks against me on Usenet were completely unjustified and unwarranted. Although I was about 25, the attacks against me were generated by former high school classmates who secretly e-mailed Usenet regulars with stupid made-up crap about me. They also paid off local politicians so they wouldn't get in trouble. Much of this was because I announced my intent to run for public office, and because my newsletter and website bitterly criticized my former high school.
I think I still have a copy of the police report I made against someone on Usenet at the time, but nobody was ever punished.
Well, I know where this came from, and I just want to say that I love the forum. I've learned quite a bit about signs (my hobby) and bit on roads as well, and it's all thanks to the members on here.
If someone wants to write a history piece on the history of road/signgeeking (in other words before or just after I was born), then I'd love to read it. I've only been here (as a guest) since summer 2012.
If veteran members consider me "young" and immature, then I apologize. I think I'm pretty far from being considered a troll, or "ruining a forum" or something like that. The community is constantly evolving with newer members and different ways of looking at things.
Young people posting here seem to do just fine. They love roads after all and so did I from childhood on. The first time I saw I-5 in Oregon shortly after it was built (50 years ago) was an incredible eyeopener. With the evolving designs of freeways and other types of roads, it is fun to see new generational perspectives as they are the people who see the world through fresh eyes. We were all young once and short of an untimely death we will all be old. The journey of life and on the roads is an interesting one!
Forum moderation here seems light. I am on some "free speech" ones and they are lewd and crude, which is fine by me. Goes with being a native rural Oregonian I guess...LOL! Other forums I have been on saw plenty of heavy handed moderation, real forum nazi types. AARF gets an A from me for the way the moderators handle affairs. On top of that we are not overrun with spam.
Usenet groups were fun back in the day. The net evolved, spammers overran Usenet and that pretty much brought that phase of my computer life to an end. IRC, remember that? Another Nineties online tool which I no longer use.
Anyways, there's my POV on this topic. Take it and $4 to a Starbucks and you can enjoy a cup of fancy coffee...LOL!
Rick
What is being talked about here is a microcosm of the internet. Was the internet "cooler" when it was a comparatively smaller group of committed individuals? Sort of. Is it more useful now? Yes.
Anyway, Serdar Argic ruined Usenet all the way back in 1993.
As a moderator of a car based forum, and an administrator at a racing related forum I can say that the staff here at AAroads do an outstanding job of finding the right balance between letting the members air things out and keeping the trolls at bay.
I followed MTR back in the day, even added a post here and there and the way people treated each other then was absolutely ridiculous. One could pretty much agree with everthing a poster said, except with one small thing they thought should be different and they were instantly labled an idiot, or called names I'm not sure that I can print here without violating the rules.
As for over-under moderation, well I understand where some people are coming from. On one forum I mod at, the forum has an absolute policy against the use of cusswords. Now anyone who knows me in person knows that I can't even complete a spoken sentence without at least one cussword (LOL), so I am no prude. However the rules of that forum dictate that I have to censor those posts and hand out infractions for the use of the words. Because of that, I guess I am one of those "forum Nazi's" that others speak of. I guess it's the same for any "cop" that has had to write a speeding ticket ("shouldn't you be out there catching criminals instead of messing with me?") Personally I could care less that you cussed, hell I would like to be able to type one every once in a while, too!
I'm with Pete on this one. Sure it seemed cooler back when everything was fresh and new, every new thread was a new window into something we wouldn't have seen before. The internet is much more useful now though.
Quote from: kurumi on June 16, 2015, 11:22:11 AM
I think many of us look back fondly on the old days whenever we were first getting started. So many threads and posters with brand new information. So many questions to answer, mysteries to unravel, old maps and documents to track down.
Now the community's a lot bigger. Information is easier to find. There's not enough time to read all the threads, but frankly there are some corners of the hobby you don't care much about and can leave that to others. But you have online maps of almost anywhere; street view of the same (and if there's an interesting road feature anywhere, chances are someone here has a pic); driving videos; illustration tutorials; more and more DOT plans, historical documents, AASHTO minutes, etc. online; and a free-beer, substantially free-speech forum where we're not worried about spammers or trolls or haters chasing all the good people out.
If you're looking for a golden age, there's a good argument that it's right now.
The downside to the community being a lot bigger: Topics that were brought up and discussed thoroughly, with the topic discussion exhausted, becomes brand new again when someone starts a new discussion. At that point, there's a decision to make: Does someone say "We already talked about this, here's the link", or do we allow the discussion to continue? It kinda depends on if there's anything new to talk about.
The only other thing that can be a little annoying is one someone goes thru a stretch of road and sees something 'unique', even though another poster may live and travel by that stretch of highway every day. But, there's 2 things that can come of that: 1) If it's something I know and love, I try to add some insight to it (for example, the Atlantic City Expressway signage mentioned on another thread). It really helps to know the history going back a few decades in some cases. Or, I go thru a section of road so often, to see and hear about it from another perspective can be interesting sometimes. What may seem straightforward to me may be completely confusing to someone not used to the area.
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
Quote from: bugo on June 16, 2015, 01:40:59 PM
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.
Quote from: Zeffy on June 16, 2015, 02:06:37 PM
Quote from: bugo on June 16, 2015, 01:40:59 PM
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 whiny little bitch who has no concept of what the road community is all about. I would be willing to bet that most of the OG posters would have laughed at the TFO post. I told Nitzman you were no good. Go ahead and delete this post. Add more fuel to the fire. Dig that grave a little deeper. You remind me of one of those security guards who couldn't make it as a cop. I'll have a talk with Alex and maybe he'll teach you some history, you little child.
And why not prove to me what most posters want. It's what you want. Quit speaking for others. You're just an internet tough guy who has zero power in real life and you overcompensate. You're worse than Nazelrod (who is actually a decent person in real life.)
Quote from: bugo on June 16, 2015, 07:54:01 AM
Somebody with more knowledge than I needs to write a brief history of the road community from its beginnings when everybody on MTR got along great and there was no drama. Geocities, Xoom, Angelfire, and all the free web hosting services. Online mapping in its infancy. Tom From Ohio and other trolls. The entrance of young posters who destroyed the dynamic that made us all get along. Who wants to do it?
Yeah, as if there was no drama, no flamebaiting, no trolling, and everything was all hunky dorky like the Garden of Eden Prairie. Bugo, you do have a bit of a selective memory on that one. I seem to remember all the early crossposting between usenet groups, most notably the planning one with mtr. I also remember a shitload of spam crossposting that some would post to any and all usenet groups.
Quote from: bugo on June 16, 2015, 03:19:23 PM
And why not prove to me what most posters want. It's whatyou want. Quit speaking for others. You're just an internet tough guy who has zero power in real life and you overcompensate. You're worse than Nazelrod (who is actually a decent person in real life.)
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.
Quote from: bugo on June 16, 2015, 03:16:16 PM
You're just a whiny little bitch who has no concept of what the road community is all about. I would be willing to bet that most of the OG posters would have laughed at the TFO post. I told Nitzman you were no good. Go ahead and delete this post. Add more fuel to the fire. Dig that grave a little deeper. You remind me of one of those security guards who couldn't make it as a cop. I'll have a talk with Alex and maybe he'll teach you some history, you little child.
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?
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.
Quote from: J N Winkler on June 16, 2015, 04:38:41 PM
* 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.
Quote from: J N Winkler on June 16, 2015, 04:38:41 PM
* 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.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 16, 2015, 04:53:38 PMBecause 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).
Quote from: bandit957 on June 16, 2015, 05:04:33 PMThe 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.
Quote from: NE2 on June 16, 2015, 09:49:55 AM
I was one of the kids who rooined mtr.
Your MTR persona was a lot more pleasant than your AA Roads persona. What happened? :-D
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 16, 2015, 04:53:38 PM
Quote from: J N Winkler on June 16, 2015, 04:38:41 PM
* 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.
Quote from: J N Winkler on June 16, 2015, 04:38:41 PM
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.
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).
Quoteand 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.
Quote from: hbelkins on June 16, 2015, 07:47:33 PMAt 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.
Quote from: hbelkins on June 16, 2015, 07:47:33 PMThere 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.
Quote from: hbelkins on June 16, 2015, 07:47:33 PMQuote from: J N Winkler on June 16, 2015, 04:38:41 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: froggie on June 16, 2015, 11:08:39 AM
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.
Quote from: Zeffy on June 16, 2015, 02:06:37 PM
Quote from: bugo on June 16, 2015, 01:40:59 PM
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.
Quote from: Zeffy on June 16, 2015, 04:33:20 PM
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.
Quote
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).
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.
Quote from: bugo on June 17, 2015, 04:21:01 AM
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? :P
Quote from: J N Winkler on June 16, 2015, 11:04:24 PM
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.
This thread has degenerated into exactly what made MTR unreadable for me in the end. Truly a living history of the "online roads community."
Quote from: Pete from Boston on June 17, 2015, 07:37:32 AM
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}
Quote from: Pete from Boston on June 17, 2015, 07:37:32 AM
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.
Bugo is one of the leaders of the road hobby.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 17, 2015, 06:01:57 AMI 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.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 17, 2015, 06:01:57 AMAs 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.
Quote from: bandit957 on June 17, 2015, 10:53:17 AM
Bugo is one of the leaders of the road hobby.
He, like me, is one of the earlier online members. We have no leaders.
Quote from: bugo on June 17, 2015, 04:17:43 AM
Quote from: Zeffy on June 16, 2015, 04:33:20 PM
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.
QuoteQuote
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.
Quote from: US71 on June 17, 2015, 08:09:47 AM
Quote from: Pete from Boston on June 17, 2015, 07:37:32 AM
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.
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? :-D
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.
Quote from: bandit957 on June 17, 2015, 10:53:17 AM
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.
Quote from: hbelkins on June 17, 2015, 02:00:39 PM
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? :-D
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.
Quote from: J N Winkler on June 17, 2015, 11:46:21 AM
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.
This is a decent point, as there is really no real "list of possible moderators" that we consult when a position is active. Zeffy became a moderator after working with Alex to improve the site. I became a moderator in the wake of V'Ger's messy exodus from the forum; I had heard that Alex was considering declaring the forum to be a failure and not restoring it, so I reached out to him to ask if there was anything I could do to help get it back up.
The more typical moderator career path starts with regional moderator; when it's decided a board needs a regional moderator, we look at the candidates with a history of good conduct that are active in the regional board in question. Should they do well in that position they are 'promoted' to a general moderator whenever there is a vacancy.
If one were to wish to become a moderator, I would suggest looking to see if there is a regional moderator position open in the area you frequent, and if not, PM a moderator asking about filling it. More established users with years of posting history might be able to directly apply for a global moderator position, but we aren't always looking for new ones. We seldom reach a decision on who should be an admin ahead of time before contacting them, because there is always the risk of the decided-upon user not having the time or desire to moderate.
Quote from: hbelkins on June 17, 2015, 02:00:39 PMI'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 sure I'm not one of the ones you're talking about, since you've met me at a few different road meets. But, in case anyone else wants to know more about me...my name is Scott Nazelrod, from Norman, Oklahoma. I've worked in the casino gaming industry for the last six years, as both a slot attendant and as a cashier, and before that I was a manager at a fast food restaurant. Additionally, I own a small business, Denexa Games (http://www.denexa.com), which sells plastic playing cards (http://www.denexa.com/playing-cards). I've also been an administrator on Wikipedia for seven years, and I've also moderated other forums like this one before I came here. I own a dog named Willow, and I have a fiancee named Renee. I drive a maroon Pontiac G6 and unfortunately still own a blue PT Cruiser (the latter is proof that I can make bad decisions sometimes). Writing is my preferred outlet for creative expression; I sometimes make attempts at drawing and playing bass guitar but I am not very good at either.
Quote from: hbelkins on June 17, 2015, 02:00:39 PM
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? :-D
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.
HB: I know we have had our differences, but I think you would make an excellent moderator. You have the age and wisdom and clarity that 18 year olds don't have, and you were there from the beginning.
Randy Hersh really wasn't a bad guy. He wasn't really racist - he was just trolling. Once I posted something about my health on MTR and he emailed me to see if I was going to be OK and we kept in contact until his tragic death. He made me laugh because some of the things he said were so ridiculous and over the top that it was obvious he was trolling.
Quote from: Brandon on June 17, 2015, 12:13:02 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on June 17, 2015, 10:53:17 AM
Bugo is one of the leaders of the road hobby.
He, like me, is one of the earlier online members. We have no leaders.
More like Founding Fathers.
Sure there was some drama even in the early MTR days, but it was nothing like it is now. You guys who were shitting in diapers in 1997 can't grasp the zeitgeist of early MTR. But for the most part the Founding Fathers got along great. We didn't have stupid threads like some of roadman65's off topic post and we didn't have pictures of the toilet that Brian556 shit all over. The core members of the community got along great for the most part.
Quote from: bugo on June 17, 2015, 05:38:34 PM
Sure there was some drama even in the early MTR days, but it was nothing like it is now. You guys who were shitting in diapers in 1997 can't grasp the zeitgeist of early MTR. But for the most part the Founding Fathers got along great. We didn't have stupid threads like some of roadman65's off topic post and we didn't have pictures of the toilet that Brian556 shit all over. The core members of the community got along great for the most part.
We didn't? We didn't have pictures as mtr as all text, but we sure as hell had plenty of off-topic garbage. We also had a good number of flame wars that may or may not have started on mtr (Kozel, Langsford, and Gross). that I considered unreadable and thus skipped over.
Quote from: bugo on June 16, 2015, 09:51:51 AM
MTR had many advantages over this forum. First, you had total freedom of speech. Here, if you call somebody a mean old poopyhead the post will be modified if not deleted and you could even be banned. On MTR you could flame to your heart's content.
And from my understanding, it was probably the same lack of moderation (and that anyone/"anybot" can contribute to Usenet) which caused its downfall. People need a few rules, or everyone defaults to dickhead. There's really nothing wrong with a little structure for discussion, otherwise everyone will post photos of turds.
Quote from: bugo on June 16, 2015, 03:16:16 PM
You're just a whiny little bitch who has no concept of what the road community is all about. I would be willing to bet that most of the OG posters would have laughed at the TFO post. I told Nitzman you were no good. Go ahead and delete this post. Add more fuel to the fire. Dig that grave a little deeper. You remind me of one of those security guards who couldn't make it as a cop. I'll have a talk with Alex and maybe he'll teach you some history, you little child.
Wow, dude...you mention the glory days of MTR with rose-colored glasses roughly once every two weeks. No reason to act like the Internet Tough Guys you claim to hate in the first place. You go on and on about how sucky this place is and yet you continue on here...it obviously isn't
that bad. Even if you're trolling, the joke is played the hell out by now.
I know you're better than that.
The board and chatroom are fine. It's just the actions of a couple of bad apple moderators that I don't like. And there will be some changes in the near future, as I understand. Not to toot my own horn, but I have a lot of knowledge of roads especially in Arkansas and Oklahoma and I want to share that knowledge with other enthusiasts. When I see something that looks like something that at least one other poster would like, I share it. And if nobody is interested in it, then that's OK too. If I was as big of a dick as you are painting me to be I wouldn't share my knowledge.
In my day, things were better.
"There's really nothing wrong with a little structure for discussion, otherwise everyone will post photos of turds."
We solved that problem on the free for all forum by having a post where people could post pix of their $h*t, literally...LOL! I'd like to say that cleaned things up :bigass:
Rick
That was just our resident fecalphile Brian556. I doubt if anybody else on the forum, even the Zeffster, would post pictures of a toilet they just shit all over.
Hi all,
Just a quick note to agree that there ought to be a history of the road community and to share a bit of what is happening at AARoads, including who plays what role. Regarding road geek enthusiast history, I couldn't begin to write anything comprehensive, as I think there would be multiple people who have been long-time participants who may have different perspectives from one another. One aspect of the history would be MTR and the transition to AARoads Forum, which I think has been a topic of discussion above. Perhaps someone may wish to write up a draft of this and share it with the group? My goodness, there are so many personalities from the old MTR days, and reading some of the names in the threads up above bring back memories. I am glad that many of the originals are still here today, and I am grateful for newly minted road geeks to join us here at the Forum. Someone will have to carry the torch after the MTR generation is long gone.
And there would be a whole other part in this history about how road enthusiast/road geek gatherings have expanded substantially between 1997 and today. Most of us would have different experiences to share. For example, I'm sure one of my East Coast counterparts, such as Adam Prince, would have a perspective on the many road meets that have taken place in that part of the country, and he would relate experience based on that. There's a whole circle of friendships that have developed as a result of those meets. I would likely have a different perspective as most of my circle of road enthusiast friends are here on the West Coast, and those too have developed from California-based meets. Some of these road geek meet-up experiences are related or summarized in the road meet sections of the Forum, but not all of them. But I have to say, I really enjoy reading the road meet reports and appreciate knowing all the cool stuff that the East Coast meets entail.
So those are just my thoughts on how to document some of this history we've collectively created. On to the 15-year-old AARoads organization. First and foremost, I do want to note that Jeremy -- along with Alex and me -- is a founding member of AARoads ... I am grateful for his input and appreciate his candor. Without Jeremy there would not be an AARoads as it currently exists. I am fairly confident in making that statement. I guess that would make him Founder Emeritus or something similar.
I am also grateful for Zeffy, who has been helping us bring various portions of the AARoads website to modern standards for layout, content, and search engines and has become increasingly vital to the success of the overall AARoads webpage (not just the Forum). There is room for both of you, even if for now you have not been getting along in this thread. I hope that will change as the thread progresses.
The selection of moderators on this Forum rests primarily with Alex, and I assist where I can from time to time. Alex delegates on certain matters where he can, and he is the overall deciding vote on various matters that come before the staff. We do not take any moderator or admin position lightly, and we recognize the extensive volunteerism required for anyone to take on that role. In my opinion, we have a great staff, and no moderation decision is taken lightly. The moderators have even moderated my posts in the past. That is a good thing. There is trust between admins and moderators. Staff will often discuss potentially controversial items before deciding on removing a post from the Forum. I should also recognize that in the past 7 or 8 years, Brent (FlaRoads) has taken on an increasing role in managing AARoads site content alongside Alex and me. My role has diminished substantially between 2009 and now due to personal commitments (work and family). At some point I hope to resume a more focused involvement.
In closing, on behalf of Alex and Brent, who are posting real time photos from the Upper Midwest on our Facebook page this week, thank you all for continued ideas and contributions to the Forum.
I admit that I used some strong language and that I meant every word I said, but it really made me angry that somebody with no grasp of the history of the online community unilaterally deleted one of my posts that was meant to be funny and nostalgic (and many members of the forum would have found funny) without discussing it with some of the other mods. I still think what HB said about having more veterans (I'm not talking about myself so don't worry...) as moderators to balance things out. I would be interested in the average age of the mods compared to the average age of the regular posters. I would also like to give a shout out to Andy for recognizing my contributions to this site (remember the old Arkansas Highways site and the No-Frills picture page?) Thanks, Andy. That meant a lot to me.
Okay... let's try this whole thing again.
Look, Jeremy, I have nothing but respect for you in how you have been a major player in the roadgeeking community. I'm aware of your past thanks to conversations with Alex. I did not mean any malice in my moderation - I truly didn't. You're right that I'm very - I guess "out of touch" would be the right way to phrase this - with the older MTR members here. I wasn't part of that era, and I'm certainly not trying to act like I ever was. So maybe I have overstepped a bit deleting your posts that are nostalgic of MTR.
But what I want to mention to you is what you may find funny, others may find hurtful. One of my best friends, who was different like every other human being, was made fun of repeatedly on social media and at school. It hurt me to see him so depressed. Well, the comments were a bit more profane than the ones you posted, but the premise of the posts was to insult and hate. Luckily I got him help before he did anything extremely drastic, but that's why I'm so adamant in not letting trolling get to an extreme. We're from different generations for sure, but my reasons are a bit more personal, such as your posts are reminiscent of the old road community.
I'm a forgiveful person. It does not take much for me to reconcile our differences. If you have a problem with me, then please discuss it with me privately. I'd really rather not get blasted in public. It's just a bit rude honestly. I am open and willing to change, and if you want to explain the history of MTR to me, then I will listen. If your posts are intended to make others laugh, that's fine, but I just don't want anyone to feel genuinely offended by them.
As Andy has said, I appreciate all of your contributions to the road community, and I have read your blog, and I think I might've even found an archive of your site, in addition to helping to found this amazing community. I don't wish to have this kind of animosity between us. I understand that I'm a very new person here, one that is very humbled to be a moderator in the first place. I only wish to help Alex, Andy, Brent, and everyone else make this site the best place for the road enthusiast. I am not trying to kill that history. I also want this place to be a place that everyone can enjoy without being subjected to hateful comments. It's a hard balance to strike, for sure, but I know Alex has commended me on my job as well as my effort into helping modernize AARoads' site.
Is there hope for a truce between us? If need be, I will delegate more of my actions to the other moderators before I take any actions if I am truly overstepping my boundaries. But this petty fighting doesn't help anybody.
Quote from: bugo on June 17, 2015, 04:09:29 AM
Quote from: Zeffy on June 16, 2015, 02:06:37 PM
Quote from: bugo on June 16, 2015, 01:40:59 PM
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.
Can we please move on from the pissing contest? :pan:
Quote from: bugo on June 18, 2015, 10:21:44 AMI admit that I used some strong language and that I meant every word I said, but it really made me angry that somebody with no grasp of the history of the online community unilaterally deleted one of my posts that was meant to be funny and nostalgic (and many members of the forum would have found funny) without discussing it with some of the other mods.
Many, if not most, of us have been here before. I remember being quite upset a few years ago when something I posted was taken as a snark at another poster (which was not my intention at all) and received a very visible intervention. It really does tell you something when Andy himself reports having been moderated.
However, having been on the other side of the desk (though not on this forum), I have found that there is a learning curve that goes with being a moderator. And even with experienced moderators, boundary-pushers are still more likely to attract intervention; that is something that comes with the territory. Moreover, I think those who remember MTR (unnostalgically) as a den of carpet-chewers tend to forget that it also evoked much passive-aggressive behavior from posters who went there determined to be civil but from time to time found themselves provoked by the mindless mean-spiritedness that was constantly on display. The carpet-chewing was easy to iron out of this forum, but getting rid (largely) of the passive aggression has been a work of years.
Quote from: Molandfreak on June 18, 2015, 12:09:16 PM
If you can't take a few punches or jokes, maybe you shouldn't be in an online community in the first place.
iPhone
+1000000
I've always said that if somebody gets offended by something silly that maybe they NEED to be offended.
As far as the Tom From Ohio "do us all a favor and FUCK OFF!" posts, I have been told by MANY guys in the hobby that they loved TFO and thought he was hilarious. You would be surprised by the identity of some of them. Why not start a poll?
SGH-I927
Quote from: bugo on June 18, 2015, 01:25:07 PM
Quote from: Molandfreak on June 18, 2015, 12:09:16 PM
If you can't take a few punches or jokes, maybe you shouldn't be in an online community in the first place.
iPhone
+1000000
I've always said that if somebody gets offended by something silly that maybe they NEED to be offended.
As far as the Tom From Ohio "do us all a favor and FUCK OFF!" posts, I have been told by MANY guys in the hobby that they loved TFO and thought he was hilarious. You would be surprised by the identity of some of them. Why not start a poll?
SGH-I927
I think there's limits. By doing things online many people take things further than they would ever do in person - that's simply how animosity works. It's why many sites have gone away from using comment sections with anonymous handles, and now require you to use your Facebook account. The downside is that people are less willing to express their true feelings about a subject. If there's a newspaper article I want to comment on, I'm not going to say something that, no matter how innocent, accurate or politically correct it is, someone either now or later will use it against me.
And generic punches and jokes are one thing. It's when it gets personal is when it goes over the line. If someone is aware of someone's flaws and use that publicly, that's over the line.
Personally, it's worse when the person didn't know that person's flaws, and they happen to hit on one anyway. That I find is the hardest to deal with. It could be a situation that a person has dealt with for years, and may have even been successful battling. You certainly weren't aware of it, but it can hit the other person harder than if the flaw was known.
As far as your TFO example goes, there's no doubt that many people love posts like that...and they jump on the bandwagon to express it. There's an equal amount if not more that hate those posts. Those people will stay silent though. Bring it back to MTR...when enough silent people have enough of it, they leave, and the entire forum goes down with it, because it's just a bunch of punches against each other, rather than interesting and enlightening conversation.
"Do us all a favor" is an example of something you have to be careful with. MTR regulars and anyone who's been to a roadmeet with them would recognize it as a meme from the old days (yes, it's a meme). Someone who wasn't around for those days would not get the reference and it would just seem gratuitously rude.
I don't think it's helpful to trump up the MTR days as the epitome of the roadgeek experience. There was good and bad. Some people simply weren't around for them. There's nothing they can do about it, so implying that they're somehow lesser members of the community is harmful (not that that is anyone's intent, but it is easy for someone to take that away from such a discussion if one is not careful).
Likewise, some people are geared more towards the social aspects of the community, like roadmeets and joking around, while others prefer solo field exploration, and still others view this forum as a research tool. People are different and there's no reason this forum can't cater to all so long as antagonism is avoided.
Another thing to keep in mind is that some of our posters are here on a professional basis. The main example is, of course, our resident AHTD rep. Someone in such a position might come across a "Do us all a favor" or likewise and wonder what sort of cesspool they have gotten themselves into.
I didn't see the TFO-type post that got deleted, but I never thought TFO was offensive or a bully or anything like that. Tom brought a dose of self-deprecation and levity to MTR, and the only person I think he ever caused any consternation for was Pete Jenior, who happened to share a last name and a home state with Tom. Pete named his son Thomas, which prompted a lot of us who are friends with him on Facebook, to post TFO references. He deleted them, saying he didn't want to have to explain the whole TFO saga to his non-roadgeek friends. Nobody could ever really take a flame from TFO seriously. It took him a couple of years to get around to me, and even then, it was a half-hearted flame.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 18, 2015, 04:20:21 PM
Another thing to keep in mind is that some of our posters are here on a professional basis. The main example is, of course, our resident AHTD rep. Someone in such a position might come across a "Do us all a favor" or likewise and wonder what sort of cesspool they have gotten themselves into.
There were professional types who were on MTR as well. Kozel and Lansford were employees of their respective DOTs.
QuoteI don't think it's helpful to trump up the MTR days as the epitome of the roadgeek experience. There was good and bad. Some people simply weren't around for them. There's nothing they can do about it, so implying that they're somehow lesser members of the community is harmful (not that that is anyone's intent, but it is easy for someone to take that away from such a discussion if one is not careful).
Is this the point where I mention that I grew up in a home that had one television, it was a big black-and-white tube-type set and we could pick up two channels on it? Or that we had one telephone, it was mounted to a wall, and for much of my childhood there were three other people on the party line and you couldn't make or receive a call if one of them was on the line? I'm not necessarily nostalgic for those days. But I do have a preference for buying physical copies of books and music instead of downloading digital versions. Some things were just better the way they used to be.
Anyone remember "Gillespie from Florida" on MTR?
Quote from: hbelkins on June 18, 2015, 04:30:36 PMNobody could ever really take a flame from TFO seriously. It took him a couple of years to get around to me, and even then, it was a half-hearted flame.
I'm still waiting for mine.
Quote from: hbelkins on June 18, 2015, 04:30:36 PMThere were professional types who were on MTR as well. Kozel and Lansford were employees of their respective DOTs.
There were others, such as Rick Powell (Illinois DOT), Steve Norris (Ohio DOT), Jim Dunlop (NCDOT), and Richard Moeur (Arizona DOT), but they did not use MTR as a secondary avenue for disseminating official information, as forum member AHTD does with the AARoads forum. And in a sense MTR regulars like John Lansford were the exception rather than the norm. He mentioned at one point that he had encouraged his professional colleagues to contribute but they were put off by the high noise-to-signal ratio, the endless trolling, and so on.
Quote from: hbelkins on June 18, 2015, 04:30:36 PMI'm not necessarily nostalgic for those days. But I do have a preference for buying physical copies of books and music instead of downloading digital versions. Some things were just better the way they used to be.
Some is the key word here. Moderation on this forum is a feature, not a bug. For preference I still read actual printed and bound books, but you couldn't pay me enough to give up electronically controlled fuel injection and go back to a car that had a carburetor.
Quote from: Molandfreak on June 18, 2015, 02:11:00 PM
I really think that most of the moderation here is going to the wrong mindsets. There are far too many people who literally have no personality behind their posts due to their heads being stuck too far inside their own research. I much prefer say the snarkiness of Bugo and NE2 to the people who have just lost the ability to be open-minded.
I'd much rather read an NE2 post than a post from roadman65 or one of the other pariahs on the board (I'm not picking on roadman65, I just know that his posts are seen by many as annoying and unnecessary.) Would I ban roadman65 if I were in charge of this forum? Hell no. His frustrating posts add color to the forum, which was my intention for the TFO post. I'd also rather read an NE2 or a roadman65 post than see pictures of the toilet that Brian556 shit all over. NE2 brings a needed levity to the forum and I enjoy his posts. Some might be offended by a NE2 post but I laugh my ass off at some of them. Another thing is that I often enjoy posts made by guys that I don't have a favorable opinion on than boring posts made by my friends.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 18, 2015, 04:20:21 PM
"Do us all a favor" is an example of something you have to be careful with. MTR regulars and anyone who's been to a roadmeet with them would recognize it as a meme from the old days (yes, it's a meme). Someone who wasn't around for those days would not get the reference and it would just seem gratuitously rude.
It got some conversations started and educated some members of this forum about the older days of the community they might have missed.
Let me clear something up: I have made some comments about certain posters' ages. I'm not intending to pick on the younger members of the forum. In fact some of my good friends who are in the community are half my age. Molandfreak, who has posted in this thread, is an awesome guy who I consider a friend and I wouldn't know he was as young as he is just by reading his posts or talking to him on Facebook or the chat. It's not the age that I have a problem with, it's the maturity level (which is ironic because I'm about as mature as a 5 year old when it comes to certain things).
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 18, 2015, 01:49:49 PM
As far as your TFO example goes, there's no doubt that many people love posts like that...and they jump on the bandwagon to express it. There's an equal amount if not more that hate those posts. Those people will stay silent though. Bring it back to MTR...when enough silent people have enough of it, they leave, and the entire forum goes down with it, because it's just a bunch of punches against each other, rather than interesting and enlightening conversation.
I would like to see some evidence that this is indeed the case or if you're just guessing.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 18, 2015, 04:20:21 PM
Another thing to keep in mind is that some of our posters are here on a professional basis. The main example is, of course, our resident AHTD rep. Someone in such a position might come across a "Do us all a favor" or likewise and wonder what sort of cesspool they have gotten themselves into.
I think Scott (AHTD) hates me because I have had to correct him several times and because I whine about Arkansas' refusal to sign 'plexed highways. I don't intend to be a dick but sometimes it comes out that way. I'm a blunt person, both online and in person. I'm known for saying inappropriate things in inappropriate settings. It's all a matter of perspective.
Quote from: bandit957 on June 18, 2015, 04:37:18 PM
Anyone remember "Gillespie from Florida" on MTR?
Yes! I heard it was Sherman running that troll.
Quote from: hbelkins on June 18, 2015, 04:30:36 PM
I didn't see the TFO-type post that got deleted, but I never thought TFO was offensive or a bully or anything like that. Tom brought a dose of self-deprecation and levity to MTR, and the only person I think he ever caused any consternation for was Pete Jenior, who happened to share a last name and a home state with Tom. Pete named his son Thomas, which prompted a lot of us who are friends with him on Facebook, to post TFO references. He deleted them, saying he didn't want to have to explain the whole TFO saga to his non-roadgeek friends. Nobody could ever really take a flame from TFO seriously. It took him a couple of years to get around to me, and even then, it was a half-hearted flame.
Naming TFO "Tom Jenior" was never intended to be an insult to Pete. The reason I picked that as his last name is because of this post to MTR:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/misc.transport.road/mrpete$20pete$20jenior/misc.transport.road/I8fcpFl1fuo/06vuRy9i_wYJ
"Just thought that I would announce that my real name is Pete Jenior. Jenior
in pronounced "jen-yer" (like the girl's name, followed by a redneck
pronunciation of the word "your"). By the way, my grandpa had never been
able to find anyone in this country named "Jenior" who is not related to my
family. If any of you never figured it out, "mrpete" represents Mr. Pete."
I found this post unnecessary but hilarious and decided to make a parody of it:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/misc.transport.road/TOM$20JENIOR$20real$20name/misc.transport.road/E10rqh4bQFA/OUJAUleJYFoJ
"Just thought that I would announce that my real name is Tom Jenior. Jenior
in pronounced jen-yer (like the girl's name, followed by a redneck
pronunciation of the word your). By the way, my grandpa had never been
able to find anyone in this country named Jenior who is not related to my
family. If any of you never figured it out, Tom From Ohio represents Tom From Ohio."
The name stuck. I meant no harm to the real Jenior when I posted it. He was known for making silly posts and TFO's post was merely satire. If I caused Pete any stress or anything then I apologize. I still can't believe he named his kid Tom but maybe Tom will grow up to be president or something.
Quote from: bugo on June 18, 2015, 06:20:57 PM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 18, 2015, 01:49:49 PM
Those people will stay silent though.
I would like to see some evidence that this is indeed the case or if you're just guessing.
I've been looking in at this thread occasionally but decided that posting was pointless. This comment seemed like a direct invitation, though.
While I haven't been a consistently active contributor to the online roadgeek community over my history within it, I'm no kid and no newcomer. I vividly recall those '90s days when my searches for highway information would lead me to sites like Andy's Highway Kick-Off Page, James Lin's ViaGuide (when it was still on caltech.edu), and Jeff Kitsko's prototypical site on AOL. And I remember the buzz about something called "misc.transport.road" –although I didn't post. Why? Because I was a young teenager without a driver's license, a digital camera, or any insider knowledge, so I had nothing to new to offer. When I finally did make it to a roadgeek meet (SWPA Fall 2004), I had a blast.
When it comes to my participation in the online roadgeek community, my position is this: If I have information, photos, etc. that I think others will find interesting, I'll post them. And if others are offering information or photos I'm interested in, I'll gladly accept them with thanks.
That's the beginning and the end of it. I'm not looking to be amused by the post; the entertainment value is the content. Nor am I using this or any other forum as a venue for my performance art. I've watched in disappointment as countless threads went down the tubes in political flame wars, pissing matches, or snark fests. Perhaps entertaining for some, but a huge tune-out factor–at least for me, and perhaps many others.
I'm no stranger to mean-spirited meta- and anti-humor. I have the ticket stubs from Neil Hamburger and Phil Hendrie shows to prove that. But that's not why I come here.
Frankly I find TFO and other things of its ilk (including things like people thread-crapping to troll particular people they want to nitpick or bully rather than say something useful about the post in question, or gratuitous insults hurled at individuals for no apparent reason except because the poster can) rather tiresome and immature. And while the occasional post like that can be mildly amusing, too much of it will drive off people who are interested in the forum for its substantive content rather than an opportunity to reenact the Monty Python "Argument Room" sketch on a daily basis. I get enough of that crap from my job, but at least I'm paid to tolerate it there.
I get that some people can be a little anal about things, and maybe they need to lighten up or search the forum before posting duplicate topics or shouldn't be cataloging the minute differences in the shades of green used on BGSes by various DOTs or whatever, but at some level I'd rather be part of a forum with a reasonably high signal/noise ratio with a few eccentrics that aren't really that annoying and at least are earnest than one where everyone feels the need to out-insult each other and the rest of us have to killfile half the regulars to actually enjoy the place, which is what MTR devolved to back in the day.
I can't believe this thing is still online: http://mtrlog2.pitas.com/year2001.html
Quote from: kurumi on June 19, 2015, 01:33:30 AM
I can't believe this thing is still online: http://mtrlog2.pitas.com/year2001.html
I'm just glad my name only got dragged into that thing once, and only to call someone else out for their apparent lack of manners in addressing a post of mine. :)
Quote from: Zeffy on June 18, 2015, 11:07:20 AM
Okay... let's try this whole thing again.
Look, Jeremy, I have nothing but respect for you in how you have been a major player in the roadgeeking community. I'm aware of your past thanks to conversations with Alex. I did not mean any malice in my moderation - I truly didn't. You're right that I'm very - I guess "out of touch" would be the right way to phrase this - with the older MTR members here. I wasn't part of that era, and I'm certainly not trying to act like I ever was. So maybe I have overstepped a bit deleting your posts that are nostalgic of MTR.
But what I want to mention to you is what you may find funny, others may find hurtful. One of my best friends, who was different like every other human being, was made fun of repeatedly on social media and at school. It hurt me to see him so depressed. Well, the comments were a bit more profane than the ones you posted, but the premise of the posts was to insult and hate. Luckily I got him help before he did anything extremely drastic, but that's why I'm so adamant in not letting trolling get to an extreme. We're from different generations for sure, but my reasons are a bit more personal, such as your posts are reminiscent of the old road community.
I'm a forgiveful person. It does not take much for me to reconcile our differences. If you have a problem with me, then please discuss it with me privately. I'd really rather not get blasted in public. It's just a bit rude honestly. I am open and willing to change, and if you want to explain the history of MTR to me, then I will listen. If your posts are intended to make others laugh, that's fine, but I just don't want anyone to feel genuinely offended by them.
As Andy has said, I appreciate all of your contributions to the road community, and I have read your blog, and I think I might've even found an archive of your site, in addition to helping to found this amazing community. I don't wish to have this kind of animosity between us. I understand that I'm a very new person here, one that is very humbled to be a moderator in the first place. I only wish to help Alex, Andy, Brent, and everyone else make this site the best place for the road enthusiast. I am not trying to kill that history. I also want this place to be a place that everyone can enjoy without being subjected to hateful comments. It's a hard balance to strike, for sure, but I know Alex has commended me on my job as well as my effort into helping modernize AARoads' site.
Is there hope for a truce between us? If need be, I will delegate more of my actions to the other moderators before I take any actions if I am truly overstepping my boundaries. But this petty fighting doesn't help anybody.
I have zero interest in being your friend. Let me let you in on a little secret: MANY members of this forum do not like you. I know that many members of this forum dislike me but I don't care. I kind of enjoy being hated.
I'm coming out of the closet. I ran one of the MTRLogs. I'm not going to reveal which one it was. but I reckon some of you can figure it out.
Quote from: bugo on June 19, 2015, 03:43:45 AM
Quote from: Zeffy on June 18, 2015, 11:07:20 AM
Is there hope for a truce between us? If need be, I will delegate more of my actions to the other moderators before I take any actions if I am truly overstepping my boundaries. But this petty fighting doesn't help anybody.
I have zero interest in being your friend. Let me let you in on a little secret: MANY members of this forum do not like you. I know that many members of this forum dislike me but I don't care. I kind of enjoy being hated.
He asked for a truce. Not a friendship. And while I don't know about what people chat privately, but I'm quite sure you don't speak for the other members. Personally, I never even really took notice of you and your comments until your constant sneering on this topic came about.