The Rise and Fall of MTR

[hbelkins]

I've said before that I think Usenet would still be thriving if so many providers hadn't chosen to handle the anti-child porn efforts by totally dumping Usenet instead of blocking the offending binary groups.

Honestly, for all the crap that shows up on m.t.r, I still prefer it to just about any other forum. There's no moderation except for your own decisions to not read or killfile, there's no censorship or removal of posts, and there's no banning of posters.

And I say this as the current moderator of "Roadgeek..."

[Beltway]

I've said before that I think Usenet would still be thriving if so many providers hadn't chosen to handle the anti-child porn efforts by totally dumping Usenet instead of blocking the offending binary groups.

Honestly, for all the crap that shows up on m.t.r, I still prefer it to just about any other forum. There's no moderation except for your own decisions to not read or killfile, there's no censorship or removal of posts, and there's no banning of posters.

MTR is a sewer, and has been for at least 5 years. 

It's like junior high culture on steroids.

[Alps]

I've said before that I think Usenet would still be thriving if so many providers hadn't chosen to handle the anti-child porn efforts by totally dumping Usenet instead of blocking the offending binary groups.

Honestly, for all the crap that shows up on m.t.r, I still prefer it to just about any other forum. There's no moderation except for your own decisions to not read or killfile, there's no censorship or removal of posts, and there's no banning of posters.

And I say this as the current moderator of "Roadgeek..."

The irony of posting this and then coming back to edit it.

[Duke87]

There are definitely sites that are overmoderated, or have too many silly rules, but no moderation whatsoever is a bit too much of the opposite extreme. The ideal forum is loose enough for people to have fun but has enough authority to get rid of unpleasant individuals and keep fights from getting out of control.

I never got into MTR because it was a bit too "wild west" for my liking.

[D-Dey65]

I'd like to retrieve many of my old posts from MTR.

[hbelkins]

I've said before that I think Usenet would still be thriving if so many providers hadn't chosen to handle the anti-child porn efforts by totally dumping Usenet instead of blocking the offending binary groups.

Honestly, for all the crap that shows up on m.t.r, I still prefer it to just about any other forum. There's no moderation except for your own decisions to not read or killfile, there's no censorship or removal of posts, and there's no banning of posters.

And I say this as the current moderator of "Roadgeek..."

The irony of posting this and then coming back to edit it.

Sometimes I hit "post" too soon. 

[Scott5114]

The ideal forum is loose enough for people to have fun but has enough authority to get rid of unpleasant individuals and keep fights from getting out of control.

This is exactly the happy medium we are shooting for. I hope that the community feels that we are hitting that mark, and that you guys will speak up if we go too far one way or the other.

[flowmotion]

But, as far as I know, the roadgeek world didn't have a web message board until AARoads started this forum.

Not quite the case.  Several road-related groups on Yahoogroups were established, one as early as 1999.  The ones I used to follow were all established by 2003.

Yup, I remember those. However I never liked the Yahoo Group interface - it was like the worst combination of being text message-based and web-based.

And MTR's problems were just MTR's ... Most usenet groups went through similar issues because a handful of dedicated nutcases could destroy a group without any consequences. (Moderation here seems great - very light touch, unless you mangle your quotes, in which case they slap you with a slice of baloney.  )

[Alps]

This is exactly the happy medium we are shooting for. I hope that the community feels that we are hitting that mark, and that you guys will speak up if we go too far one way or the other.

And please let us know if there are certain users who you consider unpleasant. We probably already agree.