The history of the online road community

[Scott5114]

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.

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 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, which sells plastic 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.

[bugo]

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

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

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

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.

[bugo]

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.

[bugo]

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.

[bugo]

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.

[Brandon]

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.

[formulanone]

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.

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.

[bugo]

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.

[Pete from Boston]

In my day, things were better.

[nexus73]

"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

Rick

[bugo]

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.

[andy3175]

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.

[bugo]

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.

[Zeffy]

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.

[US71]

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?

[J N Winkler]

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.

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.

[bugo]

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

[jeffandnicole]

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.

[Scott5114]

"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.

[hbelkins]

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.

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.

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).

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.

[bandit957]

Anyone remember "Gillespie from Florida" on MTR?

[J N Winkler]

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.

I'm still waiting for mine.

There 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.

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.

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.

[bugo]

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.

[bugo]

"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.

[bugo]

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).