Your Favorite Forum Quotes

[Rothman]

MTR isn't worth remembering.  Calrog alone was enough to discredit it has some sort of halcyon era.

It's funny how every community eventually develops its own mythology. I imagine someone, years from now, could say something similar about AARoads. Hopefully we keep things healthy enough that no one ever feels that way

Pfft.  AARoads has had a "brain drain."  A lot of actual experts in the field that were once active on here or m
t.r. have bolted.  From my discussions with them IRL, there's just too much chaff and misinformation to sift through.  The forum is just not as resourceful as it once was and they just don't consider the cost of even perusing the forum to be worth it any longer.

In other words, the forum is really no longer considered a good resource for information or even a place for constructive discussion about reality, and hasn't been for some time.

We're already there.

The overwhelming reasons people leave forums and discussion groups is because (1) lives move on/change (2) marriage/kids/family (3) bored (4) have other interests (5) job takes up time (6) they're just roads...a means to other ends which are sometimes more enjoyable.

Noticing that a lot of long-timers leave or have rarely come back...a lot of things in their lives have changed and sometimes there's just only so much to say. There's already been lots of ground covered in the last 30 years of collective knowledge, and anything new is mostly of limited interest or gathers useful information at a glacial pace, since that's how long these large-scale projects take.

There's also a sense that lots of personal information is sucked and scraped up and compiled and less apt to share it quite as publicly compared to 10-20 years ago on forums. The shiny new toys of social media and chat opens doors but closes others, which has been The Way of the Internet.

tl;dr how many times do we need to talk about Breezewood?

Sure, but...see bolded...

Might also add that they have matured beyond arguing with the insistently incorrect, unlike me.  "Not worth the time since no one that matters cares about what's said on here and I've got real work/fun to do" is the mentality.

[kphoger]

Might also add that they have matured ... unlike me.

I had considering asking what your previous statement said about those of us who've remained.  But then you told us anyway. 

[Max Rockatansky]

I didn't even realize Jake "was" here until I was on the forum for about a year.  I have known Jake through signage trading since the early 2000s. 

He held the top spot for number of posts for quite some time even after he drifted away.  I think HB and I were the first two to finally move above him in the list.

That's what surprised me.  I recognized his user name because that's what his eBay account was also called. 

[kphoger]

IIRC, he described the reason he left somewhat like this:  He got what he needed from the forum.

[Takumi]

I don't get nearly as angry since I did this:

[Max Rockatansky]

IIRC, he described the reason he left somewhat like this:  He got what he needed from the forum.

I never bothered to ask him.  He was always kind of an abstract thinker and no explanation would have surprised me. 

What did surprise me was seeing him settle down in New England.  I remember that whole desert property thing he was on all about for a while.  I never expected him to move out east after that. 

[Beltway]

AARoads has had a "brain drain." 

the forum is really no longer considered a good resource

AARoads has always been a hobbyist forum, not a professional venue for engineers or planners. That's a very different culture from MTR, which mixed enthusiasts with people who worked in the field and encouraged long‑form technical discussion. AARoads was built as a lighter, more conversational space, and it's stayed that way. Most of the long‑timers who drifted away did so for ordinary life‑cycle reasons, not because the forum "collapsed." Expecting AARoads to function like MTR did is a category error -- it's an enthusiast community, and it works best when treated as one.

[kphoger]

From my discussions with them IRL, there's just too much chaff and misinformation to sift through.  The forum is just not as resourceful as it once was and they just don't consider the cost of even perusing the forum to be worth it any longer.

Most of the long‑timers who drifted away did so for ordinary life‑cycle reasons, not because the forum "collapsed."

I think you should settle this by a thumb-wrestling match.

[Max Rockatansky]

MTR isn't worth remembering.  Calrog alone was enough to discredit it has some sort of halcyon era.

It's funny how every community eventually develops its own mythology. I imagine someone, years from now, could say something similar about AARoads. Hopefully we keep things healthy enough that no one ever feels that way

Pfft.  AARoads has had a "brain drain."  A lot of actual experts in the field that were once active on here or m
t.r. have bolted.  From my discussions with them IRL, there's just too much chaff and misinformation to sift through.  The forum is just not as resourceful as it once was and they just don't consider the cost of even perusing the forum to be worth it any longer.

In other words, the forum is really no longer considered a good resource for information or even a place for constructive discussion about reality, and hasn't been for some time.

We're already there.

The overwhelming reasons people leave forums and discussion groups is because (1) lives move on/change (2) marriage/kids/family (3) bored (4) have other interests (5) job takes up time (6) they're just roads...a means to other ends which are sometimes more enjoyable.

Noticing that a lot of long-timers leave or have rarely come back...a lot of things in their lives have changed and sometimes there's just only so much to say. There's already been lots of ground covered in the last 30 years of collective knowledge, and anything new is mostly of limited interest or gathers useful information at a glacial pace, since that's how long these large-scale projects take.

There's also a sense that lots of personal information is sucked and scraped up and compiled and less apt to share it quite as publicly compared to 10-20 years ago on forums. The shiny new toys of social media and chat opens doors but closes others, which has been The Way of the Internet.

tl;dr how many times do we need to talk about Breezewood?

Sure, but...see bolded...

Might also add that they have matured beyond arguing with the insistently incorrect, unlike me.  "Not worth the time since no one that matters cares about what's said on here and I've got real work/fun to do" is the mentality.

A lot of the hobby mainstream is pretty confined to the east coast and a handful of specific states.  There is something to be said that the bottom of the barrel has almost been fully scraped in a lot of states regarding numbered highways. 

Here in California there isn't a lot of really big discoveries that come out nowadays for the state highway system.  A lot of my own focus with the numbered stuff has shifted to Nevada.  The pre-1976 Nevada State Highway System might as well be virgin territory for research purposes.  I just wish that I had more time and access like I once did to New Mexico for similar reasons.

Speaking for myself, I still get out onto roads pretty much to a similar extent as I did two decades ago.  Thing is that I have wife who is supportive of road stuff and I have a bunch of local friends who participate in what I do.  The fact that four of us thought it was a good idea to head out to somewhere like Kaiser Pass Road with multiple vehicles on a whim last weekend probably says a lot.   

[formulanone]

I didn't even realize Jake "was" here until I was on the forum for about a year.  I have known Jake through signage trading since the early 2000s. 

He held the top spot for number of posts for quite some time even after he drifted away.  I think HB and I were the first two to finally move above him in the list.

I just looked at the list for the first time in years, and I almost can't believe I have more posts than Jake and almost as many as Alps at this point.

[Beltway]

Most of the long‑timers who drifted away did so for ordinary life‑cycle reasons, not because the forum "collapsed."

I think you should settle this by a thumb-wrestling match.

It has been 30 years since the beginning. Numbers of professionals (and non) have retired and some are deceased.

[Beltway]

I didn't even realize Jake "was" here until I was on the forum for about a year.  I have known Jake through signage trading since the early 2000s. 

He held the top spot for number of posts for quite some time even after he drifted away.  I think HB and I were the first two to finally move above him in the list.

I just looked at the list for the first time in years, and I almost can't believe I have more posts than Jake and almost as many as Alps at this point.

I was the top poster by far on misc.transport.road. The Deja News later Google archive could be used to determine that.

And . . . so what? Post count interests me not at all.

[kphoger]

And . . . so what? Post count interests me not at all.

It was just anecdotal, to show how someone who used to be king of the forum just kind of drifted away because life happened and the forum no longer served his needs.

[Max Rockatansky]

And . . . so what? Post count interests me not at all.

It was just anecdotal, to show how someone who used to be king of the forum just kind of drifted away because life happened and the forum no longer served his needs.

Anecdotal as it may be I don't really see Jake or Alps as being all that removed from the hobby.  Jake is still a big player in the signage game and Alps Roads is regularly updated.  It would be more accurate to say one is gone from the forum and other isn't here nearly as much as they used to be.

[Rothman]

"Long-form technical discussion on m.t.r"= "Counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor..."

You're just furthering their points...

[Max Rockatansky]

I remember stumbling upon MTR in the early 2000s and seeing things like what Rothman just said.  They pretty much made me conclude that MTR wasn't my bag.  There was a still a lot of Overlanding, sign collecting and Sports Touring pages active in that era that were more enjoyable.

[Beltway]

"Long-form technical discussion on m.t.r"= "Counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor..."
You're just furthering their points...

Where did anyone say anything about metaphors?

[vdeane]

Pfft.  AARoads has had a "brain drain."  A lot of actual experts in the field that were once active on here or m
t.r. have bolted.  From my discussions with them IRL, there's just too much chaff and misinformation to sift through.  The forum is just not as resourceful as it once was and they just don't consider the cost of even perusing the forum to be worth it any longer.

In other words, the forum is really no longer considered a good resource for information or even a place for constructive discussion about reality, and hasn't been for some time.

We're already there.

I'm curious where they get their fix for roadgeek discussion/news, especially as I'm only aware of the Facebook groups, and many of those are just as bad (if not worse, given the complaining here about a couple of them).  I even remember when "there is no Mario Cuomo bridge, capice?" and "bikey-wikey" were memes.

Heck, it even seems to have affected roadmeets, given the comments I saw as to why there are no longer annual meets in Ontario.  Apparently the Canadian roadgeeks were offended by how us Americans acted at the Toronto meet.

AARoads has always been a hobbyist forum, not a professional venue for engineers or planners. That's a very different culture from MTR, which mixed enthusiasts with people who worked in the field and encouraged long‑form technical discussion. AARoads was built as a lighter, more conversational space, and it's stayed that way. Most of the long‑timers who drifted away did so for ordinary life‑cycle reasons, not because the forum "collapsed." Expecting AARoads to function like MTR did is a category error -- it's an enthusiast community, and it works best when treated as one.

Are you saying that MTR was a professional forum for expert discussions on viatology?

I was the top poster by far on misc.transport.road. The Deja News later Google archive could be used to determine that.

And . . . so what? Post count interests me not at all.

I don't believe Google Groups has stat pages, so you'd have to have some kind of interest to have figured that out.  Unless you're just guesstimating.  And given the number of people who set their posts to not be archived, I'm not sure how one would make a conclusive determination.

[cahwyguy]

Here in California there isn't a lot of really big discoveries that come out nowadays for the state highway system.  A lot of my own focus with the numbered stuff has shifted to Nevada.  The pre-1976 Nevada State Highway System might as well be virgin territory for research purposes.  I just wish that I had more time and access like I once did to New Mexico for similar reasons.

I'll jump in a bit as one of the "old-timers" -- my site goes back to the mid-1990s, and I was on Usenet before the big renaming there, when m.t.r was created (I was behind la.eats at the time, and was a moderator on a number of groups).

I tend to confine myself here to the Pacific Southwest forum, as I'm not interested in the other chatter or other states. I'm primarily focusing on finding new information for my site; the quality has gone done since Scott Parker passed (sparker) -- he had a lot of insights that the newer "kids" don't have. Why did we ever let AOL folks on :-).

I'm still finding new historical stuff on California Highways, especially as I review what I had on my site and do deep dives into maps as background research for my podcasts. I use AARoads to post my highway headlines (often sparking discussion), my website update notes, and announcements of new podcasts (look in late August for a discussion with the founders of Gribblenation).

Supposedly reddit is the USENET of today, but I've never explored the road forums there. I don't quite have the patience to deal with the clueless newbies that I expect on there, and based on my recent experience with a post in /r/banking, a lot of the folks there think they are perfect and know the answers, and don't hesitate to tell others that. I don't need that.

[Max Rockatansky]

Here in California there isn't a lot of really big discoveries that come out nowadays for the state highway system.  A lot of my own focus with the numbered stuff has shifted to Nevada.  The pre-1976 Nevada State Highway System might as well be virgin territory for research purposes.  I just wish that I had more time and access like I once did to New Mexico for similar reasons.

I'll jump in a bit as one of the "old-timers" -- my site goes back to the mid-1990s, and I was on Usenet before the big renaming there, when m.t.r was created (I was behind la.eats at the time, and was a moderator on a number of groups).

I tend to confine myself here to the Pacific Southwest forum, as I'm not interested in the other chatter or other states. I'm primarily focusing on finding new information for my site; the quality has gone done since Scott Parker passed (sparker) -- he had a lot of insights that the newer "kids" don't have. Why did we ever let AOL folks on :-).

I'm still finding new historical stuff on California Highways, especially as I review what I had on my site and do deep dives into maps as background research for my podcasts. I use AARoads to post my highway headlines (often sparking discussion), my website update notes, and announcements of new podcasts (look in late August for a discussion with the founders of Gribblenation).

Supposedly reddit is the USENET of today, but I've never explored the road forums there. I don't quite have the patience to deal with the clueless newbies that I expect on there, and based on my recent experience with a post in /r/banking, a lot of the folks there think they are perfect and know the answers, and don't hesitate to tell others that. I don't need that.

From how people in this hobby describe Reddit I don't think that's a place for me. 

Regarding the state highway system in California it isn't a desert of finding out new things per se.  I'm finding that they are often fairly small in scale regarding things like previous unknown alignments or clarified historical timelines (which can overall paint a really big picture).  You know me, I certainly do like digging into older alignments and specific communities quite a bit. 

Highway history has always been something I've been interested in.  I don't necessarily think that the road enthusiast hobby really does that history aspect overall consistently well though.  You can learn so much via through stuff like the AASHTO database or state highway bienniums. 

The big discoveries I'm referring to are things like the plans for I-70, the real original terminus of US 66 and maybe even stuff like the Trans-Sierra Highway proposals.  Those come up now and then, but not as frequently as even a decade ago. 

But you're right, losing Sparker is a blow that Pacific Southwest has never fully recovered from.  A lot of what he said was conjecture-like in nature but often turned out to be accurate after researching.

[kphoger]

Here in California there isn't a lot of really big discoveries that come out ...

... now that everyone knows where Route 66 ended.

[Max Rockatansky]

Here in California there isn't a lot of really big discoveries that come out ...

... now that everyone knows where Route 66 ended.

Yeah, that was one of the biggest discoveries that came out of the AASHTO database in general.  The hobby mainstream accepted pretty readily but the real challenge was breaking down the US 66 fan clubs.  The momentum for making that common knowledge didn't really gain traction until several road pages ran with the Fletcher Drive terminus (our page, Cahighways and USends come to mind).

[kphoger]

breaking down the US 66 fan clubs

In my mind, that has been your #1 accomplishment since I've known you on here.  Of course, it might also be the biggest punch to the gut if more information ever came along to disprove your conclusion.

[Max Rockatansky]

breaking down the US 66 fan clubs

In my mind, that has been your #1 accomplishment since I've known you on here.  Of course, it might also be the biggest punch to the gut if more information ever came along to disprove your conclusion.

There is still a 3 year gap between 1931 and 1934 in Los Angeles which we don't know a lot about.  How 66 got from Fletcher Drive to Broadway wasn't in the AASHTO database.  I hope to find out what was going on during those years eventually.

[cahwyguy]

Here in California there isn't a lot of really big discoveries that come out ...

... now that everyone knows where Route 66 ended.

It isn't even stuff like 66. I'll give a good example. I'm doing the background research for the podcast episode on Route 17 in California. In the San Jose area, in the period between 1962 and 1968, there was a tremendous changing and moving of routes between Route 17, the future I-680, the future I-280, Sign Route 238, LRN 5 and numerous other routes as they were figuring out how to route everything in that area. I've rewritten a bunch of that stuff for my pages; it will be in the next round of updates.

I'm working on Route 18 now. Again, there's stuff I'm just figuring out on the periphery. For example, was Sign Route 30 ever signed W of Euclid. Did LRN 190 ever move E from Mountain? All of the routings of Sign Route 18, US 66, LRN 43, LRN 190, LRN 26 in San Bernardino. How did the move from Sierra Way to Waterman work, and when. These are all details that the state highway maps and such don't show in detail.

So there is plenty of work and research to be done. However, on the forums here, it seems like folks would rather argue over whether the I-40 designation must be extended W to I-5, or whether Route 99 should be interstate in the central valley. That doesn't interest me at all. Wake me up when something really happens between Caltrans and AASHTO.

But if folks have real history insight, I'd love to hear it.