Your Favorite Forum Quotes

[Max Rockatansky]

That's the phenomenon of small discoveries leading to a cumulative big picture I was referring to a couple posts ago.  Even now, after all these years I'm finding small State Highway realignments for corridors like 180.  They aren't big as standalone discoveries but size up considerably when all of them are combined. 

I think the phenomenon you're seeing with the podcast scripts is similar to what I felt when I was building our library for California state highways on Gribblenation.  There are so many resources available for this state that there is almost always something new to find if you commit time to research.

[Beltway]

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). 

FreewayJim has very large membership and ranges nationwide, plenty of high content, and is well run. Northeast Roads and Southeast Roads are low volume and also high content and well run. There are many regional groups.

There are agency pages as in VDOT, MDOT, PennDOT, MDTA, and so on. Also project pages like HRBT Expansion and Key Bridge Rebuild and so on.

Tons of pages on Facebook.

All kinds of highway material pops up on YouTube as well.

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?

No -- that there were numbers of active transportation professionals that contributed regularly.

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.

Google Groups didn't have stat pages, but that didn't matter. It was still trivial to determine high‑volume posters because you could search by email address and sort by group. As of 2010, when m.t.r activity collapsed, it was easy to see total post counts for any e‑mail address. And I don't recall any of the high‑volume posters using X‑No‑Archive, so the dataset was effectively complete for the people who posted the most. A portion of my own posting footprint came from Deja News and then Google Groups after they took over the archive in 2001, so I had a clear sense of who was and wasn't archiving (there were not many).

[Max Rockatansky]

A lot of members here don't exactly have glowing praise for FWJ (personally I think it is okay).  It's leveled off lately but they had a significant Buc-ee's fever issue that felt very Calrog-like.  A lot of us other group admins think (myself included) think Jim is too fussy over photo quality standards. 

Southeast Roads is a Gribblenation Facebook group.  Truth be told I think many of our groups are redundant or too niche.  The reason you don't see much activity is because most people have moved to posting on FWJ or Roadgeekery. 

FWJ and Roadgeekery are the closest Facebook analogs to the forum.  Even still, they are mostly about photos and videos versus actual serious highway information.  There are some groups like Old Highway 101 (one of my groups), California's Historic Highways and Freeways of Los Angeles that have a historical slant.  Trouble is that they are usually that are tied to very specific topics and/or roads. 

The reality with the Facebook realm is that it requires you be a member of numerous road groups.  Lately my favorites have been Dirt Roads and California Overlanders.  They aren't exactly cerebral but they are more often than not actually fun.  Getting ideas from people who having fun driving is satisfactory for me.

[Rothman]

FWJ definitely has calmed down somewhat recently, but it was absolutely terrible about 1+ years ago.  Sort of has swung the other way to "I found this picture online and claiming it as my own" mundanity.

[Max Rockatansky]

FWJ definitely has calmed down somewhat recently, but it was absolutely terrible about 1+ years ago.  Sort of has swung the other way to "I found this picture online and claiming it as my own" mundanity.

Heh, the guy who was really guilty of that recently rejoined with a new profile.  I recognized him and denied his join requests to our groups. 

[hbelkins]

RE: the piling-on of Calrog on m.t.r:

I used to take part in it, then OSTT was born. I don't remember who came up with it -- the late David "US 71" Backlin, perhaps -- but once you realized that Calrog was an attention prostitute who was vain enough and puffed-up with self-importance to actually pay PRWeb to promote his site, it was easier to just ignore his lame posts and not respond to them. I can't remember if OSTT stood for "Operation Starve the Troll" or "Operation Silence the Troll," however.

To me, the biggest blight on m.t.r. was not Calrog, but Randy Hersh and his various identities. He just couldn't help himself but to spew his racism all over Usenet.

I remember a number of feuds that broke out there -- our own Beltway vs. John Lansford, Bob Chessick vs. C.C. "Otto Yamamoto" Slater, and others -- and I even had some heated back-and-forths with the aforementioned US 71, Jeremy Lance, and a handful of others -- but Hersh is the only one whom I found really revolting. Carl Rogers was just the village idiot; easy to ignore and forever deserving of ridicule.

There are a lot of people who were m.t.r. staples who either never appeared here, or have a very limited footprint. Jim Georges is one, Gene Van Dusseldorp is another. They're quite active on Facebook, but if they have accounts here, I'm unaware of them.

Given the reports I've heard of people being banned from Reddit, I don't think that's a forum that would be worthwhile. Despite the presence of people like Calrog and Hersh, I still favor the unmoderated flavor of discussion found on m.t.r. The killfile was your friend if used judiciously.

[Max Rockatansky]

Jim (of FWJ) does have a profile here but hasn't logged on in years.

[Beltway]

To me, the biggest blight on m.t.r. was not Calrog, but Randy Hersh and his various identities. He just couldn't help himself but to spew his racism all over Usenet.

I remember a number of feuds that broke out there -- our own Beltway vs. John Lansford, Bob Chessick vs. C.C. "Otto Yamamoto" Slater, and others -- and I even had some heated back-and-forths with the aforementioned US 71, Jeremy Lance, and a handful of others -- but Hersh is the only one whom I found really revolting. Carl Rogers was just the village idiot; easy to ignore and forever deserving of ridicule.

Yes I just ignored Carl Rogers. Annoying but easy to ignore.

There was Larry Gross -- he would get up about 3:00 am (the witching hour) and churn out anywhere from 10 to 50 anti-roads posts by about 6:00 am. I called him Larry Grossbelch.

So all three that I hinted about yesterday have been named.

Despite the presence of people like Calrog and Hersh, I still favor the unmoderated flavor of discussion found on m.t.r. The killfile was your friend if used judiciously.

Unmoderated groups have regulation problems -- but the flamethrower and loon mallet ends up functioning as a kind of equalizer. When anyone can escalate, no one has structural advantage, and the group self‑regulates through deterrence rather than moderation.

[kphoger]

I'm glad I got into this without m.t.r.

[Rothman]

m.t.r was so 20 years ago.

[elsmere241]

I remember a number of feuds that broke out there -- our own Beltway vs. John Lansford, Bob Chessick vs. C.C. "Otto Yamamoto" Slater, and others . . .

I remember one in particular in January 2002 regarding (what else?) the importance, feasibility, etc. of HSR.  Part of the things that exacerbated it was John Lansford and I (we both lived in Raleigh, NC) were snowed in all week.