Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
10b4me
Boulder climber
Somewhere on 395
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 07:05pm PT
|
Oh and as to purpose of this web site? ITS TO SELL GUIDEBOOKS YOU F*#KING MORONS.
you can call names if you like Craig, but your answer is only partially correct.
If Chris just wanted to sell climbing books, he would just be another Chesslers.
But, Chris has also written trip reports, and is now doing gear reviews.
ask yourself why Ammon, E, or T2 don't contribute much. I know that E spends all is free time climbing, but when he does post, he laments the lack of climbing threads.
|
|
Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 07:15pm PT
|
Yes, I am guilty as anybody in not contributing climbing threads.
Jeez, I wish I could do a TR about Ben Nevis ice, or Chamonix (both places I have been but little climbing). It is for the climbing camaraderie that I like.
But some people have tried to shoot me down, and I do not need that. So I am only climbing at HVS/5.9 level nowadays, when the weather permits.
But I have tried to keep my flames at the lowest possible heating point.
I guess I should just shut my mouth and lurk from now on. It's safer, considering how some posters can be mean.
I have enough on my plate than to be judged by some chancers.
|
|
Radish
Trad climber
SeKi, California
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 08:09pm PT
|
All my cyber climbing buddies are here and mostly its easier to read the World's latest headlines here because they are generally more update, specially localy. There is also some sage climbing advice and history to be had from a talent pool of climbing legends bar none! I like it all but maybe there should be a ratio of like 4 climbing to 1 OT?? And, I love reading all the Trip Reports, its lurker dues!
|
|
Risk
Mountain climber
Olympia, WA
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 08:28pm PT
|
The First Amendment rules at any campfire, which this is. With that said, one cannot yell "fire" in a crowded hall either. CM has done a great job keeping moderation to a minimum so as to keep this place relevant, free and curious. I ignore threads that do not interest me, as others should. Just like wandering around the campground - leave those fires where the talk or music is not your style, and chime in at those that are. There are social limits to acceptability of posts, which reach toward yelling "fire" in a crowded hall, but they are rare and blatant. Racism, I think, is one of them. Let CM make the call.
|
|
paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 08:30pm PT
|
i reserve your right to defend my right to agree with you if you open your mouth to say something stupid i'm going to agree with before i think about it...is that ok ? ...wait, i mean my right to disagree with your right to...
|
|
D'Wolf
climber
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 08:42pm PT
|
We're looking at this all wrong. We don't need and "OT Tab" for non-climbing related topics - we need a "Climbing Tab" for climbing related topics.
Leave the forum as it is; don't relegate the 90% content to a seperate tab - relegate the 10% (e.g. climbing topics) to a seperate tab.
|
|
LilaBiene
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 08:45pm PT
|
I've been thinking about this since someone posted a while back asking whether he should allow his son to have an account. Tough call. I'm teaching the muppet about climbing, and we have a lot of fun tooling around in the Trip Reports. If I'm going to peruse the forum (which I've admittedly been doing less lately because of the preponderance of really annoying thread topics), I have to make sure the muppet can't see my screen because I never know what's going to pop up.
That being said, I love irreverence. Always have. And there is so much humor, history and climbing content with both on this site, that this is the place I always come back to...it's like home. This site is in technicolor, whereas the other climbing sites I've visited are in black and white (and boooooooring). This virtual campfire is lively, dynamic and current, and at times goes off course...but that's real, and in part what makes the site compelling.
Could the campfire use a little less bullying? For sure. But I think that ultimately the Tacoans will have to self-censor if they want it to survive as a place where all are welcome, and where their stories will be shared around the campfire for generations to come.
|
|
froodish
Social climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 09:57pm PT
|
As online communities grow, the conventions that used to keep them in check break down. It's inevitable. Happened on usenet and countless forums. When that happens, the need for moderation (admin, user or both) of some kind increases. The sites that handle growth well usually employ a reputation system of some kind that leads to increased site privileges. I think the stack exchange sites have done a particularly good job of designing their rep system, along with a liberal sprinkling of gamification.
I think the S/N ratio of the Supertopo forum would improve tremendously with a user rep system of some kind along with peer voting of posts/threads. Designing and implementing that is a non-trivial task though.
Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky (co-founders of Stack Exchange have both written extensively about online communities, here's one from Jeff:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/12/the-organism-will-do-what-it-damn-well-pleases.html
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 10:12pm PT
|
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT...
Oooooo ..someone got thrown in the campfire..
Ok boys, knock it off now.. Here's a beer, on second thought why don't you go sleep it off.
This has been happening for millenia in real life.
happens here too.
|
|
Risk
Mountain climber
Olympia, WA
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 10:28pm PT
|
The First Amendment rules at any campfire, which this is.
Sorry Former for not being more specific. I wasn't thinking of private property camp fires, I was thinking of a C4 fire. I'm unfamiliar with private KOA rules, etc. Please bring us up to speed on 1st amendment speech restrictions for KOA, etc. CM seems to follow the C4 rule. Am I off base here? ST has been pretty much like a public place (Thx CM). Do you want that to change? I hope not.
|
|
philo
Trad climber
Is that light the end of the tunnel or a train?
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 10:36pm PT
|
On a positive note in the forum future I will be running side bar ads for my new business.
Burkha, Habit and Shroud r Us.
Free Glock 9mm semis for the first 100 customers.
And I promise nary a boob in sight.
|
|
k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 10:36pm PT
|
Please, no Off-Topic tab! That would be the death-Nell to this forum.
I think the S/N ratio of the Supertopo forum would improve tremendously with a user rep system of some kind along with peer voting of posts/threads. Designing and implementing that is a non-trivial task though.
Last time this came up, the idea was floated for some sort of Thumbs Up / Down voting for favorable threads. That would be boss--then we could have a tab for Highest Ranked threads.
My bet, the BOOBs thread would survive at the top for a long time...
|
|
Ropeboy
Trad climber
Fresno CA
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 10:50pm PT
|
Nuke the stuff Chris. I'm tired of all the rants and bickering about non climbing subjects.
|
|
Risk
Mountain climber
Olympia, WA
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2013 - 11:09pm PT
|
CM doesn't follow the C4 rule.
Yeah, but close enough. I think we agree. Keep as-is.
|
|
froodish
Social climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Jan 23, 2013 - 02:18am PT
|
Last time this came up, the idea was floated for some sort of Thumbs Up / Down voting for favorable threads. That would be boss--then we could have a tab for Highest Ranked threads.
I would advocate for something more sophisticated, but, yes, that's what I'm talking about. Harness the collective opinion of the community and you'll increase the S/N ratio. I don't know if any of you have spent any time in any of the Stack Overflow venues, (and this forum is not a perfect fit for that mold as it is more chaotic by nature) but it's quite effective.
I noticed a couple of years ago that most of my technical leaning google inquiries were answered by one of the Stack Exchange sites. That prodded me to join and find out how they were getting such a consistently high S/N ratio. I have to say, the system they designed and continually evolve is impressive.
I think a similar system for the supertopo forum would increase the quality of the material significantly.
|
|
Captain...or Skully
climber
|
|
|
Jan 23, 2013 - 02:32am PT
|
Chris don't follow much. That guy leads. If you know him, you know his style. I rather admire his mostly hands off approach. I can dig it.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Jan 23, 2013 - 05:06am PT
|
At present, thread "popularity" operates as a pretty "free market economy." Active threads percolate to the top, while less active threads are displaced.
There are three primary issues here, I believe, that are keeping strictly climbing-related threads from not percolating better. The first is pretty self-evident upon reflection. The second is theoretical and bears some investigation. The third derives from self-reflection, yet I believe that it is virtually self-evident upon reflection of thread activity.
1) Most climbing threads provide "benefits" without active response. Read and enjoy the thread (especially the pictures), and you're done. Your "engagement" does not depend upon posting (and thereby adding upward motility to the thread). By contrast, people "engaging" with the off-topic threads, such as political, "benefit" BY discussing; hence the "engagement" IS active posting rather than merely passive reading. There are many motivations here, but they are almost irrelevant, as addressing this problem doesn't depend upon motivation.
2) It could be that the many/most active off-topic posters are non-climbers (I mean people that rarely, if ever, climb or have climbed). Such people would garner little "benefit" from more-active climbing-related threads, so would (could) not participate in them by posting.
3) Young, active climbers will necessarily hold climbing as a higher percentage of their life interest than will aging, less-active or inactive climbers. Climbing used to consume probably 70% of my waking thoughts and many of my dream-states. Today it is probably more like 10%. I do still climb, and I'm an active lurker in many climbing threads. Yet, I also find myself much more interested in economic, scientific, religious, and political issues than I did when I was a "young anarchist" just climbing. Yet, as I said upthread, I still find value in threads on these "off" topics of interest that are discussed by climbers. So, as I said upthread, I still see these "off-topics" as really on-topic BECAUSE they are prosecuted by climbers on a climbing forum.
I realize that (2) and (3) could well be in conflict, which I will address momentarily.
Since it is posting rather than merely reading that causes threads to percolate higher, either of the mentioned points would naturally cause non-climbing-related threads to "rule" the low-numbered pages of threads.
Put any two together, and the effect is dramatic and at least what we actually see. There could well be other causative factors here, but these points alone can explain thread-popularity as we presently see it.
Solutions?
1) A simple change would be to rank threads by some reads/writes metric rather than by writes alone. This one change would give actual climbers a stronger influence on making climbing threads percolate up, and that by doing nothing more than what it is claimed we climbers want: to READ the climbing threads!
2) It should not be hard to ensure that posting privileges be granted to only climbers (past or present). There is some "monitoring" overhead in screening applicants to grant posting privileges to only those that actually DO have climbing history (present awesomeness need not be necessary, as long as present aging folk were once active climbers). However, that level of "monitoring" would be a small fraction of the effort required to actively "tweak" thread activity itself. Thus, the proportion of climbers posting might (should) dramatically increase, which on any ranking metric should cause climbing threads to percolate higher.
3) This one is much harder to address, as it could well be that, even with (1) and (2) in place, "off-topic" threads will still percolate higher than some would find optimal. About the only approach I can think of that is programmatically feasible would be to monitor reads/writes of logged-in users and warn then remove posting privileges from users that don't "engage" in "climbing-related" threads "enough." But (3) is troublesome because most reads are done without logging in, and how the ratios would be set would necessarily "filter out" people that clearly should be "in," while still letting "the wrong element" post "off topic" more than they should.
(2) and (3) are in apparent conflict, as I would find less value in "off topic" threads that I found out WERE largely percolated upward by non-climbers; yet, at present, I presume that such is not the case. I instead presume that these topics are percolated upward by climbers with an increasing interest in these topics as a total percentage of their life-interests. Certainly, implementing something like my (2) suggestion would better ensure that climbers dominate posting, which would make my (3) observation less problematical (in at least my mind).
In short, (1) and (2) can be pretty easily addressed, which would just "naturally" ensure that this remains both an open-topic and substantially climber-driven forum. However, the fact of (3) STILL may well have the proportion of climbing-related to non-climbing-related threads non-optimal by some perspectives.
However, merely implementing "solutions" to (1) and (2) will at least ensure that (3) has its "proper free market" effect on thread popularity, and that with less real-time "monitoring" effort, while maintaining the basic look/feel that HAS made the taco stand "the road more traveled."
|
|
Delhi Dog
climber
Good Question...
|
|
|
Jan 23, 2013 - 08:28am PT
|
Whoa.
|
|
Matt
Trad climber
it's all turtles, all the way dooowwwwwnn!!!!!
|
|
|
Jan 23, 2013 - 07:28pm PT
|
at the end of the day, i would seriously just hope every one of you has enough other (i.e. more important) sh#t in your life that whatever happens with the forum is not that big a deal!
(read: WTF, who really cares? move on already)
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!