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crimpandgo
Aug 30, 2004, 10:33 PM
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So, if the flamers can have freedom to post. then people with bad ideas should have freedom to post. Everyone is pretty good at correcting bad advice, so I don't believe folks are not going off uninformed.
Once you start "editing" or controlling peoples posts, where does it stop? And who gets to decide what gets controlled? I think you should filter the flamers before you filter the beginners. If there were less worthless flaming responses to everyones posts it would be easier for the beginners to find the good advice.
EDIT: correct for content
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chronicle
Aug 30, 2004, 10:50 PM
Post #27 of 105
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I think in order to get your "experts", they would be a panel voted on by their peers. In order to get fair votes, each user would be limited to only one vote per panel expert. Peers would have to be defined as a user of RC.com having xxx number of posts. Otherwise a person could set up many accounts and vote for/against a certain panel member.
If this were to take foot and start happening, the first thing would be to comprise the anticipated panel. I don't know how to come up with the list. But once the list was comprised, there would be a post to rate the panel participants. maybe rate them from 1-5. After the voting was complete, the top xxx panelists would be chosen as the "Experts".
Once you have the experts, the forum is then set up with rules similar to what maculated posted. When a question is asked, it first goes to the panelists. Anyone of which can answer it. Once answered, the thread can then accept posts from any rc.com member. Again, this sets up the question/answer pair at the beginning of the thread (no more wading through mindless chatter to find an answer).
From time to time the panel members would have to be evaluated to make sure that they are not abusing thier status, and that they are giving good, honest answers. With the forum set up in this manner, it would be easy to guide someone to a post that has been asked time after time after time.
Again, just another idea on how this thing could work. Honestly, I think the "Ask the Experts" forum would be a good addition to rc.com.
PS. I enjoy curt's posts. His sarcasm is hilarious. Plus he and jt know thier stuff.
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curt
Aug 30, 2004, 10:56 PM
Post #28 of 105
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In reply to: How about banning curt and jt512 completely from the forums? I think that would elevate the quality of all the forums. They seem to hate everyone that has a question anyway. Or, only allow people to post to forums in which they have politely given "correct advice". Every question could be assigned a category, and for instance, curt would only be allowed to respond to Community type posts or shoe threads. Because of his history, curt would not be able to respond to any question that involved climbing techniques or quantitative answers. And, jt512 could be given his own forum called something like "Time Out"--to which he would be wholly restricted, and no one else could respond to questions displayed there. Copies of the most irritating and repetitive questions could be posted to the Time Out forum, and jt512 could rail away to his hearts content and not bother anyone else. Or, shut down all the forums and have people email questions to alpineclimber1, jt512, and curt, and they can answer them. The rest of us can look at the pretty pictures. Just some ideas.
That time of the month, eh beesty?
Curt
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jpearl
Aug 30, 2004, 11:02 PM
Post #29 of 105
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How about this for the Beginners' Forum (only a brainstorm, not a suggestion):
When linking onto the forum, the user should first be taken to an inital page reminding them that the information posted in the thread is not to be taken as professional guidance or and absolute truth, but rather just reference, suggestion, and feedback from other climbers. They should be informed that as beginners, part of climbing is the accumulation of knowledge and the process of putting it to real world usage, first by extensive research, then by experimentation or instruction in a safe and controled environment.
Another suggestion is this: We should all put a little thought into our responses in the beginners' forum. Not that member's of the RC.com community haven't earned commendation for helping new climbers, but if there is one place that flames and extraneous responses do not have a place, it is the beginners' forum. Yes, we will always have grit our teeth to give first-time shoe advice and explain what a "toprope" is, but we were all beginners ourselves and we've all advanced in a sport and lifestyle that at its core is grassroots with nobody to rely on but ourselves and each other.
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caughtinside
Aug 30, 2004, 11:03 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: Actually, I came up with an idea that is in the works: My thought is to do away with the beginner's forum as it is and have more of an "ask the experts" thing where moderators will be able to view queued questions, answer them, and release them to the wolves. The idea being that the answers start out being correct so they can't go south too quickly. With a few notable exceptions, the moderators here are hardly the "expert" climbers. So, how would the answers start out being correct under that system? Curt
I think this is an important consideration that the noobies fail to recognize. Moderator? Must know what he's talking about. Wrong.
Good thing you guys axed Roughster. Can't have those pesky climbers who know what they're doing around, now can we? :roll:
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maculated
Aug 30, 2004, 11:11 PM
Post #31 of 105
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Oh CI, you had to go there, didn't you. ::shakes head disappointedly::
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jt512
Aug 30, 2004, 11:13 PM
Post #32 of 105
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In reply to: Good thing you guys axed Roughster. Can't have those pesky climbers who know what they're doing around, now can we? :roll:
Would you two get a room already.
-Jay
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caughtinside
Aug 30, 2004, 11:16 PM
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heh heh heh. I love how the mere mention of his name draws the ire of the mods so quickly. :lol:
I'd like to go read the thread that ruffled so many feathers, but something happened to it. :P
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jt512
Aug 30, 2004, 11:26 PM
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In reply to: heh heh heh. I love how the mere mention of his name draws the ire of the mods so quickly. :lol:
Ire? That means anger. My making fun of your embarrassingly effusive admiration of Aaron is not anger.
-Jay
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caughtinside
Aug 30, 2004, 11:27 PM
Post #35 of 105
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In reply to: In reply to: Good thing you guys axed Roughster. Can't have those pesky climbers who know what they're doing around, now can we? :roll: Would you two get a room already. -Jay
Is that what you do with your friends, Jay? :lol:
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fracture
Aug 30, 2004, 11:30 PM
Post #36 of 105
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The "death advice" stuff is way over-dramatic. Dingus is right---noobs aren't killing themselves. Nor is rc.com such a primary source of information that this should be taken so seriously.
The Beginners forum should be axed, because it sucks. Let beginners ask questions in the appropriate other forums, where more people read. If the question sucks, let them get flamed and let the thread go nowhere---there's no need to moderate the f_ck out of it.
And as far as an FAQ---why does rc.com need to duplicate Dawn's FAQ? It's quite good (I basically read the whole thing when I first started climbing), particularly since it has dissenting views so obviously documented (contrary to what appears to be popular belief, many safety questions do not have a single correct answer, or the traditionally "correct" answer is not really correct (e.g. the dropped gear issue)). The google rec.climbing archives are also a much better source than trying to use the sh:tty rc.com forum search.
Either the noobs are smart enough to find and use those things, or not---either way it's not rc.com's problem. And if they get hurt, too bad---climbing can hurt you.
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jt512
Aug 30, 2004, 11:36 PM
Post #37 of 105
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In reply to: In reply to: In reply to: Good thing you guys axed Roughster. Can't have those pesky climbers who know what they're doing around, now can we? :roll: Would you two get a room already. -Jay Is that what you do with your friends, Jay? :lol:
No, but I don't embarrass myself by making idiotic statements like this either:In reply to: Good thing you guys axed Roughster. Can't have those pesky climbers who know what they're doing around, now can we?
-Jay
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jt512
Aug 30, 2004, 11:42 PM
Post #38 of 105
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In reply to: The "death advice" stuff is way over-dramatic. Dingus is right---noobs aren't killing themselves. Nor is rc.com such a primary source of information that this should be taken so seriously.
Rc.com, and the internet generally, is becoming a primary source for information on many subjects, including rockclimbing. Just look at how often we get questions from beginners who don't anything about climbing. Secondly, this trend is going to continue. The internet will become an increasingly important source of climbing information. There is no inherent reason why rc.com cannot be as good or better a source of primary information than any beginner's book on climbing. Look at alpnclimber1's outline for a FAQ. The objective is to raise the bar around here.
-Jay
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caughtinside
Aug 30, 2004, 11:42 PM
Post #39 of 105
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Oh Jay, I just can't take any more of your terse wit. I'm tempted to change my email account to kissmyassjt512@rockclimbing.com, but then I wouldn't be able to log in to watch you slash your way through those grigri threads. :lol:
And I wanted beesty511 for my troll account, but it was already taken. :P
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maculated
Aug 30, 2004, 11:44 PM
Post #40 of 105
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In reply to: Look at alpnclimber1's outline for a FAQ. The objective is to raise the bar around here.
Actually, if you go to the website FAQ, you'll see it's no longer an outline, but an actual FAQ-in the making. Thanks alpnclmbr1. I just have to get motivated to cut and paste, cut and paste.
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jt512
Aug 30, 2004, 11:47 PM
Post #41 of 105
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In reply to: Or, shut down all the forums and have people email questions to alpineclimber1, jt512, and curt, and they can answer them. The rest of us can look at the pretty pictures.
How about we add two forums: Ask JT512 and Ask Beesty511, and see who people really trust when it comes down to getting accurate information.
-Jay
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veganboyjosh
Aug 31, 2004, 12:14 AM
Post #42 of 105
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i much appreciate the knowledge and energy that has gone into this whole project to date. just because noobs aren't getting killed from bad advice from rc.com doesn't mean we (users and mods and coders all) shouldn't work towards making it a great site.
as was pointed out, the accessibility of the internet, not to mention the cost, is making it more and more of a initial/primary source of information for most young people.
not knowing much about coding or whatever, i throw this suggestion into the mix.
would it be possible to have users rate individual threads/posts, or perhaps just threads/posts in a single forum, such as beginners, so that when new viewers of the thread/post read them, they can take them with a grain of salt or not. i'm thinking of something similar to the way people can "rate" the book reviews on amazon. "was this review helpful". users would/should not be able to vote/rate on their own posts, and would only be able to vote/rate on a post or thread once, to cut down on false self-ratings.
i think it would help keep the moderating to a minimum, as the threads would be self regulating this way, useful for the mods cos it's less work, and usefull for the users cos it's easy to tell which users/threads/posts have little/no/bad advice.
someone suggested deleting old posts, this system could also be incorporated into that, as low rated posts or threads could be deleted (it would make more sense to delete entire threads in this case, as the threads with posts with poor ratings would cease to make sense if the posts got deleted) after a certain time period, so noobs/experienced users don't have to tread thru mountains of posts to get good info.
just some ideas.
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crimpandgo
Aug 31, 2004, 12:28 AM
Post #43 of 105
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Quote:
would it be possible to have users rate individual threads/posts, or perhaps just threads/posts in a single forum, such as beginners, so that when new viewers of the thread/post read them, they can take them with a grain of salt or not. i'm thinking of something similar to the way people can "rate" the book reviews on amazon. "was this review helpful". users would/should not be able to vote/rate on their own posts, and would only be able to vote/rate on a post or thread once, to cut down on false self-ratings.
Response:
So, how do you think a new person is gonna react when their question is trashed by the flamers of this site and the post gets a low enough rating to get it deleted? Think they are going to want to post again?
There are some great ideas here but two points have to be considered. Everyone wants better information to be given to the new folks. but you also have to consider the desire for the new user to stick around an continue to use this site. From what I have seen a new user often gets trashed for what the "experts" deem a stupid question ( I am not saying everyone is doing this. But is happens too often.. )
So, as a relatively new user myself that has considered dropping this site from my favorites page... I recommend you be careful on who you select to represent this site as your "experts" and voters.. Because your "experts" are not always the folks you want in your "public interface" positions if you know what I mean.
I am sure I will be called a whiner but there are lots of people out on this site that have valuable things to say and as many have already noted, there often times is not one "right" answer. To leave the site representation to a "selected" few doesn't seem like the right way to go about educating the masses.
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veganboyjosh
Aug 31, 2004, 12:52 AM
Post #44 of 105
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crimpandgo said "Everyone wants better information to be given to the new folks. but you also have to consider the desire for the new user to stick around an continue to use this site. From what I have seen a new user often gets trashed for what the "experts" deem a stupid question ( I am not saying everyone is doing this. But is happens too often.. ) "
and "To leave the site representation to a "selected" few doesn't seem like the right way to go about educating the masses."
in response to the first quote, this is a wonderful point. i am constantly surprised by the harsh responses noobs often get, simply cos they didn't know enough about what they were asking about to phrase the question correctly, or specific enough. ie "what kind of rope do i need" type questions. to this i say that we shouldn't rate the questions. any question is a good one, as long as it's legit, and not a troll. which is another topic all together.
to the second, i say that limiting the number of "experts" is never a wise idea. which is why i think everyone/rc.com users should/would rate the posts. not just the mods.
the post ratings could show up in user's profiles, so if someone was questioning the validity of someone's post, they could check their profile, a la ebay's feedback system. perhaps another way to limit the "noise" in this situation would be to mandate that in order to rate a post/thread, users would need to post in the thread. on ebay, you can't just give anyone feedback, you have to have had a transaction with them. not to keep using other systems as examples, but the feedback system seems to be working, and the longer it's in place, the better it gets. ie if someone has 100% positive feedback, but 5 transactions, that's not quite as strong as someone with %97.45 positive feedback and 1500 transactions.
flamers would get negative feedback for flaming instead of just getting flamed back, so they would either stop posting out of fear of negative ratings, or cos no one pays them any attention cos their rating is so low.
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beesty511
Aug 31, 2004, 1:07 AM
Post #45 of 105
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In reply to: How about we add two forums: Ask JT512 and Ask Beesty511, and see who people really trust when it comes down to getting accurate information.
Is your sphere of influence dwindling so rapidly that you need to invent new ways to corner people and harass them? Only people with egos that are out of control actually believe they have all the answers and should have a forum named after themselves.
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jt512
Aug 31, 2004, 1:14 AM
Post #46 of 105
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In reply to: any question is a good one, as long as it's legit,
Not true at all. Many questions are a waste of bandwidth themselves, and only clutter up the site, lowering the signal-to-noise ratio, and making it even harder for sincere users to find solid information. Other questions could be good, but are so ambiguously worded that they can't be clearly answered, and the resulting threads become mired down with miscommunication, which can border on dangerous. The recent question" "Does anybody else use a Yosemite Finish to back up their harness tie-in?" posted to Beginners was both lame per se and so poorly worded that it couldn't be intelligently answered.
-Jay
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philbox
Moderator
Aug 31, 2004, 1:45 AM
Post #47 of 105
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crimpandgo I hope that you do not get called a whiner. A response to your response is that we do in fact already have post ratings. Around ten percent of users each day get handed 5 votes that they can vote on their fav posts. They can either vote it as a steaming pile of poo or give it a trophy vote.
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veganboyjosh
Aug 31, 2004, 2:15 AM
Post #48 of 105
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jay,
i think all the questions are good, but not all posts. the key is to find a way to limit the extraneous, repeated questions so that the regular rusers of the forums don't have to answer the same "what kind of rope do i need" questions week after week.
i suppose my "rate the threads" system doesn't address that, but maybe it could be worked so that it would somehow.
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jt512
Aug 31, 2004, 2:18 AM
Post #49 of 105
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In reply to: jay, i think all the questions are good...
If you think that, then try composing an intelligent response to the example bad question I quoted above. Such questions can only lead to nonsensical responses because the questions themselves are nonsensical. Don't believe me? Break out pencil and paper and try answering that question.
-Jay
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veganboyjosh
Aug 31, 2004, 3:18 AM
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well, the question is valid, whatever the question is. i don't know how questioons/posts like this should be treated. climbing and all that goes along with it, equipment, tehcnique, knots, is inherently technical, and does not lend itself well to being explained/asked on an internet forums such as this.
and since wrong answers/information is entirely probable to be passd along with valid information, how _do_ we seperate the good questions from the bad.
the example you list is a valid one, and i understand why you locked it. i could go either way as far as should it be locked or should it not. that's a related issue that's gonna come up in a climbing related forum, as opposed to a cooking forum, where the wrong recipe or cooking time will not necessarily get someone maimed or killed.
i just don't know how to handle problems like this very ambiguously phrased question, other than heavy supervision by the mods. which in itself is aproblem cos who wants to be that mod, or post in his or her forum(s)?
i take back what i said about all questions being valid. the person who posted that question was seeking knowledge that someone on this board prolly has, but he opr she didn;'t know enough about what he was asking to know how to ask it.
i just don't know.
my original post relating to the beginner's forum and rating individual posts was an attempt to solve the necessary supervision by mods of the noob forum.
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