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Jeff
Owner
Jun 7, 2014, 8:30 PM
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Bad news:
I've had a lot less time to work on this site than I wanted since I became the new owner.
Good news:
I decided to quit my day job to work on RC full time. It's a bit scary because the site is not at a point where it will support a full-time person, but hopefully over the next six months that will change. If it doesn't, I'll have to get another job.
On the tech side, we're very close to having a staging server that we can test changes on. However, I don't expect fast changes--much of this work is beyond my skills and I have to rely on contractors, which is a slower process.
On the community/content side, I'll be spending more time reaching out to folks. This is where I felt I was really failing because of lack of time.
I'll also be putting a good chunk of time into reaching out to vendors about site sponsorships/advertising.
Here we go.
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sungam
Jun 7, 2014, 8:34 PM
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Hey, man! That's great to hear.
Best of luck with the project, and please don't ban me. TIA.
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marc801
Jun 7, 2014, 10:17 PM
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sungam wrote: Hey, man! That's great to hear. Best of luck with the project, and please don't ban me. TIA.
[Edit to fix gibberish.]
(This post was edited by marc801 on Jun 7, 2014, 10:18 PM)
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JimTitt
Jun 8, 2014, 7:02 AM
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Donīt ban Sungam, set up a sin-bin where the bad boys can mouth of to each other and we can watch the fun from the sidelines.
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lena_chita
Moderator
Jun 8, 2014, 12:49 PM
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Oh wow! Best of luck!
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macherry
Jun 8, 2014, 3:58 PM
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best wishes to you.
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marc801
Jun 8, 2014, 8:07 PM
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JimTitt wrote: Donīt ban Sungam, set up a sin-bin where the bad boys can mouth of to each other and we can watch the fun from the sidelines.
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sungam
Jun 9, 2014, 1:04 AM
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marc801 wrote: JimTitt wrote: Donīt ban Sungam, set up a sin-bin where the bad boys can mouth of to each other and we can watch the fun from the sidelines. Isn't that all ready here, called Scummunity or Soapbox or something?
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USnavy
Jun 9, 2014, 11:07 AM
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Jeff wrote: Bad news: On the tech side, we're very close to having a staging server that we can test changes on./quote] Why not just test it on your actual server? I am sure there is enough hard drive space to support multiple reversions of the site.
(This post was edited by USnavy on Jun 9, 2014, 11:07 AM)
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gblauer
Moderator
Jun 9, 2014, 12:18 PM
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Excellent! I would hate to see the site go under. I met my husband on RC.com!!
Let us know how we can help.
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tminus44
Jun 9, 2014, 12:41 PM
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Jeff wrote: On the community/content side, I'll be spending more time reaching out to folks. This is where I felt I was really failing because of lack of time.
Good luck!! and for the love of rock find more pictures to rotate than the same 5 we've seen on the homepage for the past year.
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blueeyedclimber
Jun 9, 2014, 1:02 PM
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I wish you luck.
Josh
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granite_grrl
Jun 9, 2014, 1:30 PM
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gblauer wrote: Excellent! I would hate to see the site go under. I met my husband on RC.com!! Let us know how we can help.
I've met a lot of great people through RC....including you Gail!
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cracklover
Jun 9, 2014, 2:07 PM
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granite_grrl wrote: gblauer wrote: Excellent! I would hate to see the site go under. I met my husband on RC.com!! Let us know how we can help. I've met a lot of great people through RC....including you Gail!
Me three! Though in all fairness, nostalgia doesn't make a good business plan for a tech company. Anyway, here's hoping you lots of luck and success with wherever you decide to take rc.com. And I, too, would be happy to pitch in and continue to help.
Cheers,
GO
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marc801
Jun 9, 2014, 3:44 PM
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USnavy wrote: Jeff wrote: Bad news: On the tech side, we're very close to having a staging server that we can test changes on. Why not just test it on your actual server? I am sure there is enough hard drive space to support multiple reversions of the site.
He might have meant staging environment rather than actual server. In fact I'd guess the site is running on two servers: web server and database server. And setting up that kind of environment, even virtual, is a bit more than just having disk space.
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Jeff
Owner
Jun 9, 2014, 5:58 PM
Post #16 of 45
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JimTitt wrote: set up a sin-bin where the bad boys can mouth of to each other and we can watch the fun from the sidelines.
Lol. Not really cool with that--I'd like to hit reset on that part of this site's culture.
Overall, the crew here is pretty friendly (and many of you have known each other for years), but occasionally threads disintegrate into drama, and when that happens I'll delete those posts and hand out warnings/time outs. It's going to take a little bit for us to all re-calibrate so I will do my best to over-communicate and give any offenders a reasonable chance to change before perma-banning them. That said, if it becomes clear someone needs to be banned, I won't hesitate to do that.
Disagreement is totally fine (and healthy), being rude and prickly, or personal attacks or crude remarks can go elsewhere. I'm still building my "strike zone" on where the line is, so we'll just see how it goes.
I know I also talked a lot early on about having a clear vision for the site. That's another thing that I still see as very important, but didn't have the mental bandwidth to really think about while I was working on my previous job. Hopefully over the next few months that can crystalize into something more defined.
(This post was edited by Jeff on Jun 9, 2014, 6:33 PM)
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billcoe_
Jun 9, 2014, 7:04 PM
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Welcome to RC.com! May your schekles multiply like the cockroaches under my fridge! Regarding Sungum. Just pay Sungum, the man is a walking humor bag and worth every dime you pay him. Unless it's 3 dimes or more of course. 
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happiegrrrl
Jun 9, 2014, 7:16 PM
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Congratulations on the loss of your job.
I have to admit that you posted about the purchase, I thought "I wonder how log till he walks away from the job(or has the rug pulled out from under)....."
I think, Jeff, that part of your R&D should be doing a roadtrip that includes RC meet 'n climbs. If you do one at the Gunks, I bet Gail and Tiffany and more than a few others would be up for it. You can park/camp for a couple days(no welcome overstaying, sorry) at my place(walking distance from cliffs). And if you have one in JT or other southwest destination between December and April, I will be up for that too.
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wjca
Jun 9, 2014, 8:07 PM
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Jeff wrote: JimTitt wrote: set up a sin-bin where the bad boys can mouth of to each other and we can watch the fun from the sidelines. Lol. Not really cool with that--I'd like to hit reset on that part of this site's culture. Overall, the crew here is pretty friendly (and many of you have known each other for years), but occasionally threads disintegrate into drama, and when that happens I'll delete those posts and hand out warnings/time outs. It's going to take a little bit for us to all re-calibrate so I will do my best to over-communicate and give any offenders a reasonable chance to change before perma-banning them. That said, if it becomes clear someone needs to be banned, I won't hesitate to do that. Disagreement is totally fine (and healthy), being rude and prickly, or personal attacks or crude remarks can go elsewhere. I'm still building my "strike zone" on where the line is, so we'll just see how it goes. I know I also talked a lot early on about having a clear vision for the site. That's another thing that I still see as very important, but didn't have the mental bandwidth to really think about while I was working on my previous job. Hopefully over the next few months that can crystalize into something more defined.
See, now you're talking about censorship, which isn't cool and can be subjective, and [the remainder of this post has been deleted by Jeff]
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kennoyce
Jun 9, 2014, 9:22 PM
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Jeff wrote: JimTitt wrote: set up a sin-bin where the bad boys can mouth of to each other and we can watch the fun from the sidelines. Lol. Not really cool with that--I'd like to hit reset on that part of this site's culture. Overall, the crew here is pretty friendly (and many of you have known each other for years), but occasionally threads disintegrate into drama, and when that happens I'll delete those posts and hand out warnings/time outs. It's going to take a little bit for us to all re-calibrate so I will do my best to over-communicate and give any offenders a reasonable chance to change before perma-banning them. That said, if it becomes clear someone needs to be banned, I won't hesitate to do that. Disagreement is totally fine (and healthy), being rude and prickly, or personal attacks or crude remarks can go elsewhere. I'm still building my "strike zone" on where the line is, so we'll just see how it goes. I know I also talked a lot early on about having a clear vision for the site. That's another thing that I still see as very important, but didn't have the mental bandwidth to really think about while I was working on my previous job. Hopefully over the next few months that can crystalize into something more defined.
Just one more opinion, but personally I don't think anything should be deleted. Giving out warnings and bans is ok, but deleting posts or parts of posts generally makes a thread really hard to follow and drives users away from a site. To be effective, you should leave the offending posts up, and post the warning in the thread itself so that everyone can see what's unacceptable and hopefully learn from that. Honestly, noone likes censorship.
I also believe that there should be some kind of a scummunity type of forum where those members who want to sit around and insult each other all day can do that without threat of being banned. This forum doesn't have to be visable on the front page, it can require users to log in to view it, and it can have a warning page about the content or whatever, but there should be a location where this is allowed (even if I probably won't participate personally).
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Jeff
Owner
Jun 9, 2014, 11:05 PM
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Appreciate you weighing in Ken.
kennoyce wrote: Just one more opinion, but personally I don't think anything should be deleted. Giving out warnings and bans is ok, but deleting posts or parts of posts generally makes a thread really hard to follow and drives users away from a site.
Understand the concern about threads need to stay contiguous for readability, so when necessary I will try to leave a "this post deleted because it wasn't constructive" message.
kennoyce wrote: I also believe that there should be some kind of a scummunity type of forum where those members who want to sit around and insult each other all day can do that without threat of being banned.
No on scummy forum for insulting each other. I just think that kind of culture bleeds into other parts of the site. To borrown an analogy from another sport, I'd rather folks "play the ball and the not the person."
Yes on members are allowed to jest with one another in a friendly way. There's certainly some squishy gray area between the two and some posts will have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
At the end of the day, my goal is to encourage a friendly community oriented around climbing. If at any point you think I'm being heavy-handed, just drop me a PM--I'm more than happy to rethink how I handled a situation. Doesn't mean I'll always agree with you, but I will certainly re-think it and generally try to bounce it off a few other staff members for their input--I don't mind coming back and saying I made a mistake.
(This post was edited by Jeff on Jun 9, 2014, 11:18 PM)
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davidlenz
Jun 10, 2014, 1:27 AM
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Hey Jeff Congratulations , can we post video?
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jumpingrock
Jun 10, 2014, 1:38 PM
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You need to rebuild your community before you worry too much about them insulting each other. Over the past 10 years or so that I've been on this site, the community has disappeared. The trouble is that the community generated the content and as they dispersed to the different sides of the internet globe you've lost your content. Get great content, let the community talk about the content (and generate new content) and then worry about policing the place again.
rc.com's cake is being eaten by sites like: http://climbing.ilooove.it/, http://climbingnarc.com/ and facebook. It's a little bit sad as it's only nostalgia and a currently boring day job that brings me back here.
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