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roughster
Jan 13, 2012, 8:30 AM
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I would be curious as to the general consensus of the few remaining people who frequented this site who were around at that time really feel the shift from signal to noise was a good choice?
Certainly someone got paid, but in the end, I'll be honest, I feel that time has proven the point. I find it interesting that sites most often take their most prolific contributors, make them mods/admins, then ultimately end up splitting ways based upon the catcalls and pettiness of a few non-contributors. A search back to the mudslingers of 2005 show that very few have posted past 2006 and many of them were obviously troll accounts that abruptly quit contributing once their agenda was accomplished.
Is this the cycle of the modern day internet website? I am honestly wondering if a true signal focused website actually has a chance at success or if the anonymity of the internet and Ring of Gyges just proves too strong of a force?
It's really too bad IMO. RC could've been a contender so to speak. Now? LOL.
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johnwesely
Jan 13, 2012, 12:48 PM
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Care to elaborate?
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wonderwoman
Jan 13, 2012, 2:31 PM
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johnwesely wrote: Care to elaborate?
He's demonstrating noise.
Kidding. But yes, please do elaborate.
If you write quality posts, you will get some quality responses and some responses that are just plain awful. I don't know how you would go about eliminating the awful posts without implementing censorship.
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blueeyedclimber
Jan 13, 2012, 3:16 PM
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I posted this about a year and a half ago, that got some pretty good responses.
http://www.rockclimbing.com/..._reply;so=ASC;mh=25;
As for me, I have been posting since late 2002. I like to think that I contribute some quality here, although before 2005, I would probably guess that I didn't.
I have been around long enough to notice some changes, and for better or for worse, it is what it is. Unfortunately, some good posters have moved on.
Josh
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camhead
Jan 13, 2012, 3:18 PM
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roughster wrote: I would be curious as to the general consensus of the few remaining people who frequented this site who were around at that time really feel the shift from signal to noise was a good choice? Certainly someone got paid, but in the end, I'll be honest, I feel that time has proven the point. I find it interesting that sites most often take their most prolific contributors, make them mods/admins, then ultimately end up splitting ways based upon the catcalls and pettiness of a few non-contributors. A search back to the mudslingers of 2005 show that very few have posted past 2006 and many of them were obviously troll accounts that abruptly quit contributing once their agenda was accomplished. Is this the cycle of the modern day internet website? I am honestly wondering if a true signal focused website actually has a chance at success or if the anonymity of the internet and Ring of Gyges just proves too strong of a force? It's really too bad IMO. RC could've been a contender so to speak. Now? LOL.
I'm not sure I get a lot of your details, but, as someone who has been around for a while, it is my opinion that this site had a great opportunity. Valuable "high profile" users, lively community, the most recognizable climbing-related domain name on the web. And they blew it.
I'm not sure why this is, though. A lot of people would blame it on the current owners of the site, and while they have done nothing to help it, I don't think that they are to blame. At the very least, we owe them gratitude for not letting the site just shut down, which it was near doing a couple years ago.
The reason for this site missing out on opportunities, I think, is a combination large-scale economic factors, of mods/admins fixating on the wrong things, and of too egalitarian of a platform allowing anon noobs and trolls to drown out valuable resources.
Given the right set of decisions made half a decade ago, this site could have been a combination of Deadpoint and Mountain Project. Instead it's basically the men's bathroom of a university climbing wall, combined with a poorly stocked REI climbing gear section.
(This post was edited by camhead on Jan 13, 2012, 3:20 PM)
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sp115
Jan 13, 2012, 3:26 PM
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Nothing has changed since rec.climbing. End of story.
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roughster
Jan 13, 2012, 4:03 PM
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It's not worth dredging up the old posts, but my post is pointing to a time when this site had A LOT of good information. It was far and away the best resource for climbing on the net. Contributors at the "magazine level" routinely posted both photos and trip reports. Local level activity was high. You couldn't go into the Regional Forum for your "area" and not see tons of posts and activity about climbs right around the corner from your house.
In late 2004 / early 2005, the site started hemorrhaging Mods and Admins who had been not only the people keeping the signal to noise ratio in check, but also had been the users providing the vast majority of quality signal content. Why did this occur?
Because site ownership and head admin/mods at the time started listening to user accounts created to troll and those users who had endless beefs with anyone who had the nerve to try and suppress the noise. These threads are plentiful at the time and easily researchable. The impact?
Many mods / admins stepped down, some were "let go", some simply went inactive. The anticipated effect occurred: the noise simple washed out the signal. The users who used to make quality and consistent posts moved on. The ones that stayed became so jaded, IMO, they ended contributing to noise.
Honestly this is not a "told you so" post. This is more of a Lessons Learned post 7 years later. I am not even sure of who owns the site anymore or how it is being run. I do check and infrequently contribute to the site. It was actually a harder habit to quit then I expected to be honest, but over the years I have become more successful at it ;)
I guess I would hope if anything that comes from this thread or anyone reading who eventual starts the "next big thing" would think about the signal to noise ratio. To date, I have yet to see a site stick with the philosophy Quality Signal is more important than noise (Quantity). Initially the model is not as "sexy" as you don't get the big visitation #s, but over time and through resource management / noise supression, IMO you can actually manage to avoid the repetitive cycle of the Internet Website Lifecycle:
- Good idea
- Good idea attracts talent
- Talent contributes Quality
- Quality bring higher visitation
- High visitation increases Noise signal
- Site admin/mods (usually Quality Content provider) suppresses noise signal
- Censorship / Lynch posts against Quality Providers begin
- Noise goes up
- Quality Content Providers begin leaving
- Site functions poorly as a result and new Quality content stagnates
- Noise starts to increasingly wash out Signal
- Snowball effect where most content providers simply move on due to STFU Noob posts
- Site declines to a baseline threshold of visitation and serves more of a internet chatroom with vague ties to a interesting topic / activity
...
- Good idea
...it all starts all over again.
Current Climbing Website/Resource Cycle Count:
- rec.climbing
- rockclimbing.com
- supertopo.com
What's next?
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sp115
Jan 13, 2012, 6:02 PM
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Mountain Project doesn't seem to suffer these periodic bouts of angst.*
* Just sayin'.
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damienclimber
Jan 13, 2012, 11:53 PM
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roughster wrote: I would be curious as to the general consensus of the few remaining people who frequented this site who were around at that time really feel the shift from signal to noise was a good choice? Certainly someone got paid, but in the end, I'll be honest, I feel that time has proven the point. I find it interesting that sites most often take their most prolific contributors, make them mods/admins, then ultimately end up splitting ways based upon the catcalls and pettiness of a few non-contributors. A search back to the mudslingers of 2005 show that very few have posted past 2006 and many of them were obviously troll accounts that abruptly quit contributing once their agenda was accomplished. Is this the cycle of the modern day internet website? I am honestly wondering if a true signal focused website actually has a chance at success or if the anonymity of the internet and Ring of Gyges just proves too strong of a force? It's really too bad IMO. RC could've been a contender so to speak. Now? LOL.
Damn Aaron you are so smart and right!
Rockclimbing.com is just too censored and invaded by facebook as well.
Yes they all got paid. Sometimes having an illusion of worth is power enough.
Alot of people just can't decipher the difference.
I enjoyed our climbing adventures.
Best-- how's auburn climbing going?
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bill413
Jan 14, 2012, 2:24 PM
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roughster wrote: The ones that stayed became so jaded, IMO, they ended contributing to noise.
I think it's not just the contributors; it's the information itself and user habits (especially new, but many of us).
Take the "what should I buy to start climbing" question. Assume you are relatively new to the site, and you use the search function. Bang - 380 pages returned from "getting started," with all of the first page hits at least 4 years old, many from '02. It's overwhelming, so people start a new thread to get the answers directly. This causes those who have answered the question 20 times already to either step back, or make comments (you're jaded folk). Some well intentioned people answer with less than optimal information, others feel a need to correct it, and off it goes.
I see part of the problem as a lot of good information has become difficult to access; so people start the same threads over & over.
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petsfed
Jan 14, 2012, 7:50 PM
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sp115 wrote: Mountain Project doesn't seem to suffer these periodic bouts of angst.* * Just sayin'.
Seriously, I've seen worse trolling than on here and everybody blowing each other about how mature and on-message they are, IN THE SAME THREAD.
God I hate mountain project's forums.
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camhead
Jan 16, 2012, 3:04 PM
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petsfed wrote: sp115 wrote: Mountain Project doesn't seem to suffer these periodic bouts of angst.* * Just sayin'. They're always high on the euphoria of knowing they're better than us. They might, eventually, come down from that high if they ever stopped telling themselves how much better they are. Seriously, I've seen worse trolling than on here and everybody blowing each other about how mature and on-message they are, IN THE SAME THREAD. God I hate mountain project's forums.
I agree. The prodge has way better photos feature, search function, and routes db, but the community has just as many gumbies as rc, only they don't know that they're gumbies.
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petsfed
Jan 16, 2012, 5:23 PM
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This is true. What I've seen at both sites is that quality of moderation (not strong moderation, or minimal moderation, or any kind of metric related to the quantity of moderation) is strongly correlated with the overall signal to noise ratio. That is, if your moderators are all invested in the site's goals, they consistently do their job in such a way as to achieve those goals. There seems to be a deeply schizophrenic goal behind the MountainProject forums, while their route data-base has a clear end state they are reaching towards. Meanwhile, rockclimbing.com's forum goal is predominantly to entertain and the moderators tend to work towards that end, but none of the route db moderators seem invested in improving the database, I would wager because nobody in control has a clear concept of how they want it to end up.
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