Well, I have been baned from the lab....
and the mods have deleted 2 of my topics about it. Why does JT and Curty boy get to say whatever they want, but I get banned and not even an explanation from the Mods.....its become very draconian around here, and I have had enough....out

Its very simple - there are better conversations elsewhere.

Like here:

supertopo.com

DMT

Yes, there are many good topics that start there. But they all wind up circling the drain of the political or the religious. Sometimes they go there quite quickly. It's like that's all anyone cares about. Kind of a bummer.

GO

Given the continued drama, I would like to keep this thread going. I have complained about lack of interesting content on here before. Whenever I think of something that might spur debate or discussion I post it. I know there are a few others like me (i.e. cracklover, acorneau, etc.) Although there are some decent climbers among us, we are not the ground breakers or pioneers. We are just regular climbers who try to get out whenever we can.

Why is good discussion on here so scarce? Is it because our users are too global, lacking any clear connection. Are we not specific enough, as far as discipline and geographic area? What?

Josh

I frequent ST as much as here. They do seem to have more political and religious threads which are easy enough to avoid. But I don't agree the other threads all wind up circling the drain of the political and the religious.

Bill L

Yes, there are many good topics that start there. But they all wind up circling the drain of the political or the religious. Sometimes they go there quite quickly. It's like that's all anyone cares about. Kind of a bummer.

GO

Supertopo is a bunch of 50+ year old men acting like 16 year old highschool girls who formed a click. If you're not circle jerking on the historical cookie, you're out. Unless you have breasts that is...

Josh

Supertopo is a bunch of 50+ year old men acting like 16 year old highschool girls who formed a click. If you're not circle jerking on the historical cookie, you're out. Unless you have breasts that is...

Josh

Well, I have been baned from the lab....
and the mods have deleted 2 of my topics about it. Why does JT and Curty boy get to say whatever they want, but I get banned and not even an explanation from the Mods.....its become very draconian around here, and I have had enough....out

I'm something like 8 years in, both in climbing and on this site- and like bandycoot, my posts improved over time and i strived for a long time to make sure my posts were informative and not inflammatory- still do for the most part, although my patience has worn thin over time- especially over the last six months or so.

i'd say my signal is pretty high, noise is pretty low, mostly because i just dont care to wade into the fray both because its not really worth my time and my quasi-staff status kind of makes me think twice about throwing stones.

But I thiink there are a couple of other factors that are going to keep your signal to noise ratio down:

1. A lot of questions that come up have fairly static answers - things like how to choose shoes, ropes, harneses etc don't have drastically different answers today then they did a year ago or will a year from now. It's not really reasonable to post them in an interactive dynamic forum.

2. The questions that are fairly dynamic - that do have a "current" answer - are most often answered by the n00bs - as they are the most enthusiastic users and usually are of the form _what I did on my summer vacation" - they recognized one word in the question and went off on their experience with it.

3. Even when you get an answer from some one perhaps most qualified to answer (one of the gold standard responses) you are still getting something written off the cuff - stream of consciousness (sp?) style without a lot of proof rreading or fact checking. No matter how good the responder is their on the fly responses are likely not as good as something that was written for a book or some other professionally published article.

Don't read it then.

DMT

[...] even then I've been told that what I have to say is the "worst advice" someone has ever heard, which was ridiculous. While I took no offense, it's those kind of things that make you realize that taking the time to contribute is a waste of time.

I spend most of my time posting in Campground, where everyone knows and expects that responses are 100% meant for entertainment purposes only.

Huh? It's a bummer when a good conversation circles the drain too quickly, and your response is "don't read it"? That would make sense if I said all the conversations there are tripe. But I said the opposite - that I think they're interesting, and wished they wouldn't circle the drain so fast.

At least it's better than when LEB was sucking down every thread (even some of the climbing-related ones) faster than you could say pee-ton.

Cheers,

GO

Yur gonna die!!!



How's that for affecting my S/N ratio?

I felt the need to look that up. In all fairness it was bustloose that said it, and I don't think he should be counted amongst real people or ever be referred to as 'someone'.

Hello, my name is Julie, and I've been climbing since 17 years. All over, mostly trad, etc, etc etc.. I'd put a conservative estimate of my contributions as 0.3%.

I generally avoid this place like the plague mostly for the bunch of reasons that Gabe and Josh (bandycoot) mentioned. The as-yet-unmentioned reason is the Campground - it's not just for entertainment. It's almost explicitly a place to strut like a peacock for "inflicting butthurtz" (did I spell that rite?), to ridicule honest people and threads, and to determine who the king of the sandbox is by way of biggest insult.

(this post will be similarly treated in 3, 2, 1 .... but see below: I really couldn't care less. I am just noting the detrimental effect it has on adult conversation.)

So long as that is the case, and encouraged - this place will always be stuck in junior high school. I have little time nor any desire to revisit the politics of that era; I was never "in", and long since couldn't care less. All I want is to shoot shit about climbing while I'm stuck indoors.

So you're just hoping to get laid, then.

Jay

Your response has absolutely noting to do with what I said. I don't know if you need to reread what I wrote or if it needs to be clarified, but you are way off the mark.

OK, then what were you trying to say?

To me it seemed like you're saying an aggressive poster's noise is somehow switched to signal because they're "known". That's an invalid argument in my book.

Josh

I go back to this comment from another thread:
http://www.rockclimbing.com/...post=2373781#2373781

I think this gets straight to the heart of the matter. Why would anyone add any signal? With the 24 hour radio station WIIFM on, unless one is paid to produce content (and damn right I miss j_ung’s content), why would anyone take the time?

People are friendly and with an activity with as potentially severe consequences, there is a strong urge to keep each other safe. But why add a trip report? Does writing a good trip report lead potential hookups? Does it help me climb better?

I think the comment "All I want is to shoot shit about climbing while I'm stuck indoors" is incorrect. You don’t want to hear about my climb and I don’t want to hear about yours, unless something, well, epic happened. I would phrase it as "All I want to do is shoot shit with other climbers while I’m stuck indoors". If the conversation turns to climbing – great. If it never gets beyond “how do you make coffee while camping” – that is just fine as well.