|
Post by Admin on Apr 1, 2018 8:37:12 GMT -7
Hey RP Forum members, how do you all feel about the recent proliferation of stupid questions? Have you noticed a recent proliferation of stupid questions? Do you think anything should done to reduce the proliferation of stupid questions?
My concern is that as Mountain Project becomes more and more useless, the refugees will slowly work their way over here, eventually making this forum more and more useless*. I don't see any upside to that (other than the potential to "monetize" the forum somehow, which I have no desire to do, and would only benefit me while screwing the rest of you). I prefer to keep this community small and committed to performance-oriented climbing. What are your thoughts?
[*For reference, read this:
"Stages in the IMBL - Internet Message Board Lifecycle
1. Start up with an elite clique of personal/email friends. Discussions are very tight.
2. New people join and discussion is strictly on-topic and helpful. Lots of good information is passed around. Message board is in its prime.
3. Newbies arrive and post questions that have been answered before or are stupid questions. Some old-timers are helpful, some flame.
4. Flame war erupts because of off-topic posts or personal insults. Different expectations create conflicts of interest that cause even more flames.
5. People post messages to the effect they are leaving, maybe hoping for sympathy. "And I'm taking my ball with me" They don't actually leave, though, and remain to read the responses to their goodbyes, some returning briefly to flame people. (Go to stage 4) People compete for the most heart-wrenching goodbye. Some people just leave with no goodbyes. Some of them are missed, some not.
6. Things quieten down and the flames stop. Old-timers appeal for calm(!). People who 'left' come back and begin discussions again. Go to stage 2
7. People leave to start their own message board, splitting membership of the original board. The two new boards go through a period of insulting each other and either go to stage 2, 4 or simply cease to exist through lack of subscribers." ]
|
|
|
Post by Chris W on Apr 1, 2018 17:53:47 GMT -7
Well... I'm a little afraid most of my posts will get deleted...
Ultimately, I'm in favor of a small performance oriented climbing community.
I'm a luddite and never did Mountain Project, Facebook, Twitter, or any of those posts you see at the bottom of you tube videos or rock and ice articles. The RCTM forum is the first thing I've participated in.
I have benefited IMMENSELY from the forum, and also am EXTREMELY grateful that the civil tone of the forum. I'm in favor of doing anything that must be done to keep the civility going.
Regarding stupid questions: I try to ignore them, unless the stupid questions are the ones that I'm asking. If that's the case, I check the forum several times a day to look for a response. The danger of moderating stupid questions is that it could really put off stupid people, like me, who are honestly trying to improve. Take, for example, my recent question about bruised finger tips from hard crimping. That may sound like a no-brainer to some, but I had never heard of it before (just tears and flappers). Considering that I have to take blood thinners until I die, I really didn't know if bruised finger tips was "normal" or if I was doing some type of potentially serious damage to my anticoagulated person.
There has to be SOME limit, though, to the amount of stupid questions a forum can take and remain relevant. All you have to do is go through the "Strength" pages and look at how many times the same question was asked in slightly different ways. It does get hard to navigate if you're looking for the answer to a question you may have. Also, you don't want folks turning the forum into their own personal blog.
Glad I'm not the one who has to make the decision. If I had to vote, I'd vote for keeping the forum small and committed to performance oriented climbing. If the forum folded today, I would consider myself fortunate, and grateful, to have been able to participate.
|
|
|
Post by MarkAnderson on Apr 1, 2018 19:04:39 GMT -7
Thanks for your thoughts Chris. FWIW, I do not thing the crimping bruise thing is a stupid question (not giving you a blanket pass on previous questions though, haha).
I'm not at all concerned about "serious" members asking the odd dumb question (really, more often "lazy" question--a question they could easily answer themselves with 30 seconds in the search box). Nor am I concerned about OT conversations among "friends". I'm more concerned about gumbies and rec climbers figuring out that we have a lot of really smart, sincere people here who are much nicer than the MP/ST/RC community and flocking here like locusts to ask about figure 8's vs. Bowlines, R Grigris safe? What PAS is best...? because they think they won't get flamed here. And then we will have to start flaming them to get rid of them, and then that mutates into flaming each other and so on. I'm also not a big fan of what I consider "Facebook-style" posts. Not really sure what I mean by that, but like p0rn, I know it when I see it.
I don't know what the solution is or even if a solution is needed. I'm probably over-reacting at this point but I've been doing the rock climber IMB thing since 1999, and I've watched it happen on RC.com, then Supertaco, then MP. It really is just a matter of time.
For now, if we were to agree things are starting to decline, I'd probably want to start with some kind of post-per-day limit for newer members. I don't know if I can actually do that though; it seems like I can only ban members (permanently or temporarily), so a per-day-limit would be hard to implement. I guess I'm hoping this thread will drive a bit more self-awareness without alienating people (I'm probably wrong).
FWIW I've been on a diet since early January, under 5% BF since mid Feb, and I'm generally pretty irritable
|
|
|
Post by daustin on Apr 1, 2018 19:16:32 GMT -7
I wouldn’t worry about it. The majority of the community here doesn’t engage in stupid questions of the nature you describe — I just don’t think there’s enough community momentum to sustain that type of lame discussion aside from random one-offs. There’s also not enough traffic or volume here that it’s unmanageable IMO, which is a blessing in that it’s already a highly selected pool of posters compared to more general purpose climbing forums. It’s also a blessing in that most newbs will wind up getting funneled to higher traffic sites like MP or Reddit. If you were trying to grow and monetize the forum that would be a problem, but I’m glad to hear it’s not Just my 2c
|
|
|
Post by jetjackson on Apr 1, 2018 20:04:04 GMT -7
I'm really active on reddit, thecrag and here. We're actually debating on the crag at the moment on whether or not to have 'reactions' a la Facebook, for members to 'like' friends sends etc.
Reddit r/climbing and r/climbharder get an insane amount of stupid questions, most of which get downvoted really quickly, or get copy paste links for answers. Given the volume of stupid questions over there, I may be a bit desensitized, but not really seeing the same thing here.
I feel like this forum is for discussing the finer points of training and performance climbing, but also getting a performance climbers viewpoint on things - take my recent 'best place to live' thread - I could have put that on reddit, but I really wanted the perspective of this community, as I feel our goals are more closely aligned.
As for Facebook posts, I'll be the first to admit I have a personality type that likes attention - hence having a youtube channel. Although I try to tone them down on here, as it doesn't seem like the place for it - that's what reddit is for. I think the occasional spray down on here when you get a break through, or a really satisfying season as a result of the RPTM program, I think is okay.
Perhaps if you just outline a sticky thread where you discuss what the community is all about, and set out some guidelines, and then moderate as necessary? Send PMs out if you think that forum is losing it's tone, or posts are becoming too Facebooky.
|
|
|
Post by Chris W on Apr 2, 2018 4:11:13 GMT -7
...not giving you a blanket pass on previous questions though, haha...
HaHaHa!!! Fair enough
|
|
|
Post by RobF on Apr 2, 2018 5:51:19 GMT -7
The forum is a great resource and the purity of training content and training psyche are it's strong points. Think it would help having some kind of mission statement somewhere prominent and a signposting towards other forums etc to make people think first before posting less relevant things. Think it's been said before: the books tell you what to do but it's only here that you get the information around this is what I did do and this is what happened. One observation is that there are lots of threads with only 2 or 3 entries- maybes further subdivisions of threads into topics would help with the finding and reuse of older threads. For the future it would be nice for people to continue to be brave and post up clips of training and crux moves to stimulate analysis and debate. Also to bring in ideas from different disciplines e.g.: nutrition & psychology and also what training ideas can be converted from other sports.
|
|
|
Post by RobF on Apr 2, 2018 5:53:39 GMT -7
Oh- and as many pics of boss home boards as possible...
|
|
|
Post by tetrault on Apr 2, 2018 18:33:29 GMT -7
I've watched it happen on RC.com, then Supertaco, then MP.
FWIW I've been on a diet since early January, under 5% BF since mid Feb, and I'm generally pretty irritable Feel free to temporarily ban me for this...but I bet you wish you could have a Supertaco right now. With a large side of chips and guac Owning a copy of the RCTM should be a prerequisite for joining the forum. No idea how that would be implemented though.
|
|
|
Post by Charlie S on Apr 2, 2018 18:41:06 GMT -7
Maybe a "IT'S IN THE BOOK!" bumper sticker for quick replies?
But if you want to talk about stupid questions, take a look at the Training Beta Facebook community page. Holy crap. I really like Neely Quinn's interviews, websites, and articles. But the people posting on the community page have no clue, on the average!
Generally, ignoring The Dumb seems to be the best. But sometimes The Dumb overwhelms.
|
|
|
Post by MarkAnderson on Apr 2, 2018 18:48:35 GMT -7
Generally, ignoring The Dumb seems to be the best. But sometimes The Dumb overwhelms. That only works if everyone does it. I've seen it not work consistently on all the aforementioned IMBs.
|
|
|
Post by Chris W on Apr 2, 2018 19:52:35 GMT -7
I generally view the forum as a living version of the RCTM.
|
|
|
Post by tetrault on Apr 2, 2018 20:23:36 GMT -7
I was thinking one would probably have figured out a grigri and PAS before buying the book, that's all. Maybe to join the forum there are a few simple multiple choice test questions like "what is depicted in the figure on page xx?"
|
|
|
Post by korduroy on Apr 3, 2018 4:44:55 GMT -7
While I don’t post or respond often, I still check the threads several times a day. This forum is a breath of fresh air from all the other climbing and non-climbing forums on the web. I agree that slowly, but surely, people will flock to this forum with questions like “ive been climbing for 6 days, critique my training plan” While this forum isn’t heavily trafficked, training and climbing is the “it” thing right now. I think the flood will slowly start to creep into here.
Mitigation of the masses will pose a challenge. Im am really unsure of the best way to do this, but I certainly don’t want to see the forum turn into the piles that FB/Reddit/ST/etc are
|
|
|
Post by climber511 on Apr 3, 2018 5:59:01 GMT -7
FWIW I've been on a diet since early January, under 5% BF since mid Feb, and I'm generally pretty irritable How you have eaten and trained to reach 5% body fat would make for a good read. Please
|
|