Vindication?

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#1 Vindication?

Post by Commander »

In a way I feel vindicated. Some of the other new rocketry forums have floundered. It would appear that that haven't had a new post in awhile. I therefore assume that if all anyone wanted was to post about rocketry, they would be thriving. So, thereof, maybe there is something to allowing free speech.
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#2 Re: Vindication?

Post by luke strawwalker »

Commander wrote:In a way I feel vindicated. Some of the other new rocketry forums have floundered. It would appear that that haven't had a new post in awhile. I therefore assume that if all anyone wanted was to post about rocketry, they would be thriving. So, thereof, there is something to allowing free speech.
Yeah, I think you can say that. Definitely more activity around here than on the other two new startups. Rocketry Spot is pretty much dead. Rocketry Center muddles along with a single post or two every few days... sometimes a bit busier and sometimes a little slower.

Thing is, both these new forums started in the wake of the last big hoo-hah (at least the last big hoo-hah I was around for on the Terribly Run Forum, anyway). Lots of folks sorta got sick and tired of the usual BS over there all at once. Rocketry Spot was started, IIRC, by some of the guys who wanted to "open up" the discussions of homebrewed motors, recipes, and the like which the Terribly Run Forum puts in the gulag behind locked gates that only a select handful of "level 2" fliers who jump through all their hoops can get at. Course I haven't seen a post over there in forever; I used to check every day but it's been months so I moved it to the bottom of the list. Seems like they would have enjoyed having the capability of having a discussion without all the crap foisted on everyone over on the Terribly Run Forum. I guess not.

Rocketry Center was more of an all-around alternative to the Terribly Run Forum... but looks like they're on life support as well.

I've been kinda perplexed by it all, actually. I would have thought that things would have picked up more than they have-- MOST folks have been displeased with how things have been going on the Terribly Run Forum for a LONG time... Seems like given the chance to "jump ship" once and for all, to have a REAL alternative to the crap that they do over there, but for some reason that's not the case. They're barely hanging on on life support.

There's a fairly small group here, but it's been fairly consistent. And it's a pretty good group as well. I'd say that's a plus...

So why aren't the other alternatives to the stupidity of the Terribly Run Forum and even the hand-wringing that goes on over on YORF being more successful, and drawing away membership, or at least getting more participation between different forums??

I guess there's a number of possibilities. I tend to think that MOST folks on the forums want "an audience" and lots of hustle-bustle... they'd rather be hip deep in stupidity and nonsense, just so long as "something's going on" and they have an audience for whatever it is they're looking to post. SO, they choose to stay where the action is, even if most of it is garbage and nonsense and held hostage by a bunch of whining panty waists who'd rather whine and play forum pope by finger wagging at everyone else about what they can and cannot discuss (IOW, Boy George gASSbag, among a few others).

Cest les vis... the world is full of them, and another is born every minute...

I'm just glad that the few of us with a brain and who want to discuss things freely like adults without having to pass it through the "8 year old's birthday party" filter and the "hand wringing liberal whiny little b!tch" filter has a place to do so. So what if 200 people don't read it... most of them are too ignorant to really understand it anyway.

Later! OL J R :)
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#3 Re: Vindication?

Post by Commander »

Off the bus, I can type a bit better (yeah sure) now.

It's not that I want to see anyone fail, it's just that I was told, "you can't have political speech on a rocketry forum" so much, my head was about to explode. I know we don't have the "numbers" of members other forums have... yet. Slowly we are building though. I also wonder how many of the members on other sites are just spammers that signed up and are sitting dormant on the other sites. I clean my spammers as soon as I notice them.

The main point is that if you want model rocketry blithering about arcane and boring fin shapes, you can go one place or the other. To get a full rounded exposure, well we seem to be the only one. It's amazing how much impact just daily political activities can have on our hobby. We need to be renaissance men and women in this era. Not just specializing in one area, but being fully rounded individuals. Are not home owners coming back to doing a lot of home repairs themselves? Could this be because the internet makes a lot of information about specialized areas available?

I hope you continue to enjoy the diversity and ecleptic opinions here. I wish it were a bit more varied, but those who espouse "progressive liberal" ideals don't seem to want to stick around. Their lose, for they might at the very least have learned what makes their ideals strong. Lord knows I went through that annealing process in regards to conservatism long enough dealing with them here in Cleveland.
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#4 Re: Vindication?

Post by Rocket Babe »

More than a year ago I noticed TRF was about half of what it once was, meaning many days not much more than 2 pages of posts when it used to be more than 5 daily and YORF is now usually about half a page of posts. I get much more from being here or YORF so that's what I do. I never even considered any of the newer ones. They're mostly the same people posting to the older sites anyway and are making the same posts multiple places.

What does that mean? Is the hobby declining, are forums declining or both? Could be more people prefer to spend time on other types of social media.
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#5 Re: Vindication?

Post by luke strawwalker »

Rocket Babe wrote:More than a year ago I noticed TRF was about half of what it once was, meaning many days not much more than 2 pages of posts when it used to be more than 5 daily and YORF is now usually about half a page of posts. I get much more from being here or YORF so that's what I do. I never even considered any of the newer ones. They're mostly the same people posting to the older sites anyway and are making the same posts multiple places.

What does that mean? Is the hobby declining, are forums declining or both? Could be more people prefer to spend time on other types of social media.
Well, I think that's a valid observation... How I surf the forums is, I just hit "new posts" and then sift through the topics and read what interests me... Which on YORF and here is everything (to some degree of interest or another) but on the Terribly Run Forum, five pages of mostly JUNK posts (word association games and other trivial complete nonsense, or unending arguments about fin shapes, which glue is better, etc) I'd open maybe 20-30 tabs (I always open the new posts in their own tabs, read them, and close the tab... just easier for me to read it that way). The signal to noise ratio over there was always terrible... a *oops you said word #1 ton of posts, but 90% of them were mostly drivel anyway. Seems that's what people like, though, given their continued "highest body count" status among the rocketry hobby forums... I guess a crowd draws people in, even if the only thing the crowd is doing is mostly empty-headed navel gazing... I was a member there from my return to rocketry about 12-15 years ago now until just over a year ago. I saw the comings and goings, and the sheer volume of "navel lint" posts was enough to drive you crazy. After having seen the see-saw go back and forth several times between overmoderation and the forum approaching something approaching its intended purpose, to freely discuss topics of interest to model rocket enthusiasts, only to see the pendulum swing back the other way, when the latest group of jack-booted THUGS started abusing their moderator powers, mostly at the whims of a few (mostly ONE) complete crybaby whiny asses, that was enough... One I just said, "Oh, Fvck this!" and dumped the Terribly Run Forum completely, erased my links to it off my favorites list, and haven't hardly been back. When someone posts links to a story over there, I have to hold my nose to click on it and read it... One thing I DID notice back when I was over there was that most of the nonsense and garbage originated from a certain "usual group of idiots" that haunted the place. I looked around there the other day because something someone said on here or YORF kinda got me wondering, and seems like there has been a change in the crowd over there, just looking at names I recognize and names I don't. Irregardless, I'm just not particularly interested in going back. I never liked the fact that the owner sold it off to a group of wolves who's highest aspiration was to turn a buck off it... and I DESPISE their methodology... So I don't care to support that.

That's why I was rather horrified when YORF suddenly started being "overmoderated" and following the Terribly Run Forum's pattern... YORF was ALWAYS a more pleasant and enjoyable forum to be on, with a nice crowd and varied interests, and freedom to discuss "forbidden things" that would instantly be purged on the Terribly Run Forum. It was a discussion for ADULTS, versus the self-described "8 year olds birthday party" discussion on the other forum. Thanks to a few rather passionate and vocal posters with polar opposite political views, suddenly the mostly 'hands off' moderation policy on YORF changed and a HIGHLY VALUABLE and competent rocketry poster was banned, while a rather worthless and idiotic *oops you said word #1-stirrer remained, but soon mostly dropped out since he had nobody to argue with. Jonathan Dunbar's posted a TON of good rocketry information, Peter Oliva was and is pretty much worthless unless you want to argue with a libtard. Yet it was JB who was banned. Anyway, suddenly the site owner/operator/moderator starts swinging a club around and griping that he has to spend time moderating the forum instead of doing other things, instead of telling a small set of crybabies (ONE in particular, Boy George gASSbagg) to go pound sand and grow the fvck up... Anyway, fortunately things seem to have calmed down over there for the most part.

I would have loved to see Rocketry Spot and Rocketry Center take off... I think with a dedicated nucleus of people discussing things of interest to them (like homebrew recipes and methods on RS or varied interests on RC) then things could take off and be sustainable. BUT, like you said Rocketbabe, if it's just the 'usual suspects' mirror-posting the same stuff on different forums, then what's the value of reading the same post in a different forum? I'll admit I cross post quite a bit and have for a very long time, BUT, there's a markedly different set of folks (though some are the same) on the Terribly Run Forum and YORF... and, at least in the old days, there were a certain number of folks (who've I've become one of now) who simply REFUSED to participate on one forum but were valuable members of the other (some were good resources on YORF but refused to go to TRF, and some were on TRF who refused to participate on YORF). WHY deprive oneself of potentially valuable input from EITHER set of "exclusive" folks who only choose one forum or the other? That was always MY viewpoint on that subject, anyway.

I think SC has a good core group here and interesting discussions. I DO think Rocketbabe is completely right, in that other forms of social media are slowly displacing the forums. Course, I wouldn't know; my evidence is anecdotal-- I don't do FB or other such 'social media' type programs... I look at it from time to time as my wife shows me things on hers, but I find it hard to navigate and hard to operate and see little/nothing of interest, and anything of value is soon "swallowed up" in the neverending torrent of bullshit. The forums are a repository of valuable information, tips, tricks, techniques, and skills, sorta mish-mashed in with a day to day history and the ever present and unavoidable minutia of the moment... and on some forums, diluted down with immense loads of nonsense and garbage, which make the task of sifting the wheat from the chaff that much more difficult!

I've heard a number of vendors say, though, that their main focus now is on social media and not the forums. I guess if all you're after is free advertising, that's probably the way to go. If you're looking to make a LASTING impression or impact, though, I think the forums are STILL the way to go.

If the idiots with an attention span half that of a gnat with ADHD don't read it, though, who cares?? Course, like I said, for some people, the only thing that matters are NUMBERS... so long as they can put their content out in front of a BIG CROWD that's all they care about-- even if that crowd won't remember anything about what they put out there by tomorrow or it's swallowed up in a bunch of vapid navel gazing nonsense...

Later! OL J R :)
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#6 Re: Vindication?

Post by Rocket Babe »

As for social media, I don't Facebook, Randy does. Mostly he uses it to keep up with the kids and grand kids and old school friends and he has a separate, Rocket Babe Facebook page, for the book series.

If there is something he knows will interest me he'll call me over to see, or to do a brief reply to a RB fan but that's as far as I care to get into it. I don't Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. at all. Who's got the time for all of that?
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#7 Re: Vindication?

Post by bernomatic »

Rocket Babe wrote:As for social media, I don't Facebook, Randy does. Mostly he uses it to keep up with the kids and grand kids and old school friends and he has a separate, Rocket Babe Facebook page, for the book series.

If there is something he knows will interest me he'll call me over to see, or to do a brief reply to a RB fan but that's as far as I care to get into it. I don't Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. at all. Who's got the time for all of that?
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#8 Re: Vindication?

Post by luke strawwalker »

Rocket Babe wrote:As for social media, I don't Facebook, Randy does. Mostly he uses it to keep up with the kids and grand kids and old school friends and he has a separate, Rocket Babe Facebook page, for the book series.

If there is something he knows will interest me he'll call me over to see, or to do a brief reply to a RB fan but that's as far as I care to get into it. I don't Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. at all. Who's got the time for all of that?
Exactly.... Pretty much how we do it.

I've goofed around on Pinterest a bit, actually have an account there, but I don't mess with it but every few months or so. Some interesting stuff there but again, hard to sift wheat from chaff.

I just like the accessibility and layout of the forums SO much better. But, like I said, seems most folks have the attention span of a cat with ADHD, so the social media sites where everything is here today and gone tomorrow is much more attractive for them I guess.

Later! OL J R :)
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#9 Re: Vindication?

Post by Rocket Babe »

>Apparently the President. :lol:

He doesn't work as many hours as I do. :lol:
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#10 Re: Vindication?

Post by Commander »

Rocket Babe wrote:>Apparently the President. :lol:

He doesn't work as many hours as I do. :lol:
Yes Rocket, but in all fairness, who does? ;) :lol:
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