BATMANOccasionally we get a self-appointed policeman that thinks the forum should operate "in his image".
I have never seen one of these, but I have only been here a few years.
Steve and Tom are the only people that I have seen police the forum.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
gregcthe MR electronics forum has an average of 8.3 comments / thread. MR protoype 13.4, MR layout 18.9. the MR general discuss forum has 62.5, but only 22.3 if the Diner and Snow Plow threads are ignored. as mentioned, the MRH forum has 73 comments/thread.
I am surprised that anyone would actually have the time and energy to do a survey like this. Seems to me that there must certainly better things to do.
That said, my opinion is that the number of comments per thread is a flawed measurement of interest.
If an interesting question is posted and the first response answers the question, what does it matter if there are only a few additional comments?
And did you consider views per thread? If a particular post generates only 10 comments but is viewed 500 times, does this not indicate that there is interest?
Or is viewing not considered participation?
as i initially said, i am surprised by the large, often > 100 posts / thread on the MRH forum and why is it different on other forums.
i think the large number dicourages others willing to comment (at least me) and make the thread less informative because of the large # or likley repetitive or social comments
and again, i think threads such as the Diner thread are helpful to the forum because they provides a place for social discourse which keeps most threads on topic and more informative
i'm curious about the willingness for people to post something, answer a quesiton which may already have been answered. (why "waste your breath") and how to provide comments that penetrate through such noise
the other metric to consider, which i didn't evaluate, is the length of the post. some are succinct, others are verbose.
maxmanI am surprised that anyone would actually have the time and energy to do a survey like this.
i've learned to write scripts that extract useful information from gigabyte log files to debug software problems
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
SeeYou190 BATMAN Occasionally we get a self-appointed policeman that thinks the forum should operate "in his image".
BATMAN Occasionally we get a self-appointed policeman that thinks the forum should operate "in his image".
gregci've learned to write scripts that extract useful information from gigabyte log files to debug software problems
Yes, I'm sure you did.
The issue I see is that it is hard to extract useful information from something in which no useful information exists.
These last posts remind me that Sheldon ("ATLANTIC CENTRAL") has last posted 4 weeks ago. It is very rare not to hear from him in such a long time. I hope everything is alright.
JW
In spring and summer months, without my making it do so, my mind automatically checks out of the hobby. It just does.
Now, as I'm down, nursing a case of plantar fasciitis, I thought I'd take a look-see on the general discussion.
To me, participation (commenting) in any topics that interest me is a part of the overall hobby which itself is entertainment. So the forum provides a place to gather and share info about the hobby. share progress, and so is part of the intertainment.
When topics turn negative or simply don't interest me, I just dismiss them. I don't see this discussion as such, or I wouldn't be commenting.
This forum is still my only public involvement site where discussing model RRing is concerned. Dan
gregci'm curious about the willingness for people to post something, answer a quesiton which may already have been answered. (why "waste your breath")...
gregc...and how to provide comments that penetrate through such noise
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Part of the problem is the forum culture. By not letting people discuss what is going on in the world and their lives, it limits the participation. Management thinks they need to do something about it when a thread goes south but if it is not important to others, then the thread will just die anyway. The best way to handle trolls is to handle them, not the others that may want to discuss stuff.
rrebellBy not letting people discuss what is going on in the world.
I strongly disagree with this. I come here to escape the real world.
Some light-hearted chatter in the diner is fine, but I agree with the list of banned topics.
To paraphrase our host... The place where Model Railroaders can go to discuss what is going on in the world is literally everywhere else on the internet.
One thing not mentioned is people steering topics in different directions. I am the 1st to admit guilt of doing it. Sometimes, altering the topic can help encourage others to partcipate, other times its to fulfill my self-interest, or idle curiousity.
Regardless, of reason(s) encouraging others to keep a thread alive might generate additional engagement. There are plenty here who have a wealth of knowledge (one measurement is the long list of avatars someone made from here). Regardless of skill or experience level, EVERYONE here has something to contribute. Ultimately, it's up to the OP to decide how to proceed.
Keeping things civil is paramount. I know some like the banter about the DC/DCC thread or best way to do________. Just do what works for you and enjoy the hobby. Perhaps we ought to more closely emulate the approach with Pokemon cards: good luck and have fun.
kasskabooseOne thing not mentioned is people steering topics in different directions.
when this happens on other forums the moderators can split the thread. so now there are multiple threads each on its own topic. people can participate in either or both and aren't confused about responses
The MR forum software used to allow this, as well as combining threads, and was a really handy tool for the moderators. That capability was lost a few years back when the current software started loosing functionality.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
What really bothers me about some of the posts are the people who have nothing to add regarding the post. For instance, "I would never buy one of those, I model only the 1920s." When the original question was "If you have an X, what do you think of it?" I hate plowing through nonsensical, non answers like that. If you have no experience on the topic, you don't need to chime in. To keep topics streamlined, stuff like that needs to be moderated out.
tommymr What really bothers me about some of the posts are the people who have nothing to add regarding the post. For instance, "I would never buy one of those, I model only the 1920s." When the original question was "If you have an X, what do you think of it?" I hate plowing through nonsensical, non answers like that. If you have no experience on the topic, you don't need to chime in. To keep topics streamlined, stuff like that needs to be moderated out.
When Tom, some other volunteers, and I began to push the forum toward a more friendly culture and tone about 15 years ago, it was a protracted, sometimes awful, contentious, vituperative, and vengeful process that eventually had some people banned outright. The point is that, when Tom in Ohio had to call it a day-plus-three-hours in Ohio, I had joined at my PC on Vancouver Island, read into the moderator's forum to learn what was up, and then begun to take the pressure from Tom so he could go to bed, often after midnight. There were at least three other volunteers who came and went over the next three years. We spelled each other off to ensure the forum was given constant, and consistent, steerage, all under the guise of Bergie, the company's sole moderator at the time.
Tom is now the lone 'after hours guy', and he took it upon himself once again about seven years ago now, maybe more. A forum's tone and culture can shift inside of a few minutes, but we don't have the kind of moderation that it takes to run a forum any more. Tom has done yeoman's service all by himself.
To that end, it becomes incumbent upon the 'elders' here, especially if they find the culture shifting in an unwanted direction, to speak up, or to use the PM to coach people about how to become more influential with us and less contentional or confrontational. If threads are drifting badly, tell the participants that the thread is being hijacked. But, this should be the purview and the duty of the thread's originator, something that often doesn't happen for a few days until he/she pops in again. This puts the onus, in a perfect world, back onto a cadre of moderators...which we don't have.
Thank-you, Tom, for the excellent work you have done, day in and day out. Literally, for years now.
selectoruse the PM to coach people about how to become more influential with us and less contentional or confrontational.
Well, that ain't gonna work.
What's option B?
tommymrWhat really bothers me about some of the posts are the people who have nothing to add regarding the post. For instance, "I would never buy one of those, I model only the 1920s." When the original question was "If you have an X, what do you think of it?"
I have to admit this bothers me also.
When a question is about how to program a brand XXX DCC decoder, and all you have to say is that you will never use DCC, it detracts from the thread.
SeeYou190When a question is about how to program a brand XXX DCC decoder, and all you have to say is that you will never use DCC, it detracts from the thread.
but aren't these the type of comments that result from people just trying to participate in some social activity, having no better outlet such as a Diner thread.
Do you listen, or do you just wait to talk? -- Pulp Fiction
selectorThank-you, Tom, for the excellent work you have done, day in and day out.
Plus 1.
Terry
Terry in NW Wisconsin
Queenbogey715 is my Youtube channel
As a starter, let me say that despite greg's best intentions to get at the conduct of the forum and its members, this thread is predictably nothing more than a list of complaints as to how the forum is used by its members.
Truth be told, the manner in which the forum is set up, and the limitations imposed on Tom to moderate it, results in an inability to change it. Nothing said or wished for in this thread can have any effect on the conduct of the forum because the members are pretty much free to say whatever they want, how often they want.
Partly to blame in my opinion is a member post count and a thread view count. At one time, there was also a daily post count. So, for some, it was a daily contest to top the list. In my opinion, the forum would be much better off without any of these counts.
I look at my own post count. It seems astronomical, but over a 19 1/2 year period, it only amounts to 3.5 posts a day. A lot of that activity took place in the early years of my participation in the forum as I was learning all about HO scale modeling. Later on, most of my posts took the form of replies to other's threads where I felt that I had something to offer.
But, be that as it may, some forum members seem to feel a pathological obligation to respond to each and every thread, or nearly so. My guess is that even without the post count that perceived obligation would still be in place. For others, the view count on their own threads is highly valued, but I will resist speculating as to exactly what drives the view count. It is not always what it seems.
So, let's face it. greg got it right in his initial post. The forum is as much about social interaction as it is about technical content. It is also addictive. I probably tell myself once a week that I am going to stop checking in on the forum. But, I cannot help myself. I cannot resist the possibility that something interesting will pop up, but more often than not, at least lately, I find myself annoyed.
Yeah, I know, no one is making me read these threads, so just move on. But, heck, where's the fun in that? Once annoyed, twice viewed. Inadvertently, I am adding to the view count.
Rich
Alton Junction
richhotrainlet me say that despite greg's best intentions to get at the conduct of the forum
i believe my intention is to present some observations about
one possibly conclusion is that the MR forums are more informative per post than some others
another is that the more focused threads dissuade others from participating
Well for some like me, I veiw this forum as if I was having a discusion at the club I used to belong to (don't say, then go to the club, like MRR hobby shops, they don't exist except far away here, they used to be everywhere). It is pointless to talk on a lot of topics on other forums about many subjects because it is hard to find people with a similar connection, like model railroading. One first needs a topic of intrest to draw one into the conversation, sure I could go to another forum and search and search for a hook but it is very hard to find, even in topics that intrest me. Me, I like to dicuss a myrad of items in one conversation, otherwize I get bored. Yes I could talk to neigbors but we have nothing else in common but living near by. And don't say the Diner as that is just one long thread and hard to find an entry point into the conversaion, now if the Diner was broken up into sub theards, great but then it becomes a forum within a forum which would be fine but we all know that ain't gonna happen.
richhotrainBut, be that as it may, some forum members seem to feel a pathological obligation to respond to each and every thread, or nearly so.
I have not seen this.
Looking over the twenty most recent threads with responses, no individual has responded to more than four of them within the past three days.
If you don't consider my daily responses to Show Me Something and the Trackside Diner, I typically respond to only two or three threads a day, and almost never in DCC or Prototype categories.
I also try to bundle my responses into one reply post so I don't "Post Hog".
Sure, there have been days when I have responded to the SMS and JTD five times or more, but those are social threads, and sometimes they really get moving.
Some days there are lots of threads that interest me, other days, not as many.
richhotrainPartly to blame in my opinion is a member post count and a thread view count.
The Warseer forum assigned a "rank" based on posts. The first few levels were kind of demeaning. New members posted as often as they could to reach the rank of "knight", and then they slowed down.
That was a bad system.
SeeYou190 richhotrain But, be that as it may, some forum members seem to feel a pathological obligation to respond to each and every thread, or nearly so. I have not seen this. Looking over the twenty most recent threads with responses, no individual has responded to more than four of them within the past three days.
richhotrain But, be that as it may, some forum members seem to feel a pathological obligation to respond to each and every thread, or nearly so.
When I posted my initial reply to this thread, I honestly had no specific screen names in mind. But, after reading your reply, I went back and clicked on certain screen names that quickly came to mind. Some of those screen names showed multiple replies per day to a variety of threads over a multi-day period.
And that was my point that some forum members cannot restrain themselves from replying to a large number of threads on an ongoing basis, and those replies are not always substantive.
Ya think? Speaking as a Trains Forum member for years and as a clinical psychologist, I believe people participate on here if they are interested and/or enjoy the process. Threads like the Diner serve more of a social purpose. I never was interested in those on the Trains Forum so I ignored. And that is probably what would be best on any forum: ignore those threads in which one has no interest.
I would prefer not to speculate why multiple/frequent responses would be disturbing to anyone.
richhotrainAnd that was my point that some forum members cannot restrain themselves from replying to a large number of threads on an ongoing basis, and those replies are not always substantive.
In the 17 years I have been around I have averaged 1.46 posts per day. Considering what little I have to offer in the expertise category, I just may be a post-hog. I had better cut back.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
gregc,Going back to your original post: yes, the popularity of the forum is about the social culture rather than the subject matter. You could have a forum about the most popular of subjects, but if there's no social interaction and/or if there's a bad culture, the chances of it becoming busy are rather remote.
I have been a forum participant on the Model Railroader website since my very eary days online (I was on the newsgroup rec.models.railroad back in the mid-1990s). I was in college from 1993-98 and in between classes, I would surf the web (w/ Netscape!) in the PC labs. Back then, MR had a "Question of the Month" by Andy Sperando. It was posted in a "Guestbook" fashion: he would write the question, and folks could answer it. There was zero interaction. He asked, we answered. Andy didn't reply much if at all, and no one really interacted with each other. It was pretty boring, and worse, you felt like your reply was never even read by anyone. The guestbook format lasted a while, but then true forum software was still in its infancy. There were no accounts required, you just typed in a field and hit "post".Next, MR had a new forum that was in a terrible format. Every single post and reply had to be clicked on to read it. And remember this was on dial-up internet. Imagine a thread with 30 replies - it would take perhaps 15 minutes just to read them all as it would take 30 seconds or so to load each message as the page had ads that needed to be loaded with each click. And so many posts were just "Me, too!" or words to that effect. Worst of all was the total lack of moderation control. The trolls got pretty bad for a while. Again, no accounts were required.In early 2001, MR changed to a much better forum software that required accounts and they hired moderators to keep the signal-to-noise ratio down. It took me about a year of lurking before deciding it was worth signing up for an account in May 2002. And now I am still here 21 years later.I used to average about 2 posts a week but now it's more like 1 post a month. Why? Well, back then my old retail job left me with a lot of downtime between customers. Today, I'm usually too busy with work to get deeply involved on forum topics. Zoom sessions, magazine editing, model reviews, instruction manuals; all involve me sitting in front of the computer screen for hours a day. Pounding a keyboard for fun after work just isn't as fun as it used to be.
charlie hebdoI would prefer not to speculate why multiple/frequent responses would be disturbing to anyone.
no one suggested disturbing
gregc - post #1i am reluctant to read a lengthy 100+ post thread which may be on a topic of interest, searching to find useful nuggets of information
You wanted a psychologist, you got one, and now you're complaining about their answer?
I think there will always be communities or even 'cliques' of people with particular interests who start or participate in particular threads that interest them. Same for those who have social vs. technical interests. The point is that the common machinery of a forum... or, before them, a BBS or even an e-mail reflector, facilitates ALL the methods of communication, and makes them available to all. It doesn't dictate that everyone listen to every post, or agree with every activity.
As what might be a helpful note: waaaaaay back in the days before the World Wide Web took off (and before Google and other cataloging engines were properly developed and run), there were arguments about the 'metaphor' that using the consumer Internet should take. Some of these considered that the 'cyberspace' of '80s SF was how you'd find and interact with things; another variant used some kind of mapped community (or nested directory arranged as that -- anyone remember geocities?). It was in this era that the metaphor of 'forum' was developed, as a virtual space, different from, say, a chatroom where every line was just added, like on the TMI incident printer, and you had to winkle out 'your' conversation from all the other effective noise, or a reflector where every new contribution went to everyone's inbox. Think of the classic Roman forum: a defined space in which you can walk around. There might be soapboxes with orators discussing or declaiming, or academies either with teachers or Socratic-method education, or technical libraries, or stores you could buy things from... all depending on your inclination or interest, with no requirement that you had to go through gatekeepers or pay 'dues' or have to listen to or participate in anything that didn't interest or concern you.
Perhaps that addresses gregc's original question...
richhotrainWell, that is a pretty restricted time frame.
I don't know how to write data extraction code like Greg does.