Let me begin this epistle by stating the obvioius: it will represent my opinions, and mine alone. Those opinions have absolutely no importance whatsoever to the continued health, operation or existence of RyPN, and quite frankly neither do yours.

RyPN is NOT dying. Speaking of the events at hand in passive voice is dishonest. RyPN is under attack by people who dislike it. Make no mistake, the trumpeting calls for change are not happening for the betterment of RyPN, they are happening because there are people who want to remake it into something that they can control, that matches their biases, their theology, or their ideology (or all three). There is no drive whatsoever amongst the critics to somehow make RyPN better for its purposes, or better for its visitors. And I can offer a sort of proof of this.

I took over from Hume Kading as the administrator (and a moderator) of this site in early 2007. I had a set of guidelines inherited from Hume outlining what RyPN was to be, and I tried my best (though unsuccesfully) to conform RyPN to the guidelines that had been set for me. The Let's Remake RyPN crowd is what triggered Hume's departure (and ultimately, mine). From 2007 to January of 2011, I owned a web hosting company and provided hosting services to rypn.org, steamlocomotive.com and steamlocomotive.info along with some other railroad related websites. The company ceased operations in January 2011. So for a four year span at the beginning of my tenure here, I had access to considerable technological resources. This becomes import. During those four years I heard endless complaints about what RyPN was becoming and what it should be (mentally I referred to these screeds at "The Gospel According to Saint Asshole").

In each and every case, when an individual or group raised these issues and demanded that we change to suit them, I made them an offer and here is what I offered:

• I will registered (at my expense) a domain name for you.
• I will provide unlimited hosting for that domain for you (at my expense) for a period of three years.
• I will install and configure phpBB for you.
• I will allow you use RyPN to recruit new people for your site.

Not a living soul among those to whom I made this offer ever took me up on it. And I know why, I think.

Not one of them was interested in doing the work. They had an idea of what they wanted this place to be and they were cheerfully willing to apply pressure to make others do their bidding. Not very impressive.

Doug, Thank you for your service, both to RyPN and Steamlocomotive Info/.com. Hume, Thanks to you as well (as I've preached over and over), but you probably won't see this.

I'll shut up now.

And does anyone step up?

There are many sub-categories applicable for such a board, and not just for preservation.

There could be one for steam locomotive tech and restoration, another for diesels, another for passenger cars, one for caboose listing/documentation, one for stations, one for rail trails and other rights-of-way, operations in each state, former "fallen flag" survivor lines and rolling stock, etc.

Hey, isn't that beginning to sound like the old Railroad.net page? Or TrainOrders? Or Reddit? Or the Trains.com forums? Or even alt.railroad newsgroups?

Something I learned long ago in various lines of entertainment promotion: There is NO "magic bullet," no "one source" that everyone gravitates to. Not everyone reads the same magazine/newspaper (or three), not everyone is on Facebook; not every railfan is a local NRHS chapter member; not everyone listens to Walter Cronkite or the local radio station; etc. As any researcher or journalist worth their salt knows, you have to go look at EVERYWHERE to find out everything and get a balanced impression. That's the price of the "free market" of ideas.

And people gravitate to where they feel most informed, useful, or entertained. The fact is, when it comes to rail preservation scenes in North America, the signal-to-noise ratio at just about any forum or source is abominable at best (including, increasingly, here). Certain folks are prompted to share what vast knowledge is making their shelves or neurons groan with overload. Others engage in a form of ego-stroking or self-promotion, as it were. (Note that a late UP steam loco guy constantly held court under a pseudonym at one well-known paid forum--allegedly given free posting privileges by the owner to attract readers--but never put in any known appearance here; whereas I know from firsthand conversations that a contemporary UP steam "guy" monitors this forum closely.....)

There are well-known rail historians I know who have been here in the past but simply are too busy with other projects, or day jobs in publishing, or in assisted-care facilities, or enjoying retirement or new careers to return.

The problem as well is what vision others have. Some only want a forum to post their well-researched (or not!) compositions about rail history or technology (like the old articles section). Some want to share the photos they have discovered or taken each day/week (Bob Yarger's weekly flood comes to mind). Much of the market for those people can now be carried by social media, a concept still alien when this website was first formed. But there is seemingly no room on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, YouTube, etc. for considered, in-depth discussion of longer than a soundbite. And discussion is what is actually necessary for long-term education and learning, much as the internet of 2022 seems to abhor it.

At the severe risk of seeming overly pompous, this number from the 1969 play and 1972 movie "1776" comes to mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fq4H4SAb6s

RYPN is just fine. It functions about the same as it always has in nearly 20 years now.

There are just some people that join and then want to complain.

Superheater has essentially said he would take you up on this offer.

Doug Bailey - Great post. Thank you for confirming what has been painfully obvious. Have a pleasant evening.

A couple of observations:


First this first statement of purposen-ow just shy of 25 years old:

1) report on items and issues of interest to the railroad preservation community; and educate the public to the past and current impact of railroading on the history of this country.

1.) As an aside, skip the profanity. It diminishes an otherwise thoughtful post and its "in the rules".

2.) Nowhere in the statement of purpose (to the extent we owe unfailing fidelity to the founder's vision) does it say "no debate"; yet a moderator just wrote that, chiding the users like we are sugared up grade school children in his classroom . The suppression of debate doesn't result in unity or harmony, it results in tyranny.

3.) Things of "interest" are never going to appeal to the entire user base. I could write a post (or an article or a book on how it is arguable that the Interstate Commerce Commission's insistence on a peculiar form of accounting for track structures (Replacement or Betterment Accounting) was as much the cause of the massive wave of bankruptcies beginning about five to six decades ago as anything else. I do not. Why? Because I make a guess that 99-99.99% of the readers here would have no idea what I was yammering about and wouldn't care. It's absolutely consequential to understanding the history of railroads as business entities, but I'm not much into futility.

4.) It is necessary to be able to dispute others and it's impossible to remove personal bias or perspective.

Sometimes, a dispute comes from personal knowledge. Recently, Ed K contended that a hypothetical fatal crash of a vintage war bird woould allow a life insurer to sue the organization. I disputed tht from direct personal knowledge that a life insurer has no claim against any party causing the death of an insured. As much as I like playing "whack a mole", I find that sort of lack of knowledge incredibly depressing.

Other times; we make inferences into cause or effect. If a person is discussing fuel prices, it's impossible to remove political considerations from the analysis, because energy is at the center of multiple national controversies and is so heavilly regulated and politicized. Worse, it's an icredibly complex market involving distinct segments and complicated financial instruments.

5.) Rypn is quite alive, and quiet dead, much like Shroedinger's cat. At one time, this website was owned by an entity incorporated in Texas that obtained a federal tax exemption as a charity under §501(c)(3)

Its exemption was revoked 8 years ago:

https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/detailsPag ... vokeSearch

I'm assuming the corporation was abandoned and is now derelict. I'll leave that determination to lawyers.

So what we have here is an internet site, living off of somebody's good graces and that could disappear in a red hot minute. It's essentially an open source project with every poster in some way contributing to what it is-a mansion built on sand. One weakness of open source is contributers focus on what's of interest to them, not necessary what is a user base level consideration.

5.) This is a site for data, not information. I'm sure you understand the distinction, and if others don't I'll be happy to provide an explanatioin that be succint enough to meet the needs of the most badly ordered short attention span.

6.) I already registed another domain, at my expense.

Perhaps a moderator would be so kind as to delete this whole thread? I find, upon reflection, that I don't even agree with myself.

Suggestion: When creating a new post, members of this forum should be encouraged to include a succinct, explicit "Subject." That way, visitors to the RyPN BBS not interested in one topic or another need not open and read multiple posts only to find the subject or its comments to be uninteresting or irrelevant to the visitors' interests.

An observation of the home page shows this:



That statement itself will have been written six years ago this August. It begs the question, is this site still running on autopilot?

We're going on 12 years now that a former core function of this website (and one I looked forward to- I have a saved quite a few articles lest I wake up one day and they've disappeared) has been utilized. I know there are quite a few people who wouldn't mind writing an article if they were to be posted again. If you're coming here with the hopes of hearing from "someone that knows" (not an uncommon thing I've heard), what could be better than reading a full fledged article by them?

So is RYPN really "not dead", or is it simply continuing to exist?

I'm going to start a new thread on the articles subject.