Actually, no, it's not.

Somebody (I won't mention names) suggested that TrainOrders is "more popular" even though it requires membership to participate, in part because they "don't moderate." Both Zugmann and I have testified to the contrary--they DO moderate discussions, albeit stealthily by making threads "disappear" rather than locking threads and leaving them visible as RyPN moderators have chosen to do.

The point of my earlier post is that comparing numbers, etc. between TrainOrders and RyPN is like comparing apples to watermelons, or rotgut booze to fine wine. RyPN is a not-for-profit website with a mission of disseminating discussion and information about railway preservation. TrainOrders is a for-profit website with a mission of enriching Todd Clark, and a secondary mission of disseminating subscriber-contributed information (without pay) about railways in general.

In other words, it's like comparing the RR Museum of Pa. to Dutch Wonderland.

As I posted, in my 9 yrs. of daily visiting the Trainorders.com site I can not recall EVER seeing a thread disappear. I've asked their webmaster to give me the figures on the number of threads/year they've "erased" and if I recieve that info I'll pass it on.

Suffice it to say that it's a very rare thing. The main discussion here is..... does aggressive moderating on balance encourage or discourage participation??

My gut is that it discourages participation as many feel that if they post a comment in a thread that's getting at all contentious there's a very good chance here that the thread will get locked, so why bother.

On Trainorders.com heated subjects are allowed to run their course and quite a few go to 40 or more comments and 3-5,000 views.

The main point here is that the free market is clearly showing us that far more players prefer the Trainorders.com methodology as they're willing to pay for the privilege of participating vs. here where it's free!!!

I don't think the two sites are at all mutually exclusive. They both serve a purpose and I for one hope they both continue forever!!

And as for enriching Todd the webmaster at Trainorders, I say GREAT!! He's earned every nickle,as he percieved a product and the market place has validated it as shown by the growing PAID membership!! That's what free enterprise is all about!!

IMHO-Ross Rowland

I have been viewing both RYPN and TO for a number of years now, and have thoroughly enjoyed both. I rarely post, and never posted on TO until a few days ago when I finally joined that site's membership. Ironically, I joined because of a good discussion on Steamtown's recent $3.3 million stimulus funding which went beyond the initial page which is free! If that discussion had taken place on RYPN, I still wouldn't be a TO member--but I really wonder if such a discussion could take place here. The mention of certain items--one of them being Steamtown which has personal interest to me--always seem to create a "flame war" here on RYPN which the moderators are more than willing to "lock" at the slightest provacation. While I agree that name-calling and personal attack is certainly uncalled for, a lively discussion presenting both sides on an issue is certainly more productive than being allowed to talk about just one side. I was connected with Steamtown for many years, and am the first to admit its never been "perfect". I certainly don't begrudge those who feel strongly about the negative side of things to express their views; sometimes they have very valid points to make.

When it comes to "policing" threads on RYPN, I sometimes wonder if some of the posters couldn't do a better job of staying away from "flaming" others. If people didn't flame in the first place, the moderators wouldn't be faced with having to lock threads.

Frederick G. Bailey

Gents, it's the people, not the product.

Remember, this board was effectively shut down and the enabling corporation dissolved in the face of legal action. I am sure TO keeps a lawyer or insurance on retainer and you pay for that privilege. Is that what we have to do?

If WE (as membership) can't be thick skinned enough to handle things when flame wars are on (and who really wins in a flame war--we've had those here too) then maybe we NEED moderation. Aside from flaming, it strikes me that there are a handful of people here who want to win the argument (whether they started it or not) and those folks won't leave things alone until they have won or the thread is locked.

For that reason, we have moderation. Thread hi-jacking and all that other garbage (which fills plenty of cyberspace, and expands a cursory question into a 30 page rant fest) is found everywhere--do we need it here too?

Rather a shame that TO could carry a long discussion about Steamtown. They might be able to talk in civil terms about 1361 too. Too bad we can't do the same.

Don't blame the moderators for threads getting locked down, go look in the mirror. It's time we grew up and deal with affairs, good or ill, fair or foul, like the professionals in the trade that we say we are. Now, back to work.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

No.

They prefer the content.

Face facts. TrainOrders has NINE different forum subjects, plus video, plus access to four webcams, plus classifieds, plus some website hosting. RyPN has the moral equivalent of one of those (lesser-visited) forums, plus "Flimsies" plus classifieds. (In a sense, we could have called Yarger's old schtick of posting vintage photo links as another minor-forum equivalent to TO.)

Sure, we could put up a model railroading forum in addition to the current Interchange. Let's add a computer and electronics forum, the better for folks to post links to their latest MS Train Sim loco simulation. Let's add a forum called "Passenger Services" where the astute schedule-keepers can rant about how their local excursion line always runs late, and mentions when a PV is added to the train. Another forum for Canadian trains, both in Canada and at Steamtown. Webcams at Strasburg, IRM, Rio Vista Junction, and Williams.

That's not what we're about, folks.

The term webmasters use for this kind of situation is "signal-to-noise ratio." On RyPN, I find most posts of interest to me, even if I know little specifically about the subject. On TO, I average perhaps one or two topics a day worth even a cursory glance out of dozens that are posted. If I may be facetious with an example, if Herb Harwood had posted his query about 7002/1223 doubleheaders to TO, he would have gotten perhaps 30-40 answers, with perhaps a quarter spouting wrong or incomplete information, a quarter or more being members' replying with vague approximations of "I think it was 1979 for the convention.....", another quarter debating whether or not 1223 ever led a doubleheader, with several folks insisting "7002 ALWAYS was in the lead!", another one or two posts plugging their commercial or YouTube videos, and finally 2-3 serious and authoritative answers from the likes of the Strasburg employees who were there or the RR Museum of Pa. archivists. Oh, and this doesn't count the thread of "answers" consisting solely of people advocating the locos' return back to active service. I won't even get into the myriad "where is this?" puzzle posts, the "what I shot this weekend" posts, the "I saw this BNSF loco in Miami today" posts, etc., etc. We also have perhaps 1,000 route-miles of track at best, versus 140,000+ for major railroads. It's obvious they're going to have more to talk about and more people interested.

A similar "signal-noise" problem also crops up on the equally-all-encompassing forums at Trains.com, run by Kalmbach Publishing.

Frankly, I come here to find out about rail preservation WITHOUT such inanity as "here's what #25 looked like THIS weekend--it was cloudy, therefor my pics arn't as good as last wk!" Is it perfect? Hardly. Do we get everything happening out there? No, probably not. But I do look at TrainOrders, Railroad.net, Trains.com, Railpace, and other sources--for the same reason I get the Washington Post AND listen to AM radio news AND NPR AND watch the TV news (NBC affiliate, NBC, maybe CBS, and Fox affiliate) AND peruse occasional blogs: Diversity.

.

Speaking for myself, the point I made about TO was that there was more "news" of late on the Steam board than there has been here. Not saying "everything" on it would be appropriate for RYPN, but RYPN used to be one stop shopping to keep an ear to the ground on what's going on.

Todd Clark the HMFWIC at Trainorders.com was kind enough to send me a comprehensive response to my inquiry of him as to their policy regarding locking/erasing threads.

Boiling his response down, here are his main points;

1. He turned over day to day management of the site to Chris Toth several years ago due to the time that's needed to properly manage it.

2. When folks pay for the privilege of participating thay strongly tend to be self-policing.

3. They adhere STRICTLY to a policy of banning trouble makers for life. No second chances...once you're bounced your gone for good. They can effectively enforce this, as again their participants are known paying entities. This policy is a MAJOR reason why # 2 above works so well.

4. Most "free" sites eventually implode due to the misbehavior of a tiny minority of "troublemakers" who are impossible to control, as if they're kicked off they just rejoin under another phony monicker.

5. As a general rule they remove an objectionable thread vs. locking it, as locking it only gives additional exposure. He said that erasure is "rarely" employed nor needed, see #2 and # 3 above.

His final paragraph to me sums up the essence of his message and reads..." Ultimately, until you control who is participating in the forum you will not have control over it and it will spiral out of control" Todd Clark.


Based on his experience it would appear that RyPN has so far beat the point spread!!!

Respectfully submitted, Ross Rowland

If you want that kind of "volume" of "news", all RyPN would have to do is allow photo posting.

Then we'd be swamped with what I call "photo peacocks" posting all their videos and photographs from the weekend's events. Multiple folks posting their photos from Cass Railfan Weekend, W&W 98's "birthday" celebration and doubleheader, the caboose photo charter with W&W 58 the day before, 425 running on the R&N, UP 844's exploits to and from California, more NS office car specials pulled by their F's.............

Is that what we want? Because that bandwidth and server space will cost someone some pretty pennies.........

That "photo peacocks" description is great. Yes, this hobby and industry sometimes seem to be a big photo contest. You can work on projects, preserve equipment, teach people, write articles, and lecture on historical topics for decades, and probably be remembered for how well you could compose a picture and press a shutter button.

PC

That's the problem in a nutshell. Spirited debate without abusiveness is a skill which requires learning and practice, and it is not a character flaw to have either never learned this, or to have been mis-trained.

I would attribute mis-training to the phenomenon of political trash-talk radio. One fellow pretty much invented it, and his style has taken over much of the political debate in this country. Trouble is, the Internet is not a one-way medium like radio. If somebody is a seasoned radio listener and an Internet newbie, they find out that talking smack like Rush doesn't work at all. They either get dominated by folks much better at debate than them ... or they get locked, deleted and banned. And then they wonder what the heck happened! *laugh*

What I'm saying is that debate in this type of forum is a special skill. I don't expect people to be born with it anymore than they're born knowing how to overhaul a compressor or apply for a TEA grant. So... if you are inclined... step up, play nice.

*shrug* I could care less about photos. I'm of the Don Lancaster school of thought on intellectual property, and so the possessiveness I see about railfan photos and photo rights really boggles my mind and puts me off. It just seems self-defeating and anti-preservation.

Somebody writes an article, somebody educates me... THAT gets my attention.

[talkradio-onlinecommentary]
You are WRONG WRONG WRONG. It's very definitely a character flaw! Why R U defending those half-wits who don't have any brains? I'll bet you're a member of the ACLU, more properly known as the AC-ToHellWith-U!
[/talkradio-onlinecommentary]

I do believe you're giving too much credit/blame to a certain Rush (not the band). Limbaugh's style, while deliberately and provocatively bombastic and pompous, has been and still is largely argued on the substance and opinions of the issues and supporting facts. The degeneration in both radio and internet commentary began with people feeling that the best (in many cases, the only) way to refute or challenge opinions with which they disagree was/is to denigrate or insult the source or opposition--"big fat idiot," etc. (Don't bother debating this. By now it's too common everywhere, and it's only a "who started it" debate.)

With perhaps one notable exception I won't resurrect here, that kind of attack is notably absent in this forum, thank goodness.

....... says the guy with four photo anthologies to his name. <:-)

Kind of like the old Scots story about the chap lamenting in the pub: "Look at me! I build wonderful buildings! Do they call me Sandy the architect or Sandy the builder? Naaae..... I have a lovely wife, five grand children, married 30 years. Do they call me Sandy the family man or Sandy the father? Naae..... I brew wonderful beer and still wonderful whisky. Do they call me Sandy the brewer? Naaae..... BUT: yer [get caught in a delicate situation with] ONE LOUSY goat..............."

Anthology: "...a garland or collection of flowers..." <:-)

Of course you can publish under pseudonyms and that way fewer people will know who took the pictures. But that gets us right back into the RYPN debate over whether you use your own name or not. <:-)

PC