Part of the charm/attraction for me to this forum were all the colorful characters that kept things lively. This is one of the few spots on the internet I’ve found where trolls are virtually non-existant, and you can start (and finish) a debate about “Strippers and Boobs at Halftime” with out getting into an internet yelling match. I’ve always felt this was because some (or a lot) of the people here were good at lightening the mood. I guess I’ve kinda classified myself into this group. My question is have some of us (namely me) gone over the top on this end? Have we made a mockery of the board? Or are we just doing our job?
It’s your call-
Is this supposed to be a traithlon forum where we only discuss technical aspects of the sport or is it a triathlon lifestyle forum where we trigeeks can talk about anything we want with other trigeeks.
Some of the political posts have become a bit sidetracked and I plead as guilty as anyone for that, but I see nothing wrong with discussing lifestyle things besides just technical things.
Heck, even Gordo’s post had the penguin game posted.
Gorsh!
A rainbow is beautiful because of its DIFFERENT colors.
If people want training talk, it’s here. It’s not hard to recognize the OT stuff. It’s just like TV shows, I think reality TV is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. I don’t watch it. You don’t want off-topic. Don’t click on the thread.
Now … training threads going completely unread, unresponsed to, etc is when it goes too far.
Yes Tibbs. This forum is slipping.
Here’s a few things I notice about message boards … in this case … this one.
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The off-topic subjects are always listed as the bane of the board and wil be its “downfall”.
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when you go and look, the same folks that are in the off-topic threads, are answering quite a few of the on-topic questions, and making many of the on-topic comments.
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so, it’s not the off-topic folks that are leading to inactivity in the on-topic threads.
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You go and look at how many on-topic posts have over 200 reads, but only a few replies. Look at how many have 500 reads, but only 10 or so replies. So, you have quite a few interested people, just not many commentors.
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Look at the off-topic threads, a much greater reply to read ratio. In other words, not as many interested subjects, but the ones that are interested are really interested.
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If you ask me the reasons are simple: either people don’t know enough to comment, they are not confident enough to comment, some folks are hesistant to post something that someone might disagree with (becoming very common in our society), people fear saying something “wrong”, people don’t have time to get involved in a debate, they just want to read information about something they’re interested in, what someone says might disagree with what Mr. Ijustwonabigevent advises, some folks are just shy, something I haven’t thought of yet.
The reason message boards start to decline is simple … the same folks get tired of answering the same questions. The only way a message board can stay exciting is to have a high influx of new posters asking the same old questions … but with a slightly new twist. People have to answer questions and contribute. If not, you get the smae 10 guys have the same 5 discussions, month after month.
The off-topic posts on this forum are interesting and for the most part thought-provoking. I stopped going to trinewbies because it seemed all it was, was a bunch of rambling about recent rides or runs. This forum always seemed more serious about triathlons and when it is funny, it’s usually REALLY funny. As I’ve said before, I think the political crap belongs elsewhere, but as TripleThreat put, don’t read the post if you don’t want to.