MP Forum Tone

Megan Parks wrote:...My single post I've made so far, about half of the answers was useful. The rest was trolly BS...

I was curious, about half a thread being trolly bullshit is taking things a bit far! I believe this is the thread you're taking about - as it is the only one you've made.

By my count, you had 16 replies. One was a BS reply, but it was benign - "Duct tape & a defibrillator.". I'm not sure how one could hope for a better set of responses on an Internet forum, people were very helpful in that thread.

(There's a part of my that hopes I got the wrong thread, because I don't understand how one could characterize that thread in that way.)

saxfiend wrote: Nobody (on MP or elsewhere) is controlling your thoughts; it can't be done. You can think whatever kind of thoughts you want, moronic or lofty, and no one on earth can stop you.

The theories about how discourses (and the control thereof) do exactly that are considerably better-developed than some of the other political theories expressed around here.

Hank Caylor wrote: You make a funny point Mark, you don't know Old Lady H and you don't know me, and we don't know each other, yet you have an opinion on how someone you don't know should have responded to someone you don't know..

Good point.
Maybe you both are total jerks, but I'd be really surprised!

Anyway, I'm full of (mostly baseless) opinions. Fortunately for all, I only get 15 posts/day.
Maybe fewer given the way things are going...
Good to see you back. I always enjoy (and envy somewhat) your flying photos.
When I think about what I might take up if I couldn't climb, wingsuiting is the only sport that gets me psyched.

Gonna try to stay healthy though.

Mark E Dixon wrote: Good point. Maybe you both are total jerks, but I'd be really surprised! Anyway, I'm full of (mostly baseless) opinions. Fortunately for all, I only get 15 posts/day. Maybe fewer given the way things are going... Good to see you back. I always enjoy (and envy somewhat) your flying photos. When I think about what I might take up if I couldn't climb, wingsuiting is the only sport that gets me psyched. Gonna try to stay healthy though.

Neither of us are jerks at all, just different man. My Wife and I just got back from a hell of a lot of BASE jumping in Moab over Thanksgiving. Some brutal accidents, but we actually don't jump a whole lot. Especially with wingsuiting, that shit's all over in Europe so you have to factor 'a lot of time in Europe' if you want to wingsuit. There are places in the US but it's usually super illegal. We're sort of over the jail and hospital thing.

I could fairly easily climb any 13a/b on the Front Range, but we don't climb all that much either. It's almost all Pack Burro Racing, the suffering is incomparable, and we dig that. Cheers Mark, thanks for tending towards the thought that I'm probably a good guy, I am and I really do appreciate it.

BigNobody wrote: I don't like your tone Bill :) And you are obviously oblivious to what I am saying. Do we really have to hear Jay eggelston say "looks great!" to every picture he looks at? Or that old perv Benji Chappedlips comment with thinly veiled comments on every girl picture? Gets old. I know I can just ignore that shit, but god damn it's annoying for some of us.

Haha.. that made me LOL for real but this post does make sense.

Bill Kirby wrote: Haha.. that made me LOL for real but this post does make sense.

Try and keep up dude. Go back and look at my original post, the "popularity contest" one. If you just have some dude commenting on every fricking picture that pops up on his screen, we should be able to "flag" them. Click on most any attractive female climber photo on the front page and you'll see a Benji Chappman comment. Follow the Utah/Colorado pages and you'll see Jay Eggelstien use the same 2 or 3 words over and over. It's like certain people just HAVE to comment on something on their screen. Can't just look at it and be like, "cool", or "damn she's hot" and move on. You have to lift your leg and leave your mark on the photo. I don't appreciate that tone on MP. You must realize I am a huge dick and this is mostly tounge in cheek. I mean if we are to regulate, then let the people regulate everything that brings this page down!

I occasionally hang out at a few different forums for different hobbies... guitars, fx pedals, guns, etc. I have to say that the MP forums contain the most aggression, passive or otherwise, and the most trolls out of all the others. Doesn't stop me from coming here or chiming in when I feel like it, but I can see how it would turn a lot of people off.

Something needs to change in the forum system. Deleting "trolls" is a band aid solution that wont solve the root cause of the problem. The root cause of the problem is NOT "trolls". It is MP, and community leadership creating an environment.

The shit show is not isolated to Mountain project, other forum sites are experiencing it too.

Nick, I think you should study what happened to Ellen Pao on reddit...she was ousted because of her banning practices.

You should also study what is going on with u/spez on reddit right now. He is tits deep in shit because he wants to ban a specific group of users.

You have to do something. And you have to not do the wrong things.

Learn from their mistakes and make Mountain Project Great Again!

grog m wrote:The person who started the locked thread, Comanche, is a personal friend. His account was deactivated without notification or any information.

Nick Wilder wrote: "Comanche" was more than a "personal friend" - it's actually a troll account created by the same human as "grog m". We're not perfect at identifying duplicate accounts, but this one was easy to prove. Nice try.

The plot thickens! Cute. This made me laugh 5 times!

This thread is really going nowhere but is entertaining. I'm without any more words except that Hank didnt tell us all how smoking hot his girl is for once.

wrong tone

Take the forums off of the main page, that way the ridiculousness is at least not so easily accessible/prompted

I've said it before, but it's worth mentioning again: A collapsible comment-->sub-comment structure to the forum would help isolate off-topic trolling and would make 6-page threads like this a thousand times easier to read.

grog m wrote:Something needs to change in the forum system. Deleting "trolls" is a band aid solution that wont solve the root cause of the problem. The root cause of the problem is NOT "trolls". It is MP, and community leadership creating an environment. The shit show is not isolated to Mountain project, other forum sites are experiencing it too. Nick, I think you should study what happened to Ellen Pao on reddit...she was ousted because of her banning practices. You should also study what is going on with u/spez on reddit right now. He is tits deep in shit because he wants to ban a specific group of users. You have to do something. And you have to not do the wrong things. Learn from their mistakes and make Mountain Project Great Again!

I know what you mean with respect to the negative consequences of coming down on some particular group, or sub-set of society (look what happened to the democrats for their "veiled" language toward progressives, particularly progressive white males, this election season), but I don't think that is what is going on here.

What I see in terms of moderation on MP is a general "stop trying to control the narrative specifically by targeting, and subsequently harassing both now and in the future, certain individuals (as individuals as opposed to the ideas they are arguing for) simply because they had the audacity to question the status quo".

For the people being moderated, there is no conversation of ideas, no critique of logic or internal argument consistency, no kind of debate whatsoever. Instead it is a drive by posting which expresses disagreement with the INDIVIDUAL, simply because they spoke up. The message is usually "the only important thing here is that you STFU and listen to me: that way everyone knows the social order". Yes, MP, please moderate these people, even if in defining some subset of behavior as unacceptable, and then subsequently enforcing that unacceptability, makes these people feel "targeted". Maybe that is the point.

It seems that the site landlords want polite posters who are also willing to put up major content for the route guide.

It's not going to happen. If the price of good quality content is that a n00b gets told to fuck off, well I think that is a bargain. Am I wrong?

I have no problem with rough'n'tumble, pre-web 2.0, forum conduct. Users can hold their own. People can be rude and sarcastic to each other, and that's fine.

But misogyny on mp has been unusually pronounced for years, with moderators often turning a blind eye to it. Hell, I got perma-banned a few years ago for (albeit rather rudely) calling out a few mods who were ignoring some really ugly sexist language in a thread here.

There's a difference between gruff discourse and making entire user groups feel unwanted. And apparently MP is still trying to figure out the difference between the two. It's more complicated than just "don't be a jerk."

bruno-cx wrote:@highaltitudeflatulentexpulsion It's only time before the route database is monetized by REI. 1. Printed REI exclusive mountain project guides for sale in store only $10.99. 2. Or perhaps the route will database will be turned into a subscription service, kind like porn sites.

Don't lose sleep over this. This is not being discussed at all.

bruno-cx wrote:@highaltitudeflatulentexpulsion It's only time before the route database is monetized by REI. 1. Printed REI exclusive mountain project guides for sale in store only $10.99. 2. Or perhaps the route will database will be turned into a subscription service, kind like porn sites.

Excellent points. More likely it will be a better quality, no ad App for a 10.99 a year(free for the BD version) and a small fee to read/post in the forums which would really weed out the misogynist trolls.

Backpacking light forums are paid to use. I'd pay $10 a year. Riff raff wants free stuff.

Raul P wrote:Backpacking light forums are paid to use. I'd pay $10 a year. Riff raff wants free stuff.

I may or may not pay but 10 bucks a year would be OK, that or log in with your REI membership for free?