For a while now the forums have been going more and more downhill. When I first signed up, I used to read all of the sections, Rec.sport.unicycling, Just Conversation, the trading post and everything. As time wore on, I started getting fed up with JC, there was just so much crap being posted, fair enough because it is a general conversation forum, so I stopped even clicking onto JC altogether.
Soon though, that crap from JC started spilling into Rec.Sport.Unicycling. People started posting mind-numbingly annoying things like “+1” as replies. People would fill up threads with general banter, not technical talk or advice, which is what RSU is for!
Then the treads about sponsorship started. Little kids asking how to get sponsored! Come on guys, is the joy of riding a unicycle really not good enough? It seems now that a lot of the younger people on the forums are only riding so they can get free stuff off of various companies!
I really don’t like the way the forums are heading, all these little ‘Groupies’ clogging up the forums, asking how to get sponsored and asking who is sponsored, DOES IT REALLY MATTER? Do you have fun riding your unicycle? That is all that counts!
All the ‘Lets bum Shaun J’ threads get on my nerves too! Yeah he’s good, but everyone knows it. Save the praise for less well known people, the new guy who has just learnt to freemount, that in my eyes is a far greater achievement than a quadruple backflip with 1080 unispin!
Im sorry if I have upset anyone, but this is a subject that REALLY gets on my nerves. I have tried to keep my language down, I even posted this in crappy JC to keep RSU on topic. I guess im just annoyed because the place where I used to get loads of friendly, helpful advice from is turning into just another internet forum.
I see where you’re coming from Edd but I think it’s an inevitable effect of the growing popularity of unicycling and not really something to get wound up about. More people of every type are now unicycling than ever before and that’s bound to include people whose posts you find annoying. It ain’t an inherantly bad thing… If anything it’s good. There are more unicyclists regardless of who they are or what they’re posting behaviour’s like. as gild would say it’s more of us and less of them.
I love this forum because there’s so little moderation. I post on another forum full of supposed hippy’s and they have things called infractions they hand out to people who misbehave on the forum. I’d hate it if more moderation was used on here. It’s absolutely great the way Gilby leaves the people who post on here to give a nudge in the right direction to people misbehaving instead of wading in and telling people off.
At the end of the day no one’s forcing you to click on anything on here and there are still loads of interesting threads to occupy you… Just a few more silly ones too.
On that note, here’s my favorite exchange from the excellent movie, Contact:
David Drumlin: I know you must think this is all very unfair. Maybe that’s an understatement. What you don’t know is I agree. I wish the world was a place where fair was the bottom line, where the kind of idealism you showed at the hearing was rewarded, not taken advantage of. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world. Ellie Arroway: Funny, I’ve always believed that the world is what we make of it.
Dunawan, I don’t mean to pick on you but you make it unavoidable.
(And I know this is JC, before you start bleating.)
That’s a brilliant example of what we’re talking about here.
It’s a ‘soft’ joke to say the least, and it’s already been made by the delegation from Slovenia.
Add, discuss, or don’t post.
(And with ‘Add’ I don’t mean +1 or the Ritalin-cured situation either, k?)
Yes, RSU should have less talk and more riding… talk.
But is someone saying something like “+1” really that bad? Isn’t it so simply just to ignore the breif +1 post and continue on? It’s not that big a deal, although it is silly sometimes.
I agree with you on the RSU bit, though. But newbies don’t really bother me…
I’m surprised no one has commented on this yet. Very well said, Ed.
Jonathan, this is exactly what Ed’s talking about. What was the purpose of saying +1? For that matter, what’s the point of adding a post that just says “I agree”?
I’m not going to pretend that my posts have some divine, inspiring quality to them, but when I post something, I try to make it actually meaningful. If your post doesn’t make someone go “Hmm”, then it’s probably not a good post.
I’ve found that blocking a few select people has largely increased my enjoyment of these forums. These aren’t necessary people who’s views differ from mine dramatically, or who are terribly offensive, just the lolers, the me tooers, people who’s posts genreally have no content. It’s a shame it has to be that way but there we go, this seems to be the most immeadiately efective way of dealing with the problem.
I definitely agree here. For me it had gotten to the point where I was almost tempted to stop bothering with the forums altogether. Now, I’m not going to name any names (CKCrowe) but having added a few names to my ignore list has drastically improved the enjoyability of Rec. Only on the rare occasion do I ever venture over here to JC, it seems too far gone.
This is the part I agree with the most. Anyone who reads what I post on a regular basis knows that I’m a huge supporter of riding purely for enjoyment. This is why I’m not ashamed to admit that after almost 2 years of riding, I can’t idle, go backwards, hop over a foot, or unispin. Getting sponsored may get you free stuff, which is good, but people shouldn’t worry so much about it.
Yeah, that sponsorship thing is crazy. It seems like lots of beginning riders, immedeatley after learning how to ride make a thread asking how they can get “sponcered”.
I havn’t been tempted to block people yet (with the exception of howdidigetsogood) but I’ll just skip threads and most posts made by some people.
I really dislike the overuse of emoticons, bad spelling, bad puncuation and stupid things people do like the guy who uses invisible text constantly, so I blocked him. I’m really liking being able to block people, and do it without hesitation.
What I think should be done is appoint moderators for each sub-forum. One for RSU, one for JC, etc. If a post comes up that is not fitting for the category of said forum, have the mod move it to the appropriate location. I have seen this done on some other forums I visit, and its seems to work quite well.
Just kidding.