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peek

"Crowdsourcing" the dz.com BS detector

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A definition, from Wikipedia: "Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers."

This is a message, and some advice, to those who may post to dropzone.com for the first time, or for those who seldom post until there is a perceived problem.

On occasion there is a person who posts a question or comment that seems a bit suspicious to those of use that have frequented dz.com for some time. The wording of their question leads us to believe that they are posting the question for a reason that is different than its outward appearance. Often this person does not identify themselves by filling in their dz.com "profile", therefore making us suspicious of their intent.

Usually when someone does this, it creates many questions for the poster, from people trying to determine the reason for the post. The questions and attitude about the questions have been "crowdsourced" so to speak, by taking the collective knowledge of the dz.com community. And there are some pretty darned smart people here, as well as being very knowledgeable about skydiving.

If you make such a post, please do not get offended if people ask a lot of questions, and question your motivation. The collective questioning and suspicion is legitimate and reasonable. What seems to be the questions of an individual are most often the questions of the community. That individual just happens to be the first person to ask those questions.

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You forgot to add that we see a ton of trolls, hence our healthy scepticism.

Remember the guy who asked a ton of questions in "General Skydiving Discussions" like "How did you get into skydiving" and "How do you know when to pull" but only used his account for 3 days.

Or guys blatantly engaged in drug running?

If you wanna troll someone go troll r/skydiving, they actually seem to fall for it ;)

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I'm suspicious of the guy who posts about the fake passports for sale. Does anybody else agree, or am I alone here?

"So many fatalities and injuries are caused by decisions jumpers make before even getting into the aircraft. Skydiving can be safe AND fun at the same time...Honest." - Bill Booth

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Andy9o8

***I'm suspicious of the guy who posts about the fake passports for sale. Does anybody else agree, or am I alone here?



You're alone. My order was delivered faster than a Freefall Suit.

Mine too!
"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

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Andy9o8

***I'm suspicious of the guy who posts about the fake passports for sale. Does anybody else agree, or am I alone here?



You're alone. My order was delivered faster than a Freefall Suit.

I'm doing really well re-selling his crap on E-bay. ;)
Birdshit & Fools Productions

"Son, only two things fall from the sky."

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I think that I've decided that people need to have at least 30 actual jumps before advising others on skydiving.

Wendy P.
There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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I disagree. Tunnel time should be allowed to make up for at least a significant portion of those jumps.
"That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport."
~mom

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So when somebody posts, let's say, 31 threads about downloading movies within a couple of hours, what's the best way to get that taken care of as quickly as possible? Should we be PM'ing the mods to get their attention?

"So many fatalities and injuries are caused by decisions jumpers make before even getting into the aircraft. Skydiving can be safe AND fun at the same time...Honest." - Bill Booth

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JeffCa

So when somebody posts, let's say, 31 threads about downloading movies within a couple of hours, what's the best way to get that taken care of as quickly as possible? Should we be PM'ing the mods to get their attention?



That's probably the fastest way to get them canned, provided they check their email/PMs often.

I and I'm sure others have floated the idea of a 'report' button, but while it doesn't sound too hard on paper (at least for me looking at it), I believe there was worry it would end up getting abused. The irony being that the abuse flag button would be getting abused.
"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

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theonlyski

***So when somebody posts, let's say, 31 threads about downloading movies within a couple of hours, what's the best way to get that taken care of as quickly as possible? Should we be PM'ing the mods to get their attention?



That's probably the fastest way to get them canned, provided they check their email/PMs often.

I and I'm sure others have floated the idea of a 'report' button, but while it doesn't sound too hard on paper (at least for me looking at it), I believe there was worry it would end up getting abused. The irony being that the abuse flag button would be getting abused.

I'd say a report-abuse button would be ok as long as it's not in Speaker's Corner, where... well, let's face it: abuse is a requirement of admission. ;)

Bad enough that Incidents is already sanitized to the point of silliness; if they did that to Speaker's Corner, too, I'd just put my head down and cry.

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Quote

I think that I've decided that people need to have at least 30 actual jumps before advising others on skydiving.


Now you are seriously underestimating the power of crowdsourcing on the internet. With my mad computer skilz & google & wikipedia I often find the right answers online even before you have formulated the questions!

Its a gift.

:P

"Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci
A thousand words...

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wmw999

I think that I've decided that people need to have at least 30 actual jumps before advising others on skydiving.

Wendy P.

I think people should have more jumps than posts, but that's just me, I guess.
If you leave the plane without a parachute, you will be fine for the rest of your life.

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