Talk back

[fudd 0]

If talkback ever gets back online, maybe it should have autopruning enabled?

99.9% of talkback is just not interesting after it gets a week or two old anyway.
Maybe cutting out most of the ranks. They incourage post whoring, which really isn't doing dz.com any good anymore. They're great on a site wanting more activity, but are bad when a site starts to get flooded.
Autopruning might ease the workload for the moderators, and ease the load on the server to by keeping the database size down.

Just my $0.02...

Dropzone.com is the most complete skydiving site ever built. Keep up the good work. It's much appreciated

There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

[Skyrad 0]

Sounds like a good idea. What happened to talkback?

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[feuergnom 22]

got shut down 'cause of too many threads on politics, religion etc obviously got out of hand. at least thats what grosfion (greenie of the german forum stammtisch) posted.

The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle

dudeist skydiver # 666

[TheBile 0]

I agree with removing the ranks. Maybe it would be better to have jump numbers up there, or something to show equivalent experience instead. It would definately be more useful when reading advice on the skydiving related forums.

Gerb

I stir feelings in others they themselves don't understand. KA'CHOW !

[fudd 0]

Maybe swap the rank line with a "member since" line? That way we can reckognize people who have been around these forums for a long time, and those who are new.
It's easy to lie about jump numbers. It's easy to post whore your post numbers up, but staying a resident of dz.com for year after year takes....uhmm...years

There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

[Slappie 9]

I've been around DZ.com for going on 4 years. I've seen this place evolve into the place we call home on the net. It's the largest dropzone in the world. I give HH and all his Greenies props and love...

I don't think it has anything to do with post numbers, or postwhoring. It's about the lack of respect the Owner and his NON-paid staff had to put up with. When you get 25k+ people all with differing ideas it's hard to keep it all under control, specialy when it's an international thing.

What happened to talkback was long overdue. But, I have to suggest some kind of announcement or something from the owner or a spokesperson should be posted. Some of us didn't abuse our privledge of posting in Talkback nor were we involved in the shutting of it down.

I miss Talkback, it was the only thing that kept me sane at work. Gave me an excape to browse and read while I'm sitting in the deadend job.

Till something better comes I guess I'll get some work done

"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them."

[AggieDave 6]

Slappie,

I definately agree with ya here. You and I have been on DZ.com for just about the same amount of time and I too love what it has grown into. At one time the titles really mattered, but people got over that, at one time your post ranking really seemed to matter, but people got over that. Now people are just acting stupid, that's the reason for stuff getting out of hand. People are also not respecting how the Greenies are trying to do what they were asked to do and go crazy when they don't agree with what the greenie did.

That's why HH shut it down, to remind people that it is just a website and that they need to get away from it for a bit.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[ACMESkydiver 0]

I'm thinking maybe there should be a dedicated 'Hot topics' type forum. Politics, religion, and gun control can stay in there. People going in that forum know to expect some heated debates, but the only thing that would get a thread locked/ban a user is breaking the rules...just my thought.

Talk Back was useful to get to know people's personalities. That's not as easy to do looking through the gear and safety forums... I found the people I wanted to meet while traveling on Talk Back, specifically I knew that our personalities would mesh and we'd have a lot of fun, on and off the DZ.

Basic skydiving info is great, but it can get old and dry...if all that concerned me was skydiving and gear and skydiving events, well, I'd be sitting in a DZ all day and get more pertinent info there... Talk Back was the fun edge; it's what kind of separated this site from others, just IMHO.

~Jaye
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

[Vallerina 2]

I've said it many times before, but I really wish there was an ignore type of function. If I don't like person A, and I get into arguments with them, I will just ignore them. It will make me enjoy things more since I won't come across posts that make me miffed, and it would make the site better since there would be fewer "last word" kind of posts.

Unfortunately, the site doesn't have that, so we all (yes, myself included) have to try to turn on the ignore function in our brains. If I don't like someone's viewpoint, well, I can state mine once and not repeat the same things over and over again.

Another thing that we should take it upon ourselves to do is to use the forums wisely. Constant one-liners and constant, "Hey, are you going to X this weekend?" posts cost HH more money, and it makes more work for the moderators. Remember that you can im or email people to flirt with them, find out how they're doing and find out what they're doing this weekend.

There is some good stuff in Talk Back (ie, I was able to get the word out about my friends' dz). Just pretend that it's going to cost you $1 per post. Is your post really worth that $1?

There's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning

[piisfish 135]

Quote

99.9% of talkback is just not interesting after it gets a week or two old anyway

and talkback represents more than 2thirds of the total posts... 700'000 out of 1'000'000
it would also help rescucitation of really old threads. Sorry everyone, I contributed to that too.
won't do that anymore...

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[Nightingale 0]

the 27,000 number is very deceiving.

A good many of those have either:

A. Never posted at all and just lurk.
B. Posted once or twice and left
C. Were regular members that no longer post
D. People with multiple logins
E. People who created logins and never bothered to come back.

If all the logins with zero or one post were purged, as well as those who haven't logged in at all in the last six months, the number would be very different.

[sangiro 4]

Quote

If all the logins with zero or one post were purged, as well as those who haven't logged in at all in the last six months, the number would be very different.

And on the flipside. I can see in my logs that more than 50% of the users who actually read the site regularly, do so as guests and have never registered or logged in. The audience may be smaller than you think, it may also be bigger than you think.

The problem is that this kind of stuff prevents them from ever joining.

Safe swoops
Sangiro

[Ron 7]

Quote

At one time the titles really mattered, but people got over that, at one time your post ranking really seemed to matter, but people got over that

I still think people think its important.

I would:

1. Remove all rankings. People would quit trying to "earn" a higher rating by PWing. It could be replaced with jump # or skydive ratings...I personally would eliminate ALL titles.

2. Delete usernames that have never posted. I had a Username that I created years ago that when I "rediscovered" the site I forgot all about. I have looked at some of the lists and saw HUNDREDS of "never logged on" names.

3. Don't log on in a year...Username is deleted.

4. I would not allow politcs, religion, sex into the forum. There are better places to get your real world news than DZ.com.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Malfunction 0]

Quote

I would not allow politcs, religion, sex into the forum. There are better places to get your real world news than DZ.com

See, I have a problem with that mentality. I would like to know what the USPA lobbyists are doing in DC. I would like to know when or if any legislation is passed that outlaws jumping in certain areas or requires particular equipment. I would like to know what airlines allow/disallow parachutes to go on board. I would like to know when stupid laws like the "No Self-Mutilation Bill" get introduced. I also like to know what other people think of such issues because maybe they have heard something that I haven't. Furthermore, I trust skydivers more than I trust coworkers to be honest, open and opinionated... not just going along with the masses to get ahead in life.

I think there is a contingent of posters that like the political forums and the debates that take place. Granted, a lot of them get heated to the point of needing locked, but at the same time, some very valid points are made.

HH, I am not saying that you need to put it back up or that I demand a change, I am just fielding an opinion that I feel is shared by other users of this site. I think a seperate forum for politcs only may not be a bad idea (properly moderated, of course).

edited: Less biased, more factual...

I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.
- Voltaire

[Skyrad 0]

I like suggestion number four. Politics and religion just end up in arguments because there's some seriously fixed opinions out there (Maybe guilty ) But I did a thread on No politics and no religion and it wasn't exactly riviting stuff. What I would like to see is no national politics and no gun stuff as for sex, well the majority of the web is already full of that, don't really need it here. (JMHO)

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[Nightingale 0]

I wasn't referring to the number of readers. Slappie cited the number of registered users as a concern for moderators with regards to how many people are posting and having different opinions. Lurkers don't need to be moderated, so I didn't include that in my post.

[Ron 7]

Quote

See, I have a problem with that mentality. I would like to know what the USPA lobbyists are doing in DC. I would like to know when or if any legislation is passed that outlaws jumping in certain areas or requires particular equipment. I would like to know what airlines allow/disallow parachutes to go on board. I would like to know when stupid laws like the "No Self-Mutilation Bill" get introduced

These are all SKYDIVING related...And this is a SKYDIVING website.

It is NOT a Republican or Democratic support page...you can go to:

http://www.georgewbush.com
or
http://www.johnkerry.com/

to read all you want about politics.

http://www.cnn.com has tons of good stuff also.

You want to know about Guns?..The NRA has a website as well.

There are way to many sex and dating sites to list...Try (and I'm just typing this, but I bet they are real sites) www.hotbabes.com and www.matchmaker.com

If the political threads, Gun threads, Sex threads slow or even shut down the site...They should go away...Issues related to SKYDIVING (Including political related to skydiving such as Las Vegas and Skydiving laws. , chute and shoot Such as the one Zhills held, and well things like rape on the DZ) should be here. But BS like Bush or Kerry in 04 belong elsewhere...Like on a political forum.

How long do you think www.politics.com would let us post about hook turns? (I made that one up too...but I bet someone clicked it.)

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[TomAiello 25]

Quote

...Don't log on in a year...Username is deleted.

I wouldn't do that. I know a couple people who spent a lot of time on-llne, then got sent to the desert to be shot at, and were off line for a long time. In one case the person's login was deleted (on another forum, not this one), and they were kind of peeved when they returned to "normal" life and found they had been removed from the forum they used to frequent.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[Ron 7]

Quote

I wouldn't do that. I know a couple people who spent a lot of time on-llne, then got sent to the desert to be shot at, and were off line for a long time. In one case the person's login was deleted (on another forum, not this one), and they were kind of peeved when they returned to "normal" life and found they had been removed from the forum they used to frequent.

How hard is it to re-register? I could do it in less than one minute on this site. If we got rid of the "PW Labels" it would not matter at all.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[tunaplanet 0]

Politics, religeon, sex and gun control are definitly useful, but in moderation. Unfortunatly, you have about 3-5 posters (you know who they are) who are forever copying and pasting links to controversial threads simply for the extremely sick satisfaction of watching people argue. That is one of the reasons Talk Back was removed.

Hell, I would probably even participate in those threads if it wasn't for the fact that they weren't even discussion or debate threads, they were threads designed to anger people and cause chaos. Those people truly have no lives and need some friends real bad.

What was that saying someone started using a week ago? Computer + Anonymous + Audience = .....

I myself posted a few threads that were not entirely useful, some downright stupid. However, I never started a thread for the sole purpose of enciting an argument or angering people. That is completely uncalled for and is in no small part due to the reason Talk Back is no more.

Suggestion, then I'll put this baby to bed. Start three seperate threads. One for politics, religeon and gun control. Don't make them sticky's, just have those three in talk back somewhere. All relevant posts go there. If someone starts a political-based thread, move it to the "politics" thread.

This is exactly like my "Football" thread. It would have been stupid for me to start a new thread everytime something football related happened. So, instead of doing so, I created one thread. Everyone that had anything football related posted it there. It worked great. I know of many people who checked that out daily, looking for breaking news. The same should have and can still be done for Talk Back.

But regardless, thanks for whoever designed and started this site. It truly is a wonderful one. Props.

Peace.

Forty-two

[TomAiello 25]

On that site there were user feedback options, where people had been rated by other posters. It created a significant identity "investment" for posters, who felt it's loss.

I mention this because there has been some discussion about this kind of thing in another thread in this forum.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[Ron 7]

Quote

On that site there were user feedback options, where people had been rated by other posters. It created a significant identity "investment" for posters, who felt it's loss.

I mention this because there has been some discussion about this kind of thing in another thread in this forum.

In that case I understand. But that is not the case here..yet anyway. So it could be in effect till we did have a "user feedback" section.

As you guys say "We can jump off that bridge when we come to it".

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[SkymonkeyONE 3]

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Reply To
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


See, I have a problem with that mentality. I would like to know what the USPA lobbyists are doing in DC. I would like to know when or if any legislation is passed that outlaws jumping in certain areas or requires particular equipment. I would like to know what airlines allow/disallow parachutes to go on board. I would like to know when stupid laws like the "No Self-Mutilation Bill" get introduced

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


These are all SKYDIVING related...And this is a SKYDIVING website.

It is NOT a Republican or Democratic support page...you can go to:

Ron is exactly correct here. Nobody is bitching about any governmental threads which directly relate to skydiving and it's continued existence. Those threads are entirely relevant and we are all fine with them.

[tunaplanet 0]

Rating other posters is useless and a horrible idea. This is a website to learn and have fun, not a popularity contest. There would be many users who would rate others poorly simply because they didn't like them. Besides, anyone who holds one user's opinion heavier than one whose rating is not so high is a complete dumbass. Whatever happened to common sense and intuition? When did these traits vanish from human existance?

Forty-two

[Luv2Fall 0]

Quote

Rating other posters is useless and a horrible idea. This is a website to learn and have fun, not a popularity contest. There would be many users who would rate others poorly simply because they didn't like them. Besides, anyone who holds one user's opinion heavier than one whose rating is not so high is a complete dumbass. Whatever happened to common sense and intuition? When did these traits vanish from human existance?

Couldn't agree more...........