TAY Atmosphere

I've mostly lurked around and posted every so often. usually i write something up then just close the window cause i don't feel i really add anything. Though every now and then i have my moments.

I have definitely met some great people off the site to ski with. Telemack, jeff_S, Jen, alecapone (well more just in passing), and others that had just been in the same area that i met with with mack. So it is a great community with plenty of friendly people. Also had some great gear recommendations and discussions with all manner of people (even Scotsman who recommended the awesome Flylow higgins jacket to me)


As for the actual site, i do feel theres some sections and areas that could use some work. but i also understand it would take time and Marcus alone probably just doesnt have the time.

-A gear dedicated area would be nice. let people post up, in a preferably template manner, how they feel about their skis. maybe add child section for gear reviews and gear advice/recommendations since i do notice people like to get tips/ideas on what gear to select.

-The lift service area i feel could benifit as well. I've been all over in my head as to what could be done with it but im sort of at a loss. in its current state, and this is 100% my opinion, i think it is just cluttered and theres quite a few "useless" posts. I dont mean to offend cmskier or dkk but i feel daily threads just arent needed when conditions really arent changing. And i dont mean any offense as towards dkk or cmskier again. There has to be a more efficent/different method other than just daily threads IMO.

-The TR section. I htink everything has been already said so wont go into detail.



Now, since i was sort of both bored and curious i did take a look at the software for the site. SMF 1.0.6. to be exact. I mostly looked around at the "mods" section and there are quite a few "mods" out there that might be beneficial. I noticed a couple for the ignore user (since some people mentioned they would want it). There was also a mod for external picture hosting. basically theres just tons of options out there. One i rather like is the "new threads" option.

So marcus if you would like i am willing to go through and try to help with the more "software" side of things. I have no desire to moderate nor feel im worthy of it. But i dont mind scrounging through the list of mods and sending you links to potentially good ones. or i would be willing to try to do it myself but would definitely have to do some practice offline first. but from the guides i read on the SMF site it really doesnt sound all that hard. i have minimal experience but if you'd like any help (even if its just a search monkey) shoot me a pm and i can send you links to interesting things i've found.

To paraphrase the famous words of Rodney King post the Los Angeles riots of 1992 and keeping with Filbo's inspired K-9 analogy: Can't we just...git along little doggies?

Shouldn't institutional reform be based NOT on "possible" abuses of power but rather on "probable" ones? for example, if Marcus wanted out, do you really think he would close it down (possible) or would he seek someone else to take it over (probable) be it a person or a group? Is there really any meaningful risk of shut-down?

Is anyone among those fired up for change willing to catalog a list of proposed possible reforms raised in this thread? Seems like a lot of good content/layout ideas, and a range of structural ones.

Jim O'Donnell

Shouldn't institutional reform be based NOT on "possible" abuses of power but rather on "probable" ones?  for example, if Marcus wanted out, do you really think he would close it down (possible) or would he seek someone else to take it over (probable) be it a person or a group? Is there really any meaningful risk of shut-down?

Is anyone among those fired up for change willing to catalog a list of proposed possible reforms raised in this thread?  Seems like a lot of good content/layout ideas, and a range of structural ones. 

Jim O'Donnell

"Possible is mainly objective and  more definable, "probable" is more subjective and requires judgement which we all know can be fallible.
On very complicated construction projects we usually try and create a list of ALL the possible things that can go wrong and then concentrate on having contingency plans for the most probable of that list. Unfortunatley 8/10 times, the problem turns out to be on the possible list and not the probable list. It's like Murphy's Law and an irrefutable law of nature( your peanut butter sandwich will always fall face down on the ground)

Huge thanks to all of you who’ve posted here – overall I’m blown away by the amount and variety of feedback and opinion that’s been offered. Really good stuff. I’ve spent a couple of days digging through it all and have pulled a bunch of topics, concepts and specific remarks that I wanted to address.

I’ll start with some of the easier ground to cover and will break it up into multiple posts, I expect.

Upgrades & Photo Limits
Contrary to popular belief, the primary reason behind the photo limits was never really about hosting (this is all direct from Charles, FYI). The main driver was the desire to A) provide a low-bandwidth friendly means of getting trip reports and encourage people to be selective in their photo posting and not just dump their entire memory card into a post and call it good.

Clearly, reason A is not a huge consideration anymore. High speed internet access being what it is, that leaves us with reason B. To me, this is still a compelling guideline. I’m not inclined to set a hard limit on photos and would encourage folks to pick their best shots that tell the story of the day (and by “best” I don’t mean that everyone has to be Hummel).

So, that leaves us with the current software’s abilities to display photos. The photo attachment works fine, but requires user-resizing and isn’t as easy to use as it could be. It also relies on TAY hosting (which isn’t really a problem, given what we have available). The IMG tag works well and is being used pretty regularly. The Thumb IMG tag, as Amar has pointed out, is broken and has remained so for a while – Charles has tried to troubleshoot that one, but with no success.

Getting the thumb tag working would go a long way toward fixing the issue, I think – several folks have mentioned the way that Northwest Hikers does their photos and, while they’re software is different and the end product wouldn’t be identical, that style is probably what I’m thinking of for TAY’s photos.

There are other reasons to think about upgrading the software, but the photo issue seems to be the biggest. Many thanks to the folks that have offered help on this side of this – my technical background is poor here and my free time to make these changes pretty minimal, so I’ll probably be taking advantage of you all at one time or another. Feel free to post here or PM me if you have other ideas.

More shortly…

Thanks for all your efforts, Marcus!  Any chance of moving the Info Center from the bottom to the top of the Trip Reports page?  It's a long scroll for this troll.  Perhaps the older trip reports could just show a link for each year that expands to the current monthly list?

I use that Info Center all the time -- what I've done (and maybe you've done this too) is collapse all of the older yearly categories by clicking on, say, "2009 Backcountry Trip Reports", which accomplishes this:

older trip reports could just show a link for each year that expands to the current monthly list

Only the current month and the preceding 3 months remain open for posting and updating, so you won't miss anything by collapsing the older years (March, then December through February, as of right now).

I don't want to get involved with the policy decisions as those are Marcus' to make and no longer mine (PTL!), but I would like to comment on a couple of aspects of this discussion.

A number of people have said that they think the forum software needs to be updated. Except for the ability to "ignore" the posts of specific members, I haven't seen anything posted that indicates that the forum software is lacking and my opinion is that "it ain't broke so don't try to fix it". It's true that the thumbnailing function is broken (that's an add on, not part of the software or even a SMF mod), and as Marcus said I tried to figure out why and was unable to do so. The script actually came from Tom at NWHikers, so (when it was working) it was the same as on that site, and I think it was very useful. I don't think that the most current SMF has a thumbnailing function, but not absolutely sure about that. Marcus could see if Tom would be willing to troubleshoot - I'm assuming that something changed with the TAY web host that caused the script to stop working because I didn't change anything (and in trying to troubleshoot I re-uploaded the script but same result).

Upgrading the software would be a big deal. I went through one major upgrade and it was very time consuming to make sure that everything would work, all prior posts would be retained, etc. In addition, the forum is custom integrated into the TAY site and was modified in other ways as well, so there would be additional work to redo that ( assuming that's important). It is not a matter of simply running a script and everything is done. The database structure of current and new would have to be compared to see if anything significant has changed.

I am currently an admin on a forum which uses a much newer SMF (1.1.11) and I'd say that, from a user's perspective, there isn't any significant difference compared to the TAY software. The admin section has been made somewhat more convenient to use, but hardly worth the work of an upgrade.

For those who think that new forum software is needed, I suggest that you list here what you think the current software is lacking in functionality. In most cases I think the result will be that the software is not actually lacking (as in Marcus' answer to vogtski: the function is there but users may not be aware of it).

I haven't taken detailed notes on all the ideas posted here (don't have to anymore) but clearly there are some who think that a wholesale reorganization of the TAY ownership or forum management structure is needed. If that kind of view is in the majority, I'd say those changes should be made. If not - and I suspect this is the case - then it is again the situation of trying to fix what is not broken.

There will always be some who believe that TAY is broken. When I was running the site I would ask those people two questions: if TAY is, in your opinion, so broken, why would you want to support it by spending time here, and why don't you create an alternative which you know will attract lots of users? The "marketplace" is presumably efficient: if TAY is broken and a better alternative is offered, TAY will lose membership and the alternative will gain, to the benefit of all.

Thanks for the input Charles, much appreciated. PTL indeed...

Forum Changes
Many forum layout/guideline changes have been mentioned. Dumping lift accessed trip reports, rearranging the TRs into regional categories, adding new boards for “Weather, Snow & Avalanche”, or creating a “Gear Talk” section of some kind, creating a “moderation free” zone. I can see some ups and downs to each of these, but it brings up some interesting options.

A couple of folks have mentioned Northwest Hikers recent change to their TR section. They’ve essentially made the TRs a “spray-free” zone, with this sticky at the top:

As of today we are implementing a new policy to keep Trip Reports from being hijacked by arguments, and "spray". If you have an issue with something in a Trip Report, send a PM or take it to another part of the forum and start a generic discussion. Good natured back and forth conversations are totally fine. Basically, in trip reports, we're asking you all to stop and think about what you're typing. Be nice. Be polite. If you have an honest criticism, raise it in a separate thread. It's just that simple.

I don’t spend a lot of time at NWH, but it sounds like this has been fairly effective for them, though it clearly requires both user-moderation and moderator action to keep it that way. I’m inclined to do something similar in the TRs (including Lift Accessed), Yardsale and Partners Wanted, leaving Random Tracks for the “posts that don’t fit elsewhere” and the debates/arguments.

I think the ability to question someone’s decisions is excellent and critical to our learning process, but I’ve seen a number of people commenting on how “this is no longer a trip report, perhaps it should be moved to Random Tracks” and I can see the value in that. The ability to question decisions/choices, etc without making it personal is important here -- people are posting their reports to share conditions, stories, whatever, not to become the center of a debate.

More on the layout front… I’m not inclined to dump the lift-accessed stuff at this time, as it has its place and serves a good purpose. I’ve probably paid less attention to that board than I should and it more than any other seems to have the “debate/argument” problem.

I’m not sure Regional TR divisions are necessary, but it might be an interesting experiment. How to divide them, though? I like the all-inclusive variety-pack that the current layout allows, where my rinky-dink conditions report from Kendall Stump can sit next to Jason’s multi-day Bonanza extravaganza.

Sub-sections to Random Tracks, like the Snow, Weather, Avalanche and Gear Talk – I like these ideas. It would make it easier for folks to drill right down to what they were interested in, certainly. Anyone else have thoughts on these?

The last is the “moderation free” zone. I have to admit that I’m definitely not a fan of this one, but I’m open to input on it. In my experience the presence of a board like this does tend to localize most of the bickering to one spot, but it also seems to slightly elevate the “base level” of spray in conversations elsewhere. There ends up being more “take it to the OT/Spray/Padded Room” as it bleeds over. My inclination on this one comes back to “take it elsewhere”. More on that later…

Any feedback, commentary etc, please keep it coming.

the search function could use a tuneup.  in preparing a topic, and searching for info here about Ed Rundle and Jim Mates,  Ed shows up extensively as the past tense of many words, ie  xxxxed,  the only mention of Rundle comes from Zap's and Markharf's frequent use of 'trundle', and Mates, besides in boot fitting threads, shows up primarily as 'estiMates'...    ;D

Also, about the previous post, I've changed my mind about an 'ignore' button - not a great idea.  Feel the same about a moderation-free zone.  It's all about the vibe throughout all the corners around here - not that everything said needs to be repeatable in church..   

That just means they are everywhere and in everything we do...

Good observation, thanks. I'll add it to the list.

Re: the regional division of TRs; maybe instead of having different forums, just have a pull-down menu on the write-up page with choices such as "Washington N. Cascades" etc... that would appear next to the titles. I've read so many TRs that took me a while to figure out they were in the Sierra's or something the whole time wracking my brain trying to figure out where they are talking about (assuming the Cascades, naturally )

on another note... maybe some more heavy-handed moderation would be called for in the TR section. I don't really care what goes on in Random Tracks but there should be a minimum standard for what is cluttering up the TR section. I know this is a slippery slope but seriously...

the search function could use a tuneup.  in preparing a topic, and searching for info here about Ed Rundle and Jim Mates,  Ed shows up extensively as the past tense of many words, ie  xxxxed,  the only mention of Rundle comes from Zap's and Markharf's frequent use of 'trundle', and Mates, besides in boot fitting threads, shows up primarily as 'estiMates'...    ;D

Also, about the previous post, I've changed my mind about an 'ignore' button - not a great idea.  Feel the same about a moderation-free zone.  It's all about the vibe throughout all the corners around here - not that everything said needs to be repeatable in church..   

As with many things on this forum (and everywhere else), the search works best if you know how to use it properly: if you're looking for "ed rundle" exactly, then searching for it in quotes finds what you want immediately. "jim mates" actually seems to work OK without the quotes, but adding the quotes helps if you want only the exact phrase.

Also, by default the search shows "Most recent topics first", but setting it to "Most relevant results first" often gives much better results in situations where your search terms partially match a lot of unintended words.

You can also search within TAY using Google: just add site:turns-all-year.com to your search terms (must have no space after "site:" in order to work), see this example .

Perhaps Marcus could also add a Google search box on the search page? It's really easy to do, I've had it on the Site Map page on my website for many years. That will automatically search only within the site listed. Here is the HTML code that I used, revised to work on TAY, and also giving the option to search the entire website or just the forums:

<B>Search Turns All Year using Google:</B> <BR><BR>
<FORM METHOD="GET" ACTION="www.google.com/custom">;
<INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="q" SIZE="31" MAXLENGTH="255">
<INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT" NAME="sa" VALUE="Google Search">
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="cof" VALUE="LW:75;L:http://www.turns-all-year.com/tayshad75.gif;LH:75;AH:left;S:http://www.turns-all-year.com/;">
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="domains" VALUE="turns-all-year.com"><BR><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="RADIO" VALUE="turns-all-year.com" NAME="sitesearch" CHECKED> Search all of turns-all-year.com  
<INPUT TYPE="RADIO" VALUE="turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports" NAME="sitesearch"> Search Turns All Year forums only
</FORM>

A working example of that code is at www.skimountaineer.com/Tools/TAY-Search.html -- the box on that page will Google search TAY

ok, fine, so I'm what needed the tuneup..   ;D    but you've got to admit that my method was more fun..  if less efficient.  thanks for the tip

Brilliant Amar... thanks very much for doing the leg work on that and for spelling out the more accurate (less fun ) ways to search the site.

Maybe this cool search tip (and I would imagine there are others) could be added to the search page in one of those text boxes. I doubt many people know these cool tricks, I had heard the one about site: on Google but the " " is pretty cool and helpful.

The 10 years and counting of TRs is really quite a resource and if taken as a whole I wonder if it amounts to the best regional ski guidebook in the world. Is there anything out there better?

In my view making this resource as accessible and usable as possible is as important as ever.

I’m not inclined to dump the lift-accessed stuff at this time, as it has its place and serves a good purpose. 

Heck yeah, leave it. Over 5,000 posts. I don't understand the dump it mentality. No one's asking to dump shop for gear or road conditions. It's easy to skip what you don't want to read.

I generally like the site layout just fine, as others have said if you're not interested in something don't read it. I do find lift serve reports useful, as there tend to be more of those posted mid week and it still gives a good idea of snow conditions, even for bc planning. I don't support a separate snow, weather, Avy section because that is what I read the trip reports to find out about, and those inclined to provide it usually include this in the tr. No need to dilute this source to two areas IMO.

And thanks Marcus for keeping things going-

Take a vote, but I say dump the Lift access reports.
This is a BC site and it would be great to focus on BC reports and conditions in the BC. There is a lot of hype and attitude that bleeds off of those reports.

2nd or 5000th that, or whatever we're at now.

As for a lot of other issues discussed on this thread, I would have to say that I've become more of a lurker due to how the site has evolved. Not bad, just a lot more people on here now too.

I like skiing and meeting people, so I hope to just meet most of you out there.

You should add an Alternative Turns section for surfing.

Interesting thread; time to weigh in... 

Thanks for all the hard work Marcus.  I wouldn’t change a thing, except perhaps to echo what others have said about photo functionality/performance ... and better search functionality.

Please do keep the lift served reports forum.

I think the current level of moderation is just fine.  I wouldn't mind if it was just a liittttle bit more lenient, but at the same time, when you want that stuff you can go to TGR, CC.com, etc.  Actually, when I first joined a few years ago I asked Charles why the site didn’t allow avatar pics.  (I forget if this was in a PM or in a thread.)  He said it was cause avatar pics encourage the type of trash-talking and negativity you see on other internet forums.  I never really saw the connection there... but I've also grown to be totally ambivalent about the lack of avatar pics. 


I sometimes do get tired of all the attitude here, but not so much that from the internet tough guys (AKA " keyboard commandos ") who've been mentioned above.  Mildly annoying, but meh, whatever, you get that all over the internet. 

More than anything, I just get tired of all the complaining I see on this site, both from the commandos and non-commandos alike ..... I seriously think I see more complaints per page, per thread, or whatnot, than just about any other interweb forum I’ve spent time on.  People complain about WSDOT, people complain about NPS, about snowshoers, about snowboarders, about n00b skiers, about ski areas, about bad drivers, etc etc etc … holishit, people … lighten up, fer crissakes.  Life is too short.

More than anything, I just get tired of all the complaining I see on this site, both from the commandos and non-commandos alike ..... I seriously think I see more complaints per page, per thread, or whatnot, than just about any other interweb forum I’ve spent time on.  People complain about WSDOT, people complain about NPS, about snowshoers, about snowboarders, about n00b skiers, about ski areas, about bad drivers, etc etc etc … holishit, people … lighten up, fer crissakes.  Life is too short.

X1,000,001. Add that to the Monday morning quarterbacking of stability evaluations in TRs.

I sometimes do get tired of all the attitude here, ...Mildly annoying...

More than anything, I just get tired of all the complaining I see on this site, both from the commandos and non-commandos alike ..... I seriously think I see more complaints per page, per thread, or whatnot, than just about any other interweb forum I’ve spent time on.  People complain about WSDOT, people complain about NPS, about snowshoers, about snowboarders, about n00b skiers, about ski areas, about bad drivers, etc etc etc … holishit, people … lighten up, fer crissakes.  Life is too short.

Nice long complaint, Double E

Tone, Moderation
The big enchilada in this conversation is obviously the site’s tone, how we interact with each other and how the moderation should function.  I’ll start with a quote from Lowell, which captures my preferences pretty well:

I want TAY to be a place where any backcountry skier, aspiring or experienced, feels welcome and encouraged to participate.

It’s hard to say it more succinctly than that.  But how do we determine “welcome and encouraged”?  Oftpiste hit on part of the problem – the definition of civility is going to change from one person to the next and everything written here is subject to the reader’s own interpretation. 

Belittling others for expressing their honest opinion will sacrifice truth and drastically reduce the value of our community.

I am all for conflict.  Disagreement, spirited discussion, outright arguing are all good things.  I just prefer when it takes the form of "here is what I think and why" instead of the "you must be an idiot if you think that" approach.

Avoid making it personal (in the case of disagreement), count to 10, read it again, then press "post".

There is a difference between reality-denying "positivism" and civility. One can have a hearty but civil disagreement, and one can discuss problems and other "negative" topics in a civil fashion."

For me, this is what it comes down to – if you can’t engage in a discussion without making it personal, don’t engage.  Give the people you disagree with the benefit of the doubt.

Posting on the internet does require a thick skin, at times.  We all need to be able to laugh at ourselves and accept well-intentioned criticism without getting bent out of shape.  Everyone involved is responsible for moderating their own behavior.  We choose how to react to what someone says to us, absolutely, but we also choose how to act in the first place – it’s not just one or the other.  I choose to put more of that responsibility on the person typing the post.

cronyism, faux civility, hypocrites  gushing sycophants, etc…

This is stuff that I’ve never really understood, though I’ve worked for the last year and a half to get a handle on it.  It comes off as an attack on the whole community here and does nothing for the conversation, while taking the worst possible view of other people’s contributions and opinions.  TAY has plenty of faults, but none of them are ever going to be resolved with that approach.  The site’s tone isn’t for everyone and never will be (probably the clearest message from this conversation), but railing against it like this doesn’t make sense.

As TAY has grown, more and more of the site’s tone is driven by the people who post here.  As andyski put it, “Be brave and energetic enough to create the community you want, if indeed it's important enough to you.”  If I never had to “nudge” a conversation again, I’d be a happy camper, but I think it’s safe to say that it will happen from time to time.

I’m definitely looking at additional help on the moderator front – if anyone is interested, please let me know (silence… crickets…).  I’m not going to be dissolving TAY into a community-run resource at this time, if for no other reason than the likelihood that the amount of work to get it into place would be huge and most of it would fall to me at the start.  I don’t really think “it’s broke”, at this point, just going through a transition.

Also:

Step 1: turn off computer and ignore the interwebs
Step 2: go outside and enjoy new snow
Step 3: slay some unicorns and then share the feast