Re: RGP: Newsgroup VS Forum

Trying to cut this down since the horse is on its last legs again...

Do those forums have tens of thousands of participants?  Google shows
thousands of subscribers, and the actual number of readers is likely
much higher.

Sure, plenty.  Check out ToyotaNation some time.

Sounds like that other fella didn't think too highly of that moderated
forum...

They move back to that thread and either they find their answer or they
add to it, which in turn keeps all the relevant discussion in the same
place.  In the ideal world, they just find the original thread without
asking because it's MUCH easier to find and revive, unlike an old
Usenet thread (particularly for non-Google Usenet users).

Assuming the forum owner doesn't archive old discussions, keeps good
backups, etc. Of course, what happens to all that information when
the forum owner decides he's done and takes the whole site down? It
isn't that hard to link to old Usenet threads via Google anyway, I've
done it on multiple occasions.

For particularly useful threads a moderator (oh, yeah, I went there, but
bear with me...you can have mods who only have the ability to do things
like make sticky existing threads) could move them to a "help" or "howto"
forum.  The threads could continue to "live" with additional posts and
such, but could live in a forum where no new posts could be made (only
stuff that gets moved there and deemed a little more special for its
usefulness).  This would create a much easier place to find stuff since
there could be multiple forums like this in a heirarchy separated by
stuff like EM/SS, etc.

You seem to be a stickler for organization... I prefer to have all
the content available up front and sort it myself. You also keep
approaching this as if it were some kind of knowledge base. RGP is
not a technical forum, it is a pinball forum - even trivial
discussions about anything pinball are welcome. Your attempt at
organization would quickly lead to a gazillion sub-forums, making it
much harder to browse new posts. Why make people browse a bunch of
multiple forums? Oh, to sell ads... :) Not that a lot of forums do
THAT these days *rolls eyes*

Now you're full of ***.  If RGP was full of fanboys, it would have
died long ago.  RGP has some very loud and annoying fanboys, but it
lives thanks ONLY to the technical types who continue to help people
get out of jams and generally make pinballs better.  The folks who

Whoah, care to back THAT claim up? Lots of people come here to discuss
what game/manufacturer/designers are best. One more time: RGP is NOT
solely a technical forum. I answer tech questions if I can, and very
occasionally make such a post, but I come here to talk pinball,
especially gameplay. Lots of others do as well.

Tell you what, go get some web software and MAKE a pinball technical
forum. Subdivide it however you see fit - EM, SS, by manufacturer, by
boardset, by problems.. whatever. Create this technical forum you
crave so badly and just maybe a bunch of folks will begin
participating in it. I doubt it replaces RGP but you could implement
all the features you like and it would become an asset to the
community.

And if it doesn't, then the market has spoken. Again.

post on RGP with good technical info or at least asking about things
technical outnumber the "fanboys" about 50 to 1.

I'd like to see some stats to back THAT claim up :) Let's adjust the
fraction slightly... you're claiming that for every 100 advocacy
posts, there are 5,000 technical posts? By that ratio, one Derek
thread alone would result in enough tech posts to fix every broken
game on the planet ;)

No, I want a nice place for everyone to find a happy welcome home to
discuss anything pinball.  Anyone who wants to read them all (hey,
Lloyd!) can, and otherwise we can just read the type stuff we want.

We have that, its called RGP :) What you want is something with more
organization and more control.

And before you say "we have all that now in one place!", that's BS,

Too late :D

too.  I've seen a ton of the EM guys basically say things like "hopefully
some EM types see this in the midst of all the SS stuff here and can
help..."  Basically I think a lot of EM types have abandoned RGP thanks
to the dominance of SS talk.  Which is a real shame, even though I have

Welcome to pinball in 2008, where there are gobs more SS games,
players and fans than EM types. I don't buy the 'getting lost' part
though - simply putting the two letters 'EM' into a subject header is
enough to make the post stand out (and be easily searchable). I think
interest in EMs overall is waning. A bummer, but true.

bickering would go away and a lot of perception would change.  The
"fighting" about which game is A list and which is B and such could be
in a forum for that, and nobody who doesn't care to bicker about those
would see that "bickering" nor care.  *shrug*

And again (sigh) .. no one has to see it now. If the title of the
thread is ANY variation of 'which is better, X or Y?' then DON'T CLICK
ON IT. If people read and engage in an argument post, it is because
THEY WANTED TO.

This is the one thing I cannot understand - people bitching about
posts THEY DO NOT HAVE TO READ. The people who are happy with Usenet
are the ones who do just that. And ff a previously interesting thread
drifts off topic, simply STOP READING IT if you don't want to. Hate
to use the caps, but this is such a basic concept it is incredulous
that so many folks just don't get it.

useful for porn delivery.  My point had more to do with how the perception
of Usenet has turned and those who don't use it for any of the actual
useful parts think it's really just a child porn delivery mechanism.

So we throw away a powerful discussion tool just because of
perception? How about fighting that perception and educating people
about the proper role of Usenet? Pinball still has a gambling stigma
in some areas, shall we burn all the games and switch to vids?

Kill the alt trees and people will just find non-alt groups to use for
the same thing.  There's nothing magical about alt.* other than it's easier

Actually, there is... most servers will not accept messages over a
certain size in any groups other than alt, which makes the 'big 8'
unsuitable for binaries. Many server ops who don't want the bandwidth
of binaries have already dropped alt altogether.

anyway...just that it's going to die as more and more of those operators
running Usenet servers in the corner decide that it isn't worth getting
put under a microscope for.

I think the trend to ditch alt. and move away from binaries will pick
up steam, returning Usenet back to discussion and away from porn and
warez. The commercial providers who thrive on selling access to the
alt tree will be the ones hurting eventually.

.

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