Basejumper.com - archive

Supposedly, a BASE jumper forum is a place where BASE jumpers can exchange information and help each other. Apparently, basejumper.com is not such a place anymore. Ask a simple question, and BASE Gods and Dorkzone Heroes come out in numbers from everywhere like hyenas and eat the innocents alive. For this reason, many experienced and knowledgeable jumpers from whom we all can learn abandoned this place or read the forums but never post. Even the moderator's (wwarped) replies and PM's sound like dorkzone twatmuppet farts.

And so here's a simple idea that can make this place cleaner and encourage knowledgeable jumpers come out of the woodwork:

MAKE THE ORIGINAL POSTER ABLE TO DELETE ANY REPLIES FROM THEIR THREAD THAT THEY DON'T LIKE.

It's that simple.

Discuss.

Yuri

Changing this site would be very difficult. Take the easy way out and head over to Blinc.

Signal-to-noise ratio is about the same everywhere. People are the same everywhere. The same dorkzone heroes that are here, are at Blinc, too. But according to the empiric law of constant S/N ratio, more noise here is result of more signal... we just need to filter out the noise to get that bigger signal. Also, noise has a recursive negative effect on signal: good people abandon forums altogether. At best, they become lurkers and rarely pop in to share their knowledge. Suppress the noise, and the signal becomes stronger, too.

The proposed simple measure will increase S/N ratio manyfold. Blinc can do it, too. (Who'll be the first? )

You post a question, you're in total control of your thread. A jerk pops in? Click a little red button and poof! - his asshole reply is gone. Simple as that.

- Encourages people to ask questions without fear of being ridiculed.
- Encourages people to answer questions politely, resourcefully, share their knowledge from the bottom of their heart.
- Readers can enjoy lesser visual filtering of information.
- People with lots to share who used to be hiding, we'll be pouring their hearts out sharing their wealth of knowledge.

Internet resources where moderation is Nazi-like centralized censorship, get abandoned by everyone. Resources where everyone can pour buckets of shit, get abandoned by best people. But micro-ownership of your own thread will promote civilized knowledge share and will attract more people who can make this place a great resource for all of us.

P.S. This thread is just one of hundreds of examples of dorkzone heroes taking over.
P.P.S. I am at Blinc, too, but the signal there is not that great... proportionally to lower noise.

before I began moderating this site, I remember users complaining about the signal to noise ratio. it is not new. attempts to moderate the noise inspires numerous complaints, including yours.

you want to address the signal to noise ratio by empowering the questioner to control their thread. I would expect that would lead to a far more political atmosphere, with arbitrary use of this power. (please note, I have no power to institute this authority.)

I prefer to empower the user to ask questions with care. a ton of questions have been answered numerous times. so many times a casual search will yield a quick answer.

then there is the development of knowledge. lurkers may not understand everything, but as they develop their personal experience, they will understand more. patiently building knowledge helps keep jumpers from getting in over their heads and accept more risk than they should. unfortunately, many want to skip steps, and avoid learning fundamental skills or develop their own knowledge base. they fail to realize how much they do not know, and thus they fail to appreciate how much risk they are accepting. they thus ask inappropriate questions for their skill level.

most rudely, the questioners expect to be treated as if they were paying for the information. they feel they are owed everything, now. they do not establish a rapport. they do not lurk to understand the vibe of the site. they do not fill out their profile. they effectively barge in, and demand to be heard. it reminds me of a child interrupting into an adult partying.

the users that approach this site with humility and care seem to get quick answers.

as another example, this site has a designated area for suggestions. it helps site management so that the computer folks can see the stuff pertinent to their jobs. (I do not even know if these folks skydive, let alone BASE. I expect much that we discuss is meaningless to them. I do not know).

I will assist you by moving this thread to the correct area of the site. maybe they will agree with you. cool.

hahahaha, wwarped, what can be a more perfect example of your senseless "moderation"?

I specifically posted this thread in General forum which is most trafficked by regulars than any other forum here. "Suggestion and Feedback" is one of the least trafficked. I almost never go here. Almost nobody almost never goes here. You tuck what could be a great discussion away. WTF?!

My original thinking was to gain momentum first in the General forum, and if the idea flies, post it in Suggestions and Feedback. Is there anything wrong with this thread being exposed to maximum number of regulars?!

Here's my suggestion and feedback: Move this thread back.

since when is following the rules "senseless?"
you may be right, and know more than the rest of us. I don't know, I moved the thread in an attempt to do my voluntary job.

The Forum Rules:

1. No personal attacks.
2. No jokes about or references to pedophilia. None.
3. No advertising in the forums.
4. Post to the correct forum and stay on topic.


So which rules I violated?

1. No personal attacks. - I made no personal attacks. I mentioned that your posts when you reply to a simple question from above, like God, "why you're asking your question?!" - do sound like dorkzone twatmuppet musings. I addressed your posts, not YOU.
2. No jokes about or references to pedophilia. None. - Did I make any jokes about or references to pedophilia?
3. No advertising in the forums. - Did I make any advertising in the forums?
4. Post to the correct forum and stay on topic. - I posted in the correct forum. General forum is where it's appropriate to ask "Discuss?" question to fellow BASE jumpers on how we can make this place better. I'm talking to jumpers, not the Support team.

You've made a mistake. Everybody does. Now, fix it.

2 key points...
- it makes little sense to attempt to develop ideas on how to make this site better, that can not be implemented. this forum allows those who must do the work provide guidance at what is feasible.
- all users can read this forum. if a user cares, they will find it. it permits a higher signal to noise ratio. I thought that was important to you?

Option C - Original poster has a button to strike responses from their thread AND have another button that allows the reader to choose if they want to read all posts in a thread or filtered. Let the people decide what they see.

Why are you saying with authority that this idea cannot be implemented? What's so complicated about it? Do you have an insider knowledge that NameMedia does not actually have any programmers who can make the change? It's not like proving Fermat's Theorem, is it? (programmer here)

You got it reversed: it makes little sense to attempt to implement idea that only 1 user wants and thousands don't. That's why I wanted to hear BASE jumpers' opinions.


The last post in this forum was 6 weeks ago. Yes, "all users can read this forum", just almost nobody does. Since I wanted opinion of most users, I posted it in General forum. What's so wrong with it that you made such a mountain out of a molehill?

You are ABUSING your moderator powers, that's all. Just say it.

Even better. Serious about finding answers? Just read the forum. Have a cold beer in your hand? Click that second button and laugh your ass out. Best of both worlds.

I'm not alone who thinks along these lines... I'm starting to get some PMs after posting this thread, here's one:

"Hi Yuri, just wanted to give a big +1 to what you said in your post. I'm new to skydiving and hope to get into base later.I've been lurking the base sites for 6 months, just reading and reading and reading, and I've started to see that not only newbies get flamed for asking questions (which is more understandable) but even established jumpers seem to have trouble getting any decent feedback. As someone who looks forward to becoming part of this community one day, it can be disconcerting. Thanks for putting up a decent, direct post."

I personally know several jumpers who never post here for similar reasons... Their experience, inventive thinking, and even "no shit there I was" stories that can add to the global knowledge, are out of reach... because this site indirectly supports jerks and idiotic replies to any innocent question. Gasp! - the MODERATOR of this site supports that kind of approach! And if you question him, you're violating Zee Rulez!

Welcome to the zone... The Dorkzone. #2.

To NameMedia: what is your business model? Would you prefer a site that jerks take over and it slowly dies because the core participants leave and with virtually no external visitors as the journalists asking questions for their research get ridiculed, or make it alive and blooming, with users eager to help each other, with occasional big hits from big media sites linked by their journalists? I thought it would make sense, even if business-wise, to make many thousands of users and visitors happy than 10-20 puppets who poison each thread and make people run away?

You must be joking right? The ability to delete any posts in your thread?

That isn't a function available on 99% of forums and is ultimately a terrible piece of functionality. You realize the amount of flaws there is in that concept?

1 Example is a newbie making a useful forum post, it gets 200 replies and then they decide "hey it would be fun to remove all these posts since I don't post here anymore".

Another is someone offering criticism and the thread creator not being able to handle criticism and deletes every post that isn't praising him, every thread ends up being it's own little dictatorship.

Just using logic it is a flawed concept, and don't get me wrong- I agree there should be less wanker posts to some of the newbies who are just looking for help. But it's not something one has easy control over, one option is to send 'warnings' to people for people acting like asses.

But with that said some people just need to grow thicker skin and look past some douchey replies.

There will be douchebags on every single forum you join, welcome to the internet. The sad part is when people let those peoples actions change their desire to post.

If there are more of you who feel this way though, that you don't want to post because a handful of 'jerks' spend all their time insulting people or posting crap send me a PM and I will see how big of an issue this is and should it be significant I will bring it up. (I'm one of the administrators and content managers).

since there remains a link in the General Forum, users don't need to actually come to this forum to hold a conversation. this thread is effectively posted in both forums.

you've also now heard back from someone with far greater power than I. somehow, I doubt you would have received such a fast response if I had not acted.

most BASE jumpers enjoy the fact that BASE is unregulated. We do what we want, when we want. We make our own decisions and live by them.

Why do we want to pussify our online presence ? If someone really want to BASE jump, they need to learn to do their own research and not look for handouts. If someone is willing to look, almost all the information is out there, and if asked in a proper way this forum's users still give good answers. However the flip side is when someone wants to be a lazyass, they will get flamed. Lazyness and complacency have no business in a sport that has no backups.

Helping journalists ? What for ? Overwhelming majority of anything published on BASE has been crap, extremely biased and skewed factually. No reason to support that.

As far as those poor offended souls that are "starting to skydive". I am sure that's the demographic that this forum is meant to cater to (NOT). These people need to read and skydive as much as possible. With time and experience they will have plenty of knowledge to come here and enjoy the atmosphere rather than ask idiotic question way ahead of time and in turn get flaming replies.

+1

my interpretation was that this site was NOT for newbies. it was for people with at least a foot in the door of the "sport" already. for jumpers to network and share ideas. sure, newbies are welcome to "lurk" and learn where able, but keep your stupid questions for your mentor!

that, and this is really just a place for people to say "look at me", brag, and post silly fuck up stories and whatnot. like, "hey, i just did a fucking 8 way from a 300ft tower, what the fuck have you done lately?!"

this is where i end my post with a "whatever".

 

thank you. i was starting to worry that no one would catch on to the obvious flaw in the premise of this thread...the only person with the right to delete any of my posts is ME. (caveat being that i break one of the 4 golden rules of basejumper.com) : )

The reason it's not available on 99% of forums is because either

a) these forums are somehow naturally more civilized for various "cultural reasons", or
b) the site owners implicitly encourage more page hits by letting it "District 9" style warfare theater, or
c) they don't care or have no clue.

Why don't you want to become that best, smartest 1% by

a) making it naturally more civilized by enabling a self-cleaning mechanism proposed above, and
b) encouraging more page hits by letting core participants (knowledgeable, experienced, polite BASE jumpers in this case) come back and join the joy of helping others, people asking interesting questions and getting answers that are valuable to many, and
c) caring and having a clue?

Here's an example of a quite civilized, high S/N ratio forum: RC Groups

While I'm not a regular there, I do check a few forums (Modeling Science, UAV's, and DIY Electronics) once in a while (aerodynamics-related content, mostly) and I've never seen any jerks, moderators slicing and dicing threads (let alone moderators and jerks in one package), personal attacks, and basejumper.com-style attacks on innocent posters who just ask simple questions apparently not up to their Godly Standards.

So why it civilized there and not here? I don't know for sure, here's just a few wild guesses:

1) the traffic is so big that the demand to learn things far outweighs the capacity of jerks to post their verbal vomit;
2) there are so many forums that there's no single one with 90% of traffic where trolls can throw up and feel they're heroes;
3) modeller's planes and gadgets are always with them - no one sits idle for weeks or months far away from their objects like jumpers do off-season or between the jumps, for example;
4) modellers naturally want to learn, share how-to's - it benefits everybody!

Here, #1 through #3 are not applicable, #4 is outweighed by that acid-spitting sewage of #3 who don't know who to spit their vomit on.

Let's now look at the sites that do allow to delete posts. For example, youtube.com. In each video posted, you have an option of deleting comments you don't like. There's so much garbage in youtube comments but if you want to flush them, you can.

Consider an analogy. Something you originate (a posted video at youtube.com or a post at bj.com) should be like your house. If you allow every guest to shit and vomit in it, it'll turn into shithouse very quickly. You may try to pretend that you ignore the shit, but it's there! You can wear an air filter, but the stink is still there!

But most people don't let this happen in their houses. If someone were to shit in YOUR house, wouldn't you kick their ass out?

So why not try to clean this place by letting original posters kick asshole's asses out of their threads? The house would be clean, and more guests will join the party. What a novel idea, eh?


Don't the posters sometimes delete their original posts ("Post deleted by XXX") and then the whole string of replies (if original post was not quoted) reads like a senseless mess about nothing?

What, in real life, do you think, would be the occurrence of this happening? Would this happen much more often than the now-happening deleting of original posts leaving the spaghetti of replies hanging in the air?


So what? How often would this happen? People would notice that this particular poster routinely deletes otherwise useful, polite, reasonable replies, and won't reply anymore. This poster won't get any replies anymore. And if he posts something just to troll, moderator with Zee Rulez will handle it.


Surprisingly enough, moderator wwarped, most of the time, does the opposite - he joins the asses, tolerates their personal attacks while attacking reasonable posters. Encouraged by support, asses become more "assy" and the feedback loop continues out of control. Perhaps, it's time to replace moderator wwarped with someone who would be more neutral, courteous, less "in your face"? (he can still voice in his personal opinions under a different nick and switch to the moderator nick when situation is really out of control). With wwarped, he would claim to post as a regular user and yet in the same paragraph threaten other users with his moderator powers.


Hahaha, believe me, nobody has thicker skin than me. I'm veter_ before yuri_base, look it up on dorkzone.com. My skin can take direct AK-47 hits and will just bounce bullets back in your mouth. I have more fun with dorkzone twatmuppets than anyone in the world, period.


Exactly. Very sad part. So, let's change it! Let's make this place happier! Don't just say, "sad" - do something about it!


Or better yet, post your thought here. Come out of the your woodwork, good people, let's make the sun shine over this place!

Yuri

While you may notice that I am all for civilized conversation, BUT this is a base jumping forum. Egos will fly high, and I don't think anyone should have the right to censor someone else's personality really (unless it crosses over into personal attacks). Because if the attempt is to silence every ego driven jumper you`ll have a forum with 5-10 posters. I'd assume that someone in the BASE community would know that's just the way it is. Love it or hate, it's part of the scene and probably always will be.

The fact of the matter is, some of the 'assholes' who are jerks to people are also some of the most experienced. I honestly think advanced helpful information between experienced jumpers is more valuable to the forum than someone being nice to someone looking to get into BASE. And because of their knowledge they are valuable regardless of their attitude or sentiments.

Would you rather have a forum with 1000 quality helpful posts for those already in BASE or 10 000 posts on what BASE stands for?

To be honest though, I read the posts almost daily and have seen some very helpful posts to newbies looking to get into BASE. And very few that downright just said "fuck off" to them. Though I`ll canvas the threads some more to try get a better understanding of just how 'bad' this issue is, though to me it doesn't seem far off what I'd expect for a BASE forum.

I get that many of the jumpers here regard newb posts as noise and get a bit annoyed by these posts knocking down 'quality' threads.


You asked for my thoughts so I will provide a very simple method for possible segregation between beginners and experienced jumpers.

What about the possibility for a separate area in the forums just for beginners, and posts under this area will be monitored personally by me for posts that may go over the line. That way the ones that don't want to see newb threads don't have to, and the beginners can receive helpful advice without being flamed left right and center. And only those who are interested in helping these beginners have to go into the beginners section.

This is just an idea, though makes the most sense to me.

I totally agree with Yuri , 80% of whats on this site i noise and you have to sieve through loads of crap and moron comments to try find any usefull info, anything of any intrest when searched for brings up endless dribble

No, the attempt is only to silence the jerks in each individual thread. No poster can silence anybody outside of their thread. We're not talking about giving moderator powers to masses. We're talking about keeping the big house tidy by letting each room dweller to take care of their room. We're talking about that letting anyone shit in your room is not normal. Letting the room occupants clean the shit out of their rooms is.

If juanitos kicked Dorkzonehero's, vid666's, wwarped's (who admittedly posted as a regular user there), and couple of other butts from his thread, I doubt they'd last long in their trolling and avoid posting verbal vomit when serious questions are asked. We'll see useful replies like Robi's following the question, not all those pages and pages of junk.

Dorkzonehero, vid666, wwarped and such can still gather in their own thread and shit there all they want, as long as the rules are not violated. Hey, observing a few jerks throwing shit at each other in a glass house is great entertainment for the rest of us.


What makes you think so? Look at the main 3 forums, at the threads, posters, topics. Think that this feature was enabled. Do you really think that only 5-10 posters will remain? Why? Do you really think there are 5-10 people in the world who have questions and like to receive answers, or who can come forward and share their experience? That the rest will not like the clean house where nice people are always welcome?

I think the opposite is true. Maybe, 5-10 jerks will remain but their voices will be muffled. They'll muffle their voices themselves as to not to look stupid. The number of active, nice participants will increase 5-10x. This site will be blooming.

I personally know several jumpers who do not post here specifically because of the atmosphere on this site instilled by idiots. Those jumpers, in turm, have similar statistics. My estimate is that only ~10% of jumpers who WANT to participate in sharing knowledge here, post here, 90% avoid it because they're outnumbered by idiots.

Do you know why such most valuable people in BASE as Robi, Jimmy, Marta, Todd, Marty, and many many others do not post, or very very rarely post, or used to post but stopped? It's because of idiots. Not because they're manufacturers and cannot advertise in the forum, they're not advertising anything, everybody knows who they are and what they do. It's because of idiots. Not because they're so busy that they don't have time. Occasionally, everybody has some time to share the love, help newbies out, share advanced knowledge with experienced jumpers. They just don't want anymore - because of idiots.


If you officially endorse it, you're right, it always will be here. When moderator and content manager support it, it'll be this way.


I agree with you. But the number of nice people who are also some of the most experienced, and oftentimes MOST experienced in the whole world, but who do not want to post here because of the assholes, is far greater.


One does not preclude the other. Robi, Jimmy, Marta, Todd, Marty would not bark on someone asking a question like wwarped, "why you're asking this question?!?!" They're both knowledgeable and nice. These are not mutually exclusive traits, unlike in the house where assholes are let loose.


Now, that's just plain wrong. Do you want your child's teacher be an asshole? Or even when you're studying for your PhD, do you want your professor be an asshole? Knowledgeable people with nice attitudes are much much more valuable that knowledgeable assholes.


Where did you see 10,000 posts on what BASE stands for? That's just not happening in reality. Newcomers usually do not analyze this site for assholes before they post some naive question. If somebody wants to ask what BASE stands for, they just would, and find out about assholes later. That haven't happened so far in any numbers to talk about. Yes, occasionally someone would ask, "I want to start BASE, where do I start?" So what?! Everybody has to start somewhere. You don't remove "Getting into BASE" articles from the site, right? You don't leave just articles "for those already in BASE", do you? If newcomers are welcome to read the beginner's articles, they should also be welcome in the forum. And nothing bad would happen if they ask some naive questions and get some patient, polite replies (including hinting to read the articles, contact FJC's, look for mentor, etc.). Remember, you are what you are not because you went to the library when you were wearing diapers and emerged from it 20 years later full of knowledge, it's because someone was patient enough and willing to explain and teach you elementary things first.


Letting this annoyance loose is what makes this site Dorkzone #2. The proposed feature will quickly make the out of control annoyed jerks more civilized and make this place better. Quality threads will not be knocked down by newb posts. That didn't happen so far, why all of sudden it would happen? It's the opposite: there will be more quality threads because more jumpers who previously refrained from posting will be starting those quality threads and maintain civilized discussion in them.


I don't see how that would hurt. Blinc has one.

I still maintain that implementing the feature I'm proposing will make wonders to this site.

Yuri

Edit: First off, I agree with much of what you say. I do agree people should offer assistance of at least where to look and just answer simple questions.

Now back to the unedited portion ..... (and me back to work)
------------------------

It's not going to help because people will just delete posts they don't like. It's simple as that. Some of yours are pretty nonsensical as well. Mind you, some have great entertainment and also information but you're not exactly innocent of what you're whining about.

Just off the top of my head, here is but one example. Read this thread tell me how helpful you were.

Click this

I feel the need for therapy some reason? hmmmm...

Other posts such as, Do a search, are about as helpful as not posting. Searching is difficult on this site already but unless people know what to search for, it's pointless. Accusing them of disrespect is also not helpful.

People don't know how to create clicky links so I can assure you that searching is a bit out of the question until someone shows them what to do.

Sure there are really dumb posts and people who intentionally post crap like paint it black but nobody cares. It's so mindless it's ignored so why remove vid666's and dorkzones entertainment?

That's enough for now. I could provide a lot of examples, however, that too, is pointless and would consume too much thought process and time.

Do you really think that the manufacturers don't post in on the forums because they are tired of the sillyness ?

I beg to differ. This, however, is just a guess based on lots of personal experience.

People for the most part are very thin skinned. Especially when told that they are doing something wrong (you yourself are a prime example of that). If the manufacturers did anything but answer neutral questions (what is the strength of 3ring, what is the speed on opening, etc), they would most definitely rub someone the wrong way, and as such make bad rapport for their brand.

Look at the threads started by newbies, the twice a week redundant "how to I get into BASE" - almost every time those people get told to be more proactive, they get quite pissed off, although they are completely in the wrong for being lazyasses.

Furthermore, do you seriously think that hand-holding an adult's hand in the sport which is all about being self-sufficient is a good way to get people started in the said sport ?

Many American's had their hands held into their sub-prime ARMs that you and I are now paying for. Education and MOTIVATION are traits that should be sharpened, not numbed down.

Lastly, you accuse DZH, wwarped and myself of spilling garbage. Fine, I can see how I pick on idiots (and I enjoy it a lot), DZH loves being silly (and he is damn funny and good at it), but wwarped- I am yet to see him do anything but give a valid opinion with facts or to beat someone with a moderator stick. Seems like you have a hardon for him,

something to consider...

you mentioned fine, intelligent people such as Jimmy, Marta, Todd, Robi, and maybe a few others. they all have a common interest. they generally profit from the sport.

most dz's I've visited presented the same pattern. the welcoming, inviting group always profited from the flow of newbies. some experienced jumpers first words to a newbie will be,"BEER!"

*****

now, there are others that do offer helpful advice, freely and openly. we agree that is a good thing.

TomA used to be a virtual answerman, patiently answering most questions. a tremendous war of egos ensued since some questioned Tom's accuracy. some had valid, but differing views.

as a new user here, I remember those days well. I even warned a very knowledgeable jumper that he would get banned, and I wanted to hear from him. I asked him to tone it down.

if you notice, I DO NOT, and WILL NOT offer any technical advice beyond the patently obvious. that is not my role. I try to moderate discussions. I avoid editing, deleting, banning, etc. as much as possible.

(oh, and I asked if I could have a second set of credentials. I thought it would be nice to log-in with out the green name and moderator title. I was told I could not have multiple identities as that was against the rules.)