As one who found Bob's photo links annoying, I'must admit I have had a change of heart. I have come to appreciate that a link from Bobyar will sometimes seed a longer discussion about a particular object or preservation topic. This has happened often enough that I've learned to go with the flow for the rest of the photo posts. I use flat view and am quite happy with the results.Wesley

I think the photo links would be more useful if the was more of an explanation of why the photo or the depicted piece of equipment is significant. I tend to ignore the posts completely because this 'so what' is missing. I would rather see the best of the group picked and then see a breif statment written answering the who what where when why and so what - and to see that appear in the breifs section. While this may be more work, it would also be infinately more useful in documenting both the more important and under-recongnized aspects of preservation.Tom Cornillie

And the obvious question becomes what, if anything, a photo has to do with the purpose of the forum. The fact that a photo is "old" and shows some railroad owned equipment or real estate, does not necessarily make it relevant to the discussions here.

HmmmI think that discussing Bob like you dont think he can read is a bit off topic too. this discussion should be done off the interchange between yourselves and if you have something to say to Bob send him an email.I now feel a Moderator should lock this thread since it has gotten to nitpicking.As I said before if you want to help contact Hume. Andrew Martin

Would it be possible to change something in the forum logic to prevent us all from posting say...more than 5 new topics in one day?
How often does anyone really need to post more than 5 new topics all at the same time??
I bet 99.999% of the members here post only one topic at a time..
such a rule would really only impact one member of this forum..

Is it really necessary for one person to post 90 new topics in two days??
and..if you go back and look, the majority of these posts get NO replies..

this is really getting out of control...and very annoying.. :(
its really junking up the forum...

Scot

Sounds like I may be going against the flow here, but I appreciate Bob taking the time to post many of the links he does. (Thanks Bob!) I don't necessarily have time to do general searches, and many times I find some of these posts very interesting, if only because I never would have known about it (whatever "it" might be) had it not been posted here. Please keep the postings coming.

I will also make the observation that these multiple postings tend to show up when RyPN is in a bit of an activity slump (postings-wise). I tend to check this list multiple times per day because I don't want to miss anything. As frequently as I lurk here I notice significant periods of time with little to no activity, unless there is a really hot topic being discussed. If I am traveling and miss a few days, I do a quick scan of past postings to see what catches my eye. I personally see no problem with the current set up or with Mr. Yarger's posts. It's all interesting to me. And yes, the old topics do pop to the top if a new response is made.

Thanks. My 2 cents worth.

I see a lot of interesting things on the internet, what if I decided to log all my interesting webpages here? I believe I would be locked out, quick.

The real problem with Bob Yarger's postings is that they are empty calories. The RYPN Interchange is formatted for best use as a discussion board, for written comment, but Bob is using it as an index of URL's. There are numerous problems with this: incompatible format, annoyance to users, volume, etc., but the single greatest problem I see is that these posts have no inherent archival value. There is no guarantee that these URL's are stable, or even that the hosting sites will remain alive in the future. "Trainphoto.com" or whatever could on their own decide to reformat the site and thus break all the links that Bob has so painfully documented. Worse, their benefactor could lose interest and the site could just shut down. Then all of Bob's posts become vacuous empty calories, bulletin board spam.

The participation rules for this board exist not only to maintain civility, they exist to guarantee that the content remains interesting and focused on a defined topic. Diversion from those guidelines damages the value of Interchange as a reference and archival resource.

I have flat view on my preferences and I like it. I like when a post is bumped to the top based on activity since it allows for unneccessary multiple threads on the same subject to bring it to light again.
I didn't really care for links on threads to other sites to see something that I had to sign up to view (eg Trainorders).
With all this, I am still pleased with this board, I recently gave up on another group of railroad forums as it went to password thusly causing conversations to consist of inane threads about "'Guess the location' games" and people posting pictures they took to pat themselves on their back.
I am glad that this board is also mostly devoid of O/T (off topic) post about water cooler talk.
And once again- thanks for no avatars!!!!!!!!

I haven't read all the comments above, but I agree, perhaps a special section for posting photo links would be wise. I was so stiffened up I had to miss a trip, so spent too much time on the computer. I do think that old photos of locomotives and structures that still exist are a valuable insight into the history of these things. There are old photos easily available on the internet that we couldn't have gotten in 100 years in the snail mail days of L&RP. When I find one, I feel the need to share it.

As for discussion, some of it is valuable information and some of it is idle jabber, that I usually don't have time for. Such as the endless thread on whether Reading 2100 will make it up Tacoma Hill or not. It either will or won't - none of my money is involved, and I'll probably never see it anyway.

As one who has only been here a few weeks, I saw this thread this morning after seeing the multitude of photo links yesterday and wondered if it was just me that thought there were jsut too many of them. Imagine my surprise to find this thread began back in October. Now Bob I appreciate your "finds" but have to ask their significance other than it is just a photo of something old.

I agree that if there isn't someplace to put these photo links to keep them from disrupting the discussions, then maybe it is time to limit the daily posts to five a day as suggested above.

Just my two cents.

Later!
Mr. Ed

As I have told Bob privately, I thoroughly enjoy his posts. If they are of a railroad that I am not particularly interested in, I have the ability to move on to another thread that I find more interesting.

That being said, perhaps we should have a "historic photos" link section that works like flimsie's? I hope Hume and Eric will weigh in on this one.

Nearly everything that I post photo links to still exists. Occasionally, I'll post a link to something that's gone just because it is a nice photo, but I always identify it as such. So if I do post a link without proclaiming it no longer extant, you can assume that there is still something there that you can see and touch. I try to find old and thus more rare photos, so all the recent ramblings of 3985 and other events that there are thousands of pictures of available won't appear in my links.

I riffle quickly through these posting and open and enjoy a few that look promising, then go to other topics. The process is quite effortless for me and I appreciate seeing what you've found.

I just took a quick review of the last couple days postings, and noted that at least 11 of Bob's postings have started discussions with at least 3 posts (and there are another 5 with only one response). Several have many more. For that reason alone his posts probably belong here rather than on another page.

Hume recently changed the interchange so it now sorts threads based on the last post made (instead of the date of the first post). This will keep the active posts on the front page, and will let any unanswered posts fall off that page quickly.

I sometimes find Bob's posts a bit overwelming as well, but find may gems there.