I agree!! I lways look forward to your pictures. Don't let someone ruin this place for you. Contact one of the mods and see if they can't do something.

Bobyar2001 wrote me the other day back channel when I was being "assaulted" by a certain frequent poster with various "rumors and innuendoes" and he shared that he had reached a decision to stop posting on Rypn as he had enough of this persons nonsense.
I can certainly empathize with him as I am the frequent recipient of same. I have pm'd Bobyar and asked him to reconsider for the good of the forum and I'm modestly hopeful that he will.
Seems to me that there's few enough of us who REALLY care about this railway preservation thing and we can't afford to lose anyone--even the few who more than occassionally most of us find more annoying than contributory!!!
IMHO-Ross Rowland

Hello all...

I am new to this forum, but have been driven from other forums (not related to rail preservation, rather, living history forums) because of what Mr. Bobyar2001 complains. I haven't followed the conversations on this forum long enough to be "in the know" regarding the specifics here, but experience tells me that constant assaults can certainly wear one to the breaking point.

Mr. Bobyar2001, et al., I can sympathize with your collective plight. It is a real shame that these instances occur. Good people with useful infromation get turned off and stop sharing their knowledge and ideas. A shame indeed.

--Jim

This is the only forum I still read and post on - far less abject foamation and irrational ranting than on several others. Real people who actually work on things and make things happen share here - and I can put up with a lot of garbage for that association.

Which isn't to say that I don't empathize with Bob and Erik - even with the rhinocerous-like hide we develop over years of maturation in this business, it can get tiresome and breaks are required or burnout sets in.

Life seems to be looking more and more like a bad reality show (are there any other kind?) - eat lousy food, lose a rigged popularity contest and have some self-promoting idiots unable to find their own couches in their living rooms throw you out. When will we learn to stop creating this for ourselves by doing it to each other?

Bob and Erik, thanks for everything and best wishes following your own chosen paths. Come back if you like - but who knows whether or not any of us will still be here if and when that may occur.

dave

Speaking just for myself, I haven't gone anywhere. I will still post when I have something substantive to say, or happily respond to any questions directed to me or for which I have the answer handy. I just have no taste for the banter any longer, and prefer to put my time into hands-on volunteer work and other projects.

Anyhow it's Bob people are missing, as well they should!

Bob and others that have tapered off or quit, I just want to say I too have alway enjoyed the post and response generated. Enough said.

To me this is so much like being involved in almost any volunteer organization, especially RR musuem type organizations. Yes, one has to get pretty thick skinned to stay around. Sometimes it just gets to be too much. You ask yourself, why am I doing this, it is not that I couldn't find other things to do with my "spare time" which is more valuable than gold as we get older. We all need to hang our egos at the door and go get some work done, here or where ever we hang out. You can disagree with others and try to reason without assaulting each other. Ask yourself what is my true reason for heading into argument or backstabbing rant. Is it for the good of the website/museum/unit?

This is an area that we all recognize others as being the perpatrator. Most of us have been guilty at one time or another of being disrespectful. Just because you don't readily recognise yourself as a participant, doens't mean you haven't gone there yourself {meaning most of us}. It is the downfall of most volunteer organizations and real evident in RR preservation circles. We have met the enemy and most often it is us. The only answer I see to this problem is take responsablitiy and police yourself. You can't change others no matter how hard you try, but we change ourselves and the way we comeoff to others.

For me personally it is a real chanllenge. I grew up too fast and hard, partied with hardcore bikers, drank with the devil himself, worked with some pretty disfunctional welders/fitters and did and said many things that now embarrass me. When I reentered the rail preservation scene 4-5 years ago after a 20 year vacation I told myself to stay out of the neg backstabbing politics and go learn more about boilers and loco repair which is my passion. Sure enough I got into a backchannel backstabbing contest and only like an old welder can, projected a very bad email that personally attacked a fellow from my group. Probably referenced sheep within that email as well. Someone forwarded it to the guy I was talking about, BOOM. Now I don't apoligise for being upset and having my opinions, but I was dead wrong in my approach. I had become the reason why I quit coming around 20 years earlier. The person I bad mouthed will never trust me again and never forget the insult. If someone had written an email like that about me, I wouldn't either. There is a good chance that we wouldn't of gotten along that well anyway, but that bridge is burned permanantly and I am the cause. The purpose of this post is not "true confessions" to get this off my chest, but rather to point out that it is real easy to get sucked in to the negitive side of things. There is a saying that I find true about people in general and it goes " there is no difference between the perpatrator and the victim". What we see out here is a mirror of ourselves, either personally or collectively. Try to police ourselves is the beginning and only cure that I see.

Oh ya, Bob please come back, you were major in making this a great place to visit daily. Cheers, John.

Well said Mr. Risley, well said!!!
Ross Rowland

I too enjoyed Bobyar's posts. The obscure photos alone were worth a look, and they often spawned interesting discussions, which is the whole point of this site IMO. I do hope he will continue to post them.

At the risk of incurring the moderator's wrath, I would also not-so-sudbdtley suggest that maybe the perpetrator should reconsider his participation here, as I can certainly see why Bobyar feels the way he does.

Paolo Roffo
State College, PA

I appreciate all that has been written above. For now, however, I'd prefer to pass along interesting links through a third party rather than posting them myself. I've been pretty busy lately, with not much time for the internet. Again, thanks for all the kind comments.

Bob

I'm not sure if this is the primary, caucus or general election, but my vote is for Bob to return to posting and leave the vigilante work to the rest of us.
I always marveled at how he finds the time to find and post his gems, but every now and then he would come up with a real rarity. I miss them and don't have the time to root them all out myself even though I'm retired.
As to the other individual, a response that I've used in person in the past would probably apply here. Let's see if I can clean it up.
"If I wanted to listen to an anus, I would pass wind".
Too many supercilious, self proclaimed "experts" and naysayers can spoil anything. Why do the rest of us let them bray like jackasses and not solve the problem? If these buffoons knew how ridiculous the looked and sounded they would hang their heads in shame, but their egos won't let them see themselves as the rest of us do.
Come back Bob!