Fellow RYPN-ers,

I'm quite disappointed in what the RYPN Interchange has become.

There, I said it.

This issue has been brought up once or twice before, but typically in the context of another discussion. I have given a fair amount of thought to this post, and I humbly request that you read it in its entirety before launching into your particular counterpoint.

Many of the folks who post here often have only been active on this forum for a short time, perhaps a year or two. So, I'd like to share how I remember the "old" (for lack of a better term) RYPN.

I happened upon the Interchange in college, 2003 I believe. Being a relatively well-read steam locomotive and railroad preservation geek, I was immediately struck by the information shared here, and by whom it was shared. Many of the well-known names in rail preservation circles frequented this site, and shared with us their projects, experiences and expertise. A quick scan of postings around Jan. 2001, for example, yields subjects such as railcar ferry / dock track alignment, material for piston ring fabrication, and upcoming ARM seminars.

Being 18 or 19 at the time, I posted my share of un-informed kid type postings back in my early days. Some may argue I continue to. I was relatively intimidated by all the "big names," however, and did my best to avoid making myself look like too much of an idiot. While I cringe at some of my early postings, in general people were respectful of me and I just tried to stay out of the way and learn from those who would share experiences with us. Sure, there were foamer* style posts, but there was far more substance and good preservation-related reading. Not just nuts and bolts stuff, but also museum management, fundraising, even some photography.

As a result of this forum this then 19-year-old found himself standing in Ohio Central's Morgan Run Shop, and soon afterward found himself very dirty from needle scaling LS&I 33's boiler. While I'm far from a steam expert, I continue to harbor that interest, and still get to needle scale (they let me do other stuff sometimes too) to this day. I try to take the same approach in most things, steam locomotives included: keep your mouth shut and ears open, and ABSORB. Sometimes I'm better at the ears open part than the mouth shut part, but you get the idea.

Fast forward to 2012. I see far less postings of substance, replaced by a multitude of foamer* style threads. Many of the credible, respected people actively involved in railroad preservation are noticeably absent. Thankfully, a few have stuck around. Some newer members bring experience or knowledge, or at least an open mind to the table. Some others just have a lot to say, without having a lot to say, if you get my drift.

To quote someone who said it better than I can:



I propose opening a discussion of the direction of the Interchange. What are we looking for out of it? Are we happy with where it stands or is a change of heading necessary? Does anyone really even care at this point?

A few further thoughts:

- I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how much I appreciate the tireless work of our moderators. In no way do I mean to undermine or question their handling of this board. It should not be their job to push discussions toward what I deemed to be "substance."

- A week or so ago the press releases started flying about modernization of a steam locomotive using proposed "21st Century" technology. The discussion of said project here is a good example of what I'm talking about. Regardless of your opinion of what they're proposing, the "signal to noise" ratio of the discussion of that project is disappointing. That seems to be the case more often than not anymore.

- I can already see the posts about "discouraging young people" coming in a discussion like this. At 27, I think (hope) I still qualify as a younger person. At least when you judge age from the railway preservation perspective. I cringe when I see "older folks" bashing my generation for being lazy / stupid / irresponsible too. So before you call me elitist or out of touch, understand that's not what I'm saying. Quality of content, not the age of which it's being generated, is my concern.

*I've used the term "foamer" a couple times here. As I'm sure we all know, this is generally a derogatory term for railfans, especially ones who are, well, uncouth. Regardless of your opinion of the term, its used here to highlight discussion that is more appropriate for a RAILFAN forum, not a Railway Preservation forum. If member Dave will oblige me, I think he explained it better than I can, so I'd like to quote him here:



There are, of course, exceptions to this. But I fear "foamy reaction" is more of the norm than factual information at this juncture.

The preceding is strictly my OPINION. If you run into me along the line, I'll be friendly, promise. I'm willing to bet there are at least a few who agree with me, but perhaps not. I simply ask that you think about your response, maybe give it a read or two, before you come back at me. It is my hope that this will spur healthy discussion, and not just more mindless back and forth. I've given this post some thought, and I'd humbly ask you do the same before you hit "reply" to shred it, me, and my credibility.

Now then, what do YOU think?

Respectfully,
TB

Again, an opinion from a young whippersnapper, but I have to say I agree with much of this. My reaction to it has been to outright skip a lot of the threads or read the first post, realize it has nothing to say that I find interesting, and move on. I do volunteer at a local historic railroad, and some of the memorably interesting threads I remember include:

- the one on wood fillers and stabilizers

- the one a few years back on properly painting steam locomotive frames

- a lot of the "where do I find this raw material" threads. Stuff like the half-oval metals one the other day.

- a lot of the threads reviewing visitor experience and reviews. I feel they give a lot of much-needed insight into the stuff we often miss.

I don't feel terribly adamant about it. I'll just keep skipping threads that don't interest me. But, anyway, that's my thoughts on the subject.

Have to agree with most everything said so far. I think a lot of the more experienced, knowledgeable people have been turned off by the increasing frothiness of the site.

Some of us with lots of experience in the field are still here, just under assumed names. The reasons for that are several:

For one thing, some of us found that by posting information, we became targets for every nutjob foamhead in the hobby.

For another, some of us have jobs and reputations to protect. in some cases, we have or had rules to live up to from our employers that specifically prohibit posting stuffr to the internet, no matter how innocent or pure-of-heart the intention may be.

For yet another, the amount of useful information has declined, being replaced by what I will kindly refer to as foamer trivia. Thankfully, the moderators tend to stay on top of this, but once in a while something will slip by.

I haven't given up on it yet, but I find myself more often skipping threads that appear to be merely noise rathetr than information.

This has been a great info-exchantge forum, and can still be, IMO.

As one of your moderators, I have to agree.

I don't read Train Orders or similar sights... I don't spend much time railfaning... I am happiest when rebuilding a caboose or box car.

The problem is how to When we moderate, when we intervene, we can kill a good topic.

We have a couple of goals... First, there are hard rules about proper discourse... name calling, inappropriate challenges, inappropriate language... These are easy... break the rule, you will be moderated... do it regularly and you will be removed from the list (this last action has only happened a handful of times... and in if you look at the people who have been removed, then re-registered, then removed again (and maybe again) maybe only three times.

More often we send a private message saying that your postings are not appropriate. The board as a whole doesn't know what happened.

The "Railfan post" is harder... I would need a set of guidelines to identify a inappropriate post. Alternately, I can just warn everyone who might be a foamer...

If, on a post about replacing the springs on a steam locomotive lead truck, someone follows with a "well done" is that foaming or a congratulations...

Posts with questions about future operations can be a foamer planning or more likely dreaming or inquiries about museum planning...

I would suggest that people post about their preservation projects, or questions about preservation practices, or questions about "how to".

Randy, currently frustrated moderator

And while we are waiting for it to get there, it has provided a valuable service by putting a number of people with similar interests in contact with each other through exchanges of "PM's" and e-mails. This has produced some information sharing and troubleshooting team efforts that have proved to be very effective in a number situations.

PC

Regarding those hard rules about proper discourse, name calling and inappropriate challenges:

What about when people come into a thread and make snotty accusations that people in the thread are beating a dead horse, are paranoid, or assassinating character, or being delusional and ignorant, or acting like foamers? Is that proper discourse?

Agreed. And because of this, I strongly dislike this being the job of a moderator to choose which threads are railfan threads and which ones are truly pertinent to preservation. (1) It'd be a very difficult choice to make, (2) it's very possible to prevent sharing of pertinent info by doing so.

With that said, I believe it's up to the rest of the posters on the board to not make the moderators make that choice. That's not always going to happen. In my opinion, you already do a great job, and I wouldn't change a thing of those moderation policies. And if I'm reading this thread right, I think that's the general sentiment being portrayed, not dissatisfaction with the moderators.

I think it just comes down to the interest spectrum. I could care less about tracking down the current whereabouts of a particular boxcar, but I do see it as pertinent to preservation and am glad someone's looking out for that sort of thing. Surviving Steam and steamlocomotive.info are both incredibly valuable, and I'm glad they are maintained, but most of the time I end up skipping over the threads once I identify them as such since after about the first two posts, they're usually irrelevant. A lot of threads like that tend to go off-topic incredibly fast, and we get a lot of them, and they keep getting posts and bumped to the top, so you then have to keep a running list of which threads went O/T so you can skip them.

I would not be at all surprised if a lot of the people on here who are more into the operations side probably found my topic about rust converter thoroughly disinteresting. I volunteer mostly in maintenance, so it was very informative for me and fascinating to hear all the different experiences with different products, but I'm sure most of our operations guys couldn't have cared less had they seen it.

They're separate categories of topics, both valuable, but to different groups. Even the stuff about equipment moves, operation suspensions, local politics - someone in your organization probably has to keep track of it. For the railroad I'm involved with, that'd be our mechanical department supervisor. But I generally find them thoroughly boring, especially since with there being so many railroads and museums, I don't have any context for a lot of it.

So I think a lot of it has its place. But there are times, from a poster's point of view, where it's better to keep your mouth shut and let a thread sink into the archive instead of taking it off-topic.

Anyway, long story short, there's a lot of incompatible signals mixed in with O/T posts and O/T threads. But there are some gems, and I'd rather see people show a little self control than to make that the moderators' responsibility.

1. I will again advocate for separating the Interchange into three or more sections. As an example see the message boards at steamboats.org

http://www.steamboats.org/forum/

Suggested segments:
Project status queries "What's up with RDG 2102, SR 4501, Strasburg 4, etc."
Museum practice "Exhibits, Governance, Policy, Recommended Practice"
Shop talk: "Lube oils, rattan seats, lemphor exhausts"
In doing so I can focus on the section of interest.

2. Use real names. Steamboats.org had some of the probems we do. They went to names required and a lot of the blather stopped.

3. Encourage and thank our moderators.

But someone first needs to get access from Dave Collison.

Sigh.

Wesley

In defense of RyPN, it does a good job of alerting me to stories for RMQ/Trainline. Other than museum newsletters, it's the best source I know.
Aaron Isaacs, editor
Railway Museum Quarterly/Trainline

I disagree. There is a lot of excellent content on the pages of the interchange. Look at the focus of the Interchange from our guidelines:

Focus: The INTERCHANGE is a moderated discussion board for exchanging relevant, fact-based, information about railroad history, the crafts of research and authorship, the operation of railroad museums, railroad history groups, tourist railroads, and other related organizations.

Most of what is published here is within the guidelines. While there is no fine line between preservation news and foaming we can all agree that you don't see posts saying NS heritage unit 1234 is heading West out of Enola tomorrow on train XYZ. I think we can al agree that there is no other place on the internet that has the discussions and sharing of information related to preservation as we have here.

There is an old saying... "the only constant is change" and the Interchange, real railroading, and railroad preservation is not the same as it was 10 years ago and 10 years from now will be different. My advice is to participate, ask and answer questions, share information, thank our friend when they share, and do your own little part to make this the best place to discuss, share information, and learn railway preservation on the internet. Randy and I will never be able to read every single post, if you see nonsense hit the report button, when you see a thread you like comment, this is our living room and will have the feel of home only if we make it feel like home.

I would second the need for separate categories and/or sub forums as a first step to helping visually coordinate the topics and interests of those participating and reading within this forum.

It may be an extra layer to wade through, but the benefits of being able to peruse content that is curated by topic outweigh wading through the sea.

As far as the noise to signal ratio, harder to deal with perhaps because not everyone is compelled to observe in a world of constant sharing, though sometimes less context sensitive reading.

There may yet be other possibilities depending on the owners and moderators would want to explore an electronic magazine/blog format with a forum component (as has been discussed before with the Interchange remaining the focus.) I would be happy to offer some input and services by way of going this route to better classify, arrange, identify, push, promote and otherwise organize topics and information.

I would respectfully suggest that those interested in seeing more preservation related articles in print as well as electronic format should support RMQ TRAINLINE which is already established as a magazine and posts a downloadable PDF online, rather than (again) getting into the issue of RYPN developing and maintaining an electronic magazine. Aaron, who manages the RMQ TRAINLINE, has already identified himself in a posting earlier in this string.

I wonder how many participants in RYPN have actually written and submitted to the already established publications any magazine articles on preservation topics in response to the very long discussion several years ago that included print and electronic preservation magazines? That discussion clearly identified ARM/TRAIN as well as several other organizations that were willing to provide space in their existing publications.

Sorry to be negative about forming new magazines, but past experience with a number of groups has taught that there are lots of people who will say that they want another magazine and very few that are actually willing to write the articles and do the necessary work to support an additional publication, electronic or print. RYPN already has a section for articles, and the most recent one was posted on May 26, 2008.

PC

Often I find useful information that is an off topic aside within a thread. So I usually skim through all the threads even if the topic is of little interest to me.

One thing that does bother me is people who are NOT members of a specific preservation organization posting opinions about how that organization should conduct its business. We see posts like "X museum should preserve locomotive Y that now is rusting in Texas" or "Museum X should paint locomotive Y rather than locomotive Z in their collection that they are painting now." Organizations that are taxpayer supported like California State Railroad Museum are a different situation.

These people should put their money and membership where their mouth is by joining the museum in question. Then they can express their opinion within the organization.

Brother Cook, our interpretations of the term magazine (I also used the term blog) may be slightly different. A traditional magazine either online or in print is not what I suggested, nor would I or others have a lot of interest in seeing one pop up simply because of the sheer effort and investment that it would take.

A true online aggregation of rail preservation news does not exist, except where people post links in a forum. It is not curated. I think a site with an extraordinarily established user-base is missing out on some of its potential when it gathers the ears and eyes of industry folk and rail supporters and...that's it.

I would look to a site like say, the Huffington Post, which gathers more content than it produces originally but still acts as a springboard for various other sources (which in our case would be Trains, ARM/TRAIN, Railfan, etc.)

In fact, as ARM/TRAIN moves forward I would suggest something akin to this be explored -- if the goal is to make an organizational front for rail preservation, then a digital front should be just as robust and media savvy.

KL

Wow.....the interesting things that happen when I'm off doing something else for a while.

Thanks Tim for the vote of confidence. Wish you had edited by typo while you were at it.....my remaining fingers don't all do what i tell them to, and I try to be careful but things creep in. Sorry.

I've been trying to abuse the least rational, realistic and therefore least valuable content posters away, but they seem to like it and stick around for more. In the process I have learned that abusing idiots is refreshing, and can help alleviate frustration that I used to handle with the more physical aspects of metalwork. So it is a mixed bag for sure......I bet Hugh Laurie found something similar playing House. Learn from the experts.

I'm less concerned about the subject matter than the quality of the information contributed. I'm happy to just avoid clicking on topics with foamy subject lines, but when people insist on posting bad information into topics of real interest....it makes them of no interest. Emotional rather than intellectual stuff is usually even worse. If you have reason to know some information that was posted is wrong, rationally tell us why. We'll be happy to know more. If you just don't like it, but can't explain rationally why, keep it to yourself. Not that hard a concept to grasp. Assuming that uninformed, prejudiced or mentally unbalanced opinions are valid and worthy of sharing.....not here, please, take it to Dead Goat. If it doesn't pass the reality test, it probably isn't real and don't inflict it on the rest of us. Don't expect a free pass if you do.

I'm a huge fan of lifelong learning, and what I'm learning more of here lately than a few years back is that not enough people have learned enough to try to teach, but they seem unaware of it.

Also, there are such things as stupid questions. If you can't recognise them by now, assume any you want to ask are and don't ask them. Credibility is gained by working in the trenches, dealing with real situations, understanding how to research and find reliable sources, learning to think critically and rationally and strategically. If you want to know why a particular organization has done something, ask them directly, not here. You'll more likely get an accurate answer that way, and forestall the many uninformed opinions from other people who don't know either that are sure to follow.

Asume this is an honors course with a very crochety professor. Don't get comfortable. This will raise the quality of shared information and return us to a less active but much more valuable resource. Quality beats quantity when it comes to information.

Dave