eastern backcountry ski forum

[icelanticskier]

yup, that's right. drew and i have been working on this project for awhile. he's the brains, and i just add stuff and stuff. check it out:

http://easternbackcountry.com/#top

rog

 

[Patrick]

yup, that's right. drew and i have been working on this project for awhile. he's the brains, and i just add stuff and stuff.

Geez, all these blogs, forums, websites and stuff....who will be next? :-"

Did a quick browse, nice!!!

 

[Harvey]

Hey Rog ... if you enable your feed, I'll share the love on Harvey Road.

 

[icelanticskier]

HAAAAAAARRRRRRRRVVVVVVVVVVVVV!!!!!!!!!!!!

easy bro! i just learned how to text message on my phone today. feed? my chickens are all set for awhile. contact drew for the tech stuff. i just ski. looks like another wasatch trip is in the works for me. just got off the phone with craig.

rog

 

[Lftgly]

You got a lot of balls posting an advertisement for another ski forum here. Does the on-line skiing community really need another place for ego-stroking ?

 

[icelanticskier]

You got a lot of balls posting an advertisement for another ski forum here. Does the on-line skiing community really need another place for ego-stroking ?

(edited by administrator)

rog

 

[Patrick]

You got a lot of balls posting an advertisement for another ski forum here. Does the on-line skiing community really need another place for ego-stroking ?

hey ghey boy, why don't ya crawl back into the hole you came out from, or show up at pinkham and we'll talk face to face about it. think i'm kiddin? try me.

gaper

rog

Wow Rog...why the hate? It's not because someone doesn't post as much that he's a gaper? [-(

I'm pretty sure Lftgly skied stuff around the Whites even before you had heard about it, so a bit of respect please.

This is coming from a fan of both you (I don't have issue with the EBCF) and Lftgly.

 

[scharny]

As far as I can see, that is not a "forum". It is a blog.

 

[Tony Crocker]

As far as I can see, that is not a "forum". It is a blog.

A blog being a forum for one person?

As discussed last year with respect to Utah Ski and Snowboard, forums need critical mass with multiple users. Fragmentation is usually not productive. The value of a bunch of little forums is much less than one bigger one, assuming comparable quality. Whether backcountry emphasis justifies a new forum, I can't say. But it will be easier for icelantic to find a large audience here than starting something new from scratch. The Time for Tuckerman Forum, which icelantic also uses, seems to be quite a good fit for his interests IMHO.

 

[riverc0il]

As far as I can see, that is not a "forum". It is a blog.

A blog being a forum for one person?

As discussed last year with respect to Utah Ski and Snowboard, forums need critical mass with multiple users. Fragmentation is usually not productive. The value of a bunch of little forums is much less than one bigger one, assuming comparable quality. Whether backcountry emphasis justifies a new forum, I can't say. But it will be easier for icelantic to find a large audience here than starting something new from scratch. The Time for Tuckerman Forum, which icelantic also uses, seems to be quite a good fit for his interests IMHO.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. If going for largest number of views and critical mass, then it would make the most sense to post on TGR or for New England then AZ. But sometimes it is not just about getting the most views (such as my site for reference, online now for 10+ years now as a file for my TRs). I would also suggest blogging sites can indeed reach critical mass when feed together into an aggregator. I compiled something for this very reason of trying to read lots of individual blogs in one place. Usually aggregators are localized on individual localized clients or via email programs, but I tossed this up online for others seeking similar information and blogs that I enjoy.

There tends to be a lot of cross contamination between blogs and forums as well. Eastern Backcountry has had pretty much all of its articles posted here or T4T. Same with the FamousInternetSkiers.com crew who post to at least three forums that link back to their own site for the actual TR. I tried to avoid that by posting an immediate quick and dirty TR to forums before doing a full and detailed write up on my own site. I refined that even further recently but just not posting many TRs to forums except every once in a while. Word for word duplication across multiple sites on the Internet just does not do it for me.

As far as why do a blog instead of a forum, there is something besides the sharing of conditions involved. Ego for sure, that can not be denied. But presentation and aesthetics can also be involved as well. And (Tony knows this full well....), it also gives you complete and total control of the content and provides a life long record that can never be lost.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Not putting down blogs in any way. River's is a good example of one very nicely done. Craig Morris' was the definitive source of Fernie conditions for 12 seasons. Blogging is the way to go if you want absolute control of content, presentation or aesthetics. I make no claims whatsoever in the latter 2 departments. :lol:

A forum should have a broader base of contributors. So you adopt a standardized format as admin has done (and heard us throw the occasional ). For forums I think consolidation rather than fragmentation would be more productive. Just my 2 cents.

I'd rather see Riverc0il's and icelantic's reports here than look them up somewhere else. For an established blog like River's a quick post with the URL in this forum would be great. That's what Mammoth Snowman does in the Mammoth Forum and occasionally here too.

 

[polski]

Recently there was a rather heated discussion at TGR http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/show ... p?t=178840 on posting teaser pix there with links to complete TRs elsewhere. I would not say consensus was reached. I don't generally have a problem with the practice; I don't think it's a zero-sum game, where page views on some new blog take traffic away from more established forums. There can be a fine line between providing links tastefully and spamming, though. It also makes a difference what record the new blogger has of contributing to the community.

 

[Harvey]

I understand Tony's perspective, but was unable, in a backchannel exchange, to convince him, that blogs have a place.

A blog definitely serves a different purpose than a forum. Many FTOers thrive on variety and are understandably bored with my ongoing reporting on Gore. I'm trying to branch out a little but lets face it ... I'm going to ski Gore a lot. Why not put it all in one place so people can find it?

The search engines - especially Google - are really good at finding you - IF you know how to write keyword rich content and you post often.* By having my own NY state focused blog, and being consistent, Harvey Road has attracted a small, but growing audience who are interested in what I'm interested in ... Gore, Whiteface, the Central Adk BC, Hickory, Big Tupper, Catskills and to some extent VT. And of course weather and snow in general. While the audience for HR is small it's 10x bigger than I ever thought it would get.

By creating something that is uniquely me, the search engines have connected me with people who understand where I'm coming from and actually want to read my content. It's way cool.

FYI - IMO Steve's aggregator is really a good resource for an eastern skier. I hit it at least 3x a week. Riv and I have done some coordination between TheSnowWay and Harvey Road. Linking and feeding each other, following the other's exploits, urging each other on. Thanks for that Riv - I appreciate it.

(*Try googling "building a ski cabin." or "sugar valley glades")

 

[Patrick]

I'm with River and Harvey here. I've posted on many forums over the years and I would like to concentrate the info in one place for myself and for many those who are fans of my posts.

Anyhow, my posts wouldn't necessarily feel any time constraint time wise...I would actual post some really really old TR like this one I posted from 19 years later on FTO.

Unfortunately pics and format totally disappeared when Admin had issue with the recuperating/saving the old archives.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5093&start=15#p21615

 

[Lftgly]

anytime, anywhere [censored].

rog

Threatening to beat me up at Pinkham?

Oh for gawds sake, Moderator, just take this stupid post off the FTO board. Let him take his over-inflated ego, and go play in his own sandbox.

 

[Admin]

Icelanticskier, your comment was highly inappropriate and your personal threat intolerable, whether in jest or not. You've got a two-week timeout. You'll be welcome back after that time if you can act appropriately.

 

[Tony Crocker]

teaser pix there with links to complete TRs elsewhere.

For the people like Harvey and River with established personal blogs, I have no problem and would actively encourage the practice, as I hope admin would also.

Unfortunately pics and format totally disappeared when Admin had issue with the recuperating/saving the old archives.

I agree with Patrick this is a very serious issue. I rehabilitated all of my FTO trip reports, though I note Patrick has not. I would also remind admin that the reason the TGR Forum community revolted and split off from powdermag.com was because Powder changed format and lost the prior archives. The FTO archives from 2004 and prior are not lost but if you look at Patrick's reference you can see they are seriously degraded in presentation and readability. The formatting and some of the picture URL's can be fixed manually. There is one ski season (2003-04 I think) where the pictures are lost and would have to be reloaded. I would recommend that admin consider a cleanup (perhaps recruiting a group to share the workload) during an off-season sometime.

 

[Harvey]

Oh for gawds sake, Moderator, just take this stupid post off the FTO board.

Or maybe separate it out. I'm liking the FTO version of the TGR thread blog and forum thread.

I'd really like to hear what Admin and Tony (and everybody) thinks about the link backs.

The TGR thread had some real inconsistencies. A lot of guys didn't like the TR linkbacks but seemed to feel that the FIS stuff was ok, primarily because their work is so awesome.

Some folks felt that people who never post had a more defensible position than those with blogs.

Opinions? I'm curious. If my stuff is seen in a negative light, I'd like to know.

Hey Patrick ... I remember you quotede some ratios ... I can't remember.... Noise/Knowledge and Knowledge/Post? To me that's the way to measure contributions.

Also If everyone just LURKED, the forums would die. Are linkbacks worse than lurking?

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I would also remind admin that the reason the TGR Forum community revolted and split off from powdermag.com was because Powder changed format and lost the prior archives.

I was LOLing at Tony's none-too-covert subtext.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Are linkbacks worse than lurking?

Absolutely. It would be nice to have the reports directly on FTO, but I can appreciate the work that Harvey and River do to create a blog in a format they want to control and preserve. So if they don';t want to duplicate that effort I would like to see the link here. Just my opinion.