TAY Atmosphere

Take a vote, but I say dump the Lift access reports.
This is a BC site and it would be great to focus on BC reports and conditions in the BC. There is a lot of hype and attitude that bleeds off of those reports.

2nd or 5000th that, or whatever we're at now.

As for a lot of other issues discussed on this thread, I would have to say that I've become more of a lurker due to how the site has evolved. Not bad, just a lot more people on here now too.

I like skiing and meeting people, so I hope to just meet most of you out there.

You should add an Alternative Turns section for surfing.

Interesting thread; time to weigh in... 

Thanks for all the hard work Marcus.  I wouldn’t change a thing, except perhaps to echo what others have said about photo functionality/performance ... and better search functionality.

Please do keep the lift served reports forum.

I think the current level of moderation is just fine.  I wouldn't mind if it was just a liittttle bit more lenient, but at the same time, when you want that stuff you can go to TGR, CC.com, etc.  Actually, when I first joined a few years ago I asked Charles why the site didn’t allow avatar pics.  (I forget if this was in a PM or in a thread.)  He said it was cause avatar pics encourage the type of trash-talking and negativity you see on other internet forums.  I never really saw the connection there... but I've also grown to be totally ambivalent about the lack of avatar pics. 


I sometimes do get tired of all the attitude here, but not so much that from the internet tough guys (AKA " keyboard commandos ") who've been mentioned above.  Mildly annoying, but meh, whatever, you get that all over the internet. 

More than anything, I just get tired of all the complaining I see on this site, both from the commandos and non-commandos alike ..... I seriously think I see more complaints per page, per thread, or whatnot, than just about any other interweb forum I’ve spent time on.  People complain about WSDOT, people complain about NPS, about snowshoers, about snowboarders, about n00b skiers, about ski areas, about bad drivers, etc etc etc … holishit, people … lighten up, fer crissakes.  Life is too short.

More than anything, I just get tired of all the complaining I see on this site, both from the commandos and non-commandos alike ..... I seriously think I see more complaints per page, per thread, or whatnot, than just about any other interweb forum I’ve spent time on.  People complain about WSDOT, people complain about NPS, about snowshoers, about snowboarders, about n00b skiers, about ski areas, about bad drivers, etc etc etc … holishit, people … lighten up, fer crissakes.  Life is too short.

X1,000,001. Add that to the Monday morning quarterbacking of stability evaluations in TRs.

I sometimes do get tired of all the attitude here, ...Mildly annoying...

More than anything, I just get tired of all the complaining I see on this site, both from the commandos and non-commandos alike ..... I seriously think I see more complaints per page, per thread, or whatnot, than just about any other interweb forum I’ve spent time on.  People complain about WSDOT, people complain about NPS, about snowshoers, about snowboarders, about n00b skiers, about ski areas, about bad drivers, etc etc etc … holishit, people … lighten up, fer crissakes.  Life is too short.

Nice long complaint, Double E

Tone, Moderation
The big enchilada in this conversation is obviously the site’s tone, how we interact with each other and how the moderation should function.  I’ll start with a quote from Lowell, which captures my preferences pretty well:

I want TAY to be a place where any backcountry skier, aspiring or experienced, feels welcome and encouraged to participate.

It’s hard to say it more succinctly than that.  But how do we determine “welcome and encouraged”?  Oftpiste hit on part of the problem – the definition of civility is going to change from one person to the next and everything written here is subject to the reader’s own interpretation. 

Belittling others for expressing their honest opinion will sacrifice truth and drastically reduce the value of our community.

I am all for conflict.  Disagreement, spirited discussion, outright arguing are all good things.  I just prefer when it takes the form of "here is what I think and why" instead of the "you must be an idiot if you think that" approach.

Avoid making it personal (in the case of disagreement), count to 10, read it again, then press "post".

There is a difference between reality-denying "positivism" and civility. One can have a hearty but civil disagreement, and one can discuss problems and other "negative" topics in a civil fashion."

For me, this is what it comes down to – if you can’t engage in a discussion without making it personal, don’t engage.  Give the people you disagree with the benefit of the doubt.

Posting on the internet does require a thick skin, at times.  We all need to be able to laugh at ourselves and accept well-intentioned criticism without getting bent out of shape.  Everyone involved is responsible for moderating their own behavior.  We choose how to react to what someone says to us, absolutely, but we also choose how to act in the first place – it’s not just one or the other.  I choose to put more of that responsibility on the person typing the post.

cronyism, faux civility, hypocrites  gushing sycophants, etc…

This is stuff that I’ve never really understood, though I’ve worked for the last year and a half to get a handle on it.  It comes off as an attack on the whole community here and does nothing for the conversation, while taking the worst possible view of other people’s contributions and opinions.  TAY has plenty of faults, but none of them are ever going to be resolved with that approach.  The site’s tone isn’t for everyone and never will be (probably the clearest message from this conversation), but railing against it like this doesn’t make sense.

As TAY has grown, more and more of the site’s tone is driven by the people who post here.  As andyski put it, “Be brave and energetic enough to create the community you want, if indeed it's important enough to you.”  If I never had to “nudge” a conversation again, I’d be a happy camper, but I think it’s safe to say that it will happen from time to time.

I’m definitely looking at additional help on the moderator front – if anyone is interested, please let me know (silence… crickets…).  I’m not going to be dissolving TAY into a community-run resource at this time, if for no other reason than the likelihood that the amount of work to get it into place would be huge and most of it would fall to me at the start.  I don’t really think “it’s broke”, at this point, just going through a transition.

Also:

Step 1: turn off computer and ignore the interwebs
Step 2: go outside and enjoy new snow
Step 3: slay some unicorns and then share the feast