Message Board Proposals

1) Who is JK? I know he's your coach but what is his real name and what are his credentials?

2) I'm too tired to give any suggestions right now. Goo night.

Leave it.

The people speaks and punishes accordingly.

What does DI & DII mean anyway?

Some people like 50% of 50% of 50% of the messages (in any mixed order). To think otherwise could be communist you know.

(If youre the real deal of course)

First, "if it ain't broke, dont fix it." There is nothing wrong with the system right now.

If you do go with some system of categorization, I would go with:

(1) All collegiate running, DI, DII and DIII, and NAIA.

(2) All Highschool running, track and XC.

(3) Postcollegiate and professional running, track, XC and Road, including marathons.

(4) Training/Injury advice

(5) Anything goes, including porn, jokes, politics, etc.

Wejo:

I find myself agreeing (zounds!) with Jason, at least in the abstract of his first statement. I don't see the board as broken.

However, in terms of fine-tuning (and remembering our thermodynamics) I offer the following suggestions:

1. Some form of registration, limiting posters to only one identity. (If they want to remain anonymous, that's fine, but I could do with less of this "ah come to help" nonsense from spotty 19 year-old oiks playing around on their daddy's computer during Christmas break.)

A visitor to the site should have one identity, and he/she should have to wait 24/48 hours to get it. That way, even a geek that sneaks past your registration process can?t disrupt a decent thread with his/her sophomoric posts. No ID, no ability to post.

This might also negate the need to limit the number of posts per day by any one user.

2. Nuke any and all porn links post-haste! Jason, if you want to wank, keep it to yourself.

3. Don't separate the topics into distinct message boards. This will only lead to cross posts and confusion. If people stay on topic - i.e., running, racing, training and technique - we should be okay. Often, a D111 topic, which I might not be interested in generally, can be quite entertaining. I?d hate to miss something informative because it was separated onto a different message board.

4. Given the depth of dysfunction found in some of the lost souls that post on this board, some form of IQ and/or personality disorder test might also prove useful, but - I suspect under the circumstances - would be too difficult to administer.

Martin

2. I favor requiring registration in order to post.

I like this board with a few exceptions. The great things are the training threads by JK/Hadd/Rubio/Hodgie-san/Malmo etc. I would not want to see seperate boards, except if people wanted a board for runners about non-running stuff (religion, politics, hot chicks, etc). Definitely should have to be registered to post, no real name needed (obviously my real name is not "x"), but so people who post do it consistently under a unique name. Maybe limit some people who post to much crap, like catman or "ah, come to help", their signal to noise ratio is high. But JK and crowd, or people like Portland Runner or Flagpole Willy I would not want to see limited. I like that on this board you get a variety of info, HS, D1 to D3, NAIA, post collegiate, and elite. I would like to see more women post on this board. Maybe some trusted moderators, to whack threads or post that are just offensive or not related.

One thing that I thought would be a good idea, would be to have a Q&A thread with someone such as Paula Radcliffe, or other elites, or top coaches. You could create a thread and lock it on top of the list, give the person a unique name so everyone would know that it was legit when they replied. People could post questions and remarks and the person could respond. You could have a different thread with new people every month or week. Just a thought.

Anytime you puny little runts have time to post, go to the gym. If you're at work, do some push ups. Maybe, with some hard work and dedication, just maybe, you'll start to have the body that women crave instead of being puny little sissies that make women laugh. But don't set your goals to be like Mr. Chest. Some goals are just not attainable. Ha ha hahaha.

One more thing that I don't like about this board, Mr. Chest, your act is getting old.

The comment about requiring registration to post and having a 24 hour initial lag would certainly keep some of the crap down (e.g., people posting comments to their own messages under new names). Sure, it's possible to get around but it may help.

I don't like the idea of separate forums. Things wind up bleeding across the forums anyway.

Limits on posts? That's a tough one. 5 does sound reasonable, but I'd hate to limit good responses, especially if there are several good threads on a given day. Does the software have any statistics ability so that you can find out just what the posting rates are?

As far as "objectionable material" goes, I think that a simple statement of policy is all that is required. The operators of any system such as this are within their rights to remove individual posts, entire threads, or individuals that violate said rules. My view is that if removals are capricious, people who frequent the site will state their disapproval. If it gets bad, people will leave the site and it will die.

I'm okay with the board as is. Registering a name is not necessarily going to get rid of the trash- it'll just keep someone from posting as someone else. Which is helpful, but not the cure-all people might think. The "delayed registration" option would at least postpone it.

There used to be (and still are, in some cases) other message boards with the NCAA Division foci discussed above. If you wanted to classify, I would think just having a collegiate and a post collegiate section would suffice. You could have a high school section, but might as well just have a direct link to Dyestat, from what I've heard.

You have several people who graciously post training advice who also do it for a living - maybe recognize their generosity by allowing links to their professional services for those who are interested? At the complete discretion of the Jo's as to who rates such links, of course.

The one other improvement would be to organize the news/front page a little better - I often miss some stories until I see them discussed in the message boards.

wejo wrote:

Couple of questions:

1) Should we create some new message boards? Perhaps there should be a board for specifically DII and DIII collegiate running as there is no place for that info.

2) Should be limit how many times people can post a day? I swear some people post like 25 times a day. I think 5 posts a day might be reasonable. I bet 3 or 4 people post like 50% of the messages.

3) Any more suggestions?

1. One board to rule them all, one board to find them, one board to bring them all and in the darkness bind them (yeah I am a Tolkien dork).

2. No posting limits, but registration would be nice. The kind of registration that requires the user to verify his/her registration by e-mail.

3. Keep user stats. PMs (personal messages). User Polls. Some sort of filter for XXX websites. (I know all of that may use more bandwidth that you guys want to pay for, but some of the features would be cool).

-Clay

x wrote:

One more thing that I don't like about this board, Mr. Chest, your act is getting old.

Too bad you feel insecure about your puny little body. Now run along and get in your miles. It drives the women crazy. Ha ha hahahahahahaha.

1. Don't create new message boards. Other message boards do that and it requires to flip between several boards to find all the interesting posts. The only separate board that makes sense would be a board for "non-running topics".

2. I would not limit the number of posts per day. There are some excellent threads where 2 or 3 people are discussing training/racing and each might exceed the 5 post limit in that thread alone.

One suggestion is that if you separate the boards, instead of making a "high school" board, make it a "Junior" level board. While we Americans stupidly have are training and racing levels separated mostly by scholastic competition, I think it would be a great psychological step to separate the boards by junior level and senior level.

Wejo,

I favor the registration part - I am registered, and I think everyone ought to be also.

I have never understood your penchant for limiting the number of times people post though. What could possibly be the reason? As someone else here said, we monitor ourselves. If I were you, I would LOVE it that people posted a tons of times - WHY? Because that is how many more times I see your advertising. The more times I post, the more I see your ads, and the greater chance there is that I will get something and support your advertisers.

Also, in some ways it is the more prolific posters that keeps people coming back here - even ones that don't post often. A message board gains a personality by the people who post, but that personality is limited if you see a thread with 20 posts and they are all just opinions from 20 different people. It is the discussion that makes it all interesting, and that is not possible if you limit it to 5 posts per day. While I personally would be disappointed to see such a limit on posts for obvious reasons (I post a lot), I think you would kill the message board if you did that.

Now, perhaps you don't want to run a message board any more. If that is your goal, then you should go ahead and put the clamps down. How could anyone think ill of you if you just shut the message board down? You don't owe us anything. But to limit the number of posts per day is just not a good thing. I'm all for giving people equal voice, but they have that now if they want. Forcing people into equal voice would make for quite a boring message board, and I'm sure that I would quit coming here. Unfortunately, not everyone is entertaining or can string some sentences together and make a point.

Anyway Wejo, if you'd like to explain to me why a limit on the number of posts would be a good thing, I'd sure love to hear it.

I think you've got a great thing going here and you should leave a well-oiled machine alone.

I really don't think you need to change a thing.

try a diary. some dirty laundry and shit just shouldnt be aired in a public forum.

1. Yes, limit the kiddo's posts, some seem to have too much time between classes and during semester breaks.

2. Ban Jason forever (even though I know there is no way to do that). I am sick of that FREAK!