SubTalk

[Mr rt]

Those that have a passion for NYC subways will find enough information and chatter to keep them very busy at http://www.nycsubway.org, i.e. SubTalk.

They also get reports & discussions for out-of-town systems, e.g. Boston, Philly, Chicago

[R142A]

I post there a lot. It's a great source of information and people are posting literally every minute.

[Otto Vondrak]

Maybe I should go on SubTalk and tell people to post here, too.

-otto-

[R142A]

Maybe I should go on SubTalk and tell people to post here, too.

-otto-

Well, most of the people there already know about this site.

[GP38]

Well, most of the people there already know about this site.

Yup, I would post here more too, but there's not always that much to talk about here. We need more people from SubTalk to post at this forum.

[Mr rt]

"... We need more people from SubTalk to post at this forum ..."

Be careful what you wish for

[R142A]

"... We need more people from SubTalk to post at this forum ..."

Be careful what you wish for

DefJef....

[Irish Chieftain]

IMHO this would be an excellent alternate forum to Subtalk, which to be utterly frank is (as indicated by two posters already) filled with trolls, that being one reason I ceased posting there. Due to their Usenet-like kill-file feature, the administration will rarely, if ever, nuke bad posts and instead advise you to "plonk" subjects and users.

Another annoying bad feature of Subtalk is that they do not archive posts, so that when you see replies to a resurrected post, you start thinking that it is a new post although it was originally created two to three years prior. (Once you offer criticism to the outdated information which seems like it was posted recently, along come the trolls to remind you of the age of the original post, of course.)

Otto: Go for it. Of all the forums on this site, this one logically should be among the busiest.

As an appendix...it seems that one "aem7" was not fond of being spurned and punished over indiscretions of his on here (don't know which forum in particular he did this in) but he created this thread over on Subtalk to vent about it, which by necessity was cleaned up by David Pirmann. Sometimes a killfile isn't enough...

[Skip-Stop]

IMHO this would be an excellent alternate forum to Subtalk, which to be utterly frank is (as indicated by two posters already) filled with trolls, that being one reason I ceased posting there.

Basing your leave of a major MB? Who exactly are these two posters?

Due to their Usenet-like kill-file feature, the administration will rarely, if ever, nuke bad posts and instead advise you to "plonk" subjects and users.

You should try it sometime. The webmaster (Dave) has said time and time again that due to his busywork with NYCSubway and other bearing things, he can't tend as 'babysitter' for SubTalk. He needs to rely on the maturity of posters there and for the most part, the majority. On occasion, you have the true trolls, but other than that, no real problems. BTW, there is no 'administration.' Just Dave.

[Another annoying bad feature of Subtalk is that they do not archive posts,

They do.

so that when you see replies to a resurrected post, you start thinking that it is a new post although it was originally created two to three years prior.

Is it hard to see the date, then? It may be obscure, but it's there. I admit, I've fallen for it myself a couple of times but I am now more cautious.

(Once you offer criticism to the outdated information which seems like it was posted recently, along come the trolls to remind you of the age of the original post, of course.)

No, they're just trying to be smart-alecks. Trolls are vastly different.

Otto: Go for it. Of all the forums on this site, this one logically should be among the busiest.

The previous forum for this subject wasn't very bustling either. It's likely it will take time for real development to occur.

As an appendix...it seems that one "aem7" was not fond of being spurned and punished over indiscretions of his on here (don't know which forum in particular he did this in) but he created this thread over on Subtalk to vent about it, which by necessity was cleaned up by David Pirmann. Sometimes a killfile isn't enough...

I know him. He's an intelligent poster but on occasion, uses extreme sarcasm to convey his distaste for various things on ST. I suppose he got too far.

[Otto Vondrak]

"aem7" used profanity on the Amtrak forum. The rules clearly state that profanity is not allowed. I asked aem7 to be more careful in the future. He asked me to disable his account. End of story.

-otto-

[Otto Vondrak]

Also- I think David Pirrmann does a great job with nycsubway.org. It's a fantastic resource and I use it often. However, if you think the climate on SubTalk is getting out of hand, encourage your friends to post here.

-otto-

[Phil Hom]

I usually just read SubTalk. Some of these kids start some surveys just for the heck of it.
Example
"If you were (employment position i.e. CEO), what would you change?"

and the list goes on and on.

[GP38]

SubTalk is a great resource, and Dave Pirman does do a great job at nycsubway.org. I still get a lot out of SubTalk even if there are some people that post nonsense sometimes. The majority of the threads though are very interesting and on topic. I just ignore the ones that aren't for the most part. I can quickly figure when it's not worth clicking on more that a few responses in a thread that went down the drain. That's probably why I usually miss the "nonsense" and have no idea what people are taking about when they say there are "problems" there.
I do like the fact that you can directly respond to people; it's easy to directly answer people's questions, or respond directly to their post, unlike the "list forums" like this when your response is way down from the post you are responding too, expecially after a few days absense here. That being said, this is a nice set of forums too, although it usually doesn't take me more than about 10 minutes every couple of days to catch up on the two or three forums I read here (NYC subway, LIRR, NYA, and on rare occasions Metro-North).

[BMT]

Here's my two cents:

As a long-time SubTalker I've appreciated the exchange of information among likewise minds at that website. However, in the past few months it has become more and more of a clearing house of personal attacks, name calling and idiotic troll-attacks. The exchange of information is lacking and alot of the 'regulars' (like myself) are disappearing as the days progress. Nowadays I either post when there's truly something interesting to respond to, or more likely I try and lighten up the place with a passing one-liner.

Another distracting practice recently at SubTalk has been the bickering between two long-time regular posters. One is a young man with some 'adjustment problems', and the other is an adult employee of New York City Transit (a supervisor to boot!). They stand by their beliefs and just continually point out their position on an argument. You can almost picture the whole thing coming to blows if they were to meet up in person. Sadly, the NYCT employee takes the 'low-road' with his denigration of the other poster (name-calling with explicit language). It's unfortunate that SubTalk has become a 'festering boil' instead of a great resource of information. And I can't really blame the webmaster as he has a 'life' and cannot be playing 'policeman' everytime someone loses his cool over there.

[Irish Chieftain]

I can't really blame the webmaster as he has a 'life' and cannot be playing 'policeman' everytime someone loses his cool over there

That's why there are mods over here now. The original RRNET forums (hosted on Bluemoon.net) were of an identical format to Subtalk, with the HTML forums and no moderation (no killfile either), and the flame wars did get out of hand often on there. John Stewart faced the same burden as Mr. Pirmann did insofar as killing flame posts—ain't easy to be the only cop in the city.