I'm a active member of 3 other boards about motorcycling or car racing, much more active on the other ones (1,500+ posts each in less than 2 years) than I am on GSTwins.com (433 posts and have been a member since late January of 2003) and there is a definite trend here that hurts this board and keeps it in it's current crippled form. 

1.  The members on GStwins are remarkably defensive, not just about taboo subjects like abortion or Politics, but about stuff that shouldn't be an issue.  I believe that this stems from the fact that the GS500e/f is a beginner bike and most people on the board in reality couldn't explain countersteering let alone give or recieve any really useful advice on motorcycling.  We have a hobby where you must have a daredevil inside you to get involved in the first place, this gung ho mentality also gives newbies their sense of knowing everything, just like squids riding in sandals thinking they'll never hit the ground.  Look back over the course of the last few years at the members that we've lost along the way due to frustrations that stem from dealing with things like this: GSJack, RoadsterGal, Pantablo, etc.  I've never been more frustrated trying to do something benevolent than when I post on here (not to say that all my posts are on the level, I f%$k up too, get upset and lost my head, no doubt.).  Threads get locked, shaZam! gets thrown out of whack and there's no explanation.

2.  The Moderators do a sub par job, I understand that you have other shaZam! to do, but you volunteered for this position.  You can't start building a house for Habitat for Humanity and say mid way through "f%$k it, I'm tired, sleep outside, I'm out".  If you're going to bother locking a thread, explain why, don't just tie it off.  All that runs us into are situations where the aforementioned frustrations are left without any source to vent to; that's when people just up and quit the board and who does that benefit?  By you "doing your job" and locking threads and killing debates, you're killing the board.

3.  The current separation of the categories is vague and lacking, this leads to topics that drift over the lines and then the mods feel they need to jump in to fix something that could have very well sorted itself out.  I have been posting on ChicagolandSportbikes.com for a bit over a year (1,800 posts) and have only seen a total of 3 threads shut down in that time all of which were related to homosexuality, I am almost certain that this is due to their various thread topics that have, it keeps the potentially offensive material away from people who don't want to see it (i.e. the gun nuts don't offend the liberals because the liberals don't read the stuff in the gun threads.).  Here are a list of some of the various topics that CLSB uses, some of which don't really work here, weekend groups rides and the like, but I have a feeling that dividing the topic up would avoid a lot of headaches.

- Newbie/Welcome forum:  new to the club? looking for your first bike? what ever, come on in and say hello.
- Group Rides:  Use this forum to plan all your last minute or future rides.
- Employment Listings:  This forum is for networking and posting of job opening that you know of to help keep your fellow bikers in the loop on jobs available.
- Open Forum: This forum is for all off-topic discussion.
- The Funny Papers:  got some funny stuff? Make us laugh.
- General Sportbike Discussion: This forum is for discussion of bikes in general.
- General Cruiser Discussion: This is a forum for all you Cruiser owners in the chicagoland area.
- The Ladies Room: A forum dedicated to the ladies of CLSB, For the forum password send a PM to a female Mod (this thread is designed to keep the guys out of the Girls only group ride threads)
- Dirt Bike Alley:From 50's on up, this is the place to chat.
- World news and Politics Discussions:This is the place for all discussions about whats going on in the news and all of those political debates so many of us love to have.
- Polls:  What color should I paint my bike, who's better Rossi or Hayden, who's going to the World Series, etc.
- Photo Gallery:  Feel free to post all sorts of pics in here. One rule: no nudes, or gorry stuff.
Sub-Forums: Hot Woman with Hot bikes
Sub-Sub-Forum: Hot Men with Hot bikes
- The Drag Strip: learn and share, also talk about your favorite drag strips.
- Stunt Talk: a place to talk about stunts
- Traffic Violations Advice Corner: Got screwed lately? Get advise from others that dealt with it.
- Performance and Tech: Use of this forum is designed for performance discussion, as well as "help me fix it" questions.
- Track Talk:This forum is all about discussing riding and setup tips for different types of racetracks. As well as discussion about Nesba trackdays and the local racing scene.
- NESBA: NESBA was designed to get riders off the street and keep them safe by offering opportunities to ride at various racetracks throughout the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest United States Nesba.com
- Motorcycle Racing News: Forum specificly for racing news updates and standings.
- Motorcycles wanted or forsale: This is the place to sell your bike, or pick up a great deal on a used one from one of your fellow members.
- Bike parts and accesories wanted or for sale: This forum is for parts only.
- Non motorcycle related items wanted or for sale: Anything from cars to furniture. post it up in here.
- Trading post: This forum is designed around the idea of paying it forward. Post goods only to be given away or traded for other goods.  This is a great forum for trading motorcycling technique books with other new riders, GSTwins would definitely benefit from this forum if it were used.
- Home Improvement forum: This forum is for the discussion of all things involving home projects, especially kick ass garage remodels.
- Weapons & Hunters Corner: For all your firearms, safety, weapon choice, hunting topic questions.
- Health & Fitness: Talk to fellow members about getting in shape, to diets, to supplements and what does and doesn't work.
- Sports Corner: Here is the forum to talkabout Sports, sports and only sports. The latest lines, scores and sports news.
- Geek Squad to the rescue!: Computer crashing on you again? another porn site infected your computer? tierd of your wife seeing your anal fisting videos and want to lock her out of the external HD? get the answers you need from our local computer experts.
- Comments and Suggestions: Comments or feedback on the site? Post it here!
- Testing, Testing 123: This forum is for test posts to check sigantures or anything else you want to test before posting in another forum


Ok, this post has taken me over an hour to compile, so I'm going to post it in the General Forum and maybe it'll generate some responses there as well.  We're a smart group of people in general, we bought (or are curious about) a bike that would allow us to learn how to become decent riders without being over our skill level.  That says a lot about this group.  But we're also thrown into a mess of topics that get muddied by ignorant people (MYSELF INCLUDED) and the end result is the way the forum is today.  I'd compare GSTwins to a crowded bar where you get all sorts of people, inevitably fights and arguments will start but instead of letting them work out their differences like gentlemen or ladies, they're separated and the patrons leave upset and eventually, after it has happened enough, just stop coming to that bar.

Alright, tirade over, thoughts opinions, rebuttal, etc.

i feel some of your points are well founded. Defensiveness is something that comes with being human. Everyone has their sore spots, everyone has their angry buttons. But i think some of the members here are a bit too jumpy. Now, i may not be a member of as many boards as you (i'm a member with 2 others, mye28.com for my 5er and rkop.com originally because of the musician its for, now more for the people than anything.), but i can completely agree with the fact that things tend to be a little more laid back other places. If we can all agree to not jump on eachother's nuts (or ovaries), splitting the board into a million threads isn't entirely necesary. Might help some, but it might not.

Mods and admins, well, i don't honestly have anything negative to say about them. Perhaps there are ways in which they could improve, but i think the responsibility lies more with members than them. If we behave, they don't have to discipline us.

Thats my take on things. Biggest thing is to have people chill out. or make a rant section where you can vent your frustrations until you're blue in the face, and no one needs to feel offended because it'll common knowledge that anything in that section is to be taken with quite a few grains of salt.

few grains of salt, tequila shot and a percocet

i'll do a double jager, thanks. tequila and i don't get along. it makes me get angry.

last time I drank tequila I chased it with 14 pitchers of beer
I got very violent at one point and ended up throwing some airman over a balcony rail. I got pepper sprayed and tased

W8

good points. 

I think people just board hop until they find the right one for them. I myself love tehdriven for sillyness and Something Awful's automotive insanity for anything important, though SA does have a 10 dollar fee.

Wrecent, I implore you to spend 5-10 minutes checking out ChicagolandSportbike and tell me that almost everyone one of those categories doesn't get used on a semi-regular basis.  There are days when health and fitness don't get any posts, but they don't go for weeks at a time without anything. 

I would also submit to you that while we're not paying the bills for GSTwin, without us, there is no board, so we should be able to at least give our opinion.

Quote from: SmartDrug on June 05, 2007, 05:13:25 AM
Wrecent, I implore you to spend 5-10 minutes checking out ChicagolandSportbike and tell me that almost everyone one of those categories doesn't get used on a semi-regular basis.  There are days when health and fitness don't get any posts, but they don't go for weeks at a time without anything. 

I would also submit to you that while we're not paying the bills for GSTwin, without us, there is no board, so we should be able to at least give our opinion.

I think a real difference between GSTWINS and ChicagolandSportbike is the demographic. People with a sportbike in Chicago googlesearch for Chicago sportbikes and get that, the much much much smaller ammount of people with GS500's google search for GS500 forums and get this.

[7

I love you guys.  *sniff*

Will you marry me?

*wedding bells ring*

I do get frustrated when threads get moved with no explanation.  I think sometimes they're close enough to the subforum's intent that the could just be left, but other time I completely understand why they were moved.  Either way, a brief explanation in the thread would be nice

GStwin is still growing some, like it has been for the last few years.  At one point that meant going from just one forum to 3 or 4 subforums (FAQ was fairly recent).  I think we still do okay with what we have, but as long as there is growth there is potential need for more subforums.  If any sections were to be added, I might go with:

-Newbie/Introductions forum
-Other Motorcycles (Dreaming, upgrading, general repair)
-Other projects/ DIY advice (auto, computer, home...)

and depending on demand from these demographics:
-Ladies section
-Racers section
-Stuntas section

I8

That's true.  It would be nice to have all the references linked from GStwin.com rather than from random threads in the forums.  I'd say it's up to John, and he's not around very often, so I don't know if that will happen or not.

p.s. there is a pinned thread in the FAQ with a link to Pablo's page

yeah, I don't know how much could be added/changed with what we have now and this still being a free forum.  I havn't had a problem finding things that I personally have needed but there is always room for improvement.  We are still growing but for there to be a massive change/reorganization would be extrememly time consuming.  If new areas were added but nothing was moved into them then it would be easier, still I beleive that bandwidth is going to be the limiting factor for now.

That and the general PHP coding for GSTwins is rather simple..one thing I would like to see is a Contributing Member identifier under SN's for people who have donated money to the site..thats not a difficult thing to set up

Didn't Jarrett (SP?) have a thread like this?

Dude, you took an hour to do this?  You seriously need to get a life. 

Quote from: Jake D on June 05, 2007, 12:30:02 PM
Dude, you took an hour to do this?  You seriously need to get a life. 

That's what I thought