This Board & Declining Participation

[shogun]

Yeah, I miss the heck out of you guys, but I'm up in Connecticut, so a lot of this is pretty academic to me, plus I'm completely boring now (seem to remember there being snow on the ground last time I made anything interesting (astonishingly good brisket-based chili)).

Still though, 'Hi!'

[ulysses]

Site's blocked for me at work now, so I tend to come on less. There are other reasons, too, I guess, but I also just find myself on forums less these days.

I'm guessing after you got booted of the My Little Pony forum it has been downhill since.

[DonRocks]

The past 10 days have been our most active in 21 months.

[thistle]

yeah, we're all snowbound, & frustrated- (not that we don't love the board) ....

[ghostrider]

The past 10 days have been our most active in 21 months.

Some have been watching from afar to make ourselves feel better about our piddling 14 inches.

[DonRocks]

yeah, we're all snowbound, & frustrated- (not that we don't love the board) ....

It's not going to be about the food; it's going to be about people.

It was never my goal to compete with websites owned by CBS, or websites that turn down $500 million dollar buyout offers from Google - because I can't.

[leleboo]

- because I can't.

oh, i don't know about that.

[Sundae in the Park]

The past 10 days have been our most active in 21 months.

Which is interesting, considering there hasn't been that much dining out going on, and I (and others, I assume) tend to think of this board mostly as an authority on restaurants. Time to revise impressions!

[SeanMike]

I'm guessing after you got booted of the My Little Pony forum it has been downhill since.

I can't believe I missed this when you first posted it but it definitely made me start laughing in the middle of my training class.

[stickmoon]

The past 10 days have been our most active in 21 months.

You know, I've been thinking about this thread lately, and am glad you bumped it up. I've been paying more attention to Chowhound in the last 6 months or so, and even if they get more posts, so many of them are retreads of the same topics and questions...the quality of the posts are, in many cases, not even close to the thoughtfulness and expertise of a typical DR post. The moderation on the other board does not seem active enough either...so new threads are not merged into old ones to create a temporally linear discussion of a restaurant or food-related topic. It reads like a big disorganized jumble. So, even if there is declining participation on DR - and it is clear there is not, if there even was when this thread began - I'll take the quality of DR posts over the quantity of posts on other boards.

[dcs]

You know, I've been thinking about this thread lately, and am glad you bumped it up. I've been paying more attention to Chowhound in the last 6 months or so, and even if they get more posts, so many of them are retreads of the same topics and questions...the quality of the posts are, in many cases, not even close to the thoughtfulness and expertise of a typical DR post. The moderation on the other board does not seem active enough either...so new threads are not merged into old ones to create a temporally linear discussion of a restaurant or food-related topic. It reads like a big disorganized jumble. So, even if there is declining participation on DR - and it is clear there is not, if there even was when this thread began - I'll take the quality of DR posts over the quantity of posts on other boards.

I stopped reading Chowhound after they deleted one too many of my posts. Those folks expunge posts with a heavy hand and do not seem to have much of a sense of humor.

[stickmoon]

I stopped reading Chowhound after they deleted one too many of my posts. Those folks expunge posts with a heavy hand and do not seem to have much of a sense of humor.

Interesting...maybe then the problem, at least for me, is the wrong kind of moderation...

[Pool Boy]

I still have loads to write up about. Went to NYC right after the mini-snow came and right before the 33-inch snow came. Came back between the big snow and the midweek snow. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

[Miami Danny]

The past 10 days have been our most active in 21 months.

Excellent! Perhaps someone can get another server to drop a tray of drinks?

[Buckinghamilton]

Speaking for myself - maniacal toddler with no off switch. Not that I posted often, but I had probably read every word written until 7/15/08. I miss it. Hopefully you all will still be here in 16 1/2 years.

[smokey]

<snip>2. There are some cults of personality. For example, my husband and went to hellburger and didn't want to deal with the crowd so went one Sun. morning (noonish). Less crowded. We were not impressed and I wanted to write my opinion but the cult of love, and my fear of the proprietor, kept me from doing it. <snip>

Thanks.

Having been excoriated by said owner, as well as some cultists, I totally hear you. It isn't worth it.

[DonRocks]

Having been excoriated by said owner, as well as some cultists, I totally hear you. It isn't worth it.

[i'm happy to let restaurateurs defend themselves against anonymous negative postings, but if anyone thinks restaurateurs have crossed the line in doing so, they should let me know. I'll judge each situation fairly and with integrity, and will not let an individual be attacked for expressing a reasonable opinion here. Questioned, yes; attacked, no.]

[chaofun]

I'm a fairly new member, but my trend is the exact opposite. I tend to trend more towards Donrockwell than Chow these days, though I def still frequent Chow when something interesting pops up. I think one of the thing that took me a good long while to do is get used to actually VISITING the site. I'm a huge Google Reader user, and Chow definitely does a better job with RSS than IP Board. With Chow I can fit my browsing neatly with the rest of my browsing, for work, news, whatever. But with DonRockwell, I have to have a special window dedicated to it. This may sound like a minor thing, but when you are looking at literally 100's of pages a day, its a big deal.

That said Donrockwell has become important enough to me to warrant this. It fills a different niche than chow, it allows the chefs and restaurants to have a connection with us that chowhound does not allow. It is where I get most of my latest DC area food news first. Lastly, you can really trust that what people here on this board say about something is on point, as opposed to lets say, Yelp. So even if Donrockwell is not what it used to be it's a very important and useful source of information to me now.

[edenman]

I'm a huge Google Reader user, and Chow definitely does a better job with RSS than IP Board. With Chow I can fit my browsing neatly with the rest of my browsing, for work, news, whatever. But with DonRockwell, I have to have a special window dedicated to it. This may sound like a minor thing, but when you are looking at literally 100's of pages a day, its a big deal.

Seconded.

[ktmoomau]

I agree with all the comments about declining in Chow reading. I too think the past 6 months or so the site has gotten less interesting. It is like the in-depth thought crowd that used to be there (many of them are probably you guys) are less frequent. And no one actually reads down through responses or fully even reads the whole posts often before responding. It feels more ADD than it used to. And I agree it is being over moderated, we used to get into some real brawls, most deleted in the end, but they were fun while they lasted. And some of the people who used to really keep people in line aren't posting as much. Some people just need a jpschust or ericandblueboy schooling over there.

So thank goodness you all are here!!!!!

[ol_ironstomach]

...we used to get into some real brawls, most deleted in the end, but they were fun while they lasted. And some of the people who used to really keep people in line aren't posting as much. Some people just need a jpschust or ericandblueboy schooling over there.

Now now, let's keep our brawling polite here. None of us would have gotten anywhere if we'd been made permanent pariahs just because we were ignorant once.

I'm concerned that people sometimes report feeling apprehensive about posting a negative experience here, for fear of drawing the ire of the masses. And yes, there are masses who would pile on without shedding any light on the situation. If you've had a bad experience somewhere, I think other diners would want to know about it, but you had better keep it simple and factual. If you haven't posted enough for others to have a sense of what your tastes and expectations are like, then you'd better provide some context.

And to the masses: ask pointed questions, but try to be civil about it before reaching for the cluestick. Sure, there are some fools out there who presume too much and/or go straight for the ad hominem when they run out of clever thoughts, but let them prove that it's a chronic condition, and not just a clumsy n00b move.

Please? Thanks for reading. We now return you to Food Blogging Gladiators, already in progress.