Well, as some of you may or may not know, TRF recently "sold out" to some sort of commercial business that runs various forums... there's been a couple of concerned discussions already about changes to the terms of service that apparently give them absolute rights to anything you post there to use as they see fit, for profit, and with no recourse to the original poster whatsoever... As to the accuracy or veracity of the statements made in those posts, I cannot say...

Now another issue has cropped up just today... Apparently anything you post over there is merely to be a carrier for whatever ads or pop-ups they want to embed in your posts or pics...

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showth...-on-my-pictures

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showth...9561#post639561

Apparently SO FAR it's just visible to folks not logged in on the forum, unregistered users, etc... but we ALL know where this sort of BS is going...

I know that folks need to "pay the bills" and stuff, and I don't have a problem with ads on the websites... but there's a right way and a wrong way to do it... banners are fine, and sidebar ads are okay too (I use the browser zoom feature to blow everything up to 150% as text size has gotten ridiculously small with each new computer I get, and I don't need the eye strain) and when I zoom in usually the sidebar ads aren't even visible. Course, I don't pay ANY attention to the advertisements anyway and don't allow them to have ANY influence on my purchasing habits or decisions about 99.995% of the time anyway... BUT...

There are PLENTY of examples out there of how to do it wrong-- case in point-- the "newsbot" of TRF would constantly spam the forum with huge numbers of stupid "articles" on space.com, many of which were completely or nearly completely irrelevant to the rocketry community, and of course many of them were duplicates or triplicates or slightly retitled rehash 'arcticles' of something already run in the previous few days... and of course the space.com website, which I DID occasionally enjoy for its Hubble space photos and news on the latest issues with NASA and the Constellation program and such (before it was canceled) had gotten SO completely overrun with ads and pop ups and banners and sidebars and stuff that it was a HUGE PITA to actually try to read anything there... last time I went to space.com their content was about 50% "video" which of course would be preceded by a commercial of some sort, sometimes two, where they even disabled the "mute" button on the viewing window, as well as disabling the "skip" or fast forward capabilities of the viewer. I don't need that. I haven't been to anything on space.com in over a year.

Apparently after several repeated threads of folks (including me) complaining about the constant "spamming" of the forum by the newsbot, they DID finally change a few things and the incessant "fire bombing" of the forum by the newsbot to multiple crappy space.com links stopped-- and the links that ARE posted that are of occasional interest are to much more subdued "tidbit" stories by AIAA and other space-related sites... decent if you're interested in that sort of thing.

But this... spamming your pics by placing ads over the pictures or parts of the pictures, that's just outrageous, stupid, and will prove counterproductive. I post a LOT of stuff over on TRF and of course mirror it here-- there's plenty of folks here who REFUSE to participate on TRF, and there are a few on TRF (generally of much lower caliber) who won't come on here at YORF for whatever reason. I used to post most of my stuff on RP, to the extent that it fit with the more HPR-oriented crowd that used to frequent that forum, when it was still operating... I didn't post a whole lot there the last year or so it was running, because the "flavor" of RP definitely turned to HPR and the LPR/MPR sections were withering to nothing with fewer and fewer posts, so basically my contributions over there were mostly to the scale section, posting stuff about various NASA studies... My focus mainly has been on TRF and here at YORF, since that is where the majority of the LPR/MPR fliers tend to congregate, since I have nothing more than a passing interest in HPR, that being only to stay informed of the issues and current events... I don't fly HPR and I'm not interested in getting into it.

At any rate, it's not a secret that I've never been particularly complimentary of TRF... IMHO the only thing they REALLY have going for them is the biggest audience and most traffic... certainly there's a great deal of quantity, but that tends to dilute the quality and sometimes it's VERY hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, with things like "word association" threads and "help me pick what to build next" threads... Then of course the priggish and lopsided moderation policies and definite favoritism over there (which has improved markedly over the past couple years, but still crops up in various ways from time to time). YORF has, IMHO, a MUCH higher quality and caliber of posts and posters, despite a lower thread count (but also a LOT less chaff to sift through).

Well, anyway, I guess it is what it is... I know one thing though-- if this is what the new ownership/operators of TRF intend for the forum, I won't be posting much over there, if at all... and I bet a lot of folks are going to feel the same way...

I guess we'll see what we'll see...

Later! OL JR

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

I saw this thread. I have yet to see an ad, but the whole thing kinda has a stink to it.

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Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

Build floor: Centuri Design Contest F-150 Hurricane Estes - Low Boom SST Semroc - Marauder, Shrike, SST Shuttle

In paint: Canaroc Starfighter Scorpion Estes F-22 Air Superiority Fighter, Multi-Roc, Solar Sailer II Semroc Cyber III

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark, Groonie Der V 1/2

I have not experienced any issues there, either. But I have seen on other forums some of what was described.

With three kids and myself driving old beaters, I frequent several car and truck forums. Most of them have advertising, some of which can be very annoying. For example, even on text that does not have hyperlinks, simply double-clicking the text to highlight it can cause popups to open. Very annoying.

I didn't know Kevin had sold the site, but good for him, I hope. That said, I wonder how the moderation might change in the wake of it.

Doug

.

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YORF member #11

When I got into rocketry I took a look at TRF and YORF; registered at both but have been more active on TRF, just because there's more happening there... good as well as not so good.

But if when I'd checked out TRF I'd found toilet paper ads scribbled all over the images, I'd've closed that tab in a heartbeat, and would be posting exclusively here.

Wonder if YORF will start getting a larger share of the newbies now.

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Rich Holmes
Camillus, NY
Secretary / newsletter editor
Syracuse Rocket Club

http://richsrockets.wordpress.com

I think it's lost already.

I liken it to how much shi*t will you tolerate in your chocolate cake?

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Shrox

Master of the Dark Art of Model Rocketry

www.shrox.com

Not a big fan of cake, especially if it's shifting. Too messy. That's an icing problem if you ask me.

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Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

Build floor: Centuri Design Contest F-150 Hurricane Estes - Low Boom SST Semroc - Marauder, Shrike, SST Shuttle

In paint: Canaroc Starfighter Scorpion Estes F-22 Air Superiority Fighter, Multi-Roc, Solar Sailer II Semroc Cyber III

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark, Groonie Der V 1/2

I hope they do something about it. Not because I use TRF a lot, but because I'd rather the holier than though types not come over here.

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I love sanding.

What's hockey got to do with cake?

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I love sanding.

That blue line thing always confused me.

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Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

Build floor: Centuri Design Contest F-150 Hurricane Estes - Low Boom SST Semroc - Marauder, Shrike, SST Shuttle

In paint: Canaroc Starfighter Scorpion Estes F-22 Air Superiority Fighter, Multi-Roc, Solar Sailer II Semroc Cyber III

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark, Groonie Der V 1/2

I haven't had "issues" yet either, but you know how these things go...

Obviously if it's been sold to a "commercial" outfit, it's going to be a "for profit" operation...

I dabble on a number of forums, farm stuff and other things like that, as well as various hobby forums. Like I said, I don't have a problem with folks needing to "pay the bills" and advertising does that, but like I said... there's a right way and a wrong way to do it...

You want a good example, look at the nasaspaceflight.com forum... you want to see a bad example, look at space.com, if its even still around...

Apparently, from the discussion already posted on there, they don't intend to make much of anything in the way of changes over there as far as moderation or structure is concerned, or even the TOS... except of course that someone mentioned another forum that this same "group" owns/runs has the "anything you post here becomes our property to do with as we please with no recourse" which basically torpedoed the entire outfit for most of the quality posters, since they didn't want to relinquish the rights to their own stuff...

FWIW...

Later! OL JR

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!