GORILLAWALLACEjay peak built their fruity water park (with swindled money or something?) to attract a bunch of gapers who are interested in amusement parks, not skiing and snowboarding. IMO it really shatters the authenticity. to me it says "skiing is great but we are in the money business here". and though most resorts are shifting towards 4 season amenities to keep their revenue up, there are ways to keep it authentic, fun and still make money without catering to the lowest common denominator.

I don't want ns to be a jay peak. I don't want social media cretins from tumblr or reddit or whatever "making the drive". This site completely unique and authentic, there is nothing else like it. so why would you want to make it into any other social media platform just to "stick with the times"?

also this "instant gratification web experience" you speak of has yet to be explained since I asked on the first page. why the fuck do you need a pat on the head for everything you do? why isn't information and participation enough?

I'm just addressing the facts here. People in general DO like being patted on the head for whatever they say. I don't know why it is essential, but information and participation is very clearly not enough. Newschoolers is not attracting new users, and old users are fading - I haven't seen more than 100 people online in as long as I can remember. The current layout is not inspiring people to engage in discussions anymore because people in general are less satisfied with standard forums now that alternatives exist.

Look at Pinkbike.com: they still have a classic forum available to those who wish to use it, but they have allowed it to take a backseat to user generated journalism. NS does that too, but no where near the level of professionalism that PB does. It is easier for readers to sift through the top rated articles to find very high quality content, read it, comment and vote on it. Its much easier than trying to find content of equal quality in their forums, so it attracts more users. They aren't pushing people to comment on the forums: they give people what they want, and if they like it (which they do) they go into the forums on their own.

I use that as an example to show that while a lot of people (myself included) really like forums and don't want them to change much, if NS wants to attract more users to produce more content, they need to change the format. Not because the old format was bad, but because the market's demand has changed.

Chubz.is my meter broken?

out of ALL people I would have thought you would be the person in favor of disabling post voting.

Haha I guess I just play it off well. I genuinely got a kick out of it though. It was hilarious haha.

MinggHaha I guess I just play it off well. I genuinely got a kick out of it though. It was hilarious haha.

surree....

MinggI'm mostly salty because my whole online persona is defined by being down bombed and excessively complaining about the most obnoxious of things but now I can't do that. I feel like a lost puppy. Plz bring back downvotes.

Well, you can definitely still make whatever kind of posts you want, and instead of down bombing, people will use words to either joke with or pick apart what you said. You get the same gratification in a way - because you can be happy that your post generated 10 negative responses instead of 10 downvotes. Its still currency, just a different type.

GORILLAWALLACEI don't want ns to be a jay peak. I don't want social media cretins from tumblr or reddit or whatever "making the drive". This site completely unique and authentic, there is nothing else like it. so why would you want to make it into any other social media platform just to "stick with the times"?

I think I might agree with this a lot more than I have over the last few years. We spent a lot of time trying to keep up with the times - but in a way the core of what makes this special is the unique experience. We are built for a core audience, because if you want something that installed the water park you just read Freeskier and you're good.

We need to differentiate ourselves, and focus on our core audience. This might mean that we need to do things differently.

As well, for the person that made the myspace reference - you have to remember that at the time the internet was all about being able to customize the shit out of everything you do. Myspace allowed you to customize your profile to fit and they DOMINATED. Every site followed, so your personal space could be tweaked to high hell.

Then this tiny little project out of a dorm room came along which absolutely did not allow you to change ANYTHING. It gave you a really slick experience with zero customization and at first everyone made fun of it like "oh, what are we back to the times where we can't customize anything? How am I supposed to show my personality? This is garbage."

Of course, you know the rest of the story of Facebook.

bring it back bring it back please for the love of everything

Randy_QuenchI honestly feel a loss in life not being able to hold you in my arms.

.

bring it back

~Gotama~When Jay Peak put in a water park and fancy new hotel, all the old farts started bitching about how they sold out and lost their roots

Jay has never been a crowded mountain, but the fact that most vacation warriors would rather be at the park than skiing (especially in crappy conditions) made it so that there's almost never lift lines, which is fucking awesome.

As for the topic at hand, if votes aren't going to return to how they were, why not just leave it up to the OP to decide whether or not the thread should have them? If there's a serious topic at hand or people are looking for legitimate discussion, they can disable the votes, if it's something trivial like a photoshop contest then upvote away. I don't believe reordering will do any good, in fact it would probably reduce thread traffic to have the highest-rated few posts at the top of the page because people won't be as motivated to read further. Chronological ordering works just fine.

Also, not relevant to this but when the site changed did karma charts go away completely or can I still find them somewhere?

Pleasssssse bring it back. It's making me not want to go even go onto the forums anymore.

cory.iyoobPleasssssse bring it back. It's making me not want to go even go onto the forums anymore.

When were up/downvotes first added? It would be helpful to see that in relation to when certain members joined. IMO you can't give an unbiased opinion if you weren't around before then

treebeardWhen were up/downvotes first added? It would be helpful to see that in relation to when certain members joined. IMO you can't give an unbiased opinion if you weren't around before then

I wanna say early 2013 or late 2012

treebeardWhen were up/downvotes first added? It would be helpful to see that in relation to when certain members joined. IMO you can't give an unbiased opinion if you weren't around before then

Yeah but thats like saying that only people who were alive before Britain joined the EU should've been able to vote in brexit. Sure you don't know what it used to be before but you still know if youre happy with the status quo. And if it ain't broke, why fix it

Julius_SteezerYeah but thats like saying that only people who were alive before Britain joined the EU should've been able to vote in brexit. Sure you don't know what it used to be before but you still know if youre happy with the status quo. And if it ain't broke, why fix it

it's not really like that.

and it was broke. otherwise bishop wouldnt have taken it away. it's a ghost town. believe it or not there used to be more than a couple dozen members online at any given time.

GORILLAWALLACEit's not really like that.

and it was broke. otherwise bishop wouldnt have taken it away. it's a ghost town. believe it or not there used to be more than a couple dozen members online at any given time.

I think in that case, the issue becomes will those people return just because the up/down votes are gone as they used to be. Or is that generation simply gone for good (maybe because they moved away from skiing, lost interest in NS for other reasons etc). And if most of those people won't return even if votes are removed, will even more people be turned away who use the site currently but really liked the voting system

GORILLAWALLACEit's not really like that.

and it was broke. otherwise bishop wouldnt have taken it away. it's a ghost town. believe it or not there used to be more than a couple dozen members online at any given time.

How many people were online at any given time during NS's prime? Just wondering since I'm relatively new.

Julius_SteezerI think in that case, the issue becomes will those people return just because the up/down votes are gone as they used to be. Or is that generation simply gone for good (maybe because they moved away from skiing, lost interest in NS for other reasons etc). And if most of those people won't return even if votes are removed, will even more people be turned away who use the site currently but really liked the voting system

look at it this way: votes were causing NS to lose members. Without votes, NS may temporarily lose a few more members, but after all the people who needed votes to come to this site are gone there will be no more negative impact from removing voting

on the other hand having votes does not guarantee NS is gaining traffic, as Bishop keeps saying there is not benefit to only half assing the vote thing without resorting the forums, its either all or nothing and the vast majority of the site would not like the forums to become /r/skiing

Yung_JimmyHow many people were online at any given time during NS's prime? Just wondering since I'm relatively new.

NS's "prime" is debatable but a few years ago 250+ wasn't super uncommon iirc

Yung_JimmyHow many people were online at any given time during NS's prime? Just wondering since I'm relatively new.

Like 2007-2010 you'd see normally 100-150 people on during the day and up to like 250 on the weekday evenings. I haven't seen more than 100 on since winter, normally you'd get on at like 3am and there would be no less than 20 or 30. This could also be attributed to the use of phones now, people would leave their computers on, logged on and it would probably show it online, now everyone is surfing on their phones and way less members log on unless they actually wanna post or comment. Things have just changed a bit.

eheathLike 2007-2010 you'd see normally 100-150 people on during the day and up to like 250 on the weekday evenings. I haven't seen more than 100 on since winter, normally you'd get on at like 3am and there would be no less than 20 or 30. This could also be attributed to the use of phones now, people would leave their computers on, logged on and it would probably show it online, now everyone is surfing on their phones and way less members log on unless they actually wanna post or comment. Things have just changed a bit.

Now that you're speaking about the phone thung; why the fuck do I have to log back in whenever I close the tab and open a new one within the same couple minutes, most sites keep you logged on for a certain time period even if you dont have the site opened (on mobile). If you access the site through facebook though, close it and open another NS vid or something you do stay logged on.

Also, don't you guys have stats on who logs on and how long they're on for? How many people overall access the site per day would be a better indication of activity than how many are online at any given time since you're automatically logged off on the phone when you close out.

DeforestationNow that you're speaking about the phone thung; why the fuck do I have to log back in whenever I close the tab and open a new one within the same couple minutes, most sites keep you logged on for a certain time period even if you dont have the site opened (on mobile). If you access the site through facebook though, close it and open another NS vid or something you do stay logged on.

Also, don't you guys have stats on who logs on and how long they're on for? How many people overall access the site per day would be a better indication of activity than how many are online at any given time since you're automatically logged off on the phone when you close out.

What browser and OS are you on? Mine always stays logged on with chrome and iOS.

As for the second part, of course we have very detailed stats on everything, but thats not public :P

eheathWhat browser and OS are you on? Mine always stays logged on with chrome and iOS.

As for the second part, of course we have very detailed stats on everything, but thats not public :P

Im on safari, iphone 6s ios but I don't remember it ever staying logged in with any other iphone I've had either.

DeforestationIm on safari, iphone 6s ios but I don't remember it ever staying logged in with any other iphone I've had either.

Hmm thats strange ill have to check that out, i never close the tab in my browser, but i know i have before and didnt have to log in. maybe its a safari thing?

So now instead of posting something and getting no reply (but still some upvotes/down votes), I now get no feedback what so ever. NS is becoming less and less appealing each day

a_burgerlook at it this way: votes were causing NS to lose members. Without votes, NS may temporarily lose a few more members, but after all the people who needed votes to come to this site are gone there will be no more negative impact from removing voting

I think that you are confusing correlation and causation. I highly doubt many people thought "Oh you can upvote posts on NS now? That's lame, I'm out." However, a lot has been changing about the way people use the internet in roughly the same time period. The internet has always been an growing system, but it does so exponentially as more people get access and technology makes it all happen faster. So, while the downturn in traffic to Newschoolers happened around the time the option to vote was added, a lot of other things have been changing around the same time which would probably have more to do with people losing interest in the forums in favor of something else.

DeforestationNow that you're speaking about the phone thung; why the fuck do I have to log back in whenever I close the tab and open a new one within the same couple minutes, most sites keep you logged on for a certain time period even if you dont have the site opened (on mobile). If you access the site through facebook though, close it and open another NS vid or something you do stay logged on.

Also, don't you guys have stats on who logs on and how long they're on for? How many people overall access the site per day would be a better indication of activity than how many are online at any given time since you're automatically logged off on the phone when you close out.

There is no doubt that activity in the forums has stagnated quite a bit, regardless of how many people look like they're online or not. Check nsg and ski gabber right now and there are threads at the bottom of the first pages that haven't been bumped in 3 days or more. There used to be a time when it only would take an hour or two for a thread to be bumped to the second page and the online member list would extend below the bottom of a lot of threads. Shit, I remember the first time I ever saw my username at the top of the online list and it was a pretty rare occurence. Now it's like that half the time I'm online.

And obviously, like gotama said, this issue is much more extensive than just upvotes and downvotes, though I do think they play a small part. Votes imo affect the quality of posts more than quantity

I would usually upvote a post if I laughed at it or thought it was decently funny or downvote a post if I thought it was really stupid.

brotoThere is no doubt that activity in the forums has stagnated quite a bit, regardless of how many people look like they're online or not. Check nsg and ski gabber right now and there are threads at the bottom of the first pages that haven't been bumped in 3 days or more. There used to be a time when it only would take an hour or two for a thread to be bumped to the second page and the online member list would extend below the bottom of a lot of threads. Shit, I remember the first time I ever saw my username at the top of the online list and it was a pretty rare occurence. Now it's like that half the time I'm online.

And obviously, like gotama said, this issue is much more extensive than just upvotes and downvotes, though I do think they play a small part. Votes imo affect the quality of posts more than quantity

There is something called analytics which tells website managers how much traffic they get regardless of what you think. How much time is spent on pages, how many shares, how many views etc.

I think you guys are thinking to deep into this,votes were were simply a cool feature that helped generate a general consensus for a comment. They were not a feature that was clearly liked or disliked because people just took it for granted. The people who you think didn't like them probably just didn't like the fact that people didn't agree with their opinion. But now that they have been taken away, I think that a ton of people miss them. I highly doubt a large amount of people will leave or come onto the sites because of the change. But I don't understand why you would take away a feature? Because the people who don't miss them could ignore them while the people who do miss them could continue enjoying them. I know ns probably won't change their mind about how they feel about votes simply because it's difficult to change people's mind with a paragraph on the Internet. Rather I'm hoping if we get a bunch of people to back it up we could bring votes back.

cory.iyoobBut I don't understand why you would take away a feature?

Please go back through the thread and read all my exhaustive posts on the matter. I have certainly answered this question extensively - and address your hope that it could be brought back.

What I would like to see is that you jump into a thread like this, and my posts exhaustively explaining the situation were displayed right at the top. You'd come in, see the problem, see the solution and then only join the part of the discussion which is actually worthwhile.

Forums which act like this are so much more productive in the modern mobile era.

I really think here that this discussion is much more about whether we want to stick with the '90s-era forum style or get with the times. If we want to get with the times, we're going to go a lot further than just up votes.

Mr.BishopPlease go back through the thread and read all my exhaustive posts on the matter. I have certainly answered this question extensively - and address your hope that it could be brought back.

What I would like to see is that you jump into a thread like this, and my posts exhaustively explaining the situation were displayed right at the top. You'd come in, see the problem, see the solution and then only join the part of the discussion which is actually worthwhile.

Forums which act like this are so much more productive in the modern mobile era.

I really think here that this discussion is much more about whether we want to stick with the '90s-era forum style or get with the times. If we want to get with the times, we're going to go a lot further than just up votes.

I see your point, you've definitely addressed it multiple times. But as a stated in the last section of my post, I know we are not going to change your opinion. But I'm hoping with number we could do something.

cory.iyoobI see your point, you've definitely addressed it multiple times. But as a stated in the last section of my post, I know we are not going to change your opinion. But I'm hoping with number we could do something.

Wait then you haven't read my posts.... I have explicitly said that this is a test and we'll review how it goes.

So yes you absolutely can change my mind.

What you will not be able to change my mind about is the fact that people who want upvotes so badly actually want something more but they don't realize it.

Mr.BishopWait then you haven't read my posts.... I have explicitly said that this is a test and we'll review how it goes.

So yes you absolutely can change my mind.

What you will not be able to change my mind about is the fact that people who want upvotes so badly actually want something more but they don't realize it.

"but bishop there are no numbers beside the posts so how do I know which ones to read plz help"

GORILLAWALLACE"but bishop there are no numbers beside the posts so how do I know which ones to read plz help"

I just imagine the staff meeting that took place before this decision.

Bishop: "Hmm what can we do to improve NS?"

Eheath: "Be more attentive to the bugs"

Bishop: "Nah that shits lame"

Sklar: "Promote and encourage discussion on our forums via social media"

Bishop: "Nah that shits also lame"

Bishop: "OHH I know what we can do! Let's

disable upvoting and downvoting in. threads"

NS mods: "THAT'S A GREAT FUCKING IDEA"

*Everyone in room begins drinking absurd amounts of alcohol*

THEDIRTYBUBBLEI just imagine the staff meeting that took place before this decision.

Bishop: "Hmm what can we do to improve NS?"

Eheath: "Be more attentive to the bugs"

Bishop: "Nah that shits lame"

Sklar: "Promote and encourage discussion on our forums via social media"

Bishop: "Nah that shits also lame"

Bishop: "OHH I know what we can do! Let's

disable upvoting and downvoting in. threads"

NS mods: "THAT'S A GREAT FUCKING IDEA"

*Everyone in room begins drinking absurd amounts of alcohol*

. +1

THEDIRTYBUBBLEI just imagine the staff meeting that took place before this decision.

Bishop: "Hmm what can we do to improve NS?"

Eheath: "Be more attentive to the bugs"

Bishop: "Nah that shits lame"

Sklar: "Promote and encourage discussion on our forums via social media"

Bishop: "Nah that shits also lame"

Bishop: "OHH I know what we can do! Let's

disable upvoting and downvoting in. threads"

NS mods: "THAT'S A GREAT FUCKING IDEA"

*Everyone in room begins drinking absurd amounts of alcohol*

Naw, we just started drinking and smashing the keyboard. Disabling the votes is what happened.

THEDIRTYBUBBLEI just imagine the staff meeting that took place before this decision.

Bishop: "Hmm what can we do to improve NS?"

Eheath: "Be more attentive to the bugs"

Bishop: "Nah that shits lame"

Sklar: "Promote and encourage discussion on our forums via social media"

Bishop: "Nah that shits also lame"

Bishop: "OHH I know what we can do! Let's

disable upvoting and downvoting in. threads"

NS mods: "THAT'S A GREAT FUCKING IDEA"

*Everyone in room begins drinking absurd amounts of alcohol*

Can't upvote, so here's a gif I made to symbolize me upvoting your post.

Randy_QuenchCan't upvote, so here's a gif I made to symbolize me upvoting your post.

why my gif clicky only?

THEDIRTYBUBBLESklar: "Promote and encourage discussion on our forums via social media"

I would probably share more threads on social media if you put effort into making better threads instead of just bitching about a feature being taken away.

KretzschmarI would probably share more threads on social media if you put effort into making better threads instead of just bitching about a feature being taken away.

I like to think I've made some quality contributions to the forums. No need to get your panties in a knot.

THEDIRTYBUBBLEI like to think I've made some quality contributions to the forums.

pics or it didn't happen.

GORILLAWALLACEpics or it didn't happen.

My mom thinks I've made some good threads

THEDIRTYBUBBLEMy mom thinks I've made some good threads

She definitely told me that last night.

Mr.BishopShe definitely told me that last night.

BOOOOOOM the hammer has just been dropped.

Mr.BishopShe definitely told me that last night.

shrek'd

Mr.BishopShe definitely told me that last night.

See this post would be upvotable but I'm gonna post and say that I lold instead.

Fuck up/downvotes, reddit sucks anyway.

a_pla5tic_bagSee this post would be upvotable but I'm gonna post and say that I lold instead.

Fuck up/downvotes, reddit sucks anyway.

It's funny...

So much of me wants to say that we need to get with the times and have voting and sorting and such...

but it I absolutely love posts like this. It's so much more satisfying to see an actual post stating that someone thought what I did was funny than 10x the agreements from a fucking up arrow click.

Its just so so old school, but I'm old so infucking love it.

Summary of this entire thread:

NS site admins try to defend themselves against an army of angry skiers and miserably fail to hold a valid argument

J_SSummary of this entire thread:

NS site admins try to defend themselves against an army of angry skiers and miserably fail to hold a valid argument

+1