The Decline of the BT community (Page 3)

One can sort of read BT content on a mobile device, but the mobile website is slow and suboptimal.  I've used many device to read BTs (Android tablet, iPad, iPad mini, iPhones, Windows Phones) and the mobile site is, sorry to say, barely sufficient for content consumption.  I've often forced the site into full site mode and then it can overwhelm lower end devices.  I've not tried an app to access BT.

For posting, the mobile site is again barely functional, and the device needs some horsepower to really post well using the full site.  The full site rich editor burns a lot of CPU and strains low end Android tablets like the original Kindle Fire.  The Fire HD fares better.  Older iPads do OK, presumably some WebKit specific content is coming down.  Windows Phones like my HTC 8x do OK but not great.  Lots of slow and lag. 

So people can lurk all they want on devices, within their tolerance and patience limits, but I think they're going to be quite inhibited from posting from a device.

I've been on BT since 2004 and have been active poster most of the time but last 2 years less due to injury, illness and family issues.

I'm saddened by the decline in BT community and it has been a big decline that became more obvious since the upgrade to the site. The BT connection was huge both on line and also at races. Things have changed and likely for a combination of reasons.

I do think Sue has pointed out three specific things that could be improved.

After the new version came out, inspires declined more than 50% in my blog. Additionally those who were my friends in great numbers stopped logging their workouts on a regular basis.  My opinion for some, like me, the social aspect was big reason to stay around here. Take that away the attraction to use the website in all manners declines.  My friends here on BT were social, inspiring often, then it dropped off by huge amount. Clearly the difficulty and clicks needed to do inspires has hurt this aspect of BT.

My friends that used to log and inspire from their smart phones do much less.

With fewer folks being social, less come to tri talk, and we get a few posting over and over arguing their point and position. The tone of Tri talk at times just makes me close the thread and leave the forum as I get tired of hearing 2-6 people having a personal discussion or arugement over who is right and which way is best. With fewer posting there is less of a draw to check the forums.
My fear is for the future of BT if things continue this decline. I miss the old BT.

QUOTE]Originally posted by Fred D

Sue, that is a great point about the friends list. I feel I am much less active in inspiring folks on their blogs because it requires many more clicks and page jumps to get to their log. This point was on my mind, but it slipped my post, thanks for bringing it up!

As a nine-year community member and moderator on other forums here ( but not Triathlon Talk) here are my $0.02:

Mobile device accessibility- I don't like, so I don't use, the "mobile" specific site. Rather, I choose "view full site" on my iPhone and use that to view, moderate, and post on the forums all day long. "Can't be used on a phone?" Not in my experience. But I will concur that the best user experience is still via PC. But BT access on my iPhone is neither better or worse than access to the other web forums I frequent.

SPAM: can't really say that we're experiencing more spam lately, at least not noticeably more IMHO . i do have the access to remove spam from nearly every forum, and the first thing I do in the morning (generally around 5am) is view TT and CoJ to clean up any spam. I can count on finding some most days. Lately I'm finding some posted around 6am, but those aren't around 20 minutes before I move them to post purgatory. Really not sure what we can do to prevent spam from being posted, but i can tell you we are diligent about removing it. Feel free to contact me or one of the other moderators if you see spam. Ron has made it easy by adding a "Report Spam" button to every post.

Traffic: I also have noticed a decline in activity over the years, but do not have access to statistics to quantify that. I think part of the decline has to do with the proliferation of other social media such as Facebook.

Paucity of posting: similarly I agree with your observation, but don't know what is the cause or the cure. I think like participation in this sport, BT posting for many is a short-lived activity. I maintain that the average triathlon career is somewhere short of five years and the average BT life span is less than that. Myself, I haven't done much training in the past two years, so I still read but rarely post in training/racing threads. Most of my posting is in topics with which I am still active, like officiating, race directing, administrating a tri club, and promoting cycling awareness.

I also observe from this thread the fine line that Ron and the moderators have to walk in maintaining the vibe that they want here. On one hand you have several posters complaining that one problem they encounter with abuse when they post these days. On the other hand you have posters who rue the ban of contributors who were knowledgeable and popular but unrepentantly abusive to others despite multiple warnings and time-outs over a lengthy period.

Fred, I appreciate you initiating the discussion. Knowing Ron, I'll bet he also appreciates all constructive criticism and discussion on problems and issues greatly.Your final question is indeed the most important: How do we make things better?

On the subject of Internet anonymity, I think it's clearly a huge contributor cause of how easily some people find it to attack others, among other problems endemic to message boards that use handles.  As others have said in this thread, and I've experienced myself many times, there are immature cowards who find it easy to attack others shielded by handles.  Personally, I decided more than 10 years ago that anything I do online I do with my real name and my real photo.

Avoiding anonymity was the smartest thing Facebook ever did - the success of Facebook over all other social networks can be directly traced to the fact it's real people, real names, real interactions.

I have been following through this thread and share some of the concerns already well phrased by others.

Inspires--a little more time consuming on the new site but not a huge issue.

Mobile devices--when I try and use my iPhone it  is slow to load and difficult to maneuver.  In order to use it without hassle the page needs to be expanded to a ridiculous size then it's nearly impossible to find the submit/ done buttons.

Posts:  I tend to stay in the mentor threads, some of the challenge threads and on people's race reports.  Why? Well either the subject is not interesting to me, or the thread tone has the "pass the popcorn we're about to see a showdown" mentality.  It's a fine line between having a thick enough skin that snarkiness isn't going to bother me and being overly sensitive when it does bother me.  I also tend to be a little more private, I will share things with a group I can trust but not necessarily with the entire website.  Trust is built in the mentor threads because the groups stay together longer.  

Personally, I think a lot of us have a "my way is right" mentality that eliminates any other thought process.  We all have different limiters and abilities.  We also all have different goals.  I totally respect those who want to go whole hog the best they can in this sport and work for a KQ or always podium.  Great!  The vast majority of people I know are NOT in that category, we balance our families, jobs and personal issues--and health and triathlon is just one way to keep active and healthy with a balance of activities.  The training plan that works great for the driven person may be great for that person but is not necessarily a plan for the "I just want to compete and keep active" person.  Respect that in each other.  Yes, while some of us just want to compete, we do want to get better at what we do--but not at the expense of injury or strained family relationships.

What do we do to fix this?  Well I do like that some of us include our first names in either our user name or sig line. That is a start, makes it more personal.  Take responsibility for what you post.  If you recognize after hitting submit that the tone could be tamed a bit edit the post or ask a mod to do so if you are past the time limit.  APOLOGIZE when appropriate.  Be gracious to accept an apology too.

This has been an interesting thread. 

I hadn't thought about the anonymity component, but I've added my name to my sig line, as that seems to be important to many.  Easily done.

To those of you who have been on BT for many years and are commenting on "bad apples", I hope you can take a very introspective look at your own posts.  Some of you crying the biggest foul on this are repeat offenders.  If you are going to dish it out, it only seems fair that you are willing to take it.
Just to be clear, as I would hate for this to be labeled as being veiled, I am largely speaking to the group who regularly posts in TAN.  If you want to complain about snarkiness, cliquiness,  inside jokes, and nastiness you should damn well make sure you're not doing it.  The double standards really chap my azz. 

Disagreements are an inherent part of an internet board, especially in places like PCOJ.  If you enter into a thread there, do so at your own risk and with a bit of a thick skin. The kind of banter that takes place in there requires decent writing skills and deductive reasoning.  If the conversation gets heated--and it does--it's not necessarily a personal attack.  Be prepared to defend your position or don't play.  If you say something galactically stupid or get out of line--own it.  Admitting your wrong once and awhile goes a long way.

The question remains, what can we do to make it better?  

I would encourage everyone to look at what they do on this site to help BEGINNER TRIATHLETES.  Think about that.  Do you  start threads or participate in threads for beginners?  Do you help people celebrate their firsts?  Read and comment on RRs? Participate in challenges? Send inspires?  Check in on posters who you haven't seen in a while? Are you inclusive?  Encouraging? Not just to your "friends"--but regularly reach outside of your group and your comfort zone?

Be the change you want to see.

I've only been on these forums  a couple years, and of that time only been using the logs, mentor groups and related features this past season. So not really sure how these things "used to be". From looking at things like Inspires, I didn't really get the need for them as they seemed to be more trouble than they're worth. I'd just wait (and hope) for people to post something in the mentor group if there was something going on. I'm on here frequently, but going through things is a bit cumbersome. Started thinking about what the point of the inspires was, and remembered some athletic sites I've been on in the past. The heart of those sites was having friends and seeing their workouts in a feed-style arrangement and being able to comment on them. It was very easy to see what everyone had been doing the past couple days and talk to them through that, a bit FB-like. They may not have even had a forum. So I still don't really know what they used to be like here, but there could be a good deal to gain by working on that.