Hiking Message Board Promotion 2

“Hello all - Many of you were very helpful last year when I set up a new message board on AlpineZone.com (see this thread). I decided to ditch Everyone.net and set up new forums locally on the site that offer much better functionality and features.

As I've had only limited success with the Everytone.net boards, I have some questions for all of you. What do you like best about "trail talk"? What keeps you coming back here and what can I do to create similar interest in AlpineZone.com's forums? I'm striving to build a similar community for New England mountain enthusiasts. You can check out the boards here. I look forward to your input and suggestions. Thanks a lot!

Greg Blasko

contact@alpinezone.com

AlpineZone.com

”

“The sense of community is what keeps me coming here.”

“I frequented your site a lot and was disappointed that it was discontinued. Although I do visit TT on a regular basis, I do not post all that much unless I can offer some help or need some assistance myself. It would be nice to have a board that catered to the Northeast, so we were all on the same page so to speak.”

“Although I have not participated in any of the group hikes. That is probably what holds this forum together. They all get together and take a backpacking trip. Then they come back here and talk about it for weeks. It is a pleasure reading their posts about the great time they had.”

“I like Trail Talk beacuse Trail Talk is good. The people are helpful and caring. The colors and shapes are fascinating. The food is good and the portions are HUGE.

Put aside your bias, AlpineZone sucks from the get-go. Hang it up dude. There's only one Trail Talk.”

“Pamster - that sense of "community" is exactly what I'm striving for with AlpineZone.com, but as MadRiver indicated, AZ is strictly focused on New England and the Northeast so it may never be as big as trail talk.

MadRiver - Definitely a tough decision to decommission the original message boards. However, the new functionality and features totally blow away what Everyone.net was able to offer. As a locally hosted board, I have a lot more flexibility with the administration and design of the board as well. I'm sure that most people will appreciate these new features (and speed!) even though it may take a while to regenerate some interest. I also agree that a community that focuses so narrowly on one geographic region like the Northeast is what's appealing to New Englanders.

rabbitman - great point. Perhaps once some interest is built, I'll suggest some group hikes.

Violin - well, everyone's entitled to their opinion. I'd like to hear specifically what you think sucks about AlpineZone so I can improve it. I think we have a good site with some very useful trip reports and images that help folks plan hikes in the New England region. It would be great if you could elaborate a bit as opposed to a general "AlpineZone sucks" comment. I'm always open to constructive criticism. That's the exact point of this thread.

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions!

Greg”

“I like being able to tell the webmaster to stick it in his ear without him going postal and sending my email address to every spammer in the country.”

“The only entry is from your mom: "Yes, Dear, it's nice. Now come down to dinner."

I'll bet Al Gore personally emails you and tells you to get off his Internet.”

“It is kinda lame to troll through an existing website looking for stooges.”

“A majority of sites out there serve a purpose; some entertain, some educate, others inform about a certain topic of notable importance. But what pisses me off more than anything are those sites thrown up overnight by someone who has just bought a copy of FrontPage 98 expecting to become the biggest thing since indoor plumbing. The bandwidth your site wastes could be put to much better use - like porno. Perhaps you would have more luck with AlpineZoneSucks.com.”

“Violin has surpassed me as the token hate monger.”

“You become what you hate.”

“My gawd violin, did somebody piss in your cheerios this morning!
BTW - I just bought the domain name alpinezonesucks.com, and am on my way to the store for frontpage 98'.”

“wow!!
Violin this is a side of you I've not seen before. I've been working on my own web page for posting pics. Now I'm scared to let you see it.”

“If a headhunter called me at my job, I'd have to tell him "I'm very happy here. You suck. Be gone."

I agree with bacpac. Trolling this site for traffic to another commercial site is in poor taste to say the least.

Member's personal pages are certainly another story.”

“violin, you are a baaaaad baaaaad monkey!”

“That's good to hear. (While I'm writing I want to thank you again for your help with html).
I guess I just misunderstood his post. I thought he was just asking for advice.”

“Screw it, I am posting a link to my site anyway Here it is , please come and visit!”

“So give Greg some constructive criticism. Personally, I tend to disregard or deeply discount the opinion of someone who says something sucks without backing it up with why they think it sucks.”

“Cracklin Rosie get on board...”

“Well... it is listed here:

”

“I personally think Mr. Blasko has obviously put a lot of work into his website and maybe I?m all wrong but I think it is only natural that someone who put that much time and effort into something would want other?s to see it. If I lived in that area I would probably be able to get some good information from the site. It?s a good looking site.

That?s just my opinion.

You guy?s can be mean to the man if you want too. But I registered for the free T-shirt and the free Lobster?s on his website and I would like to win if at all possible. I have never won anything in a give away. I?m on a 26 year non-winning streak and I would like to break it this year.”

“Dilbert chimes in:

”

“I think Violin is WAY out of line. But, he is damn funny, so it's almost forgivable. Lay off the guy and let him get the info he is looking for. If you don't have any constructive advise, get off this thread. There are plenty of other threads for you to post wacky pics on.”

“10) Forgetting to use an oven mitt
9) Running out of toilet paper
8) Mean people
7) Poking your eye
6) Spontaneously combusting
5) Getting car sick
4) Getting kicked in the nads
3) Being attacked by a flying squirrel
2) People that spit when they talk

And the number one thing that sucks...”

“bacpac - I'm not trying to recruit people by posting here. I have to laugh when people get all up in arms because they feel a thread such as this is some sort of attempt at siphoning people to another site. Rabbitman's right - I'm looking for advice, not visitors. If the northeast hikers on this board find AZ useful, great. But recruiting is not my intent.

Violin - FYI - AlpineZone.com has been on-line since 1998 and has been very successful. I certainly didn't throw it up overnight and I use FP 2000 not FP 98...get it right ;) If you honestly think it sucks, that's fine. I'd love to hear your professional Web design criticism so I can make it better.

Oh, by the way, it seems Matt thinks AZ is useful as he links to it here...

Thanks for the support skiracer.

Greg”

“Violin,
At least go to the website and sign up to be a Nike shoe tester. I would have done that too, but my foot is too big.
Try it you might like it”

“Buddha Bear,
You are funny!!! I am laughing right now as I type this. It's a bummer you have to keep the peace around here, but I'm glad you do.
I will look for your questions and answers in this forum with great pleasure.”

“Are bacpac and I the only ones who think he's trying to robbing the till while matt's back is turned?

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to ask visitors to your site how to improve? Not a competitors?

I'll say this: Greg retains his grace under fire.”

“Violin,
Remember when you taught me how to do this:

http://www.alpinezone.com/"target="_blank">AlpineZone.com

go ahead click on it. It opens in its own window”

“Getting good rabbitman.

Now go there and invite both of his customers over here.

Only fair.”

“Violin,
I can tell you are starting to soften up. I really do want to win that t-shirt or the lobsters. I think that if you would just visit the site and come back here and tell everyone how good it is, Mr. Blasko would let me win one of them. This is really important to me. (I'll even give you the lobsters because I don't like them.) If not, I guess I'll just go through life never winning anything. Have a great day.”

“Does the T-shirt say "I helped put Trail Talk out of business and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"?”

“AlpineZone, schmalpinezone, this is Violin's OpineZone, and I value his opinion, as much as life and car camping itself!

BTW - thatnks for the props kumaface, but I think your post just made 30+ poeple in here moan and say "don't encourage the !$%& newbie!"”

“Well Violin,

I guess I'll go home now and break the news to Mrs. Rabbit that we want be eating lobster in a new t-shirt.

I've just been kidding with ya today. Stick to your guns buddy! I didn't want that free stuff anyway. I sure don't want to be accused of selling a friend out for thirty pieces of silver. Have a good day! I'm going home.

P.S. the net's open 24 hrs if ya change your mind. See ya!”

“You guys are too much. Obviously this thread is going nowhere so I better just leave it alone. I wouldn't want Matt to lose sleep tonight worrying that all the trail talk visitors are heading to AZ. After all each time someone replies this thread jumps to the top of the list...”

“Damn. This thread jumped to the top again. Sorry Matt. ;)”

“Let me see. If I have decoder ring set correctly, I should be able to delete this thread within the hour.

It may take a little longer since BB2 comes on in half an hour!!”

“Let's face it we have all seen other boards very similar to thebackpacker.com that have dangled from the noose (does anyone here actually visit bpbasecamp?s forum?). What keeps this site moving is the sheer number of visitors who participate. Everyday we log on to see what wacky topics have been posted. At times Matt's mostly "hands off" approach has allowed some to vandalize the board, but I think this approach is also what keeps things fresh here. We don't have to worry about being banned for something stupid.

So basically don?t worry, keep at it and watch it grow or dangle.”

“Thanks LaRock for the kind words. We try to take a "hands off" approach as well. While AZ is a moderated forum, we allow most any post that we feel may be beneficial to our members and visitors; many of which may include links to sites outside of AZ. I'm fine with letting people promote their sites as long as it has something to do with the forum's subject matter, namely New England mountain adventure.

It's pretty clear that some folks here are taking offense to this thread; particularly Violin, rabbitman, and Buddha Bear. Guys - I apologize. Again, this thread wasn't an attempt to "steal" TT visitors. Check out the initial thread from ten months ago. People were very helpful and supportive, many of which were active posters long before you guys. I thought I could safely come here again for some constructive criticism. Again, I'm sorry you found it so offensive.

TT is an awesome board evidenced by the shear number of participants and will continue to thrive despite this thread. I'm confident that AZ's forums can reach this level someday.

So...can we call a truce now? And violin, yes I do try to retain grace under fire. After administering a Web site for over two years, I've learned to become very tolerable of differing opinions. Thanks for listening.

Greg Blasko
contact@alpinezone.com
AlpineZone.com”

“"we allow most any post that we feel may be beneficial to our members and visitors"

”

“I guess it is time I finally chimed in.

To all those that think that AZ is trying to steal visitors, I think that is a wrong way to look at it. Asking for constructive criticism from your target audience is a great way to better a site. And a response such as "your site sucks" is not constructive at all. I have asked many people how to improve this site. Everytime I lauch something new I ask everyone here what they think. Constructive responses can go a long way to increasing the use and effectiveness of a site.

I have also found out over the years that most people are active in 2 or 3 board at a time. There is no law that says, "if you post on TT, you may not participate on other sites". thebackpacker.com is a nationally targeted site. So there is a need for regionally targeted sites such as AZ.”

“Yeah what Matt said!!!!”

“Stick it in your ear, Matt.”

“We're sorry come back Greg!!!!!!!!!”

“Gerg,

I sent you an email with some constructive criticism. I don't care if you ask for opinions or post in here, you are free to do as you please just like Violin. Best of Luck”

“Greg,

I sent you an email with criticism. It wasn't very constructive, and you don't usually have to ask to hear my opinion.

hehehe.”