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Hillwalker said:
Yes I remember. I think we met one day When I was coming down the Osseo Trail, and you were ascending.
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Something like that. I recall it was on a hike of Flume + Liberty for Flags on the 48 on 2006-Sep-09. You can see my join date is October 2006.

There was a period of time where I used to get random strangers asking me "Hey, aren't you Tim (or BikeHikeSkiFish) from Views From The Top?" That hasn't happened in ages, but I haven't put a lot of mugshots of myself here either.

Tim
 
bikehikeskifish said:
I wrote a Trip Report a part of an experiment spurred on by this thread. I remember all of the things now that vBulletin does poorly that Facebook excels at.

- Uploads - winner, Facebook - select 21 photos and post to an album. I don't want the photo storage service to expire, so I had better upload them to vftt. vBulletin - upload 1 photo at a time. Oops, limit of n (10, I can change this) reached. Oh, I need to resize them to fit nicely in the vBulletin text frame. Oh, I need to convert the inline attachments to IMG tags to display them inline...

- Visibility - winner, Facebook - I can control who sees what. vBulletin is open to readers from anywhere, any time. Granted, Facebook is probably using my data way more than any public consumer of my vBulletin posts, but I can control who in the public sees my pictures.

- Tagging - winner, Facebook - automatically suggest and is usually correct the location the photos were taken. vBulletin - I have to search for tags created by who knows who and when and probably create my own. Facebook automatically identifies most of my friends. vBulletin, I don't know most of your real names.

- Searching - winner, Facebook - can search by post, by photo, by tagged people. vBulletin, kinda search works. Usually resort to google with +site:www.vftt.org.

- Commenting - winner, Facebook - can comment right on the post, the album, individual photos, etc. vBulletin, you can reply, but you have to quote, and then to not reproduce the entire post, edit the quote...

- News Feed - winner vBulletin! Yes, vBulletin remembers what you've read and presents the unread stuff in chronological order. Facebook presents stuff in the the order which is to maximize your eyeballs remaining on their site and consuming ads. Granted Facebook has notifications, but I have them off on my phone and only look at them on the web and only for comments.

I spend, on average, 30-60 minutes writing a TR for vBulletin and 3-5 minutes sorting pictures and writing a description for the album for Facebook and my phone and Facebook do the rest. It's not hard to see why Facebook will win every time.

That said, vftt still exists largely because the average experience level is far above most. That's why it is hard to become a member - many find that barrier too daunting (a DayTrip said, and I appreciate that he plunged right through it!)

Tim
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Sigh, I 'm old and as the Ancient One Told Dr. Strange, "It's not about you" (translation, Ten pictures is about all I want to see unless someone spent a week in Alaska or the Sierra, i don't need your selfies at the trailhead,, getting water, the first steep section, four of you eating at the summit and then the same pictures as you descend, I was happy when Chomp sent me links to his site for his AT trip and his CDT trip, although I always told him I didn't need the stir crazy in the tent pick all day in the rain ones that looked like he wanted the Jack Torrance role in the remake of "The Shining" ) A trail beginning, something scenic or funny that happened along the way, getting out of treeline, some scenery and maybe a sunset if available.

I don't need world wide visibility, that's not why I am here or why I hike. When asked by coworkers why peakbaggers just don't lie and collect patches, I replied 95% of the public thinks peakbaggers are nuts, especially if you winter hike mountains they associate with fatalities. The other five percent are either working on the list or have done it. If asked what your favorite (or hardest) peak on the NE list would be, someone who doesn't know would likely say Washington, it's the highest & therefore, the best Most of us who have been would say Katahdin is best, or something odd because of a unique reason, met my wife, last like with Dad, only like with son/daughter. Hardest might depend on route or how you felt that day. (Could be long hikes, lots of elevation gain, your first when you were out of shape, last because you squeezed six into two days, 26 if you are Cavedog etc)

I don't need no stinking tags! I'm thinking I would be worried that FB could automatically identify my friends. The experience is the trip, not getting comments about my digital life.
 
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bikehikeskifish said:
Something like that. I recall it was on a hike of Flume + Liberty for Flags on the 48 on 2006-Sep-09. You can see my join date is October 2006.

There was a period of time where I used to get random strangers asking me "Hey, aren't you Tim (or BikeHikeSkiFish) from Views From The Top?" That hasn't happened in ages, but I haven't put a lot of mugshots of myself here either.

Tim
Click to expand...

Like....it certainly happened in an office environment, I will vouch for that!;)
 
What a long strange trip it's been.

I suspect VFTT will continue to soldier on for a bit. I still create new accounts for 2-3 people a month, sometimes a few more. (No sponsor needed, just send in the request.) But I can't see this going on forever; it was the right tool for a moment in time but time has moved on. I find the FB interface more useful and efficient for all the things we used to do here. I miss the more active moderation but some groups are committed to not letting things get out of hand, and that's really all that's needed. Fortunately there are enough FB groups to pick and choose.
 
Tim, I find FB's search inferior to VBulletin (and of course, Google). I need to remember which page or group I posted to, and that can be a big time waster.

I know with almost absolute certainty which people here I can trust for reliable trip reports, or answers to questions. That's huge.

I will admit that I do not post as much as I used to, but this is still a useful board!
 
Tom Rankin said:
I know with almost absolute certainty which people here I can trust for reliable trip reports, or answers to questions. That's huge.
Click to expand...

Facebook is no different. For me, everyone starts out as untrustworthy and works their way into the trustworthy circle. What FB has over VFTT in this regard is it is very easy to see who hikes with whom or who is friends with whom and that gives a headstart on trustworthiness. Power of tagging, face recognition and some of those things that MikeP is not a fan of... and I can understand the negatives... but since we're discussing the pros and cons of the two platforms...

Tim
 
While looking back in time. Didn't VFFT experience a server crash back then which required all of the members to re-register. My forum name then was Dalraida, But I changed it to what is currently when I re-registered.
 
Hillwalker said:
While looking back in time. Didn't VFFT experience a server crash back then which required all of the members to re-register. My forum name then was Dalraida, But I changed it to what is currently when I re-registered.
Click to expand...

Yes the site did crash, and all prior registrations were lost. Prior to the crash Darren tried to keep similar sounding screen names out of the system but in attempt to get things running again quickly it was open season. I got lucky and re-registered my prior name but many chose new names and Darren stopped reviewing the names so we got look alike screen names on occasion. It was bit confusing for awhile. I think we also lost all the prior posts. My join date on the stats is 9/2/2003 which I think lines up with the crash.
 
September '03 is as far back as the database goes. The good news is that in this day and age, even the lowliest hosting plan gives some level of high-availability and redundancy with automated database backups. I.e., unlikely to suffer any data loss. It's not a multi region hosting plan, so disaster is still a possibility.

Tim
 
Thanks for the information. I relocated to Idaho in 2002 and returned in late 2004. I remember wondering why I had lost my registration during my absence. Obviously I did not attempt to use the site while I was absent.
 
bikehikeskifish said:
September '03 is as far back as the database goes. The good news is that in this day and age, even the lowliest hosting plan gives some level of high-availability and redundancy with automated database backups. I.e., unlikely to suffer any data loss. It's not a multi region hosting plan, so disaster is still a possibility.

Tim
Click to expand...

Since Political conspiracy theories are banned here and there are many masters of that already, I'll reach back into the Way-back machine and reinvent an old one. Since Y2K was a Disaster that never happened, and after a horrific year 2020 was, (ironic that a year that also means perfect vision had so many things no one had foreseen), I'll create the 2021 disaster leftover from 2000 and 2020.

On 2/1/21 we'll have what was supposed to happen at Y2K happen, thereby making the date from the movie with the same name, synonymous with repetition from ever happening. Is there another comet coming in Feb 2021? That might be the only way to keep the Cleveland Browns or Bills from winning the Super Bowl! (Or Tom from winning #7) :D:D

Merry Christmas to all!
 
If only FB would die and VFTT returned to full strength. I contributed a fair amount to VFTT from about 2004 through 2010, and miss those days quite a bit. Met lots of people and drank tons of beer. Even hiked a little.

Some of the drama was epic too.
 
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You spent a lot of time specifying a good quality shirt. Darn thing is indestructible. Its still get used on occasion.
 
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