Resolved Should we nuke the ride board? (Community Poll) (2 Viewers)

[Matt Derrick]

Hey folks, the @Staff and I have been struggling with whether we should get rid of the ride board entirely. The reasoning has been that it seems to get limited use, and the use it does get tends to be from people that "drop in and drop out" from facebook or other places and aren't really interested in participating in the community (i.e. no profile pic, no profile filled out, lazy posting, etc).

In a lot of ways the road dogs and meet up section could accomplish a lot of the same goals (finding people to travel with) so in many of the staff's opinions, we wouldn't be missing out on any functionality but rather just streamlining the two sections (ride board & road dogs).

I think the @Staff did a good job of explaining their reasoning in our staff area, so im hoping they don't mind repeating those arguments here. But as the community, what are YOUR thoughts? Do you get any use out of the ride board? Could we live without it? Vote in the poll!

 

[Eng JR Lupo RV323]

I've read hundreds? Of seeking/offering rides posts and I don't think I've ever seen even one result in a successful ride. The greater majority of them have zero replies. The rare one that does get a reply is one of like three responses;

[Seeking ride] Shreveport Louisiana to St. Paul Minnesota. I wanna leave by tomorrow.
[Responder] If you can get to Provo we can travel together!

Like.. dude, you're so far off the route it would be absurd for that person to end up anywhere near where you're at going the direction they're going.

Or;

[Ride offered] Portland to Denver, leaving on Feb 26th
[Responder] Feb 28th I'm down!

... That ship has sailed bud, what are you doing?

There's a few other examples I'm forgetting but nary a one that I've seen that actually worked out. I think we could lose the fat. It's useless. If you're really trying to get somewhere on a ride-share, we all know Craigslist is way more likely to work out. If you wanna specifically travel with other "misfit travelers" I'm sure the road dogs section would work just swell.

I vote to shitcan that feature.

 

[Brodiesel710]

Gave a lady a ride home from Florida to Corinth, MS. It just timed out right, but overall it seems useless, or could use improvement.

 

[CouchPunx]

Ive postedon the rideboard and gave someone a ride the next day. I think one reason you might not see poaitive results because people take it immediately to the PMs

 

[OTTERWOLF]

Eng JR Lupo RV323 is right on the money, there's a current one right now which obviously is never going to work out, because the plans keep changing... and the OP is not even sure what they are looking to do !!

That's too bad, because it seemed to be a pretty useful tool....

 

[Eng JR Lupo RV323]

Another reason it sucks is all ths skeevy truckers who kept exploiting it for a while there. We've had to police that activity so much in ths past. It hasn't happened in a while but imt sure it would again if it's kept. Plus it seems like there's a lot of confusion about it anyway. Like, there's definitely been a lot of people in the past that'll post in there like "Seeking Ride from Raleigh NC to Dirty Jersey, always wanted to ride in an 18 wheeler"...

It's like they're searching "Rides from truckers" on Google and for whatever reason being funneled here. It's cool when a decent trucker pulls over and gives someone a ride but it isn't really what the site is about. A lot of new members don't seem to get that.

 

[Eng JR Lupo RV323]

And as far as leeches, that's been a thing too. People will join, fill out absolutely nothing on their profile. Post in looking for rides, and then just never actually become a contributing member. The ride never happens and they're gone, leaving us with a lot of dead profiles.

 

[jimi]

I see the argument for combining it with the road dog section. I think a lot of folks use facebook groups nowadays as well as CL, but I'm also noticing a growing movement of people leaving that platform. I could see it becoming more widely used again sometime in the future, but I guess you could just remake it if so.. Really as long as it's still an option to post rides somewhere, I'm fine with whatever. I definitely have met some great people through this site and would much rather find and offer rides through here than FB or CL.

To avoid the one-time visitors/leeches/throwaway accounts, you might consider adding something to the rules/how to use posts on the meetup type sections, like suggesting/requiring having certain parts of profiles filled out, or having posted in the intros section. If it's a big problem, could it maybe be a possibility to limit posting on some of the sections to people who have already participated in some way?

 

[SlankyLanky]

To avoid the one-time visitors/leeches/throwaway accounts, you might consider adding something to the rules/how to use posts on the meetup type sections, like suggesting/requiring having certain parts of profiles filled out, or having posted in the intros section. If it's a big problem, could it maybe be a possibility to limit posting on some of the sections to people who have already participated in some way?

There was something like this in the past but iirc its unavoidable with the current website add one that we currently use.

Years ago I believe it was used specifically for the train hopping section for this exact reason is not allowing brand new profiles to view/post because of the number is posts asking repeat questions with obvious answers.

 

[Brodiesel710]

I never used digihitch, but how did that work exactly?

 

[Matt Derrick]

i honestly don't remember if they had a ride board. their forums were absolutely huge. gargantuan even, with the amount of content on there (lots of hitching stories) it was a little overwhelming.

 

[OTTERWOLF]

I can totally get the overwhelming part, sometimes even here on STP I find it impossible to keep up with all that is going on, but then again I am not young anymore.....

 

[Matt Derrick]

the collective sense of relief the staff is currently feeling is the vibration of the ride board being nuked off the face of the website, as per the results of the community poll. Any future ride requests should be posted to the road dogs forum.

just as a precaution, I've moved the latest 10 or so threads from the ride board to the road dogs section in case they were still relevant to anyone.