RRC Archives

For those of you still out there,

I'm doing a little research about online forums, and thought I should reach out to my old haunt, redriverclimbing. I know what my experience has been here, but I wanted to learn more about your experience. So, what has been your experience here on redriverclimbing? What brought you here? What do you value about the community?

I notice the post history is pretty sparse these days, so I'm extra curious about how the function of the forum has changed over time.

Everyone left. They're all on pigsteaks FB page.

Pigsteak has moved his troll show from long format forum posts to one line ribshots on Facebook. I don't blame him. I'm still fond of forum formats, but the ability to instantly move across different communities (climbing, work, music, etc) makes a platform like Facebook really appealing. That said, the lack of anonymity has a very conservative and often chilling effect on what people are willing to say. Facebookers tend to tiptoe around potentially divise issues for fear of being publicly outed or they simply hide their real opinions in an unremitting flood of sarcasm. Add this to the way in which our communities are culled and curated, and the general feeling is one of homogeneity. The great thing about RRC is the only commonality is/was climbing in the Gorge. Fascists, liberals, cops, literature professors, and so on and so forth. It was a fair reflection of a real community where assholes and glad-handers coexisted because of shared interests.

It was pretty cool.

This forum is pretty dead and I would say 75% of the posts are from trolls or immature kids. I still find good information on here though and I still use the online guidebook alot. I find the online guidebook comments on climbs very usefull. Also I can get info on here about road closings, trail days, rocktoberfest info, and occasionally some trad gear for sale.

It is pretty slow around these parts now. But there is still useful information to be found: http://www.redriverclimbing.com/viewtop ... 97#p269197

The online guidebook remains a thing of sublime beauty.

Yeah I too miss all the commentary on this forum. I do not use facebook, my wife does and I consider it a huge waste of time. At least here the discussion was typically focused on climbing related topics. This is still the best place for route info.

I felt this site start backsliding when the latest redesign was instituted... The landing page became dull without images, and to get at information it "seems" like you have to dig a little harder. Face it, most people are visually oriented for quick hits and butterfly interest. IMO, this is essentially why most migrated towards facebook . . . Easy navigation and lots of images, and of course . . . Pig's new home.

Yeah it is kind of sad. It use to be a lot of fun around here... Oh well...

Everybody developed feelings and couldn't handle a lil ribbing at times. It became all tiptoe around the obvious and "good game" ass slaps. But not the good kind where you hold on a little too long and make eye contact.

I can only say that having spent considerable amounts of time with the likes of Alex Megos, Dave Graham and Frank Waters that climbing is in good hands, no pun intended...