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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64845
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Quote: Originally posted by john68  | Is there some reason that posts cannot be moderated or users blocked by the reader? It’s common on other forums.
I find Baja Nomad much more user-friendly than FB. I share the frustration with abusive posts, but surely there’s a better answer than closing
down. |
Oh, I don't think Doug (BajaNomad) is closing it down, we are just discussing how world and local events and Internet progress have lowered the
activity. Since Nomad is not a full-time job for Doug and he will not ask for moderating assistance (which has been a disaster on Talk Baja for anyone
that questions problems there... see the ever-growing 'Banned from Talk Baja' Facebook group), we will just have to try and hang on, self-moderate,
play nice.
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Blair
Junior Nomad
Posts: 63
Registered: 5-19-2010
Location: El Cajon Ca
Member Is Offline
Mood: Getting ready to go again
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I've been using this site for 12 years and though I haven't posted a ton I have gotten a lot of value out of it. You folks have a ton of genuinely
useful real-time knowledge. The problems I see are: 1. The platform is dated. I'm not really technically challenged but if I want to post a picture
(which I don't do frequently), I have to spent a few minutes researching how to do it so I just move on. I know, if I did it more I would remember. 2.
Sometimes if I see a thread I'm interested in, I find myself sorting through a few pages of rock throwing and bickering. Some of that is normal but
when it becomes a large part of the discussion, its off-putting and limits the value of the discussion. 3. With all the other social media options its
hard to get new members involved. Although the niche of a site like this is great, the reality of the current environment is a factor. Nonetheless, I
do visit here often and will continue. Thanks for all the info!
Blair in El Cajon
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BajaBlanca
Select Nomad
Posts: 13196
Registered: 10-28-2008
Location: La Bocana, BCS
Member Is Offline
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I too find the information very interesting and full of genuinely useful real-time knowledge!
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mtgoat666
Select Nomad
Posts: 18376
Registered: 9-16-2006
Location: San Diego
Member Is Offline
Mood: Hot n spicy
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That must be quite an entertaining cesspool
Woke!
“...ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” “My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America
will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
Prefered gender pronoun: the royal we
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4x4abc
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4289
Registered: 4-24-2009
Location: La Paz, BCS
Member Is Offline
Mood: happy - always
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Harald Pietschmann
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AKgringo
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6025
Registered: 9-20-2014
Location: Anchorage, AK (no mas!)
Member Is Online
Mood: Retireded
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Starve a troll...ignore their post!
If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much space!
"Could do better if he tried!" Report card comments from most of my grade school teachers. Sadly, still true!
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bajatrailrider
Super Nomad
Posts: 2432
Registered: 1-24-2015
Location: Mexico
Member Is Offline
Mood: Happy
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This site not going away as some good people here. Only thing losing many also due to. Difficulty post pictures and you know whos. Good day all
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pacificobob
Super Nomad
Posts: 2307
Registered: 4-23-2006
Member Is Offline
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| Quote: Originally posted by bajatrailrider | | This site not going away as some good people here. Only thing losing many also due to. Difficulty post pictures and you know whos. Good day all
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My sentiments exactly?
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Skipjack Joe
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8084
Registered: 7-12-2004
Location: Bahia Asuncion
Member Is Offline
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Facebook killed this site. When Ron Gomez created Talk Baja he pretty much gutted Nomads. But I recall a time when Ron was hospitalized and Nomads
donated thousands of dollars for his hospital bills.
Baja has changed and that also has made Nomads less relevant. This was the site where intrepid travelers exchanged stories about their adventures. It
became a family of adventurers that bonded through their experiences. There isn't that much adventure any more. People fly in, get their haul of fish,
and fly out. And the ones that drive do so at 60mph where the landscape is a blur. That leaves us with nothing to talk about but covid and that dumb
palm tree.
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surfhat
Senior Nomad
Posts: 545
Registered: 6-4-2012
Member Is Offline
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'That dumb palm tree'. That is a Baja haha statement if there ever was one. Thanks for the morning laugh Skipjack Joe.
How anyone can deny what is going on in the arctic is choosing ignorance over science. It is coming to all of us. How anyone can deny that human
behavior and its endless pollution by fossil fuels is the cause of climate change is choosing ignorance over science.
The palm tree will continue to survive because of its somewhat protected location on the Bay of Conception where it is said all life begins. haha
Our future generations will know who to blame. Look to other locations in the polar regions where the impact is undeniable. They need us to wake the
heck up. Now. It is coming our way. Maybe not while some of us are still taking a breath, but it will be.
Please try to consider a future that we have not had to deal with, but the children of our children undeniably will.
Peace and love and fish tacos. We can make a difference. Thanks Doug.
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pauldavidmena
Super Nomad
Posts: 1715
Registered: 5-23-2013
Location: Centerville, MA, USA
Member Is Offline
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| Quote: Originally posted by Skipjack Joe | Facebook killed this site. When Ron Gomez created Talk Baja he pretty much gutted Nomads. But I recall a time when Ron was hospitalized and Nomads
donated thousands of dollars for his hospital bills.
Baja has changed and that also has made Nomads less relevant. This was the site where intrepid travelers exchanged stories about their adventures. It
became a family of adventurers that bonded through their experiences. There isn't that much adventure any more. People fly in, get their haul of fish,
and fly out. And the ones that drive do so at 60mph where the landscape is a blur. That leaves us with nothing to talk about but covid and that dumb
palm tree. |
I don't feel like Facebook could supplant a "bulletin board" like Baja Nomad. A Facebook group does have the advantage of appearing to be a vibrant
community that fosters participation in near real-time, but in reality its effectiveness diminishes when it gets too big. That's when Facebook
algorithms determine what you see in a group's feed. It gets worse if there's a particular thread you're trying to find and its relevance is too low
to show up in a search. Recently Ron resurrected a new TalkBaja website - not to eliminate the Facebook Group, but rather to complement it. It would
be interesting to get his take on the pros and cons of the two approaches.
I think Facebook Groups work well for very small niches that limit the size of the community. The Todos Santos Newsfeed, for example, started out
modestly and was an excellent source of local information. Now that its membership is over 32,000, it's harder to follow, and Facebook's search
functionality is extremely clunky. BajaNomad's search function is simple but effective. I use it whenever I am looking for some specific information
and don't have time to wade through the chatter.
As we've seen, moderation is a double-edged sword. Too much can be perceived as censorship, and not enough makes for a lot of chaos. I don't know what
the solution is, but I also think any reports of BajaNomad's imminent demise are premature.
My two pesos.
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surabi
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4918
Registered: 5-6-2016
Member Is Offline
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| Quote: Originally posted by surfhat | 'That dumb palm tree'. That is a Baja haha statement if there ever was one. Thanks for the morning laugh Skipjack Joe.
How anyone can deny what is going on in the arctic is choosing ignorance over science. It is coming to all of us. How anyone can deny that human
behavior and its endless pollution by fossil fuels is the cause of climate change is choosing ignorance over science.
The palm tree will continue to survive because of its somewhat protected location on the Bay of Conception where it is said all life begins. haha
Our future generations will know who to blame. Look to other locations in the polar regions where the impact is undeniable. They need us to wake the
heck up. Now. It is coming our way. Maybe not while some of us are still taking a breath, but it will be.
Please try to consider a future that we have not had to deal with, but the children of our children undeniably will.
Peace and love and fish tacos. We can make a difference. Thanks Doug. |
For many of the man-made climate change deniers, it isn't a matter of ignorance so much as arrogance. It's the "no one can tell me what to do"
attitude- they want to continue to crank up the heat and AC, take 20 minute hot showers, use up fossil fuels as if they are endless, buy cheap goods
made in pollution spewing factories, etc. Twisting themselves in knots trying to deny that their chosen habits and lifestyle are contributing to
climate change means they can continue being part of the problem without feeling guilty about it or accepting any responsibility.
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64845
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Not that it matters with you eyesight deniers, but all the palm tree proves is that the sea level is still not higher than 80+ years ago... and with
all that human climate change going on, one has to wonder, 'why not?'
Have a nice day! 
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mtgoat666
Select Nomad
Posts: 18376
Registered: 9-16-2006
Location: San Diego
Member Is Offline
Mood: Hot n spicy
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| Quote: Originally posted by David K | Not that it matters with you eyesight deniers, but all the palm tree proves is that the sea level is still not higher than 80+ years ago... and with
all that human climate change going on, one has to wonder, 'why not?'
Have a nice day! |
Globally, sea levels are rising due to human-caused climate change. Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by 15–25 cm (6–10
in), or 1–2 mm per year on average. This rate is accellerating, with sea levels now rising by 3.7 mm per year. Climate scientists expect further
acceleration during the 21st century.
Climate change heats (and therefore expands) the ocean and melts land-based ice sheets and glaciers. Between 1993 and 2018, the thermal expansion of
water contributed 42% to sea level rise; melting of temperate glaciers, 21%; Greenland, 15%; and Antarctica, 8%.
Over a longer timescale, the sea level is predicted to rise by 2–3 m (7–10 ft) if global warming is limited to 1.5 °C, by up to 6 m (20 ft) if it
peaks at 2 °C and by 19–22 metres (62–72 ft) if it peaks at 5 °C.
Woke!
“...ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” “My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America
will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
Prefered gender pronoun: the royal we
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surfhat
Senior Nomad
Posts: 545
Registered: 6-4-2012
Member Is Offline
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Yes David, you are correct from the perspective of the Bay of Concepcion.
In the north and south pole areas, not so much. You have to know this is true but still are in denial.
Only man can fix the manmade deterioration of our climate. It may already be too late. None of us will be around as the livability declines for our
species and many others. The manmade 6th? great extinction is at hand.
I have stated it before that your mission passion and Baja travels continue to be invaluable for us Nomad fans. Thank you for those submissions that
are and will be always appreciated.
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BajaGringo
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3922
Registered: 8-24-2006
Location: La Chorera
Member Is Offline
Mood: Let's have a BBQ!
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Yes but it will require a new platform and increased moderation IMHO.
| Quote: Originally posted by David K | | Since Nomad is not a full-time job for Doug and he will not ask for moderating assistance (which has been a disaster on Talk Baja for anyone that
questions problems there... see the ever-growing 'Banned from Talk Baja' Facebook group), we will just have to try and hang on, self-moderate, play
nice. |
That “disaster” has gained more new members in the last four months than this forum has managed to accumulate in over 20 years online. When I
shared with you in a private conversation my frustrations with Facebook, I wasn’t alluding to or insinuating I was giving up on it, I was only
explaining my reasoning to pursue building another platform for users who were looking for something outside of Facebook.
The fact that there is a Facebook group that was created by "Banned Talk Baja Members" only demonstrates that we do have active moderation and when
you combine that fact with forum activity data indicating that over half of our 86 thousand plus members are active in the group in any given week in
time, is abundant proof that the vast majority of our membership disagrees with your constant complaints about our group.
In spite of repeated chances I gave you, you simply wanted to ignore the rules and treat it like it was your own sandbox, throwing a tantrum when
other members didn't share your point of view. It was only finally after countless member complaints that I pulled the plug. And it wasn’t just "you
asking questions on how things worked.”
You have very selective memory.
When I gave you another chance on talkbaja.com earlier this year, you self-imploded even faster the second time around and self evicted yourself when
the going got rough after what – 3 days?.
I gave up trying to help you. I simply don’t have the time, patience or energy.
No comment!
| Quote: Originally posted by Skipjack Joe | Facebook killed this site. When Ron Gomez created Talk Baja he pretty much gutted Nomads. But I recall a time when Ron was hospitalized and Nomads
donated thousands of dollars for his hospital bills.
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Wow Igor, where do I begin?
I never set out for Talk Baja to “gut” Nomad; when I created the forum at talkbaja.com - it was simply an idea I had to provide a discussion forum
with more active moderation to help keep the discussions civil and on topic – mostly by keeping POLITICS out of the threads.
What I originally thought would only be attractive to a small group of people quickly grew and that unexpected growth was demanding an increasing
investment of my time as managing the hosting and the constant software tweaks and fixes in addition to the discussion forum management became
impossible with everything else I had going on offline back then.
Facebook presented me with an option and I understood from the get go that it was NOT a true replacement for a forum structure but a realistic
alternative I could offer our membership to keep Talk Baja alive with the time I had available to invest back then.
I don’t believe for a minute that our growth on Facebook came at Nomad’s direct expense but simply reflected the overall move to social media. If
it wasn’t Talk Baja, it would have been some other (You Fill in the Blank) Baja group that could have been started by anybody with some forum
experience.
And Igor, for you to imply that Cristina and I aren’t eternally grateful to the members of this community who stepped up when we were hospitalized,
you are gravely mistaken and I deeply resent the insinuation.
Our attackers not only left us for dead but robbed us of our personal effects which included my wallet, her purse, all of our IDs and bank cards. We
had ZERO access to our accounts and I was in a coma. Once I was released from the hospital, it took several days for me to be able to walk assisted
into a bank and begin the process to reestablish access to our accounts. When I did, I publicly and sincerely thanked EVERYONE here on Nomad who had
helped and at the same time offered to reimburse anybody who had contributed to our hospital care.
A few did write me and I gladly paid them back, thanking them again for stepping up and helping out. To imply that I don’t appreciate this community
and especially Doug and all his investment of time and expense over the years is a total and complete misrepresentation of reality.
As to your remarks on forums, traditional forum structures don’t seem to attract people as they did 20 years ago and unfortunately Doug got stuck
with a platform that has been abandoned by its developers. There are several new forum options out there today and I have had private conversations
with Doug as to suggested options he could look into to pursue with Nomad.
Baja Nomad has a huge database representing over 20 years of information and there is value in all of that information that could be made more
attractive when presented on a different platform. I sincerely hope that Doug is successful in making the move and I wish him success. However that
does bring up another glowing problem that has become a trend I have witnessed these past several years with online users.
Unless they are just feeling nostalgic or working on a history paper, more and more people today are much more interested to find out the most recent
experiences of others, not what it was like several years ago.
There is a reason why encyclopedia collections are no longer offered as no matter how fast they can print them, by the time they can be distributed
they are often - to a significant degree - already outdated and to some extent obsolete in this fast-paced world today where things are changing so
quickly.
Online users today want fresh info and they want it now – they aren’t much interested in having to wait several hours or even days for answers.
That is true on travel forums, car forums and pretty much any other kind of forum you look at today and helps explain another reason why fewer people
are using them now. And that includes those who don’t do social media as Google gives people countless options to find something with most of them
looking for the latest info, not what someone did 10 or 15 years ago where a fishing captain may no longer work, new roads may now be paved, fences
raised and gates now locked.
| Quote: Originally posted by Skipjack Joe | This was the site where intrepid travelers exchanged stories about their adventures. It became a family of adventurers that bonded through their
experiences. There isn't that much adventure any more. People fly in, get their haul of fish, and fly out. And the ones that drive do so at 60mph
where the landscape is a blur.
|
While the points you make have some validity, my sense is that it has more to due with the fact that most people today prefer to access the web via
their cell phones. This forum is extremely difficult to follow on a phone and I hope Doug can make a move soon to a responsive platform format for
Nomad. I believe that many inactive members will return when he does.
On that we completely agree and why I have consistently refused to allow politics to seep into the discussions on Talk Baja. Our primary group rule is
civility in the discussions and that seems impossible today whenever politics are injected. From the moment the very first political jab is made, a
line is drawn and you have just split one half of the group from the other with hurt feelings and resentment from one thread carrying over into nearly
all the other posted topics.
That kills a Facebook group and just about any non-politics themed forum as well.
| Quote: Originally posted by pauldavidmena | Recently Ron resurrected a new TalkBaja website - not to eliminate the Facebook Group, but rather to complement it. It would be interesting to get his
take on the pros and cons of the two approaches.
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It has been an interesting experiment and while more successful than I expected at this point, it has brought some surprises as well.
Our forums on talkbaja.com are only moderately active and one member recently started a thread on the differences between Talk Baja on Facebook and
the forums at talkbaja.com with the responses mirroring some of the comments here. Many are active on both platforms but admit they go to Facebook
when a quick or greater volume of responses are needed.
We get a lot more lurkers than participants on the forums, with lurkers outnumbering posters on average by about 200 to 1. Nearly 90% of our website
traffic however visits our weather page, travel guides and news / story articles on the website
But that volume is dwarfed by Talk Baja on Facebook that is now averaging close to 800K users per 28 calendar days. (Facebook’s standard metric
measuring period)
One of the more noticeable differences to me is that the forum structure on talkbaja.com (and here on Nomad as well) seems to draw mainly US and
Canadian visitors and full/part-time expats, who by a clear majority are males.
We have a much more diverse audience on Facebook with the number of males and females at a 52/48% ratio along with a growing number of local Mexicans
and other European visitors/expats becoming active in our Facebook group.
The input by so many of the locals down here has really been appreciated by our membership as they provide a new prospective on the history of this
place that is coded in their DNA as well as sharing a lot insights on their local knowledge including the latest road conditions, unpublished
alternate routes and other tidbits of info interesting to travlers as well as stepping up to assist members who posted an emergency need for
themselves, a friend or family member in ways that I have never seen here on Nomad or anywhere else online for that matter.
Their participation in the group has really served to enrichen the experience for our members IMHO.
As far as too much activity, I hear you there as well and why I began creating new, related but more narrowly focused topic groups on road conditions,
border waits, etc to dilute and absorb some of that increasing activity.
Over time I realized however that the only thing I really accomplished was to now have a large collection of different Baja themed groups with many of
those today also seeing rapid growth. But the inherent problems remain of the lack of a comprehensive search tool (which admittedly has gotten better
over the years) and the lack of any good tools for Facebook groups to help segregate and manage the diverse topics in the absence of that
comprehensive search tool.
A couple years ago, Facebook asked me to join and participate in a closed group for those of us who manage large Facebook communities where we can
share our frustrations and give them feedback on new features.
They do listen but change comes slowly and they keep telling me that they are working on a way to create sub-groups under a main general group as well
as a much more comprehensive search tool. We'll see.
In the meantime we just keep growing no matter how many splinter groups I create. I expect that sometime next year we will exceed one million visitors
in a single 28 day period in our main group alone, meaning there is a continues to be a growing interest in the topic of Baja.
What that means for traditional forums is a need to look for more creative ways to attract and keep more of those online users.
| Quote: Originally posted by pauldavidmena | | As we've seen, moderation is a double-edged sword. Too much can be perceived as censorship, and not enough makes for a lot of chaos.
|
As far as censorship, you touch on another of the issues I have with Facebook today. The platform has been increasingly stepping up their enforcement
of vaguely defined Facebook rules which I interpret to be largely based on Political Correctness. What were once “suggestions” from Facebook to
group owners are now considered mandatory compliance, with Facebook now intervening and removing what they interpret as comments that “don’t meet
the Facebook Community Standards.”
We do remove comments that violate our rules but I am often blamed by our members for deleted comments that actually were removed by Facebook. So
based on what day it is and who you ask, I am either a N-zi, a facist or a karen.
Moderation can be a fine line to walk sometimes but I listen to the feedback from our membership (and I get a lot) which tells me if we went too far
or not enough.
I know of no other way for a large discussion group to be able to stay alive and even grow today in this current political climate, it requires
moderation governed by clearly stated and enforced rules IMHO.
But I am sure there are some who have a different opinion and I am all ears...
[Edited on 11-7-2022 by BajaGringo]
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RFClark
Super Nomad
Posts: 2462
Registered: 8-27-2015
Member Is Offline
Mood: Delighted with 2024 and looking forward to 2025
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L,
Explain please how “moderation” differs from censorship on the rich thoughtful forum.
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elgatoloco
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4332
Registered: 11-19-2002
Location: Yes
Member Is Offline
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Lencho - can I get the backstory on the boat in the 3rd picture you posted?
Is it yours? Is that storm damage? Did something blow up? Is it still above the waterline?  
MAGA
Making Attorneys Get Attorneys
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elgatoloco
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4332
Registered: 11-19-2002
Location: Yes
Member Is Offline
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| Quote: Originally posted by lencho | Ron "gutted" this
place?
All Ron did was offer an alternative, and people voted with their feet. If we could do a survey of those who abandoned BN we might better understand
the reasons, but they're gone and we're stuck with conjecture by those who are still around.
My personal opinion is that a majority of online users prefer a more civil environment, but we'd have to ask those who left. |
Civility is a virtue. It is harder for some to develop then others. It is sometimes hard to translate the tone of voice used on a message board and
other times it is real easy.
When I have been attacked in the past by someone I will never know it registers a big fat zero on my give-a-chit meter. Life is too short to sweat the
small stuff.
This board has been a great resource in the past and hopefully around for a long time.
MAGA
Making Attorneys Get Attorneys
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JZ
Select Nomad
Posts: 10541
Registered: 10-3-2003
Member Is Offline
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| Quote: Originally posted by mtgoat666 | | Quote: Originally posted by David K | Not that it matters with you eyesight deniers, but all the palm tree proves is that the sea level is still not higher than 80+ years ago... and with
all that human climate change going on, one has to wonder, 'why not?'
Have a nice day! |
Globally, sea levels are rising due to human-caused climate change. Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by 15–25 cm (6–10
in), or 1–2 mm per year on average. This rate is accellerating, with sea levels now rising by 3.7 mm per year. Climate scientists expect further
acceleration during the 21st century.
Climate change heats (and therefore expands) the ocean and melts land-based ice sheets and glaciers. Between 1993 and 2018, the thermal expansion of
water contributed 42% to sea level rise; melting of temperate glaciers, 21%; Greenland, 15%; and Antarctica, 8%.
Over a longer timescale, the sea level is predicted to rise by 2–3 m (7–10 ft) if global warming is limited to 1.5 °C, by up to 6 m (20 ft) if it
peaks at 2 °C and by 19–22 metres (62–72 ft) if it peaks at 5 °C.
|
Maybe that is true about rising sea levels. How much man is to cause is very much in doubt. As is man's ability to change anything.
What is not in doubt is ppl have been using one declared climate crisis after another for 60 years to raise money and influence voting. This one is
just the latest. None of the previous doomsday predictions has panned out.
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