I have gotten some requests recently to add forums to the site. I have been reluctant to add them because I think there are already many forums out there and am not sure how much value it would add to the Road Trip Ryan community. If you think they would be useful, however, please voice your opinions, thoughts, etc.
I will be most interested in what sub-forums people think would be useful and if people would be willing to help moderate.
You seem frustrated by the duplicate comments asking about conditions and shuttles (San Rafael River). If it makes sense to split that out into a forum and just keep comments directed at the quality/length etc of certain adventures then that could be beneficial.
Yup, the San Rafael River is one of the ones I have gotten a few emails suggesting a forum for!
It has dozens and dozens of comments and the feedback I get is that it is difficult to sort through looking for useful information. A forum to coordinate trips instead of trying to coordinate in disorganized comments might be valuable and easier for people, and keep the comments on trips more focused and useful.
Along those lines, I think that forums might be a better place to have conditions updates instead of building up giant chains in the comments. That way, the comments on a page speak to the actual features of the canyon, while a forum about that canyon can have more temporary things, such as conditions or questions that people want answered by the community.
I would agree Brendan. I think a separate location to talk about conditions or general advice for a canyon would be helpful. I think of it a bit like climbing at Lone Peak in the summers outside SLC. The comment section for the area on mountain project is dedicated about talking about each climb/ general info and there is a separate forum post each year that is dedicated to conditions and water availability. I think a similar use case here could be helpful to some.
Chiming in with another affirmation to have an active canyon conditions section. Canyon comments are best served holding trip reports and other general information. Having a dedicated space for current conditions would be very helpful, and a forum is a great place for it.
I’m in support of a forum here, particularly since Canyon Collective has been down for so long with no publicly communicated return date. I do understand the argument against further atomizing an already niche community, but like @Flapbag I really have no desire to use Facebook (blech!) for canyon discussion. Platforms like FB or Reddit don’t really lend themselves to an effective knowledge base or a hub for ongoing discussion.
It’s also nice to use a platform that feels like it was designed within the last decade. This interface is great!
My biggest concern, is that it becomes a place for online arguments and Ryan has to spend all his time moderating the posts. I’d love to have a good forum for conditions reports. RTR seems to have decent size community, so it could be beneficial. @Ryancornia, if you need help moderating forums, please reach out.
Simply put, I really like RTR. Always has been my go to. New ways to engage, incl forum, are welcome
I’d love to have forums here. I’ve missed the CanyonCollective forum since it went down - was a great source of info and also easy to search. Am really not a fan of FB groups as you get presented with a load of spammy clickbait in the app before you can navigate through to the groups themselves, and the search function for old posts is far more lacking than on a forum. So would be great if this can fill the forum void that now exists.
This would be a great replacement for canyon collective. Please do it. This is already a very valuable resource that I am happy to pay for through the app. Adding forums would add more value, and probably app downloads.
Well, no people voted against forums.
I’ll leave the forums up and see if we can get some use! I can see a fair amount of people coming to them and checking them out. We just need more posts! So, post up and make this a useful space! 