"High Speed Rail" and other hot button issues.

First , i would like to say , (with no disrespect to past moderators ) , that i think the current level of moderation is the best it has been since i started participating in this forum . I believe it is fair , in that no individual is picked out to be hammered more than others , and no individual is given more freedom than others to either go offtopic , or flame / abuse others .
I will always probably feel that some topics should not have been locked , or deleted , because my own style of moderating is to let things evolve in the name of free speech , unless its outright abuse / offensive . everyone has there own standards though , and i often see things posted that i feel are either racist , or exnophobic ( i'm still bewildered as to what the french have done wrong , and anything vaguely connected to the middle east appears to be suspected terriost activity ) , but i am looking from a different country .
I chooose to accept the level of moderation in the Amtrak forum and participate in it . but i do have some things to say about it .

First , the flights of fantasy business . well lets cast our minds back , say 5 years , did anyone in their wildest dreams see Obama's $ 8 billion coming ??? . if i opened a thread back then saying , if we had $ 8 billion to spend , how would we spend it ??? , what would have become of it ?
Likewise , if i was to start a thread , saying why not extend a nec service to Lynchburg , where would that have gone ?
New equipment , electrification ??? these are now close to been reality , yet we are still not discussing them in detail , cos some may float some pretty outrageous ideas . i see Mr Philips in trains , bagging Mr Boardman for not been proactive enough ( but not really offering any proposals himself ), but where are these ideas supposed to come from ??? the best they can come up with is a rehash of a 30 year old overwieght design , viewliner 3. I would think , if this forum is reviewed by industry ,then what message is it giving them . rebuild the 1948 dining cars again ???

I think 2010 is a whole new ballgame compared to previous years , and the forums views need to be up with the play , and preferably ahead of it .

rave over for now , i cant remember what my other points were going to be .

As a moderator, I prefer to follow the guidelines of Mr. Bill Bennett, in that all I ask of the participants of the forums that I moderate is "1. Intelligence; 2. Candor; and 3. Good Will. This has served me very well in administering the forums that I am charged with moderating.

As one of the most popular forums of this site, I feel it is imperative to allow a balanced view here on the subject of Amtrak. Not too long ago, I wrote a post here regarding the cadre of "nattering nabobs of negativism" (to quote the late William Safire), regarding some of the resident posters here. That you disagree with the operation of Amtrak is fine...that's your opinion. I and others reading here respect that. But in fairness, you should also allow a greater variety of contrarian views as to why Amtrak should be allowed to continue to operate.

I always find it amusing that some posters here feel that they are personally being raped in the wallet because Amtrak is allowed to exist. I do not subscribe to that opinion. I'm sure many others do not as well.

What we need to do is consider and discuss all views on the operation of Amtrak...and not sumarily dismiss them out of hand.

That practice is self-defeating and does nothing but drive contributors and potential contributors away.

And that is not what we are about.

David Benton wrote:First , the flights of fantasy business . well lets cast our minds back , say 5 years , did anyone in their wildest dreams see Obama's $ 8 billion coming ??? . if i opened a thread back then saying , if we had $ 8 billion to spend , how would we spend it ??? , what would have become of it ?
Likewise , if i was to start a thread , saying why not extend a nec service to Lynchburg , where would that have gone ? New equipment , electrification ??? these are now close to been reality , yet we are still not discussing them in detail , cos some may float some pretty outrageous ideas . i see Mr Philips in trains , bagging Mr Boardman for not been proactive enough ( but not really offering any proposals himself ), but where are these ideas supposed to come from ??? the best they can come up with is a rehash of a 30 year old overwieght design , viewliner 3. I would think , if this forum is reviewed by industry ,then what message is it giving them . rebuild the 1948 dining cars again ???

I think 2010 is a whole new ballgame compared to previous years , and the forums views need to be up with the play , and preferably ahead of it .

I believe Amtrak gets their ideas from highly paid transportation analysts (perhaps overpaid) not via pubic internet forums. While there may be some inspiration that can come from the outside most people here have no clue as to the details their flights of fantasy would require. The chief detail being money. We have limited information, often dated and do the best that we can but don't have access to what the professional analysts have. Where do the ideas come from? Degreed individuals paid to think them up.

Once the $8 billion was announced we had a decent and appropriate "where would you spend it" conversation on the topic. Were the projects chosen the right ones? It is a toss up. Politically I believe that the projects chosen are the best. Financially I'd rather see the baby steps of "higher speed rail" working our country toward "high speed rail" instead of $8 billion going to one project that most people will see only on TV (or the Internet). Internationally I could care less about how the French or Japanese run their railroads ... they don't have to run Amtrak within the budget Amtrak is given. We're at a point in our country where billions are needed for everything (even non rail related things). But that what the $8 billion dollar thread was for. That discussion.

We could start a thread about what $8 trillion could be spent on but I don't see the point until $8 trillion is made available. Perhaps (if the mods would allow) the High Speed forum could be the home of such fantasy threads? Leave the Amtrak forum for reality. Some speculation should be allowed ... I don't want to see every thread closed that doesn't have footnotes and references to actual plans ... but we do need to keep ourselves in moderation. And if we fail the moderators step in.

I have found Google to be a decent search engine to find old railroad.net threads. I suspect the other engines do fine as well. At least the old conversations can be found - but then what? If I find a thread that has not been posted to since 2007 that has a topic that I want continue should I wake it from the dead? Grave digging threads can be a problem as new people see posts that were solved three years ago as if the argument started today. I know of some forums (non railroad) that lock old threads because of this problem.

Reviewed by industry ... that is a nice thought but how much is respected by industry? Is that the purpose of this forum - to lobby the industry? I thought it was for lay people and those in the industry (if they wish) to discuss topics. More for fans than industry insiders.

I pretty much agree with everything Greg Moore said. If there's one thing this forum needs less of is the moderating. There is something especially infuriating about a thread that's locked with the message "this topic seems to have run its course, locked". If the posters felt there was nothing left to discuss, then the thread would fall away on its own. And as another poster mentioned, locking a thread by saying "What's more, we are pondering the theoretical versus the budgeted and practical." is foolish when the theoretical may very well happen. Everything is theoretical until an official announcement is made, and then it's old news.

You say "It's one thing if you're sitting around with your buddies and you throw a few wild ideas back and forth, but I don't think we need to carry that over to our forums.." I don't know about you, but most of my buddies could not care less about amtrak or train travel. That's why people come to this forum, to talk to others with a similar interest and to share information.

I feel that as long as an argument does not result in name calling, it is fair game. Forums exist for discussion, even unpopular discussion. Some may get heated, but as long as the heat comes with cited facts and figures....then that's better for all who are reading.

I don't post too often but read a lot on here and I have to agree with the recent posts in this thread. The theoretical discussions can be the most interesting. There was recently a interesting discussion on possible upgrades to reduce trip times on the New Haven - Springfield corridor and that was locked as mentioned because we were "pondering the theoretical versus the budgeted and practical." It seems like a matter of opinions here and if it is not "practical" but more "theoretical" in the moderator's mind, it gets locked. Double tracking that line is not practical? I was getting really interested in that thread. There was no name calling, quibbling... stuff that should get a thread locked. I never comment about the moderating but seriously Otto, you are the creative director... let people be a little creative! I too come to this site to discuss railroading because I can't have these conversations with my friends. I'm not saying every "theoretical" thread on here is practical but by no means are they all outrageously impractical. And it is true, that some of these theoretical ideas could become a reality.

With the moderators in the Amtrak forum, can you explain why you think a thread has to be locked because the "question has been answered" or the thread has "run its course". It is not breaking any rules, why lock it? If someone has new information to share to a thread, wouldn't it be a lot easier for that person to simply add that info to the thread instead of having to contact you first to get it added.

I don't know how many threads are locked everyday on here but it would be nice for the ones that are...if the reason for locking the thread is not painfully obvious, let us know why it is being locked so we're all not wondering why. Do you actually ever read a thread that is "paused for review"? I've seen several and they have never been reopened.

And finally, you may want to allow a little bit of leeway when getting on someone's case for being off topic. In some cases, I've seen posts that went just ever so slightly off topic (and in some cases, it may have been related) and then I see a quick reply, "This discussion is about ______. If you want to talk about ________, please start a new thread." Wouldn't it be easier just to let it go. It would save you from doing a lot of (what seems to be) unnecessary moderating.

Just my two cents. I really do enjoy the site but do agree with what is being said.

Warren

Tad and Dave are doing a superb job of moderating the toughest forum here at railroad.net. It's not easy. GBN had his style, Eric, myself, and Joe worked hard during our tenure, I don't think there was more than 3 days in two years we weren't emailing each other and Otto about something.

I've read trainorders. I do not play there. It's usenet. I don't like usenet, I don't need to play in usenet anymore.

I participate at one other broad discussion forum. You think we have flights of fancy? We're sane compared to them.

I participate on Tom Maddens Passenger Car List at yahoo. Want a forum kept to a narrow lane? Tom has one other Mod, and they keep the place laser focused on passenger equipment, more to the modelling side than 1:1, but there is a fair bit of 1:1.

If you want an education, ask Otto to be Mod here. You'll get one, I promise.

Stay the course, Otto, Tad, and Dave It's a good forum

CNJ wrote:As a moderator, I prefer to follow the guidelines of Mr. Bill Bennett, in that all I ask of the participants of the forums that I moderate is "1. Intelligence; 2. Candor; and 3. Good Will. This has served me very well in administering the forums that I am charged with moderating.

As one of the most popular forums of this site, I feel it is imperative to allow a balanced view here on the subject of Amtrak. Not too long ago, I wrote a post here regarding the cadre of "nattering nabobs of negativism" (to quote the late William Safire), regarding some of the resident posters here. That you disagree with the operation of Amtrak is fine...that's your opinion. I and others reading here respect that. But in fairness, you should also allow a greater variety of contrarian views as to why Amtrak should be allowed to continue to operate.

I always find it amusing that some posters here feel that they are personally being raped in the wallet because Amtrak is allowed to exist. I do not subscribe to that opinion. I'm sure many others do not as well.

What we need to do is consider and discuss all views on the operation of Amtrak...and not sumarily dismiss them out of hand.

That practice is self-defeating and does nothing but drive contributors and potential contributors away.

And that is not what we are about.

One is made to feel like an outsider here at times. I appreciate the views here, and information as I no longer live near Amtrak. But it is never fun to be talked down to.

Hmm, this seems to be a thread mostly about moderation. As I understand, moderation is strictly to keep a discussion civil, not to direct a topic in any particular direction. What would send a discussion out of civility would be flames, deliberate posting of false information and other forms of trolling, deliberate steering of a topic into unrelated material so as to make it bizarre (but not any "thread drift" or incidental discussion that's not strictly in line with the topic or the subject of the forum), personal agendae posted aggressively, and other such things.

As far as politics go, when discussion is about a railroad entity created and run by politicians by act of law, it's almost impossible to avoid some political discussion. Partisan battling would be in the "flames" category, however.

Amtrak in particular runs some operations that can be classified as high speed. They're not a vehicle for implementing high-speed rail in earnest around the USA, however, in the same way that JR in Japan, SNCF in France or DB in Germany have been in their respective countries. Their countries are quite different in governing style to the USA, just as the USA is different from how it was a half-century ago. (Those facts are merely food for thought.)

The Turboliner issue seems like it ought to be concatenated into a single sticky thread. The RTGs and RTLs are part of the Amtrak continuum and do warrant some discussion. Would a discussion about the F40PHs be closed down because they do not operate as passenger power anymore?

I do not live near Amtrak myself, but I do live near a rail line that used to host intercity service, and were it to do so again, I would foresee rather full trains both eastbound and westbound. I do appreciate the candor of those that prefer privately-operated passenger rail, but what governmental and regulatory barriers exist that are in the way of the restoration of that? The present state of the transportation network is a tangle of webs weaved by the federal and state governments, so perhaps it's best to cut through those webs instead of assuming out of hand that one system will not work versus another. Nobody's looking for consensus, because when ideas are expressed in a free manner, then creativity can flourish.

A few points I thought I would respond to:

amtrakowitz wrote:The Turboliner issue seems like it ought to be concatenated into a single sticky thread. The RTGs and RTLs are part of the Amtrak continuum and do warrant some discussion. Would a discussion about the F40PHs be closed down because they do not operate as passenger power anymore?

You are drawing an incorrect conclusion. As stated before, we had to prohibit Turboliner discussion because a few certain people could not show self-control when faced with facts. The embodiment of beating a dead horse until it comes back to life. Frankly, it was annoying to myself and our regular members. It was a community decision to end the discussion.

I'm glad everyone has opinions about the moderation of this site, but I was really looking for some opinions of what our limits on certain hot button issues are. As an aside, if you want to know why a thread was locked and the reason wasn't clear, or you feel you have something important to add to a locked thread, all you need to do is contact a moderator or admin by PM or email.

-otto-

Greg Moore wrote:I'll start with a simple request: you claim this is one of the most widely read and reviewed forums in the industry. I would love to know the basis for that claim. (not saying I disagree, I'm genuinely curious).

You're perfectly within bounds to ask. Without getting catty about it... I make that statement based on my private off-line conversations with the "lurkers" who read this site (many of which are in the rail industry, and compare our site to other popular forums), based on our own registration logs and traffic through the Amtrak Forum specifically, plus what I've been able to discover about the traffic levels and readership at other popular discussion sites (pay sites and free sites). I don't think I claimed that we're the most widely read specifically in the *industry* but that we are indeed one of the most active Amtrak-specific discussions on the Internet.

As the kids say, "All your base are belong to us."

-otto-

A quick thought on moderation:

Complaining about moderation is like walking into someone's house, peeing on the carpet, then complaining about the smell.

This isn't my house ... I appreciate the fact that I've been allowed to come in the door.
And since it isn't my house I'm not going to pee on the carpet or complain.


Hopefully between the lines of complaint in this thread some guidance as to Otto's question can actually be found.
How far is too far on the issues? How much speculation and fantasy? How much political?

Fantasy can be fun ... and if I was in charge at Amtrak ... well I wouldn't be posting and reading here at 2:18am ET.
Political is part of Amtrak operations ... but blaming named politicians and parties for inaction or misspending is too political, even if true.
Complaining about the failures of Amtrak and the politicans running the system isn't going to fix anything. So why build up the steam?

Talking about what is being done ... operational and planning ... on the actual Amtrak system is good. Beyond that ... make your point and move on. With respect to all other posters in the forum. Nobody likes listening to a broken record. Stop peeing on the carpet and the mods won't have to clean it up!

but blaming named politicians and parties for inaction or misspending is too political, even if true.

I don't think truth should be off-limits, as long as it is within the bounds of civil conversation. this kind of thinking (i.e. a form of political correctness - perhaps rr correctness)is simple intolerance of ideas, unless we mean different things by 'political'. I grant it's entirely possible that we do in fact understand 'political' in different ways in this context.

CNJ wrote:That you disagree with the operation of Amtrak is fine...that's your opinion. I and others reading here respect that. But in fairness, you should also allow a greater variety of contrarian views as to why Amtrak should be allowed to continue to operate.

I hardly think there's an imbalance of too many posters saying Amtrak spends too much.

BM6569 wrote:Double tracking that line is not practical? I was getting really interested in that thread. There was no name calling, quibbling... stuff that should get a thread locked.

Actually, there was a good deal of name calling by a single poster over the last few posts... while the heart of the argument engendering the name-calling was only obliquely related to the topic, it seemed to me that the proffered reason for locking the thread was to get around taking (perhaps public) action against the offending poster (who, by the way, was attacking a straw man all the while to boot). I think a more appropriate response would have been to 'correct' the name-calling and direct the thread back to the topic at hand.

In a federally-funded program, avoiding political discussion is akin to sticking one's head in the sand when it comes to policy matters of the program (which are of course a legitimate topic, if not everyone's cup of tea). Inevitably, some political arguments will come down to fundamentally differing premises among the arguers, and therefore not likely to lead anywhere. But these arguments are nevertheless important. And just because a poster doesn't admit a change in position on the forum doesn't mean that he doesn't consider the other point, or take it home and ponder it, and perhaps modify his own position as a result. These are good things, but can only happen with robust debate.

In the end, it's not topics that are the problem, it's the mode of discussion.

Also, I am generally in favor of loosely keeping a discussion to the thread's topic, provided that derivative discussions are 1. very derivative, and 2. liberally spun off into their own threads, so the conversation may continue to the extent parties are interested.

That's my 2 cents.

railaw wrote:

CNJ wrote:That you disagree with the operation of Amtrak is fine...that's your opinion. I and others reading here respect that. But in fairness, you should also allow a greater variety of contrarian views as to why Amtrak should be allowed to continue to operate.

I hardly think there's an imbalance of too many posters saying Amtrak spends too much.

I would disagree with your generalization.

I think the only criteria for moderation should be when people begin to become disrespectful of each other, and then only the posts in question should be moderated, not the entire thread locked. Fact is when having discussions about Amtrak, high-speed rail, even commuter rail and subways, there are going to be political tangents. There are also going to be hypothetical what-if discussions. I see nothing wrong with this so long as these discussions don't go completely off into the deep end. By that I mean something along the lines of someone suggesting Amtrak build fusion-power 5000 mph maglevs everywhere, or some other scheme currently not practical due to technological constraints. If it can be done with current or near-future technology, then it's worthy of discussion in my opinion regardless of the costs. The cost is actually the point of the discussion. If we didn't have monetary constraints we could run railroad tracks everywhere and please everyone but that's not reality. Rather, a fruitful discussion might compare the costs of high-speed rail to the costs of repairing the Interstate highway system, with the pros and cons of each. You could also throw in the societal costs of auto exhaust, car accidents, etc. Compare the costs of the keeping the status quo with the costs of building HSR. This can all make for a lively discussion provided people stick to attacking posts and not the poster. Name calling will and should bring moderation.

We're at the cusp of a sea-change in how people get around, and also a sea change in demographics. It's best if people and policy makers recognize this rather than clinging to the status quo. If this forum is indeed widely read in industry circles, then perhaps a little less skepticism might not be a bad thing. We should all be enthusiastic about the expanded role of rail. When you continually have people saying this or that will never happen, it may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Frankly, that attitude ( and less free time ) is one of the reasons I don't visit these forums as often. Yes, I know in reality rail systems cost money, a lot of money. Only question is in the long run do they save society more money than they cost versus the alternatives? Not when looked at in isolation, but in the context of society as a whole? And if not, why not? Sure there will inevitably be differing opinions on this. The key is to keep the discussion civil, not matter how much you may disagree with what any person says. If some can't do that, then action should be taken against those individuals. Banning entire subjects is only bound to lessen interest by those who may have something to add, but fear doing so because it may get a thread shut down. Like the subject of HSR, we shouldn't be asking what having it will do, but rather what are the consequences of not having it? What is lost when some people simply refuse to participate because they consider the scope of discussion too limited? I tend to think quite a bit.

That's my 2 cents on the subject, and thanks Otto for asking for input here!

jtr1962 wrote:If this forum is indeed widely read in industry circles, then perhaps a little less skepticism might not be a bad thing. We should all be enthusiastic about the expanded role of rail. When you continually have people saying this or that will never happen, it may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Frankly, that attitude ( and less free time ) is one of the reasons I don't visit these forums as often. Yes, I know in reality rail systems cost money, a lot of money. Only question is in the long run do they save society more money than they cost versus the alternatives? Not when looked at in isolation, but in the context of society as a whole? And if not, why not? Sure there will inevitably be differing opinions on this. The key is to keep the discussion civil, not matter how much you may disagree with what any person says. If some can't do that, then action should be taken against those individuals. Banning entire subjects is only bound to lessen interest by those who may have something to add, but fear doing so because it may get a thread shut down. Like the subject of HSR, we shouldn't be asking what having it will do, but rather what are the consequences of not having it? What is lost when some people simply refuse to participate because they consider the scope of discussion too limited? I tend to think quite a bit.

Mr. jtr1962: You observation is absolutely spot-on! Thank you for posting this. I believe that everyone to visits and/or posts on this forum should take the time to read this...very carefully.