Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Duppie on July 8, 2009 at 2:53am

That appears to be one of the drawbacks I've noticed so far on Chainlink. There are subforums, but it seems hit and miss. So a lot of these questions end up in Bikes and Bicycling (where you posted this thread)
One site I have good experience with is mapmyride.com. You can search by town and it will give you all routes users have uploaded that include the town. That could be a good startingpoint, even though I do a double check for suitability.
Duppie

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ashley on July 8, 2009 at 6:25am

Try bikely.com search Chicago and you will see tons of routes that others have poster, it has turn by turn directions and can be a pretty nice tool

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Duppie on July 8, 2009 at 7:59am

h3 said:

Duppie said:

That appears to be one of the drawbacks I've noticed so far on Chainlink. There are subforums, but it seems hit and miss. So a lot of these questions end up in Bikes and Bicycling (where you posted this thread)
BR>Duppie

What does this mean?

More established forums (BF comes to mind) have a clearly established structure of subforums. Rarely does someone post in the wrong subforum. Chainlink lacks that clear structure. For example, there are 4 groups regarding Critical Mass. Which one to post in?
Part of this is inherent to social networks (as compared to more rigidly structured forums), but the result is still that a lot questions get dumped into Bikes and Bicycling.
Duppie

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Pete M on July 9, 2009 at 4:57pm

I started using map my ride.
But maybe I havent got the hag of the searcher.
If I enter "x" to"y" I rarely get any search results.
I.e. Logan square to Manteno does not produce a result.
Maybe I should work from the destination back??
Chicago as a start point has many results..
Ido like the routing function on MMR enter start next intersection and so on till you reach your destination.
But what I am truly looking for is more succinct info from riders....
such as stay of "x" road it sucks for bikes ..no shoulder ...crazy drivers avoid at all possible costs.....
See you at Friday at Mass.


Duppie said:

That appears to be one of the drawbacks I've noticed so far on Chainlink. There are subforums, but it seems hit and miss. So a lot of these questions end up in Bikes and Bicycling (where you posted this thread)
One site I have good experience with is mapmyride.com. You can search by town and it will give you all routes users have uploaded that include the town. That could be a good startingpoint, even though I do a double check for suitability.
Duppie

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Duppie on July 10, 2009 at 3:16am

Thanks for your clarification. I am old enough to be considered PF (Pre-Facebook) generation. My experience until now is with strict moderator organized websites (BF and others) so I am still trying to figure the social network part of this site, ie. groups. Somehow I thought of groups and forums as the same, but I guess they are not. I am not advocating dozens of forums at this moment, because lots of forums with little or no content each is probably the worst solution imaginable, but maybe routes and stolen bike announcements would be candidates for their own forum given their volume and specificity?
Duppie

h3 said:

I don't know when you joined, but there were more categories previously.
Almost nobody placed their thread in the correct one, but almost everyone left the toggle on the default (which was general discussion at the time).

The current categories are:
Bikes and Bicycling
General Discussion (not bike related)
Marketplace
Announcements

I don't really know that anyone sorts by category . . . the logic behind the current choices is that if anyone's annoyed by non-bike-specific fare, or commercial/sale threads, we can tell them "just click on the bikes and bicycling category" and the bad threads will go away.

I don't know how to respond regarding the redundant groups-- the groups have their own fora, which are not really "sub-fora" of the main forum.

I have been a regular user of the various types of message boards out there for maybe 12-13 years, and I'm familiar with the various structures that seem to work for other fora. I've seen some ruined by being split into seperate sub-fora, and many broken down to the point where most of the sub-categories have not had a critical mass of users and have not been posted to for months or years.

I think your apparent assumption that we have our current structure here because we just don't know any better is a little off-base. But otherwise, how does that relate to the specific question here of where to ask for route advice?

You seem to be a regular user here, so surely you've seen that people just start route advice threads in the main forum, and the quality of the responses they get is pretty near amazing for a 'free' resource.

If there's a constructive suggestion in here somewhere, I'd be interested to hear it.

Duppie said:

h3 said:

Duppie said:

That appears to be one of the drawbacks I've noticed so far on Chainlink. There are subforums, but it seems hit and miss. So a lot of these questions end up in Bikes and Bicycling (where you posted this thread)
BR>Duppie

What does this mean?

More established forums (BF comes to mind) have a clearly established structure of subforums. Rarely does someone post in the wrong subforum. Chainlink lacks that clear structure. For example, there are 4 groups regarding Critical Mass. Which one to post in?
Part of this is inherent to social networks (as compared to more rigidly structured forums), but the result is still that a lot questions get dumped into Bikes and Bicycling.
Duppie

• ▶ Reply