Please put up the rideshare board ASAP.

[HughMungus]

Thanks. It's important for those of us who don't live close enough to drive alone.

[spectabillis]

You can post somethign here http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?t=7970

[HughMungus]

Thanks Specta. I was hoping for a sub-forum here that was specifically for rideshare. We have a regionals section and a share section but I think a board JUST for rideshare would be good...or, on second thought maybe that would be better covered in the regionals section. Regardless, it would be nice if they would somehow direct people to one place or another for people looking for rides to share. One reason I'm mentioning it is because I might have rides in an RV to share (and because I might need drivers).

You can post somethign here http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?t=7970

[spectabillis]

.. on second thought maybe that would be better covered in the regionals section... if they would somehow direct people to one place or another for people looking for rides to share.

Regionals, had not thought of that, think I am going to make a note of it.

As far as directing people around to resources, do you think an info page on "Greeters' Station: Start Here" would help? Something like a FAQ and sort of site-map of the Topic layout/structure?

[the_iconoclast]

SOmething would be goos as a general "staging area" for those seeking and offereing.. Perhaps a header of "Ride Share" and two sub-folders labelled "Giving" and "Seeking". I know I will have room for a few - I am also leaving a bit early to work with DPW and leaving late for the same reason.

[the_iconoclast]

"goos" is from a little known language of the Moroni Tribe meaning "great".. in case you were wondering...

fucking lack of edit... :?

[theCryptofishist]

"goos" is from a little known language of the Moroni Tribe meaning "great".. in case you were wondering...

fucking lack of edit... :?

"Goos" is also a polltran word meaning "She of the beautiful huffiness."

[CameraGirl]

http://www.burningman.com/preparation/t ... share.html

Someday soon, once our dear Spanky gets to turn his attention away from the e-playa for a minute, we'll have the rideshare board active for this year.

[Traveller]

One option you might want to consider would be to post to the Rideboard section of the completely unofficial Travel to Burning Man Board. While it is true that the official rideboard has been returned to service after a long wait, it is also true that that board has been wiped clean at least once, since, with the postings apparently not being recoverable.

Under the circumstances, doing at least one backup post in a second, independent location would seem prudent, especially when you consider the cost. It's free. Zero dollars and zero cents - I'm guessing that you can swing that? All that you need to do is register for our little forum, and cut and paste a copy of your post to the appropriate place on TTBM (there are sections for those looking for riders, those looking for rides and those setting up caravans across the desert). I wouldn't be so bold or foolish as to claim that Proboards is any more hackerproof than ePlaya, but at least if your post is lost in one place, it may still survive and be seen in another. Picture yourself trying to get to a burn, looking at the board shortly before the big day, and discovering that your post vanished a week ago. Yes, you can repost, but your chances of having your post seen in time for it to do any good have been greatly diminished. Putting all of your eggs in one basket can be an expensive proposition.

This particular location that I'm inviting you to use, despite being only a few months old and only now really beginning to get used, is already coming up in the search engines (try searching under "Burning Man" and "travel"), and can be found on both the Ring of Fire at Webring.com and the Playa Dust Ring, meaning that any post there is likely to be seen. Curmudgeon's Bandera volcano thread alone has already logged 194 visitors; not bad for some place out in the burning boondocks, eh?

Give it a try.

[Rockdad]

One option you might want to consider would be to post to the Rideboard section of the completely unofficial Travel to Burning Man Board. While it is true that the official rideboard has been returned to service after a long wait, it is also true that

Pure search engine ranking post from a known sock puppet related to the sockfest at this thread http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?t=12509

[Traveller]

Of course, I saw this coming and so I posted a rebuttal to this whiny little malcontent's griping on a thread devoted to discussing more of his truly bizarre behavior. Anybody who wants to slog through the sludge is welcome to go over here, but for those who don't I'll give the condensed version.

I set up "Travel to Burning Man" over at a cool little service called "Proboards" back when I was feeling a bit more positive about ePlaya than I do now. The place even had a linkback to these boards. TTBM was set up, not as a low rent wannabee competitor for ePlaya, but as a supplemental resource that did some of the things that ePlaya didn't, in addition to providing a needed backup for a service that had already failed, at great inconvenience to a number of users. These things happen.

One of the sections of that board is entitled "Stories", set up for members who wanted to share stories about experiences on the open road. It's a chance for the members to share a little journaling done in narrative form. What it is not is a platform for taking barely disguised potshots at other members of the community. Rockdad posted to my little creative writing forum to do exactly that.

To call such behavior "exquisitely inappropriate" would be an exercise in comic understatement, and given what I had already promised people about what the nature of the new board would be, for me to take action against Rockdad was not merely my prerogative, it was my duty. ePlaya seems eager to empower its cranks in direct proportion to their level of viciousness. That makes for an atmosphere on these boards that some of us don't enjoy. Some will call that "wussiness"; personally, I think of it as being a lack of masochism.

What some burners are looking for is a chance to get back to what they were interested in, when they first got involved in burning, and I can just about guarantee you that 999 times out of 1000, that didn't involve the eagerness of Rockdad and Hughmungus to drag everybody in sight into their meaningless frog and mouse battle. What little places like mine offer is a chance to get away from assholes like those two. Think of it as one of those quiet little places about two rings in where you go when you get tired of dealing with the weekend fratboys on the Esplanade. There doesn't seem to be as much going on when you first look, your ears tell you that the big party is somewhere else, but when you go looking for human beings instead of looking for a spectacle, that's where you look.

I hope that people won't be scared off from contributing just because yet another crazy guy has made a scene and played the "random whacky accusation game" (hi, Rockdad). I understand the desire to not have crazy people yell at one, but let me ask some of you a question. In all of the decades of "going along to get along" and appeasing whoever was making the biggest scene, how much peace did you ever win for yourselves? Really? Did you ever notice that no matter how much ground you give to people like this guy, they always find something else to be angry about? Is it smart to always be ready to sell your freedom, your spirit and your soul for a reward you never get?

People like Rockdad and Hughmungus do not make scenes because anything specific is pissing them off. They make scenes because making scenes is what they like to do, because turmoil is all that they know how to create and if they weren't doing so, they'd be invisible. The one and only way to get any peace and quiet out of people like that is to get up and walk away, if only briefly, to a place where you don't have to hear the sound of their voices. Yes, they'll scream and shout and you'll probably hear the word "censorship" bandied around. So be it. They were going to scream and shout anyway.

The name of the place is Travel to Burning Man, and as I've said elsewhere, its focus is more on the experience of getting to the burn than that of being at the burn, though I did just open up a new board for discussing camps and projects. I hope some of you will be able to see past the mud others have been slinging, and give our little place a try. I think you'll enjoy it.

[Rockdad]

The official Burning Man rideshare board is at :http://www.burningman.com/preparation/travel_info/rideshare.html

[Kinetic IV]

Ok, this is going too damn far. I object to this.

It's one thing to have an online spat. It's another thing entirely to post the directions to someone's front door that you don't like.

That post....and only that one post needs to be yanked and if I dig through the TOS I'm sure I can find at least two items in there to base a request on for the admins to remove it.

Even in my spat with Badger which got downright nasty...the line was drawn at posting private details about where one lives. There is a precedent for the admins removing a post like that.

Also Dustbuddy, if something should happen to Rockdad as a result of what you've posted....and it can be proven.....I hope they hang your ass. I honestly don't give a flying fuck about your feud other than the short term entertainment value it's provided so far...but this personal shit is over the top and is flat out wrong.

Off to case studies....I'm going to ask for that post to be pulled. And before you react and say something think about it. If the tables were turned and it was your personal info on display I'd make the same request...nobody needs this sort of thing. It's totally indefensible.

[Dustbuddy]

An exercise in futility, Kinetic. The "personal information" you refer to was posted to Googlegroups, so the mods on ePlaya are quite incapable of removing it. Nor can they keep the Burning Man community from having access to a link to that post, because I made sure to post a copy to Travel to Burning Man, where AntiM, Spectabillis et al. have no authority. For good measure, I've already taken to contacting a number of ePlaya's very angry and public critics, asking if I could post to their forums if my posts are censored on ePlaya. You might be surprised at how many of those critics there are, and some of their pages are doing very well in the search engine rankings. The responses I've been getting have been supportive.

Every piece of information I posted was publicly available, obtained through well known sources available for use by the general public, so regardless of what kind of trouble Rockdad / *** manages to foolishly get himself into, there won't even be so much as a cause for civil action much less criminal prosecution. Public information is public and this has been tested out in the courts, so deal with it. Get as overwrought as you want, and I'm sure you will, but you can't change the fact that your complaint is without legal merit.

[Kinetic IV]

Just because you can post the info is no sign you should. And I wouldn't be so sure about a lack of legal ramifications either.

[Dustbuddy]

And I wouldn't be so sure about a lack of legal ramifications either.

I would. I've dealt with sabre rattling fuckwits such as yourself before, and I do keep lawyers on retainer.

[Kinetic IV]

My only issue with you is that you posted personal info that borders on stalking. I feel it's wrong. I said something about it.

[AntiM]

I removed the posts.

[Dustbuddy]

I removed the posts.

and abused your authority in the process. Not that I'm surprised. "The word 'harassment' means whatever we want it to mean" is an attitude the modstaff of ePlaya is renowned for.

Not that this will help Rockdad hide from the legal consequences of his actions if he continues the path he is on. The relevant information was posted to Usenet, not to ePlaya, and I don't post to Usenet very often, so that's going to be easy to find. A link right to the post in question is now in a clearly marked location right at the top of a forum currently located on a number of the anticensorship rings, as well as three of the four existing Burning Man rings. You aren't going to keep people from finding this information, but you are doing an excellent job of showing anybody looking in just how sleazy the politics on ePlaya really is.

Keep up the good work.

[Dustbuddy]

My only issue with you is that you posted personal info that borders on stalking.

Under no sane definition of the word "stalking" would this qualify. I am in Chicago. Rockdad is in California. Were you under the impression that I might charter a plane and fly out to see him?

The "physical danger" issue is a red herring and you know it. The real "danger" is one of this asshole getting himself sued, now that he can no longer hide behind the safe cover of anonymity, and all attempts to getting the hysteria going notwithstanding, you, I and AntiM know that's the real issue. People like you and Rockdad like to think of the Internet as being a special preserve, someplace existing outside of the real world where the normal rules, like the one against libel, don't apply. When anonymity is lost, your game is over and that thought freaks you out.

Too bad. Some of those rules were put on the books for a very good reason, and they shouldn't be effectively taken off the books just because a new communications medium has arrived. Accountability was a good idea before the Internet and it's a good idea now. All of the posturing to the contrary in the world will not change that fact. There is nothing noble about your position, and you're not going to get your way.

[Dustbuddy]

The official Burning Man rideshare board is at :http://www.burningman.com/preparation/travel_info/rideshare.html

Interesting how your disapproval of the act of establishing nonofficial forums didn't make its appearance until after you posted to one of them, and got your sorry ass banned from it.

Banned with fairly good reason at that, I might add.

[AntiM]

Keep up the good work.

Sure thing, no problem, thank you.

[ibdave]

[quote=".

The "physical danger" issue is a red herring and you know it. The real "danger" is one of this asshole getting himself sued, [/quote]



I hate to open this can of worms, But here I go. Can someone other than Dustbuddy please explain to me what Rockdad did to anyone that might be grounds for any type of lawsuit? Or just by me asking will I be served also??

[Rockdad]

The official Burning Man rideshare board is at :http://www.burningman.com/preparation/travel_info/rideshare.html

[rycaldwell]

the link to the board is sure there, but the board is still 2005... there are a couple of 2006 entries... but...the 2005 links , graphics, and posts are still there...
PLEASE FIX THIS moderators

[Traveller]

Bring us back to a few earlier points -

1. It's a different system. The ePlaya mods CAN'T fix this for you. They've repeatedly given you the address for somebody who can.

2. Even if the problem never gets fixed, which it probably would if users would complain to the right people, there would still be alternative resources, some of which get more than a few hits. Consider trying them before trying the caps lock key, OK?

3. Where did people get the idea that the LLC owed them a rideboard?



Sigh.