Posts Made By: Rod Kaufman

Originally Posted by Mel Maki

How many people would they lose?  Fifty percent?

Permit me to expand on why I think losing people from CN would be an improvement.  It didn't take me long to find an example. 
Here's an example from a thread with four replies to a posting in today's "General Observing and Astronomy forum entitled, "Observing from or near Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Parks." At first glance, it's a perfectly agreeable topic and quite worthy of a reasonable answer of an appropriate observing area for an amateur astronomer. So what are the responses? First: Sorry,  I don't know where you can set up a scope but it's a nice areas to hike in! Second, "Lake Kaweah just below Three Rivers...  or Maybe the Lodge Pole campground parking area in the park." Hmm, sounds like a possibility but unless you're familiar with these areas and the initial poster clearly is not, or unless there's a clear sky chart available for them (and there isn't) you have no idea what to expect so you'd be doing just as well as setting up on the far side of the moon... Third response, this time fromm the initial poster, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Er, ah, I think I'll leave my scope at home!" Fourth and final response: "Bring binoculars"! 
So, after all of that, the initial poster has no idea where to go to setup and he's leaving his scope at home so, in his words, he "has one less thing to worry about"! So why the hell even start a thread in the first place?!
Now, the initial poster could have consulted the clear sky chart or a responder could have directed him to do the same, and he would be able to check the California listing and find the chart for Big Stump and its corresponding link to the Central Valley Astronomers who do provide information on observing from the area. But no, we have another useless thread that obviously went nowhere fast...

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Permit me to expand on why I think losing people from CN would be an improvement.  It didn't take me long to find an example. 
Here's an example from a thread with four replies to a posting in today's "General Observing and Astronomy forum entitled, "Observing from or near Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Parks." At first glance, it's a perfectly agreeable topic and quite worthy of a reasonable answer of an appropriate observing area for an amateur astronomer. So what are the responses? First: Sorry,  I don't know where you can set up a scope but it's a nice areas to hike in! Second, "Lake Kaweah just below Three Rivers...  or Maybe the Lodge Pole campground parking area in the park." Hmm, sounds like a possibility but unless you're familiar with these areas and the initial poster clearly is not, or unless there's a clear sky chart available for them (and there isn't) you have no idea what to expect so you'd be doing just as well as setting up on the far side of the moon... Third response, this time fromm the initial poster, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Er, ah, I think I'll leave my scope at home!" Fourth and final response: "Bring binoculars"! 
So, after all of that, the initial poster has no idea where to go to setup and he's leaving his scope at home so, in his words, he "has one less thing to worry about"! So why the hell even start a thread in the first place?!
Now, the initial poster could have consulted the clear sky chart or a responder could have directed him to do the same, and he would be able to check the California listing and find the chart for Big Stump and its corresponding link to the Central Valley Astronomers who do provide information on observing from the area. But no, we have another useless thread that obviously went nowhere fast...

Oh, we got another winner of a response to where to observe from Kings Canyon/Sequoia national parks, this time from somebody called "beastmaster". Beastmaster has to this to say: "I think at Wuksachi Village.  There was a path behind the lodge that led to a more secluded, flat area where we watched the meteor shower.    It may have been a rear parking lot away from the lodge." So, he "thinks" it might be near Wuksachi Village, wherever the hell that is, OR it MAY have been a "rear parking lot".  Good luck finding that or observing from it.  Holy crap, talk about more useless information... 

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

Actually I am one of the admins and have been for quite sometime.....but no I dont expect that will ever happen....

Well, since we both share the same pet peeve about CN, let's explore one more. A fee for the AM but none for CN. I think it's high time CN requires its posters to belly up to the bar with some cash in their pocket. Let me give you an example, and this is a real one at that. Some years ago, I was up at Mt Pinos for an observing session when another observer, an imager to be exact, bitched about paying $15.00/year to join the AM while CN was FREE. He had TWO AP refractors, a computer, upgraded cameras and a large RV. To hear him tell it, the lousy $15.00 fee for a year of the AM was the make or break deal of the century. 
It would be great if a similar fee was imposed on CN as it would help to screen out all the cocka...

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

I'm at a big lull in my buying and selling of equipment and I pay the $15 fee here mostly to be aggravated by the rightie tighties on this lone forum. The rest of the forums are mostly dead. That said I don't think I'd pay a fee for the privilege to participate on CN. I no longer inhabit the equipment forums as the same topics are posted over and over and I got tired of typing the same things, over and over. No one seemingly knows how to search for previously discussed topics. I do look at the OT forum and post occasionally, but that's getting old, too. 

That's another ongoing problem with CN, redundant threads with the same issues because somebody is either too lazy or too incompetent to use a simple search function. The latter happens even when the same issue has already been PINNED at the top of the forum so all one has to do is read it! Perhaps Greg, as both a moderator and an administrator, can explain why a moderator doesn't step in and lock the thread before it happens because the issue has already been addressed...

Originally Posted by David Cotterell

I'm a moderator of 4 different CN Forums.  I never go to those forums to read every new thread... I don't have the time, no one would.  Instead I sit and wait for "Moderator Alerts" from the membership at large.  Thousands of pairs of eyes constantly monitoring "my" forums who will spot things worthy of moderation, from bad behaviour to tech issues etcc, far more efficiently than one or two individuals could.

Dave

So in other words, you have to be alerted by the posters at large before you act...

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

That topic has been broached with Mike several times.....he isnt interested in monetizing it. I suspect both from a bookkeeping perspective and he enjoys a significant tax write off for the operation of it.

Plenty of tightwads like you describe that whine about the $15.....pretty much every time AM comes up lol

"Plenty of tightwads like you describe that whine about the $15.....pretty much every time AM comes up lol"
I'm not one of those whining about it. I'm complaining about those who do...

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

read it again Rod......though an apostrophe or two in the right places might have helped make it clearer..... lol

Ok, the clarification helps. Too bad you don't apply the same hair splitting logic to the CN forums that you do here...

Powell's defense is basically the same as that of the Fox news propagandists who have been sued in the past...

Powell is trying to have the venue changed so the case will be heard by a Trump appointed federal judge in Texas. I'm not sure if it's the same judge that accepted the same defense for a defamation claim against Tucker Carlson but it wouldn't surprise me if it turns out to be the same one.

"Sidney Powell argues in new court filing that no reasonable people would believe her election fraud claims":
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/22/politics/sidney-powell-dominion-lawsuit-election-fraud/index.html