New forum for electric flyers

Whois shows wattflyer.com and rcuniverse.com registrants as "24-7 RC" . . why a 2nd forum? . . data mining? . . combined membership count? . . very curious!

No data mining. We could do that on RCU if we wanted too. The stuff we mine anyway on rcu is along the lines of "what is the most compared engine". So far this is really just marketing data that we have not shared with anyone.

The reason for WattFlyer.com is the same reason Dick's Sporting Goods or Staples or Home Depot exist (and more importantly thrive) alongside WalMart. While RCU is a great site (heck I helped build it) analgous to wal-mart, there is room for "category killers" likethe Home Depot's/Staples.

No electric flight ONLY site exists and is supported. I thought it would be an interesting experiment and fun to create something new like this for modelers. A no banner ad, no BS, lean and mean website for the epowered flight enthusiast.

Give it a try. There are no evil objectives. Member count doesn't matter except to the members in the community since WattFlyer has zero banner ads and will remain that way. Great for dial up users, pda users, or anyone. Have some fun and enjoy.

Also, unlike these newsgroups you can post photos of your projects, track threads and get instant notification when somebody replies or daily (and even weekly) summary digests. You can format your posts with the WYSIWYG editor and do so much more than you can in a traditional newsgroup.

We have users adding fun things like their own personal avatars (mine is one of my dogs and others followed suit), signatures, etc. You can even select different color schemes.

NG's were around well before sophisticated discussion software existed. These days there are many reasons to try them and few not to. Another nice thing is that your email can't be scraped by a bot and then spammed like a NG can.

So if you are into a banner ad free, no BS, no politics (but moderated to keep out spam and enforce PG rating) then give it a shot and enjoy. There are plenty of fellow modelers eager to learn from your knowledge and experience. Don't hold it against them because they use web based apps instead of older style NG's.

| Also, unlike these newsgroups you can post photos of your projects,

You can do that in alt.binaries.pictures.radio.control.models.

| track threads and get instant notification when somebody replies

Looks like

will do some of that for you. (Though I'm not quite sure what `track threads' means, but if it's what I think it means, yes google alerts will do it.)

| You can format your posts with the WYSIWYG editor

My editor (emacs) is WYSIWYG. What I see is what you get.

| and do so much more than you can in a traditional newsgroup.

Like what more?

Of course, you often cannot

-- read it with your own reader (and no, using a different web browser is not the same.) -- read different forums all with _exactly_ the same interface, an interface that's up to you and not them. -- easily archive posts on your hard disk -- slurp up all new posts and then read them offline at your leisure

And if you decide to close up shop, then everything on your site is ... gone. And many sites expire old articles -- their database can't keep things forever. It's not like Usenet where we can easily find the wisdom of people posted ten or twenty years ago. (Of course, this group is only ten years old, so we can't go back further than that here.)

| We have users adding fun things like their own personal avatars (mine | is one of my dogs and others followed suit)

Now that's useful!

| signatures

We can do that here! You'll see my example shortly.

| You can even select different color schemes.

Right now, I'm reading you in green on black. I could change that, but I'm pretty happy with this.

| NG's were around well before sophisticated discussion software existed.

Newsgroups are still in many ways more sophisticated than any online forum. Many of the `improvements' made by online forums are cosmetic in nature. (It's pretty disingenuous to suggest that Usenet isn't run with `sophisticated discussion software' anyways.)

Really, you forgot to mention the largest advantage of online forums like yours -- that they're moderated, and off-topic posts can be easily removed. That, more than anything else, is probably what drives people off of Usenet and onto the web forums.

(Of course, it's a double edged sword. If you were to announce your forum on a competing forum like you've done here, your posts would probably be removed. And of course unpopular opinions are often removed. But mostly it's a good thing, at least as seen by most users.)

| These days there are many reasons to try them and few not to. Another | nice thing is that your email can't be scraped by a bot and then | spammed like a NG can.

Another advantage to your forum is that people probably won't go there and post repeatedly about their new Usenet group or forum. After all, this forum has already been announced on rec.models.rc.* three times in the last week that I've noticed, and Red was hinting at it before that.

We get the idea. There's a new forum. We've all been waiting for a new forum, because we didn't like the twenty three forums that came before it ...

| Don't hold it against them because they use web based apps instead | of older style NG's.

We're already aware of the fact that there's far more people using web based modeling forums than Usenet. We're still here because we like it here. (Or at least I am.)

rec.models.rc.air related trivia: looks like the first posts I see on this group was posted August 24, 1995. So our 10th birthday is only

22 days away!

Thanks, but I've got a web site for that sort of thing.

Except use a UI that you like. I haven't tried this particular "forum" but all of the other web forums I've used had user-interfaces that completely sucked, and there's nothing the user can do about it.

The first thing I do when I do have to use a forum is to tweak adblock to get rid of avatars.

I can pick color schemes with newsgroups as well.

A decent newsread _is_ sophisticated discussion software.

My e-mail address is public information.

Ah, so somebody else gets to decide what threads I should be allowed to read. I prefer to use my own definitions of "BS" "politics" and "PG" rather than have them imposed by somebody else who wants to control the forum.

If they want to learn from me (on whatever topic) then they'll have to use the media I use.

NO electrico-only group exists?

waht the haightch-eeee--double-hockey sticks is ezone?

BTW, eZONE was subsumed into RCGroups.

Probably why RCU is trying to spin this section off.

One more section for me not to read.

It's a shame Marty, but maybe with a little more publicity and with the rapid growth of electric it will take off again. I suspect few really knew about it and we have a lot of new electric flyers coming on line.

Red S.

in

I really don't see the point of splitting r.m.r.a when it's such a low-volume newsgroup. Perhaps r.m.r.a had so much traffic back then that splitting it up made sense, but certainly not anymore.

You are probably right, I acquiesce to keeping only one news group. Marty, should rec.models.rc.electric be closed down? Send everyone here.

Red S.

On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 22:02:43 -0000, Grant Edwards wrote in :

I neither endorse nor oppose the proposal.

My only goal in setting up the yahoo group was to help people who wanted to carry the idea forward.

Usenet is not a democracy, but 120 to 150 votes in favor of the rc.air.electric proposal would probably carry the day.

Marty

On Tue, 2 Aug 2005 20:09:06 -0400, "Red Scholefield" wrote in :

I don't think it's doing any harm. Nothing on it but spam from time to time. It's not competing in any way with rc.air or other electric forums.

It's there if anyone wants to use it to campaign for a new newsgroup.

And--best of all--it doesn't cost me anything. :o)

I can't "send" people here. They come if they wish and stay away if they wish. That's one of the things I really like about Usenet. It's the new wild West--with no boundaries in sight.

Marty