Excellent idea Walter, I like it, and I think it would be a great reference.

On the practical side, I'll have to think about how to make it actually work, and we need some suggestions on getting people to post their photos! And that is THE HARDEST part. Ideas?

__________________
Grant Johnson

Seek, and ye shall find.
------------------------

Inspiring, Informing and Connecting travellers since 1997!
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

Further discussion on this idea has been moved to:

/hubb/website-feedback/country-reference-photos-whats-like-48153

You ideas and input are much appreciated! Let's ALL make it happen!

thanks!

__________________
Grant Johnson

Seek, and ye shall find.
------------------------

Inspiring, Informing and Connecting travellers since 1997!
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

I wonder if it possible to upload the photos into a bin...and each photo uploaded has to have keywords input by the uploader.
These keywords/tags would allow photos to be categorized by a search function query...

That way...you don't have to set up separate sections for each region/country...let the search function do the categorization on the spot...based on how specific the user is on his search criteria...

It would be nice to allow other HUBB members to add additional keywords/tags to somebody else's photo to make it more usable...

__________________
edde
93 BMW K75s
www.motoedde.com

Interesting and long lived thread.....

ADV v HU? false question for starters; they're two different things which dont compete. Chalk and cheese.

ADV is to high school as HU is to University - thats one difference.

People say how they prefer the amount of pics on ADV - well thats like saying you prefer cartoons to text. Anyone can take an adequate photo - but it tells me nothing of what the rider thought and what happened to him/her. If you offer more text than photos, then I begin to know something about your experience. A few pics are nice to illustrate text, but not the other way round. If you want a classic example of the ideal text/photo combination, look at Margus's blog, (Tsiklonaut).

Where ADV wins hands down is in humour, and HU falls flat here. It could be argued that its purpose isn't humour but info and that is surely true. However, the humour on ADV is a big attraction. Having said that, I've only lurked and never joined so that says something too? There are too many US militaristic right wing nuts and gun lovers to join a site like that. The UK section is parochial.

I think there has been a change in HU which began about 18-20 months ago. On the HUBB people often ask for info which was freely given, as always, but often the OP never bothers to respond. I think this is increasingly common, and I regret that. This is a sad change from HU's early days. I know that some HU people dont offer help now, because their input isnt even acknowledged. This becomes a silent corrosion which isnt healthy.

A fair number of people no longer contribute here, like Mollydog, Albert Crutcher, and a number of others; these people added colour, zest and life to the HUBB. There are many other old hands like Dodger who are still around but post much less now. I miss them all, tho' this may be the way of all organisations from their early days. Nevertheless I feel it's a loss.

I think, from what people say, that moderation has changed too, with innocuous posts being suppressed. I dont speak of myself, but what others say. At least one Mod gives his opinion on whether a (relevant) post is interesting or not, which is unwelcome. I'm not talking about rude/abusive posts.

In the end the future wellbeing of HU is the most important thing, and all else takes second place - no doubt about that. But websites like HU are a curious mix of popular input/opinion, and the requirements of the owners of the site. A symbiotic relationship, in the long term.Each one needs the other. But I'm not aware of all the factors which affect decision making about the direction and character of a site so this is just my 2p worth, and of no importance. HU (I hope) will be here long after we are all gone, and will become an important historical archive as well as continuing to aid travellers. I dont think I could say that about ADV.

As a former ADVrider.com post whore, I agree with your contrast of the two sites. The passion is the same - where the culture is different.

I'm no longer a member of the aforementioned site; for a variety of reason, one of which includes being banned!


If I may offer a perspective about the coming and going of worthy members - the level of enthusiasm can come in waves. There's an ebb and flow.

I was once keen to share my newly found adventures with everyone - to the point where I organized a handful of events in one season. Sadly, a while later there came a moment when I started to feel as if I lost touch of the whole adventure. A point of retraction ensued.... maybe I'm still there?!

As kids pound away on their joysticks playing the sickest games on the market, skateboards collect dust.

As we men type our fanciful stories and attach JPEG's, our bikes collect dust.

Maybe HU and ADV are a fad... spurred on by the baby boomer who shelled out a small fortune for blue and white pajamas, gold bricks of Garmin and shiny toys?!?!?

I know this much. The solitude of my helmet doesn't include the click-clack of a keyboard.


There's no replacement for the real thing. Maybe that's where the good old boys have gone??? ......RIDDING!!!!!






P.S. I recently sold my bike... on the hunt for a replacement. In the meantime... HU and ADV are my cabin. The fireplace my HU and the TV my ADV.

Hubb is where i come if I want info, adv is where I go if I want to see great stories, colebatch the new guy tisklanaut an amazing way to kill a few hours and see great pics of out of the way places along with info on how they were treated by locals. I would however like to know how tisklanaut is getting such great pics of the locals without paying them!

In book terms HUBB= ADventure motorcycling handbook
ADV= lois on the loose

I agree with Cammi ,it's regretable that OPs can't be bothered to thank the guys who try to help and it's one of the reasons that I post less now.
Also the same old questions keep coming up and I don't want to bore the arse off everyone giving the same old answer .
Moderators here are usually very low key and excellent [apart from the Land Rover hater -LOL],Advrider mods on the other hand ,seem to be ego maniacs and bloody childish ,I get sick of it and now just read a couple of forums .There are a few good ride reports but the majority are full of pictures of food ,which quite frankly doesn't interest me and is a waste of bandwidth .Searching out the good reports is very time consuming.

People come and go in any forum , change is good and inevitable .
Albert hasn't posted in a while ,which is a shame -and Mollydog ?
Look again Cammi !

__________________
Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light. - Spike Milligan
"When you come to a fork in the road ,take it ! When you come to a spoon in the road ,take that also ."

Yes, he has been back for a while.

In the old days, the HUBB was a bunch of guys who did a lot of riding exchanging info freely with each other.

Now, with the explosion of people interested in this adventure motorcycling thing, there are far more people with questions than there are people with answers.

Out of the thousand of users, most are new, are lurkers or are the question askers. There are a maximum 100 - 150 experienced people who provide the answers. Often the same question has to be answered 10 - 20 times. In some ways it has no longer become a forum where knowledgeable people "exchange" information, but a free "help desk" staffed by those 100 - 150 "contributors".

I too get frustrated when information is requested, then provided, and neither thanks is received, nor any follow up is given. If someone asks about a route, or a bike, or a how to I do this? ... it would be nice to hear back later how it went. How was the bike? How was the suggested route? etc.

__________________
Sibirsky Extreme 2009 BOOK and DVD available HERE
Moroccan Extreme DVD available HERE

Maybe I've tuned out a lot of it, but I only recall one "I saw Charlie Boreman and want......" thread recently. I hope our reaction here remains the same, either try to be helpful or keep quiet. The Advrider/Chaingang style "read the FAQ's and get me a noob" still doesn't do it for me.

I think one of the reasons you don't hear back is that the recent explosion in interest fails to take into account that most of us work for a living. You'll get plenty of questions about buying a Tenere and riding to Mongolia but most riders buy the Tenere and have a fortnight in France. This is maybe where the ADVrider "what I did on my holidays" thing keeps a bit of interest going. You can spend a week riding motorways to get to somewhere with some fantastic scenery and then take enough photo's for your report.

What I find on ADVrider now is that the different areas are like different websites. The Hacks section is great, similar style to here. The Roadwarriors bit is just a combined HOG/TOOA/GWOG site where they talk about what new bits of chromed plastic they bought and debate which brand of oil they should buy if they dare to do it themselves. They annoy me as they believe every word in every brochure ever published by a bike OEM and continuously repeat "Thou shalt only use a 1989 BMW R80GS if you go more than three miles from home", so I mostly stay away. (Some of the Bonneville sites I just won't go near as anyone who dares challenge the hours ride-coffee-hours ride- clean- put a way for a week mentality just gets flamed and god help you if you tell some weekend warrior with a flat tyre to pull himself together and fix it without wetting himself over what brand of air to use). Europe is somewhere between the two. At least here, the recently changed bits gives you chance to scan the whole lot any only get involved where you might have something to add. I mean, I've added bits to 4x4 threads just because possibly useful bits of info have popped into my head.

I guess both writers and readers get bored with some of the one trick pony "stars" on any site. I forget the guys name, but who was the HPN guru? You knew what was in the post as soon as you read it. I do this myself but I hope I try to keep it short.

Andy

I agree.
Another consequence is that some people with minimal travel-experience pretends to know everything.

I think that if people followed up their own questions it would increase the quality of information. Maybe it would have reduced the number of reposts.

If you have a technical problem and search the forum for an answer it's nice to find a post with a conclusion on the end, like this:

A- My RXY600 is hard to start when it's warm
B- Check if your choke wire is sticking
C- Have you checked your valve clearance?
D - Renew your plugs
A- Thanks, it was the valve clearance.

The last years the Hubb has moved in this direction:

A- My RXY600 is hard to start when it's warm
B- Why did you buy it, KJY400 is a much better bike
C- No, the KJU350 is the way to go
B- I read somewhere on the internet that a KJU350 broke down in India

Colebatch nails it. This is the real danger: that forums like this one will become overwhelmed by those who don't lurk or search, but instead merely fire the same old questions at a dwindling pool of responders. I don't know what the answer is--my own ways of suggesting that people do a bit of homework before asking questions which are answered every few weeks have been deemed unwelcoming, abrasive or (on occasion) sociopathic. But I get tired of reading the same silly questions, and I get *really* tired of putting genuine effort into providing answers for people who do not even bother to check back and say thanks, or offer their own perspectives in return to enrich the community mix.

The other end of the continuum, in which a forum is run as an exclusive club for the benefit of a few highly-experienced experts, doesn't much appeal either. What I'm after is a loose association of enthusiasts, eager to share what they (we) know, imagine or believe. The Hubb comes as close to this ideal as anyplace I know on the web, but some of the trends are not encouraging.

Mark

(finally in possession of a Brazil visa, leaving B.A. in a day or two)

I find ADVRider to be very useful for semi technical things: I bought a DR650 a year back and wanted info on bigger gas tank, skid plate, sprockets,etc. All mundane things that people get asked about all the time. The DR650 thread is over 2000 pages long and the search function is not overly helpful, so the guys over there have just adopted the attitude that its generally ok for people to ask the same things again. It doesn't seem to be too much trouble and it doesn't seem to take too long for someone to answer. I got most of my info by reading all 2,000 pages, but most people don't have the time to do that. (newly retired!)

I've been a rider/tourer for a lot of years but never abroad. I'll be heading for the 'stans in about a month and I've definitely appreciated HUBB for Travel info. For me, the stuff on Visas, border crossings, medical concerns, etc. is where this site shines. Also very good for setting up bikes for long term travel. But stuff like this changes all the time and even after searching, people are going to want to know what tires you are using, what shots you got, whether you can camp there, and how many people have actually broken their legs on metal boxes.

I generally prefer the attitude on HUBB. ADV has a fair number of people who just seem to want to raise some hell; here there seem to more people who are looking to be helpful.

This is a good site and I appreciate all the help I've gotten by lurking here.

See you on the road somewhere............................shu

I agree at 100%.

__________________
Nick and his 2010 Yamaha XT1200Z Super Ténéré

Thanks D and Ali- I must be having a senior moment to miss M/Dog! Glad he's back....