Since the forums were launched in 2003, they have grown to almost 5,000 participants. While that may not sound like a large number in the grand scope of the internet, the easy going nature of our participants goes a long way in my book and matters more than sheer numbers.
Throughout the discussions, strong opinions are welcome and often stated, though forum members lean more toward polite and helpful responses. My experience in reviewing forum discussions over the years is that we have a pretty high 'quality conversation to noise' ratio. As well as very low to almost non-existent snarky or rude content. And these days, very little spam makes it through!
In the five main areas -- Bicycle Travel, Route Development, U.S. Bicycle Route System, Bicycling Communities and Regional Discussion Area -- topics range from Hi, I'm a newby after advice! to Woman riding by herself and Rain Gear (yet again...) to Overcoming butt pain.
We are fortunate to have among our members some cyclists who have generously given their time and bicycle-travel expertise to help others. I want to share with you a few of the top contributors.
Staehjp1 is our most prolific contributor. He can be found in the General Discussion, Gear Talk and Routes discussions offering lots of advice and suggestions for improvements to routes or equipment or plans.
In 2002, Fred Hiltz volunteered to be part of the then-new GPS waypoint project. Along the way he became a forum moderator helping us keep the spam-bots in check and answering questions from his deep well of bicycle travel experiences. He continues to be most active in the GPS Discussion helping countless cyclists get their GPS units up and running, but you can also find him chiming in the General Discussion and Routes areas.
One of our top contributors, valygrl has a lot more to offer than her perspective as a woman cyclist. She is an experienced bicycle traveler who knows cycling in the mountains as well as, if not better than anyone else on the forum.
Bogiesan is one of our resident recumbent enthusiasts who gladly presents another point of view on the bike. His advice is most often found in the Gear Talk and General Discussion areas.
I can't finish this letter of thanks without extending a great big one to John Sieber (sieber) as well. John is our IT Manager and is a general all around good guy to boot. He has spent innumerable hours tweaking the forums software and spam detection routines over the years to keep things tip top and running smoothly. In 2008, he migrated all the older forum content to the modern forum software we are using today improving the total experience for all users.
If you haven't visited our forums before, I encourage you to give them a try. You can search and read them without an account. If you wish to participate as a member of this community, all it takes is an email account to get signed up.
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GEOPOINTS BULLETIN is written by Jennifer 'Jenn' Milyko, an Adventure Cycling cartographer, and appears weekly, highlighting curious facts, figures, and persons from Adventure Cycling's Route Network with tips and hints for personal route creation thrown in for good measure. She also wants to remind you that map corrections and comments are always welcome via the online Map Correction Form.
Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2012/10/adventure-cycling-forums-thanks.html
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