i have two "invisible posts"

http://stokereport.com/content/i-created-reportrant-where-did-it-go

which is too bad really, the responses were very well thought out.

@Mark cutback Johnson: too bad your comment got taken down with the rant, it was very thought provoking. here it is for anyone that missed it: http://stokereport.com/rant/peace-and-love#comments

@tracey: agreed, and two more upvotes will vote it back out of the trash :) ... isn't democracy a wonderful thing :)

I can't believe I read all that. It's only a big deal if you make it one.

maybe repost the response as a new rant? Really great response, good stuff to think about.

It's an absolute shame that rant by Mahu got voted down, but the fact that it got so many negative votes only proves his point.

There's a reason IT people work in IT...

Disagreement with an idea neither proves nor disproves that idea's validity. All it proves is that there are options on the subject.

As much as I don't want to see that bloated corpse of a topic get rehashed, I thought Mahu's rant was well thought out, the responses were well thought out, and neither deserved to be voted down. I voted both postings of his thread back up. I'm guessing it stayed down because people are tired of the endless circle jerk the reports/don't report argument becomes.

Stoke report pisses me off. Objections to detailed reports get shot down with an argument that really offends me: “Crowds are here, deal with it, we’re going to keep reporting”. What offends me is the power this site holds over those surfers in the community who have objections to it. The administrators and people who participate may “hear” objections, but ultimately shit on the people that make them by continuing to make detailed reports.

That bugs me the most- the arrogance of that “we’ll do it anyway” stance, and the power of the internet. That, and the intolerance expressed by the voting. Surfing used to be a non-team, non-conformist subcultural activity, with a lot of eccentrics. Here, you shear away opinions and attitudes that don’t conform to your collective vision of “stoked” people by voting their expressions out of existence.

California uber alles.

this was an awesome report: http://stokereport.com/rant/long-pointless-surf-report

To piggyback on @Mark cutback Johnson's well thought out post, anyone that is mad at the internet for resulting in overcrowded surf breaks must surely hate all the following things as well, because they all encouraged countless people to pick up surfing and to get in the ocean to steal your waves and to ruin your personal good time out there:

The Beach Boys
The always kick ass movie Point Break (RIP Swayze)
Jack Johnson
Hot girls in bikinis
The Endless Summer
Laird Hamilton
The sun and the ocean
Surfer Magazine
Billabong, Quicksilver, O'Neil, et al

And the list goes on and on...

The fact is, the world changes and the internet is here to stay, and surf reports are here to stay. No amount of message board ranting is going to put the toothpaste back in the tube, (mmmmmmmm, tube....), and anyone that gets pissed off about them is doing nothing but driving themselves crazy and banging their heads against the wall.

I upvoted that post, even though I disagree with it, so it doesn't disappear.

Frankly, I'm not so keen on the up-or-down voting. The only thing that deserves an up-or-down vote is the Public Option, and it won't get one. Meanwhile, we're busy passively-aggressively enforcing the Internet opinion-sphere with a couple of well-placed mouse clicks. Feels good but it doesn't last.

The rhetoric has gotten out of hand though. Is the beach now Pandora, and this army of iPhone-wielding-kooks-with-graduate-degrees the vanguard of RDA, here to mine the remaining stoke from the waves before the home tree (Riptide?) succumbs? Is pulling on a wetsuit like binding to an avatar?*

Seriously, people, just go out and fucking surf. Christ. Piss.

*Note that the comment author refuses to see "Avatar", since he can't imagine that watching a 2-hour version of Second Life is any less boring than trying to play the actual game.

@tehdely: IMO, one should avoid referencing or reviewing a movie unless they have actually seen it. That includes you. :)

I wasted my time reading a review of Avatar from a blogger who was of the opinion that it was anti-Jesus/religion. At the end of the review, he mentioned that he hadn't actually seen it and would refuse to until it came out on DVD.

I wonder why my two-sentence post is hovering about negative 5 million right now. Is it because I agreed with what Mahu had to say, or because of the IT comment? If it's the IT comment, then it's probably because you've heard that before. There's a reason that people locked into the world of IT have a reputation of being socially inept to everyone except other ITers. And then same is true of this site. You act like the rest of surf world operates like it does to the people on this site. And if you don't like what the Marketing or Sales guys have to say, you can just shut them out and bury yourself in your lines of code (proverbially speaking, of course).

This shutting down of any criticisms, no matter how well thought out they may be, is just so unrealistic and fake. I've tried to make my criticisms on this site in the hopes of educating some people so that we can all get along better in the line-ups. I WISH everyone could hold hands and take a number when it comes to waves and have it all operate like a well-oiled machine. But the honest fact is it JUST DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY, and you need to be conscious of what it takes to integrated yourself into a local lineup. But I’m finding out that either people just don’t get it, or they are in total denial of the fact that what they’re doing is pissing people off.

You want to know why I “lurk” on this site? It’s to see if my comments make any difference, but it’s clear they don’t. I’ve tried to make suggestions as to how you can still share the stoke of surfing, while also being more aware of how your actions are affecting the local lineups. But most people are just buried in the code. So, if you keep seeing pissed off faces and confrontations in the water, don’t blame me – I tried.

What kind of work do you do Pete?

Pete, I'm going to take a guess that the core of your comment: a generalization intended as an insult, is the reason it was voted down- not because it was part of a dissenting opinion.

I'm a nuclear physicist, King. What do you, do?

Tracey, I have to respectfully disagree. I can't possibly imagine getting a negative rating in the double digits simply because I agree with a post that's not entirely 100% rosy and positive about this site (Manu's post). So, I think it's a safe assumption that it was the IT comment, which was one sentence and cryptic at best. And if it wasn't true, then there wouldn't be that many people that actually would understand the comment and vote it negative. Which sort of proves my point in the first place.

So, putting it in a realm that a large percentage of the readers can probably understand: do you guys sitting in front of miles of lines of code for 14 hours straight appreciate it when some dork from Marketing comes in and tries to tell you how you should do your job? You know, he's got all this enthusiasm because he just spoke to some high profile client, so he comes down to your department and tries to tell you how you could your job better like he doesn’t have the foggiest idea about the technical aspect of things, and even though you've got a degree and 10 years experience in your respective industry? THAT is what it's like when it comes to a large majority of stokereporters trying to find a place in the lineups in SF.

Let me give you another example: I was out at FP the other day, trying to line up one of the rare barrels that pops up now and again, and some SUP guy is paddling feverishly down the line. He ends up getting the wave, probably 20 feet away from me, but the trail where he initially paddled crumbles the lip and caves in the mini barrel I was hoping to make it out of. So, he paddles by me after the wave, and I ask him, "Dude, why did you drop in on me? You just got a wave 2 minutes ago and I've been waiting for that little nugget for 15 minutes." He said, "Man, I'm so far out on the shoulder, you couldn't possibly hit me."

Does anyone see the problem with that situation? There are several, actually. For one, YES, I could hit him, if I fell off my board it shot out or if my leash broke. Secondly, he was completely unaware that he caved in a nice little barrel for me. Thirdly, and most important, he is asking me to play by HIS rules. Now, I'm all for new forms of wave riding. Fish, boogieboards, kneeboards, longboards, SUPs, garbage can lids, closet doors - whatever. But that spot was a SURF SPOT first. He's coming in with a new form of doing things and asking the vast majority of other wave riders out there to accept and follow HIS rules.

And that's a similar sentiment that I often see on this site. It doesn't matter if the local surf culture is right or wrong, fair or unfair; it was there FIRST. To think that you can just completely come in “do it your way” so to speak is oblivious at least, and disrespectful and potentially dangerous at worse. There’s a place for that SUP guy in every line up, and there’s a place for every stokereporter in every line up. But EVERYONE will be much better off if you enlighten yourself to the true nature of each lineup and its surfers, rather than sheltering yourself from any criticism or anything that could possibly be construed as negative.

I work at improving my surfing. Been trying since 1978. One of these days I'll figure it out.

And did that SUPer learn it was okay to drop in on stokereport? You're mixing your rages here and rapidly losing your point. I'm surprised with the keen social skills your noble profession afforded you that you don't see it.

I suppose I should assume that if I were to generalize that all aggro localist were child rapists (stereotyping the desire to hurt and humiliate those learning) and aggro localist took offense to that, then obviously they are indeed child rapists. Only child rapists would be able to empathize with the generalization enough to find it abhorrent. If they stop raping children long enough to understand that they are hurting others, then surfing will of course be returned to it's ancient Hawaiian glory.

Tracey, ok, since you're easily confused, let me spell it out for you:

a.) An SUP surfer shows up at a SURF spot, and expects the SURFERS, who occupy the vast majority of the population in the lineup, and have done so for DECADES, to adapt and abide by HIS rules. In case you were unclear with my stance, I personally disagree with that.

b.) Since it was far too confusing for you, I was drawing an analogy that this was similar to the perspective many stokereporters have when it comes to surfing in the Bay Area. The local surfers and their local surf culture was here FIRST, but the theme that is often conveyed on this site is that stokereport is the HERE and NOW, and everyone else must adapt to THEM.

Stay with me here: my point is that it might be a smart move if stokereporters were more aware of this fact and did their best to ADAPT to the local surf culture rather than force their new ideals on it. True, I know there is this new fangled thing called The Interwebs, and lots of people use it, and it’s a great way of communicating with other like-minded individuals. But keep in mind that this internet thing is open to everyone, and sometimes people might disagree with you.

I had some guy on this site basically poo-pooing everything I said about the local surf culture here, and it was just revealed that he’s been surfing for less than 2 years. I’ve been surfing here for over 20. I’m going to draw another analogy here, so be ready: do you remember when you were like 13 or 14 years old and you were just CONVINCED that your parents were idiots and they couldn’t possibly be smarter than you or know more than you? Well, you were wrong. So was I.

Rather than just poo-pooing any advice or criticism just because you don’t like it, maybe you should LISTEN to it and try to learn from it. When the topic of Niceness came up the other day, there were plenty of people who came out of the woodwork who said they read the site but didn’t pay much attention to it because it’s not “real”. Stokereporters were writing about how much they loved and admired the site, and then many of Niceness regulars came on this site came on to say, “you’re just not getting it”.

So, anyway, I’m suggesting that you listen to all voices on this site, instead of just the ones that pat you on the back and make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Well, you can do that, but just be aware that it’s not representative of the entire surf culture.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go rape my dog. Thanks.

Groundhog day.

Now that Pete is good and irritated, and in the interest of full disclosure, I'd like to take the opportunity to express my unpopular opinion. The reason I find this argument so tiresome is anti-informationists claim the are victims of reports and the "fuck you I'll say what I want" crew claims to me victims of the opposining opinion. It gets rehashed every time the surf sucks. Sometimes posts are articulate and heartfult, sometimes they are worthless insults. Either way it's a boring cycle of posts, each time the initiator acting like it's never been brought up before or that they are the bigger victim.

We have a whole beautiful ocean to surf in, go enjoy it and stop trying to look for injustices that prove your point. Yes, I mean you buoy burners AND you "I'll do what I want" reporters. Go appreciate the gift we have as people by the sea.

There are plenty of positive people posting after the fact reports on high profile spots with the intent of helping others be wiser, more considerate surfers. I will continue to post my after the fact Lindy reports and other than voting Mahus thread up, I will continue to not cast my votes on this topic.

What's funny is that the surf has been EPIC all winter, and last week especially! I had three awesome mornings at SFFP, and two at SMRW. WTF????

A common argument I'm seeing here, repeated by @pete above, is that newcomers should respect and accept the rules of the existing culture. I don't think at face value this has much merit. If an existing culture has flaws and problems, which can be rationally identified and potentially changed, there is no reason to accept it and treat it as the "right" way rather than trying to change things. Saying, "this is the way things are, thus this is the way things should be" is moral relativism and can essentially be used to justify _any_ behavior.These are the sorts of arguments that used to support slavery and sexism. They're a load of crap. Moral issues need to be looked at in a rational way within a larger moral framework or context.

...

I bet communities that have a wave pool don't have these kind of issues.

Brilliant, crypto! If there's a part of the discussion to monetize, this is it.

nice! a little sweetener to help the nasty medicine go down :)

John should just post a real-time report from FP every time he needs some hookers and/or blow ;)

Fitness Singles here we come!!!

Area Kook gets Pitted in 30 minutes following One Old Rule (Obey!)

Pain-free Quiver Consolidation!

THE TRUTH ABOUT SUP BERRY

finally the business plan comes together. i knew it would.

I'm with Pete that using reports to be antagonistic is just lame and you should be respectful to the people in the water that don't feel the same about reporting. I'm pretty sure that a majority of surfers we encounter in the water aren't interested in posting their sessions or going public with their surf spots so jamming it down their throats is probably a bad strategy.

Also, its not so black and white. Just because someone thinks posting a surf report is disrespectful doesn't make them confrontational or someone who indulges in localism. I know plenty of guys that would think that posting surf spot info is completely ludicrous but are still super generous in the lineup. Being anti-report doesn't define someone.

As someone who is relatively new to surfing, works in the digital world and surfs with a lot of crusty locals, I think its a missed opportunity for those new to surfing if they aren't trying to find the balance between technology and the old ways of building experience, knowledge and ultimately respect.

I think reports should be used for fun, profit, dadaism, revolution, and the advancement of Scientology.

Not antagonism, though.