I joined NewAgTalk in 2007. I thought it was 2005 but I think I was a lurker for a while. I used to post at lot at Yesterday's tractors but moved over to NAT when I bought the no-till drill.
I was wandering around NAT looking for Ed Winkle and Old Pokey and I didn't realize they have all been sniping at each other for the past year.
(Edit: I didn't mean that Ed and OP had be sniping. I meant the rest of the folks on NAT. Ed was always a pretty positive influence and I think the ill-will made his pretty frustrated. Old Pokey also did not like the bickering and that is why he cut down on his posting.)
Wow! What a bunch of whiners. When i joined NAT I got a lot of good info on No-Till planting and Great Plains drills. I used to post photos of our old stuff and get a fair amount of entertainment out of fellow bottom feeders.
Everyone seemed to enjoy calling people BTO's (big time operators) but there were only a few really obnoxious ones.
I suppose I'm getting a bit cynical, probably due to my own lack of success but I really get bored by pictures of the same big new John Deere and the same 24 row planter with Greenstar in the spring and the same fleet of John Deere combines in the fall. Different farmers but the same photos.
You can't make rude comments and people get really hostile when jokes are made about cleaning oil off the shop cat with a match. (Like someone would actually do it. )
I guess it is just the whole change in society. People are more insecure and less able to take a joke. It seems to me that most of the farmers want to farm 20,000 acres and think it is their divine right to do so as they are better farmers than anyone else. So, if they farm 50 acres they are made at the 20,000 acre farmer not because he stole all their ground but because they didn't get the chance to steal it from him.
I like the medium time operators the best. They seem to work hard and do a good job and do interesting and innovative things. And I like the bottom feeders like myself. They are always up to something.
I didn't really find a lot of good info in the last couple days. Just kind of bs about what John Deere you should buy or photos of big John Deere planters.
I guess I have not missed much.
I worry about Ed Winkle. I hope he is doing well. He was the first person to comment on my first NAT post and he always had something positive to say.
Update: I posted a reply to someone banned last night and now the thread has been removed. I think that is kind of a poor way to handle dissent. Of course I don't run the board. I do understand that the moderators are probably intimidated by my incredible sarcastic wit. I agree with Ralph there is an interesting cross section of people there but I'm not sure it is worth the effort. I was also trying to find out some baler information but the crusty guy who runs Freeman's didn't respond. He is probably banned as well.
In short, these modern farmers with their short pants, and their "just do it" philosophy annoy me. But I guess you all know that from following thelazyfarmer.
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95h hasn't been around for a while. I think someone posted that they had contacted him and that he was taking a break.
ReplyDeleteOn the dissent thing: I think sometimes the administration of the board does a rather awkward job of moderating it, but you've got to remember that those guys are real farmers like you and me. The fact that they are still doing it and haven't sold the rights to NAT to a third party is kind of amazing to me.
I've had the opportunity to meet many NATers through travels with the Ryegrass Commission. It's too bad there's no good way to express tone of voice, inflection, or facial expressions through a keyboard. One of the guys I really wanted to meet, I actually didn't have a very good conversation with. I think we communicate better with the written word. Another that I always thought of as a jerk stopped by the booth and we had a very nice half hour visit. Now I get his sense of humor through his posts and see him in a different light.
But you are still mostly right!
I thought everyone knew that you use gasoline to get oil off of cats. That or brake cleaner.
ReplyDeleteBobby: Gasoline is too dangerous. The cat is apt to run under your house or head for the barn. A steam cleaner works much better.
ReplyDeleteA well oiled cat is actually kind of handy around the shop. Since they are fond of landing on their feet, don't have to worry about dropping it on the dirt floor.
ReplyDeletenice thing about having a cat in the shop is there is always a portable grease rag handy :)
ReplyDeleteI think a dog makes a much better grease rag than a cat. There is more surface area and the dog appreciates the attention.
ReplyDeleteCats do make excellent target practice I am told. I know of one hypothetical situation which could have happened some years ago. It involved a .22-250 and an impossibly long range shot at a kitty cat setting the in the middle of the farm road. The kitty vanished and it could have been assumed the it was a miss.
The kids who found the said cat were completely amazed that eyeballs could actually pop out of a skull. Just like a cartoon.
That was not such a good thing...
You know I couldn't say that on NAT...
Orin, after some consideration I think the problem with NAT is the people who run the site. ACFarmer posted last night trying to explain why he was banned and the post was deleted. The people who run the site just delete threads, instead of freezing them with a note saying why this is not acceptable behavior. People really resent it when it appears that you are censoring. I think that enforcing the rules is different than censoring. I also suspect that the moderators and owners are mostly the people who wear their underwear too tight.
I used to frequent the MacAddict forums which was a bunch of adolescent computer geeks. The moderators would just freeze the thread when it got to wild. It keep the kids in line and you could still read it and see where it went off track.
I wish the interesting and helpful NewAgTalk people would all find a new forum. I'd follow.
It used to be when you had any sort of strange question you could ask it and people would jump on with info. Some of it was wrong but most of it was interesting.
I still like NAT in spite of the sometimes stupid petty little arguments that flare up there. I have found some good people on there. It sometimes seems the good ones are too quiet. There are a few that I can't stand but I refrain from commenting and adding fuel to the fire. Sorry to admit that I don't have much snse of humour when it comes to cruelty to animals, even cats. I've spoken up about it on other forums before. Budde, after reading the Freeman baler thread I realize that I have already replied to you way back a few years ago on some subject involving old farm machinery. The BTOs (and the STOs) are all getting pretty frustrated here as the first of May approaches and not a field dry enough to put a tractor into yet.
ReplyDeleteRalph, I respect your stance on animal cruelty. (Despite the story of the .22-250 and the ill-starred kitty, we were infested by feral cats at that point in time.)
ReplyDeleteBut, the match comment was just a stupid joke comment and I could not understand the shrill direction the conversation took. I have to admit "a match" was absolutely the first thing that popped into my head when I read it, (aside from several off color comments.) Even though I would never set a cat on fire.
Anyway...
Of course we would have run into each other with discussions of old farm equipment.
I suppose I should go back.
I just can't resist making sarcastic comments.
I think I will become a trouble causer. It is not like I'm going to have one of the mods over for dinner. I am never going to a NAT reunion.
I wonder how hard it would be to get banned. I've got a lot of repressed aggression!
NAT was invented when agriculture.com wouldn't take the banner ads off which was killing us speed wise when we were on dial up. It is the easiest to use farmer forum today and by far the most popular. A lot of good information has been exchanged but as usual mankind takes it overboard and it becomes a chat room. Winter time is worse when farmers are bored. Spring and fall is best when we have serious questions we need answered. It is what it is but it is still the number one farm forum in the world.
ReplyDeleteI liked the early adopters much better.
DeleteI think between this post 2011 and now 2015 more interesting people have joined. I just don't comment much anymore. I also like the Yesteday's tractors Forum.