Kite Strings

Howdy Lin,

Thanks much for registering and welcome aboard.

I've reluctantly had to triage your situation to the back burner to deal with the rapidly unfolding collapse of the 33 year long hang glider weak link Ponzi scheme but I'll pick up where I left off as soon as possible - assuming I don't either die or exhaustion or go stark raving mad first.

Anyway...

The sport REALLY needs people like you - but don't expect to win any popularity contests if you decide you wanna do something to help fix it.

Also, Regardless, In the meantime...

Zack C - 2010/12/13 04:58:15 UTC

I had a very different mindset too back then and trusted the people that made my equipment. Since then I've realized (largely due to this discussion) that while I can certainly consider the advice of others, I can't trust anyone in this sport but myself (and maybe the people at Wills Wing).

Trust NO ONE in this sport but yourself. And only trust yourself after you've exhausted all other options. You've walked into a minefield of a flavor of aviation that's spent the better part of four decades honing its skills and maximizing its efficiency in dodging accountability, attacking and destroying competence, quality, character, decency whenever and wherever they rear their ugly heads, and shifting as much blame on its victims as it can get away with.

I monitor and record our hit numbers to get a feel for how much we're getting read and the trend has been a moderate steady climb over the 32 plus month course of our existence. But at some point yesterday the numbers started going absolutely berserk - and what's happening now can no freakin' way be considered to be legitimate.

Example...

The "fiends" thread between its initiation at 2011/02/07 21:27:48 UTC and 2013/07/31 12:19:41 UTC pulled in 13600 hits - an average of 15.04 hits per day (17.26 hits per post).

But between 2013/07/31 12:19:41 UTC and 2013/08/02 13:31:29 UTC (2.0083 days) the topic picked up an additional 657 hits - an average of 327.14 hits per day and 21.75 times what we were seeing at the end of last month.

I've seen spikes before which were very obviously not the result of people interested in hang gliding but nothing ever like this.

Anybody got any ideas about what's going on? Did we suddenly start including hits by spiders?

Kinda upsetting 'cause it was nice to be able to get a feel for how many people were at least listening.

And speaking of spiders...

You'll notice that on the "Board index" page we've got a report that:

Most users ever online was 20 on 2012/12/01 22:26:37 UTC

I was monitoring at that time and nineteen of those users was one spider simultaneously using nineteen different IPs. The remainder was (obviously) Yours Truly. I doubt we've ever had much more than half a dozen users active inside of the five minute window.

Note...

At about 2013/07/27 12:57:54 UTC about four days before things started going haywire this "Welcome" thread tied Davis's bullshit "Welcome to, and policies of, the Oz Report discussion group" sticky for his walled up inbred withering little sycophant cult at 7115 hits and started walking by it.

And I predict the trends will continue. Do some searches for some of hang gliding's problem areas ("aerotow release" "Zack Marzec" "unhooked launch"). Use "start page":

http://www.startpage.com/

instead of Google 'cause the latter to a great extent tells you what you wanna hear. Kite Strings is a substantial force on the scene - despite / because of its limits of and on participation.

P.S. Lin,

The sport REALLY needs people like you...

No it doesn't. It's up to its armpits in people like you. Enjoy your instruction at Mission and your conversations with all your buddies on the Jack and Davis Shows.

(Remind me to never again allow myself optimism just 'cause somebody reads some comments on his situation and registers over here.)

On the off chance that anyone wants to get a fair idea of what kind of hit counts Kite Strings was getting just before things went nuts...

Yesterday I lit up a desktop computer I use mostly for backup and found a copy of what the "General" page:

http://www.kitestrings.org/forum2.html

was showing sometime between Posts:

4856 - 2013/08/01 10:34:37 UTC
and
4857 - 2013/07/31 04:28:14 UTC

The following table was taken from that page and lists the:

- time stamp - UTC
- number of posts (not replies)
- view count
- title

2012/12/15 20:22:22 - 0002 - 00175 - Dvorak
2012/12/16 00:39:04 - 0003 - 00212 - counterintuitivity
2012/12/19 14:35:53 - 0010 - 00359 - Davis Straub is a bloody Joke
2013/01/03 00:14:46 - 0010 - 00189 - Construction - Tad's primary release
2013/01/05 16:55:52 - 0031 - 00881 - wires
2013/01/27 14:00:59 - 0031 - 00662 - Broken arm Saturday for discussion
2013/04/17 13:13:30 - 0054 - 01500 - LMFP Release Dysfunction
2013/05/02 00:23:25 - 0005 - 00155 - HG's "kite" strings' history notes
2013/05/23 23:29:02 - 0202 - 00430 - The Bob Show
2013/06/07 04:08:19 - 0042 - 03021 - Towing Aloft
2013/06/09 22:52:43 - 0014 - 00210 - How to crash a Hang Glider
2013/06/16 15:24:28 - 0007 - 00052 - As she was expecting...
2013/07/06 01:12:10 - 0051 - 07152 - Welcome / About This Forum
2013/07/14 21:35:51 - 0593 - 11970 - Releases
2013/07/16 15:06:58 - 0613 - 07602 - landing
2013/07/18 03:35:50 - 0032 - 00819 - suspension
2013/07/18 04:48:56 - 0008 - 00089 - bridles
2013/07/19 12:14:14 - 0052 - 01004 - birds
2013/07/20 17:09:13 - 0527 - 08823 - You are NEVER hooked in.
2013/07/25 18:30:19 - 0174 - 02409 - Quotes
2013/07/26 21:57:54 - 0103 - 02406 - Video
2013/07/28 15:40:27 - 0788 - 13600 - instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
2013/07/28 17:29:05 - 0019 - 00212 - 4strings release
2013/07/29 15:18:19 - 0026 - 00408 - launching
2013/07/30 08:01:01 - 0070 - 01486 - Surface towing for teaching
2013/07/31 04:28:14 - 0997 - 13061 - Weak links

So, for example...

instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
- 00788 - posts
- 13600 - views
- 17.26 - hits per post

Weak links
00997 - posts
13061 - views
13.10 - hits per post

For comparison...

On The Davis Show right now, locked down on Page 15:

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec
00196 - posts
09811 - views
50.06 - hits per post

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks
00174 - posts
04003 - views
23.01 - hits per post

On The Jack Show right now, on Page 25:

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=28290
Report about fatal accident at Quest Air Hang Gliding
00128 - posts
11182 - views
87.36 - hits per post

On The Bob Show right now...

Who gives a rat's ass? There's so seldom anything of the least interest being discussed over there.

When looking at these numbers bear in mind that:
- Those Jack and Davis Show threads were being largely fueled by Kite Strings people.
- Kite Strings averages include a lot of early low hits per post numbers and some of the later hits per post were well into triple digits.

Based upon my tracking I would predict that as long as the posting here goes as it has the REAL hits per new post will continue to increase at a slow rate and the averages on the hits per topic will (obviously) creep up accordingly - but it doesn't now look like we'll ever again know for sure.

Current stats (as of / including this post) on everyone who's posted on Kite Strings:

- number of posts
- percentage of total posts
- poster

3507 - 72.77 - Tad Eareckson
0440 - 09.13 - Steve Davy
0274 - 05.69 - Zack C
0234 - 04.86 - miguel
0170 - 03.53 - Antoine Saraf
0069 - 01.43 - Bob Kuczewski
0043 - 00.89 - Mike Lake
0032 - 00.66 - Warren Narron
0025 - 00.52 - groundeffect
0017 - 00.35 - Larry West
0006 - 00.12 - Allen Sparks
0001 - 00.02 - Orion Price
0001 - 00.02 - Christopher
4819 - total

At some point today (2013/08/06 EDT (afternoon, evening probably)) our hit count rate went back down to something normal, believable, realistic. I'm very much hoping it stays that way.

Below is a table of existing topics in order of creation showing status within several seconds of:

2013/08/06 23:30:59 UTC

- topic number
- time stamps - UTC
-- creation
-- last post
- number of posts (not replies)
- view count
- title

02 - 2010/11/23 05:23:34 - 2013/08/05 20:37:19 - 0053 - 10522 - Welcome / About This Forum
04 - 2010/11/28 18:58:18 - 2011/04/01 02:50:58 - 0012 - 00396 - test
05 - 2010/12/01 21:27:01 - 2013/07/18 03:35:50 - 0032 - 03352 - suspension
06 - 2010/12/09 04:21:04 - 2013/08/05 14:06:34 - 1004 - 17631 - Weak links
07 - 2010/12/09 04:41:24 - 2013/08/06 01:26:16 - 0598 - 16359 - Releases
08 - 2010/12/09 04:51:26 - 2012/07/30 02:14:07 - 0011 - 00742 - Cutting the line
09 - 2011/01/05 21:36:42 - 2013/08/06 23:08:51 - 0529 - 13226 - You are NEVER hooked in.
10 - 2011/01/05 21:37:10 - 2013/07/16 15:06:58 - 0613 - 12351 - landing
13 - 2011/02/04 19:30:30 - 2011/02/04 19:30:30 - 0001 - 00226 - brain drain
14 - 2011/02/07 21:27:48 - 2013/08/06 13:00:55 - 0795 - 18140 - instructors and other qualified pilot fiends
15 - 2011/02/28 22:24:54 - 2011/07/15 12:28:16 - 0029 - 01022 - Surface tow, foot launch release opinions.
16 - 2011/03/07 19:40:11 - 2011/04/15 21:20:38 - 0008 - 00504 - Video of surface tow, foot launching with Hewett bridle
17 - 2011/04/11 08:16:23 - 2013/06/07 04:08:19 - 0042 - 06349 - Towing Aloft
18 - 2011/05/02 20:11:55 - 2011/05/07 16:25:14 - 0008 - 00389 - balloon drops
19 - 2011/07/14 17:01:44 - 2013/04/17 13:13:30 - 0054 - 04512 - LMFP Release Dysfunction
20 - 2011/07/16 16:44:41 - 2011/08/16 10:06:33 - 0017 - 00563 - Do Tad's words dilute his message?
23 - 2011/07/25 00:35:37 - 2011/09/09 12:26:55 - 0020 - 00465 - Stock release
24 - 2011/09/02 12:10:22 - 2013/07/26 21:57:54 - 0103 - 06171 - Video
25 - 2011/09/05 08:43:39 - 2011/09/05 12:42:47 - 0002 - 00167 - Thanks Tad !
26 - 2011/09/25 03:23:28 - 2012/06/24 16:12:03 - 0014 - 00509 - Links
27 - 2011/10/18 16:43:40 - 2011/10/20 06:20:41 - 0006 - 00261 - Take off with the tailplane on trolley
28 - 2011/10/29 12:41:46 - 2013/07/19 12:14:14 - 0052 - 04071 - birds
29 - 2011/11/02 04:10:40 - 2011/11/20 23:19:29 - 0014 - 00428 - Tow Mystery
30 - 2011/11/08 04:56:47 - 2013/07/25 18:30:19 - 0175 - 06347 - Quotes
32 - 2011/12/09 08:46:21 - 2011/12/09 16:54:11 - 0002 - 00183 - AT Book(s)
33 - 2011/12/20 17:06:07 - 2013/05/23 23:29:02 - 0202 - 13020 - The Bob Show
34 - 2011/12/30 13:23:46 - 2013/01/05 16:55:52 - 0031 - 03380 - wires
35 - 2012/01/04 12:25:51 - 2012/01/08 06:13:09 - 0010 - 00333 - Airborne release
36 - 2012/01/12 00:30:54 - 2012/01/12 21:11:30 - 0006 - 00271 - Yosemite LZ
37 - 2012/01/24 09:12:19 - 2012/04/15 23:20:03 - 0010 - 00234 - Dolly
38 - 2012/01/24 11:47:13 - 2012/03/17 03:22:11 - 0028 - 00624 - Emergency Procedures
39 - 2012/01/26 16:01:21 - 2012/04/05 16:14:16 - 0038 - 00897 - New Release?
40 - 2012/01/29 17:48:00 - 2012/12/16 00:39:04 - 0003 - 00745 - counterintuitivity
41 - 2012/02/15 13:09:57 - 2012/02/17 07:25:59 - 0007 - 00317 - Penal liability
42 - 2012/02/20 14:49:54 - 2013/01/27 14:00:59 - 0031 - 03200 - Broken arm Saturday for discussion
43 - 2012/03/11 09:46:58 - 2012/04/28 22:40:36 - 0013 - 00404 - Tow line
44 - 2012/03/11 16:29:08 - 2012/03/20 03:07:43 - 0007 - 00283 - Tow line Tension
45 - 2012/03/13 19:03:41 - 2012/11/27 03:46:07 - 0016 - 00923 - parachutes
47 - 2012/05/20 16:00:52 - 2013/08/05 21:37:50 - 0073 - 04702 - Surface towing for teaching
48 - 2012/05/23 19:28:50 - 2012/05/25 16:24:54 - 0008 - 00260 - AeroTow Manual from New Zealand
49 - 2012/06/26 20:37:43 - 2012/06/27 19:04:39 - 0002 - 00172 - AeroTow Manual from France
50 - 2012/06/30 19:34:55 - 2012/12/19 14:35:53 - 0010 - 00888 - Davis Straub is a bloody Joke
51 - 2012/07/02 13:41:48 - 2012/07/12 18:48:17 - 0003 - 00203 - training wheels
52 - 2012/08/05 22:52:11 - 2012/12/15 20:22:22 - 0002 - 00708 - Dvorak
53 - 2012/08/10 03:19:44 - 2012/08/10 03:47:03 - 0048 - 01762 - Skyting
54 - 2012/08/10 04:35:22 - 2012/08/10 19:25:32 - 0003 - 00234 - Skyting demolition
55 - 2012/10/11 23:33:10 - 2012/10/13 10:55:15 - 0007 - 00219 - flying
61 - 2012/11/14 17:00:53 - 2013/07/28 17:29:05 - 0019 - 01351 - 4strings release
62 - 2012/12/30 20:06:43 - 2013/01/03 00:14:46 - 0010 - 00725 - Construction - Tad's primary release
64 - 2013/03/14 00:41:22 - 2013/05/02 00:23:25 - 0005 - 00694 - HG's "kite" strings' history notes
65 - 2013/04/24 00:09:59 - 2013/06/09 22:52:43 - 0014 - 01334 - How to crash a Hang Glider
66 - 2013/05/19 15:17:44 - 2013/07/18 04:48:56 - 0008 - 00616 - bridles
67 - 2013/06/01 23:39:10 - 2013/07/29 15:18:19 - 0026 - 02195 - launching
68 - 2013/06/16 03:06:35 - 2013/06/16 15:24:28 - 0007 - 00574 - As she was expecting...

Happy third birthday, Kite Strings.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec

Zack C - 2013/02/17 13:33:05 UTC

I'm here to promote reform.

And we're up against a huge international cartel for which reform would be disastrous and is doing everything it can get away with doing to drag the sport backwards. There's no freakin' way it would or ever will again tolerate a column in a magazine by a Robert V. Wills or Doug Hildreth and their ilk tend to get really icy receptions even on mainstream and club forums.

We may not ever be able to accomplish much but what we're doing is better than nothing, we're the only source solid information in the English speaking world, we have made small but measurable positive differences in the sport, we're a very solid presence on the web, and it's important that we continue to exist.

- Hit Counters

Starting five posts back I discussed an unfortunate phenomenon with the hit counters that went on for about a five day period starting 2013/08/01. Sometime starting between:

2014/02/04 18:50:39 UTC
and
2014/02/05 13:03:52 UTC

and ending between:

2014/02/09 22:47:06 UTC
and
2014/02/10 08:39:31 UTC

Kite Strings got hit by a rerun. Best guess is still that crawlers are being counted as humans.

The duration was over:

4 days 09:43:14 hours
and under:
5 days 13:48:52 hours

Within the period of the max range the landing thread picked up 4451 hits for a max of one new post. By comparison the thread picked up 909 hits between the first and last posts in January made on the month's first and last days - Numbers 704 through 738 (26.7 hits per post).

I keep records on hits and took snapshots of all three pages of the forum at:
2014/01/01 01:13:11 UTC
so's we can maintain a pretty good idea of legitimate statistics.

- Policy

Zack defers decisions on memberships to me. Pretty much anyone who would have a legitimate purpose for being here would already be known to me/us and I will usually be able to identify a legitimate candidate from a user name and/or email address.

Spammers, liars, saboteurs need not bother applying.

If I can identify an applicant as an actual legitimate person I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and activate him. If someone wants in but wishes to stay completely anonymous he can write me at the address given in the second post in this thread and write a small something to convince me he's real.

If anyone comes here anonymously for dishonorable reasons - OP / Orion Price, for example (not anonymously but for the sole purpose of sabotage) - he should not expect me to protect his anonymity.

A bit more on how getting on Kite Strings works...

When someone registers I BELIEVE this triggers an email notification to the Site Administrator, Zack, and I BELIEVE he's got things rigged so's that automatically bounces to my email address.

But... The notification system seems to have broken down. During one of my rare forays into the Administrator zone I was horrified to discover that NMERider and Niki had been silently gathering dust for five and eighty-five (WINCE) days respectively. Instantly clicked them in and wrote and sent apologies and got great responses.

The last time I got anything off of Zack's address was 2014/03/19 07:27:41 UTC and I wired him half past yesterday and still haven't heard back. In the past I've pretty much always gotten a response in minutes so I'm a bit worried.

Anyway, REALLY happy to have both new members gracing our list. Their accomplishments/videos represent some of the best of what the sport has to offer from extreme polar opposite ends of the experience spectrum - Jonathan with his T2C doing the cloudbase, miles, injun country XC approaches and landings; Niki with her Falcon and Freedom flying the basics beautifully and landing like EVERYBODY should be taught to. Both joys to watch - and I don't get much in the way of joy from much that's coming out of this sport nowadays.

It was with great relief that I saw Zack logged in last night - he'd been tied up and hadn't been able to respond the previous day.

He ran a test and confirmed that the notification system had indeed broken down. Sorry again Niki and Jonathan. I'll be logging in as an Administrator a lot more regularly now to make sure we don't get a repetition of that disaster.

I'd also asked Zack to bump Steve up to Moderator status 'cause:
- he's our second most active/prolific participant/contributor
- he does a lot of work proofreading my posts and helping me look less stupid
- there are a few bells and whistles that come with Moderator status that can come in handy
- I want this place to be less of a dictatorship than it is now

Steve's bump should not be interpreted by other contributors as a statement that they are less trusted/deserving. Anybody interested in the bells and whistles lemme know.

If you'd tuned in during the period between when Zack was throwing switches last night and you'd have noticed that Yours Truly was appearing in red (and Steve was appearing in green).

- There was something weird going on with my status that both Zack and I had noticed such that, while I had close to the same authority as Zack, I wasn't listed as anything beyond a regular member. Zack bumped me to Founder status. This is good 'cause, whereas before I think Kite Strings would've been majorly fucked if Zack had been hit by a truck, now, in order for that to happen, Zack, Yours Truly, and Steve (who has my password) would all have to be hit by trucks at about the same time - and we're about as widely distributed across the Forty-Eight Contiguous as possible.

- I was majorly horrified, though, to see my name in red 'cause:
-- it really highlighted how much of a monologue this place is; and
-- I don't want there to be an impression that I'm necessarily better, more important than a first time Hang Zero poster.
Just discovered a little switch, though, so now everyone's colored neutral.

Tad Eareckson wrote:But... The notification system seems to have broken down. During one of my rare forays into the Administrator zone I was horrified to discover that NMERider and Niki had been silently gathering dust for five and eighty-five (WINCE) days respectively. Instantly clicked them in and wrote and sent apologies and got great responses.

I had failed to see this and so just assumed I'd offended and made the unacceptable list.

Thanks, Brian