If It Bleeds, It Leads

Author: Phil Trubey

Date: July 14, 2025

Hello, Phil Trubey here, sending an occasional email about RSF.

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In 2019, before I lost control of the domain name, I became the default editor/writer/publisher of the RSF Post.

I went through an interesting evolution during those five years. When you create content, you tell yourself you're doing it solely for the community. But unless you've got the emotions of a Vulcan, you can't help but feel an ego boost every time someone interacts with your article. 

And what's the best way of getting engagement? The old newspaper adage was "If It Bleeds, It Leads", but the more modern version in this age of social media is "Outrage Sells". 

As a newly minted editor/writer/publisher in 2019, I decidedly felt that tug of, if not creating controversy, at the very least not shying away from it. Oh, who am I kidding, I wrote some pretty inflammatory articles, many directed against various RSFA Boards and directors.

Having now finished my own three year sentence as a Board director, I look back on some of my articles and wish I had simply called up the appropriate Board director and asked what the real scoop was. 

I finally figured it out towards the end of my involvement with the RSF Post, realizing that chasing clicks was stupid, and that the only sensible point of writing community articles was to actually help the community. 

Anyways, if/when there is something interesting or important to say to help the community, I'll send you folks an email. But I shall endeavor to not peddle outrage. 

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Speaking of RSFA Boards, we have a new one. Here's what the election turnout was like along with previous year vote totals:

And here's the new Board, and in the recent RSFA Board meeting, new officers were elected: 

David Gamboa (President)

Skip Atkins (Vice President)

Courtney Silberberg (Treasurer)

Jeff Simmons

Courtney LeBeau

Mark Simpson

Joanne Marks

Remember that you can contact any Board member via official RSFA emails, which is usually their first initial and last name at rsfassociation.org. Bios and more info on the RSFA member website here.

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People keep asking me, what am I going to do with all my extra free time? Ha! I wish I had more time! If you want more of my ramblings, I am a frequent poster on X as @ptrubey. I mostly post about Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, some about Tesla, some macro economics and I desperately try to stay away from politics and current events. 

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The other substantive thing that happened in the recent Board meeting was the Board gave the go ahead for staff to hire a branding firm to give our clubhouse restaurant a distinctive identity apart from just "The clubhouse restaurant". They'll also design new entrance signs into the recreation campus.

This was something I've been agitating for since at least 2019, so I'm glad to finally see this coming to fruition.

But it occurred to me that we have one other prominent community branding, and that's our roadside entrance rocks that people see when they drive into our community.

So, mostly to just test out my newly added polling feature to my personal website, I thought I'd ask you all to give your opinion in an innocuous poll. 

Should we ask the branding firm to also come up with ideas to replace/modify or enhance our entrance rocks? Even just a new consistent font? 

To be clear, I'm not advocating for this. I have zero idea if this is a good idea or not (looks and branding just isn't my thing) and I also know Association staff have an enormous amount of project work in front of them. So I'm not trying to jiggle the Board's elbow or anything on this. 

So treat this as a fun little experiment. You can answer the poll, and maybe leave a completely anonymous comment (I don't track who writes what). Click here for the polling page.

And while you're at the site, click around and see what else is there. I try to put as much useful information about Rancho Santa Fe as possible there. 

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