Why are you not a Member of BPL?

[spelt with a t]

>>(I remember when most web sites/pages were personal and/or academic, and many had terrrible design… but I still feel that was way less annoying than how things are now.)

Yeah…the good old days.

[Ken Thompson]

"One thing i really appreciate about the forums and site is the minimalism of the software and open/low moderation feel of the forums. I know many people are calling for PHPbb and flashy forum software, but the lack of smileys/green text/sigs is one of the main reasons I want to support this forum. Maybe just a little code update for auto recognizing links?"

+5(?) Almost totally agree. Please, please… let BPL retain (or gain) some sense of aesthetics and design, and not turn into "the rest of the internet!" (I remember when most web sites/pages were personal and/or academic, and many had terrrible design… but I still feel that was way less annoying than how things are now.)

Been like a huge family whose visits you can't control. Would hate to lose that.

[James Castleberry]

Bryce said "I joined because that great "free" forum I used and abused for months of knowledge before gear purchases wouldn't of been there if it were for members who support the forums financially and with their knowledge."
Ditto Bryce. Same here and can't say it any better. This is actually one of the best virtual communities I have seen. I have young kids and can't participate as much as I would like but the knowledge offered here has been priceless. I can tell by the summaries and ensuing comments that the content is first-rate.

[Nick Larsen]

To many free forums out there for me to consider paying for it. I'd rather see a few advertisements on the side or top, than pay to browse a forum. It would be nice to be able to read the articles, but paying for a forum subscription doesn't fit into my budget. I'd rather spend the money on gear.

Have you guys ever considered putting ads on your site? You could make it so paying members don't see ads, but you could still make some money off of freeloaders like me. That would allow anyone full access to the entire site(articles included). Free members would just have to put up with ads.

[Craig Savage]

I'm broke, so no real need to research gear/use.

Dunno that I'd buy new gear if I did have the money, pretty happy with what I have and how I use it.

[Chad Miller]

I used to be a member for quite some time (five years) but I've found that after absorbing a great deal of information from the pay portion of this site I'm not really learning anything new.

Now as for the form section of this site I'm learning new things every day. Alas with the hard economic times I simply can't justify paying for a site membership when all I use is the free forms. When the economy picks up for me I'll renew my membership but right now we simply can't justify it.

[Aaron Sorensen]

One thing that eek's me the most right now is the 1000% increase in "Gear Swap" over the past few years.
To me it's just more garbage to sort through in order to get to the good stuff.

[Brian Lewis]

BPL certainly offers a wonderful and free forum. I appreciate the opportunity to read and interact here without paying to do so. If that ever changes, I'll be sorry to go (but I will).

I did quite a bit of work with a volunteer group that involved teaching people how to do something (complicated). It had a similar model: membership, benefits, annual dues, a magazine (an actual print magazine in that case). A fundamental problem the organization had was the "graduation effect". Folks learned what they could or at least about as much as they were going to, and then they in effect "graduated" (dropped their membership). This is in a way a good thing for a non-profit, 'mission accomplished', but ultimately a huge issue for an organization that took in a lot of dollars in member dues and perhaps more in advertisement revenue based on the size of their stated membership — as the membership declined they had to radically alter their expenses and approach (not being the U.S. government they couldn't print more dollars, but certainly would have if they could have …).

I personally think the right solution to that sort of thing for a non-profit is to have as lean an organization as possible, driven by volunteers as much as possible.
BPL follows a different model here, and I wish them luck with it, but as a for-profit enterprise, I don't feel the least incentive to join just to give them money to succeed/survive. Insofar as they offer something that I deem to be of sufficient value, I'll pay for that. For me personally, and perhaps more relevant, in my particular situation and circumstances, what's offered does not seem worth the money. If I were to volunteer more in this area of my life I might be more inclined to do more work for http://www.backpackgeartest.org. But in fact I'll do so more locally.

Sorry to ramble on; an interesting, if somewhat uncomfortable topic of discussion!

[Nick Gatel]

This place costs money to run, and the ownership has mostly gone the membership route (along with other methods) to finance it. No matter what method they use to generate the money to keep it solvent, it takes money… probably a lot more than many people think.

So as part of the community, each person needs to make their own decision whether $25 a year or $110 lifetime is worth it. To me $25 a year or 7 cents a day is worth it; and it is even cheaper with a lifetime membership.

However, there is no guarantee that after you spend your money, BPL will remain. I hope it does.

So in a sense, if you are unwilling to spend 7 cents a day, then maybe one should not be too critical of how things are done, because the other members are financing it for you. It does not matter to me if you pay or not, but please don't criticize those who are providing you a free service. If it isn't worth 7 cents a day, then it won't matter to you if BPL fails.

Now there are some very savvy non-members here who are major contributors to the forums, and I don't see what they get out of BPL, other than helping others and a little conversation. To me, they give more than they receive. And I can understand why they have chosen not to join. I cannot criticize them for that, and I hope BPL stays around a long time and these folks do too.

To be honest, I really don't like Websites that need paying members to stay solvent. That business model usually fails, and other than BPL I have never paid to be part of a site… but then there is only one other site that I regularly visit. But the method of generating income is up to the ownership of BPL. I joined because I enjoy it and my investment is worthwhile to me, assuming BPL stays in business. For others it isn't and that is fine by me too.

Just my 7 cents of opinion.

[Ken Thompson]

+1 with Nick. Well said.

[Bob Gross]

I was once a paid member, but then I started getting spam to an address that only BPL had, so I cancelled the paid membership.

–B.G.–

[Tony Beasley]

Some good points Nick.

Here is my 2CW.

To me the BPL forum is not what BPL is about, while the forum is important it is the actual magazine that is most important to me and is why I am a member, it is the gear reviews, most of which are without peer, especially Wills and Rogers scientific approach to testing, it is the trip reports most of which are in areas that a lot of us can only dream of going to, it is the MYOG articles, most of which are inspiring and makes me want to make all of my own gear.

BPL is the only magazine that is willing to publish truthful reviews about crappy gear, that is because they do not have any fear of having some their advertising revenue pulled and I think some here on BPL forget that BPL main stream of revenue is from membership which allows them to do this and without this members revenue BPL may cease to exist. Australian bushwalking magazines are so frightened of upsetting there advertisers that their reviews are pure rubbish, the so called reviews, are obviously written by the advertiser itself and are just another name for advertising feature.

These days a large part of the BPL forum is Chaff and I do not read it and I do not want to read it, as far as I am concerned Chaff is a total waste of my bandwidth and if I could I would like to be able to turn Chaff off. I also think that sections of the BPL forum should be restricted to non-members, the Editors Roundtable and member’s trip reports should be members only.

As far as I am concerned the survival of BPL is the most important, and it has to do what it has to do to survive, as long as BPL does not loose its honesty with gear reviews, I am all for BPL making changes to help it to keep being the best backpacking magazine around.

Tony

[James holden]

i resigned up just for the SOTM reports and WPB tests …

what i find most useful isnt the particular gear reviews … but those reviews that go over concepts, techniques and particular gear types

examples would be the last WPB on the latest fabric, and the integrated canister stoves …. while the information on individual gear tests will be outdated … the basic concept lasts quite a long time … the condensation articles are still the best ive seen online

note that there are very few publications left IMO that review gear fairly objectively … BPL and backpackgeartest are the ones i know of, alpinist and outdoorgearlab is OK for climbing gear

every other mag/site that most people frequent are just regurgitated PR releases for the marketing departments

while im sure some of these mag/sites test out the gear … note how they almost always say positive things, or insists it fits a "particular situation" (best cheap, best UL, best durable, best for resort, best something…)

the outdoor industry is one big marketers dream ….

[Gordon Green]

Here in the UK we have a very good and free forum.
It is funded by advertising.

I did join BPL some years ago and then found that there was a bit of mud-slinging going on. The recipient of this was someone who I know and respect. And, there were some high handed stances being taken.

So, I resigned.

Later, I re-joined. Ok, time had passed.

But, TBH, there is so much that other, free, web-sites can offer. When it came to re-newing my subs, I thought, No.

So, while I'm happy to look at the forum, I'll save my money for some gear rather than fund BPL.

[Gerry B.]

Nick,
+2. Once again, you very eloquently express yourself. I could not agree with you more and thanks for all of your input.

[dan mchale]

Yeah Nick, I signed up again as a result of this thread. I missed the articles. I don't see my big red M though. :>)

OK – there it is. I was getting worried.

[Nick Gatel]

I think someone has to manually add the big red M. High tech, you know.

[David Ure]

I believe it takes a full business day….

[Chad Miller]

Despite my reasoning for why I didn't see the need to renew my subscription someone just gifted me one.

Thank you for your generosity.

[Bob Salcedo]

Now a non-member cannot create a new thread on the gearswap forum… since it is the most active forum.

thank you

[Ken Thompson]

What has changed in nearly seven years?

Seems a lot less active for one.

Ads.

[Patrick O’Neil]

Thread resurrection!

Doubt people will pay 7 bucks to come here and tell you why they don’t want to pay 7 bucks!

[Brad Rogers]

Ken, you probably already know my thoughts; the botched platform migration a few years ago where many people couldn’t log on for a week or longer seemed to push a lot of people away. To me, it seems that a lot of people never returned.

Secondly, charging to use the forums didn’t help activity here.

I don’t think its the main concern, but online content has become less frequent and less valuable.

[IVO K]

Content of very very low value, not worth paying for.
The only value I get is the (infrequent) dialogue in the forums on topics of interest to me.

[JCH]

Since you asked…

This is one very good reason. Once the objectivity of a site’s reviews and published opinions is legitimately questioned, a pall is thrown over anything that is published.  We all understand having to make enough money to keep the lights on, but advertisements should NEVER be presented as “product review”.

Next, I personally lament to loss of so many of the long-term members who formed the foundation of why I found this site valuable.  The loss of experience and knowledge over the past 5 years is astonishing.  Most of us remember the Bob Gross saga…Sure, Bob could be prickly but wasn’t that part of his charm?  The loss of newer, but just as valuable and interesting, members such as JimmyB and Bob Moulder is very disheartening and a direct result of…

The increased rancor and sense of incivility in many recent posts is a total turn off.  While this is not a BPL exclusive problem, many people act differently in their “anonymous online” personas than they would in “real life”, it is triply disheartening when it takes hold in what was previously a very welcoming, open minded, inclusive and informative site.  Too many posters seem to think someone’s differing opinion, or preference for a particular piece of gear or technique, is deserving of ridicule.  This is particularly prevalent when those involved are attempting to sell something or otherwise stand to benefit financially from people buying into their position.

Perhaps all this is just “pining for the old days”…I’m not immune to the backward facing rose-colored glasses syndrome.  I keep hanging around hoping to see some indication of a return to the “old BPL” but think it unlikely that I will be rewarded anytime soon.

On a final positive note…Thanks to Matthew K.,Ken T., Nick Gatel, Dan Durston, Franco and Henry S., and all the others too numerous to mention whose posts are always aimed at making sense, cutting BS and making this a better place.

[Author]

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