I miss the old BLP.com

[Nick Gatel]

Ken,

Yes, I know what it says. Go ahead and submit a proposal and see what you are offered… if they make arrangements prior to publication. I bet most members are offered complimentary memberships or a small amount of money in the $15 – $250 range, most likely towards the bottom. I have never approached them. The honorarium clause is kind of weird, almost trying to make one feel guilty if you want to be paid…

You may opt out of the honorarium if you wish. If you would like to receive the honorarium, you must complete the name, address, and banking/payment information below. If you do not complete this section, then you will not be paid for your contribution if it’s published. Do you wish to receive an honorarium for your contribution?

I may be wrong, but in the past I thought I have seen some posts with something like, “Well we can’t pay you…” If I am wrong. It surely won’t be the first time!

There is a solicitation for a 5K-10K word article that pays $500 – $1,000, which isn’t very competitive. When I was writing, for that type of a project I would get paid at least 5 times as much. Perhaps market rates have changed since then. Personally I have no interest in writing any article for any publication or website. I am retired and want to remain completely retired :)

I really don’t want to beat this to death, I like BPL and hope it continues. There are a lot of members with blogs who would like to get into paid writing, and BPL might be a good opportunity for them to get started. What is frustrating is folks like you and me (and many others) who want to see this place succeed are communicating ideas and pushing to make things right; it shouldn’t be working this way. Plus, I’m not complaining. The forums provide enough value for me, and an occasional well written article is icing on the cake.

BTW, I clicked that UL 101 link. I never, ever visit the main page. I have a bookmark that takes me directly to the Recent Threads Forum. It looks pretty good, although it is just a teaser to get people to subscribe. What we need is a full blown rendition for subscribers along with moving Gear Swap somewhere else, which Ryan has acknowledged is a good idea. Anyway, good conversation. Thanks.

[Richard Scruggs]

Re Nick:  “Anyone have any other ideas?”

1.  Here’s “A Really Good Idea”:  Whatever suggestions percolate, it’s most helpful to keep it positive, as Nick does.  He must’ve worked in the Diplomatic Corps (corpse?) sometime in his life.
2. Another idea, which may be “An Already Happenin’ Idea”:  Post detailed info re progress of “Project Improvement” for BPL’s website. Such as goals/steps/known issues/time lines for that project.
3. Plus this “Often Repeated Idea”:  In re #2 above, is there a purpose/benefit served by having “Gear Swap” postings continue to be integrated with “Recent Postings” — and, if so, what purpose/benefit might that be? Or, if none, why delay moving “Gear Swap” out of the “Recent Posting” display?
4. Finally, my “Personal Favorite Idea”:  Reclaim/revive/return the accessibility thru BPL’s website of product pages describing items that were sold thru BPL’s store back in those Good Ol’ Days, at least for those items that were uniquely BPL — like BPL’s stealth tarps, BPL’s insulated clothing, BPL’s Tenkara rod, BPL’s guy lines, BPL’s Absoraka (sic) backpack, BPL’s titanium pots, etc.  Those product pages contained helpful info (e.g. specifications, material, dimensions, features) for UL gear — info which cannot be found anywhere else. A lot of BPL stuff is still being used, evaluated & compared with other gear, so that access to BPL’s original product pages for that geart would be very beneficial. Would that be too much trouble?

Nothing really compelling in any the above suggestions (except for “My Personal Favorite Idea”). But, having not posted very much of any relevance in recent years, just thought I’d toss in two cents to keep the ball rolling.

Actually, BPL’s website has been a great resource over the years, and (at least for me) continues to have a lot of value — realized mostly to the extent its search function makes the gold that’s here readily available.  Thanks, Ryan & BPL Crew!!!

So that qualifies as a suggestion: Search function must work well. That’s a huge benefit.

Oh, OK, here’s one more suggestion — How about resuming that “Happy Trails” (or “Godspeed” or “Go Light” or whatever) that Ryan tossed out there when you signed off of the BPL website?

That’s a nice touch. Maybe, while BPL transitions, he can just say, “Don’t worry, be happy!”

[James Marco]

Well, payment is what you think of it as.

BPL doesn’t pay enough to make it worth writing for them.

Backpacking is an OLD subject. We have been doing this for around 10000 years or so maybe a lot more. Backpacking light is simply another way of saying backpacking. There is a limit to what you can carry.  Example: a UL packer today will find that he is carrying around 40pounds of gear for 3 weeks out. That is a LOT of weight, but is basic gear is less than 10 pounds. A simple overnight can go as low as a couple pounds, under the right conditions.

There is NO problem with re-publishing older articles as fillers between newer stuff to keep the momentum of peoples comments/interest up. Old techniques never really go out of style, unless they are simply bad for the environment (digging ditches around tents, using pine boughs as bedding, …)

Perfect tarp size? Anyone?

Pictures seem to be a big draw. Take a lot, use graphs and diagrams.

Write what you will…it’s cheap and it beats hanging around complaining about the lack of content (seeing as how it takes time to do that, anyway.)

.

 

 

 

[Nick Gatel]

Old techniques never really go out of style, unless they are simply bad for the environment

Yep. Might be a good time to re-read or read for the first time one of the Complete Walker books (1 – 3) by Colin Fletcher. 3 even has a section on UL, which Fletcher calls “The New Wave.” It was published in the early 80’s. A big “ah ha” moment here on BPL seems to be, “buy a scale.” Fletcher meticulously weighed every item of his gear starting with his first book, The Thousand Mile Summer, which was published before most BPL members were born. This book and The Man Who Walked Through Time, are the gold standards of what a long hike memoir should be, and IMO, put most of the popular thru-hike genre to shame.

Fletcher popularized tarps and poncho/tarps in 1969, although many here think Ray Jardine has that to his credit. Be careful though, you might start packing a Svea 123 like James and I sometimes do.

 

[Ken Thompson]

+1 on republishing some of the older articles. I bump old classics now and then. But they get bumped off the recent threads page pretty quick.

Also +1 on never accessing the site through the home page but going straight to Recent Threads.

The  UL 101 sadly has a couple of bad links in it. Not a great selling point.

There are pages of good suggestions here for how BPL could improve. Whole threads in fact.

Still lots of good people here freely sharing knowledge and ideas. It’s still a community I’m glad to be a part of. A little bit of customer appreciation and service goes a long way. Nobody likes to think that their only talking to a wall.

Now to bump a classic article…

[Ken Thompson]

“to more than 100,000 words of new content that are currently in our editorial pipeline.”

Copied from the 15% membership sale ad.

[Author]

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