BPL Launches Wiki as Lightweight Backpacking Reference

[R K]

This may be relevant to the discussion.

From the U.S. Copyright Office FAQ section:

"What does copyright protect?
Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.

…

When is my work protected?
Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."

Here's a link directly to the U.S. Copyright Office FAQ.

[Ryan Jordan]

OK guys, we have the copyright policy modified now in response to your suggestions on this thread. Thanks for your feedback,
Ryan

[Andrew Dolman]

Hi Tony,

If you put your stuff on a wiki such as wikipedia, you are handing over your copyright, that's kind of the point of a wiki.

If you want to keep control over your work, just write a brief summary and then link to your site.

[Tony Beasley]

Hi Andrew,

>f you put your stuff on a wiki such as wikipedia, you are handing over your copyright, that's kind of the point of a wiki.

If you want to keep control over your work, just write a brief summary and then link to your site.

Thanks

Tony

[Andrew Richardson]

Wow..The new copyright is great. I've been meaning to say a few thigns, two should have been said right away and the third is a response to the changes.

1. The wiki is an awesome resource and I thank BPL for setting up and hosting it. It looks great so far.

2. The new search function was incredible while I was using it. I don't know what the bug was, but that is nothing surprising as it would be amazing to release something like that without a bug! It's a great search engine and makes the forums much more useful! It's an awesom ejob and a great implementation. Congrats to the coders and to the company for a job well done.

3. Thank you for the changes to the copyright! It's amazing that BPL and beartooth are so responsive to their customers and it is something very special. I really feel great to be part of this community and I applaud everyone working at BPL/Beartooth for their efforts, ethics, and practices. I think this business is being run incredibly well and that sometimes we may take it for granted. You are all doing a really great, upstanding, and admirable job! Thank you!

[Ashley Brown]

I was a little bemused by the appearance of a new site search function. I must admit, I didn't get around to trying it out. But does it really work any better than googling "site:backpackinglight.com [insert search terms here]"? I've always found it easy to find BPL forum threads or articles using google. You've gotta use the "site:backpackinglight.com" tag though.

On the subject of the wiki… I've added a "Gear 101" category to the gear section of the wiki. Intended as an overview for newcomers to lightweight gear. I know I found the sheer amount of gear information a bit daunting when I started, so I thought it would be good to have a "start reading here" section. Feel free to contribute!

[Ryan Jordan]

Note that a new forum has been created to house discussions related to the strategy and administration of the Wiki.

[Nia Schmald]

Thank you Ryan for your speedy and thoughtful response.

[Tom Clark]

I'm getting this error message when trying the link.
Tom

Catchable fatal error: Object of class User could not be converted to string in /home/bpl/public_html/extensions/Auth_remoteuser.php on line 358

[Chris Morgan]

Likewise, I am getting the same error.

[Anonymous]

Tom,

Please try again. We've made a few adjustments and killed a few bugs in the wiki authentication code. Let us know if it works for you.

./ben

[Cayenne Redmonk]

Seems like the links don't work as a F member.

[Greg Mihalik]

Seems like you're 7 years late.

[Cayenne Redmonk]

Yes, um, well not all projects stay on schedule, maybe something happened.

More importantly, the enthusiasm, and the comments about BPL being responsive and attentive to member concerns were true and sincere in this thread.

In 2015, after releasing digest no 18, BPL is suspending accounts to create a BPL friendly environment.

It's a long road from there to here. Maybe someone told the story in the wiki and it was silenced as quickly as Bob Gross.

[Jerry Adams]

"wiki" has been replaced by "school" above center

must have been a good idea that didn't work out, so was dropped

[Cayenne Redmonk]

It's probably for the best, I don't like wikis.

The WTS has a some amazing courses. The wts3 trekking has looked crazy since the first. I've never taken a course, but some of these descriptions sound like they could be challenging.

[Jerry Adams]

a good idea about wikis is that you don't constantly repeat the same threads. Easier to find information.

but if you don't repeat the same stuff, then after a while everything worth saying gets said so there's nothing left to say : ) and it takes a lot of work to make a wiki

[R]

So what happened to it?  Why was it shut down?

I was about to put in a feature request for a wiki.  The forums are loaded w/ reference material, but it’s so inaccessible I’ve even seen Ryan Jordan crack a joke about it.

I’ve never been involved in a community wiki project, so I don’t know any more about their difficulties than what I’ve read in the press about Wikipedia.  As a consumer my only gripe with them is that they’re poor for discoverability.  But if, say, you want to know what the latest and greatest tarp material is, a wiki would be great.

If not a wiki, some other collaborative document – well, anything really, would be better than the forums for a reference resource.

[Ken Thompson]

.

[Ken Thompson]

.

[R]

Hurrah!

[Cayenne Redmonk]

The main problem with the wiki was the anarchy.   BPL refused to let anyone be the lead for keeping it usable.

The second problem was ambitious users that created ten thousand dead links.

The  third problem is the wiki syntax.   Collectively the BPL community can’t use HTML tags  let alone a wiki syntax that only is used on wikis.

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