Censorship again at BPL

"I emailed the editor of this webzine/forum and asked why. I received no response."

No response is often the most eloquent response of all.

> I thought Alan Dixon was also the founder of this site
Yes, he helped found it, but had other things to do so he passed his 'share' of it to Ryan. He still contributes occasionally.

Cheers

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"Thanks for that incredible bit of insight."

Always ready to go the extra mile for a fellow BPLer in distress. :)

The saddest part if this is what it has done to some of the relationships among us.

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I don't think so Ken.
Here is what I compare this situation to. A number of times ( a couple of notable ones) I have pointed out some pretty outrageous sexist remarks/ posts. At times I have stood there pretty alone, maybe a couple of private messages letting me know I wasn't alone at least in spirit. Sometimes the " offenders" have even been patted on the back. I felt a little let down and then came to the conclusion that my battles don't have to be my friends battles too. That's what I think has happened here too.
I gave as much support to this cause as I honestly have in me and I hope that isn't seen as a let down.

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Ken, I consider you a friend here on BPL and in person via the GGG.
Yet I am still confused about exactly what this is all about.
Could you please state specifically what you want from Ryan Jordan and BPL.
Not taking you to task bro, just think it is rather mucky at this point.
Even after re-reading this thread I cannot tell what you, and other life members, were promised.
What did you expect for 100 dollars and what has the "return" been?
Basically;
Whats the Beef Bro?

Please don't take this as a personal attack. (It isn't and I am going out on a limb here)
I honestly don't understand what the problem is, and i suspect neither do a lot of other members.
Fill us in.
If you could get the "perfect" responses to your questions from RJ, what would they be?

Matthew,

This particular thread is about an entire, very involved thread having been deleted with no explanation. I think that very much warrants an explanation. It's true that sometimes the things people say here can be idiotic, unkind, unruly, or just plain worthless, but most of what people are contributing, and the effort to contribute, should be considered to have intrinsic value. Otherwise what is the purpose of this entire forum? Or even BPL? Some people put a lot of time, energy, and careful thought into that deleted thread. It is rude and dismissive to just delete it without acknowledging the good points in the thread and giving an explanation.

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As an interested outsider and ex-member on the fence about joining because of the "benefits" of MLife, I appreciate Ken's efforts to clarify the thread deletion in this thread.
I find the absence of any BPL official input or reply particularly discouraging.
A functioning community succeeds by clear leadership and vision. None seen on this thread, so far, which is bordering on the bizarre.
Perhaps it is symptomatic of the declining quality of reality.

When I first started visiting BPL regularly (due to Ken constantly nagging me to visit it) I found it to be a pleasant place to visit.

There are not a lot of alternatives out there so I was glad to become a member at BPL. I did not want to use whiteblaze because they are so East Coast focused (and understandably so). I did not want to use hammockforums (well, actually I could not, they refuse to remove content from their website, even when issues legal Cease and Desist notifications, so rather than just doing the legal thing, they blocked my account – note: did not terminate/close/remove, just locked me out so their precious threads would not be ‘messed up’ – WTF? ). So that left me pretty much only mailing lists, for which I am eternally grateful such still exist (pct-l being one of the best hiking resources that exist).

So when I finally did decide to join BPL I took a good look at their differences between “member” and “life” and when I saw the list of features only two of them stood out for the MLIFE, those being “Access to lifetime Members-only forum” and “Backpacking Light’s annual strategic planning meeting in Montana”. I thought it could be nice to have access to an advanced level forum where those with decades of hiking experience hung out in (the MLIFE forum) and I thought that the ability to head up to Montana to hang out with other guys that really into hiking would be a great yearly event. So one day I asked Ken and _P about those two features and they both sort of laughed at the second one, saying that such meetings had never happened (again WTF? way to fail on that promised feature BPL) and that the MLIFE forum was nothing all that special, and worse, not very active.

So I had a decision, think about whether I would be here 5+ years later and pay for MLIFE or just pay year-to-year.

In the end the decision came down to the fact that I did not think BPL would be offering the same features 6 years later, so why take the risk.

Having been a here few years now I will likely eventually loose money, but morally, I think loosing money (and thereby BPL taking excessive money from me for failure of not provided features promised to its members) is the right thing to do. Yes, some day I will probably end up spending more, but for me, it just feels like the right thing to do. Additionally, should I eventually come to the full realization that BPL has no intentions of fulfilling its promises, I can always go to another such website should one come along, and than not feel like I was taken advantage of for a few years worth of subscription funds.

I make my living by creating and owning subscription based websites and software – and business is good enough that I can hike a 1000+ miles each year and not worry about finances. I fully understand what is involved in running a website like BPL (I own websites with tens of thousands of members) and I am a co-founder of the phpBB software, a forums software that has hundreds of millions of users within its forums. I have said it before and will continue to say it, the actual software/server/maintenance expenses of running a website the size of BPL is not a lot. If that alone is costing them over $300 per month than they are doing something horribly wrong. On the other hand IF the guys behind BPL are trying to fund their own lively hood (i.e.: their paychecks) from BPL than all of this becomes a whole other matter and their failure to provide SAID SERVICES is and should be the issue that Ken is making it out to be.

{removed about five paragraphs from right here that was taking this thread off-topic, which did not make Ken very happy – giggle}

BPL Terms of Service:

Backpacking Light reserves the right to remove for any reason posted materials from a chat/message board, and the right to deny in its sole discretion any user access to a chat/message board, without notice.

(edited post because it was taking this entire topic off-topic… sorry ken)

> Perhaps it is symptomatic of the declining quality of reality.
Ouch!
I wonder what the petunia would think?

Cheers

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John, um… yikes. So BPL deletes the thread AND gives Jetboil your personal email so they can harass and threaten you into coerced and BPL-published retraction? Good business approach.

And still more silence. Which would be much understandable if many of the folks being ignored weren't actual CUSTOMERS of a BUSINESS who are PAYING THE BILLS.

p.s. Ken, you might wanna archive this thread, since it might be going bye-bye soon.

Does BPL have a privacy policy or similar? It seems like a huge breach of trust if they did indeed pass out a member's confidential data (email address) to the corporate thugs at Jetboil. I'm disgusted on both counts.

"Does BPL have a privacy policy or similar?"

Privacy Policy

Your personal information is never – under any circumstances – released to third parties. Period. Simple enough?

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/policies.html#privacy

Thank you Doug, that was just what we needed to know.

I'm shocked at the level of detail and effort John put into fabricating his lie.

Joking of course, I think it is very clear which party lacks honor in this situation.

Your personal information is almost never – under nearly any circumstances* – released to third parties. Period.

* Unless you make a fact-based negative post about a gear item which BPL rates "Highly Recommended" and of which Dr. Ryan Jordan is a "big fan" in which case your personal information will be turned over to the gear manufacturer for subsequent threat and
intimidation. Also, please consider the benefits of joining at the MLife level!

"I'm shocked at the level of detail and effort John put into fabricating his lie."

as am I, dam lucky guess on his part naming the V.P. of Sales and Marketing

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Who wants to chip in to send Ken to the BSa Course from BPL.

Slight chance Ryan might be there.

Could be great trip report !

I'm shocked at the level of detail and effort John put into fabricating his lie.

Uh oh. Here comes another flame war. Everyone brace yourselves!

I have absolutely no idea what happened with the JetBoil thread or to John, but I'm uncertain why you accuse him of lying, Cameron. It seemed pretty straightforward to me.

Whatever happened in the past, the one thing I want to say here is, to the BPL leaders, please, if you care about BPL and the community, address this growing problem of distrust. It is the most important denomination in the existence of the community. Once distrust sets in people will start leaving. If that happens, BPL will fall apart. If you have never experienced the disintegration of an online community, you will be shocked by how fast it can happen. It doesn't matter whether or not anyone was right or wrong, justified to do or say anything or not, the littlest contention can bring down the whole house. So I urge you, please address this and nurture the community cohesion. Be honest with everyone and let us know what is going on. I think the community is strong and diverse and understanding enough to hear whatever might be said, and I also think a lot of us would make a lot of effort to help keep the community going. But that means you have to trust us, too. The way it is right now, confidence is failing and the sense that all this might crumble is growing. Let's not let this wonderful community die.

Miguel. Cameron=sarcasm I laughed.