Whiteblaze.net is Anti-ultralight

[Jake D]

Mary, there is having an opinion and then there is invading threads and sub-forums you just don't belong in. ie the 70lb pack guy spouting off in the UL sub-forum.. it only disrupts where people are trying to discuss their own thing, where they are supposed to. Or people telling folks asking about speed hiking to slow down and "have fun"
It is fine to have an personal style but impeding other peoples ability to learn a different style isn't right.

It is also funny to do gear list reviews over there… people say "what do you think" and then refuse to even consider changing things you bring up. And then when you tell them well you asked and you get cheerleaders saying "the list looks good! 29lb baseweight is fine!"

the fact that BPL was basically shut down and the UL forum over there didn't see a blip should say something.

edit: Mags you don't think T-W's rants and ramblings are disruptive when he puts them in threads where it has no place?

[Paul Magnanti]

Sure it is out of place..but does it really matter? His insights are something most people ignore and/or find laughable. After a while, he'll take his ball, go out into the woods on yet another trip he'll make out to be WILDERNESS (He brings a -10F bag and 4 season tent in thge summer. HE claims he wants to be prepared for blizzards. During the summer in TN??? OK. Maybe if this climate change thing goes really wrong. Even new comers won't fall for that) and we'll hear bupkis from him for three weeks. Just treat it as entertainment.

But, that's a different website. Different neighborhood. Kinda like RI transplants in CO discussing their favorite Dunkin Donuts back home. ;)

Time to move on..

[Jake D]

I was lucky enough to find BPL as a source of learning to lighten my pack.. I guess i feel bad for folks who go to WB for similar (or many other topics that get derailed) and are given such poor information. having your question get bogged down with nonsense is not entertaining i'm sure.

I have 3 dunkins in 10mi before i hit the highway ;)

[Donald Howard]

Yea, I don't like the heavy hand of one of the mods there but it's their sandbox, I just play in it.

Jake, I remember your comments on the thru-hike in 60 days thread. In fact I posted a question on that thread and you took it in a way I didn't intend and made some not so nice comments about it.

Whiteblaze doesn't discourage UL, it's just that everyone has their opinions and some of them don't agree with yours.

Ever think maybe the problem isn't everybody else?

By the way, I run a 12 lb. base weight for spring and fall, less for summer.

[Steven McAllister]

I found BPL through the UL forum on WB.

I do tend to avoid whiteblaze because the combination of newbies and quick to reply curmudgeons are often frustrating.

The common theme that comes up one the UL forum is when a newbie ask questions about UL gear and end up with a flood of follow up posts about why the person should avoid UL gear.

You might get a few good responses, but the newbie is going to be more likely to listen to the crowd and not what appears to be the few people on the fringe.

I remember one thread discussing trekking poles where the same loud mouths ranted about why trekking poles are the worst thing in the world. They'll make you a cripple and how they damage the trails. Trail maintainers keep having to reroute trails because of trekking poles and other nonsense.

And of course we all love the guy(s) that always tells everyone to get the 6 lb Hilleberg tent and they will never regret it. I even almost fell for that one by listening because of these posts:-(

Or a common theme about – where I hike you have to have all this heavy gear because our conditions are SO extreme. That UL crap won't cut it where I hike. You have to carry a good hatched, a giant heavy pack, a 4 season dome freestanding tent, … and of course wear high topped waterproof hiking boots, ….

It seems like the best posts are the ones that advise people to go to BPL for UL advice instead of listening to the heavy packers rant. I know that was the best advice I have received from the WB forums.

[Greg Pehrson]

Paul–
-For the sassy staff and exchanges in Portuguese: Allens Ave Dunkin Donuts (DD) in South Providence. Highly inconsistent coffee though.
-For 24 hour convenience and late nights of driving: Exit 30 DD.
-For waiting for a ride from the rock gym when my car's in the shop while eating a Venezuelan arepa: Lonsdale Ave DD.
-For nostalgia: Dexter Street DD, Pawtucket/ Central Falls line (near my old office). Never had a burnt cuppa there.

For those not from RI: we start drinking coffee milk in kindergarten. Provided by the schools, not parents.

Ooops, thread drift. Sorry.

[Paul Magnanti]

Many of us are rejoicing DD s coming to the Denver metro area. Oh yeah…

Beinga Pawtuxtet Valley boy (Coventry) , the one on Tiogue Ave was the DD of choice. Go more towards West Warwick, the one on Providence St by Royal Mills was a choice back when i was a young lad working at Kent Hospital on weekends trying to wake myself up from the fog of partying on Friday night.

I have a a cache of Autocrat coffee syrup in my cupboard. I pick up some every time I visit the family. :)

Thread drift indeed. ;)

[Jeffs Eleven]

I sat let those cats keep their heavy packs… keeps em closer to the TH.

[Raquel Rascal]

DD coming to CO? cool. wait wait. Is DD Paleo friendly? ;)

[Paul Magnanti]

Paleo friendly? If you crunch the beans…sure! :)

As for CO:

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19918694

There are some in Co Sprgs already IIRC…

[M J]

I get ur upset with Alligator and Rick, but this was you posting just 6 weeks ago… Those are all your posts… Remember any of it??? You made disparaging remarks about Ryan on WB, and now you are doing the same about Rick on BPL… Hmmmmm…

http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?88864-BPL-is-dying&highlight=bpl+is+dying

Perhaps the Ultralight sub-forum here will see more traffic. it is sad how BPL has gone down the drain, it got me back into backpacking after a long hiatus. It was pretty evident last year when Ryan stopped posting all together, despite nasty criticism and complaints, that he was letting it burn to the ground.

New threads just created didnt last more than a few hours without being spammed. it's a ****show.. I showed a friend in the computer industry the site a while ago and he laughed at how old the software was..

Ryan makes money on his guided classes.. not on BPL or probably even his blog. if BPL goes down I don't think it hurts him.

They could have just shut down new registrations…. but no. another attempt to get more people to sign up for memberships… i highly doubt limiting Gear swap did much and this will have even less effect.. sad that a guy so smart in one field is so inept in another.

The membership is for the articles. I don't care about most of what is in the articles and could probably find a blog like Andrew's, Hendrik's, etc that would have similar. Having a forum to discuss and ask questions and share info is far more useful and has been ignored by Ryan for quite a while. Just the fact that he uses a software so outdated it is laughable is proof of that. the search function is unusable, no quote function, HTML needed for imbedding links and linked photos

In all forums the content and contributors are the valuable asset.. he ignores and dismisses that, that is why BPL is going down the drain.

spending money to help was the mistake of the people who paid for MLife's last time… i highly doubt they will get that support again.

http://ryanjordan.com/guiding-services-inquiry/

where Ryan gets his actual money… when you're getting 600 bucks a day to hike… you're not worried about losing a few hundred bucks of membership fees

There were many threads of complaints. many suggestions for spam control, including offers by web savvy people to do code. many offers to help moderate spam. all ignored and it was shuttered up.

Ryan promised "new forum software" this year… uhh.. last year. didn't happen. he hasn't posted in more than a few threads in months and never in ones involving complaints.

he promised MLife people many things that apparently never went through when he begged for $ last time.

It is sad because BPL got me back into backpacking and dropped my pack from 25-30 for a weekend to 25 for a week with more room for improvement.

Yep, definitely the wrong approach, but what else is new there. I do not see many people paying 5 bucks to post on a forum that should be free. lots of MLifers have been talking a lot of crap about how "5 bucks is nothing blah blah" I am happy I found the site to lighten my pack and meet a few people but it has always had an elitist feel from the "members and Mlifers" just the fact that normal posters are categorized as "guests" is proof enough.

also doesn't change the fact that the whole board infrastructure is from like 1994 and the search function is less useful than a 4 year old with a set of encyclopedias. the complaints go back for years asking for better platforms and response in promises for improvements… which have never shown up.

every time i consider posting there I think that it is just positive reinforcement that they are doing something right and change my mind.

[Jeffs Eleven]

I just stopped itno WB and tried to read some of this. Its like an abortion arguement. No listining, just people trying to make a point to other people trying to make a point, but no one listening.

IDK what Jake said, or didn't say…

What I want to know is why is 'fast' always tied to 'light'?

Its not like ULers are running or jogging. Its that when your pack doesn't weigh >20% of your bodyweight you don't get as tired so you can keep going.

Everybody over there kept hammering 'fast n light' like it is a mantra. Its a marketing slogan.

Also why does everybody assume UL is uncomfortable? I'm plenty comfortable. I carry a chair for Pete's sake.

You call UL uncomfortable (even though you've never tried it) yet you strap a 70lbs pack to your back?

Maybe I'm weird, but a 70lb pack sounds uncomfortable.

And A GPS being "dead weight"? I guess a map is dead weight too then?
Maybe I dont need the actual GPS function, but having a 24K topo map of my entire state in a small, easy to read, waterproof package sounds… nice.

2nd edit: If BPL is elitest then why aren't there "contributing member" and "silver member" etc. like Whiteblaze. …Silver member…lol I wish I had… NVM

[Jake D]

I still think the way he handled the spam issue and the board infrastructure is terrible but that it is a minor blip on his radar. I was also not the only one frustrated about it

it also didn't do jack to raise the UL forum over there.. not a tiny bit. I was hopeful and wrong.

on WB, having to pay to edit things also does not help. Sometimes you say stuff when you are frustrated or comes out wrong and you get hung for it.

the fact that others here have seen similar over there means that i'm not the only one.

I am going to a post less attitude on here and not worry about it. I am glad to share what I know the best.. white mountains and the Long Trail and try to stick to that.

Edit: Barry, trying to give advice there is generally useless, the majority of the posters want you to say "you're doing everything right!" and confirm everything they think they know.

There is a poster who complains on a regular basis that the AT in the wilderness section of the White Mountains is not blazed (as per the Wilderness rules) Apparently 4' high cairns are too difficult. A map or GPS might not help that kind of stupid. (he is still bitter from his thru-hike like 3 years ago) When you walk in a fairly straight line connecting dots for 2000mi your brain goes mushy i think.

[Anonymous]

"Ryan makes money on his guided classes.. not on BPL or probably even his blog. if BPL goes down I don't think it hurts him."

Maybe he's not doing it for the money?

I do not see many people paying 5 bucks to post on a forum that should be free. lots of MLifers have been talking a lot of crap about how "5 bucks is nothing blah blah""

This is an old complaint, so I'll post an old reply. If NOBODY pays anything, how do you expect the forums where you have learned so much to continue operating? It takes a server, telecommunications capability, website maintenance, etc, none of which pops up out of nowhere like one of those schmoos in the venerable Little Abner comic strip. It costs money. So, I'll ask you: Where is that money supposed to come from? Those Mlifer's are talking crap, my friend, they're talking reality.

"I am happy I found the site to lighten my pack and meet a few people but it has always had an elitist feel from the "members and Mlifers" just the fact that normal posters are categorized as "guests" is proof enough."

And yet you hung around long enough to milk the site for what you needed to get back into backpacking, lighten your pack, and meet a few good people, none of them, presumably elitist members. All courtesy of those elitists you malign, who did pony up for the same benefits, a lot more than 5 dollars. I don't get people like you. Maybe it's just a generation gap kind of thing, but I wasn't raised to expect things to be free. As far as I'm concerned, you can complain about what you're getting for the price; indeed, a lot of people are unhappy with the gap between what was promised and what they got, but don't expect it to be free. The world just doesn't work that way.

[Jake D]

None of the Rock climbing forums that I am on are membership driven. Just because people would rather pay than see a few discrete ads is not my problem. I don't mind them and it would probably have more income than $5 a person. Check out Mountain Project, SuperTopo, Rockclimbing.com, Boldering.com (this is privately owned and used by a very small group and still has better interface than here)

I do not complain about the things that I do not get for free. I've read a few free articles but not that many. I do not wish I had read any of the non-free ones.

[M J]

I know you did not start that thread on WB, Eugene "Leaftye" did… I get ur frustration about being able to edit, but without having to pay, but I just let them do it for me, gratis… lol.. lets look at what he (Eugene) had to say, to put some of ur posts, maybe into context… They are from the same thread on WhiteBlaze…
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?88864-BPL-is-dying&highlight=bpl+is+dying

Keep in mind these are leaftye posts from just the first 3 pages…

For years I've used Backpacking Light and this forum. BPL more for technical discussions, and this forum more for discussion long distance hiking techniques. Unfortunately spam at BPL has grown worse over the past year, and much more so in the past week. It looks like the owner and administration there is completely unwilling to take even the most basic, free and effective steps to save their forum.

I know quite a few people here participate there too, and I suspect more people will sign up here as the fallout at BPL continues. While the primary purpose of Whiteblaze is for the AT, I hope it can accommodate BPL refugees as well.

There is no reason to believe these attacks are going to stop. I don't see why membership will continue when the spam is dominating the forum during and after the attacks. I also don't believe Ryan Jordan cares enough about BPL to operate it in the red if membership does indeed decline.

ere's an example. The username of the spammer has been changed by Roger, the moderator, to "SPAM". I believe this is an indication that the spammer has been banned, and this has somewhat been confirmed. Why is this banned spammer still able to post?

In any case, I hope Whiteblaze is preemptively learning from BPL how NOT to respond to spam because I'd hate to lose both forums.

As expected, a bone headed move. Instead of even trying to add another moderator at zero cost, Ryan has…well, read on.

Originally Posted by Ryan Jordan
In recent days, backpackinglight.com, along with forums across the internet during the same time, has been hit with an automated forum spam attack from newly upgraded spamming software that is becoming increasingly sophisticated at circumventing anti-bot measures. The attacks on backpackinglight.com resulted in a level of spam that makes it nearly impossible to moderate manually with human moderators.
Consequently, we will be limiting forum postings and the creation of new threads to members only (M or MLIFE).

This is intended to be a short term change in policy while we evaluate a number of options as we move forward. One of the options we will evaluate is whether or not to maintain this restriction indefinitely, or at least until we are able to upgrade to new forum software.

My hope with this change in policy is that our forums will return to a very high level of quality, even at the sacrifice of some quantity from those users who have contributed in the past but have not been members of our website. To those of you specifically, I'm grateful for your contributions and will continue to explore options that allow for your participation in the future.

We will continue to make the forums publicly available so that the rich resource here can be read by the public.

I wanted to thank Roger Caffin for being an incredibly patient and persistent moderator during this time. Roger did a terrific job of keeping the impacts of the attacks to a minimum, of keeping me and our web developer informed, and working with our web developer to create tools for helping us efficiently deal with large quantities of spam.

Thanks for your patience with the spammers and with us this past week.

I didn't actually volunteer to moderate or provide technical assistance. All I did was make some threads reappear and try to pressure them to do something to make things better. Instead Ryan found a solution that's worse. In any case, if Ryan has been paying attention to my posts, he probably wouldn't want my help because I accused him of lacking the technical prowess to stop spam, much less ensure the security of my account and payment information. At that time I said I would not consider renewing my membership unless I could pay via Paypal or some other intermediary.

Okay, he did stop spam. So if we're going to be literal, I was wrong.

Originally Posted by deadbox
I certainly hope that another venue to blocking spam is pursued post haste before valuable members of the BPL community permanently “move on”.
Several of us have been strongly suggesting over the last year that more moderators should be added. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, then it could be said that BPL was insane to expect the spam issue to go away by doing absolutely nothing different to address the problem. Had Ryan allowed at least a second moderator to be added, BPL might not be such a favored target for spammers.

Adding more moderators certainly isn't the end-all for spam, but it's free and easy, and the logical stop gap measure until more expensive and technical solutions can be implemented. Ryan's stop gap measure is to destroy BPL before a more expensive and technical solution can be implemented. If BPL has any chance of surviving, it'll only be if no other good alternative ultralight backpacking site starts gaining any momentum whatsoever.

I think that's another example of insanity. Many people have paid, including some that no longer pay. Some have paid for a lifetime. What has Ryan Jordan done differently to show for it? He restricted Gear Swap, added ads to the forum, closed down the gear shop, didn't find a temporary replacement for Addie, he didn't add another free moderator, and he effectively banned anyone that isn't currently paying. In all but one way, members are getting less for their money.

I strongly disagree that anyone should pay for a continually degrading service and magically hope it gets better. That's insane.

I've already mentioned on BPL and here that I don't trust Ryan. That I would absolutely not pay him for a membership in a way that gives him access to my payment information, and that a payment service like Paypal is mandatory. I don't trust a website operator that can't remotely grasp how to address spam to be able to securely handle my payment information. Will Ryan make that change? Probably not, especially since it's a logical move and also because it might cost him 3%. Nevermind that it might draw more members.

As others have said in the thread I linked to, the forums are a way to draw people towards membership. Now more than ever, the primary benefit of membership is access to the articles. I doubt very many would have paid for access to the articles if it wasn't for the forum.

Originally Posted by jakedatc
spending money to help was the mistake of the people who paid for MLife's last time… i highly doubt they will get that support again.
Exactly. Extra memberships paid for a degradation of services. Every indication is that service will degrade further. Trying the same thing again is insanity. It'd be better to withhold payment and force Ryan to earn memberships. It's a business after all, not a charity. Some people seem to forget that.

[Nick Gatel]

I have never visited WB. But I would treat it like any other business or service. If I am unhappy I go somewhere else. Pretty simple.

Also here on BPL some folks get pretty zealous over gear that is not uber-light.

They are just websites. Nothing to get excited about.

Go for a hike instead :)

Perhaps we take ourselves too seriously.

[Jerry Adams]

+1 Nick

If you don't like WB or BPL or whatever, then don't go there

If you paid for something and they didn't deliver what you expected, maybe you deserve to b**** about it a little first

[Steven McAllister]

I personally feel that people got too freaked out about the spam posts and although BPL were a little slow to address it, I didn't find it so annoying and I had checked a few time a day.

There were some people who were trying to make something out of it by saying that these posts can infect computers. But of course they can not and are really quite harmless.

These same people really got in a huff about it and posted all over the internet about how people shouldnt use the BPL formus because it will infect their computers with a virus.
I don't remeber who it was, and don't really care. Some of you know who these people are.
I try to ignore the trolls when I can.

I advise others to remember, do NOT feed the trolls. They are looking for replies, if you ignore their posts, they usually go away, or at kleast find a new method to annoy.

[obx hiker]

I paid up to be a member for life because I was grateful for the opportunity to support this forum.

You see I started out as an "ultralight" backpacker in 1970 wearing converse all stars and carrying a standard "frame less" boy scout canvas pack. I think I had some instant rice, a few cans of potted meat and some candy bars,a cheap aluminum pot and an ensolite pad. I hitched from Chapel Hill to Cherokee and got a ride up to Clingmans Dome and headed north. The first night at Collins I shared the hut with a doctoral candidate from Duke studying the red spruce blight. The next day I found out there was food to be purchased on LeConte. Hot meals! I can still remember walking out the Boulevard under the mature red spruce canopy with a visibility of a couple hundred yards at least and the ground carpeted with ferns; a sight you won't see again in this universe.. along with giant hemlocks and chestnuts and who knows what's next. Took me 4 days to make Davenport Gap so I guess that was fast and light but that wasn't on the radar in those days. I was 18 and hooked and the soles of my feet were really sore! but I digress

When I look back at some of the stuff we thought was "light" in the 70's 80's and 90's it almost funny. I remember going to Jack Stephenson's house on Hatteras Court in Woodland Hills, CA like it was a shrine back in 1974. Nobody was running around naked. The original Campmor store in Paramus NJ. Aspen Alpine in Aspen. Camp 7……

So whats the point of all this reminiscing and story telling except to to pull rank from experience due mostly to longevity? Well there's that and plus it's fun to reminisce! But more to the point there's hopefully some perspective.

Walk 2 moons. Who knows what Ryan is going through. Maybe BPL is winding down. Maybe there's a financial pinch. Certainly looks like it. Well let me tell you folks who don't have mortgages, payrolls, car payments, children (maybe in college or private school, or double yikes private college! You do what you have to to get by and sometimes things get squeaky. The last 6 years I've seen some hard men and women go down.

But what has BPL accomplished? I can tell you this. There was nothing remotely like this blog before. I can also make what I will assert are the following statements of fact.
1. Before the internet there basically were no "cottage" gear manufacturers and retailers. Couldn't build enough of a market.
2. Without the internet there would be none pretty soon.The very nature of much of the gear we classify as ultra-light; it's light weight and inherent degree of fragility; it's esoteric appeal and lack of a widespread, mainstream market, mean it will not be made and sold by larger, "general" mainstream retailers. The internet made the lightweight market or opened the niches that made the diversity and creativity of the products possible.

3. BPL had something to do with this and no small thing. I am indebted. and grateful.

BTW I met Teepee Walter on Bob Stratton and along with a couple of "lightweights" from Atlanta (they had a regular coffee press and had once hauled a keg up the same mountain) We spent a fun day and evening and had some great expresso. Walter was mighty skeptical of my gear (lots of cuben) and I could see how he could be a bit obdurate in his views but hey my hats off to someone who lugs a pack that big up the ball buster and he was good company. You spend your days spinning around the sun on this ball with the cast of characters before you. Cherish them!

[BlackHatGuy]

"You spend your days spinning around the sun on this ball with the cast of characters before you. Cherish them!"

Both the days and the people, my friend. You never know when either, or both, will be gone.

Thanks for the post. Made me smile. And I needed a smile this week. Timing is a wonderful thing.

[Luke Schmidt]

I was resisting posting after some of the comments because frankly I thought this thread needed to just be forgotten but since its active again I'll speak my peace.

I don't have a dog in the fight over WB not my site, or my problem. I would like us to quit trashing people from either WB or BPL. I don't see how it helps.

I don't know why BPL leadership have made all the decisions they have but I give them the benefit of the doubt because I don't know all the relevant facts. I remember working for an organization that was (and is) going through a number of major changes. Everyone pretty much assumed the worst and assumed the boss was stupid. Since I knew him well I learned some details that for various reasons not everyone could hear. In the end the choices made perfect sense.

Now maybe there are reasons behind the choices made at BPL and maybe not but I'm not going to question another man's good character just because he doesn't tell me all the details of his business.

I joined BPL for the forums and articles and we still get those. Some of the more creative ideas were interesting but not what I joined for.

[Anonymous]

"You spend your days spinning around the sun on this ball with the cast of characters before you. Cherish them!"

Wisely and eloquently put! What a great post, a shining light in an otherwise dismal, depressing thread. Thanks, Cola.

[Harrison Carpenter]

+1 on Cola's eloquence.

I've been on WB for a little more than a year, and I've not seen much of any indications in any of the fora that its administration is "anti" anything (save for the usual obscenities, vulgarity, abuse, spam, etc.). Of course, I'm not as active in its fora as I could be, and haven't attempted to persuade anyone to agree with me (yet).

I think the BPL, while supposedly the place for all things lightweight/UL/SUL, seems to be a little more open to differences of opinion than WB. On WB, I've not seen much discussion of backpacking in general. Instead there is discussion of a particular kind of trek (like "thru-hiking"), a particular trail (like the AT), a particular speed (like "15-20 miles a day") and a particular goal (like "summit Katahdin before the snow falls"). Most everything on WB, in one way or another, comes back to hiking the AT, doing it as completely as possible, being as safe in that pursuit as one can be, and above all else, remembering (or rather, believing) that the AT is a place to be revered unto itself.

That's not "anti." It's more like "dogmatically focused, and therefore ignorant of and unwilling to admit diversity." That makes any difference of view seem foreign, radical, distasteful, or "wrong." On BPL I've seen plenty of open discussions, differences of opinion, and diverse means, goals, and interests. Discussions revolve around backpacking– any kind, anywhere, for any reason. All that we're adamant about is the general idea that "carrying less weight makes it better"– and that everyone is here to really help everyone else have a better time backpacking.

It's hard to get dogmatic about that, since everyone's likes/dislikes are different– and that's easy to see if you open your mind to it.

[obx hiker]

Here's a white blaze for ya. Lets see yours!
Just north of Carter's Gap near Standing Indian.

I have others but must leave for a pressing engagement!

[Author]

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