BPL Launches Wiki as Lightweight Backpacking Reference

ahhhhhh very nice. So far this is looking like a homerun!!! Like the recipie section!

It's been a while coming, but I'm sure it will be a tremendous resource. Well done!

Sounds like a great resource of backpacking information!!!!

Such a clean slate I don't even know where to start. All I know is that Bill is going to have a grand time in the MYOG section ;-)

Get in there and start adding stuff. This is the kind of thing where if we can get a critical mass going off the bat the ball can really get rolling and we'll have a great resource of information available to us.

Call me a spoil sport but wouldn’t getting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultralight_backpacking complete have been a better idea?

It has far more exposure than this site.

So far it looks great. Go BPL!….and with the backing of the forums….I'm beyond excited.

Petras, a proprietary wiki is much more along the lines of what BPL is about. They are in the content business. Anyone can change a public wiki and change the content and value.

Hi All — hang tight for a few hours. We’re starting the site upgrade now, integrating the Wiki, the new navbar, and the site search engine.

In the meantime, enjoy the Wiki! It’s live, and so is the new site search page.

Oh wow- this is really cool. I can't wait to see what our community makes this wiki into!

Very cool and very collaborative!

It goes against everything the idea of wiki as a free media is about. I do not see the reason why to create a content just to give all copyrights to a private company.

There is the worst case scenario that is possible within this model: The owner waits for some interesting contents to be generated by volunteers, then closes the wiki and asks money for accessing the information. Is it what you wanted?

I'd prefer to put my work into a free project that is helping the community and give it the rights to use the content it created.

The only restriction I'd accept here is limitation of use of the contents to noncommercial purposes, because I understand that it may be used by BPL's competition.

You don't have to accept the rules, there is nothing easier than publishing your content elsewhere. There are places on the internet that will host a free wiki for free, just because they feel that it is the right way how to accumulate and spread the knowledge.

In the end, I have to say I'm not surprised, I expected something like this when preparation of the wiki was announced. Companies simply tend to take and not to give.

As a low-tech kinda guy, I must admit I had no idea what a wiki was until now.
This could become a really good resource, I look forward to contributing what I can and seeing it grow.

Just curious, will this remain available to non-subscribers or are there any plans to bundle wiki use with subscriptions?

Jan and others,

The intent of the Wiki is to preserve it as a free, noncommercial resource in perpetuity. I have zero intention of privatizing this resource, and I wholly agree that would defeat the purpose of the spirit of the wiki concept and community.

Here is the Wiki copyright info:

http://wiki.backpackinglight.com/BackpackingLight_Wiki:Copyrights

Best,
Ryan

Thanks Ryan,
that was fast! I'm really happy to see the rules to be changed to what a wiki should be – a project created by a community for public use.

I know we've got many JMT and High Sierra hikers out there. Let's see what we can do to make the JMT wiki page as informative as possible – an example of what the wiki can become as a resource for the whole hiking community.

Consider this a challenge to see what we can do.

Here is a link to the page:
http://wiki.backpackinglight.com/John_Muir_Trail

What's needed:

1. More gear commentary.
2. More comments on logistics and resupply.
3. More photos and info on the trail sections.
4. More links to external sites – photo albums, gear lists, planning sites, etc.
5. More background info on wilderness areas, geology, wildlife, etc.

I'll be working on it too over the next week or so.

Don

.

Who verifies the legitimacy of information posted?

For those who haven't looked into wiki's before….

The beauty of a wiki is that is content generated by an enthusiast base, a collaborative document. While occasionally someone will come along and put bad / erroneous / slanderous info into the wiki, the enthusiast base will self police and correct the problem.

I for one am very happy to see this. Great resource!

Hi All,

We found a small bug in our new search engine after we moved it live last night, so we're reverting to the old one while the new search index is created on the site.

This will take 24-48 hours, so the new search engine will be up by tomorrow or the day after.

Thanks,
Ryan

"If you contribute material to the BackpackingLight wiki, you thereby grant Backpacking Light and Beartooth Media Group, Inc. the exclusive license to use this material and grant license for this material accordingly. In order to contribute, you must be in a position to grant this license, which means that either you hold the copyright to the material, for instance because you produced it yourself or you acquired the material from a source that allows the licensing, for instance because the material is in the public domain or is itself published under a license allowing distribution."

@@@ My own words: This is saying that once you contribute you give BPL and beartooth exclusive rights to the content you posted. This does not bode well with me for reasons I will go into later. @@@

Attribution-Noncommercial License Granted for BPL Wiki Content Use

Backpacking Light's goal is to keep the content published here free to the public, and free for noncommercial use in perpetuity. In the spirit of that community goal, content use in the BPL Wiki is granted on an attribution, noncommercial license:

@@@ My own words: I agree with Dave T. Having a "goal" does not offer any reassurance. In all other areas of the copyrights you say "must", "you may not" etc… Change this language to "BPL WILL keep the content here…" otherwise there is no reason for anyone to believe you will achieve your "goal." @@@

Beartooth Media Group, Inc. grants you the nonexclusive license to: adapt, copy, distribute, and transmit any work published in the BPL Wiki (e.g., in the URL path http://wiki.backpackinglight.com/) under the following conditions:

@@@ My own words: You should not be able to grant me any rights for something that I write. It should still be mine. We are not being paid by you and you should not be able to own our intellectual property. This isn't IBM or some company that has us on salary and can own what we do while at work using their resources. This is a website. What we write should be ours. You should be thankful to have the resource done so well and, assuming it IS done well, driving traffic to your site. @@@

* Attribution. You must attribute the work with a citation to the full path URL of the source material here.

* Noncommercial Use. You may not use this work for commercial purposes without written permission from the Beartooth Media Group, Inc.

Any material submitted is subject to editing, alteration or removal without your permission or knowledge.

Do not submit copyrighted content from another source in any form (text or images).
___________________________________________________

The main problem with this whole thing is that you think you have any right to the content posted on this wiki simply because you are hosting it. That may be the case if, as I said above, you owned the computer I was typing on and happened to pay me a salary. This is not the case though. Sure, it's great your goal is to keep it free and for the public, but if that is TRULY the case you shouldn't try and own it. Want to achieve your goal? Stop trying to own the rights to all the information posted on this wiki. Then I can guarantee that it will remain free and for the public. I think there is a problem with the copyrights. I'd love for other members to come voice their opinions because maybe I am missing something here, but to me something seems off. Perhaps if Ryan or others in the organization came out with a clear reason why this wiki should be their property I could understand more, but until then I feel that if you want to own the wiki, then it's not a wiki and you should fill it up yourselves.

I agree with both Jen and Richard. I assume that this is a case of of BPL doing a CYA and take Ryan's intent at face value. That being said as Richard points out it is preferable when the contract matches the stated intent.

With the license going to BPL rather than the public this legally gives BPL the right to revoke that license at a future date.

Wikipedia uses the GNU Free Documentation License which seems like a good basis for what Ryan and BPL are trying to do. Here is the introduction to the GNU license:

The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.

Hi All,

Thanks for the feedback re: copyrights. We are looking into the right language to put here. There has to be some balance, but my intent is most certainly to keep this a free and freely licensable resource in perpetuity.

Thanks for your patience while we work something out more solid.

Best,
Ryan

I read this in a very similar way to Andrew.
Forgive me if I don't speak Legal, but it does seem to imply, in fairly clear terms, that BPL becomes the owner of everything posted on the wiki.

"If you contribute material to the BackpackingLight wiki, you thereby grant Backpacking Light and Beartooth Media Group, Inc. the exclusive license to use this material and grant license for this material accordingly…."

How else am I to read this?
Would this not allow BPL, if they so desired, to charge a fee to access the information on the wiki, sell it, bundle access to it with a membership, or control/distribute it in any way they see fit?

Not trying to rain on the parade here, but if this wiki is supposed to be a free resource created by members of the community, the copyright language doesn't seem to reinforce the idea of community at all.

I read it similar to Andrew and Graig,

I am nearly finished an extensive testing program on alcohols and mixtures for BP stoves, this has taken me many hundreds of hours and cost me a lot of money, I am going to publish the results/report on my website (not yet ready to go public) and share them on some other forums/wiki's that I participate in, I would be happy to add this report and some others that I have done to the BPL wiki but I am not prepared in anyway to loose my copyrights or IP.

Tony