Thread: A note to the collective

I've been thinking about this and I want you to hear me out. I know everyone is pretty pissed right now and I don't blame you. As a maggot I mourn the loss of the maggot community history as much as anyone and the indifference (and nastyness) of Daniel is unacceptable. At the same time, I've seen you all say in one way or another that you don't hold this against Powder Mag personally - and you shouldn't. I just spoke with Metcalf and everyone on their end of the equation is shocked and pretty damn unhappy about this.

I am happy to have everyone here and I will do my best to accomodate the needs of the collective as mentioned in other threads. The traffic certainly doesn't hurt us. It's my philosophy to watch this place and make it as kick ass as possible whether there are 10,000 of you or 10 of you.

Here's my concern - I grew up on Powder Mag. The people and the magazine feed my personal stoke, support TGR as a business and a vision, cooperate with us from a web perspective and share a dream. They are taking an incredible kick in the testicles here and that distresses me.

I've heard talk of re-developing the community here (details in other threads)and that's great. I've also heard talk of re-developing the community elsewhere and that's also great. What I haven't heard is anyone talking about how to possibly make this work with Powder as well and that's not so great. Straight up - they have been our freinds. That goes a long way with me and I'm not ready to just piss all over it. Maybe there is a way to evolve this into something that works better forthe maggots as a community, includes TGR (and always myself - for I am and always will be a maggot), and Powder Magazine as well. Some of you have laid conditions on the Powder board for a re-winning of trust (get rid of Daniel, make an effort to recover the history, etc...) Maybe this is a good place to start.

Think about it - there could be advantages to a true collective fed from multiple avenues with possibly a better "Care Taker" structure than there once was.

I'm not claiming to have all the answers and as I said - Make yourselves at home. I'll do everything I can to make this place work for you - because that's what I do. I'm not telling you to go back. Hell, I'm not telling you to do anything.

I don't want to spark off a huge debate. In fact, I'd like you to reflect on things for awhile before you respond. The instant nature of the internet sometimes creates situations where emotional issues reach a point of critical mass when they don't have to.

Do me a favor and think about it. They are our freinds.

In the meantime - I am looking into a better forum that is not such a resource hog that I can import all of the TGR forum history into. UBB is a major hog, but I value the minion history so I'll figure it out.

Thanks

Owens Never Sleeps

I just shed a tear.

We know they're our friends. We just don't want to create more history and have it get erased again. If they could guarantee that it wouldn't get deleted arbitrarily (they promised it last time) all would be good. Until that day I will not post there.

No doors closed here.

Maybe we can negotiate a larger photo section, and a meatdrink or phUnk center page.

[ October 03, 2003: Message edited by: Ted Stryker ]

Owens, for help with the resource/history stuff here, write me an email and I'll pass you to a guy that runs a huge site with ongoing success, and ought to be able to tell you what's worked best for them.

thanks for the thoughtful words ONS. I have done all the thinking i'm going to do about this and I stand as follows : I will go right back to posting at powmag and being a "part" of their community as long as there is NO moderator/s. simple as that.

what about actual self-moderation?

I know of another site (same one referred to in my above post) that has taken long-timers as volunteers and turned them into joint admins for various forums. Shoot, you could even rotate the admin duties occasionally, so no one has to do it all the time.

[ October 03, 2003: Message edited by: Yossarian ]

Well said ONS:

I just talked to Metcalf after he talked to you and he is generally concerned, distressed and depressed about this whole thing. We're booting December out the doors tonight and Metcalf has already involved a bunch of higher up about what happened and what to do about it. More will happen on Monday. Daniel will never be back. I think PMag will be back to form very shortly, I will be the first to advocate a return, or now, more appropiatly, an allegiance to both forums (ONS and TGR have shown great hospitality). From my perspective, what happened was an instant decision from someone who didn't really know what he was effecting. I'm not defending, I'm just saying there was not one collective plan to screw anyone over. One person made a big mistake, and the full consequences have yet to be seen. Maybe ya'all will never be back, hopefully you will. Metcalf is working on making it a safe home as it was before. Just keep in mind it is a viable option still. I'll be lurking an posting wherever we all end up. All you guys/gals rock!

CO, I think some sort of joint venture may be a great idea, especially since Powder and TGR have been moving toward a more cozy relationship for a few years now, it seems.

The primedia sites, however, are pretty structured. In fact, they're all nearly the same. I think this may be an obstacle.

At any rate, the idea of a site separated from both Powder and TGR doesn't really help either of you, does it? You both want/need the page views, right?

To make a short story short, I think it's a fukking fantastic idea, whose implementation I can't quite envision. But, there are plenty of smart people here, and I think its a great idea worth investigating.

I agree KD and company are our friends.

I think many of us are convinced that Primedia is the problem. So when I say 'they,' I refer to the people who administer the board, not the people who produce the magazine which I still love.

The main complain I have is that this is not the first time we've had to deal with this kind of nonsense.

IF they hadn't deleted the threads, I could point you at dozens of distressed threads.

1. They turned on swear word filtering. We forgave them.

2. They botched the migration to a new UBB, causing many usernames to be lost. We forgave them.

3. They deleted a massive number of threads. This should have been the last straw. We lost years worth of history. But, we still forgave them.

4. The final outrage. Thousands of threads deleted without warning. Users banned. IP numbers visible to the world. All after the previous outrage.

This is a pattern of behavoir.

Now, this matters more than just a little. Go review Lowell Skoog's Ski Mountaineering history project. He relies on UBB posts and accounts in order to create that history. He's not mirroring the threads. If the thread dies, so does the history of the event.

The online forum has become the written history (along with the orla/visual history of ski films) of freeskiing.

Until Powder runs the board and 'they' are completely removed from the process, there should be no talk about returning. They'll just screw us again.

Here is the problem that I see with this. The staff at powder does not and will not have absolute and direct control over the board. Primedia does. Therefore the people who support and feel the stoke created within are not the people in charge, a faceless conglomerate is and will be.

Suggestions that something be saved rings well towards a small staff of people, but the voices were raised once before and threads/history was lost. Once again, this time without warning, threads/history was lost, identities were exposed and security for some people compromised. I don't see this changing, unless total control of the servers are given to each individual magazine. Unfortunately this isn't something that is likely to happen as a major companies main goal is consolidation of resources not expansion of responsibility.

Remember this wasn't just a policy handed down to powmag, this was handed down from primedia to (I imagine) all of its chat server/server space individuals. So what is in place to prevent it from happening again? Nothing.

Primedia OWNS the magazine and it's resources, they are free to do what they want.

Create the Winternet Forums, run independently of both entities, but as the discussion forums for both. Users click through to the Winternet from TGR or Powdermag.com.

I, for one, don't care. I grew up reading Powder, but TGR has been in my vcr/dvd for years, too.

Powdermag.com is the first and only forum I have ever regularly particpated in (aside from here, obviously), but Owens is the fuking man with a plan.

I wish I could support Powdah without supporting Primevil. Where's my hoody?

Much love to both and I'll go where ever Yossarian goes because he's the wind beneath my wings.

Could this forum turn into the TGR/Powder forum with links from both Powder and TGR? That way, we have a forum that is run by someone who cares, but it's still associated with Powder. The forum would be controlled by TGR, so it's not being run by some faceless corporate entity prone to making bad decisions and angering their customers, but Powder would still get to plaster their name all over it too and have some sort of online forum to commune with their readers. I would guess that there would need to be some sort of financial consideration given to TGR since it would be an increased workload/bandwidth for them (ONS will finally have an excuse for playing around on the Powder boards). Think about it, this might work if you could talk the Primevil ones into giving up control.

Owens, Good point, but something in the relationship has damaged. No so far as the true powder-crew goes, but certainly with PrickMedia. Since these guys took over, there have been more trouble than in the long period before that. And you know what? I think we've put up with a lot of shit in the past, but this time PrickMedia has shown too much disrespect to their own readers. Maggots should stay far from any company that shows that kind of behaviour to it's own clients.

Since my short time being a maggot I've been amazed by the sheer pleasure these people take out of the simple things in life. About the willingness to share and give, without asking anything in return. Maggots are the people that make me feel good about the world and in the end, they are the ones that deserve the best out of life, simply because they try to live it!

The contrast is obvious. PrickMedia should never have been involved with Powder in the first place, simply because the Powdercrew, the ubermaggots, deserve better. They deserve someone who treats em with respect and doesn´t pull stunts like this. Maggots aren´t some corporate decision to be made, maggots are the result of a way of life and should be treated accordingly.

To put it this way, it´s just not right to sleep with your ex-girlfriend. That's my advice to anyone who does, which makes it a choice : Either PrickMedia goes or the maggots go.

A simple solution would be Powder giving us a space of our own, where we can build a community, with guarantees that no-one, except true maggots, will ever touch that space.

Just my semidrunk rant..

Originally posted by Yossarian:
<STRONG>Create the Winternet Forums, run independently of both entities, but as the discussion forums for both. Users click through to the Winternet from TGR or Powdermag.com.</STRONG>

This loses a lot of the other functionality that's being kicked around in the other thread, but it's a great start, eh? Eh Comrade? Eh?

Toldja there were smart people here.

All I'm aqsking is that everyone slow down a little and think creatively about it. I know you can do that. And give Metcalf and his crew (and me)a chance to think about it too.

Beleive me - from a clinical perspective I'm watching this and learning a LOT about online social behavior. I hope to learn this lesson and take it to heart as a webmaster, and netizen.

Originally posted by The Reverend Floater:
<STRONG>I'll go where ever Yossarian goes because he's the wind beneath my wings.</STRONG>

Flattery will get you everywhere.

Are you drunk yet? Game 3 Cubs, Braves just up the road here in C-town, I plan to be sauced shortly.

I don't even know what to say about the whole board thing, really. I lost a million thoughts and twenty or thirty great trip reports in that clusterfuck. On the other hand, I was already planning on being more, doing more, writing more, skiing more, hucking more, and connecting with you, the powderpeople, more, so maybe it's not so horrible.

I will not, however, make the mistake of failing to preserve my thoughts in a seperate place this next time around.

First of, let's get the geeky stuff out of the way.

ONS, go check out the forums at MacNN. I've been over there for years. They used UBB for a long time and eventually the sheer volume of posts over there completely overwhelmed it. A couple of years ago they switched to vBulletin and have never looked back. It's been absolutely awesome.

tooki is one of the admins over there, and perhaps you could email him with questions about switching or at least to find out who's can help with that. I have the same screenname over there, so feel free to say I recommended you contact them. They went through the whole ordeal of moving old threads and tweaking the vBulletin with some custom options. So I think they'd be a great resource if they're willing to help out.

As for your comments on going back to pmag, all I have to say is that you rock ( &lt;- understatement of the century). I went back over there today to check for stragglers, and there was a thread where a bunch of people were leaving their email addys pleading to find their way over here. I read Metcalf's thread too. Needless to say, I was bummed...strike that...downright depressed. And what about the people that aren't around or are on hiatus. Sherpa comes to mind, Treskcow, and so many others whether active or lurkers. The whole thing is just sad.

With that said, I will only consider going back if Daniel is gone and the archives are restored. The latter isn't absolute, but the former is. I will not consider a return if they merely neuter him. He must never hold any form of control over that board ever again: whether it be access to the server or admin/mod status on the board. I won't compromise on this. As for the achives, I humbly demand that an archive forum be established. MacNN has done this, and DJSapp knows of another site too. Basically, it's a place to find all the old threads. They're locked and can't be posted to. I know they do this to reduce the database size and help keep the server load down. This is turn helps the board to run smoothly. But all of the really cool info that people may be looking for is saved for eternity. It's definitely the way to go from both a user's and administrator's perspective.

thanks for the thoughtful words ONS. I have done all the thinking i'm going to do about this and I stand as follows : I will go right back to posting at powmag and being a "part" of their community as long as there is NO moderator/s. simple as that.

The order came down from Primedia to clear whatever was older then 90 days (I'm not actually sure this even happened). Primedia is a business and what went down was superbad for them in the short and long term if nobody comes back. Like I said before. One person made a bad mistake out of nowhere. Don't underestimate Metcalf and KD's ability to have complete governing control over the message board. They didn't really need to before, because the maggots went along fairly unnoticed by the company. If they would've known something like this might happen, i think they would've demand more control, not just to retain the ad sales potential from all the hits, but also because they give a shit about all of you. I don't think there will be any empty promises this time around. Unfortunately the web staff is mostly gone right now and we have a deadline. Damage might not be cleaned up until Monday. But rest assured that nobody here or at Primedia have a plan to make the message board a certain way. It was just a dumb mistake someone stumbled into.

Wherever Floater goes, I'll follow.

I listen to my Rice Crispies and do everything they tell me. This morning they told me I that I should relinquish free thought to cultish devotion. And so shall it be.

That is all.

[whisper]Pinnnnnner....

Come to Ketchum. Bring Rev medicine, more live music and good times.....sshhhhhhhhh[/whisper]

Originally posted by Pinner:
I listen to my Rice Crispies and do everything they tell me. This morning they told me I that I should relinquish free thought to cultish devotion. And so shall it be.

Was it Snap, Crackle, or Pop?

Ketchummmmmm....