Telemarktalk Censorship

[jmedslc]

I’ve gotten spammed many times from users on the “new ttips “ site. Nearly “bought” a set of NTN bindings from some Texas person who was running a fraud racket. Messaged the hell out of the admin over there and the two suspect accounts still exist. I bailed and haven’t been back in a while. I do miss the old days of good content ttips - and made several good friends over the years on that site. Rip Mitch he was a cool cat

[Core Shot]

How can rainbows and unicorns create such animosity?

[MagnificentUnicorn]

He was one of the crazies that I was talking about. I think he did try to post here briefly at one point when he was trying to rule the Internet, but got chased off. Nobody would listen to him, whereas there are enough earnest skiers on the tele sites to indulge/encourage him (until he got banned).

I had forgotten his name but you're right, it was Ron. Cole, I think?

Yes, Ron Cole. Went by pfcroncole. Lookout devotee. I actually skied with him at Mission Ridge maybe ten years ago. Nice enough guy in person, a bit of a kook. Kind of a hack on skis. He’d probably fit right in at SkiTalk in the stemming in powder discussion someone linked.


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[Peruvian]

He was one of the crazies that I was talking about. I think he did try to post here briefly at one point when he was trying to rule the Internet, but got chased off. Nobody would listen to him, whereas there are enough earnest skiers on the tele sites to indulge/encourage him (until he got banned).

I had forgotten his name but you're right, it was Ron. Cole, I think?

Yes, he was either so bored or self obsessed that he couldn't NOT comment in every fucking thread. He and kingdomtele's pops would often derail any given thread into a discussion of plastic vs. leather. Funny that the new TelemarkTalk forum was centered around XCD. I wonder if Ron had anything to do with that.

[lowsparkco]

How can rainbows and unicorns create such animosity?

There was a lot of dissension about the moderation or lack thereof. The owner, Mitch, initially moderated the forum. He was dealing with some personal issues and lost interest in the forum. I don’t think Gwen wanted to die on the hill, but she had moderation privileges from helping with the code, found the critique of her friend bothersome, and pulled the trigger.

I think she meant to go to an extreme to get a reaction in an attempt to force the issue. As I recall it worked, because a team was then put into place. I don’t remember a lot of the details, the whole thing became moot when Ron Cole showed up. Don’t know why they didn’t just ban him and let it chug along.

What was that other guy that posted here and there that really had searing wit and got into lots of flame wars? He used something like Whale in his username later on. BigWilly or something?

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Freeheelwilly IIRC


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[djhutch]

Dostie's site Backcountry Talk is brilliant. Highest signal to noise ratio on the interwebs.

Yes, everyone that posts is over 50 and waxes nostalgically about their Targas and 200cm Kazamas but a lot of great info and so much less brobrahBS relative to this site.

[Core Shot]

You say bro brah like it’s a bad thing?

Maybe it’s a feature.
Or a glitch in the matrix?

[~mikey b]

[andy m]

Dostie's site Backcountry Talk is brilliant.

Hahaha -- good one!

[Tri-Ungulate]

This thread kinda makes me sad. Missing Mitch, RIP.

Gwen may have been thin skinned in that situation, especially being fiercely loyal and prolly one of the select few who knew that Mitch was dying. I'll never not think anything other than that she is good people.

roncole was just an annoying k00k. As mentioned earlier he would have been summarily dismissed here, but TT had too many obsessive compulsives to let him spin into oblivion.

FHW lurks on teh TRGs. He's just not able to troll effectively here (same reason as above w/roncole) and prolly just gave up.

[lowsparkco]

This thread kinda makes me sad. Missing Mitch, RIP.

Gwen may have been thin skinned in that situation, especially being fiercely loyal and prolly one of the select few who knew that Mitch was dying. I'll never not think anything other than that she is good people.

roncole was just an annoying k00k. As mentioned earlier he would have been summarily dismissed here, but TT had too many obsessive compulsives to let him spin into oblivion.

FHW lurks on teh TRGs. He's just not able to troll effectively here (same reason as above w/roncole) and prolly just gave up.

Sorry for your loss. Mitch seemed like a good man.

I was a pretty regular user of Ttips for awhile without ever interacting with Mitch, maybe read an article he wrote here or there.

Then at some point he reached out to me about something and we exchanged quite a few emails over a couple months. He was really struggling with some family issues, but he never mentioned being sick. I don’t know what the timeframe really looked like, but I have to think he knew at the time.

I think he just didn’t want to make it about him.

The forum was certainly a fun resource when tele was evolving. I’ll never forget the day that the Nurse Ben NTN shit hit the fan. One of the funniest Internet forum days I can remember other than some drug band shenanigans.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Sorry for your loss. Mitch seemed like a good man.

I was a pretty regular user of Ttips for awhile without ever interacting with Mitch, maybe read an article he wrote here or there.

Then at some point he reached out to me about something and we exchanged quite a few emails over a couple months. He was really struggling with some family issues, but he never mentioned being sick. I don’t know what the timeframe really looked like, but I have to think he knew at the time.

I think he just didn’t want to make it about him.

The forum was certainly a fun resource when tele was evolving. I’ll never forget the day that the Nurse Ben NTN shit hit the fan. One of the funniest Internet forum days I can remember other than some drug band shenanigans.

Ben is one of the few people that I’ve met irl through the internet that I’d be happy to never interact with again


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[lowsparkco]

Freeheelwilly IIRC


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Nicely done. I never would have remembered. He had an alias or two as I recall.

Ben reached out to me when he got hammered over all of his NTN nonsense. He kept writing stuff like “I’m not a bad guy irl” and “we should get together you will like me, most people do” - I’ve had good luck meeting mags, boaters from boatertalk back in the day or mountainbuzz, but I opted for hard pass on that one.

[SB]

I recall he also was a big early adaptor/originator/innovator of mtn unicycle.

Hurl

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Nicely done. I never would have remembered. He had an alias or two as I recall.

Ben reached out to me when he got hammered over all of his NTN nonsense. He kept writing stuff like “I’m not a bad guy irl” and “we should get together you will like me, most people do” - I’ve had good luck meeting mags, boaters from boatertalk back in the day or mountainbuzz, but I opted for hard pass on that one.

Every person on the hut trip that he showed up for couldn’t stand the man. I had posted about an up coming trip to the Wallowa and he went and saw two empty spots so he signed him and his wife up. His poor wife had never skied off piste and he had never skinned with his NTN set up. It was very funny, sad and irritating at the same time. Their feet were hamburger after the 5 mile mostly flat skin into the camp.


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[Danno]

Every single person I have met in person from here or TTips had some online spillover from the meeting; we got along better online because we had met in person. Except Ben. We got along in person well enough, but he became more and more of an asshole online, like somehow meeting in person gave him a license to make obnoxious personal references and just be a dick. I know a few people who seemed to kinda get along with him, but even they didn't really like him much.

[LightRanger]

Ben posts pretty regularly in the MTBR NorCal forum. From context it appears he lives in SLT or maybe Carson now.

Mitch was good people. Never met him IRL but was really really bummed when he left us.

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[riser4]

I skied with Ben and his wife and two kids at Smuggs one day. Nice enough IRL.

[frorider]

Gawd I’d forgotten about Ron Cole. But definitely recall FHW and his biting humor / insults. Nurse Ben was quite a character. So tenaciously off base in his technical opinions. I guess every forum has someone who posts things like ‘World Cup racers prefer soft skis for GS and DH’ and then a shitshow thread ensues. I see him comment on Pinkbike regularly lol.

I get sad when Mitch’s name is brought up. Mid 90s thru mid 2000s was a great time for meeting people thru the tele community, many of them friends today.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I skied with Ben and his wife and two kids at Smuggs one day. Nice enough IRL.

Ben’s wife was a very nice lady, Ben was insufferable. He misrepresented their skill set when he booked the trip and told his wife it would be like xc skiing. They left after much shenanigans on Ben’s part and was told to leave after the third night and escorted back to the trailhead. They hadn’t even worn their packs before, my friends shared a yurt with them and had to participate in pack fitting for them each evening. I think his wife skied one run the first morning and they barely got her back to the yurt. It was endless and I felt bad for the owner and the other host.


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[~mikey b]

I feel bad for anyone on a yurt trip with you

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I feel bad for anyone on a yurt trip with you

Ah, my dry drunk stalker is back. It’s funny, we all had fun even more so after Ben left. He was dangerous and wasn’t part of our group but we hadn’t blocked the trip out because we’re a welcoming group. I tried to like Ben but it wasn’t possible. Have a good winter!

Oh yeah, we didn’t ask him to leave, the owner of WAH did. The touring was fine, Ben couldn’t make it to lunch and the host would take him back to the yurt at lunchtime. It was mostly camp shenanigans that were entertaining for us but terrible for the hosts.

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[lowsparkco]

Did you post a trip report MagnificentUnicorn?

Joseph is about 6 hours from me. I’ve always heard good things about touring in the Wallowas.

I never interacted with Ben IRL, so I don’t want to pile on. Traveling to adventure and showing up wholly unprepared is the stuff of nightmares for me. Dragging a significant other into my failure would be insult to injury. Hopeful it was a valuable lesson learned.

I had totally forgotten how people follow each other around on TGR. It’s kind of cute.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I think that I may have posted something on Ttalk. I’ve been 5 times to McCully, it’s great because you can always find great skiing regardless of weather. It’s relatively high elevation for OR and mostly north aspects.



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