The Erik Sloan ethics thread

K Weber wrote: So you are not talking about Erik Sloan. He certainly is qualified to write Yosemite Guides and already has. Erik might not make post that you want but he is far from being an internet troll like you and most others Yosemite does not have closely divided issues and ethics. Most climbers are visitors and really don't give a shit. Yosemite will be there tomorrow and there will be climbing.

This tread was heavily edited over the holidays. All comments made by Christian George was removed including his witnessed firsthand of mr Sloan using power drill on El Cap.
Can Administrators explain why?

Erik Sloan wrote: Alexey: ..........you make a very aggressive post on this forum, where you work as an administrator....

Powerdrills? Yawn. Same as Base Jumping, right? No one's doing it I swear. You guys are so silly - nearly everyone putting up routes here(and I'm definitely not putting up routes here) is using power drills. What happened to the thread on ST this spring where the title was 'I saw someone powerdrilling in the Valley yesterday'? What ever happened to that witchhunt? The NPS going nuts over powerdrills is not the answer - forming groups to research and develop the best bolting practices and equipment is the answer.
...
Come on gang - let's make the goal of this thread to have a more productive 2016 in Yosemite. Woot Woot! E

Wow .. you really are into "being productive", huh? So because some people jump off cliffs (which I think dosen't alter those cliffs to much..) you think it is okay to not give to much about established ethics since they are also fixed in the Park-rules or whatever???
Yosemite is a very special place for climbers all around the world (like me ..) not just because there is a lot of good climbing but because of the history of climbing there and the resulted ethics practised by most climbers there. There are not many places left with such "pure" climbing like in Yosemite but there are plenty of climbers who value those places.
If you want to be productive and push climbing forward, please accept the established Yosemite ethics or focus your drive on other areas where you can play after your own rules ..

There is a big difference between consuming a nice climb and experience an big climbing adeventure. And for the later it is necessary to restict oneself and follow certain ethics to preserve this adventure experience..

So come on Erik let's keep Yosemite as an adventure-playground for climbers and don't transform it into a vertical Disneyland - Woot Woot

C. Holt wrote:Seeing this forum become censored and witnessing all the deleted posts makes me sick. To the admins who have deleted relevant posts... shame on you. To say the message here is compromised and power is being abused is a huge understatement.

considering slander is a punishable offense , they are probably being safe not to end up with a lawsuit.

C. Holt wrote:Seeing this forum become censored and witnessing all the deleted posts makes me sick. To the admins who have deleted relevant posts... shame on you. To say the message here is compromised and power is being abused is a huge understatement.

Will S wrote:Hey saxfiend or Sprague? Why don't whichever of you two is responsible, quit deleting my posts, or engage me directly if you have a problem with them. Aside from arbitrarily deleting them for no particular reason I can discern, I'm struggling to understand why the hell a guy from Georgia or some yankee is an admin for California section in the first place. I've got my suspicions that it's Liles and not Sprague, but who knows.

"Saxfiend", simples. I looked at who the admins were for the section, then when the last time all of them were on the site. That quickly narrowed it down to you, or Sprague, as the only two who had been on since the deleted post was originally posted and deleted.

Now maybe other people that have admin rights for other sections can also get in there and delete in sections they aren't admin for. I don't know. And at this point, I don't care. Because I asked Nick, "wtf? why are posts being deleted" and the claim is that nobody has actually deleted anything.

Which is a lie. Not on Nick's part, but one of ya'll in the admin bunch is lying. Unless you now have a "Mission Impossible" feature on this here interblogweb where posts "self destruct".

Does REI have anything to do with it??

Let's see how quick this gets deleted.

I may be wrong.

I hope I never meet you Erick Sloan...

Too much?? Am I a jerk?

saxfiend wrote: I have no idea how you picked my name out of thin air, but if posts are being deleted, it's not by me. This is the first time I've even looked at this thread. JL

Ari Kantola wrote:Does REI have anything to do with it?? Let's see how quick this gets deleted. I may be wrong.

• crickets*

Will why don't you repost everything that was deleted. We want to hear what you have to say. And it may flush out your admin also.

SRB, partly because I couldn't re-create those posts even if I wanted to. The nuance and context would be lost, and I don't remember the exact details of them now, it's been many days to weeks now.

Second, after an initial engagement from head MP honcho Nick, there was never any resolution to the deleting thing. They claimed none were deleted, their lying admin wouldn't own up to deleting them, and then they went into radio silence mode.

Since it's clear that to me that MP will not address their deleting, then lying about it, admin problem on their end, my choice was made for me: MP gets no route/area content from me in the future, and I will take up my issues with Mr. Sloan via hacksaw, tuning fork, crowbar, and patch kit.

Will, if it ends up not working out here at MP, and they don't let you back on supertopo, there's always this circus

Will S wrote:SRB, partly because I couldn't re-create those posts even if I wanted to. The nuance and context would be lost, and I don't remember the exact details of them now, it's been many days to weeks now. Second, after an initial engagement from head MP honcho Nick, there was never any resolution to the deleting thing. They claimed none were deleted, their lying admin wouldn't own up to deleting them, and then they went into radio silence mode. Since it's clear that to me that MP will not address their deleting, then lying about it, admin problem on their end, my choice was made for me: MP gets no route/area content from me in the future, and I will take up my issues with Mr. Sloan via hacksaw, tuning fork, crowbar, and patch kit.

Will S wrote: and I will take up my issues with Mr. Sloan via hacksaw, tuning fork, crowbar, ...

Will S wrote: ... and patch kit.

There are multiple climbers who will be correcting these unacceptable actions this year, I am far from alone in this. I firmly believe in the community "policing our own", and keeping The Man from getting involved, which tends to result in overly burdensome restrictions.

I am far from a purist zealot. I regularly climb at, and enjoy, the Riverside Quarry which is full of chipping, glue, and other shenanigans. And I regularly climb in Joshua Tree, where I will chop retrobolts and publicly call out chipping, glue, etc. One is a natural area with natural routes, one is a man-made closed quarry choss pile in a suburban ghetto that would be dangerous without the glue and have 1/4 of the routes without the chipping and heavy application of crowbar.

American Fork is natural, but if you were around in the early 90s during the heavy development, so much loose stuff was pried off while putting up the routes, some would call it basically chipping. Which is kind of ridiculous, the stuff would have pulled off or fell off, likely killing a belayer at some point.

Every situation is unique, but there are no actual question about many of Sloan's actions. Retrobolting around cruxes, because you can't climb at the standard the route requires, in Yosemite, has never been acceptable.

And despite a few vocal supporters (or sock puppets, who knows?) on this site, the vast, vast majority of the climbing community does not support these actions in the Valley or anywhere else. Mr. Sloan refuses to respect the wishes of the community, and has done so for over a decade now. It has been very clearly communicated to Mr. Sloan, in person, many times and by many people, that his actions are not acceptable. Yet he obfuscates, and basically sounds like a retarded puppet, pull the string "Woot, stoke, everyone does it, lets talk about something else, stewardship, send me money, Hey Gang WOot St0ke!!!11".

Adam, those other websites are all yours buddy. Gasoline, match - have fun. I can hear all the racism, ignorance, carpenters playing at being armchair military experts, wannabe anti-gubmint militia types, and dead animal stuffing biscuit killers by just calling any of several relatives from the north Georgia side of my family, don't need that website for those things. Pro tip for you though, the 2/10 thing beyond tired, even the youngest kids on my comp team know you reduce fractions...at least go with 1/5.

Will S wrote: Adam, those other websites are all yours buddy. Gasoline, match - have fun. I can hear all the racism, ignorance, carpenters playing at being armchair military experts, wannabe anti-gubmint militia types, and dead animal stuffing biscuit killers by just calling any of several relatives from the north Georgia side of my family, don't need that website for those things. Pro tip for you though, the 2/10 thing beyond tired, even the youngest kids on my comp team know you reduce fractions...at least go with 1/5.