Invitation to join mps diversity and inclusion group

While I applaud Nick's efforts to create a less hostile community,  it seems rather disingenuous for him to ask for more free labor from the climbing community for a privately owned for profit site the he solely reaps the benefit from.
https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/119737100/invitation-to-join-mps-diversity-and-inclusion-group

The site was already sold to REI for profit once. If the site was managed under a non profit foundation similar to WikiPedia I would not have any issues. Nick should come clean about his long term finical goals for the site and explain how privately owned for profit site that use free labor to maintain the content is a community entity. It sure like mountain project is private for profit business, that makes money off of the tracking data and user submitted content, just Facebook or any other social media site does.

No good deed....

So your point is....

So what exactly is it you want? Just to complain?
Working to maintain the database for everyone is not “free labor”, it’s a privilege. It’s a record, it’s history, it’s free knowledge, and it’s free for everyone. An absolute privilege to have and be a part of. If you don’t like the way it’s run, you’re free to go start your own Mt Project. 

This should be in the Discuss Mountain Project section.

Right on. Fight the power.

Kevin Beverly wrote:

My point is the Admins are working for free while the owner makes money. When the is sold again and the TOS change it might not be free anymore.  I'd feel pretty pissed if I put 10 years of free labor into this site and it was all of sudden locked up under a paywall. 

Yeah.

I think you're missing some important points here. I don't know about the finances of MP, and whether or not it really lands Nick any money. Actually, I don't care very much. Part of the reason why I don't care very much is because I know about the insane amount of time needed to build something like this. Even IF mp actually generated any money for Nick, it certainly didn't for most of its existence, and it probably cost him a bunch for years. Cloud services to host the servers & the databases aren't free. You do have to pay for those, upfront. And since an add-less, open-source website that has no subscription cost doesn't provide any obvious revenues, I'm pretty sure he paid for that for quite some time. Even if eventually REI paid anything for that, and even if anyone else later decides to pay anything for that.

If you don't want to provide your own time for a community/collective project, because you fear it might (might) land the initiator(s) of that project some money down the road, then please feel free to continue not contributing. I'm sure we'll continue to manage just fine without your contribution.

Sorry to say, but this perspective your bringing illustrates the worst of what I think of as "the culture of free" that the internet has sprung up. It has lots of great upsides - as a programmer, I myself can call upon thousands of lines of codes written by a bunch of much better programmers than myself without having to pay anything for it most of the time. Pretty much anything you can do on the internet, you can find some sort of free version of it somewhere. That's all great.

But hey, programmers, even though living in their basements, not needing daylights and eating mostly cold pizza, still need to pay a few bills. So yes, even programmers at some point will want to make some money for their efforts. Real sorry it has to be this way.... But you're not entitled to any of that, and if you don't appreciate it because someone somewhere may receive a check (that will still cost you 0$ personally), then just go find a paid website, or do without. Or take matter into your own hands and built your free, no adds, no money from anyone website and pay for it yourself out of pocket. Perhaps then you would see things differently....

Somebody might make some money? That's obscene. I'm reporting this. Enough is enough.

a kevinbeverlywrote:

While I applaud Nick's efforts to create a less hostile community,  it seems rather disingenuous for him to ask for more free labor from the climbing community for a privately owned for profit site the he solely reaps the benefit from.
https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/119737100/invitation-to-join-mps-diversity-and-inclusion-group

The site was already sold to REI for profit once. If the site was managed under a non profit foundation similar to WikiPedia I would not have any issues. Nick should come clean about his long term finical goals for the site and explain how privately owned for profit site that use free labor to maintain the content is a community entity. It sure like mountain project is private for profit business, that makes money off of the tracking data and user submitted content, just Facebook or any other social media site does.

I have a simple solution for you my friend. Just leave.

Actually I have a better take:

People: "Make DIE a priority"

MP: "okay done, let's work together to make this more welcoming"

OP: "well now I don't want to >:("

The site was already sold to REI for profit once. If the site was managed under a non profit foundation similar to WikiPedia I would not have any issues. Nick should come clean about his long term finical goals for the site and explain how privately owned for profit site that use free labor to maintain the content is a community entity. It sure like mountain project is private for profit business, that makes money off of the tracking data and user submitted content, just Facebook or any other social media site does.

I agree with Kevin.. Find it disgusting that Nick is trying to profit off diversity and inclusion .. Shame on you Nick 

Kevin Beverly wrote:

I have pretty good understanding of this business model works. Been working with React Native all week...  software dev before Facebook even existed. Seems like you and enjoy the same white privilege.  

If the site content was held under a creative commons license ( creativecommons.org/license…)  I'd have no problem with Nick making a fuckton of money off of this site so long as the data belonged to community.  Currently Nick owns it.  You should do a a quick search and look into his back story with webshots, the start projects and etc to get an idea od hwo runs a  business.

Well, if you do not like the license, then don't agree to it. Nobody is forcing you to. Since you DO have the skillset to do things differently, should you choose to, then you could - it would be real possibility for you to build something else up. Although as you know the amount of work/time this would require, I suspect you won't. Or use another platform. Not sure what license theCrag is under, or sendage.com, but there are others. Surely one will stick to something closer to you idealogical views on the matter. Since again you have the skillset, you could even contribute technically to those project instead & stir things closer to something you think is right.

All that being said, I'm not insensitive to the criticism you're making. From a general perspective, a lot of corporations are making money off data that users produce. And it's not always very transparent (who really knows, or even read, the license they agree to upon suscription? Single-digit % I'd say...). That's real problem. However, I just think you're aiming at one of the lesser target as you do that.

If down the road, MP is full of adds, a premium version etc... this may change of course. But I think you're being overzealous in this case.

I think the climbing community deserves this data - like a convicted felon deserves his sentence.

No one is forcing you or anyone else to contribute to the site. 

Plenty of people reap a benefit from the site. If they didn't, they wouldn't be here.

Nick owes you nothing.

This is not the billionaire you're looking for. Seriously. I highly doubt Nick is living large in Boulder, CO managing a website. Consider how much you have saved on guidebooks before you start pointing fingers at the societal leech.

wait until you hear about all the gear reviews people post for free

or all the rope access techniques people describe in detail for free

or all the coupon codes and sales people post for free

or all the entertaining trip reports people write for free

or all the training beta people share for free

and if you really want to have a skull-shattering aneurysm, go ask your local SAR professionals how much money they make on every rescue 

Kevin Beverly wrote:

I have pretty good understanding of this business model works. Been working with React Native all week...  software dev before Facebook even existed. Seems like you and enjoy the same white privilege.  

If the site content was held under a creative commons license ( creativecommons.org/license…)  I'd have no problem with Nick making a fuckton of money off of this site so long as the data belonged to community.  Currently Nick owns it.  You should do a a quick search and look into his back story with webshots, the start projects and etc to get an idea od hwo runs a  business.

I could take this seriously if you could spell. Really, if you don't have the time to spell check then how valid is your opinion?

I have looked at the survey. So what. Take it or don't. Who cares if he's making money. You just helped that process. The site provides information. Which is not free. Info hasn't been free for years.

My rudimentary understanding of economics suggests that Nick would only pay people to be on this diversity committee if people wouldn't do it for free. But he's guessing they will, and I'm guessing he's right. So are you angry at the people signing up for his committee?

This is the same principle that sets the going wage for bolting new routes. Current rate: $0/hr (minus the cost of hardware).

Hard to imagine what Nick thinks of all this. Probably in the same headspace as Chris Mc just about the time the Taco shutdown. RIP

here's a free recipe for a steak

Ingredients: steak of +/-2" thickness, salt, pepper, butter

Tools: oven, stovetop, cast iron skillet

Concept: You're gonna pan fry the shit out of a dry, cool, heavily salted and peppered steak, 2 minutes per side on an already super hot skillet at the highest heat your stove puts out. Then you're going to sling the whole shebang into a super hot oven for 2-4 minutes, depending on thickness of steak and how done you want it.

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 500. Put the cast iron skillet in the oven.
2. You want your steak to be cool (not cold) and dry. It should have been out of the fridge for a while, say an hour. Pat it dry with paper towels twice, then salt it and pepper it heavily.
3. When everything is set up and the cast iron is hot, turn the stove to the highest setting. Put the hot cast iron on the hot stove.
4. Sear the steak for two minutes on the stove, pressing it down firmly a few times but otherwise not moving it at all for the whole two minutes.
5. Flip the steak and repeat for the other side.
6. Some people like to grab the steak with tongs at this point and quickly sear all the edges by holding it on the cast iron vertically. I rarely do this.
7. Put a thick pad of butter on top of the steak. Herb butter or marrow butter or --- just fuck me up boss --- herb marrow butter is the secret beta here.
8. Place the cast iron skillet, with steak, in the oven.
9. 2 minutes in the oven often gets you to around a rare. 2:45, 3:15 often looks like medium rare. 4-5 minutes starts to look medium well and well done, but by that point you should've just had a hamburger. Thicker or larger steaks take longer on average; a colder steak straight from the fridge is gonna be all kinds of weird and raw on the inside. You'll figure it out.
10. Let sit for a few minutes if you'd like. Many people like to let it sit for five minutes.

I cook all my steaks like this! Costco is a great source for quality cuts if you don't have a butcher around, but the butcher is probably gonna have that marrow butter so consider going to the little guy first.

Enjoy!

here's a free recipe for rice

Ingredients: white rice, water

Tools: stove, pot with lid

Concept: 2 cups water for every 1 cup rice, and you're gonna bring everything to a boil on high heat and then immediately after it starts boiling you'll turn it down to the lowest setting on your stove, cover it, and let it sit and cook (DON'T TOUCH IT) for twenty minutes.

Steps: honestly the steps seem superfluous at this point, it's all included in the basic concept above. Rice is even easier than steak.