Invitation to join mps diversity and inclusion group

As an under represented minority (I'm a trans woman) I don't mind answering a few questions and making a few recommendations. Either via survery (which I did) or as part of a broader driven community effort. I don't understand the animosity towards the effort either.

Pat Lightwrote:

Think of the general argument for diversity as being similar to the concepts of "death by a thousand cuts" or "the crux of a big wall is not the hardest technical climbing move."

Many people from traditionally underserved or discriminated groups report that the various "-isms" more often manifest as constant "less visible" issues than they manifest as direct, big-ticket Hollywood-style discrimination. That is to say, instead of groups of armed climbers showing up at the crag and saying, "Y'all aren't welcome, and if you come back we'll lynch you," it's more often stuff like:

• Calls to police and similar harassment when vanlifing or camping in certain areas
• Shop employees keeping an unnecessarily close eye or following around the store
• Bros shouting beta constantly or hitting on them at the gym at all times
• The entire concept of a "YP" and the continued popularity of the term
• Less representation on athlete rosters, and accusations of "forced diversity, the climber isn't even that good" when representation does exist
• Most of the barely-literate, "lol it's edgy why would you snowflakes take offense" shit Frank chooses to post on here
• Outright slurs in route names passed off as jokes and then defended ad infinitum by keyboard warriors
• Yes, even things like coddling or saccharine over-enthusiasm from nominally inclusive people desperate to practice performative inclusivity in front of their friends

In the same way a top rope tough guy in a DC-area gym might be overheard saying, "Well, I can climb the crimpy 5.13 routes my setter puts up after just one or two tries, so I'm sure I'm ready to go out and free the Moonlight Buttress at 5.12c without much effort," the claim of "Well, I see a few people of color every weekend at my local crag and no one is chasing them away, so I'm sure we don't need any more of this affirmative action nonsense" falls pretty far short of the mark.

This is a great post, thank you for making it. You know it's with value when the big name professional MP trolls come out to respond. Some people will just never get it, but I appreciate you taking the time to educate those who do still understand progress, growth. 

Remember:  Less climbers means less micro aggressions.

Donut Nationalwrote:

Remember:  Less climbers means less micro aggressions.

So I just want to make sure I'm understanding your message correctly...

If you are a person who struggles to find others to climb with that will accept your race/religion/identity/etc then simply don't go?

As unproductive and shortsighted as that may be, I do applaud you for admitting your role.

SinRopa wrote:

Remember when the guy offered to mentor minority climbers and got all that grief for being a white savior?  People were saying he was trying to exploit a power dynamic, oppress his mentee, etc.  

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  This thread pretty much proved that.

Nobody said that trying to counter hundreds of years of inequality would be easy. If I'm a person who has the benefit of privilege (I am), I'm going to do my best to spread around some of the access and resources that came relatively easy to me. I'll also do my best not to be a condescending prick about it, or seem to be. That's not a criticism of the OP on the mentorship thread. Race relations in this country are fucked up, and unfucking them is a mess too. You just do your best to be aware, to listen, and play the hand you were dealt as best you can. If you go back and read that thread, you'll notice that the "criticisms" of the OP were mostly framed as thoughtful suggestions. 

Dave K wrote:

And people saying that were not wrong. What he did was the textbook definition of white saviour. The way he presented his offer suggested that certain people were not capable of starting on their own. And his offer was blatantly discriminatory.

Mentorship in climbing usually happens organically anyway. I've had mentors and mentored many others but at no point did we label each other "mentor' and "mentee" - it's not a formal relationship and using those terms is awkward.

The difference between reaching out to a group and deliberately excluding another is definitely nuanced. If you run a company and want to hire more minorities it's nearly impossible to achieve that goal without actions that are biased.  Some bias is ok when done for the right reasons, but it is very easy to cross the line from biased into bigoted. If your inclusion hiring efforts take the form targeting a specific group for exclusion, like posting a job ad that says "no straight white males should apply," then you've just become the problem we should be working to solve.

People who are trying to be more inclusive and provide access and resources to groups that traditionally have had little are not the problem. The problem is the backlash from privileged groups that want to keep that access and those resources for themselves. You may not understand that that is the social system you are serving, but you are.

Do you object to scholarships specifically for women in STEM fields?
Are you horribly offended by programs that take urban youth into the outdoors?
Is it bigoted toward big business to offer loans targeted to small businesses?

The whole point is that if you are not deliberate in creating opportunities where few or none have existed before, the system will self-replicate. People with power, privilege, and access will continue to hoard resources for themselves, their children, their friends, their friends' children, people in their social circles, and other people "like them". Networking is great when you're on the inside. Not so great when you're standing outside and don't have an in. Let people offer ways in. Stop being the gatekeeper to make sure straight, cis, white men aren't unfairly treated. Saying that for once you're at the back of the line rather than the front - a historical rarity - is not bigotry. 

Dave K wrote:

Yeah, that's why I've spent many days over the past few years taking mixed-race groups of kids climbing. Because I want the crags all to myself.

You clearly have some serious resentment toward people with certain characteristics, and the projection in your personal attacks is laughably transparent. Like others have said, I don't see any value engaging someone with so much bitterness.

I didn't attack anyone here personally. Go back and reread my comments and try to find any personal attacks. You won't. You're the one throwing around words like bitterness and resentment. I talked about your actions and what social system they serve, whether you see it or not. I did not make assumptions about your character. The fact that you have taken diverse groups of kids climbing does not negate your words here making the case that someone who is seeking to offer mentorship to folks who normally have more limited access is somehow unfair to cis het white men.

ETA - It's also unclear what I'm supposed to be bitter and resentful about. I'm cis het and white. I've had plenty of access to mentoring. I think perhaps you equate simple factual statements you dislike with personal attacks and resentment. 

L Kapwrote:

....... cis het white men. 

OK let’s talk in terms WE all use. WTF are you- L Kap- trying to say exactly?

This back n forth is really going nowhere.

Today folks make up words, use them to BBQ others and then righteously proclaim victory.

I don’t see this as progress.

The fact is anybody can get into climbing. In reality it’s cheap fun. The only barrier is one must live close to rocks. Finding a “mentor” (I hate that term) is nothing more then making friends and going “out”. If you are so bitter and hung up on sex, race, politics your not friendly to others you will not get very far.

Changing society is different, a whole new dynamic, personality I think change only occurs over a period of time- long time. People must be born n raised free from old constraints to make progress.

Please think about the history of the sport only for this example. A long ass time ago- in Britain- climbing was almost exclusively enjoyed by wealthy aristocratic people. They didn’t like commoners even trying to climb. This was slowly changed after WW2 when “working class” people like Joe Brown, Don Willans (sp) and others got enuf $$$ and free time to go hang out and climb. The wealthy didn’t accept these newcomers at all - not at all. After oh let’s say 25-35 years this changed as the old fucks died off. Today you really don’t get this at all from Britts. That’s a changed society- it never happens overnight.

Just go climbing and don’t be a dick. 

Offer: willing to mentor a minority on mountain project, the minority I am looking for is people who just want to climb. Hit me up and I'll take you out. 

I don't understand all this grumpiness about vocab. It's the 21st century, you're currently sitting at a knowledge-box. If you see a term you're unclear about, google it. (With the exception of "YP," still not sure about that one. But Kap didn't use anything you couldn't google.) Also not convinced by the "let someone else deal with it," hot take on social change. 

I caught the reference to the Hudon thread, what is the other mentorship thread people keep talking about? I desperately want to have an opinion and judge the MP community, but I don't think I know what ya'all are on about.

Guy Keeseewrote:

The fact is anybody can get into climbing. In reality it’s cheap fun. The only barrier is one must live close to rocks. 

This is not a “fact,” but a generalization and universalization of your own experience and perspective. 

John Vwrote:

This is not a “fact,” but a generalization and universalization of your own experience and perspective. 

You’re correct.  You don’t need to live close to rock, to get into climbing.

Does diversifying climbing include spreading the word to all the poor white trash kids growing up in trailer parks and shacks just miles from awesome crags (I’m thinking about the areas surrounding Rumney in particular).  Most kids around there barely even know what rock climbing is or why so many tourist go to there towns, but those communities would probably benefit the most from encouraging youth recreation beyond binge drinking and heroin. 

Kevin Beverly wrote:

This got ugly...

Everyone let's go read the Terms of Service to get this conversation back on track:  https://www.adventureprojects.net/ap-terms

This section is relevant:
"As such, you hereby irrevocably grant us world-wide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable rights to use Your Content for any purpose. You also irrevocably grant the users of the Service and Other Media the right to access Your Content in connection with their use of the Service. Finally, you irrevocably waive, and cause to be waived, against the Company and its users, any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content."

TLDR; Adventure Projects Inc owns all of the content submitted. 

Let's stop and think about this for a few seconds.

Everyone one who has submitted information to the route database has contributed to building a privately owned company a database of routes for free.  This information does not belong to the community, nor will will be removed even if you ask nicely.  

This site was sold for a profit in the past, it's pretty easy to assume that it will be sold for a profit again.  When I read the Terms of Service it sure as hell seems like everyone, including the site admins are working for free to update the route database.  Seems a little icky to me.    If this site was had different terms of service or was owned by the Access Fund I'd feel better about it.

Additionally the API data usage is restrictive:

"The Company retains all copyright ownership and other legal rights in the Data API, as well as all ownership and other rights in any logos, trade or service marks used in connection with the Data API. You must provide attribution to the Company in connection with your use of the Data API."

It's not permitted to to use the data that you submitted for any purpose other than consuming it.  Forget building an app or anything interesting with all of the information amassed here. Even Twitter has more permissive Terms of Service.

Props to Mellisa for starting something new and actually saying up front that she will pay the people involved in the project. I hope she is successful it would be nice to see a honestly and ethically operated climbing database.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/climbing-guidebook-app-discovery-funding#/

Honestly Kevin you are not obliged to use this service. No one is in fact. I know that MP has been useful to me so I continue to use it. It does not seem useful to you, so just go away. 

Why do you care so much about MP if you find the competing service so great? 

Reading more into this:

"

What we’re fundraising for

The purpose of this fundraiser is to pay our team members an ethical rate for the research phase as we create an official proprietary design document for a different/new climbing guidebook app.

We can't pursue a fully built out app without this first stepping stone. This document will contain our statement of intent, design prototypes, a prioritized feature list, estimated level of effort, and budget. When we are ready and backed to implement, we’ll hit the ground running with this as our guide. We'll keep the community updated through the Discovery phase on a monthly basis.

Any additional funds that come out of this fundraiser will go into paying for our online collaboration tool Miro, which has a $44.66/month fee, along with a savings that will go towards our implementation phase.

"

Sounds really compelling. Wait, isn't this that same person that was causing a huge uproar over MP not paying her despite not having a contract or being an employee? For creating some design work or something?

Kevin, for sale of transparency, do you have any financial relation to the indiegogo you posted?

Kevin Beverly wrote:

No affiliation with the Indiegogo, just morally oppose to business models that profit of of free labor under the guise of being a community resource.  Additionally the site has created a host of crowding problems for local crags due the information being published here.  

Bullshit. ...... it’s plain to see now that your not interested in bringing diversity and inclusiveness to the climbing world. This whole deal is to get $$$$ to put into your pockets. I’m don’t see “our free labor” as being exploited. Rather it’s a free trade of information between climbers with Nick, via MP as the vehicle we use.

I said it before and I’ll say it again. “sounds like a TV preacher, asking for $$$ to do god’s work” - A SCAM- to line your pockets! Maybe even get a free all expenses paid climbing trip to Cayman. You know- just to make sure the root info is correct.

And when you guys get your site up- if ever- we will all see the issues of discrimination and bigotry disappear from the scene- yea right.

This whole thing is some stupid shit right here. 

Kevin Beverly wrote:

No affiliation with the Indiegogo, just morally oppose to business models that profit of of free labor under the guise of being a community resource.  

Look, again, just don't contribute. Build/contribute to a thing that aligns to your values. I've suggested some, someone else listed a gofundme. It's always easy to criticise. I'm sure you'd find more receptive hears if you were more pro-active about it.

I'm happy to contribute stuff to MP, for the most part. Am I a bad guy for that? Does that make me sheeple who can't even figure out he's being taken advantage of? I don't want to keep track my climbs, sites, etc.. on some excel sheet and I certainly already spend wayyyyyyyyy enough time in front of a screen to NOT feel like coding my own app for that. MP offers me an overall pretty functional solution for all this. I send data their way. Pretty happy with the bargain. If some people see inclusion issues as being something THEY want to contribute to on MP, and they're fine with the model, who are YOU to tell this is the wrong way? Why do you get to play the moral emperor?

Additionally the site has created a host of crowding problems for local crags due the information being published here.  

That's part of the problem, yes.

As are sendage, the crag etc. Not sure were you live, but I'm in Canada and pretty much any local of significance is already on all of those sites (even though MP is more us-centric). You can take MP away if you will - the information is somewhere else.

Though if we are to take an objective look at this, I'm not sure MP & similar sites are necessarily at the root of the problem. IMO, outdoors company (BD etc.) peddling out lifestyle illusions based on climbing, as well as gyms & various private operators introducing ever younger groups to climbing are closer to the root cause. If for-profits that actually make lots of money didn't re-invest sizable part of their profits into recruiting ever more climbers, I do not believe overcrowding would be as much of an issue.

Information without hords to take advantage of it wouldn't cause problems, basically what I'm saying.

Kevin Beverly wrote:

No affiliation with the Indiegogo, just morally oppose to business models that profit of of free labor under the guise of being a community resource.  Additionally the site has created a host of crowding problems for local crags due the information being published here.  

Have you talked to Nick about this? At this time, one point of view is presented; makes it difficult to understand the issue.

Dave K wrote:

I apologize for being one of the people that steered the thread into an identity politics debate.

Now let's get back to solving the free labor problem that is plaguing the tech industry.

Grazie.