Philo is leaving the Supertopo?

I feel you are due an explanation.

This will be my last post on SuperTopo. I will explain but please don't bother asking me to reconsider. I have already deleted my photobucket account and asked Chris Mac to permanently delete all my posts. I will be forwarding him this post directly as well.

First I want to say that I have gained a great deal and enjoyed ST for the past 3+ years. I admire many of you very much and have been enriched by your contributions. I have had some tremendous feedback on my essays and cartoons for which I am eternally grateful. I have also received as many kicks in the face as anyone here because of my outspoken political views particularly regarding the Middle East. That is a very intensely personal issue for me and my family. I know of no other STer who lost 5 family members and 6 friends in the war on Gaza as my wife has. Yet even the rhetoric and direct attacks on me were not a problem. I consider that small price to pay for speaking what I believe is the truth . Certainly I am tough enough to with stand any of those slings and arrows. And I would never leave the TacoStand because my feelings were hurt. But this latest episode goes beyond the pale and I am gone.

I am leaving because of a particularly childish stunt perpetrated by Russ Walling.
In his disdain for and distaste of OT threads he posted jpegs so large as to cause several ST folks' MacBooks and IPhones to crash. Then he proceeded to warn every one off of OT threads by threatening more of the same.
Though I fortunately saw Neebees' warning before opening the offending file this threat directly effects me in many ways.
Over the last 5 years I have spent thousands of dollars on computer equipment repair and replacement. In the last 18 months alone I have had 3 laptops crash and take all of my stuff with them. I am talking about all my photos, art, toons, essays and all of my business, everything. I lost further thousands of additional dollars on lost time for data base rebuilding. As well as penalties for delinquency in corporate tax reporting. All of my computer failures were not from your average worms and viruses but from deliberate malicious external attacks. All were top of the line PC systems. Due to this I had recently switched to a Mac as they were considered safer from attack. And I added an external hard drive as well. Still the work involved is far greater than some would imagine. Then I read WARNINGS of a file on a particular OT thread crashing Macs and IPhones. Russ and several others think this was funny. Trust me I was not amused. I just cannot afford to participate in a forum where any given thread may lose my data or shut me down even for a day. As in climbing there should be an inherent trust between participants. This trust, for me at least, has been broken. Russ' lame "stunt' was perceived by me as a threat to my business as any shut down costs me more than I can recover. And a risk to my creative endeavors as I compose directly in a stream of thought process. It is Impractical to bog down my computer by backing up every minute. It was, for me, the equivalent of trundling a rock when there wer climbers below..
Russ' beef was with OT threads and there in lies the rub. They obviously generate a great deal of attention. I can't imagine the multitudes of hits is a bad thing for CMac and ST. As much as many of them are utter tripe a great many OT threads have real value at least to those who participated. Tarbuster got contacted by OT posters with potentially invaluable medical information. I asked for and got important surgical information. Even though she and I have fought like bad children at times LEB came through for me on that one. Often we here on the Taco have shared condolences for our loses and support for our fears. And all on OT threads. What is wrong with that? Do they get out of hand and drift wildly at times? Of course. Do they get petty and ugly at times? Absolutely. And what is wrong with that? Did any one else out there grow up in a family? Did you at times fight likes bad siblings? Did you come back together for support when tragedy struck or the sh#t hit the fan? Anything wrong with that?
Look at the heading of this page. It clearly states...
SuperTopo Climber’s Forum.
Not SuperTopo Climbing Forum.
It was the diversity of this site that I found so appealing and intriguing. The open opportunity to share, banter and argue with a widely diverse group of tremendously interesting folks from all over the world. It was amazing! Ostensibly what Russ is saying by his words and deeds is that since he doesn't like them everyone else should stay away from OT threads. Well who elected him BlogCzar? I can't risk opening up a thread I may be interested in and watching my screen go black. Can any of you? And if fear keeps us away from dialogue, even unpleasant dialogue, isn't that just a pernicious form of censorship?
So Fare Well all. Phil Broscovak