Pure procrastination got me here, but since I'm here, I'll add my totally unrecognizable and unimportant minor character two cents: I think it is important that this forum has all sorts of political weirdness and off-topic dilation and arguments and undercooked rants.
I live in San Francisco, work in a deeply liberal profession, and associate probably 80% with people who think and vote like I do, largely because that's simply how demographics play out. I like to come on here and look beyond the walls of my little fishbowl. I don't love to read about how some people are positively in love with guns, but it helps me to know that those people are also climbers with whom I have things in common so maybe that big Gun Divide is surmountable. Or people in favor of drastically reduced governmental services: not what I think, but again, how lovely to be able to say "wow, I totally disagree...let's go climbing" than just to imagine we have no way to speak to each other at all.
Or consider the "dog's life" thread. TOTALLY OFF TOPIC but probably the most loving and harmonious thread on here, and makes me feel good to read it.
As for boobies: pfffft. Who cares. Do I support the objectification of women? By no means. I am a woman and I'd rather not be reduced to my secondary sex characteristics. But I don't need a thread on Supertopo to feel objectified. I need look no further than the grocery store checkout or the New York Times for that. This is not a captive audience, and an audience with choice should reject censorship just as it may also choose to reject hypersexualizing women. Chris M. can make the choice to police this site--that is absolutely his right and prerogative, but I would hate to see the hotchpotch of this site get all lined up and neatened and made safe.
Yeah Skully. Nobody on here seems to want an over-bolted wall with pads at the bottom and an elevator at the top, so maybe we don't want to over-bolt the site, either. You come here and maybe you're gonna take the big ride. Or not.
screening applicants to grant posting privileges to only those that actually DO have climbing history
If this site comes to that, many good people and friends of the community here would not "qualify." I for one, would "resign" despite my background, which isn't much. WTF? That is not the ST I know!
You all know there's more to climbing than the simple act of climbing. Chalk up, rack up, whatever......Been around long enough to hear and see what goes on in total from sun up to the time everyone passes out.
This climbing forum represents the above. Yeah, there is more to climbing than the actual act. There's the s#@$t talk, the friendships made, sharing, caring, hating, mad bolters, bolt cutters, routes won and routes stolen ...you fill in the rest, you get the drift.
Really, this forum mirrors real life. So get over it and live.
Love and Peace to all of you who helped me create a new life when I lost my last one.
“What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
Let us know!