375

#375 -you can take the view that the TT is a private business enterprise with which the owners can do what they want but its actually a little deeper than that. The owners have only ever provided a platform and the software to run it. The mass of the enterprise was entirely provided by the members. You could argue that once it became so large and had run for so long the owners in fact became the custodians and trustees of what they had created and had a duty of care. If you own a building that becomes a library can you burn all the books?...and if you can, should you?. Perhaps there are some pretty nasty books in there that you would like to get rid of. Do you find them and take them out or do you slam the doors without notice and torch the place?. Personally I feel strongly that because of the amount of time that the TT has run for and the sheer volume of knowledge contained therein, the members who delivered it deserved some level of respect- and a whole lot more than we have been shown.

376

Please return the Africa branch ! I spent 12 years posting on the Mauritius thread !

LR

377

When is the Nepal forum coming back??? It's been very helpful to me in planning trips and I like to check it to find new information. It seems to be one of the last to come back, which is frustrating.

378

Nice to see my post about the positive aspects of WT anc YC didn't make it through mod approval.

I will reiterate the point I was making.

The sigline on WT on branches of the Thorntree was "Women Travellers - from backpacks to bustiers.... all the talk that happens when you're not on the road".
The sigline on YC was "Your Choice - for when your square pegs don't fit in our round holes".

So how, exactly, were discussions off-topic on the two branches that detail that they are for women to talk when they're not travelling and for making your own choice about what to talk about?

379

I personally find whats happened here really sad,

The fact that so many people over the years have given their time and knowledge freely to help others reminds me to have faith in the basic kindness of people. Looking over the boards that have been reinstated I see that they're not even half as useful as they once were, given that at lot of kind and helpful posters have fled to new pastures I guess thats unsurprising.

As for this YC / WT debate, I never really made any use of those forums and honestly can't say I'd given them much thought before scanning this thread. I do think how ever that many of the people who hung out there probably also had a lot of knowledge to impart on more ' on topic ' branches and if that knowledge is now to be lost its a sad day for TT.

@339, you were recently very helful to me Kira in planning a trip to Niger and Burkina Faso later this year, not that I can acess any of that information now. I hope you stay around to see the return of the Africa branch and it becomes, whenever that might be, you'll certainly be sadly missed if you don't.

380

"The shouters were louder and in greater number each of those times. The then owners stood their ground but adopted many of the helpful suggestions members offered for consideration (as will the current owners, I expect) and the site survived, grew and improved. "

And each time they lost users. Each time the group of steady and varied users became smaller. They stood their ground, sure. But grew? No. ThornTree didn't grow. The # of regular participants shrunk.

381

And you know the really stupid thing, the mods are having to sit on the fence, read all the complaints and wade through old posts and premoderate everything. That must be pretty depressing, just because some suit somewhere has decreed a change should happen. I'd hope that the mods print this thread off and put it on the fat controller's desk, so they can see that rushed decisions can have huge ramifications to their customers.

Mods, I hope you're scanning the job pages, because your role now officially sucks. You've always been helpful, courteous and professional, now I get the feeling you're not allowed to respond to us.

382

Feel free to ask me any question, I was there last month :)

383

Like Kira (#330) and Stefo (#292) I am really hanging out for the return of the Africa branch. It has the vast majority of my 1600+ posts.

I am off to Spain in May to walk the southern camino (or parts of it 750 km). So if the PM ever come back send me one. Hopefully someone in BBC/LP will finally see reason and allow posts to arrive in a little more timely fashion. Computer software is available that will automatically catch any "not permitted words" - surely the moderators can employ something similar!!

384

I'm starting to think that the censorship is no more sophisticated than "every other post fails"....that seems to be what happens to me. I've written to the tech feedback facility asking them why their censorship in no way matches their written guidelines. Nada...

385

V_W - the post did make it for a short time - OK with the pre-moderation process but not re-moderation apparently. Maybe there is an issue with consistency that will improve in due course.

runeorr - maybe try trekinfo.com?

386

Ahhhh I get it, thanks scoodly. I was wondering where MF came out of and I do recall battybilly, never paid him any attention and I will do the same with the finn as he does post a lot of huh's. Thanks again!

387

Others here have stated far more eloquently than I could what WT and YC meant.

But just wanted to throw my thoughts in the ring as well. I did post mainly on the WT and occasionally on the YC. But you can also see from my post history that I have thousands of destination specific posts. Both asking and answering questions.

WT was the daily draw, which led me to destination branches to help out my fellow traveller.

Getting rid of them seems very short-sighted.

Thanks for checking back in here mods. I know these decisions are not yours, yet you get to deal with the fall out. We appreciate the patience.

388

"Please note, your reply will need to be approved by a moderator before it is posted in the forum. "

Goodbye, LPTT. I have been an active member since 2000, but axing the YC now is a clear sign I should and will go. Losing branches like the YC (or WT, SiT...) is a big mistake, for all the great reasons already mentioned many times in this thread.

Some personal background: like I said, I've been a regular on TT since 2000. Yes, I've been a lot on YC, but I've had periods of being very active e.g. on the Scandinavian branch (providing information and answering posts in GREAT detail after actually having done research sometimes for hours in order to be able to provide good information) and SiT. I've been a HUGE chatter on YC, but I've also replied many, many times there in threads providing (hopefully) very much needed travel information. I've also been asked directly, via e-mail, for detailed travel information by an LP-mod some years ago.. because I think they saw me as a contact, via YC. I did research for days or a couple of weeks, and replied via e-mail. I think the information I provided was used by LP in their publications even.

YC is the only thing that's kept me here for all these years. Every once in a while, or whenever I can, I like to try to help with travel questions as well. BUT, now, if the YC is axed -- all I can say is "goodbye".

I will miss the TT as a community. But I do respect the Owners decision and view. Let me just warn you: I think this will be the end of TT as something special. In the future, it might still compete with the many other mediocre travel sites around.

Good luck with that.

Over and out,

Kape (LPTTYC born 01/2000)

389

who knows what will indeed happen here on TT? in the last two days i've visited most of the other travel forums suggested in this long thread, and none of them have the breadth, wealth, depth and committment of TT. so i'm really praying that, like the phoenix, TT will rise from the ashes....it's hard to imagine travelling without the help that i've found here (and i hope given in some small way) over the last 12 years.
in the meantime, i'm waiting eagerly for the return of the central america branch, since we're leaving in a week's time. not to mention that i also left a lot of info in my pm's which i sure wish i had (yes, i should have kept them in another form, but i saved them as is in my bookmarks and now get just an error page).
and, dear moderator whoever you are, let me add my voice to the call for the return of old posts with the search function - that information is absolutely priceless and impossible to duplicate.