why were you blocked again??

You knew you'd be able to suck me in with that one!

It was two years ago, but I remember it well.  The Uber Being deleted a post of mine that, quite ironically, mentioned a lack of community spirit (there was a typical muted response to a get-together being arranged, I think it was a gathering regarding climate change. I noted the muted response and correlated it with the vanquished community spirit thanks to The Rules.).

I said something like "sorry you have not received much of a response yet.  Its got to do with a new lack of community spirit".

Well, Uber Man didn't like that, and within a minute he deleted the post/.  They must have an alarm in place that flashes when a Person of  Interest posts, allowing them to scan everything that they say.  The usual exchange took place:  I post that I am amazed he would delete it, so he deletes that post as well.  "Why did you delete that" would typically get an instant delete.

Anyway, all this deleting got me thinking... it seems like the thing to do around here, so lets delete a few of my own.  Good for goose = good for gander.  My mistake was thinking members were ganders.  Wrong.  We were slugs and snails and bugs and grubs.  Food for the goose.  And whats good for the goose is not good for the grub.

Small glitch in the freedom matrix there:  deletion rights were revoked from all users (along with public sedition, of course).

Seeing as I couldn't delete, why not just edit.  So I edited out a bunch of my posts to contain 'gone' and nothing else.

I imagine one of their SS Patrol Dogs noticed the irregularity and the Uber Being shut me down, closed my account, removed me from the membership record and blocked my IP address, all within 10 minutes.

They had been looking for an excuse to ban me for a long time and I guess I had been looking for a get-the-fuck-outta-here for just as long, but wasn't doing it myself.

Woah! We have our own thread!?

Me too, IP blocked.

I just wanted to share www.snow-forecast.com with the masses.

It got me in trouble.

SJ no likey mass-communication to places outside SJ.

"We are a community." (with locked doors)

I didn't get so much banned as I did tell them to fuck-off. Then my IP got erased. (so quickly that I would assume he actually had fun doing it... which I find kind of strange.)

I have lurked occasionally on my work IP, only to find people talking about things just irritate me anyway. Oh well. Anit-Americanisms, chirping frogs, WTF?

It never was my ski-in-japan forum. I find it ironic that I always turned to TGR for that, yet SJ is focused on Japan.

(SJ is not a ski forum, it's a traveling/marketing/living-in-japan dialogue-box with walls hiding the outside world.)

And, I'm more of a writer than I am leech. So, I find my ban from SJ to be their loss. (But- I'm also an arrogant prick.)

Do we really need this forum?

Whether we need this as an official forum section is ultimately up to the owner of poachninja.com and I guess the members. And Admin would implement those wishes  

But whether I (Damian) and other choose to express their memories of SJ... that will happen because here you can say anything.  Unlike SJ.  There isn't much I can do if you don't like your SJ buddies being painted in a dirty ink of history.

I consider buddies many people including you and the clanmaster and not just the SJ admins. SJ prevents me from posting all the things I would like to, but I have come to terms with it and go by the rules. Its their business how they run their site and not mine. Like samurai says and I 100% agree with is that its their loss.  

Still, once this site goes public this section will cause constant friction with SJ. Yes we have every right to publicly express our opinions of approval or disapproval of SJ, but do we need a special forum dedicated only to that? 

If people want to express their opinion, they should be allowed to.  A more mature Damian would let dead dogs lay and not bother going on about why I was banned.

Regarding this section having a direct link to their forums, I quite like it as with total openness it demonstrates that poachninja.com is the exact opposite of SJ link policy, hell, poachninja forums even provides a link directly to SJ forums (that also happens to allow blocked IP addresses to browse there as well).

^ I think that part in bold is quite important.

You are not really answering my question, just redirecting the conversation to rules that has nothing to do with what I ve asked. And the question remains unanswered, do we need a forum dedicated to SJ or not?

I am not interested in hearing just db's opinion I would like to know how everyone feels about this matter.

Talking directly to your quote: no we don't NEED it.

But yes, it gives a nice opportunity to embed their forum and link in this site. Something that they would never do.  It shouldn't, and I doubt it would ever, turn into a slag session as very few people with anything to say get banned.  And because too many people are too scared of SJ anyway, or have something to protect.

I personally couldn't care either way. I'll let you know however that so far zero guidance has been given to the person who made this entire website.  He just put different things on here as he went along.  Whether we end up keeping all the things that have been built is another matter.

Personally, I doubt that this section of the forum will survive.

Good to hear that we both agree that we DON'T need it.

Actually you will find that we agree in more than that, I too find SJ rules and regulations totally ridiculous. That doesn't mean I will go every other post mumbling about it, I don't care what they do its not my business how they want to develop their site. I am just using it and I will keep on using it till they ban me too.

If we are interested in developing poachninja as a small community of people that have been outcasted from SJ then I woundnt mind having a banner next to the poachninja logo like this:

We will have our small community of anti-SJ activists and we will be happy.But is that what we want?

PS: How long do you thing it will take them to block the links to SJ once poachninja goes public?

I am with Tson on the SJ policy, I may not like some of the rules they have there, but I just deal with it. I also agree with Samurai that its more of a live in Japan, travel, generic snow question forum. I dont ride as much as I want, but thats cuz of the job I chose (and knew consequences). I think SJ is missing out on many things and I believe thats where PN will take over (at least for serious riders). Stuntcoks knee brace info being deleted, IMHO, is just silly. No, its dumb. Why cant we help each other and offer advice, with product links/webpages, etc if it benefits the masses? I do, however, realize that we long-termers are and do get away with much more than other people. SJ site is cool, has good stuff going for it and some great info, but they can still improve it and that would take a bit of them loosening the rules a bit for some things...Thats my 2 yen worth. I will continue my time between PN, SJ, and TGR

>We will have our small community of anti-SJ activists and we will be happy.But is that what we want?

Why is that a collective "we?" Im not anti anything, rather just a shitstirrer

>PS: How long do you thing it will take them to block the links to SJ once poachninja goes public?

Maybe PN is exactly what SJ needs - competition. I hope Andrew learns from differences between the two, it might even make SJ progress some. Certainly its as progressive as your everyday Japanese gelende...which is saying...

The we is ironically said, you know that I am not a SJ hater but I actually like SJ for many reasons.I just wouldn't like to see poachninja ending up to be known as a site that the sole reason of its existence is to fight SJ.  You don't create competition by linking all the time to a site that you don't even approve its rules and regulations but by creating better content. 

Thus we don't need to contribute a whole forum to SJ.

Lets start minding our own business people.

Whether we foster anti SJ activisim or not will make little difference.  As a starting point this site will first attract those with obvious problems with SJ but I predict that this site will appeal to the more serious rider who isn't bitter with SJ but will gravitate toward a forum more suited to their needs.  It should also appeal to the international skier interested in Japananese riding, such as those on TGR and Newschoolers, who are quickly put off buy SJs focus on locals and gapers.

I agree with this.  poachninja.com can easily stand alone without any reference to SJ whatsoever.

But don't agree with this

SJ needs competition in the sense of an alternative for those serious internationals that find SJ lacking, as Ninjaman suggested.  Having a direct link to SJ forums may not be 100% needed for PN to be awesome, but it certainly highlights how they are different to us.  As I said, will they link to PN?  Never, it will become a banned text string pretty soon.

And they cant block a link to their site, that's not possible as far as I know.  Why would they even have  a problem with it?  Its only a link and was cheekily provided for the benefit of those with blocked IP's.

I don't really understand whats the benefit of having a link to SJ in the main page of the forums. It can be easily hosted in a thread. You can host it on your site, open a thread about it and put the link there.   

A link on the main page draws attention were it should not be.

maybe its saying, we have nothing to hide and see some benefit for SJ to be linked here...I dont know and really dont care. 

Thats pretty much it:

Therefore:

How about this:

1. No specific SJ forum.
2. Under the main forum pages show a set of links to other forums, not just SJ.

I hate to be rude but either you have no idea about networking or you think that you are the only one that knows and try to hide something.

If you want to find ways how to block links to your site try google for a start.

tsondaboy wrote:

I'm telling SJ#1 about this!

Calm down before I tell you to fuck off. I wouldn't have a clue if they can block it... so what, its not a sin. If you are so desperate to be a smart-ass online, which it appears you are by the way you jumped at the first chance, then perhaps thats because SJ has suppressed your inner cunt for so long.

 If you have useful tech knowledge to share, just do it in a useful manner. Otherwise, get what you give.

So, go ahead and tell us all:  how do you stop another site from embedding your html in a jquery ifame?  How???  Have you even clicked the SJ forum link?  I would like to see the google search that you used to support your answer.

The site is not yet officially online and I am going to be the first to be banned. 

Banned?

Wrong.  I am not a Mod, or Admin.  I am "damian db" almost telling you to figuratively get fucked.

Then obviously you are the one that needs to calm down.

Why? I wasn't the one that came charging hot blooded out of the gate like a wanker trying to show off my new found internet right to be rude.  You did.  So I offered for you to calm down, or I would respond in kind.

Anyway, care to answer the challenge? I have no idea if it is possible, it probably is, so why don't YOU help the community site improve by sharing your knowledge, rather than suggesting Google.

ps - "try Google" = a comment that will come back in your face one day. Probably quite often.

I am not going to take this any further. If you accept my apology for the "try google" comment , that was not meant the way you took it, you have it.  

why not link sites like SJ, TGR, weather links (like Samurai posted), or anything else generally useful. Most sites have a links page, dont see why PN shouldnt. Seems to defeat the purpose of sharing good info.

Mate, you don't need to apologise formally or anything, but accept that you probably didn't want to say it the way that you did.

The issue of a separate SJ section neds to be resolved.  I suggested an alternative a few posts higher, along the lines of what Creekboy just suggested and Samurai mentioned in another post.

thats some funny shit DB, I almost pissed myself laughing! LOL. Think its time for a beer

Hah, that is the spirit.  Ninjas are ALWAYS flippin out and killin' people...

It snows in Japan?

Please tell me more...

I'm a novice aussie ripper and want to drink beer and ride!

SJ mods are jerks.

I just went there to kill some of the surplus time I have right now and came across a thread that concluded with THE MAN saying the following.

Fuck that. Especially the twitty little 'I promise' to end the threat.

How people can tolerate being dictated to like that is amazing. No wonder they attract so many gormless gapers for members. It is truly the antithesis of the freeriding spirit.

The days of feeding dictator jerks with free yet valuable internet content are over.

(Note: the "This is..." series by the super-gaper himself does not constitute valuable content. Nor do pictures of groomed runs)

ps - seen on TGR today: another way to get around IP address blocks. Take the SJ forum url, put it in the Google language translator, translate from some language to English - you get the page displayed via Googles IP, not your own. Here, I did it for you, just click this link:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.snowjapanforums...

pps - I called them Jerks on purpose: they arrogantly expect contributions and content yet give almost nothing in return and treat the community like serfs (remember, you don't have to be an SJ forum member to use any of their database services). History will remember the internet forum that banned all internet links. Its like banning hotdogs at a hotdog eating competition.

EDIT: I toned down the expletives as I don't really enjoy talking like that in public.

Dude... they don't have jobs... at all.

They honestly think their life's work is to control dialogue on SJ.

They're not nazis, they just actually believe that their role is to keep users in the walls of their wanna-be job that doesn't actually exist.

Kinda nuts... well, really nuts. But that site is completely out of modern commucative objectives due to unemployeed foreigners trying to justify their existence without actually contributing.

They're completely lost. Just let it go.

Good post. Your closing is excellent.

SJ forums are dying. Its just a very busy chit-chat forum with very little substance. Shittons of members posting repetitive questions about mundane aspects of visiting Japan does not make a community. But I doubt SJ every wanted a community.

They have a bunch of very active threads with massive number of views with only a small number of participants who are crew and like to talk amongst themselves. The vast majority of the remaining members are incapable of starting and following through an interesting thread. So the mega-threads dominate with no fresh content.

It is an info sharing website that has a community forum which, INCREDIBLY, bans the sharing of info in any meaningful way. Talk about Darwin Awards for internet strategy stupidity.

Take a look at the TGR forums: the Japan Jongified thread has more than 26,000 views. That ranks it amongst SJ's 10 most popular threads! SJ are missing out big time - and that's saying something.

Its nice that they maintain a polite and regulated chat forum - but as far as being good for real skiers - its kind of useless.

Man Im glad i stayed away from this topic yesterday!

I think we all agree on the issue really. Each of us has chosen a different way to deal with it. That isnt right or wrong but a choice.

SJ is a huge data base and poach ninja is a forum with information that will expand. Getting Mike Pow here or others to expand the information about other areas for core people is more important than arguing about why people like or dis-like something.

SJs true competition is out there but I have a feeling that they are unaware of what it is.

Freashpeaks
Snow Forecast (as it grows)
ski-hakuba.com
etc

They arent so much forums based but building data bases that are identical to SJ.

PoachNinja Will grow For it to grow we really need to start moving content into place. I will start to add content in the fall.

Dude, start moving content now, a little at time. Why wait to autumn?

I don't see those guys as being competition fro SJ. Never heard of freshpeaks, snow-forecast is a weather site that covers every resort in the world and run by guys in SE England, the other one is yet another commercial travel agent trying to skin a profit from Hakuba. Poach Ninja isn't competition for SJ either, not even close. SJ is a database of generic resort and holiday info, a picture hosting site and a chit-chat forum that has little to offer real skiers. If that's what poachninja.com is aiming for, I'm outta here.

My pc at work is a clunker. It doesnt do much of anything really. The construction at my house is off the hook too. In the fall things settle down and that is when I am free.

Now it is
construction
Hannah
online updates
construction.
Getting the summer opening done
construction
Hannah
and trying to find fun things for me!

Gee, and I just started a heli ski operation in Hakuba and wanted you to help out. Too bad yer hands are full

You would be the first to strap yourself to the heli pad to prevent the operation.

Not really - there is so much terrain far over the back a long way from Hakuba - no need to even touch the stuff this side of the range, just use Hakuba as a base. And that would add to the resources in the valley - including trained pilots who fly these peaks every day and cold possible be part of a medical evacuation if needed. Right now Hakuba has almost nothing.

Of course if they started to fly to the easy touring peaks then I'd be pissed.

A heli op would also add a very serious guiding culture to the valley - and that brings with it snowpack info. You know that last season Hakuba produced more public snow pack and avalanche data on a daily basis than anywhere else in Japan. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. What is a surprise is that I was the fifth most most regular provider of daily snow pack data in Japan and third in Hakuba. To contribute you have to be a commercial guiding op or ski resort. I am neither, I was just in the backcountry every other day and had the required qualifications. It was a privilege for JAN to let me contribute and a special chance for me that I was very excited about, but if I am the third most reliable reporter of profile data in Hakuba then Hakuba needs a more serious guiding culture. A heli op would be part of that, and we would all benefit.

To get this back on topic.... Snow Japan did not benefit in anyway whatsoever from a gaijin being the 5th most active avalanche bulletin data gatherer in Japan. If they only knew what else they are missing out on perhaps they would change their policies. But its too late - the horse has bolted.

>To get this back on topic.... Snow Japan did not benefit in anyway whatsoever from a gaijin being the 5th most active avalanche bulletin data gatherer in Japan. If they only knew what else they are missing out on perhaps they would change their policies. But its too late - the horse has bolted.

thats a shame, or maybe a crime if it comes to people dying...I know you are (?) going to the JAN meetings right DB? You do any presentations with your data?

There aren't any meetings in Hakuba, but I went to the annual end of season meeting for all of Japan near Suwa, an overnight event. Presentations where given by a lot of people, mostly they analysed reported avalanches, includng a senior guy from Tsugaike Skijo. My presentation reported on two human triggered slides in Hakuba (one I was in, one on Tsugaike Norikura).

This coming season will be a huge step-up from last season as in terms of availability of Hakuba snow pack and weather data in English. My blog had a daily report on it that would have been very helpful to some people, but there is a lot more that I can do to make better data available, both using the JAN database and profiling software and using Step Deep Japan and of course poachninja. But the problem remains that any data I produce will be in a format designed for 'professionals' or people trained in understanding the data. That excludes many people. The next step is to have that data (and data from other reliable contributors) blended into a public avalanche bulletin for layman consumption. I won't and can't do that for at least a decade or more. And besides, it has to come from the Japanese anyway. I know and am friendly with four Japanese guides all of whom are getting good international guiding experience, working in Canada with the CAA etc. Give it a few years and things will start to bloom here. Those guys are the future.

Don't forget that Evergreen in Hakuba print an English avalanche advisory most days. It goes on SJ but I strongly recommend people get it directly from the source (Evergreen's website). SJ wont even credit them with the source organisation's name on the advisory. Yet they expect the average punter to consume the advisory in good faith without even knowing who wrote it or what experience level they have! Would you follow an avalanche advisory without knowing the source? Hell no! Without having confidence in (or even knowledge of) the source it is no more than sound-good info-candy to any discerning bc skier - but it makes SJ look complete to the average punter. Yet another way SJ policies are crippling effective flow of English info in Japan.

I hear the dialogue. Loud and clear. But I want to point at the roots.

This is NOT the first time anyone has considered a heli-op or a guiding operation in Haks. (I'm not even from Haks, so- I guess I mean Japan as a whole.)

The legal system isn't ready for it. In Japan, when a client dies, the guide gets sued. The amount of risk you as a guide have to take upon yourself to start an operation is going to be forced to fight traditional court systems that do not meet your expectations. This is a major culture-clash. The solution of a signed affidavit forcing clients to accept responsbility- as they do in western cultures- is assuming that Japanese culture views a contract in the same terms that westerners do. They don't. A contract in Japan is a "work-in-progress" and not a "closed consensus". This conflict of views towards contracts (and in your case, responsibility affidavits) is exactly why you think it would be easy and exactly why it doesn't already exist here. Just because they accept responsiblity for themselves as skiers, does not mean that you guaranteed their safety. The contract gets broken, people die, and you get sued for their behavior. It was a work in progress that resulted in death... you didn't deliver.

This happened a few years ago when a guiding-op got sued for a guy dying after falling off a cornice. The judge ruled that the guide should have known there would be cornices in the area. (Yeah but... he is responsible for his own actions... ) Only in YOUR western view.

This is the first time I have ever said the following in my entire life- (coming from an AK trained and certified AAI Level III avi-forecaster FOR heli-ops) - If you open a heli-op in Hakuba- I will NOT guide for you. Sorry. I'll contribute data to the database, but I will NEVER guide clients in this country after what I have seen occur in the courts.

The waiting list for guides in NZ was 30-45 guides long (depending on the heli-op) per flight-session back in 2001. We were volunteering our work just for the opportunity to actually guide the clientel in a country that doesn't receive much snow. When I started telling ops that they didn't have to pay me, they put me at the top of their list. It still didn't snow. This is the kind of environment that world-class certified guides fight through for a job.

Have you ever seen that kind of competition in Japan? No. Why? Because we'll get sued. Japan is at the bottom of the list for guides who want to work... regardless of the reputation for sick lines and sick snow. Of course, there aren't many operations or clientel either. Which begs the question... Why? Oh... right... clients want to drop their responsibility on their guides. It's like kindergarten plus court.

I was only kidding about starting a heli op (to tease FT). Something like that it the last thing I want to do. I just wish someone would do something similar for the reasons I mentioned. Your post probably explains why they don't.

I wish they would too.

You cant sue for that much here really but the courts will tie you down for years. A heli op would be great but I dare say the wind would be the biggest issue.

This season I got lots of data from db, evergreen, the guides in the field and of course from a few of my own pits. I didnt get anything to move untill the end of the season. I think I was better informed for sure.

I would never call myself a pro but I prefer the data in raw form as I like to know where the layers are.

Heli Operation

The heli's in the Alps are like a taxi service: they drop (and your guide) at the drop point and then that's it, on your own. They spend all day shuttling groups to the top, just like a taxi. After you are out at the drop you have no more comms with them and you can do what ever you want, go where where you want. They aren't heli ski companies, they are heli companies used by skiers. That wouldn't work in Hakuba.

Regarding wind: From what I saw last season, and thinking about the heli ops I saw in Europe, wind in Hakuba would be a major hassle, along with a very regular unbroken cloud ceiling. You'd be leasing that bird all season and miss a lot of potential paid flight days with clients because of the weather. Cat ski is the way to go in Hakuba, and rumour has it.....

Snow profiles etc
Yeah, I agree with you FT, raw profile data is always better.

Last season I aimed at maintaining a full profile pit in one location. I prepared the area and was ready to go, but it just wasn't high enough to be meaningful. Having a permanent site is often not so convenient as it means you need to get up high and dig a new pit face each week. This season I will get of my lazy arse and do it, probably near hiyodori behind Tsugaike. Its a pretty good location for it. Then I will put that weekly profile data from the exact same location into the JAN profile s/w which does a really good job of generating a digital pit profile. I didn't use the software much last season as pit profiles from a different location every other day is only good for about 24 hours. But weekly data from the exact same pit paints a valuable picture over time.

Using the same pit can be great, but it can also be flawed if you don't consider the changes in thermo dynamics with the open wall.
Dozens of pits from one face is another ideal to consider along side your sample. Simply put, choose a huge area for your one-location pit, and each time you take data from it, dig another pit for comparison. You might be amazed at how different they are even if they are on the same aspect just meters apart from one another.

sorry if that is what you meant. It was hard to tell if you were talking about using just one pit from one location for an analysis.

[slaps self] I haven't gathered data since I was stateside. [/slaps self]

For permanent pits I back-fill the entire face after I'm done so that it is totally covered. Then when I return to the site I dig out all that (hardened) back fill and then dig back a fresh 3 feet or so into the face. It is a backbreaking and thanklessly long task, but the face is protected between digs and I go back far enough to get reasonable reliable data.

So each pit requires 3 foot of snow to be taken off the face. One pit per week for Dec, Jan, Feb, March gives 4 months x 4 pits per month x 3 feet per pit = 48 feet horizontal to dig over the winter season. Its not that easy to find a strip 8 feet wide and 50 feet long in a suitable location to serve as the season plot. I found one near my house last year and cut all the bushes and roped it off in autumn. This year I will go much higher, but away from any people as the dopey pricks will walk right over it unless its really well roped off. Even then, animals can be a problem. I also want to lobby the local ski resorts to put their top lift station wind speed and direction readings live online, or at least plot them with 15 minute intervals. I am stunned that this is not available!

To keep it on topic: SJ.... um, ah.... Yeah. Make yourselves useful and use your clout to lobby the ski resorts to print their anemometer data online.