Forum "elders" hammockbiographies?

[pdxhanger]

Reading different responses, I realize that I unintentionally opened up a philosophical can of worms:

What is this forum? Is the goal/purpose to interact with others, or to share/gather information? Of course, the answer is both, but as with most human activities this makes things messy.

Personally, I don't much like interacting online. I have been active on forums like this in the past, and find that I have spent hours reading and responding to posts only to end up feeling more disconnected from myself and others than when I started. I know that others do seem to feel connected through forums like this, and I respect that. Myself, I like to do my interacting in person.

OTOH, I find forums like this a tremendously useful way to share information. Hence my desire to streamline the dissemination of information. You are all right, probably everything I want to know is in this forum already somewhere. However, I don't want to spend days (or even weeks) worth of time reading through threads to find it all – and, given the number of postings here, I could easily do that.

I could probably gather the intel I desire by figuring out who the "elders" are and reading their posts in reverse chronological order to see the evolution of their thinking about hammocks. But many of those people also used this forum as a social interaction medium, and the number of "hi, how are you?" posts I would have to read through in the process is daunting. I just want to make a hammock, and I don't want to reinvent the wheel.

Maybe this makes me a parasite (or at least a poor forum member), wanting to get info from hammockforum without wanting to be part of the community. I can see how someone could see it that way. In my defense, I do share information and things I have learned when I think others could benefit from it. But I would prefer to get in, share or collect info, and get out. That is really hard with this many posts in this many threads. "Search" only narrows the reading down a little.

Perhaps my ideal way of getting info is a group hang, so I can talk to "elders" in person, but I'm working on my hammock now

Anyway, thanks for considering my request.

[Ramblinrev]

The previous post is really quite interesting. I am trying to sort out an appropriate response. It seems to me there are two processes which you point to. One is a fact based process where the information is distilled into a final form and placed in chunk sized pieces. The sort of reference book approach. "Just the facts ma'am" so to speak. The other is much more organic and unpredictable. Where the interaction is part of the process and distilling is part of the method. I am not suggesting one is better than the other. I am trying to give both a value neutral platform.

The Ultimate Hang is the best distillation of all the information developed on this site to date that I am aware of. For lack of a better construct, it kind of took Ed Speers book and brought it up to date with new information and insights.Yeah.. it is an opinionated piece that makes certain assumptions, just a Ed Speer did in his seminal book. But I think you would be hard pressed to start a major argument over the picture "The Ultimate Hang" lays out. So if what you are looking for is that kind of distillation and fact based information, maybe the forum is not going to provide it in as nice and neat a presentation.

The Ultimate Hang is also based on thousands of posts and arguments and theories which were thrown into the ring and ripped apart, dissected, reformed, peer reviewed, turf defended and just generally messed with until a kind of consensus was reached and we all realized we could play nice together again. The forum is kind of a "show your work" approach to discussion. Amidst the 'welcome from ..." posts and the "my dog is bigger than your dog" kind of stuff are real gems. But it's messy.

If you want the "get in and get out" tactic which is very acceptable, appropriate and productive, then get the books and work in the privacy of your own home and the face to face encounters of the group hangs. But if you like watching "sausages be made" (nothing wrong with that) then the forum, for all it's extraneous fluff and trivia is the place to be. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[MAD777]

An excellent summation, Ramblinrev!

[WV]

I'm not sure my thinking about hammocks has evolved much. My initial impression that it was cozy, dry, and bug free hanging between two trees was formed around 1955 when my father got an army surplus jungle hammock for me to use on family vacations in the Adirondacks. Later, backpacking in my teens, I used a tent from REI, but started making my own gear with Frostline kits in the 70s. Still later (1985?) someone gave me a woven Yucatan hammock. I was living in the woods 24/7 then so I didn't need to go backpacking much, but I got used to comfortable naps and a view of the sky through the trees. Somewhat later I got married, civilized, and started sleeping indoors, which is when I naturally thought about making a camping hammock so I could go out again. I forgot to mention that my rudimentary gear-making skills - courtesy of Frostline - were kept alive by a decade or so of kite-building. Not surprisingly, my goal was to be cozy, dry, and bug free. (The last one was easy. Bugs are much worse outside West Virginia.) I have tried different designs toward that end. Some have worked better than others. Some have worked extremely well, but are very complicated to build. A number of interesting ideas attracted almost no attention for a couple of years and then suddenly caught on. My current aim (in addition to cozy, dry, bug-free) is simplify.

It should be obvious that I'm with Ramblinrev in the "organic and unpredictable" camp.

[TallPaul]

I would add "just ask" to the suggestions by RamblingRev.
For example, if you want to know the opinions of UL backpackers on tarps, create a thread and ask.

[DuctTape]

What I have found most interesting is that many practices of what is "common knowledge" or the "consensus" is the complete opposite of what I have found to be the best practice for me. I have come to grips with my reality as that of the anomaly here. I am no elder, nor have I contributed any unique or novel ideas that I know of. I remember well the yahoogroups. Some of the practices from those days which have fallen out of favor, I still use as they are far and away better than the current consensus practices for me. In the end it is just fabric hung between two posts. YMMV, HYOH, etc.... etc...

[WV]

Good points, DuctTape. By the way, if you remember the Yahoo group, in hammock forum terms you're "an elder."

[beep]

The previous post is really quite interesting. I am trying to sort out an appropriate response. It seems to me there are two processes which you point to. One is a fact based process where the information is distilled into a final form and placed in chunk sized pieces. The sort of reference book approach. "Just the facts ma'am" so to speak. The other is much more organic and unpredictable. Where the interaction is part of the process and distilling is part of the method. I am not suggesting one is better than the other. I am trying to give both a value neutral platform.

The Ultimate Hang is the best distillation of all the information developed on this site to date that I am aware of. For lack of a better construct, it kind of took Ed Speers book and brought it up to date with new information and insights.Yeah.. it is an opinionated piece that makes certain assumptions, just a Ed Speer did in his seminal book. But I think you would be hard pressed to start a major argument over the picture "The Ultimate Hang" lays out. So if what you are looking for is that kind of distillation and fact based information, maybe the forum is not going to provide it in as nice and neat a presentation.

The Ultimate Hang is also based on thousands of posts and arguments and theories which were thrown into the ring and ripped apart, dissected, reformed, peer reviewed, turf defended and just generally messed with until a kind of consensus was reached and we all realized we could play nice together again. The forum is kind of a "show your work" approach to discussion. Amidst the 'welcome from ..." posts and the "my dog is bigger than your dog" kind of stuff are real gems. But it's messy.

If you want the "get in and get out" tactic which is very acceptable, appropriate and productive, then get the books and work in the privacy of your own home and the face to face encounters of the group hangs. But if you like watching "sausages be made" (nothing wrong with that) then the forum, for all it's extraneous fluff and trivia is the place to be. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

What he said! The Ultimate Hang book is a first-rate summary of the accumulated "wisdom" from the community. It's not the end of the story, but IMHO one would be foolish to ignore the experience distilled in its pages. Start there and keep trying things!

[BillyBob58]

An excellent summation, Ramblinrev!

I agree! In fact, as I read the OP's post about his needs for info from the elders without having to go through old posts, I thought of Dejoha's book as well as Ed's older book. That would be the fastest way to get the info.

What I have found most interesting is that many practices of what is "common knowledge" or the "consensus" is the complete opposite of what I have found to be the best practice for me. I have come to grips with my reality as that of the anomaly here. I am no elder, nor have I contributed any unique or novel ideas that I know of. I remember well the yahoogroups. Some of the practices from those days which have fallen out of favor, I still use as they are far and away better than the current consensus practices for me. In the end it is just fabric hung between two posts. YMMV, HYOH, etc.... etc...

Same here re: "consensus" and me going another direction. Most obvious is my appreciation of the HHSS. There might not be but a dozen other folks here who agree with me on that. Next would be my fondness of a narrow and not very long Claytor hammock used with a Speer PeaPod. Over all these years, how many folks have gone that route? There sure are not many of us. Lastly would be me actually finding a cold weather advantage and at least adequate shoulder comfort with the original JRB deep BMBH/MWUQ combo. As if those "odd" choices are not crazy enough, there is me and my VB clothing(just Fronkey and me I guess?), space blanket/VBs and sometimes pads alone or added. But all of these things work great for me even if they apparently don't for most people. Or at least, most folks never try them.

Good points, DuctTape. By the way, if you remember the Yahoo group, in hammock forum terms you're "an elder."

What I remember is posting at Ed's group and discussing things with him, which was a Yahoo group. Is that the one?

Bill

[Ramblinrev]

Same here re: "consensus" and me going another direction. Most obvious is my appreciation of the HHSS. There might not be but a dozen other folks here who agree with me on that. Next would be my fondness of a narrow and not very long Claytor hammock used with a Speer PeaPod. Over all these years, how many folks have gone that route? There sure are not many of us. Lastly would be me actually finding a cold weather advantage and at least adequate shoulder comfort with the original JRB deep BMBH/MWUQ combo. As if those "odd" choices are not crazy enough, there is me and my VB clothing(just Fronkey and me I guess?), space blanket/VBs and sometimes pads alone or added. But all of these things work great for me even if they apparently don't for most people. Or at least, most folks never try them.

Lest I be misunderstood in regards to consensus... the anomalies are what you miss when that's all you adhere to. HHSS for me as well, plus my preference for the ring buckle webbing suspension over the whoopie sling new fangledness. My championing of the classic bottom entry HH is enough to rank me right up there with the weirdos. Consensus is useful but hardly definitive. That's where the forums really shine in my opinion. But it does take time to sort through all that stuff. Add to that the time to actually experiment with all the weirdo stuff and consensus cuts a lot of the learning curve away. But also some of the fun.