Stay on point people…
This site has appeared to have ripped off Kelowna maps, sunshine coast maps, nelson maps/trail descriptions.
Here in Kelowna we made our data free for this very purpose….it avoids trail drama so I don't care about that.
Nelson however relays on the sale of their $15 map book to fund trail projects. Go have a look, he's posted GPS tracks for a third of the riding that's listed in their $15 map book and he's cut and pasted word for word trail descriptions straight out of the map book.
How does this help the NCC?
Next time take a photo example from the map book, do a review on it and list where it's available for purchase…this would have been doing the club justice.
Think about it this way. A book is only bought at a local bike shop when the person is already there. If you don't know there are sweet trails there or what to expect, some people simply don't go. So, Trailforks is making that "tourist" planning tangible. Now, someone sees a cool zone in an area to ride and decides to pack up the truck and some bros and go there for a bike vacation. They buy some food, motel rooms, stuff from the local shops, etc. have the time of their freakin' lives and vow to go back to ride there again. That is feeding the mountain bike community. Think a little bigger. We remain secret and for the few, districts see no "legitimate" user base and shut things down. In numbers, we are strong.
Now, someone has dedicated their PERSONAL time (i.e. he did not get paid to do this for YOU), consulted with way more "expert" level riders and builders than most of you in the different areas about how to present the data on the site, spends the time to collect and FREELY distribute the data and all you guys have to do is bitch. FFS, show some gratitude when something good is done by one of your own. There may be mistakes, but those can be corrected. Canadaka has shown the same entrepreneurial spirit as the builder who spends their OWN time to hike up a mountain to build a trail. Would you rightly crucify someone publicly on the internet for providing you the sweet trails to ride? No, because you ride them and because you ride them, you're here on this site. So give a brother a break. This was highly inappropriate. If anything, some of you including the moderators can treat each other with a little more respect.
EDIT: here's a thought for the plagiarism. It sucks when someone steals a concept and claims it as their own. But when information, such as a description, that is already disseminated on the internet or is in the public knowledge in one area is copied and passed on, that's called sharing. Do you guys use wikipedia? I'm sure you do, trust me, they didn't come up with all of those ideas on their own :) Here's another thing to think about. Not too long ago, there was no concept of copyright, I read an interesting discussion about Christmas Carols as we know them. For most carols, there is not a score of original music. Most of the Christmas Carols we know today are ripped off of existing operas, symphonies, etc. composed by other people. But we as people wanted to share an idea through music, so we slapped some words onto a song and whammo, it becomes a rad way to share information. Copyrights became a fact when we started making money off of intellectual property. I think in this instance, the plagiarism in question is doing more good than harm. An accurate description is a good one, because then people go there to ride the trails. That's the point. Don't go hyperbolizing this argument into the ridiculous, I'm not saying taking ideas is correct.
"You know what's wrong with Vancouver? You can't pee off of your own balcony without getting in trouble"
- Phil Gordon
