UKC

I wondered if there are any exiles in here from the Outdoors Magic forums?

It is a shame what happened to those forums but I'm happy to be here now on new exciting modern forums at UKH. Or will that be UKW soon?

If you're a former OMF member say hello and let me know what activities/treks you are planning once lockdowns are properly over and freedom is restored. 

Well, I started at MtnUK, then that went bung and I came here. A few years later, I also spent a long time at OM, becoming a reviewer and moderator in the end. But, as moderator, the forum was full of spam, and the site owners didn't respond to my requests that deleted spam be hidden. So I left.

What has happened to the OM forum? It seemed to be neglected after Magicalia sold it, as the new owners wanted to concentrate on the 'magazine' aspect of the website.

Lots of former OM members at trek-lite.

I submitted a few gear reviews there.  They made a significant mistake when they at first neglected, then ditched, their gear review archive.  These days I rarely visit; what it used to do, and what it aspired to become, is now done better on whatever the Trail magazine website is called.

T.

Was on there years ago. Something called a Windy thread?

Windy was an eternal thread for talking bollocks.

As was the Bennachie thread, but that's where I made friends with whom I still regularly go on walking holidays in both the UK and abroad. In fact I was supposed to be going away with several of them in May but Covid has put paid to that, which had already been postponed from last May

Like the good captain I became a forum moderator and had exactly the same experience with spam and a lack of willingness by the owners to do anything about it or indeed respond to emails. I'm just glad I found it when I did - I've been places and done stuff that I'd never have done had I not been an OM regular.

I was a regular poster on there for a long time. The gear info was good, and some of the general chat.

I've recently been trawling my archive of old threads, looking for posts about navigation. I did post a hell of a lot... I have been using a term in my DofE navigation notes, and I couldn't remember where it had come from; turns out I have been using it since at least 2011, which probably means a long time before that, since I hadn't really thought much about formal navigation tuition or terms by then...

That’s for me then. Start one here?

Threads have a maximum length and lifetime here... No pages.

We have plenty already.

Yeah, it was tongue in cheek

I remember making one of your caldera clones and a pepsi can stove with instructions from there back in my sixth form days! 

I can't remember the website but there was a VdiffDave

I started on uk.rec.hillwalking 20 years ago, slowly migrated to OutdoorsMagic over the next 10 years then here 10 years ago, but I've never really felt any 'warmth' and now it's gone woke I hardly bother.

Ex- OM here as well, now found on another forum with a few other om peeps. 

Made good friends with some, we meet up occasionally, though covid stopped a lot of that.

Fond memories of some of the meet ups.

Somewhere out there, Trevor D Gamble is opening a new browser tab and creating his UKC profile. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Oh pray tell!? What outrages?

The editorial stuff, chock full of middle class concerns about privilege - really their own privilege, not mine.

Am on TL but it seems more about "Gear" than owt else, so I rarely log in.

Never been on OM.

Amazingly uk.rec.walking is still going with 2 posts so far in 2021

Which is 2 more than OM

I was on OM many moons ago (2004 - 2010 ish). Went on a camping meet in the Lakes and met the man who years later I would marry. 

If by the remotest chance anyone here was in Buttermere 2004 and remembers a hungover woman getting to grips with a new tent having used only bivi and basha before, I'm waving hello!!

I spent many years on OM. A real shame how it was allowed to go to pot.

I just went to have a look. Apparently, you, me, Jon & Ed are still moderators.

I followed the link to my profile. There appear to have been 14,905 visitors to my profile. I'm betting 14,900 of those are people going "why aren't the moderators doing anything about the spam...?" [edit: ha ha; yours has got 17,501 visits...]

It looks like even the spammers have given up. And that no-one who works for the company knows how to do anything about the forum.

I remember warning Jon that I thought the website was on its way out, as the owners didn't seem interested. He got out before it died.

I spent a lot of time on the OM forums for a few years - starting in about 2004. Met some fantastic mates through the forums and had some good weekends away. I kind of drifted away when I get less into hill walking and more into climbing.  And I think advent of social media also filled a space for me that previously was occupied by the OM forums.

I wasn't exiled, I simply emigrated.

I quite liked OM in the early 2000s. 

I'm not sure if it was just because it was less of a "thing" back then, but there weren't many trolls and people rubbed along ok (with the exception of some bloke from the paramilitary arm of the Paramo Party, if I recall correctly).   While much bumblier than ukc, there also seemed to be a few less big egos...

Andy and I did a Welsh 3000s traverse with a few other OMers at times, which was good fun - I seem to recall when Alex Ford was flaked out in the car park below Tryfan I wanted to draw a white line around him in chalk for the full crime scene effect. Happy days!

But I still miss mtn.co.uk and Winterhighland. Kids, ask your parents....

b

I arrived here as a refugie from mtn.co.uk although the site I most miss is telemarktips.com. But isn't winterhighland still on line ? (http://forum.winterhighland.info/ ) - or is that another site with the same name ?

Ahh man telemarktips was great. They even persuaded me to go with voile release bolts and T3s 😂 state of the art at the end of the last century. I have never found a replacement tele site alas, which is a shame now the Meidjo has pretty much settled most of the arguments! Unless you know otherwise?

i will have to check out winterhighland, but mostly I recall mashing the refresh button for  condition reports and webcams in anticipation the week before trips to Torridon. Life was simple back then - huge excitement and sometimes it had even snowed properly! 
 

b
 

yeah, OM was my first forum i think...

i really liked it, did loads of reviews and posts, but gradually got bored and did other stuff. eventually i went back and discovered that the only people posting were spammers and that trevor gamble wierdo - my return lasted about 2 minutes....

pity, it was a great place, and certainly initially there was a lot less of the overspill from politics you see here, it just felt very constructive and 'nice'. not sure what the catalyst/mechanism was that caused it to go downhill...