ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

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ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby highlander chris » Mon 05 Mar, 2012 7:14 pm

To whom it may concern, Can we Please have a weight reduction / ultralight topic folder for the site?

I am very new to the site and have noticed a large number of people whom are interested in the topic of Ultralight gear.

I am also very interested in this topic and joined this site seeking the expert advice and opinions of people whom use a wide variety of brands and combinations of equipment to achieve a common purpose "weight reduction", to ultimately to enhance the outdoor experience.

I am in the process of building an ultralight kit and can't begin to imagine how much time and effort I could have saved with a folder full of info on proven quality brands / products and others advice / opinions.

just a suggestion
Thanks
Chris
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby Strider » Mon 05 Mar, 2012 7:16 pm

Agreed. This would be useful even to those who are just trying to reduce baseweight, without going UL.
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby Son of a Beach » Mon 05 Mar, 2012 7:21 pm

This may well be considered again in future. We did have a similar sub-forum for quite some time, but it received very few posts, with many light weight topics still being posted to the main 'Equipment' forum.

Please provide a list of reasons for why you'd like to see such topics separated out into their own forum, and links to existing topics created in the past 4 weeks that would have been suitable for a lightweight sub-forum. If there are a large enough number of them, then we might reconsider creating such a sub-forum again.
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby Nuts » Mon 05 Mar, 2012 7:42 pm

Ha Ha, yer, the lightweight section (iirc) came from some forum members scoffing and snobbing at lightweight gear. I think they had to settle down once they themselves starting thinking outside the box (so the need for a separate section was less..)
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby Stibb » Mon 05 Mar, 2012 7:48 pm

What's the point? Who will decide what is ultralight or not? As everyone has their own idea what is "heavy", "light" and "ultralight" (oh, and superultralight :roll: ) etc etc there will just be a lot of overlap and that was too evident before. What has changed since then? :roll:

If any more subdivision is needed, I would suggest functional subforums; cooking, sleeping, shelters etc. But I'm not sure that would improve anything. More likely it would complicate thing.

Nah, keep it as it is :)
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby highlander chris » Fri 09 Mar, 2012 8:35 am

Son of a Beach wrote:This may well be considered again in future. We did have a similar sub-forum for quite some time, but it received very few posts, with many light weight topics still being posted to the main 'Equipment' forum.

Please provide a list of reasons for why you'd like to see such topics separated out into their own forum, and links to existing topics created in the past 4 weeks that would have been suitable for a lightweight sub-forum. If there are a large enough number of them, then we might reconsider creating such a sub-forum again.


Hi all, Stibb has raised a valid point about varying thoughts of what is lightweight, I wasn't a member at the time of the old subfolder was active, so i have no insight as to how it affected the forum.

I don't want to tread on any toes or change a system that works (if its not broken don't fix it), but just thought that a folder focusing on weight reduction could be used by all as a quick reference / central source to view what brands / products had been tried and tested by the members, to assit others in the kit building process, and save a lot of time and money on products.

I am not so handy on the computer gizmo stuff, and wouldn't know where to begin linking topics, so i might leave that for now.
Thanks Chris
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby walkinTas » Sun 15 Apr, 2012 11:16 pm

Stibb wrote:Who will decide what is ultralight or not?
This is not an argument for or against, but as far as the question goes, here is one definition of ultralight. Minimalist < 5.5kg (12lbs), Ultralight < 9.0kg (20 lbs), Lightweight < 13.5 kg (30 lbs), and Plush or Deluxe 13.5 - 22.5 kg (50 lbs).

But, that does attempt to answer the question for each individual piece of equipment.
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby Stibb » Mon 16 Apr, 2012 10:53 am

No, it is perhaps not an argument for or against but my point was that there will be a lot of overlap as was very clear when there was a specific lightweight forum. I just don't think most people will adhere to a precise definition that is so arbitrary.
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby sthughes » Mon 16 Apr, 2012 11:54 am

I don't really like the idea of segregating the equipment topic. I carry a combination of gear that I think best suits the walk and expected conditions. So while my overall pack weight is usually in the "deluxe" category it is made up of some items that might be considered ultralight, lightweight and so on. I often take more "ultralightish" gear if I think it's adequate simply so I can take more "deluxe" food and camp items. For example on an ovenighter with little prospect of scrub or rain I will take an ultralight coat and lightweight pack, yet still carry a "deluxe" tent and probably add a fry pan, some eye fillet steak some fresh cream and desert that would have been left behind in favour of noodles if I had needed the extra weight of my heavy coat and pack for harsh conditions. I guess I don't consider individual items to be "ultralight/minimalist/deluxe/etc" , I think such terms better describe an overall kit and most people are probably not looking for info on a full kit at a time. So if an "ultralight" folder was introduced I probably wouldn't bother to view it, even though it is likeley to ocassionally discuss some pieces of gear I might still be interested in.
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby walkinTas » Mon 16 Apr, 2012 5:01 pm

Sorry Stibb, our wires were a little crossed there. I meant I wasn't arguing for or against the topic, I was simply posting the opinion of someone else on what might be consider the boundaries between categories. You make a reasonable point. Like sthughes and others, I carry a mixture. I like the idea of lighter gear, but, as I was explaining to someone else recently, I'm more interested in reducing bulk and in counting grams. I think I correctly noted some bios in that article toward lightweight, with the categories jumping from lightweight to deluxe - nothing in between. Find me a dual skin tent with 5000mm floor, -10°C sleeping bag, R 5.2 pad and rock solid pack, total weight under 2.5 Kg, and I'll happily have a shot at minimalist. :D
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby Stibb » Mon 16 Apr, 2012 5:45 pm

walkinTas wrote:Sorry Stibb, our wires were a little crossed there.

No worries, I can see that now :wink:
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby Mountain Rocket » Thu 10 May, 2012 6:06 pm

It sounds like a great idea, but I suspect in practise things will become messy and further fragmented.

As members above me have pointed out, defining such a arbitrary term is difficult. Who decides what thread goes where? Does everyone agree with those decisions? Are moderators expected to (retrospectively) move threads to the new section? Is increasing the workload of moderators to such an extent a good thing (on balance with the potential negatives that might arise)?

Sorry for all the rhetorical questions but hopefully you can see this issue is not as simple as one might hope/expect.
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby Strider » Thu 10 May, 2012 6:52 pm

Just put the thing up, and those that wish to utilise it can do so. What's so hard about that?
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby doogs » Thu 10 May, 2012 6:59 pm

Strider wrote:Just put the thing up, and those that wish to utilise it can do so. What's so hard about that?

last time there was one it wasnt used very much (see SOBs post above somewhere),that was only about a year ago. Why waste Niks time surely it's not too hard to look through the equipment forum? Now I want an Expat sub forum......
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Re: ultralight / weight reduction folder PLEASE.

Postby Son of a Beach » Fri 11 May, 2012 8:57 am

Strider wrote:Just put the thing up, and those that wish to utilise it can do so. What's so hard about that?


There's nothing hard about setting it up. However, when we had that forum before it actually made it more difficult to browse/search topics because there were two forums to search in instead of one, and people were missing out on information because the topics they might have otherwise been looking for or interested in were in the other forum where they didn't expect them to be.

The other issue was that the subforum was very much under-utilised. If all of the light weight topics were posted in the subforum, it may have been worthwhile, but we can't spend all out time moving topics from one forum to another, and it is impossible to get people to place all their new topics in the right forum when the 'right forum' is ambiguous (at least to them) for a particular topic.
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