Free Email Cancellation

“As of April 30, 2001 the free email service provided by thebackpacker.com will be discontinued. At that time, all free email accounts will be deleted and the service will be taken down. This decision comes after a lengthy evaluation of how best to strengthen the community within thebackpacker.com. The free email service requires a lot of resources and there are many other free email providers on the Internet. While many people use the email service, it did not increase the integrity of thebackpacker.com community in ways we had hoped for. Therefore, we feel it is best to redirect the resources used for the email service into other areas of the website. Over the next few months there will be many changes made to thebackpacker.com website, all in hopes of strengthening the community of hikers that have been drawn to thebackpacker.com. We hope to increase the quality of the content, the number of users, and the community atmosphere that surrounds thebackpacker.com. Thank you for using the email service and please continue to support thebackpacker.com.”

“Matt,
I have notice decrees in people posting here since I first joined up. The quality I?m happy with, please don?t put a chat room in. BTW do you own this site? If not who does? A long time ago we asked you to look for the first thread, have you found it? Once again thanks for keeping TT up and operational.

Oh? I almost forgot, thanks for that banner to the match makers site (http://www.match.com/index.htm?AssociateID=224572) I met so many chicks that are sending me free porn pics, and they want to meet me too. I think I will meet this one chick in real life. Her name is Bubba (her friends call her Bill), , and backpacker, she?s also a 25 year old super model that is going to pay for my plane ticket out to her home town of Eyeza_gona_cill _yah. I think she is 100% legitimate too.

LOL
I was only jokeing.”

“Ice Tea,
Yes, I own the site. I looked for the first thread, but I don't have a copy of it anymore.”

“Matt,
Can you tell us what changes you plan to make on the site? I'm with Ice Tea as far as not having a Chat Room. I enjoy reading the posts too much.
Your doing a great job here Matt! Keep up the good work bro.”

“Matt,

Since you're making changes anyway, would you pretty please put a link at the bottom of the page that takes you back to TT Today? It's not a big deal to scroll back to the top but I just thought since you're making changes anyway. :o)

I love your site, Matt!”

“well, who gets my email business now? Where should I go?”

“The changes will be to better organize things and create a more community atmosphere. I will put more emphasis on viewers submitting content not only on the message board, but also articles, pictures, reviews, etc. Your TT user account will become a user account that is used throughout the site. And no, I am not adding a chat. TT will stay as it is with a few minor tweaks like people being able to assign a thread to a category such as gear or trip reports. So when you check TT, you can tell it to only show you threads that are in the gear category.”

“Matt
Could you also keep a link up to Phil's upcomming trip page?
Thanks Man.”

“Thanks for the info Mr.Matt. Love the site and glad to hear you think the changes will be for the better. But...can it get better than this?”

“Sunshine- If you are already on a Trail Talk Today thread page, you can click on the "Show Threads" button at the bottom of the page and it will take you right back and show all of the current threads on Trail Talk Today.”

“Guys, I highly recommend www.eudoramail.com

I've tried many free email services - hotmail, operamail, etc. eudoramail.com is by far the best. It blocks tons of known spammers and gives you the option to easily block out anyone that spams you. You can even specify to ONLY receive emails from people in your address book.

I'm new to the site but I'm really enjoying it. I think a chat page is a great idea. Maybe have a weekly chat? That way the forum remains active and those who want to chat can do so. There's a free chat service out there that you can integrate into your site very easily and quickly, plus it's advertisement free. I'm using it at www.horrordvds.com/chat.shtml”

“My vote is keep the email!Whaaa!”

“First of all, Kudos to you Matt. You have done a wonderful job with this site. I am sure you have a good handle on what is best for your site as far as space and time requrements go, so good luck. I will agree with some of the others in saying that a chat area wouldn't be a good idea. I think it would be more debtrimental to the site than helpful. I haven't participated, but I think the ICQ/IM chats would work fine for anyone who wants to chat. $.02. Thanks again Matt.”

“Thanks for the site Matt. I'm thoroughly addicted.”

“Kewl I get to have email cancelled for free!!! I'll send a list right away.

Seriously, I can see why this makes sense. I had a backpacker.com email address for bmy backpacker mail and didn't want to have another box to check so I never used one here.

Thanks for the site Matt.
I enjoy the freedoms on this site and the mix of backpacking and non-backpacking threads. I suppose having threads hooked up to categories of topics might "protect" some users from our more "appalling" threads.”

“I like the format of this site and I'll miss having backpacker in my e-mail address.

I checked out alpinezone.com when the webmaster was asking for input, and there are a couple of things I didn't like about it. One is the use of categories (where do you put green jello threads?) and the other is the use of moderators.”

“"We hope to increase the quality of the content..."

SHIT! I've been banned from another site!”

“...and take that squirrel with ya!”

“Thanks, Ski! I thought that was a *search* button. Silly me. Don't I feel stupid now. %)”

“Sunshine, just make sure not to change "1 Days" in the "Messages from how long:" box.”

“I guess it's easier to cancel email for free than trying to make people pay for it.”

“Matt, how are you going to catorize threads like "green Jello", or "ICQ and porno", or "F**king A holes" aka @*&$*#&$.”

“There will be a general "Chatter" category for all of the interesting off-topic threads.”

“Yeah, So put all ya political crap in there!”

“There may be a little confusion about the categories. The format of TT will stay the same. You will see a list of all the threads and when you click on the threads you will see all the messages. The categories will just help when you select "Show all Gear Threads". Then it will only show the threads that are in the Gear category.”

“Can't wait to see it!”

“I must admit, I'm a little relieved. Like Kleetn, I was worried that I'd be excommunicated. Since I'll just be lumped under Chatter, I won't feel any different. Although, there are gear threads that turn into chatter threads. Hmmmm...”

“hey Matt, how many hits does this site get on a normal day? Just curious.”

“My guess is over 1k”

“It gets around 10,000 a day.”

“How many posts a day?”

“Add em up on Trail Talk today.”

“Matt, you have a great resource here. I also want to express my thanks for your time, skill and patience! I have meet many wonderful people through the hikes and some of them have become dear friends. I hope you and your wife are doing super. Are you still going for the degree or have you taken off in another area of interest?

Again, thanks.... Why not come out on one of these hikes someday?”

“Yeah Matt, Come and Hike with us!”

“On another website they have an "edit & delete" button that allows only the poster to use it. This saves having to type corrections in another entry. Minor, but nice.

My second request is after clicking on the Submit Message box you are either taken to the trail talk main page or back to the same thread you posted on.

Thanks for the great site.”

“Hey wait a minute... it just took me back to the TT main page. I swear it didn't do that after posting my last entry. See if we had that edit/delete feature I wouldn't look like the idiot I do now... I can hear those idiot comments now!”

“I jest neeed a spel cheker.”

“A built in spell checker would be nice, if there was any was to intergrade my Word in to the window, or if some one has claris works or Quark.”

“was any was???????
Tea
I know I'm a bad speller sometimes but you absolutely suck at it! LOL!!!”

“Tea,
could be done with fancy java, but would dead end with most security programs. You would have to have th site scan the disc for the processer and open it. Anti-Virus sees that as a big no no.”

“Well hotmail now has word in the typing box”

“Actualy... I made a Active X control that uses the dictionary that MS word uses. I haven't had any problems with anti virus or anything like that.”

“so why don't you share it?”