First of all, thanks to
@Dan_Millsip and the original members who started WCP as it's been a great resource for connecting with other paddlers, for sales, general knowledge of techniques, designs and skills. Thanks also to
@kayakwriter (Phillip) for taking the captain's chair for the direction of the forum.
Having moved to BC in the early 90's from Saskatchewan, I've been kayaking for many years out here but in the past five years have really built up my interest and skills with my wonderful Ellesmere. My partner and I do multiday camping trips throughout the year around the eastern and western coasts of Vancouver Island. I've been a
"full stack" web developer for 20+ years in both the private and public sectors, seeing a ton of development and change along the way, and currently am a
User Experience Designer. A year ago I offered to help Dan with the forum out of my I.T. experience and general support for this paddling community specifically.
For the forum itself, it was originally built on phpBB and then years ago was migrated into Xenforo. In February as many of you know, the site had a major update to version 2.1.7 (released January 27, 2020) so we are definitely staying current. Regular technical updates are applied many times throughout the year and necessary to combat increasing hacking sophistication.
(WCP has daily hacking attempts made on it through various methods.) Considering the
Bus Factor, the WCP forum welcomes the addition of a second developer to help with maintenance (please contact
@kayakwriter or myself).
Personally, I'm not a fan of click-ads on any website but I can tell you that from a technical standpoint, it is a simple way to generate regular income. Accepting donations, as easy as that sounds in theory, also goes beyond merely plunking a PayPal button on a website. Either way, legally a site owner of any website would need to register as a non-profit and potentially pay taxes and submit info to CRA like any other business. For any site that is also cross-border [in audience], accepting donations outside of Canada may theoretically introduce some financial and legal issues. Note that I'm speaking in general terms for
any website, not this one in particular.
As a forum user I'm in agreement with
@Pawistik in favouring an inclusive approach with other paddlers - as the forum name suggests - regardless of whether they're canoeists, SUP'ers, white-water or sea kayakers. Perhaps by including a wider audience we can build community and expand on awareness, safety and interest with one another. It's my personal hope that the resources here remain free to all. There are a lot of gear recommendations, technical skills and destination topics that we all have in common and this forum is a great source for learning and sharing. In general, there's nothing to lose from welcoming all paddlers but certainly a lot to gain.
I hope everyone is well and healthy out there. I'll leave this post with an image of how my girlfriend and I happily practiced our social distancing (via kayak!) this weekend.