Mine might be an unpopular opinion, but I think we screw over the community as a whole when we drive away those who have much to offer it. This is a ski forum. I'm not an equal contributor to Max_501, HeluvaSkier, epic, bushwacka, etc. My contributions are worth approximately nothing in comparison with theirs, because about all I have to offer is conjecture and the subjective opinion of a hack skier. These folks have significant experience from which we can all benefit, irrespective of which approach(es) we follow with regard to instruction.
Are my trip reports equal to theirs? I guess they could be more entertaining or relatable to the average skier. Am I going to try to argue technique with them? Absolutely not, and I think it would be disrespectful for me to try. I think it's disrespectful for an intermediate who just read one of HH's books to pick a fight with a top-level PSIA pro on Epic, and I think it's disrespectful for the reverse to happen, too. When you ski with people in real life, it's quickly obvious who has room to talk and make technique recommendations to others, and who really ought to keep his mouth shut on a given day and with a given crew.
I've been very fortunate to spend a goodly amount of time skiing with some incredibly good skiers, and I've been continuously amazed at how generous they are with their time and energy. When I have the opportunity to learn from such people via the internet, I'm certainly willing to overlook a periodic rant or whatever, because their contributions net out to be so overwhelmingly positive.
I've also been a pro who's had rank amateurs try to argue with him about technique, and understand quite well how maddening it is. When people don't know what they don't know and are too dumb to shut up about it, it can really
**** off the people to whom it's blatantly obvious. I'm pretty forgiving toward pros who get fed up and decide to stop holding back on the amateur in question. The way I see it, if you're going to start calling people out, you'd better have the skills to back up every word you say.
I suppose, if all you want is a place to talk about whatever floats your boat, it doesn't much matter if it turns into the home of the mediocre but polite. Personally, I'm interested in learning stuff, too. Learning about skiing from people roughly on my own level is a severe case of the blind leading the blind, and I'm not terribly interested in that when there are much better alternatives available.
I think Svend makes a good point about absolute statements, though--it can be confusing sometimes to determine, for example, whether people are talking about an Expert Skier in the PMTS context, a generic "expert skier", or something else. It can be difficult to remind yourself continuously of the perspective of each writer when you're reading a stack of posts from different authors all on top of each other. I think we might avoid some misunderstandings if we all tried to specify which one we meant when we used terms like that.
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