JeepinWV.com is a website for offroad enthusiasts in and around West Virginia. It also serves as the internet home of the West Virginia Jeep Club, Inc, a not-for-profit organization formed to safely promote and protect the sport of off-highway driving in the mountain state. Although jeep is in our name, our forum members and club members own everything from Samurais to Xterras. Our common thread is a desire to enjoy family-friendly four wheeling in a manner that is not destructive to our environment.
With all of the talk in the past few weeks I thought I would help set the record straight. Please read the quoted text above and you will see what this site is for, JeepinWV is for the "off-road enthusiast". You don't need a big dollar rig to enjoy yourself on here, you don't need to have a trailer queen ride with all of the bells and whistles featured in the latest four wheel drive magazine to fit in here. The club was started as a bunch of friends who shared a passion and enjoyed four wheeling and getting together to not only help out but have a good time with one another.
We had Meet and Greets and got together to talk Jeeps, trails, and have a good time. People started to hear about the club and our trips and started coming out to join us so we made a set time and location so that more people could come and enjoy the trips. We where college students at the time and didn't have big fancy high dollar rigs (many of us still don't)... but we still had fun (and a lot of it for sure!)
Of the 6 of us who first started putting together the group we talked about having a state wide Jeep Club would be a good idea, most every state around WV had something similar and it appeared to be working well. Our first year there wasn't anything official, with just a handful of people things where easy, stress free, and fun. There was no complaining, arguing, or trouble just fun and four wheeling and 99% of the posts on the old site where Jeep related questions, new part reviews, and dates and times of upcoming trips with posts of pictures from old trips the weekend before.
We thought we had something really special when we would get 15-20 new people a month at a meet and greet, so we continued to try to grow and expand the club, website, and make the group more legit with an incorporation and becoming a not-for profit club.
As the years went on and the number of people who we made friendships with and who helped to move the club forward increased we wanted to try and open the site up to as many people as we could, I thought that if we could continue to attract more of those great West Virginian's who enjoyed Jeepin and the comradery that came with the adventures on the trails that we could change the way that so many people see us in the public eye.
At that point we had 20-30 members who would drop anything and help out what ever you needed, jeep help or even a personal request like help at your house with something. As we talked about what we wanted to do and what direction we should go some people thought keeping the club small and tight like we where would be the best thing to do with a closed forum and new members by invitation only while other members thought we should open it up so that any person out there who wanted to join had the opportunity and that anyone who wanted to see topics posted on the forum could do so.
By us keeping our doors open to new people we have met through the JeepinWV.com website there have been some great new people, there have also been those who I don't think cared much at all if any about Jeepin or four wheeling they where only on to have an audience to see their junk they post and to read their opinions on ANYTHING and EVERYTHING.
Those who have helped to get this site and the club to where it is today have only done so to try and keep a good positive thing going and to keep in touch with those friends who we have made over the years as well as to try and meet new people who enjoy the same things that so many of us enjoy. With as many people who have frequented this site in the past 7 years there has obviously been a need to police the site, it is after all a family friendly site where we don't want junk posted. Those of us who do that job try to do the best, I know that I have removed posts that maybe should not have been removed... there is no set in stone bar that we have telling anybody to remove a link or post, just judgment in what we think may or may not be needed. All of us who work to try and keep this thing going are just doing it to keep up with friends we have made and to try and make sure people have a good time on JeepinWV.com.
If your not happy with the way that this site has conducted itself over the years and the direction that it is going I am sorry, there is no way to please everyone. There are other sites out on the internet that may cater your needs and desires better and I suggest that anyone who doesn't enjoy this site they should check out another, there are plenty of them out there.
If you don't enjoy yourself at JeepinWV.com please don't log on, its not a hard concept to figure out... there are many websites out there that I don't like and I can take care of that problem by not getting onto them. Over the past year I think that we have lost more longtime members due to people trolling the site and cluttering it up with junk and by voicing opinions that are only meant to insult someone else. We don't need it and its not going to be tolerated.
I'm 26 years old and over the past 3-4 years there have been several on here (some twice my age) who it feels like I am having to talk to like I'm someones parent. In the past we have tried warning those who troll the site looking to disrupt an honest question and trying to make every person happy. It doesn't seem like that is going to work, there are people who have nothing better to do than to sit at home and ridicule others and that is going to stop. Those who want to insult rather than help can check out the sites where that is tolerated.
[*]If your not here because your are a Jeep/off-road enthusiast you don't need to be on JeepinWV.com
[*]If you are an enthusiast but don't plan on safely promoting and protect the sport of off-highway driving in the mountain state you have no need to be a part of JeepinWV.com
[*]If you do not keep in mind this is a family-friendly site and forum and those who have volunteered to help ensure that you have no need to be a user of JeepinWV.com
JeepinWV.com will be reverting back to the way we did it in the past. Working to create a forum where people can communicate about Jeeps and four wheeling with out having to worry about a soap opera taking place around them.
Jason
