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1 2 3   UER Forum > Archived UE Main > ethics on taking items (Viewed 1382 times) robdobi   |  |  |  ethics on taking items < on 9/14/2003 7:22 AM >   i know the rule "take nothing but pictures" is the norm, but there are certain situations when i find i must give in to temptations... a hospital for the mentally retarded in new england is slated to be demolished anytime now to make room for athletic fields so my roommate and i ran through and found several things worth nabbing, such as portable record players and vintage rotary phones, both work perfectly. whenever i see multiple of an item, be it pamphlets or toy airplanes, i see no harm in taking one of several replicas of it lying around. any one else have thoughts on what is / isn't acceptable for the taking? dobi.nu / fullbleed.org - series 12 now available. / flickr / tumblr / prints for sale Kimmo  Noble Donor  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 1 on 9/14/2003 7:41 AM >   Posted by robdobi any one else have thoughts on what is / isn't acceptable for the taking? I think that this has been discussed here many times before, but I think your sentence I quoted says it all... Because you make the rule, that what is acceptable to take and what is not, also means that you can bend the rules. First it's just: "This building will be demolished tomorrow, so I will take some items because they will end up to the dumb pit otherwise" Next: "I'm not sure when will this building be demolished, but probably someday, so I'll collect some items" Last: "This building is partly active, but no one doesn't seem to care for these items, so I'll take them" I'm not claiming that you are acting like this, but I'm saying that people in general act in this way, when they make their own rules...they bend and bend the rules until only rule is that there is none. Yes, there has been few moments, that I really wanted to take items with me, because they were very expensive and I could have made a good deal, by selling them...but... Caput_58  Location: Virginia, USA Gender: Male  |  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 2 on 9/14/2003 9:38 AM >   I agree its a grey area, but I think it comes down to two questions: 1. How will this theft impact the owner of building? 2. How will this theft detract from the experience of later explorers? Everyone will have their own opinion of gravity of their theft, but I think to be an honorable explorer, you should also consider what the consensus of your fellow explorers would be, after all, their reputation will also be tarnished by your actions. Caput_58 asdafaf  Location: oe'r yonder I have always been here before.  |  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 3 on 9/14/2003 11:51 AM >   We usually steal everything we can carry, and then we whip out handguns and shoot the shit out of the stuff we can't carry. I'm looking for software engineers to hire at Amazon. RobbieKnobbie  Location: Philadelphia PA Gender: Male  |  |  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 4 on 9/14/2003 1:12 PM >   I'm with Max on this one... nothing beats a .357 for preserving the integrity of a site... no wait... I didn't say that... I'm a little more lax on the whole 'Take Nothing But Pictures' rule (maybe cause I take such crappy pictures), but I never take anything that'll be missed, and never anything from a "semi-active" site. Typically I try to find discarded documents, like if I'm trying to put together a history of a place, or some minor item that identifies where I've been (a patient handbook from an abandoned asylum out of a box of hundreds of copies, or an institutional towel left in the laundry building of a state school etc. I draw the line - and it is a hard and fast line - at items of signifigance... street signs, building plaques. stuff like that. If a building is honestly slated to be demolished so soon that other explorers wouldn't have a chance to appreciate the item in question, and it would be better preserved then left to the wrecker's ball then I would consider it more criminal to leave some items behind (like a patient handbook) Really though, old telephones and phonographs? You're shitting me... that's IT? Viggen  Location: Chirstchurch, New Zealand Gender: Male  |  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 5 on 9/14/2003 1:26 PM >   Posted by Max Action We usually steal everything we can carry, and then we whip out handguns and shoot the shit out of the stuff we can't carry. I don't know what to say. I'm all for preserving stuff and all that, but reading this made me laugh I'll quite happily flog stuff from a site thats due for demolition, provided its obvious that it isn't going to be used. Hell, the desk I'm sitting at came from the old Fat Ladies Arms here. As did a FLA sign I have... not to mention my friends grabbing a whole bunch of sensors, another desk, some chairs, exit lights, a neon sign and an old cash register...must post some pics from that place actually. Capone  Location: London, Ontario Gender: Male UEL  |  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 6 on 9/14/2003 5:58 PM >   The only way I'll take a "souvineer" is something like a pamphlet or whatever that there's a lot of... take for example an abandoned mill UEL visited, there was hundreds of these mill pamphlets littering the office floors so I grabbed one. Another exception I'll make is if the building is going to be demolished. For example Veteran's Psych, that building was already in the process of being torn down and still had the odd piece of hospital letterhead and other miscellanious paperwork blowing around, I grabbed a couple pieces of that as well. However, taking anything from active sites, or anything from any regular abandoned building is wrong, not only because I consider that stealing, but also because it's ruining a part of the experience for the next explorer. The way I see it though, there's nothing wrong with taking something (within reason); if you know that it is just going to end up smashed by the wrecking ball in a another couple days anyway. So there I was, in this creepy old hallway... nominal  Location: Grimsby Gender: Male  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 7 on 9/14/2003 8:14 PM >   I agree that once a place is slated for demolition then take all you can carry and shoot the rest, burn the village and rape the widows, why not? But if it's not going to be detroyed the next day then leave it alone. If there's 100 items and everyone takes just 1 then the 101st person does'nt even get a look. Take for example Whitby Psych. There almost nothing left there. Corporeal Punishment  Location: Lima Center, WI Gender: Male Welcome to your heart...  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 8 on 9/14/2003 8:18 PM >   The only thing I've taken was from an old, abandoned house, and that item was just a ripped up gambling sheet which was hidden in a secret compartment in the floorboards along with some rusty razor blades (guess what the room was used for). Anyways, there are limits, but in general it should be accepted that a tiny, never be missed souvenier is alright. I look at it this way: -does the item enhance my UE experience? If so, leave it to enhance others' experiences. -Does the item have any signifigance to me? I ask this to avoid the idea of taking something just cause it's there. -Will the item be stolen by some other idiot thus making the first and second questions rather pointless? This is the general way I deal with the ethics involved. I won't cover the other questions I'd ask myself as they seem to be pretty common sense and are already covered in previous posts. I suspect that the second question is the most important as there is very little that has any kind of relevance to me whatsoever. Suit by Armani...Balls by King Kong. "Please do not offer my god a peanut" Jester  Location: Vancouver,B.C. Canada Gender: Male Always just out of sight...  |  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 9 on 9/14/2003 8:37 PM >   I visit sites to SEEwhat is there not to take what is there, or wonder what was there before people started taking things... It seems a well established fact that an exploration is always better when there are interesting things there to see. When you take them, you're fucking over any other explorer after you, ruining their experience. It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf. nominal  Location: Grimsby Gender: Male  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 10 on 9/14/2003 8:52 PM >   Fuckin right Jester. MercuryCrest its the little things the make a place interesting. Those gambling sheets and rusty razor blabes give that place character and are the exact reason for UE. Take a pic and leave the stuff where it is. And as for your third rule "-Will the item be stolen by some other idiot thus making the first and second questions rather pointless?", if we used this I'd be ripping the copper wire from the walls. robdobi   |  |  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 11 on 9/14/2003 9:12 PM >   Posted by RobbieKnobbie Really though, old telephones and phonographs? they don't make portable record players anymore! these things are near impossible to find, and there was a dark room full of ten of them. and the rotary phones were super vintage and still in great shape, especially once cleaned up, normally we wouldn't think of doing such a thing, but the 25 buildings on campus are slated to come down in the coming months to pave way for industrial sites / recreation fields, so its not like those who haven't explored the facility yet would be missing those items. there are exceptions, i passed up on the photo albums full of the mentally disabled, upon stumbling upon that i felt as if i were in a horror movie. dobi.nu / fullbleed.org - series 12 now available. / flickr / tumblr / prints for sale darkism  Gender: Male hop on the bandwagon  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 12 on 9/14/2003 9:12 PM >   Since the PES sticks only to active sites [I fail to see the excitement or interest in walking around an abandoned building in the middle of the day], we obviously don't take anything from these. Once at a construction site on campus I found an entire bag full of what must've been hundreds of sticker labels for pipes. I took one [out of hundreds] labelled LO PRESSURE STEAM and went on my way. Harmless? Yes. I doubt that there's enough low-pressure steam flowing through the building to warrant using that many stickers. Allva  Location: San Antonio, Texas Gender: Male I have my moments.  |  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 13 on 9/14/2003 9:19 PM >   Just follow your heart. Life is hard, but it's harder when you're stupid. Professor Chaos  Noble Donor Location: Halifax, NS Gender: Male  |  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 14 on 9/14/2003 9:20 PM >   UEQ doesn’t steal or take anything home. Roofire and I found it hard not to take the road signs in the Water treatment plant. Even if we did take something I doubt it would affect anyone. There are no other Urban Explorers in Québec city and most of the buildings here are used for shelter to the homeless and squatters… "Toyota vehicles are marketed to people who would be more excited about getting a new fridge than a new car I think." -Bandi Mancubus   |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 15 on 9/14/2003 10:26 PM >   I think it depends on the type of building and the stuff you find. If the site is really long abandoned and I find something really neat or rare, then I take it. But so far I haven't found anything really valuable. In a large medical office building I found test tubes from a centrifuge machine, test tube brushes, and various other medical supply bits and pieces. By far the weirdest thing that I found was a roll of barbed wire in a drawer of a surgery room on the first floor. Who the hell would put that there? nominal  Location: Grimsby Gender: Male  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 16 on 9/14/2003 10:40 PM >   So things should only be left behind if they are uninteresting or worthless? Servo   |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 17 on 9/14/2003 10:47 PM >   I'd say only take things if you are totally sure that the place is being torn down in the very near future, and you are sure that the owner wouldn't try to sell anything in the building before it was torn down. Also, I'd agree that taking one of 500 identical items (for instance, the pipe stickers as darkism said) is probably not bad. However, I do remember that a few months back, someone who was caught and charged with tresspassing was charged with a burglary as well, because they had taken a *piece* of an already-broken sign. So that's one thing I'd keep in mind if you are in fear of being caught. Mancubus   |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 18 on 9/14/2003 11:00 PM >   Heh, I suppose it would be common sense to leave things that were uniteresting and worthless, but I know people who would just take crap for the sake of it. gonzo  Location: Kitchener Gender: Male my head. it glows. together we should glow.  |  |  Re: ethics on taking items <Reply # 19 on 9/14/2003 11:01 PM >   yeah its definately a circumstances based decision. i mean, when in oakville with K-OS and Shatterforce, there was this old sign depot, a dumping site if you will. i saw no problem with snatching an old street sign or two...there were hundreds just lying around. however, i wouldnt take something that adds to the atmosphere or history of a place. generally i would have no use for anything like that anyways. photos are enough for me. id like to think that the kitchen sink has some photography of the abstract kind, and some digital art of the even more abstract kind. sure. yes. why not. please. ->> http://www.kitchensink.applerings.com UER Forum > Archived UE Main > ethics on taking items (Viewed 1382 times) 1 2 3   All content and images copyright © 2002-2024 UER.CA and respective creators. 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