On a serious note:

No longer are the owners concerned with attracting new members and forum traffic.

It seems no one has heard from the owners for almost 11 years now. One owner logged in once last year and the other hasn't logged in since 2011. Still, neither has said anything since early 2006. There is one paid administrator that keeps the site limping along.

All the major mountains and ranges are in here.

This is very true and a real issue. Most well known mountains already have pages. It's harder for new members to contribute pages since the well known mountains are mostly taken. In the US, states such as Alaska are ripe for the picking, but there aren't too many members up there.

It is harder for new members to contribute. Having a new member reach the front page of the People page is unlikely, so it will be the same old folk that have prominent pages. Newer members are sorely needed. The People page is basically stagnant and stale.

Instead, SP is trying to generate views of mostly outdated, unmaintained, marginal pages in an effort to assist folks in their efforts to get lost in the mountains.

I don't know if most pages are outdated, but a lot of them are. This is where the future lies with SP. Now that most of the famous mountains have been added, page adoption is what is needed. This can be done by new and fresh members.

I wonder what the best way to encourage new members to adopt pages might be? Maybe we need to find a way to flag out of date pages as adoptable?

Wow, I didn't know that the owners are AWOL. SP is one of my favorite places for climbing information. Most of the pages are well edited with accurate route descriptions. I almost never go to the forum, but that is not a big deal to me. Perhaps someone needs to give the owners a good buy-out option since there is so much value in this site and community.

Very well said, Spider-Man ^^^^ ...

"Spiderman, Spiderman,
Does whatever a spider can!

Spins a web, any size,
Catches thieves just like flies;
Look Out!

Here comes Spider Man.

(Screw those creepy Venus Fly Traps, we got SPIDERMAN)

Scott wrote:On a serious note:

It is harder for new members to contribute. Having a new member reach the front page of the People page is unlikely, so it will be the same old folk that have prominent pages. Newer members are sorely needed. The People page is basically stagnant and stale.

Instead, SP is trying to generate views of mostly outdated, unmaintained, marginal pages in an effort to assist folks in their efforts to get lost in the mountains.

I don't know if most pages are outdated, but a lot of them are. This is where the future lies with SP. Now that most of the famous mountains have been added, page adoption is what is needed. This can be done by new and fresh members.

I wonder what the best way to encourage new members to adopt pages might be? Maybe we need to find a way to flag out of date pages as adoptable?

I agree with you Scott. One of the reasons I went inactive on SP 4 years ago was because of more senior members than myself clinging to pages they hadn't touched in 8 or 9 or whatever years. They were obstacles to my trying to build a really comprehensive set of pages for my area. I tired of it and decided to go do my own thing, which has turned out pretty well, considering what followed. Now I recognize that I am the senior member who is clinging to pages that I haven't touched in years. I hardly check into SP anymore (in part because of the camaraderie that used to be here dissipating) and I have no plans to work on my pages. I have lately been considering putting them up for adoption, if I could ensure that the people who took them over would treat them well. I am not sure how to go about that. I don't want to put them up and then see them diminished.

Your idea of flagging pages for adoption pages owned by inactive users or pages that have not been upgraded for years is a good and necessary thing. I don't think pages should just be taken away, but if the owners are unwilling to put the work into updating them, then they should go to those who are willing to do it.

I am not sure how to go about that. I don't want to put them up and then see them diminished.

One way would be go to "Change Privileges" on the page and to make the "Orphanage" the page owner. Then people will know that they are for adoption. If you left yourself as administrator, you could always take them back if you change your mind.

http://www.summitpost.org/users/orphanage/66446

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't know of the orphanage page, so it would be better if there was something more visible.

The attraction of SP is that pages are created and owned by individuals and reflect individual styles, ranging from very good to lousy. Should the site go to a wiki style, then pages would eventually become all alike in some general sense, and that assumes that the pages are not abused by people deliberately out to subterfuge the work of others, or people who just have no clue what they're doing. So.... is there a middle ground? Can someone not active for 2 years have their pages made available to anyone? Can pages not updated in 5 years (regardless if their owner is active or not) be made available? Much of this is easy coding and could be reviewed by site admins or elves of certain status.

I 100% agree that new blood is needed. The site has grown stale. When I first started in 2003, it was exciting to be posting pages because there were so many peaks without pages. Now I have something like 120 peak pages, an have deliberately slowed down my new pages over the last few years. I have given up a few and am willing to give up a few more, too. Here's a crazy idea: send out word to everyone to willingly give up pages they may no longer want to keep. We may get quite a few willing to do so, and some new people can take over.

SP still is unique --- no other site quite matches it. Peakery uses boilerplate templates for its pages, Peakbagger and LoJ are more for logging climbs rather than narratives, and other sites tend to be highly localized to one area, rather than truly worldwide as SP. It needs an owner who is active and passionate about the page, and some tweaks to allow stale pages to be put up for adoption, new people to get more active, and some slight shift toward wiki editing yet still allowing page owners to govern "their" pages.

I still check in regularly, not as much as I used to, but I still think the whole site and the concept are sound. But there are always new pages, lots from Europe and England and North America and some from Asia. I'd like to see more Mexican peak pages. There are dozens of quality peaks in Arizona without pages. Not "all" mountains have pages, and many good ones are still ripe for the picking. People just have to stop looking at climbing the two or three most famous peaks in their area, and go climb some off-the-beaten-path peaks. The site isn't dead. Just needs a little kick to the behind.

surgent wrote: The site isn't dead. Just needs a little kick to the behind.

A VERY swift kick to the behind, whether the guy in front of you has hemorrhoids or not !!! --

and that assumes that the pages are not abused by people deliberately out to subterfuge the work of others

That's the trick. Saboteur/hackers have already gotten through security several times and deleted all the pages that they can. Luckily they were recovered (except for photos) and many new security measures are now in place, but if SP ever went wiki, vandalism would be rampant.

Adoption is the best solution, in my opinion.

Ah crap, must have webs inside my head, because I can't seem to lose these Spiderman lyrics -- and it's all Steve's fault.

'Cause ... only Spiderman can save SP now ... from the swirling currents of the upstairs toilet ....

"Is he strong?
Listen bud,
He's got radioactive blood.
Can he swing from a thread?
Take a look overhead (!)
Hey, there ...
There goes the Spiderman."

Scott wrote:I don't know if most pages are outdated, but a lot of them are. This is where the future lies with SP. Now that most of the famous mountains have been added, page adoption is what is needed.

I think that pages which haven't been edited for several (five? seven?) years should be made adoptable automatically.

yatsek wrote:I think that pages which haven't been edited for several (five? seven?) years should be made adoptable automatically.

Not that I'm a social media expert, but there's a "disconnect" existing between each SP-member and his/her page.

And ... I TIRED of these two excuses from all you millenial kids: "I was out of town, and I had zero access to a computer!"

What about the library -- they have computers at any public library. Or, are you afraid you might create an uproar with Mrs. Walters

As your new official owner, I promise to provide some real changes to this website; changes we will all enjoy for the betterment of SP. So nice for this deal to be complete.

Anyone with suggestions, feel free to message me, or Josh since he's also partnering up with me on this major transformation.
Cheers

Nothing is real on the Internet, so you must be kidding ...

But, you can start "draining the swamp" by getting rid of some of the pages that have been "down-voted" several times because they haven't been updated for years.

Then, you must say "HELLO" to Nancy Nerd-hoffer, SP's new librarian ...