SummitPost.org

Hello folks,

Well, for quite a while now I've created several mountain pages of my country (and some andean too) to expose them to the world.
However, for some time on, about six months i guess, things have changed considerably on our site. People access the pages and simply not bother to vote. I see every day stunning photos that not even reach 87% in votes.
I created last Monday a new article which had 27 hits and no votes at all in 3 days. A historical and philosophical reflection on the binding factor among the people created by mountaineering.
No problem, i just deleted the article.
Was it so bad? Are my contributions that bad? Are my photos that bad too? A few questions that come to my mind.

Gotta be honest here, I'm disappointed with that.
Slowly I'm erasing the photos i've posted that were not voted or badly voted. Yesterday i deleted about 20 photos or so, today it will be a little bit more.
I know some people will say (i guess, maybe people not even read this) "never mind, do not be upset with that..."

From my point of view, the vote means gratitude, recognition, appreciation, respect, adoration, fellowship, partnership and friendship.

Do not worry guys, I will not delete my mountain pages. They're not mine, they are ours. Everyone has the right to see them and plan your trip to Brazil.
I remain open to making new friends, schedule climbings, if someone come to Brazil i'll help anyway I can, everyone here has my word for it. I will not stop using the site or to post my pictures, I still like very much of everything here, but this changed to "almost all " or "not everything".
My conclusion is I will think twice before building new pages, new articles, among others. It seems to me a lot of work for little recognition, or none in the last case.

PS: I'll keep voting and commenting on the pages I visit according to the quality of the material, as it always did.

Best wishes to all,

Parofes
http://www.altamontanha.com

A lot of social websites are going through the same changes. It begins as a community, with lots of activity and sharing. Then it gradually becomes a resource where users take information without giving any feedback. I too have some great photos with lots of hits, but not a single vote. So it isn't just you, it's a general trend with websites like this everywhere. Keep your photos, there is usually a use for them even though others may not bother to vote.

I've felt this way, but now have a bit more perspective.

Like us Europeans, if you don't live in CO/CA/etc, you can't expect constant interest in your "out of the way" locations because the number of active users isn't that high. Find where you feel comfortable on the giving/receiving continuum. If you feel you aren't getting paid back enough in attention for the work, then don't do the work. Or try to redefine...what is "work" about it? For me, mountain pages are "work" so I do them seldom (and seldom well). Trip reports are "fun" so I do them a lot, whether or not anybody notices.

If you stick with SP, you'll meet some great people who climb. Becoming disappointed with responses just means that you need to go away a bit and relegate the computer back to the 5% of your existence where it belongs! It has always been this way...

And please continue to post Brazilian beta. I've been hearing more and more great things about the climbing there and whereas it wasn't on my radar in the past, I have to say I am definately considering a road trip there and beta is always greatly appreciated in the planning phase of the trip...

the problem is also expressed by guidebook authors. I've spoken to some and people will b!tch and complain about any mistake but even if there is 1 or 2 mistakes in a guidebook of a 1000 or so routes (and its going to happen even with the best guidebooks), the authors get no thank you's for all the great beta but get b!tched at for the few mistakes. I also have a friend who had hand drawn a complete set of topo's for an entire area without any previously written beta, and two morons who had gotten the topo from a friend sat and b!tched about the topo in front of the guy...

people just find it easier to complain then to say a thank you.....

Parofes,

I greatly enjoy your Brazilian and other LatAm / Andean contributions. For me, you've opened up a whole new world of mountains. I am surely not alone in that when I thought of Brazil I thought of a. Rio b. Carnival and b. The Amazon. Now that you post Brazilian mountain pages to SP, I am endlessly amazed at just how much mountainous terrain their is in Brazil (and not just Corcodova with its lovely statue...)

Ultimately, at the end of the day, I think you've got it right: Each SP page contribution is an act of sharing your celebration of the mountains with the community. Please don't get caught up too much in the voting and comments element of being an SP contributor. You can't do anything to change other people's behavior ... only your reaction to them. You know: Accept the things you cannot change, have the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference!

Continue sharing quality pages with the community about the mountain places that are special to you. If you think you could make improvements to your pages and don't know where to start, why not reach out to a few members you trust and respect and request their honest input? Post a new page, reach out to a few folks via PM and say: Hey, here's my new page. I value your opinion, could you please tell me what I could do to improve it? Frequent contributors to the sight are typically more than happy to share tips and tricks and even send raw code to you.

I look forward to the next Parofes page.

Sarah

anita wrote:life's tough

Just adding to Anita's comment ... it's also not fair. Nobody ever said life would be fair.

At 54 years old, as I travel through my life, I quickly recognize that some folks are having a tougher time than others.

Just never give up! We cannot base our own lives on what is happening across the meadow.

Don't forget that a lot of people are very disillusioned with the voting system, especially when it comes to photos. And that's all I have to say about that can of worms!

Bob Sihler wrote: And that's all I have to say about that can of worms!

Yep, such is LIFE.

Gravity SUCKS !!!

In my next life, I want to be one of these ...

Bob Sihler wrote:Don't forget that a lot of people are very disillusioned with the voting system, especially when it comes to photos. And that's all I have to say about that can of worms!

That is the real issue in many cases. The system in place isn't good, and could easily be improved. Eventually folks become tired of using it, so it should be anticipated that people will use it less as time goes on. Unfortunately that also limits the positive or constructive feedback a contributer receives and consequently discourages future contributions.

For a while I thought I shouldn't vote on a lot of stuff, because many pages were on subjects where I had limited knowledge. For example, there are a lot of great rock-climbing pages -- at least they look great -- but they could be far off as far as I know.

I liked climber.org trip reports, where there was no voting -- in fact, those trip reports have been more useful to me than summitpost, especially for trips in the Sierra, Inyo and many desert peaks (Example: http://climber.org/reports/2008/1672.html#south -- at the time, especially). But since SP came along, climber.org faded, probably because people liked the idea of an SP "community."

The voting system at SP has this irony: it almost guarantees that the most obscure places and route-- where one is most likely to need beta-- get the fewest votes and will be viewed (by the statements of the SP founders) as so-so or bad pages. So sometimes I just randomly go through and vote on obscure places, just to keep them from reaching the bottom of the heap, if they have the basic information. Sometimes when one searches for a mountain, the page with the lowest votes is really the most useful-- it isn't pretty, just has important info (e.g.: the road or trail marked on the maps no longer exists).

If you're here just to collect votes you've come to the wrong place. The motivation of most contributors is to share knowledge and to help out others. Not every person who finds contributions helpful leaves a vote or is a registered user in the first place.

Occasionally I will sort all the Mountain/Rock pages by ascending score. You'd be surprised how many pages have scores of 0, since no one voted. Yes, some are lousy, but many are quite good. So I'll vote and immediately knock the page into the mid-80s score range, because I have a vote weight of 572 and am mighty.

I suggest others do the same, too. Help out some of the under-appreciated pages. Some pages last maybe a day on the "what's new" list before being shunted into the background. Hence, few or no votes, a low score, that sort of thing.

I would LOVE it if more pages from South America, Mexico, Asia, Africa or other places got posted. I will probably never get to some or most of these areas, but the photos, narrative and obvious care put into the pages still makes for a fun, vicarious experience.

PAROFES, I have read all of your pages, and they fascinate me. Trust me, your work gets noticed.

Yes, most people vote 10 or not at all. Not how the system was intended, but as long as most people follow this method, the better pages do tend to rise to the top, the bad ones sink. It's not perfect but in a broad sense, it stratifies the pages reasonably well.

Its the same 100 f'ing people voting on everything anyway (out of 53791). Who cares what Larry thinks about your page. . he's just a vulture anyway. Same ones that blog/forum here. 3121 hits on my Buckingham Ridge page, and only 12 votes. And only 2 route ratings. Seems like life: lots of lookers, few doers. Parofes, just do it for yourself. Contribute, or don't--for you, not for us. Most routes I've put up here have few climbers in the log. Perhaps that means what I'm putting up here is useless. I don't care. Its free information for those that want it. I've used some folks photos way more than yours to figure out routes, but perhaps someday I'll go to your fine country and want the online help.

I just like the online guidebook idea. I think its the way to go, whether people use it, just look at it, or participate in its growth.



Hopefully Afzal, Borut, and others, don't start taking down their pics because I'm not voting on them.

Popular mountains can gather a lot of votes, even if the pages say little that can't be found elsewhere with modest google skills. Lots of people "climb" those mountains (many by class 1 trails), and vote 10 after registering in the log. If Mount Fubar has 500 logs, and only 20% of those people vote, it's still going to be a pretty popular page.

That's not bad -- it's just the way of SP. There are some dynamite route pages on SP (I use those the most for Sierra, and often ignore the peak pages), which have very few votes, but that sure doesn't stop me from using them.