Dow Williams wrote:Gangolf and company refuse to feature technical climbing objectives on the main page...it is not just his favoritism bs towards other elfs (look at current selection, not one technical climb...never is) ....
Is this really true? I've voted positively on a few Dow routes when I see them, and I generally look only on the front page (nowadays I rarely vote on anything). But I've usually added the caveat that I'm mainly voting on good presentation, because I'm not an expert in that area.
I would say Scott is a technical climber, and produces good pages, some of which end up on the front page. But as he has noted, if you put up info for obscure places, no matter how good the info is, it will probably get few votes. The Whitney trail will get more views and votes.
Folks from the media have cited Dow's info (probably not giving correct attribution), possibly because he is highly searched on google. As Dow has said, the true measure of success is where your page places on Google, rather than the SP votes.
There is some intersection in what sites cover--- e.g. I go on "true" climbing sites to get the latest info on the snow on Baboquivari, or the condition of the bolts. Even though it's mainly a hike with just 5.6 (really more like 5.2), the newest info still tends to be at climbing sites, because, well, that's what those guys do. (Climbers use the "easy" Babo route for descent, and keep up the best chatter.) Isn't that a reasonable balance? Both SP and climbing sites for different views of climbing? It works for me.
Climbers are often embarrassed to give detailed info for an 8 mile trek that has just one 20' technical pitch; but occasionally they do. There is a good description of the Castle Peaks on one climbing site, corresponding roughly to my page on SP. The difference in emphasis is interesting; I spent a bit of time on telling folks how to avoid making it much of a climb, and how best to navigate the confusing roads. The climbers mention the hardware you might use; that's not my expertise, and the actual climbing page (elsewhere) is a great complement.
A similar divide is seen in the way people describe getting up the summit block on Thunderbolt; some folks talk about lassoing the top and pulling yourself up, while others don rock shoes and do a "real" climb. Bod Burd has a neat page for the former approach.