Recently for some reason we see less and less new mountain pages (this is my feeling, in Europe at least), and rather more and more new albums instead.
I wonder if SP hasn't reached some age of maturity where all main peaks are made, and where there is very little new material to post for people who head to usual touristic destinations.
But, in the same time, perhaps SP has become somehow more interesting in other ways. Time has come for remote corners, unvisited secondary peaks and unexplored regions. The newest pages I see are more and more unusual and their authors tend to me more and more like people interested in hiking or climbing the unusual places.
SP is then going in two more and more distinct directions : A mountain-facebook where people tend to post albums of all kinds to areas depicted again and again, and on the other hand an invaluable source of first-hand information for places off the beaten trail.
Who else has got this feeling ? Or perhaps people are just too busy to bag places in the high season to better post them during the boring winter days ?

Part of the problem is 1) that it is such a PITA to make an "acceptable" mountain page, 2) it often just repeats what is available out there, and 3) there is a strong sense that nobody reads this stuff. I found myself longing for the days of SP1, when it was enough to give people a kick in the right direction, a few route photos (worth a thousand words each), and the caveats for the significant parts.

1: Yeah but what's the point to make a page for making a page. Do it well or just don't do it. If you feel like repeating the stuff out there, then it means you have nothing more to bring so don't make it, or not yet at least.
2: The fact that SPers do not read your stuff doesn't mean it is not read outside the membership sphere. Reading from time to time some forums in other languages (french, or polish where I live now), links are present everywhere and you can't imagine how SP is read across the web. I was reading often SP myself very often before I decided one day to join. Even in Wikipedia when opening a mountain page, we often find the link to SP, to give an idea how this site is seen as the reference.

You mentioning SP1 (which I have never known, or perhaps barely remember from "outside", not being a member yet) rather inspire me a nostalgia of a community that you loved as it was during one moment, feeling that I can perfectly understand. But there are other sites than this one to share a mountain passion in a "more intimate" way; I find myself for example enjoying more and more reading and writing into a polish forum dedicated to the Pyrenees; very few folks but all very interesting people with knowledge and passion above the average.
SP can still be nice if you use it the way you like and interact with the people with who you share affinities. I have found the people I like and that's how I like it now. However as I wrote I also like to find new stuff about incredible places I never thought they existed.

I've also been hoping for quite some time that SP would evolve to a more wiki-like environment, as plenty of the mountains that are already there could use a serious update or some good fresh info could be added.

Sure, I always enjoyed the flexibility of SP and the huge possibilities offered by attaching and using other's objects, ans share pages to make new material. But a category of people tend to interest themselves periodically in SP, for a year or two, and then slowly become inactive. More flexibility should be imagined to update the odd content, besides the usual way that consists in contacting the owner and get lucky the day he connects or via the too busy elves.
Perhaps the pages should be 100% open for edition to all members but a way to regulate the mess it would inevitably cause must be imagined from scratch. I'm not sure there is a single community website with shared content that has found a simple and efficient way to realize that.
Perhaps here in SP one solution could consist in opening Admin rights to mountains from members inactive for too long, for few other members whose affinity with the area is the highest, based on the algorithms of "recommended mountains" & "people who climb the same as you" made by Matt

I've always hoped that making a mountain page would just be a start, then other members would add to it so that the sum of all of our experiences with that mountain would become available, rather than just the pagemaker's info....so I have felt it better to make a sparse page, then hope it fills in than to have no page at all.

People have also have very various definitions of what a work on SP should be. Some like you like to make a core and let it grow like a snowball with other's contributions, some other see it like a personal work on which they have all their rights. And many between see it as 50% 50%, like an open project but in which someone must have the lead.
Maybe one option could be available for people willing to leave their pages editable by everyone or not. But the big danger would be commercial ads or references flourishing into pages, and not so easily detectable and removable than deleting the users who made it.
I also imagine easily issues with contradictory data that or conflictual content that would oppose two or more contributors, for example the level of difficulty of routes and so on ...

A few random thoughts on this:

1. Yes, SP for Europe and N. America, esp. the States, has matured to some extent. Many of the "Marquee" Peaks and Routes are already profiled. However, there is still tremendous room for ongoing work from other regions (APAC, LatAm, Africa, etc.) as well as for the off-the-beaten path
peaks and regions/corners of the already well-covered areas. That being said, I have been shocked that, despite the vastness of the content for my state of Colorado, just how much is missing! We're not talking puny little peaks, either, but peaks in excess of 4,000 meters / 13,500 feet!
(Note, however, that there have been times where the latter (covering less well-known / off the beaten path peaks and areas) is discouraged. There are comments on some Colorado pages by users saying a peak does not "deserve" a page, perhaps due to low elevation or ease of access, etc.)

2. Any move toward Wiki needs to be optional for page owners. Page owners need the option to "lock down" the Wiki feature on their contributions. If you want Wiki, Wiki away, but please leave my pages alone. I am a strong believer, based on my business experience as well as experience in the mountains, that taking ownership of something and holding oneself accountable for the quality of one's work produced the best results. I cannot do so with someone else mucking with my work.

3. Those who contribute frequently have various ideals "driving" them to contribute. For some, it's sharing quality beta. For others, adding a new page is a simple celebration of our shared love of the mountains. Who knows what other drivers are out there, but surely they vary widely.

4. Yes, SP has a large volume of "ghost readers," those folks who don't register, yet use the site heavily for trip beta. I cannot tell you how many times I've had people who are not registered to SP tell me "I saw your TripReport on..." or "We used your route information to get up this peak..."

5. There are likely many potential contributors out there who just, for some reason, lack the confidence to step out and post a page or feel they lack the 'authority" to author something like a mountain or route page and therefore stick to Trip Reports and Albums. I don't know right now how to encourage them to expand their contributions, but it's worth pondering.

Ok, enough brainstorming.

I'm discouraged when it comes to Mountain pages. I had a mountain page deleted without waning or notice. When I asked an elf they said it probably was not up to summit post standards. I admit it did not have many photos, or any history. it did have a detailed description of a route, what you need to hike it, local weather, red tape, detailed directions, camping information, elevation gain, time you need, and even where to park. After that I thought the standards were way to high and don't feel the motivation to put several hours into constructing a mountain page.

I have also messaged three different users about making changes to their mountain pages or routes to be up dated since I had recently been there and things were drastically different. I got no response from all three. This is also discouraging...

Hotoven wrote:I have also messaged three different users about making changes to their mountain pages or routes to be up dated since I had recently been there and things were drastically different. I got no response from all three. This is also discouraging...

On that, you can contact us for assistance, especially if the page owner is inactive.

The mountain page that was deleted had been unfinished for quite some time and appeared abandoned. I apologize for not contacting you first since you were still logging on frequently. Having it to do over again, that's the route I would have taken.

visentin wrote:1: Yeah but what's the point to make a page for making a page. Do it well or just don't do it. If you feel like repeating the stuff out there, then it means you have nothing more to bring so don't make it, or not yet at least.
2: The fact that SPers do not read your stuff doesn't mean it is not read outside the membership sphere. Reading from time to time some forums in other languages (french, or polish where I live now), links are present everywhere and you can't imagine how SP is read across the web. I was reading often SP myself very often before I decided one day to join. Even in Wikipedia when opening a mountain page, we often find the link to SP, to give an idea how this site is seen as the reference.

"Do it well" does not need to mean "do it elaborately." But the main problem is that the format is a little awkward. Perhaps the problems were most eloquently described by the former member DMT.

I've had SPers e-mail to thank me for a route page... that has never received a vote. I've had people tell me in person that they've used my route pages several time. I've seen them referred to obliquely in trip reports by SPers. I've had one guy send a tip that one reported mileage was off, for which I was grateful. Twice people found an easier route and I updated the page to include that route. So some are read. For three, I received only complaints of a bizarre nature; in one case the guy mistyped a waypoint, but didn't seem to want to admit that. So that is not really positive feedback, but it is human nature to want to blame someone else for a screw-up. ("Did you bring the map?" reply: "No, I don't NEED maps.") So that is evidence that some people sort-of read the pages, but just enough to confuse themselves. I can't do anything about that.

I don't do pages for stuff that is completely available on the web... or even for stuff available in books, unless I can contribute a new or modified route, add specific info that may be in contradiction to most sources, or add updated info on access. I pick only obscure places that I think few will visit.

But that's partly the point; many of the more-traveled mountains are not on SP, simply because they are elsewhere on the web, so why bother? That's why you don't see this stuff on SP. When SP first went up, there were not that many on-line resources for some mountains, like San Jacinto; now there are many (well, we do lead in descriptions of the illegal route.)

I am grateful we now has the ability to attach a GPS file.

MoapaPk wrote:Part of the problem is 1) that it is such a PITA to make an "acceptable" mountain page

I don't think the standards are as high as some may think. While some people make their pages works of art, there is no expectation that the average page will be one.

Basically, a decent page does the following: tells us a little about the mountain and why it's worth climbing; tells us how to get to the trailhead; and tells us enough about the route so that we have a sense of how long it is, how hard it is, and how much elevation gain there is. There is no expectation that a route description will hold the climber's hand all the way to the top. And of course, photos are important, especially if they can inspire us to visit the mountain or if they illustrate crux sections, confusing spots, etc.

The pages that don't do those things, which really don't take that much effort to do, and the ones that sit around unfinished, are the ones that get deleted.

Bob Sihler wrote:

MoapaPk wrote:Part of the problem is 1) that it is such a PITA to make an "acceptable" mountain page

I don't think the standards are as high as some may think. While some people make their pages works of art, there is no expectation that the average page will be one.

Basically, a decent page does the following: tells us a little about the mountain and why it's worth climbing; tells us how to get to the trailhead; and tells us enough about the route so that we have a sense of how long it is, how hard it is, and how much elevation gain there is. There is no expectation that a route description will hold the climber's hand all the way to the top. And of course, photos are important, especially if they can inspire us to visit the mountain or if they illustrate crux sections, confusing spots, etc.

The pages that don't do those things, which really don't take that much effort to do, and the ones that sit around unfinished, are the ones that get deleted.

Last year I made a page, and the very first person to see it voted 8/10 and told me it wasn't up to SP2 standards. I deleted the page and reposted it. It was essentially this page, with very minor changes:
http://www.summitpost.org/morey-peak/577683

It takes just one non-ten vote to send something to low-vote obscurity, where by the reasoning of the voting system, it won't be seen. Even if we don't care about the REI discount, it would be nice to think that after all that effort, your work will still be used.

Another issue: for mountains, the route pages do the real work. But people tend to vote on the mountain, not the route page. So what is the point in making a good route page, on someone else's mountain? You miss the REI discount.

Edit: grammar, humor

visentin wrote:I'm not sure there is a single community website with shared content that has found a simple and efficient way to realize that.

http://www.camptocamp.org is a good example of a mountain website based on a multi-language wiki.

Plenty of mountains left to post, even in the US. Just look, for example, at all the linkless peaks on this page:

http://www.summitpost.org/montana-s-top ... ist/456618

MoapaPk wrote: 3) there is a strong sense that nobody reads this stuff.

I'm thinking about trying Morey Peak in the next few months, so rest assured I'll be reading your page very closely.

And for the record, I'm pretty sure that Katy Perry was playing at some point on my Satellite Radio as the sagebrush wrecked havoc on the undercarriage of my rental driving down Phinney Canyon