Scott wrote:

If you don't separate the technical from the non, you are burrying the technical stuff and burried it gets.

It already is separated. Here are all the SP routes over 5.4 (or whatever difficulty you choose) in difficulty:

http://www.summitpost.org/object_list.p ... bject_name

It seriously takes about a few seconds to separate them on your own at whatever criteria you choose (i.e. harder than 5.8 or easier than class 3).

Thanks, and thanks again for showing how easy it is. My apologies to Matt et al. for suggesting we needed a stronger search function. However, with YDS, 5.7 can come up even if it is a scramble with one 12' section (e.g. Lady Mountain Cable route), so maybe future contributors can be more cognizant of what they enter in "route type." In this case Dow did the right thing, and marked it as a scramble, yet retained the 5.7 rating for the one short pitch.

In an earlier example, borut searched for "mixed" in the route type and got a hodgepodge of 244 examples. But he didn't specify anything else; how could he have set up a better search?

EDIT: Maybe we should put a few examples in the faq, and put the FAQ link at the top of the page in BIG BOLD RED LETTERS?

Bruno wrote:Several members have mentioned that the proposal to open area/mountain/route pages for editions would only concern page owners who are willing to open their own pages for edition (beside, possibly, abandonned pages). I haven't seen much debate on this thread regarding this idea, so shall we consider that there is a silent consensus in favour?

After all, shouldn't we leave it to each member to decide if he/she wants to open his/her own pages for public edition (provided that the site programmer is willing to spend some extra hours to create this option)?

I'd say NO, we should not. If the owner turns his/her page into a "full wiki-page", as of that day I guess the page will never get transferred to anybody else, will it? And we'll get back to pre-Sihler era with some people "booking" mountains they say they'll climb in the future, multiplying sham pages to collect power points and owning tonnes of pages they've never really created.

yatsek wrote:

lcarreau wrote:

asmrz wrote:Separate the site for hiking and climbing, those two are after all completely different.

Sorry - I thought we were supposed to be coming together rather than drifting apart. Separation is not always good.

Part of the reason I joined this site was my perception that hiking and climbing are married to each other. Opposites attract.

Opposites attract, get married and then split up. If they have to - or both want to - go on living in the same, their beautiful old house, they have to have their own rooms so that neither goes insane. That's why I think separating Technical Routes from the other routes would make sense if we don't want technical climbers to feel confused or excluded.

So Jacek, YOU believe in Free Choice, and I appreciate that fact.

If I want to leave my house, I say goodbye to my wife and head for the hills. Then, I come back and post the information on my computer.

I think the problem is NOT what we choose to do with our lives, but HOW do our pages look and HOW much information did we leave on the computer ???

"We're NOT a reflection of Summitpost; rather, Summitpost is a reflection of us." ...

Fletch wrote:
Really? Aren't we taking this to an extreme?

No, we're just making a feeble attempt to come to a conclusive decision, where people of different skill levels can coexist in a peaceful environment.

Fletch wrote:What if an asteroid hit SP? What would we do then? OH NOOO!!!

We'd do what the classic rock band "Pink Floyd" did on their "The Wall" album. 'RUN LIKE HELL.'

Fletch wrote:Surely we can come to an agreement on how 500 people can get along... UNREAL!

Surely it's going to take some TIME, especially when you have 500 different egos (of various sizes) in the same room.

Fletch wrote: Its about five hundred people. Thats it. Surely we can come to an agreement on how 500 people can get along... UNREAL!

Fletch, just a guess, but you were probably a little impatient with Congress when they had trouble agreeing on how to handle the debt ceiling. Am I right?

This argument wouldn't be happening if we had flashing text.

And Global Warming with Reality TV ..

rasgoat wrote:2. By giving points to someone who has only a blank page is promoting pointless points. Removing that type of system seems like a great idea. Only until the page is voted upon should it recieve points.

That actually is the way it works. The problem is that there is a crew on the site that will vote on any garbage whatsoever. I have literally seen them vote 10/10 on completely empty pages. Your guess is as good as mine, though I suspect the wish for reciprocity.

Bob Sihler wrote: The problem is that there is a crew on the site that will vote on any garbage whatsoever.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHROHJlU_Ng[/youtube]

I would be all for a limited wiki style where the original owner stays in some sort of control. I know my pages could benefit from the input of others since. My only concern is that this does not address the problem of incomplete pages by inactive or very slightly active members.

Whatever the case. Larry should be allowed to edit everyone's pages and put 1 photo or video of his choice at the top.

Fletch here makes one good point. There are only 1 to 2% that actually contribute to this site. Some of the comments I have seen are from others here who have not contributed.

My personal feeling is that many of these members don't know that they already have the power to change and improve a pages content by additions and corrections, PM to the owner, PM to the elves and finally actually asking to adopt the pages. In the last two months I have been able to adopt 5 pages and be administrator of a couple more pages on this site. Redwic, Gimpilator and Josh Lewis have been able to do similiar to other pages. From this thread I wonder if many people know that they can adopt a page from a inactive user even if the page is scored high.

Instead of SP going out there and editing changes to the site, SP should more put more emphasis on how empower those on the site to make pages to large number of low quality pages.

As for wiki edits they should be limited to additions/corrections and the owner should be able to control them. Owner of pages should not be able to erase mountain pages, especially if they had already adopted the page from another member. Other items are that pages should go up for adoption after an SP member has been inactive for one year. Anything more than that I personally think would compromise SP.

One thing I don't has been mentioned much on this site is Trip Reports. I think that a Trip Report that are limited to 50 words or less should automatically be erased from the site after being up for one week. Trip reports are there for entertainment, beta collecting, and personal experiences on a route. I don't think 50 words really fulfilles any of these requirements.

Alpinist wrote:2) If the owner does not update the page for several weeks, notify the Elves, or post a message in the forums so that people can voice their opinions by voting on the page. BE MORE PROACTIVE. If the page score goes down and the owner doesn't respond, odds are good that the Elves will assign the page to you if you want it.

(cut)

I'm not sure they will actually solve the quality problem if people don't care enough to provide the feedback. The tools are already there to do that and they are not being used.

This is a major issue with the current system, in my eyes. If I want to fix some small error, it's a project that will (literally) take weeks, if the page owner doesn't happen to be one who responds quickly. Let's say a new measurement has been made, and the south peak of Kebnekaise has been found to be 2111 m instead of 2104 m. I'd like to fix it, but if I'll have to spend maybe an hour or two of my time spread out over a couple of weeks, that's a pretty severe deterrent. If I could just click edit, fix the numbers, click save and have my edit show up, I'd do it.

The main reason that I don't provide a lot of feedback is that it's not easy. I'd like to fix small, easy mistakes, and bad grammar and other such "2 minute jobs", but it's just not worth the hassle of sending a PM, checking back in week to see if I got a response, talk to the elves, and all that.

I'm quite certain that a lot of things would be fixed if this huge hurdle was removed, which is why I'd like to see page owners allowing wikistyle editing of their pages.

guhj wrote:...
This is a major issue with the current system, in my eyes. If I want to fix some small error, it's a project that will (literally) take weeks, if the page owner doesn't happen to be one who responds quickly. Let's say a new measurement has been made, and the south peak of Kebnekaise has been found to be 2111 m instead of 2104 m. I'd like to fix it, but if I'll have to spend maybe an hour or two of my time spread out over a couple of weeks, that's a pretty severe deterrent. If I could just click edit, fix the numbers, click save and have my edit show up, I'd do it.

The main reason that I don't provide a lot of feedback is that it's not easy. I'd like to fix small, easy mistakes, and bad grammar and other such "2 minute jobs", but it's just not worth the hassle of sending a PM, checking back in week to see if I got a response, talk to the elves, and all that.

I'm quite certain that a lot of things would be fixed if this huge hurdle was removed, which is why I'd like to see page owners allowing wikistyle editing of their pages.

Thanks for a clear expression of why it would be nicer to have collaborative editing, with all the caveats we've discussed of course (only owners who want it, only in sections they want it, only by "responsible SP citizens" with certain power points, etc.). I do see a lot of emphasis that some of us just don't understand all the options we have open to us (additions and corrections, emailing Elves, emailing authors, etc.). The example above shows why those options, which require at least one other person to respond or acquiese in some way, are simply not sufficient.

I don't hold it against people who wrote on this thread if they haven't contributed. As someone above said, only 1-2% of members here contribute (maybe that is an exaggeration). I don't see that as vindication of the idea that only their input should be considered. I see that as an embarassment and a problem for the long-term. More education programs won't help with this. We need to let people edit in smaller chunks than Mountain/Route. Not only would many more contribute, but more people would step up to become maintainers of public Mountain/Route pages because they can rely on the community to fill in items that they lack.

(Apologies if I'm repeating myself, I just really liked guhj's comment)...

EDIT TO ADD: the fact that I think a 1-2% authorship ratio is bad does not mean that I devalue the work of those authors. Page authors here have made Summitpost great, and unless they put all the effort in that they did we wouldn't be here talking about a desire to change X, Y and Z. I recognize that if these authors are against making meaningful changes, then changes won't happen. I don't mean any slight or say that with any bitterness, I think the only thing that can be done is articulate why another mode/style of editing would unleash the potential of many more members than that 1-2%. Thanks for the opportunity to address the forum. Lastly, I'm amazed and heartened by the lack of personal animosity on this thread. Usually somewhere after 10 pages a thread is just going to be insults n' JPEGs.

Fletch wrote:

yatsek wrote:

Bruno wrote:Several members have mentioned that the proposal to open area/mountain/route pages for editions would only concern page owners who are willing to open their own pages for edition (beside, possibly, abandonned pages). I haven't seen much debate on this thread regarding this idea, so shall we consider that there is a silent consensus in favour?

After all, shouldn't we leave it to each member to decide if he/she wants to open his/her own pages for public edition (provided that the site programmer is willing to spend some extra hours to create this option)?

I'd say NO, we should not. If the owner turns his/her page into a "full wiki-page", as of that day I guess the page will never get transferred to anybody else, will it? And we'll get back to pre-Sihler era with some people "booking" mountains they say they'll climb in the future, multiplying sham pages to collect power points and owning tons of pages they've never really created.

Fletch wrote:Really? Aren't we taking this to an extreme? Lets treat people like adults until they prove otherwise.

They've proven otherwise. Look, someone's noticed that some adult SP contributors don't even bother to log in.

Fletch wrote:rut ro rorge - my comments may have been misconstrued a bit. (...) My thought is that if YOU DONT SIGN INTO SP within 90 days, then the pages you own are up for grabs. This eliminates the Adriondacks issue. In my opinion, if you are a contributing member of SP and own and maintain pages, then YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO LOG IN EVERY 90 DAYS. If you cant do that, then someone needs to send SAR to your house.

And also the following, indirect exchange.

Fletch wrote:(...)If the page is open and it sucks, then someone can come in and claim it if the owner is not active and if they are and it still sucks, then vote it down, put on the addition/correction page why it sucks, and/or asked to be an additional owner to clean it up or ask the Elves to grab the page because the current owner is holding it hostage. I mean, are people really that inmature? Do we need a decision tree for all of these wacked out ideas??? What if an asteroid hit SP? What would we do then? OH NOOO!!! (...)

Bob Sihler wrote:(...)The problem is that there is a crew on the site that will vote on any garbage whatsoever. I have literally seen them vote 10/10 on completely empty pages. (...)

And last the latest, but not least

mvs wrote: Lastly, I'm amazed and heartened by the lack of personal animosity on this thread. Usually somewhere after 10 pages a thread is just going to be insults n' JPEGs.