Do climb descriptions on mobile app negate the need to buy a guidebook?
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My local crag only has a few climbs listed on this site and available on my phone. I thought I'd be doing the community a service buy listing more climbs and adding better descriptions...I'd go the crag, use my friends' guide books, and we'd climb. I'd return without a book, go to use the mobile app, and find it lacking. So, should we all just buy guide books? Is it open season for anyone with a smart phone? Clearly lots of work went into all of our climbing areas, some of which was funded by guide book sales...so where are the metallica's of the guide author world? Do they want me to use my phone at the crag, instead of buying a book? What am I to do? |
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cell for quick and dirty (and sometimes frustrating) |
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Maurice Chaunders wrote:My local crag only has a few climbs listed on this site and available on my phone. I thought I'd be doing the community a service buy listing more climbs and adding better descriptions...but i'd be using my friends' guide books.Please only add [quality] route descriptions for routes you've personally climbed instead of plagiarizing a guidebook. Maurice Chaunders wrote:So, should we all just buy guide books?I do. I love seeing the full-color photos and the additional "not just routes" information in guidebooks. Maurice Chaunders wrote:What am I to do?Your call man! I personally really like guidebooks for the history and more in-depth stories and supplement books with the MountainProject app for new route information, conditions reports and other fun facts not in the books. |
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Mountain Project is an excellent way to keep posted on current route/crag conditions and what others have to say about routes you've climbed or have yet to climb. It's also a great way to stay involved in the climbing community. |
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I've watched map/atlas companies stop investing in data updates with some even going out of business. In fact, it's hard to find an atlas now a days that is investing in data updates. Yet I think (and many others as demonstrated by widespread usage) that the modern successors to paper atlases (i.e. Google Maps) are superior for a variety of reasons. The biggest probably being the ability to update data for the version of the map that everyone is using. Paper products are out of date the minute they are printed... That said, digital navigation products suffer from limited battery life and dependency on internet connection (although offline mode can be an option). This can be less of an issue with digital climbing guides as the data is normally downloaded for an area prior to a trip but ultimately can effect their usefulness. The point I'm trying to make is that while some guides are very good and interesting their usefulness is limited in both time and the authors perspective. When you contribute to Mountain Project you are sharing information with the whole community in a way that can evolve as things change. I am personally very grateful to all the guide book authors out there but as sites like this evolve I think we will find this data driving apps that are more current, interactive, and potentially useful than the paper predecessors. |
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Almost any guide book is more useful than the MP app. I have used the MP app in combination with guidebooks for locations all throughout the US and in no case have I ever found the app to be as useful as the book. |
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This post violated Rule #1. It has been removed by Mountain Project.
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In areas with new routes going up the MP app is invaluable between guidebook editions. But the local guidebook is still irreplaceable. |
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My experience is that route descriptions on the web are usually inferior (sometimes dangerously so) to descriptions in a good guidebook. But Comments on the web about a specific route are often much more valuable than the base description, and sometimes greatly enhance (or correct) my understanding from the guidebook. |
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Maurice Chaunders wrote:I thought I'd be doing the community a service buy listing more climbs and adding better descriptions...but i'd be using my friends' guide books. So, should we all just buy guide books?Well my understanding is that it violates Copyright law to just copy phrases or diagrams out of somebody else's guidebook. I assume that if the managers of MountainProject.com were aware that that had been done, they would remove the descriptions from the MP website and MP phone app. Some contributors to MP get around this by paraphrasing the guidebook -- and often do a bad job even in that. My view is that I prefer to support local guidebooks (which sometimes contribute to maintenance of anchors and access of the crag), and I do not want to aid (in the delusion of) the many visiting climbers nowadays who think they can be safe while saving money by not purchasing a guidebook. I make two exceptions:
Ken |
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kenr wrote: Well my understanding is that it violates Copyright law to just copy phrases or diagrams out of somebody else's guidebook. I assume that if the managers of MountainProject.com were aware that that had been done, they would remove the descriptions from the MP website and MP phone app. KenI edited my post, so hopefully there's no confusion about my intentions...I didn't mean I was going to sit down and transfer the guide book to the mobile app. That being said, every climb I know at the crag, I know because I read it in my friend's book, or they pointed it out to me, after having discovered it in a guidebook. I can't help but feel that, though it is a service for the community, it undermines the value of a guidebook. kenr wrote: Another frequent deficiency of web descriptions is in how to find a route in relation to other routes nearby.This is the main reason behind my inquiry; thanks for all the insights |
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This site is so plagued by shit content (hey, look what was just posted to WPOD today: mountainproject.com/v/white… ), that I always buy a guidebook for areas I care about. MP is a great supplement, and even a good option for just swinging through an area. Unfortunately, due to inaccuracies, banter, spray, and use of the site as if it's facebook...it'll never be a total guidebook replacement. |
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how the fuck did anyone ever get off the ground, let alone find their way to the crag prior to the 21st century? |
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Points. |
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This weekend I got pretty disoriented in the NRG mostly due to trying to use the MP app as a guidebook. Fortunately there were some helpful people around to point me in the right direction. Try it out, but you might wind up hiking around for forty minutes looking for a route. |
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They work better in combination IMO. I find guidebooks are generally better for locating climbs, topos, finding nearby climbs, etc. Most of the time that's all you need. |
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We've long been worried about the sometimes-poor-data problem on MP, and the lack of people's ability to improve it. |