New Feature: Improve This Page

Mountain Project has long suffered from a serious problem:

• Many areas and routes have less-than-ideal descriptions, and until now, only the original Submitter (or an Admin) could edit it.
• People have made many good “Comments” that help improve that data, but it would often be better if the changes were made directly to the primary area/route text.

A new feature called “Improve This Page” is now available for all Areas and Routes.

Here’s how it works:

• A Mountain Project user would like to add or correct information about an area or route, and clicks “Improve This Page” and enters their suggestion in a form.
• The suggestion is sent to the original submitter of the Area/Route for their consideration. If the submitter has no longer active on Mountain Project (not visited in more than a year), or if they choose not to receive these emails (which is a new option in your settings), they are not notified.
• The submitter can edit the page to include the suggestion as they see fit, and then mark it “Done”, which will send an email to the person who made the “Improve This Page” suggestion.
• If the original submitter chooses to ignore the notification (or no longer uses MP), after a few days, the local admins will be asked to consider the suggestion.
• Page suggestions are stored permanently. There is a link near the “Submitted By” name to view past suggestions. For example, look for the “with updates” link next to the Submitted By field at this area. You can also view them on the “Contributions” page of a user’s page.

This feature is intended to help add and correct factual information. It is not the place for controversial opinions or ethical debates. The original submitter retains full editing control of the area/route - this feature does not allow random MP users to rewrite text!

This feature may change often as we see how it goes, and suggestions are welcome as usual!

[Update 5/29/14: Feature is released for all Routes and Areas]

YES!!! Awesome. I've been waiting on this for a long while now. Thanks!

I'm wondering if this lends itself to a new user type on MP...the "Editor", or some state that exists between Admin and normal user. The Editors would be allowed to approve edits, but would still need to have their own edits approved, and would have limited ability to access sensitive user data. The point at which one could receive this status could be determined by number of contributions to the site, number of "compliments", or something else. It would increase the community's ability to self-manage a bit, so that the Admins wouldn't have to approve everything. Just a thought.

Great idea! This is definitely a much needed feature for some submissions. As a suggestion for another area that could really use some help, the MP page for the Cascade Crag also in Boulder Canyon is certainly confusing and lacking in it's current state.

This feature is now available for all Routes and Areas. The original post has been updated with the latest details.

Cool

First, thanks for all the work you're doing in continuing to add new features to MountainProject.

"Improve this page" is a great idea, but is there a way to streamline the process? A couple of times I've run into issues when my suggested edits have been handed off to local admins for implementation (because the original author wasn't available or didn't respond). The problem is that the local admins might not have been all that familiar with the area or the route, and the edits have got a bit garbled.

Have a look at mountainproject.com/v/south… for an example. It's an intelligible description, but there's some conflicting information and there are some formatting errors. (And it's been edited twice already).

I could use "improve this page" (again) to try and get everything fixed, but it would be easier if I could have direct access to a copy of the page and make the edits myself. The revised page would still need to be handed off to a local admin for review and maybe some further edits before it's released, but at least there wouldn't be any ambiguity about the changes I'm proposing.

Could something like this be implemented?

Martin le Roux wrote:it would be easier if I could have direct access to a copy of the page and make the edits myself. The revised page would still need to be handed off to a local admin for review and maybe some further edits before it's released, but at least there wouldn't be any ambiguity about the changes I'm proposing. Could something like this be implemented?

Thanks for using the new system Martin! We definitely expect to improve it as we gain experience with it. In this case, I'm wondering if you can copy the entire existing block of code you want to edit, put it in the form, and then edit it there, exactly as you want it. Then the admin can just copy/paste. Would that work?

Also, feel free to respond to the admin that makes the change. I've found them to be nice, helpful people. :)

Nick, maybe I am missing it... but have we lost the ability to print the "mini guides"?

Lost ability to print mini-guide?

Nick Wilder wrote:I'm wondering if you can copy the entire existing block of code you want to edit, put it in the form, and then edit it there, exactly as you want it. Then the admin can just copy/paste. Would that work?

Thanks. Actually that's what I tried the first time, but even so there was a misunderstanding and it took another go-around to get things straightened out. I was just wondering if there was a way to minimize the potential for this kind of mix-up.

Frosty Weller wrote:Nick, maybe I am missing it... but have we lost the ability to print the "mini guides"?

It is there as it always has been (right side, below the top photo), but only shows up for areas that have routes directly in it.
Mini-guide - only shows up for Areas that have routes (not sub-areas).

Doh... why there it is! Thanks Nick.

Hi!

Is there any way to actually just assume editorship of an area?

There is an area for a beautiful gorge near Beijing, but it was worked on in 2008 and really, really, has a lot that could be updated. This area has over 11 decent individual crags and has really been developing and is a great opportunity for anyone visiting Beijing to go climb, but on the MP page there are only 6 crags and at least three or four of them are lacking almost any substantial information, while the main page has little and outdated info posted in 2008. It is really to the point that it would be very troublesome to go through a middle-man to try and update or re-do the whole thing...

The original submitter, I believe, hasn't lived in Beijing since 2008-ish anyways, so it just doesn't make sense for every new change to this area to need to go through them.

Anyhow, I understand everything is a work in progress and greatly value the work you guys put in! MP is awesome!

Best,
Rajko

Rajko Radovanovic wrote:Hi! Is there any way to actually just assume editorship of an area? There is an area for a beautiful gorge near Beijing, but it was worked on in 2008 and really, really, has a lot that could be updated. This area has over 11 decent individual crags and has really been developing and is a great opportunity for anyone visiting Beijing to go climb, but on the MP page there are only 6 crags and at least three or four of them are lacking almost any substantial information, while the main page has little and outdated info posted in 2008. It is really to the point that it would be very troublesome to go through a middle-man to try and update or re-do the whole thing... The original submitter, I believe, hasn't lived in Beijing since 2008-ish anyways, so it just doesn't make sense for every new change to this area to need to go through them. Anyhow, I understand everything is a work in progress and greatly value the work you guys put in! MP is awesome! Best, Rajko

The only way to edit an entire area is to become an Admin for it. Rajko, you're a bit new to MP to become an Admin already (6 weeks), so please use the Improve Page feature a bit, and try adding new areas and routes yourself. After you contribute some areas and routes, and if you want to become an Admin, let me know and we'll take a look.

Thanks for the feedback!

Rajko Radovanovic wrote:Hi! Is there any way to actually just assume editorship of an area? There is an area for a beautiful gorge near Beijing, but it was worked on in 2008 and really, really, has a lot that could be updated. This area has over 11 decent individual crags and has really been developing and is a great opportunity for anyone visiting Beijing to go climb, but on the MP page there are only 6 crags and at least three or four of them are lacking almost any substantial information, while the main page has little and outdated info posted in 2008. It is really to the point that it would be very troublesome to go through a middle-man to try and update or re-do the whole thing... The original submitter, I believe, hasn't lived in Beijing since 2008-ish anyways, so it just doesn't make sense for every new change to this area to need to go through them. Anyhow, I understand everything is a work in progress and greatly value the work you guys put in! MP is awesome! Best, Rajko

I'll second this suggestion for certain cases. It can work. And adding this relatively new step adds a layer of overhead that the inactive originator did not have anyway - and so the new step increases the likelihood that pages just won't be updated with the latest / best information. This in turn can result in epics or worse.

I'm aware of an area which originally had a single rap descent from a large summit. Someone else put in a new rap descent which started very close to the first one but went off in a different direction. The second way had different rope-length needs compared to the original. But the new rap descent was the first one that climbers came across and many would assume the rope-length needs of the other rap descent. This resulted in at least two epics, a stuck rope that had to be cut, and one subsequent rap on a tag line because the rope was cut.

And then the current non-responsive holder of the page was replaced with someone motivated to get it right. And the page was revised with accurate information about the rap descents, receiving an appreciative comment by a local.

That same area eventually had a bolted belay anchor at the top of a new climb in the area. This had the potential for creating even further confusion except that the new page "holder" kept on top of the developments.

And so, there is value in having someone active on MP.com and with a vested interest in an area (e.g., someone local) keeping on top of the page's content without anymore overhead than if they had originated the page in the first place.

I would suggest completely reassigning the route or page in the case that the original author is not updating the page, especially when the original author has put very little into the current page's content.

Bill Lawry wrote:I would suggest completely reassigning the route or page in the case that the original author is not updating the page, especially when the original author has put very little into the current page's content.

We are toying with the idea of Area / Route adoption, but it won't happen for a while.

In the mean time, the "Improve This Page" system handles your worries: if the original submitter is no longer active on MP, or chooses not to take action on a suggestion, the regional admins are asked to handle it. If they don't get to it within a certain time limit, I handle it myself.

Adoption! Good word choice .

I know. An evolving site takes time as part of making quality changes. Sprinkle in as much common sense too.

One thing that appealed to me about MP.com over SummitPost.org was the relative ease of updating a page that I owned. And it seemed that if the current "holder" was not responsive to issues, an adoption would be allowed without much delay.

So this seems a step backwards - if I inderstand. And I have seen pages where the holder tried to maintain strict attribution to additions from others ... they seem hard to read and even harder for the holder to maintain. Sometimes it seemed the better thing to do was for the holder to do the best they could with the given information and provide a list of credits at the end.

Anyway, I am sure you all are familiar.

Thanks for listening and best wishes,
Bill

Great improvement!

Question: What if a large area has a bunch of problems/climbs that really need to be divided into sub-areas/boulders for the sake of navigation? The current feature seems to only be geared to making changes directly to a page, while there is definitely a need for some areas to be organized by sub-areas.

As for the area editor idea, I think it's great and would gladly do this for my local region.

rogerk wrote:Question: What if a large area has a bunch of problems/climbs that really need to be divided into sub-areas/boulders for the sake of navigation? The current feature seems to only be geared to making changes directly to a page, while there is definitely a need for some areas to be organized by sub-areas.

This type of reorganization is quite tricky (you have to make a temporary area, move routes there, then make your new areas and move routes again to the right place, then delete the temp area). Better left for an Admin... which you can reach with the "Improve This Page" feature.