Add Onsight/Redpoint/Top Rope to ticks

Mark E Dixon wrote: We can be 6a instead

Nah, we should kick mono & jstar off the site and call it 9a. Imagine the hissy fit Jan will throw over it.

Maurice Chaunders wrote:James...Your process does t make me laugh, but it makes me worry. I'm married with a young daughter and have been climbing less over the years. I don't want to maximize my training potential, for fear of climbing less or having less fun while I focus on training. So perhaps i "should" be more focused on training to continue to climb at as high a level as possible. There's personal preference involved in training, climbing, and using this site.

Maurice,

You should be climbing for whatever reason drives you. If it's simply to get out in a wild, beautiful place and have fun, there is nothing wrong with that - it's a noble expression of our sport. In the same way there is nothing wrong with me (at least for the time being) wanting to see just how hard I can push in a particular sub-discipline. I'm a father, a husband and a full-time worker which means I don't have endless hours to train and climb. So I try to be more efficient with the hours I have - data helps with that. I can see what's working or what isn't faster sometimes.

For instance, I was doing a lot of cardio early in the year to train for an alpine rock trip, at the same time I was doing a lot of mileage climbing on routes several grades below my limit...and my limit improved markedly without me focussing on it much. When I got back from the alpine trip I decided to focus solely on sport climbing for the fall season and stopped the cardio and the mileage altogether...my limit stagnated. So I added some cardio and mileage back in, and now things are improving. Having the data available to me helped me spot a flaw in my process early and attempt to fix it.

What I still fail to understand is how you think these features (whether publicly visible or not) would negatively impact your experience. I also don't understand what you think gives you the right to call someone a chode for having different motivations or methods than you. Even if the OP's purpose was to "humblebrag" - just roll your eyes and move on. It's your motivation and method that should matter to you, and not (unless they're genuinely impacting you) other people's.

Easy solution: add the feature but only make it visible underneath the users profile. Keep it user eccentric.

IE: General Population would still see ticks like now, but then there is a second layer, where only private users data is located (OS, PP, TR, "open Field")

+1 on this feature. I've been putting ascent style in the comments and hoping to parse out the text later to create my own graphs. I'm not keen on training or showing off my 5.7 ascents, but I'm kind of a data geek. That's my reason in case Maurice decides to chastise me.

I think that you should also add TRON (top rope on sight). Clickty-clack!

+1 on the feature

I forgot about this thread, now I come back to a page of bickering.

Here's what it boils down to: I am an engineer I use numbers to track my progress. This would help me, and I think other people would like it too.

When I want to humble brag I'll post my "went climbing with sharma, had a blast, here's a few pics he took of me climbing" thread.

Maurice Chaunders wrote: Jerk post deleted

1. Style is everything. By that I mean the way in which a route is ascended, not which company's beanie somebody happens to be wearing. I imagine if I showed up to do The Moonlight Buttress (Clean Aid) with a rack of iron and a hammer some folks (maybe even you) would get fired up about my chosen style. For some people the distinction between top-roping, red pointing and onsighting is just as important. The simple fact is that generally speaking onsighting a route is a more difficult (and therefore more noteworthy) accomplishment. I want newbies to understand the importance of style and to know that jugging fixed line, while sucking compressed O2, and being short-roped by a Sherpa is different (and less impressive than) forgoing all of those types of assistance. As part of the "old guard" you should care about distinctions such as these...they are what keep us as a community honest about what we've done. If I pull on gear to do Fine Jade have I done the route? Or have I simply brought The Rectory down to my level? Without holding people accountable for the style in which they do a route (even on a small level) there becomes no difference between a person who walks up to a beautiful line with what they have on their back and climbs it ground-up and someone who jugs the rope fixed by the leader...and there is a huge difference.

2. Yes, you do have the right to call anyone you wish any name you wish. You also have the right talk about mailing people pieces of your own excrement. Do you think it adds credibility to your case? I don't think it does, and I think it is bad for the climbing community in general. That's just my well-reasoned opinion though, so maybe I am incorrect.

3. There is a demand for the feature, some users seem to think it would help them, and that's all there is to it. You can continue to be a curmudgeonly luddite if you prefer, but I fail to see the point of such an exercise.

James,
I agree with you about the importance of climbing style.

I don't think I am being a Luddite by advocating for humbleness. If I told you I climbed a particular route, what would your response be? Literally, think about it...if we met at a gas station in Boulder for the first time to go climb together and I told you I had climbed X, and now I'd like to go climb some hard 5.9 in BC, would you ask me if I redpointed X? If we were BSing around a campfire, reminiscing about Yosemite and I told you I did X, would you interrupt me to ask if I lowered to the ground after falling and if so, how many times, and if I got an beta first?

I think beta and ego spray is even more intrusive than mailed excrement these days. At least with a poop tube, you can refuse delivery.

If I told you I went to college, would you interrupt me to ask me if I took Biology 101 or 102? If I told you I've been to Ecudaor, would you interrupt me to ask if I'd hiked a volcano?

Style is important, but bragging about whether you fell once or twice or if it was your first time or fifth - is that important? I don't think so. If you climb on soft rock with ice axes, that's not cool. But if you stepped on a cam while climbing Lurking Fear, I don't care what you say when you put it in your ticklist.

So is style important for the MP profiles? Well, perhaps with leading vs. TR vs aid, but if this system is to be used as you described - to help track your training progress - will the tick list telling you that you TR'ed help you train? Might you revisit your page and see that last year you TR a 5.12, but this year you led it - must be some improvements?

And what about when you climb something for the first time. I'm not well versed in the terminology, but surely there are multiple pink reds and flashes involved. Are you going to look back and say, "well I pinked six 5.11s last year, and this year I reded 6 5.12s , so I must be getting better." I doubt it. And furthermore, that system doesn't take into account the type of climb. Unless you categorize by type of climb, how can you compare an OW to a face climb, if you flashed both at 5.11? Or how would you compare Yosemite to the Gunks at 5.9 handcrack? A journal perhaps?

I think this feature will encourage people to spray about how good they are and I do not see a legitimate use or value to the feature.

I'd rather be a Luddite than a condescending pedant without a sense of humor. Also, you never sent me your address.

Maurice,

Plain and simple, I find value in the data, yes I use it to track my progress, and the effectiveness of steps I am taking to make myself a better climber. Ultimately, I don't care whether or not the data is public or visible only to me. It sounds like you would prefer it kept private (if it existed at all) - that seems reasonable.

To address your question about meeting at a gas station in Boulder to climb and if I would care about the distinctions. Well, that depends, to go climb single-pitch 5.9 clip-ups in BoCan, the answer is probably not - to go try to climb something a bit more difficult and precise like say The Naked Edge I would care...a lot. In the first situation I don't care if your limit is toproping 5.6 (as long as you can belay a leader), but in the second I would want to know if you had either done the route before or were capable of onsighting 5.11 trad. In the first situation I am well within my limit, capable of managing and assessing the risk independent of my partner, and have little invested in the outcome of "the send" - in the second, I am at my limit, and not capable of managing the risk independent of my partner and I probably have a lot more invested. If we are planning a big wall trip, do I care if you stepped on the cam on Lurking Fear? Not a bit, there the fact that you got to the top is the most telling fact of all.

As far as my address goes, let me know when you want to spend a few days climbing here in Wisconsin, I will get it to you then. You are welcome to the guest bedroom. We are 30-90 minutes from what are arguably the top four climbing destinations in the state. Yes, I am serious about the offer, I am all but positive a luddite and a college-dropout-pedant can have a good time and get along while crushing a few PBRs around the campfire and spraying the old-fashioned way.

Hi guys,
Not sure if it is still actual for you but you may try my excel log sheet in addition to the mountain project app, that will give you the extra tracking features.
You can find it at therockgymlog.byethost7.com.

Martin

Some input from the owners/admins who could implement this feature would be great. It would be super useful, and I see no reason for all the shit talking - I would love to see one legitimate reason this couldn't/shouldn't be implemented, other than it being a pain in the ass on the backend.

Maurice,

Why do you care so much how other people track their progress? I care very much how hard I am climbing (relative to my previous ability) and that I continue to progress in the sport. Does that make me a choad? Bad person? Not humble? This would be a great addition that does not effect you in any way. Why do you care again? Will adding this feature cause me to show up at your crag, full of humblebrag, and ruin your experience for the day?

MartinK wrote:Hi guys, Not sure if it is still actual for you but you may try my excel log sheet in addition to the mountain project app, that will give you the extra tracking features. You can find it here. Martin

Looks sweet Martin. I'm guessing there probably isnt' a way to import ticks from MP into that spreadsheet though?

Jason N. wrote: Looks sweet Martin. I'm guessing there probably isnt' a way to import ticks from MP into that spreadsheet though?

Hi Jason, it looks like you can export the MP ticks to cvs file and you can import that to Excel. You will have to manually sort it to the proper tables in the log sheet. Maybe I could write excel macro for it and put it on a button in the sheet. If you can send me the cvs file from MP I'll look at that.
Cheers,
Martin

I would like something very simple on the ticks: led or followed

I have it on the comments (with TR as well). But you don't see that on the breakdown. Maybe I should just create three separate MP accounts: rbirk-led, rbirk-followed and rbirk-TR :)

Alexander Blum wrote: Maurice, Why do you care so much how other people track their progress? I care very much how hard I am climbing (relative to my previous ability) and that I continue to progress in the sport. Does that make me a choad? Bad person? Not humble? This would be a great addition that does not effect you in any way. Why do you care again? Will adding this feature cause me to show up at your crag, full of humblebrag, and ruin your experience for the day?

Alex,
It's not that I care how people track their progress, it's that I think this is celebrating an aspect of the sport that I don't think has merit. As I said, in a few years, will people begin to think red point vs. pink point is important? If it's on MP, people may give it more credit than they do now. I don't care how you train. But if you are in the habit of associating a flash or color with every climb you do, and telling others about that, when you come to my crags and tell me those things, I will call you a chode.

Style matters. It is inherent in how the community defines progression of the sport overall.

For me, how much time and effort it takes me to complete a route in "good" style is part of my personal progress tracking. I like the suggestions for detailed style checkboxes. I would also like to see a good way to track how long it took me, rather than creating a separate tick entry for each attempt. Some trad routes have taken me a few days on TR to work out the route before I felt ready to lead it. Many sport routes I led for each attempt, but it may have taken a few outings before I finally redpointed. Having a date-driven tick system doesn't allow the user to keep their progression for a given route in one place.

I'd also like to have a "beta tracking" notes section. I do this in the iPhone Notes app, but it would be great to have this in MP.

Alex C.

Maurice,

Why do you think this has ANYTHING to do with "telling others about it"? I use the tick function as a personal tracking tool. Whether you want to look at what I ticked is 100% your choice.

If Maurice comes to San Diego I'll buy him a beer

I think Aleks Zebastian would particularly disappointed if you did not include flash as an option too.

Another option, which would probably better, is to allow for custom fields. So a user can write in whatever he wants, tick the route, and the route will show up on a graph under whatever category he chose.