Cochise Stronghold: Toofast Topos & Cochise Climbing
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What does the Southern Arizona community think about how Toofast Topos are being integrated into the route descriptions and comments for Cochise Stronghold?
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Personally I have no problem with links to off-site information since Mountain Project lacks the ability to host attachments such as pdfs. I dislike the recent switch that requires users to register for a portion of the topos. While the registration is free I find a number of the questions invasive. I view the teaser images as advertisements and inappropriate. That said, the topos are well done and no real alternatives exist. |
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Geir is giving out really accurate info on long routes. Topos that are accurate to the meter and descriptions including gear lists for free. The catch is you need to register for the site. |
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In general, I think it's fine to link off-site, but it is really lame to not even write a description in MP. If you climbed it, and are posting the route, you should be able to write your own description. |
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Thanks for the feedback. Keep it coming. |
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Answers: yes, no, yes. |
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This was more a question regarding Mountain Project etiquette and community standards from an administrative role than a matter of personal opinion. As I see it my role is to facilitate discussion and enact the consensus not make a unilateral decision. Since this relates to Mountain Project a discussion on the site seems more appropriate than Facebook or in person. Geir can run his site as he deems appropriate and I can use it as I see fit (I registered) but the question is how is the Mountain Project site and community going to use the site. |
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the few times I have traveled to Cochise I never felt the need for topos on 3-5 pitch routes so its no biggy to me to not have them here. Geir makes decent topos, I saw his Endgame topo before going up it, didnt need it though. As the admin. either go climb it and write your own or wait for some good comments and borrow from those for the descriptions? |
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We can all easily agree that Geir's topos are the raddest for Cochise; like EFR said, they're down to the meter. I am grateful that Geir allows the links for his page to appear on the MP site, though I think the easiest course of action for the climbing-consumers would be for the topos to appear directly on MP. I understand that Gier probably doesn't want for his intellectual property to be spewed all over a site of which he's not in complete administrative control. |
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On "Jabberwocky", it would be good to move the topo thumbnail from the description to the comments; that way you have the option of eliminating it from your printout. Right now, it just adds to the size of the printout without really adding information. |
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Christian wrote:On "Jabberwocky", it would be good to move the topo thumbnail from the description to the comments; that way you have the option of eliminating it from your printout. Right now, it just add to the size of the printout without really adding information. Would be nice to be able to choose individual comments to print. Some have good info I might want on my printout, some are more social and general.I think this is a good idea as well. I also think that the link to the free information is helpful on MP. |
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I'd see the off-site links as an issue if he was charging for the service but that's not the case. In spite of the amount of time it takes to gather info and put all his topos together, he offers them free of charge; therefore "advertisement" only applies in the non-capitalist sense. |
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Btw those Toofast topos are all jacked up. I started out following his topo for Ides of Middlemarch and I finished on Welcome to the Machine. |
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My take on this would be no. Here is why. The links don't take you to a pdf but rather a login/registration site. In order to get the topos one has to register. Registration requires providing some personal information. Once you enter the information you are informed that a real person has to verify the information before any access is granted. If you do not provide real information with a real name he turns down the application. So toofast is using Mountain Project to drive traffic to his site, which is a commercial site, and collecting information to use however he chooses. It's a common practice. If he wanted to do an ad campaign to promote some guide service special or whatever, he could with the information he has. Ads on websites drive me crazy. Putting adds (face it, that's what toofast is) inside route descriptions and comments makes me want to scream. Just my personal take on the subject. |
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Sorry for the delay in my reply; I have been climbing the last two days and I wanted to talk directly to the site landlords. Besides, Marcy (my wife) pretty much summed up my thoughts perfectly. |
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Sounds like the community consensus and higher powers are fine with the current integration of Toofast Topos. Hence I am fine with it and shall take no action. Feel free to continue to discuss as the matter, like everything else, can always be reevaluated. |
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Hendrixson wrote:The teaser images do seem to cause havoc to the printer friendly view and add no value hence it would be nice to see these moved to comments. I believe individual comments can be hidden if more than one exists.No problem, I can change that. |
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Thanks Geir! I also appreciate the updated description for Stampede. |
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Regarding route descriptions like Geir's original Stampede description, I and some other posters often write "route descriptions" for Southern Arizona climbs where we just linked the Backcountry Guide with some thoughts and annotations. I feel like it's sort of a unique situation because you don't usually find entire guidebooks online. It would be a completely different story if it wasn't. Most of these are obscure backcountry routes (obviously, Stampede does not fall into this category) where, in my opinion, keeping it to the relative minimum of info to get up the route preserves the adventure a bit. I try to include information that helps people to decide if the route is one they want to do. |
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Charles Vernon wrote:Regarding route descriptions like Geir's original Stampede description, I and some other posters often write "route descriptions" for Southern Arizona climbs where we just linked the Backcountry Guide with some thoughts and annotations. I feel like it's sort of a unique situation because you don't usually find entire guidebooks online. It would be a completely different story if it wasn't. Most of these are obscure backcountry routes (obviously, Stampede does not fall into this category) where, in my opinion, keeping it to the relative minimum of info to get up the route preserves the adventure a bit. I try to include information that helps people to decide if the route is one they want to do. Examples: Ten Years After Crystal LineI am urging people not to do this. If you post a route, you should have climbed it and be willing and able to write a description. From a practical point of view, "link descriptions" are a total failure for people using the mobile app (offline at least). And the MP route database is a (mostly) incredible resource of original content. I hope we can keep, and actually exceed the current quality level. |
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Great topos, Geir! It looks like you put a filter on an actual picture, then increased the transparency and digitized lines over it. Very smart however you did it. Well done. |