Make photos mandatory for new routes???

... This post is to politely ask if a dialog can be started about making photos mandatory for new areas and routes on MP. It seems like more and more postings are going up that are just a few words and no images... I personally find these postings to be frustratingly uninformative, and find myself asking "whats the point"? And the only answer I have is that people want to claim the route in some way, but are not really interested in creating an interesting, compelling record.

Sure, it might at first slow down the amount of content being created, but this goes back to the same ol' quality vs. quantity thing...

With basically everyone these days walking around with a camera on their phone, it stands to reason that a photo of a new route should be easy to get.

If your new route is worth posting, its worth shooting a pic. This is just one persons opinion, what are your thoughts on it?

+1

As someone who put new routes up we always grab pics when we can, however, sometimes stopping to snap pics falls by the wayside (you want to snap it with any fixed hardware in place) and then the send occurs in fading light or even by headlamp and after all that work cleaning, etc... your gonna do what it takes to send it that day, and then who know when you head back there next. That being said +1 for pics. BETA CREATOR is your friend!

Given a few years of watching things be submitted on this and various precursor websites that became MP.com, I don't recommend we do this. It is a limited perspective to think everyone climbs with a phone or camera. I know of plenty of folks who intentionally leave the phone and/or camera behind. Sometimes, even when one's intentions are there to have a camera along, the batteries are dead, the cold kills the life of the batteries, the shutter winds of sticking due to its abuse on previous trips, the photos are totally blurry, and/or one forgets to get good photos along the way. Sometimes, even the weather gets in the way of a worthwhile photo.

Often, a good description is worth much more than a marginal photo or even a great butt shot or two.

So, while your intentions to improve the quality of the submissions is great, it's the details of trying to implement that which make it less than desirable.

Plus, sometimes it's the 2nd or 3rd trip back before you get photos worth submitting....

I absolutely do not support this. While photos are nice to have, they are certainly not necessary to a good route description.

^^^ I support what Leo said. This sort of requirement would not be a good idea, for all the reasons he mentioned.

Definitely not. Someone else can always add a photo to a route that doesn't have one.

Leo Paik wrote:It is a limited perspective to think everyone climbs with a phone or camera.

you mean there are ACTUALLY people who don't do that? the horror...

Perhaps instead of requiring a photo, just require a "worthy" description if no photo can be submitted. Of course this is subjective, but that's why we have moderators right?

In the end, I would just like to see "worthy" descriptions with each route, regardless of if there is also a photo included. This does't have to mean beta heavy, but perhaps make many of the route attributes required like how to get there, protection needed, descent, etc.

If moderators deleted route pages that lacked these minimum requirements, maybe it would make people think twice about quality submissions. Just a thought.

Perhaps wikipedia sets a good example for how to deal with this. Crappy articles are flagged to indicate that something is wrong/missing.

Maybe something like this: If a route page is flagged incomplete by enough people, or by moderators, allow any MP registered user to edit it.

wikipedia

It's late; this idea is half-baked. Maybe it will spark more ideas and lead to a practical solution.

Leo Paik wrote:Often, a good description is worth much more than a marginal photo or even a great butt shot or two.

And a great photo is worth much more than a marginal description. Plenty of areas on MP that have a great picture or two that do all the talking, while the text goes unread.

Having a good template goes a long way. A template that really describes how one could express a new route (not just a couple sub headings) and an example picture with an overlay. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing process, but a good precedent goes a long way.

Here is one that I have really liked. I am probably a little biased since its where I live, but just one good beta photo goes a long ways.

I don't agree with this idea at all.

I don't take pictures much. I suspect plenty of other people don't either. Faced with the choice between some information in writing and no information at all, I'll take what I can get, particularly in an international area where there may be nothing else to go on.

Great if people want to do more (and the photos on the site are hugely valuable, thanks to those who post them), but text is perfectly usable to me, and I think to many others.

Mitch Musci wrote:Perhaps instead of requiring a photo, just require a "worthy" description if no photo can be submitted. Of course this is subjective, but that's why we have moderators right? In the end, I would just like to see "worthy" descriptions with each route, regardless of if there is also a photo included. This does't have to mean beta heavy, but perhaps make many of the route attributes required like how to get there, protection needed, descent, etc. If moderators deleted route pages that lacked these minimum requirements, maybe it would make people think twice about quality submissions. Just a thought.

Just contact the poster to add more content or a moderator. I just add more details to the comment section. Pictures shouldn't be mandatory. Although, it should be the goal of all posters to eventually get some pics. I treat the content here as supplemental, not a stand alone guide. With the mp app, i guess people just want to use their phone as the sole source of beta. Don't always count on reception. If the route is a serious undertaking, prepare more. If it is not a serious route, sack up. They can make for some of the best adventures.

No need to make it mandatory. Pictures are really helpful and not taking and posting even a crappy photo is pretty lame. A crappy photo that shows only the start or a really obvious feature is really helpful. No good excuse for not taking a photo in this day and age. I am including a selfie of me posting this!
Not really.

We won't do this. However, I am working on a system where routes (and areas) can be updated by other people, so the quality can continuously improve. It's not fully designed yet, but it will not be a wikipedia free-for-all. Original owners and admins will be heavily involved in reviewing any changes. More later as it gets fleshed out...

Lots of cool input here! One thing thats really great about MP is that there's rarely negative posting going on, its generally positive constructive feedback... to me personally that is priceless since the rest of the internet seems to be fueled by the opposite.

Jonathan Awerbuch wrote:Perhaps wikipedia sets a good example for how to deal with this. Crappy articles are flagged to indicate that something is wrong/missing. Maybe something like this: If a route page is flagged incomplete by enough people, or by moderators, allow any MP registered user to edit it. It's late; this idea is half-baked. Maybe it will spark more ideas and lead to a practical solution.

I personally really like Jonathans idea here ^^^ of making the descriptions more editable using a Wikipedia type of tag. OF course Wiki has its own problems... but placing a note asking for improvement is a great starting point. By the way this post was motivated by the trend im seeing a lot of where I see a list of routes, many of them called "unnamed A" and "unnamed B" and then the description for unnamed B is something like "Right of unnamed A" and thats it... that should not qualify as a post, in my opinion. But its also tricky to ask people to put up more, you dont wanna upset anyone or condescend... As a side note, I just want to mention how grateful I am for this awesome resource that is mountain project and send a loud thank you to those folks who tirelessly keep this site awesome. you folks rock!

The system as it exists now is good.

I've tagged admins before to have them edit shitty descriptions and it works just fine. Usually just write a better description in the comments, notify the admin, done deal.

Its not even possible to get photos of many routes that would be worth anything due to logistics (tight canyons, etc). And I am rarely messing around with a camera when climbing in a party of two. Then what about multi-pitch? Need a pic of every pitch?

The thing that bothers me more than no photos, is the opposite where someone posts video of themselves on something and doesn't even writing enough in the description to find the thing.

"Here's me sending blah blah. Location: in the boulders"...well thanks, that's helpful.

Nick Wilder wrote:I am working on a system where routes (and areas) can be updated by other people, so the quality can continuously improve. It's not fully designed yet, but it will not be a wikipedia free-for-all. Original owners and admins will be heavily involved in reviewing any changes. More later as it gets fleshed out...

I think that this will be a good change for the site. Speaking for myself, I frequently see route or area descriptions that are inadequate, but I am generally too lazy to contact the admin, etc. in order to change it. If some of the barriers to updating content are removed, that I would be more likely to improve/correct/augment inadequate descriptions. I expect that this is true for many others as well.

I agree with Mitch, there's some pretty terrible route descriptions here, thus making them somewhat pointless in the database. Perhaps a minimum character requirement....

Mitch Musci wrote:Perhaps instead of requiring a photo, just require a "worthy" description if no photo can be submitted. Of course this is subjective, but that's why we have moderators right? In the end, I would just like to see "worthy" descriptions with each route, regardless of if there is also a photo included. This does't have to mean beta heavy, but perhaps make many of the route attributes required like how to get there, protection needed, descent, etc. If moderators deleted route pages that lacked these minimum requirements, maybe it would make people think twice about quality submissions. Just a thought.

I also don't like this idea of making mandatory pictures. many craigs, getting a photo not really realistic because the trees obscure the climb. I know that its ok to chop down a tree for my proe but for the mp.com?

Nick Wilder wrote:We won't do this. However, I am working on a system where routes (and areas) can be updated by other people, so the quality can continuously improve. It's not fully designed yet, but it will not be a wikipedia free-for-all. Original owners and admins will be heavily involved in reviewing any changes. More later as it gets fleshed out...

This sound good!

I do understand the op frustration though so of the the descriptions are so vague it begs the question of why they put it up to begin with.

No. You are just going to piss people off and they are going to either not add to the database, or some might just post the same photo for everything to save time.