Sandbagging vs. Strict Standards? Grade Inflation vs. Correcting Sandbagging? Hubris in which ones? Waddaya'all think?

So to me, sandbagging seems to refer to artificially and intentionally lowering a route's difficulty rating below community standards. 

Grade inflation is taking it upon yourself to call a route more difficult than it is by community standards, based on limited knowledge/experience.

I think both of these come from hubris.

I don't think I'm in the minority in thinking that route difficulty ratings should be an 'as accurate as possible' classification of the difficulty of a climb, that should be used as a piece of information in your assessment of risk strategy and progression goals. Being careless or intentionally deceitful does others a disservice. In which case, if a route seems far too hard or far too easy for what you'd associate with a rating, it seems reasonable to me to educate yourself to understand where the standard lies and how much experience you've had in that style at that rating to give a fair judge. And when in doubt, round down since that keeps risk lower, and progression more meaningful. Hubris here only comes from ignoring or denying outside input as to your thought process.

I'm just wondering what the community at large thinks about these extremes and attempts at honest corrections to them. I've been called a sandbagger, which I take issue with*, and I've pissed off an FA'ist in Indian Creek now to the point where he lashes out at me giving 'corrections' on MP to not only his, but others' routes.   I admit that I often rate routes as easier there, but not always, and IC seems ripe with routes rated harder than they should be, just like some areas have notoriously sandbagged 'middle' grades that should be corrected. I'm open to dialogue, but I feel like it needs to be a rational one removed from ego on all sides. So I'm curious what others think.

Also, since I think both of these relate to community standards, what those should be. To the crag/area (e.g. Indian Creek)? To the region (e.g. Colorado Plateau)? To the earlier widespread development of the technique? What? I defer to earlier & broader, as that seems like a more stable and useful stable foundation.

* Unless you have a correction for how I assess! I have learned from this. I also think I'm pretty soft, so I find that funny for the most part.

If you're pissing people off because of your behavior, you might be the asshole.  That's just a good general rule to live by, IMO.  I personally try not to piss folks off... though I still piss folks off sometimes and have to consider if I'm unreasonable.

Needing to "correct" people may come from hubris.

As to the original question, the more I climb the less I feel like I am able to draw hard and fast rules about what a grade feels like, especially across areas and definitely across time periods.  So I give up on that.  Grade is just one of several context clues that tell me what I can or should expect.  They have been slightly different in every place I've ever been, unique to every type of rock I've tried to climb.

My standards aren't "I succeeded at redpointing a 5.10d", my standards are either "I climbed something I couldn't have climbed last year" or, when I am at my best "I had a really fun day today", and neither of those matters one bit in relation to sandbagging or grade inflation.

If it makes you feel better... I'd 100% 10 out of 10 times rather start up a 5.10b and discover it feels more like 5.9... that's way better than starting up a 5.9+ and deciding it's several grades harder than anything I've ever been on... one of those is goofy, the other one might get me killed one day.

11 out of 10 older experienced climbers say the numbers don’t matter.

8 of 11 new climbers are way too worried about grades and potentially limit themselves 

in my experience taking any actual meaning from the grade of the climb requires a lot of information regarding the FA, area, time period the route was put up etc. 

something like the MP consensus grades could eventually fix this, but without hundreds of data points for each route anything more than +/- grades seem totally conflated

perhaps obvious: I'm not really a sport climber, nor does what im saying really seem to apply at mid 12 and up (but i’m also not sending those routes)

edit: and yes you should be absolutely terrified of 5.8+/5.9+

personally, i get a lot of enjoyment and adventure from those routes. its kind of more fun than having sections of pitches indicated on a topo by a specific grade and description 

“rock climbing is not for everyone” -john long

“fuck you yes it is!” -2020 gym climber

I too spend more time than i should thinking about climbing grades. You should see my spreadsheet...

I think we should expect any grade to be plus minus a letter or so (my experience is mainly 5.11 and below) based purely on physical differences between humans. I say this as some one who is 6' 5" and scrawn, maybe this factor is less important if your physical attributes are close to the median of the climbing populace. When you factor in different backgrounds each climber has, changing weather conditions, changes to the route (holds breaking or becoming more polished), and many other possible variables, it would be reasonable to expect plus minus 2 letter grades of variation from the original as a sort of 95% confidence interval. I find that for routes on MP which have a decent number of grade votes (like 10 or more) it's rare for me to think a grade is off by 2 letter grades or more. I do think more people should voice their opinion, it does seem to help even things out. I personally only vote on the grade if I've done a climb continously without falling either on lead or toprope, but I usually will vote on any climb i've "sent". That being said, I do think grade inflation is real. The strongest predictor of whether I think a climb will feel harder or easier than I expect for the grade is the date of the first ascent. That or mandatory OW ;). 

Indian creek has more to do with hand size than anything. One persons .75 is ring locks or rattly fingers and is anothers perfect hands or thin hands. Just climb and have fun

If mountain project was actually an easy thing to query some math nerd could take peoples tick history calculate on average of how much people downgrade/upgrade route difficulty. Then compare this to which crags on average see the least upgrade or downgrades relative to the behavior of the person upgrading or downgrading and come up with a score of how much the routes in the area are off average rating difficulty.

Princess Puppy Lovr wrote:

If mountain project was actually an easy thing to query some math nerd could take peoples tick history calculate on average of how much people downgrade/upgrade route difficulty. Then compare this to which crags on average see the least upgrade or downgrades relative to the behavior of the person upgrading or downgrading and come up with a score of how much the routes in the area are off average rating difficulty.

And thus the prophecy foretold of one who would save us from ourselves, one who hath seen the truth, one to lead us to consensus, one who knoweth the maths.

Yoda Jedi Knight wrote:

And thus the prophecy foretold of one who would save us from ourselves, one who hath seen the truth, one to lead us to consensus, one who knoweth the maths.

It'd be fun to write some scripting to game that system... like "can I hit the API enough to downgrade a climb by a full number grade".

I think we need to get more philosophical about this. Assigning a single number grade to something as nuanced as a rock climb is a REDUCTIONIST abomination.

Let's get more data involved. For Creek climbs, suggest a plot of crack width on the x-axis vs. height off the deck on the y-axis. You input your hand size and it automatically highlights sections along the profile with green == easy, yellow == medium, and red == yer gunna be pumped. A slider control bar would allow each climber to input their skill level and the colors adjust automatically.

For mountain climbs, a two-dimensional scatter plot would be useful as well. Each route gets its own dot on the scatter plot. One axis for the hardest move, the other for the sustained-ness. Quarter circle contours on this plot would correspond approximately to overall difficulty.

PS. Along this line of thought, route page commenting is one of my favorite uses for MP. I like to leave fairly esoteric comments describing my experience as I think this complements the number grade nicely. 

PPS. Agree that your Indian Creek FA'ist nemesis needs to chill out !! All fun and games anyway ..... haha ........

*I'm making this post as an ego booster.

jt newgard wrote:

I think we need to get more philosophical about this. Assigning a single number grade to something as nuanced as a rock climb is a REDUCTIONIST abomination.

Let's get more data involved. For Creek climbs, suggest a plot of crack width on the x-axis vs. height off the deck on the y-axis. You input your hand size and it automatically highlights sections along the profile with green == easy, yellow == medium, and red == yer gunna be pumped. A slider control bar would allow each climber to input their skill level and the colors adjust automatically.

For mountain climbs, a two-dimensional scatter plot would be useful as well. Each route gets its own dot on the scatter plot. One axis for the hardest move, the other for the sustained-ness. Quarter circle contours on this plot would correspond approximately to overall difficulty.

PS. Along this line of thought, route page commenting is one of my favorite uses for MP. I like to leave fairly esoteric comments describing my experience as I think this complements the number grade nicely. 

PPS. Agree that your Indian Creek FA'ist nemesis needs to chill out !! All fun and games anyway ..... haha ........

You want to take all the adventure out of climbing?

I personally enjoy climbing at a sandbagged area. Keeps your ego in check and when you do travel elsewhere, you’re usually crushing the “vacation” grades. 

And talking Hubris, downgrading can be just as much a dick move as the sandbag itself. It’s all intention. 

Stonathon Olives wrote:

... I don't think trying to universalize the grading system will do much because- as already mentioned before- it's just a number and every place has its own history and community, but it is nice when within a given climbing area there's a rough consensus on how difficult a climb is.

^This. 

I'm always impressed how this single scale can be a fairly good prediction of difficulty across so many different styles of rock and climbing. But I always treat it as a local "estimator". Let the locals decide how much sandbagging or softness they prefer their routes to be. If you ask a Gunkser to put a rating on Vedauwoo climbs, it's just going to be wrong. In the same way a voo climber shouldn't really put grades on Gunks climbs (at least not until they get used to that style of climbing).

The people who dwell the most on grade accuracy tend to be hypercompetitive sorts, mostly interested in comparing their climbing abilities to others. But there's no hubris in that! Right? If one treats a grade like its a score (12b is better than 11a) as opposed to a general guideline to the expected difficulties, that person might get bent out of shape when some other hypercompetitve person presumes to rescore their work. Hubris all around. Screw that - grade consistency doesn't matter at all.

Personally I like the Sean Leary's supposed policy of "give routes the lowest grade possible while keeping a straight face.” ;) 

With respect to your arguing about Indian Creek grades, I think in general it strikes people the wrong way if someone who is just breaking into a grade starts trying to downgrade/upgrade route at that grade. It takes a lot of experience to know ones own strengths and weaknesses and how that relates to the grades of routes at a location.

The only thing that matters is the aesthetics of a climb, but I wholly support sandbagging. Doesn't matter what you climbed, for me the grading scale ends at 5.9+. For bouldering I stick to binary, it is either a 0 or a 1.

Marc801 C wrote:

You want to take all the adventure out of climbing?

OK ... I'll bite Mr. Marc801 C ... :)

As to the mapping the cracks suggestion. I'll admit I was being a touch facetious with that (only a little bit). Can you imagine the absurd fun to be had while mapping a crack? How would you do it? Calipers in the chalk bag? Length increments marked on the rope so the belayer can relay the data point to a dedicated scribe? Or could you analyze pictures of cracks? These questions alone yield an appropriate measure of intellectual stimulation -- not to mention incorporating the data into the grading schema. I would argue the whole process could be quite adventurous in itself -- certainly more interesting than hollering back and forth whether it's a 10!! or, no it's 11 dangit!! around the campfire ...... does science really need to be so boring and cold-hearted ... or could it be serious AND fun ???

For the mountain climbing one. I often find myself reading a few trip reports to gauge whether I can pull off the climb or not. After all  it is a more committing environment. In so doing you inevitably learn something about the cruxes, or heaven forbid even some movement beta. Not very adventurous. If you could follow a quarter circle contour on my suggested plot around to a data point representing a climb you've already completed, you might be reasonably assured of doing that new climb, all without looking at any trip reports. For example, a sustained 5.9 climb would fall on the same contour as a short/cruxy 5.10+ climb where you can pull through on gear. But that same proficient 5.9 climber would probably struggle hard on a sustained 5.10+ climb -- no worries, as such a route would be bumped to a higher contour on the plot. Plus the plot would neatly summarize a wide variety of opinions!

R E R wrote:

The only thing that matters is the aesthetics of a climb, but I wholly support sandbagging. Doesn't matter what you climbed, for me the grading scale ends at 5.9+. For bouldering I stick to binary, it is either a 0 or a 1.

Well, there was the B scale, a sliding scale from B0 to B3. I also kind of like the idea of a sliding YDS scale, with current 5.15+=5.9+. Under this system 5.13- would equal to 5.0. Perhaps the entire 5.12 range would be 4th class, 5.11 3rd class, 5.10 2nd class, and anything less than 5.10 would equal hiking. Perfect!!!

In Josh, anything with a .d affixed to it will be harder than the .a of the next grade up.

Kristian Solem wrote:

In Josh, anything with a .d affixed to it will be harder than the .a of the next grade up.

"I've seen 5.11 divided into 11 different grades of increasing difficulty, as follows: 5.11a, 5.10d, 5.11-, 5.11b, 5.11, 5.11c, 5.9 squeeze, 5.11+, 5.10 OW, 5.12a, 5.11d"

-Brutus of Wyde

Why can't we just climb?