Thanks for the feedback guys, this is exactly what I was hoping for. Neuroshock I agree Mountain Project is pretty good and has better navigation than most of the sites (their map based nav is defiantly a step in the right direction).

threebadfish, the problem is the sites with gigantic databases are usually only gigantic in areas of the country that have large populations (read the coasts) or are heavily climbed, which of course is perfect for many people. But there is a dearth of info on the smaller local spots across the country (world?) the chances of someone sitting in their house a thousand miles way from the spot will documenting the spot are slim. The fundamental difference in what I want to do is that I want to make a system (I'm still thinking Wiki) that can be easily set up for individual areas by an individual or group of people who have a connection with that spot. Lastly, I have no desire to copy the databases of existing sites.

So I guess that's a long way of saying that I want to make it easier for people to set up sites on their climbing spots, rather than a centralized site that covers the country (world?). This fosters a better connection with the site, and hopefully a community, as a bonus it could help communication between parks and climbers which is never a bad thing.

Thanks again for the feedback, and feel free to pass on anything else you think of.


Thank you,
Arthur Beisang
PROJECT Design inc.

But there is a dearth of info on the smaller local spots across the country (world?) the chances of someone sitting in their house a thousand miles way from the spot will documenting the spot are slim. The fundamental difference in what I want to do is that I want to make a system (I'm still thinking Wiki) that can be easily set up for individual areas by an individual or group of people who have a connection with that spot.

Thanks for the feedback guys, this is exactly what I was hoping for. Neuroshock I agree Mountain Project is pretty good and has better navigation than most of the sites (their map based nav is defiantly a step in the right direction).

threebadfish, the problem is the sites with gigantic databases are usually only gigantic in areas of the country that have large populations (read the coasts) or are heavily climbed, which of course is perfect for many people. But there is a dearth of info on the smaller local spots across the country (world?) the chances of someone sitting in their house a thousand miles way from the spot will documenting the spot are slim. The fundamental difference in what I want to do is that I want to make a system (I'm still thinking Wiki) that can be easily set up for individual areas by an individual or group of people who have a connection with that spot. Lastly, I have no desire to copy the databases of existing sites.

So I guess that's a long way of saying that I want to make it easier for people to set up sites on their climbing spots, rather than a centralized site that covers the country (world?). This fosters a better connection with the site, and hopefully a community, as a bonus it could help communication between parks and climbers which is never a bad thing.

Thanks again for the feedback, and feel free to pass on anything else you think of.


Thank you,
Arthur Beisang
PROJECT Design inc.

It's still not clear how that is any different than the system here or at mountainproject.com. At either of these sites anyone can add an area, or add routes to an existing area. It's true that in order to delete an area, or make certain changes, you need administrator approval, whereas with a wiki, you wouldn't; but it is not clear why that would somehow encourage the documentation of small crags.

Jay

Or camptocamp.org, a major (originally francophone) database for alpine and sport and trad courses, as well as mountain ski, in the Alps and Pyrenees mainly but not only : already 17,000 different itineraries, with some of them advocated as the best alpine topos by hut owners.

The interface exists in Spanish, English, German, Italian and is way underused.
It's a real wiki system, every registered person (free) can create / modify existing datas.

Its one pitch sport climbs interface is yet to be developed, though, but it's a matter of months.

You're completely right, I'm currently leaning towards a easily distributable system of sites allowing people to set up their own local sites. And I do have a few trick up sleeve as far as features go.

my suggestion: create a site with a super-easy interface and multi-language support. So the local Russian can add a topo, location and access info (in russian), and then make it so that someone else easily can translate it to english (or the other way around of course).