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mikeymaus
Feb 2, 2014, 4:07 PM
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Registered: Jan 13, 2005
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Hi Everyone
For the last few weeks I've been off and on working on a new website. It started out as something I could talk about in Interviews, but as I got more feedback from friends, it got more and more added on.
Originally it was just to mark climbing area's in Ireland, but once I had the code for that I figured why not make it for the whole world.
The original thought was something along the lines of "Imagine you're visiting the in laws or relatives, and wanted to find out if there were any boulders within a 10 minute drive of where you are"
Then I got loads of other suggestions. Like when how we were climbing in Albacarrin (Spain) and spent a while looking for the local bakery. People were walking by us with fresh bread, and we couldn't find where it was coming from (It's marked on the map now btw)
Wouldn't it be handy if climbers could mark places to hang out after climbing, places to get good food or even places to avoid.
Anyway, after a few weeks of coding, here's my site:
http://www.wherestheclimbing.com/
There's a User Guide section, but it's all build to be pretty intuitive (I hope)
http://www.wherestheclimbing.com/Home/UserGuide
We have Ireland pretty well covered, but if some of you reading this, could add your local climbing gym / outdoors spot. It'd make the site even better / more useful.
One last thing, I haven't put in any code restricting user access, so there's nothing stopping trolls replacing names with cuss words
or moving the map markers into a giant pair of boobs or something.
I do take backups of the database, and if this happens I'll do a restore and consider limits on how much each user can add / edit in a day.
Any feedback / suggestions on the site would be great.
Thanks for reading
Mikey
(This post was edited by mikeymaus on Feb 2, 2014, 4:07 PM)
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iknowfear
Feb 2, 2014, 4:42 PM
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Registered: Sep 8, 2004
Posts: 670
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mikeymaus wrote: Hi Everyone For the last few weeks I've been off and on working on a new website. It started out as something I could talk about in Interviews, but as I got more feedback from friends, it got more and more added on. Originally it was just to mark climbing area's in Ireland, but once I had the code for that I figured why not make it for the whole world. The original thought was something along the lines of "Imagine you're visiting the in laws or relatives, and wanted to find out if there were any boulders within a 10 minute drive of where you are" Then I got loads of other suggestions. Like when how we were climbing in Albacarrin (Spain) and spent a while looking for the local bakery. People were walking by us with fresh bread, and we couldn't find where it was coming from (It's marked on the map now btw) Wouldn't it be handy if climbers could mark places to hang out after climbing, places to get good food or even places to avoid. Anyway, after a few weeks of coding, here's my site: http://www.wherestheclimbing.com/ There's a User Guide section, but it's all build to be pretty intuitive (I hope) http://www.wherestheclimbing.com/Home/UserGuide We have Ireland pretty well covered, but if some of you reading this, could add your local climbing gym / outdoors spot. It'd make the site even better / more useful. One last thing, I haven't put in any code restricting user access, so there's nothing stopping trolls replacing names with cuss words or moving the map markers into a giant pair of boobs or something. I do take backups of the database, and if this happens I'll do a restore and consider limits on how much each user can add / edit in a day. Any feedback / suggestions on the site would be great. Thanks for reading Mikey
and now the links are clickable!
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dagibbs
Feb 4, 2014, 2:40 AM
Post #3 of 23
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Another climbing data base.
So, why is this one better than:
The one on this site?
www.thecrag.com
mountainproject.com
ukclimbing.com
or others out there?
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JimTitt
Feb 4, 2014, 7:40 AM
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dagibbs wrote: Another climbing data base. So, why is this one better than: The one on this site? www.thecrag.com mountainproject.com ukclimbing.com or others out there?
You mean the dozens of the worthless things out there? User-input databases have never worked due to the inherent laziness of climbers and never will.
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mikeymaus
Feb 4, 2014, 9:39 AM
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Registered: Jan 13, 2005
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Hi Dagibbs
Thanks for the reply.
That's a great question. I was just thinking about adding a FAQ page to the site, so I put your question on top 
http://www.wherestheclimbing.com/Home/Faq
This page definitely isn't better than those ones you named. To be honest I assumed other pages like mine existed, but hadn't looked around, in case I saw how awesome they were and lost interest in making my site.
My page is just a map. Those other ones are complete websites with sitemaps and pages of stuff to read.
This is just a map that shows you where some climbing is.
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kennoyce
Feb 4, 2014, 1:39 PM
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JimTitt wrote: dagibbs wrote: Another climbing data base. So, why is this one better than: The one on this site? www.thecrag.com mountainproject.com ukclimbing.com or others out there? You mean the dozens of the worthless things out there? User-input databases have never worked due to the inherent laziness of climbers and never will.
I don't know about that Jim, the Mountainproject database seems to work fairly well at least here in the US.
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JimTitt
Feb 4, 2014, 6:51 PM
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kennoyce wrote: JimTitt wrote: dagibbs wrote: Another climbing data base. So, why is this one better than: The one on this site? www.thecrag.com mountainproject.com ukclimbing.com or others out there? You mean the dozens of the worthless things out there? User-input databases have never worked due to the inherent laziness of climbers and never will. I don't know about that Jim, the Mountainproject database seems to work fairly well at least here in the US.
Maybe it works for the US but move away and the database is pitiful, France has more than 227 routes, Italy more than 229 and Germany more than 907! In my home area of Bavaria there are slightly more than the 29 routes in the database since the Northern Frankenjura alone has over 8,000 so you are on a success rate of probably around 0.01% for coverage. Like I said, worthless!
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rocknice2
Feb 4, 2014, 7:28 PM
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I guess laziness isn't an American trait.
We get what we put into it. That's why I'm doing my part and adding what I can to the one here and on MP.
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mikeymaus
Feb 4, 2014, 8:14 PM
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Ah, sure some folks are lazy, some are busy beavers. I tried my best to make this page really easy to Add locations even if you don't want to write about them.
I've pretty much marked every spot on the map I've ever climbing in my life, and I consider myself pretty lazy.
The Mountain Project is way more ambitious than mine. Tracking routes seems like a helluva project. Just placing a few Map pins for the whole Frankenjura seems like something more reasonable to ask.
Just showing people where there's good climbing available in a country isn't worthless. Marking the Campsite in Albacarrin, the shop where we got the fresh bread each morning and the climbing area took less than a minute.
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kennoyce
Feb 4, 2014, 9:27 PM
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JimTitt wrote: kennoyce wrote: JimTitt wrote: dagibbs wrote: Another climbing data base. So, why is this one better than: The one on this site? www.thecrag.com mountainproject.com ukclimbing.com or others out there? You mean the dozens of the worthless things out there? User-input databases have never worked due to the inherent laziness of climbers and never will. I don't know about that Jim, the Mountainproject database seems to work fairly well at least here in the US. Maybe it works for the US but move away and the database is pitiful, France has more than 227 routes, Italy more than 229 and Germany more than 907! In my home area of Bavaria there are slightly more than the 29 routes in the database since the Northern Frankenjura alone has over 8,000 so you are on a success rate of probably around 0.01% for coverage. Like I said, worthless!
I agree with you, which is why I said that it works in the US, I'd guess that Mountainproject just isn't known well enough outside of the us. My point was just that an online database can work. In fact, in the US there are many areas where mountainproject is the best source of info for the area.
Also, for some reason The Frankenjura is not included in Bavaria on mountainproject, The Frankenjura is it's own area and does have 695 routes listed, still not anywhere near the total number of routes there, but better than 29.
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dagibbs
Feb 5, 2014, 3:46 AM
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JimTitt wrote: kennoyce wrote: JimTitt wrote: dagibbs wrote: Another climbing data base. So, why is this one better than: The one on this site? www.thecrag.com mountainproject.com ukclimbing.com or others out there? You mean the dozens of the worthless things out there? User-input databases have never worked due to the inherent laziness of climbers and never will. I don't know about that Jim, the Mountainproject database seems to work fairly well at least here in the US. Maybe it works for the US but move away and the database is pitiful, France has more than 227 routes, Italy more than 229 and Germany more than 907! In my home area of Bavaria there are slightly more than the 29 routes in the database since the Northern Frankenjura alone has over 8,000 so you are on a success rate of probably around 0.01% for coverage. Like I said, worthless!
Yeah, I agree that mountainproject has a very US-focus to its data.
The Crag (www.thecrag.com) seems to have something over 6000 routes for the Frankenjura. I'd guess not complete -- no guide/database is -- but that's a pretty good sampling. (It looks to have almost 53000 routes listed for Germany as a whole.)
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madrasrock
Feb 5, 2014, 4:20 AM
Post #13 of 23
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Registered: Jul 1, 2005
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If you want to do something that no one is doing. Have .kml or .kmz export of some or all location so you can view in google earth or upload to a gps or off line device.
Also I have over 2000 xy locations if you want my database contact me at mountainman@mtjeff.com
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JimTitt
Feb 5, 2014, 7:59 AM
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sbaclimber wrote: kennoyce wrote: Also, for some reason The Frankenjura is not included in Bavaria on mountainproject, The Frankenjura is it's own areaThat's what most of the locals would tell you too. 
Hey, weīve got rid of that Frankish minister president and we are back to a real Bavarian. Heīll sort them out!
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JimTitt
Feb 5, 2014, 8:34 AM
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dagibbs wrote: JimTitt wrote: kennoyce wrote: JimTitt wrote: dagibbs wrote: Another climbing data base. So, why is this one better than: The one on this site? www.thecrag.com mountainproject.com ukclimbing.com or others out there? You mean the dozens of the worthless things out there? User-input databases have never worked due to the inherent laziness of climbers and never will. I don't know about that Jim, the Mountainproject database seems to work fairly well at least here in the US. Maybe it works for the US but move away and the database is pitiful, France has more than 227 routes, Italy more than 229 and Germany more than 907! In my home area of Bavaria there are slightly more than the 29 routes in the database since the Northern Frankenjura alone has over 8,000 so you are on a success rate of probably around 0.01% for coverage. Like I said, worthless! Yeah, I agree that mountainproject has a very US-focus to its data. The Crag (www.thecrag.com) seems to have something over 6000 routes for the Frankenjura. I'd guess not complete -- no guide/database is -- but that's a pretty good sampling. (It looks to have almost 53000 routes listed for Germany as a whole.)
Well thecrag.com is one of the better ones but since you arenīt getting a topo or in a lot of cases they donīt even know where the crag is that doesnīt help a lot (unless one is an anal tick-list type). and since the Franken has 3 print guides and one online guide anyway why bother to click on their website or anyone elses for that matter?
UKC has probably the most definitive database for a large country but it is a partly commercial operation and they arenīt going to screw their guide sales by actually putting the real info online and the moment they get outside the UK it starts looking like the rest anyway with put in the wrong place, spelling mistakes all over and only a small proportion of the potential listed anyway.
The big problem (as I see it) is that some keen guys get the idea to create a(nother) database but the interest fades quickly and so they expect us to do the work for them (Iīve even had some naiive fool contact me expecting me to put my guide details on his website since he was clearly too lazy to steal them for himself). If ALL the internet databases were put into one site AND run by professional staff then we would start to get somewhere but this will probably never happen.
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JAB
Feb 5, 2014, 12:24 PM
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It seems you forgot your original thought.
"Imagine you're visiting the in laws or relatives, and wanted to find out if there were any boulders within a 10 minute drive of where you are"
What I would want in this case is a map with all crags and boulders. Other interesting stuff, why not. So far so good.
But if your database gets some popularity, you will soon have thousands of crags and boulders all over the place. So how to know which one to go to?
Ideally, when you hover over any of the icons, you would get a popup of the crag's details (at least boulder/sport/trad/ice, number of routes, grade range, some kind of star rating). When clicking on a map marker, you would get the more detailed data, as well as a list of all nearby crags. This way you would quickly get a picture of which crags you should visit.
A good try at this is 27crags.com, which is popular especially in Scandinavia. http://27crags.com/crags
There are a few boulders in Ireland, mainly around Dublin marked as well.
(This post was edited by JAB on Feb 5, 2014, 12:27 PM)
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mikeymaus
Feb 5, 2014, 1:35 PM
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Wow, that 27 crags site is awesome. It's the best one I've seen so far.
Ok, if I had had known something like that exists, I might not have started my own page.
As for the original thought. I always knew it was never going to have individual routes in it. I never thought people would be convinced to mark individual climbs and grades, but that site has a lot of them.
My idea was just a site that tells you "there is x-type of climbing here" and maybe a link to a web page about the climbing there.
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dagibbs
Feb 5, 2014, 6:21 PM
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JimTitt wrote: If ALL the internet databases were put into one site AND run by professional staff then we would start to get somewhere but this will probably never happen.
Yeah, that would be a wonder.
I like online sites for:
1. ticklist. Yeah, some of us do like to maintain this.
2. information for places that don't have a printed guidebook. Many of my local crags have a printed guide book -- but it has been out of print for over 10 years and is not available. Others have never, to my knowledge, had a printed guide. They've had hand-drawn photocopies that are passed around, or pdfs of scans of these which, if you happen to know who to ask, you can get a copy.
3. to get an idea of an area before deciding whether to go there or not, and therefor to decide whether to buy a guide if a printed guide is available.
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dagibbs
Feb 5, 2014, 6:26 PM
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dagibbs wrote: JimTitt wrote: If ALL the internet databases were put into one site AND run by professional staff then we would start to get somewhere but this will probably never happen. Yeah, that would be a wonder.
And, that is why I question a "New Climbing Database". Why create a new one, which will further fragment the data available online, rather than finding an existing one that you can add your data to? I'd rather see an existing database extended.
(Yes, quoting myself... )
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JimTitt
Feb 5, 2014, 7:06 PM
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dagibbs wrote: dagibbs wrote: JimTitt wrote: If ALL the internet databases were put into one site AND run by professional staff then we would start to get somewhere but this will probably never happen. Yeah, that would be a wonder. And, that is why I question a "New Climbing Database". Why create a new one, which will further fragment the data available online, rather than finding an existing one that you can add your data to? I'd rather see an existing database extended. (Yes, quoting myself... )
What, you mean like the OP could use climbing.ie http://wiki.climbing.ie/index.php/Main_Page which is the definitive (and well run) database for Irish climbing?
Donīt think they have the local bakers marked on the map but most of us can live without that I guess, itīs usually near the pub anyway.
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dagibbs
Feb 5, 2014, 8:25 PM
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JimTitt wrote: dagibbs wrote: dagibbs wrote: JimTitt wrote: If ALL the internet databases were put into one site AND run by professional staff then we would start to get somewhere but this will probably never happen. Yeah, that would be a wonder. And, that is why I question a "New Climbing Database". Why create a new one, which will further fragment the data available online, rather than finding an existing one that you can add your data to? I'd rather see an existing database extended. (Yes, quoting myself... ) What, you mean like the OP could use climbing.ie http://wiki.climbing.ie/index.php/Main_Page which is the definitive (and well run) database for Irish climbing? Donīt think they have the local bakers marked on the map but most of us can live without that I guess, itīs usually near the pub anyway.
Yes, exactly. And the pub is far more important than the baker, anyway.
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roninthorne
Feb 6, 2014, 3:51 PM
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The Mountain Project database is okay as far as it goes, but inherent flaws can be seen on the West Virginia page, which is run by a guy living in New Hampshire, another who lives in Germany, and a lass who lives in Louisville, Colorado.
So three admins, one overseas, none within 12 hours' drive.
Obviously, the MP WV database must be cutting edge, hmmmm?
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kennoyce
Feb 6, 2014, 8:24 PM
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roninthorne wrote: The Mountain Project database is okay as far as it goes, but inherent flaws can be seen on the West Virginia page, which is run by a guy living in New Hampshire, another who lives in Germany, and a lass who lives in Louisville, Colorado. So three admins, one overseas, none within 12 hours' drive. Obviously, the MP WV database must be cutting edge, hmmmm?
Considering the fact that the database content comes from users, not admins, I don't see how having admins who don't live in the area really affects anything.
Again though, if this does have some affect that I can't see, I'm not saying that mountainproject is the perfect database for every area, I'm just saying that in many areas, an online database can and has in fact worked.
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