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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 15, 2012 - 10:18am PT
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What's a cordelette?
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Banquo
climber
Amerricka
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Aug 15, 2012 - 10:50am PT
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All forums die whether or not they are moderated. What ever happened to rec.climbing?
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Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
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Aug 15, 2012 - 11:44am PT
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What's the best beanie for climbing?
Also, my friends (who are sik climbers) say that a Toyota truck is the only thing I should drive now that I'm a rockrat. Is that true? How many stickers should I have on the camper shell?
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 15, 2012 - 11:55am PT
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Apologies to klk for being caught out engidorking again.
heh
good on you and curt for hanging in over there.
i just couldnt take it anymore. this site is marginal enough.
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happiegrrrl
Trad climber
www.climbaddictdesigns.com
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Aug 15, 2012 - 02:45pm PT
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The way I saw it, though I only came on in spring '04, was that:
 There was always an aura of the blind leading the blind, when it came to serious climbing Gumbyism, though if one did live long enough to learn a little, it became easy enough to know who had real experience and who was spouting bullsh#t.
The site had a period where the servers were so unable to handle the load that the site was down more than up. Though the site was up the upswing at the start of that period, they lost a lot of momentum in community during that phase.
The site allowed bullying. There became a group of wannabe cool kids who ganged up on others as sport, with some mods participating. Many people had no interest in seeing nearly every thread devolve into the negativity that was happening, and they left.
Some in the same group of bullies had a bit of hacking experience and decided to play with the site. As well, they thought it fun to spend what must have been ridiculous amounts of time manipulating input; getting poor quality and/or unrelated to climbing images on the featured image was one example. More people became sick of logging on to the site and seeing the trash piling up. By now the decline was clearly obvious.
When Namemedia dropped J-ung, who was probably the best thing that ever happened to the site, management-wise, a lot who were left realized that the site would never be able to offer quality, at least until a new owner picked the place up.
They missed, completely, the rise of social media(especially video) as a way to provide quality content, though I suppose in all fairness, there was nobody to even decide to develop that aspect. I had contacted the owner at one point asking them to consider a barter deal(I would develop and manage social media(F/B and Twitter, at the time) in exchange for advertising for ClimbAddict on the site. My inquiry was never achknowledged. Meanwhile, other platforms picked up the social aspect and provided content. People went to those places to watch video, se quality images.
That the site is still up is actually sort of interesting; I would guess that since the infrastructure is in place and not costing anything at this time, that would be why. When and if an influx of capital is again needed, I expect the site will lapse at that time.
I would also think that the site owner would consider any serious bid. I don't know that the name rockclimbing.com is THAT important that someone would be interested in the whole shebang, considering the serious amount of work that would be needed to bring the site up to speed.
To do so, they need to go above and beyond what is going on at any climbing site right now. I would say that they would need to take a cue from Facebook(images and story-wise, allowing for creating of personal networks and micro-threads within the site, and one of the online video chat sites(Airtime?) to offer group chats, organized(such as Twitter, but with video, obviously) and personal, for one-on-one interaction.
They would also need to do some massive community outreach - one of the things that was most sad about rc.com was the lack of support to the community. I suppose the *must* have donated money to Access Fund, but why they weren't sponsoring climbers, fesitivals and comps, I never understood.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 15, 2012 - 03:01pm PT
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After 67 posts, I'm still stuck with the concept of "too much moderation." I guess we need moderation in moderation.
John
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adatesman
climber
philadelphia, pa
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Aug 15, 2012 - 03:15pm PT
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@Happie- go back a page or twp to the chronology of RC I posted... You're absolutely spot-on about J_ung being the best thing that happened to the site, but unfortunately NameMedia(the current owner, who had put J_ung in charge) had unrealistic expectations re: ad revenue. Quite simply they're a domain name marketing company that couldn't care less about the site, other than revenue generated. Hence firing Jay and handing things back to DDT when the site was about to be shuttered.
Btw, per NameMedia's site: "NameMedia is a leader in the acquisition, development and trading of digital real estate through a network of highly targeted websites and a marketplace for premium domain names.". Some of their other major properties at the time DDT sold to them we're a bunch of cat-enthusiast sites. Quite the good fit, no? Anyway, more than one thread about this topic on RC, complete with links to the cat sites, iirc.
Btw x2- last I looked they wanted 2 million for RC. Absolutely crazy money, even immediately after they let Jay go and things were still looking up.
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pFranzen
Boulder climber
Portland, OR
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Aug 15, 2012 - 03:18pm PT
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The best thing that Rockclimbing.com ever had going for it was the domain name. I don't think I ever really pulled any useful information out of the route database, and by the time the original ClimbingBoulder.com started up there was no reason for me to visit RC.com except to stare in disbelief at how badly it was managed.
Moderation is a tricky thing, and too much and too little can both cause an exodus from a site. SuperTopo and MP are both still figuring out how to best handle that aspect, but even through their faults they are doing a far better job than the people who let RC.com spiral the drain for so many years.
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adatesman
climber
philadelphia, pa
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Aug 15, 2012 - 03:34pm PT
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... doing a far better job than the people who let RC.com spiral the drain for so many years.
Yup.
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plund
Social climber
OD, MN
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Aug 15, 2012 - 03:46pm PT
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So, Curt, have you pulled out the "foot belay" lately?
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Chad Taylor
Gym climber
Phoenix
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 17, 2012 - 06:32pm PT
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So where can one get good comprehensive route data for climbs outside of California, if not from RC.com?
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looks easy from here
climber
Ben Lomond, CA
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Aug 17, 2012 - 06:36pm PT
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Mountain Project has a couple. Varying degrees of beta, depending on what people have contributed (generally need to supplement, but it gives a great jumping off point).
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ladyscarlett
Trad climber
SF Bay Area, California
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Aug 17, 2012 - 07:17pm PT
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or some kewl climbing buddies!
cheers
LS
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martygarrison
Trad climber
Washington DC
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Aug 17, 2012 - 07:39pm PT
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For a Yosemite centric old guy like me, I really like Supertopo. It's fun to stay informed even 15 years since hanging up the Mekan Geckos.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Aug 17, 2012 - 07:40pm PT
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I just realized that I don't even have it bookmarked any more.
The place has never been the same without the Dr.
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Aug 17, 2012 - 07:44pm PT
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So, Curt, have you pulled out the "foot belay" lately?
Some good fun has been had at RC.com
Curt
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Aug 18, 2012 - 04:57am PT
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This thread makes me feel better about not having visited the site in years now
Peace
karl
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Jennie
Trad climber
Elk Creek, Idaho
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Aug 18, 2012 - 10:15am PT
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The site allowed bullying.
Yes, allowing gratuitous browbeating on a moderated forum amounts to tacit approval of tormentors and petty tyrants. Unmoderated climbing forums can have their own pretentious flavors of fascism, though...
Administrators with honest integrity and the best of egalitarian intentions, oblivious to forum conversation, may ban the unpopular... rather than genuine tormentors.
No doubt ST is Cali-centric. We Teton zealots get a bone thrown in the courtyard two or three times a month, though. Californians seem a garrulous tribe...and being long-winded, myself...
Out-of-Cali's shouldn't yelp too loudly...politics, peeves and promenades...we wouldn't login if we didn't love ST's Chatty Kathys.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Aug 18, 2012 - 10:37am PT
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Oh poor Fattrad I see he's in exile over there:
jdensign5:
My husband and I always rappel back down after climbing any route if possible. To us, walking off seems much harder in most situations and if you are careful and set up properly, to rappel seems even safer in some situations. I know some people are anti rappel and would always walk off if possible because of the number of accidents during rappeling, but not us. Some people like to rappel and think it is fun, some people hate it, some people think only n00bs think it is fun, etc. I would like to know everyone's thoughts on this.
Question: Do you walk off or rappel down after a route?
Oldfatrad:
jd,
While there have been instances of climbers incurring injury or death on walk offs, the statistic is miniscule when compared to rap accidents.
Maybe an investment in approach shoes or more practice will give you more walk off confidence.
TheTool
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SuperTopo on the Web
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Let us know!