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General Climbing Discussion

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thecrag.com 8-Nov-2010 At 7:56:45 PM rolsen1

Message

On 29/10/2010 superstu wrote:
>Climbing websites are breeding like rabbits at the moment; they are popping
>up everywhere. The problem of route information being distributed haphazardly
>or recorded in multiple places is only going to get worse.
>
>Right now say I wanted info on a route at my local sydney sandstone crag.
>I could look:
>1. on ACA
>2. on the sydney rockies website new routes section
>3. on pmonks sun surf & sandy climbs website
>4. rod wills crag x
>5. thrutch magazine
>6. chockstone crag & route beta pages
>7. thecrag.com
>8. find that old rock mag guide by mikl
>
>Sheesh !
>
>I'm better off typing something in google and see what comes up!
>
>Much as I marvel at the phenomenal growth of the interweb and the ability
>to disseminate information in a way that we only dreamed of 20 years ago,
>its seemingly chaotic market-driven development can be a real bugger (just
>ask any propeller head who has to write software for it: its a mess).
>
>Should we all form a working group to build a central repository,
>following an agreed format, accessible to all via a web interface (for
>humans) and an API (for machines) so that the individual web site managers
>can download data and upload contributions?
>
>What's in it for web site owners? Basically your site will have to attract
>visitors for other reasons. Whether thats so users can build ticklists
>and tick pyramids, or chat and trade beta on particular routes, tell stories,
>trip reports etc or just be a stupid list of 50 most popular climbs...
> After all didn't we all agree that climbing route information should be
>free and freely available; the 'copyright' on route info that people have
>tried in the past is bollox (rock magazine guides, the boganville saga,
>thecrag.com licensing, and so on).
>
>Before the recent explosion in web-based route info, the tussle between
>the "select guides" and the "all route info guides" was being thrashed
>out. Climbing websites will become the "select guides" and the central
>repository as the "all route info guides" which were previously published
>by climbing clubs (usually at a loss) as a service to the climbing community.
>

I don't think a central repository is ever the answer, but I agree with you other ideas. I'd be interested in working with others on this - I briefly played with the ACA code with aims of publishing an API (which they agreed to) but I felt it required a total rewrite, something I wasn't prepared to do nor felt I was being asked to do. No criticism intended but the code just wasn't in a form that would allow it to be easily translated.

By having a common adopted API, I think we'd see some real innovation. I think this definitely a possibility as ACA is (or has been in the past) open to it.