UKH

I wonder what they were thinking? Abseil rope stressed over a bolt edge and complete ignorance of how the set-up works.

https://www.climbing.com/skills/rappel-dangerous-rope-technique/

OK.. it's a stupid way to do it, add completely possible unnecessary failure modes and they shouldn't repeat it. But is it actually that dangerous. The edges aren't that sharp, the load isn't too bad and bolts are strong.

Completely Stupid: YES, Needs education: YES, inevitable immediate death: NO.

Personally if they were doing something as daft as that, I'd be more worried about -- what on earth else are they doing?

Yes, you're absolutely right, getting into the habit of doing that is a disaster waiting to happen - I'm sure you're thinking of the El Cap incident where three climbers died - but as Tom says the rope does not run over sharp edges in that photo. However if they got used to doing in that instance, imagine the consequences of doing it on this belay linked below.

If the El Cap incident is the one referenced in the article, that was bolt failure rather than the rope running over sharp edges - one bolt failed and the rope slipped over the ring and remaining bolt.

Of course, even if they had threaded the ring, that's not redundant. I've always wondered how much more likely the bolts/hangers are to fail than the ring itself.

Exactly my point. Maybe badly worded... I was pointing out that the real danger in that photo was nothing to do with sharp edges, but everything to do with where the rope was threaded.

The visible metalwork rarely fails (never?) and tends to be visibly bad if it might. The thigthat fails is the bit you can't see in the rock, or the rock itself.

Sea cliff pegs often look grand outside but are corroded shit inside the crack. 

If you pull test a bolt, it won't be the external loop or chain that fails, but the bolt can pull out of the hole especially if it hadn't been properly blown clean of dust.

Perhaps they wanted to spread the wear on the inside of the ring…

Well I've seen damaged bolt edges on such belays and it's bad practice to abseil in weighted contact on any bolt edge.

Fair comment re the damaged edges, especially if the equipper wasn't very accurate when hitting the bolt home. But it is a very oblique angle. I'd have thought running over some rock edges would do more damage. But, you're right anyway, it's bad practice to thread the rope through there, full stop!