UKH

I think I brought this up before, some time ago, but I still have the same dilemma ... it's whether or not to approve for the database some new routes at a crag I moderate. Three V0 boulder problems were logged some time ago which I couldn't quite bring myself to give the ok. I haven't visited the crag in that time, but I can visualise on which bit of rock they are (tiny, insignificant and dirty, as I remember). They have stayed in red, unchecked, since then, and therefore appear in a monthly Email reminder from UKC.

Is it the moderator's job simply to ok everything that hasn't been climbed before, suspending all judgement, even at the risk of the crag page becoming cluttered with "non-routes"? Should I rather leave them in red, unchecked, forever? Or should I delete them?

In reply to bpmclimb:

Not sure what your 'official obligations' are but IMO, all scrappy, non-routes or problems should be excluded from guides , be they online or in print.

In reply to bpmclimb:

Since the main purpose of the logbooks is to act as, er, logbooks, I don't think you should delete them. Someone has climbed them and wants to records the fact. If it's a large crag so the crag pages are rather cluttered, then maybe you could create a new "buttress" at the end for minor/inconsequential lines and put them in there?

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

That's a good idea. Just don't pander to egos and allow FA credits for crap: stick to done before or at most FRA.

In reply to all:

Perhaps I should be more specific, to give concrete examples - so, at the risk of being dismissive of people's efforts, the 3 "climbs" in question are at Staple Edge Quarry (Ruspidge West Quarry). They're all 2-3 metres high, and have been graded f4. They've all very likely been idly scrambled on in the past.

Mark as checked or delete?

In reply to bpmclimb:

Provided they do actually exist, keep them. It's a logbook, not a guidebook, and people should be able to log what they want, regardless of how rubbish it may be.

In reply to bpmclimb:

As they are the only boulder routes on the crag, why not create a boulder subsection and park them there?

In reply to bpmclimb:

I would be more concerned that at only 1m apart they aren't really 3 distinct problems than the actual quality of the routes. As suggested above, have a separate 'buttress' of bouldering problems on that rock.

In reply to Andy Moles:

The problem I find is with route variations and knowing where to draw the line. Boulder problems seem a particular problem for this. There's a few crags that I stopped moderating just because I couldn't be bothered trying to make sense of it all. If a problem was done without using an edge/crack/pocket/did it sitting/whatever do they all need a separate entry? Plus how can anybody possibly moderate this level of detail? Multiple traverses over the same section of rock is another example that comes to mind. I sense the problem sometimes stems from people wanting to get a higher grade ticked in their logbooks rather just use the comments. Or doing the opposite and adding a shorter variant because they don't want to log a DNF.

In reply to Mr. Lee:

Yeah, people get way too carried away with giving link-ups and eliminates at their local crag a name and a grade. You'd think to look on here that the Ferocity Wall at Anstey's, for example, is a massive crag. It's Silly. I agree there's a line to be drawn, but it's never going to be a clear one, so unless it's impacting other users' ability to find routes or something, why not let people have their 'tick'. Seems a bit authoritarian not to do so.

In reply to bpmclimb:

If they have proper details (FA date and climber etc.) then approve them, if not, then leave them in red, maybe with a note asking for FA details.

If you delete them then they'll only get re-submitted at some point in the future, so leave them in existence in some form or other. Just because the rest of a crag is 25m high and clean doesn't mean that the 'scrappy' routes or boulder problems at the end shouldn't be recorded. I often create a 'buttress' called 'bouldering' on the crags I moderate and put all the boulder problems in there, that seems to work well (no-one's complained yet!). I also put in a buttress called 'unsorted climbs' at the end where I put stuff whose location I'm not sure about, and where new submissions go by default. This also seems to work well.