Online guidebook

[STeveA]

I have started an online guidebook. Anyone can post climbs to the site and edit existing climbs, you just need to log in. The login instructions are on the site. Feel free to add your favourite climbs and upload some pictures. If everyone adds a few climbs we should be able to fill up the guide fairly quickly. The link is http://www.guidebook.steveadamson.com

[*Chris*]

Have you had a change of heart? A few years back I think you argued against online guides. Why the switch if you don't mind me asking?

[theriault]

Have you had a change of heart? A few years back I think you argued against online guides. Why the switch if you don't mind me asking?

Since we are on the subject.... why not use a proven method?...aka Mountain Project... I know its been an issue on here in the past, but would it be the right time to revisite the idea?

I still think this web site would be usefull! good job Steve!

[theriault]

I still think this web site would be usefull! good job Steve!

http://www.guidebook.steveadamson.com

[STeveA]

I would like to see an updated guidebook, however it is a big project for one person to start from scratch. All the info for this guide resides in a database on my server. It is not dependant on someone elses site. I can extract the info and merge it into Word. This should allow a fairly easy method of producing a hard copy guidebook in the future.

[*Chris*]

There has been a lot of talk about such a project over the past few months (albeit in the real world... not on this forum). It is needed and it is probably well timed. It will need to be a community effort. You've evidently put in some time to doing a nice job with your site. Is it your intention to lead such an effort?

[Dom]

It seems like a good idea but what you have there looks more like a photo album. There are no route descriptions or grade input, etc. ?

[theriault]

I agree with Chris that this should be a community effort, but we will definitely need someone to spearhead this operation.... to make sure guy's like me don't screw it up lol If we go totally independent, I would vote to copy the MP style, with the grade and star consensus, especially with all the new development going on in the area!

[*Chris*]

Steve's principal is sound. As a starting point... there needs to be a comprehensive database. As far as I can tell right now, there are 6 areas the net all trying to record NB's routes:

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/new-brunswick/106797047
http://www.rockclimbing.com/routes/North_America/Canada/New_Brunswick/
http://www.thecrag.com/area/11740435
http://www.8a.nu/?
http://climbeasterncanada.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6168
http://www.guidebook.steveadamson.com

That's a bit much. I think in order to get the entire community pitching in effort in a meaningful way, the database will have to have 5 elements:

1) Security - That the site doesn't crash, go offline, or suffer a massive data loss
2) Ease of Access - If it's not easy to use, people won't use it.
3) Breadth - Each route should have a description, FA history, length, pro rating, grade, anchor description, and overall quality (star system).
4) Consensus - the ability for casual users to input their feeling on a route's grade, pro rating, and quality. This is a big benefit.
5) Access - if the community looses the rights to later publish the data once it's uploaded to an online site, than that's of little use.

Pictures, maps, topos, and other online elements are nice; but they are just the dressing that the ultimate editor to the next guide would want to make their own anyway.

Steve, could your site be modified to provide those 5 elements? If so, it has potential to be a big success. That said... my understanding is that MP provides all 5 to some degree already.

[PeterA]

It seems like a good idea but what you have there looks more like a photo album. There are no route descriptions or grade input, etc. ?

There are areas to put all those things in. I've added that info to some of the routes, but a lot of them Ive just thrown photos on to play around with the site.

Look at white on rice at the kingston crage,its a route I've added most of the data for. If you had an account, you could put your own input on the route as well

-PJ

[PeterA]

[quote="*Chris*"]
1) Security - That the site doesn't crash, go offline, or suffer a massive data loss
2) Ease of Access - If it's not easy to use, people won't use it.
3) Breadth - Each route should have a description, FA history, length, pro rating, grade, anchor description, and overall quality (star system).
4) Consensus - the ability for casual users to input their feeling on a route's grade, pro rating, and quality. This is a big benefit.
5) Access - if the community looses the rights to later publish the data once it's uploaded to an online site, than that's of little use.

1)As far as security, it's my understanding that the site can't "crash", as its not your typical website. You are actually accessing a hard drive, and all the data is automatically saved to an external source.
2)I find the system pretty easy, but thats gonna vary from person to person of course. I've had a bit of time to play with the thing
3 and 4 are both encompassed in the system, there are easy access methods of editing/adding that info to the site once you have an account. Anybody with an account can edit/add.
5) Since it's dad's hard drive, we can't lose access to it

-PJ

[cory]

I'm not a fan of Mountain Project, Rockclimbing, Trailpeak etc. as any idiot can make updates and changes and often do so in an idiotic way. Eventually these things are supposed to even out with community consensus but rarely do. Given the high quality of contributors around here things probably will even out, except for the name of Bald Hill/Bear Mtn/Cloud Base/Bald Mountain! There is a certain consistency that develops from a single author's (or team of authors) writing style, and description of subjective details, which makes a for a quality piece of reference material. Crowd-sourcing is excellent for arriving at a consensus grade when it comes to documenting new routes, and for gathering of data -and this forum works well for that. Perhaps STeveA's format will be superior for this task, but it will require all of us all to change to a new medium. In the end, an author (or team of authors) is required to compile and edit this data into a quality guide. (Which I think may be the overall goal here.)


With regards to the the bouldering spots, Matt started a google map that works very well for this type of application, and better than anything else out there. It's publicly viewable, and a growing team of 6 or 7 of us (who are putting up the new problems and trails) have writing authority. The satellite image, along with the markers and GPS points, is ideal for locating the boulders. The accompanying photos and descriptions allow easy updates. It's printable. Given the small proportion of this area that is developed at this time, and the rate of development, a complete formal guide would be obsolete upon completion. See it here http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?msid=215474150742044668570.0004a1fbbdca4deb21a67&msa=0

I followed his example and began a similar guide for Cape Spencer. For this I used a bing map, which is inferior in every way to googlemaps, but has an excellent hi-res arial photo, which facilitates locating the boulders. Once again, this map format would be horrible for routes, but works very well for boulders. See it here http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=rhz4mg9h6sf0&lvl=18&dir=0&sty=b&cid=A51C62A989914182!125&form=LMLTCC

Also, http://www.guidebook.steveadamson.com omitted a category for Cedar Point. I'm not sure if this was deliberate, but an up-to-date guide was published in the fall. It is available (viewable and printable) here http://mygoodacorn.blogspot.ca/p/cedar-point-climbing-guide.html I am not going to re-write it into other formats.

[PeterA]

Also, http://www.guidebook.steveadamson.com omitted a category for Cedar Point. I'm not sure if this was deliberate, but an up-to-date guide was published in the fall. It is available (viewable and printable) here http://mygoodacorn.blogspot.ca/p/cedar-point-climbing-guide.html I am not going to re-write it into other formats.

Sections and subsections can be created by anybody in a couple of seconds. I think the goal of having it centralised here is exactly your last point. Dad has plans to do up another guidebook, and all the info here can be automatically converted and formatted to word

-PJ

[Shawn B]

I vote for http://www.guidebook.steveadamson.com/

Mainly for two reasons as stated above in that a member of our community actually has control over the contents on their own hard drive and ease of formatting into a new print guidebook.

I like MP's format and use it regularly when travelling. Don't see the need to have all routes duplicated there. So a format similar to that...listing what others have above would be a great resource. My only comment would be to not have the route descriptions open for anyone to alter. A comment and photo section following the description would be the place for discussion. I'd suggest a core group of 6-10 people each tackling a cliff or a section of a cliff would do fairly short work of descriptions.

[*Chris*]

P.J.
I gave the site a test-drive using the 'author' login. I see what you've done for 'Like White On Rice'. I have a few items of feedback that I hope will be constructive:

*The route description is only being stored as album and image meta-data. Later on, when you try to compile this to integrate into a document it will be far more cumbersome and difficult than it need be. I think a far more flexible format would be to have editors record route data into fields of some type of online relational database (like SQLlite or something similar). Later on, the editor would be able to easily sort routes, format by type, etc. etc. etc. Just a suggestion that it may be worth investigating.

*I didn't find any quick way to provide my opinion on a route's grade, gear rating, or quality aside from editing the description. I think very few people would take the time to do this and there's the potential for them to inadvertently overwrite description data.

*Local hard-disks fail frequently. Large redundant web servers less so.

Simply looking for ways to make the process easier.

[sam]

P.J.
I think a far more flexible format would be to have editors record route data into fields of some type of online relational database (like SQLlite or something similar). Later on, the editor would be able to easily sort routes, format by type, etc. etc. etc. Just a suggestion that it may be worth investigating.
...
*Local hard-disks fail frequently. Large redundant web servers less so.

What Chris said. If you need any help with the server-side aspect of things let me know.

[Dom]

This might be more of a pressing issue than the online guidebook issue

I will be shutting down the dreamhoust server soon. No need fo my other website and it's not a expanse I want tor carry anymore. Hopefullly someone will pick-up the torch and everything will be transfered smoothly. Otherswise, the end of CEC may be near.

Sene me a PM and if you want to transfer the databsae to another server. We can arrange for that.

http://climbeasterncanada.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7417

[Adam]

first off - good work Steve. you're always fiddling with web dev and what you've created looks pretty good!

however, looking at this from a software engineer's point of view...

1 - backup strategy - Steve, do you backup the data offsite, and how often? would we be in danger of losing our data?

2 - availability - Steve, do you use RAID to ensure we won't have outages and that we can be assured of high availability? what if your machine crashes - how long before the site could be back up and ready to use?

3 - maintenance - Steve, you going to want to maintain this indefinitely - both physically keeping the site running, but also fixing issues, adding functionality? online sites give us the benefit of not needing to worry about this part. i would be surprised if MP or rc.com would be taken offline.

4 - http://www.mountainproject.com/scripts/TermsOfUse.php
MP terms and conditions seem to say that we can not use the content for commercial purposes, so a 'for-profit' guidebook would not be legally produceable from that site. Not sure of the implications if we made it possible to print off NB's routes into a 'free/non-profit' paper guidebook. However, there are alternatives - ie., you can access the data online anyway, and can print off the route info.

5 - http://www.rockclimbing.com/About/Terms ... e_514.html
rockclimbing.com's terms and conditions do not seem to have this limitation. we could potentially use the site to produce our guidebook(s) without legal implications (Dom perhaps you can comment?)

Pros and cons to all options. my instincts say to use existing sites. the guidebook production idea is going to drive us towards having our own site for legal reasons, but whether it's on rc.com/MP or Steve's site, it can be pulled together in whatever format we'd like. tough call.

[*Chris*]

Adam, the site landlord at MP has commented on this issue:

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/copyright/105807548

[*Chris*]

Steve... I sent you a private message via Facebook last week but I'm not sure how often you check there. In a nutshell... just let me know if I can be any help on this project... and good work on starting some momentum.

[STeveA]

The info on the site is stored in an SQL Compact database.

I have a hard drive on my server, and a second backup on a seperate machine in my house. I also backup to a portable hard drive, and periodically I backup up onto DVD's.

I welcome all help in the project, many hands make light work.

I think that getting the general climbing community involved in a new guidebook project would be awesome!! All ideas and suggestions welcome. I think there is a lot of knowledge for this type of project among the climbers so lets use it.

[Dom]

Why reinvent the wheel? I think someone should just write a paper guidebook. Chris's topos , along with the description in the new routes and a bunch of nice pictures should provide a pretty good topo. I'll gladly help as I've climbed every single route at Sunnyside, cedar pt., Mount doug and climbed lots at Bald cloud Bear mountain, Kingston, Greenlaw, Gondola pt. and a ton of obscure routes in Cl. I could therefore help with gear, stars, grades etc. especially on obscure routes. I'm sure others would be willing to help but someone really needs to spearhead this operation and glue it all together.

I love Mountain project but it's destined as an online topo, meaning you can add comments, consensus grade etc. on the page along with a ton of pictures. It's got great features but adding them all in a paper guidebook would make it way too bulky. As for Steve's guidebook, again it's a nice idea but all it really is, is the descriptions from new routes along with a picture. Again if there is a picture for every route, the paper guidebook would IMO be too bulky.

Anyways that is my opinion on the subject.

[PeterA]

As for Steve's guidebook, again it's a nice idea but all it really is, is the descriptions from new routes along with a picture.

Isn't that what a guidebook is? The pictures and descriptions are stored seperately I believe. The end goal is to create a paper guide

-PJ

[STeveA]

Added guides to Munson Lake, Kingston and Mt Douglas. Last 2 courtesy of Greg, and the first stolen straight from Google Maps.

[Dom]

As for Steve's guidebook, again it's a nice idea but all it really is, is the descriptions from new routes along with a picture.

Isn't that what a guidebook is? The pictures and descriptions are stored seperately I believe. The end goal is to create a paper guide

-PJ

I just don't understand why taking info from the new routes thread on CEC, transferring them to Steve's site then publishing a guidebook makes more sense than taking the info from the new routes thread on CEC and publishing a guidebook directly?

I'm not criticizing (ok maybe a little bit ), just wondering what the rationale is.

[Dom]

Re: last msg

Is it to make sure the guide is comprehensive? I see that the CEC new routes thread is missing the Cedar point guidebook.

[Greg]

Thanks for making this site available Steve. Looks good. I like the idea of an online guidebook that is homegrown and maintained by our community. As for a paper guidebook this is also something that seems to be in need. It has been 5 years since the last edition and with all the new routes, crags and development there is certainly a need for a new guidebook. Given the fact that you have already authored two or more guidebooks I think it makes sense for you to continue with another. It seems to me that a project such as a guidebook would be a huge task and experience would definitely be an asset.

[Leehammer]

Hey Steve, really love the site.
One very small suggestion on layout: perhaps when you go into the slideshow mode consider getting rid of the picture at the top so that there's less scrolling when you go through the photos for a particular route. I'm talking about that picture of the people walking through the farmer's field. Particularly if you have some photos for a route that are horizontal and some that are vertical they are going out of view and I have to scroll down on my browser (Chrome).

Great job though. I'll try and dig up some photos for some of the areas that are still empty.

Cheers,
Liam

[theriault]

It has been 5 years since the last edition and with all the new routes, crags and development there is certainly a need for a new guidebook.

I agree that a lot has been done in the past 5 years, but there is still a lot of development going on, is it a good idea to publish now and have to publish a new one in 5 years or less?..... I personally think we should wait 2 years ish, but the data collection should continue to be stored on a site like cec or Steve's so that everyone can easily access the new routes.

My 2 cents...

[*Chris*]

Marty, I think that the timing is pretty good right now to get started. Steve's effort is realistically going to take at least a year, and I expect a lot of the areas currently under hot development will have their major pulse accounted for by the time this next chapter is published. There's always going to be new routes.

Also, after talking with Steve a bit more I'm pretty comfortable with his site. Rather than view it as an online guidebook (which it will still be), I see it more as the fundamental database that will support a published guide. Prettying it up for online viewing can come later... but capturing the route info has to come first. Ultimately... if the community is more comfortable contributing to this local site than that's what it's got to take. I think having many contributers is what's going to make the product work. I'll be adding what I can to it.