Devil's Head guidebook poaching

As a buyer of guidebooks, I look for nice quality guides.

Accurate information. I hate mistakes that are so easily avoided.

I like a comprehensive guide. Just sport, a best of, only one area covered with so much more close by = no thanks.

Guides are better than ever now with maps, color pictures, info, stories.

Good point Tony: We don't know why Jason left Tod's book out of his article. Since we can't know what Jason's motivations for leaving other books out of his article maybe he'd like to enlighten us all.

NEWS FLASH.

New Guide to Devils Head - "Devils Head Select - 5.11 and Under"

I climbed a bunch of routes that I like out at Devils Head. I have written a small guide to the best of the best of DH. It is a simple and to the point. It will be cheap too.

If you climb up to 5.11 and will only climb 7 total days at DH you want this guide.

No stories, no history, no extras

Just a map, a pic, and bolt/gear count.

Soooooo....

Here's my ethical question:

Which ones of you are the ones who are involved with the original premeditated and choreographed attack here and who are the ones just got sucked in?

Even some of the people who were solicited to participate before this had the sense to decline, but it seems some strangers are even jumping in on the bandwagon.

So of the attackers, Who are the unethical people and who are the patsies?

Tony-
I'll tell you why I posted my thoughts. On a macro level I am of the opinion that our economy crashed because we as a society heralded making easy money through whatever fucking non-productive schemes we could derive as the real American dream. Laissez-Faire became an excuse for cannibalizing out the means of production and middle-class of this country. We embraced acting greedily, derided behaving honorably and encouraged everyone to just go ahead and fuck who-ever if it helps you get a few bucks ahead. Net result: hollow economy based on credit and debt to create the illusion of wealth; blah blah blah.

Thus I am hyper-sensitive to what I feel is unethical actions, I am a neo-proletariat because I chose a life of honest labor.

Now on a micro level we have this. I cannot fathom any other way to acquire the beta needed to report on the hundreds of sport routes at Devils Head (and full disclosure, I have absolutely no idea that this will occur with the new guidebook anyway, just assuming based on the lack of denials) without referring to Tod's guidebooks. The fact is he has basically had a monopoly up there. There are no divergent groups of developers, no long record of ascents, no one for the authors to go out and interview and collect beta from. Also consider that most sport area guidebooks are in fact done by someone who has had a hand in developing it. Thus, I see the decision -if made- to include the DH sport routes as nothing but a cynical move to increase sales, period.

The whole bullshit about including DH because it is an integral part of the Splatte rings hollow on these points:

• The statement 11 mile will not be part of the Southern edition. The fucking Platte runs down the fucking middle of the fucking canyon. (DH is part of the Jackson Creek drainage, which doesn't meet up with the Platte until way out on the prairie), and the area does have a a lot of old Splatte history. Double standard deluxe, this screams out that we like Ben and don't like Tod.
• Sport climbing and the Splatte are in-congruent concepts. T-Ridge tried to bridge the chasm of ethics at least. So right smack in the middle of a guidebook about a bastion of traditional climbing will be this weird insert on rap-drilled sport routes?

So to answer your question, I posted on this vile thread b/c I will speak out when I see people engaging in what to me is less than honorable activities. The authors are regular dudes, not some Ivy league educated elitists cynically dividing up society for personal gain; but these actions seem to have that kind of a influence.
I know that by re-engaging in this poo-fest exposes me to some flaming potential. Let me say this. Ask Mike Carrington what my reaction was when he opened up his brand new copy of RRR -left on the hood of his car while we were putting up a route out there- only to zero right in on the list of the Head Crew and not seeing me there. He looked at me like he was going to tell me my dog just died. I can't say how red-lined my funmeter was right then. But if I'm going to fall on my sword for a stance, it isn't on behalf of Tod.

Dan Godshall wrote:I am more interested in where the legal line for plagiarism lies. And I assume most of us would draw an ethical distinction from the legal. Do either lines shift with time as the previous guidebook gets older and inadequate?

Last year I wrote and released a canyon guidebook for the Ouray area. In the two seasons since canyoning has really taken off down there. It's a strange experience going there now; these are routes me and my cohorts first explored, alone, some 8-9 years ago, never seeing another group. I go to Ouray now and see that the routes really aren't "mine" (and they never were), they are the community's now, for better or worse, lots of people are there now enjoying them.

Somebody will eventually write another guidebook, or put the routes on the web sites or something. I knew it would happen before I wrote the first words of my book. The routes aren't mine and at some point I have to let go, and I'm ok with that. I didn't write the book for money...

As for plagiarism, I think you can plagiarize a description but not the information. I talked to many guidebook authors before I wrote mine - climbing, hiking, skiing, even snowshoeing. Several suggested that I add some information to my descriptions that is subtle but obviously wrong, stuff someone writing the route up wouldn't include had they traveled the routes themselves. Just minor stuff that doesn't impact anything that most probably wouldn't even notice. If someone just plagiarizes, those descriptions will appear in their writings and you know they copied you directly. One of these authors I believe even brought suit against a rival based on this. On the flip side, someone eventually will publish their own descriptions of the routes. I don't think it's too cool to publish something so soon after someone else did, but that's between the authors impacted by that. I know I would've been bummed if someone published within a year of my book, but there is nothing I could or would do about it. In the end people will vote with their dollars. We'll see if fixed pin is making a bad business decision or not.

M

I can tell you that if you consider me an "attacker" I hope you would re-read my posts and realize that I simply tried my best to correct those posts which contained mis-information or incorrect assumptions, where I have the pertinent information available. I simply raised the question of ethics in one of my posts because it seems like we are in a grey area with this situation.

I'm not sure how "choreographed" this "attack" was, and if is either, I would say that those proponents of the RRR guide could have done a better job, which leads me to say it's not been choreographed. I think some issues have been brought to light here that may be important to the community, and I hope that that enlightenment leads to a resolution. I kind of hoped that the authors of both guides would be a little more forthcoming in their own right, without a bunch of squabbling between "factions." Life is too short, and there are too many awesome climbs for climbers to be at odds. Let's get out there and climb (and maybe share a beer or two after)!

cheers.
-chris

Mike Lane wrote:Tony- I'll tell you why I posted my thoughts. On a macro level I am of the opinion that our economy crashed because we as a society heralded making easy money through whatever fucking non-productive schemes we could derive as the real American dream. Laissez-Faire became an excuse for cannibalizing out the means of production and middle-class of this country. We embraced acting greedily, derided behaving honorably and encouraged everyone to just go ahead and fuck who-ever if it helps you get a few bucks ahead. Net result: hollow economy based on credit and debt to create the illusion of wealth; blah blah blah. Thus I am hyper-sensitive to what I feel is unethical actions, I am a neo-proletariat because I chose a life of honest labor. Now on a micro level we have this. I cannot fathom any other way to acquire the beta needed to report on the hundreds of sport routes at Devils Head (and full disclosure, I have absolutely no idea that this will occur with the new guidebook anyway, just assuming based on the lack of denials) without referring to Tod's guidebooks. The fact is he has basically had a monopoly up there. There are no divergent groups of developers, no long record of ascents, no one for the authors to go out and interview and collect beta from. Also consider that most sport area guidebooks are in fact done by someone who has had a hand in developing it. Thus, I see the decision -if made- to include the DH sport routes as nothing but a cynical move to increase sales, period. The whole bullshit about including DH because it is an integral part of the Splatte rings hollow on these points: * The statement 11 mile will not be part of the Southern edition. The fucking Platte runs down the fucking middle of the fucking canyon. (DH is part of the Jackson Creek drainage, which doesn't meet up with the Platte until way out on the prairie), and the area does have a a lot of old Splatte history. Double standard deluxe, this screams out that we like Ben and don't like Tod. * Sport climbing and the Splatte are in-congruent concepts. T-Ridge tried to bridge the chasm of ethics at least. So right smack in the middle of a guidebook about a bastion of traditional climbing will be this weird insert on rap-drilled sport routes? So to answer your question, I posted on this vile thread b/c I will speak out when I see people engaging in what to me is less than honorable activities. The authors are regular dudes, not some Ivy league educated elitists cynically dividing up society for personal gain; but these actions seem to have that kind of a influence. I know that by re-engaging in this poo-fest exposes me to some flaming potential. Let me say this. Ask Mike Carrington what my reaction was when he opened up his brand new copy of RRR -left on the hood of his car while we were putting up a route out there- only to zero right in on the list of the Head Crew and not seeing me there. He looked at me like he was going to tell me my dog just died. I can't say how red-lined my funmeter was right then. But if I'm going to fall on my sword for a stance, it isn't on behalf of Tod.

percious wrote: I'm not sure how "choreographed" this "attack" was, and if is either, I would say that those proponents of the RRR guide could have done a better job, which leads me to say it's not been choreographed.

I guess if you don't know how choreographed it was, then you were not one of the people who was asked to participate. However, there are people who were asked to take on parts and who declined.

And as for doing a better job, sometimes an argument just looks shitty because it is a shitty argument, not because the arguer did a poor job with presentation. If you claim that an argument was 'lost' due to poor presentation, you've already picked the winner regardless. The advantage of inference and insinuation is that you don't have to outright lie to imply something worse than the truth. The problem with inference and insinuation is that they are not defensible. IE: Calling Jason's book, which nobody has even seen, "plagiarism." That's just a shitty argument and isn't a 'winner.' In fact, it makes everyone a looser. The antagonists who have cited this as a problem here should show us some "plagiarism" now or do us all a favor and never use the word again.

Since everyone keeps calling on Jason to explain why he didn't include Tod's book in a group of references in a portion of a magazine article that he didn't write, (and the Mag Editor has already answered to and apologized for), let me ask this: Why didn't Tod mention Jason's upcoming book for 'the rest of the Platte' in his RRR book when he printed that, back when Jason was not to include the RRR stuff? Very funny double standard, don't you think?

Tony B wrote: Since everyone keeps calling on Jason to explain why he didn't include Tod's book in a group of references in a portion of a magazine article that he didn't write, (and the Mag Editor has already answered to and apologized for), let me ask this: Why didn't Tod mention Jason's upcoming book for 'the rest of the Platte' in his RRR book when he printed that, back when Jason was not to include the RRR stuff? Very funny double standard, don't you think?

Well I had time to think, as well as look over the new book. I would say that there is a very lobsided double standard, Tony. Tod did not mention Jason's very tardy book when he published his. Whereas Jason on the other hand uses Tod's book to "research" DH for his book, writes an article for Climbing where he does not give credit to Tod or the book (beta or text), and posts a FU type post on the DH page. All this while giving his word not to do so just to increase sales of the new book (and apparently black-balling Tod in the process). So I can agree with you that "plagiarist" is a strong word; shall we settle with "poacher"? Happy climbing!

Ike Rushmoore wrote: Well I had time to think, as well as look over the new book.

How did you have time to think about Tony's post when you didn't even have an account until five months after the last post on this thread? I call Troll.

Dave Johnson

Dave J wrote: How did you have time to think about Tony's post when you didn't even have an account until five months after the last post on this thread? I call Troll. Dave Johnson

No actually, I'm a 5 month old child who has the uncanny ability to call bullshit at a very young age (after I learned how to read and sport climb with the worng number of quickdraws).

Ike Rushmoore wrote: No actually, I'm a 5 month old child who has the uncanny ability to call bullshit at a very young age (after I learned how to read and sport climb with the worng number of quickdraws).

5-month-olds who speak may be inclined to 'call them as they see them...' but rarely have much insight to get it right.
They just stand around calling bullshit, but are not worth entertaining, because they truth is so flexible to them - generally speaking, they pick a side and try to support it, regardless of the facts. "Yes I brushed my teeth" an "No, I wasn't picking my nose." sorts of things... you know.

This appears to be a wonderful metaphor considering your obvious lack of actual information. Jason was done climbing at Devil's Head a long long long time ago. Tod knew about Jason's project long before his recent edition was published. They had an agreement before either was published. This debate is older than either book having been published.

That's the thing about being a 5-month-old. History is such a nebulous irrelevant thing, when it all happened 'before you were born' so to speak. So you might tend to get things mixed up.

Let me quote an old point here:

Tony B wrote: Some questions I haven't seen addressed When did Jason start writing his book (I knew about it in spring 2008) Vs when was that latest version of RRR conceived? (???) and printed? (2010). What points did Tod perhaps offer and what concessions did Tod perhaps agree to that convinced Jason to say, 2 years ago, that his own guidebook would go incomplete (exempt Devil's head)?

Both books are getting a shitload of publicity out of this. I think a PR guy would have charged $1000's for such results.

Tony B wrote: This appears to be a wonderful metaphor considering your obvious lack of actual information. Jason was done climbing at Devil's Head a long long long time ago. Tod knew about Jason's project long before his recent edition was published. They had an agreement before either was published. This debate is older than either book having been published.

If Jason was done climbing at Devil's Head long before Tod published his current book: how did he locate Wipeyur Buttress, know the name Tod gave that formation, as well as the route names and grades he climbed while he was there poaching for the article (and guidebook)in Climbing Mag last summer? (the same article where Jason gives credit to everyone that developed all the Splatte areas he writes about except Tod in the Devil's head section and the Beta page for guide books) All that information was NOT online yet, nor in any other book.
So even in you many years of experience Tony, it seems as if you were the one that lacks actual information. Once again I agree that there is a bouble standard involved, but a very lobsided one at that.

Ike Rushmoore wrote: If Jason was done climbing at Devil's Head long before Tod published his current book: how did he locate Wipeyur Buttress, know the name Tod gave that formation, as well as the route names and grades he climbed while he was there poaching for the article (and guidebook)in Climbing Mag last summer? (the same article where Jason gives credit to everyone that developed all the Splatte areas he writes about except Tod in the Devil's head section and the Beta page for guide books) All that information was NOT online yet, nor in any other book. So even in you many years of experience Tony, it seems as if you were the one that lacks actual information. Once again I agree that there is a bouble standard involved, but a very lobsided one at that.

Ike,
There are many people involved in this story. You are not one of them, yet you argue 'the big picture' with someone who is, although admittedly not a major player. I still think that's pretty arrogant.
OK, can I say that Jason didn't go back and do a few more routes after the DH book was out? Sure, he went back to lots of places and I'm sure DH is one of them.
But do you seriously think that NOBODY but Todd had any info about DH before the book was published? You mean NOBODY found out about Wipeyur before publication? That's odd, because, by way of example, *I* knew about it.
Regardless, you've begged the questions I've tried to frame out for you and ignored the points I've made entirely. I guess that's par for a late-comer to the discussion.
Jason was underway with writing a new book in 2008. When did Todd decide to write an updated book? (I don't know, but it was not the day he published it, so both publication dates are irrelevant.) What was the arrangement between the two regarding publicity? How could Jason have drawn first blood in breaking that agreement if he didn't publish first?

These are rhetorical questions that are intended to make you think critically about your presumptions and assertions. I don't expect you to answer them... since if you had the answers we wouldn't be having this conversation... which I am done with.

Ike Rushmoore wrote: If Jason was done climbing at Devil's Head long before Tod published his current book: how did he locate Wipeyur Buttress, know the name Tod gave that formation, as well as the route names and grades he climbed while he was there poaching for the article (and guidebook)in Climbing Mag last summer?

Wipeyur Buttress was added to Mountainproject in May of 2011. The article was published in September of 2011. No one needs Tod's (or Jason's) book to get there, especially since you can see the formation from the road, where there is a cairned trail to get there. It also has a wooden sign with its name on it just before the crag. I'm not sure why you're trying to resurrect an 8-month old thread - maybe the Devil Made You Do It? Maybe the Devil will make you do it again? Ooh, am I getting close to who this troll is? My guess is it's Tod Anderson himself.

Dave J wrote: My guess is it's Tod Anderson himself.

I don't think so. It seems to ignorant and while I don't agree with everything Todd does, I don't think this is him. Todd has indeed chimed in on this thread when I directed a particular question at him. Jason has done the same.
I think Todd spins other people up with his own anger/frustration and those people, his friends, feel like they want to do something about it and act on the limited information that they have.
Of course, Todd isn't going to tell people:
"Well, I heard Jason was going to write a new book for the Splatte... and so we talked about how to mutually benefit each other and made some agreements. Anyway, a year or two into his book, I updated and re-published my own book again. Well, OK, I broke my side of the agreement between Jason and I... but I an stunned that he didn't keep his end of it."
Does that leave out some details too? Sure... everything leaves out details. But I don't think that this user is Todd... I think it is someone with out the whole story. If it was Todd, perhaps I'd drop bigger bombs. Uninformed people need to question their presumptions and completeness of their information. Were this a case of deliberate misinformation, which I haven't seen Todd do, then it would need to be confronted more actively.

Dave J wrote: Wipeyur Buttress was added to Mountainproject in May of 2011. The article was published in September of 2011. No one needs Tod's (or Jason's) book to get there, especially since you can see the formation from the road, where there is a cairned trail to get there. It also has a wooden sign with its name on it just before the crag. I'm not sure why you're trying to resurrect an 8-month old thread - maybe the Devil Made You Do It? Maybe the Devil will make you do it again? Ooh, am I getting close to who this troll is? My guess is it's Tod Anderson himself.

Man are you way off base. The fact is that many climbers pass by Tod every weekend lugging around buckets of bolts and think to themselves about this debacle and then jump on this debate.

Tony B wrote: "Well, I heard Jason was going to write a new book for the Splatte... and so we talked about how to mutually benefit each other and made some agreements. Anyway, a year or two into his book, I updated and re-published my own book again. Well, OK, I broke my side of the agreement between Jason and I... but I an stunned that he didn't keep his end of it." .

This statement is patently false.