Discuss - Addressing Offensive Climbing Route Names on Mountain Project

To be clear, I do actually believe some renaming is appropriate; I have an eleven year old daughter, and I don't need to constantly be explaining to her what some twenty something dude-bro from 1987 thought hilarious and edgy (when let's be honest: it's just crass)--particularly on public lands, where it just isn't appropriate.  And I would like her to feel welcome in the climbing community.  And blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise objectionable names simply have no place in climbing.

But.... the devil's in the details.  It's not easy.

Jeremy Noring wrote:

A route I added, Wage Slave (note this is a historic name; I am not the person who named it), was redacted.  This seems questionable, given "slave" has both a noun form that I agree is offensive, but also a verb form that doesn't bother me much ("I slaved away at work all day long"), and the definition of wage slave ("a person wholly dependent on income from employment, typically employment of an arduous or menial nature") isn't particularly offensive.  That said, it's a stupid name and an unremarkable climb and it being redacted or renamed is fine.

What bothers me more, however, is on the same wall is a route called White Collar Redneck.  A "redneck" is a derogatory term for a "poor and poorly educated Southern U.S. white person, cracker." 

I don't think MP gets to have it both ways: if we're going to broadly censor derogatory route names, then I have no idea how redneck, white trash, honkey, gringo or whitey made the cut. And while I honestly believe this oversight is A) unintentional and B) lacks malice, the message it implies is a massive rhetorical boner: that it's fine to use derogatory terms for a "poor or poorly educated southern U.S. white person" or other derogatory terms for white people, but don't even think about using a phrase obliquely related to slavery.  

This lack of even-handedness undermines the goals you're trying to achieve with this project. Please fix this.

...and now how long until someone names a route "massive rhetorical boner"?

MojoMonkey wrote:

...and now how long until someone names a route "massive rhetorical boner"?

An even better question is how long until someone realizes I lifted that from David Foster Wallace, and how much longer until they realize that dude's been Me Too'd?  Which brings up a great point... can I safely name a climb Bill Cosby?  Whoops.  Turns out you can.

edit: also, that DFW essay is.... relevant to the subject at hand.

Garry Reiss wrote:

I've heard otherwise intelligent people say that you can't be racist against whites.

That's probably because that word does not mean what you think it means. There's often a difference between the academic understanding of a word and the colloquial usage of a word in society. 

Jeremy Noring wrote:

A route I added, Wage Slave (note this is a historic name; I am not the person who named it), was redacted.  This seems questionable, given "slave" has both a noun form that I agree is offensive, but also a verb form that doesn't bother me much ("I slaved away at work all day long"), and the definition of wage slave ("a person wholly dependent on income from employment, typically employment of an arduous or menial nature") isn't particularly offensive.  That said, it's a stupid name and an unremarkable climb and it being redacted or renamed is fine.

What bothers me more, however, is on the same wall is a route called White Collar Redneck.  A "redneck" is a derogatory term for a "poor and poorly educated Southern U.S. white person, cracker." 

I don't think MP gets to have it both ways: if we're going to broadly censor derogatory route names, then I have no idea how redneck, white trash, honkey, gringo or whitey made the cut. And while I honestly believe this oversight is A) unintentional and B) lacks malice, the message it implies is a massive rhetorical boner: that it's fine to use derogatory terms for a "poor or poorly educated southern U.S. white person" or other derogatory terms for white people, but don't even think about using a phrase obliquely related to slavery.  

This lack of even-handedness undermines the goals you're trying to achieve with this project. Please fix this.

It's a two way street and if the new sitelords want to keep this site around through the ages they might rethink catering to the overly sensitive n00bs that dont even contribute routes. I certainly know a database is growing, just not here so much. Honestly what bothers me most is people that added routes without even climbing them while copying the actual books description almost word for word. For "points"! Yay points!

This lack of even-handedness undermines the goals you're trying to achieve with this project.

It was lipstick on a pig from the start.

Fail Falling wrote:

That's probably because that word does not mean what you think it means. There's often a difference between the academic understanding of a word and the colloquial usage of a word in society. 

Pretty sure he knows what he thinks it means.  Isn't that part of the problem?  Everybody is offended by something, for some reason, and by any definition.  Colloquial or academic? Does it matter to those who will be redacting?

Still looking for the PDF or XLS file of all the "offensive" names.

Anyone have that link?

Teton Climber wrote:

Pretty sure he knows what he thinks it means.  Isn't that part of the problem?  Everybody is offended by something, for some reason, and by any definition.  Colloquial or academic? Does it matter to those who will be redacting?

Still looking for the PDF or XLS file of all the "offensive" names.

Anyone have that link?

Here's the AAC's list of bad and naughty words:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_xEa0iWXY3rHV4sdRfC-OBRruF3uycaGAvwbrQZ9hyk/edit#gid=1977535907

https://americanalpineclub.org/route-name-guidelines

FrankPS wrote:

Here's the AAC's list of bad and naughty words:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_xEa0iWXY3rHV4sdRfC-OBRruF3uycaGAvwbrQZ9hyk/edit#gid=1977535907

https://americanalpineclub.org/route-name-guidelines

Thank you.

Surprised that "queer" is on the list. As in LGBTQ, not "strange, odd", etc, I assume.

Any list of the 6000+ MP routes found to be offensive?

 "In 2020, Mountain Project users identified over 6,000 climbing route names that they found offensive and derogatory."

And "Autistic"?  That paints in one word an image of many of the things I do, and climb. Bet "Rain Man" is on the MP naughty list.

M M wrote:

Honestly what bothers me most is people that added routes without even climbing them while copying the actual books description almost word for word. For "points"! Yay points!

I don't think this comment is directed at me, but just in case it is: I added that route because I climbed it, it wasn't in MP, and I wanted to track the ascent.  Also, I modified the route when I entered it into MP, because it should have had an R designation in the guidebook (R can be fully mitigated with a few pieces, but nothing in the official guidebook indicates the route should be mixed).  I wanted to make sure people knew a few pieces of gear were advisable to mitigate risk.

Mountain Project long ago drove away the pioneers and characters of climbing. This place is a ghost town of what it once was. I can tell you now that absolutely no developers have any interest in seeing their routes and areas be listed here anymore. Deciding that they had to play parent and shield the children from offensive words is just pathetic. It means y'all are children. 

Perfect analogy for the sorry state of this Post-Vital society. Before Wokeness and Cancelling came along, the Feeble and Weak were actually making up a lot of ground towards recognition and acceptance. Same sex marriage had a lot of support from the general public before the court rulings. The resistance largely limited to Conservatards. And when they exposed themselves in public, they got eviscerated. And while they'd never change their minds, the public ridicule certainly affected the opinions of the impressionable undecided youth. But when the Court issued the edict deeming same sex marriage as a legal right (not an incorrect opinion, btw), it took away the opportunity for democracy to codify the rights of those affected. By doing so, it set it up as a Statist policy subject to overthrow by a organized effort of a voting minority capitalizing on a situational opportunity. 

My point is Top-Down dictates are for the children, the Feeble and the Weak. Theyvare the worst possible means to address change and evolution. And that is what this route name redaction bullshit is.

Claudine Longet wrote:

My point is Top-Down dictates are for the children, the Feeble and the Weak. Theyvare the worst possible means to address change and evolution. And that is what this route name redaction bullshit is.

This resonates.

onX:  Just. Tell. The. FA-ist. Edit: not all are following on MP.

... that someone found the route name offensive and their reasoning.  Give the FA-ist a chance to reconsider.  The FA-ist decides.  Let it end there.  

I find nothing wrong with MP trying to be a more inclusive place that is respectful of public sensibilities in regards to truly offensive content. Additionally, it is their sandbox. I don't pay to keep the lights on. 

And while it is mostly a first-world naming-problem that pales in comparison to other injustices in the world, it is an interesting subject  to dissect.

As SCOTUS Justice Potter Stewart once said to describe his threshold test for obscenity in porn, "I know it when I see it". It is possibly the worst guideline ever written for "obscenity" in regards to "offensive" porn. That guideline plays out here.

"Offensive" becomes anything anyone at anytime finds offensive based on their know-it-when-I-see-it sensibilities. These days, everyone is offended.

It reminds me of the term Latinx. Apparently, most Latinos dislike using the word to describe themselves. They favor Latino or Hispanic. Here is an example of word that was chosen so as to be more inclusive that ends up offending the majority of Latinos. Which one do we use on MP? Latino or Latinx? Should a route name with Latino be changed to Latinx? Is Latino, in and of itself, offensive? Of course not.

"Queer" is one of the words marked as offensive. A word used everyday by members of the LGBTQ community, and outside of it. In other words, it is a popular word used by the majority of people who self-identify as "queer". But, like Latino, it has become a shape-shifting word wandering in and out of the bulrushes of acceptability depending upon whomever is doing the talking.

If I named a route " MY AUTISTIC QUEERNESS", it will be flagged as unacceptable. Perhaps it was meant to offend those who judge queerness and autism as inferior qualities. Perhaps the name celebrates an FA's personal qualities. Either way, MP would object to the route name  because distilling context takes too much effort. Better to honor the offended than the oppressed or celebrating FA-ist.

I can't tell if it's a book burning exercise because MP has refused to share the 6000+ routes marked as offensive. Let's see them.

Jamila: "thinks kafir is the same as kaffir."

MOST likely. 

You point out another problem with your comment. "Offensive" words in other languages may fly under the radar, or be flagged even though English readers would take no offense. Digging graves for words is like going off route. Good luck with that.

Since the SCOTUS has been mentioned I wonder how long it will take for them to cave in the the often offended and very soft snowflakes and start changing the english language so that nobody will ever be offended ever again. Freedom right?

I find nothing wrong with MP trying to be a more inclusive place that is respectful of public sensibilities in regards to truly offensive content. Additionally, it is their sandbox.

Horseshit! The sandbox belongs to the people who opened the routes. MP management is just a few librarians and a rabble of self-righteous social followers renaming books for their own self-esteem. Actually this can be traced back to a single person, trying to position a website for sale.

Most non-contributors to MP think of route naming as being in OnX’s sandbox. And that just feeds to their commercial interests. Agreed - horse shit.  

And, yes - traceable to one person.  But if history could be changed, it would probably be just a different person. … unless the database were officially and wholly moved out of MP and other commercial entanglements so that MP becomes just another user of the database.

Edit: Others have voluntarily made efforts in that direction. What it really needs to take off is for OnX to get behind it and even help define the groundwork so their legit interests are largely preserved.

Cherokee Nunes wrote:

......MP management is just a few librarians and a rabble of self-righteous social followers renaming books for their own self-esteem. ...

Not exactly.

https://www.onxmaps.com/join-our-team

Cherokee Nunes wrote:

Horseshit! The sandbox belongs to the people who opened the routes. 

And I own Facebook. 

Not surprisingly, you fail to distinguish between content and platform/portal. 

You don't own the MP sandbox. You simply make sand castles here. You are free to take your pail and shovel elsewhere but you can't de-platform MP. You can't even control it.

Don't like a route name? Use a different one. Like it, use it. First-world problem, mostly.

Be outraged if your ego or self-esteem takes a hit. 

Ha ha.  OnX only owns this particular set of boards around the sand.  What is created in the sand, they do not own except maybe the right to copy (like anyone else).