site update

Trail Guide? Did nobody tell the developers that they’re called “routes?”

New issue…Now one can search routes (yay!), but not climbing areas/crags.
Why is it so hard to get the search function right?

I wanna say the "Include "For Sale / Wanted" Posts" checkmark used to be sticky, right? So if I unchecked it, it stayed that way. It's now unsticky. I can't imagine how many little features like that aren't documented - this was kind of a hack for people who don't care about buying stuff and just want to rant about the topic of the day.

Frank Stein wrote:

Why is it so hard to get the search function right?

I think part of the problem - and I'm not trying to be rude or take sides or anything, but the site is kinda... old? And it seems there was a time when not a lot of changes were made to the site - which is fine! I think it worked OK enough, but perhaps how it was written initially with standards from 10 years ago is a little less... good than what you do now, so if you try to change anything, it's a little fragile. That's exasperated by the fact that a whole team of engineers is working on this, rather than two guys who just built what they wanted as fast as they could. I bet REI after a while just didn't know what to do with the site once they got the news feed to REI happening and just sat on it.

I dunno - climbing metaphor from up my butt: you gotta climb with 3/8" bolts from the 90's that some guy named, "Nick" put up and  they work good enough, but it's now are rusted, and the hangers are sharp - and now's a good time to replace them. So the local climbing outreach org does -  but extracting them are a PITA and the things break inside the drilled hole and it's mess, so screw that, and you patch it over some of them and drill a new hole and put shiny hardware in and it's better than new. But a sports climber visiting isn't going to know anything about anything when climbing it, except one of the new hangers worked a little loose and so he yells, "bullshit". 

Like I'm sure OnX is competent, and they're not going to tell you how crappy some of the backend was that they received, but they've gotta move on with the site. It's just that... you know when you're rebolted - usually you red tag the climb so someone isn't climbing on it while you're up there redrilling away? Or someone double-checks the work?  

Anyways, I hope if there was some grave secruity issure from the old system, that's been replaced with a better new system. It is just funny that that also changed the typeface site-wide. But whatever.

Long Ranger wrote:

I think part of the problem - and I'm not trying to be rude or take sides or anything, but the site is kinda... old? And it seems there was a time when not a lot of changes were made to the site - which is fine! I think it worked OK enough, but perhaps how it was written initially with standards from 10 years ago is a little less... good than what you do now, so if you try to change anything, it's a little fragile

Getting search right, and coding it in a way that can be maintained, is a lot harder than most people think.

Like I'm sure OnX is competent, and they're not going to tell you how crappy some of the backend was that they received, but they've gotta move on with the site. It's just that... you know when you're rebolted - usually you red tag the climb so someone isn't climbing on it while you're up there redrilling away? Or someone double-checks the work? 

There should be three environments: development, test, and production. What has happened sure seems like (inadequate?) testing was done in dev then pushed to prod.

Just want to reiterate.  Fix the forum post sorting feature or die trying, because you're killing me. 

Can't search for users and get anything useful. 

Getting 404 for user pages, too.

H.

Marc801 C wrote:

There should be three environments: development, test, and production. What has happened sure seems like (inadequate?) testing was done in dev then pushed to prod.

It would be interesting to know if this latest roll out let them have all three unified for MP and  non-MP apps. I’m as quick as anyone to bash OnX, but I am impressed that a major part of the public mess seems to have been quickly and largely cleaned up as though all three are functioning - still, I’m no MP power user.

Thanks. I like his tenacity.  Will check it out, maybe even pitch in.

Tried with OnX a year+ ago. Didn’t lead to anything of substance. And here we are again.  OnX really has neither been as receptive to constructive criticism nor as visionary.

I can imagine volunteering quite a bit of time to an alternative truly invested in open climbing beta as opposed to just “we won’t charge” for existing functionality 

New issue: this site is full of whiners!

Oh, this is not a new issue?

Never mind!

Carry on!

Colonel Mustard wrote:

New issue: this site is full of whiners!

Oh, this is not a new issue?

Never mind!

Carry on!

In the same spirit, sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the shaft.

Wait. What!?!  ;)

not quite sure what to make of this?  is that kind of text auto generated?  if not, can we get a (knowledgeable) human on board?!

Not one to engage in MP drama but why is it featuring “trail maps” in the main nav … climbers use this site… not hikers…the search is broken too.

old5ten wrote:

not quite sure what to make of this?  is that kind of text auto generated?  if not, can we get a (knowledgeable) human on board?!

I noticed this too. Dunno why I find this so maddening but I do. Maybe they are trying to get the site to rank higher for “trail” bc they added “trail” to main nav as well. Really dumb bc ppl will bounce when they land bc this website is not about trails……..

The search bar still effectively does not work. If I search for “gunks,” the location does not come up, or the climb “welcome to the gunks” (which is probably the closest route name to the gunks). They somehow made the search bar even worse.

erin demarco wrote:

Give me a break. He created MP and deserves to make money off it. He’s a human rightfully invested in his own personal financial gain. He doesn’t “owe” the climbing community - it’s not a charity. 

Well… this is a huge tangent but to be fair, when I originally started contributing to climbingboulder.com it was a pet project of a CU student and was conceived of as a way to freely share beta amongst climbers. Believe it or not this was before (or at least in the earliest days of) the heavy monetization and exploitative commercialization of every single byte of information on the internet. All of the content that grew the site then (and still does now) to give it value was given freely - and with the belief that it would remain free. Only later, after the site was sold, was a terms of service contract created (which had retroactive power over everything posted to the site) and many users faced two not-so-great choices: Have all our contributions deleted, or surrender ownership of our content. In hindsight, or perhaps if we had been given more time to consider our fate, maybe we would have organized and moved to a truly open-source or non-profit model then and taken our contributions with us. But it happened very fast and no one could have predicted what would come of MP and climbing as a market. So while it may be true that the owners of MP are legally entitled to do what they want with the site, using other people’s contributions to make money is a departure from the original spirit of climbingboulder.com and the transition to this model was not one that honored the original supporters and their hard work.

Josh Janes wrote:

Well… this is a huge tangent but to be fair, when I originally started contributing to climbingboulder.com it was a pet project of a CU student and was conceived of as a way to freely share beta amongst climbers. Believe it or not this was before (or at least in the earliest days of) the heavy monetization and exploitative commercialization of every single byte of information on the internet. All of the content that grew the site then (and still does now) to give it value was given freely - and with the belief that it would remain free. Only later, after the site was sold, was a terms of service contract created (which had retroactive power over everything posted to the site) and many users faced two not-so-great choices: Have all our contributions deleted, or surrender ownership of our content. In hindsight, or perhaps if we had been given more time to consider our fate, maybe we would have organized and moved to a truly open-source or non-profit model then and taken our contributions with us. But it happened very fast and no one could have predicted what would come of MP and climbing as a market. So while it may be true that the owners of MP are legally entitled to do what they want with the site, using other people’s contributions to make money is a departure from the original spirit of climbingboulder.com and the transition to this model was not one that honored the original supporters and their hard work.

This. He monetized free contributions and profited. Now we all pay the price. Yaaaayyyyyyyyy capitalism! Gooooo corporations!!!! Booooo community! Booooo public good and sharing knowledge for knowledge’s sake!!!! 

Josh Janes, I think your post gets at the fundamental issue:  which endeavors are better left to commercial interests, and which to the motivated enthusiasts? And I get it that back then the difference may not have been so clear.

The arm outstretched with grasping hand has a place but, IMO, too often at the expense of the arm out stretched with open / offering palm.  The  former often overtly suppressed the latter. And our culture over-rewards the former. Your experience is not the first.

I get what you all are saying and are concerned about. But it’s kind of more out of paranoia than fact. The fact is, OnX hasn’t really monetized anything, and the database is still 100% free. The only issue being that it “could” be monetized legally behind a pay wall. I don’t think that’s in their interests, they (OnX) have repeatedly stated this, and I don’t think it would benefit them in any way if they did.

Here’s why; The database is created through public input on a voluntary basis. No company could afford to, or have the knowledge to create, maintain or especially expand a database like that. They would have to literally convince people to continue to contribute to it. Most likely by paying them for their knowledge. They would also have to pay Admin to verify it. It would be monumentally expensive. The database brings value to the site by merely existing. To put a paywall in front of it would essentially put a cap on its expansion and accuracy. OnX is a mapping company, not a dedicated bunch of climbers he’ll bent on creating the worlds largest private guidebook.

Being that putting a paywall on the database would essentially cause it to die, what would a mapping company want with such a resource? And for that I think you need to think outside the box a bit. Look at the other apps created by OnX for the answer. The database is free, but do you know where the private property boundaries are? The state and national forests, BLM etc? The Mt Project database can give you the beta on the routes, but do you know where the trails are, can you navigate through forested areas without reception to reach the obscure ones? Can Google maps or whatever road map you use guide your car to every trailhead of every climbing area you can think of… accurately, and without reception? That might be something people are willing to pay a little bit for. The database is just the free advertisement to bring people in. I could be wrong, but I’d put money on the database staying free. 

Salamanizer Ski wrote:

And for that I think you need to think outside the box a bit. Look at the other apps created by OnX for the answer. The database is free, but do you know where the private property boundaries are? The state and national forests, BLM etc? The Mt Project database can give you the beta on the routes, but do you know where the trails are, can you navigate through forested areas without reception to reach the obscure ones? 

Yeah, Caltopo does that really well, and it just gets better. OnX isn't the only player in this space, but I do believe much of the ad dollars are to convince you they're needed in the big scary outdoors.. The quality of route beta from the parking lot to the trail on MP can vary, as do the actual route descriptions. It's all a chaotic mess - which isn't something I would suggest one pay for.

Salamanizer Ski wrote:

I get what you all are saying and are concerned about. 

Maybe not.  

The free-versus-pay focus of your post is not even my primary concern of late. It is that the freely given MP contributions are effectively being held captive by OnX in terms of online access. Last I heard, the online API to the route database has been terminated.

The improvements you mentioned - the ones that probably will be behind an OnX paywall - do not depend on OnX having exclusive online access to the route database.

Meanwhile, OnX is free to use that exclusivity to not need to be competitive feature-wise or even in providing a robust product. Consider the mess that led to this thread.

Consider what might be available now if the route database were available online - yes, even for a reasonable maintenance fee.