An idea to improve the MP rating system.

What if it was a 5 star scale but each user could only rate 10 total climbs with the coveted 5 star rating. Basically, you'd have your top ten favorite climbs on your profile and if you rated another climb 5 stars it would ask you which one you'd want to bump off. What do you guys think.

Not completely dismissing the idea, but then you know after 30 years of traveling and climbing, I'd be allowed to rate 10 classic climbs in all, then sandbag everything else. Meahwhile, Joe McPsyched, who has climbed 15 things at the sport park, in all, could rate 2.3 of that as classic.

Tony B wrote:Not completely dismissing the idea, but then you know after 30 years of traveling and climbing, I'd be allowed to rate 10 classic climbs in all, then sandbag everything else. Meahwhile, Joe McPsyched, who has climbed 15 things at the sport park, in all, could rate 2.3 of that as classic.

I thought about that too. 4 stars would still be considered classic, that way there would be no need to overhaul all the ratings that exist already. You'd just have to be picky about your top ten. Overtime, all the truly amazing climbs would start racking up 5 star ratings. Would a top 20 be better?

Don Ferris wrote: I thought about that too. 4 stars would still be considered classic, that way there would be no need to overhaul all the ratings that exist already. You'd just have to be picky about your top ten. Overtime, all the truly amazing climbs would start racking up 5 star ratings. Would a top 20 be better?

Ten more, or 20 More?
I'm going to City of Rocks for a week in June, then the Tetons for a week or more in July. And I can only rank 10-20 "classics" for the rest of my career?
Seems like percentage might still be the way to go, if we must do such a thing. But honestly, I never considered it "broken" as anything with a high disparity in opinions is likely both under and over ranked by some people.

Tony B wrote: Ten more, or 20 More? I'm going to City of Rocks for a week in June, then the Tetons for a week or more in July. And I can only rank 10-20 "classics" for the rest of my career? Seems like percentage might still be the way to go, if we must do such a thing. But honestly, I never considered it "broken" as anything with a high disparity in opinions is likely both under and over ranked by some people.

I don't consider the current rating system broken. It works just fine. The current bomb, ok, good, great, classic, 1-4 scale would be unchanged. Climbs would keep their existing rating. You could still throw 4 star classic around willy nilly. However, each user would have a finite number of "5 star" favorites, über classics or whatever you wanted to call them.

An example would be The Bastille crack vs the naked edge. The Bastille is a 4 star "classic". Great approach, history, position, blah blah blah but it's really not great climbing. The naked edge on the other hand has all those things in addition to phenomenal climbing. It's worthy of someone's top ten favorite and over time it's amount of 5 star ratings would reflect that.

I pretty much already do what Don is talking about, except that I allow myself 10ish climbs per area (depending on the size of the area).
Though that could get a little messy if say one person considers Lumpy Ridge it's own area rather than part of RMNP as a whole.

I definitely like David's idea of having a top 10, 20... (however many really) that an individual would have on their personal page. Then you could go check out what someone's all time favorites are in rank order.

The system is fine as it is, as long as you accept the caveat that ratings are highly subjective and local. I don't think it's necessary (or possible) to scale the ratings to national levels, as this would decimate local crags. The ratings are useful for finding which climbs are worth your time in a given area, not to somehow find a way of quantifying the difference between an overhanging 5.12 sport pitch in Kentucky to a 12 pitch big wall in Yosemite.

youtube.com/watch?v=xlA9bNk…

I like the top 10 / 20 / 50 favorite climbs idea. Can be added to personal profile page and then collated into a common database to determine top 50 favorite climbs among MP users.

I think the idea is AWESOME. However, I would not adjust the current star rating. It works well. What about a separate rating for all time top ten? I'd love to know which climbs fit that category. It would be really cool if there were simply check boxes in your tick list. You get ten checks. Simply display the hard number of all time top ten votes.

Victor K wrote:I think the idea is AWESOME. However, I would not adjust the current star rating. It works well. What about a separate rating for all time top ten? I'd love to know which climbs fit that category. It would be really cool if there were simply check boxes in your tick list. You get ten checks. Simply display the hard number of all time top ten votes.

Well, yes, but... Then Bastille Crack will win.
Point being, it will be a popularity contest, not a quality contest. Maybe "% of raters" if N >5 is a better way to go, if you must.

Well, I love lists, because they generate discussion. Maybe a better number would be the ratio of top ten votes to total ticks. Besides, we won't know what will rise to the top unless we have the data.

Christian wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlA9bNk3b5Q

Couldn't agree more.