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it is human nature to rate our hardest sends with more stars...ego in play for sure.

Truth is the only accurate determination of what makes a 5 star route is the amount of stars that end up next to it in the guidebook.

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In the middle of downstaring EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!! Crazy that 6 of the 8 routes in the madness cave have 5 stars and the other 2 have 4. there is no way all those routes have 5 stars, Omaha and Madness may deserve the 5 but the others dont compare. And dont even get me started with Paradise lost 5 stars, please! at best 3.8 stars Blast the ledge off maybe 4.5 stars then I dont want to get started about the star ratings cause I would probably fire a few of ya up.

Anyone getting "fired up" over star ratings should probably find a new hobby.... Rugby might be good.

Kenny, if you can explain why your opinion of Buff the Wood outweighs that of 40-50 other people then I may include your changes.

Stars crack me up. Everyone thinks their opinion is the correct opinion. That's why the only true way to obtain an accurate representation of how good something is is to have everyone offer up their opinion.

It is completely impossible to match stars to everyone's opinion. With anything this is true: art, movies, food, beer, music.

Don't waste your time Allah. I take the consensus from this website and round down. That's how I do the guidebook now. It's much better than the other option which is using just the opinions of my buddies and I which is what most guidebook authors do.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/star_ratings.pngSource

Is there anyway to put 20 percent of routes in each star category? Or perhaps a belll curve where 40 per cent of the routes are 3 stars....

I agree that the stars are heavily in favor of the harder routes, even if they are dirty, chossy, have wet sections, etc. Take Whipstocking for example. To me, that is a perfect 11a (or 10c) but it gets no suck classic climb status. Whereas that chossy poorly bolted Seek the Truth 11d at Torrent gets 5 stars. Now tell me that it deserves it more than something like Gold Rush?

Vert, agree with what you are saying but perhaps Gold Rush isn't the best example considering the manky start.
Stars are good for a rough estimate of what is good or not so good. Pigsteak, bell curves? Really? C'mon, it's rock climbing, not rocket surgery. It just isn't that important. If you want your 5 star credit for routes you put up, just start putting up harder lines