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I had an epiphany, this site is a great place to make the Red safer right? Well wouldn't it make sense to add a section in the 'online guidebook' where all the bad bolts are. Maybe you could make a 'report a bad bolt here' button under each route.

Ya sure we can report them in the comments section for each route, but considering you can only see the latest 5 comments, it's not a great way for people like Team Suck and everyone else to find where these bad bolts are. You can't even see what the latest 5 comments are unless you click each one, and most of them are just spray or complaining anyways.

Not everyone knows about Team Suck, and heck I'm guilty of reporting bad bolts under the comments of a route on this site instead of directly to Team Suck, just like lots of other people that I've seen leaving comments on routes.

I think it would really help Team Suck out, and just us climbers if we had a database on here of where all the bad bolts were. Team Suck could check it out and find new leads, and other bolters might help out as well. On top of that it would help climbers know which routes are falling apart, and someone might just pick a safer route to project and fall all over.

It would be great if you could add a description about the bad bolt as well(example: it's pulled a half inch out of the wall). It would also be great if there could be multiple comments for the same bad bolt; If a route had 4 people comment about the exact same bolt being bad, it would be a lot more plausible that the bolt really is bad than if just one person claimed it to be.

What's more important, pretty pictures in a new gallery section, or our safety!

p.s. I am happy there is a new gallery section. There sure is a lot of thumbnails displayed at one time though. O and when you click the photo(not the thumbnail but the photo) shouldn't it show it in it's original size instead of going to the next photo, I mean there is a next button for that. I like how quickly each photo loads though, it's much better than Photobucket or FB.

You mean something like the "Report a Bad Bolt" link beside the bolt count on every route in the database?

You can report bad bolts directly to Team Suck

http://teamsuckclimbing.com/

Can you really only see the latest 5 comments, because I can see all of them.

Maybe you have a bigger monitor.

It would help if everyone understands what constitutes a "bad bolt". Sending Team Suck on a mission to fix something that only needed a couple of cranks of a wrench....well sucks. Plus fixing/replacing bad bolts should be the responsibility of every climber not just Team Suck. Yes there should be a way to communicate bad bolts, which we already have with the Team Suck website, but climbers really need to try and fix it themselves first.

The Red is already "safe" it's climbers who are dangerous and correct me if I am wrong (Ray) but the mission of this site is not to make the Red safer.

exactly. i think what redpoint was getting at is that everybody should be have access to a comprehensive database of bad-bolt-notes, in addition to team suck (god bless'm).

it would certainly raise a lot more awareness to the cause... think of the millions of gumbies out there that peruse the online guidebook daily--if they would also have a little exposure to the possibility that "RO SHAMPO or FUZZY UNDERCLING or WILD YET TASTY MIGHT HAVE A BAD BOLT" or something, it might make them think just a bit more about the gear, the people who put it there, etc. safety is one plus. promoting community responsibility is another plus, too.

i think it's a good ideaer

toad857 wrote:exactly. i think what redpoint was getting at is that everybody should be have access to a comprehensive database of bad-bolt-notes, in addition to team suck (god bless'm).

it would certainly raise a lot more awareness to the cause... think of the millions of gumbies out there that peruse the online guidebook daily--if they would also have a little exposure to the possibility that "RO SHAMPO or FUZZY UNDERCLING or WILD YET TASTY MIGHT HAVE A BAD BOLT" or something, it might make them think just a bit more about the gear, the people who put it there, etc. safety is one plus. promoting community responsibility is another plus, too.

i think it's a good ideaer

I was just thinking of that. randomly looking at routes in the online guidebook recently, I came across dustonian's comment from March of 2010 on Deep Six (at Global Village). It said something about "bolts mostly good, except the one before the runout at the top, of course". I am pretty sure that there were comments before about bad anchors on this route from couple years ago, though when I went back just now, I couldn't find them. (And yes, something screwy with the comments... I used to be able to see all comments, but now I only see 6, and there is no place to click for "view all comments" Moght be something to do with IE?)

Anyway, that got me thinking-- if someone reported bad bolts on that route, how would I know about it? And how would I know whether it was truly bad bolt, or not? And whether it was already fixed, if it was truly bad?

I know climbing comes with risks, and I am entirely free to get on that route myself, and if I got to the bolt that didn't look good and I didn't want to trust it, I am entirely free to bail on the bolt below it and leave a 'biner. Or entirely free to decide to clip it anyway... but it would be nice to know if it was fixed, or not, before getting on a route.

Right now I don't see any way of finding out about it, short of either asking the team Suck people directly, or waiting to see someone posting a comment on that route specifically, either "you are smoking weed, that bolt is bomber, I climbed this route yesterday", or " yeah, it is kind-of bad, I'll get to it within a couple of months", or "I replaced the bolt yesterday".

But if there was a centralized place, it would be easier to check. And IMO, it can be set up so the issue of someone inexperienced reporting a bad bolt when it is a perfectly good bolt that just needed a little tightening can be mitigated. Let's say person A reports a bad bolt. A super-climber person B who runs warm-up laps on that route every day would have an option of checking the list and commenting something along the lines of:"no, it's fine, just a little loose. I just tightened it yesterday."

And you could add some sort of priority rating on it, in terms of plans to check/replace it. (Something like, if it is a popular route, and 10 people have clicked on "report bad bolt" in the past month, it probably really is bad, or should be looked at ASAp b/c it is a route everyone gets on, as opposed to a route that got one click).

IMO if people see how many routes have kinda-sorta bad bolts reported, it might encourage more donation/involvement. And it might also discourage people from getting in over their heads, b/c "it is just sport climbing, those bolts are bomber, dude"? Who knows...

lena_chita wrote: IMO if people see how many routes have kinda-sorta bad bolts reported, it might encourage more donation/involvement. And it might also discourage people from getting in over their heads, b/c "it is just sport climbing, those bolts are bomber, dude"? Who knows...

totally

Ya I forgot about the report bad bolts button next to the bolt count, but my main point of this topic has been identified: I wish people could have a database to look through the bad bolts and their comments, thus raising awareness.

About the 5 comments thing:
I can see all the comments for each route, but on the guidebook home page where it says 'recent comments' I didn't like how you only get to see the latest 5 comments. I also wish you could see more than just the latest 5 newest routes. I don't check the latest routes enough, and if I missed number 6 for instance, the only way I could find out about it would be to check every wall in the online guidebook.

(UPDATE) I found out if you click "Since your last login: X comments" you can then click view last 100 comments. It's not a very convenient place for the button, but at least I found it. Maybe next to "Recent Comments edit" on the homepage of the guidebook you should add a link that says latest 100 comments.