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Screwed over by Wrongfax (Read 127763 times)

Paul B

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#250 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 14, 2013, 09:11:08 pm
I'd pre order a copy.

Me too. It was a great day when the slate guide came through, I'd be happy to wait for this one.

The sample pages look really great. Obviously I'm not the only one finding the Rockfax format to look a little date (and I'm not talking about my B+W Yorkshire Lime guide) either.

I understand that ultimately Rockfax is a business but surely initially it was born out of a love of climbing. ANY guidebook sales that compete with a guidebook which has the sole purpose of providing definitive information whilst maintaining the local area through support of the bolt fund (exclusively!), is negative for the area and a terrible trend to set.

If the guide is to do such a thing then I'd urge anyone involved to take a step back from the checking etc. and think how you feel about that trend.

Certainly, I'll think about buying convenience guidebooks for foreign trips I have planned.

rich d

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#251 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 14, 2013, 09:12:01 pm
Share the facebook page instead of just liking it.

petejh

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#252 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 14, 2013, 10:32:05 pm
Just sent a strongly-worded letter to Alan James (how very British!). I'm sure he'll add it to the ever-growing pile!
Can't seem to attach it to this post though.

Great to see everyone getting involved. Seems like he's totally in a losing battle over on UKC! Keep up the good work Pete.

Tom, I presume.  Sorry you've probably heard similar a million times.

SA Chris

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#253 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 14, 2013, 11:17:19 pm
How hard would it be to put a twitter feed to an isitgreasy type report for the orme crags to keep people looking in on the website too?

JackAus

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#254 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 02:00:09 am
Has all this commotion caused many people to donate to the bolt fund? Just wondering.

Grubes

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#255 Re: Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 09:03:30 am
I'm off out in 15 minutes to glue the bolts in the very cool-looking routes in the tidal zawn which we started on yesterday. Grubes - I'll send you details when I get a chance, they are really ace! You want to hit them on a windy day with dry air. Without wanting to labour the point (!), this is exactly what I'm talking about  - NW Lime is full of quirky hidden venues with brilliant routes but rotten bolts/pegs.

Thanks very much Pete

As others have said I would pre order a copy. If you do a pure order option make sure you put a comment when ordering that you can't confirm a date when the book will be sent


moose

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#256 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 09:08:16 am
Has all this commotion caused many people to donate to the bolt fund? Just wondering.

It did me.  I'm a relative newcomer to sport climbing and this brouhaha made me realize how much my last couple of years happiness owes to the dedication of equippers.  So, as a birthday present to myself (pleasure in the giving etc), I made a donation to the Yorkshire Bolt Fund. A bit self-serving I guess (being as it will indirectly benefit me as a climber of Yorkshire bolts) and doesn't affect the matter of this thread but you did ask...

slackline

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#257 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 09:50:13 am
Llandudno tide times too - maybe with an optimal climbing time shown either side. Could be handy top get people checking it each time they want to get out.

 I use the Climbers Club Tide Timetables myself as they explicitly cover major coastal crags.

cheers pal, can use the page for bits of news and general interest aswell as guide updates

Like the Wiki?

Doylo

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#258 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 10:00:32 am
No one bothers with the Wiki. People are on Facebook every day.

James Malloch

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#259 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 10:01:13 am
Llandudno tide times too - maybe with an optimal climbing time shown either side. Could be handy top get people checking it each time they want to get out.

 I use the Climbers Club Tide Timetables myself as they explicitly cover major coastal crags.

Cheers - looks very useful!

slackline

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#260 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 10:10:17 am
No one bothers with the Wiki.

Wiki's are great though, far more flexible than FB in terms of content and layout & they don't require people to sign up to access them.

Their success depends heavily on them being used though, so if they don't get used then it becomes a vicious circle in their continued usefulness (e.g. "The Wiki's not been updated in ages ergo its not worth bothering with").

tomtom

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#261 Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 10:33:47 am
No one bothers with the Wiki.

Wiki's are great though, far more flexible than FB in terms of content and layout & they don't require people to sign up to access them.

Their success depends heavily on them being used though, so if they don't get used then it becomes a vicious circle in their continued usefulness (e.g. "The Wiki's not been updated in ages ergo its not worth bothering with").

which is Dylo's point - many (most) folk are on FB every day...

petejh

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#262 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 10:41:38 am
I think wiki's best uses are as repositories of route information. The Welsh Winter wiki works well in that respect - it's more popular than the limestone wiki.  I had a sneaky check of the FB page - looks ace!

karl s

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#263 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 12:28:48 pm
There's no surprise when it comes to the Rockfax selected crags on NWL - most of them are ideal for drive-by grading.

petejh

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#264 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 06:27:21 pm
Quote
* by - Alan James - UKC and UKH ? on - 11:12 Sat - www.ukclimbing.com
In reply to biscuit:
I think the worst aspect of this thread has been the ridiculous aspersions cast on the brilliant Rockfax authors I have working for me.

People like Chris Craggs who surely must be one of the best-qualified authors around for Peak area, gritstone and winter-sun venues...
Mark Glaister, incredibly hard-working and diligent climber whose West Country Climbs is one of the finest guidebooks around and oozes his personal intimate knowledge of the area in which he has climbed 90% of the routes.
Mark Glaister isn't local to North Wales Limestone though, nor is Chris Craggs. Nor is Jack Geldard.
Mark Reeves isn't writing your Lime section. 
I'm local though, I'm like your Pete Oxley (except not a patch on him). Or don't I qualify as being worthy of recognition, because I upset you with a comment in 2010, submitted a complaint about you in 2011 becasue you were breaking data protection laws, and stepped-in in 2011 with a definitive guide to an area which has been lacking one for 16 years after you'd started work on your non-definitive NW Lime guide.

This debate has raised many questions: your intent or otherwise to take the market away from the definitive guide by including definitive coverage to the most popular limestone crags, the complete lack of support your company has shown to the development of NW Limestone area (and Slate), the lack of transparency in your statements about whether you had or had not made donations to the north wales bolt fund (lets make it clear, you haven't donated a penny since 1997), the integrity of your statement in 2011 that 'the NW Limestone area can not support two guidebooks' and 'North Wales Limestone is never a very popular area so it was decided that Rockfax would step aside and not compete directly with this new publication.', and other questions about whether what you say can ever be believed - the number of routes included being an example. There's also the wider issue regarding the poor quality of your product in some cases, and your company's negative impact on grassroots climbing scenes.

Quote
When they say we don't do anything for the areas, then how does that sound to someone like Pete Oxley - has anyone done more for a single area than him -
How does your comapny trampling all over our hard work seem to my co-author and I, and the person who runs the local bolt fund, and the locals involved in re-equipping. If your point stands for rockfax in Dorset it stands for our definitive guide in North Wales. In Dorset the person most actively involved in equipping and climbing in the area wrote the guidebook. In North Wales the people most actively involved in equipping and climbing in the limestone area are writing the guidebook. But you're happy to overlook and jeopardise that little fact - becasue we're not writing it for rockfax.

As 'Quiddity' notes:
'Indeed I agree that some of your guides are excellently researched. The Dorset guide, for example, particularly the 2005 edition which I believe Pete Oxley was heavily involved in, I think is excellent and very well researched. This of course reflects the fact that he was a key developer and local activist, equipped a massive proportion of routes in the guide and indeed established the bolt fund, putting him in an ideal position to write a well researched guide book.'


Quote
Lee Proctor in the Clwyd
I.e. the person who wrote the Devil's Gorge script for our definitive guide.

Quote
We also have Jack Geldard and Mark Reeves both of whom have years of climbing and guiding experience in North Wales and who know the areas they write about as well as anybody.
Mark isn't writing the lime area. To suggest that Jack Geldard knows the NW Lime area as well as anyone is such a distortion of the truth that I almost can't believe you wrote it. Jack had to ask simple details about popular routes on Pen Trwyn. He's never been a regular Ormes climber and doesn't 'know the area as well as anybody', in fact he only very occasionally climbs there. The Pen Trwyn sample page contained basic factual errors and a line in the wrong place until it was kindly pointed out to you by Ally that you hadn't even had the decency to credit him with his first ascent and you'd drawn his route in a banned section of crag. If Jack 'knows the area as well as anyone' then it makes a lot of local climbers pretty clueless  :lol:
But then you just counter any arguments against your behavior with spin, distortion of facts and creation of straw men arguments, anything to further your company. Meanwhile screwing over anyone and damaging anything that gets in the way of you doing things the way you want to.

Quote
Well I don't really want to get into the non-UK guide discussion here but briefly...
Except to make diversionary points concerning the huge 'level of effort' that goes into your foreign guidebooks, or talking about your Norweigna authors, or Daimon Beail's deep water soling, or The Ariege.
I think what you really mean is you don't want others to go into the non-uk guide discussion. Because there are too many tales of inaccurate information, cherry-picking from local guides, lack of good-faith, lazy research and not supporting crag equipping initiatives. All of which portrays your company in a bad light.
All are points, incidentally, relevant to the North Wales Limestone debate.

Incidentally, a friend recently returned from Saint Leger, where he'd tried to use the rockfax. He recounted how in the section he was at it was blatantly clear the guidebook writer had put in only the names and grades of those routes with the info painted at the base. Any route without details at the base was left blank in the guide or was completely inaccurate. He said it was useless for what he wanted to climb. He was scathing of the blatantly poor level of research and route-checking  This coming from one of the most respected climbers around who's travelled to most areas in Europe and has seen a guidebook or two.

You justify this style of guide with the following: The point you (and Stu) make is not a question of whether RF authors should put more effort into writing their books (they couldn't), it is whether the climbers want large-area selected-crag guidebooks to overseas climbing destinations.
Or, in non 'Alan-speak': whether you want guides produced by local climbers with a deep level of knowledge of the climbs and the area and who are actively involved with the upkeep and development of the area; or, you're happy with generalized miss-mash of info skimmed from whatever sources the author could find in the limited time available before he went on to the next crag and did the same. And a put a pretty photo up with lines on it.

Forgive me, but I don't want to see that happen in North Wales in an area I've put so much into and which has a demonstrable need for a definitive guide; a guide which is coming and which people say looks good, and in a region which already has a brilliant selective guide. The French and Spanish can fight their own battles with their le topo vampire Alain.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2013, 06:49:59 pm by petejh »

Bubba

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#265 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 07:14:41 pm
No one bothers with the Wiki.

Wiki's are great though, far more flexible than FB in terms of content and layout & they don't require people to sign up to access them.

Their success depends heavily on them being used though, so if they don't get used then it becomes a vicious circle in their continued usefulness (e.g. "The Wiki's not been updated in ages ergo its not worth bothering with").

which is Dylo's point - many (most) folk are on FB every day...

The problem with Facebook is you can have no trust in what they do with your data, and they can just delete whole areas of functionality without a moments notice.  You shouldn't store anything important and that you want to retain control over on FB.

A wiki can appear a bit dry and boring and there's a bit of a learning curve but long-term it's well suited to this sort of thing.

petejh

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#266 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 08:00:48 pm
In reply to Mr 'roxo Wolf':
Quote
At the moment you're obviously criticisng Rockfax for their lack of contribution to north welsh limestone bolt fund. But I don't believe that have actually published a book for that area while that fund has existed. Their North Wales limestone is now 16 years old. Should they donate the profits from the peak guidebooks?
Alan was called out for stating he'd made donations to the north wales bolt fund in the past and will do in the future - he said this in the context of people questioning Alan about rockfax's support for an area which has recently undergone the re-development of literally hundreds of routes costing many many thousands of pounds since the publication of the last guidebook (approx £12000 spent in total in N.Wales since 2008). Castell y Gwynt, Pen Trwyn, The Diamond, LPT - 4 major areas rockfax are including defintive coverage for have had extensive re-equipping work carried out.  It's more than fair to say Alan attempted to give the impression his company supported the bolt fund. He could just as easily stated he hadn't donated since 1997 and at it would have been an open and honest answer and everyone would know where people stood, instead he made ambiguous statements designed to deceive.

Quote
They could have welcomed the competition and of course the greater exposure and traffic it will provide for this area thus hopefully more funding.
I refer you to Alan's words about competition on N.Wales Limestone:
Quote
So we took the decision to drop that book - http://www.rockfax.com/news/2011/01/31/change-of-plans-for-north-wales-limestone/ . This was based on pure economics, we didn't think it was worthwhile producing a second book to an area that was a low-selling area that appeared to be getting a definitive guide anyway in the near future.
and
Quote
Unlike North Wales as a whole, NWL isn't big enough to support two guidebooks so we decided to change plans and build on the coverage we had begun with North Wales Classics with this new book.

What part of the above statements suggests that anybody, on approaching completion of a 3 year project to create a definitive guide to an area described as being uneconomic to support 2 guidebooks, would welcome competition from a well-known brand with plans to provide definitive coverage of all the main crags, and which until 3 weeks ago was unannounced? Catching me with a sucker punch would be a fair analogy.
Surely you can see that I at least have a valid argument here against Alan's short-notice, and lack of good faith regarding  the extent of limestone coverage included in his otherwise 'select' guide. Irrespective of any other issues about bolt funds, quality of the rockfax product, supporting the re-development of an almost uniquely neglected area without a definitive guidebook, or as Alan himself stated, the fact he refuses to communicate with me on 'any level about any topic' - for reasons already made clear.

Yet Alan still hasn't publicly conceded that he's done anything at all wrong in this whole situation. in fact, Alan is now asking for apologies from people who've dared to question him and his approach to producing guides.

Which leads me on to your next point:
Quote
I'm not sure why Pete was happy to compete with a definitive guide but not with a guide containing less routes of the area. Could you clarify?
Happy to clarify. In 2011 rockfax announced they had started writing a guide to N.Wales Lime. It quickly became apparent this wasn't to be a definitive guide, but a definitive guide to just the well-equipped popular crags at that time. Back then (and to a lesser extent now) the area was in the middle of a massive re-equipping campaign to replace the thousands of rubbish bolts which have hindered climbing in this area. Whole crags were neglected but it was obvious they contained great climbing -all this was planned to be left out or just written-off as 'bad gear' in rockfax's guide and, seeing as this it would be released in 2012/13 and Apps will soon take over from printed guides, that would likely have been it for a printed guide to the N. Wales Limestone area. Lots of local climbers expressed displeasure with rockfax's plan for a non-definitive guidebook to this already neglected area, but they accepted it as inevitable becasue no-one had offered to do an alternative. So I decided to try to write a definitive guide. I would never describe myself as being 'happy' to compete, I felt it was the right thing to do given the state of the area. It was a naive plan on my part thinking I could get it done in the time it would have taken rockfax to complete their non-definitive guide, but, for reasons best known to Alan, they decided to abandon their project in the face of my definitive guide. if rockfax had continued they would have released their book and I would have had to drop my book because, as Alan states: 'NWL isn't big enough to support two guidebooks'.


Quote
I think its great that there's a book donating all the profits to this one bolt fund, and I also think its great that there is a UK company who are also having more far reaching positive effects on climbing in this country and are also making a profit and employing people.
what far-reaching positive effects on climbing in this country do you believe rockfax have, that other guidebooks don't have? I'm curious. Are rockfax uniquely positive in this respect?
« Last Edit: June 15, 2013, 08:26:52 pm by petejh »

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#267 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 09:06:45 pm
The far-reaching positive effects that Rockfax have had are to give BMC (and CC and maybe FRCC and maybe even Ground Up) etc a kick up the arse in terms of design, clarity, and modernistic guides. Of course this has worked so well and the definitive guides are now so good that there is little more Rockfax can contribute to the guidebook scene in terms of positive effects for climbers. Hell even the SMC are including nice photo-topos ;).
Maybe they will end up a victim of their own success in providing stimulating competition... :devangel:


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#268 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 09:23:42 pm
I've just checked, and a day or so back Alan said that the Diamond isn't going to be in. Which, from what I've seen, seems like a crag worthy of a definitive purchase in its own right!

SteG

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#269 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 15, 2013, 11:10:11 pm
if you could find a way of pulling in the daily weather forecast (and dew point) then you might get a page people would go back to etc.
Done

Llandudno tide times too - maybe with an optimal climbing time shown either side. Could be handy top get people checking it each time they want to get out.
Done

Website could use link to facebook page
Done


http://www.northwaleslimestone.com/tide-times-and-weather.php

petejh

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#270 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 16, 2013, 12:29:22 am
Kipper on ukc:

There's only one bolt fund in North Wales. It was a typo by the website creator. Now changed to read North Wales Bolt Fund.

James Malloch

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#271 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 16, 2013, 12:58:13 am
Website is looking great!

Whilst it's in my mind... I was climbing at LPT last weekend and The Refrain had an extremely rusty mallion on the second to last bolt. Not causing a problem in terms of clipping but it means you couldn't lower off it if you can't do the crux, also not sure if it would have an effect on the actual bolt over time. Think it's been there for a while by the look of it but if anyone is in the area then it might be worth taking a hacksaw to it - definitely not serving a purpose anymore.

petejh

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#272 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 16, 2013, 11:00:23 am
It won't effect the stainless hanger, the mild steel maillion might corrode more quickly because it's in contact with the stainless hanger though:

'The galvanic scale ranks a metal’s tendency to react in contact with another metal in the presence of an electrolyte, such as water or even moisture from the air.
Metals at the top of the chart are called anodic, or active, and are prone to corrode; metals at the bottom are cathodic, or passive, and rarely corrode. The farther apart two metals are on the chart, the greater their tendency to react and cause corrosion in the more active metal. Metals close to each other on the scale are usually safe to use together.
'
http://inspectapedia.com

Trad and sport routes away from the popular crags on the Ormes are/were littered with stainless hangers attached to galvanized mild steel bolts. The bolts are corrode rapidly in the salt-water environment.

rginns

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#273 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 17, 2013, 11:22:17 am
Sounds like you're doing a great job, and I for one will be buying your guide. It also seems like hou have plenty of people happy to support, SteG s a legend for the assistance he's giving.
Rockfax are doing themgselves no favours acting like this, totally undermining a climbing community theyshould beengaging with

Bonjoy

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#274 Re: Screwed over by Wrongfax
June 17, 2013, 04:29:12 pm
if you could find a way of pulling in the daily weather forecast (and dew point) then you might get a page people would go back to etc.
Done

Llandudno tide times too - maybe with an optimal climbing time shown either side. Could be handy top get people checking it each time they want to get out.
Done

Website could use link to facebook page
Done


http://www.northwaleslimestone.com/tide-times-and-weather.php
:thumbsup:
How about linking to Llandudno webcam? http://www.llandudno-weather.co.uk/

 

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