Guidebooks hardly ever get updated and thus access advice isn’t up to date RAD and UKC haven’t even been updated to reflect to change in access status at wrights rock.Instagram is where the majority of people consume climbing content - easiest way to let people know of access changes. I always share access advice and changes on my Instagram stories and people regularly message me about the updates so obviously it works. Yet I don’t see many people from UKB posting on their Instagram about access changes, why is that? Some of you have a lot of followers too yet choose not to post anything. I will give a shout-out to people like Dave Mason and Dave Parry who are usually on the ball and good at calling out bad parking or updating people on nesting of birds etc. but majority of people here don’t bother.Signposting etc should obviously be a part of it but again that’s low hanging fruit. It’s about educating the more casual climbers about changes.I personally think wrights rock is a bit of a lost cause and should just let it go and learn from it cause people aren’t going to abide by the rules.
I get the impression that Wright's might be an early destination for people venturing outdoors. I don't know the area well but have got chatting to a couple of people in that category - up from London, strong as anything, straight out of the gym. By that definition they're going to fall into the 'hard to reach' category. Likely not big UKC readers or RAD checkers. Just as likely to be getting 'news' from Instagram, ie looking at random leaves from a tree, rather than reading the wikipedia entry for that tree.How do you reach the hard to reach?
Quote from: Dingdong on May 16, 2023, 10:16:56 amGuidebooks hardly ever get updated and thus access advice isn’t up to date RAD and UKC haven’t even been updated to reflect to change in access status at wrights rock.Instagram is where the majority of people consume climbing content - easiest way to let people know of access changes. I always share access advice and changes on my Instagram stories and people regularly message me about the updates so obviously it works. Yet I don’t see many people from UKB posting on their Instagram about access changes, why is that? Some of you have a lot of followers too yet choose not to post anything. I will give a shout-out to people like Dave Mason and Dave Parry who are usually on the ball and good at calling out bad parking or updating people on nesting of birds etc. but majority of people here don’t bother.Signposting etc should obviously be a part of it but again that’s low hanging fruit. It’s about educating the more casual climbers about changes.I personally think wrights rock is a bit of a lost cause and should just let it go and learn from it cause people aren’t going to abide by the rules.I hate Instagram for many reasons, and loathingly use it for some things.As a pure thought experiment and learning exercise how would I go on the IG and figure out the access situation of a specific location? Or do I just need to follow the feed day in, day out? Would there need to be a specific access page for, say Wrights Rock and updates posted there? if so, who manages it?These are slightly loaded questions, but I'm fully open to being shown that it is workable through this terrible medium.
So what’s the process for changing the access advice on RAD/UKC? I’m more than happy to volunteer to do admin work if necessary in my free time if it means we can get the message across more quickly.
Quote from: Fultonius on May 16, 2023, 10:34:15 amQuote from: Dingdong on May 16, 2023, 10:16:56 amGuidebooks hardly ever get updated and thus access advice isn’t up to date RAD and UKC haven’t even been updated to reflect to change in access status at wrights rock.Instagram is where the majority of people consume climbing content - easiest way to let people know of access changes. I always share access advice and changes on my Instagram stories and people regularly message me about the updates so obviously it works. Yet I don’t see many people from UKB posting on their Instagram about access changes, why is that? Some of you have a lot of followers too yet choose not to post anything. I will give a shout-out to people like Dave Mason and Dave Parry who are usually on the ball and good at calling out bad parking or updating people on nesting of birds etc. but majority of people here don’t bother.Signposting etc should obviously be a part of it but again that’s low hanging fruit. It’s about educating the more casual climbers about changes.I personally think wrights rock is a bit of a lost cause and should just let it go and learn from it cause people aren’t going to abide by the rules.I hate Instagram for many reasons, and loathingly use it for some things.As a pure thought experiment and learning exercise how would I go on the IG and figure out the access situation of a specific location? Or do I just need to follow the feed day in, day out? Would there need to be a specific access page for, say Wrights Rock and updates posted there? if so, who manages it?These are slightly loaded questions, but I'm fully open to being shown that it is workable through this terrible medium.You don’t need to have a separate account for wrights access you just need people to come together and share it on their feeds. Much like how people see news of people sending stuff you would just have news of wrights rocks access change. A dedicated BMC access channel is not even required, just a post and a share of that post to their story works, you don’t even need to duplicate it to every BMC account, just the local relevant ones. Maybe even scheduling it using an Instagram scheduling tool to post every Thursday/Friday on stories would work and make it an automated process rather than manual.I also don’t see people who are well known in the community sharing the information either. I’m just a lowly punter but I know my story gets out to a few hundred people so better than nowt.I also don’t think you need to follow a feed day in day out. Chances are you or a friend will see the news and you or them will let others know through word of mouth.When the news was posted here by Jim I shared it across my socials and messaged the group chat letting my friends know. They then told others etc etcIdeally we would all band together as a community and help share this info with others, it’s not that hard I don’t think.Regarding how people find how to get to crags, most casual climbers I come across and know personally don’t use UKC, they buy a guidebook from their local gym and use that to get about or use the rockfax app which doesn’t include access info (this needs to be an update I think). Those guidebooks don’t have up to date info. These same people all use Instagram regularly and I speak to them through there and I see them share their climbing on there etc
Quote from: Dingdong on May 16, 2023, 10:49:26 amQuote from: Fultonius on May 16, 2023, 10:34:15 amQuote from: Dingdong on May 16, 2023, 10:16:56 amGuidebooks hardly ever get updated and thus access advice isn’t up to date RAD and UKC haven’t even been updated to reflect to change in access status at wrights rock.Instagram is where the majority of people consume climbing content - easiest way to let people know of access changes. I always share access advice and changes on my Instagram stories and people regularly message me about the updates so obviously it works. Yet I don’t see many people from UKB posting on their Instagram about access changes, why is that? Some of you have a lot of followers too yet choose not to post anything. I will give a shout-out to people like Dave Mason and Dave Parry who are usually on the ball and good at calling out bad parking or updating people on nesting of birds etc. but majority of people here don’t bother.Signposting etc should obviously be a part of it but again that’s low hanging fruit. It’s about educating the more casual climbers about changes.I personally think wrights rock is a bit of a lost cause and should just let it go and learn from it cause people aren’t going to abide by the rules.I hate Instagram for many reasons, and loathingly use it for some things.As a pure thought experiment and learning exercise how would I go on the IG and figure out the access situation of a specific location? Or do I just need to follow the feed day in, day out? Would there need to be a specific access page for, say Wrights Rock and updates posted there? if so, who manages it?These are slightly loaded questions, but I'm fully open to being shown that it is workable through this terrible medium.You don’t need to have a separate account for wrights access you just need people to come together and share it on their feeds. Much like how people see news of people sending stuff you would just have news of wrights rocks access change. A dedicated BMC access channel is not even required, just a post and a share of that post to their story works, you don’t even need to duplicate it to every BMC account, just the local relevant ones. Maybe even scheduling it using an Instagram scheduling tool to post every Thursday/Friday on stories would work and make it an automated process rather than manual.I also don’t see people who are well known in the community sharing the information either. I’m just a lowly punter but I know my story gets out to a few hundred people so better than nowt.I also don’t think you need to follow a feed day in day out. Chances are you or a friend will see the news and you or them will let others know through word of mouth.When the news was posted here by Jim I shared it across my socials and messaged the group chat letting my friends know. They then told others etc etcIdeally we would all band together as a community and help share this info with others, it’s not that hard I don’t think.Regarding how people find how to get to crags, most casual climbers I come across and know personally don’t use UKC, they buy a guidebook from their local gym and use that to get about or use the rockfax app which doesn’t include access info (this needs to be an update I think). Those guidebooks don’t have up to date info. These same people all use Instagram regularly and I speak to them through there and I see them share their climbing on there etcHonestly, this sounds like a way of managing access info - feel free to continue doing this, as it clearly augments existing methods and spreads the word but there's no way that can ever be the sole medium for this.
2. Update the RAD and UKC information more quickly. Maybe speak to UKC about having a pop-up for the crag if access issues change which a user has to click before they can go through to the crag page to see the climbs
4. Reach out to local influential climbers (in this case London due to its proximity) and ask them to share the access information.
Quote from: Dingdong on May 16, 2023, 11:14:20 am4. Reach out to local influential climbers (in this case London due to its proximity) and ask them to share the access information. Wright's Rock is in Staffordshire, though being a sandstone crag now banned due to climbers ignoring the access agreement, I can see why you might think it's in the south-east.
I didn’t say it’s the sole medium but I believe it’s the easiest way to alert people of changes. Ok here’s what I would do:1. sign post every path towards wrights rock, with clear and unambiguous language stating the rules: 6 people only at the crag at all times, if you arrive and there are 6 people there already please find alternative venues etc2. Update the RAD and UKC information more quickly. Maybe speak to UKC about having a pop-up for the crag if access issues change which a user has to click before they can go through to the crag page to see the climbs3. Have local BMC channels automate a story every Thursday/Friday from a post stating access changes, maybe put a small marketing budget on the side and advertise it to targeted users: climbers, based in London and surrounding areas, age brackets etc4. Reach out to local influential climbers (in this case London due to its proximity) and ask them to share the access information. Also reach out to local gyms and ask them to maybe put a poster up in their reception areas5. Work with rockfax to update the app to include RAD and also add a pre-page here showing access issues before users can see the climbs and cragsThose are some ideas.
It’s also recently come to my attention that even once a crag is banned you can still log stuff on UKC. Would make sense to turn of logging for banned crags to deter it.
Quote from: Dingdong on May 16, 2023, 08:50:52 pmIt’s also recently come to my attention that even once a crag is banned you can still log stuff on UKC. Would make sense to turn of logging for banned crags to deter it.IMO that would be a little heavy handed. What if you climbed at the crag when it wasn't banned and wanted to log your ascents?
I have been bouldering for 8 years and it is the first time I hear about RAD