[countyyoungin]

Ahh no worries Dan, sorry. Im ashamed to admit you hit me in the feels 😆

[NaoB]

This has been a very interesting thread but I think its time to split the topic...dabbing and pad stacking are not the same thing and deserve separate threads. 

Surely the actual debate here is relevant to dabbing - it's more about whether we should be publicly "calling people out" when they commit the heinous offence of:
Dabbing
Taking a higher grade
Using a duff sequence
Pad stacking
Insert infringement of choice

Should it be called out? How? By whom??

Can we create a formula for calculating the benefits versus detrimental effects on society for each instance? I'm proposing a shame-ometer to help us all navigate these pitfalls.

[countyyoungin]

People should probably care a little less about what others are doing surely?!

I agree that it’s good to have boundaries as to what constitutes actually doing a problem but you can’t expect everyone to have the same standards or care all that much about said standards.

I hate the “calling out” thing. If your trying to help someone out by letting them know the correct grade of something or the correct starting position then why not just send them a personal message on whatever platform you’ve been using? It’s not hard.

It feels like people love to use a comments section to publicly shame someone rather than just being sound about it.

[Bonjoy]

There's a risk of conflating two things with this debate. Is it okay take the piss out of someone and is it okay to point out an error to someone.
I can't be arsed to debate the first question.
Regards the second, I think it depends on the way it's done and the motivation behind it. It can easily be a pointless act of spite motivated by jealousy, but can also be an attempt to avoid misunderstanding and hence conflict, motivated by love of the sport. It doesn't help to lump all instances under a loaded term like 'calling out', which to me implies a degree of public shaming. Hard as it may be in practice, surely we should be able to put ego aside and accept correction without insult, especially where everyone benefits by the record being set straight.
And sure, of course not everyone has to follow the same 'rules', but it's somewhat having your cake an eating it to climb half a problem and then put the grade for the whole problem next to your green tick.

[Fiend]

Surely the actual debate here is relevant to dabbing - it's more about whether we should be publicly "calling people out" when they commit the heinous offence of:
Dabbing
Taking a higher grade
Using a duff sequence
Pad stacking
Insert infringement of choice

If the heinous offence is posted publicly (and ignored / denied / glazed over by the poster), then YES. Don't want to be called out?? Don't  do something that isn't climbing the bloody problem and then post publicly about it!!

Of course of the heinous offence looks like it's come from understandable ignorance (rather than wilful cheating), then hopefully such calling out would be done with polite informativeness. Generally this thread is about people who are bloody obviously cheating and quite often on problems of a standard enough that would indicate they should have enough experience to know better.

If it happens and it's not posted publicly then NO. I would not expect anyone to come on here - or in any public arena - and say "I was at the crag today and saw some guy / girl / whatever on their own try a problem and dab horrendously and then whoop with joy as they mistakenly thought they did it - and they were wrong and this is what they looked like and it was this problem at this time etc etc" (It of course might be the witness's choice to have a quiet word).
Edit: Also Bonjoy's main paragraph  It's a communal / social sport with guidebooks, beta, information shared, people showing off what they do, what others do, people talking about it, photographing it, discussing it, hammering out issues, there are norms and guidelines and consensuses that broadly make sense. IT doesn't happen in isolation, especially when it's shared on various medias. In that context, if you're showing off what you're doing to others, then you could probably expect them to care a bit about what you are doing?!

[yetix]

This video is of man starting in the same position, I couldn't find another video.

Also this thread has hardly been trying to be kind or informative, it's intent is to laugh for people and essentially make the posters and audience feel better about themselves, otherwise they would private message the people, rather than attempting public ridicule, which I would say (and others I've spoken to about this offline) is bullying.

[Fiend]

Also this thread has hardly been trying to be kind or informative, it's intent is to laugh for people and essentially make the posters and audience feel better about themselves, otherwise they would private message the people, rather than attempting public ridicule, which I would say (and others I've spoken to about this offline) is bullying.

I already addressed this in Tickmark Hall Of Shame and will c'n'p here:

I think there are a few key defining features to bullying:

1. Specific individual targeted
- i.e. it's a person, or a group, targeting one particular individual constantly and relentlessly.

2. No justifiable reason
- i.e. although there might be something about the target that the bullies are picking on, it's not a issue which would generally be regarded as justifying any negative response.

3. Subject matter not promoted by target
- i.e. whatever issue the bullies are picking on / using for justification, whilst it might be something publicly known about the target, it's not something that the target actively seeks to promote nor publicise, they're not seeking to draw attention to it.


With regards to Tickmark Hall Of Shame / Bring Out Your Dabs:

1. Specific individual targeted??
No - it's never relentlessly targeting one person, it's about anyone and everyone who demonstrates the behaviour in question, big or small, famous or irrelevant, one-off or repeat offender. Generally the target isn't even named nor given any context, it's just "a climber who did this".

2. No justifiable reason??
No - the reasons might be very small in the global scheme of things, but they are actual reasons in terms of negative behaviour (excessive marking of rock with chalk / falsely claiming success on a problem with assistance) that could warrant a negative response (even as gentle as "please brush that off" or "maybe try that without walking along the pads").

3. Subject matter not promoted by target??
No - the behaviour is clearly visible in images / videos that are readily available on public social media, with no attempt to keep them hidden for "friends and family", and often promoted by the poster (and the level of mockery on here is sometimes in direct correlation to how heavily they are promoted).


IF the situation was different....Say the following example: A climber with a particular sketchy style puts a series of unlisted videos of him climbing on youtube, and in most videos he's slapping un-necessarily. Someone digs hard, finds these videos, and each time posts about them, mocking that one individual - then THAT would be more like bullying. Targeting one individual, mocking something that isn't generally negative, and finding stuff that the target isn't trying to show off.

------

P.S. Mr Smooth SDS looks fucking log and any starting position clearly an example of a false positive (which was pretty much the response it got after first shown). Case closed and time to post more good honest pad-strolling, boulder-kung-fuing DABS?

In general this is one of the consistently best threads on the forum, Top Ten at least, and it shouldn't be spoilt or dismissed just because one person got one call mistaken.

[yetix]

We could go round on this forever clearly, but your arguments for why it's not bullying I and many others would disagree with and perhaps the audience who you don't consider you're bullying should be considered too sometimes.

[Bonjoy]

Yetix - This is supposed to be a piss take thread (this debate notwithstanding). It's only incidentally informative in so far as it upholds the idea that dabbing invalidates an ascent.

[Fiend]

We could go round on this forever clearly, but your arguments for why it's not bullying I and many others would disagree with and perhaps the audience who you don't consider you're bullying should be considered too sometimes.

Sure, but I don't see any attempt to refute my arguments (I didn't check what the counter-arguments were in the TMHOS thread but feel free to repost them), so until that happens I will stand by them. FWIW I absolutely hate bullying right from primary school up to online forums these days, and am a strong believer against personally harassing and targeting people themselves - if they're actively posting / opining / promoting something that can be disagreed with or denigrated, THAT thing is the target, not the person themselves (and especially not anything irrelevant to the matter at hand, and anything personal they haven't shared, etc etc - and I've called this out before when someone's physical appearance was mocked in a heated debate).

[petejh]

Can this thread be renamed Bring Out Your Victim Mentality.

[yetix]

So you don't mind if a person was made to feel shit about themselves so long as it didn't fit your narrative for bullying?

I know of people that have been shamed on ukb in other threads (and this one) and they'd feel they were bullied with the way that this "taking the piss" was conducted.

It's not my place to go into specifics way after they've happened, but as I've done here I'm happy to point out what I've perceived as shitty behaviour in the moment, if you don't agree with it that's fine, but maybe consider that just because you think it's fine doesn't mean that the person who was shamed does.

A private message would have been more appropriate if the intent is to prevent issues of starting in the wrong place etc.

[Fiend]

It's not a fucking "narrative". I thought pretty long and hard about what bullying was (as someone, as above, who hates it) and whether these threads constitute it. If non-individual-targeted, reason-orientated, and about-promoted-subject-matter critiques / piss-taking qualify as bullying, I wonder what the hell someone is going to call individual-targeted, reasonless and about-unpromoted-subject-matter bullying?? Which, as per my example in the long post, would be very different. You're going to run out of terminology at this rate.

Also at this rate you're not going to be able to repost a picture of someone in a fluoro power-vest and make any funny comments about a quirky signature look FFS 

If someone feels shit about themselves because they fucked up with dabbing, deliberately chose to publicly post (or even promote) material showing that dabbing, and then got that pointed out.....Errrrr 

If I was ""shamed"" on this thread, or Tickmarks, I would either be able to argue back and justify what I'd done (I have a video somewhere with a rag dab where I flick the edge of a towel with my foot, feel free to find it and put it here so I can show how few shits I give about something that I knew made exactly zero difference), or I'd shrug and say fair play.

(Note this thread isn't called "Bring Out Media Of People Accidentally Starting In The Wrong Place Because The Rules Aren't Clear And They Didn't Really Know")

[yetix]

I, I, I, I.

Why don't you consider what the recipients and even just people of the recipients demographic would think rather than yourself and how you might argue back.

[finbarrr]

Are you seriously saying that the whole of the internet is now a safe space? where a hypothetical someones hypothetical feelings are more important than freedom of speech? because that is where this ends.
i don't go around commenting on peoples video's in their comment sections, because i know it will just be received as negative, and i don't want to spend time online arguing or making people feel bad.
but if i did, i would.
if i see something, i say something , here, in my own safe space , where no dabber has to hear.

We play a game, with only a few rules.
if someone posted a video of themselves cheating at chess or monopoly, surely it would be okay to point out "hey, you didn't follow the rules".
how should that be different in climbing?

edit: obviously it is only dabbing if you claim an ascent of a boulder.

[Droyd]

Fiend, do you not see how your response to being accused of bullying being that that's not possible because you don't see yourself as a bully and would never bully anyone, therefore it just can't be bullying and is instead light-hearted fun-poking is incredibly weak, and exactly what most  bullies say to defend their actions?

[Jono.r23]

I think a number of things have got muddled up. The issue now being discussed isn’t really about dabbing at all or even pad stacking really..more communication, punching down etc. The div who kicked this off with the comment on the stacked pad insta probably doesn’t even come here. I say ‘punching down’ because I also seriously doubt the offender would have commented on the vid of the lad of Cypher for instance, which highlights the wider issue. Imo it’s/was a worthwhile discussion, probably away from this thread so folk don’t fear BOYD being cancelled!

[abarro81]

P.S. Mr Smooth SDS looks fucking log

This is my biggest takeaway from the thread. To quote Noble, "If that's rock climbing I'm not interested" 

In my opinion the arguments for calling people out are ultimately less important than the arguments against, because I don’t think that protecting defined starting positions and grades is worth doing if it has a risk of damaging inclusivity and participation.

This is all fine/admirable, but others' may have different opinions on the relative importance of inclusivity vs maintaining the "rules of the game", if that makes sense (see the trans women in sport debate for maximal clashing of priorities around inclusivity vs fairness/rules of the game).

how things are received is more important than how they are intended

Those are not the only two relevant things, surely - there's how things are intended, how they are received, and whether they're "true" or not... and the latter does matter somewhat in most/many contexts surely?

[spidermonkey09]

Rock climbing in all its forms is a game of rules, around weighting the rope, gear, sit starts, pad stacks, dabbing etc. If people post a video on the internet breaking those rules its fair enough to call it out as we would and do with any other sport, like finbarr says.

Once we accept that, its just a question of how we do it. You might think doing it online is out of order, but I would argue that by posting it in a public space you invite interaction. If you don't want interaction, don't post, or post privately, or turn comments off. There are numerous ways to achieve this.

There is also the question of when a marginalised group breaks the rules and how to call this out in the most appropriate way. Thats fine but there still has to be a mechanism for drawing attention to it as the alternative erodes standards and encourages continuation of those eroded standards because there is now video evidence. We can discuss the best way to educate and make people aware but there is never going to be a one size fits all answer here. Some people communicate well through long tracts of text, others through pisstaking. I would defend the need for pisstaking in all its forms; the internet shouldn't be somewhere where people are simply expected to supply bicep emojis or not say anything. Dissent is allowed!

[Fiend]

17:48  Absolute shambles  . It's a sodding boulder problem, you don't need to try to take your spare kit up with you

[Wellsy]

My personal view is that like many elements of social and community action, the impact is probably more relevant than the intention.

One's intention might (genuinely!) be to honestly and fairly note that someone has not done a particular problem correctly so as to uphold standards, and their impact might be that either the person in question never reads the post but other people do and it makes them feel excluded or uncomfortable by the community (which absolutely unquestionably does and has happened, we know cos people have posted and said so) OR they read the post and feel uncomfortable and excluded themselves.

Ultimately there are no hard rules, there is just intention and impact, which often goes well off the planned consequences. Imo if you read what you have written and think "I mean this well but I might have an unintended impact, I dont know this person, would they really appreciate this comment?" then I'd ask, is it worth it? Maybe go and fingerboard instead, or whatever it is you do.

I would also say that any defence of this thread as somehow enlightening it's subjects in their dabbing vids seems pretty empty to me, because 99% of the time will they even know that UKB exists? No. Personally I am not hugely into the vibe of going on the internet and slagging off people going out and trying to climb stuff, behind their back, and so I tend to avoid it. This thread is defensible in a "people should be more resilient/it's just fun/whatever" way or not at all (and personally I'm not 100% sure it is, though that's it I've said my piece now).

[User deactivated.]

If we consider that dabbing is like being caught offside, then there's no logical argument against this fowl being publically addressed; a referee would still blow their whistle in a womens/trans/disability football match. However, as it stands there is a taboo around breaking climbing rules. Having your first ascent downgraded, or using an incorrect sequence is much more shameful than when the ball accidentally hits a footballers arm. As a community, let's work to break the taboo around the infractions of our game and all this goes away?

Perhaps a useful template message to the next beginner you see dabbing online:

"Hey, great job getting out and giving this boulder some attention, you looked like you were moving well on it. I just wanted to point out that, like in all sports, there are some defined rules and unfortunately many of the rules in climbing are unwritten, but are still a big part of the culture. Your foot skimmed the pad as you were doing move 3 (it's a tricky one isn't it!), and this is called 'dabbing' - think of it like being caught offside! Anyway, I think you'd have done the problem either way so good job, but on your next boulder try to keep those feet up and I look forward to seeing it!"

Obviously, this could be patronising to an intermediate level climber so amend as necessary.

[jwi]

I don't know, to me it is a big difference between unsolicited comments on someone's appearance compared to unsolicited comments on the style of an ascent. The first is not OK, the second might be OK. I find that general commentary on the style of ascents are more helpful than singling out someone in particular, unless you know them well.

I try my best to refrain from giving comment on style. I don't particularly care if other climbers dab and claim the ascent, they will learn with time or quit climbing.

[spidermonkey09]

If we consider that dabbing is like being caught offside, then there's no logical argument against this fowl being publically addressed; a referee would still blow their whistle in a womens/trans/disability football match. However, as it stands there is a taboo around breaking climbing rules. Having your first ascent downgraded, or using an incorrect sequence is much more shameful than when the ball accidentally hits a footballers arm. As a community, let's work to break the taboo around the infractions of our game and all this goes away? 

Perhaps a useful template message to the next beginner you see dabbing online:

"Hey, great job getting out and giving this boulder some attention, you looked like you were moving well on it. I just wanted to point out that, like in all sports, there are some defined rules and unfortunately many of the rules in climbing are unwritten, but are still a big part of the culture. Your foot skimmed the pad as you were doing move 3 (it's a tricky one isn't it!), and this is called 'dabbing' - think of it like being caught offside! Anyway, I think you'd have done the problem either way so good job, but on your next boulder try to keep those feet up and I look forward to seeing it!"

Obviously, this could be patronising to an intermediate level climber so amend as necessary.

Personally I would find this unbelievably patronising and would prefer a simple "you've dabbed at 0.34' or whatever, but thats what the issue is really.

it makes them feel excluded or uncomfortable by the community

This is more of a philosophical point but the whole rationale of a community is that everyone is playing by the same rules. If you don't play by the rules, of course you are excluded from the community. If you don't pay your subs at the golf club, you can't go into the clubhouse. If you don't contribute to the street party, people are going to look askance at you attending and eating the food. If you start too high or from stacked pads, you can't take 6C for it.

I understand what you're saying about exclusion but part of joining a culture or a community is learning whats accepted and not riding roughshod over that without good reason. I don't join golf clubs because I would object to having to dress smartly to play sport. If I joined and then broke their rules people would be entitled to take it up with me. I don't really see how dabbing is any different.

[Wellsy]

I don't think that message would go down well either. It may be that there is no good way to tell a complete stranger on the Internet that they have dabbed!

As far as the community goes, I don't necessarily agree with that definition, I think if you climb, and especially if you hang out with people who do, you are in some sense part of the community, dab or no dab.

You ever read a word so many times that it ceases to have meaning? Dab dab dab dab dab dab.