[spidermonkey09]

But even if it ran rife I still don't think it would matter much.

This is basically the difference. You don't think it matters, and obviously in the grand scheme of life it doesn't. But as Bradders said, climbing doesn't matter at all, and yet to us it does. In the context of sport Rping, imagine if you came across a popular video of someone celebrating climbing route you'd been sieging and were proud of getting up, and the footage clearly showed them standing on a bolt. If you honestly wouldn't be slightly wound up by that then fair dos, but I would be!

I don't know if I would agree that a massive cohort of women have been put off filming their ascents are putting them online because of comments about dabbing. What are we basing that conclusion off; one anecdote? There are lots of female climbing Youtubers showing footage of problems and thats ace.

Kind of off topic, but I'm also unconvinced that we even need 30 videos detailing every single variation of beta on every problem. Once a problem has a few videos out there, unless new ones are offering something new (a unique sequence or whatever) they are essentially just detritus in the cybersphere, just like this post How many videos of Gorilla Warfare do we need out there!?

[abarro81]

Yeah yeah I'm sure a tight rope helping curtail a cut-loose would get on here too 

Fair point!

Personally I don't view posting public beta videos as anything like a community service like crag care or bolting or access work. I much prefer the stories of staged photos with bad beta because the FA doesn't want to give away the trick they spent ages finding 😂

[stone]

I'm also unconvinced that we even need 30 videos detailing every single variation of beta on every problem. Once a problem has a few videos out there, unless new ones are offering something new (a unique sequence or whatever) they are essentially just detritus in the cybersphere, just like this post How many videos of Gorilla Warfare do we need out there!?

I think much/most of the benefit is that they provide inspiration and encouragement for people who identify with the person in the video.  Or even for people who don't think they should be burnt off by people like the person in the video  . Basically it is creating a "climbing scene". People move across the world to be amongst a climbing scene. I guess that is largely for elite climbing scenes but the same phenomenon is true for happy, welcoming, punter scenes too.

[abarro81]

I think the quality of a scene as absolutely nothing to do with posting videos online! 90% of comments on something like instagram are sycophantic and/or moronic, I dont think that's the makings of a good scene of any kind...

[stone]

I think the quality of a scene as absolutely nothing to do with posting videos online!

That is because you already know loads of climbers who you identify with etc and go climbing with. You also live in Sheffield. Many people don't. I get at least as much inspiration from videos as I do from people I encounter when bouldering.

[spidermonkey09]

happy, welcoming, punter scenes too.

Theres no need for  a desire to create 'happy welcoming punter scenes' (which does come across to me a bit 'magic elves around the faraway tree' but anyway!) to tolerate obvious dabbing in videos and to foster sycophancy...but anyway, I respect that you think not calling people out on dabbing would create a better society, I just see it differently.

[yetix]

SM I have spoken to quite a few women at the crag who do feel put off sharing videos because of how men behave. Be that criticism of new sequences/pad stacking to reach holds/men just being trash/something I'm not aware of or may not understand from a female perspective.

I also get pissed off at videos with incorrect sequences for what it's worth, but generally I politely private message people and/or add beta comments on UKC if something seems off.

[stone]

90% of comments on something like instagram are sycophantic and/or moronic, I dont think that's the makings of a good scene of any kind...

I'm ignorant about IG, my experience was simply of the you-tube or vimeo or UKC videos. The videos can be inspiring even if the comments are guff. The youtube video of Bosi on Brandemburg Gate has comments saying that he didn't top out so no ascent and then replies saying that is unreasonable as the terrain above is impossibly hard etc. It doesn't mean the video isn't great.

[spidermonkey09]

SM I have spoken to quite a few women at the crag who do feel put off sharing videos because of how men behave. Be that criticism of new sequences/pad stacking to reach holds/men just being trash/something I'm not aware of or may not understand from a female perspective.

I think women feeling underrepresented in climbing is a huge problem and didn't mean to minimise that; just think general poor male behaviour (of which there are innumerable egregious examples!) is surely significantly more likely to be a cause of that than obvious dabs being called out online.

[Droyd]

I don't know if I would agree that a massive cohort of women have been put off filming their ascents are putting them online because of comments about dabbing. What are we basing that conclusion off; one anecdote? There are lots of female climbing Youtubers showing footage of problems and thats ace.

I can't be arsed to argue the broader point again (well in Stone for having a go, and good on you for being so willing to listen to the person at the crag), but on this point: multiple women I know feel this way. What's more, I'd argue that the existence of social-media pages like Girls on Grit goes some way to showing that my friends aren't a tiny minority, although obviously there are many other possible reasons women might be involved in Girls on Grit.

At the end of the day, though, people who feel marginalised don't spend as much time publicly sharing their views as people who don't, so you have a much easier time of it saying 'I don't see the problem as no one is complaining directly to me' than I do convincing one of my friends to sign up for UKB to argue the toss - especially given how dismissive some of the posts on here are.

[spidermonkey09]

True enough Droyd. I guess I think its possible to hold two thoughts at the same time though; namely that 1) women are poorly served by the current climbing scene as it is and 2)that its not only fine but also important to point out if popular videos of problems don't actually show the problem being done. I don't think that holding opinion 2 makes me an insensitive chauvinistic bellend (although like all men, I'm sure I have been/can be). Thats why its an interesting discussion, because its not a binary thing.

[stone]

I think there is sadly a trade off that has to be made. Seems to me the options are:

1) continue with the scrutiny culture and accept that puts off many women from posting videos, and perhaps off climbing too.

2) ignore goofy dab videos for the greater good of wider inclusion etc.

By all means everyone should endeavour to help their daughters grow up to have enough confidence and resilience etc such that there isn't such a trade off, but we need to face current reality.

Also one person's sycophancy is another persons expression of friendship and welcome. My impression is that there is a bit of a gender difference in that perception too.

[Will Hunt]

In this balancing act, where do you fit the desire not to patronise women? You're saying that women cheating at climbing must be tolerated because it's exclusionary to politely point out the rules.

[stone]

A desire, that whilst understandable, is best repressed given the circumstances as they evidently are IMO.

[stone]

I also think there genuinely is a wide range of motivations behind people posting videos. Just because you presume it is for affirmation of a sporting achievement, that isn't always true for everyone. People post videos of walks etc:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=P_FA0NqrmDM
They may just be sharing how they enjoy a pastime. I think there is a clash where someone posts a video with a mindset much as they have with other posts about nights out/ holidays etc and then that gets treated as though it were seeking an umpire's decision as to its sporting validity.

[Will Hunt]

I'm in it for the likes. No move in climbing compares to that sweet sweet dopamine hit I get from an Instagram notification.

[petejh]

I think Stone is conflating 2 things which aren't the same:
'scrutiny of women' and
'scrutiny of rules'

Former = a legitimate issue in male/female interactions, created by some men and experienced by some women.
Later = the rules of climbing applied to all and experienced by all, women or men.

And I think he's created a catch-all term'scrutiny culture' and is using this term to create a false choice:

I think there is sadly a trade off that has to be made. Seems to me the options are:

1) continue with the scrutiny culture and accept that puts off many women from posting videos, and perhaps off climbing too.
2) ignore goofy dab videos for the greater good of wider inclusion etc.

This isn't the trade-off.

Because 'scrutiny of the rules' (dabs thread) isn't the problem Stone is talking about. The problem he's talking about is 'scrutiny of women'.

'Scrutiny of women' isn't an issue with the dabs thread, which mostly scrutinises men as far as I can see. Scrutiny of women is an issue within wider culture.

Bonjoy makes the case well for 'scrutiny of rules':

Personally I think folk should post comments when they see vids titled as ascents of problems, but the climber has not followed a rule by which the prob is defined.
These days people massively rely on video beta, to the extent that they often don't read the description of the problem. So bad beta propagates and quickly becomes the default beta, especially if it also happens to be easier than doing the actual problem.

With the above in mind I think moving to the culture Stone would prefer - of dissuading people commenting on dabs (daft as I think all of this is) - would go a tiny way towards denigrating the game of climbing. While doing nothing of any value to tackle the (genuine) issue he's talking about.

[stone]

I'm not sure. My impression (happy to be corrected) was that what was off putting was the overall culture where any public video of a boulder problem gets scrutinised as to whether it was a genuine ascent. They simply found that whole vibe unpleasant and something to be avoided. Droyd could ask I guess. It's very second hand from me, based on a brief conversation with a stranger.

[petejh]

I can well believe this - it appears to be a well-known issue in general public life. But that isn't the dabs thread, which is literally defined by calling out dabs, not Debs.

[stone]

Just to clarify, my impression was that one bunch of people (often blokes) post videos to get affirmation of a tick and are happy to have that scrutinised as to it's validity. Another bunch (often women) would like to post videos if only they could be viewed in a similar light to how that walk down cheedale video is. They are sharing something they enjoy.

[Will Hunt]

If the only people they were kidding was themselves then I wouldn't be that bothered, but given that unchallenged cheat vids (whoever posts them) erode the sport for everyone, for the reason Bonjoy described, then I don't agree.

[Fiend]

Just share something that you enjoy in which you don't dab or deliberately ignore the problem rules. Or share something in which you do dab or cheat and know you're going to get called out for dabbing or cheating.

[Dingdong]

Personal anecdote but I’ve enjoyed climbing so much more since not posting videos and updates about it incessantly including ones where I’d dab - feels like I’m doing it for me now which is kinda nice, actually less pressure on myself and care less about validation which I think is the main reason why people share videos in all honesty

[highrepute]

I noticed you'd taken down the video of the new problem next to beauty Carlos. Presumably as a direct result of Will calling dab on it. That seems a shame. No one benefitted from that dab call. We all lost that video.

I agree with stone.

There was some mention of growing thicker-skins earlier in the thread. Perhaps those who are struggling to ignore dabs and rule breaking need to grow thicker skins and just move on.

Not so much now but in the past I have really struggled to post on the internet because of fear of being critisized. Especially on here. I would have done something, that I was genuinely excited about,  thought it was cool and wanted to share with the community. Only for it to be diminished in some way (usually Adam Long retro-claiming what I thought was a first ascent coupled with some.kind of put down).

I remember when the Copley twins were subject of much derision on here. They'd posted some pics of them doing Brad Pitt and they were being accused on here of faking the pics. I'd been there that day, I'd bumped into them and watched one of them do Brad Pitt three times. It was really great, they were young, strong, pysched and a pleasure to be around.( This enthusiasm did make them slightly annoying on the interest.) Anyway, I had to post on ukb to defend them and I really didn't want to do it because I didn't want to be the derision to be directed at me. Can't find that post now.

That was allot of words to say that feeling of not wanting to post resonates with me.

[Dingdong]

Oh I actually took it down cause it got bin voted to death so assumed no one  thought it was any good so wasn’t worthwhile having a video, wasn’t too bothered about the dab as I did it without dabbing