[scragrock]

Here we are again.....
Welcome to 2024

[stone]

03675085]
Questions for you stone:

Do you think its ok for people to post videos claiming to have climbed things they haven't? Do you think there might be some knock on effects if it was considered unacceptable to point out when people have made a mistake/aren't aware of the rules/are obviously cheating? (and take the piss out of them in the last example, but not the first two)

Like I said, I think the way to do it is face-to-face. It is fine to say (face-to-face to them) that how they climb not only doesn't fit your rules but also upsets you. I don't think mocking people is ever good unless they are close friends who obviously like it  -geniune mutual bantz. Even then I think it is important that onlookers don't get the misimpression that it is cruel and one-way -as these things spread.

[spidermonkey09]

It's a wider point, but reading between the lines of Stones posts I think he's arguing that piss taking shouldn't exist in the online arena, only face to face and even then should have no edge at all to it and should only be taking place between people who know each other well. Meanwhile, all that should exist in the online arena is relentless positivity. I think that is both unrealistic and very undesirable.

Edit; as I posted stone has confirmed this. I think that's hopelessly idealistic. It's taking #bekind to a place where the concept completely ceases to be useful. It also ignores that many people find it much easier to order their thoughts into a cogent response in text rather than verbally.

[petejh]

Seriously, I think it is always much better to convey potentially awkward stuff face to face rather than online. I think japey comments online are an especially grim approach. To be honest, to me, that comes across as being at least as motivated by the esprit-de-corps derived amongst the mockers than for public clarification of bouldering rules (obviously I can only guess as to other peoples' motivations but that is how you are perceived by me at least).

OK, got it. Thanks for clarifying. I understand how you feel about online commenting. I disagree with your proposal that people refrain from online feedback. Don't want to spend ages articulating why and it's mostly all been said.

[stone]

It's a wider point, but reading between the lines of Stones posts I think he's arguing that piss taking shouldn't exist in the online arena, only face to face and even then should have no edge at all to it and should only be taking place between people who know each other well. Meanwhile, all that should exist in the online arena is relentless positivity. I think that is both unrealistic and very undesirable.

Edit; as I posted stone has confirmed this. I think that's hopelessly idealistic. It's taking #bekind to a place where the concept completely ceases to be useful. It also ignores that many people find it much easier to order their thoughts into a cogent response in text rather than verbally.

It isn't hopeless to be idealistic about ourselves. I have no aspiration to thwart the legions of trolls who eg mock people with mental health issues or whatever. I agree that would be a hopelessly unrealistic aspiration. But here we are talking about a small group of very nice gents. My guess is that most of those who do most to frighten off public posting of bouldering videos are influenceable by people ware of this discussion. I do think a choice is being made.

[Fiend]

Fiend, many people express much the same view point as that regarding online mocking of eg people expressing mental health experiences. I find that view mystifying in that context and in this context too.

Stone do you really not get that there is a massive difference between someone choosing to share themselves deliberately minorly cheating at a leisure activity which is entirely within their control, and someone choosing to share traumatic struggles with health issues they are unavoidably suffering from, and how those two things should be treated?? Or is this another post in the "World's Worst Analogies" Top Trumps game??

P.S. I know that's mocking someone's bad analogies. Nothing personal intended and i'm quite entertained by this latest dab-calling-ethics revival, it's made Christmas more tolerable.

[Droyd]

This might be asking for a lot, but I figure it's worth throwing out there: if you're absolutely convinced that publicly calling out people who 'break the rules' is reasonable, try talking to the people around you about it - preferably other climbers who are different from you in terms of things like gender, climbing experience, and ability, but if you can't manage that but have, say, a non-climbing partner, then maybe try and chat to them about it and see if they agree that what you're arguing for is reasonable. If they do then great; you can carry on knowing that you've at least made an effort to understand the view of someone who is a bit different from you. If they don't, then that's going to carry a lot more weight in terms of changing your opinion than random people on a forum citing people they met at the crag or their nameless friends.

I think that this is worthwhile because I was on the other side for a long time - I never posted anything myself because a) I just don't care that much (as I've argued in the past I still don't really see that an eroding of ethics has any effect on my climbing), and b) I'm too scared of someone thinking that I'm a dick. But there was always a little part of me that made me click on this thread when I saw a new post so that I could have a little vicarious chuckle, and if I stumbled upon a beta video with an infraction I'd scroll down and see if someone else had commented, because there was a part of me that didn't have the balls to say anything but did sort of want that person to know that they'd cheated.

When I talked to other people about this, all the ones who were like me (blokes who were keen boulderers, 20s-30s, white, no disabilities, climbing somewhere in the high sevens to low eights having been involved for years/decades) felt exactly the same - basically 'I wouldn't mind if someone told me I was wrong so why should anyone else, and if I do say something I'm always polite, and if I take the piss it's only a bit of banter, and if they don't see that then that's on them for trying to get away with cheating in the first place'. Some of the people I talked to who didn't look like me also felt this way, but not all of them. And the ones who disagreed with calling people out said that it made them feel less a part of the climbing community, less likely to upload videos, less likely to generally climb and talk about climbing and be involved in debates. The non-climbers I spoke to about it said that it sounded mental and made them less likely to get into climbing. My partner (at the time a climber) didn't know it was a thing before I told her about it, and said that it made her want to be a climber less and avoid bouldering even more than she already did; she said that outside of bouldering it made her aware of the possibility that people at the crag might be judging her for things that she, as someone who had climbed for years but not all that seriously, didn't even know she might be judged for.

Now all of this is, again, anecdotal, and I'm not presenting it as anything other than an explanation of how I feel. But I think there's a good probability that the same could happen to some of the commenters in this thread if they talked had this conversation outside of UKB: at the end of the day it's pretty easy to brand an argument virtue-signalling or idealistic if you don't know or care about the person making it, but quite a lot harder when that person is your partner, a family member, or one of your friends. And there's the bonus incentive here of reporting back and telling us that you've spoken to your wife or daughter or whoever and they're fully in favour of calling out dabs, in which case great - although even better would be to have them register an account, and then we wouldn't have the same voices saying the same things over and over again.

[stone]

Fiend, many people express much the same view point as that regarding online mocking of eg people expressing mental health experiences. I find that view mystifying in that context and in this context too.

Stone do you really not get that there is a massive difference between someone choosing to share themselves deliberately minorly cheating at a leisure activity which is entirely within their control, and someone choosing to share traumatic struggles with health issues they are unavoidably suffering from, and how those two things should be treated?? Or is this another post in the "World's Worst Analogies" Top Trumps game??

Fiend let's recap what I was referirng too:

Okay time for some #realtalk as some of you are missing the point. Sure curbing false claims / dubious practises / invalid ascents, and educating people on that is a worthy aim for the benefit of the community. But it's not the point.
The point is having a good laugh and a little light bantz taking the piss out of people who have been daft enough to deliberately publicly post a video of them dabbing, and even dafter showing no shame and claiming they've done the problem.
Polite education shouldn't get in the way of a bit of good old "Great beta for walking along the pads'" and "Should have just climbed the tree and ignored the rock" and "Great to see that 1940s combined tactics live on with that spotter assistance".
Sure the dabbers might not find it as rib-tickling as they really should, but there's an easy solution to that - cure the problem not the symptons - by not posting dabbing videos. No dabbing, no mockery, nothing to fear.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your #realtalk was advocating mockery on the basis that it provided amusement and camaraderie for those doing the mocking. And you thought that aim justified it even if the subjects of the mockery didn't like it.
People do gain amusement and camaraderie by mocking people with mental health struggles. They evidently consider that justification enough for them. No doubt it feels even more edgy than mocking bouldering videos online. Their cruelty may be too strong for your tastes but it seems to me the same phenomenon.

It was your "May your SJW armour shine brightly" yuletide thing that made me think of the similarity. That is exactly what such trolls would say to anyone remonstrating with them isn't it?

[Fiend]

There's a massive difference of principle there and I will explain more later, I've got an essay on this that's been brewing for a long time. But until then I stand by the distinction in my previous post. And the one before that wasn't an entirely serious dogma. Although a climbing scene where I could post a video of me kicking a pad flying to curtail a cut-loose and NOT have anyone have a laugh at the silliness and audacity to pretend such aid was legitimate, is not a scene I'd want to be part of.

[Dingdong]

I think this issue clearly illustrates the age divide on this forum. You don’t have to look too far back to see the racist, homophobic, sexists comments or threads about fit women who climb, just goes to show that old farts will do anything to cling onto their ways, maybe the dab thread is their last bastion of being boomers and they don’t like it when they get called out for being knobs to people who aren’t even aware of them talking about their dabs.

As has been said, maybe message those people directly and tell them they’ve dabbed rather than posting about it on here to laugh at them behind their backs? No one’s saying you can’t politely point out dabs to people, but to have a whole thread dedicated to mocking those people without their knowing is pretty much akin to online bullying in my book.

[Fiend]

Actually further to that, since we're sharing personal anecdotes / backgrounds, i'll throw my own experience in the mix:

I post a lot of videos and photos online and always have done. My motivations are varied, nuanced, and complex but basically boil down to 50% ego-driven showing off and 50% passion-driven showing off rarely seen locations and climbs. The videos get relatively ignored because: I don't shroud them in hysterical clickbait, I don't pad them with lifestyle blethering and filler, I don't spam them over enough social media, I don't beg for clicks and likes and subs....oh and I'm just some fat punter in a vest doing moderate climbs in front of a single camera.

Despite that there is enough potential out there for people to criticise me, the videos and the climbing - especially since I know full well I am right up there as an easy target: I have, and share, strong opinions and principles, I argue with people and have wound up plenty of people by not kowtowing to the status quo, I have a mockable look and mockable tastes (toy soldiers and gabber) and although I'm a middling white male, I'm not one of young, tall, skinny, high 7 / low 8 tickers Droyd refers to. If anyone with XY chromosomes is going to get slagged off...

But I take that risk anyway. Not because I'm thick-skinned - I hate being targetted for no good reason, I hate bullying (almost as much as I hate being falsely accused of bullying - I've already done a general post refuting BOYD being bullying), I genuinely don't like getting shit off people unless I'm choosing to engage with aggravation. But because....Because it's worth a small risk to share stuff i think is cool.

And also because I almost never post videos of me doing anything that looks like dabbing (there's a towel flick in an albaraccin video and a shorts dab in an old sanctified video). Which means, amazingly enough, I don't seem to have as much of a risk of getting called out for dabbing... And if there are any other issues with lines or starting positions, I'll happily take an easier grade for a natural variant.

[Dingdong]

This thread most definitely falls under what could be considered as cyber bullying under UK law, whether you care to admit it or agree is a whole other topic.

Once again, no one cares about calling dabs, but this thread itself is not doing that, it’s on a forum the majority of those people aren’t visiting and thus this thread is not some kind of holy crusade to stop dabbers, it’s a self absorbed excuse to ridicule, mock others without really affecting any change other than to maybe make yourselves feel better

[spidermonkey09]

Interestingly Droyd i actually had this exact conversation with my partner on the Christmas eve drive! Obviously n=1 etc etc but as a woman who climbs a fair bit but far from obsessively she didn't have any problem with dabs being called out. Obviously it's a niche concern but her words were "well if they're claiming a specific grade they have to follow the rules." That info is unlikely to change either of our minds I guess!

Dingdong I strongly resent being parked with the boomers, I'm only 30! 

[Dingdong]

Dingdong I strongly resent being parked with the boomers, I'm only 30! 

Being a boomer is a state of mind

Also you should ask your partner how she’d feel if she posted a video of her dabbing and then found out some guys were laughing about it on UKB

[petejh]

Gen X'er here.
Until the last week or so - when I noticed Stone's dogged campaign of questioning the principles at work behind people publicly questioning dubious boulder ascents - I think I've literally never posted on the dabs thread. That I can remember at least. Definitely hardly ever look at it when I look at UKB, and whenever I have looked I've always thought that bringing up clips of someone's t-shirt wafting a leaf seemed pretty obviously not what I knew as a dab, so I assumed it must have started as a bit of fun/bullshitting in bouldering circles for some people, and kind of grown from there.

So it's not my thing, but I cannot see how that it could be construed as bullying unless the individual was unusually over-sensitive to public comments. In which case wouldn't it be extremely unusual for someone that over sensitive to be publicly posting films of themselves? I don't doubt there's always someone somewhere upset, however.

The more obvious dabs where someone is obviously hitting the ground.. I dunno, I really don't care personally - hence not using the thread. But if pressed on principle I'm minded to think what's wrong with people re-posting this if they want to - is it really any different in principle to the person publicly posting a film clip of the ascent in the first place?
To say someone shouldn't point out the obvious, in a non-consequential lifestyle setting like climbing, appears to me a bit '2 + 2 = 5 if we tell you it does'.

[spidermonkey09]

Also you should ask your partner how she’d feel if she posted a video of her dabbing and then found out some guys were laughing about it on UKB

Passing over the obvious goalpost moving going on here, In this parallel universe where that many unlikely things have come together, I'm entirely confident that my partner would be filthy with a) herself for presumably not noticing the dab either at the time or when watching it back before posting, which seems powerfully unlikely (she doesn't even boulder that much and knows what the rules are ffs) and b) me for not mentioning it before she became the subject of totally legitimate piss taking. 

Also, people who are fine with the principle of calling out dabs do not get to have the opposite opinion if it's them being called out, that would be straight up hypocrisy.

[Fiend]

I cannot see how that it could be construed as bullying .

This may help: https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,1942.msg654199.html#msg654199

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 reaon??
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. Thanks once again to stone for inspiring me to get around to writing the follow-up to this.

[abarro81]

No one’s saying you can’t politely point out dabs to people

Unless I've misunderstood, this is exactly what Stone is suggesting - that people shouldn't be pointing out dabs or any other scrutiny, whether on this thread or in comments on the video, or in messages. Only face-to-face. I think it should be fine to point it out, but best to do it nicely.

I also don't see how this illustrates the age divide on the forum given that Stone is older than many of those who are taking what you would consider the "old school" approach. If I had to guess I'd guess it might more neatly divide between those who would identify as "progressives" vs "centre left/centrist" (I'll exclude other options since ukb doesn't have many rightwingers), but I'm very much speculating there.

If you take Stone's approach, presumably there has to be a level at which this no longer applies - e.g. it would be preposterous not to have Loic Z called out for this X-treme rope dabbing by Iker Pou recently. Where should it be? I wonder if people kind of already apply that filter? I assume they do (so are more likely to call out a dab on an 8B than a 7B than a 6B), but maybe that's not true? It seems fair enough - if it's a beginner they'll presumably learn at some point, if it's not a beginner then I still can't understand the psychology that thinks I'll post a video of me cheating - and if they don't know it's cheating maybe it's time someone stopped being so polite and told them?

[Dingdong]

Aye fair enough but it still stands that in the vaccum of this thread no one is enacting any meaningful change in the world of dabbing. Just message them and let them know. Otherwise this whole thread is only useful for laughing at others

[stone]

abarro, my initial thought (since buried under my subsequent deluge of posts) was that if something was of a level that say UKC reported it as news, then courteous online scrutiny was totally appropriate. If not, then it was better to limit to private and preferably face-to-face comments.

I really don't want any politics I've argued for to be seen as interlinked with this. I'd like to think it's unrelated, much as you've noted age is.

[sirlockoff]

not a dab but might as well be one, gave me a chuckle, wild camping next to not a popular boulder


https://youtu.be/Mxtg6YoO2rs?t=112

[Paul B]

Stone, what do you think about calling out people climbing on wet rock?

During the Christmas period when I was bored my feed pushed a reel of a climber (apparently sponsored?) climbing on a Font classic that's clearly absolutely gopping but all the comments (and I've checked again just now) are "sick dude", "such a good problem" etc. and there are likes by members of this forum. I don't know the guy but my feeling is that a) his sponsors should be calling this out and b) that in general the behaviour needs calling out.

[stone]

If Font sandstone is prone to damage when wet, then I agree it's good/important to spread the word about that. I was impressed when Shauna Coxley did that about gritstone on the TV program Countryfile. I think digressions that permanently alter the rock are quite different from digressions (such as wrong holds/dabs) that at worst might influence how people view a problem.

I also think sponsored climbers are in a bit of a different situation than random punters. 

If someone put a comment on such as "I try to avoid climbing on wet sandstone because I've heard it damages the rock" -I'd think good on them.

[dave k]

In one of the recent episodes of Made in Stone (great new series and well worth a listen) about Fred Nicole a story is reported about Fred in the states repeating a classic test piece in front of some US climbers back in the 90s. He was apparently called out for dabbing, but took the tick and moved on. The story was very much portrayed as a positive trait.

Here is a link to one of the episodes on Fred, but the story might come up in one of the other Fred episodes.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3daWUGb3wuZxgLID2IIua1?si=nSCMt7q6TzGvOHLjt3srnw

[Will Hunt]

Stone, what do you think about calling out people climbing on wet rock?

During the Christmas period when I was bored my feed pushed a reel of a climber (apparently sponsored?) climbing on a Font classic that's clearly absolutely gopping but all the comments (and I've checked again just now) are "sick dude", "such a good problem" etc. and there are likes by members of this forum. I don't know the guy but my feeling is that a) his sponsors should be calling this out and b) that in general the behaviour needs calling out.

Link?