UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => news => Topic started by: petejh on June 07, 2013, 02:03:28 pm
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Mark, Jack, Alan (and cc many). So the truth is you're making a 'select' guide to n.wales, but you're including definitive coverage of all the main areas of n.wales limestone (see email to Alan below). Just to remind you - this is the area which is now 16 years without a definite guidebook, which has so much good, undocumented climbing that people don't know about, which has been subject to huge efforts of re-development supported by the bolt fund which the definitive guide is giving back to through all profits made, and for which the definitive guide is due out this year.
But your business plan shows that you aren't satisfied with just competing for a select guidebook market. You want to be the first to market with definitive information to mop up as many customers from NW Lime as possible. Thanks guys, that's really supportive of the area and not at all arrogant, cynical or parasitic of you. Bad faith isn't the word. Good business - but climbing isn't a business to 99% of people. This is not good.
You stated in 2011, when you decided to drop your selective NW Limestone guide in the face of people prepared to do a proper job, that 'the NW Lime area cannot support two guidebooks'.
It still can't.
It's very clear that this was your plan from the day you said the words above. Hence the very short notice between your announcement this week and publication this autumn. How very cynical.
Including virtually definitive coverage of the major areas on N.Wales Limestone shows a massive lack of good faith on your part towards the definitive guidebook authors who are donating the profits from the guide to the bolt-fund which enabled the area to be re-developed, and to the people who have bothered to put huge amounts of effort into re-developing this area - under the impression it will be showcased in a definitive guide. A reasonable approach by you would be selective coverage similar to that of Groundup's North Wales Rock.
I really don't know why I'd bother to finish my guide now. It has been 3 years in the making and it has been the driving force behind the re-development of Upper Pen Trwyn, LPT, The Diamond, Castell y Gwynt and many more good crags which warrant showcasing. If I'm correct (Alan you refuse to give a straight answer), your actions makes the whole environment so much harder and so much less worthwhile to produce anything of any real value.
Alan - you refused to answer me when I asked what coverage you're including in your guide because, as you show below, you're bitter and angry that I stood up to you in 2011 when I reported you to the Information Commissioner's Office for breaking multiple laws under the data protection act, and for which you were rightly formally cautioned. Because of a grudge, you're prepared to fuck over an entire climbing scene?
Alan. To what extent are you intending to cover North Wales Limestone? I ask for a few reasons. Reading the publicity you state 'the choice of what to included is based as much on the crag it is on as the route itself. If we include a crag then we tend to include a good selection of routes on that crag.'
The 'crags' (some are areas) you list for nw limestone are:
Upper Pen Trwyn, Lower Pen Trwyn, Lighthouse Area, Little Orme, Castle Inn Quarry, Penmaen Head.
Another reason I ask is because the route lists on the rockfax page showing what's going in the guide include every single route for the limestone areas, yet for all the other areas you list a selection of the better routes, i.e. -
Craig Pant Ifan lists 11 routes,
Clogwyn y Grochan - 17 routes,
Cloggy - 27 routes
Carreg Wastad - 11 routes
Dinas Mot area - 12 routes
In contrast, the route list for the NW Limestone section is:
LPT - 57 routes (every route)
Upper Pen Trwyn - 220 routes (every route, more or less)
Castell y Gwynt - 21 routes (every route)
The Diamond - 18 routes (every route)
Castle Inn Quarry - 14 (every route on the main wall)
Are you intending to include virtually definitive coverage for these limestone areas?
If you are, and I really hope you aren't, then this isn't a selective guide at all - it's a selective guide for 90% of the content but includes definitive coverage of all the main areas of north wales limestone - with a clear goal of beating to market the actual definitive guide for the area which has been three years in the making and which has been the driving force for the re-development of this area. And are you intending to cover any other limestone crags not listed?
If I'm correct, it shoes a level of cynicism and disregard for people which I thought was beyond even you.
I look forward to your response.
Pete
.......
After your action with the Information Commisionors Office I will not deal with you on any level, on any topic.
If you want to know what is in our guide, then you can wait for it to be published.
Alan
_________
Alan James, Director
UKClimbing - http://www.ukclimbing.com (http://www.ukclimbing.com)
UKHillwalking - http://www.ukhillwalking.com (http://www.ukhillwalking.com)
Rockfax - http://www.rockfax.com (http://www.rockfax.com)
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Ouch! I did think that it was short notice for a guide to be announced and then sold...
Pretty shitty of them and definitely the kind of reason that various shops have advised me to get other publications other than their's (where possible, of course)!
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There's only one way to sort this out.....
:boxing:
Seriously though, at face value this does seem shitty.
I wouldn't have replied to the e mail. It doesn't look good. "After you reported me for breaking some laws/rules, that i was found guilty of, i am not going to speak to you."
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Oh man that is low.
Trying to capitalise on un-fully documented area's when the definitive guide has been publicly in the making for 3 years, due out so soon and is actually giving everything back to the bolt fund...
Fairly obvious what they are trying to achieve with their quick to be released"selective" guide :greed:
Hopefully people will buy the right one... I know I will.
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+1 to all of the above.
Hopefully the masses will see this thread, seeing as UKB is the second most widely used non-UKC related website read by UKC readers (after the BMC's) the stats tell the truth.
Seems cynical, devious and underhanded to me. Unless he is prepared to justify his actions. Hope this isn't spiteful or vindictive due to the resons given above.
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Not overly surprising, Rockfax have precedence for this behaviour on the continent and pissed-off of a lot of publishers of local guides in the South of France and other areas if I remember correctly.
Please don't give up on your guide Pete.
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Yeah, don't give up on the guide please.
I for one am keen to purchase it and shan't be buying the rockfax one.
When is the NW Limestone guide coming out???
Cheers Dave
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Watdafuck...
Will not be buying the cockfax!
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It should be autumn but every deadline I've set with this thing has slipped, I'm doing the layout now and there's a couple of intro's left to write. The big thing about this area is we can't route-check most things until we've re-equipped them. And it makes no sense to write up large numbers of good routes as having rubbish fixed gear. I've been doing lots of the re-equipping at the same time as the doing the guide, and it takes a long time to bring the amount of climbing that was littered with 80s and 90s non-stainless litter back to life.
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Stick with it Pete. You're doing a fantastic job with the re-equipping and I'm sure the guide will be great.
Words fail me for the depths those fuckers will sink to.
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It should be autumn but every deadline I've set with this thing has slipped, I'm doing the layout now and there's a couple of intro's left to write. The big thing about this area is we can't route-check most things until we've re-equipped them. And it makes no sense to write up large numbers of good routes as having rubbish fixed gear. I've been doing lots of the re-equipping at the same time as the doing the guide, and it takes a long time to bring the amount of climbing that was littered with 80s and 90s non-stainless litter back to life.
Stick with it Pete, you are doing an amazing job with the re-equipping and the whole lot will be brought to life when your guide is out.
No matter what Alan and Co. end up publishing it isn't going to be a patch on the what you put in your guide.
You've got first hand experience and up to date extensive knowledge from the locals against what will probably be regurgitated unchanged info from the 1997 NWL Rockfax...
If anything this whole thing should spur you on!
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Whilst I am in no way suggesting that there has been any underhandedness by RockFax, it's interesting to read this and think back to the publication of the bouldering in the Western Grit guide which strangely contained the same grade errors as some of my guides before I updated them. Mysterious.
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Man, thats low... stick it out Pete.
I hope the masses vote with their feet and don't buy it. Is this on UKC... ah.. let me guess...
The big thing about this area is we can't route-check most things until we've re-equipped them. And it makes no sense to write up large numbers of good routes as having rubbish fixed gear. I've been doing lots of the re-equipping at the same time as the doing the guide, and it takes a long time to bring the amount of climbing that was littered with 80s and 90s non-stainless litter back to life.
Thinking of the above - this must always be the case with guides - knowing when to stop writing up what is there (a census date if you like) and leave all other changes since alone. Maybe you could include the old description - but put an * next to it with a footnote that these routes are all due to be upgraded from the N.Wales bolt fund etc...? (or words to that effect) That way folk can make up their own mind - or even check online in the future etc..?
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I really don't know why I'd bother to finish my guide now.
Because I, like the other people in this thread, will buy it (if I move South of course). I certainly would not be buying the Rockfax North Wales select guide which I think is a ludicrously pointless idea given how good the Ground Up NWR select guide is.
Emotive issues aside, if those route numbers are correct, that is a shocking skew towards definitive Orme coverage and a complete imbalance in select guide focus and I would very much like to see Rockfax justification for that.
Edit:
I think Rockfax would do better to spend their time on another project that would be in the best interest of rock climbers rather than the bank balance. We already have a fantastic selective guide to North Wales in NWR and I think Rockfax would struggle to match its quality.
^^^ This quote from some guy on UKC sums it up well. Rockfax have, in the past, produced some useful guides, definitive and select, that have provided genuinely helpful coverage (e.g. Costa Blanca, first NWL RF, even Northern England (given how sketchy North East England and Northumberland definitives are)). They've also produced a lot of re-hashing, duplicating, honeypot guides that I wouldn't touch with a bargepole, and this looks like the latter.
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I might check Rockfax for a down and dirty web search, or a "where shall I go" type thing, but I wouldn't swap it for a locally produced guide!
Would anyone?
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Thousands do matt.
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Thanks all for the encouragement, I am pretty despondent and wondering why I'm bothering but a hell of a lot of hard work has gone on by a lot of people and it does make sense to finish it off. Projects like this aren't commercially viable - definitive guides in the UK are basically subsidised either by club subs or voluntary effort and that's fine by me - I really appreciate that people are passionate enough about areas to want to spend the time chronicling fully the climbing in them. I'm doing this because I want to and luckily I don't need to make a living out of it.
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Perhaps get a special edition printed with your avatart on the front and send it to Mr James. :P
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If you want a hand with any bits (I'm good at proof reading etc..) then give me a shout. Happy to help - and help stick a couple of fingers up at Borgfax
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If you want a hand with any bits (I'm good at proof reading etc..) then give me a shout. Happy to help - and help stick a couple of fingers up at Borgfax
Same here, if you need a hand just let me know Pete!
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Just to clarify, where does it say that all these routes will be included in the guide?
As far as I can see the details provided only link to the crags that will be included with no mention of which routes will be included. The sparsity of routes in the other areas could be explained by the fact that RF hasn't done a definitive guide to those areas thus they don't have database entries for most of the routes. Given that they've previously published a NW lime guide it makes sense that they would have lots of routes in their database, perhaps even more so depending on how far they got in documenting routes for their abandoned NW lime guide.
To offer another point of view, it seems very strange that they would produce a guide that is as unbalanced as what you are suggesting. Even your average punter would flick through and wonder why the fuck LPT gets as much space as every crag in the pass.
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The sparsity of routes in the other areas could be explained by the fact that RF hasn't done a definitive guide to those areas thus they don't have database entries for most of the routes. Given that they've previously published a NW lime guide it makes sense that they would have lots of routes in their database, perhaps even more so depending on how far they got in documenting routes for their abandoned NW lime guide.
206 routes listed for Clogwyn Du'r Arrdu (http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crag.php?id=457) vs 27 routes indicated above
106 routes listed for Dinas Mot (http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crag.php?id=699) vs 12 routes indicated above
etc.
I very much doubt the lack of a database entries will be the reason for disparity in coverage.
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206 routes listed for Clogwyn Du'r Arrdu (http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crag.php?id=457) vs 27 routes indicated above
106 routes listed for Dinas Mot (http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crag.php?id=699) vs 12 routes indicated above
etc.
I very much doubt the lack of a database entries will be the reason for disparity in coverage.
I'm not convinced.
As far as I can tell RF have just chosen which crags they want to include then linked to the relevant RF database pages in the hope that people will comment, vote etc. on routes and make their job easier. UKC route entries are not duplicated on the RF database so I see no evidence that any selection of routes has been presented to us.
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Potentially they are shooting themselves in the foot, as climbing shops have an option about which guide they would prefer to stock. If I owned a shop after seeing this, I know which one I would go for.
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Whilst I am in no way suggesting that there has been any underhandedness by RockFax, it's interesting to read this and think back to the publication of the bouldering in the Western Grit guide which strangely contained the same grade errors as some of my guides before I updated them. Mysterious.
Strangely the same happened with the David Munilla Andalucia guide where wrong grades ( 6a+ but it's actually 7a for example ) ended up in the Rockfax.
Must be a coincidence.
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I'm not convinced.
As far as I can tell RF have just chosen which crags they want to include then linked to the relevant RF database pages in the hope that people will comment, vote etc. on routes and make their job easier. UKC route entries are not duplicated on the RF database so I see no evidence that any selection of routes has been presented to us.
This is of course conjecture, but...
It might not be apparent on the face of it, but I'd be very surprised if there are two concurrent databases being run, one for Rockfax and one for UKClimbing Logbook. Clearly not everything in the database is displayed on each front end. My "understanding" (based on looking at both) is that only those routes that go into the Rockfax publications actually make it onto the database there, whilst the log-book version of the database is essentially the "master" and contains all routes at a crag and there are many entries without descriptions (often when a route isn't described in a publication from Rockfax).
It would be exceptionally inefficient to have two essentially identical databases running concurrently, and the fact that the text describing the actual climbs is identical for climbs that appear in both supports the notion that there is one database behind it all, and its simply selective presentation that is the route of the differences you and I see as users.
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not trying to defend the indefensible, there's no doubt what it's trying to do, but it does state this on the book's blurb:
Note: the list of routes in the database doesn't correspond exactly to the content of the new guidebook since some of it dates from earlier guidebooks. This is particularly the case on North Wales Limestone).
It would be a massively imbalanced and pretty crap book if it were to be selective to one area and definitive to another, difficult to understand what the market for that would be. But equally there's already a belting selective guide to the area so difficult to see where the market is for another. Odd decision all round, you must have really pissed him off, Pete. Stick at it, it'll be worth it.
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That wasn't on their blurb earlier, they must have just added it in response, and the word from one of the guidebook authors is that the book will contain a 600 trad /400 sport split. Go figure where they're going to find 400 sport routes.
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That wasn't on their blurb earlier, they must have just added it in response
They could have added it in response to you in the first place!
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This is of course conjecture, but...
It might not be apparent on the face of it, but I'd be very surprised if there are two concurrent databases being run, one for Rockfax and one for UKClimbing Logbook. Clearly not everything in the database is displayed on each front end. My "understanding" (based on looking at both) is that only those routes that go into the Rockfax publications actually make it onto the database there, whilst the log-book version of the database is essentially the "master" and contains all routes at a crag and there are many entries without descriptions (often when a route isn't described in a publication from Rockfax).
It would be exceptionally inefficient to have two essentially identical databases running concurrently, and the fact that the text describing the actual climbs is identical for climbs that appear in both supports the notion that there is one database behind it all, and its simply selective presentation that is the route of the differences you and I see as users.
I agree, as you say it would be very inefficient to have two completely separate databases and it makes sense that only routes researched* for RF publications appear on the RF database. But to repeat my previous point, given that RF have previously produced a guide to NW lime, what's to suggest that all the NW lime routes listed in the database will be in the book?
*I use the term loosely.
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Actually this guidebook has been being planned and written for two years. We started back in 2011 after we abandoned our own North Wales Limestone project owing to a second book being proposed from another publisher. From the seeds of that though, and inspired by Mark Glaister's brilliant West Country Climbs book, we decided that we would like to do a bigger and better job that had been started with North Wales Classics in 2010.
We have got to the stage now that we can be fairly sure about when we can publish it which is why we have announced it this week. This is our way of managing the delays many guidebooks suffer from as they near the finishing line. We have now reached the stage where we know what work is to be done still and can predict accurately when the book will be available.
The coverage is our usual mix of selected crags but include most of the routes people do on those crags. (Using UKC logbooks is a great way of finding out which routes are climbed). This does tend to mean that the quality bar is lower for sport routes than for trad routes but these are the routes people do. The coverage for the Ormes is Upper Pen Trwyn, Lower Pen Trwyn, Castell y Gwynt, Craig y Don and the Diamond. We are also including Castle Inn Quarry and Penmaen Head. Considering we were working with a definitive guidebook text for most of these sections when we started (they were already finished back in 2011) I would estimate that the coverage has been cut by around 50% in terms of pages.
One presumes the "definitive guidebook text" mention was their own. Obviously 50% cut in pages does not mean 50% cut in terms of routes, but clearly the implication is *many* less lime routes are covered in the guide than in the totality of their database - it would be useful to have accurate NW RF route numbers to see how well the proportions are balanced.
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They are scum. I remember seeing Adrian Berry script checking for the new Peak bouldering guide at Raven Tor quite openly walking around with a copy of the Vertebrate guide in his hands.
When quizzed he admitted what he was doing and answered "I want to make sure there aren't any mistakes"
Truly beggars belief.
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in 2011 when I reported you to the Information Commissioner's Office for breaking multiple laws under the data protection act, and for which you were rightly formally cautioned.
Interesting, I didn't know that. Was this over route databases or just UKC mishandling privacy?
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It was depressingly petty but I followed it through on principle.
I posted a comment in a rocktalk thread back in 2011 about guidebooks, my comment was 'the '97 rockfax nw lime guide was blatantly lazily researched'. Yes it was disrespectful, and I do know how much work Alan will have felt like he put in to that guide - and without his guide I'd be far worse off doing this one. But, I could also clearly see whilst doing my guide research how much work he missed out - every time I came across things like Wall of the Evening Light, described thus '50 metres....16 bolts so you shouldn't lose your way' - when I re-equipped it 10 years after that was written it had 7 bolts, 2 pegs. And it's 35metres not 50 - this on one of the very best 7b+'s in the country. I call that bad/lazy research. There were many other more minor oversights. I'm not saying it was a terrible guide, it wasn't, far from it. But I was fed up of hearing him talk bullshit about how his guides are the best thing since sliced bread, as if the BMC, CC, Groundup, SMC and independent publishers aren't equally as good in design now but also have much greater depth and attention to detail. Times have moved on, it isn't rocket science to do colourful glossy guidebooks - anyone tech savvy enough can do it. I was also fed up watching him censor anyone who tries to tell him anything that doesn't fit his view or might affect business model. I don't give a hoot about his business, I don't love climbing becasue it's a business, I love it in part becasue it isn't.
Alan zapped not just my post but the entire thread, banned me and demanded an apology, which I refused to give becasue what I thought what I'd said was true.
I'd been keeping a logbook and it had about 1000 routes in it. I wasn't bothered about being able to use ukc, it really is a dire forum, but I would have liked access to my logbook of climbs. A friend who posts on here had also been banned, and he pointed out to Alan that the info detailed in a logbook - dates, places and people you were with is classed as 'Personmal Data' under the DPA 1998.
I asked Alan for the information in my logbook but not to be unbanned. He refused. I emailed him to say I was making a formal request for access to my personal data under the DPA 1998 and that he was obliged to provide it within 40 days. He refused and said he wasn't legally obliged to give me anything. He then said he'd delete all the information if I wanted. I said I didn't want that and repeated my request for access to my personal data. He then emailed again to tell me he'd deleted everything. I submitted a formal complaint to the ICO on the form which is on their website.
About 3 months later they sent a letter with their outcome. edit - I deleted the letter, doesn't seem appropriate. Happy to email the wording to anyone interested. Basically ukc were found to have breached the DPA and were cautioned with the warning that penalties will be stiffer if there are future breaches.
I fully realise how petty it is and I felt a little bad taking up an important organization's time; I carried it through out of principle because I detest how Alan tries to airbrush out, censor and generally disregard in the most arrogant way people who get in his way or who disagree with his viewpoint. If you act like an arrogant arse for long enough people are going to start being an arse back.
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Discussing data protection seems very topical today.
I'd buy a definitive guide, especially if/as profits feed back to maintaining the crags.
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It might not be apparent on the face of it, but I'd be very surprised if there are two concurrent databases being run, one for Rockfax and one for UKClimbing Logbook.
IIRC Alan has said in the past that the databases are separate so grades etc on one may not be exactly the same as the other. Of course that doesn't mean it isn't easy to add a new section to the RF database by copying a section from the UKC logbooks and editing out routes RF doesn't want to include.
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It wouldn't be hard for Alan to give a straight answer about how many routes are being included on Pen Trwyn, LPT, Castell y Gwynt, The Diamond, Craig y Don and Penmaen Head and any other crags - Would it?
The fact he's refused to give an answer says a lot, it says to me they know what they're doing is questionable, so it's best to just stonewall everyone becasue the number of people wanting the info and purchasing the book will justify, in dollar terms, them acting like cynical parasitic wankers who give nothing to the climbing scene.
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We don't need another North Wales select guide. We've got an excellent one put together by a local publisher who's struggling along but still churning out quality guides. There has been a lot of quality work around here over the last 4/5 years sorting out the limestone crags like The Diamond and the Great Orme crags. This has been sorted by bolt fund volunteers and resources so it galls me that the bolt fund guide is going to have competition from Rockfax who have done diddly squat for the area. :shit:
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We don't need another North Wales select guide. We've got an excellent one put together by a local publisher who's struggling along but still churning out quality guides.
Exactly my thoughts. The GU select is an excellent guide, widely appreciated by people. There's no need for another select guide. It's simply greed from Rockfax, or perhaps a cynical attempt to tread on GU's toes.
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It wouldn't be hard for Alan to give a straight answer about how many routes are being included on Pen Trwyn, LPT, Castell y Gwynt, The Diamond, Craig y Don and Penmaen Head and any other crags - Would it?
Indeed it wouldn't, but he's hardly obliged to. Given that you basically accused him of being a cunt in your email I'm not entirely surprised by his reaction.
For clarity, I'm referring to the following paragraph from your email:
If you are, and I really hope you aren't, then this isn't a selective guide at all - it's a selective guide for 90% of the content but includes definitive coverage of all the main areas of north wales limestone - with a clear goal of beating to market the actual definitive guide for the area which has been three years in the making and which has been the driving force for the re-development of this area. And are you intending to cover any other limestone crags not listed?
If I'm correct, it shoes a level of cynicism and disregard for people which I thought was beyond even you.
The fact he's refused to give an answer says a lot, it says to me they know what they're doing is questionable, so it's best to just stonewall everyone becasue the number of people wanting the info and purchasing the book will justify, in dollar terms, them acting like cynical parasitic wankers who give nothing to the climbing scene.
I think you're reading in to it too much.
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It's completely reasonable to ask the question in the circumstances. And whilst me and Alan may never exchange xmas cards that doesn't justify him not giving a straight answer to a simple question. No he's not obliged, but it would show good will and honesty - which is exactly what Alan and Rockfax are being accused of lacking and have been accused of similar many times in the past - so why not simply refute my accusation and say what they are planning, if what I said isn't true?
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http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=552134 (http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=552134)
Currently at the bottom of the thread is a longish post from Alan J at least going through the timeline and some reasoning behind decisions made.
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Alan's post contains points which aren't true:
1. The original rockfax NW Lime guide was never going to be a definitive guide. I asked Jack at the time what was being included and he confirmed that it would just cover the most popular crags Pen Trwyn, LPT, The Gwynt, The Diamond etc - basically what they are covering now in NW Climbs. This is not what the area needed at a time when loads of areas were still in a state of disuse due to them being littered with non-stainless unsafe bolts, and are still being re-equipped and route-checked now, for the first time in 20 years. Rockfax's original guide would have killed interest in bringing the neglected areas back to life, because by their own admission the area couldn't support two guidebooks hence the only guide to the area would, if rockfax got their way, only be a selective. Lots of locals were unhappy at rockfax for their plan, which was partly what convinced me to do a proper defintive guide against rockfax. As usual, Alan is trying to polish turds i.e. his decision to kill off coverage of less popular areas in favour of commercially viability for rockfax.
2. Whilst the rockfax/ukc's 'bolt fund page' is a welcome step - it essentially is pointing you at links to bolt funds that already exist and asks you to donate. Any money rockfax give to the bolt fund is of course to be welcomed, but it should go without saying they're pretty much obliged to support bolt funds if they choose to write about areas such as NW Lime - it's hardly revolutionary and they could be shown to be reactive, not proactive, in donating to the scenes that make their business possible.
3. Alan's claim that 'nothing has changed' is a classic example of a cynical man talking half-truths designed to conceal awkward facts - nothing may have changed to the plan that was in his mind. He cynically overlooks the essential part - nobody knew the extent of his plans to cover NW Lime back in 2011 becasue if you look at what he said at the time he didn't make it apparent - he's still been vague now but after being pushed he's made it clear. If people had known back then, they would have reacted as they're reacting now - dod you think people only now are pissed off with you Alan - get real. Alan is sly and he knows how to spin things in his favour.
4. So, this is what part of what they are including: 'We are including most sport routes on the crags we cover though since that is our normal policy since these are the routes that tend to get climbed, which is around 250 odd routes on the Great Orme for example.'. That is exactly what I suggested. So instead of it being a parasitic and cynical thing to do, it's 'policy' for a rockafx select guide to provide definitive coverage of the main crags on NW limestone - but no-where else in North Wales. Well that's ok then if its 'policy'! Alan you are just dressing up, with cynical spin, a parasitic decision to cream off all the hard work of me and the other locals work of re-equipping and documenting these crags and breathing life back into the area. Rockafx are showing so much bad faith towards this area and they have been typically sly and underhand in their method - that's their policy.
250 routes on the Great Orme. Another 40-50 on the Little Orme, another 70 odd on Penmaen Head and Castle Inn. Alan, Jack, Mark - you're going to kill off the market for a definitive guide which highlights the breadth of good climbing in the area but which is too time-consuming for your business to go and document. You cynical money-grabbing parasites.
Remus - are you convinced now?
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Hi Pete
if you don't mind me asking: How many routes will there be in the definitive guide? Will there be any that are not in the new rockfax one?
In all honesty I think your guide will sell pretty well. I for one will buy it and I am certain lots of others will as well. I personally suspect the area can support your guide and rockfax.
I can understand that you feel like sacking it all in but in my opinion that would be a shame and you should just finish it off and get it published.
As I have said I am looking forward to it and won't be buying the competitions
Cheers Dave
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Don't think so... I have the 1997 one and don't remember aanything else around at the time but I could be wrong
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Sounds like you've put in a lot of work on both the guide and the crags Pete.
I dont think you'll change their mind. I would stick with it, and try for as early a publication as possible.
If Im ever headed that way, i know which guide I'll buy.
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Another question that came into my head ... and this is maybe more relevant to the thread: how extensive is the coverage of NWL in the Ground Up North Wales Rock book?
A NW Limestone supplement, self-published by Karl Smith, was released in 1995. Karl emailed me in 2010, when I was researching for the guide -
'I did an interm guide a few years ago, mid-90s ( saving rockfax the trouble of having to do any research)...'
Simon might be able to better detail than I, but his NW Rock selective covers the following NW Limestone:
Great Orme: 95 routes, split between Pen Trwyn, LPT, Wonder Wall, Castel y Gwynt, St Tudno's.
Little Orme: 12 routes, split between Craig y Don and Great Zawn
Castle Inn Quarry: 6 routes
Total of 113 routes on NW Lime in the Groundup North Wales select
versus
Around 350 routes on NW Lime in the rockfax North Wales 'select' - using the word select in this context makes me laugh.
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I wanted to check some history ... mostly out of personal interest, not suggesting it is critical to the issues here: Rockfax published definitive-ish guidebooks to NWL climbing in 1992 and 1997. During that period (1990's into early 2000's), was there any alternative guidebook to the area?
The only other one would have been the CC guide from 1987.
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A few pages from the forthcoming definitive North Wales Limestone guide:
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Mcm3aySSa6g/UbULv770EqI/AAAAAAAAAvo/Fl6x99NmC9U/s912/Atlanta%2520draft.jpg)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-GhCpV6S0Rms/UbUEJgjALsI/AAAAAAAAAvI/tMcNYTHP21s/s912/Crinkle%2520Crags%2520draft%25202.jpg)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-BJA4ho3oBBs/UbT4xELY6DI/AAAAAAAAAt8/21gEEkc4M0s/s912/Fowyn%2520page.jpg)
(it's not all photos of me I promise!)
It seems the level of bad feeling is growing in North Wales and elsewhere towards rockfax's definitive 'select' guide.
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Pete,
The pics from the definitive look great. Do you have a press release or such like that describes how great the new guide is going to be?
I'm reading a lot about how shit rockfax is but not much about the new definitive. now seems like a great opportunity to counter their turd with some marketing on your part.
Thanks
James
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Pete, that looks aces (as the kids say).
I agree with James, get a press release out showing how awesome it will look. As a volunteer not for profit (i.e. all going to the bolt fund) guide, the quality looks outstanding.
I will be buying your guide.
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:agree: with the press release. The fact that the information in this guide is based on volunteers checking and rebolting every route is an immensely valuable USP that does not immediately come across but is worth making a big deal about.
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I'd imagine going to market in Autumn isn't the ideal time for a UK mountains/limestone guide with people's thoughts turning to bouldering/ice/indoors/abroad? Does that give you some grace for one last wave of development this year then work on it over winter to have it ready by Spring and compete for market share when people are starting to think about the area again?
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It wouldn't be hard for Alan to give a straight answer about how many routes are being included on Pen Trwyn, LPT, Castell y Gwynt, The Diamond, Craig y Don and Penmaen Head and any other crags - Would it?
Indeed it wouldn't, but he's hardly obliged to. Given that you basically accused him of being a cunt in your email I'm not entirely surprised by his reaction.
But if the figures show that the limestone section in the RF guide IS select, he doesn't even have to use those figures out of politeness and good grace, he can quote the figures and say "screw you Pete, you're way off target, we're only including 150 lime routes out of the 500 we had in our definitive draft, piss off back to your Cave". THAT would be a conclusive counterargument.
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NWR: 57 lime pages out of 544 pages = 10.5 %
NW RF: 76 lime pages out of 460 planned pages = 16.5%
:shrug:
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NWR: 57 lime pages out of 544 pages = 10.5 %
NW RF: 76 lime pages out of 460 planned pages = 16.5%
:shrug:
It's not about pages, it's about the number of routes. If the NWClimbs book has 350+ Ormes and A55 crag routes that is more than a third of the 1000 total. The 350+ figure looks consistent with the 400 sport : 600 trad split that I heard second hand from the mouth of one of the book authors (the other sport routes coming from the Llanberis Slate area). And remember, lots of those Ormes routes will be trad routes.
After the huge amount of work that Pete has done on the re-equipping front, the idea of setting out to undermine his not-for-profit, NWBF-supporting guide is frankly, outrageous.
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After the huge amount of work that Pete has done on the re-equipping front, the idea of setting out to undermine his not-for-profit, NWBF-supporting guide is frankly, outrageous.
Why let a little detail like that affect profits!??
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I'd imagine going to market in Autumn isn't the ideal time for a UK mountains/limestone guide with people's thoughts turning to bouldering/ice/indoors/abroad? Does that give you some grace for one last wave of development this year then work on it over winter to have it ready by Spring and compete for market share when people are starting to think about the area again?
Hmm.. I would have thought getting it out before Xmas was important... something for people to put down on xmas lists...
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I'd imagine going to market in Autumn isn't the ideal time for a UK mountains/limestone guide with people's thoughts turning to bouldering/ice/indoors/abroad? Does that give you some grace for one last wave of development this year then work on it over winter to have it ready by Spring and compete for market share when people are starting to think about the area again?
Hmm.. I would have thought getting it out before Xmas was important... something for people to put down on xmas lists...
got to agree with you tomtom. I would go for as early a publication as possible. People like to spend dark winter nights poring over guides. Well i do anyway.
Sample pages look great Pete. Dont delay til spring. Print as soon as possible. Dont give them a 6 month headstart.
I've checked the other channel. You're point is gaining traction there. Press release and sample pages now. Publish quick as you can.
I would offer to help but no publishing skills.
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After your action with the Information Commisionors Office I will not deal with you on any level, on any topic.
If you want to know what is in our guide, then you can wait for it to be published.
Alan
Let me get this straight:
1. You raise a case with the Information Commissioner's Office
2. They caution Alan James / Rockfax
3. Alan James decides to cease contact with you as a result
Is this a correct and fair summary?
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To someone who knows neither of the people, not a lot about the past history apart from what Pete has written here it just looks like something fishy is going on. Reminds me of Ockham's Razor and that the most simple explanation is probably the most likely. In this case I'm not too convinced by Alan's this happened, then that happened, then we decided this then that etc etc and then we were magically about to release this guidebook in its current form.
Is it more likely that Rockfax just decided that they would include all the Orme limestone routes in the selected guide and be selected everywhere because of some long convoluted chain of events or is it more likely that Alan has just seen a chance to piss Pete off by gazumping his guide due to past history? I know which one seems more likely to me. A lot of hot air coming from Alan, especially over there on the other thread. The sad thing is that lots of people might buy RF as they like the user friendly layout and pretty pictures even though most new comprehensive guides are brilliant now and in most cases on a par with RF.
I feel sorry for Simon too as this feels like someone blatantly creating a guidebook to compete with the GU guide, even though they claim they are not!! In fact I'm not sure I've ever heard of a guide being a direct competitor to two guidebooks....
I can't stand people trying to make money make out that they are not and that they are doing loads of good e.g. all the guf about donating to the bolt fund. Their proposed actions are underhand and feel like settling scores and trying to elbow out other guides.
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I'd been keeping a logbook and it had about 1000 routes in it......He then emailed again to tell me he'd deleted everything.
It takes effort to create a comprehensive record in the logbook and then keep it going and it becomes a very personal thing.
If it was was deleted in the arbitrary way you describe then that was bang out of order.
I'd be livid if it happened to me.
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Guys - I can't do press releases! I don't have whatever it is that it needs to do them. I've got a proper job (don't laugh Doylo), I just sat through an 8 hour full irata members audit and my eyes are still crossed. What I do have is local knowledge, an amazing co-author, loads of psyched people willing to do little bits here and there, the determination to see this thing through because I'm determined enough to spend 3 months hanging above the sea bolting LPT by myself, and the diamond hand-line likewise and Detritus Wall, Pen Trwyn, Castell y Gwynt, The Hornbys, St Tudnos, Craig Pen y Gogarth, and numerous other manky zawns. I'm passionate about this area and I hope that will show through on the page - take a look for yourselves. If someone wants to take glossy PDF's of pages from me and do something about press releases then do - I'm full on trying to produce this thing and make it good. I 'll give you whatever material is needed. We're still busy re-equipping crags and routes so that we can route-check them and write up the good-but-neglected stuff in a good light. Of course that's what rockfax will never, ever do.
I strongly believe Alan has done this for nefarious reasons i.e. his grudge about being cautioned by the ICO - see his email reply to me, and the letter to the ICO. Why else would someone willfully piss off so many people by pulling the market out from a locally produced definitive guide, which is giving all profits back to the bolt fund which enabled the routes to exist in any climbable form, and for Alan to draw lines in the wrong place about.
The ICO's letter.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-jj211Ha_7EM/UbJQbGFJL3I/AAAAAAAAAsY/bty-mvqtKaM/s720/ICO%25202.jpg)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-EFyHvrtsAGM/UbJQbmDN_vI/AAAAAAAAAsc/HYYJLJzOOg0/s720/ICO%25203.jpg)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-fnoo7H0neVY/UbJQZJfhqiI/AAAAAAAAAsM/vQJ7rViFWRU/s720/ICO%25204.jpg)
Alan's email reply to me when I asked him last week what he was covering in his guide:
Alan. To what extent are you intending to cover North Wales Limestone? I ask for a few reasons. Reading the publicity you state 'the choice of what to included is based as much on the crag it is on as the route itself. If we include a crag then we tend to include a good selection of routes on that crag.'
The 'crags' (some are areas) you list for nw limestone are:
Upper Pen Trwyn, Lower Pen Trwyn, Lighthouse Area, Little Orme, Castle Inn Quarry, Penmaen Head.
Another reason I ask is because the route lists on the rockfax page showing what's going in the guide include every single route for the limestone areas, yet for all the other areas you list a selection of the better routes, i.e. -
Craig Pant Ifan lists 11 routes,
Clogwyn y Grochan - 17 routes,
Cloggy - 27 routes
Carreg Wastad - 11 routes
Dinas Mot area - 12 routes
In contrast, the route list for the NW Limestone section is:
LPT - 57 routes (every route)
Upper Pen Trwyn - 220 routes (every route, more or less)
Castell y Gwynt - 21 routes (every route)
The Diamond - 18 routes (every route)
Castle Inn Quarry - 14 (every route on the main wall)
Are you intending to include virtually definitive coverage for these limestone areas?
If you are, and I really hope you aren't, then this isn't a selective guide at all - it's a selective guide for 90% of the content but includes definitive coverage of all the main areas of north wales limestone - with a clear goal of beating to market the actual definitive guide for the area which has been three years in the making and which has been the driving force for the re-development of this area. And are you intending to cover any other limestone crags not listed?
If I'm correct, it shoes a level of cynicism and disregard for people which I thought was beyond even you.
I look forward to your response.
Pete
.......
After your action with the Information Commisionors Office I will not deal with you on any level, on any topic.
If you want to know what is in our guide, then you can wait for it to be published.
Alan
_________
Alan James, Director
UKClimbing - http://www.ukclimbing.com (http://www.ukclimbing.com)
UKHillwalking - http://www.ukhillwalking.com (http://www.ukhillwalking.com)
Rockfax - http://www.rockfax.com (http://www.rockfax.com)
Finally, some more pages from the true North Wales Limestone guide, not some lazy wrongfax 'bag of'. Actually, I think they have a symbol for that.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-rZcLu-aLdcQ/UbYv9WM1SXI/AAAAAAAAAwc/LnarrchTvXg/s912/Town%2520Crags%2520page%25201.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hJGr0u0P1vo/UbYt1mtmRNI/AAAAAAAAAv8/Bhirv8hLgR0/s912/Town%2520Crags%2520page.jpg)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-6ajpxzcop4w/UbYu6pzkeiI/AAAAAAAAAwM/2ZNCZU2bifc/s720/Front%2520cover%2520of%2520North%2520Wales%2520Limestone.jpg)
(and this is so embarrassing. I am not in every pic and I did not plan for the cover shot it just worked out looking brilliant, I really want to get Neil on Megalopa but he's so flighty to pin down, I do have a good one of him on The Brute though)
I'd urge anyone who feels strongly about the way Alan, Mark, Jack and rockafax are behaving to make their voice heard on ukc, the BMC, the magazines and on here. It isn't right to have them controlling the volume dial and drowning out people's valid questions. And it isn'tright that genuine hard graft done for the right reasons gets trampled on for the wrong reasons.
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Looks brilliant! I had to double check I couldn't see the Peñón in that first picture
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(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-EFyHvrtsAGM/UbJQbmDN_vI/AAAAAAAAAsc/HYYJLJzOOg0/s720/ICO%25203.jpg)
Thats shit, ignorance of the law is no defense for not complying with it. If anything Alan should be grateful for being made aware of the laws that he is legally obliged to comply with.
I wonder where individuals posts fall under this umbrella as they might be considered personal data too, and on more than one occasion I've seen posts disappear from UKC (obviously pertinent to any forum).
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Pete as I and everyone else have said; ..It looks dead ace an that, tip top aprt from that numpty on the cover mind
but I cant help thinking that we need to shut the fuck up now ...let them bring out the guide ..let them print fecking thousands of the buggers ....then slowly over time as the dust settles on row upon row of glorified potty paper left abandoned in warehouses and storage cupboards across the country they will come to terms with what a fuck up it really was to shit on your own doorstep. :shit:
The consciousness will support the "true north wales lime guide" ... :2thumbsup: and as you know a dead soldier costs less then a wounded one.
I love climbing at the min ...what with the popular peoples front of the English lake district ....and the TNWLG ....Its all just dead ace ....fecking mental like ...better than a double omnibus addition Bellenders :popcorn:
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Slackers,
They can justify deleting posts routinely, i.e. in line with their moderation policy or randomly if they see fit in fact. If the deleted post is still stored somewhere you could rightly request it, but otherwise it's tough shit for using a heavily moderated forum.
If they archive posts, take them off the site but retain them somewhere, they you'd certainly be entitled to request access to your forum novellas/rants.
p.s. Keep the comprehensive coming Pete. It's what climbing guides are all about - local character and knowledge. The slate guide, A55 guide and others already provide great local character. Fuck mediocrefax. Although I'm sad I'll never look at Eastern Grit in the same way.
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A reply to some of Alan's points:
In all my discussions the people involved with the bolt funds consistently said that the one thing they need more than money is people to do the work. This isn't to say they are all swimming in cash, they aren't, but it does indicate that there are ways to help even if you can't make a donation. Having said that, bolting is also a tricky business and requires skill and practice to get it right.
People like me. And Tony, Norm, Dave, Doylo, Andy, Pete, Rob, and a few others, who, between us have made all the crags which you're cherry-picking, well, worth cherry-picking. But we've equipped so much more than that. You haven't lifted a finger for this area just like you haven't lifted a finger for the French and Spanish crags you cover. Why don't you just have some humility and give the same level of coverage as Groundup's excellent North Wales Rock - you don't have to include the same crags but a very similar number of routes would be a totally reasonable approach.
Jack did loads of work on Upper Pen Trwyn, LPT, and the Diamond.
:o As much as the people re-equipping long neglected routes on forgotten crags so we could route-check and write a proper definitive guide? - not even close to the same amount of work. It's like comparing a 100m sprint to the marathon.
As much work as route-checking esoteric trad routes on Observatory Buttress and St Tudno Lower? As much work as hanging off LPT for 3 months putting in one hundred and eighty 16mm duplex stainless bolts? As much work as teaching myself inDesign and grafting like mad in the evenings after work to try to get good at page layout and the million and one other things involved in producing a book? As much work as ringing around photographers and climbers and running around organizing photoshoots on wild, hard-to-access sea cliffs - not Pen Trwyn and LPT. You don't put the work in, that's the whole point. You don't research, you don't route check, you just do a half-arsed job.
I made it possible for Jack to even get to the Diamond! And when he got there - me Tommy, Doylo, Pete and Ding Dong made it possible that the routes were climbable for him. We made that cliff worth your while - Steve Mayers and George Smith and Zippy are the real hereos, jugging out like that! Please don't take that to mean I feel I have any sort of sense of ownership over anything on NW Lime - becasue I really don't think like that, I did The Diamond becasue I wanted to and I love having challenges like that, and no-one else was going to do it. Other people can treat that however they want but please, as a guidebook publisher, don't try to forget or dismiss in any way the incredible amount of hard work and love that went into these places that you're skimming off away from the definitive guidebook, and which you only write about becasue of our effort, not yours. We've been re-equipping this area solidly for the last 6 or 7 years, (and intermittently before then with Steve Mayers being a prominent force back in the day) to bring crags back to life from the mess of 80s and 90s junk bolts that made much of NW Limestone unclimbable. This is an unusually high-maintenance area, combine that with going 16 years without a definitive guidebook and you have a recipe for loads of neglected cliffs. That's what we're finally coming close to finishing sorting out, and we want to showcase it with a glossy, passionate definitive guidebook not some half-arsed cheap-shot rockfax, cherry-picking all of the already-popular crags and written by somebody who doesn't give a hoot for North Wales Limestone - it's a running joke on the Ormes that Jack he has hardly ever been seen there except for when he's asking people where the lines go so he can sit in his van drawing them on his laptop. He had to ask me where mumbo jumbo lower-off was in 2011 - one of the most popular 6a+'s on the Orme.
Well we don't really make much profit which is why we focused our attention in recent years on using our resources to publicise and spread the word. If we do make profit it tends to go towards subsidising UKC
You're a limited company and your annual turnovers are freely available for anybody to view should they wish to do the research on companies house - you have a damn cheek trying to play like you're scrimping by - you're making a lot of money yet you're fully prepared to damage the livelihood of a genuinely passionate and brilliant person to have as chronicler of the North Wales scene in Simon Panton.
Firstly, your flying_climber profile has never been banned before, and secondly, we would never ban or remove post like this. It amazes me sometimes why people think that we would. Just stick 'rockfax bolt funds' into the message text box on Forums search and select 'older messages' if you don't believe me.
Your love of banning and censoring people who say awkward things is well known amongst climbers.
In reply to Quiddity:
> On this point, it does seem ridiculous that Pete Harrison cannot comment on this thread and I need to go to the other channel to read his side of this debate.
Well that's a different matter and not connected with anything he posted on UKC Forums, but I get the impression the feeling is mutual.
Alan
What feeling? And why aren't I allowed to post on ukc, not that I want to particularly - I dislike how you sell people's voices for advertising revenue but that's facebook in a nutshell, it just so happens you've chosen to sell people talking about climbing to sell advertising space. You banned me in 2011 and zapped the thread in which I said that I consider your 97 NW limestone rockfax 'lazily researched'. Disrespectful yes, and I know how much effort you'll have felt like you put into that guide, without which making this guide would have been ten times more difficult so I respect the good work that you did do. However it had blatant errors in it which only come from not checking things - like Wall of the Evening Light - which as one one of the best 7b+'s in the UK (see the 'Climb' 100 routes), deserves to be checked at least. You described it as 50 metres and 'There are 16 bolts so you shouldn't get lost'. I re-equipped it in 2010, after spending 3 months almost killing myself building the hand-line to access The Diamond (that's £1600 you owe the bolt fund, my labour is free) - it had 7 bolts 2 pegs, and is 35 metres. You couldn't have even stood at the bottom of it, on one of the very best routes around.
Keep talking Alan, the hole you're digging is getting deeper.
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NWR: 57 lime pages out of 544 pages = 10.5 %
NW RF: 76 lime pages out of 460 planned pages = 16.5%
:shrug:
Fiend, this is from Alan James, it's on the ukc thread.
We are including most sport routes on the crags we cover though since that is our normal policy since these are the routes that tend to get climbed, which is around 250 odd routes on the Great Orme for example.
So 250 routes on the Great Orme alone, according to Alan.
Then there's The Little Orme, Castle Inn, Penmaen Head - and anything else they forgot to mention.
Compared with NW Rock which has about 90 routes on the Great Orme, 12 on The Little Orme, 6 on Castle Inn.
It couldn't be clearer.
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The coverage is our usual mix of selected crags but include most of the routes people do on those crags. (Using UKC logbooks is a great way of finding out which routes are climbed). This does tend to mean that the quality bar is lower for sport routes than for trad routes but these are the routes people do.
Not sleeping, thought reading this might help... Does Alan really believe his own hype? A major component in what gets climbed are guidebooks. If authors decide what to include in select guides on the basis of comments in a database then this sets up a negative cycle where less and less stuff is getting done. It simply isn't true that what doesn't get climbed is always of less merit.
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Those pages look mint.
Chiming in with the others, it really needs a press release or an article extolling the area or something to help I publicise that its coming, maybe see if the BMC can put a teaser or something into Summit or something like that. It's one thing feeling you've got the moral high ground as well as the local knowledge and all that, but if no one knows about it in the wider world then the selling points aren't being pushed as hard as they should be :)
I know several others have said as well but if you need some extra help with the guide then I've currently got way too much time on my hands. I've done some proof reading of 1-2 things for the CC before because I'm the kind of picky grammar pedant you'll love to hate but in general whilst I've got the time I might as well try and give something back in it.
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The sad thing is that lots of people might buy RF as they like the user friendly layout and pretty pictures even though most new comprehensive guides are brilliant now and in most cases on a par with RF.
I would say in many cases superior. There have been some fantastic ideas in recent printed guidebooks; top tens, anecdotes from local climbers, esoterica ticklists etc. Which make them great reading at home or on the crag. I personally think Rockfax format is starting to look a little dated; the same symbols and things have been used for 20 plus years now. However I'm sure there are lots of people who like the homogenous product, and will buy the guide as soon as it comes out to add to the collection proudly displayed on theit Richmond* flat wall. Personally I love seeing passionate local climbers producing their own interpretation of what a great guidebook should look like.
* Not discriminating against Richmond, other generic London suburbs are also available.
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Slackers,
They can justify deleting posts routinely, i.e. in line with their moderation policy or randomly if they see fit in fact. If the deleted post is still stored somewhere you could rightly request it, but otherwise it's tough shit for using a heavily moderated forum.
If they archive posts, take them off the site but retain them somewhere, they you'd certainly be entitled to request access to your forum novellas/rants.
Most savvy web-sitres are backed up if those who are running them are sensible, and its likely off-site, just as the server running the software that makes the website will be hosted "off-site" from the UKC offices which are listed as being in Sheffield, although the web-site is holsted on servers located in London (http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/164.177.140.220) (UKB for example is hosted by RoseHosting (http://www.rosehosting.com/) who are a US company and the server is in O Fallon, Missouri, USA (http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/209.135.140.14)). Older posts on UKClimbing appear to be archived in some manner as threads get locked after a period of time (e.g. locked 2009 thread (http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=369645&v=1#x5371133)).
I understand the application of a moderation policy and not posting inflamattory/derogatory/offensive stuff, but random deletion because it doesn't fit with the "party line"? Out of curiosity are you aware of any examples in the UK? A cursory search of the ICO's website didn't throw anything obvious up on this front.
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Leaving aside all the personal stuff, I reckon the main reason its coming out now is that you have done all the donkey work with the re-equipping and he sees it as the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the fact that the crags are all now in good nick gear wise. Pretty parasitic attitude but from his disingenuous comments regarding bolt funds etc on the UKC thread it doesn't suprise me at all.
My advice wiould be that you need to:
1 get the guide publicised (as others have said)
2 get it out asap, ideally around the same time or before the RF one
3 try and tie up distribution outlets. The welsh scene must have a fairly close relationship with the local shops and you might be able to use this to get them to stock your guide exclusively. Also, can you use DMMs database to contact shops outside the local area to send them some sort of communication about the guide, its ethos, the reequipping that it will fund etc and the positive contribution it would make if they stocked it exclusively (no potentially libalous comments :whistle: , just the positives). I am sure this would work for a fair few.
I reckon there might be a good chance of having one over on him if you manage to do number 3 :boxing:
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carry on and publish pete, if you can; your book will be the one with the heart, done for the right reasons and that's what counts in my world - fuck them
I know its easier said than done, but don't get too side tracked by all this stuff either, don't let it spoil your project :2thumbsup:
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Pete,
If its any consolation Alan has now cemented Rockfax/UKC's reputation as the Tesco's of the climbing world. He/they have been doing this all over Europe , and now in their own back garden. A shame as such a successful company could do so much for the UK scene and still make a handsome living.
Alan - C u next tuesday
Pete - I'll be buying your guide.
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Leaving aside all the personal stuff, I reckon the main reason its coming out now is that you have done all the donkey work with the re-equipping and he sees it as the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the fact that the crags are all now in good nick gear wise. Pretty parasitic attitude
:agree:
As others have said the pages look great. There's been enough discussion that a lot of people will be aware of what's happening now.
3 try and tie up distribution outlets. The welsh scene must have a fairly close relationship with the local shops and you might be able to use this to get them to stock your guide exclusively. Also, can you use DMMs database to contact shops outside the local area to send them some sort of communication about the guide, its ethos, the reequipping that it will fund etc and the positive contribution it would make if they stocked it exclusively (no potentially libalous comments :whistle: , just the positives). I am sure this would work for a fair few.
This ^
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I fully agree with the press/publicity stuff guys, but I'm not set up to do it - its' me, producing a book on my laptop, and that's it! And yes I am taking lots of time trying to fight my corner on here becasue I think it's important to, while also trying to organise route-checking and re-equipping (or rather re-equipping, then route-checking) and trying to get this thing finished
If anyone wants colourful pdf's and to type some publicity blurb then that would be helpful, but I know that's unlikely.
I'm going to continue responding to Alan's points on this thread each time he keeps spinning the facts on his website.
One thing people seem to be missing from my posts above is this: When the alternative guide was announced, it was happy to pit itself against our dedicated 234 page guide, the A55 guide and the NWR selection). So now the competition is minus one dedicated guide, plus one more selective. Alan.
I wouldn't say I was 'happy' to compete. I felt as all the climbers in the area felt - that the area needs a definitive guidebook because it's been 16 years without and there's been a monumental amount of re-equipping done. You weren't doing one then, just like you're not now (just definitive to all the main crags). And which part of of your twisting of the facts correlates with your statement that 'The area cannot support two guidebooks'. You're backtracking, side-stepping and putting out mixed messages - anything in fact to try to slip out of the awkward questions being asked. And what is a 'dedicated guide' - is that some sort of rockfax-speak for a pseudo definitive which only covers the popular, easy-to-reach crags and ignores all the more remote, difficult to reach areas which haven't been re-equipped yet?
Even if you were under the impression as seems to be being claimed, when announcing the alternative book, that we were going to produce a 76 page guidebook (when did Rockfax last produce a 76 page Rockfax?) then the competition is at least the same now as it was when entering the arena ( in reality actually much smaller)..
Nobody's said that and nobody thinks that.
We then withdrew plans for our full guide and announced the NWC guide with clear plans which are exactly the same as the ones we are now re-announcing.
The plan might have been clear in your mind. Nobody else was conscious of your intention, when you backed out of NW Lime claiming you weren't going to compete, to return with a definitive coverage all main areas, timed to be released just ahead of the proper definitive.
That is cynical, parasitic behavior in the extreme. Whichever way you try to slime your way out of it Alan it won't work because everyone can see how you're operating here. A normal select guide to North Wales with normal ratio of coverage in line with NW Rock would show good faith to the people who've revived the NW Lime area and want it all showcased, what is it that you can't stand about that idea?
As I also stated above, I would be totally confident of publishing this other definitive guidebook in the proposed current market and, without wishing to pll rank here, I do know a bit about guidebook sales patterns.
AS above, how does this correlate with your statement in 2011 that 'North Wales Limestone is never a very big area so it was decided that Rockfax would step aside and not compete directly with this new publication.
This one is classic double standards:
So we took the decision to drop that book (NW Lime) - http://www.rockfax.com/news/2011/01/31/change-of-plans-for-north-wales-limestone/ (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.
So if it's uneconomic for you then it's a problem. But if you then decide to try to take the market away from the definitive guide by releasing your pseudo-select first then that's acceptable, as long as it's uneconomic for me, not you.
Excuse me, but WTF? That would be cynical if we was doing this for commercial reasons. But we're doing it because the area needs a definitive guide and it's got tons of good climbing which will never see the light of day otherwise. In short we're doing this for the good of the area. You're totally determined to sink that, as long as it's economical for you. What does that make your company?
Another mistruth from you -
With Jack living there though and keen to get involved we started putting together a fully definitive guide in 2010 (I can't remember when exactly). Jack did loads of work on Upper Pen Trwyn, LPT, and the Diamond.
As Jack said at the time, it was never going to be a fully definitive guide, just a 'selectively' definitive to the main crags which had then been re-equipped, hence the local displeasure and hence our decision to do a proper definitive. Which you know want to try to sink.
This isn't just a personal thing between you and me, however that leads me on to..
This is actually a pretty offensive post (in reply to a poster suggesting a Alan has a grudge with me) and completely untrue. I will not discuss this matter on the forums but plase email me directly if you wish to.
Why do you totally refuse to communicate with me then? I understand I upset you with my comment in 2011 about your level of guidebook research, which I stand by. I also understand if you're bitter and angry that I reported you to the ICO. But it was you who was in the wrong, not me, and to make it worse you were being obnoxiously arrogant about it - so I submitted a totally legitimate complaint which was investigated and you were found guilty. If what the poster in the thread is saying isn't true then what is the reason?
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So where's the facebook campaign to spread the word?
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I'm thinking of something along the lines of the "Don't Buy The Sun" campaign in Liverpool. There's a video on YouTube of a fella outside a newsagents who takes all the Suns they have, covers them in lighter fluid outside, and torches them. I've got a few WrongFax books, maybe we could do a book burning?
To illustrate the point of the lack of checking that is evident in the guides I'll tell a tale:
We were in Chorro and were happily using the book. We set off up El Navigador (I think this is now banned?), a multipitch 7a at the Arab Steps. The 6c pitch a few pitches up fell to me. This was the longest pitch on the route and was described as 25m. I head up the pitch and soon pass a thick mallion on a bolt, a sure harbinger that the crux was approaching. I pocketed the mallion (keep the routes tidy and bolts easy to clip and all that) and headed up, expecting a stiff move, but arrived at the next bolt having not found one. "Unusual", I think. Clipping the chain at the top of the pitch I thought the pitch felt longer than 25m but shrugged it off as nothing as the route finding was quite absorbing and involved. On finishing the climb we abseiled back down. When abbing the 25m 6c pitch I was surprised to find that I just about reached the belay on rope stretch. Climbing as we were, with a 70m rope, this implies that the pitch was a shade longer than 35m. Thus the mysterious mallion was explained. It was just about far enough up the pitch that it would have been the terminal point of someone's ropes had they been climbing on a single 50 or 60m rope. Some poor sods must have had to rebelay on that bolt and ab off from there. The thought makes me cringe.
Not doing a proper job when writing up guides may not just be poor workmanship, it can be dangerous too!
It is worth noting, however, that this has since been corrected.
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I think that a "don't buy theirs" campaign is too negative. More positive spin of "do buy ours, here's why!"
Setting up a page is easily done and a good way of spreading the message to the masses, via supportive groups and climbing shops.
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I could do some facebook type stuff to help the cause
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One redeeming aspect is if they stopped work on the guide at the start of 2011 their info is a couple of years out of date.
e.g. Wall of Evening Light is still down as 50m long but there are a couple of pegs now! `There are 16 bolts plus some old pegs so you shouldn't get lost`, you wont get lost is probably correct now its been fully rebolted, also there is still a route called liquid amber at LPT, i'm sure there are lots of other examples. There is still a lot of work to do before publication I feel unless they go to press with junk info ?, who's going to do the checking now this has blown up, you'd think mr geldard wouldn't be too popular if he showed up.
I see there linking to doylos blog on an orme news item, cant that be blocked ?
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One redeeming aspect is if they stopped work on the guide at the start of 2011 their info is a couple of years out of date.
e.g. Wall of Evening Light is still down as 50m long but there are a couple of pegs now! `There are 16 bolts plus some old pegs so you shouldn't get lost`, you wont get lost is probably correct now its been fully rebolted, also there is still a route called liquid amber at LPT, i'm sure there are lots of other examples. There is still a lot of work to do before publication I feel unless they go to press with junk info ?, who's going to do the checking now this has blown up, you'd think mr geldard wouldn't be too popular if he showed up.
I see there linking to doylos blog on an orme news item, cant that be blocked ?
There's enough mistakes in the yellow wall sample page they posted.
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I'm intrigued to hear reeves's take on this whole thing. Assuming it's the same reeves who is co-editing this guide?
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Nothing to do with guidebooks but in business i really do believe in never trying to sell your services/product/ideas by slagging off your competitors or pointing out there mistakes and inadequacies. Concentrate on telling your potential customers what your service/ product/ idea does, and why it does it, then let them ask the questions of your competitors. It works for me.
You will end up a bitter and twisted individual if you waste time bad mouthing the competition. Accept there there, focus on what your doing, make sure its much better than theirs and tell everyone how good it is, not how bad there is.
Make yours the best and people will buy it.
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:agree:
The definitive guidebook looks fantastic and is clearly going to be a superior product in every way.
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Did you call yourself on sight cos you think your better than ground up?
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;D Nah.
More becasue it feels scarier doing it without any previous knowledge
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I thought it might be because you'd got Simon Carter to snap pictures (http://www.onsight.com.au/)
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Nothing to do with guidebooks but in business i really do believe in never trying to sell your services/product/ideas by slagging off your competitors or pointing out there mistakes and inadequacies. Concentrate on telling your potential customers what your service/ product/ idea does, and why it does it, then let them ask the questions of your competitors. It works for me.
You will end up a bitter and twisted individual if you waste time bad mouthing the competition. Accept there there, focus on what your doing, make sure its much better than theirs and tell everyone how good it is, not how bad there is.
Make yours the best and people will buy it.
Completely agree with all of that, with the caveat that I don't think there's too much wrong with illuminating shoddy behaviour. Don't worry - while I can make my point strongly on here I'm fairly philosophical about it and chilled in the real world. I am fired up to fight though because I don't like to see very questionable behavior like rockfax's rewarded, but certainly not going to end up bitter - I'm far more likely to end up contented, in the knowledge that I'm doing something I want to do and giving it my best.
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I could do some facebook type stuff to help the cause
this sounds like a great idea and will basically serve as the "press release" i asked for earlier.
Keep everything on the FB page positive (no getting into a slagging off rockfax), get the sample pages on there, list of crags covered, number of routes trad/sport, report the positives of this guide (donating profits, bolting/checking going along with it's production, how local guide feed the development of an area and guides like rockfax can do the opposite as they concentrate all the traffic and don't give anything back, not-for-profit, volunteer made, very well researched etc etc), estimated release date.
James
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Do it Pete... its a real easy way.. and we'll all 'like' it Im sure...
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Could perhaps ask shark/habrich/bubba for a big up on the front page here.
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Ok that sounds a good idea, I don't facebook though so might not be clued up on getting the most out of it. I exited facebook in 2006 (when everyone was entering) and have been deliberately avoiding it since then, apart from a brief reply to someone rubbishing mixed climbing and something else this spring. I'll have my public relations department look into it.
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Pete is there a website for the guide? I couldn't find one just now. Be nice to have somewhere to direct people to on any future social media viral marketing onslaught.
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Nice, Toby. The book is actually already planned to be fully app'd up for android and iPhone - I'm partnered with Steve Golley of The Send climbing apps - again this is just going on in my head and on my laptop so most people probably aren't really that aware of it I suppose but, yeah the whole book will be in app form. So I could pre-release sections for android and iPhone as and when - I'd actually forgotten about that recently! :lol:
Steve's been getting any of his posts on ukc zapped if they mention his TheSend topo app (sorry, not being negative just saying he's being censored :) ) - they are really great apps you should check them out. Steve's a bit of a genius and has built a first class framework for anyone writing guidebooks to add the text into, the app framework includes an easy to use topo builder which looks awesome - check them out here: http://thesend.co.uk/ (http://thesend.co.uk/). He's keen to support bolt funds and local areas with proceeds from sales but he's been saying it's hard to get his message out there to climbers. It really is a great opportunity - I'd have thought the BMC, CC and others would be able to make good use of it - all they need to do is contact Steve.
Did I mention TheSend topo apps for android and iPhone? - check them out! http://thesend.co.uk/apps.php (http://thesend.co.uk/apps.php)
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We've got a webpage Dave but it's blank and tbh I can't see me having time to make it look like anything.
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Those sample pages look ace, looking forward to seeing the guide.
I can see my old house on that photo of tramstation/empire crags :wavecry:
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We've got a webpage Dave but it's blank and tbh I can't see me having time to make it look like anything.
Seriously get someone to sort that out, and get your keywords and shit sorted so that when anyone googles "north wales limestone" they don't just get the cockfax coming up. Even if its just a single page with example guidbook pages on you need something - beg a mate or someone to sort you out, its not difficult these days. Shit I be someone on here would do you one before you can say "mick ryan".
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Completely correct. Search engine optimisation innit.
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I'm sure someone with some basic web skills could whip you up something for the web page in a jiffy. Sadly that person isn't me. I haven't got a clue where to start
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Pete really is a lost cause. Someone help him please! He manages to spend a whole post plugging thesend and doesn't even give the link to his own fecking guidebook! Christ. :lol:
http://thesend.co.uk/apps/northwaleslimestone.php (http://thesend.co.uk/apps/northwaleslimestone.php)
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I'm rubbish.
Ok can someone contact me if they can sort out a good-looking webpage for me, willing to pay the going rate plus a free guidebook. Needs to be quick.
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Pete, thanks for the plug, much appreciated.
I have just registered (on behalf of the bolt fund):
northwaleslimestone.com
northwaleslimestone.co.uk
northwaleslimestone.info
I'll set up a website for you tomorrow - can you email me 2-3 nice photos a couple of sample pages and some intro text for the either the guide or a chapter. We can add more later.
domain names that match content are high SEO markers, you can't get much closer than that :clap2: just let me know which one you want as the primary (.info I'm guessing) and I'll point the rest to the one you choose.
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Legend. :thumbsup:
Lets go for northwaleslimestone.com
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Looks like the wheels are well in motion!
I say try to get it out by September as I have a month free and want to head over to Wales ;-)
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Pete really is a lost cause. Someone help him please! He manages to spend a whole post plugging thesend and doesn't even give the link to his own fecking guidebook! Christ. :lol:
http://thesend.co.uk/apps/northwaleslimestone.php (http://thesend.co.uk/apps/northwaleslimestone.php)
And neglects to mention that there's already a taster app for Android and iPhone (which actually puts his guide ahead of the game).
FFS Pete!
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Legend. :thumbsup:
Lets go for northwaleslimestone.com
Anything us masses can do to get this coming up high in the search engines?
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Anything us masses can do to get this coming up high in the search engines?
Make sure you link it from all the pRon sites you frequent? ;)
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Anything us masses can do to get this coming up high in the search engines?
Yes, once the site is up and running, search for it using north wales limestone climbing related keywords and follow the results that lead to the site, then stay on the site for a while browsing the pages, this makes it look like you've found the site you wanted and it was 'relevant' to your search term. Also as mentioned above get inbound links from established sites with keywords in the link. If the site you're linking from also contains content related to the site linked to, it will rank as a decent inbound link.
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Anything us masses can do to get this coming up high in the search engines?
Yes, once the site is up and running, search for it using north wales limestone climbing related keywords and follow the results that lead to the site, then stay on the site for a while browsing the pages, this makes it look like you've found the site you wanted and it was 'relevant' to your search term. Also as mentioned above get inbound links from established sites with keywords in the link. If the site you're linking from also contains content related to the site linked to, it will rank as a decent inbound link.
Lots of links from here would work well then!
Get the FB page up too Pete.. I don't like FB, but it seems to be the way things have gone.. its eroded quite a bit of traffic from this place over the last couple of years...
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Anything us masses can do to get this coming up high in the search engines?
When the site goes live, give it a plug on your blog if you have one. It certainly used to be important that you write original content about it (ie. not just a copy paste job and not just a bare link) and use 'north wales limestone' somewhere in the title of the link text. I have been out of the industry for ~4 years now so i don't know what weight the ranking algorithm gives to links from facebook and twitter but I'm sure it can't hurt.
These days though, search algorithms are quite hard to fool especially long term, and you can get blacklisted for the more obvious tricks, and any sort of inbound link clicking campaign is going to flag sooner or later. Long term the site needs to have some sort of continually generated content on it that will keep people coming back and organically linking to. A routes wiki perhaps? Videos, blogs, etc. ie. the reason Rockfax keeps coming up top of search listings is because the route databases attract inbound links like flies around shit.
Just downloaded the trial version of the app, by the way, it looks great! Currently #1 for 'north wales limestone app'
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its eroded quite a bit of traffic from this place over the last couple of years...
Don't mention the lime call disaster.
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A routes wiki perhaps?
Already exists...North Wales Limestone Wiki (http://northwaleslimestone.wetpaint.com/)
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I just hate them - just had a look at the Yellow Page sample Chris mentions above. This is like one of the easiest, most obvious and best known (non-LPT) walls around yet:
- Cornhollio gets a trad grade despite being a sport route (it's even 7b on their own website!)
- there is no mention of wires (useful on both Pirates and String of Pearls for example)
- the description for String of Pearls utterly fails to capture any of the essence of what is the classic of that wall; from what they say you'd think it was a wall climb and while it sort of is, its nature is more that of a slab with a steeper finish.
This is one small section, a section they choose to release as a sample yet there is so much wrong with it. This says everything you need to know about the level of effort Rockfax make, virtually none.
Genuinely, what about the boycott thing: get V12, Joe Brown, Cotswold not to list the Rockfax book? Ask Cordee (distributors) what their view on the situation is, make sure Richard knows what the score is. Get people like Rab Carrington, Dave Turnbull involved. When people are out and about with the great and the good make them aware - who knows maybe Steve McClure might write about it.
Pete has done such a huge amount of work, I'm wetting my pants about the new guide (it looks so good), it would be such a shame if Rockfax piggy-backed this in their lazy and totally lacking in art / passion / soul way.
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Already exists...North Wales Limestone Wiki (http://northwaleslimestone.wetpaint.com/)
So there is. It's probably obvious but whacking it all together on the same site and keeping it up to date and easy to navigate would be the thing to do from a search engine optimisation perspective - ie. the wiki doesn't seem to have been updated for years and in search listings terms is precisely nowhere.
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Genuinely, what about the boycott thing: get V12, Joe Brown, Cotswold not to list the Rockfax book? Ask Cordee (distributors) what their view on the situation is, make sure Richard knows what the score is. Get people like Rab Carrington, Dave Turnbull involved. When people are out and about with the great and the good make them aware - who knows maybe Steve McClure might write about it.
:agree:
But, I suspect Pete has a lot on his plate at the moment and I suggest that anyone who has the ear of anyone potentially useful, get on to them and do a bit of lobbying. There must be loads of people with connections on here that could be put to use.
Another thing to think about would be a twitter campaign. I dont know how twitter works but when my BMX club had their loan bikes nicked, they managed to raise about £10k in a week through a twitter campaign. It must have some benefit in all this.
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Who owns the wiki? Surely having that embedded for starters would be a good thing.
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Who owns the wiki? Surely having that embedded for starters would be a good thing.
We all do, although four people, including Doylo, registered on the 16th May 2007 (http://northwaleslimestone.wetpaint.com/accountSearch/all?offset=120&maxResults=20&sort=joinDate) (the earliest registrations, so one of them probably started it).
Migrating the content to a fresh wiki hosted on the new domain would be no small task and as noted there are likely a lot of updates required in light of all the work. The data is probably in an electronic format for the guide/TheSend application anyway and would serve as a better basis for the wiki (although obviously there has to be some value retained in the guide/application over having it all available online in a Wiki).
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OK I understand (I think).
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I just had a quick look at the UKC thread. Interesting that Alan seems to be swimming against the tide on his own forum and for once he can't get out of it by deleting/banning people as he set a precedent near the start of the discussion.
:popcorn:
Oh and good old Chris Craggs is at it again!
Good will, that is an interesting concept. The UKB thread is full of bitter vitriol, unpleasant comments and a general air of malice?
Chris
You have to laugh. :slap: Can we have a new t-shirt "UKB: Bitter vitriol, unpleasant comments and a general air of malice".
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Classic. Keep'em coming Chris!
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Good will, that is an interesting concept. The UKB thread is full of bitter vitriol, unpleasant comments and a general air of malice?
Chris
You have to laugh. :slap: Can we have a new t-shirt "UKB: Bitter vitriol, unpleasant comments and a general air of malice".
Awesome
What do we want? Bitter vitriol, unpleasant comments and a general air of malice
When do we want it? NOW
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There's 3 excellent names for new NW limestone routes or probs.
Bitter Vitriol
Unpleasant Comments
General Air of Mailice
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Sorry this is off topic but why does Chris Craggs seem to have such a problem with UKB?
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I just hate them - just had a look at the Yellow Page sample Chris mentions above. This is like one of the easiest, most obvious and best known (non-LPT) walls around yet:
- Cornhollio gets a trad grade despite being a sport route (it's even 7b on their own website!)
- there is no mention of wires (useful on both Pirates and String of Pearls for example)
- the description for String of Pearls utterly fails to capture any of the essence of what is the classic of that wall; from what they say you'd think it was a wall climb and while it sort of is, its nature is more that of a slab with a steeper finish.
This is one small section, a section they choose to release as a sample yet there is so much wrong with it. This says everything you need to know about the level of effort Rockfax make, virtually none.
Genuinely, what about the boycott thing: get V12, Joe Brown, Cotswold not to list the Rockfax book? Ask Cordee (distributors) what their view on the situation is, make sure Richard knows what the score is. Get people like Rab Carrington, Dave Turnbull involved. When people are out and about with the great and the good make them aware - who knows maybe Steve McClure might write about it.
Pete has done such a huge amount of work, I'm wetting my pants about the new guide (it looks so good), it would be such a shame if Rockfax piggy-backed this in their lazy and totally lacking in art / passion / soul way.
No FA details for Badger badger badger and topo line wrong. No FA for Cornhollio.
Sorry this is off topic but why does Chris Craggs seem to have such a problem with UKB?
cos boulderings not proper cragging
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Accident of birth
What if his name had been Ben Boulder or Tim Trad ?
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Good will, that is an interesting concept. The UKB thread is full of bitter vitriol, unpleasant comments and a general air of malice?
Chris
:badidea: :lol: sucker for punishment
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Pete your guide looks excellent, I hope it sells well for you. It certainly looks like it should.
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Accident of birth
What if his name had been Ben Boulder or Tim Trad ?
The RZA has already bagged Bobby Boulders.
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I just hate them - just had a look at the Yellow Page sample Chris mentions above. This is like one of the easiest, most obvious and best known (non-LPT) walls around yet:
- Cornhollio gets a trad grade despite being a sport route (it's even 7b on their own website!)
- there is no mention of wires (useful on both Pirates and String of Pearls for example)
- the description for String of Pearls utterly fails to capture any of the essence of what is the classic of that wall; from what they say you'd think it was a wall climb and while it sort of is, its nature is more that of a slab with a steeper finish.
This is one small section, a section they choose to release as a sample yet there is so much wrong with it. This says everything you need to know about the level of effort Rockfax make, virtually none.
Genuinely, what about the boycott thing: get V12, Joe Brown, Cotswold not to list the Rockfax book? Ask Cordee (distributors) what their view on the situation is, make sure Richard knows what the score is. Get people like Rab Carrington, Dave Turnbull involved. When people are out and about with the great and the good make them aware - who knows maybe Steve McClure might write about it.
Pete has done such a huge amount of work, I'm wetting my pants about the new guide (it looks so good), it would be such a shame if Rockfax piggy-backed this in their lazy and totally lacking in art / passion / soul way.
No FA details for Badger badger badger and topo line wrong. No FA for Cornhollio.
Sorry this is off topic but why does Chris Craggs seem to have such a problem with UKB?
cos boulderings not proper cragging
But he's rubbish at proper cragging.
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cos boulderings not proper cragging
But he's rubbish at proper cragging.
How many times have you done the Great Wall on Cloggy, free without chalk or cams?
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Whoa, UKC style leading question alert!
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Whoa, UKC style leading question alert!
Can I bite please? Can I?? Can I??! Oh, go on...pleeeeze let me bite him.
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Go on, don't let me stop you embarrassing him!
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The UKB thread is full of bitter vitriol, unpleasant comments and a general air of malice?
(http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=3916412)
At a press conference today, a UKB spokesperson refuted this statement catagorically!
Dont keep pointing out errors in the guide, you are doing their beta testing for them :shit:
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Quote from UKC unless it mysteriously disappears.
"First of all thank you for your kind words about the A55 Sport Climbs guide. Thats the sort of payback I value along with seeing people out at the crags with the guide.
To answer your question, as far as I am concerned, there will be a third edition of the A55 guide at some point in the future. Having said that I fully support the forthcoming NWL guide authored by local activists Pete (the banned) Harrison and Andy Boorman.
It should be appreciated how much work has gone into re-equipping and new routing as well as checking of routes for the new guide by local climbers and activists and which has been fully supported by the North Wales bolt fund. All of this is entirely unpaid and all the profits from the guide will go to the North Wales bolt fund. The whole concept is about climbers doing it for themselves as well as for the wider climbing community.
The profits generated will mean more re-equipping and more new routes which will be in the interests of the climbing community rather than swelling the profits of Rockfax.
The new NWL guide itself has been something of a marathon journey but even though amateurs are compiling it, anyone who has seen sample pages will agree that it is a top quality product and up there with the best. Hopefully it will be out before the Autumn.
Despite Alan James' pages of meally-mouthed words there is little justification for the new Rockfax guide other than more profits for Rockfax. There is already a selected guide to North Wales in GroundUp's excellent North Wales Rock and that will be supplemented by the forthcoming NWL guide - so it can't be to plug a gap in the market. GroundUp are an outfit of locals with a real feel and passion for the area and who produce very high quality guides. They deserve to be supported. The area is also very well served by a number of CC definitive guides.
By the way, more money has been donated from the modest royalties of "A55 Sport Climbs" to the North Wales bolt fund than Rockfax say they have donated.
Rockfax's cherry picking of the best of the Ormes (and to a lessor extent the A55 crags) will inevitably result in less money for the bolt fund.
The guide book buying public have a choice. Buy the new Rockfax guide and contribute to their profits or support the work of the local climbing community and the North Wales bolt fund and buy the forthcoming North Wales Limestone Guide and the GroundUp North Wales Rock guide (if you haven't already got one).
Do not buy the Rockfax North Wales Climbs guide.
Michael Doyle"
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He needs wadding. As does Quiddity, whoever they are.
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As does Quiddity, whoever they are.
http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=7320 (http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=7320)
Used to post there as Plexiglass Nick
Wad away
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Alan and crew are getting a right pasting over there in their own backyard.
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Most viewed thread on the homepage of their forums and they are not winning the argument. It'll be getting locked before long...
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He needs wadding. As does Quiddity, whoever they are.
What's the opposite of that's my boy? That's my daddy :lol:
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If anyone's got of copy of their Western Grit could they pm me? I have my own reasons for despising them but just want to double check something. Ta.
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Go on Doylo's dad! :boxing:
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If anyone's got of copy of their Western Grit could they pm me? I have my own reasons for despising them but just want to double check something. Ta.
Either myself or grubes have one (can't remenber which of us!), I'll take a look on the shelf when I get home
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Cheers, should have said 2nd Edition.
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Most viewed thread on the homepage of their forums and they are not winning the argument. It'll be getting locked before long...
It does look a bit like Alan has lost the impetus - he is responding to other people's version of the story rather than being able to proactively tell his own.
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I got given a copy of Western Grit 2nd Ed for having a photo in it. I sold it straight away and used the money to put towards the BMC Eastern Crags guide, which I had been offered for free for having multiple photos in it, but declined as I'd rather buy it. In short, errr, sorry can't lend you one Andy.
P.S. Go doylo snr!
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I got given a copy of Western Grit 2nd Ed for having a photo in it. I sold it straight away and used the money to put towards the BMC Eastern Crags guide, which I had been offered for free for having multiple photos in it, but declined as I'd rather buy it. In short, errr, sorry can't lend you one Andy.
Good god, I don't want to borrow one! Just to check something
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Is V2 the one with Commander Energy on the front? If so I have it in front of me. Fire away.
Speaking of cover shots, that shot of Left Wall for the cover of the new book is so hackneyed that its embarrassing.
I've only just noticed this but every Rockfax I can think of has a girl on the front cover. That's not necessarily a bad thing but every one?
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This subject is getting a bit heated on the other side of the street. My money is on someone with the forum handle "Action 9" to get the first post deletion and ban.
:popcorn:
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I find it hilarious that Alan claimed that Rockfax don't make any profit. Surely this just cements their place as the Tesco/Apple/etc of the climbing world. Maybe they are tax dodging as well? Maybe Jack is actually based in Ireland and sends the proofs to the publisher from there to take advantage of some obscure tax loophole??
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Yeah I liked that one. Lovely bit of spin.
Of course, depending on how the company or companies are set up, the statement could be completely true. But this doesn't mean that someone isn't making a lot of money from the businesses.
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Yeah I liked that one. Lovely bit of spin.
Of course, depending on how the company or companies are set up, the statement could be completely true. But this doesn't mean that someone isn't making a lot of money from the businesses.
Well yep none of them are working for free....
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This subject is getting a bit heated on the other side of the street. My money is on someone with the forum handle "Action 9" to get the first post deletion and ban.
With good reason. What an irrelevant bit of abuse, that doesn't help the cause at all.
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So, my own tale of guidebook writing woes. The second edition of Western Grit records an E6 at Helsby called Chairman of the Board - fantastic ... except its a fictitious route. In fact it was my name for a project. The only place the name and grade of this non route were ever recorded was in an entirely private early draft of my script for the definitive BMC guide, I included it in my working draft as an incentive to get it done. This script is the only possible source for its appearance in WG and they acknowledged later they did have a copy - important to stress, they didn't steal it, someone naively passed it to them. But they never sought my permission to go ahead and fillet it, doubt that they ever checked that the person passing it on had my authority, and obviously they never ever checked its accuracy, either with me, other locals or at the crag or the guide wouldn't contain bits of my idle daydreams. Alas I don't think they did anything illegal but this seems to be an woefully shoddy and cynical way of writing a guidebook.
ps. thanks to Stubbs, Nick S, Will Hunt, and Grubes who offered to check the guide before I flung any accusations.
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Everyone who buys a Rockfax helps support UKC.
Alan
:lol: :lol:
As good a reason as any to stay well away.
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So, my own tale of guidebook writing woes. The second edition of Western Grit records an E6 at Helsby called Chairman of the Board - fantastic ... except its a fictitious route. In fact it was my name for a project. The only place the name and grade of this non route were ever recorded was in an entirely private early draft of my script for the definitive BMC guide, I included it in my working draft as an incentive to get it done. This script is the only possible source for its appearance in WG and they acknowledged later they did have a copy - important to stress, they didn't steal it, someone naively passed it to them. But they never sought my permission to go ahead and fillet it, doubt that they ever checked that the person passing it on had my authority, and obviously they never ever checked its accuracy, either with me, other locals or at the crag or the guide wouldn't contain bits of my idle daydreams. Alas I don't think they did anything illegal but this seems to be an woefully shoddy and cynical way of writing a guidebook.
Good grief :no:
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Did you get the E6 project done though??
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"Well we don't really make much profit which is why we focussed our attention in recent years on using our resources to publicise and spread the word. If we do make profit it tends to go towards subsidising UKC ..."
As it's only abbreviated accounts that need filing with Companies House we can't see the Profit & Loss Account of UK Climbing Ltd. However, the latest filed accounts (to 31/12/11) show retained profit of £214,850 (2010 £218,103).
This means that this is profit accumulated over time after all salaries and (importantly) dividends to the shareholder have been paid.
The balance sheet looks very healthy and although the paper Net Asset value of the company is £215,104 at 31/12/11 this doesn't include any value for goodwill or the value of the website.
Just pointing out information that's freely available on Companies House website saying.
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What I dont understand is why Alan and Rockfax don't patent and sell the mind reading technology they have developed, that was so effectively demonstrated by plucking Andys thoughts from the ether. This could win RockFax a nobel prize - for science.. as well as being a useful tool for intelligence agencies. If you ask me they must be mad using such a powerful tool for taking shortcuts when writing climbing guides!
Guidebook writers - beware a white transit van with three satellite aerials on top parked outside your house (marked James pest control services) - other tell tale signs the RockFax brain trasmogrificator (tm) is working in your area are dimming lights as it has a heavy local load on the national grid when it fires up.
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If I were one of the usual rockfax book sponsors I would be thinking twice about having 'my brand' associated with this one
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While I am saddened by the acts of UKC I am not surprised. Nor am I surprised by Andy's revaluation above.
Without going into too many technical details, there is a process known as document fingerprinting which gives the author of a document or a draft the ability to prove to a very high standard that a leaked version has come from a particular source or alternatively that a document containing similar information is not based on 'open source' data but rather a plagiarism of and infringement of the IP of the author of, shall we call it, the source guide book.
If the author of the guide wishes to discuss the matter further then I would be happy to speak to them and see if I can't find some one from a really frightening firm like 2birds, Wangs etc to get involved. I don't want to be emailed at work, but Rich Crouch has my number and a pair of brand new red 5.10 moccasyms (if his parents haven't thrown them away).
PS you're still a bunch of middle class, group think, circle jerking lefties and if you want a pint, I'll be in the Sheaf some time when the grit's in nick.
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:D
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As I recall, Rockfax has been brought up against database law in the past (I think by the BMC). The conclusion, as I understood it, was that there was probably a case to be heard but neither parties had the cash to fight what would have been an enormously expensive and complex case. I think Rockfax have since implied this meant they were exonerated.
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While I am saddened by the acts of UKC I am not surprised. Nor am I surprised by Andy's revaluation above.
Without going into too many technical details, there is a process known as document fingerprinting which gives the author of a document or a draft the ability to prove to a very high standard that a leaked version has come from a particular source or alternatively that a document containing similar information is not based on 'open source' data but rather a plagiarism of and infringement of the IP of the author of, shall we call it, the source guide book.
If the author of the guide wishes to discuss the matter further then I would be happy to speak to them and see if I can't find some one from a really frightening firm like 2birds, Wangs etc to get involved. I don't want to be emailed at work, but Rich Crouch has my number and a pair of brand new red 5.10 moccasyms (if his parents haven't thrown them away).
PS you're still a bunch of middle class, group think, circle jerking lefties and if you want a pint, I'll be in the Sheaf some time when the grit's in nick.
My god hell freezes over Slopers back.
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As it's only abbreviated accounts that need filing with Companies House we can't see the Profit & Loss Account of UK Climbing Ltd. However, the latest filed accounts (to 31/12/11) show retained profit of £214,850 (2010 £218,103).
So it could be that they made a loss of £4K ish in 2010-2011
I was just looking on the companies house site (but not the accounts) and it would seem that Rockfax Ltd is a dormant company. From 2009, everything seems to be going through UK climbing Ltd (or the British Virgin Islands Subsidiary) :popcorn:
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As it's only abbreviated accounts that need filing with Companies House we can't see the Profit & Loss Account of UK Climbing Ltd. However, the latest filed accounts (to 31/12/11) show retained profit of £214,850 (2010 £218,103).
So it could be that they made a loss of £4K ish in 2010-2011
It could mean lots of things but this would be extremely unlikely.
The change in reserves includes dividends so, in simple terms, any money the shareholders have taken out of the company (in addition to salary).
E.g. The company makes £50k profit, pays tax of £10k and the shareholder is paid a dividend of £44k.
Reserves are reduced by £4k but the company didn't make a loss.
As I said, it's impossible to say what the profit for that (or any) year is just by looking at the balance sheet. However, people have to make a living so if there was no profit in the year one would expect to see reserves reduced by more (especially as the company has decent cash reserves). Anything else is conjecture though.
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PS you're still a bunch of middle class, group think, circle jerking lefties and if you want a pint, I'll be in the Sheaf some time when the grit's in nick.
Come on Sloper come back to the family. Shark get this name changed to its correct one :-)
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Hah, I knew it wouldn't last. Shame we didn't get his contribution on the education thread mind...
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I hope you're happy JB. I just broke my self enforced ban from that godforsaken forum in order to back up your points about the UKC Ltd accounts. I feel dirty.
I'll probably be banned permanently now anyway, every cloud.
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See you've not put a profile pic on your ukc profile Jasper. Are cameras and photos the same deal as mirrors for daywalkers then?
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Fuck's sake I knew I'd regret it.
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See you've not put a profile pic on your ukc profile Jasper. Are cameras and photos the same deal as mirrors for daywalkers then?
I used to have a profile but I removed it all when Mick kept deleting my posts, misquoting me and banning me so I couldn't complain. What a guy.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
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While I am saddened by the acts of UKC I am not surprised. Nor am I surprised by Andy's revaluation above.
Without going into too many technical details, there is a process known as document fingerprinting which gives the author of a document or a draft the ability to prove to a very high standard that a leaked version has come from a particular source or alternatively that a document containing similar information is not based on 'open source' data but rather a plagiarism of and infringement of the IP of the author of, shall we call it, the source guide book.
If the author of the guide wishes to discuss the matter further then I would be happy to speak to them and see if I can't find some one from a really frightening firm like 2birds, Wangs etc to get involved. I don't want to be emailed at work, but Rich Crouch has my number and a pair of brand new red 5.10 moccasyms (if his parents haven't thrown them away).
PS you're still a bunch of middle class, group think, circle jerking lefties and if you want a pint, I'll be in the Sheaf some time when the grit's in nick.
i claim my pint you've offered. where the fuck is the sheaf? And when you in there?
Who the fuck is grit and why are they in the nick.
What the fuck is a circle jerk?
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Fuck's sake I knew I'd regret it.
:lol:
I am staggered by Andy's revelation above. I never quite believed they just copied and pasted, but there's the proof. And doing it from an unpublished, private guide script too - well that really takes some chutzpah, and shows a total lack of respect for others (unpaid) effort.
I suggest from now on every definitive guide script contains multiple such 'easter eggs' to catch them out.
High time they were held to account and started to put a bit more back I think.
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Possibly there are examples of "cut-and-paste" in the Lakes Bouldering Rockfax? Although I have neither the time nor inclination to check. All I can recall from that guide is that is littered with mistakes, so maybe they did research it all themselves? Although having Lakesbloc as a resource must have been tempting...
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I predict that thread is now going to descent into a grabbo/dolerite style wankathon but for accountants :boxing: :boxing: :lol:
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i claim my pint you've offered. where the fuck is the sheaf? And when you in there?
Who the fuck is grit and why are they in the nick.
What the fuck is a circle jerk?
Trust me, spending any time with Toryboy is not worth the free pint. You'll be at each other's throats before the head has even settled.
Good to hear from you Sloper. You fuck.
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Sloper, do you want your old username re-activated? I'm guessing you've mislaid the password unless you actually want to start afresh that is... PM one of us if you want us to update your email and reset your password.
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Sloperbackfortwolasttimes is the resurrection and he is the light. Tosser. :wave:
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I will be very put out to be referred to other than this login.
I doubt I will post again.
Goodybe
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6 wad points from 2 posts? Then retire on a high??
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I will be very put out to be referred to other than this login.
I doubt I will post again.
Goodybe
Aye that's all very well. But you offered a pint in the Sheaf. Now where and when is that to?
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I will be very put out to be referred to other than this login.
I doubt I will post again.
Goodybe
Thanks for the advice Tom, this time and before.
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Aye that's all very well. But you offered a pint in the Sheaf. Now where and when is that to?
Have a link (https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF-8&q=sheaf+view+sheffield&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=sheaf+view&hnear=0x48790aa9fae8be15:0x3e2827f5af06b078,Sheffield,+South+Yorkshire&cid=0,0,4237827385572078439&ei=re65UcKQLuqa1AW7pIHoCg&ved=0CKwBEPwSMAA). Should be noted that Sloper is not a resident in Sheffield so I hope you don't want that pint in a hurry... ;)
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I predict that thread is now going to descent into a grabbo/dolerite style wankathon but for accountants :boxing: :boxing: :lol:
Doing my best.
This is actually important though (rather than debating what you're supposed to call one bit of rock that's slightly less rough than another bit of rock) as if someone states that their company doesn't make any money (as an excuse/reason for their actions) then I think it's worth looking at.
And unfortunately, specifics and pedantry are everything when it comes to reading a set of accounts.............. and I hate seeing people stating things as fact when they're wrong. :geek:
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Aye that's all very well. But you offered a pint in the Sheaf. Now where and when is that to?
Have a link (https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF-8&q=sheaf+view+sheffield&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=sheaf+view&hnear=0x48790aa9fae8be15:0x3e2827f5af06b078,Sheffield,+South+Yorkshire&cid=0,0,4237827385572078439&ei=re65UcKQLuqa1AW7pIHoCg&ved=0CKwBEPwSMAA). Should be noted that Sloper is not a resident in Sheffield so I hope you don't want that pint in a hurry... ;)
Aye well. The Sheath. Prospect Road. Someone offered me a pint, and i intend to collect. Natch I up barman!
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It was a tory promise. Means you never have to deliver :)
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I predict that thread is now going to descent into a grabbo/dolerite style wankathon but for accountants :boxing: :boxing: :lol:
I'm a psychic! I wish I was as good at predicting share prices and lottery numbers :lol: . Jasper, if I ever bump into you in a pub somewhere, remind me not to talk finance unless I am already verging on shitfaced :whistle:
I do agree with you though.
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I predict that thread is now going to descent into a grabbo/dolerite style wankathon but for accountants :boxing: :boxing: :lol:
Doing my best.
I can't believe that guy thinks you're being rude - you're putting across well-reasoned factual points in a clear manner, and which are highly relevant to some of Alan's arguments about not making any/enough profit, and which help illuminate whether what he's claiming is likely to be or not to be the truth.
Anyway, SteG's played a blinder and the NW Limestone guidebook website should be going live in minutes few.
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it would seem that Rockfax Ltd is a dormant company. From 2009, everything seems to be going through UK climbing Ltd
In November 2009, UKClimbing.com Limited was bought by Rockfax Limited and both companies were established under a new single company called UKClimbing Limited (http://www.ukclimbing.com/general/about.html)
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Anyway, SteG's played a blinder and the NW Limestone guidebook website should be going live in minutes few.
my minutes few are up and the new site is live.
it's a temporary holding site and might be a bit rough around the edges, so please don't PM with corrections to the css (slackline), we'll work on shiny new site to replace this one leading up to the book launch.
http://northwaleslimestone.com (http://northwaleslimestone.com)
Edit - forgot the link :slap:
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Good job Steve. The pic of Devils Gorge in the samples is ace!
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I will be very put out to be referred to other than this login.
I doubt I will post again.
Goodybe
Its amusing enough just to know you're lurking to be honest. :wave:
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Can someone post a link to the debate on the other channel? I can't find it (and I haven't registered there)...
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This is a question from a user on UKC - not from me - but i said i would pop on here and ask on their behalf:
AND.... while I'm on roll; where is the breakdown of the financial model of the putative North Wales Limestone? 'All profits will go the the bolt fund?' That will be the bolt fund that is funding the development/re-bolting activities of the guidebook writer? Nothing personal in this you understand.
Is that AFTER all origination/production costs are met? Or is there a certain amount going to the fund per copy sold from day 1? Will the accounts be published on UKC (seems to be the growing thing) in terms of cost of production and income generated? Who oversees the accounts?
According to this thread all these things should be in the public (i.e UKC) domain.
I am sure it can be cleared up and more transparent than Rockfax.
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Can someone post a link to the debate on the other channel? I can't find it (and I haven't registered there)...
Enjoy !
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Surely the real issue here is that Adge doesn't know where the Sheaf View is. Jesus fucking wept >:(
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Surely the real issue here is that Adge doesn't know where the Sheaf View is. Jesus fucking wept >:(
yes. I've just come round from a post scrumpy jack nap, i have just tried to keep up with this debate on other channel, and frankly it bored the arse off me.
The real issue is where's this sheaf pub, and where's my pint?
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This is a direct question to Alan James.
Alan - you state on your company's website that you have made contributions to the north wales bolt fund:
* by - Alan James - UKC and UKH ? on - 08 Jun 2013 - www.ukclimbing.com (http://www.ukclimbing.com)
In reply to In reply to Dan, Jon and a few others:
When the 1997 NWL RF sold out in 2008 I didn't know quite what to do since we were fully committed doing other books and I couldn't possibly re-author a new book. Wales local at the time Jack G had only just come on board at UKC but not as an RF author and he was too busy anyway. So I offered the full document, albeit in a rather dated format, to Simon Panton since I thought Ground-Up would be the logical people to do the new guide. Simon told me then that Ground-up would be producing a North Wales Limestone guide in 2009 and he said he would think about the offer of the files.
In the end I didn't hear back from Simon and it appears that their proposed guide dropped off their schedule. With Jack living there though and keen to get involved we started putting together a fully definitive guide in 2010 (I can't remember when exactly). Jack did loads of work on Upper Pen Trwyn, LPT, and the Diamond.
Then in November 2010 Pete Harrison announced a new definitive local guide to NWL produced by an independent publisher (himself I think) but with links to Ground-up.
Announcement here - http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=433625 (http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=433625)
and Grubes corroborates some of this here http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=438644#x6176646 (http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=438644#x6176646)
We thought about the prospect of 2 definitive guides since we could have easily produced our guidebook and, at that time, Petejh seemed perfectly happy to pitch his book against a fully definitive rival. I am not sure which book would have appeared first but I suspect ours would since the other one still isn't available and ours would have been there in 2011. Whether Petejh would have then gone on to produce his or not, I don't know but his rhetoric at the time suggested he would.
So we took the decision to drop that book - http://www.rockfax.com/news/2011/01/31/change-of-plans-for-north-wales-limestone/ (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.
Then in June 2011 we announced the full North Wales Climbs guide - http://www.rockfax.com/news/2011/06/06/north-wales-climbs/ (http://www.rockfax.com/news/2011/06/06/north-wales-climbs/)
and here http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=462111 (http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=462111)
which we hoped to get out in 2012. This was a logcial step considering North Wales Classics had sold well but suffered from its small format, and that we already had the Ormes to add to the full book.
Well things got delayed, as they do in guidebooks, so here we are in 2013 planning on getting the book out. We haven't increased our coverage of NWL in fact we have reduced it by around 80% from the template document that Jack had started work on. We are including most sport routes on the crags we cover though since that is our normal policy since these are the routes that tend to get climbed, which is around 250 odd routes on the Great Orme for example.
Apart from the delay and what is documented above, nothing has changed in our plans for NWClimbs since we announced it back in 2011. We haven't been keeping quiet and we have mentioned it several times since, then we waited until we can be sure of the publication date before the final announcement. This is standard procedure which we use with every guidebook. If we forecast them too much in advance then we end up with the inevitable delayed publication dates.
With regard to donations to bolt funds
We gave money in the past to the North Wales Bolt Fund and we are happy to do so again in the future and will do after we have broken even from this new book which may take a year or so. We have also set up http://www.ukboltfund.org (http://www.ukboltfund.org) which has been extremely successful in many areas. I have checked yesterday and since it was set up, there have been 86 attempted donations made to the NWBF via that page. That is likely to be around £400 to £500 (I can't check the actual amounts) if everyone gave a fiver. We will push this initiative in the new book as well and continue to promote it across UKC and Rockfax sites.
We have also recently added a point-of-sale donation system onto the Rockfax site which has started to pick up donations from people who buy books direct. They can choose the local bolt fund or the ACT when they buy but so far most have been choosing the ACT. Hopefully this will gather momentum as we move on and I will certainly include the NWBF in the list.
Alan
Is there anything more you'd like to say about that?
I sat down with the person who administrates the North Wales Bolt Fund tonight - there are lots of donations of fivers and tenners from local climbers going back through the years - thanks Tommy, Keith (ksjs), BenF, Pete, Rob, and many, many other climbers. Contributors to the fund are recorded in the accounts.
But there aren't any records of any contributions from Alan James, UKC or Rockfax to the north wales bolt fund in the last 20 years.
Can you clarify that for me Alan, perhaps I misunderstood what you meant when you told the customers on your website that your company has made donations to the north wales bolt fund.
I would have imagined a company with the turnover suggested in it's accounts - which Jasper can explain far better than I - would be able to stretch to a fiver like the many climbers in the UK have done who don't have figures like £200000 on their annual accounts.
Perhaps someone on the other channel could ask him again for an honest answer.
You're not Rich Simpson in disguise are you?
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* by - andyathome ? on - 20:59 Thu
In reply to andyathome:
AND.... while I'm on roll; where is the breakdown of the financial model of the putative North Wales Limestone? 'All profits will go the the bolt fund?' That will be the bolt fund that is funding the development/re-bolting activities of the guidebook writer? Nothing personal in this you understand.
Is that AFTER all origination/production costs are met? Or is there a certain amount going to the fund per copy sold from day 1? Will the accounts be published on UKC (seems to be the growing thing) in terms of cost of production and income generated? Who oversees the accounts?
According to this thread all these things should be in the public (i.e UKC) domain.
Hi Andy. The 'business model' is this:
* by - biscuit ? on - 21:04 Thu
In reply to andyathome:
I think it would be reasonable to see that Pete gets his money back on publication first and then all the profits go to the bolting etc.
And that's it. I am not making a penny from this guide. Neither is Andy Boorman my co-author. Once printing costs and paying photographers is done, all money will be directed somewhere else, not to me or Andy. I'm lucky that I don't need to make a living from climbing, I have a well-paying job. I'm doing this because I want to, god knows I wonder why sometimes, I'll probably never touch a guidebook after this is printed and I just want to go and lie on a beach by myself for a week when it's finished. Please ask away with anything you want to related to the book - I've really got nothing to hide.
*Edit - Andy - you're welcome to view the bank statements, please do, remind me after it goes to print and I'll gladly let you see what goes where.
*Edit - I had thought I'd pay off the production costs first. Then all money to the bolt fund. I dunno though, it's not like it's written down in any plan anywhere - it's in my head.
If it seems a bit weird that I'd give up 3 years of my life to do this than, yeah, I'd agree I guess it is weird. As weird as any hard project that seems like a great idea at the time and which sucks you in and makes you want to create something of value. That's the same reason I re-equip - I actually love the feeling of making a completely unknown but obviously brilliant route climbable again - it's almost like a short-cut to the feeling you get when you do a good new route. Because if you already know it's a supposedly awesome route but which hasn't been climbed for ever because of rubbish dangerous bolts - well, you know it's very likely to have satisfying outcome after you've finished re-bolting. You don't get that with new routing, sometimes they're a bit rubbish but you don't always know until the end. I prefer to do new routes, it's hard to find the open space in the UK to do that but the Ormes still has some good territory to explore. The best explanation I've ever heard for the joy gotten from the creative process of new-routing is by Randy Leavitt in his brilliant interview here about developing Clark Mountain: http://enormocast.com/episode-18-randy-leavitt-slackers-need-not-apply/ (http://enormocast.com/episode-18-randy-leavitt-slackers-need-not-apply/)
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how long have i got to get my proj done before you go to print
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;D me me me.
It won't be out until 2016 at this rate. (joke).
Autumn?
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* by - Misha ? on - 21:28 Thu
....
I have some sympathy for the volunteer guide book team but at the end of the day no one is forcing them to bolt and rebolt NWL sport routes. Yes, they put in time and effort and that's great but it's their choice to go and do that. If the bolt fund runs out of money, they can just stop bolting. It's not like it's their livelihoods are at stake here. Do we really need hundreds of NWL sport routes? Perhaps the locals need that but then it's up to them to finance that. I bet the vast majority of people who go climbing in North Wales hardly ever venture out on NWL, if ever at all. This is a storm in a teacup really apart from a few locals who have a direct interest in developing loads of NWL sport routes and a few others who have jumped on the anti-Rockfax wagon.
Misha - I was out on the ab rope re-equipping in a steep little zawn yesterday evening. It's got 3 brilliant 35m long 6c-7a+'s which have hardly had an ascent in 25 years because the fixed gear is totally knackered. They are no longer recorded in any in-print guide. By the sounds of it you love trad climbing. You'd love these - no convenience roadside clip -ups, hanging belay just above the sea and 35m of steep well-featured solid limestone. How is that not a pretty cool thing? They'll just sink back under the radar to be forgotten by everyone and never climbed if we hadn't gone in last night started re-equipping them, I'm not asking for thanks, I'm saying there's loads of amazing, atmospheric adventurous climbing on the Ormes that is worth sorting out and whic hmakes the area pretty special - not just sport, we're cleaning up loads of good trad routes and replacing shitty pegs/ abseil points. Half the trouble in this debate is most people don't even know what climbing exists on The Ormes outside LPT and Pen Trwyn, maybe the odd person's been to the Gwynt or Gritstone Gorilla. There's so much amazing adventurous stuff and it seems like a pretty cool thing to me to make it climbable again.
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I thought it might be worth adding some clarity on the electronic side of things too.
As this is a bolt-fund guide the percentage take by theSend is zero.
I'm providing the guidebook build tools, database, marketing and support on theSend website and associated tech at no cost to Pete. In the last 24 hours it seems I also have some domains and webhosting to look after, which will also be provided free of charge.
When the app is ready for publication I'll do all the necessary prep work to get it into the App Stores that we've agreed and continue to update it as new functionality or updated information comes along.
For full transparency, once the app sales are up and running I'll be publishing contribution figures on my website so that they are in the public domain.
(waffly pedantry alert for our poster who raised the original question)
In terms of the wording, 'profits go to the bolt fund' in this case has to be very specific to comply with the app stores contractual terms. Since they (all of them: Google, Apple, Microsoft et al) take a percentage, you cannot say 'proceeds' or 'sales' as this would imply that you are also giving away their percentage. For an App selling at a particular cost, the store will deduct sales tax for HMRC, then take their commission and pass on the rest to the publisher (me in this case). I take the money I receive from the store and transfer it all into the bolt fund bank account with a sales record and transfer notice.
So in this case 'profit' = Retail Price, less sales tax, less store commission and no other deductions.
This is my contribution to the bolt fund effort.
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That seems as transparent enough - I climb with a taxman and I'm sure he'd like everyone to be so clear when it comes to money matters.
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http://northwaleslimestone.com (http://northwaleslimestone.com)
Great website plus it reminded me to donate to the bolt fund
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There are a few posts on the other channel from people talking about 'new routing' and 'supporting the new route developers'.
Just wanted to try to make something bit clearer - the issue to do with supporting the bolt fund and having a definitive guide is really 99% about supporting re-equipping of the huge number of neglected routes and crags on North Wales Limestone; not new routing. The reasons that there exists so much under-the-radar neglected climbing in this area are explained on the new guidebook website here:http://northwaleslimestone.com/
New routers have always paid for their own bolts, the bolt fund provides them at cost if people ask but they still have to be bought. Just wanted to point that out.
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Loving the community pulling together here to support the cause... Unfortunately computers and stuff ain't my strong point but I will be buying the guide to show support... Never really known anything about the ethics if guidebook writing (ie locals produced guides vs rockfax) but I have found this thread enlightening...
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I would have imagined a company with the turnover suggested in it's accounts - which Jasper can explain far better than I - would be able to stretch to a fiver like the many climbers in the UK have done who don't have figures like £200000 on their annual accounts.
Just to be clear again, there can be no assumptions made about the turnover of the company from the information available.
My comments here and on the dark side were only about the health of the balance sheet and the incorrect, misleading statements made by that guy on there.
Having said that, I would have thought he could stretch to a fiver though yeah. ;)
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New routers have always paid for their own bolts, the bolt fund provides them at cost if people ask but they still have to be bought. Just wanted to point that out.
FYI the blurb on ukboltfund.org for the NWL bolt fund says:
'The North Wales Bolt Fund was established in 2008. Money is used for re-equipping and subsidising new routing. Assisting primarily in North West Wales Areas but also Clywd, Llanymynedd and Mid-Wales.'
Just want to make sure they have their facts straight.
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I predict that thread is now going to descent into a grabbo/dolerite style wankathon but for accountants :boxing: :boxing: :lol:
Doing my best.
I can't believe that guy thinks you're being rude - you're putting across well-reasoned factual points in a clear manner, and which are highly relevant to some of Alan's arguments about not making any/enough profit, and which help illuminate whether what he's claiming is likely to be or not to be the truth.
One thing that will never, ever change on that forum is that there will always be someone willing to argue that black is white (and nobody gets my jokes).
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One thing that will never, ever change on that forum is that there will always be someone willing to argue that black is white (and nobody gets my jokes).
I got it. Didn't know you needed congratulating on it though. Well done for making a joke at Chris Craggs. It was very funny indeed. :tease:
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Jasper
I have not seen the balance sheet so need some enlightenment.
Is there goodwill and a value for the website shown on the current balance sheet? or just the cash and stock? Is there any assets on the B/S that might be attributable to the acquisition of Rockfax Ltd?
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One thing that will never, ever change on that forum is that there will always be someone willing to argue that black is white.
True dat
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One thing that will never, ever change on that forum is that there will always be someone willing to argue that black is white (and nobody gets my jokes).
I got it. Didn't know you needed congratulating on it though. Well done for making a joke at Chris Craggs. It was very funny indeed. :tease:
Fuck off I meant that numpty on the other side who thought I was actually agreeing with Craggs! I know you know this already......... :-*
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Jasper
I have not seen the balance sheet so need some enlightenment.
Is there goodwill and a value for the website shown on the current balance sheet? or just the cash and stock? Is there any assets on the B/S that might be attributable to the acquisition of Rockfax Ltd?
The balance sheet looks very healthy and although the paper Net Asset value of the company is £215,104 at 31/12/11 this doesn't include any value for goodwill or the value of the website.
No the investment in Rockfax Ltd (as a wholly owned subsidiary) is shown as £3 (presumably just the share capital) and it's not trading.
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Aside from the goodwill, do you need to account for value of the bitter vitriol, unpleasant comments and a general air of malice?
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http://northwaleslimestone.com (http://northwaleslimestone.com)
Great website plus it reminded me to donate to the bolt fund
Me too. Bunged a few quid there as I have definitely benefited from Pete (& others) work on The Orme. Thanks Pete.
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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.
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I couldn't see any figures on Companies House (http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/toolsToHelp/findCompanyInfo.shtml) top search result (http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//companysearch?disp=1&frfsh=1371201195&#result) searching for "UK Climbing Ltd" or their ID of "04297002" :shrug:
(Also UKC Limited (Dissolved 2009) (http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//companysearch?disp=1&frfsh=1371201354&#result) and Rockfax Limited (Dissolved) (http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//companysearch?disp=1&frfsh=1371201389&#result) seems awkward to find URLs linking directly to each page, so these are all search results, top hits are the ones to look at).
More info can be obtained for a fee by the looks of it.
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Companies House Direct has all the filings of every registered company in the UK. You need to set up an account and yes there's a fee for downloading stuff.
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Ah, ok, I thought I'd read further back that this was all publicly available online and assumed that meant it was therefore free to access.
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Yeah probably my fault. By "freely available" I meant that anyone can get it rather than it's actually free.
By the way, is that Randy Leavitt article that Pete mentioned about how he likes using Windows 7?
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there aren't any records of any contributions from Alan James, UKC or Rockfax to the north wales bolt fund in the last 20 years.
The North Wales Bolt Fund was established in 2008.
So are there two funds? Or was it just ukboltfund that was established in 2008?
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So, post acquisition there would presumably have been some value attributed to that acquisition on UKclimbing's balance sheet. He must have paid something for it!
My guess on what has happened is:
Over the last 4 years he has written down the value of the acquisition, thus reducing the value of the balance sheet. Less tax, better cash flow and the ability with a straight face to declare that his business is not profitable and he cant affort to support bolt funds .
Of course, he could also be paying himself a big dividend or making a loss but we will never know.
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how long have i got to get my proj done before you go to print
Come on Ian, you've only had 20 years ;) same here though..
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So, post acquisition there would presumably have been some value attributed to that acquisition on UKclimbing's balance sheet. He must have paid something for it!
My guess on what has happened is:
Over the last 4 years he has written down the value of the acquisition, thus reducing the value of the balance sheet. Less tax, better cash flow and the ability with a straight face to declare that his business is not profitable and he cant affort to support bolt funds .
Of course, he could also be paying himself a big dividend or making a loss but we will never know.
Alan has explained the company setup on the other thread:
Accounts - yes, UKClimbing Limited is the single company that runs both. It is actually the old Rockfax Limited which we switched names on when Rockfax bought UKC. Rockfax Limited (the old UKClimbing.com Limited) is just there as a dormant company.
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Its funny how that with Alan's answer on the other side about the contributions to the bolt fund his assertion that he will not deal with Pete "on any level, on any topic" is not quite true. Pete raised the issue on here which was in turn mentioned on UKC. This whole discussion has (albeit a few times removed) opened up lines of communication between the two.
Could this be the basis for a form of reconciliation in the future? Or is that wishful thinking?
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Could this be the basis for a form of reconciliation in the future?
(http://www.gifs.net/Animation11/Animals/Pigs/Pig_flies.gif)
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how long have i got to get my proj done before you go to print
Come on Ian, you've only had 20 years ;) same here though..
Ha i know m8 ,fell off last move twice last week,back to climbing once a week again at the moment,sucks
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Just remembered to donate to the fund. Rockfax shame on you
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there aren't any records of any contributions from Alan James, UKC or Rockfax to the north wales bolt fund in the last 20 years.
The North Wales Bolt Fund was established in 2008.
So are there two funds? Or was it just ukboltfund that was established in 2008?
It's just the one fund Adam.
This is from Chris, the person who runs it (I know you know that):
'Since its formation in 2008 the NWBF has spent £12976 on drills and other equipment, bolts, resin, servicing drills and training on safe bolting for re-equipping, establishing good lower-offs and new-routing.
Currently proud owner of 2 brilliant Dewalt 36v drills with extra batteries, a good Bosh 24V and 2 petrol drills. The fund has provided bolts to all areas across North Wales; North Wales Limestone has had massive proportion of the bolts and resin with solid chunks to the Slate and Clwydd and help to the mid-Wales guys.
The NWBF took over from the North Wales Slate Fund - this had been funded by the profits from the 1992 & 1999 Llanberis Slate Guides - in fact the last 400 of the 1999 Slate guidebooks raised over £2000 with Indi Wall, V12 and Joe Browns managing the 'clear out' taking no profit at all.
Other contributors have been Simon Panton of Ground Up and Mike Doyle (A55 Sport), and many individual donations from climbers who generously send fivers and tenners every now and then.
For over 5 years year the fund has received all the Winter Aggregate Fees from both the Beacon Climbing and Indi Walls in North Wales - amounting to between £700 and £1000 each spring - good old boulderers.
Thanks to all donators.'
So there's actually a bit of precedent, at least in N.Wales, for guidebooks supporting the climbing areas they describe when those areas are heavily reliant on fixed equipment.
New routers have always paid for their own bolts, the bolt fund provides them at cost if people ask but they still have to be bought. Just wanted to point that out.
FYI the blurb on ukboltfund.org for the NWL bolt fund says:
'The North Wales Bolt Fund was established in 2008. Money is used for re-equipping and subsidising new routing. Assisting primarily in North West Wales Areas but also Clywd, Llanymynedd and Mid-Wales.'
Just want to make sure they have their facts straight.
New routers are subsidised - by being able to purchase bolts from the NWBF at cost price instead of retail. That's what that means.
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.
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Without labouring the point any further this is exactly why this guide is so damn important and needs to sell by the boxload; obscure area gets gear fixed up and rebolted; it gets sufficient write up in new guide for people to be encouraged to go there, people buy guide, people have an amazing experience, more people are encouraged by feedback, routes stay clean due to traffic, everyone has a great time, more money to bolting fund more out of condition routes get a facelift, more people get on them, routes in honeypots see less traffic and crowds and polish. Win Win and Win.
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I can't face posting on there. As is always the case there's a few armchair voices who just don't get it and you'll never get the message over to them. And that bell going on about Africa- give me strength :wank:
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And that bell going on about Africa
Bob Geldof?
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I can't face posting on there. As is always the case there's a few armchair voices who just don't get it and you'll never get the message over to them. And that bell going on about Africa- give me strength :wank:
:agree:
The moral argument seems to be won though. Loving the cross examination of aj by quiddity qc, excellent work :clap2:
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Well I've just spent 10minutes on a friday evening reading UKC. not cool.
Seem's like Alan has changed his tune and is scaling back his NWL coverage - whilst trying to save face.
The website looks ace.
Didn't seem like anyone else was going to, so I've made a facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/NorthWalesLimestone (https://www.facebook.com/NorthWalesLimestone)
feel free to "like". maybe you should twit about it or something...
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Well I've just spent 10minutes on a friday evening reading UKC. not cool.
Seem's like Alan has changed his tune and is scaling back his NWL coverage - whilst trying to save face.
The website looks ace.
Didn't seem like anyone else was going to, so I've made a facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/NorthWalesLimestone (https://www.facebook.com/NorthWalesLimestone)
feel free to "like". maybe you should twit about it or something...
#
cheers. i was just about to do that. Could you make me one of the administrators?
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groups been up 20mins already have 7 likes. suck on that rockfax!
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cheers. i was just about to do that. Could you make me one of the administrators?
should be done
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Not sure if this is something that you've thought of, but whilst this is all up in the air and more and more people are getting on your side - would there be a possibility of setting up a pre-order for the guide? Might make even more people pay for this now instead of wrongfax.
Would be a good time with the website and FB page going up, get it out there early.
Not sure how viable it would be and if pricing etc has been decided, may be worth a thought...
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26 right now...
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cheers. i was just about to do that. Could you make me one of the administrators?
should be done
cheers pal, can use the page for bits of news and general interest aswell as guide updates
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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.
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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.
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Website could use link to facebook page
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I'd pre order a copy.
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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.
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Share the facebook page instead of just liking it.
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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.
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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?
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Has all this commotion caused many people to donate to the bolt fund? Just wondering.
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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
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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...
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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 (http://www.climbers-club.co.uk/tides/ci-tidalinfo.html) 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?
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No one bothers with the Wiki. People are on Facebook every day.
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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 (http://www.climbers-club.co.uk/tides/ci-tidalinfo.html) myself as they explicitly cover major coastal crags.
Cheers - looks very useful!
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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").
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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...
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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!
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There's no surprise when it comes to the Rockfax selected crags on NWL - most of them are ideal for drive-by grading.
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* by - Alan James - UKC and UKH ? on - 11:12 Sat - www.ukclimbing.com (http://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.
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.'
Lee Proctor in the Clwyd
I.e. the person who wrote the Devil's Gorge script for our definitive guide.
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.
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.
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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.
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In reply to Mr 'roxo Wolf':
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.
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:
So we took the decision to drop that book - http://www.rockfax.com/news/2011/01/31/change-of-plans-for-north-wales-limestone/ (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
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:
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'.
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?
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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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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!
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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 (http://www.northwaleslimestone.com/tide-times-and-weather.php)
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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.
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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.
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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:
(http://inspectapedia.com/BestPractices/Table2-11.jpg)
'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 (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.
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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
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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 (http://www.northwaleslimestone.com/tide-times-and-weather.php)
:thumbsup:
How about linking to Llandudno webcam? http://www.llandudno-weather.co.uk/ (http://www.llandudno-weather.co.uk/)
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What's going on with the site? - my laptop's telling me 'this is an attack site' and I had to jump through hoops to access.
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See this topic Pete: http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,22519 (http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,22519)
We picked up a nasty bit of injected code. We're on top of the problem but Google still has us flagged as dodgy....hopefully not for too long.
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Would it be worth making the website links to FB & wiki open in a new window rather than redirecting?
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In reply to rooroo:
> bringing out a guide that purports to be selective but in fact isn't and just skins the hard work put in by the definitive guide book team is pretty low. You've plumbed the depths this time Rockfax.
You have the information source the wrong way round here. The current existing definitive guidebook was written by me and published by Rockfax in 1997 (based on one by Steve Mayers, also Rockfax 1992). This is the base information source for our guide and the other definitive one.
Of course we do rely on the hard work put in by the local volunteers, the NWBF and the BMC for the areas we cover - some of UPT, LPT some of Gwynt, some of Castle Inn, and Penanen Head - which is why we are supporting the NWBF with a financial contribution.
My understanding is that much of the more recent work is on areas not in our book especially near the lighthouse where I have heard there are many new sport routes. I for one am looking forward to seeing that book in print as well.
That's actually pretty damn disrespectful to the authors of the 5 guidebooks to North Wales Limestone that you didn't publish. Recognition of their research and writing efforts would have been more gracious. It was these books that formed the base information source for the area, upon which you added yours. Another example of the Alan James selective facts spin in action.
Climbs on North Wales Limestone, Rowland Edwards (Cordee, 1976)
North Wales Limestone, Andy Pollitt (Dark Peak, 1981)
North Wales Limestone – 1983 Supplement, Andy Pollitt (The Climbers’ Club, 1984)
North Wales Limestone, Andy Pollitt (The Climbers’ Club, 1987)
and
North Wales Limestone Supplement, Karl Smith (Karl Smith, 1996)
Or aren't those climbers who developed the area and wrote about it worth mentioning? Next you'll be holding up 5 fingers and telling me to believe I'm seeing 4.
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Would it be worth making the website links to FB & wiki open in a new window rather than redirecting?
I personally find it very rude when websites do that. I decide what windows I want open and what I want to see where, not some anonymous website owner. Opening in a new tab is just about acceptable, but new windows piss me off. :spank:
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New tab is what I meant really, I agree a new window is pushing it but I'd rather external links not direct me away from the site I'm viewing. can't please all of the people, etc..... :devangel:
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You should be able to configure your browser to your preference.
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Following on from Pete's most recent post, a bit more background to the Alan James "authored" guidebook in 1997. Other than seeing him once with a notepad and pencil, I don't recall seeing him at Pen Trwyn at any stage before the publication of the 1997 guide. I did receive a note from him begrudgingly saying "I suppose I owe you a copy" ; presumably this was as reward for lifting large chunks of the supplement I published to generate some money for the bolt fund.
I'd be interested to know how many other people spotted him doing "research" at the Ormes prior to the 1997 Rockfax guide. Bit of a rare species around there, I think?
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Climbs on North Wales Limestone, Rowland Edwards (Cordee, 1976)
Could that be the source of inaccurate grades in Rockfax given the downgrades in Cornwall and Spain? :clown:
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You should be able to configure your browser to your preference.
Some browsers; I can't find a relevant setting in Chrome for example. And that's beside the point: I decide whether I want to look at something in a new tab/window or right here where I am right now thank you very much, and for somebody else to attempt to make that decision for me is simply rude.
That's enough :off: though.
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On first impression Rockfax's behaviour looks unabashedly parasitic, and their circumlocutions to disguise the fact mere weasel words.
The more I read - by parties of both persuasions, and on both channels :ras: - the more that impression is confirmed.
It's a shame because bar greed there's no reason Rockfax could not publish to the benefit of both the climbing community and its business owners, instead of to the manifest detriment of the former. FWIW Alan James's excuses do seem very much an insult to basic intelligence. It all makes a mockery of the term 'climbing community'.
Put me down for a pre-order of the definitive guide if you set one up petejh, and keep at it, it's the commitment of people like yourself who really care that enables so much enjoyment for the rest of us.
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:thumbsup:
How about linking to Llandudno webcam? http://www.llandudno-weather.co.uk/ (http://www.llandudno-weather.co.uk/)
Done, and I've fixed the outbound links on the wiki & fb links. These should now open in new tabs.
I'll speak to Pete and the nwbf peeps about pre-ordering, I think it'll be super useful.
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An update from the other channel:
Offwidth: So given all off this good behaviour, why not extend it and talk to the NWL team? Seems to me the risk is all on their side if you turn out wrong and you can afford to clip the coverage a little.
Alan: I have been talking to them since the middle of last week. The coverage is clipped. The donation to the NWBF is committed to.
I have said this at least three times on the thread above I think.
Have you spoke to him Pete? I went on to ask...
Luke Owens:Alan - Can you clarify what changes have been made to the number of routes included in what areas?
Alan: Upper Pen Trwyn - 9 out of 18 buttresses dropped
LPT - thinned
Castel y Gwynt - 9 routes down to 6
Little Orme - Dropped completely
Castle Inn - 3 out of 6 buttresses dropped
Penmaen Head - Haven't looked yet
10% page allocation to North Wales Lime which is the same as North Wales Rock.
Alan
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Well that sounds like actual progress.
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Excellent.
Now there's just the issue of why they're publishing it at all!
:wall:
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Now there's just the issue of why they're publishing it at all!
Because they're a business that produces and publishes guidebooks and they think they can make a profit (and to hell with everyone else).
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Have you spoke to him Pete? ...
Hi Luke. No Alan has not spoken to or emailed me - remember: 'since your actions with the ICO I refuse to deal with you on any topic on any level.'.
He did send an email to the person who runs the bolt fund, and to the co-author of the NW lime guidebook. In it he wanted to know how much the bolt fund spends per year so he could calculate how much of a donation to make - this donation is mentioned in Alan's news item here: http://www.rockfax.com/news/2013/06/20/north-wales-climbs-to-support-the-north-wales-bolt-fund/ (http://www.rockfax.com/news/2013/06/20/north-wales-climbs-to-support-the-north-wales-bolt-fund/)
Obviously the drivers behind Alan's decision to donate to the NWBF are different to most people's, but it's a positive move.
He also said they'd taken the Little Orme out of their planned coverage. Again a welcome move.
Now he's stated the Castle Inn coverage is reduced - that's also a positive by Alan.
The core of the problem remains Pen Trwyn and LPT.
Alan states '9 out of 18 Pen Trwyn buttresses dropped' - I've counted buttresses, there are indeed approx 18 (depending on definition of what constitutes a buttress), but that figure includes the quarried areas at the start of Pen Trwyn which Alan originally stated weren't being included in their coverage anyway.
It's important that Alan clarifies the number of routes they intend to include on Pen Trwyn (275 in total), give or take 15, and also to do the same for LPT (57 in total) - give or take 5.
This is simple question which could be checked and answered clearly by Alan in minutes. Page count is a red-herring in this debate, pages can contain anything from a lot to very little.
I'd also appreciate it if Alan could change the following inaccurate wording (underlined) on the rockfax news item:
This book has taken on the definitive coverage from Rockfax and, in a new development in British climbing, has pledged that all its profits will be donated to the bolt fund.
This isn't accurate. Your original NW Lime guide wasn't to be definitive, not even close by anyone's definition. That was the whole reason for us starting our guidebook in the first place.
Secondly - the 1992 and 1997 Slate guidebooks donated all profits to the North Wales Bolt fund, ne North Wales Slate fund. So there is a precedent for this type of guidebook, in North Wales at least. Our forthcoming definitive NW Limestone guidebook is just following that previous model.
(BTW, the definitive guide will also be released at the same time as an App for iPhone and Android by TheSend: http://thesend.co.uk/apps/northwaleslimestone.php (http://thesend.co.uk/apps/northwaleslimestone.php) - don't forget that :)).
The funds provided by the new definitive book may well ultimately provide some much needed cash for the North Wales Bolt Fund but this is unlikely to happen for a year or two due to the initial publishing costs needing to be met first.
I can almost feel the clenched-teeth reluctance with which that was typed.
I don't have to pay any staff (you do), 90% of the photographs used in the definitive guide have been given freely despite me offering to pay the going rate to the amazing photographers who took them, any overheads connected to this guidebook are virtually nil. Based on my low overheads and low initial outlay, printing costs and expected number of sales, the definitive guidebook should be making profit after 1 year. If I take up all the advertising being offered the book could be profitable within the first year. Thereafter it should provide a sustainable level of income for the bolt fund totaling approx £10000 over the next 15 years.
But you've overlooked (or failed to acknowledge) the most important factor - we're producing an App version of North Wales Limestone: The Definitive Guide, for iPhone and Android. This will be released at the same time as the printed guidebook. This App will be making profit from day 1. This profit will also go to the bolt fund.
I've forgotten, did I mention TheSend guidebook Apps? You should check them out, there's a free taster of NW Limestone App here!: http://thesend.co.uk/apps/northwaleslimestone.php (http://thesend.co.uk/apps/northwaleslimestone.php)
Of course, it shouldn't be forgotten that the definitive guide would be even quicker to make a profit if there wasn't competition from a guidebook publisher cynically purporting to be producing a 'Select Guide' which contains absurdly disproportionate coverage of the most popular NW Limestone routes.
You still haven't given any comprehensible reason for why you've chosen to do this Alan - why would you make what's turning out to be such an ill-judged move? The only two motives I or anyone else can come up with are: you think you will sell more books if they contain extensive coverage of three of the most popular NW Limestone crags - which, if true, exposes as outright lies everything you've stated up to now about not wanting to damage the prospects of the definitive guidebook - remember it was you who stated the area cannot economically support two guidebooks;
or,
you're sore and bitter about backing out of your NW Lime guide in 2010 and still angry with me for 'getting one over on you' by making a legitimate complaint about you to the ICO - i.e. you're doing this as some kind of retaliatory grudge and, despite giving impressions to the contrary, you always planned to try to undermine the definitive guide with your own preemptively released book containing extensive limestone coverage. If that were true it show's you up as deceptive, cynical and not giving a damn about the overall good of the wider NW limestone area.
Either of the above reasons could be true but whatever the reason is, you're screwing up yours and your company's image and reputation as a result of it.
As far as can be gathered without Alan providing clarity, the limestone route-count in the rockfax NW Climbs is still 250 out of the total 1000 routes. It works out as all the worthwhile routes on LPT, Pen Trwyn and Penmaen Head, and the most popular on Castle Inn. The only crag in his NW Lime coverage that could be called genuinely selective is Castell y Gwynt - 6 routes.
According to rockfax the NW Climbs guidebook will contain 1000 routes spread over 55 crags.
- 250 of those routes (the NW Limestone ones) are to be found on 5 crags.
- That leaves 750 routes spread between the remaining 50 crags in N.Wales. The maths would suggest these remaining 50 crags should therefore contain 2500 routes, going by the coverage given to NW lime.
Neither Andy Boorman, the co-author of the definitive guide, nor the person who runs the bolt fund wish to get involved in public online discussions with Alan. But both have given Alan their views. I don't think they'd mind me stating here that they neither of them are in favour of rockfax's current plan. Andy will post his considered view on here, but he wants to see if Alan can clarify the route count for LPT and Pen Trwyn first.
Did I mention TheSend - great climbing Apps direct to your iPhone or Android, some apps even support bolt funds: http://thesend.co.uk/ (http://thesend.co.uk/) :goodidea:
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If the previous post was too long for some - I wanted to make it clear that neither I nor the two people Alan emailed are happy with Alan's updated plans for coverage of NW limestone. The extent of coverage on Pen Trwyn, LPT and Penmaen Head is still far in excess of a normal select guidebook. 250 routes on 5 crags does not suggest selective coverage - unless Alan will clarify those numbers.
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Exciting Updated Plans for the North Wales Limestone Definitive Guide
Authors: Pete Harrison, Andy Boorman
Due to be Published: Autumn/Winter 2013
Pre-Orders: Later in the year
North Wales Limestone, The Definitive Guide, due to be published Autumn/Winter 2013, will cover all the climbing in this huge and varied area. It will contain definitive coverage of every crag along the North Wales coast from Benllech in the West to Devil's Gorge, near Mold, in the East and taking in the superb Great and Little Ormes.
In an exciting development - inspired by the forthcoming Rockfax North Wales Climbs select guidebook, our North Wales Limestone Definitive guidebook will now contain additional extensive select coverage of the three main crags in the Clwyd Limestone area - Craig Arthur, Pinfold and Dinbren; plus a smattering of the best routes at Maeshafn and Trevor Rocks.
Our coverage of these crags will be 'selective' - the 'buttress count' is 50% of truly definitive coverage on these crags, but it will include every single good route on those 3 major crags so that visiting climbers get a good taster of the excellent climbing to be found in this relatively overlooked and relatively minor area. The climbing will be documented in the usual full colour eye-catching style, an App for iPhone and Android will be released at the same time as the printed guide.
We hope our decision to comprehensively selectively cover the Clwyd limestone area might lead to increased sales of the forthcoming comprehensive guidebook to the Clwyd area - Clwyd Limestone by Rockfax (to be published in 2014).
As is normally the case with 'selective' sections within a definitive guidebook, the choice of what to include is based as much on the crag as it is on the route itself. We tend to take the view that we include every single good route on the crags we cover, if we so wish. This decision was made following consideration of the following: economics, damaging to competitors, we're stubborn, we lack a sense of fair play towards existing ongoing work to produce a comprehensive guidebook showcasing Clwyd Limestone, we have a disregard for what happens to any routes and crags on Clwyd Limestone which we aren't including, and finally, we lack consideration about whether our actions will make it more or less worthwhile for anyone else to ever want to bother documenting all the climbing in the Clwyd area that we won't be including in our guidebook. Producing climbing guidebooks is purely a business, if you can't do it and make a profit, you're doing it wrong.
We've been busy out on the crags writing the text and getting photos of all the buttress on the Clwyd crags, we've even climbed some of the routes over the years.
North Wales Bolt Fund
Our guidebook is donating to the bolt fund, so we feel we're justified in doing this.
...
Now then, why shouldn't I actually do this? I can easily put the popular Clwyd limestone crags in our definitive guide if I want to and have it out this year. It'll sell more copies if I do - it's another USP after all. I reckon around, let me see... 250 - 300 routes out of the approx 600 on the five crags mentioned should do it.
I haven't done so out of respect to rockfax's Clwyd plans, and to the people passionate about documenting the climbing in the Clwyd limestone area. It would be detrimental to sales of the forthcoming rockfax Clwyd guidebook and it's against the best interests of climbing in the Clwyd limestone area - does this sound familiar?
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:2thumbsup:
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:lol: Nice one Pete.
Fair point though, you could include the Clwyd and you'd be well within your right to do so but you haven't... out of respect, which is something Rockfax don't have, or understand!
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You li'l ripper :clap2:
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Do it
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I've spent the last couple of weeks wondering if I'd get a denial, rebuttal, or demand for retraction (my post was pointed out by someone over on the other side) but it has happened yet.
I am staggered by Andy's revelation above. I never quite believed they just copied and pasted, but there's the proof. And doing it from an unpublished, private guide script too - well that really takes some chutzpah, and shows a total lack of respect for others (unpaid) effort.
When I first found out I managed to get Alan on the phone and demanded an explanation for how they'd got hold of my script. At the end of the call Alan asked me if I was to apologize to him.
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In fairness, Alan James was out doing some guidebook research at Pen Trwyn today. It seemed to involve a pair of binoculars rather than rock shoes from what I could see.
Incidentally, is there a better emoticon than this one to describe Rockfax behaviour :lets_do_it_wild:- I don't think the face-to-face, Missionary position thing really covers it.
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Surely as an academic you realize how upsetting it must be to be accused of plagiarism?
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So many bloody typos in my post: the denial/rebuttal/demand for retraction HASN'T happened and Alan asked if I was GOING to apologize (asked in dead earnest)/
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Oh I got you loud and clear Andy, text on the page is a bit too flat to convey irony, but that was how my comment was intended.
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Alan asked if I was GOING to apologize (asked in dead earnest)/
Careful. he might send his attack poodle kitty wolfo to slobber on you :wank:
(http://www.pbkblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Dr-Evil-and-his-cat.jpg)
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So many bloody typos in my post: the denial/rebuttal/demand for retraction HASN'T happened and Alan asked if I was GOING to apologize (asked in dead earnest)/
Hold the fuck on this is getting confusing. Can someone please just tell me who I need to be hating on right now.
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So many bloody typos in my post: the denial/rebuttal/demand for retraction HASN'T happened and Alan asked if I was GOING to apologize (asked in dead earnest)/
Hold the fuck on this is getting confusing. Can someone please just tell me who I need to be hating on right now.
Nothings changed, Rockfax still the bad guys...
If I understand correctly... Andy was providing a bit more detail about how Alan managed to get hold of some imaginary route descriptions that seemed to exist in either Andys head or some scraps of notes - that somehow ended up in a guide (without Andys permission).. when confronted on the phone about it Alan seemed to think Andy should apologise... allegedly that is.
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Yes, that's - allegedly - right; Alan expected me to apologize to him.
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What are you supposed to apologise for?
"Sorry Alan, I had a project marked on a personal manuscript that curiously mysteriously got into your hands and ended up in one of your guidebooks, which you hadn't bpthered checking properly, and made some good money from selling, and didn't credit me with input into. I promise I won't let it happen again".
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There seems to be some weird parallel RF/UKC/AJ universe where where wronged must apologise to the wronging, "less than one year" is no different to between "1 and 2 years" and its fine to stomp over anyone for a few bob.
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Ive been tipped over the edge by the obvious and insultingly cynical choice of RF to post the Bolt Fund supporting note. What a crock of shit. I hope the only good thing that comes out of this is that the NWBF has had increased coverage and hopefully more monies.
I cannot believe this "oh he needs to feed his family", "oh he doesn't" argument. The whole concept of earning money involves the investment of your time into something, whether its lifting bins at 4am in the morning or negotiating a deal in New York. It doesnt, or shouldnt involve capitalising on other peoples unpaid efforts who have invested just as much of there own personal time into something out of choice. People are talking about it like they see this guidebook as cha-ching. A money maker. Forgive me for rose tinted spectacles but surely the climbing community is better than this!
If people want to swallow the RF statement like its the gospel then I say wake up! I just cant believe I'm hearing it!
Another note. How many independent gear manufacturers are there now in the UK? The likes of Moon, DMM, Momentum, Blox... You don't seem them stepping over one another just for the buck.
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In a nutshell,Mr fiveknuckle.
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Or Ms.fiveknuckle,of course. :slap:
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How many independent gear manufacturers are there now in the UK? The likes of Moon, DMM, Momentum, Blox... You don't seem them stepping over one another just for the buck.
Not really a useful comparison: these firms are in straight competition with each other. A better analogy might be if one of these firms started selling Climbers against cancer t-shirts, without donating any money to said charity. But justifying it on the grounds they are raising awareness, and had put a donation link on their site. Would we stand for that?
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How many independent gear manufacturers are there now in the UK? The likes of Moon, DMM, Momentum, Blox... You don't seem them stepping over one another just for the buck.
Not really a useful comparison: these firms are in straight competition with each other. A better analogy might be if one of these firms started selling Climbers against cancer t-shirts, without donating any money to said charity. Nut justifying it on the grounds they are raising awareness, and had put a donation link on their site. Would we stand for that?
Or Stu wholesaling his "Climbers Against Barrows" T Shirt
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I wouldn't have a problem with that, at this stage in the game raising awareness against Barrows will have to do.
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It goes without saying that I would donate all proceeds to research to mitigate the harmful effects of Barrows, and eventually find a cure.
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Are you taking pre-orders?
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It goes without saying that I would donate all proceeds to research to mitigate the harmful effects of Barrows, and eventually find a cure.
Whilst that is encouraging news we will be seeking independent verification by checking your accounts at Companies House to make sure the proceeds haven't been spent on Chicken McNuggets
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Fair point Johnny Brown. Although your analogy merely incenses me more.
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It goes without saying that I would donate all proceeds to research to mitigate the harmful effects of Barrows, and eventually find a cure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RBQt544fqk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RBQt544fqk)
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I'd like to buy a whole range of Anti Barrows clothing.
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Interesting that DMM have been bought up, as I was wondering if they ever would be.
Don't get me wrong, I really rate DMM kit, in fact most of my rack seems to be DMM stuff. But has no-one noticed that the Dragon is a Camalot? It's hardly as if DMM have done any more extra work on the Camalot to make the Dragon, than RF with their guides...
the t-shirt analogy is good, very good. but cancer is a bit different to bolts isn't it? Or is climbing really really really important??
Nonetheless, I think it's pretty ungracious how to begin with there was the call to "reduce the limestone coverage" after Pete sort of got the wrong end of the stick with the databases. To begin with it seemed pretty dick-ish of RF, but Alan has cut a load of stuff. Yes he has still included a lot of the popular routes on the popular buttresses, but anyone can find those by using NWR and the Wiki, as I have done. Pete is making a definitive, and those that looked forward to the definitive won't suddenly go out and buy the RF instead. (IMO)
Then everyone was angry that Alan had said he had donated to "bolt funds" (the exact terminology used I think). So when it was found that the last time he donated to a North Walian Bolt Fund was when he had done the previous guide (That Pete is using to make his guide - ironic??) there is an outrage. Im pretty sure Alan said he had donated to bolt funds in general, and if you look on the RF website, when you go to buy a book, you are given the option of donating to the dorset bolt fund or the ACT... evil, I know.
So now that Alan said he'll donate profits (and no doubt add the NWBF into the RF checkout system) and reduce coverage, everyone still has a hissy fit! Pretty unbelievable, though highly entertaining.
I have read both threads with glee. Pete doesn't need the money (you said so yourself) Alan has kids and employees to pay. Yep, it's nice to have shiny bolts, and Pete has done a mega effort putting a handline into the diamond (RF wont profit from this) and all the other stuff, yet you all still use UKC for free (Even Pete does!!), probably have one or two RF guides.
AND I bet you all shop at Tescos, or Asda, or some other corporation that makes Alan James and RF/UKC look like teddy-bears in comparison. Even not including the attrocities that we force the third world into without batting an eyelid, supermarkets treat their employees pretty badly, giving them minimal hour contracts, forcing them to need overtime, and then if profits aren't high enough, cutting hours at the drop of a hat.
The only problem I have with the RF NWC is I can't see what the point in it is, when there is NWR which, to my mind is as good as anything. Having come to North Wales 4 years ago with one clutched to my breast it has served as my Bible ever since, and yes I've bought the 'Beris, Big G, Trem-dog, Slate definitives, but it's still a book I reach for time and time again. I feel more sorry for Pantontino than NWL authors!
I will be buying the NWL, probably won't buy the RF, but not because of some hatred towards RF, in fact Pete's lack of grace at Alan's reduction of the Lime section and promise to give money to the bolt fund have made me think twice, to begin with I could see his point (even though i think he jumped the gun a bit) but now I think you are being a bit childish, Pete. Alan has said he believes there wasn't room for two definitives, so didn't make one. He hasn't really encroached on your definitive term with his lime section, but has cut it and pledged money to the bolt fund. what more do you want?? A handjob?
NWL looks great Pete and I'm sure you'll sell loads because people wanting to know all the routes on NWL will buy your guide as it:
a)is better value for money as it has more crags in it,
b) most of those people will have guides to the other areas so it would be weird to buy a selective book for a particular section when there is a strong definitive alternative.
The only people who will buy the RF will be newbies who haven't already got NWR, I reckon!
I think this is further proof that all climbers are, essentially :wank: on the internet, bet all of you haters are lovely in real life! Pete's a bit surly but seemed alright, and Alan seems pretty nice too, (having not spent much time with either). Maybe we should remember that there are people starving in the world who probably dont give 2 shits about some bolts in the second worst climbing venue in North Wales :o
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Maybe we should remember that there are people starving in the world who probably dont give 2 shits about some bolts in the second worst climbing venue in North Wales :o
Shit. And a pimp was going to take some time from deadlifting to write a strongly worded letter to my MP about snooping by the UK government. You've reminded me that "people starving in the world who probably dont give 2 shits about" the privacy of UK citizens. So I went to McDonalds instead and took a piss in the park.
Cheers Brother.
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Again, fair point. However this isnt a charity forum and adding a different perspective to things does not detract from the original point. I think we're all agreement that things could be alot worse for us but comparisons to big supermarket chains serves little point.
The main issue here is that petejh, from what I have surmised, has been doing this as a labour of love and something that will hopefully turn into something benefinicial for the area whereas RF has done this to turn a profit, rather weakly stating after a fortnight of discussion that it will publically support the bolt fund aswell. This is in hindsight a good thing but still feels like marketing ploy after theyve realised how passionate people have been about it. Maybe an oversight on their part. A bit little too late for me personally and hopefully people will see this too.
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the t-shirt analogy is good, very good. but cancer is a bit different to bolts isn't it?
I did think about that before I made it. Donating money to cancer research is great and worthy indeed, but it is a drop in an ocean of funding with little measurable outcome for those involved. Writing guidebooks for free is worthy too, but involves much more effort to be put in, and gives a much more tangible benefit for the rest of us who add our contribution in the form of the cover price. I think the two balance out, at least for the sake of the analogy.
For me you are missing the main point - the funding for bolts represents the tip of an iceberg that includes the bolting work, and producing the definitive guide. This effort put into these two represents a far bigger contribution than any funding for bolts.
Not only do not RF routinely contribute even to the bolt fund for areas they cover, but they rely on the hard work of others for the raw materials of their product - the routes and the information. This is why they are known as 'topo vampires' in Europe. If climbing was bigger business I have little doubt their modus operandi would be stopped by a court of law.
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I've spent the last couple of weeks wondering if I'd get a denial, rebuttal, or demand for retraction (my post was pointed out by someone over on the other side) but it has happened yet.
When I first found out I managed to get Alan on the phone and demanded an explanation for how they'd got hold of my script. At the end of the call Alan asked me if I was to apologize to him.
Did you ask for the reason why he thought an apology was required?
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the best thing about all this whole rather juvenile thread is how it has bought to light what UKBers really are. You are exactly the same as the UKCers you despise, which in turn makes you worse as you believe you are so much better
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the best thing about all this whole rather juvenile thread is how it has bought to light what UKBers really are. You are exactly the same as the UKCers you despise, which in turn makes you worse as you believe you are so much better
Never mind that we need to know more about Chris Craggs resume..
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the best thing about all this whole rather juvenile thread is how it has bought to light what UKBers really are. You are exactly the same as the UKCers you despise, which in turn makes you worse as you believe you are so much better
And by posting the above, you clearly believe you are a superior being... which of course you are darling.. xx
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the t-shirt analogy is good, very good. but cancer is a bit different to bolts isn't it?
I did think about that before I made it. Donating money to cancer research is great and worthy indeed, but it is a drop in an ocean of funding with little measurable outcome for those involved. Writing guidebooks for free is worthy too, but involves much more effort to be put in, and gives a much more tangible benefit for the rest of us who add our contribution in the form of the cover price. I think the two balance out, at least for the sake of the analogy.
Try telling that to the research scientists trying to find cures/make drugs more effective etc, and the doctors and nurses who have to watch people suffering and dying. Pete can sack it all off anytime if he wants, and it wont really have any major adverse effects, the cancer dudes need money to live on and the people they are trying to help would be in trouble too... but i get your point.
For me you are missing the main point - the funding for bolts represents the tip of an iceberg that includes the bolting work, and producing the definitive guide. This effort put into these two represents a far bigger contribution than any funding for bolts.
So what is it that you all want Alan to do?? Get a drill out and give a helping hand? If he wasn't making a profit/living from NWC would you be bothered?? Why did everyone make such a fuss about the lack of donations if its not the point?? If no-one goes and climbs on NWL then Pete's work will be in vain. so at least it'll put NWL on the map a bit. Again I really dont think it will take many sales from NWL. Surely NWL is gonna take sales from the A55 guides? You'd have to be a bit of a muppet to buy that if it is included in NWL...
Not only do not RF routinely contribute even to the bolt fund for areas they cover, but they rely on the hard work of others for the raw materials of their product - the routes and the information. This is why they are known as 'topo vampires' in Europe. If climbing was bigger business I have little doubt their modus operandi would be stopped by a court of law.
How do normal guidebooks get written then? Pete has already stated he has been using the rockfax to help write the guide. someone else bolted/climbed all those routes previous to Pete rocking up. He like everyone else who writes a guidebook has relied on the hard work of others for the raw materials of his product?? (Excuse my ignorance of guidebook writing but surely plagiarism on a level is just how it works?)
Admittedly it is a bit gyp on the euro guide front but a lot of euro guides are pretty gyp! In my experience the best thing to do was have RF and a local, you have contributed, and can sort of cross-reference though the rockfax tends to get used more than the local offering.
I'm not sure about the court of law thing. a lot of bad shit goes on in big business... but I don't know enough about big business/the evil empire.
Also no-one bothered about DMM ripping off BD camalots?? they are better for UK trad (IMO) but still no more effort put into it than you claim RF put into their guides! The prototypes where exactly the same but with a different sling!
Any road. nighty night UKBers
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I AM the hero of the New World Order. Bitch. I'll kick Sly's ass any day.
It goes without saying that I would donate all proceeds to research to mitigate the harmful effects of Barrows, and eventually find a cure.
Effects on British citizens could be mitigated by putting the proceeds towards the 'send Barrows to Europe' fund.
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Effects on British citizens could be mitigated by putting the proceeds towards the 'send Barrows to Europe' fund.
Hrrrm Europe is a bit close to home.
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We could pay for this in BitBarrows, a new internet based Climbers currency where BitBarrows are 'mined' via unsuccessful red point attempts at grotty peak lime routes.
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:shrug: Barrows?
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:shrug: Barrows?
quite
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Try telling that to the research scientists trying to find cures/make drugs more effective etc, and the doctors and nurses who have to watch people suffering and dying. Pete can sack it all off anytime if he wants, and it wont really have any major adverse effects, the cancer dudes need money to live on and the people they are trying to help would be in trouble too... but i get your point.
So what is it that you all want Alan to do?? Get a drill out and give a helping hand? If he wasn't making a profit/living from NWC would you be bothered?? Why did everyone make such a fuss about the lack of donations if its not the point?? If no-one goes and climbs on NWL then Pete's work will be in vain. so at least it'll put NWL on the map a bit. Again I really dont think it will take many sales from NWL. Surely NWL is gonna take sales from the A55 guides? You'd have to be a bit of a muppet to buy that if it is included in NWL...
How do normal guidebooks get written then? Pete has already stated he has been using the rockfax to help write the guide. someone else bolted/climbed all those routes previous to Pete rocking up. He like everyone else who writes a guidebook has relied on the hard work of others for the raw materials of his product?? (Excuse my ignorance of guidebook writing but surely plagiarism on a level is just how it works?)
Speaking as a mainly UKC poster I thought this might deserve a straighter response. You were lampooned above on these argument which is the normal UKB (and maybe the best) way to respond but how do we practically go about living a moral life ignoring small wrongs until the big ones are conquered? The cancer researchers I work with and doctors and nurses I know certainly wouldn't want us to do that.
One thing I want Alan to do is negotiate, as I said on the other channel. That means more than just making an offer because as several have pointed out here, once the problem is identified, the solution should, if we are being reasonable, be fair to most of us and currently it still isn't clear that it is. The two teams need to talk until it does look fair to the community. I'd also like Alan's team to have more input to the areas they cover, as they do in the best of their guides. When they started they were the small outsider with the aim of producing user friendly material in contrast to the rather rigid and old fashioned definitives. They are now a big fish and although the original ethos could carry over to some areas in Europe it won't here with a classy looking definitive on the way for a less popular area that relies more sensitively on volunteers and bolt funds. The continuation of this line of argument answers your last questions, most guidebook production stands proudly on the shoulders of those who came before and looks to build significantly on previous efforts and as such is happily accepted by the community.
The stuff about DMM is back to your pointless comparative weighing of unconnected moral issues. Start a new thread.
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How do normal guidebooks get written then? Pete has already stated he has been using the rockfax to help write the guide. someone else bolted/climbed all those routes previous to Pete rocking up. He like everyone else who writes a guidebook has relied on the hard work of others for the raw materials of his product?? (Excuse my ignorance of guidebook writing but surely plagiarism on a level is just how it works?)
The definitive guides typically get written by teams of volunteers. Depending on the area these can be big teams, buidling on the work of many previous guides, or they can be small teams, working from scratch or building on limited information. Again, depending on the area bolted climbing may or may not comprise a significant number of the routes. In an area like the Peak you have a hugely popular area which has been covered by definitive and select guides for years, so no one is hugely bothered by RF releasing their own select grit guides - some of the RF authors have been on guide teams in the past, and their is no ongoing maintenance of the climb required.
Occasionally you get a case like this where one or two individuals have put in huge amounts of time, money and effort to equip or re-equip an area, and want to produce a guide both to fund and/ or showcase their efforts. They should be given a free run at that - its that simple.
As Offwidth said, what would be nice would be some open negotiation and compromise, which has not happened despite what you read on UKC.
As for the DMM/ Camalot question - you have two companies competing in an open market - so not the same, and one decides not to maintain their patents - so not the same. What about all the other companies that make cams copying the original WC design? Do you boycott them too?
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the best thing about all this whole rather juvenile thread is how it has bought to light what UKBers really are. You are exactly the same as the UKCers you despise, which in turn makes you worse as you believe you are so much better
I've read this half a dozen times, and it still makes no sense? What are UKBers really? In what way are we exactly the same? We are all climbers, we all use the internet, we are all humans?
Please elaborate, I'm just a dumb boulderer.
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the best thing about all this whole rather juvenile thread is how it has bought to light what UKBers really are. You are exactly the same as the UKCers you despise, which in turn makes you worse as you believe you are so much better
Hello,
I tried to post this on cocktalk, but after three replies thought I might get better answers on a website where people actually climb...
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the t-shirt analogy is good, very good. but cancer is a bit different to bolts isn't it? Or is climbing really really really important??
Firstly, it is an analogy, nothing more. Secondly, if people do not speak up then issues do not get resolved. If people hadn't have said anything then there is every possibility the RF would have been more extensive and there would not have been any NWBF contributions. So to answer your second question. Is climbing really, really, really important? To other climbers, yes.
Then everyone was angry that Alan had said he had donated to "bolt funds" (the exact terminology used I think). So when it was found that the last time he donated to a North Walian Bolt Fund was when he had done the previous guide (That Pete is using to make his guide - ironic??) there is an outrage. Im pretty sure Alan said he had donated to bolt funds in general, and if you look on the RF website, when you go to buy a book, you are given the option of donating to the dorset bolt fund or the ACT... evil, I know.
why don't you actually check the exact terminology. If fact, I will do that for you. AJ posted "We gave money in the past to the North Wales Bolt Fund". He has since capitulated when presented with overwhelming evidence that his statement was incorrect. Any outrage is quite justifiable when someone is found to be making quite misleading statements.
So now that Alan said he'll donate profits (and no doubt add the NWBF into the RF checkout system) and reduce coverage, everyone still has a hissy fit! Pretty unbelievable, though highly entertaining.
You can see my beef is not about the contribution - I've said twice on UKC that it is commendable. What I though was below the belt was the announcement differentiating the two books by the way they will contribute to the fund. There was no need for the announcement to attempt a 'one-upmanship' over NWL. It is petty and factually incomplete and to those reading it, they may feel buying the RF guide is better as the fund will get much needed cash more quickly.
Maybe we should remember that there are people starving in the world who probably dont give 2 shits about some bolts in the second worst climbing venue in North Wales :o
And maybe we need to remember that we need to act whether it be starving children or bolt issues because if we do nothing both will suffer.
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I cant believe how this thread has ended up talking about cancer, starving kids etc. its only a fucking guidebook for gods sake. It all just looks like a bit of petty UKC v UKB vendetta bullshit now, which is never nice.
Rockfax are a business and were welcomed with open arms by nearly everyone when they started as the BMC/Climbing club guides for most areas were hopelessly out of date. We all buy them and all use them. Alan has built a business around this and has overheads to pay but in doing so you all compare him to Satan. I don't think he is doing anything wrong unless he is actually stealing stuff that Pete has written, and as has been pointed out so many times all new guides ultimately rely on the old ones for a lot of there content.
Also i dont think that he should be put under pressure to donate to the bolt fund if he doesn't want to, there must be 1000s of people who climb these routes who don't contribute or the fund would be big enough to employ a full time bolter. Are you going to go round confronting every climber then slagging them off and calling them parasites at the crag when they admit not to donating.
As i said a while ago in the thread spend all your time on making your guide the best Pete and people will buy it. A minority of people on here and elsewhere may buy it for altruistic reasons however good or bad it is but 99% of people will buy it based on quality. If climbers are the same as they were when i was young and keen they will buy both books, i guess they cost £15 or so each which is not a lot of money.
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:agree: Have a wad point, couldn't have put it better myself.
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I cant believe how this thread has ended up talking about cancer, starving kids etc. its only a fucking guidebook for gods sake. It all just looks like a bit of petty UKC v UKB vendetta bullshit now, which is never nice.
personally I don't see this vibe. It might only be a guidebook but if you believe in something then you should stand up for it.
Rockfax are a business and were welcomed with open arms by nearly everyone when they started as the BMC/Climbing club guides for most areas were hopelessly out of date. We all buy them and all use them. Alan has built a business around this and has overheads to pay but in doing so you all compare him to Satan. I don't think he is doing anything wrong unless he is actually stealing stuff that Pete has written, and as has been pointed out so many times all new guides ultimately rely on the old ones for a lot of there content.
I see this differently. I have bought rockfax's and they were good. I liked them and appreciated the effort put it. Then they come along and shit all over NWL guide (my opinion). From my perspective he's lied (bolt fund donations), told false truths (number of routes included), plagerised (see andyd's posts) and it's quite shocking to see him squirm and wriggle to avoid having to apologise. It feels like a kick in the teeth for me having bought and supported his guides that he could turn around a effectively harm climbing (in north wales) with full knowledge of his actions.
Also i dont think that he should be put under pressure to donate to the bolt fund if he doesn't want to, there must be 1000s of people who climb these routes who don't contribute or the fund would be big enough to employ a full time bolter. Are you going to go round confronting every climber then slagging them off and calling them parasites at the crag when they admit not to donating.
I didn't think he was put under much pressure to donate. He even said he does donate which turned out to be a lie. It looks to me like the decision to donate was made in an attempt at damage limitation. I won't be fooled.
The point is by buying the NWL guide you will have donated to the bolt fund (Until Alan's U-turn the opposite was true of buying rockfax as it would reduce NWL sales). so if every climber would have donated. Of course it would be nice if every climber chose to donate to their relevant bolt fund but they aren't attempting to make money from climbing like rockfax.
As i said a while ago in the thread spend all your time on making your guide the best Pete and people will buy it. A minority of people on here and elsewhere may buy it for altruistic reasons however good or bad it is but 99% of people will buy it based on quality. If climbers are the same as they were when i was young and keen they will buy both books, i guess they cost £15 or so each which is not a lot of money.
Guides cost more than £15 these days. I imagine it'll be more like £25. Pete is spending a lot of time making the best guide. If he'd taken your advice then the concessions alan has made and exposure of rockfax's questionable tactics wouldn't have been made and the NWL guide and thus the bolt fund and in turn climbing on north wales lime would have suffered. Should he have just stayed silent?
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Having bought and supported his guides? I think that's a bit strong. Did you not buy them to find out route info? Ive never referred to myself as supporting costa, or five ten, or Yamasaki whiskey. More I think they deliver me what I like at a price I'm willing to pay.
My girlfriends a cancer research nurse, I've just told her about the guidebook and the comparison. This is what she said "what there's climbing in Wales?"
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I don't wish to get involved with other issues but I feel I must say something about Andy Popp's posts.
Just before publishing the Western Grit guide in 2008, a respected and knowledgable local climber helped us by checking some of our text for Helsby. He marked the new lines on our provisional pages along with a number of other minor corrections.
We took the feedback at face value, why wouldn't we? I don't know whether this local climber was aware that Andy Popp hadn't climbed the routes that he had marked on the feedback but I suspect not since I can't understand why he wouldn't have mentioned it.
This degree of checking is normal in guidebook writing and no-one is ever going to get second opinions on every bit of feedback they get from reliable local sources, especially when it happens so close to publication, hence we published the guide with these as-yet unclimbed new routes.
Andy then phoned Chris and accused him of stealing private information which I am pretty sure Chris was oblivious about since the feedback had come to me at a late stage. Andy also threatened Chris with legal action. I phoned Andy and explained where we had got the info from and I distinctly remember the pause at the end of the phone when the penny dropped and he realised the information source.
So at best here we have a slight misunderstanding which Andy over-reacted to, at worst we have Andy getting over-excitied about a new route and claiming it before he had climbed it, neither of which are that significant really.
To now use this story as a slight against our research in the way he has on this thread is utterly disgraceful.
Alan
PS. anyone else wishing to discuss the general topic of this thread is welcome to email me on alan [at] ukclimbing.com
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Having bought and supported his guides? I think that's a bit strong.
yes I agree. I retract that part of my statement.
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I don't wish to get involved with other issues but I feel I must say something about Andy Popp's posts.
PS. anyone else wishing to discuss the general topic of this thread is welcome to email me on alan [at] ukclimbing.com
I would have thought it better/easier/transparent for all to see on the thread rather than getting multiple emails about the same subject and having to reply to the individuals.
It also means there is traceability when ambiguity arises.
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...
PS. anyone else wishing to discuss the general topic of this thread is welcome to email me on alan [at] ukclimbing.com
Anyone, that is, except me (the guide author).
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Just before publishing the Western Grit guide in 2008, a respected and knowledgable local climber helped us by checking some of our text for Helsby.
This degree of checking is normal in guidebook writing and no-one is ever going to get second opinions on every bit of feedback they get from reliable local sources,
Whilst Alan has said the way this unclimbed route got into the guidebook is not significant an issue I find it odd the use of the term reliable sources.
Would, as Andy said earlier "The only place the name and grade of this non route were ever recorded was in an entirely private early draft of my script for the definitive BMC guide", be what would be counted as a reliable source document? If so, I presume it was referred to in said guidebook and Andy Popp thanked for his contribution?
I don't own the guidebook but would love to know if this is the case.
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Alan, you're basically saying that it's your word against Andy's. In the absence of a response from Andy and in light of the revelations about the disparity between Rockfax's actual contributions to the NWBF and those you represented, do you think you can expect to have any credibility here?
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Would, as Andy said earlier "The only place the name and grade of this non route were ever recorded was in an entirely private early draft of my script for the definitive BMC guide", be what would be counted as a reliable source document? If so, I presume it was referred to in said guidebook and Andy Popp thanked for his contribution?
We couldn't possibly credit this text since we weren't aware it even existed.
The information was written on a print out of the Rockfax guidebook page, with lines marked on the photo-topo, and a grade and basic information scribbled in the margin in red pen. It was presented to us as information only and we never saw any 'private draft'. I can only surmise that the person who commented on our text also had seen or access to the pages Andy refers to, and this person is credited in our book.
Alan
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Alan, you're basically saying that it's your word against Andy's. In the absence of a response from Andy and in light of the revelations about the disparity between Rockfax's actual contributions to the NWBF and those you represented, do you think you can expect to have any credibility here?
I don't expect to get a fair hearing here, no.
I am a happy to acknowledge that my earlier comments about bolt funds were misleading and I apologise for those. I did give something to bolting on the Ormes but it wasn't significant. There was no way I would ever have been able to make any significant donation back in 1997-2000 anyway, when that book was selling in numbers, since the business was making a pittance.
Alan
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Nonetheless, I think it's pretty ungracious how to begin with there was the call to "reduce the limestone coverage" after Pete sort of got the wrong end of the stick with the databases. To begin with it seemed pretty dick-ish of RF, but Alan has cut a load of stuff. Yes he has still included a lot of the popular routes on the popular buttresses, but anyone can find those by using NWR and the Wiki, as I have done.
This is so inaccurate that I have to answer it.
I not only got the correct end of the stick, I identified the type of wood and the tree it came from - I couldn't have guessed rockfax's intentions more correctly if I'd been working for them. I claimed rockfax were intending to include around 350 routes on NW limestone out of a total of 1000 in a N.Wales 'select' guide. This is exactly what they were intending to do, as confirmed by Alan's subsequent comments:
Alan - 'We are including most sport routes on the crags we cover though since that is our normal policy since these are the routes that tend to get climbed, which is around 250 odd routes on the Great Orme for example.' UKC post.
Alan - The current page allocation in North Wales Climbs is 76. UKC post
Alan 'Now that I have done a reassessment of what we are going to cover it in fact will only be 52 pages in the guide and around 250 routes on NWL. - in an email to my co-author and the NWBF.
So, after Alan cutting coverage it's still 56 pages and 250 routes. This is down from 76 pages and ??? routes prior to cutting coverage. It was 250 on the Great Orme alone. (The Little Orme, Penmaen Head and Castle Inn easily add up to 100+ routes).
The wrong end of the stick my arse.
Then everyone was angry that Alan had said he had donated to "bolt funds" (the exact terminology used I think). So when it was found that the last time he donated to a North Walian Bolt Fund was when he had done the previous guide (That Pete is using to make his guide - ironic??) there is an outrage.
I was working on the definitive guide last night, in front of me were copies of the Andy Pollitt 1987 guide, the Andy Pollitt 1983 guide, Steve Meyers's 1992 guide and yes, Alan James's 1997 guide. All of these guidebooks built on the guides before them - Pollitt's built on Rowland Edward's guides. If you read the route descriptions in any of these guides and compare them they all follow on from the guidebooks before them. I will build on Alan's guidebook,this isn't new.
I'm pretty sure Alan said he had donated to bolt funds in general, and if you look on the RF website, when you go to buy a book, you are given the option of donating to the dorset bolt fund or the ACT... evil, I know.
I'm pretty sure you're making this up. Alan was shown up for wording his answers so that it looked, to any casual observer, like he was involved in making recent donations to the NWBF. Please note - no-one said he should be donating - if he isn't producing guides to the area there's no reason why he should donate. It was just illustative of how typical it is for Alan to spin facts and dodge giving straight answers in order to deflect awkward questions about how rockfax operate. (the figure donated in 1997 was £200 - Alan can correct me if it's untrue - but really, back then the level of re-equipping was a lot less and there were other reasons which might have led Alan to feel, justifiably, that his money mightn't achieve it's intended aim).
So now that Alan said he'll donate profits (and no doubt add the NWBF into the RF checkout system) and reduce coverage, everyone still has a hissy fit! Pretty unbelievable, though highly entertaining.
Rockfax's donation is welcome. Our guide will be donating from day 1 through sales of the App. If people aren't put off buying our book by my lack of grace, then it'll give around £10000 to the NWBF over the long term.
I'm now thinking of just changing my policy and donating money straight away - since rockfax helpfully pointed out the terrible flaw in my naive plan of waiting to break even - I mean, how will the bolt fund ever survive otherwise? Perhaps as it always has - through donations from individuals and companies (Groundup/Mike Doyle et al :whistle:). Perhaps I'll do £1.50 per copy - I mean, that'll make us look good and them look bad right?; and trying spin it so 'we' look good and 'they' look bad is what this is debate is all about, right? Or are there perhaps some genuine points worth bashing out here about fair play, what's in the best interests of climbing areas and respect for other people's hard work.
I have read both threads with glee. Pete doesn't need the money (you said so yourself) Alan has kids and employees to pay. Yep, it's nice to have shiny bolts, and Pete has done a mega effort putting a handline into the diamond (RF wont profit from this) and all the other stuff, yet you all still use UKC for free (Even Pete does!!), probably have one or two RF guides.
Sheesh. So your logic here seems to be implying if you need the money you can act how you please with no respect for anyone or anything.
In that case, fuck it, I'll just quit ever doing anything for the good of anyone except myself if that's how we want the world to be. And now that I'm in this selfish little bubble where everyone else can fuck off, I quite feel like I need to sell a few more guidebooks. I think I'm going to include all of just the good routes on Clwyd Limestone and put them in a section of our definitive guidebook entitled 'comprehensive-selective Clwyd Limestone' - I mean, I'll sell more copies of the guide if I do. Fuck anyone else's longer term definitive plans for Clwyd limestone and fuck anyone who'd quite like to see all the climbing in the area described well in a definitive guidebook, I want to sell more guidebooks.
The only problem I have with the RF NWC is I can't see what the point in it is, when there is NWR which, to my mind is as good as anything. Having come to North Wales 4 years ago with one clutched to my breast it has served as my Bible ever since, and yes I've bought the 'Beris, Big G, Trem-dog, Slate definitives, but it's still a book I reach for time and time again. I feel more sorry for Pantontino than NWL authors!
I fully agree - Groundup's ability to produce unprofitable definitive guidebooks isn't going to be helped by rockfax's insistence on competing for the profitable select guidebook market in N.Wales. I personally think that's a negative for the N.Wales climbing scene. I'm not alone, many people think the same. Groundup contribute real value to our N.Wales climbing scene; Rockfax really do not contribute.
It's a simple choice to make - hopefully other people will choose to support people who have a genuine love for the N.Wales climbing scene and who are also trying to make a basic living from it, along with the volunteer guidebooks who aren't. Note - making a living can still mean not pissing off all around them or showing bad faith toward anyone deemed a competitor. But really, climbing guidebooks aren't a traditional money-spinner unless you're prepared to trample on lots of toes.
... in fact Pete's lack of grace at Alan's reduction of the Lime section and promise to give money to the bolt fund have made me think twice, to begin with I could see his point (even though i think he jumped the gun a bit) but now I think you are being a bit childish, Pete. Alan has said he believes there wasn't room for two definitives, so didn't make one. He hasn't really encroached on your definitive term with his lime section, but has cut it and pledged money to the bolt fund. what more do you want?? A handjob?
A handjon from Alan? Well he does often act in ways that suggests he likes giving them; hmmm.. I've had some weird encounters but that would almost certainly trump all of them combined.
But seriously - a lack of grace at Alan's reduction in coverage and donation? :o I had to read this a few times to make sure you were serious.
Rockfax have 'cut coverage' of NW lime routes in their select guidebook down to, wait for it:
one whole quarter of the total NW select guidebook. 250 routes on NW lime out of 1000 routes in total.
So the whole of North Wales's amazing rock-climbing - Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, Clogwyn Grochan, Dinas Mot, Craig Pant Ifan, Craig Bwylh y Moch, Carreg Hyll-Drem, Carreg Wastad, Gogarth South, Gogarth North, Cyrn Las, Lliwedd, Dinas Cromlech, Craig Ddu, The Moelwyns, The Slate, Mid-Wales, Idwal, Glyder Fawr, Clogwyn y Geifr, Glyder Fach, Tryfan, Carneddau, Crafnant, Nantle, - all this is deemed worthy of being pared down to 750 routes. Meanwhile, a relatively minor limestone area is deemed worthy of 250 routes? This at the exact time that the definitive guidebook is due to be published. In an area hasn't had a definitive guidebook for 16 years and as a consequence of which all crags (outside the popular ones which rockfax want to comprehensively cover) are suffering from major neglect. In an area also hamstrung by needing to re-equip all the crap 80s fixed gear littered throughout.
Excuse me, but what the hell you talking about? Who's really acting with a lack of grace here?
Clue: It's Alan James.
Unbelievable.
Buy our guide, don't buy it - I'm not doing this it to make you or anybody else like me. I'm doing it purely because this area deserves a definitive guidebook and no-one else could be bothered doing the job. You might find yourself appreciating the effort we're making, sometime in the future when you're exploring some currently unknown crag - or maybe you won't, maybe you'll wish you stuck to LPT with the rockfax.
Either way don't feed me some bullshit about showing lack of grace towards utterly cyncial self-serving out-for-number-one behavior.
I think this is further proof that all climbers are, essentially :wank: on the internet, bet all of you haters are lovely in real life! Pete's a bit surly but seemed alright, and Alan seems pretty nice too, (having not spent much time with either).
I'm surly but cuddly on the inside.
Maybe we should remember that there are people starving in the world who probably dont give 2 shits about some bolts in the second worst climbing venue in North Wales :o
Ah, the 'starving other in a far off land' straw-man argument. How very banal. A starving child is 99 times out of 100 guaranteed to trump, in debate top-trumps, whichever argument it is you're trying to trivialize but it contributes nothing to the actual debate other than remind people of the already well-known fact that it's an unequal world. Thanks for the news update Geldof, now go and donate to Oxfam.
Please apply your 'it's not important compared to starving African children' logic next time a loved one/ boss or friend asks you to act about anything they consider important, I'm sure it'll go down a treat with them.
Btw there's sunken-cheeked victims of starvation to be found in Llandudno too - Diamond season can be horrific.
Finally, Alan has shown he's prepared to cut coverage and that's a very welcome move which is appreciated (believe it or not). To show good faith he should further cut it down to the level of a select guide, i.e. by at minimum another 50 routes.
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Alan's posts are so disingenuous I'm not going to bother responding. Can everyone else refrain from pitching in on my behalf. Thanks.
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My girlfriends a cancer research nurse, I've just told her about the guidebook and the comparison. This is what she said "what there's climbing in Wales?"
Whoa. Hold the front page. You have a girlfriend? :o
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I only said that to change tact for a second on this thread of Insanity
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You'd need a mental health nurse shag
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Don't I know it
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Did someone ask for a mental health nurse or a shag with mental health nurse. Either way my fees are reasonable.
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Did someone ask for a mental health nurse or a shag with mental health nurse. Either way my fees are reasonable.
Your prices were reasonable, but I thought your hands were a bit rough. (just some feedback)
;)
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Just a rebuttal to all those handing out +ve karma for suggestions of getting perspective etc.
This is a thread about climbing guides, on a climbing forum. If you're so appalled by the debate, and want to argue about cancer or starving kids, fuck off to a starving kids forum. I bet none of you have given up massive chunks of your spare time bolting crags or writing guidebooks, only to find there are those desperate to profit from it.
Edit: I have been involved in issues a tad more depressing than this recently - such as access to crags. And it struck me that, as climbers, if we can't manage a little issue like this in a reasonable and fair way between ourselves, what fucking hope is there?
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Well said JB.
I don't think people "need to take a step back" as Tom put it when he wadded gme. This is exactly the sort of thing that should be thrashed out on a climbing forum.
Irrespective of what you think of Rockfax's previous output or contribution to the development of climbing guidebooks, they have acted in a highly contentious manner. You can't tell people to not discuss this, well you can, but don't expect anybody to listen.
The people handing out the wad points to gme are not part of the North Wales climbing scene - if they were (or if something similar happened on their doorstep) I dare say they would see things a little differently.
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I don't think people "need to take a step back" as Tom put it when he wadded gme. This is exactly the sort of thing that should be thrashed out on a climbing forum.
It's been thrashed to death. I wadded Gav because I agree with his point that the definitive guide will sell on its own merits. End of story. The demonizing of Rockfax is totally over the top in my opinion.
(JB - I wasn't meaning "take a step back, there are more important issues in the world")
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To me one of the foundational questions to ask is "What do you want out of a guidebook?"
Rockfax is like the "Old Navy" of guidebooks. They only make money on turnover, but everyone knows there shit has no real worth or substance.
Classic guidebooks that stick through history have more to them and people crave them. They're classic from day 1 and everyone knows it. We have a local ice climbing guide that has been out of print for 20 years. It only gets passed around by photocopy, and you'll never find it on the net. You have to earn it, but it's classic and will continue this way for a long time. It has stories to read, pictures to inspire, and has a place on every local Alaska climbers shelf.
Decide what you want your guidebook to be and strive to make it that. True Class will show through.
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Did someone ask for a mental health nurse or a shag with mental health nurse. Either way my fees are reasonable.
Your prices were reasonable, but I thought your hands were a bit rough. (just some feedback)
;)
This needs clarification. Exactly how reasonable are Webbo's prices? And how rough were his hands?
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the best thing about all this whole rather juvenile thread is how it has bought to light what UKBers really are. You are exactly the same as the UKCers you despise, which in turn makes you worse as you believe you are so much better
Quote from a previous post from you bubbles:
"Hello,
I tried to post this on cocktalk, but after three replies thought I might get better answers on a website where people actually climb..."
:P
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Whatever, there is less choice where to post now as the thread is closed over there.
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Just a thought (which will undoubtedly become a tangent shifting ramble) - with analogies to Tesco etc. - most of us probably have to shop there or one of the others because in reality (that fits in with the various time and monetary constraints of most people trying to balance work and life etc) there's no alternative - I've tried to buy all my food and stuff locally / ethically etc. and it's just not feasible and bloody expensive). I wouldn't have fancied trying to source an English guidebook to El Chorro in the mid 90's when the internet was a lot different to what it is now either.
So whilst climbing is a very different thing altogether, it's undoubtedly big business compared to 20 years ago, and companies are out there to make a shedload of cash, and most won't be based on the Chouinard model of ethics. I also doubt that Alan James wants to stay / be poor as a result of his business exploits.
So back to Tesco - do they give a fuck? No - they do what they have to do to assuage the captive customer that actually they're quite nice really, by building relationships with a few farmers who they don't trample into the ground driving costs down for themselves, (look at the UK dairy industry vs Milk Marketing Board, the MMB's biggest investor is allegedly Manchester United FC, FFS) Even a behemoth like Procter and Gamble allegedly are forced to sell tampons and sanitary towels at a 20% loss just to get them in the store as they are one of those 'shop elsewhere if not available' products.... And in that aspect, Rockfax can do what they want too, obviously if they are not plagiarising other peoples intellectual property or copy, it's just about selling stuff and making cash. Just look at 'Team Bullshit' or whoever they are on The Apprentice...
So, looking at the way climbing seems to have gone in the last decade or more, there are probably loads of folks out there who would much prefer the selected climbs rather than a definitive guide because they'll go there one weekand a year and clip a few bolts and climb some polished Ogwen classics (I dunno, maybe this is the generic Pork Farms pork pie rather than the one a farmer made using his own organic pigs for someone who just wants to eat a pork pie).
Also in response to gme, we can get a bit blase about the odd 30 / 50 quid here and there but for a lot of people I imagine spending 25 quid on an extra guidebook just for the shelf is a big deal, it could be the difference between staying in the black and going overdrawn in a month. I would say though, the pride is in excellence and being the best in the industry, rather than cutting corners just to slay the competitors I'd have thought, given the possible consequences...
So assuming they are the majority nowadays, maybe not skint but not rich, quite like climbing but not super keen types, there's a massive market share absorbed straight away. Reducing the number of routes / coverage etc. won't make any bloody difference.
But, getting eventually to the point - with supermarkets, there is now little to no choice - they are all essentially a damned if you do damned if you don't option. The answer would be to only shop at your local grocer/butcher/fishmonger etc.... but where are all those now?
With guidebooks, we still have a choice - Pete is the local grocer, we have to buy his book, and not the Rockfax one, otherwise he might not bother, and eventually, maybe no one else will either, and then Rockfax might decide to sell up and retire, and go climbing, and the new Tesco Guidebooks PLC will get bigger and richer and more detached from the reality of what guidebooks should be, and even take on the BMC, and we'll all be buying 'Selected safe < E2 routes for a weekend on Stanage' because there'll be nothing else.
I don't know the answer to the problem though which is - how does the small business priding themselves on excellence, compete with the big one with a determination to walk roughshod over them in pursuit of profit, other than convincing the buying public to vote with their feet.
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The answer would be to only shop at your local grocer/butcher/fishmonger etc.... but where are all those now?
Woodseats mate.
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So, is the definitive guide still being released?
When can I pick up a copy?
Cheers