[tdpurnell]

Hi ya,

I am currently making a Peak District bouldering website. I am a final year student and want something fun to do over the next year(s) after i finish my degree this summer.

The aim is for it to be along the lines of yorkshiregrit.com, but for the peak district.

I have already made the basics of the site, and have a website address, although the main site is not accessible to the public yet, as it needs more work on it. I will be putting up a basic site very soon so that people can comment on it and aid its development into something people will want.

Just thought i would start to spread the news. I will be here to answer questions and i will let you know when you can have a look at the site in development for you to talk about.

Cheers

Tom

[north_country_boy]

Wicked sounds like a good idea! Good luck and look forward to seeing the site... 

[Bonjoy]

Once you have someting up i'll submit you some pics and descriptions etc. Good luck, I hope it turns out well.

[tdpurnell]

Hi ya,

When i get home tonight i will make the site presentable so people can have a look at it...

I will keep you posted.

Tom

[Dr T]

good luck with that, the peak needs an area specific site like yorkshire the lakes or indeed font...

[Jim]

Once you have someting up i'll submit you some pics and descriptions etc. Good luck, I hope it turns out well.

moi aussi.
it would be better to be more like bleau.info where you can keep a scorecard

[Duma]

Good luckkkkkkkkk with this - needs to be done. If you're not too far down the road already can I just add my voice to jims - bleau.info kickkkkkks the shit out of yorkkkkkkkkkshiregrit...

[Duma]

sorry, as you can see, I've got a certain letter that's acting up...

[tdpurnell]

http://www.peakbouldering.co.uk/home.html

This is an ongoing project, and will take a long time to get sorted, at this point in time, comments would be nice on the design etc, but i do not require much information, or photos etc from you at the moment.

I will let people know if i need any help.

The forum should be up soon for you to discuss it.

The content is still very sparse, but you get the idea anyway.

Tom

[Paul B]

I like the idea.
My vote is for a very bleau.info esque site, however i'm sure thats a hell of a lot of work.
Good luck

[Monolith]

At the moment, I'm not too convinced by your design styles. They're somewhat dated to be honest and don't conform too well   to web standards. If you're serious about the venture, I'm happy to forward a ton of reading material and useful URLs on to you.

[tdpurnell]

forum now works

[richdraws]

Fuck Bleau and its real player shit, stick with the Yorkshire Grit style, it is more intelligible and easier to navigate.

The comments section seems to work better also. Please do not leave it semi abandoned like the Northumberland site (this weeks video is 'playing Rudie's'). The best thing about YG is the regularity of updates and non elitism of climbs and climbers. 

[monkey boy]

Awesome idea and the peak definately needs this especially for people who dont no all that goes on down there. Looking forward to seeing it at a more developed stage. I think yorkshiregrit is a top site and if this ends up anything like it, it will be quality.

I do agree with monolith though in that the design style does look dated. Not knocking you though good effort at taking on the daunting task. I am sure if you needed any help then Jon at yorkshiregrit would be happy to help.

Good luck!! 

[dobbin]

Please do not leave it semi abandoned like the Northumberland site (this weeks video is 'playing Rudie's').

Get in! thats me that is!

Good idea on the site, design needs work. Dont like the colour scheme and it looks a bit noddy. Sure its early days and all and you will be able to improve these things.

[Bonjoy]

 I don't mean to put a downer on your plans but I think you need to downscale your ideas to begin with at least. A peak bouldering database is a massive and worthwhile endeavour. You don't want to make the job any bigger than it already is.The last thing you need is a bunch of links to some perpetually "under construction" pages. Add the links when you have the content, it look bad the other way round and people don't like wasting time navigating to pages without content.
 I think you could cut back in the following ways. Sorry if it sounds harsh, I think you could make this gargantuan venture marginally more doable by scrapping the following (at least until the meat of the site is well under way):

 History - big thorny subject which would take months of research to do justice, anything less would be pointless.
 Forum - the net is littered with howlingly empty forums, it's not needed and probably wont be used (look at the one on PF). Have a comments section on each problem like Yorkshiregrit, this will be used.
 Articles - whatever people say now, when it comes to the crunch they won't write you any articles, even a site with a fair size usership like UKB does not attract submissions, if you don't offer money you'll be lucky to get a couple off your mates at best.   
 Weather - put a link to some weather sites in the Links page, job done.
 Indoors - Again some links and a comment will suffice, it doesn't need it's own page.
 News - Peak bouldering news is already regurgitated on x amount of sites after usually first appearing here. Do you have some contacts which mean you will be the first to get the news? If not it's safe to assume your typical reader will already have got the news three times elsewhere already.

[Bubba]

  with Bonjoy

[Bonjoy]

Tom - Before you start reinventing the wheel, have you asked anyone if they might give you the ready made bones of a site? Must be worth a try given the amount of work it would save. It would leave you free to put time into the fun bit i.e. the content.

[mattjj]

Has anyone seen http://bouldr.net ? They are offline at the minute as they are moving servers, but it's got some really cool features I haven't seen before

[chappers]

  with Bonjoy

when i had a look at the site last night it did to me stike as a massive undertaking that has been launched into with two feet when surely it could grow and grow.
like bonjoy said much of it is also a bit unnessacary. news....im not going anywhere but here (i never read PF or UKC) because it is always first here, then certain sites use their copy and paste.
that said, i do visit yorkshiregrit alot to find out about new problems and areas i have never been to.

maybe it would be best to cut everything apart from the problems themselves and run it like a submission thing a la the york site., when you climb something, vote on the grade, submit pic, comment.
i also think a message board would never get used.


(on a side note - clicking on the stanage plantation, takes you to information about burbage??)

do not take these comments as negative, you are taking on a task that i would not want to even think about. i think that you should try to make it as simple as possible. to start with atleast.

well done, i hope that this proves a success

[tdpurnell]

Thanks a lot for the comments guys, really good things to think about. I think i agree, some of the stuff could be taken out, and it is a little dated in the design. Although i know a reasonable amount on websites, etc, i am not a massive nerd and don't know all the best ways of doing things, so i am sure there are much better ways f doing the site than i currently am.

I am gonna try and speak to john @ yorkshire grit soon, and ask for some advice on the whole thing, how he does it, etc.

I put the site up so that i could get an idea about what people thought of the initial design, any idea on how i could improve the design of the site, making it less dated, etc?

I could just go ahead and make something i think would be good, but i would much rather make what people want, keep the ideas and comments coming.

[Monolith]

In terms of design, and I don't mean to be condescending in the slightest here, but there's a lot of work to be done. Don't know if you have used the personal messaging system on here yet, but I'll send you one later on today. Just check the 'messages' tab when you log in.

I have a ton of essential reading material I can get to you. If you put in the hours, you'll be able to produce a thing of beauty as well as becoming a bit more code savvy. Also good to see that you welcome constructive criticism.

[tdpurnell]

That would be good. cheers monolith

[Pantontino]

I agree with just about all the comments, except Bonjoy's point about news. I think this new Peak bouldering site should run a news page. UKB has become a Peak news site, but only by default, and it is nowhere near as good as the established regional sites. There are lots of minor news items relating to the Peak that have not made it onto this site in the last few years. I know, because I get sent these things for my Climber column. I often don't publish them in the mag because they are not newsworthy enough, however they are of interest to local boulderers. Further evidence that UKB doesn't work as a Peak news site is the prevalence of retro claims - this situation would likely be solved if a comprehensive news service existed. The whole point of a regional website is that it gives all the news, however trivial. Surely UKB's news discussion forum should be left for things of national significance. For example, with Welsh news, I only ever put stuff on here if it is major. Occasionally somebody will flag up other lesser items in another thread (e.g recent Pill Box Wall developments). And that is how it should be.

One of the strengths of UKB is that it has a geographically diverse range of contributors. I realise that Bubba and the moderators are all Peak based, but surely you can see that is faintly ridiculous to have a news item about obscure V3s (for example) jockeying for position with the latest international news?

Running the news column for the Peak is a big deal though, and Mr Purnell will have to work hard to establish contacts, and work hard to keep it up to date. But once people see that it is working it would become the natural place to turn to when you do something new, however obscure or marginal it might be.

[tdpurnell]

I am beginning to get more involved in the climbing community, knowing quite a few people now, some in the retail side of it too.

I run the SCUIBL (www.scuibl.co.uk) competition, and do lots of other comps, so get to speak to a lot of people through them.

Am also planning on living in sheffield for a bit next year too, as i don't currently live there, which will be good too.

Tom