Andi I know you don't always feel one of the 'in' crowd at UKB but you really don't help yourself wading in all guns blazing. The context here is that in response to Jon's original post we've recently had a very long and involved debate about whether Grinah should remain undocumented. You might like to give that a read before dismissing this as an echo chamber. Suffice to say there are a range of opinions and issues at stake, and all discussed without the same heated insults. FWIW my emotional response is often aligned with yours but I don't think blindly following tradition is ever a strong argument, particularly when the tradition is just the opinion of the local 'in' crowd thirty years previous.
I like to think I know the Roaches pretty well but I must admit I don't recall hearing about this before for the First Cloud. First thing I did was check my guides and, yes, it's all there in black or white. But I don't generally carry a guide to the Roaches and haven't for years. Such traditions are far from the norm in climbing, in fact they are a very rare reaction to them. With the increasing pressure on the boulders and the decreasing ability of boulderers to explore I think there is a debate to be had about whether some form of documentation might be better than none, whether it is done via egos being buttered or not. I agree claiming problems of a difficulty which means they are highly unlikely to be new probably isn't the way to go about it.
Good line on the fossil collecting though, oof!
