Climbing at Leda today! Ellie is officially a crag dog!! Had a short day, so only really did 3 climbs (Gigantic, Treehugger, Footloose). Always a good day when you touch rock though

#climbing #rockclimbing #lowerleda #southeast #openbeta

Had a great time with some friends at RRG last month. I made another post with more sporty shots, but here are some of my favorite shenanigans and candid shots from the trip.

One of my favorite moments is the first picture, where I anchored directly into the third bolt of a route so I could use my fancy camera to get some pictures of friends climbing the route next to it.

Can't wait to go back!

@vbatts@fosstodon.org I can't disagree that it's messy, and I do understand the ethical concern. I personally believe in OpenBeta's mission, and I like to think that climbers' intentions are generally to contribute open and free information to the broader climbing community. I believe hosting that data on OpenBeta supports that end, and I believe OpenBeta does a good job of spreading information (for free) to the climbing community. As such, I do not believe it is unethical or "stealing." It might be stealing if that information were no longer accessible or if it gave OpenBeta some monetary or competitive advantage. But it doesn't. They're non-profit, they're not competing.

You're obviously allowed to form your own opinions, but as an advocate and supporter for OpenBeta, I want to reiterate that OpenBeta's main mission is to provide open, free access to information for all. The more information is accessible, the better things are for everyone.

I'm not opposed to paying for access to outdoor climbing. It does take resources to maintain the trails and routes in an area, and I believe the people that do that should get paid for their work.

I do wonder how reasonable this pricing is. Given that LCOs exist and take responsibility for crag and trail management, and given that these tend to rely on donations, I'm not fully convinced that a flat fee of $5/day is the best option. Another thread in news talked about the accessibility of gym pricing and "pay what you can." I like to believe that climbing can be financially sustainable based on donations from those who can afford it.

My LCO, Southeastern Climbers Coalition, does some fun events and such that incentivize membership. For example, I "accidentally" became a member when I signed up and paid registration fees for one of their bouldering competitions. I think things like that are a great idea! Maybe a more accessible way of getting money for maintenance would be to look at fundraising tactics like that as opposed to flat fees that are clearly opposed by at least some considerable portion of climbers

@devnull And so the scope creep begins hehe

Sweet! Have you tested it at all yet? Do you see any flex of you try to hang from it?

Another idea might be just a piece of 2x4 screwed lower to the ground to act as a foothold while you're "on" the anchors

I think a 2x4 screwed into studs should work, I'd like to see it when you're done or progress pics!

This is so cute!

REI has a good article about it too. We love to see sustainability and high-quality products!

What is the Local Gyms directory?

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At OpenBeta, we want to make information and communication accessible to everyone in the climbing community. As part of that, we offer these forums as a community platform for local gyms to create their own subforum.

How can local gym subforums be used?

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Local gyms can create their own subforum under this category to use however they want! The goal is to help gyms have an online space to engage with and foster community.

A gym's subforum can be used to announce events, share local news about the gym, provide a place for members to find belay buddies, announce updates, answer questions, and much more!

Gyms choose which categories they have, but in general, they'll have a few standard categories:

• General
  • General discussion about the gym and climbing
• Community events
  • Announcements and discussion for community events
• Belay buddies
  • A place for members to find climbing buddies
• News
  • Announcements for news and updates that might be interesting or useful to the community
  • Some examples of "News" posts might be announcing upcoming renovations, changes in rules or pricing, or fun stuff like honoring a member of the month or announcing new and refreshed routes!

Gym staff are responsible for moderation (and some administration tasks) for their own subforums, but the moderation team at OpenBeta aims to be easy to reach and we're eager to offer what we can to help out with whatever local gyms may need!

What if my gym isn't listed?

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We encourage you to talk with your gym to have them reach out to us! We'd love to work with them to see if we can help with community engagement!

I'm a gym, how can I get our own subforums?

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First off, congrats on your sentience as a gym! Second, you can find an admin and send a message here on the forums. We also monitor this post for replies, so you may be able to get our attention here. We'll get back to you quickly and open a discussion about how we can help and start getting you and your staff onboarded.

Further questions

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If you have any other questions or feedback, feel free to reply to this thread. We monitor this thread for comments and questions and we try to respond as quickly as we can.

Oh very interesting. I do agree that climbing can be prohibitively expensive, so I'm glad to see something being done about this.

I also find the PWYC model to be promising, I think it could conceivably be a good way to further encourage (and socially enforce) good faith and positivity in the climbing community. Meaning it can make climbing more accessible, reinforce integrity and "being a good dude" in climbing culture, and if people start telling their friends about how they "get to pay less because they lied about their income," the PWYC model could be enforced by social ostracization or other social pushback against not "being a good dude."

On desktop is appears that editing works successfully on my PC

I'm having a problem editing this route. I don't see a github issue for this either

Hello there!

At OpenBeta, we love climbing! We assume you do too, which is probably why you're here. We also love the climbing community: the friends you make at the crag or in the gym who point out the best routes, share gear and advice, and support each other on their projects. We think that the connections we make through a shared passion - whether they last a lifetime or just one climbing session - are part of what makes climbing so special, and so fun!

We also believe that everyone benefits when information and communication is accessible to everyone. The climbing information in OpenBeta is accessible to everyone via the main website and the free API. While we currently have a Discord server to help facilitate communication and community, Discord servers require a login to join a server and see the discussion, and even then it can be hard to find information if you're looking for a particular discussion thread.

That's why we're proud to announce the OpenBeta forums!

@julian, on behalf of NodeBB, has generously offered to host these forums, powered of course by their excellent open-source forums software. We're hoping this can be a great resource and a platform for the climbing community. We encourage users to post guides, ask questions and engage in discussion, share recent trips, and maybe even find climbing buddies to meet up with! This is also a great place to discuss OpenBeta itself to suggest features, provide feedback, and ask questions.

You can sign up to the forums with your existing OpenBeta or Discord accounts, and then feel free to introduce yourself in General Climbing! Make sure to review the Community Guidelines, but the rules really boil down to "don't be a jerk and have fun."

As with the main OpenBeta app, the more people that come here and use the forums, the more useful it is to everyone, so please tell your friends! And thanks for being here!

Signed,
Your friendly neighborhood Ben

OpenBeta is looking for volunteers to help build and run OpenBeta! We're looking for senior level volunteers to help steer and direct certain initiatives in a leadership role.

Perks include bragging rights and pro deals (US resident only)

Read more about the open positions here

- bean

Community Guidelines

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Hi! How are you? Hope you're well! Welcome to the OpenBeta Forums!

Our goal here is to make information and communication accessible to everyone in the climbing community. We want to make sure that these forums serve as a welcoming and safe space for everybody to share their passion about climbing, build connections, and feel like they belong. We want this to be a fun place to be!

To do that, let's lay out a few ground rules that I think we can all agree on.

Conversation should generally remain on the topic of climbing

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This includes no politics, no explicit content, no personal drama, etc. This also encompass the principle that you should try to make sure your post goes under the right category (e.g. don't share pictures of your recent climbing trip in General, that goes under Pics and trips).

Off-topic posts or replies may be removed by the moderation team, but we'll generally just try to nudge the conversation back on topic.

No harassment, discrimination, or abuse of any kind

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Don't be rude, don't insult or talk down to others, and obviously no racism, homophobia, or any other gross things like that.

This also means "it's just a joke" doesn't fly as an excuse. Text as a medium doesn't convey tone and sarcasm well, so keep the tone more towards the "friendly and helpful" side of things to avoid potential misinterpretation.

Improve the discussion

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We want to hear your voice! We want you to contribute and discuss and engage with others, and that means what you're saying should contribute to the discussion. As before, if your post is off topic or being rude to someone, that doesn't add to the conversation. If you have a criticism, make sure you're phrasing it in a helpful way and not attacking the person whose idea you're criticizing.

Another part of this is that we don't allow AI-generated content. Why should anyone bother to read content that somebody didn't even bother to write?

Self-promotion is allowed (in moderation)

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If you make climbing products or climbing content, we want to support you! Just 2 things to keep in mind: (1) make sure to post it under the right category and (2) add the self promo tag. Products will generally go under General Climbing and content would probably go under either General Climbing (for guides and such) or Pics and trips (for vlogs, photography, etc).

That said, obviously don't be obnoxious about it. Making the same post repeatedly or spamming caps or emoji will receive a warning or a temporary ban, depending on the severity.

Report problems, don't engage

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If you see somebody posting off-topic, being rude, or otherwise breaking the rules and causing problems, please don't engage. Just flag the post to send a message to the mod team.

Enforcement and appeals

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At the end of the day, we don't have a huge moderation team or any complicated system of rules. The gist of this all is "just don't be a jerk." The moderation team is made of people who are volunteering their time and doing their best to act in good faith to make these forums a fun place to be.

The moderation team uses these guidelines to act at their discretion and we're not going to engage with rules lawyering. If you do have a problem with any mod's decision or behavior, go ahead and make a post here. You won't be able to see the post once it's submitted, but the mod team will be able to see it and review whatever concern or report you've submitted.