UKC

A friend recently told me that some areas have local climbing forums and they seemed like a good idea for finding partners amongst other things. Where I live, Sheffield, no such thing exists as far as I know.

The local areas forum on UKC is a bit strange since it covers all areas. Assuming you're only interested in your own locality you have to plough through all topics for the entire country. I suspect most, like me, won't bother. I never look at that forum because essentially its completely non specific.

Wouldn't it me much better to have separate forums for each locality that wanted one? I know it's not hard to create a web forum for pretty much nothing using free hosting and free software but it seems it would make more sense and be much better if it was integrated into the UKC site.

Any thoughts?

In reply to stp:

I can think of 3 facebork groups for finding partners in the Peaks and Sheffields Districts.

In reply to winhill:


I think you must mean Farceburk.

In reply to stp:

The problem I see, is that everyone would just post in their local forums and the site would slowly dwindle and die. Especially for me, as there don't seem to be many posters from my neck of the woods.

In reply to stp:

In a non sarcastic way, do you know about the search facility?

In reply to stp:

If the poster wanting partners has not the goodwill or common sense to use a suitable post title and an informative profile,

they are probably not worth climbing with.

In reply to stp:

The Local Areas forum is really for access issues and not for partners at all.

What is really needed here is a dedicated partner system, not a forum. This is something we have our eye on for developments this year.

Alan

In reply to Alan James - Rockfax:

What's wrong with the lifts and partners forum? Just asking.

In reply to Clinger:


Yeah, seems fine to me. It's not like there's so many posts you need extra searchability.

In reply to Clinger:


Nothing much although as the OP has mentioned, it isn't very regionalised.

We think we can do a better job with a more dedicated system that would allow you to put in availability, preferred climbing level, location, preferred climbing wall for training, etc. in conjunction with an intelligent search system.

Alan

In reply to winhill:

Well I wasn't only thinking of a local forum for finding partners. Other topics could include anything that is significant for locals eg.:

• famous climber giving a slideshow locally
• local wall is having a comp
• a local crag restriction
• bird of prey nesting in the town centre
• the crux of the blue route at the local wall
• etc.

Plus Facebook is not used by all climbers, has a terrible reputation, is not a climbing specific site, is run by a dodgy US corporation, and you're unlikely to get a response from Mark Zuckerberg within a few hours of posting a comment about the site improvements like you do here.

In reply to ScottTalbot:


Not sure why. If I want to ask something about photography for instance why would I limit the input to only those who live near me? And like any wrong postings the mods can always move threads to the correct forums.

In reply to stp:

Hi stp, your profile states that you're in Sheffield? Just use ukb for local issues.
That's not a diss towards ukb by the way, I go on there every day, but it is Sheffield-centric.

In reply to Timmd:


Yes I do but don't see the relevance.

Searches are good for when you know what you're looking for. Forums are much better for browsing when you're not looking for anything specific. If you wanted to get an overview of local info people won't necessarily use the search term you expect them too.

For instance I live in Sheffield but not every post of interest will use 'Sheffield' in the title or the message.

Some examples:

Climbing partner for Stanage evenings
Book launch in Hathersage (which is a few miles outside Sheffield)
Slideshow at The Foundry

You could make a long list of multiple search terms and still miss a new post that uses a term you hadn't thought of. A single click to the your local forum would be much simpler and more comprehensive.