UKC

Hi all,

Just wondered if anyone could throw any light on why so many routes are missing from the rockfax app. It’s almost unusable at some crags.

In the last few weeks I’ve climbed at/looked to climb at Lower Sharpnose, Ansteys Cove, Hay Tor and Split Rock Quarry. All of which have lots of routes missing. Ansteys doesn’t even list the uber classic ‘Poppy’.

Is this a prob at my end? Or is the app just designed as a highlight guide rather than a typical rockfax guide?

Thanks

I thought most of the rockfax guides were of selected routes only. Maybe I'm wrong? I haven't got the app but I was looking at how it works the other day and the amount of detail it had, I don't think there is any way you could possibly do all that work for anywhere close to all the routes in the UK, there just aren't enough man-hours in the day/week/year.

The app doesn't have every route in it on the crags I've used it for, but I thought it had at least everything that the books has. Looking through the updated Peak Limestone crags on the app I noted an intro text that obviously comes from the book and says something along the lines of "not all routes are described here but are available in the app". I don't have the new book to compare it to, but I guess maybe there the app has some more lines than the book does. 

If you look at the crag in the UKC database there is the "R" icon next to all the routes that are in the app.

The information in the app comes from the printed guides, so if it's in the book it will be in the app. Occasionally there are crags or sectors that don't make it into the book due to space restrictions, but do get added to the app.

I can't think of anywhere where there's less in the app, so I'm guessing these routes are just not covered by rockfax.

Any routes covered by rockfax have an "R" icon on the right on the ukc crag page:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/lower_sharpnose_point-691

Ah ok. I guess I’ve been so focussed on Portland Rockfax and Cheddar Crocker guide over the years I’ve never noticed so many missing routes elsewhere!

Are you guys filling in the gaps on the app given these spaces? Or is there just not enough man power? It was Anstey’s that really hit it home to me. Classic after classic in a row missed. 32 ukc logbook routes on Ferocity Wall, 3 routes with no stars, 3 routes with 1 star, 7 routes with 2 stars and 19 three star routes on that wall. But only 7 total on the Rockfax app. 

Just seemed a bit odd.

We hope to add more and more routes all the time, but we only add information that we have got ourselves so it means a trip to the crag and a line check, climb a few and then come back and write the descriptions and create the topos. This is a lot of work and usually only gets done when we are working on a book. There is only a handful of people doing it and they all tend to work on multiple areas.

Ultimately we may have a system whereby users can upload topos but this would be very complex and we are quite a way off doing that at the moment.

Alan

In that case can you put The Brighton Line at Stoney in the app, it's a good route and needs some traffic.

Loads of routes missing in the new app at stoney

Everything at Split Rock will be in the GWR book out later this year.

Rockfax is just a selective guide and representation of what's available at the crag. So all classic routes are included  and the selective (popular) areas represented. 

A definitive guide would give you far more information - climbs, areas, history etc. Depends what information you're after.

Hi Stephen,

Was just telling a friend to try Tentacle Master at Portland. He said it didn’t seem to exist.

A bit of investigation lead to the conclusion that at Octopuss Weed area of Portland, ‘Walking the Plank’, ‘Leave my Soul Alone’ and ‘Tentacle Master’ are not on the app but are in the (2005) guide. (Not sure a bit more recent guides, don’t have them).

Surely if they’re in the guide then they should be on the app?

https://imgur.com/gallery/KxatOKf
 

Fred

Hi Fred,

They're marked in our backend as not-in-guidebook, so it appears that they were removed from the later guidebook for some reason, but I'm not sure what that would be.

Any guide that goes into the app has all the routes put in. Sometimes we put extra crags or sectors into the app that did not make it into the book, but we'd only remove things due to severe access-issues or whatever.

Very occasionally some route data is missed by the parser that extracts it from the page-layout documents, but in these cases it be lines would still be there, just the descriptions would be missing. This should no longer happen with newer books because we have many more automated tests to detect this stuff now. 
 

I'll see if I can get hold of the author to find out about these routes. 

Peak bouldering: I have the book and my mate has the app. There's a lot of difference between the two. 

Seems that in print one line could be listed as bouldering or climbing but digitally it can only be listed as one. 

As routes tend to predate problems, the climbs take the win and hence problems aren't listed. 

I am on holiday but, if I recall correctly, these routes were moved to Deep Water in 2007 and hence weren’t included in the later Dorset book. An oddity of our system is that routes can only exist in one place. Since Deep Water is unlikely to get republished, I have slowly been moving the routes back to the area they cover and hence into an app package (Deep Water was too old to appify). I have done this for Pembroke but not managed it for Dorset yet. I’ll try and get onto it later this summer. I think it applies to around 70 routes overall although some of them might have been moved to Dorset Bouldering which is in the app.

Alan

The technology and sites to resolve the problem exist - if we, as a community, get our arses into gear and contribute to the open sourcing of crag info there's no need for routes to be missed out. If we don't, there's not much point in complaining that the closed sources aren't complete...

I don’t think you are correct here. Eastern grit has climbs, Peak Bouldering has the bouldering. They are separate packages but there is nothing that I am aware of that is in these two books and not in the app.
 

Alan

The books are published at a point in time, the app can be updated as and when required which could make it the stoney cafe route book or the crags mag of the present.

It would also give it a community ownership and make the movement away from printed media.

Next time I see him I'll have to get an example.