UKC

We have just finished a small set of changes to the Logbook section.

Stats
All crags now have a Stats tab which gives charts for grades available at the crag and what grades everyone logs. There is also a useful popularity of season chart and weather (just temperature at the moment).
Rainfall - we will be adding average rainfall to the temperature chart as soon as we have located a reliable and affordable source for this data.
Dovedale

Feedback
We have added a specific place for route feedback to differentiate it from personal ascent comments. Over the years lots of useful comments have been added to personal ascent comments but sometimes these are hidden, or they disappear down the list of ascents. The new route feedback section is public for everyone and is a place to add information about a route. This can be about a loose hold, a bird's nest or anything that you think might be useful.
Ten Craters of Wisdom (VS 5a)

Feedback Beta
We also encourage people to add route beta to the feedback notes - hints on moves and holds, or specific gear requirements. Each comment has a beta flag available so if you do add beta, then flag it as such. This enables those who don't want beta to hide it using a general setting across the site.
Old comments - The feedback comments have been pre-populated with data from the Rockfax Route database. This was very popular around 10 years ago but has become much less popular as UKC Logbook took over. This means that a lot of the current comments are around 10 or more years old. Most still have relevance though and they will drift down the list as new comments arrive.

Hope you like the new features which are the work of Andy and Paul.

Alan

Lovely charts and feedback beta really useful.

Perfect timing. I climbed at Symonds Yat over the weekend and we inadvertently disturbed what we think was an Owl's nest and was wondering if I could add a comment to this effect.   Hole in the Wall (HVS 5a)

I love that you've flagged that as beta. "Match hands on owl and rock onto high right foot".

I haven't have I?

D'oh! if I have.....

When logging a route on mobile (chrome on android) it won't let you log without feedback being included. 'feedback must not be in all capitals' error occurs  even when none has been entered. 

Actually you hadn't marked it as beta but you had revealed that our logic was misleading. A question mark has now been added.

Alan

Was it this morning you had the issue, as I thought I had fixed that bug last night?

Ta muchley

Ah, it was last night it wasn't working, but it wouldn't let me report it then. 

Hi. Love the new Stats and Weather tabs. Feedback and Beta are good additions too.

The Stats tab works in Chrome on my WIn7 PC but not in Internet Explorer 11 (I have add-ons disabled. I enabled all the add-ons and still no joy.).

Should it work? I know IE11 is quite old now.

Also, if I tag beta, an error box asks if I am logged in. I am.

Keep up the great work.

Ah, good to see "feedback" (I've long thought that something was lost when people stopped giving Rockfax database comments).

Can I suggest that you do not discourage grade opinions by saying "please use the voting system for grade and star opinions"?  Yes, if someone is merely going to say "HVS **" or whatever, then that's better done on the voting system, but if they're going to give a comment to explain their opinion then that is useful (and I suspect you won't be flooded by too many of them). 

Hi Alan,

I really like the new stats feature as it helps to know what routes are getting done and when. Feels like this will be better than looking at latest ascents if you are thinking of visiting a crag, but not in the next few days.

To be honest I have reservations about the feedback element. Before I knew these updates had happened I logged Pleasure Dome (E3 5c) and noticed the historical comments in the feedback section and wondered where they came from. Perhaps it is specific to this climb but the 'feedback' didn't seem any different from the general comments (except for being old). So a couple of questions really:

- Do you think it would be better to start without the Rockfax comments which are mostly historic and possibly not differentiated from general ascent comments?

- What is going to differentiate feedback from general comments in the future? I like the concept but feels like there is a risk we end up with two comments sections.

Stroppy

Thanks for the suggestion. We are not going to do that though since I am sure there will still be plenty of grade comments in feedback. We really do want to increase the voting a bit though since sometimes there are 100s of ascents and only a handful of votes.

Alan

I think you have missed the point here. The new Feedback section is specifically designed to split the two since the personal ascent comments contained around 90% personal stuff, and around 10% useful feedback. That made finding the useful feedback difficult since you had to scroll miles to find it. 

Now people can log their own personal ascent comments, and keep them private, and also feedback on the routes which is not private. You couldn't give feedback and keep your personal comments private before.

The old stuff from Rockfax is mostly general comments hence appropriate for where it now is. It was always presented like that and there was never any 'route logging' on the RF database.

There are bound to be a few discrepancies, and there will be hundreds of useful comments in the personal ascent comments that will be in the wrong place, and maybe we will create a simply switch to swap those since that might be handy. 

Alan

The beta thing is very useful can I make my feedback comments public whilst keeping logbook private or partners only?

Can I do this retrospectively?

I agree. Interesting idea to differentiate personal experience from feedback that's useful to others but I think it's going to be a difficult line to judge. Some people will always be convinced that their personal experience is useful to everyone while others will be much more hesitant. If I was designing the feature, I think I would have let people upvote/like/promote existing logbook comments and then pinned comments that were widely regarded as useful to the top of the comments section. Probably with the same beta flag, that's a smart addition.

Since the changes I can no longer record routes climbed!

There was a problem last night, but that should all be fixed now. I've emailed you asking for more info

Feedback comments are always public. You change the privacy of your logbook data in the user options, and this will affect every entry you have made (so it is retrospective), while keeping feedback public.

We have added an option now so that you can copy your own comments to Public Feedback if you want for the comments which contain useful information rather than just personal ascent notes. It will just copy it so you may want to delete your own personal notes although this isn't required.

Alan

That's what I was getting at. Now I've whinged about it I better share some pearls of wisdom (mind you, most of my comments are appeals to upgrade a route!)

This looks great. I have found the popularity feature on Mountain Project to be helpful when planning trips, and a similar feature on UKC seems very useful. 

One thing that would also be useful would be to be able to ask the logbooks, "What were the most recent accents in Chee Dale?". If for example, I would like to know if the Cornice is dry. Is there a neat way of doing this or should I just look at individual routes? I just checked and it doesn't look like anyone has ticked routes since September, so I'm not after a conditions report at the moment, but curious if such a search was possible or something you had in the pipeline.

You already can select "Latest Ascents" for crags and it shows that there were two routes climbed at the cornice this week.

Select the drop down box top right.

Minor point - if you open up the logbook options from the logbook page (the cogs icon) you don't get the option to hide beta in feedback, but if you go into the logbook subcategory of the main user options page you do. These two settings pages are otherwise identical in their content.

That's a good addition. Be nice when clicking the bars in the grade distribution chart if it took you to a list of them. You could combine this feature with the ability to filter the route lists by grade when looking at a crag. 

As Kristian says, you can check the recent ascents for every crag. You can also create a specific Conditions page using Logbook > Conditions > My Conditions. You can add a specific set of crags to there to check who has climbed what recently.

Alan

Thanks for that. It looks like a really useful feature, I just hadn't worked out how to use it! I will start adding my favourite crags!

Cheers, Tony

Is there a way to save preferences for "my conditions". I can't seem to get it to save anyway.

Really great additions. As a definitive guide volunteer and trad obscurist I always found the feedback linked to a 'named' user (that I know I can trust) very useful.

Votes clearly get you the nearest grade (or borderline) but in terms of sub grade accuracy I still think you are doomed to failure on grade votes due to things like confirmation bias and different user groups voting.  If I were you I'd consider having the possibility of seeng how specific users vote (like Mountain Project do) or have a trusted leader status and average those when determining grades for guidebooks.

Inverted V shows a mid VS grade on 460 votes. It's an easy VS dragged up by ego voting and confirmation bias

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/ukc/logbook_updates_-_stats_charts_feedba...

Counts Crack is on the upper edge of mid VS on your votes, barely harder than Inverted V and its at the opposite end of the VS grade according to the definitive team.

Count's Crack (VS 4c)

I bet if you just looked at the 75 voters on this route for their average for Inverted V it would be low VS.

Another example ...Thrombosis is a brutal VS that I'd say is certainly more awkward and maybe harder than its near neighbour Agony Crack....

Thrombosis (VS 5a)

Agony Crack (HVS 5a)

...  which comes out as half a grade harder as confirmation bias adds HVS votes and being an easy safe HVS it gets plenty of ego voting.

One thing, when copying a logbook comment to feedback, the feedback is dated the day the info was copied. Would it be possible to also copy the date across as some feedback would definitely be date dependant. 

An example would be a logbook comment about a dodgy lower off that I added to my logbook last November, this would clearly be better as feedback. Just copied it across and it posted with today's date, the lower off condition may have changed since I made the comment, so the date is relevant.

The stats page look good. I noticed the number of logs per grade stats for this crag don't appear for some reason. It looks like some sort of error.

Østmarka Bouldering#stats

It's the same on both my laptop and mobile (both Chrome), so I don't think it's the platform, and it's the same with Chrome and Edge.

Thanks for letting me know. Fixed now. It was because it was displaying the number of logs for the aid climbs at the crag, and since no one has logged an aid route there, it displayed an empty graph!

I agree. The original  date is important, particularly where comments relate to the quality of pegs, rockfall etc.

Given that trad routes are graded for an onsight lead, I'd prefer any beta to be hidden by default, rather than being an opt out feature.

Why don't you just opt out in your User Options then they will be hidden by default?

Alan

Great stuff. However, the new features don't appear for the Dewerstone? Or at least, they don't when I look at that page.

The Dewerstone

Very helpful. Thanks for the insight.

I will obviously change my user settings, however I would prefer it if I didn't need to change settings in order to preserve the status quo. Will beta show up if I view a climb page whilst not logged in, perhaps because I'm using a different device to view logbooks? Onsight blown.

Seems to be working for me, can I ask what browser you are using please? And potentially the version if IE

It is a tick box above the Feedback comments shown on every route as well so pretty easy.

If you are that worried about beta then you really shouldn't have been reading the logbooks for the last 15 years since there was beta all over the personal comments, often in the user-submitted descriptions and, let's be honest, many of the guidebook route descriptions. At least now feedback beta it is flagged so you know not to look and you have the option to globally hide it.

Alan

Hi Andy - have cleared chrome cache and now appears as expected.

Any chance of having an area as a search criteria for logbooks in the future?

For example rather than specific crags like Las Encantades and then Arab Steps I can search my entire logbook for El Chorro? 

Is it possible (or does it already exist and I haven’t got it to work) to make routes on a wish list automatically remove themselves  once they’ve been climbed?

I understand some people would like them to also stay on there but if everyone had the option to turn something on or off it’d be great. 

That would be a very nice function.

If I may also take this chance to reiterate a wishlist wish... it would be great if you could map out the crags where you have wishlist routes, for holiday planning and seeing what you want to do in a specific area (e.g., the best weather option).

This would be a great addition (assuming I'm not being blind and missing an existing option.

During the warmer months, I usually use the conditions page to check a subset of crags in the peak area (and further afield) to get an idea of the state of seepage / condensation. So I'm not interested in knowing the hundreds of routes logged at Stanage and Froggatt etc which I know will dry fairly quickly after any rainfall.  It takes a while to filter for the crags I am / am not interested in or to skim over the irrelevant entries.

Being able to save my filters for next time would be a great help and would also save time when planning for destinations further afield.

Whilst I'm on the subject of Conditions feature wishlists: an ability to draw a custom area on a map (similar to Rightmove, Zoopla etc) would be great for foreign trips.

Hello again, it seems like an obvious one but is it possible to have the option to add routes to a tick list, just as it is to add them to a logbook or wish list?

Creating a tick list is currently very slow and not user friendly, at least on a mobile device. 

Many thanks for your time and everything else. Emilio. 

Thanks, those are useful additions. Are there a few gremlins in the edge cases though? For example rodellar stats show 1 9b+ listed, and that it has been logged once. But the only climb of that grade has no ascents. There are also several 9a+s listed but only one in the stats. (Obvs, info on these grades is critical for my crag selection ... Ha. Ha)

Thanks for the feedback, we will support for adding routes to a ticklist from the crag page in the future.

Thanks, I've fixed that - Rodellar. We have a trash field on logbook entries in the database so it can be synced with the Rockfax app. The stats graph wasn't taking into account when that was set.

I think the guy that had ticked and subsequently deleted the 9b+ had been trolled by his mates at some point as I just removed a load of crap from his user profile.

I just keep seeing ancient log entries cropping up as "comments" and this is quite irritating as it just spams up the route information:

eg:

Once Pegged Wall VS 5a

Feedback

Always Hide βeta

UserDateNotes

Si dH12 Nov, 2006the right grade, one hardish move, all well-protected. There is very little finger-jamming involved if you use the available holds. βeta?

Al Evans30 Sep, 2006Great training for Regent Street βeta?

Headjam12 Aug, 2006I think the finger-jamming on this is actually quite technical (and I like jamming !), and the feet at the top bit before the top aren't that good - it's quite steep. I'd stick with 5a. βeta?

DannyC12 Jul, 2006i found it slightly hard for vs but then i can't finger jam very well. my mate who has just started climbing secondede it with no trouble although he's 6'4" and could just reach the top ledge by stnding in the crack. bastard. vs 4c seems fair enough. βeta?

Jonathan T25 Apr, 2005VS 5a? Nice little route with loads of gear. βeta?

GrahamD4 Oct, 2004A good technical little route which will feel stiff for 4c ! βeta?

shaun walby26 Sep, 2004Found it a bit tricky, but it was my first route back on grit after spanish limestone. Good gear all the way. βeta?

Monk9 May, 2003Quite stiff but excellent protection. A good route. βeta?

led15 Apr, 2002Not quite as amenable a climb if you have big fingers! βeta?

Spam? They are almost all totally relevant still and will eventually be usurped by more recent comments as those build up.

The comments system was imported from the Rockfax database which had a load of feedback comments from 2002 until UKC logbook gradually pushed it out after 2006ish (although it is still accepting feedback comments even now). The problem with the original UKC comments is that they were a mix of lots of personal ascent comments - not interesting for everyone - and some useful feedback like the old Rockfax comments. So we added the Rockfax comment field as a separate field to UKC logbooks but we didn’t want to lose all the old Rockfax comments when doing this. This is because, as in the example you quote, there are many fully relevant comments in it and the fact that someone said that thin fingers are useful for Once Pegged Wall (VS 5a) in 2006 probably means that they are still useful in 2019 as well.

We have also added a system where you can copy your personal ascent comments across to feedback comments where they are relevant.

Alan

Hello again (sorry),

Would it be possible to have a little symbol or marking on crag pages that partners have logged?

Rather than going through every route, they’d just be a little smiley face or something to show so and so has climbed it.

I always find it a pleasant surprise when I’m looking at random routes abroad and see a friend has been there.

Many thanks for your time,

Emilio. 

Hi Emilio,

Thanks for the suggestion. We do hope to improve the climbs list on the crag page in the future. One thing we had in mind was to be able to select one of your partners and view a comparison between their ticks and yours for a specific crag.

My initial feeling is that scanning all of your partners logbooks for ticks at that crag might be too database intensive with the current setup. There's over 6 million records in the logbook table at the moment and if you have a lot of partners listed, it might make generating the climbs list really slow. We'll give it a go though, as I think it would be a nice feature to have.

Cheers, Paul.

One thing I've noticed since the updated is that when I tick some routes at a crag and add them to my logbook, when I revisit that crag page next time round the routes I previously added are automatically ticked already - which often means I end up adding duplicates to the logbook and have to go back and delete them.

Happens on both laptop and phone, both running Chrome.

Hi Paul,

Every time I go to my logbook I get a message:

"You have been logged in 86 ascents by your partners that aren't in your logbook"

This comes along with colour emphasis and transition motion** and so is rather annoying.  

I'm never going to add these ascents (partly because I never add to my logbook things I've merely seconded; that's just me) -- so could we have a user-option to disable this notification?  (Or perhaps a feature whereby if a user hasn't clicked on "review missing ascents" the last 6 times then it takes the hint and realises that the user is not interested in them?).   Thanks, Coel.

**I ferociously *hate* transitions; when stuff that I'm looking at moves around like that it causes motion sickness in me (again, this may be just me).

Hi Coel,

The check for missing partner ascents happens in the background after the My Logbook page is loaded to speed things up. The alternative to pushing the list down is to use a big popup that you have to dismiss, so I think it's the worse of 2 evils at the mo. We will look at a user option to disable the check completely though.

If you click on the link to review them. You can click on I just belayed/watched to remove them from further notifications. I've done this for you btw, so those 86 ascents are hidden.

For motion on web pages:
We try to respect the reduced motion settings in operating systems where possible.

If you're on Windows 10 type Ease of Access Centre in the search then click on Make the computer easier to see then click on Turn off all unnecessary animations (where possible).

If you're on MacOS go to Control Panel > System and Security > System > Advanced System Settings > Performance settings > Visual effects then uncheck Animate controls and elements inside windows

Thanks, I've fixed that in the on the crag page.