UKC

Yes I know, grades are silly, especially indoors. They make for nice discussions though...

In our bouldering gym they use the Toplogger app, where you can vote on the grade when you sent a problem. I made the observation that the finally posted grade isn't a mean, it is the grade that got the most votes. For example, 2 people voted 6a, 3 voted 6a+ and 4 voted 6b. the final vote will be 6b while it would be obvious that the mean is more like 6a+. In fact, in this example, there were more people disagreeing with the 6b vote then people agreeing.

My observation is that this leads to grade inflation. Almost always the highest proposed vote wins, some psychological factor I guess. I often downgrade, because I also boulder outside and I think the indoor grades are way too high. But my down grade doesn't shift the final grade at all.

Any ideas? Should we petition the Toplogger company? A boycot? Doesn't matter because indoor grades are silly anyway?

Just using raw vote data isn't a good way of doing it.

They should do something more complex like asking people whether this route is easier or harder than another route they have done in the centre and then using an algorithm to calculate the grade based on harder than / easier than votes.   

Yeah, that would be nice! I think the reason they choose for the current solution is that it is easy to program. Apps with really smart programming are kind of rare...

Maybe it would help if the route setters would propose a grade. Like in outdoor climbing where the first climber proposes something, usually constricted by pressure from their peers. That often gives guidance, better then when a bunch of amateurs give ego grades.