TRs: Valuable or chestbeating fodder

[fern]

Paintrain said:

going climbing

 

we'll look for the trip report on Monday! Be sure to spell check and proof-read for clarity!

[Cpt.Caveman]

fern said:

Paintrain said:

going climbing

 

we'll look for the trip report on Monday! Be sure to spell check and proof-read for clarity!

 

[EWolfe]

fern said:

Paintrain said:

going climbing

 

we'll look for the trip report on Monday! Be sure to spell check and proof-read for clarity!

 

...and pictures! Break it up with pictures!

 

And don't forget to throw in a a little chestbeating to insure high reply #'s!

[Dru]

hey paintrain: telling people how you got rescued, nailed a clean and free route, epiced on a trade route, or made the fastest ever times car to car are good TR subjects.

[willstrickland]

Dru said:

i would have to gree with will his last TR was not well written. it came across as a "bitch about the other climbers" post. however the other climber responded! and there was some good trash talking and spray going on for 7 pages which I approved of

 

Dru, I think you're confusing my TR post with my "bitch and whine about someone nailing on C1" post which concerned the same climb. Anyway...

 

About pictures: I think pics definitely elevate a TR to a higher level, but there's a slight problem. Not all of us have a web host where we can place the pics and link the url. Yes, we can upload them to the gallery and I'd assume link them from there, but there are (understandably) size limits on both the total space of pics you can upload and the individual size of a pic. Now sure, it's not hard to resize them, but the uploads take a loooong time (for my connection anyway). It just turns into a bit of a hassle to put the pics in by the time you convert them, resize, upload, figure out how to link, etc. Maybe someone has a better way..or maybe my cheap ass should get some hosting space (yeah, I've got some free space on one of the many free services, but they also have small space limits and spam the sheeyat outta you all the time.)

 

[David_Parker]

One point everyone seems to be missing: A good Tr might not inspire any sort of written response at all. If no one responds, it slowy drifts down the ladder and disappears on subsequent pages. At least replys, good or bad, keep it alive for awhile.

Edited November 15, 2003 by David_Parker

[catbirdseat]

Yeah, the boring trip reports don't get replies and don't stay in the top ten for long. Some people might not care whether a response is positive or not as long as they get some attention, but most would like some recognition.

[Cairns]

This site has TRs?

 

I get so enchanted by the one-liners I have a hard time slowing down enough to read a whole paragraph.

 

A well written TR is more trouble than it's worth. At least I can skip a poor one. A good one makes me anxious to go do something.

 

I like the What Did You Do Last Weekend? A few simple sentences. I like hearing about climbs I've done, particularly if you had more trouble on them than I did. That's closet chestbeating.

 

Here's what I did last week.

 

Wednesday went in to look at new climb possibility but got scared off:

 

 

Thursday went to Smoke Bluffs. Saw people on Yorkshire Gripper and Crime of the Century! Top-roped Air Time.Heard that Dave Lane has moved to my neighborhood.

 

What did I just say?

 

Oh, yes, are valuable or chestbeating the only choices?

 

[AlpineK]

 

Is that some Blair Witch like warning?

[Dru]

its to prevent boulderers from spreading crash pads

[olyclimber]

Cairns said:

This site has TRs?

 

I get so enchanted by the one-liners I have a hard time slowing down enough to read a whole paragraph.

 

A well written TR is more trouble than it's worth. At least I can skip a poor one. A good one makes me anxious to go do something.

 

I like the What Did You Do Last Weekend? A few simple sentences. I like hearing about climbs I've done, particularly if you had more trouble on them than I did. That's closet chestbeating.

 

Here's what I did last week.

 

Wednesday went in to look at new climb possibility but got scared off:

 

 

Thursday went to Smoke Bluffs. Saw people on Yorkshire Gripper and Crime of the Century! Top-roped Air Time.Heard that Dave Lane has moved to my neighborhood.

 

What did I just say?

 

Oh, yes, are valuable or chestbeating the only choices?

 

Hey, (I hate it when I closet chest beat)....but I pile my cairns about twice as high as this.

[chucK]

Here's a pretty good TR.

 

I find them valuable.

 

I like the one-liners too.

 

Though the TRs are better for getting STOKE and for long boring periods at work.

 

The one-liners are better for short bursts of ADD induced procrastination at work.

 

 

This place is never going to change significantly, and if it does, it will be a different place . People who actually post realize that a bit of a thick skin is in order. We're probably getting as many TR's as we ever will. I've decided to quit bitching about people bitching about TR's.

 

If you really feel strongly about people not being an ass to someone sending in a TR, then just take on the fight each time and flame the dickhead. That will usually draw the fire away from the newbie poster AND make them feel that his/her TR was appreciated by someone. Plus, it'll give you a good excuse to righteously flame, sort of like Clint, Charles Bronson or Popeye .

"that's all I can stands and I can't stands no more!"

[Bug]

Bug said:

Dru said:

where is your TR slothrop? :confused

Bug's TR is pretty good except for the #8217's. You can get around this by saving it as a .txt file first...

 

GET OFF MY BACK ASSHOLE!!!

Whew. I feel better now. Yeah I wrote it in Word and cut & pasted it. Didn't even check it after I posted.

BUG IS A SLACKER!

So to get back to my point, Using all caps was over-reacting. Most flames are. Most posters here do not seem to be professional writers. I certainly am not. Dru's critique in this case was to the point and useful. Not all of his are. Nor can I claim to be consistent or good at critiquing or anything else except pissing off my wife. So why bitch so much about someone else's TR? My TR wasn't even about climbing. It was about a stroll in the woods with my little girls. Doesn't it matter wether or not there is any useful climbing information in the TR? And if there were a bunch of useful info in the TR, how much does it matter wether or not someone is chestbeating or just plain bad at writing? As with most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. But if you sit on the fence your polyps will get splinters. So we continue to be interesting.

[catbirdseat]

"I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam."

[Cairns]

catbirdseat said:

"I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam."

 

And if yuz duzzint like it yuz kin SHOVE OFF. [Pipe-smoking spinach-eating gremlin].

[layton]

Did folks enjoy the TR I wrote from the perspective of the shit I had to take? "I am Mike's terrified fecal mas"

 

I've given some crap for overly detailed TRs and wished that I hadn't. Gotta remember that not all folks out there understand that "flaming" is what the standard thread turns into and it's all about the humor. No thread is complete without being utterly destroyed by spray, thread drift, and flaming. In fact, everyone (but me) are all a bunch of flamers.

 

A good tr should be:

 

1. EASY to READ

2. Funny (or sad if your friend died in the TR)

3. Have good beta on the aspects you think will help

others succeed on this route (bring a #3!, cross the

river early, don't go down the 2nd gully, times, etc...)

4. PHOTOS. everyone loves photos.

[catbirdseat]

Was that you that wrote the Cutthroat TR, "My Little Steaming Climbing Padnah", or some such? That was hilarious.

[Tod]

willstrickland said:

About pictures: I think pics definitely elevate a TR to a higher level, but there's a slight problem. Not all of us have a web host where we can place the pics and link the url. Yes, we can upload them to the gallery and I'd assume link them from there, but there are (understandably) size limits on both the total space of pics you can upload and the individual size of a pic. Now sure, it's not hard to resize them, but the uploads take a loooong time (for my connection anyway). It just turns into a bit of a hassle to put the pics in by the time you convert them, resize, upload, figure out how to link, etc. Maybe someone has a better way..or maybe my cheap ass should get some hosting space (yeah, I've got some free space on one of the many free services, but they also have small space limits and spam the sheeyat outta you all the time.)

 

There is no need to post a picture to a web server first unless that's what you like to do. Uploading to the photo gallery here is pretty easy. Finding the URL link to the picture in the cc.com gallery takes a little extra work though but really isn't that hard to do either (right click a blank spot on the gallery page, click "View Source" then look for the <img ... src="http://www.cascadeclimbers.com..." link with the .jpg file in it, that's the URL link to your picture). Maybe the gallery can be changed so the URL is shown in the gallery once you upload the photo? (hint, hint jon or timmy)

 

If the picture is to big and takes to long to upload, then you shouldn't be uploading and attempting to put it into a TR in the first place (it'll be to big for the TR and you'll get flamed for posting it). Basic photo editing to bring down the pixel size is not hard to do with MS Paint or MS Photo Editor (which come with most PC computers). If you open the picture in MS Paint and it looks to big, then size it down, resave it and upload it to the photogallery. Pretty easy and quick once you figure out what your doing.

 

I agree, TR's with pictures bring your TR to a another level. TR's with pictures and a map showing route bring your TR to the third level. TR's with pictures, a map and a photo of a naked woman bring your TR to the ultimate level.

[layton]

catbirdseat said:

Was that you that wrote the Cutthroat TR, "My Little Steaming Climbing Padnah", or some such? That was hilarious.

 

yup, that was an excerpt from my TR Jon or Timmay! posted on the main board a while back.

[Juan]

MattP et al.:

 

My post on page 1 may have inferred that I advocate flaming people who are "gumbies" and/or post TRs on basic climbs. It may also have inferred that such posts are a waste of time. I did not mean to infer either. I am a gumby and have posted TRs on some easy climbs.

 

For the sake of clarity, I don't think flaming TRs is good form. Because it's so common, I understand why so few people now write TRs.

 

No one likes to be put down for their achievements. Why would you share your excitement at climbing the Sitkum Route on Glacier Peak when someone is going to rip it apart?

 

Like everyone else, I enjoy reading a good TR. My point regarding climbs like Sahale Arm or the Tooth in summer is simply that I don't generally read them because I can pretty much envision the route. A post about either climb in late November, however, would be interesting because our recent weather will have an impact.

 

Be it a hard route or basic climb, done by a gumby or hardman/hardwoman, a good TR is a pleasure to read. I wish there were more of them. I haven't seen much in the alpine lakes and north cascades section lately. I doubt it's because people aren't getting out. I think people are just sick of the bullshit that sometimes comes at them.

 

Let's see more TRs, and fewer reasons not to write them.

 

John Sharp

[catbirdseat]

Just out of curiosity, I went back through North Cascades Route Reports, scanning for TRs, looking for negativity and abuse. I went back eleven pages to August, 2003. Well, I found little evidence of it. There was just Klenke's crack about sewing it up on dryad's thread about the Beckey Route on Liberty Bell and that was pretty mild.

 

I would say that recently, there just hasn't been a lot of problems. Maybe I should go back farther or look in Alpine Lakes (Tooth), but it's beginning to look to me like the problem has been overstated.

[mattp]

Catbird, you are right that things have gotten better with the route reports. I do still delete what I consider to be obnoxious posts from time to time, though.

 

I do not think it is in any way inaccurate to state that many people who would otherwise post trip reports do not do so because they fear somebody is going to ridicule them for taking 2 ½ days to climb the Serpentine Arete, flame them for mentioning that somebody might want to bring a couple of pins on their rack, or complain about their writing style. You actually seem to like to be flamed, so I'm not surprised to see you argue that it is no big deal, but others do not. Is there a crisis? No. Could things be handled better? Yes.

[catbirdseat]

Like being flamed? Maybe not, but I tolerate it. I see it for what it is, mostly just reflexive macho posturing. Speaking of which, Dru said he was going away for a week. Did he say where he was going?

[cracked]

Hell?