So either Precision Feather has lost a few holds and the Superbowl has been angled over backwards or Mr. Crabtree is taking a dig at some seriaas soft-bagging by Naureen on 8a.nu... you decide

It wasn't just Coliin. Click on precision feather and look at all the comments from Steve etc. The question now is if they're all going to leave their score cards like that.

I seldom reply to threads, but in this case I have to. This is the funniest thing I have seen in ages!

As for taking them off, I think the point is that while people continue to grade chase and put 'soft' as comments but then take the inflated grade for their scorecard, the ranking will never be accurate.

This is not even mentioning the problem of people re-onsighting routes, either out of ignorance or grade chasing motives, either way it messes up the ranking.

Hilarious!

Without inviting another grade debate (oh please no!), 8a is starting to seem a bit pointless with the soft bagging and re-onsighting, etc, etc. Screw it, lets all just climb.

8a is like a friggin soap opera. the best thing that could happen is some guy hacks in a deletes it altogether. who actually cares what someone else puts down. they can put whatever they want.

The thing is, if you don't care and aren't in it to compete, you can use the 8a logbook facility. However, if you want to compete, then you should do it properly.

It may be flawed but 8a has done good things to sport climbing in South Africa.

My take on 8a is the following: I think the ranking has moved further and further from reality due to people using different standards to log their ascents (such as use of different grades and inconsistent logging of repeats). Furthermore, not everyone logs their routes so it can never be entirely accurate anyway.

That said, I personally use 8a as a convenient record of my ascents and a guage of my own progress, regardless of what other people are climbing or what grades they are claiming. You have no control over other peoples actions so why worry about them?

This doesn;t effect me as firstly I don't use 8a and my level of climbing disqualifies me from the roc and road trip, but isn't the 8a system being used to choose who qualifies? If so this is a very relevant issue as it actually boils down to cheating.

Its okay Russell. People aren't selected for RnR purely based on the number of points on their scorecard. The scorecards are actually reviewed by four people. So things like re-onsighting a 21 and claiming it as a 24 will be noticed.

Oh no, I was really hoping this would be my ticket onto Rock and Road!!

Sorry Noz, I think Colin will be picked over you. I mean his Precision Feather is way harder than yours.

Kay, so I got on the bank wagon and went to check out the comments on this route. One person managed to "onsite" the route 4 times in 4 days as well as give the route an upgrade!? Dude, you must have been chowing some serious shrooms. Haha.

Just to add to the boredom and hilarity of 8a, yes! more charts!!

Neill Margetts has gotten back to me with the Gauteng submissions for proposed 8a charts.
As far as I can see both the Gauteng and Cape suggestions for conversion are flawed (see charts below). These conversions all look fine when you list them as a simple linear conversion to the French system but when you place them in a proper chart with comparisons between all the worlds grades the conversions fall short of accuracy. Anyway for what its worth (I am as tired of this as you all are - trust me!) here are the two charts followed by my ammended suggestion

So there they are, you guys can decide which should be submitted.
PS actually looking at the Gauteng submission again the lower grades are out compared to Ozzy grades, there is no way ours are harder, [but Im not redrwaing the diagram (so there!)]

I kinda feel inclined to mentioned that perhaps in this specific topic it's not so much the grading system that's an issue as much as grading a 21 as a 24 or a 28 - even with the confusion around grade conversions it'll be pretty err, hard to make a mistake like this.
Personally I think these guys are just pulling our legs. They're all very good climbers so they should be able to tell their 21s from their 28s.

Again, the only difference between the last chart and the original chart of sacin, is that the overlap grade has moved from 26/27 to 24/25, and the original reason for changing the chart was to eliminate overlap grades. The old chart is still the most accurate. The greater majority of 25's are nowhere near 7a+. Neither are all 26's 7b's.

Hi

I am newish to this climbing thing. I definitely can't grade. But the comparison of grades strikes me as a standardisation problem. To truly line up the systems you would need a calibration exercise or sorts.

This would probably entail some SA climbers going to France or the US to go and climb some 8a's or 5.10s. They would grade them with the SA system and see how our system lines up. Or some French or American climbers coming to grade some of our routes.

Is this a crazy?

@CA -No not crazy, Ive tried to research this as much as my brain can take! And yes the chart are taken from data provided by climbers with extensive overseas experience.

@ JD - The Gauteng chart is from discussions held between Neil Margetts, Andrew Pedley and other Gauteng climbers, the results of which Neil e-mailed to me. He has now however sent me another mail with another conversion that is exactly the same as the Cape chart. As the majority of the ppl who responded to the first round of discussion voted for the Cape chart, that is probably the one that will go to 8a. Whether they will actually get around to putting it up is another question! My suggestion of an overlap was to address this whole what is 7a argument and to correctly allign the lower grades (something the Cape chart fails to do, neither does the Gauteng chart BTW). The original Sacin chart actually indicates a lot more than one overlap if you look at it properly.

I actually grew bored with 8a quite some time ago, and have been wanting to delete my profile off the site completely. Good luck getting any response from them on the subject of deleting a profile though. I'm with Illona on this one, let's just climb.

I'm sure that Greg, Naureen and Collin are all just having the biggest laugh ever at this thread! As soon as I saw the whole satire they were creating I sent Collin a message exclaiming that I thought it was the funniest thing ever! AND IT IS!

_________________
I hate this real world place... I'd be more than happy to live out there rather...

For give me father for I have over graded, This is my first forum posting.

It’s too easy to wind people up these days.

So in an effort to help everyone untie their knickers:
On the 25th I climbed Jack of all trades but spelt it “Precision Feather”
On the 27th I climbed Bikini Red but spelt it “Precision Feather”
On the 28th I climbed Mostly Harmless but spelt it “Precision Feather”
On the 30th I climbed Chunky Money but spelt it “Precision Feather”

So there is not much wrong here other than simple spelling mistakes!

It all seemed like a good idea when sitting in the traffic while on the way home from Boven after a long weekend.
In fact yesterday I was giggling about theses posts like a school girl with feathers in her knickers. But unfortunately it seems that a number of people did not appreciate our little game, Some people were so offended that it seems they want to de register from 8a completely, cancel there internet connections and burry their heads in the sand! I hope you don't, 8a does a lot of good things and to abandon it because we played silly buggers is just daft.


I have registered my self back in to primary school next term in the hope that I might learn to spell. Naureen is taking extra maths lessons to help her work with the number grading system, Colin, the poor man, is so senile that every route he does is considered an onsite and Greg is just a soulless ginger who’s grading always has a lot to be desired.



Anyway thanks for the entertainment - it was great!



Steve

Hahaha, nice one Steve.

I'm glad everyone agrees with me that greg is a soulless ginger. ;p

Personally, I find farting and burping funnier than this little lark. That said, I don't think this is worth getting upset over.

Not sure anybody got upset about it at all? Most people just thought it was funny, and those that wanted to delete their profiles still do, not having been motivated by this in the first place.

This little prank of ours has given me much entertainment thanks guys.

But seriously this was all done to highlight some of the floored posting on 8a recently. People logging repeats as onsights. Logging repeats as different grades (as much as 3 grades different). This practice is rubbish! I’d like to think that this is all innocent misunderstanding of how 8a works. For those who don’t know there is a proper way to log repeats. Find the route you have done and click on the green circling arrows then follow prompts. If you make a mistake click on the little pencil and edit your post. When you put up a route if the name comes up in Italics you have over graded, if it comes up in bold you have under graded. Click on the route name and a list of all the other people who have done the route (spell the route name correctly or this doesn’t work) will come up. You can see what they graded it at, when it was done and their comments. If our grading varies from the consensus a grade then it is up to you if you leave it be. If you’re out by two or more sort your crap out.

I hope that help those people who are having problems grading on 8a. and for my 2 cents Joff’s grade conversion chart on SACIN is by far the best! The over lap are there because grading is like a language no translation is perfect. So use the 8a previous ascensionasts list to get the consensus on the route.

Thanks for playing along. Our Precision Feather assents will be corrected by Monday I hope.

Chrz Greg

Greg, I think your statement "If you’re out by two or more (grades) sort your crap out" needs a bit of a tweak. I would say "If you're out by 2 or more grades for a well-known and much climbed route and you want to retain your credibility then sort your crap out".

Let me play Devil's Advocate a little more... surely people should still be allowed to put in the grades they feel are accurate for any specific route. The rest of the world may disagree with them but so what? Rock n Road qualification is not a valid argument since the grades will all be standardised as mentioned previously.

Now "Devil's Advocate" is a good point in case! opened at 28, consensus pushed it down to 26 - so i saw there's people sending it, recording it as 28, then repeating it, after which they grade it 26. To top it, the first send is not altered or deleted - this is not exactly ethical!