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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

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What's the Chockstone mood? - PLEASE VOTE 13-Sep-2011 At 3:01:31 PM Will_P

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As one of the long-time lurkers (previously only occasionally, now much more regularly), I think the ‘tone’ is difficult to define. On the downside (for me), there’s a lot of irrelevant, off-topic replies and posts that people seem to make to their buddies without putting much thought into whether it contributes to the discussion. The low-level slanging matches just come across as petty, or people with little better to do just baiting others. Which I’m sure is amusing if you’re on the bored, bitchy end, but for those of us looking for informed opinion or witty comment, not so much. As I think DavidN said recently, ‘why do you care so much what other people do?’

On the upside, the actual ‘heavy’ stuff, like the critical reviews of films and guidebooks (and the associated responses from those involved with production), ‘discussions’ of bolting particular lines, etc., are usually pretty interesting and informative, as well as illustrative of the diversity of opinion in the climbing community. What really surprises is how the real newcomers to climbing and the forum are treated – when ‘stupid questions’ are asked in a public forum, those that most of us either learnt from our mentors or read about in Freedom Of The Hills (or whatever), the responses are helpful and encouraging. Like the guy who wanted to know if he could use white gas in his trangia, or the hiker who wanted to know about using static for short rappels, or someone with a list of gear asking ‘will this be okay for travelling in Europe?’.

As for personalities, there seem to be some who obviously have their ‘online’ persona, generally trying to get a rise out of others, for whatever reasons of their own. There are a number of people who, having met them in passing a few times, are themselves on this site, and contribute to it in a positive and meaningful way, like their broader contributions to climbing in Aus. And there are actually a few who I’ve met and written off as a total tool, only to see their contributions here and reassess that.

I think if people could just ask ‘what does what I’m about to post contribute?’ before hitting that button, there’d be more quality here, and you’re less likely to feel like a d*ck for something you’ve said. But whatever, I’ll likely continue to lurk to read Mikl, Neil, Wendy, Simey, et. al. regardless.