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Abseilers. What are your opinions about them? 21-Jul-2017 At 1:43:25 PM Karl Bromelow

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Whatever lights your candle, I suppose, but abseiling for fun/adventure whilst not being at all knowledgeable about the rock climb you are descending can cause problems.

I haven't come across "recreational abseilers" since migrating but in my previous life in the UK occasionally did and had to have words with them.
Abseilers without route knowledge are quite capable of messing up climbs. This could be temporary, as with the transfer of dirt down a crag and potentially onto crucial holds or permanent as with breaking of crucial holds by big booted individuals unconcerned about what they're kicking off. This becomes more critical if the line of descent is also a hard rock climb.
I saw this on gritstone where abseilers in hiking boots were chucking themselves down an E6 only possible because of crucial small pebbles.

Like ODH, I don't really get it as worthy activity for anybody other than middle aged office workers raising money for charity off the side of a six story building. I realise this is just my biased perspective akin to surfers vs the majority of SUPers. But amongst the climbing community "recreational abseilers" will always be considered rather goofy, sad and into it for silly fairground thrills or deluded perceptions of toughness rather than for any genuine physical challenge or the beauty of movement and the pleasure of complex problem solving in a usually magical environment.
Unless of course you are an SRT caver in which case it's totally valid. I've done that a few times but the abseiling was a means to an end, as it is in climbing, not the end in itself. Now if you wanted to take up "recreational belaying", I'm sure climbers would learn to get along with you much more readily.