Discussion: FFA shows as "tick" on notable ascents

FFA shows as "tick" on notable ascents

I was exploring my profile and noticed that if you have a FFA it wil be misleadingly shown as only a "tick" on the notable ascents section. I couldn't figure out how to include a picture here, but if you go to my profile, you can see my third notable ascent is "Mescalina Express 12d" which was an FFA (I guess that is what made it a "notable ascent" in the first place, otherwise there are more notorious ascents to put there). Anyway, the icon shown is not the FFA icon, which I thought could be a bug, or at least confusing, since a 12d tick is not notable at least in my case.

Problem here is that the term FFA ist not exactly defined with regard to the free ascent style. Free does just mean that it wasn't an ascent with technical aid. Therefore such logged ascents are categorized as a generic tick. For the CPR rating, that is a quite new feature, the calculation was adjusted to treat each FFA logged ascent as an redpoint one.

Why the tick is a notable ascent, I have to guess, but I think it is just the hardest "tick" (generic free ascent) you logged.

But FFA means FIRST free ascent. Anyway, I don't really care, just thought it could be better. What does a "generic tick" mean anyway? I avoid using those as they don't provide much info. Useful for people who don't wanna put much effort in ascent logging I guess.

I know what the abbreviation FFA means but free could be any of the following examples:

• redpoint
• pinkpoint
• greenpoint
• all free with rest
• ground up redpoint
• top rope clean
• ...

Basically any style that does not use technical aid.

Manolo Ruiz FFA is a Legacy Tick Type that will be removed very soon - simply don’t use it. Use redpoint or whatever and record your FFA in the history field - that way they also show up on your profile in your first ascent list.

Thanks Ulfi ! I always log them both ways. Good to see that now there will be only one way to do it, it seems to make more sense.

I will proceed to change all my FFA to redpoint...

Hi, following on from this regarding the notable ascents section and tick types. On my profile for example, in notable ascents there is one for a short route called "Bufo marinus" which I soloed and ticked accordingly, however it is displayed as a tick, not a solo. At a guess this is because soloing is not an ascent type theCrag promotes? However, it still remains as a tick option when logging an ascent? Just curious, cheers

It is the same reason as for my problem. If you click the ascents number next to the 'tick' type (7 in your case) you will see the text "Ascents as Tick, First ascent, Solo, Lead or First free ascent as sport by Moby Preen" which is actually part of the query used to filter the ascent considered. So all those types of ascents are considered but the icon will be just "tick". A little misleading...

Holy moley, i always thought FFA meant first female ascent!?

Evan! Karmon, you know damn well it means Frenetic Fantom Apparition.

Its much easier to say Yowie. Ok. Sorry. Carry on.

FFA has never included top rope, all free with rest, or whatever ground up redpoint is. It's a different category to those anyway, meaning the first time it was climbed without aid in one go. It may be done in red point, flash, or onsight style. Or some other. Greenpoint is using trad gear on a bolted climb, so it's an FFA is unlikely to be one of those, because the FFA would probably have already been done on the bolts. One may get an FA on top rope for example, depending on the ethic of the area, but that's not free and thus cannot be an FFA.

Thanks Matt, I'm just curious. Why is redpoint more "free" than top rope. Of course it is more difficult because of the mental aspect and that one has to place the gear.

BTW your statement aligns with the definition given by Wikipedia:

In free climbing, a first ascent (FA), or first free ascent (FFA) is the first documented redpoint of a sport route or a boulder problem, without using aid equipment to help progression or resting.

Ulfi - you wrote "FFA is a Legacy Tick Type that will be removed very soon". What will happen to the hundreds of FFA ticks I have on my account from multi decades of logging? Because of all sorts of reasons I no longer list my name directly in the history field of thecrag when I create a new route (I prefer keeping it publicly anonymous). But I do tick the route as FFA so I have my own private record of the date of the first ascent. If you remove this legacy tick type a whole lot of my own private history will disappear.

So what is a FFA on a multipitch, where partners swing lead and technically, climb half of the route on toprope?

Matt, ground up redpoint means no hangdoging. You fall on the onsight attempt, you lower to the ground. Everytime you fall you lower to the ground. No working the route in sections etc. So FFA damn well includes ground up redpoint.

Kai

In that case Wikipedia is wrong...A FA is the first ascent of any kind (often aid) and the FFA is the first redpoint...e.g. the FA of "Ratstaman vibration" is the one chris sharma did, but couldnt redpoint. The FFA is the one Alex megos recently did...

IMHO any ascent without holding on to bolts, the rope or other equipment to move on, is a free(-climbing) ascent. For me it doesn't matter if the climber rested in the rope or stood on a hands-free ledge. Anyway that seams to be my opinion only. So back to the Alex Megos and Chris Sharma sample. IMHO Chris did the first free ascent but did not redpoint it. So Alex is the first to repeat it free and redpoint it.

At the end of the day, this discussion is all hair-splitting and totally irrelevant to the course of the world. So don't spoil the fun and do your thing. 🎉🙈

It all comes down to what is the accepted ethics for an ascent. In the Elbe sandstones, the climbing rules/ethics explicitly allow resting at the rings, but you‘re not allowed to skip moves this way. Also, before the term redpoint was even invented, people did free ascents in various styles. The first free ascent of many a Frankenjura route has been done in yoyo style, a.f. (like in Elbe sandstones) or even top rope, by Kurt Albert, Flipper Fietz, or also John Bachar.

Heath Black they will most likely be converted to Redpoint

Ulfi, that sounds like a significant amount of FA data lost?

Which is most likely not correct for a lot of logged FFAs, as per our discussion. 😅 Especially for historic FFAs of „community managed profiles“ (I am thinking mostly Kurt Albert here, but maybe there are others?)

Sergey Komarov most likely not - I referred to your logbook - where possible history data will be generated

I don't really do first ascents myself, so my log book is probably not the best reference.

IMDHO Sharma did the first free ascent but fell and sat on the rope thus not a true redpoint. Its time to redefine what was clear and simple based on my DHO...and no crickets please when you realise that im green pointing. My point stands

Ulfi - why does this FFA log feature need to be removed? It appears many people use this for various reasons. In the end, this site was designed as a personal route logging platform. I care little about my "public profile" and care deeply about decades of logged ascents. If hundreds of FFAs logs get turned into simply redpoints automatically it would remove valuable data and replace it with inaccurate info (many of my FFAs may have been pinkpoints, topropes etc. This seems like a very destructive decision.

Nick, a red point is a successful attempt at climbing without rests or falls, that is not your first attempt. Ie, not a flash or onsight. 'Ground up' is superfluous here because if you hang for a rest or whatever, that's no longer a redpoint. If you're hanging on the rope, that's just working/hang dogging. This might count as FA but not FFA, depends on the area. Ground up usually refers to establishing a route, often a trad FA or something like that, where you don't rappel down and work& clean beforehand. You don't need to say it in terms of redpoint. And if you fall & lower back down, but leave the rope where it was, that's called yo-yo which isn't really considered free climbing (because you're on top rope for part of the route). But, I belive this still goes on big wall FAs because you just need to get TF up there. Another party may come in later and do Every pitch free, free in one push, whatever.

Tl;dr: First Ascent can be any style, first free ascent can be first time without falls, rests (on rope), or aid (top rope is aid). It depends on the style & ethics of an area sure, but that's the general idea.

+1 to what Monty has said. It seems clear that whilst people have different views on what constitutes an FFA, converting past logs to redpoints would be needlessly destructive to people's history.

Perhaps just prevent logging future ticks of that type? I believe that's what happened to the Target tick type? The ethical debate seems irrelevant to implementation of the tick type removal.

As Monty said, there are nowadays quite a lot of people who unfortunately no longer feel comfortable being publicly identified in FA details, but still wish to have their private logbook reflect their FAs. If "FFA" isn't specific enough then maybe don't kill it but give more options like "FFA; redpoint", "FFA; pinkpoint", etc?

BTW I find it bizarre that retiring the FFA tick type is a higher priority than fixing up the "AF with rests" tick type. The latter is 99.9% being incorrectly used for sport ascents, and not for it's intended purpose (ascents within the Saxony/Elbe ethic).

The FFA tick type will be removed as it is no tick type - there were reasons that it was implemented that way but in hindsight they were wrong and led to poor data quality - on people's logbooks and in general.

It is not a priority to remove the tick type but the new ticking interface is and it is part of it.

The new ticking interface also allows you to add private comments so anyone who is not proud of his first ascents can mark them there with a hash tag or just a comment which is also an improvement over current privacy if this is an issue.

BTW personally I find it quite bizarre to not wanting to publish a first ascent - why record it in the first place if you don't claim it?

Matt Pelekanos, you don't understand what I'm saying. Ground up RP is stricter than the "normal" RP, in that you didn't get to work the route higher than where you fell. That was how it was done in the States before Lynn Hill's "hangdogging incident"

> BTW personally I find it quite bizarre to not wanting to publish a first ascent - why record it in the first place if you don't claim it?

Heath Black I feel the same way as Ulfi. It would be interesting to know your motives.

Ulfi - first ascent names have been taken from this website and used as legal threats against them by land managers (i.e. National Parks) because of massive bans on climbing areas (we have lost more than half of the climbing in Victoria in recent years for example). Its probably not something that happens in Europe but its an ever increasing problem in Australia. I, and many others, no longer record first ascent names in public - and many new crags are simply not listed at all. Its also why I don't use my real name as my thecrag account as its already listed on hundreds of first ascent fields on this website. The climbing world isnt the same all around the world - many communities may operate differently to ones you are familiar with.

Can i suggest if you DO decide to destroy this valuable data (I have no altetnative records) then YOU must program it to add a hashtag "FFA" to all entires you convert from FA to redpoint.

There are like 30 different ascent types now (including 3 different green points...) And the FFA is the one we need to get rid off?

I feel this is just one of the cases in which more involvement of the community, or at least preemptive communication, would be in order (see the discussion in the release forum).

Heath Black understood - in that case the new ticking interface will give you even more privacy. The FFA tick type can be looked up by everyone as well and doesn't protect you for the case you mentioned.

And of course we will not destroy your data ;-)

Ticks from a private account should not be visible to everyone (they should only be visible to people I follow - i.e. friends). Otherwise - what is the point of a private account?

Heath Black, it is my understanding that in the new ticking interface private ascent comments are not even visible to people you follow.

I agree with thecrag's decision to remove the FFA tick. Heath Black you said it yourself: "it would remove valuable data and replace it with inaccurate info (many of my FFAs may have been pinkpoints, topropes etc.". The FFA tick already is inaccurate since it doesn´t specify the style of the ascent.

Also there is no point in having two ways of logging the FFA, one is enough. Definitely should have been like this from the beginning probably.

BTW I find it hilarious how forum posts here always diverge to different discussions