PP's database of rivers, guages, and runs is going to need to be upkept somewhat by its members every season or so. To keep the beta fresh and vital, we need a variety of paddlers to contribute their knowledge and experience in accurate, creative ways. At this point the technology exists to support a dynamic, living, breathing wiki-guidebook. An open source lexicon of rivers and their tributaries, rapids and the features that compose them. Photos, videos, and written descriptions submitted by all of us

Robe has experienced a variety of fluvial geomorphic changes since the current description was written. It could stand to be updated and edited a good bit. Here's what I propose:

Anyone who is interested should write up a new Robe Run Description and send it to me as a PM with "Robe Run Description" in the subject heading. Or maybe you want to revise the Takeout Details. Send me your revision titled "Robe Takeout Details". A seperate PM for "Robe Fun Facts" ect.

I encourage anyone who's run Robe enough to be familiar with it to send me a brand new run description. The more submissions I get the better. I plan to carefully read each description and edit down a final draft that will reflect the average impressions of each paddler who submitted one. That way the final product is not something written by any one person from their singular point of view, but rather the product of group input.

I've been wanting to try this approach with some of the more popular staple runs in the database, and Robe seems like a good pplace to start. Its a popular run but I doubt I could possibly be overwhelmed with too many submissions to coherently edit. There aren't that many people who boat it regularly. The current description needs an overhaul, and the Gnomes have moved stuff around... That's right- don't forget to include some Gnome lore in your submissions!

When I see how this editing process works out and what kind of results it produces, I may take this approach to some of the other popular run descriptions such as the Sky, Tilton, Wenatchee, ect.

This thread can serve as a centralized place to discuss the Robe description throughout this process. In other words, in addition to submitting descriptions to me, peeps can discuss here how they think the page should be as a whole.

But again: if you submit a description, it will greatly help me stay organized if you put "Robe Run Description" in the subject heading. If you'd also like to submit something to the "Other Issues" field, put "Robe Other Issues" in the PM subject heading of a seperate PM. By including "Robe" in the title, I can keep "Robe Put In Details" seperately organized from "Sky Put In Details". Make sense?

I'm curious to see how this process works out. Once the written beta is revamped, I want to move onto the other media. It would be really cool to get some new photos of the major rapids, and update the rapid descriptions. But I think we should start with the text, and meanwhile discuss how to give everyone who's interested input in getting the photos and rapid descriptions updated in a similar way. It could be a cool collaborative process.

Let me know what you Robe fanatics think.


Edited by jP - 26 Jan 2012 at 1:25am

Hey JP, why don't you put up your description and let the Robe regulars edit it?

Cool Tiz- you go ahead n update them new photos.

Bret, your suggestion is exactly the opposite of what I just laid out. I've put thought into this. It makes more sense to have one editor edit many submissions into one cohesive final draft than it does to have one person submit a writeup and have 10 people edit it.

I want Tiziak to write a description (if he's into it).
I want Wacko to submit one.
Ellingferd already said he would.
Darren's a sharp guy. He could probably bang one out.
Hawthorn: GOTTA HAVE YOU WRITE ONE UP.
Fishbrainz, too.
Hell, even Nick "I can't remember what the hell this rapid is even though I've run it 20 times" Hinds
sh*t rhymes


Anyway, thanks for your input but I think James and the rest of the Rio Banditos get what I'm trying to do. What I'm looking for is feedback within the ballpark of what I've outlined.

More obscure runs such as the Nfrk Tilton, Day Creek, Quinalt, ect. or whatever are great to have fleshed out by the person or crew who goes in, dusts the run off, and then comes back and files the beta for us (nice write up on the Efrk Miller, BTW. I plan to use that as an example of a well written river page.)
   But these more popular 'staple' runs are different. They are run by more people, and therefore subject to a wider range of impressions.

This is an experiment.

Applied Community, people. The current Robe descriprion needs to get tightened up. So does the Sky descrip. And, due to the popularity of the Sky, Robe is a better choice to template the idea of have in mind. The idea is to get community involvement and see what results.

A few PPeeps have contributed to the entity of Professor Paddle with their efforts. James, most obviously. Tiziak and Adam kicked ass with the Ball last year. My contributions as a "Rio Bandito" are a bit more humble, but the potential of the database is the part of PP that I'm most inspired by, so its fitting that I put my energies there. Jed and Joe have also done good work in this area. But I remember when the database was mostly an empty shell waiting for input. I fleshed out many of the early River Pages because no one else was doing it. Then I got on the forum and harped on more people to participate. Soon after the Rio Banditos were created, which now there is a need for, because sometimes the open source approach, beautiful as it is, gets messy. For example when Stuntman's sidekick came along and boogered up the Duckabush description that the original author wrote. Sure, Stuntman n his Sidekick of the week fired up some sh*t that the original author did not, but this second contributor added his info in a way that left the page very incoherent. Go check it out. I'm too lazy to connect a link for ya.

Anyway, Bret- your EF Miller write up is good. You should do one for Robe the way I suggested, if you're down. I'm confident James and the other Banditos see my vision with this, and hopefully others will too. Spend 20 minutes or whatever, and I'll take it from there. Seriously, I really wanna try this method.

Just keep the feedback coming. If criticism is warrented, bring that too.