Talk:Avalanche Terrain Exposure Scale

Duplicate ATES Terrain Ratings

Do we really want to duplicate the contents of the CAA website? I can see the value of rating the trips that are not in the CAA database, but why are we copying the CAA database ratings too? Isn't it just better to link to it? When the CAA decides to add/modify entries, are we going to employ someone full-time to click reload on their website to check when that happens so they can update the wiki ;-) ??? Chris Michalak 13:54, 14 December 2006 (MST)

Good point Chris. I though about this when I copied them over. My reasoning for putting them up is twofold. Firstly, I didn't want anyone to try to rate a trip and had alread been rated by the CAA. The easiest way to do this would be to put the CAA ratings on the page. Secondly, I wanted to make the distinction clear between the trips that are rated by the CAA and the trips that are rated by the consensus of amateur VOC hacks like myself. If you think that this isn't a good enough justification for duplicating their information, then we should think about alternate options. Scott Nelson 14:50, 14 December 2006 (MST)

I was wondering if the CAA is ok with us reposting all their data here in the first place. I would assume that they would encourage it, but who knows. We do seem to be providing the Avaluator basically for free, but I think their website does the same. Anyway, as for the terrain ratings, I think it would be good to have them posted here in general, because the CAA database is small, and we can't easily add things to it. I don't know that it matters whether we identify ratings as CAA/VOC, or whether we need to keep the CAA definitions up to date etc. You could imagine adding disclaimers, like "CAA ratings may be out of date" or if we went to just one rating column, with no identification of source you could say "some ratings may be from the CAA." In the end, I think this is mostly unimportant, no-one is going to take responsibility for a rating potentially being "wrong" etc. So, probably whoever has an idea for the page can edit it, and we'll see what happens.

On a side note... should we be putting pages on the wiki that describe individual trips in more detail? For instance, we could have a "Mount Frosty" page, that would allow us to relate our recent experience to future skiers. How would we then want to link that page and this one? Some pages of this type already exist... Mount Sproatt is an example. But some of this info already exists elsewhere. Bivouac has a Frosty description that tells you exactly where the trail starts for instance. Scott Webster 15:11, 14 December 2006 (MST)

If we do duplicate the CAA data, I agree with Scott N that we should make a distinction between CAA rated and VOC rated terrain ratings. However, if Scott W thinks that the two column thing is too bloated, the alternative could be to just attach a footnote to each rating to indicate who's rating it is (or just footnote the VOC rated ones and leave the CAA ones without footnote). I'm still not 100% sure about copying the CAA data in the first place, but don't feel too strongly about it. Chris Michalak 17:27, 14 December 2006 (MST)

I think the current format is fine. I do think that if you wanted, you could just make one column, call it the VOC rating, and copy all the CAA ratings without much problem though. The only thing you lose is the credibility of a "CAA rating" and people might be less inclined to believe the rating or something, which doesn't seem so bad. But, I'd probably just go with the current system. I think the place to be careful is to make sure that we don't post a "simple" rating where the terrain is actually "complex" due to a typo on our part or the CAA. Scott Webster 18:28, 14 December 2006 (MST)