Doing away with Lettered peak ordering

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Doing away with Lettered peak ordering

Postby John Kirk » Wed Mar 25, 2009 10:13 am

In the information age, I don't see a need for ordering peaks with a letter appended to them any longer. There are several other characteristics to distinguish peaks that are readily available in the lists and peaks' profiles, including profile links to the parents so there is no question which peak the parent is. The A, B, C lettering convention in my opinion is baggage we're carrying forward from the days of paper and lack of software automation.

Not only is it difficult to remember which letter the said peak is supposed to be, but the lettering can change at any given time. Let's say the Board on Geographic Names adds another Sheep Mountain to CO or another Bald Mountain to CA. There are 52 peaks currently named 'Bald Mountain' in CA and 34 peaks named 'Sheep Mountain' in CO. That is how many peaks are possibly going to increment one letter based on the height of the newly named peak. If someone had used 'Sheep Peak X' in a register or a trip report, then that information is now defunct since the name applies to a different peak now.

Unless there are valid objections, I will be eliminating appended lettering for peaks with duplicate names.
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Postby MikeRodenak » Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:04 pm

Makes sense John, especially if a new peak was added and bumped all the ones with lower elevations another letter.

Are you going to keep the letters on the unnamed peaks? In particular I can think of 2 quads that have unnamed peaks of the same elevation (Winfield - 13462, and Mt Jackson 12940) where the letters are useful to tell them apart.
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Postby John Kirk » Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:12 pm

I think letters should go away completely, especially for unnamed. Often, as soon as an unofficial (or official) name comes about, many of the other unnamed with the same elevation have to get their letters changed.

What I am proposing is the peaks be identified by their quad, then more specifically by coordinates (more info on the peak profile page). On the member login list update page, I am going to put links on the peak name (that will open the peak's profile page in a new window) so that the specific peak can be differentiated more easily.
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Postby MikeRodenak » Wed Mar 25, 2009 3:00 pm

Sounds good, I don't think there are many quads with two peaks of the same name or unnamed with the same elevation, so having the quad on the peak list updates will cover 99.9% of the peaks, for those few quads with "doubles" its easy enough to click on a peak profile just to make sure. I think even with the lettered names people still pick the "wrong" one sometimes :-D
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Postby John Kirk » Wed Mar 25, 2009 4:04 pm

MikeRodenak wrote:I think even with the lettered names people still pick the "wrong" one sometimes :-D


I agree, and in some cases, people pick the wrong one based on the name they see in Gerry's book when matching up with the name at LoJ. Taking the letter away hints that one should think about which one they are checking off...
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Postby JoeGrim » Thu Mar 26, 2009 7:23 pm

Makes sense to me.
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Postby TWorth » Sat Mar 28, 2009 11:58 am

No objections here. Applying and maintaining the letters is a hassle. Never really liked the greek lettering either(I didn't have a better idea to contribute at the time).
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Postby John Kirk » Thu Apr 02, 2009 12:27 pm

The database has now been updated...
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Postby DSunwall » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:58 pm

the only minor problem, importing into Topo! doesn't allow duplicate names. I have to add a number or letter when it asks to suggest a new name. Not a big deal.
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Postby John Kirk » Wed Apr 29, 2009 6:49 pm

DSunwall wrote:the only minor problem, importing into Topo! doesn't allow duplicate names. I have to add a number or letter when it asks to suggest a new name. Not a big deal.


I thought I could live with it, but for wide-area trips, it became a nightmare. I have re-engineered the export to add suffixes for duplicate names, still keeping max length down to 10. Let me know what you think.
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Postby MikeRodenak » Thu May 07, 2009 11:43 am

I found another unintended consequence of this change - the "Most Climbed" and "Least Climbed" 13ers list now recognizes all peaks of the same name as being one peak. For example, Grizzly now lists as having 216 people as having climbed it because its combining all of the Grizzlies. Not sure the fix, just thought I would let you know about it if you hadn't seen it.

Thanks!
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Postby John Kirk » Thu May 07, 2009 1:53 pm

MikeRodenak wrote:I found another unintended consequence of this change - the "Most Climbed" and "Least Climbed" 13ers list now recognizes all peaks of the same name as being one peak. For example, Grizzly now lists as having 216 people as having climbed it because its combining all of the Grizzlies. Not sure the fix, just thought I would let you know about it if you hadn't seen it.

Thanks!


Easy fix. Done. Not sure why I based it on name rather than the primary key (Peak Id).
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Postby MikeRodenak » Thu May 07, 2009 4:22 pm

Thanks John!
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Postby DSunwall » Wed May 20, 2009 1:28 pm

John Kirk wrote:
DSunwall wrote:the only minor problem, importing into Topo! doesn't allow duplicate names. I have to add a number or letter when it asks to suggest a new name. Not a big deal.


I thought I could live with it, but for wide-area trips, it became a nightmare. I have re-engineered the export to add suffixes for duplicate names, still keeping max length down to 10. Let me know what you think.


Finally got around to testing this, I picked most of the SJ's.
duplicates that showed were Sugarloaf and Sunshine peaks, it had a little problem with them.
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