Bring Back the Old Start Tags

No community input:

• The previous start tags allowed climbers to voice their opinions on the grade of each climb, voting whether they thought it was easier, harder, or accurate to the posted grade.
• Additionally, climbers could indicate that they liked the climb, leaving a tally in the space provided.
• With the minimalist design of the new tags, this functionality is lost.

Limited additional space:

• On the previous start tags, setters would use the extra space available to indicate additional information, like the date set, setter names, and wall numbers on rope climbs.
• Even though some setters choose not to include their names on their routes, now this option has been removed for those who did.
• Climbs used to have names and it would be kinda cool to bring that back :)

⭐ Grades cannot be hidden:

• The previous start tags would be covered up by another tag when they were originally set, in order to remove any expectations one might have about the climb due to its grade.
• This has proved to be beneficial to climbers, and has led to many people making significant progress on climbs that they otherwise wouldn't have tried.
• The design of the new start tags makes it impossible to hide grades in the same way, leaving the two less favorable options of omitting the tags when climbs are set, or abandoning the hidden grades, which is what is currently happening. Returning to the previous tags would prevent this choice from having to be made.

Grades are more difficult to read

• The letters of the grades are often obscured for different reasons.


• When placing the new start tags, a compromise has to be made between stability and legibility. The less of the tag is behind the hold, the easier it is to read, but the more likely it is to fall out. Stability is often prioritized, so many new tags are difficult to read.
• Because of the wider shape of the new start tags, they are stepped on and crumple more often than the previous ones. However when these ones crumple, the grade of the climb also becomes illegible.

Difficult to differentiate between climbs

• ⭐ The new tags have NO COLORS, which makes the start tags for different climbs visually identical.
• This is less of an issue when each climb has its own two start holds, but when volumes are involved, it becomes a struggle to guess which tags belong to each climb.


• This lack of color will make it especially difficult to use the new tags on rope climbs, where there are no start holds, and color is the only thing indicating which climb is which.
• Additionally, because the tags lack color, it can become much harder to find the start tags for a climb after seeing it for the first time.

Try to find the grade and start tags for the black climb.

These issues are less significant and more opinion based than the others listed, but are still issues nontheless.

Tags clash with old walls

• The new tags are mostly empty space, with the grade on a white background. In gyms like Dedham and South Boston where the walls are older with uneven surfaces, the stark design of the new tags draws attention to their imperfections. Meanwhile, the busier, more colorful design of the previous tags fit in much better with the older walls.

They are not perfect circles

• Since the tags are cut out by hand, it is extremely difficult to make them perfect circles. At first it looks fine, but once you notice it, you can't unsee it, sometimes even at a distance.
• Central Rock gyms have the same circular design, but they are cut from plastic by a machine, avoiding many of the issues with the current Rock Spot tags, and for those who have climbed at both gyms, it is an obvious comparison to make, often the first thing that comes to mind.

⭐ They do not match the tags for rope climbs

• Rope climbs have slightly different tags than boulders, lacking start holds. Color is the only detail that connects each tag to its climb. The new start tags fail to account for either of these aspects of rope climbs, and would need to be redesigned to be more like the old tags in order to solve this problem.
• If the only two options for rope climbs are to redesign the new tags or stick to the old tags, then the boulder tags should be changed or reverted as well for visual consistency.