UKC

In my opinion UKC's route descriptions are getting overrun with pointless variants.  Am I the only one that thinks this is a bad idea?  Differing beta surely does not warrant a first ascent claim.

I tend to agree, it happens in guidebooks too. The new North Wales bouldering guide has new first ascentionists listed for boulder starts of routes that were first climbed in the 80/90s.

I think sometimes on ukc it depends on the discretion of the crag moderator, for example I don't approve a fair amount of "new route" requests for Bwlch Y Moch, because most are either already existing routes, are a combination of existing routes or tiny variations.

So many routes you could say step right 1m climb up a few holds, then follow the original line again. Or you simply go up a 3m wide slab which ever way you like, but there's rarely a distinct new line to take the whole distance and especially not in anything mid Es or below, otherwise they would have been climbed and named decades ago. Even the  harder finishes to Christmas Curry have practically no new rock, that's not part of other full length lines. 

Personally I quite like the approach the mods of Parisellas Cave have taken, with the linkups/eliminates etc. separated under a different heading. Keeps it clear where the natural lines are, the sensible linkups and then the 'connoisseurs only' stuff.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/parisellas_cave-3422/

Having said that, I think it makes sense to set the bar a bit higher for adding routes as realistically there's a lot of crags where you can climb pretty much anywhere once you reach a certain grade.