climbing.com : Europeans don't count working a route as a try

I do not think Climbing.com is correct and at least 8a has pointed out that every time you climb or hang-dog the route counts. In this particular case, Climbing.com has made a mistake.  Alex Megos wrote, "Did "Demencia Senil" (9a+) on my 2nd try today!!!" Climbing.com indicate that he actually used three tries and then they explain they Europeans do not count the first initial try. Strange article, it seems Climbing.com missed the "today" in the Megos headline.

Unfair!For me it is rather the opposite. Working a route and stopping at every bolt to touch the holds and to try to figure out the sequences should be counted as a multiple try. 5 or 10 tries.

Ok, thank you for the input. I thought what they said sounded kinda ridiculous so I'm glad they were wrong. It sort of reflects badly on the European scene if they spread this kind of misinformation, painting European climbers as "cheaters" and that's not good for anyone.

@libre2grimper : ???

As far as I was told while living in France, French climbers usually start counting after the onsight/flash attempt, i.e. "Premiere essai/first try" in this case means second go or "first go after os/flash attempt". Maybe this is where the statement on climbing.com has its origin. If you try to os a route and fail, and keep working the moves before lowering off, the next go would be your "first try" in France. As far as I'm concerned, I usually count everytime I leave the ground as a try. However that said, I usually try to get as high as possible on my very first attempt, so it makes sense to count it as a try. But what if I get on a really hard project for the first time, whose grade is so high that there is no way I could flash it? Is that really a "try"? I would probably tell the story in this way "after working out the moves, I sent the project on my 4th try" to make it clear that I had to wokr on the route before being able to really try.

Actually, what Alex wrote can be interpreted in two different ways. Maybe that's what caused the misunderstanding. When he wrote "Did "Demencia Senil" (9a+) on my 2nd try today!!!", it can be understood in two different ways: 1. He tried it before on other days, but on his second attempt on this particular day, he did it. In other Words, he may have used 3,4,5 or whatever number of attempts. 2. He did it second try (total!), and it happened today. Why Climbing thought europeans don't count all their attempts, I don't know. In any case, Alex is german, so I don't think he is influenced by the French practise dreamingof8a describes.

every time you tie in and climb up = 1 try wtf who counts single trys while working a route? impossible to count

This statement really confuses me. I'm from Austria (literally in the middle of Europe) and I've never heard someone talking about tries AFTER they checked out the route. For me and everyone I know everytime you leave the ground counts as a try. Anything else would be cheating in my opinion.