[Noheaperture]

So instead of just complaining about it, I made a petition for Facebook group Washington hikers and climbers. It’s published but is not a final draft. Looking for input on all parts of this petition. I am no writer but tried my best to get the point across short and simple. I want it to be presented respectfully and in a positive light to avoid unnecessary pushback over the objective. http://chng.it/4t5SPRpQ2w

[Cyclopath]

What do you mean when you say "social media … has impacted environments to an exponential number?" Number of what, places in the wilderness, people hiking, nights out, off leash dogs? It's not clear, at least to me, and you'll probably have the best chances of success rewriting that part so a 12 year old will understand. (Also, I'd suggest not using the word 'exponential' in a pandemic, because we all heard it so much early on and it has bad connotations now.) When you say "USFS is overwhelmed with users this year and it doesn't seem to stop anytime soon" again I'd suggest clarifying. First thing that brought to mind for me was FS rangers being overwhelmed, and that's maybe not going to be persuasive to people who don't care. I think you're saying the land itself is stressed by too many visits, beyond its carrying capacity. I've been on nwhikers a long time and know that's a concern here, but people reading your petition may not have that background knowledge. Anyway, if that's what you mean it might help to get the point across if you can give a few examples of what you're talking about and why it's a problem. Saying removing the geotags to "offer people options to learn more from their own research" is like saying you can eat broccoli instead of iced cream, it sounds like a homework assignment the dog ate. Try something more like "Finding your own way through the wilderness and relying on your wits is one of the most important ingredients of an adventure." The way you frame the choices can have a big impact, like in opinion polls. Break the text up into paragraphs if the site allows you to. Facebook users don't have attention spans. Finally, this is a hard sell. You're telling people that they're doing harm, that it's bad for hikers to learn about hikes on their site, but it's virtuous to learn about them on WTA. That's just not the kind of thing that people take well. Again, if you're a nwhiker and believe in conservation you already know the thinking behind this, but if you want any chance of convincing people, you need to spell this out, because without that knowledge it just sounds like you're saying their site is ok and yours isn't, maybe because I don't like Facebook. I don't mean for any of this to come off as harsh, I'm offering my reaction and critique in the spirit of trying to help since you asked.

[Noheaperture]

[Chief Joseph]

Banning is not going to help the situation, imho the best solution is education and enforcement of existing camping and littering laws, maybe free copies of “how to poop in the woods”. Car Campers are just as bad, today out by Silverton, I found an abandoned campsite, gear and trash-food strewn all over. How is a Ranger supposed to stop that, they just leave their crap and go with little chance of retribution. It’s a societal problem, people like that live the same way at home.

[Cyclopath]

"... leaving food behind in a camp can attract bears, who get habituated to human food. They can become aggressive, and have to be put down. That's not great for the bears, and seeing large wildlife can be the high point of any hike so it's good to have them around ..." Might be a good way to describe the Silverton incident Chief Joseph found. Bears aren't probably the best example though because a lot of new hikers fear them and wouldn't mind having fewer of them around. Years ago when I was younger, I car camped on highway 20. Had lunch, left my food out on the table, hiked a trail from the campground. When I got back the CG host read me the riot act, but he explained about the bears. I didn't know until I learned. I've never done anything like that since.

[Anne Elk]

[Chief Joseph]

Right? ^ Remember Iron Eyes Cody of the America the Beautiful ad campaigns? He with the tear running down his cheek when encountering trash out in nature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Eyes_Cody

[Noheaperture]

[joker]

I like your optimism with respect to influencing the modmins of the WH&C group with respect to this issue. It's not as if they haven't heard from a great many of their members on this topic. They did sour a bit on tagging during the more strict COVID lockdowns but it seemed quite temporary - one would think they might have extrapolated the concern with respect to the impact of taggged photos...

[markweth]

Thanks for making this effort and best of luck with it! The other suggestions in this thread have been great and I don't have much to add, but I will share some background information with you that might be useful as you move forward. About three years ago, myself and a few friends made a concerted effort to lobby the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics (LNT) to add an eighth Leave No Trace principle regarding the impacts of social media: https://8thlnt.wordpress.com/ That idea was discussed on here at length: https://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8025549 And the general concept has been discussed in other threads: https://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8029907 https://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8030652 Although LNT did not add an eighth principle, to their credit they did release social media guidelines in 2018 that encouraged people to be more thoughtful about geotagging/location naming on social media and to recognize and reflect upon potential impacts: https://lnt.org/new-social-media-guidance/ To be honest, I thought that at that point with LNT -- a science-based outdoor ethics organization that collaborates with public land managers to try to keep our precious shared resource in good shape -- giving their "seal of approval" to the idea of exercising a bit of critical thought before posting details about sensitive locations in wilderness areas that the vast majority of hikers would accept it as a good idea. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, many people just dug their heels in deeper with their pre-existing illogical, intellectually bankrupt, or hyperbolic arguments against the idea of encouraging people to use some discretion and potentially save some wilderness landscapes from being negatively impacted or permits having to be implemented. Some organizations even went so far as to write articles encouraging people to keep geotagging: https://www.melaninbasecamp.com/trip-reports/2019/5/1/five-reasons-why-you-should-keep-geotagging Unfounded and patently absurd accusations of "elitism" and "gatekeeping" were regularly leveled against individuals and organizations suggesting that people follow the new LNT social media guidelines and the "digital LNT" idea never really caught on. Looking back, it is really frustrating and disheartening to see people ignoring LNT's guidance on this while supporting other LNT principles. I wish you will with your efforts and hope you will be more successful than I was in my efforts.

[Noheaperture]

Please everyone, if you feel it couldn’t hurt to just try and make this happen, sign the petition. It’s obvious things are getting more crowded so why not try to see what this little effort can do. The only thing you lose is the 45 seconds it takes to tap/click a few things on your browser. http://chng.it/4t5SPRpQ2w

[Bedivere]

Well, good luck with this. I think it's a worthy effort though I'm skeptical that even if they agree to ban geotagging that it will have any effect whatsoever. Most of the time what happens is someone posts a pretty picture and if they don't come right out and say where it is, people respond with "where is this?" replies. Then someone names the place and that's that. I haven't seen many posts where someone does not want the location identified that have geotagged pictures. If someone is going to say where the location is, what difference does the lack of a geotag make? Someone just posted again yesterday about the place my group is planning to go next week. They encouraged everyone to go and not worry about the reports of crowds, saying you can surely find a place to camp if you look. They were literally encouraging everyone to "pile on" at a place that by all reports is getting fairly overrun. Great, let's make sensitive high alpine lakes the next Mailbox, Colchuck, or Blanca.

[Cyclopath]

[markweth]

[xrp]

Information wants to be free. Geo-tagging will just pop up in another group (there are already plenty of alternatives to WH&C) and people will congregate there for information. Make sure to notify us about your future petitions to ban and burn books you don’t like.