[Tom]

Based on some discussion a while back, a "stewardship" forum has been created to discuss backcountry ethics, access issues, etc. While I'm not a big fan of creating too many individual forums, I think this one will be a worthwhile addition to the extent we can organize and generate some good discussion. Enjoy.

[Randy]

In order to fulfill my complaint quota for the day I thought I'd say that I'd rather see additional forums concerning TR organization before stewardship. Just me though. But I guess since it's already functional and there that's not gonna happen.

[Tom]

If we were to set up separate forums for Trip Reports how would you suggest we divide things? Personally, I don't find the split over at CC to be all that useful when searching for something. If I want to do a TR search here it's much easier to just go to the TR section, enter something in the search box and have it return relevant hits for NWHikers or WTA. Having separate forums would seem to complicate things?

[Randy]

I like the set up at CC, obviously we wouldn't have to have as many categories here. You're right, it's easy enough to search for a specific destination (don't even need a TR section for that), but I'm thinking more about general surfing through the information where having a geographical delineation makes things easier. For example, if I'm looking for a place to go in the Olympics (but I have no idea where I want to go yet) and I want to run through the recent reports then I would just go to the "Peninsula" forum where I can concentrate my focus and make a decision without having to wade through an overwhelming amount of reports from the ALW and North Cascades. This would also help me find new places that I didn't know about in an area that I otherwise might have thought (mistakenly or otherwise) were in a different area. That's what I'm thinking, anyway.

[mb]

if anything, it'd be neat to have 'categories' attached to the organization/report/even other sections, with the categories being areas (maybe match what the WTA uses for their TRs). then you keep everyting in one place (i hate fora with 1000 subcategories and low traffic) but you can reliable search on it. we'll see how the stewardship area goes...

[Tom]

One issue I see is it would require people to post trip reports in the right section. When the Trip Report section was originally created I asked folks to specify in the title which area the trip report was from. Very few people actually did this and I eventually gave up. Heck, it was hard enough to get some people to label their TRs in lieu of gripping titles like snow + sun = sunburn. Another issue is that sections are often vague or confusing. For example, here is the WTA's breakdown.

Where would Ruby Mountain fit? Before looking at the map, I would say North Cascades, but the map technically incicates Glacier Peak. In fact if you search for Ruby Mountain on the WTA site you get 6 reports in North Cascades and 1 in Glacier Peak. Somewhat confusing me thinks. I guess the real question is whether people would really benefit enough from categorization to make it worth the effort?

[hikerjo]

I think it would be neat if the TR's were more standardized. Maybe a forum that you fill out. It would make them easier to read and more useful. Ex: _________________________________________________ Location: Mount Si Date: September 15, 2004 Time: 2 hours Round trip: 8 miles Difficulty: class 1 Trip Report: We hiked up Mount Si, yada yada yada....... Pictures: __________________________________________________ Don't know what others think, or if that would be possible. I don't like the CC way eaither.

[polarbear]

If you did what Craig suggests, one possibility might be having a drop down menu for the location. This would list most hikes in alphabetical order so the name selected would always be standardized: e.g. Annette Lake ... Snow Lake, Icicle Creek Snow Lake, ALW ... Zud Lake maybe including the trail number in the title is a good idea, but I think most people remember geographical locations better. I like the idea of a stewardship forum.

[Randy]

Tom, WTA matches the 100 Hikes series in terms of area delineation. I think it's a bit much. I would broaden it a bit and do something like South Cascades (I-90 to Boarder), ALW (I-90 to 2), North Cascades (2 to Boarder), Olmypics, and Eastern Washington (Use the Columbia and Methow (or something) as the west boundary). You would probably need to eventually broaden it to Canada and Oregon with everything else in the trail talk forum or something. This seems to work well at CC with little mistaken placement as highways and major rivers are easy to pin point boundaries. I will buy you two beers if you make it happen.

[tk-421]