Water source status report.

[mtrain]

Not sure whether this is the right section for this but I wondered what members and moderators thought of this idea.
I wondered if we could have a “sticky” or section where we could have a list of remote or seasonal water sources that people could just add a note about the status of a water source when they go there eg. (Hellfire creek flowing well 21/1/21 or upper howqua dry 5/6/21).
I often find my self scouring the forum to find the most recent info about water points and wondered if it may avoid starting unnecessary threads.
Thoughts?

[north-north-west]

Sensible and logical.

[Hiking Exped]

Could certainly be useful, good idea!

[peregrinator]

north-north-west: "Sensible and logical."

Hiking Exped: "Could certainly be useful, good idea!"

I agree, especially if posters are able to note the water quality and accessibility, not just the quantity.

[wildwalks]

Nice to hear this idea been bounce.
I have had a project sitting on my whiteboard for way too long now called 'Creekly' (yeah dumb name - but hey

This idea is pretty simple (but seems a bit harder to implement then I like) -- but the idea is basically
1) we create a map of 'water points' -- places that make sense for walkers to collect walks (might use OSM data to start populating the DB). (location[lat,long], type [tap,tank,creek,spring..], general reliability)
2) users then can upload a geolocated photo of the current water supply and complete a simple form about amount of water and current quality
3) the idea is that that you should be able to look at a map then find water options and see current and previous reports.
4) provide a feed so we can ingest them into the walks on our website and so other people with walk websites can include the data on their websites (for free).
5) encourage people to add and update to the system.

if it easy enough do you think people would add to it and use it?

[wildwalks]

(moved topic of forum & site forum as this is a national thing - not just Victoria)

[ribuck]

I started something like this for NSW and it gained a bit of traction. If not for the lockdowns it might have been used more:

https://bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=27630

[mtrain]

Wild walks, your idea sounds great but is a little more complex than I had envisioned. If we just had a sub forum in each state , say in trip reports and we just started a new thread for a water source then when someone visited said water source they could then just ad a reply with the date and a comment about flow. We wouldn’t need multiple threads per source just look to the last page in a thread and check the last entry.
I m not up on who the site moderators are but would be interested in their thoughts on implementing this.

[wildwalks]

Oh that is an interesting idea.
I was thinking your suggestion was a single thread with with lots of different water reports. That sounded messay to me.
But your suggestions is a new sub forum for each state. Then a thread for each water source (or maybe water sources on popular walks).
I like that a lot more. Sounds more manageable to me.
Okay. Can we bounce around some 'rules' and standards to make it work cleanly? Eg in the secondhand market place we start the name with something like [FS Sydney] fancy sleeping bag. So people can see straight away if it is for sale or wanted and where. Etc.

Do we do something like
[Creek] Cox's River - six foot track
[Tank] campsite name - walking track
Thinking that walking track is not always relevant.
And then maybe some standard layout suggestions for the text inside.
I guess maybe let's start with what I formation do we want and how do we want it generally phrased. Then we can set it up with good examples to set a helpful time.
Thoughts??

Matt

[ribuck]

Can we bounce around some 'rules' and standards to make it work cleanly? Eg ... something like
[Creek] Cox's River - six foot track
[Tank] campsite name - walking track

That seems unnecessarily prescriptive, since water sources do not have the same regularity as the process of buying and selling things.

How about just requiring the location, and leaving the rest free form?

[wildwalks]

Happy to keep it mostly free form. But I think a good example or sample (basic rules) help.

Happy to come up with something myself. Just tend to find that bouncing ideas tends to come up with things I had not considered.

[mtrain]

I agree with both comments keep it simple , and maybe an explanation and example at the beginning eg . Name of source is the thread title, any site specific information like behind the hut or generally have to walk 100 m down the creek bed. And then just a reply format eg date visited and status like 5/12/21 barely flowing 2 minutes to fill a litre or shallow needs a scoop.