routeguides

Another ancillary question. Would you like routeguides to show all DOC tracks - even if we have no description of them? Or do you prefer to know that it it's on the site, then there will be accurate, experience-backed information to go with it (and that places no-one's written about will not be shown)? Answers on a postcard to ... here (or a PM to me, @madpom).

What was the washup with duplicate routes? I guess that is a consideration if you loaded gpxs of all the DOC tracks. The upside, for some, would be the ability to combine and download the route segments for a trip. Personally, I don't need it - DOC tracks are marked on the Topo50 latest basemap, anyway. More value for me would be automatically marking, as 'been there', all the segments and places I have added - doing that manually, one by one, will take ages!

Current topo maps include current doc etc tracks but very little of the old tracks. In the Tararuas 3 of the well used routes off Marchant into the Tureneku are no longer shown because Doc considered the river crossing at the bottom unsafe. There will be other cases of well known and well used tracks that Doc no longer maintains or keeps any record of. Without Routeguides these places will be lost forever when the old trampers that know them can no longer tramp

@bernieq - yes - [EDIT] I have done a one-off retro-fit so that anything that's been added or updated in the past (with a 'date experienced') is in the contributor's 'been there!' list. There may be a few spurious entries if you've edited someone's description for typos, etc but not actually been there. Newly added or updated stuff are already automatically added to your 'been there!' list, but only if you enter a 'date experienced'.[/EDIT] == Otherwise - sounds like 2 votes for 'no' or 'not necessary' on the DOC tracks so far. The way I see the DOC track question is: Pros of adding DOC (or LINZ topomap) tracks to routeguides: - People don't need to trace them off the map to create a route - Writing up route segments (on existing tracks) will be much quicker and easy - just click on the track, click 'edit', & type in the details. No drawing or GPX upload required Cons: - Looking at routeguides there will be a lot of tracks with no descriptions - which might put off current 'read-only' users who rely on all tracks on the site being well described. This can be mitigated by using a different colour (light grey) for tracks with no description on the map. - People may feel _less_ inclined to describe tracks if they're already there on the map, rather than _more_ inclined as I hope There is a reasonable amount of work involved in importing the tracks - which would be at least partially a manual process - as @bernieq says we'd need to check for duplicates with existing routes. But the import of the data & cutting/slicing it to track junctions, huts etc could probably be fully automated. And since actual conservation is apparently such a low priority that it isn't allowed to happen under level 3 (unlike, say, baristas or MacDonalds - who are clearly essential services) - I do have a one off window of time on my hands to do this!

Such sarcasm ! OK, thanks for updating the 'been there' tags - I've been through the remaining bits and cleaned up - fairly painless. If, at a later date, someone splits a route that people have tagged as 'been there' will both new route sections and the new place (ie point between the new segments) still be tagged?

good point. On the 'to do' list

I like the idea of "route bagging" :smile: Personally I think that adding all the DOC tracks would clutter up the routeguides interface. Generally if I'm looking at routeguides it is either because there *isn't* an official track or else because I want an *alternative* to a given DOC track. That said, I don't tend to use the advanced features of routeguides to link together segments and create a route, I just grab the info/gpx for the particular segment I want. So, from an infrequent user, it's a no from me. p.s. this has prompted me to actually sign up and see if I have any routes to contribute...

Routeguides is great, thanks. I have contributed routes to it. Mainly undocumented routes - i.e. routeguides.co.nz is the only available route description. I think it is best left as a set of guides, not a map of all tracks. So importing tracklines with no "as-experienced" guide info is a NO. It would be clutter. (Many of the track positions are inaccurate in the DOC data anyway, some being digitised from old park maps where they were only approximate. You can tell this by viewing them as an overlay on aerial photos that show the ground trail).

...but the DOC track positions, in the DOC web site or in Koordinates web site, are good enough for trip planning purposes.... just not for navigation. Unfortunately LINZ take DOC track positions as authoritative, so we get lower quality information for some tracks on our topo maps