[talk-au] Hiking tracks: foot=yes or foot=designated?

[Steve Bennett]

On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 11:38 AM, John Henderson <snowgum at gmx.com> wrote:
> If they're too stupid to zoom in to see those tracks, they shouldn't be
> walking them.  Seriously.
>
> Or are you arguing something different?  If you're arguing that each track
> should show in its entirety at some zoom level, and doesn't on my scheme,
> then that's important.

Have we reached the point where we start making inflammatory straw-man
arguments rather than working together to reach a sensible conclusion?
I hope not. I'll continue in good faith...

Do you agree that a useful map is one that contains "enough"
information but not "too much"? The Lonvia map, at the zoom level I
pasted (ie, all of Victoria, and some of NSW and SA) would, under your
scheme, show a grand total of exactly two trails. Any view of NT, SA,
WA on Tasmania would show zero. QLD would show one. IMHO, this is too
little.

Of course you can zoom in and see a trail. But how do you know it's
there? Maps serve a discovery function. Surely one of the main
purposes of a map showing a hiking network is to let you easily all
the available, significant trails in an area, and how they relate.
Even on my large monitor, I can't even see all of Victoria at once on
a scale that shows RWN trails.

> I do not wish to put my case again.  If it made no impact the first time, it
> won't now.

I don't want you to repeat yourself either. But perhaps you could
address my two previous comments:
1) the RWN/NWN/etc scheme is not a "standard", it's a scheme used by
Europeans to describe their hiking networks, do you agree?
2) what harm could result from Australia not following the "standard"?
You've made reference to issues in search & rescue - can you be
specific?

Thanks,
Steve