Regions
This forum will cover two main topics: Where does the region belong? & What to add/edit within a Region?
Where does the region belong?
There are 3 levels of regions as described below:
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Main Region: This includes: Australian States/Territories, New Zealands North/South Islands, Other countries (Possibly split into continents [within sub regions]). Not many tracks should be at this level.
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Sub Regions: This is to narrow down the Main regions to a reasonable sized area. See below for Australian States see maps/council areas below. This should be the main point location for tracks that arenāt connected to any specific National park/Conservation Area.
Iāll try find some Maps to distinguish sub regions for more populated states.
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Sub-Sub Regions: These are the National parks/Conservation Areas. Tracks within these regions should be within the area/park.
Iād say if the park/area has over 5 walks it is worth considering to create a sub-sub region.
We could make an additional region to state parking area. Ie. From this parking area, these tracks can be started, while on the other side of the national park may be another parking area for other tracks. Otherwise National parks is as detailed a region should get. Not sure if @AussieBushwalking is working on something with regards to parking areas
What to add/edit within a Region?
Summary:
Basic description of the location. Type of scenery/flooring {rainforest/ sandy/ rocky /waterfalls/ lookouts /wildlife} Can state its parent Region. What types of activates can be done (walking, mountain biking, horse riding).
History
Any interesting history for the region?
Features:
What are the standout bushwalking features? Go in more detail about the scenery. Is it a rainforest/open plains, wet lands, is the floor sandy, rocky, water crossing. Is there a number of waterfalls; lookouts, is wildlife common in the area.
Access
How do you get there? Include all access points if there are many? This mainly just applies to Sub-Sub Regions.
Maps
Which maps cover the region? Share a link to National/council park website/maps.
Accommodation
Where can I stay there? or near there? Not sure what to be added here. Probably just combine it with Camping {Accommodation/camping:}
Camping
Are there permit costs? Provide a link. What are the camp grounds like? Can you light a fire, are there certain facilities (toilets, showers, BBQās) Other things to do, swiming
Other
Contact Details
Contact details for National Park offices or similarā¦
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The āmainā, āsubā and āsub-subā regions I agree with, except as I said before, unless there is something definitive that easily identifies a āsubā or āsub-subā region to the users, they wonāt use it when loading a new walk, as we have seen historically. Although we can make it more comprehensive, it must still be user friendly.
The secondly, I question the value of spending too much time putting in details on āwhat to add/edit within a Regionā. I for one never look at it and I donāt think others do either, as the only way I know to view them is by typing it into your browser. For example:
https://www.aussiebushwalking.com/qld/sunshine-coast
Iām sure many people use their phone to access the main website these days, rather than a laptop, as i do, which makes it even harder to see the ābigā picture and have no idea on some of the background information that is there.
I probably shouldnāt have called it āhow to editā¦ā this is more along the lines of
āWhat to include in regions informationā.
Currently there is the default template, which is fine, I guess this was more just for people whom wanted to add a bit more detail, they have a place to get some ideas on what else to add. Or potentially get some users information on what they would like to see in the template.
I definitely agree regions arenāt easily found. The way I get onto them is via a walks page. Right under the walk title is the region (which is actually a link). For me I like the sub-sub regions/National park ones as I like to see the walks within the region, from which I can then choose what Iād like to do. Or if I get to the national park and one track is closed, I can quickly go see the others in a summarized form and not click each one on the map. (I guess I just like how they are tiled on the region page).
Richard, need some help tidying up a few bogus regions that, as far as I can see, have no āwalksā attached to them and need to be ādeletedā.
At the highest level, we have:
Alice and the rock!
Rita
Southern highlands
Zahra
In NSW, sub-region Mt Warning, we have a sub sub-region called 'Pholis Gap (from Mt Nardi), which is in fact an existing walk in the Nightcap NP.
In QLD, we have sub-region Bunya Mountains that needs to be renamed Bunya Mountains National Park. Plus there are four sub sub-regions listed, non of which have walks attached and again are existing walks.
Thanks.
If you are moving regions can you move the rest as follows (if it doesnāt take to long otherwise donāt bother). I know itās not a great idea, but for now Iāve got QLD separated based on council zones, which for me I think is the easiest way for people to put tracks in the right regions. I think most donāt put it in the right region mainly cos the list is so long and overwhelming (for qld). gotta start somewhere if you do start working on regions might as well have it sort of planed.
To be sorted based on the map previously posted as follows:
Far North QLD
Barron Gorge National Park; Daintree National Park; Wooroonooran National Park
North Qld
Central QLD
Cania Gorge National Park; Carnarvon National Park;
Darling Downs :
Bunya Mountains; Crows Nest National Park; Girraween National Park; Ravensbourne National Park; Toowoomba
SE QLD :
Amamoor State Forest; Brisbane City Council Local Walks; Brisbane Forest park DāAguilar National Park {needs to be renamed:DāAguilar National Park} Coombabah Lakelands Conservation Area; Daisy Hill Conservation Park; Eumundi Conservation Park; Glass House Mountains; Glen Rock Regional Park; Ipswich; Ipswich - Flinders Goolman Conservation Estate Sub-Region; Jimna State Forest; Karawatha Forest; Kondalilla National Park; Lamington National Park; Main Range National Park; Mapleton National Park; Moogerah Peaks National Park; Moreton Bay Tamborine National Park; Sunshine Coast; Parklands Conservation Park; Mt Barney National Park
Wide bay Burnett :
Brooyar State Forest; Conondale National Park; Expedition National Park; Great Sandy National Park; Woondum National Park;
Mackay, Isaac and Whitsunday
Iāve also noticed: in the āWorldā Region there are sub-regions Zahra; Alice and the rock!; Southern Highlands. Iād say these 3 should be deleted {I donāt want to push that button yet as a moderator}. No tracks in them.
Thinking it might be a good idea to split SE QLD into different regions too but not sure as to where the boundary would lay.
Thanks. Iāll try to clean up those bogus regions soon and will look at moving those parts into their regions.
I donāt think we should split SE QLD into separate sub-regions. Each extra region we add extends the urls which will become quite cumbersome if we have too many layers. This can be annoying when people are sending the urls around or sharing them on social media. Splitting the state was well worth it but I think stepping from that to the parks is the correct granularity.
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Oh. That URL thing is definitely something to keep in mind.
What I meant by SE qld split up was instead of the SE qld region within Queensland. Have say
- Brisbane and sunshine coast
- Gold coast and scenic rim.
Just due to the mass amounts of walks within the area, they could be split up. Still quite a small land size though. So Iād say just leave it as SEqld as thatās usually pretty easy to identify with.
Sorry to bring this back to life, but just created a new walk and noticed adding a region especially in QLD is quite overwhelming. The only way I think itāll be a bit easier would be my proposed Sub-Sub Region.
As you mentioned about the URLās I thought, would it be possible to have a short Name for Regions, I see Queensland is just QLD. Was thinking National Park could just be āNPā. And those Sub Regions I proposed above are quite short already I feel.
Also noticed 3 regions arenāt under a state
Amamoor State Forest, Gold Coast and Tambourine, From which the last 2 donāt have any walks, so could just be deleted.
I agree that NP is good for national park in short names, or possibly leaving it out of the short name entirely but leave it in the full name. Iāve done that with Lamington NP.
Iām also happy to have those smaller regions for se qld if itās getting overwhelming. Weād need to make a call where walks in Logan fall. Some areas like Plunkett feel closer to GC whereas something like Daisy Hill feel more like Brisbane.
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@Maverick Iāve cleaned up the Amamoor and Tambourine regions. Once youāve created your regions then we can move the gold coast walks and delete that top level region too.
So long as the walk is within a state forest or National park, it should be pretty easy to group them into a region (usually a quick google of the park can tell the āsub regionā. Those few others that donāt have a specific park, probably doesnāt matter if they are in one or the other region. As noted before, not many people actually use region anyways.
I noticed in my original post I wanted to link a map but never did.
I created the bold sub-regions a while back. See āJune 20ā a few posts up^^^. I would move the sub-sub regions into the groups I previously suggested, but I donāt have access to moving regions.
So, how can I make this easier for you? Would you like me to create the internal regions (sub-sub) and that way you can just merge the old one on top of the blank (new one)? As I couldnāt figure out a way to split SE QLD into specific regions without just naming off the council zones, Iāll just stick with sorting into the suggested zones.
@Maverick ahh, I see. Let me test a little bit to double check that moving regions around works properly and doesnāt break incoming links. Weād be moving essentially every qld walk so Iād like to double check itās working properly.
@Maverick Iāve checked and moving regions works correctly. Iāve also updated the region editing so moderators such as yourself can edit their names and their parent region - in effect moving them to another region. Youāll also be able to choose good short names which are used in the urls like you can for walks.
Iāve tested it by moving a few regions into far north qld and itās all working well.
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Hi Richard, I gave it a try and it came up āErrorā, so is it in production or just in your test system?
I tried to move Gold Coast into Queensland. I was able to change the name, but when I changed the āParentā to Queensland it fell over.
@F_A_B_Ferguson_Adven Hi Paul, give it another go. There was an old deleted region with the same name causing problems. Iāve fixed it up so that wonāt be an issue anymore.
Worked perfectly. Thanks.
Just finished posting my South Australia walks from last month and heading out to Carnarvon Gorge and around on a road trip next week. So, between pre and post trip research/posting (and sorting AussieBushwalking!), I am keeping myself busy.
From what I gather it all works fine. Iāve gone and cleaned up QLD. Based off the Region listed previously in the forum.
Iāve also tried to shorten some of the region names for shorter URLās.
Short forms:
National Park = NPā¦,ā¦,ā¦|ā¦,ā¦ Mountains = Mt
Island = Is ā¦,ā¦,ā¦,ā¦,ā¦,.,.|ā¦,ā¦ Start Forest = SF
Queensland = QLD ,ā¦,ā¦,.|ā¦,ā¦ Conservation Area = Con-Area
Conservation Park = Con-Park
Gold Coast = GC
Region: Darling Downs South West = DDSW
Iāve also re-added āNPā to some of the parks that had it missing just for constancy.
Couple things that Iād like a second opinion about.
- Regions; Far North QLD, North QLD, Central QLD, SE QLD. Shall we get rid of QLD in the short form? The parent Region QLD is already in the URL, so in some way itās doubling up.
- Iāve noticed Brisbane Forest park DāAguilar National Park has further sub regions (based off Access points to the track). There are quite a number of tracks in there, so I havenāt moved any of these āaccess point regionsā & as such since the name is already quite long I think the tracks in here are probably the longest of the URLās.
Will have a look at the other states sometime this weekend. From my quick browse though, it didnāt seem as bad though.
@Maverick Great work!
- Yes, I think remove the qld from the regions. I did that with far-north while I was testing (partially to make sure that the redirects all worked correctly when that change was made).
- I think we can live with the long urls here. I donāt have any good thoughts on shortening them and itās probably worth having the access point regions because there are a lot of walks. Lamington has the same with Binna Burra vs OāReillyās which is useful if youāre planning a walk through the regions since theyāre so far apart when driving.
I suspect most of the other states havenāt reached the need for sub regions, though perhaps NSW has. I think the bigger problem there is getting walks into a region - a lot are just listed under the state. Iād like to automate that a bit so I use the walkās location and match it to a national park to at least give a list of walks that need moving. Perhaps Iāll try to whip that up this weekend if I can find some time.
Maverick, looks like you have done some awesome work in re-organising the regions. It looks like it is taking shape and making sense. Well done.
Now we have to some how get the users to follow the logic. So for example we had two walks added today that were just given āQueenslandā as a region!
I have a routine to look at walks that have no co-ordinates, now I might have to regularly look for walks that have only been linked at the highest level of their state or region.