I think it might be helpful for the community (or admin/s) to develop a guide for writing reviews of campsites, lakes, and portages. I've written a couple of reviews at this point, mostly basing them on other reviews I've seen, but it would be nice to have a standard guide. What constitutes a 1 star campsite? What makes a campsite worthy of 5 stars? What are some examples of those campsites? What constitutes an average (3 star) campsite? What are the important things that need to be included in a review? How can we encourage objective reviews vs subjective?

Good sized tree 15 to18 feet apart with open area between for Hammock. Referred to as hammock pads.

Edited by user Wednesday, April 15, 2015 6:17:53 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Originally Posted by: Canoer97

You might want to check some of the campsite evaluations that are found in the Boundary Waters Journal magazine. The evaluations are not in every issue but I have found them to be helpful.  If you like to read stories/articles about the BWCAW, you will like the Boundary Waters Journal.  I have been an avid reader for years.

I subscribe, too, and enjoy reading it. My wife reads every issue cover to cover. As far as campsite evaluations, they are pretty thorough, but I've noticed that it usually doesn't have photos of the campsite, which I find extremely helpful. Lately it seems they have been focusing a lot on the BWCA campsites rather than the Quetico, too - probably because there are ten times as many people visiting the BWCA than the Quetico.

As much as I like the BWJ, the campsite ratings aren't "searchable." Star-ratings are only marginally useful mostly because the standards are subjective. This is what sagejon was trying to fix - trying to make the ratings more objective. I added onto the idea by being able to mark the specific features of a campsite. What I want to know is how you would complete this sentence - "I am looking for the campsites that _________________." How would you fill in the blank?

Originally Posted by: sagejon

Great replies, thank you! I am also blessed (cursed?) to have a web developer for a wife, which has made me know just enough to be dangerous about what can be done on a site. My thinking was having a good set of standards and forcing people to see them when they are reviewing a campsite. Mouseover on each star with a brief outline for that star level. Or a reminder somewhere with a link to a reviewing standards page. A blurb on a "preview your review" page? Something that serves as a reminder of the goals of the review.

Any of those suggestions would be possible and fairly easy to do. Once we set up some sort of standard, I'll add something in, probably a combination of what you suggested. 

I like Gavia's rating system for the BWCA and anywhere else with designated campsites. It is simple and easy to remember. I would want to make some changes to the wording - when I have a few minutes I'll work on that and post it here for comments.

For the Quetico or other places without designated campsites, how would you change Joe_Schmeaux's rating system? Any suggestions for improvement/simplification?

Just to let you know, right now there is no such thing as a "zero-star" rating on this site, and I probably won't add one, so we'll have to keep that in mind. If a campsite doesn't exist or is closed, I can change the status, but it has nothing to do with the rating system. The preferred method to say that a campsite doesn't exist is to send me an email and leave a rating comment but not give it a star rating.

Originally Posted by: BillConner

#6 seems a little bottom end heavy. If the site is recorded but not there or not use able - no stars. 1 star is a last chance better than nothing.

While I have moved to adventuring and spontaneity, not planning routes or sites in advance, the primary criteria for campsites for me is tent pads and bugs. I can care less about landings - never has been a problem at any site or portage - and views are subjective. I rarely have a fire, so thats lower priority. But no breeze or air to move bugs along, marshy swampy,surroundings to harbor bugs, and no very level place for a tent are all reasons for me to look for another. Very important is date of review - at site, not posting.

I stick with the 1-star rating because zero stars implies it isn't a campsite.  If nothing else, one star indicates (in the BWCA) you won't get ticketed for camping there.  It's like getting an F on an exam instead of no grade at all.

As for bugs, I would downgrade a site if it were set back or otherwise so secluded that a breeze would have a hard time getting in.  Conversely, I'd also downgrade a site that didn't have sheltering options.  No trees can be as bad as too many.

As for landings, I downgrade a site if I can't land without damaging the boat.  I upgrade it if it has a great landing, such as site 12 on Ogishkemuncie Lake.  (That's campsite 792 in the BWCA Map area.  The pics below are from my site evaluation.)

The landing.  The canoe driveway and garage are on the left.

The canoe in its garage.  The driveway is hard to see, but it's actually a little sheltered channel of about a boat length.

Here is my first try at combining what has been said into a rating scale:

• Not a campsite - Do not give a star rating. Leave a comment and send an email to the administrator so the status can be updated. For BWCA or any other area that has a designated campsite system, if there is a fire grate and a latrine, it is a campsite and must be given at least a 1-star rating.
• 1-star - Last choice but usable in an emergency. Some features of this type of campsite might be: small, cramped, overgrown, swampy, lumpy tent pads, impossible landing. A 1-star site will probably have more than one of these undesireable features.
• 2-star - OK for a night but don't want to stay more than one day. The tent pads might not be completely level, have a difficult landing, or be on the smallish side. While a 1-star will have multiple undesireable qualities, a 2-star will have one or two qualities that make it a "below average" site.
• 3-star - Average site, willing to layover or basecamp but nothing to "write home about." This type of site will have both good and bad features. Perhaps it is small but has a nice landing, or the tent pads aren't level but has an awesome view.
• 4-star - Has all of the good basic features of a campsite. While 3-star sites might have some bad features mixed in with the good, a 4-star would not have any of those bad features. Basic features would include level tent pads, a good landing, nice kitchen area not swampy, room to "stretch out," both sheltered and open areas, etc.
• 5-star - All the 4-star features plus an extra bonus - sandy beach/great swimming area, spectacular view, or some other unique feature.

What do you think? What changes need to be made? This was just my first draft, so feel free to discuss.

*I actually wrote this before Gavia's and BillConner's last two comments, so I haven't incorporated those in yet.

Edited by user Tuesday, April 21, 2015 1:00:18 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Originally Posted by: BillConner

I don't fish but should fishing be mentioned?  If only as an exceptional feature for a 5 star? Does being the only site on a lake constitute a exceptional feature? Somehow, an adjacent site where you can easiuly hear the other group is a definite downgrade for me - maybe makes a three a two at least.

It looks like we need to put together two lists - basic campsite features and extra/add-on/bonus features. Here are my lists.

Basic features:

• Decent landing
• Level tent pad(s)
• Workable kitchen area
• Room to stretch out (does not necessarily mean will hold a big group - just means more than two steps from the fire pit to the tent pad)
• Sheltered and open areas (for different weather)
• Hanging tree? (some are going with barrels instead of hanging now, so might not be a good criterion to add)

In my mind, a 3-star will have most of the basic features. A 4-star will have all of them. A 5-star will have all of them plus one or two bonus features.

Bonus features:

• Fishing from camp
• Solitude/Remoteness (usually earns an extra star from me)
• Beach/swimming area
• Spectacular view
• Other unique features

A bonus feature could add an extra star on to any campsite, such as making a 3-star a 4-star.

Originally Posted by: BillConner

 I suggested no stars for your one because it was not useable as a site - same as no site.  Are there unuseable sites in the BWCA?  Seems like every site that the rangers amintain a latrine on is probably OK for an emergency.

There is one site I know of in the BW that is not usable.  It's #1144, on Conchu Lake, a short portage north of the North Kawishiwi River.  When I visited it in Sept. 2010, I thought it looked like a lunar landscape with vegetation and couldn't find a place to put a tent.

Would it help if I opened up the rating system to half stars? I've been hesitant to do it since it makes the rating system much more complicated (for the reviewers, not me). I believe it adds too much to think about (is this site 3 stars or 3 1/2 stars?) and would make coming up with a scale more difficult, but I want your opinions as well.

Sorta late to this, sorry, but maybe I can still add something of value.

First, a bit of history for the Quetico part of the database, for those who aren't familiar with what happened before Paddle Planner took it over. The Quetico campsite database was originally built by Arch Harris and called "Paddler's Campsite Database (PCD)". (Was this 15 years ago? Something like that.) Arch collected campsite locations from various public sources and showed them on a single map, which users could interact with, post comments, add new site locations, etc. The public source data were of varying quality (some sites were located incorrectly, some did not exist at all), so the first big step (collecting all the public data) could be improved even more by user input. A couple of years ago, Arch retired and was looking for a new home for PCD. Ben Strege stepped up to the plate, and incorporated PCD's data into the predecessor to PaddlePlanner, with a slick new software interface, plus all the other PP features (Thanks again Ben for saving this huge batch of valuable data from oblivion!)

PCD's original software was state of the art at the time, but it did have some limitations which don't exist today. The original PCD rating scale was 0 to 5 stars, with a "0" signifying "Not a campsite", so that's where that idea came from. When things were converted over, Ben chose to define "Not a campsite" separately from the star ratings, so if a site did not exist, it did not get a rating, and if it did exist, it was rated from 1 to 5 stars.

This was a definite improvement, since in most cases, a zero PCD rating did not mean a location that was one step worse than a 1-star, but instead, it meant that the paddler could not find a location at the spot indicated on the PCD map. I have found more than a couple of cases where a previous user marked a location "Not a site", but in fact there was site at that location. Sometimes the 0-star rating meant the previous visitor found the site but it was so poor that for him it did not rate even one star, often it meant the site was small and/or hard to see from the water, and sometimes it meant the previous visitor was either blind or in the wrong location and zero-rated a large and obvious site. If one paddler cannot find a site and gives it 0 stars, while a second paddler finds the site and rates it 3 stars, is the average 1.5 stars? Or 3 stars? If PP decides to allow a zero-star rating to indicate an unusable site, it would have to ensure that the user actually found the site in question and hated it, not that the user was mistakenly staring at some random patch of forest and not at the actual site.

Should there be a formal scale for ratings? I think yes, but only in the most general sense, for example "3 stars" means "average-comfortable", or "1 star" means "usable if desparate" or something like that. We all have different criteria for what we like in campsites, and so our campsite ratings should be expected to differ as well. Trying to pick one formal set of criteria for "campsite quality" and having us all rate sites based on that will mean that the results will only be of value to those of us whose personal criteria match the formal guidelines. I'm happy using the average star rating to get a rough idea of which sites are decent, and then reading through the comments to get a better feel for how well it fits my own personal likes and dislikes.

Half-points? Yes, for me there are a lot of cases where a site falls between the 1-star, 2-star, and 3-star categories and I'd find the extra precision useful. Usually I will include the half-star ratings in my comments, so people will know that a site to which I gave 3 stars (2 1/2 stars) might be a 2-star site to them, and a site to which I gave 3 stars (3 1/2 stars) might be a 4-star site for them. If two people rate a site, and one gives it 2 stars and the other 3 stars, the average is 2.5 stars, so allowing half-star ratings from single users really doesn't change anything. The important thing is that any changes we make to the current system don't make the thousands of existing campsite ratings already in the system obsolete.

To sum up this long winded post, I think the current system is pretty good. The biggest improvement that could be made would be for more users to submit more campsite ratings, with more detailed comments, more photos, ...

Thanks for all of the replies. I will add some guidelines to the rating form. I still want to keep them at "guidelines rather than actual rules."

I'll use language similar to what I put in post #13 along with the list of basic/extra campsite features.

Edited by user Tuesday, July 14, 2015 10:53:31 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

While I certainly look at and value the ratings, perhaps more importantly (to me) is the comment & photo section.  For instance, if traveling with a larger group, whether or not a site has multiple tent pads (or is large and open) is of more precedence than if the site is highly rated but small.   Of course alot of times those things go hand in hand.