User Setting: Hard Mode

Aha, I should have guessed this was already discussed! I have added a vote for it!

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I say we should aim for 100%.
My running stems from Orienteering, so I like my maps. CS introduced me to OSM and therefore I’m now quite active in updating OSM when I find that CS nodes are unreachable.
People inherently use OSM for a variety of reasons and the data accuracy varies accordingly. If we need it to be more accurate to suit our needs (ie amend the private status of part of a street as we can’t reach a few nodes) then I think we should. CS then updates (the next time your area pulls data from OSM) and the unreachable nodes should have disappeared. So long as CS is refreshing data often enough (4-6wks??) then we should be ok.
In the short term (as I’m close to completing my home area on want to keep a check on what I’m missing) I make the privacy/alignment changes in OSM and also manually mark the streets as complete in OSM. Once CS updates from OSM in future then the manual completions are irrelevant - but it’s a way that I can check which nodes I still have left

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like this suggestion

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Just to give an example of how wrong this 90% can be: In my neighbour town I have a long street of 8.86 km, with 368 nodes. I have completed only 338 nodes and 8.22 km. So despite missing 640 meters and 30 nodes, it shows up in my completed list….

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I’ll just keep nagging about this! Today’s run shows one long street as complete even though several blocks at the end are not done yet, 10 nodes missing! Many votes for Hard mode, @JamesChevalier, any chance of implementing this?

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I think I may in the minority but I’m kinda against Hard Mode for a couple reasons.

  1. Even if Hard Mode was activated for all accounts, if a user completes 100% of nodes of a street, it still doesn’t mean they ran the entire street. It just means they came within 25 meters of all nodes. An example is laid out in example A in this thread. So we wouldn’t be any closer to verifying if a user has ran/walked the entire length of a street.

  2. For those that live in very dense urban environments, tall buildings can make accurate GPS recordings impossible. From my own experience running down a street with buildings ~20-30 stories on each side, my GPS recording ended up having points where I was running through buildings or being two blocks away. Below is just a small example of where I started on left going right on Bush St., made a left on Market street and another left on Pine Street. Pretty straight line running on each street but you wouldn’t know it from the GPS recording.

CS

  1. No one in thread has mentioned it specifically but I think it’s a fair assumption that if Hard Mode is implemented, users at the top of the leaderboard would want the rankings re-calculated based on these new completions percentages. But what about users with streets they marked as manually completed? Should they be removed altogether? Have an asterisk put next to their name? Manual completions are a legitimate need for some. For example, re-using the tall buildings causing GPS wobble or there may even be some CS users who don’t have a device to record GPS with. They run/walk each street and then manually mark off each when they are done.

If Hard Mode was implemented, my opinion would be it is an individual opt-in setting that only affects that user’s account. So if a user enabled it on their account, their street & overall completions would be re-calculated without affecting others. Essentially it would most likely cause a number of streets to be marked as incomplete & their overall city completion rate would drop. At that point, it was their choice to do so to themselves. In addition, if a user does enable Hard Mode on their account, I don’t think their account should be labeled or identified differently than others. ie Hard Mode users get a separate leaderboard or a star next to their name.

Going back to James’s original post, it kind of seems like philosophically, ‘Hard Mode’ isn’t completely fleshed out. Maybe the best way to get it implemented is to answer the good points raised by @Marty above. I’ll take a shot:

  1. That’s an intrinsic limitation of the platform as coded and there’s no way around it currently. So I don’t think it’s any more relevant to ‘Hard Mode’ than it is in that thread.

  2. It’s frustrating, but that’s just a reality of GPS and urban environments pretty much everywhere from what I’ve seen. My solution to the GPS drift is to manually edit my traces, but I know that’s more work than most are willing to do. As it relates to ‘Hard Mode’, that’s kind of in the name of it - if you’re not willing to redraw the trace to reflect what you did in reality, you may have to go back and re-run the street and pray the GPS behaves around the node(s) you’re missing.

  3. I would imagine manually completions don’t count in ‘Hard Mode’, and relate back to 2 above.

  4. The points you raise here are most interesting. What if instead of an opt-in, it was just a separate calculation. Maybe a hidden leaderboard only available to supporters, with a list of your streets that are between 90% & 100% for you to review and work on to bring up your ‘Hard Mode’ count. I think it makes sense as a supporter feature because they have more skin in the game and probably care more about completeness.

So in conclusion, ‘Hard Mode’ wouldn’t change anything as it’s calculated currently, it would just be a separate ranking (globally? for each city?) for the street completists. Thoughts?

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It’s only a matter of time, really. I have no objections to the idea, and enough people are interested.
It’ll definitely be an option that will be off by default, though.

That’s fair. I do enjoy working with the community on features, like this. Things usually turn out better that way.
Your note about the idea of manually completing streets not being possible while in Hard Mode is a great example … I hadn’t considered that, but it feels like a wonderfully brutal addition. :smiley:

That’s been my expectation going into this. Kind of a “you’re the one that enabled Hard Mode you deal with the repercussions” kind of thing.

I really don’t mind leaning into the naming here. It’s called Hard Mode and I’m a very sarcastic person. :laughing: Especially because we’d be adding difficulty to individuals, not reducing it e.g. “Wimpy Mode” which would just be rude.

  • Oh no you have GPS drift and missed a node? Tough. Run again. And stop complaining.
  • You dropped in the leaderboards because you’re on Hard Mode and now you’re upset? Shut up and go run. It’s hard. Deal with hit.

I could imagine updating the Settings page to include an entire separate section for Hard Mode that explains all the reasons not to enable it, telling people they can’t handle it because they’ll never succeed because they’re not tough enough etc. :laughing: I’m a terrible human.

:thinking: :man_shrugging: I’m not sure how I feel about that, yet. I don’t think I’m opposed to some Hard Mode visual indicator.

Extra calculations and data become expensive very quickly. Gotta remember that every idea effectively gets multiplied by (at least) 40,000 right up front.
I’m more inclined to calculate people participating in Hard Mode differently than I am to add an entire separate calculation/data store to the mix. I mean, unless Hard Mode costs more as well :laughing: :rofl:

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I agree with all Kevin says above. As I see it Hard mode should definitely be a personal choice, not a default. And if you choose to enable it, you may only drop down in the ranking list, not up, so no one else will suffer

Hard mode is an interesting variant. For me, I would like to have an option to see the difference with the way it’s now and what the implications are if i would switch hard mode on.

Maybe i could start a hard mode account an begin all the 13 cities i did the past year, all over again in hard mode.

If hard mode was a personal setting on/off, you could just enable it to see the difference, then disable again if needed

I have a feeling it will not be on/off for the reason @JamesChevalier gave above. Turning it on and off would require multiple re-calculations and eat up server fees. For that reason I think it makes most sense as a supporter perk with a separate count/leaderboard, and hopefully not an ‘on/off’ setting but perhaps an opt-in.

What if it was a ‘bonus feature’ where only if you had 100% of the streets in a city it was an option? For example - if I’ve finished City X, there’s an checkbox on the map that says “see uncompleted nodes”. That would be enough for my need - I haven’t found a way to easily see if all the nodes are hit. It would be similar to marking all the streets as “Show” and only showing the red nodes.

In this instance, you’d only have to do the calculations if someone hit the “see uncompleted nodes” – Only a subset of all users (a supporter AND a city marked 100%) would have this option available, and it would only be on a single city…

It’s not necessary, but if you had them all completed, the city could be marked (and saved with your profile?) with a star, or other symbol. Otherwise, it wouldn’t change any of the standings, completed streets, etc.

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My suggestion is this: would it be possible for Node Hunter to show incomplete nodes in 90% completed streets, but in a different colour (yellow, for example) to distinguish them from incomplete nodes in incomplete streets? The 90% completion rule would be retained, with no need for a separate 100% “hard mode”, but those of us obsessives who like to complete all nodes in a street would easily be able to see what we still need.

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