Voluntary Reporting of a Swim / The Peer Pressure of Social Media Inspiring Clean(er) Swims
JenA
Charter Member
Proposal: swimmers fill out the following (draft! draft! draft!) template (or something like it) when they complete swims, and they submit it somewhere (international marathon swimming hall of fame? this forum? somewhere else public?). These reports are available for everyone to see.
The PDF of my draft template is here: https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=C5BDDA4EF65680B2!119
It contains the following sections as checkboxes, fill-in-the-blanks, and long-answer forms: swim details (pre-swim), crew details, observer details, swim details (post swim), standard equipment, performance aids, protection from the elements, pacing aids, physical contact, navigation, wildlife management, "other", and a spot for free-form commenting.
Motivation: While there may be 30-odd marathon swimming organizations that cannot seem to agree, perhaps social media (and a little public peer pressure) can motivate the entire community to aspire to the "cleanest" swims possible. Additionally, having a historical repository of swim reports would be ridiculously awesome-sauce for future swimmers in terms of networking, safety, motivation, and inspiration. (That's right... I said ridiculously awesome-sauce. I went there.)
It means that *if you decide you want to draft off the bow*, you **own it**. You (virtually) stand before the marathon swimming community, and you say, "I did this. These were my decisions. This was my swim.", and the entire community knows it.
If someone didn't want to file a report, well... we as a community would be curious about why. :-) This report would also make it significantly easier for the media to report a swim.
This document is only about 3% my ideas. :-) The rest of the ideas about what is standard equipment and what is controversial have come from others.
But, I put this forth as a template for conversation. I will cheerfully anonymize feedback from anyone who doesn't wish to comment directly -- just send me a message.
Jen
The PDF of my draft template is here: https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=C5BDDA4EF65680B2!119
It contains the following sections as checkboxes, fill-in-the-blanks, and long-answer forms: swim details (pre-swim), crew details, observer details, swim details (post swim), standard equipment, performance aids, protection from the elements, pacing aids, physical contact, navigation, wildlife management, "other", and a spot for free-form commenting.
Motivation: While there may be 30-odd marathon swimming organizations that cannot seem to agree, perhaps social media (and a little public peer pressure) can motivate the entire community to aspire to the "cleanest" swims possible. Additionally, having a historical repository of swim reports would be ridiculously awesome-sauce for future swimmers in terms of networking, safety, motivation, and inspiration. (That's right... I said ridiculously awesome-sauce. I went there.)
It means that *if you decide you want to draft off the bow*, you **own it**. You (virtually) stand before the marathon swimming community, and you say, "I did this. These were my decisions. This was my swim.", and the entire community knows it.
If someone didn't want to file a report, well... we as a community would be curious about why. :-) This report would also make it significantly easier for the media to report a swim.
This document is only about 3% my ideas. :-) The rest of the ideas about what is standard equipment and what is controversial have come from others.
But, I put this forth as a template for conversation. I will cheerfully anonymize feedback from anyone who doesn't wish to comment directly -- just send me a message.
Jen
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