[SA Chris]

Exactly. I would just get an OS location from my watch or OS locate App on phone, screenshot and send, rather than phoning someone and saying purple.monkey.dishwasher* and them getting it wrong.

*5 points for getting the obscure cultural reference without google.

That's how I send locations too. In the context of transposing a code from a paper guide to a phone I'd find it easier to type three words than a string of letters spaces and numbers. Minor UI improvement in my view. Obviously I wasn't factoring in W3W's nefarious and hegemonic plan to dominate the universe and subject its citizenry to enforced word based location finding .

But you aren't transposing, it's a screenshot or photo.

[Will Hunt]

What 3 Words is bad news for all the reasons outlined above.

For paper guides there's a far better solution which is to use QR codes. These can be used to tell your phone to open Google maps with a pin dropped on a particular location. But what if you wish to change the mapping provider in the future (let's hypothesise that Apple maps or Bing Maps becomes superior in future, for instance) or that mapping provider changes the way that you link into their app thus breaking your QR code? The solution is to have each QR code open a URL which you own which automatically redirects to the relevant app. Because you control the redirect you can change it at any time in the future should you wish to link through to a different app etc. This is also useful because you can track how many times your redirect page for a crag/boulder has been accessed - so you get feedback on whether people are using the QR codes and which ones they're using.
Our guide will have QR codes for parking locations and each crag's RAD entry. The little icon which holds the QR code for a parking location also has the lat/long written as text which can be manually entered into any mapping app.

Building up a reliance on W3W is a mistake in my view. It relies on climbers downloading a 3rd party "non-standard" (i.e. it's not integral to Android/iOS). W3W can, at the drop of a hat, paywall their system. We thought Strava would never do that, didn't we?

On the specific subject of building a library of pins, I think 27crags has done this but the accuracy depends on whoever submitted the data (which of course will be true of anything I guess). There are some problems with it which I will describe with this rambling anecdote:
During lockdown I was trying to sort the map for Caley for our guidebook. I was aware that there were a few differences between the map that appeared in YG vol1 and other resources like 27crags and the old Cameron Duff. I couldn't go to the crag myself to ground truth it (and you can't see the boulders through the trees on Google or Bing maps' satellite imagery) so I got a volunteer who lives nearby to go to Caley, stand on top of each boulder, and drop a pin on wherever he was to build up a map of GPS pins. I plotted these on a GIS against the 27crags pins. To my horror they were both all over the place. Completely. Not only were the pins not on top of the few boulders I could see on the satellite view, they weren't even correct relative to each other (i.e. the Sugarloaf was plotted south of Sucker's Wall etc). It was a complete mess. I understand that some people have had success with GPS in wooded areas but there appears to be something about Caley which sends it haywire.
I had to download some LIDAR data (which penetrates trees) and plot it as slope (which highlights steep edges, i.e. the outlines of boulders) to pick out where the boulders were, and then use the maps in various guidebooks to figure out which boulder each LIDAR boulder actually was. A lot of work, but the map in the book will be accurate!

The way I've communicated all this info to the artist who's making the maps is to create a Google My Map for each crag with a big dump of information on it. You can plot individual boulder locations, footpaths, etc. I'm not sure how useful this would be in the field though as I'm not sure how accessible these things are on a smartphone. This is the one for Brimham - the map that Don created from this is so beautiful that I considered having it printed and framed.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1EHw7VofXXLumKGlL3h6tCN64klOd5KFH&usp=sharing

[Bonjoy]

Exactly. I would just get an OS location from my watch or OS locate App on phone, screenshot and send, rather than phoning someone and saying purple.monkey.dishwasher* and them getting it wrong.

*5 points for getting the obscure cultural reference without google.

That's how I send locations too. In the context of transposing a code from a paper guide to a phone I'd find it easier to type three words than a string of letters spaces and numbers. Minor UI improvement in my view. Obviously I wasn't factoring in W3W's nefarious and hegemonic plan to dominate the universe and subject its citizenry to enforced word based location finding .

But you aren't transposing, it's a screenshot or photo.

If I'm using a paper guide to find the exact location of a well hidden boulder in the middle of a forest or whatever I would be feeding a code into some form of map/app. A screenshot or photo won't do this unless it's using some text recognition software, which may or may not also involve fiddly copy pasting.

[Bonjoy]

Will - I think QR codes have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. You've pointed out some positives. Some downsides I see are:
- they're space hungry (an issue on paper guides)
- they're not verbally transmissible
- they require a functional phone camera, which may be a pain in some contexts - low battery, low light, heavy rain, etc.
- they share some downsides of w3w in that if they're in any way broke they are unusable (unlike grid ref where you might be able to infer which digit is wrong, or the location might be out by 100m but still at the same crag) and they introduce an intermediate step which doesn't exist with traditional coordinate codes

[SA Chris]

A screenshot or photo won't do this unless it's using some text recognition software, which may or may not also involve fiddly copy pasting.

But using a paper map won't give you a W3W ref either will it? And if you have your phone on you it automatically produces the OS ref from OS Locate of the point where you are when you get there? It will also indicate to you which way you need to go to get to a certain point you've taken from a map, based on the ref you get from looking at OS Locate or a GPS watch, rather than having 3 random words 10 m away from another 3 random words.

[Bonjoy]

A screenshot or photo won't do this unless it's using some text recognition software, which may or may not also involve fiddly copy pasting.

But using a paper map won't give you a W3W ref either will it? And if you have your phone on you it automatically produces the OS ref from OS Locate of the point where you are when you get there? It will also indicate to you which way you need to go to get to a certain point you've taken from a map, based on the ref you get from looking at OS Locate or a GPS watch, rather than having 3 random words 10 m away from another 3 random words.

I read that several time Chris and I still don't get your point. perhaps we are talking at cross purposes.
The functionality I was discussing is best exemplified as using a paper guidebook to find exact locations of multiple hidden boulders in a forest, assuming you have a phone and a decent signal to help you. How to most quickly/simply feed the exact locations into your phone from the guidebook.

[SA Chris]

Sorry, probably being unclear.

At least with a logical system like an OS grid reference, you can tell from the numbers which way you need to go and how far from your present location, assuming you have a vague sense of direction. With 3 random words, the next location 5 m away has another 3 random words which are completely unrelated to the first.

[Bonjoy]

Yes. In practice it acts more like a homing beacon. You have a point set on an online map on your phone and you walk towards that dot. Very handy in a pathless forest were navigation based on landmarks is difficult.

[tomtom]

Some relevant discussion in this article about the resurgence of QR codes - and some of their advantages and disadvantages etc... (its CV19 based - but lots is relevant)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/24/arrival-of-nhs-contact-tracing-app-heralds-return-of-qr-codes

[Oldmanmatt]

Yes. In practice it acts more like a homing beacon. You have a point set on an online map on your phone and you walk towards that dot. Very handy in a pathless forest were navigation based on landmarks is difficult.

Yes.
And fine when it’s all electronic, however, the advantage simply remains that you think it’s easier to remember or input three words; than a string of numbers (be it grid ref or lat/long).

And in the simplest terms here, of giving a single point in a guide book, then using you phone/gps to walk to it, it’s ok. I don’t really see it as better or easier, but in this context it’s just boils down to opinion.

However, the three word code crumbles instantly in the event of losing your electronics.

If I need to estimate a location and at some point during my journey I knew the grid ref of my location, I can dead reckon my approximate grid ref at time of need. Without my phone, I can’t determine my W3W for that location.
I can think of a great many times I have had insufficient signal to use the internet, but enough to place a call.

I tend to actually use a compass a lot too, though. X hundred meters NW of the car park, being a fairly easy thing to do, with practice, in even dense forest, boxing obstacles etc. It doesn’t become desperately challenging until you’re into multi kilometre jaunts.

I’ve been lazy and gone off to find a boulder in the woods, assuming my sense of direction is superhuman and got royally lost.

[Bonjoy]

However, the three word code crumbles instantly in the event of losing your electronics.

As does any other option fitting the OP's brief.


The time I would most likely find value in using a thing like the OP is suggesting would be in a place like Font where I'm at a crag but can't find a boulder. So knowing the approximate location is of no value to me, I need to know the exact location.