Writing stops and quiz questions

The Stories & quizzes step lists every stop in walking order. Open a stop to write it. Each one starts with the things almost every stop needs: its name, its suggested stop time and its story, followed by its photos. A quiz question and visitor info are further down, for the stops that call for them. The list shows which stops still need a story, and the step opens on the first of them.

Renaming a stop here is the same as renaming it on the Waypoints step; the new name shows in both places.

Suggested stop time

Next to the name, Suggested stop time says how long you'd suggest people spend at this stop. Choose from Pass by, 5, 10, 15, 30 or 45 minutes, 1 hour, 90 minutes, 2 hours, 2 hours 30 minutes or 3 hours. A new stop starts at 5 minutes.

Pick Pass by for something people see as they walk past, a few minutes for a marker or a statue, and an hour or more for a museum or a tour. Walkers see it on each stop, as "Suggested stop: 30 min" or "Pass by".

The times add up. A hike's time is its walking time plus every stop's suggested time, so a hike whose stops add up to several hours reads as a long day on its card. The Route step shows the total as you go. Like every other change, a new stop time reaches the public page the next time you publish. See Time and difficulty.

The story of a stop

Write for someone standing there, looking at the thing. The best stops point at something visible and explain what it meant.

A few things worth doing:

• Say what to look at. "The third window from the left is original" gives a group something to do.
• Keep it to a couple of minutes read aloud. It will be read aloud.
• Prefer what is durable. Anything that changes, like a bird's nest, an opening time or a fee, will drift. If you must mention something temporary, say when it was true.

Photos

Photos sit right under the story. Press Add photo to add one. A stop can have 5 photos from its maintainers. They help most when they show what to look for, or what something used to look like. Upload one you took yourself, or one you found elsewhere with its license and a link back to where it came from. To use a photo you've already uploaded, on this hike or another, open the Your photos tab instead of uploading it again. See Photos and licensing.

Upload photos straight from your phone, at full resolution. There's no need to resize them first: if a photo is larger than the site accepts, your browser makes it smaller before sending it, only as much as it needs to. The site keeps the photo you send and shows a smaller version on the page.

Any stop photo can also be the hike's hero, the large photo at the top of its page. Use the star on the photo, or choose it on the Marketing step.

Removing a photo from a stop, or deleting the stop it's on, takes it off your draft. On a published hike the public page keeps showing it until you publish again. Either way you're asked to confirm first. The photo itself isn't deleted: it's kept with the account that uploaded it, who can add it to a stop again from Your photos, or delete it for good there.

Planning info (optional)

Most stops don't need this, so on a stop without any it stays folded away under Planning info (optional). On a stop that has some, it opens already expanded so you can see it. When it's folded, a single line shows what's filled in. Open it to add:

• Hours, Fees and Notes: anything a visitor should know before setting out, rather than buried in the story. They appear in the printed kit, on the plan tab and in trail mode.
• Restrooms available: tick this if there are restrooms at the stop. It's off unless you tick it. Once published, the stop shows a Restrooms tag on the hike's page, and trail mode shows Restrooms available with the stop's other planning info. The stop's pin on the map also gets a small restroom badge at its lower right, and the map key lists Restrooms. The badges appear once the map is zoomed in close enough for them to be useful, and always on the printed kit's map. Trail mode also tells walkers where the next restrooms are as they go (see Trail mode).

Quiz questions

The quiz exists to keep younger walkers paying attention. Most stops don't have one, so a stop shows only an Add a quiz question button until you press it. Questions you've already written are always shown.

• Up to five questions per stop.
• To remove a question, press the trash button beside it and confirm with Delete question.
• Every question needs at least two choices and one correct answer. Pick the correct one with the button beside it.
• Questions are graded on our server. The correct answer is never sent to the phone ahead of time; it is shown only once a question has been answered.
• Aim questions at something the story just said. Avoid questions about anything that can change, and avoid questions that require leaving the trail to look something up.

A hike with no quiz is fine. At least one question adds to the hike's completeness score on Review & publish, but it's never required.

When quiz changes go live

A new question or a changed answer only reaches walkers once you publish the hike. Editing it in the builder never changes what someone is currently seeing on the trail.

Someone already walking when you publish keeps going without losing their place: their answers so far stay graded the way they were originally shown, and the page picks up whatever is newly published from there.