Round winners – April 2023 (Round #154)
Congratulations to the winners of round April 2023: kurrep from Kalmar turfed home his first Gold, Drylaw13 from Scotland added a third Silver to his medal row and gerald_flus.rc from Berlin took his second Bronze. Well done mates!
Upcoming events
If you are organizing an open event, don't forget to write to insider@turfgame.com a couple of months in advance to get the information about your event into Turf Insider :)
Bonanza 2023 in Umeå
We are fast closing in on the Turf event of the year: Bonanza 2023 in Umeå, the most northerly Bonanza ever! This year's Bonanza is organized by Turf Västerbotten on the 20th of May with events in two classes, a Bonanza banquet and lots of other fun activites. Sign up for the Bonanza 2023 can be found HERE. See you in Umeå in May! :)
Turf Event at Eurocon 2023 in Uppsala, Sweden 10th of June
Is it possible to tempt book-loving SF-nerds with Turf? We are sure going to try with a small open Turf Event in Uppsala in co-operation with the European SF-congress "Konflikt". The goal is to spread Turf and offer an undemanding sight-seeing of Uppsala by foot during 45 min. Join our small SF-themed event at 12.30 pm in central Uppsala! The winner will get a trophy made by BirgittaS. The meeting place is outside the Universitetshuset in Uppsala where EUROCON 2023 is being held. The organizers will be there from 12 pm to explain Turf and after the Event the prize ceremony will take place there as well.
Luleå2023 in Luleå, Sweden 10th of June
The event Luleå2023 will be a three-hour event consisting of three different types of turfing: Bike, walk/run, and swim. The zones made for biking will be on roads easily accessible by bike, the zones for running will be in forests on paths difficult to bike on, and the zones for swimming will be in the water. After the big event, there will be a smaller event called NorrlandClassic 1, which will be the first in (hopefully) a series of events in small and big towns in northern Sweden. Read more about it HERE.
VbMidniteC23 in Umeå, Sweden 17th of June
Midnight Classic is back in Umeå and it is the only 2-hour event that takes place during two days, starting at 11 pm and finishing at 1 am. It really makes the most of the bright summer nights this far north in Sweden. Turf Västerbotten are currently very busy with the Bonanza, so very little information is available, but I am sure it will follow, so keep an eye open HERE.
Gbg Open in Göteborg, Sweden 1st of July
Turf Göteborg will host the 10th in a row Gbg Open in Göteborg this year. Information about the event will be found HERE closer to the event.
ABOA Turf in Turku, Finland 5th of August, 2023
Have you made travel plans for the first Open Event outside of Sweden yet, I have :)
The Turku turfers have been planning an event for many years, and it has finally come to fruition. How about visiting Finland this summer? Read more about it HERE.
Turf Awards 2022
The voting for Turf Awards 2022 is closed and the results will be announced during the Bonanza banquet and later on turfgame.com.
Turf Clubs/Associations
A new section in Turf Insider for Club News and Club introductions. We have many Turf Associations around the Turf world. This is a space where they can get their news heard. Write to insider@turfgame.com if you have any Club news you want to see here :)
Knoblauch from Turf Östergötland has written about the association she belongs to.
“Turf Östergötland started in 2019 and currently has 50 members. On the first Tuesday or Wednesday of the new round, we have a get-together in a pub, switching between Linköping and Norrköping. All turfers are invited to hang out, talk about Turf and have a good time.
We
have also arranged various events, including Östgöta Open, an
annual open event where everyone are welcome to participate. Next time
will be on October 7th; stay tuned for more info on our website (in
Swedish), https://www.turfostergotland.se.
There
are other activities as well, including taking hard to reach zones
together – for example, paddling to a zone in the river Stångån
in an inflatable canoe, followed by a nice fika. All upcoming
activities, other information and updates will also be posted on our
website.”
Making
Turf Work!
Nothing
much in the world works smoothly without the efforts of a group of
volunteers. And Turf is no exception to that. The group of unpaid
volunteers that keep Turf running are known as the ‘Turf Crew’
(you sometimes see turfers in black tops with a gold ‘C’ on them
in the app). Crew
do everything from keeping the IT lights on to setting zones to
managing issues, dealing with abuse and much else in between, all of
it in their spare time. We thought it could be helpful to cover
a few topics that Turf Crew get asked about regularly or are
important to keep everyone on the same page and set aside a few
myths!
Zone
Setting/Making
– focus is given on countries where there is lots of activity,
mainly Scandanavia and the UK, although World zones are set where
there are likely to be lots of Turfers, for example in New York City.
We don’t set zones for anyone’s specific holiday destination to
keep their 5-zones-a-day streak, so please don’t ask!
Zones
in the UK
– we hear a lot about differences between the number of zones and
zone density and zone allocation in the UK vs Sweden. To be clear,
both the UK and Sweden have zone quotas and get a limited number of
zones in each period. There will always be differences between places
in terms of number of zones or pph or zone density or numbers of
turfers – this is all part of the enriching experience of Turf!
Zones quotas are primarily based on number of inhabitants in a
certain area, not on active turfers.
Suggestions
– we see a lot of frustration because new zone suggestions have
been made and not acted on – we aren’t automatically notified of
new suggestions! Rest assured that Turf Crew can see these when they
make zones but there are lots and lots of suggestions (some better
than others!) and there are limits on how many zones are made. Zone suggestions are anonymous and sometimes zones are created years after a suggestion was made. When
suggesting a zone, make it a good size (25x25 m is the ideal zone
size), not on car roads or private property and somewhere you think other turfers would like
to go – it is more likely to be accepted that way. You might also
want to add some thoughts on the Turf Forum
(forum.turfgame.com/index)
in the appropriate place.
How
to turf
– we see complaints about things like e-bikes and car turfing.
Neither is against the rules although we appreciate that different
turfers have different views on these topics. We would normally try
to set zones that can’t be easily taken by car (so called
”car-turfing”) but this isn’t possible for every zone.
Armpitting is OK too but sometimes not that easy and again different
people have different views on it! Turfing
is part of everyday life for many of us and like everyday life, we
need to be kind and courteous to others – for example respecting
laws of the roads and private property. Turf Crew don’t generally
enforce these laws, that is a matter for local authorities and we
encourage everyone to turf in a safe and legal manner.
Issues – if there's something wrong with a zone, especially the location, Turf has an issue system where any turfer can report what is wrong with it and suggest a solution (issues.turfgame.com). The issue page is slow, so please please please be patient when submitting an issue, or there will be 2 or more reports made.
Issues can also be about things that are wrong with the application in any number of categories. Some issues are easy to fix, others nearly impossible. Some issues are out of the hands of Crew and has more to do with your phone and its mechanics. All issues are reviewed by Turf Crew members as soon as they have time. After zone making, issues are the thing zone makers in Crew spend the most time on.
Abuse
– we’ve recently seen quite a few cases of ‘Abuse’. This is,
for example, where rules are broken or people are perhaps offensive in the chat or where they have set a username that is generally
offensive. Reports of abuse can be made to abuse@turfgame.com
and
they will be picked up by a Crew member and acted on. We’ve even
seen recent cases where members of Turf Crew have themselves received abuse when
trying to manage abuse reports – emotions do run high sometimes but
this is really not acceptable and is somewhat disappointing!
There
are various sanctions that Turf Crew can apply for abuse – from
deleting parts of the chat (happens a lot when school children get
access to the game for the first time), to having a word with the offending turfer to being temporaroly or permanently banned from the chat function of the Turf app. A common form of abuse is ‘gps-spoofing’
where people ‘turf by computer’ and take zones without actually
being in the zone – where is the fun in that?! This will almost
certainly be a ban and account deletion.
The number of abuse incidents remains very small in relation to the number of turfers, let’s please try to keep it this way and respect all other turfers even if their objectives conflict with yours sometimes! Just a few of the things that keep Turf Crew occupied every round. Happy turfing!
And
finally a greeting from some Minnesotan turfers. They took part of
local celebration that the ”30 days of biking” challange was
done for 2023. Say hello to kelih, WBLSynapser and MNswedie from
Minneasota!
”Many Minnesota, U.S.A Turf Game players also participate in an international challenge called 30 Days of Biking (https://30daysofbiking.com/). 30 Days of Biking is a pledge to ride your bike every day in April and share your adventures online with the hashtag #30daysofbiking. The 30 Days of Biking challenge began in Minnesota, so many bike riders here participate.
Three Turfers attended a Minneapolis group ride on May 1 to celebrate the end of the challenge, and we split off the main group to take a few crowdy zones along the Mississippi River before catching up with the group again.
Turf Game and 30 Days of Biking go well together! If you have never tried the 30 Days of Biking challenge before, why not join us in April 2024?”
The zone with the three happy turfers is the 35W Bridge Memorial. The 13 pillars represent the 13 people who died when the bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River on August 1, 2007, and the names of the survivors are etched into the wall.
Turf Picture of the Month
This month's Turf Picture is of the zone PohjoisLautta taken by RogerThat990. Thanks to everyone who sent in your Turf pictures, keep 'em coming :)
For next Turf Insider we would like to see pictures relating to the Bonanza-feeling of "togetherness". The pictures does not have to be from the Bonanza, so this is as usual open to all turfers :) If you have a Zone picture you want featured as Turf Picture of the Month, send it to insider@turfgame.com Please include your Turf nick for recognition!
Turfa lugnt/Safe turfing!
//Munin with a lot of help from kjtindall
...if you want to contribute to future Turf Insiders, send your story to insider@turfgame.com :) C'mon and share your big and small stories with the Turf world.
Round winners – March 2023 (Round #153)
Congratulations to the winners of round March 2023: retsirK from Skåne had the time of his life going for Gold, Jomii from Värmland decided he needed another Silver and skäggfar from Västmanland took his first Bronze. Well done mates!
Upcoming events
If you are organizing an open event, don't forget to write to insider@turfgame.com a couple of months in advance to get the information about your event into the news letter :)
Bonanza 2023 in Umeå
The Bonanza in Umeå is happening soon, have you signed up, booked where to stay and arranged how to get there? The main event of the Turf World is organized by Turf Västerbotten on the 20th of May with events in two classes, a Bonanza banquet and lots of other fun activities. Sign up for the Bonanza 2023 can be found HERE. See you in Umeå in May! :)
Apart from the Bonanza, there are two more Events in the North of Sweden coming up. June is the best time of the year up there in my personal opinion (lived up there for the first 30+ years of my life), so if you have not been, go!
Luleå2023 in Luleå, Sweden 10th of June
More information will come closer to the date.
VbMidniteC23 in Umeå, Sweden 17th of June
Midnight Classic is back in Umeå and it is the only 2-hour event that takes place during two days, starting at 11 pm and finishing at 1 am. It really makes the most of the bright summer nights this far north in Sweden. Turf Västerbotten are currenlty very busy with the Bonanza, so very little information is available, but I am sure it will come, so keep an eye open HERE.
Gbg Open in Göteborg, Sweden 1st of July
Turf Göteborg will host the 10th in a row Gbg Open in Göteborg this year. Information about the event will be found HERE closer to the event.
ABOA Turf in Turku, Finland 5th of August, 2023
The Turku turfers have been planning an event for many years, and it has finally come to fruitation. How about visiting Finland this summer? I sure will!
”The oldest and boldest city of Finland, Turku (Åbo) invites all turfers to join the world's first Turf open event outside Sweden. It's a 2 hour foot event in the city centre around our beautiful river Aura. Turku is a city of seven hills and in the event you can conquer many of them. Turku is easy to reach from Sweden so we hope to see also many Swedish turfers in Turku! More info: https://aboaturf.webnode.fi/
Sincerely, Xtrmrunner”
I am sure the Turku turfers would love to see turfers from all over the Turf world at there Event, so be there! :)
Turf Awards 2022 – Time to vote!
Turf Awards is awarded to turfers who have made significant or particularly attentive achievements during the previous year or have been involved in an especially noted or spectacular zone takeover.
Crew couldn't help themselves, so they played a little April Fools day joke with the nominations, hope it gave you a chuckle and no hard feelings. 30 people voted and here is the results the category Turfer of the Year where ALL the nominations were FAKE.
The real nominations for 2022 are now up and you can vote HERE. Vote for someone you know or someone you think did something heroic, extra-ordinary or just plain crazy! It is all a part of Turf :)
Turf Clubs/Associations
A new section in Turf Insider for Club News and Club introductions. We have many Turf Associations around the Turf world. This is a space where they can get their news heard. Write to insider@turfgame.com if you have any Club news you want to see here :)
* Turf Skånes club championship takes place Saturday 13 May, read more here. We also want to remind about our monthly Turf meets (Turfträffar) which take place Thursdays after round starts. In April we meet in Malmö and in May in Helsingborg - see full calendar here. Turfträffar are open for all, you don't need to be member of the club :)
Turf Göteborg has been around for quite a few years and has regular monthly get-togethers and a few well organized events under their belt. Here is an introduction to the Club by happyf:
”We started in 2014 and had 60 members last year, mostly in the Gothenburg area. One of our activities is hosting an open event, GBG Open. On July 1st we will host it for the 10th time in a row.
We
also have our club championship for our members, normally in the
fall. Since we are situated in a large region, Västra Götaland, a
lot of zones are hard to reach without a car, so we organize
excursions where we join up and turf our way to some remote zones. One
year we visited Hindens rev, and last year we pointed the compass towards Västra Götaland's summit zone Galtåsen and after that a zone in a
large bog, Komossen. Of course there are more zones taken during our
trip.
The first Wednesday after each round start, we meet up in Gothenburg to discuss turf and whatever. The last couple of years we have been at Evas Paley in Gothenburg, close to the zone NonViolence. So if you are in the area then, please join us. We start at 18 o'clock. A couple of Sundays each summer, we meet in the large park Slottsskogen. Last year, and hopefully this year as well, we had mini-events then. We will post exact dates later on.
Check the Turf Göteborg Facebook page or read more about us (in swedish) on our web page, https://www.turfgoteborg.se/ ”
Spring supposedly sprung here in Uppsala earlier in March and then we were hit with lots of snow. I had time for one longer Turf ride with my summer bike, hopefully it will be able to come out soon again :) Although very few things are as beautiful as sunshine, blue skies and snow, but I am ready for some green leaves on the trees and an evening bike ride without needing extra lights.
Turf Picture of the Month
This months Turf Picture is of the zone TollarpFlower taken by modernangel. Most contributions this month were of snow, blue skies and sunshine. Turf Insider choose this month to focus on what is coming, and what has already come in certain parts of the Turf world.
If you have a Zone picture you want featured as Turf Picture of the Month, send it to insider@turfgame.com Please include your Turf nick for recognition!
Did you know...
...the issue reporting system is VERY slow. It is enough to press once when submitting an issue and then have patience, count to 500 ;) Many times the same issue gets reported 3-5 times because it feels like nothing is happening and the submitt button is pressed again and again and again... It IS happening, just very slow. Patience my dear! Thank you :)
Happy Easter!
Turfa lugnt/Safe turfing!
//Munin
...if you want to contribute to future Turf Insiders, send your story to insider@turfgame.com :) C'mon and share your big and small stories with the Turf world.
Round winners – February 2023 (Round #152)
Congratulations to the winners of round February 2023: Kygni from Norrbotten (formerly of Uppsala) took his third Gold in lovely winter conditions, Király from Skåne added another Silver to his medal row and Marcus_P from Hamburg turfed home his second Bronze. Well done mates!
Upcoming events
If you are organizing an open event, don't forget to write to insider@turfgame.com a couple of months in advance to get the information about your event into the news letter :)
Foot Event in Stockholm on April 29th
Turf08 invites everyone to a Foot Event on April 29th "somewhere in the southern part of Stockholm". It will start at 1 pm and last for 2 hours. There will be "fika" and prizes. More information closer to the date can be found HERE, including where the event will take place!
Bonanza 2023 in Umeå on May 20th
The Bonanza, the main event of the Turf World is organized this year by Turf Västerbotten on the 20th of May with events in two classes, a Bonanza banquet and lots of other fun activities. Sign up for the Bonanza 2023 can be found HERE. So far just over 160 turfers are registred. See you in Umeå in May! :)
Turf Awards 2022
Turf Awards is awarded to turfers who have made significant or particularly attentive achievements during the previous year or have been involved in an especially noted or spectacular zone takeover.
Nominations for Turf Awards 2022 closed on February 28th. Voting will open up in April, stay tuned!
Turf Clubs/Associations
A new section in Turf Insider for Club News and Club introductions. We have many Turf Associations around the Turf world. This is a space where they can get their news heard. Write to insider@turfgame.com if you have any Club news you want to see here :)
Turf Göteborg would like to invite new and old turfers, local and tourist turfers to their monthly “fika”. Come and join other turfers in Göteborg at café Evas Paley (close to the zone NonViolence) 6 pm on the first Wednesday in the new round. For the March round the meet-up is on the 8th of March.
Turf Stockholm has been around since 2014. Mr_Noodle wrote a short introduction for Turf Insider.
“The Turf association Turf08 Stockholms Län arranges events and Turf meetings in the Stockholm area. Currently the association has around 100 members. The association has arranged a number of Bonanza events, the latest one in 2019.
Both bicycle and walking
events are held annually, often as open events and are free for
everyone to join. And no event is held without some nice prizes to
event winners and coffee, tea and fika to everyone. And there has been
a number of barbecue meetings and shorter events over the years. The
association is also a sponsor for prizes to Turf winners in Stockholm
both for round winners and other turf events.
Next turf event is scheduled for April 29th, this time a walking event. So bring your mobile phone and a smile on your face and meet up in Stockholm. Our web site is http://nyheter.turf08.se
“
During the last round, many turfers have enjoyed the vivid Northern Lights playing in the skies during evenings. From Kygni in Luleå biking along one evening going for Gold to canon in Nyköping just going for a few zones after dinner, February was a good month to see Northern Lights in large parts of Sweden. Photo below by canon.
If you are lucky, you might even come across a moose as Kygni did between two zones.
Introduction to PaintHelper by praktikus
PaintHelper is a third party page where you can get help with ”painting the zones”, something very many turfers are addicted to. The turfer behind this page, praktikus, has been a turfer since 2014 and here is the story behind PaintHelper in his own words. Link to PaintHelper: painthelper.knzoon.se
”In recent years, I have become obsessed with what many turfers call ”painting”. That is, based on the colors that appear on the page "Map of my unique zones" on warded.se. I then experienced that after a while it became difficult to get an overview of how I best optimize my turfing in order to, for example, increase the amount of red zones. Just over a year ago, I was on sick leave due to burnout syndrome and during my recovery it was a fitting therapy to put this page together. Also very educational and fun :)
What can it be used
for?
As the name reveals, it is meant to help with painting the
zones in Turf. Firstly, it is easy to filter the zones both by the
number of takes and by Area/Municipality. Then you can, for example,
search for all zones in your municipality that have between 7 and 10
takes to see which ones are closest to turning orange (a minimum of
11 takes). Another nice feature is that it shows untaken zones in
the same map as taken zones. On warded you have to look at two
different maps to see both taken and untaken.”
I
have yet to try out PaintHelper, but if ”painting” zones fast and
in the most optimal order is your goal, then this is the page for you!
Turf Picture of the Month
This months Turf Picture is of the zone BorenPier taken by Miawita.
If you have a Zone picture you want featured as Turf Picture of the Month, send it to insider@turfgame.com Please include your Turf nick for recognition!
Turfa lugnt/Safe turfing!
//Munin
...if you want to contribute to future Turf Insiders, send your story to insider@turfgame.com :) C'mon and share your big and small stories with the Turf world.
