Turf insider June 2021

Revision as of 18:17, 13 June 2021 by Ojarnstr (talk | contribs) (Created page with "none|700px ==Round winners== Congratulations to the winners of round 131: Welshman from Region:Lounais-Suomi|Lounai...")
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Turf insider banner.jpg

Round winners

Congratulations to the winners of round 131: Welshman from Lounais-Suomi biked home his third Gold and set a new round record of 2.191,595 points, féarglas from Scotland added a fourth silver to her collection and Artful from Scotland turfed home his first bronze medal while happily exploring new places. Well done mates!

Bonanza 2021

If you have not already booked the date, this year's Bonanza will be held in Örebro on Saturday the 4th of September. More information will be available at the end of June, so keep an eye on the home page :)

Midnight Classic for the 8th time in Umeå - 12th - 13th of June

This long-running event goes over two days, and yet is the normal 2 hour length. It starts at 11 pm on Saturday and finish at 1 am on Sunday. It takes advantage of the lovely light summer nights in Northern Sweden. If you don't know what to do this Saturday, head to Umeå :)

inbjudan-till-midnight-classic-2021

Göteborg Open -3rd of July, also for the 8th time!

Another long-running event is set for the middle of the summer on the west coast of Sweden. Why not plan to spend 2 hours of your vacation this year competing by foot or by bike with other turfers?

gbg-open-2021

Both events are following the guidelines for a Corona safe get-together and there will, unfortunately, be very limited social time.

Thoughts from a new zone maker

Turf insider interviewed StarDust, one of the first zone makers in the last issue. This time one of our newest zone makers have answered some questions: inda7 is located in Umeå, Västerbotten.

When did you take your first zone?

18th of March 2014.

What part does Turf play in your life?

Turf is always included daily in some way and the activity varies according to the season, so everything between only taking the home zone and to holiday planning.

How did it happen, you becoming a zone maker?

I was asked if it could be something for me and I answered yes.

How was the training?

Very instructive and with a good set-up.

What was the biggest surprise during your 'zone maker training'?

That a small rectangle on a screen can get so much criticism ;)

Are you looking at zones differently today? If yes, in what way?

Yes, I have more of a "here there should have been a zone" in focus.

What is the most important aspect of making a good zone to you?

That the zone is placed in a place that many people want to visit.

All the new zone makers started out by helping out in the UK and Germany and then got a chance at some areas in Sweden. inda7 did very well with placing zones in my home area of Uppsala, two on my daily route to work - she read old posts in the Forum, so no unwarranted nudges from me ;) The zones she made during April in Uppsala are highly appreciated and visited, toting take points of 65, 80 and 95. So I can attest she is living up to her idea of the most important aspect of zone making: placing them in places many turfers visit!

Let's talk about Abuse – the high-lights

Some years ago, Turf Insider had an in-depth piece about abuse in Turf. Sometimes it is good to re-use old texts and remind the community about how not to behave.

Abuse is when turfers take advantage of the game in a negative way and break the few rules that exist. Since Turf Crew are not all-seeing, any turfer that discover a rule violation can write to abuse@turfgame.com. Do not blame or question the behaviour of a specific turfer on social media or in other public forums, since it rarely comes with any good, but could be devastating if the accused was not doing anything wrong. Report your suspicion to the abuse-mail. Different actions can be taken by Turf Crew depending on the kind of abuse and in some cases an assessment has to be done with regards to how serious the violation is and if it is a repeat offence.


The most severe rule violation is ”gps spoofing” where the turfer is fooling the game to believe the gps of the phone (and the turfer) is in a specific zone while being somewhere else, usually at home by a computer. This is often done by newbies excited about trying their 'hacking' skills. This kind of abuse always result in the account being shut down/banned.


Unsuitable Turf nicks are changed by Turf Crew when brought to the attention of Turf Crew via the abuse-mail and the turfer is informed by e-mail about why the nick was inappropriate.

Another kind of abuse that can lead to repercussions are foul language in the chats in the Turf app. The first step is usually a short temporary chat-ban (the turfer can still use the app and take zones, but can no longer write in the chats). If a short temporary chat-ban is not enough to deter the turfer from abusing the chat privilegas, a longer chat-ban is put in place, sometimes lasting 'forever'. In really severe cases, the account can be shut down. Turf Crew can also ”clean” the different Turf chats by removing the foul language if it is deemed necessary. Again, Turf Crew is not all-seeing, so if your think your chats are in need of cleaning up, e-mail the abuse-mail.

Personal Turf goals

We can not all aim for the Gold medal in every round. At least I have never been tempted to spend most of my waking hours every day for four or five weeks on my bike. So I set other goals for myself and my every-day turfing. Because it is something I do every day. For me Turf is the best daily-exercize motivator, and I bike to and from work in all kinds of weather. About one hour in the morning and 30 min after work, since I am a morning person and after work I am hungry and want dinner :)

For quite some time I have been working towards 100.000 takes by going for at least 50 takes per day and last round I finally reached this goal, after 7 years, 2 months and 2 days making it an average of 38 takes per day since I started turfing. That does not sound so hard, does it? ;) I am lucky that I have plenty of zones on my way to and from work, and I also have several different routes I can take if the zones are blocked.

Another goal of mine is to take at least 50 unique zones every round, in average over the year. It is much easier to achieve this goal during summer when the weather is nice and you often go on 1-2 day trips to near-by towns. When I started out, one goal was to take a unique zone each session...this became hard already after a few weeks ;)

Staying put in League 5 has for a long time also been a round goal for me. It is becoming harder and harder. One year ago, scoring 25.000 points per week was more than enough to be 'safe' from being demoted to Leage 6. This is no longer the case, in more series in League 5, you will need at least 50.000 points per week to be sort-of safe. You can always be unlucky and end up in a series where everyone turfs like the devil and then it is what it is.

After periods of extended sick leave and inability to Turf, the goals have been lower. That is the beauty of Turf, we can set our own goals accordingly to our life situation and where we live, work and play.

Report issues in English, please!

Since the beginning of this year, we have international zone makers in Turf Crew and since it is the zone makers that attend to the zone issues, please try to write your issue in English, even if it is located in a non-English speaking country. Many of you already do, so keep up the good work!

Did you know...

...that during round 131 a total of 9491 new Turf accounts were created world wide? 4984 of these took at least one zone. The top six countries with newbies were Sweden (4750), The UK (101), Finland (60), USA (27) and Norway and Denmark (both 16),

Turfa lugnt!/Safe turfing!

//Munin

...if you want to contribute to future Turf Insiders, send your story to insider@turfgame.com :)