How about this:

When you write a new trip report, you get the full form to fill out with all the parameters.

But when you read trip reports, you don't have to wade through this information every time (which you care about only in relatively rare cases). There is a "show/hide set and setting for this trip" button at the top, and when you click that, you get the details.

too much scrolling for you?
I don't know if this is really necessary, since one can easily distinguish between the template and the report, hence it#s just a matter of scrolling down, which doesn't cost too much energy or muscle agitation in the finger... Then again I see no harm in this suggestion either, so if *someone* wants to program it, why not.

cheers

^perfect sense.

I'm all for it.

edit: To clarify: I was always in favor of the template, i just think the proposal could make a report easier to read (no scrolling). The question is: Is the template info an essential part of the report or just additional information ?

Maybe you can just choose to ignore it if you don't like to read it? The same way people choose to use the template if they like it.

I don't like using templates myself because I am a poet, but some people seem to really benefit from having all the data laid out in list-style like that.

Yep, that's the reason for this suggestion. I have the feeling that filling out templates belongs to science, while writing trip reports is an art, and the two should not be intermixed, in order to preserve the effectiveness of both. (What a familiar theme.) I feel that the appearance of all this metadata before a report tends to invoke a scientific "set" in the reader, which makes it harder to consider the report as art (I have to switch back to right-brain activity at the right spot).

(One could of course argue that the unification of the scientific template and the poetic report is handy, because it prepares readers for the upcoming unification of science and religion, or left and brain right activity. In this case, my uncomfortable feelings may be just reactions of an old-school mind that cannot yet accept that it is possible to experience the world in two domains at the same time. )

Yes that exactly!

science and art definitely can be intermixed. I really don't see how they interfere with one another - IMO it just adds another layer to the report making it more integral, stimulating more parts of our being and giving us the ability to better respond to the ops because of the more complete set of information we are given. There are so many different aspects to a trip, I don't see why they shouldn't all be present in the report.

I know we're not arguing the presence, but somehow I just don't see why it#s a problem to have it visible at all times. Do you guys really feel it detracts from the experience of reading the report, just because there are some numbers at the top? I mean the report section at the end is still freestyle... can be poetry, art, anything. I don't see the problem...