A few people have asked whether I could add a box for additional comments when submitting a road report.
It's something I considered when I first started building Passable, and I can certainly see why it would be useful. Sometimes the options available don't quite describe what you've seen, and being able to explain things in your own words would help.
The difficulty is what happens to those comments afterwards.
If they're displayed publicly, I'd need to keep an eye on what's being submitted to prevent spam, advertising or inappropriate comments. And if they're only visible to me, I'd need to review them individually and decide whether they should affect the road status.
At the moment, Passable relies on a simple set of reporting options that can be processed automatically. That means people can submit observations quickly, and the information can be used without me having to check every report.
As I'm developing and maintaining Passable in my spare time, that's pretty important!
I'd much rather improve the reporting options themselves as I learn more about how people use the tool. That way, reports can remain quick and easy to submit while still providing useful information.
So, for now, I'm keeping things simple.
If you've ever found yourself struggling to describe a road's condition using the available options, I'd be interested to hear what was missing. Feel free to leave a comment below.
Tom