Summary
Camping is unconscious persistence.
It occurs when effort increases but improvement does not.
When detected, reassess mode or apply klappy://canon/methods/pivot-on-inversion.
Trigger
Indicators include:
- Repeated refinement with diminishing gains
- Rephrasing dissatisfaction without structural change
- Constraint accumulation without simplification
- Increased intensity with declining coherence
- "Almost there" language paired with worsening output
Camping is a pattern, not a metric.
Why It Matters
Camping produces:
- Escalation of commitment
- Structural degradation
- Illusion of productivity
- Emotional amplification
It is the failure mode of unconscious persistence.
Severity
- Shallow plateau — Suggest reassessment.
- Flat plateau — Recommend pivot.
- Negative slope — Interrupt and require explicit mode decision (see
pivot-on-inversion).
See Also
klappy://canon/principles/progress-over-perfection— camping is the failure mode this principle names as momentum