FamilieFrohne

Prices for a cup of coffee (filtered) were around EUR 1.80 in NRW last year in summer. Specialties like cappuccino were at EUR 2.20. Don't know if that has changed (as I were not in a café since last autumn) , but I read some articles on general price increases lately (due to the change of the VAT rate from the reduced 7% from Corona time to the usual 19%), but I don't think they doubled it. Will have a look and report on the next visit (hopefully soon).

First: Welcome back. That is just CAD $5,50 (or EUR 3,75) per month, which is nearly two cups of coffee in an average café in Germany. I know of other hobbies that require more money per month ... You are right, not many changes to the Waymarking website layout (the 1990ies still want their layout back). And as the website was created in 2005 Android smartphones were not even planned (first one was around 2007 if I remember right). But we waymarkers are a real small minority compared to the geocachers (~10.000 waymarkers, ~1.800.000 geocachers) , and the technical support and development for Waymarking is done one person, who has also to do some other things beside that. (Thanks again to Bootron, who keeps our game alive). Your request is a bit unspecific here. If you download GPX files, you usually import it into a program or GPS device in order to navigate to the intended points. As the GPX files generated for Waymarking do not contain cache specific information, they would not be usable for c:geo (or other programs that depend on cache information). So it would be a good idea to tell us about the use case in mind. If you just want to know, where the nearest waymark from your current position is, you could try my little helper here: https://wm.familie-frohne.net/jump.html

So you see the changes done to any category description after the poll as a violation of the acceptance of the community. Let's see. That would mean: We should lock the possibilty to change anything in the category once the community has voted upon. We would have to call for a vote when the leader, the officers or the mayority of the waymarkers think, they need to change something in the category. The community has to approve the change with at least simple better a 2/3 majority. I'm sure that this could be arranged somehow if the community really wants that feature (at least the locking of the category should be makeable). BTW: That would also apply to simplifying or expanding a category. Well ... here you are telling me to be like a politician, as I just expressed my wish to improve the game with the above post. And with this comparison you are also implying that I'm not trustworthy and likable, as I could change something that was not agreed upon. Would it be better, if I keep my opinion and my ideas to myself then, be a good sheep and nod to all someone else is writing, because they are longer part of the game than myself and thus know better? Sorry to disappoint you, but if I have something to say, I'll try - hopefully in a calm, constructive and matter-of-fact tone. Then why should we have officers at all when all waymarks should be approved? Did I hear something about them being a quality gate? Quality - really? And the next thought right in follow-up: Why should we have categories, when all is approved? You could collapse it to one main category which contains all waymarks - which would be finally just a collection of coordinates (sometimes with text and pictures).

If I understood you right, a category with no requirements to the text at all for posting is an ideal category: just a photo, the title, the coordinates and a simple short description and you are good to go (like in Giant 24h Vending Machines). Or even better: no text and not a photograph at all (like in the Bismarck towers - see attached image). As an officer you really do not have a guideline to the category, which makes it difficult to decide if the the waymark should be a fit to the category. And if you finally decline, it leads to (as I see it) fruitless discussions with the submitting waymarker. As we do not have general requirements to the submission of a waymark (like at least a mandatory picture and some english text in the long description), we in the officers role have to rely on the requirements and if they are not given, it often gets complicated. I agree, that some category requirements are too restrictive (like the Gazebo thingy you mentioned) and could be reworked. But I do not like to complicate things, I like a clear understanding, what should be acceptable for a specific category which currently has no requirements. That would really help.

Well - I think, that we have covered many topics, but there are still some ideas around here that may lead to a new category (e.g. the Bat Boxes). But it will be getting harder, to create a new category - more discussions, more strong headwind and denial. So the need to "close down the subject" is not really given. As officer in currently 19 categories, I (personally) think that perhaps we should first re-examine the existing categories, revise them if necessary, and define more clearly what is expected for a post in the category. Some of the categories have very few to no requirements, making it difficult to maintain or even increase a minimum level of quality. I'm sure, that this would be a hard task (probably one for Hercules?) and I'm also sure, that I'm quite alone here with my thinking on that topic. Yours, Erik.

@wayfrog: The category is now nearly two month active. May we repeat our request to exchange the icon? Thanks a lot, Erik.

Voting has started. Wish us luck ...

I like waterfalls and wild rivers. Listening to the flow of water (even if it is sometimes really loud) is giving me moments of inner peace. So I'd like to volunteer, even if I only had the opportunity to post only one in the category yet ...

Hmmm ... no reactions since the opening post on Friday. Normally I see some feedback on a new category within 24 hours latest ... Are all waymarkers out in the fields so that they do not have time to look into the forum?

Unnoticed probably by the most visitors of this forum a new category proposal for "Signs of the Past" is in peer review now. So cast your votes ... Edit: Before you ask: It is not my category and I'm not involved.

Yesterday I had to change the current version of PHP used for my website and therefore had to fix some modules, that were using now deprecated features. During that fix the daily import program started and garbled some of the categories in the statistics - unnoticed by me (but some of you already noticed and informed me - thanks for that). In consequence I will run a full import of all categories to get the numbers right again, but this may take a while to complete (24h to 36h depending on the network). That means the import would probably be done on Saturday evening or Sunday morning (Middle European Time / UTC + 1)). Until that time the statistic values may not be accurate. Sorry for the inconvenience. Yours, Erik.

Don't know. But I am pretty certain, that it wouldn't be me - mainly due to lack of knowledge (f.e. starting with the fact, that I don't know how to log in programmatically into Waymarking and the need to do so in a (yet) unknown runtime environment), lack of ambition (it would be a HUGE project for single person), the unknown requirements of that app (what features have to be in there?) and most of all: the lack of spare time (family, job and some hobbies (including geocaching and Waymarking) would get in the way).

Probably one of the emails (as are visits on my own waymarks) that were sent to the account you opened your membership with geocaching.com with? I changed the default email address to my current one but the visits (and some others) are still sent to the one I started with.

Then I may be one of the rare cases: I'm extremely curious about the outcome of a vote because it tells me how other officers think about a given topic. I even take some time to see the results of votes in the past to see how the decision was made, so I can learn from it. And yes, I also cast my vote on review votings started by me. I usually have an opinion when reviewing a waymark and when in doubt, I like to express this opinion by casting the vote - especially if I'm willing to decline. But I have a strong feeling that we are now discussing a different topic in this thread - we were actually talking about new officers.

Well, also a belated Merry Christmas to you (and the other waymarkers). Yours, Erik.

As I already posted two waymarks in that category, I may be able to help you out.

And again: Congratulations to achieving that goal It is also way more impressive, that you find the time to create new waymarks while doing also the officer job in 189 categories ...

Would also be OK for me to help you out ...

Can't give you a real advice, since I'm in Germany using a "medium" package of a german hoster for hosting the waymark statistics. But you may take a look at https://www.hostingadvice.com/how-to/web-hosts-by-annual-cost/ to get some suggestions.

Maybe US citizens know Costco in detail, but as a German I don't. To get an impression on what we are talking about, I had to do a lookup first (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco). While the company has some branches in other countries than the US, Mexico and Canada (~86%) the other continents aren't really noteworthy (Australia and NZ ~2% (16 stores), Asia ~8% (70 stores), Europe ~4% (37 stores with 29 of them in the UK), Afrika 0%). Additionally I don't like the mandatory membership (and the associated fee) before you are allowed to enter the store. Reading the category description (@ Grahame Cookie: Thanks for that image) I fear another batch of nondescriptive waymarks (with just the address as long description) coming our way. The intended use of variables would not compensate that lack of description. And despite the fact, that this is another commercial category, the description for the category is "too thin" for me, as there is nothing in the description about the company (and it's history).

If still needed, I could support you for "Arch Bridges" and "Roman Catholic Churches" ...

And another one, we visited in our vacation: Trollhättan in Sweden with about 48000 inhabitants. As we started exploring the city, there was no waymark in the radius of 10km ... Currently there are 29 waymarks published in 13 departments and four WM still waiting for review

90? ... I hope, I will reach that age and still be that productive. Wish you a happy birthday, Don. Stay well and healthy.

Indeed Waymarking is not as popular as geocaching - but Waymarking is fun for me (and some others) and that counts ... Some notes on the numbers: I don't know the actual numbers of geocachers - but if I remember right, there are about 3 million registered geocachers. Probably more, but use these 3 million as the base for this example. Actually we have only 9110 waymarkers, that have posted a waymark since the start in August 2005. And there were only 356 waymarkers actively posting waymarks this year (as of today). If we take this ratio (3 million geocachers / 356 active posters) we get nearly 8427 geocachers for one waymarker. So I think it would be no major problem for an active waymarker to find many places that could be waymarked.

As I said, I retrieved the approving officer out of the waymark listings - once on first import for each waymark - and store it in my database. So waymarks categories and the counts that were approved by you can be seen if you click on the specific user link on the page - in your case that whould lead you to https://wm.familie-frohne.net/list_user4.php?uuid=4a3df7f8-489e-42cf-8511-8748af6979c3 - listing all the categories and the count of approved waymarks. Hope this is useful ...