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That's a GREAT idea!!! TPTB have said that they are going to do some rearranging of catagories and, presumably they reserve the right to rearrange waymarks. So there is a Catagory of "Waymarks TPTB Don't Think Should Be Here But Have Enough Redeeming Social Value That They Won't Be Deleted". Then what they think is garbage is moved there. The rest of us can browse the area and decide if we agree or if we really would like to set a record in the number of dog carcasses that we can find.

How about when the waymark owner goes AWOL and the waymark changes? Do we just depend on the logs to see that the waymark needed to be archived a year ago? This problem has bothered me on GC as long as I've been here. Except for a couple of caches I've always had to drive at least 10 miles one way to do a cache. You get there and you find a problem with the cache (missing parts of a multi, container with 2 inches of water inside, log book was full 3 months before) and the owner is gone. Today, around here, it is even worse. Hurricane Ivan cleaned house and very few owners are around to replace/archive their cache. I see one difficulty 1 that was last found July 3, 2003. Several DNFs in the past 2 years but it sure seems a waste of electrons to still have this. But it won't get archived until someone verifies that the container no longer exists because "we don't want geolitter". So can't we have a rule that says all waymarks expire (or automatically go up for adoption in a pinned thread) after a fixed time unless the owner responds? The same would apply for catagories except the time limit would be much shorter.

Correction - are no longer allowed. I've done 2 (JourneyBOT 007 and KLINGON BIRD of PREY Micro-Traveler) and really enjoyed both. There were grandfathered as far as I can tell. But they do pose problems and the only way to treat them today is as a Travel Bug. You want a moving box? Buy a Travel Bug tag and put it on an ammo can and then find a cache big enough to hold it. Ok, buy a magnetic keyholder and a Travel Bug tag and more people will be able to find a cache it will fit in.

If the shoe fits... I did it for locationless Fire Fighting Vehicles and Former Fire Fighter. You will notice the super-lazy cut and paste. But it fits the requirements for an active Fire Fighting Vehicle (IMHO and it wasn't rejected by the owner). It was also retired from fire fighting. Since I posted those logs I have seen it out working on bilboards. It still fits the requirements for both LCs and I can imagine there are others out there that do also. It might not be exactly what either LC owner was looking for but if either didn't like it they could cancel my log or change their rules. BTW, I had the pictures and was ready to do it also for a military LC and also the flag LC but the military half got logged the day before I came to log it. Actually I didn't plan either of these. I searched all of the LCs and picked the ones I wanted to do. When I found one that fit multiple catagories, I was shameless. Finally, note the "b" in the quote. It can be done.

I took all the needed pictures last night and went to add them this morning. I went to My Page/My Waymarks Selected /Edit for the first one. I got the editing page for the waymark. I had used yesterday with no problem. Then I went to the right to /Upload Image for this McDonald's Restaurant Got: Server Error in '/' Application. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is no row at position 0. Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.IndexOutOfRangeException: There is no row at position 0. Source Error: An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below. Stack Trace: [indexOutOfRangeException: There is no row at position 0.] System.Data.DataRowCollection.get_Item(Int32 index) +63 Groundspeak.Web.Waymarking.WaymarkType..ctor(Guid WaymarkTypeGUID) +137 Waymarking.UI.WM_Upload.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) +270 System.EventHandler.Invoke(Object sender, EventArgs e) +0 System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +67 System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +35 System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain() +750 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.2300; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.2300 I then tried /View Logs for this Waymark in the same area on the same Waymark and that works. Isn't job security neat?

Once again the little kid throws a banana peel in front of the long march of progress. But back to the topic, no comments on the time limit for editing? I was not aware that there was any limit on GC until just the other day when I finally saw that I had a message from one of TPTB had asked me to edit a message I had left in a forum. I replied that I would immediately edit the posting but when I went to click edit - no edit button. Spent some time looking for edit buttons and doing test messages and discovered there is a time limit. Still don't know exactly what it is (I know, there's probably a FAQ in plain sight.) When I saw the note in the email I thought 1 hour was way too short. I would not normally get the email in an hour so, in that case, I don't care that the logger can no longer edit the log. As a logger I would want more than an hour for such a special posting. Forum postings go much quicker. Last Tuesday it was moving so fast here that I had trouble keeping up. Allowing editing back even 10 minutes could have caused chaos if people decided they wanted to start changing their opinions based on what somone else said. I have no idea how you implement the time limit for deciding whether to include an edit button on each message on a page. But I would assume that it is not hard coded into each page creation module. I would assume there is a call to a routine/object that contains the check logic. Does a variable for the time length get passed? Given that there is or should be different times passed for each page creation, can we discuss what those times should be? I wouldn't have spent this much time on this message if I didn't think 1 hour was WAY too short for logs and WAY too long for forums. OR--- Could you forget times and look at the next posting? If no one else has posted to the topic (log or thread) allow editing of the last message. Now all you have to do is create the page and then go back to the last message added and add an edit button. (Personally I like the time limit.)

My impression is that the evolution began here and evolved in the next couple of posts to my preference. Toy? McToy? WayMark? WayMac!

Ask all you like. I've got some pretty good answers and I'm not afraid to give them. You can find all the military bases you want including coordinates on the web. You can also find some pretty detailed photos of things that you would never see even if you cut through the fence and outran the MPs. All from pictures taken from a hundred miles above and posted for everyone to see.

I notice on the email that I received when someone logged my first WayMac that there is a note saying "The owner of this log will have one hour from the time of the initial posting to edit this log. After this hour has expired, the posted log will no longer be editable." I am all in favor of limiting the time and then having logs cast in stone but is one hour long enough? I know I often say things that I think about later and wish I had elaborated on (or said less). A one hour limit on forum posts is probably too much. A one hour limit on logs (cache or waymark) is probably too little, IMHO. I would suggest a 24 hour limit on logs and a ten minute limit on forum posts if I were in charge so now you know why you don't EVER want to put me in charge of ANYTHING.

Sounds good to me. Consistency is important. Some will like Waymarking, some Benchmarking, and some Geocaching. Treat them equally. Either caches, benchmarks, and waymarks are all on the same page, individual tabs, or independent with at most a link to another site. They are three different games. P.S. My vote is for WayMac's.

I'm not sure I understand the "upgraded/downgraded" part. In the log everyone can vote on the "quality" of the waymark. Fine. We can sort by those reviews? Now can we also sort by the number of logs during a given period so that we can eliminate those that people aren't interested enough in to even log? I add during a period so that a transferred locationless with 2000 logs doesn't swamp a one week old waymark with 100 logs. But then how do we differentiate between a waymark in Manhattan with 10/day and even more interesting one in Kansas with 1/month? But then does 5 reviews voting 5 in a year mean people like this one better than a 3 average for 1000 logs during the same period? Or does it mean that 5 kids decided to vote each other's waymarks while everyone else thought they were too bogus to even bother with? Can we add a vote of 0 for "I came. I saw. I was bored and didn't bother." I'm glad this is your problem and not mine.

Yes.

I like it. Famous is in the eye of the beholder. The waymark listing should require a description of who it is we are finding and why we are looking. We first read the descriptions and if WE decide the person is of enough interest, then we go find the grave. If I list a waymark for the grave of Doug Parker, my childhood friend who was the first to jump from the William Street Bridge, and you don't think Doug rates famous for just that one incident, then you don't have to visit the grave.

I don't see the problem. Most plants have some type of visitor center. I think it is an overreaction to think listing coordinates is a danger. As said, you can get a pretty good satellite photo of even the most restricted areas just by knowing the general location. For example: I know there is a plant somewhere around Clinton Illinois. I Google Clinton Nuclear. DOE list for Clinton with links to every other plant in Illinois. You can quickly find that the town of Clinton is located at 40°10'N 88°54'W. From there it only takes a few minutes at LostOutdoors to find 40.171716N -88.835769W and I would think that this would be a bigger threat than people showing up at the fence with a couple of kids and a GPS.

I like it. Just make sure you know how to verify that it is legal.

Depends on the location. In the Europe 100 years is like yesterday. In the western US 1955 is ancient history. IMHO, you need a more flexible timespan. Something like "before the current government was established".

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We love you Wasco but don't bring all those people out here. We like our privacy. If some of us want to go Hollywood, we'll find a way to sneak in some other catagory.

I like the idea since I see many cache logs where people mention specific special trees that they noticed on the way. Usually it is a large hollow trunk or such but I also made a special effort once to pick a specific pine tree for logging a locationless. Very photogenic. Hard to govern but the idea has merit.

You folk are moving too fast for me. Yes, great idea. I was thinking military forts but all of the ones around here would fit that catagory. On the other hand, there are some which would also fit WWI fortifications.

It would seem that there are two problems: the math and the hide. Looking back at the times of our PMs, I finished all the math in about 90 minutes including the time to recheck and find a dumb error. The only thing left for me would be to find all the stages. With my previous experience that might take several months. I wouldn't base any of the rating on the math. Anyone can see what needs to be done. Either you know how to do the math or you don't. For me the math was a 1 but for my neighbor (even with her PhD) it would be a 5. There is no way to fairly rate that but it is also unnecessary because just looking at the problems tells each individual how hard it will be for them to solve. I'm not certain of the value of the hints you added. If you know what to do with checksums you should have had no trouble getting the answers the first time. I would think about hide hints since, from the DNFs, that seems to be where people are having trouble. IMHO the rating should be based only on the difficulty of the hides. From the notes written so far, the 3 rating doesn't seem too low. They must really be hidden well. I wouldn't change anything for at least a month. If still no FTF after a month then I might start adding hide hints. I would NEVER add math hints because that seems to have been the idea (and a good one).

I have used http://lostoutdoors.com/newmap.html to get coordinates. You start with approximate coordinates on a map zoomed out a bit and put a mark on it. Then you adjust the coordinates a bit and add another mark. It doesn't take long to get about as close as a GPS on the ground would do.

I would tend to give more weight to the final find difficulty. If the puzzle is very hard but can be done at home, then I wouldn't give the puzzle part very much weight. The finder can see how hard it is without leaving their chair. The idea of a difficulty rating is to give people a clue what to expect if they decide to go for the cache. If they can see it is really hard to come up with the coordinates before leaving home, but they get past that, then a 5 rating on a dead easy find would be misleading. On the other hand, if the clues to the puzzle can't be obtained until you are out in the field, then the puzzle difficulty should be heavily weighted. Nothing worse than going after a cache (especially one some distance from home) only to find later that you don't have the resources to complete the task. If you drive 50 miles and only then find that you can't solve the puzzle, then it could be a 5 for a cache that is sitting under a big arrow.

Test?

2(PI)R is to calculate the circumference of a circle with a given radius. (PI)R² is for the area of a circle with a given radius. And if we want to get real picky we could determine an arc with a length of 25 miles on an earth sized sphere, then scribe a circle around the midpoint at that distance and calculate the surface area enclosed on the sphere. That would encompass slightly more than a 25 mile radius circle on a two dimensional plane. And if we wanted to get super-picky we could estimate elevation changes within the bounds of the scribed area which would again increase the surface area. I believe fractal math would prove that the area becomes infinite as the size of each piece surveyed approaches zero. But if someone wants to point out that the earth is actually an elipsoid... I'm not even going there. I think I'll stick with my original "about 2000 square miles" because it still means caches are few and far between around here.