PISA-caching

That's interesting. So, if I take my Name PISACACHING, I can ignore the first letter "P" and start with the letter "I"? So that I get 74722224464 (N47° 22.224)? If I get this right, all I have to do is to find someone in Zürich then. That should be doable. For example, N47° 22.224 E8° 32.070 is at the "Alter botanischer Garten".

Here's another one in Melbourne

Reykjavík, Iceland: This one is probably not that old, but interesting, no?

I don't think so. I couldn't find any signature or sign and it's quite clumsy.

I think the officers of that category wouldn't agree. The description says "best view to an interesting location".

Today I walked through my hometown in a new area and suddenly I saw something strange. I have no idea what is for or what it was supposed to become. It looks like this: A huge concrete frame on four concrete columns. The top part looks quite weathered, so I doubt that work is still in progress. Left of it there are more concrete frames standing on the ground and those are filled with glass. So they work like windshields and probably also reduce the noise of the trains and cars. But if that frame should have the same purpose, why put it on columns? I searched for a plaque or something like that (might be a strange piece of art) but found nothing. Here's a photo from the other side (nothing spectacular to see through this frame): And a link to Google Maps. So, does anybody have an idea what this frame might be? And has anybody else also seen things that would fit in a (fun) category "WTF is that?" :-)

The question is: What kind of prove is accepted for this category? Here in Vienna, we also have a hotel that once was a brothel, but they avoid mentioning that on their website. I found the info in an online article about the prostitution in the old days of Vienna. The article doesn't mention when the brothel was closed and I have no idea how trustworthy the author is. In an article of an old newspaper I read about a man whose mother in law had a brothel. They also mention the exact address. But again I couldn't find any info about when the brothel closed. Seems like a tough task to find a valid waymark that is additionally worth visiting and not just another boring building.

Yes, I read the description, but "interesting enough to stop and admire" is quite subjective. ;-)

Will they also be accepted if they don't look as spectacular as most of the other waymarks in that category? One of the two holy doors I have seen so far is just a quite regular door with the words "Porta Sancta" painted on the top part of the doorframe.

I have (with no success). The category "Outdoor Stations of the Cross" (open enrollment: OFF) has a leader and 2 officers. One of the officers had his last login on 12/12/2012. The other two I have sent an E-Mail via their geocaching account, because that's where they had their last login. In both e-mails I offered to help reviewing and both e-mails remain unanswered. Hopefully, they will pay more attention, if they receive emails from a site admin, but I wouldn't be surprised, if they have a special mail account for geocaching/Waymarking that they never check for new mails.

Sounds like a perfect plan. Thanks a lot.

So, instead of depending on a small group of users, you prefer to depend on one site admin? If we continue to do it that way, this is the future I predict: More and more categories will be managed by one site admin. He will have to become familiar with subjects that he is not interested in and review waymarks according to the category descriptions, that he didn't write and shouldn't change. Sooner or later, he and/or Groundspeak will not be happy with the situation and probably take steps that we don't like. Every system that depends on one person will fail sooner or later. Don't get me wrong, I appriciate the site admins work a lot and I also appriciate that they volunteer to review waymarks, but I would be happier, if the system would work as it should. If I tell others about Waymarking and have to tell them that some categories are reviewed by site admins, because the category is in the hands of users, who haven't logged in for years, they will probably not be too enthusiastic about joining this community. PS: Too bad that I'm not a site admin at Groundspeak. If I was, you wouldn't be so afraid of me. :-)

Ok, got it, but what is the alternative? Shut down the Waymarking servers? If a waymarker leaves the site without thinking of the future, he/she should loose his/her rank and make room for others who are willing to invest their time. And, like I said my first intention is not to throw out users who are inactive for a specific time, but to make it possible for at least one new reviewer to join the group without depending on the cooperation of inactive users.

100% agreed. I have seen very good geocaches, that lost their owners. One day the logbook was full or the box lost or stolen and nobody in the geocaching community would say "Let's keep this dead geocache, because the owner had this great vision of a wonderful geocache." If they are gone, they are gone. Either they took steps to pass the geocache to a new owner or it is archived to make room for a new one. And, I don't even want to ruin their vision. I don't want to change the characteristics of the category. I just want to have someone who is able and willing to review future waymarks. All I would do is to keep the thing going, maybe update broken links in the description and IF the Waymarking community has a valid reason to change the description of the category, I would try to find more officers and discuss and vote the changes like every leader would do it.

Has anybody ever seen a category that came back to live on its own? I guess that's almost as rare as a total eclipse. ;-) In my humble opinion, it doesn't matter whether there is one or onehundred abandoned categories. Site admins have their duties and we should post, review and visit waymarks. There's a system of leaders and reviewers that worked very good for a long time. And it would continue to work properly, if officers/leaders wouldn't leave without taking a few easy steps to make sure that the category can live on. We don't have to remove leaders, we just need the opportunity to add an active reviewer, if a group has completely run out of active reviewers/leaders. That's all. And I don't get the point of Manville Possum. You don't want categories to be taken over from active members, because "what we end up with is just that one group that controls all of Waymarking" and instead we let one site admin do all the work? I'm just officer in 2 categories and I offered to do a third category. I don't want to be the leader, although I think I would be a better leader than someone who obviously has no interest in the hobby anymore. And, I definitely don't belong to "one group that controls all of Waymarking", if at all that group exists. From my point of view, there are members that are very active and I'm more than grateful for their tremendous efforts. I agree that the site admins help to keep the site going, if they review waymarks, but if we manage to run the categories without their help, it would help to not loose further members and maybe find a few new ones.

Wow, looks great.

"Outdoor Stations of the Cross" seems to have no active reviewers anymore. All the waymarks of the last few months have been published by Wayfrog and Waywizard. :-( I sent an E-Mail to the leader via their geocaching profile and offered to become a reviewer, but received no answer so far.

Talking about lists. There's also a list of holy doors in the USA: https://catholicpilgrimagesites.wordpress.com/holy-doors-of-mercy/united-states-holy-doors/ Ooops. Too late. :-)

Wow, the page with the map of the holy doors in Germany is great. I did a little research too and found this interesting (German) article: http://www.katholisch.at/aktuelles/2015/12/10/dutzende-heilige-pforten-in-sterreich Neither a (complete) list nor a map, but it seems that they are quite prevelant in Austria. Another German article shows a video and a photo gallery of the opening of a holy door in Klagenfurt in 2015: http://www.kath-kirche-kaernten.at/dioezesanbischof/newsdetail/bischof_schwarz_oeffnet_heilige_pforte_des_klagenfurter_domes#1 About 2 weeks ago I was there and the iron door is still there and it doesn't look like they will remove that huge iron gate. I just didn't know what it was when I saw it. :-) As far as the other church I mentioned in the first posting. That door is a regular door with the words "Porta Sancta" permanently painted above it. So, both don't seem to be holy doors for just a short period of time. I checked two of the churches in Germany and both had just a sign on or above the door that is easy to remove. However, I think that it should still be easy to prove the Status of a porta sancta, because in most cases there is information about it that can be found online.

Lately I took pictures of a church here in Austria and noticed that the church has a "Porta sancta". When we were in Rome we had seen the Porta Sancta (The Holy Door) of the St. Peter's Basilica, but I thought that this is the only one in the world. After some research I learned that Pope Francis allowed to each Roman Catholic diocese throughout the world to designate one or more local Holy Doors. Now I wonder, if there are enough holy doors worldwide and interest of the Waymarking community in this topic to create a new category or should I just post it in the "Doorways of the World" category?

I use this from time to time and it's quite useful, if you just want to have a quick look at what waymarks are around.

My humble opinion: I don't have a big problem with crosspostings, but to simply use the age of something for a category creates a mixture of objects that don't share anything but their age. I personally like the bridge categories where all bridges are of the same type. One of my favorites is the "Stone Bridges" category. Within such categories you see brdiges, that are long or short, old or new, ugly or beautiful etc. but they are all of the same type. Browsing through such categories I find it interesting to compare the different bridges, but to have a collection of old bridges is not that interesting to me. Same goes with the old churches and old restaurants. But as the beginning of my posting says, this is just my humble opinion.

Out of curiousity: Does that refer to the category grid of posted AND visited waymarks (or just one of the two)? If I find or post a "Mountain Bike Trailhead" I will have my first 3x3 Bingo. For a complete horizontal line I need at least another 5 (not so easy) categories.

Yes, of course. You need one photo of the label and one or two photos of the actual location. For example: and And for every visit you just need a photo of the location.

There are tons of postcards out there that show the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and so on, but I just found one postcard waymark for each of them. After some more search I found one location that has 3 postcard waymarks. That's no big deal. I don't think that people would overflow this category, especially if we limit it to one waymark per company per location.