DougK

The problem with this waymark is that the Superlatives category description explicitly says FIRSTs are not to be accepted here, but should be submitted to the FIRSTs category.

Greetings and Happy New Year to all! I've been gathering and analyzing information again. Here's a nugget of info: From the list of Top Waymark Posters, as of Jan 8, 2018, these observations can be made: One quarter of all waymarks have been posted by the top 12 waymarkers. One third of all waymarks have been posted by the top 21 waymarkers. One half of all waymarks have been posted by the top 50 waymarkers. There's also a new study of categories/groups and leaders/officers at Waymarking Group/Category Analysis. A link to this study is also available at the bottom of the Waymarking Stats homepage. Everything at Waymarking Stats has been freshened up. Enjoy! Let me know if you have questions or don't understand something.

How do you define a sand dune to waymark? Is there a minimum height? Is there a minimum width? Do you eliminate all common sand embankments on beaches everywhere? What makes some dunes more interesting than others? Will this category end up being a compilation of piles of sand at beaches everywhere? If so, then my interest tails off.

My objection to any seasonal category is that there's nothing to visit during much of the year.

Are the stops numbered or intended to be visited in a certain order? If, yes, then the coordinates should be near the "beginning". If the stops along the trail can be read and enjoyed independent of each other, then you could start anywhere on the "8". Unless this "breaks" some existing Lucky 7, then I'd consider this central start point an OK change. Giving visitors the choice of walking either circle or both makes good sense. To give your visitors more option in walking the trail, it might be nice to include the coordinates of the outward points of the two circles (Friedhof and Schiffmeisterhaus) of the "8" to give the option of visitors taking the tour from either extreme point.

I don't think any waymarks should ever be archived. Just because it's not getting visits today, doesn't mean someone who takes up Waymarking in the future might have already taken a picture and post a visit when they realize that they have photos of a waymark location, that is GONE, RELOCATED, MOVED or whatever.

I see these best of "whatever" awards EVERY year from several communities near me awarded to businesses. There're are literally dozens of these award-winning places, like dentists, dry cleaners, real estate agents, dog groomer, yoga studio, hair saloon, bar/pub, hardware store, florist, plumber, veterinarian, nail saloon, and auto mechanic, just to name some that won't already fit in other existing categories. Multiply the local awards I see near me by the number of places around the planet by the number of possible years awards could have been given and I see over-prevalence everywhere. This will end up being the Waymarking community celebrating/publicizing these businesses, one more time in addition to the initial awards. The current general attitude among the Waymarking community seems to that businesses do not need to be brought into this fold. I don't think common, even "best of", businesses deserve our recognition. They are not as worthy as award-winning architectural prizes, which are much more interesting and lasting.

That's one conclusion. It could also be that some WMers are lazy and some are cheap.

Prediction: GS will use the same algorithm used when geocaching hit GCZZZZ. It went to GC10001 and they cycled through the same numbers as before. Therefore after WMZZZZ, will be WM10001 and so on.

In the Group FAQ, http://www.Waymarking.com/help/group.aspx?f=1 It states: A Premium Membership is required to hold an Officer position. In Oct, 2016, I surveyed the 1095 categories at that time and found that 851 waymarkers managed all those categories. Of those 851 officers, 307 were not premium members, so clearly GS/Waymarking does not enforce this requirement. Study: http://Waymarking.altervista.org/stats/Group_Analysis_2016-10-26.html

If the category just became active, how can there be a waymark approved three days before?

The number of categories on the Waymarking home page went up to 1108 today, but there are no new categories anywhere!

I think there was a discussion of these types of radio for airplane navigation, some time ago. It lost momentum, because in today's world, it was deemed too dangerous to be approaching these stations because authorities might consider you a threat. They're usually fenced off and protected from unwanted visitors, similar to cell towers, because they are critical infrastructure. Attracting hobbyists to come to these could be unsafe and undesirable.

It's never to late to undo mistakes. These can be re-evaluated and declined as invalid, not following the category description.

And why do posts I make, totally unformatted, cause this gibberish to appear in my posts? 





 I happened to look at my geocaching profile today and all this gunk was stored in my Forum Signature. I cleared it out.

And why do posts I make, totally unformatted, cause this gibberish to appear in my posts? 





 I happened to look at my geocaching profile today and all this gunk was stored in my Forum Signature. I cleared it out.

This list is kept up to date: Waymarking Icons in Alphabetic Order or: All Waymarking Icons in Alphabetic Order They're anchored at the Waymarking Stats home page.

These tend to be local, one-time community art promotions. My city of San Jose did the same thing with shark figures (for their hockey team) a few years back. I seen other local promotions using horses, elephants and whatever. They are unlikely to achieve a category of their own due to their non-globalness. Your camels would probably be accepted into Figurative Public Sculpture

And why do posts I make, totally unformatted, cause this gibberish to appear in my posts? 







Changing the format of a date field to free format like this would probably caused loss of the data in this field on every existing waymark in the category.

A couple of reasons that I don't make edits on submitted entries, not matter how small: 1. It's not my submission to edit. 2. The error will more than likely continue, which means I become a full time enabler. I think it's better to send it back to the submitter for edits and turn it into a "teachable moment" As an officer in a category, it's up to you to welcome, accept and own the submissions to your category. That is, once you accept it, you can make edit changes, if needed. Your name's going to appear in the waymark as a reviewer as well as that of the submitter, so sloppiness and errors reflect on you as well. Personally, I find it easier to make any small textual changes needed for conformance, and inform the submitter of changes made in the acceptance message. It saves me and the submitter time, and includes the teachable moment. If a later submission comes in from the same submitter with the same problem, I'll be more blunt the next time with a decline and the teachable moment message to make sure it's seen/learned. I find this saves my time, the submitter's time and the roundtrip time of another submission that I have to review again. In case I'm not around when it's resubmitted, it saves another officer from becoming involved and becoming aware of the shortcomings of the original submission and possibly accepting something that was not corrected. From me, a decline can likely be something that I was unable to fix to bring it into compliance and I really need the submitter to fix it. An example might be needing additional photos.

I really don't have direct access to that level of detail. BruceS last posted category details like that in 2010.

Of those, now 225, posters of over 500 waymarks, 130 (58%) have posted a waymark in 2016. 113 (50%) have posted a waymark in the second half of this year.

I don't think this situation was thought of when the site was designed and developed. I need to ask for guidance on this from higher ups at the lily pad. Earlier this year I made a survey of categories. I found 356 waymarkers lead all categories. Of those leaders, 129 were not premium members! The exact number may be slightly different now, but I believe the rough order of magnitude is probably still the same. I found the time to update this information for all category officers. Here’s some quick summaries. Of the 851 Officers & Leaders of all groups with a category, • 307 (36%) are not Premium Members • 322 (38%) have not logged in during 2016 Of the 336 Category/Group Leaders, 113 (34%) are not Premium Members 89 (26%) have not logged in during 2016 Of the 1095 groups/categories, 951 have had an officer login in the past 3 days. • 66 categories have not had an officer login in the past 10 days. • 17 categories have not had an officer login in the past month. Much more detail is available at 2016 Waymarking Group/Category Analysis. This page can also be found link from the Waymarking Stats home page. If you have any questions, please let me know.

I don't think this situation was thought of when the site was designed and developed. I need to ask for guidance on this from higher ups at the lily pad. Earlier this year I made a survey of categories. I found 356 waymarkers lead all categories. Of those leaders, 129 were not premium members! The exact number may be slightly different now, but I believe the rough order of magnitude is probably still the same.