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DougK

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Posts posted by DougK

  1. That is the extra category. It did not pass peer review but can not be removed from list however it is locked so no waymarks can be added to it and it does not show on the grid. The other Silhouettes category is a good category.

     

    Well, that's certainly a category for my ignore list.

  2. In my data dabbling, .....

     

    For additional details, there is a simple web page at Group Analysis.

     

    DougK What is the last column "ACCUM" denoting in your Group Analysis?

     

    It's an accumulation total of the groups in the column to the left. For example, the number of Groups (approved Categories) managed by 3, 4, 5, or 6 officers is 1024, the sum of 413, 388, 167 and 56.

  3. At one time I had great interest in this type of artwork, having been exposed to it through Waymarking.

     

    Today I received a decline a of waymark in this category that was approved over three years ago. With a little research I can see that earlier this month there were 78 waymarks in this category and now there are only 50, so others must have received the same rejection. The category leader re-evaluated and declined over a third of the waymarks in their category!

     

    Now as I look back over my declines, I am reminded that this same activity happened about a year ago to another waymark in the same category. The leader seemingly sweeps the category annually and declines those previously approved by other category managers. Perhaps what is needed here is better examples / clarifications in the category description, along with guidance for the other category managers, so that submissions are judged by the standards of the leader. I did some research and found the term Trompe l'oeil often used, although I'm still not sure whether that's enough to satisfy the category.

  4. In my data dabbling, I realized that with some effort, I could survey the Officer List for each category and identify categories with “inactive” officers or even those with just one active officer. Not that I’m volunteering, just imagining...

     

    Well, I finally ground out this analysis. Here’s a summary of findings that I thought to be interesting.

     

    As of November 1, 2014, of the 1078 groups/categories, 934 have had an officer login in the past 3 days. Not to say that their submissions for approval are up to date, but some officer could have reviewed waiting waymarks.

    65 categories have not had an officer login in the past 10 days.

    28 categories have not had an officer login in the past month.

    17 categories have not had an officer login in the past two months.

    9 categories have not had an officer login in the past three months.

    1 category has not had an officer login in the past year.

     

    The vast majority (1024) of categories have 3, 4, 5, or 6 officers. Libraries has 19 officers!

    413 categories are managed by three officers.

    388 categories are managed by four officers.

     

    Where's the category managerial power rest?

    One fourth of all categories are managed by 9 waymarkers.

    One third of all categories are managed by 16 waymarkers.

    One half of all categories are managed by 39 waymarkers.

     

    For additional details, there is a simple web page at Group Analysis.

  5. I have one waiting for over six months now. No officer has logged in since last year! I’m going for the record for longest time to approve from submission. :D

    Well, the mentioned waymark (for metal detecting) has now been waiting for over a year for approval. I’ve emailed (via Waymarking and geocaching) the leader, who hasn’t logged on in over a year. The other two officers haven’t logged in in over five years! I’m not interested in taking over this category.

  6. I think Splash Pads are an excellent idea as a 'niche' category, since they are a type of fountain but a separate one in function in their own right.

     

    You’re looking in the wrong place. These are not fountains, but playgrounds. Spray parks are already being accepted into parks and playgrounds. I’m not in favor of splitting off subsets of existing categories for overlap reasons.

    Examples:

    WME8QD - Green River Spray Park

    WM7EWZ - Lincoln Park Playground

    WM9JJK - Elmwood/Roy Lynch Park

  7. On trips I just make each day a post with only category and wm name, save it. When home again I fill wn details and file the wm.

    That’s a nice idea, if you put in the coordinates as well when you save it. Otherwise you get no feedback as to whether it’s a duplicate of a waymark already filed. Unfortunately, when you add the coordinates later, there’s no proximity checking done and you could still be submitting a duplicate.

     

    I’d like to see Groundspeak implement proximity checking for a waymark, anytime the coordinates are changed, even after the first save.

  8. You could try making a new waymark (for the same category) at the same spot, ignore the warning that there is already one there, and then put something in the note to the reviewer about your waymark taking over in place of the old waymark (and indicating why the old waymark needs replaced).

     

    Then both waymarks will show up in searches. Duplicates. (Even if you archive the first one).

     

    I once spotted a waymark that had a single picture that was obviously taken in the early 1900's, and culled from the web. Since this picture was clearly not taken by the poster, this waymark was invalid. I visited the place, took coordinates and pictures and filed a new waymark, explaining the situation. The other waymark was declined, mine was accepted and the other no longer shows up in a search.

  9. I tried to post a waymark in the category "Boy Scout Camps" more than 2 months ago and did not receive answer yet.

    You think that's bad? I submitted one on December 7th, over 5 months ago! I kept forgetting to bring it up here until you posted.

    I have one waiting for over six months now. No officer has logged in since last year! I’m going for the record for longest time to approve from submission. :D

    Does anyone know what the record for waiting is?

     

    In my data dabbling, I realized that with some effort, I could survey the Officer List for each category and identify categories with “inactive” officers or even those with just one active officer. Not that I’m volunteering, just imagining...

     

    BTW, I’ve added two new columns, that I found interesting, to the

    Largest Category List . One column shows the date of the first waymark approved in the category, which tells you when the category came into existence. The second new column is the date of the most recently approved waymarked. This can give you some insight into which categories are either 1.) not responsive in their approvals or 2.) just not receiving any new waymarks to publish.

     

    My next thought is to use these two dates to compute an average number of waymarks approved per year for each category. It’s feasible and maybe interesting.

  10. Some waymarks are not viewable, but throw a server error.

    Interesting find. I could find the two waymarks in their category list, but opening them from that list fails as you describe.

    Outdoor Warning Sirens

    Modern Olympic Venues

  11. My focus tends to be on finding new places for which to create waymarks, rather than visiting existing ones.

     

    For my planning, I create custom Google Maps, what are known as My Places. I create individual maps by waymark category for places I want to locate, such as sculptures, murals, NRHP or historic markers and use a specific bubble icon or color for each type. Any related information can be added to the bubble, such as an address, link to the Smithsonian AIC database or NRHP info. Other maps are by areas or by intended area to visit for special trips. From my home desktop machine, I research locations and categories I want to waymark, and create a bubble on these custom Google Map. I often use Google Street View to verify that the object exists and get the bubble in the right location.

     

    While out in the field, I use my iDevices or MacBook Air to bring up these maps. Several category and area maps can then be opened at once with the bubbles from each custom map being overlaid onto a single map. I end up with a fairly dense map of bubbles of places to locate, where the color or icon of the bubble tells me what the item type is. i.e. which custom map it came from.

     

    After you get these bubbles on the map it’s easy to visually plan the most efficient order to travel to places. By clicking the bubble I can retrieve an address or click a link to pull up my reference information out in the field. Sometimes I pre-program my car’s navigation system with the next eight places I want to travel to.

     

    If I’m traveling somewhere unexpectedly, I can pull up any combo of my maps and see what’s interesting or in the neighborhood. The portability of these Google Maps is such that I could stop into an out-of-town library for updates of additional research, if needed.

     

    I use BaseCamp to import data from my GPSr and to be my coordinates database. When I create a waypoint on my GPSr, I label it very appropriately, so my BaseCamp map has properly named waypoints. I can then copy and paste coordinate data from the waypoint directly into the waymark and often the name from the waypoint can be copied to the waymark title.

     

    After I create the waymark, I alter my custom map to change the bubble icon to a camera, to indicate that it’s been done, as well as adding to the bubble, a link to the waymark that I created. The next time I’m out Waymarking and I pull some maps together, It’s easy to see what’s been done already.

     

    Despite all this planning, I still find interesting and unexpected places to waymark on each adventure. :)

  12. I once read a post where someone said that they didn't visit their own waymarks so that they could keep track of what they listed versus what other folks had listed & they had visited. That confused me, 'cause I thought folks had learned something called "subtraction" back in grade school! If you look at my Waymarks Visited count and subtract my Waymarks Listed count, you have the number of places/things that someone else listed, but which I went to. Simple as that. This works as long as you always visit your own waymarks.

    The other perspective:

     

    To me, posting a waymark implies the visit, otherwise you couldn’t have even waymarked the place. (excluding uncategorized waymark, if you categorize them).

    Why should I go through the additional, and to me unnecessary, effort to post a visit to every waymark I create.

     

    Because some waymarkers mostly do visits, some waymarkers are mostly posters and while other waymarkers post and visit their own, it’s meaningless to compare the visit numbers of waymarkers. However, one can kind of tell which of the three types a waymarker is by examining the the two numbers.

     

    My visits to waymarks are to places where I didn’t create the waymark. BOOM, no subtraction necessary!

     

    And if I should ever want the total number of places I’ve been to, I would add the two number together. Using your words, "Simple as that". :rolleyes:

     

    Not much difference, except I do less work. :D

  13. Since this topic draws continued interest, I’ll describe a situation that I noticed in today’s waymark submissions.

     

    25 cemeteries were approved in a span around 3 minutes!

     

    How is that possible? I think I’d have to write a script of some sort to attain that speed.

  14. I've also experienced this problem, having posted some European waymarks recently. My remembrance was a reversal rate as high as 3 out of 4 saves. It seemed like I spent twice as many times editing a waymark as my usual US waymarks. It is annoying.

     

    Another result of this problem: If either direction is flipped when the waymark is first being created, then the creator gets improper/invalid proximity checking done.

    (probably no feedback, or if anything is reported, it's likely irrelevant).

  15. From the list of Top Waymark Posters, some observations can be made:

    • One quarter of all waymarks have been posted by the top 13 waymarkers.
    • One third of all waymarks have been posted by the top 25 waymarkers.
    • One half of all waymarks have been posted by the top 65 waymarkers.

     

    From the list of Largest Categories, some observations can be made.

    Of the 1072 categories:

    • One quarter of all waymarks are posted in the top 22 largest categories.
    • One third of all waymarks are posted in the top 37 largest categories.
    • One half of all waymarks are posted in the top 90 largest categories.

     

    Source:

    Waymarking Stats

  16. DougK's approach is certainly valid, but I do not think an officer's responsibility goes that far. I see my role as an officer a bit different.

     

    My duty is to judge if a submission does fit the special criteria for a category. Pictures, variables, naming conventions, language conventions, and so on, of course the quality of the write-up is also important. If the object does fit the category and everything that has to be there is there, then fine. But I do not have to check all data for correctness; the submitters are adult people and I am not their teacher. I am more than willing to believe that they have done their best, and I don't think I have been mislead doing so.

     

    Especially when a waymark comes from an area I have never been to and do not know as well as the submitter, and this is the majority for almost all of us, a deep inspection would often take longer and be more difficult than the post. We would need more officers than waymarkers to keep it going on that way.

    I agree with all of those duties for accepting a submission.

     

    I believe that since this is a GPS-based hobby an officer has to make some attempt to verify the coordinates. I can find waymarks posted with coordinates as far off as 40 miles! I’ve seen waymarks get approved in the middle of the ocean, because of the E-W longitude switching bug. Again, MINIMALLY, coordinates must be examined as best possible. Zoom in with the Google Satellite View and see what’s there.

     

    Many objects, such as parks, cemeteries, buildings, aircraft, even sculptures and statues can be seen (or their shadow) in Google Satellite View or even Street View where available. Make this simple check. Are the coordinates reasonable? If it’s supposed to be a building, but looks like a farm field or is in the middle of lake, there’s definitely a problem.

     

    Whether submitters are adults or not, experienced waymarkers or newbies, we all make mistakes, such as digits transposed.

     

    As for being a teacher, you can do that. Personally, I look at your waymarks every day, because I consider them to be interesting and of high quality. As many of us have been to the school of SilverQuill, once you get the hang of creating a good waymark, you should pass that knowledge and guidance on to newbies or offer advice to improve waymarks for the future. Experience waymarkers can offer a lot. Pass on your knowledge. It’s how Waymarking gets better waymarkers.

     

    IMO, if you are not examining the coordinates somehow, you are not giving the activity of Waymarking your best service as a category officer.

  17. It has been this way since the start of statistics for Waymarking. If you want the stats on correct date log your visits day of the visit. I would not anticipate that it will be changed anytime soon.

    I consider this incorrect and useless behavior. This makes as much sense as recognizing the approval date of a waymark, rather than the posting date, which we all know can be weeks/months after the posting. This order can dramatically reorder the occurrence of your waymark creation. This order tells me nothing about my trip activity, but the quickness of response of different category officers.

     

    It’s almost impossible to register the visit on the actual day when you’re out traveling. If I were to go out for a two week trip collecting waymark picture and were able to post visits as soon as I got home, it would look like my two week trip were collapsed into a single day. This tells me nothing about my actual trip, only my Waymarking activity.

     

    I often take pictures of things and either am too busy to waymark them or decide to wait until they are waymarked and post a visit with my photos. If someone finally posts the waymark two years later, I’d still like to register my visit on the proper day I visited. The date I actually visited, or posted, gives a much more useful track of my travels.

  18. Doug,

     

    1) If you bother to look at the previously approved waymark in the category (actually the one before the last one)... it's mine and it was collected in the same walk. Approved. Same everything.

     

    2) Last approved shows distances under 10 km. And perhaps 90% of the waymarks in the first page are about hiking signs with distances about the same as mine.

     

    So...?

     

    So, I think WMJJJV, with only two slats, pointing in opposite directions is even weaker than the one rejected. IMO, this one should have been rejected also, so it didn’t lower the bar to justify the one your squabbling over.

     

    Here’s my thoughts on what this category was designed to waymark i.e. what I would submit to it.

     

    There’s should be a a certain amount of whimsy involved with these signs. There ought to be lots of direction slats pointing in all different, non-right-angle signs, to places hundreds or thousands of miles away, places that might be overseas and you can’t drive to them. Here’s some waymarks that are interesting and exemplify that:

     

    Olympic Venues

     

    Dodder Buoy - Dublin

     

    Homemade Arrow Sign near Twentynine Palms,

     

    Palo Alto City Hall Sister Cities Arrows

     

    Fort Wayne Children's Zoo

     

    Lexington Sister Cities

     

    Rock City Park

     

    Soda Springs Arrows

     

    Cibola

     

    San Diego Sister Cities

     

    Baton Rouge Zoo Distance Arrows

     

    Denali National Park Arrows

     

    Dole Plantation Distance Directional Arrows

     

    Mansfield Arrows

     

    and there’s many more like these...

     

    These are all examples of signs that you would probably never use to navigate to these cities or places. They’re irregular and they’re whimsical in a way. And there’s lots of these examples. These are the kinds of waymarks that dominated the early submissions.

     

    But whimsy is apparently not a criteria explicitly spelled out for this category. And practicality of the signs is not a factor either. For me, if this category came to a vote without an exclusion of what seem to be local street direction signs, it would be allowing too many uninteresting (too prevalent) signs.

     

    Because It appears that Europe has lots of signs to neighboring villages they've come to be accepted. Here’s example an example of a sign that has lots of distances in only TWO directions.

     

    Rozcestnik

     

    Heck, these places are close enough to walk to. This is a local street sign and less than interesting.

     

    Here’s an example of a sign that’s moderately interesting, only because there’re so many signs to many places, even if they are all places to which I could walk. There’s no whimsy here. This sign is very practical. I would accept this signpost anyway, but it's not as interesting as the ones in the above list.

     

    Rozcestnik Utechov

     

    There’s clearly not enough clarity in the category definition to eliminate the right-angled two and three slat signs of Torgut. It appears that the criteria of "each arrow should be a separate small sign … with a single location name and distance” has not been used on these European signs and should probably be rewritten. I’m not privy to the spirit of the category that the designers had in mind. Over time, I’d say marginal waymarks have crept in, setting precedence for other likely and similar candidates and, IMO, lowering the “interesting” standard for this category.

     

    In my mind, this category could have a simple guideline, like:

    FIVE of more slats, to eliminate simple right-angled direction sign at a street intersection,

    OR

    Signs that have directions to places 100’s or 1000’s of miles away.

     

    This leaves most all of the existing submissions eligible (of course, I haven’t examined all of them), but explains why I think the two recent Torgut submissions should be ineligible.

    Remember, this isn’t my category, just my US-centric view of what the designer's desire for waymarks might have been.

  19. Description:

     

    Note that this category is intended to include only signs that point to distant places.

     

    ...

     

    I am not an officer in this category, not have anything to do with it. Looking at this one-photo waymark, my opinion is that it’s a weak entry. Compare it to other entries in the category.

     

    This sign should probably fail because it looks like a normal sign with local distances. The greatest distance we can see is 9 km.

     

    The spirit of this category, as I see it, if for arrows pointing off to distant cities, not how far you are from local destinations.

  20. Apple stores are closed for a long time :(

     

    I have a waymark waiting to be reviewed for two months :(

     

    I also had the same experience. I wrote the manager about a languishing waymark and offered to help out with the category. No response…

    I wrote Checkmark about the overdue waymark, my lack of response from the category officers and my desire to help out with the category.

    He chose to approve my waymark, but took no further action within the category, regarding additional managers.

  21. I personally don't like the fact that any officer can edit my waymark for content and lock it.

     

    You asked what others think. I'm giving my opinion.

     

    Is it the locking or editing the content that bothers you? If someone edited just spelling or grammar, is that acceptable?

     

    I don't think anyone wants to be locked out for no reason. I believe it should only be used when someone keeps changing a waymark in a way that is category nonconforming.

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