Dinoprophet

You misinterpret that. I doubt that very much. Perhaps you should read what I typed again? The way I interpret that statement is, according to the folks who created the site, cataloging, marking and visiting all have equal value, since none of those three are stressed more, or less, than the others. That's why I specified that, from what I'm reading, visiting is at least as much as part of the game as cataloging and marking. I don't see visiting locations that others have marked as the only point, or even the primary point. I see it as just one of several aspects. But that wasn't really the issue I addressed in my post, was it? I was replying to your question, which asked why folks might see the main point of Waymarking as visiting interesting spots. I pointed out, rather clearly I thought, that some folks might read that blurb and arrive at the conclusion that visiting was important. At least as important as cataloging and marking. From my perspective it is the Waymarkers themselves who have decided that cataloging and marking have way more value than visiting. In the early days of the site, I expected this, as folks who were interested in what the site offered created a starting database that others could work with. The only thing that surprised me, was learning that years later, this is still the case. I would love to see ratio data from the early days of Waymarking, and from now, comparing how many Waymarks are created each week with how many are visited. I can't say that this is a bad thing, as the players are playing the game the way they want to play it, however, the end result does appear, at least on the surface, to run contrary to the expectations of the site's creators. They might have intended that, I don't know. I always thought that, first and foremost, it was a replacement for Locationless. Whether the customers followed or not, functionally it fulfills that purpose very well. The site is better than locationless were because the site is built for them. There was no way to search for "found" locationless, the category had to have arbitrary coordinates assigned to it, names were generally unhelpful. That's the game most waymarkers play today -- "post the coordinates and information for one of these" (see also: my sig).

That is true for some cultures and religions and wrong for others. The intent of Catholic cemetaries never ever has been playing games. I do not think, however, that just walking around a graveyard is a real problem. As I mentioned before, I do not think however that it is appropriate to open lanterns to check whether one of the candles is an artificial one. Cezanne Maybe it's a Michigan thing Mt. Olivet Cemetery Sunrise Run and Pancake Breakfast, July 10, 2011 (Register here)

I get what you're trying to say. One thing is that I and fizzymagic didn't say it was a failure, just not as successful as it could have been. What fizzymagic was saying is that if Groundspeak really wanted to make Waymarking more popular that just need to take a few of the good ideas from Geocaching and port them over. Since we're tossing around analogies, here's another: Burger place and Pizza place are owned buy the same parent company Rot Your Gut Foods. They both start cash only. The Burger place is slightly more popular so RYGF decides to make a few small improvements. The change the registers and let their customers pay by bank card. All of a sudden the burger place becomes hugely popular. The customers who like pizza too (or pizza only) ask RYGF to change the registers in the pizza place so they can pay by bank card there. They say it will make the pizza place more popular and attract more customers. RYGF doesn't change the registers and the pizza place stagnates. That makes sense. Pocket Queries are a fairly common topic in the wm forums. I don't know if it would increase people making waymarks, but I think it would greatly increase visits.

I love these faulty analogies. Here's the more accurate one: At Wendy's you can order fries and get a bunch in a nice cardboard container. At McDonald's you have to order and carry out each fry individually. People prefer getting their fries from Wendy's rather than McDonald's. McDonald's selling system is a failure. What? I don't get it. Fizzymagic was saying that one of the most requested features that many believe would make Waymarking more popular has yet to be implemented after all these years. That and other needed improvements that haven't been done is what makes Waymarking less than a success. Your analogy didn't match what he was saying. You're analogy was that you couldn't get an odd combination of features that only a few people may want. My analogy is that people want waymarks and a more efficient way of getting them into their GPS. Here's another one: You want to buy 500 burgers for a party. At Geocaching Burgers you can order them and carry them out in a box or even have them delivered. At Waymarking Burgers they will only sell you one burger and make you leave and come back to buy another. Guess which burger joint is going to be more popular. Ah, I see. No, what I was targeting was the implication that not offering a feature that is available under the other site means that site is a failure. Waymarking.com has had a vastly superior text search for years. I wouldn't say that means GS isn't supporting geocaching.com To go with your analogy, I would make it Waymarking Pizza, and wonder why you're trying to order burgers there. Or more apt, I think: Geocaching Burgers has those cardboard trays to carry drinks. Waymarking Pizza, owned by the same company, for some reason doesn't. On the other hand, Waymarking Pizza has a menu detailing every topping and ingredient, while Geocaching Burgers makes you choose from a pile of wrapped sandwiches. They're labelled "Beef" or "Chicken" or "Fish", but there's no way to know if you're getting tomato or lettuce or cheese.

Well, that's at least semi-constructive, minus the swipe (I'm sure no geocachers are obsessed with clearing an area, or getting all combinations of difficulty/terrain, or collecting pathtags or sig items). Come over to the wm forums and post a topic, "I want to visit waymarks but the site fails in this way" Don't take it as a swipe, I just can spot OCD from a mile away unfortunately and am oversensitive to it from past experiences. I would go over there later, but now I'm at the gym just posting on an iPhone between sets to keep busy. Okay, okay. I won't take offense. Hey, does that gym have a climbing wall?

Well, that's at least semi-constructive, minus the swipe (I'm sure no geocachers are obsessed with clearing an area, or getting all combinations of difficulty/terrain, or collecting pathtags or sig items). Come over to the wm forums and post a topic, "I want to visit waymarks but the site fails in this way"

Who disagrees about what? I haven't seen that. It's an obvious fact that geocaching is more popular than Waymarking, there's nothing to disagree about. And I don't think there's much disagreement over the fact that the two are completely different things. If anything, it's the geocachers who disagree about that and think that Waymarking is supposed to be something like geocaching. Well, I think 4WF is right that we waymarkers disagree with some of the perceptions of what Waymarking is meant to be, and we get vocal about it. The same would happen if a Leave No Trace site claimed geocaching was spoiling the outdoors. He did, however, miss the part where these threads are almost always followed by a new recruit or two to Waymarking. I swear it's true.

Exactly. I think more than getting visits logged, waymarkers hope the info they post is useful to people beyond the game. That's why there are categories like Smithsonian Art Inventory. And that's why spots can be marked in more than one category. Waymarks list the number of views of that page, and I love to track those. A bump in that is as good as a visit log to me.

I love these faulty analogies. Here's the more accurate one: At Wendy's you can order fries and get a bunch in a nice cardboard container. At McDonald's you have to order and carry out each fry individually. People prefer getting their fries from Wendy's rather than McDonald's. McDonald's selling system is a failure. What? I don't get it. Not necessarily. What makes you think that? I already explained that difference in an earlier post, I guess you've forgotten it already. Geocaches are hidden so that they can be found, it's their only purpose. Waymarking doesn't have that aspect. But all that aside: even if you only hide geocaches and never visit any, you're still a geocacher. Personally I feel that it's mostly/only the hiding that makes someone a geocacher, not the finding, but I understand that that's controversial. Simply listing geocaches does not make one a geocacher. Perhaps in the strict definition it does, but if there were only people listing caches and not finding them there would be no game at all. What if nobody visited Dave Ulmers bucket? What if he then kept hiding more anyhow? Why are there no billboards in the middle of the desert, or on the moon? What if the TV broadcasters had 200 channels, but sold no TV sets? Would they evaluate the reason, or keep adding more? I said in my post above, and dfx is trying to explain, the main point is the scavenger hunt. I log a post office because I find one that hasn't been logged. The photography is fun too. When I travel, I'll look at what waymarks are around that I might like to visit. But mainly, it's the hunt. When people complain about the lack of waymarks near them, to me that says there are probably hundreds of things around them they could make waymarks for. You're trying to make Waymarking too analogous to geocaching. It is exactly like locationless caches. Beyond that, there aren't a lot of similarities, and trying to make them like each other doesn't make much sense. Well, there's this: both have made me a lot more aware of my surroundings. Where a cacher says, "Ooo, that would be a great hiding place!", a waymarker says, "Wow, I never noticed the architecture on that building before!"

I don't know why you would want to. Apparently you wouldn't. I can only know why I want to, and why most waymarkers seem to. It's a different game. Yes. I think we all agree. It's not geocaching. I"m really not sure why it comes up anymore. Geocaching is hide-and-seek -- find a specific thing at a specific place. Waymarking is a scavenger hunt -- find one of these anywhere you can. Waymarking has the hide-and-seek aspect in Visits, but as is repeatedly noted, it isn't used much. People generally prefer the scavenger hunt aspect. Waymarkers also in general enjoy the photography aspect. It's part of the game. That's why people do it -- they like the things the game involves. If you don't, cool, but why get a bee in your bonnet that someone else does? And -- brace yourself -- most of the civilized world says the same things about geocaching. "What's the point? Why would I do that? You found a pill bottle hanging from a tree and got credit for it? Huh??" Lets see, Factory tours and wineries seem like valid categories - fairly unique. But coin operated self service car washes??? I do visit them, but why on earth would I want to go and get some credit for it? And to prove it? How about a simple review? No, you need to prove it. How do you explain that to someone? Most people are confused at the meaning of the game with these common listings that can be found elsewhere with much more info listed. If any of these places were unique by design or very old in some way, I would go. But how do you filter for that? I say the same about parking lot caches. At least with Waymarking, I can ignore them through the site's features. If I did that, I would have no Virtual Cache finds. Oh, except for that one that was a broken golf cart in a ditch.

Edit: Ah, I misread what you were saying. Agreed, a Home search under quick links would be nice for those who want to do visits. I have my home search under a Saved Search (ooh, wouldn't that be nice to have on gc.com? Saved searches?), so it's not something I think of, but yes, it should be there. Beyond that shortcut, is it really so complicated, though? Ironically, I just went to compare to the geocaching search page....where'd the nice sidebar search fields go? Oh, and I see they still haven't given gc.com full-text searching. Huh. Waymarking has that. You'd think that would be an easy change. Easier than PQs.

Can you get a GPX file of Waymarks from a query? How long has Waymarking.com been around? That tells you how much Groundspeak is investing in it. Doesn't take a nuclear physicist to figure that it's not exactly a runaway success. You can't get a Big Mac Value Meal with hash browns. Clearly the Big Mac is a failure. No, Waymarking is not a "runaway success". Geocaching.com is GS's bread and butter. As successful websites go, I would imagine it's in the top 50 (if it's not, then I guess it's a failure). That doesn't mean their side projects with a smaller audience is a failure. Honestly, I dread the day when there's a rush of geocachers using it. It's better as a smaller, niche activity. It's too community-based, and too many cooks and all that. How about a musical analogy: Was Wings a failure because they didn't have the Beatles' popularity? Or John Lennon's solo career? Audioslave? A Perfect Circle? Edit to clarify a bit: I don't want to sound like I'm slamming geocachers. It's the power trail/spew/FTF race type thing that I feel wouldn't fit what Waymarking has evolved into. It would probably be best for everyone if people who don't like it continue not liking it. It's when people slam it or have misconceptions about how it works that waymarkers get defensive.

That's kewl. Business is a tough concept for some folks. Many have what is referred to as "Make A Wish Economics". The notion that, if they really, really like something, (like Salad Shakers or Waymarking), then others should really, really like it as well. As such, (in their mind), it's just bound to be a success, some day. These folks can often be found with their hands grasped in supplication, gazing skyward, with hope gleaming in their eyes. In some circles, faith like that is considered a positive thing. You are completely ignoring the fact that Waymarking has found an audience who enjoys it, even if that audience isn't who GS expected. That's the point the rest of my post made that you deliberately didn't quote -- I'm honestly surprised at you.

No, Waymarking stats are tracked on that site. There's a lot of hope for more integration between the two, but for now...no.

Then I would argue that you don't really comprehend business. In a business environment, the only thing that can determine if a product is a failure is the customer. No matter how much support or updating a product gets, if the customer refuses to use it, that product is a failure, for now. If Groundspeak makes enough changes that the customer finally embraces the product, then we could call Waymarking a success. A small percentage of customers, really loving a product, does not make that product a success. Hence, the Salad Shaker reference. I disagree with your assertion that the site is a success only if a large percentage of geocachers start using it. Especially since I haven't seen the numbers. Where can I find them? If McDonald's introduced the Salad Shaker by targeting it at seniors, and seniors hated it but teens went crazy for it, along with new customers who never liked their burgers, would it be a failure?

I don't see Waymarking as a substitute for virtuals. I mentioned that because that is a common theme whenever the topic comes up. I suspect that past Groundspeak promotions for Waymarking led to that belief. I probably should have bolded the part in my last post where I stated "It really doesn't matter if you view Waymarking as a failed replacement for virtuals, or if you view it as an entirely different experience." By that, I meant that, regardless of how you view Waymarks, they are a failure. The customer tried them on, found they didn't fit, weren't fashionable, and chafed around the waistline. When the customer says "No" to a product, basic economics say that product is a failure. Having a few customers clamoring for the return of Salad Shakers doesn't mean that McDonald's should bring them back. I think the fact that Groundspeak continues to support and improve the site suggests otherwise.

Wait, the CO only has 96 finds?! Well, there's your problem. He shouldn't have been allowed to hide one until he had at least 500.

I don't remember that idea. Interesting. My guess would be that it made it too competitive. As uncompetitive as geocaching is (in essence -- obviously some people play their own competitive games with it), Waymarking is even less competitive. Personally, I find the icons in Waymarking far more gratifying than smilies. I suspect many people who say the lack of smilies is the issue aren't savvy to the Waymarking category grid.

I got some private responses. It seems the area has been subsumed by the Forbes National Forest, and there are some actual trails now. Looking at official maps, it looks like White Rocks, where Polly Takes the Plunge was*, may be tougher to access from the official trails than it was from the Hi-To trailhead. Whether I try to get there or try the trails, I'm looking forward to some good hiking! * apparently still is, too, though not on this site

You miss understood, I did not mean use the same point to log the category. If the category is weather vanes, then I would just log a different vane and not bother "Finding" one someone else has logged. Well, you could, yes. That would be comparable to looking for places to hide caches instead of finding caches that are already placed. I, and I think most people, agree that category logs are not the same as virtuals. Visit logs are the part that is comparable when people say that Waymarking replaces virtuals, though I would say it's not exactly the same. (though I guess you could get waymark coordinates and go there without looking at what they are)

Waymarking is not virts! Waymarking is logging a find on someone else find of a locationless cache. Categories are the same as the old locationless caches where the object was to find and post a log for a class of objects as in 'unusual weather vanes'. What you are calling virts is the logging of an unusual weather vane that someone else found and logged for the locationless cache 'unusual weather vanes'. Definitely different than logging a virt where everyone goes to the same coordinates and finds the same object as a stand alone cache, Not logging a find on someone else log. <snip> That's nothing but semantics. You could just as well say that logging a cache is just logging a find on someone's hide "log". After all, don't cachers say you can't get "credit" for both hiding and finding on the same cache? That some cachers are in the hiding game and some are in the finding game? - Virtuals: go to geocaching.com, do a search, get a list of coordinates where virtuals are, note the requirements for each, go to each site and fulfill the requirements, log my visit on the virtual's page, see Found count go up - Waymarks: go to Waymarking.com, do a search, get a list of coordinates where waymarks are, note the requirements for each, go to each site and fulfill the requirements, log my visit on the waymark's page, see Visited count go up The only significant difference is you know what you're going to see. And I do recognize it's a major difference, enough to say they're not the same thing. But frankly, I would have skipped most of the virts I've found had I known what they were. Why would I want to log a visit to someone else's find when I could log the category itself, instead another persons find? John You *can't* log the category itself, because it's already been logged in the category. Just like you can't place a cache where someone has already placed a cache.

Waymarking is not virts! Waymarking is logging a find on someone else find of a locationless cache. Categories are the same as the old locationless caches where the object was to find and post a log for a class of objects as in 'unusual weather vanes'. What you are calling virts is the logging of an unusual weather vane that someone else found and logged for the locationless cache 'unusual weather vanes'. Definitely different than logging a virt where everyone goes to the same coordinates and finds the same object as a stand alone cache, Not logging a find on someone else log. <snip> That's nothing but semantics. You could just as well say that logging a cache is just logging a find on someone's hide "log". After all, don't cachers say you can't get "credit" for both hiding and finding on the same cache? That some cachers are in the hiding game and some are in the finding game? - Virtuals: go to geocaching.com, do a search, get a list of coordinates where virtuals are, note the requirements for each, go to each site and fulfill the requirements, log my visit on the virtual's page, see Found count go up - Waymarks: go to Waymarking.com, do a search, get a list of coordinates where waymarks are, note the requirements for each, go to each site and fulfill the requirements, log my visit on the waymark's page, see Visited count go up The only significant difference is you know what you're going to see. And I do recognize it's a major difference, enough to say they're not the same thing. But frankly, I would have skipped most of the virts I've found had I known what they were.

The one thing I don't like is the color of the "zoomed out" traditional cache icon. It's the exact same color as park areas.

Hello, SWPA, Years ago, I did Quest Master's exquisite caches in the Fairchance area. The trailhead then was the Hi-To Club in Fairchance. The caches have been archived for a while, and I was wondering if that is still a good jumping off point for hiking the area. My kids are old enough to handle the area now, and I'd want to show them some of these places when we're there in the near future. I just wanted to get a report on the area first, make sure it's still as accessible as it was then. Thanks

Ortonville Recreation Area has a slew of caches on its equestrian trails (and an equestrian campground, by the way, if you travel with your horse). Some of the best hiking in the area, too, so well worth a visit even without a horse.