Razak

Yes I remember that thread from a few months ago. But it probably is in everyone's best interest to remind them to make things more global. Currently there is a category proposal in the waymark proposals category for Floridian birdwatching trails. And if this sort of topic was more widely known maybe he would have just made the more general Bird Watching category wihtout having Jeremy mention it... Yeah, me saying things that most wouldn't is what gets me in trouble in these discussion group and ends me in a 3 page debate with Quasar=P

It may already be doing this. Can you create a new group yet? Nop

Still, never knew that and is good to see a productive idea being added to the thread=P

Now that's an idea for a category. Maybe? I think someone suggested it before the peer review thing went in I guess I thought someone already made it... (thought it was something like Festivals or something, thought of submitting the local Kites on Ice, Concert on the Square etc too it but I guess I haven't seen it lately, someone who has group spots available should start such a thing... I'd join as an officer).

You got it correct... and the "not interested in managing a category" thing does nothing but move the link to the bottom of the screen lol I bet it is meant to do something more in the future that they just haven't implemented... maybe to allow you to create a group that wouldn't count against your total but would allow you to have a group to just chat and such. This sadly would solve a lot of my issues (though I still see no point in having a group that I don't want, but at least it wouldn't count against me). There really seems to be no way to get rid of a group... once created... someone somewhere is going to have it count against their total and I think only premium members right now so I can't even create a faulty account to move it there without paying an extra $3. (which though is not much money seems like a waste)

Shutter bug is nice name=P I actually thought another idea today to make a more direct approach from something that is somewhat popular with geocachers... the personal travel bug... it actually would work fairly well in Waymarking I think... You get to see where exactly you have visited, how far you've gone, you can share your log with others, etc.. it is a totally virtual thing and thus I think fits well with the theme of Waymarking... would just need to integrate it better in the site (is a bit of a pain to deal with in geocaching to do this)... I also wouldn't mind a dog-tag like physical representation for people to grab at prospective Waymarking events that may occur (is there not a few event categories in Waymarking? these might be cool to try to spot other waymarkers and log the meet). Maybe Groundspeak could come up with some sort of pin that a person could wear on his lapel at such events or something. (a Marker)

Nice idea ibycus... Jeremy, wasn't likely going to start this category any time soon, was just trying to figure out a way under the current tech. I think it could be done but would take a lot of work right now and am seeing what we could do to marginalize it. (We do have the ability to allow visitors to provide additional waypoints as it stands....) So my question then is... can we still talk about it even if there will be no category for a few months? (I would assume we'd still need to create rules and names and such that would need to get ironed out by the community). Also... a more direct idea I had today which is linked was railroad cars... essentially the idea I had was to waymark em and then track them with the coord feature in the visit log.... so for instance I could make a waymark for car WM32309A and someone else who logs it sees it in a different place could mark the visit of it... As a feature request that would be related to both of these ideas of mine... could we get a "Don't list coords in search?" or something in the future? I agree it would suck if you were not understanding the rules of these categories and seeing a certain thing in your "waymarks near you" list and trying to go visit it... These categories would be very dependent on people actually reading the rules before they started seeking them out...

The problem here is that the two groups that I want to get rid of are called "Video Games" and "Video Arcades" and then the third that I have that I want to keep is "Video Game Arcades" (see the problem I was having yet? LOL) Video Game Arcades is the group that is managing Video Arcades... Now the question becomes what premium member wants to have to be stuck with these groups? It'd be fine if I could rename the groups to the name I want but it is not so=/

Marketing is different than PR though no? (At least Game Developer Magazine had an article talking about the differences between the two). I think honestly that putting old categories through peer review would be a good idea to give the old ones that filter that everything now has to go through. I probably wouldn't harp on McDonald's as much if it made it through (though I would still make jabs...) After all, these categories that tend to produce the mire were not added AFTER the peer review/3 officer thing went into place. Although I still do think there is some value in allowing a future Waymarking community to have some ability to get review categories somehow (my way likely isn't the best way, it was just A possible way). Waymarking won't be in the same place in 10 years as it is now, and I don't know if the players at that point will like to have certain categories that are being created now associated with it. (And we won't have any idea what these categories will be, it could be anything... 10 years from now this site may be nothing but chain businesses.) Although I do realize you guys may agree here but think you got bigger fish to fry (I wouldn't disagree here), I wouldn't even mind if something went up for review 1 time a year so the category owners wouldn't have to constantly worry about it... I just think there needs to be some way to weed out what we as a community may grow out of... there is already too much grass in the field (I have considered a blade of grass waymark at times lol).

Personally, I find something rather pleasing about a category such as "Revolutionary War" that has landmarks from any revolutionary war regardless of country. I realize Americans think that there is only one revolutionary war, but I personally would prefer less localized categories if possible. (I think the "(insert state or country) historyical markers" categories are a bit much, not that I think 1 should be there and 1 shouldn't... I'd just rather see a singular United States HIstorical Markers category that housed them all (I also realize that there are billions of these darn things out there given the American propensity to glorify any little thing that ever happened!) All that being said, I agree to a clarification that somehow we need to clarify if these categories are indeed international (International House of Pancakes? Oh wait I mean International Revolutionary Wars? (sounds funny)). Obviously there is some problems with leaving it ambiguous as Quasar pointed out... people don't even bother to read the descriptions for clarification, it needs to be in the title=/ Would Sub-titles be possible? Honestly I like the sub-titles in these forums as clarification for a topic, and shows on front pages so I don't have to go in if it doesn't matter to me... the reverse could work to get people in when they don't think it matters to them.

I agree it would be nice if you could have a single group take care of all of your categories. This would be nice for some who have a few friends all of whom may have a similar interest... however it may be difficult to do... I'm not so sure why they have a 5 group limit personally except to stop people from submitting a 6th category... but if there is another reason than having multiple categories for a single group could circumvent their want to limit your grouping.

OK think I figured out that it is because I am leader in 5 groups and apparantly that is the limit that someone can have... however, I still have 2 that I am leader of that I don't even want, maybe more... only have 2 real groups, the others I'm just sort of playing around with getting ideas down... is there no group deletion feature?

Yeah this is an issue that I'd like to figure out a solution to... I'm not sure how likely it is that people will be going to the same waymark within a few hours of each other (not enough waymarkers... but it is an eventuality I suppose. Like I said I am open to suggestions

I do not disagree that there is something to finding waymarks... but thus far there is little reason to visit waymarks... and the sheer number of visits on waymarks backs me up on this... I wouldn't be surprised if there are more waymarks than there are visits to the waymarks... I just don't see a reason to visit as of yet.. yes there is some value in going out and just seeing these interesting places, but part of this actually seems taken away given that most categories require pictures of the site, plus in depth details of the site... which is cool... I can see all sorts of info about various places I wouldn't have a chance at seeing cause I don't have the money to travel cross-country/world to see them... however this does create a quandry in asking why do I go for most of them when i can see and get all the info there is online? Yes there is something to be said of visiting some of the places (scenic views, really grand statues) but a lot has little reason to see... maybe this is where personal preferance comes in <shrugs> I would just like to see more reason to visit than there is to create the waymark... I wanna see more people going than creating... I think there are likely more people out there who don't want to manage the waymark but wouldn't mind seeing other people's waymarks, maybe I'm wrong For me personally, one of my newer goals is to create ideas that would be more fun to visit than maybe start... give people a reason to go... this topic is sort of going along those lines... finding ways to make people go... not supposed to be a thread about why you hate geocaching, I don't care honestly why you hate geocaching, go complain about it in geocaching threads... This thread was supposed to be a way to create fun and collectables in this sport that might not be there yet. If you don't want these things, well as Blue Quasar and Jeremy tell me in the other thread in reference to McDonald's and Wal-mart... ignore it (maybe it'll go away!). I'm not making anyone play a numbers game, I don't care about numbers anymore than you. I'm just trying to figure out new and interesting ways to make the sport more fun and personable. Do you honestly think that Moun10bike was trying to think of new "numbers" when he came up wtih geocoins? No, he was just trying to think of a cool way to leave his mark, and to reward people for the work they do. If you are a negative reenforcer, that's your problem not mine. go see a shrink

Cannot currently create a new group... think it might be because I may have too many... (is there a limit?) I accidently created a couple when I first was playing with the group feature and I no longer want these, anyone know a way to delete groups? Also is it just me that can't seem to create groups anymore? Used to be a link in both the My Categories and My Groups and now I can't find it in either.

Well I realize you are no PR person... you are just one of the people who created/create the site. As a gamer one of the things I miss most about games of the 90s was that the developers actually visited forums and interacted with people to get ideas on how to make the games better... this practice died because too many developers would either say something back or say something like "that would be a cool idea" or "we are trying to add this" and it never got put in. Now devs are too scared to talk on forums because of the crap they are likely to take... I may blast some of the things you guys do, but I respect that you actually come out and talk about it in person...

To be completely honest I don't care about numbers per say.. the thing I like about these things aren't the numbers, it is 1) the sense of accomplishment you get from finding something first whcih is missing right now and 2) the sense of community that is missing due to loss of the community interacting (outside of the bickering we have here <g>) 3) The thing *I* really like is the collectableness of geocoins.. I never was able to afford collecting geocoins but I do like the concept and wish I could afford it lol Now that being said... are there numbers involved? Yes, but to me that is a minor side effect, and yes some people would play for the numbers... some people already do... there are numbers in Waymarking, they just aren't on the forums yet. (considering the tech is there I think it is just a matter of time before we see numbers for Waymarking in the forums).

Interesting ideas. It would be free in your versions (maybe you could also limit it to premium members since Groundspeak likes to do that) that is good. The limited amount would make them more collectable. I'll add my forth offshoot to your idea maybe we could actually somehow get both... 4) You create or own icon or 'marker' and buy a certain number from Groundspeak. (I guess kind of like the geocoin icons/tracking numbers) It wouldn't have to be expensive this way, we could maybe buy 25 for $7.50 or something. Then we could leave them on any waymark we own or visit to a waymark and the next person to visit that waymark would earn the badge. It would also be cool if they somehow could program the trading aspect of geocoins and/or have someone who earned a badge to releave that badge in the future on another waymark. This would increase the collectability of a marker. Perhaps you could also do something like have outlines around the icons for different prices... no outline would be 25 for 7.50 but perhaps a black outline would be 25 for 8 and a gold outline would be 25 for 8.50 or something.. Then people could do what they do with geocoins and get limited numbers of the outlined versions and leave em for special ocassions... etc..

This is kind of been brought up in another category... but these three things I sorely miss... especially after finding my first geocoins over the weekends (i'm a new cacher, sue me)... It isn't necessarily the items themselves that I miss, but more the goal that I miss and the community they created.... Everyone is proud of their first to finds and geocoins... it gives them a little recognition... travel bugs are fun to see where your stuff goes and see who is finding them and all that... these things I do think bring the community together and I like that aspect of geocaching... Obviously these are difficult to do without a physical bank to store stuff in for people find but for some reason I still want to find a way to add some of the accomplishment you felt or the closeness to the community that you got from those things... but how? accomplishments would be the easiest... First to Waymark (in a category) First to Visit (a waymark) Waymarks made (something we have, just not in boards) Waymarks Visited (ditto)... The made & Visited really equal the # of caches you place and find though and so the numbers in and of themselves are the prize. You could use FtV and FtW as recognition for yourself in some ways but given the sheer number of logless waymarks this one currently feels shallow. And another part of this thrill was always the prize cache placers often left for FTF people which is not possible here. I came up with an idea of movable waymarks in an effort to find a good travel bug replacement, though I'm not sure if it's possible. If you have a suggestion to make it work... post here because I'm all ears to figure out how! So how do we reward people for doing things? Are rewards even needed/necessary? (probably not, but I do think they bring community together one person at a time). One possible idea? I like the thought of somehow passing stuff on safely to the FTF or FTV person.. perhaps making a geocoin and having it on some sort of site that has em and then it is shipped from that site... this would be safe for the FTFer or FTVer but would be a headache and a half to actually accomplish as a company!!! It would likely not be possible due to storage issues, but it would be nice to have some sort of safe transfer without needing someone to IM you their real life address to get some goods for their efforts! I'd like to see someone come up with some good community building ideas to replace these old geocache standards. They don't have to be direct translations, this is a new realm... we just need some new methods!

I want to do a moving waymark category but have no idea if this is possible given the tech we currently have but thought I'd see what others thought... The basic idea is that someone would create a waymark, base it on a theme... perhaps not unlike what a current category is... but instead of going to visit or creating marks in it... someone would visit the most recent coords and essentially "Take it" and move it to another spot. Example (I'll use my most hated category as a waymark category to appease everyone) McDonald's Movable Waymark. Currently resides in say my hometown of Madison, WI. Blue Quasar comes to visit it, logs it and then he is in possession of the mark and moves it to Compass land where he resides. Then Cache_test_dummies picks it up in compass land and moves it to the cache test warehouse... etc etc etc. The idea is essentially like a super waymark, a category within a category... but would be fun... it is my idea of Waymarking meets travel bugs or geocoins. You could even do stuff like have a geocaching waymark and move it from geocache to geocache... i think the idea is cool but need help on how to make this one work.... Could we just post in the log and have the waymark owner constantly move the coords? Can we even do that? Feedback would be greatly appreciated!

LoL My local Target has a Taco Bell in it... there are two categories for ya too=P Maybe they will pay for their placement as well=P

I mentioned this idea in the photo requirement thread and still agree.. this is a great idea and needs to be implemented to help with proof of visit people... My variation of the idea was to not only have a question provided by waymark owner but also to have the answer (or maybe a couple possible answers so that the waymark owner could provide one or two mis-spellings)... so essentially it would be like this... Waymark Question: "What restaurant is across the street from the waymark?" Answer: Mcdonald's, Mcdonalds, mcyds then the system would match the two words up, it would be best if this was not case sensitive so that a visitor could say MCDONALDS or mcDonald's if they wanted and still be correct. This makes it so that the owner would have less work and wouldn't have to constantly review visits. Though in all honesty is not necessarily needed and would just be nice for the owner (especially if he had 100 waymarks! Can you imagine?!?!?!). CTD's solution would work fine as well and either way I think everyone would welcome an additional way to prove visit logs (I think some would likely still use photos, but I don't mind saying that I realize some people like just seeing others enjoy their spots... scenic views category that is currently in proposal I think may be better with photo).

Again I will say that I'm not advocating that they remove it for my sake just because I don't like it... would never. Just like I wouldn't say keep a category just because I am the one who likes it... but I do think that finding a way to get rid of truly bad categories that the majority of people agree are truly bad out may be a good idea. Personally the reason these bother me so much is the corporate advertising that it essentially is that is opposite view of the geocaching view. Geocaching is so grass routes, there is almost no advertising in it. sure they had the jeep bugs but this was minor and wasn't that intrusive at all, you did get a special icon but that's not a huge deal... hear it is more intrusive... it is complete sponsorship and in an obtrusive fashion... I deem it not unlike spam, you may not that is your issue, I'm sick of advertising every where I go is fricking advertising and geocaching was one thing I could do where it just wasn't there as much. And I guess I wish that Waymarking was the same. But apparantly everyone else is liking the additional advertising in yet another place in their lives. These two categories weren't even sponsored or approved by the community like many of the other categories are. This is a red herring. It bears as much on this conversation as my Bush comments and you know it. I can tell you that I have 0 waymark visits and 1 waymark created, 1 category owned, and 1 going through peer right now. And now I can give you 4 reasons why I haven't participated. 1) we are just leaving winter and I haven't done anything most of the winter outdoors, geocaching and Waymarking included (though Waymarking is much more winter friendly). 2) I don't have time due to overload in school. 3) There are a total of 2 (oh wait I just made the third)... 3 waymarks in my general area... which brings me to 4) I don't have a digital camera like you rich boys seem to so even if there were more waymarks to visit, many log requirements wouldn't allow me to visit them, and because most categories require a picture to place a waymark, there won't be that many waymarks created by me until you rich boys give me your money. But you know what? That is a seperate discussion. And if you wanna get into the issues currently involved in why someone can or cannot make a waymark or log one, I've made a post on such a thread in the past and already made my peace. The community seems to be dead set on making it a requirement, so guess what, what the majority says I will have to live with because a bunch of "mean-spirited" people are forcing me not to participate. Ironically, Blue Quasar is all for keeping photos as a requirement and keeping the minority out there... and I am all for getting rid of unliked categories, but am all for getting rid of the photo requirement... funny irony no? All the same, my experience shouldn't matter... issues with the site should...especially if they are preventing people from getting said experience that apparantly we now need in order to particpate in a discussion about these things... and for the initial poster the McDonald's category turned him off to the point that he didn't really even wanna try Waymarking that much even though he seems to want to like the idea (otherwise why would he take his time to post? especially considering he seemed to wait until Jeremy wasn't swamped, if he was just flaming he woulda done it when jeremy was swamped.) I for the record do like Waymarking, in fact in some ways I like it more than geocaching, in some ways i like it less than geocaching (this topic aside). But I do like it. And actually I like Jeremy better than almost any corp, admin, or developer I have ever met or seen on-line, he seems cool. And I doubt he takes anything said too personally otherwise he wouldn't continue to stick his arse in the fire like he seems to enjoy doing given his degrading comments to various customers=P (which I find funny btw)

So apparantly you would fully support tyrannical United States=P I personally think that people are generally able to know what they are interested in and that if McDonald's was worth having by enough people then it would remain and you wouldn't have to worry your little self. You seem oddly fixed on the though that if those 60-70% that aren't interested in a category that the category would get "banished" just because people aren't interested which just isn't the case. The ones no one is interested in would likely have the greatest chance at surviving just because of that fact. I do honestly think that 95% of the Waymarking community DON'T vote on the categories that they have no interest in... up or down... they only vote on the ones they like and the ones they really really hate (and sometimes only the ones they like). Thusly, only the categories in which a lot of people really hated would recieve the axe, and seriously if you are one of 3 or 4 people out of thousands who actually LIKES the category, then it should rightly be axed... regardless of if you like it. Just like if the majority of people like it, it should stay regardless of if I HATE it. That is it, no more to it. An oddity I think is that you actually used to be able to go and look at least liked categories... something that has strangely been taken off the site as far as I can tell... wonder if it has to do with the fact that McDonald's was always the least liked category.... Which brings me to Jeremy.... since Wal-Mart and McDonald's never went through peer review, and since both categories were started and run by Groundspeak the new question now crosses my mind.... Are they paying for their categories? Are they essentially getting a free pass because they are greasing the monkey pockets at Groundspeak? And is this why the categories seem so dang important to Groundspeak and why they want everyone to just stop talkin about it. Because apparantly hatin these two categories is hating the whole site, so the whole site must be only to support these two categories and makes these two categories pretty dang important for some reason....

I'll stop hating the McDonald's and Wal-mart categories the minute they are removed... sorry I can't just take it up the arse and conform for ya brother.