Razak

Gawd there are so many websites already that show where restaurants and what not are in an area you are unfamiliar with. I would suggest to you google maps or mapquest, both of which are widely known by those who use the internet. I would argue your chain theory... while it is true some chains are worse than others, it is usually not a big difference... for instance... at best a McDonald's will be crappy... at worst... well I can't say that in these forums, but at best it is still crappy. Same can be said for Wal-mart... and heck if I go to 1 Gap I've gone to about 5000 Gaps. Chains are meant to give people familiarity regardless of where they go, that is the whole point... there are very few chains which actually differ one store to the next... Planet Hollywood (which is bankrupt) is one of the few, but even they serve the same food for the most part. Yes I realize that there are differences, I've seen a lot of very cool looking McDonald's (Classic, Cow, Ginormous, etc) and maybe a "unique" mcdonald's could be a category, and some have had better service than others (for the life of me the local McDonald's near me can't get my order right, they charge it right just don't put it in the bag right). But I mean good lord it is McDonald's, if they have bad service that is to be expected, even if you think you are getting good service, it probably isn't as good as you think (I used to work at McDonald's, I know what they do to your food). Unless Waymarking.com is getting revenue from the advertising lets not go there. Even small chains tend to be the same across the board. To me I suppose the bigger issue will become what happens with stats if and when they address the stats being part of the bigger picture. McDonald's in particular is too freaking out there... people will make about 20 mcdonald's waymarks in about 30 minutes if they live in a big enough town (hell we got em across the street from each other in a few areas). I'm even tempted to go log the various McDonald's just for the stats even though I'm hoping that if I ignore the category it'll go away. As for cost, I don't totally buy into McDonald's locations bringing in enough people to cover the costs of the database nightmare of having 5 million McDonald's locations in their database. It does cost money to save the waymarks, the logs, the stats, the bandwidth, etc of this crap and I'm not sure if they will get their money back in the long run for the handful of people that actually LIKE this. I mean seriously, who out there is in this much need of finding a McyD's? I can't not find one! They are freaking everywhere! A&W is a little more unique, but why not just have a drive-in restaurants category or rootbeer category. I mean is it too much to ask that people be more creative with their categories than just A&W? If Waymarking is just another directory or ratings system, I'm not sure if I'm interested... I thought it was kind of a new version of locationless caching, virtual caching, etc that is more in depth. If it isn't they really need to get this stuff back on Geocaching.com because while I am defending Waymarking in another thread... it would suck royally if THIS is what Waymarking is about. You better hope that they are somehow able to draw in people other than the geocaching crowd because there aren't that many geocachers who like the lightpole micro cache and that is all these categories are. If they can't get new people in, then they are just blowing the money of geocachers....

Am a little surprised there isn't already these museum subcategories.... I like Art, History, Science, and Children's Museums as side categories... I think car museums would either fall into history or oddball (most car museums are more about the history of cars so that is history to me, I don't think it would be productive to have 500 subcategories of different types of museums... 5 or 6 should suffice)

This sounds good to me... I would hope people wouldn't just put in any old mound of dirt, but I guess you are right to be cautious.

yeah the machines are quite a bit bigger, but the purpose was basically teh same as the penny smashers.. some unique souvenir that is usually tailored to the touristy spot. They probably make more off the penny smashers and the penny smashers are less dangerous and obviously are a smaller footprint... essentially most of the places that had the wax machines took em out and replaced them with penny smashers... that is kind of why I make the comparison... same purpose and in most cases, same spot.

I haven't looked into earthcaches too much... but from my understanding they are just interesting geologic features without any geocache correct? well isn't this what a waymark is? A Geocache without the cache? I don't get how people can say they like Waymarking but as long as it isn't on the Waymarking.com site? Seriously, what's the difference? If you like earthcaching you don't have to partake in the rest of Waymarking to do it... As for why you don't get many hits in Waymarking... it is all that was explained above, plus I don't think everyone particularly enjoys dealing with beta testing. They see the word and they just avoid. When all the features are in, all the stats are counted correctly, and the site is live, I'm sure a lot of geocachers will start looking for waymarks to pick up on their site. I know for me I have almost no interest in logging a waymark without gsx or maps to tell where they are in conjunction with geocaches etc... this is a very needed feature of Waymarking.com and hopefully they will be adding it fairly soon.

I have a weener mobile statue but I don't have a reliable digital camera to get it online, I'll see what I can do... was really hoping that other people remembered them... they used to be everywhere tourists would be, particularly zoos. I got my weener mobile at the ford museum. Unfortunately I think they've kind of died out due to the penny presses and because the wax is a little expensive, not to mention the dangers of giving a child a hot wax statue to play with! All the same they are dang cool and still around some places. I'll try to get a picture of my weener mobile to post here over the weekend.

I could be wrong I do think the Indian Mound phenomena is mostly in the Americas, there could be a few elsewhere though. It does seem more prominant in North America. I still think that it is a mistake to limit it to the United States. In particular I consider Canada not a part of the United States and would be a fairly high probability that they might have them as well considering that Native Americans didn't really have a seperation between the two countries (and yes, we have Indian Mounds up in Wisconsin and Minnesota so it is feasable that they could go just little bit further North). Plus, I mean what if other countries in Asia, Africa, and Europed DO have their own Indian Mounds? I was just watching a show on ancient Italy a week or two ago where they buried their dead in small structures that were covered in dirt and made into mounds. These weren't shaped like animals the way North American mounds were but they were mounds all the same (I think, this is goin off memory which I don't have much of!). I do agree with the other post in this thread... we should definitely not be creating U.S. only categories where we don't need to be doing it.

I'd assume they will have both eventually as well... I also hope they will have categories owned and waymarks created categories as well (equivalent to placed geocaches over at gc.com)

Ahhh sweet, didn't realize that'd show the ratings, just figured it was a sort... Cheers!

What's my other best post?=P I kind of agree with what JD was getting at... it is a perception problem. The fact that most geocaches are in the US is not really noticed by someone who isn't looking at the geocaches in the US... unfortunately this isn't as hidden when you look at Waymarking... it is evident where something belongs in the Waymarking categories... I don't think it is a bias, it is a regional issue... meaning every region has its own stuff. Here in Wisconsin we have no Sonics, we have no White Castles (have eaten both and am quite saddened we don't have either) and most importantly we don't have any freaking Pennsylvania Historical Markers!!!! And we have stuff that I know that another area, say Pennsylvania, does not have (and Penn is really close to us!) Rocky Rococo (I think) and Culver's comes to mind... and to be honest... I'd rather have just one of these places than both Sonic and White Castle (like Sonic and White Castle, but not THAT much). I can't imagine the different stuff that Europe would have, I've never been there, wish I had the cash to be able to go some day and find out but I don't right now. Moreover we have more people thinking up categories and making waymarks. If you ask me, this is actually an advantage to you guys accross the seas... You probably can find more regional categories and waymarks on your own without the competition that we have to deal with.... I mean geez people around here are coming up with McDonald's and Wal-mart for frickin category ideas! That just shows you how desperate people seem to be getting!!! And if you ask me Category and Waymark creation seems to be most of the fun of Waymarking... I don't know how many people are actually going to spend their time going to every McDonald's they see just to add another log entry saying "Boy I just never knew this McDonald's was here before! Who woulda thought? In A FREAKING MALL!!!!! They never put McDonald's in Malls! TFTW!=)" I think I make fun of the McDonald's category in every post now =/

Is there anyway to see what the rating of a particular category is outside of changing the filter and then seeing when it stops showing up? It would be nice if I could go to a category and actually see a little thing that says something like "This Category is in the top 90%" or "This Category is in the top 10%" Just so I know the popularity of the category. I do like that the voting is being added into this site though, it is a very cool feature. (Yay Digg.com for popularizing it!)

As I said in the diner category, while I like A&W restaurants, I can't support any chain even if it is a dieing breed that is worth saving. If you really need to find an A&W go to their website, they have a store locator on their website. if you want to save the franchise... find interesting ones that fit into other categories and make categories that might house more. (maybe you could start a root beer brewery category which I think would be kind of funny... A&W does brew their rootbeer at the restaurant supposedly).

Argh people shouldn't use the McDonald's category for an example of anything good! On a more serious note, I'll take a different tact in saying that you could take it a step further... Coming from Wisconsin myself I think the Waymarking category is far more biased to Pennsylvania than it is to Wisconsin because they have at least 1 category and we don't even have any! AAAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHH!!! Ok that was a little sarcastic=P Really I don't know the cultural difference between why Waymarking and geocaching are more popular in North America than it is over in Europe. I'd say Europeans would have an easier time deducing that than me, after all there are more of us in the forums than there are of Europeans. But as to why there are more American categories than there are European... well that is because there are more of us... Waymarking is a user controlled site therefore if there are more users from one culture than another, then it is more likely that the first culture would have more categories. My first thing I'd tell you is to recruit more friends into doing this with you. After all... geocaching mostly grew out of word of mouth, I wouldn't be surprised if Waymarking grows the same way (heck there are many geocachers who don't really know what it is yet). A few of your categories I think could add or change wording in their descriptions to allow more internationallity to their category. Like your mentioned Boy Scouts, or I'm sure they could say equivalent of a medal of honor (better yet make your own?) since I'm sure every military has an equivalent.... And did no other country other than the US go through a Civil Rights movement in some form? Really? You know those problems with civil rights weren't a U.S. only issue, in fact many countries still are facing these issues... I think personally U.S. was rather late in our movement globally, and ours likely was more bloody than it should have been, but that doesn't mean we were the only ones with a movement to grant civil rights to minorities... was it? (again maybe this is a wording issue in that categories description?)

Diners and Dinner Theater I think are a far different thing... however I do agree that Diner by themselves may be a bit broad as there are quite a few of these things still about... And yes, I do think A&W would be more interesting than McDonald's... but I'm not a fan out of making a category out of a chain... I'm ok if it includes the chain, but I'm not ok if it excludes other places... Drive-in wouldn't include every A&W but it would get some at least.

I wouldn't mind seeing a category just for drive-ins, of all kinds, new or old. I realize there is a chain of them now (Sonic) but we don't have sonics around here, only their commercials. We only have a few random A&Ws that are still drive-in scattered around randomly but they are a drive, would not be surprised if there were some old mom and pop type places around too. Would be interesting to see where they all are.

Under the Things>Machines category. Once upon a time the common thing to see at touristy places was a wax statue press. Now many of these things have been taken down, but they are still out there. I'd like to get waypoints for these few remaining machines as well as what they make (pictures if possible). Kinda like the smashed pennies subcategory, just way more cool.

Maybe it could be a subcategory for those looking for more specific weird places?

I like the idea. In my town alone there are three fairly major markets and am sure there are numerous smaller ones in the surrounding area that not as many people know about. If this gets made into a category I'd like to see times the market occurs (since they all have their days) and what types of product you can usually find in them. I realize this changes with season, but markets usually do have their traditional products... I know one in town has mostly breads, honies, and flowers, and then a ton of corn in corn season, but another one has more foods so if you are looking for more various kinds of foods the second one might be better, but the first one is actually bigger and more fun to go to. It may also be nice to note prices as not all markets are equal price-wise either (maybe you could do a star system not unlike hotels and such).

I like it, I think the stories involved would be great.

It seems that you already talked to geocaching.com so maybe this is a moot point... but to me it almost seems like that maybe this would be a nice feature for geocaching.com to have in their logging system or something. You say it is in Waymarking because there is no geocache involved but then you go on to say that while geocachers are out getting their cache they could use the polymer on trees along the way. That sounds like there is a cache involved to me. I think it'd be nice that all this info would be in one place so say I was going to Geocache A and I noticed along the way that there was a tree in need of the polymer so I do it and go back to the geocache page and enter it in my log along with the coords (maybe they could have a small input box below not unlike their little travelbug thing that they currently have). Next week I go to Geocache B and in preparing I see there is a tree in the polymer log that is about due, so I make sure to bring the polymer and note the coords so I can do it on the way. It would just be nice to have all this info neatly in a single place so that I wouldn't have to get all my info for the geocache and then try to figure out what waymarks are along the way to the cache at Waymarking.com... (especially since they haven't really coordinated waymarks with the geocaching.com maps but can you imagine if this tree thing became a hit and an area was just swamped with marked trees so much so that you couldn't find caches so people just turn off the Waymarking button and take away the point of the deal). In my mind it becomes a hassle instead of an all in one spot for info about the cache area.

I'm not personally fond of the McyD's category... less fond of the idea of a Wal-Mart category... personally I don't like the idea of having category just for a particular chain... The whole idea seems strangely like parking lot light pole microcaches that we know everyone just adores.... Now if you had some interesting category that somehow could include certain (but not all) wal-marts I would be more ok with that... otherwise if you are looking for a wal-mart or a mcyD's go to the store locater on their webpage...

I understand that. I think the point I try to get more is that you will miss out on anyone who is doing Waymarking for just visiting unique places... not because these trees aren't unique but because if a tree area may only need to be filled once every four years... I just don't know if people will want to visit such places just for the heck of it... Am I missing the point of Waymarking a little maybe? Like I said what you suggest is a great idea, I like it... but it is very akin to the Trash idea... and maybe Waymarking is an easy place to database this <shrug> I'm just trying to bring up a point on it... On the other side, in 4 years once these trees start needing more polymer it starts becoming more interesting because you will have tree areas needing more all over the place as well as the new ones that will be added along the way and it will become much more interesting of a category for the casual person. I think my point is more will anyone remember in 4 years... because I think there will be more people willing to go to a waymarked location than people willing to go create a waymark... (am I wrong on this assumption too?)

I like the idea... I don't know how well it would work in practice... I don't think most waymarkers/geocachers would like to "visit" these spots, and with a 4 year down period before you can actually DO something with the waymark... I wonder if people would just kind of forget it was even there. I do think some kind of website with this type of info would be a great idea for those that care... maybe it would work in Waymarking and just be for those who actually want to wait the 4 years (Mark your calenders boys and girls!!!!). It's like leap year or something... wouldn't that be cool to go and fill these things in on leap year then every leap year you know that you need to do it... after all it is the only day that you can't do it every other year. Interesting idea.

Being an old school gamer that I am I'm interested in knowing where arcades are these days given how few of them are left. This would be in Places>Entertainment. I would also include PC Bangs into this category as I think these are just kind of modern arcades anyway. However those icky arcades that are inthe corner of bowling alleys and movie theaters need not apply, this would be for places mostly dedicated to games. Anyone else interested in this type of category?