Bon Echo
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Posts posted by Bon Echo
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4 minutes ago, Bon Echo said:
Somewhat related:
while looking at my Visit Milestones I see that I have one listed for 1000th visit; strange because on my profile it shows Visits: 993
And if I go to "Waymarks I've Visited" it returns 991 - suggesting that two that I visited have since been archived.
Milestones, don't get ahead of me!
When I look at my Statistics it states: "You've visited 1004 waymarks (993 distinct) since your first visit on 3/8/2013."
What does that mean "993 distinct"?
Does this mean I visited some waymarks multiple times? I don't recall ever visiting any waymark more than once. But I have posted a few notes to waymarks I also visited. Maybe they are both counted?
This calls for another little experiment :0)
Nope, just posted a Visit and then a Comment on one of PISA-caching's WMs and counts only went up by one. Log and Comment subsequently deleted.
Next I posted two visit logs to the same waymark and new I get "You've visited 1006 waymarks (994 distinct) since your first visit on 3/8/2013."
So yes it looks like I have some double-visits that I don't seem to remember. Oh well
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Somewhat related:
while looking at my Visit Milestones I see that I have one listed for 1000th visit; strange because on my profile it shows Visits: 993
And if I go to "Waymarks I've Visited" it returns 991 - suggesting that two that I visited have since been archived.
Milestones, don't get ahead of me!
When I look at my Statistics it states: "You've visited 1004 waymarks (993 distinct) since your first visit on 3/8/2013."
What does that mean "993 distinct"?
Does this mean I visited some waymarks multiple times? I don't recall ever visiting any waymark more than once. But I have posted a few notes to waymarks I also visited. Maybe they are both counted?
This calls for another little experiment :0)
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I think the problem there is that the category does not have it's own icon - the one shown is the icon for the Measurement Standards department. I think.
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I have a couple here waiting a month or more for approval:
Johnny's Restaurant - Fort MacLeod, Alberta in Googie Architecture - Submitted Sept 13 2018
http://www.Waymarking.com/waymarks/WMZ5F4_Johnnys_Restaurant_Fort_MacLeod_Alberta
Pymatuning State Park Campground - Andover, Ohio in Campgrounds - Submitted Oct 10 2018
http://www.Waymarking.com/waymarks/WMZAMP_Pymatuning_State_Park_Campground_Andover_Ohio
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16 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:
I think the community could benefit from this conversation so I thought the forum was a good choice as opposed to a conversation between an officer and myself. I'll ask one to chime in.
Yep, and it does show an obvious gap in terms of categories. Meets the 4 core requirements as far as I'm concerned, but I also really like pizza.
But I wonder if the "Pizza Shops - Regional Chains" category would consider changing to "Pizza Shops - Regional and National Chains"
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Looking at the category description and what has been approved (as well as some chains that are obviously lacking, Little Ceasers is one that comes to my mind), my guess would be no.. But why no ask them? Most of the officers logged in today, so I think you would get a response if you asked.
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5 hours ago, iconions said:
Thanks for the reply. I'm sorry, I was trying to give some ideas on how to get this previously denied category approved.
I made no assumptions if the majority of Fire Towers are or are not accessible - all I stated was that Fire Towers are a definite subset of Lookout Towers. I gave no definite percentages on purpose as I am no expert on the accessibility of Fire Towers. I'm also not going to research Fire Tower accessibility - that was a rather a silly request and one made to basically make all of my comments moot.Remember, this category has already been denied once because the majority of people in peer review believe that this is a redundant category. If you are going to resubmit it, you are going to have to convince people that it isn't a redundant category. The desire to get multiple waymarks on a single set of pictures and a writeup is going to need to be balanced by the desire to get the category approved. Personal opinion on redundancy really only matters as one vote when the peer review comes around. You really have to think about the voting Waymarking population in general. If you are able to go and not only get a waymark in Fire Towers, but in Lookout Towers both, then you aren't really dispelling the redundancy factor, are you?
Again, just my opinions.
Sorry I did not mean to imply that your comments were moot - your comments are valued and usually very insightful. But you comments also seemed to imply that there is a major overlap between fire towers and lookout towers. Indeed fire towers are one type of lookout tower, but as I will show there are many other types of lookout tower so this whole argument just seems to be lost on me.
I just looked over 24 pages of "Lookout Towers" = 600 waymarks, roughly half of the 1210 published waymarks in that category. I did my best to identify how many of those approved lookout towers were fire towers. Of 600, I found 19 that were fire towers*, and of those as many as 5 did not appear to meet the "accessible" requirements (a few even stated as much). Anyway, I would think it is safe to say that the lookout tower category is not saturated with fire towers. Of course this does not fully address the perception of redundancy, because I still cannot tell you what percentage of fire towers could be considered lookout towers - but I can say that only a small percentage of the waymarked lookout towers are fire towers.
I also found (in 600 lookout towers) 8 lighthouse, numerous skyscrapers, monuments, church towers, skyscrappers, ... I wasn't keeping a count, but it seems that only about 1/2 or maybe 2/3 of the 600 lookout towers appeared to be constructed solely as a public lookout - many appear to be multi-purpose and would be waymarkable in multiple categories. And upon reflection, I think many of the lighthouses that I've visited could be toured - including a view from the top - making then lookout tower - and yet it would be absurd to deny a category for lighthouses (if it wasn't already a category that is) just because those lighthouses could be waymarked as lookout towers. They are both, and should be waymarkable as both. And they are. So why the resistance with fire towers? If we want to exclude fire towers from the lookout tower category, should we not also exclude lighthouses, bridges, skyscrapers, TV transmitting towers, bell towers, shot towers, water towers, monument, and probably more from the lookout tower category since those too all have their own category as well?
*I may have missed some due to language difficulties, but tried to catch them all
I hope this all makes some sense. After sitting here over an hour, trying to write this out, I start to loose sight of what I'm even trying to say. time for a break...
But I will try to summarize my thoughts on this
Fire Tower: a structure built for the sole purpose of detecting forest fires. Manned by authorized trained professional. Today many are no longer used as originally intended. Some have been repurposed as publicly-accessible lookout towers, and as such they can be waymarked as a lookout tower.
Lighthouse: a structure built for the sole purpose of.. okay, we all know what a lighthouse is. Manned by authorized trained professional. Today many are no longer used as originally intended (my impression). Some have been repurposed as publicly-accessible lookout towers, and as such they can be waymarked as a lookout tower. But they can all be waymarked as lighthouses.
See what I'm going for there?
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Found the original fire tower category
http://www.Waymarking.com/cat/details.aspx?f=1&guid=eb438424-035d-495a-974f-8926cae140a2&exp=True
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31 minutes ago, iconions said:
Right now, though, all you have is a subcategory of lookout towers where a further smaller subset of that category get denied because they are not accessible for the public to climb. You really have a mostly redundant category - the only part that is not redundant is the part of non-accessibility. .
Can you provide any empirical data to support this? Do you know what percentage of existing fire towers are currently used as public lookouts? The suggestion from your comment it that the majority are accessible. What is that based on? My (albeit limited) experience is the opposite.
If we're looking at 3 out 4 fire towers are accessible, that's what I would consider a "mostly redundant category"; if it's more like 1 out of 4, I personally don't consider that to be redundant.
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3 hours ago, Janila said:
I have listed a new group called Fire Towers and am desperately in need of help and advice since I have never done this before.
1. Do I need to personally invite those of you who said you would like to be an officer or can you just go in and add yourself. I did turn enrollment on.
2. I am not sure how much detail to include in the description. I did not limit it to non-accessible fire towers only because after thinking about it, I agree with Bon Echo's comment that some waymarks can be listed in more than one category. I do think that there needs to be proof that the tower was established to be a fire tower though and included that requirement.
3. Silly thing, but where do the icons come from? I tried entering several different free clipart pics but they all showed up with the blue checkered background.
Thank you to everyone for the discussion and advice.
I joined the group (thanks for the invitation) but also want to point out that there already is a group and a category for Fire Towers;
http://www.Waymarking.com/groups/details.aspx?f=1&guid=69a74836-85ce-46fc-a98c-01d96e477f5d
The Fire Tower category went to peer review (in 2012?) but it did not pass.
I cannot find the category (maybe it was deleted?), but you might want to check with NW_history_buff (who also started this thread) since it might be better to revamp what is already written, vs starting over from scratch. (also to not step on anyone's toes)
But assuming you plan to move forward with a new group and a new category:
Good to hear that you turned enrollment on so others can join. Next is to appoint some members to be officers (usually 3 or 4 officers but there is no set number). You can also set what level of "control" officers will have to do things such as;
Edit Category
Edit Waymarks
Edit Content
Edit Logo
Recruit New Members
Review Waymarks
Send Group EmailsAll officers should be able to Recruit New Members, Review Waymarks, and Send Group Emails. You might want to limit the Edit Category, Edit Waymarks, Edit Content, and Edit Logo to the leader while the category details are worked out and wind through the peer review process. This way to maintain some control over the category you are trying to create. You can always adjust the office roles as a later time.
As for the icons, don't even worry yourself with that at this stage. There are some talented graphic artists here that usually prepare them after a category has passed peer review.
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On 10/29/2018 at 6:15 AM, PISA-caching said:
If I'm not mistaken, every photo is reduced to a maximum length of 2048 pixels at Groundspeak. They also change the compression rate. Therefore, the size of the uploaded photo on your side and the size of the photo stored at Groundspeak can differ a lot. To check my statement I downloaded a photo of one of my first waymarks. It has 2448 x 3264 pixels and 1.76 MB. Then I uploaded the same photo to the same waymark and downloaded it again. And this one had 1536 x 2048 pixels and 526 KB.
Although the image appears to be smaller, according to the website the original is stored just as you submitted it:
QuoteWe will store your original image our image servers, but your image will be resized when it is used in various locations on the Waymarking.com web site.
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15 hours ago, Max and 99 said:
Good forum question, by the way. I often use the same photo for many visits and postings depending on the categories. I would love to be able to use same photos without uploading again!
Thanks everyone for the comments so far. My intention is not to be critical or anyone using 'too much" server space - I have no idea how much space the Waymarking photos use (although aside from the photos I'm guessing that text for 800,000 waymarks uses peanuts in terms of storage space - my guess is under 20 GBs) and as far as I know there's never been any hint of an issue/concern in that regards from Groundspeak. But my thought was that it would be so much better if we could upload a given photo once, then link it to multiple waymarks as opposed to uploading the same image over and over again. Think of it like having a "library of photos" - once you upload it once, you can then select from your "library" to use it later*. The benefit to GS to implement such a thing would be the "massive" amount of storage space that would be saved. But it doesn't appear that it would be enough for them to bother (because no mistaking that this would require a lot of changes to be made).
*effectively this is already in place. Every time you upload a photo, it gets stored and assigned some unique identifier. That identifier is linked to the waymark to which it is is assigned to. If you upload the same photo a second time, the second upload gets a different unique identifier, and now two copies of the same photo are being stored and only one is needed. What I'm suggesting is that there be a way to link a photo to multiple waymarks instead of just one. and I'm not talking about links in the HTML sense (as Keith mentions above, although that is a great strategy that I have used a few times myself).
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Just curious about photo redundancy on Waymarking.com - I suspect there is a lot of redundant storage of photo on the Waymarking servers, but now I;m curious enough to try to get somewhat of a picture of what that looks like in terms of actual storage space.
For example: if I visit a location, maybe I take 4 photos. Then I waymark that location in 3 categories, and upload the same 4 photos 3 times, once for each waymark. If those photos are 3 MB each, I just added 36MB of photo data when I really only needed to add 12MB (if those photo could be used for multiple waymarks without having to be uploaded each time)
My thought here is this - being able to reuse an uploaded photo could save up time and save GC a lot of storage space. But how much are we talking about?
To that end, please let me know approximately the following:
1) Typical size of photo in MB per POSTED and per VISITED (if they differ, or just say "same") (guesstimate)
2) Typical number of photos per waymark you POST (guesstimate)
3) Typical number of waymarks you create with a same set of photos (explained below in a bit more detail) (guesstimate)
4) Typical number of photos per waymark you VISIT
5) Approximate number of waymarks you have POSTED and VISITED
My answers (with some detail to help clarify but all I;m really looking for are the numbers):
1) 1MB (My average photo upload is probably 1MB - earlier they were smaller (~500-800kb) and then for a while they were more around 3MB, but majority are ~1MB) - same for both POSTS and VISITS
2) 3
3) 2 (I don't tend to "maximize" the number of waymarks I can post for a particular subject, and the average may be closer to 1 than it is to 2; some Waymarks are very good and posting a subject to many different categories and so they will probably use the same photos for 3-7 different.
4) 1 - very definitely an average of 1 for my visits and that's probably the case for most of us
5) Posted ~500 and visited ~1000
Thanks for participating in my little "research project"
My a-priori guesstimates:
I assume that the average photo uploaded to Waymarking is 2MB, . I assume that each waymark is created with an average of 2.5 photos, and that each visit log is accompanied by 1 photo. I assume that each waymark is visited on average 0.4 times (many are never visited, and a few have many visits)
There are 839455 waymarks, so:
839455 waymarks X 2.5 photos per waymark POSTED X 2MB = 4.2 TB
and
839455 waymarks X 0.4 visited per wayamrk X 1 photos per waymark VISITED X 2MB = 0.3 TB
meaning there is 4.5 TB of photo storage (multiplied by some factor for redundancy, 2x or 3x, or, well, I really don't know) for the Waymarking website
[suddenly the amount of storage space does not seem so huge, but lets wait and see]
Does anyone have an idea of what hosting fees would be on the Amazon network for that level of data? Just curious.
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14 hours ago, PISA-caching said:
If the description of the new category would exclude accessible fire towers, the chances of passing Peer Review would increase. I personally would love to see ALL fire towers in one category and could well live with a few crosspostings, but if redundancy was a reason for not passing the Peer Review, excluding the climbable ones might do the trick.
Why should it excluded those? they are being waymarked because they are fire towers. If they are now being used as a lookout tower, then it should be wayamrked as both - it is a fire tower that is also a lookout tower. There are many categories where a structure/building falls under more than one category, because of what it was and what it now is are two different things. The CN Tower in Toronto is a lookout tower but as also a Radio and TV Transmitting tower (and I string suspect that more than a few lookout towers also used for TV or radio transmission). Should the newly formed Radio and Television Transmitter Towers category have excluded the CN Tower because it is also a lookout tower?
http://www.Waymarking.com/waymarks/WMVFAM_CN_Tower_Toronto_Ontario
I think the key here is educating the "Waymarking public" about the distinction between a lookout tower and a fire tower (as well described already in this post).
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The fact that a small portion of fire towers can be waymarked as Lookout Towers (because those few are available to be used by the public AS lookout towers) does not rendered a dedicated category as redundant. I'm 100% in favor of a fire tower category and would be willing to be an officer.
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As far as I know, there is no utility on the Waymarking site to rotate photos, as there is on the geocaching site. Nor is there a way to edit photo captions once it is uploaded. The only way to make changes is to archive the image and upload it again.
The issue with photo rotation - I've had that same issue before - although for majority of images I have non problems with how they appear, landscape or portait. Instead of a lame attempt to explain something I don't fully grasp, I will just direct you to read up for yourself: https://www.howtogeek.com/254830/why-your-photos-dont-always-appear-correctly-rotated/
The article provides a few suggestions for fixing it. I think I just saved a copy of the image that I already downloaded, rotated and saved that, then uploaded the altered image
Or maybe open the image in MS Paint, rotate, and save a copy. I think the rotate function in Paint may behave differently that the (much easier) rotate in the folder view. hope that makes sense the way I explained it.
Please let us know what ends up working for you.
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Sometimes I wait to long to waymark something, maybe a museum or business that I visited on a trip. 3 years later I want to waymark it and in the process discover it's history. Example: Lucile M. Wright Air Museum in Jamestown New York. Visited in 2015. It closed in 2017. I missed out.
Makes me wonder about Waymarking certain locations that I visited many years before, in case it has changed much.
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2 hours ago, BK-Hunters said:
Walk the cemetery, we have spend countless hours doing the same thing. Keith has a knack for finding centenarians.
As far as Little Free Library, we do not research the site for potential locations, we just stumble across them. We have noticed a trend that sometimes we find what looks like LFL, however are filled with personal items, soap, shampoo, etc, canned food, toiletries and such. The items are free for the taking, and you are not required to leave anything in return. They are usually clean and well stocked. Generally speaking no books are in these units, however some have religious materials available.
My church just installed one of these, although it's usually empty since anything added is quickly acquired by, well, we don't know.
First time I saw one was in the spring, I was sure it was a LFL and walked over to get photos to waymark it. When I approached I noticed inside it had chips and salsa and probably other things too. What is said on the outside was Little Pantry Box. What I read, no doubt due to the inner contents, was Little Party Box. I had a chuckle at myself for that mix-up.
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6 hours ago, MountainWoods said:
The problem with public contributor based things is: the public! You are going to have folks that are meticulous about their data contributions, some maybe even OCD folks (which is fine), but you're also going to get folks of the ilk "Whatever!" that can't be bothered to check the coordinates that they took, nor the coordinates that they entered when contributing. Fine. God made them that way. But IMO they shouldn't be data contributors!!
Sounds like a good synopsis of Waymarking contributions .
FWIW, sometimes the OSM maps are more up-to-date than Google maps. Sometimes the community of individuals can respond quicker than the conglomerate. So it goes, too, with Waymarking.
Also will add that I've found many errors in Google maps too. My favourite was the mechanics shop labelled as a Police Station. It was close, but the police station was a could doors down the street. I used the "report and error" feature to get that fixed. Along with a couple other issues. I think Google maps are highly-crowed-sourced" as well.
Then there was the time I was driving through some city in Iowa, and decided it was time to find a Little Ceasers (my go-to place for fast and cheap pizza). Looked one up on the Garmin Nuvi, and we were off and soon out of town and in some backwood spot when the Garmin declared "arriving at Little Ceasers".
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The icon that I currently see for Man-made animal bridges and crossings looks very much like the icon for Public Playgrounds.
vs 
I assumed it was a temporary stand-in. The rainbow-coloured structure looks more like playground equipment, and nothing like a bridge or tunnel. The icon that razalas has prepared is in my opinion a better representation of the category.
Not that I have any say, but hey look, I just did
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On 2018-09-17 at 3:34 PM, BK-Hunters said:
I have a link to a site which has catalogued essentially all the military equipment on display in Canada, including artillery, war planes, armoured vehicles, small arms, etc.
There are also pages on locomotives in Canada AND many pages on warplanes in the US and warplanes of various countries. It is a real handy link to have when one finds an old War of 1812 cannon, for example.
Home page: Silver Hawk Author
It's a good resource but watch for errors. No idea how he gets all that info, but it safe to say he doesn't visit every item listed. For example a pair of cannons near where I live were listed as being brass, but when I inspected them it was clear they were iron. And some of the markings were incorrect. But thanks to that site I learned how to find and decipher the various marks on at least the many British 1812- era cannons in my part of the world. I was amazed to learn how much can be determined based on a couple letters and numbers stamped in various places. I sent him an email offering photos and details but never received a response.
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5 hours ago, iconions said:
The selfish and and self-serving reason, for the record, if you go back and READ the full post instead of picking up a single line out of context, was the fact that waymarkers were going to be getting in the way of people trying to deliver aid to the poor and needy.
Sorry but I don't think this is necessarily going to be the case. This is like saying that waymaking a police station will interfere with the police as they go about their work, or a Waymarking a hospital will prevent the ambulances from arriving to the ER rooms. No more than Waymarking a Starbucks gets in the way of those needing their overpriced coffee. It doesn't happen. Yes it could happen, but we are all (presumably) mature adults who can take care and use good judgement.
Should we be Waymarking the locations or just helping out? We should be able to choose to do either/or. I can waymark a church and choose to not attend there, or I can attend a church and choose not to waymark it. I think this is a slippery slope to start telling others how they should spend their time or resources.
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The concept for this category does not interest me, but I did find both the Rod of Asclepius and the caduceus on a headstone earlier this year. simply providing this is as an (isolated) example of finding these symbols in non-medical settings (although the deceased was a medical practitioner)
http://www.Waymarking.com/waymarks/WMY72B_Dr_Michael_Robert_King_Kingston_Ontario
If you do proceed, please make it a single category. or could always try for a Symbol Multifarious category
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1 minute ago, Alfouine said:
I am not sure we decide in what departement a new category would be, but it would be coherent to be in Buildings / Charity
Caritas is a hudge international organisations present in all countries, the french name is "Secours catholique".
We do not want to create a multifarious charity category, for all litlle organisations, Caritas is sufficiently significant.
I don't think that I would consider World Vision for example as a little organization: 22,500 employees and over $1 billion USD in revenues in 2016. Should we also start a category for that charity then?
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in General Waymarking Topics
Posted
I thought about that but if that was the case the numbers would be vastly different - if I had to guess, I'd say as many as 20% of my visits are to nearly duplicated waymarks (listed by the same player), maybe even more. I logged 11 visits alone on the CN tower and probably as many at Mount Rushmore, Niagara Falls, more.
I guess I must really have posted 11 "additional visits". I did find one waymark that I visited twice. 11 seems high, but over 5 years, that only a couple per year. You think I'd remember, that's all.