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Bon Echo

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Posts posted by Bon Echo

  1. Too narrow in scope IMO. There are other similar organizations, one that comes to my mind in Mennonite Central Committee which also does international relief work and also runs thrift stores. That's just one of a few that come to mind. Samaritans Purse is another.

    How about "International Relief Organizations" as a category? Does not necessarily need to be faith-based (although many are). would need to exclude any that already have their own  category (i.e. Red Cross).

    Another issue to consider is that many faith-bases organization do relief work as well as other activities - specifically evangelism and church development. Many examples here (in addition to the ones I mentioned above): World Vision, Compassion International, Christian Children's Fund, Far East Broadcasting (disaster response and relief), Canadian Foodgrains Bank, many many more.

    Next questions is what is the Department: Buildings or Monuments or even Business? That will have some bearing on what can be accepted (i.e. if department is buildings, then signs and monuments will not likely be accepted).

  2. I was having that same issue, only with photos loaded directly from my phone and only from one of the two camera apps I use (OpenCamera for android). I could load photos from the other camera app (MotoG factory camera), or, if I save edited the photo in an app it would then load.  I assumed it was just an issue on my phone. I know that doesn;t help you any but maybe it helps to troubleshoot the problem or give you some ideas for working around it?

  3. 18 minutes ago, elyob said:

    wayfrog continues to publish waymarks that all should have been reviewed by other people.

     

    This is an ongoing issue IMO. While I really appreciate the work that wayfrog is doing, it should not continue to soley be this way. I think that stagnant categories (category managers) should be flagged and the leadership refreshed instead of having one person (wayfrog) continuously review and publish stagnant submissions to those categories.

    I suggest that an message be drafted that can be sent to category leaders and officers after Wayfrog finds a number of stagnant submissions (the  kind that he has been publishing) - to let them know they need to pick up the slack. Call it a warning. After a couple unanswered warnings those category should be considered as no longer being actively managed and new officers can be promoted (by wayfrog). I think this approach will be better for the person (wayfrog) and for the game (officers dedicated to particular categories are more familiar with the requirements and if active can respond quicker to submissions, questions, etc).

    • Upvote 3
  4. I can do the one that passes over New York State, visible to me at 10:22 pm Eastern. Although someone should contact TriciaG since she can also do that one (about 100kms from where I am) and she has yet to complete one of these. Send her a message if you can partner with her.

    As mentioned there are a series of passes over the next couple days in the general direction of Texas --> Great Lakes region. July 23rd looks great for here (88 degrees max alt at 21:26)

  5. On 6/1/2018 at 6:11 PM, Bon Echo said:

    There's a good pass over Hamilton tomorrow night, but I don;t know anyone along the path. From Regina SK (Canada) , over northern MI then Ontario and onto PA, heading over the Atlantic around Philly

     

     

     

    Found a partner in Winnipeg (with a little help - thank-you!). I had great views of the ISS almost complete;y overhead and with a brightness of -4.0! Whats more, shortly after reaching the peak altitude the ISS disappeared into the earth's shadow - it went from very bright to no-longer-visble in about 2 or 3 seconds. Amazing. Will complete my write up shortly. unfortunately my Winnipeg was completely clouded over so  there was no sighting on that end.

  6. As I understand it, The Snowdog can still create a WM for tonight, even though I was clouded out. That would allow elyob and vulture1957 to partner up for their sightings.

    This is fun, I just wish there was an easier way to tell what cities the ISS will pass over when you find one that works for you.There's another visible pass here tomorrow night but I'm not sure where it will pass over to the south of me. A long way east of Oklahoma, that much I can tell.

  7. Visited an airport in a mid-sized city (~100,000 people) and found places that are clearly set up for the public to sit and watch the airplanes (benches directly behind fences or glass panels, facing the runways), but no signs designating them as "official viewing location" and nothing online either. I will post photos in the next 24 hours. I took many photos as I though this was an active category, but see now it was still in discussion. I think this is a great idea, because finding viewing location can be really tough for some large airports - so busy and so many restrictions on parking, access etc. I think "official" can be determined from design and not just from a sign or online (as I will try to demonstrate with my photos). That said, I think there should be some allowances for really good locations that are just the end of a roadway because for some airports that's all there will be (aside from being behind the security gates inside the terminal). In those cases it will up to the waymarker to demonstrate that 1) the area is accessible (with access restriction or traffic restrictions - i.e. no stopping / no parking),  and 2) The area offers a clear view of planes as they land or take off - both will require good photos as proof, and the officers will be more cautious with such submissions. Also there can be a variable to denote whether a location is "official" or "designed", or "unofficial".

     

    Is there still no group? I'm interested in joining. Thanks

     

    https://globalnews.ca/news/1752930/airport-watch-more-than-just-a-hobby-group-gtaa-calls-them-second-set-of-eyes/

     

    IMG_20180515_165326-800x608.jpg

    IMG_20180515_170159-800x615.jpg

    • Helpful 1
  8. 10 hours ago, 8Nuts MotherGoose said:

    Bon Echo, I'm still available, and I'm currently traveling for a meeting on Saturday, May 19. I'm planning to travel and be on site to observe the ISS Pass on May 20 and May 21 from West Texas as described in a previous post of May 10. Times and Altitude have shifted a little, but I'm still good to go.

    Someone mentioned a friend in Chicago area. Are they joining us? I have a friend who will be traveling through Indiana on the 21st and will be available. He's too far south for the 20th. 

     

    Thanks! I contacted The Snowdog and they said they are still interested, and the evening passes on the 21st and 22 work for them. It's looking like weather might be a factor for me with rain in the forecast. "Cloudy Periods" and "Chance of Showers" for the weekend here. Hopefully at least one of those 4 evenings will be clear enough. I'm going to recommend that The Snowdog and I try for both the 20th and 21st and hopefully we are each successful on at least one of those. I'm happy with just one ISS WM for this round, hopeful it will be the 21st since it will be so close to directly overhead.

     

     

  9. Updated predictions for my locations.

     

    Date     Brightnes    Start                             Highest point                      End                              Pass type
                    (mag)     Time      Alt.        Az.     Time     Alt.     Az.                 Time     Alt.     Az.
    20 May    -2.9    23:19:05    10°    WSW    23:22:17    50°    NNW    23:25:28    10°    NE       visible
    21 May    -3.9    22:26:44    10°    WSW    22:30:00    85°    NNW    22:33:17    10°    ENE    visible
    22 May    -3.7    21:34:37    10°    SW        21:37:48    52°    SE         21:41:00    10°    ENE    visible
    24 May    -3.5    21:26:27    10°    WSW    21:29:42    70°    NNW    21:32:58    10°    NE      visible

     

  10. We're less than 2 weeks out from these pass-overs. They are still good for me for multiple days and times between May 20th and 24th. There are several players interested in there passes, I'm not sure anymore who's all in for each of the potential passes.

    I will be in Hamilton Ontario Canada on all days over that time period (no Geobash for me this year). here's a list of dates, times (for max altitude - Eastern Time zone), and max altitudes for me:

    date    brightness  time    max altitude

    20 May    -3.9     05:03:42    62°  [although I really don't want to wake up at 5am]

    20 May    -3.0     23:20:06    51°

    21 May    -3.9     22:27:35    89° [this is the one I'm most interested in]

    22 May    -3.7     21:35:08    49°

    24 May    -3.6     21:26:30    74°

     

    If others prepare a similar table for their location, I think this will make it easier for us to choose partners. Please be sure to include your location and time zone!

  11. 17 hours ago, vulture1957 said:

    I have had a waymark rejected (declined maybe, or the web site would not allow me to save it) because of having a web address in the long description. Is this just because I was not using HTML??

     

    I add links (without HTML) all the time in my WMs and see many that do the same (I'd say most waymarks that I look at include links, particularly to cite sources). If you paste a URL into the Long Description (including the protocol, usually http or https) and you are not adding html tags, then it is automatically converted to a hyperlink with the text (visit link). And for fun I linked to my newest waymark where I three links without html formatiing.

     

    There would be few reasons to reject a listing because of a link in the long description. It would have to be a completely inappropriate link.

    Or, maybe it was just an officer having a bad day.

    Now if the link was pasted into one of the variables, it might be rejected by the system based solely on format.

  12. 5 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

    Maybe I should just suggest an edit and provide coordinates. It would at least improve the listing. 

     

     

    when I first noticed them in the uncategorized waymarks I thought I figured they were posted by newbies trying to promote their business, and thought that if I could fit them to a category I would. Except they were missing the all-important photos of the buildings / locations, at least the few I bothered to look at. It was only after that when I clued in what was happening,and posted the initial thread

     

  13. 8 hours ago, BK-Hunters said:

    partly because I (usually) put more work and time than most into my posts and feel I should get a bit of a reward for the extra time invested

    No one can argue about that!

     

    Quote

    Exposure is increased with the number of posts a site receives, IE the number of categories in which it can be reasonably expected to be found

    I read somewhere (and could be wrong) that with website indexing (for search engines like Google), the number of links to a page influences the rank a page is given in terms of importance. So what you need to do is add links between your waymark listings. Here's an example where one waymark listings references (via hyperlink) some others that are at the same location:

    http://www.Waymarking.com/waymarks/WMXK0Z_Battle_of_Stoney_Creek_War_of_1812_Stoney_Creek_Ontario

    (btw I;m still waiting over 3 weeks for approval on this one, in case wayfrog happens to be listening in :0)

    No idea if that actually helps or not (in terms of search indexing, but I thought it was a nice touch).

    Anyway, I mentioned a few categories that I though strongly overlapped, but of course it's a lot muddier than that - how about This Old Church vs any of the many denomination-based categories?

     

    20 minutes ago, iconions said:

    If there isn't a reason to deny the cross-listing, the waymark gets approved.

     

    Completely agree, and if a player wants to cross-post they have that right. Sorry if I sounded like I was condemning those that do, wasn't my intent but probably came off that way. I was looking more at the reasons why I (usually) do not cross-post. Truth is, I'm not even a purist on this - part of me wishes the whole system was revamped so you could create a single listing and it could be tagged to multiple categories, instead of being multiple separate listings. that would save work on our end and would save space on Groundspeak servers. But that's a subject for a different thread.

    • Upvote 1
  14. I think this highlights the issue of trying to fit something (a museum in this case) into every possible category instead of the most appropriate. Totally agree that every museum is about history (or at least 99.9% of them?), but I don't agree with Waymarking every museum to history museums for that reason. Both of the railroad museums I waymarked only to  the railroad museum category. the one oddball museum, only to the Oddball museums category. What would be gained by also Waymarking to history museums, except another point in my score of # of waymarks. Particularly if the two waymarks are simply a copy-and-paste clone.

    I see the same thing for some other categories, like churchyard cemeteries vs cemeteries of the world. If I can use the former category, why then would I also do the latter? I wish those highly-overlapping categories would be more restrictive, so that it's one or the other and the player must select the best fit. Similar to the restrictions in place for some other categories like Citizen Memorials (long list of restrictions due to other existing categories). Another example would be the exclusion of religious statues in the Statues of Historic Figures category, despite the fact that many of those religious statues represent Historic Figures.

    • Upvote 2
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