noshdoo tsoh

I'm Soooo Afraid Chomper Looks like it isn't smart enough to differentiate between a find log and the "beta find log".

I couldn't possibly disagree with this idea more. A much simpler solution is that people make an effort to meet a category's requirements. Would you drop this same plan down on the waymark level also? If you don't meet the waymark owner's logging requirements, you can just create another waymark in tht category for the same object? Bah. The category owner would have the ultimate decision about accepting or denying waymarks in their category, and what to base that decision on. Sure, you could submit another waymark in that category for the same object, but of course, I couldn't imagine a category owner accepting two waymarks at the same geographic location. But then, that would be up to the category owner to decide. If the category owner does flakey things like that, the category will not last long with the setup I've outlined, and waymarkers won't post to it, they'd post to someone else's category that is better managed and that also applies to their waymark. The big problem with the current discussion on categories in my opinion, is that they are being discussed as non-overlapping, and as if there will not be cross-posting allowed. To me, the idea of a summits category for the whole world seems lame, impossible to be well-managed by a single person or even a group. Summits of the Sierra Nevada, Summits of California, or even Summits of the West, now we're talking. How about summits of Kansas?? That one should be a lot of fun. And in order to let this kind of grouping to exist, you must allow cross posting of waymarks into many categories if necessary. Also, forcing things to be grouped by state, for example, in an effort to avoid overlap doesn't work well either and is unnecessary. Let category owners choose the extents of the waymarks they accept, even if it overlaps with some other category. Loosen up, break the mold here. This will allow special interest groups such as maybe the Eastern Iowa Wooden Bridges Club to have their own category, and also the Upper Midwest Wooden Bridges Club doesn't have to feel like they can't post their category because it overlaps an existing category. The overwhelming amount of talk about creating some elaborate and unnecessary approval process is definitely discouraging my outlook of Waymarking. That's definitely the way it's going based on the talk here, not sure how much of this is coming from the powers that be and how much from those who just want to enforce something over someone else. Yawn. The home page of the site can feature whatever categories site admins see fit, and no one should be worried that someone has created a "dumb" or "overlapping" category. That won't affect whatever the site admins are featuring, they won't feature "dumb" stuff on the main page, you'd have to do a keyword search to find non-featured stuff. In fact, drop the layers of approval, and it will encourage new ideas, and who knows, maybe someday, a new category pops up that at first seemed "dumb" by most and didn't seem to fit into the taxonomy, is suddenly the most popular and interesting thing on the site. Still hopeful, though, and will keep an eye on the evolution of this.

I’ve previously mentioned my suggestions for the Waymarking site in another post. I think this situation of the angered quitter brings up my point quite well, though, and so I’ve developed the ideas a little more and laid it out here for further consideration by the community and developers. If someone submits a waymark to a category and gets denied by the category owner, they should have the recourse of creating their own category without fear of denial. Without any recourse, many people are going to be immediately turned off to Waymarking when they get denied – whether it was a fair denial or not. Most will go away quietly without a verbal tirade, never to return. Some will give the category owner a hard time before they leave, unnecessarily making category-owning a real pain at times. I submit to the community that the denial of ANY lawful categories by some chosen few will not work. It stifles creativity and it will cause unnecessary conflict and headaches for the deniers and deni-ees. Similar to the problems cited between approvers (deny-ers) and virtual cachers at gc.com, for example. If you get denied by the “Landlocked Lighthouses” category owner, you should be able to immediately create a new category, “Not-Quite Landlocked Lighthouses”, for example, without the fear of being denied, and then stick your waymark in it. The better category and/or better category owner will prevail in the end if the two categories are too similar. If both categories are useful to the community and both are well-managed, they’ll both endure. And then, a waymarker should be able to submit their lighthouse waymarks to one or both categories, and get accepted by neither, one, or both. If neither category owner accepts their waymark, the waymarker can create their own category! Let the members truly determine the content here by lifting the category submission restrictions. This approach will assure that the best categories can rise to the top. It will also then make it ok for category owners to deny a waymark without reprisal, because now that waymarker has the option of creating his or her own category. As far as showing a taxonomy of categories on the start page of the website, the designers of the site, of course, should feature whichever ones they like there, sorted or ranked however they want – as they currently do. But ALL of the many, many user-submitted categories should be accessible with a keyword search. I think this deny-no-category approach will be a huge improvement, with much less grief and way more creativity.

Please add me to the list as well. Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback. You make a good point that the Waymarking site is in beta. Thanks for sharing this project with the members at this early stage and for allowing idea flow from the community as this evolves. I think this has huge potential, not just for current members, but also for just about any entity or organization that uses geographically based data. I am looking forward to future developments.

I've checked out the Waymarking site and much of the postings here. This is a lot to take in, so forgive me if I mis-represent Waymarking or any opinions posted, but based on what I’ve seen and understand of it, I have some comments and suggestions for consideration. To start with, I'm not sure if I understand why their is such an emphasis on approving/denying categories. If a member wants a certain category (within the law), why not let them create it. I think anything less than that will open a can of worms, no different than the one that prompted locationless and virtuals to be pushed off of gc.com to begin with. For those who cite a possible organizational mess, just look at Google. The most popular, largest, and effective search engine doesn't bother with categories. Why not extend that successful search engine methodology to user-created categories. The category owner submits a few keywords that apply to their category to search against. That's it. If someone wants to create some loose taxonomy to group categories, fine, but don't make that the primary way to interface with the waymarks. A rigid AOL Keyword or Yahoo categorization will stifle creativity in my opinion. In addition, why not allow users to cross-post waymarks into any category that applies (and that the category owner will accept). Let's say, for example, someone goes out and marks the coordinates at the top of a peak near their home. That peak is the highest point in Jefferson County, Missouri. That peak has a summit register. That peak has a fire lookout tower. That lookout tower is made of steel. The rare rainbow titmouse nests here. A person should be able to submit this waymark to several categories that may exist: US Summits Missouri County Highpoints Summit Registers Fire Lookouts Steel Fire Lookouts in the Ozarks Emblem Peaks of the Eastern Missouri Hiking Club Rainbow Titmouse Nesting Sites Bill's Not-so-cool Waymarks Joe Blow's Cool Missouri Waymarks The owner of each of the above categories can accept or decline the waymark depending on if it meets their own criteria. For example, Bill may decline this waymark because it’s much too cool for his category. With the one category per waymark system being talked about, maybe you could stick it into one called summits. Well, ho hum. Talk about the stifling of creativity! There's too much of a regional spin on Waymarking for that to work anyway. What about Big Saguaro Cacti? Where outside of Arizona and northern Mexico will that apply? Additionally, what if the Tree Club of Northern Idaho wants a list of very large trees. They can create a category called "Large Trees of Northern Idaho". Won't be long before that category has a bunch of waymarks in it! How cool is that? In addition, one of those large trees might be a huge Ponderosa Pine and also can be listed in a category called "Large Pines of the Western USA" maybe owned by the Tree Society of America or something. I see no justifiable reason to restrict categories with an elaborate approval process. If someone creates a category called "Stoplights at intersections" or "purple cell towers" or “trash cans next to mailboxes”, well, guaranteed, there are some people who want to go around and mark those. So what. Using the keywords idea, you won't be bothered with categories you're not interested. Hopefully the focus will be on enabling, not restricting, that's what caused problems to begin with, I hope it's not heading in the same direction. So to sum it up, my suggestions for consideration are: • approve all legal categories • allow multiple category submissions Just like on Google, there's lots of stuff out there you don't want to see come up on a search. Just like Google, don't search for stuff you don't want to see. Just like Google, don't restrict other's ability to have their webpages (categories and waymarks).