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Why Would Anybody Use Waymarking.com?


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I really think this project will fail. Does anybody think Waymarking will be a hit? Please tell me WHY you would use this site. I logged locationless caches for smileys... I NEVER visited someone else's find just for fun. If I could see a value in this site I might be interested.

 

Night-Hawk

Edited by Night-Hawk
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Then this is not for you. Skydiving is not for everyone. I personally see no reason to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, thus I don't do it. Same principle applies here. If you think it will fail, then you need to focus your attention and efforts towards something that you feel will succeed.

 

Baptist Deacon

Except that Night Hawk is funding Waymarking.

 

Waymarking should be separate from Geocaching. Separate subscription base, to be clear. Geocaching.com revenue should be wholly separate from Waymarking revenue.

 

Waymarking should sink or float on its own merits. It should be riding the coattails of Geocaching.

 

I too believe Waymarking will, in the end, prove to be a failure. And I forsee Groundspeak trying to keep it afloat (well past its expiration date) via revenue from the much more popular Geocaching.

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I really think this project will fail. Does anybody think Waymarking will be a hit? Please tell me WHY you would use this site. I logged locationless caches for smileys... I NEVER visited someone else's find just for fun. If I could see a value in this site I might be interested.

 

Night-Hawk

Why?

 

Because it's the middle of the night and I need food on the road...the Late Night Diner category seems to fit the bill nicely...let me bring up the closest one from my web-phone...

 

Because I want to tell people about this cool place downtown that has this unique sculpture but there's plenty of places to hide a geocache...but I don't hide geocaches (too much maintenance and trouble)...can't make it a virtual...waymark it!

 

Because my city just put out one of those custom-painted icon galleries around town and it's fun seeing if my local geocaching friends can find them all and tell everyone else where they found it.

 

Waymarks get visits (aka "finds" aka smilies). Visit your stats page if you've found one...I'm pretty sure it's working now. I really think you haven't a clue how many people like finding "stuff" and seeing "stuff" other people have found. That's why this project will succeed. It would appear by your 70 visits to virtual caches that you're happy to visit someone else's find...it's just that it's not a virtual by itself anymore...it's categorized. But in all other ways it's pretty much a virtual cache.

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I logged locationless caches for smileys... I NEVER visited someone else's find just for fun.

I see that you have logged an impressive number of virtual caches on GC.com. In that sense, you have visited someone else's 'find' - a GC.com virtual is a place (with no physical container or log) that someone else thought was interesting enough for you to visit, and you did.

 

Logging a visit to a waymark is just like that, except you get credit for a 'visit' that doesn't show up in your GC.com find count.

 

The short course on Waymarking (to put it in terms of geocaching.com):

Locationless cache => Waymarking category

Virtual cache => Waymark

Logging a find => Logging a visit

 

In response to your 'Why' question, I plan on using Waymarking to post coordinates of places that I find interesting, and hope others will too. For me this is fun. I have created a number of waymarks this way already.

 

I also plan on visiting the waymarks which others create, if they look interesting to me, as soon as there are more in my area.

 

It doesn't matter to me that I won't get a GC.com smiley - I can always find more caches when I'm in the mood for a smiley.

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Geocaching.com revenue should be wholly separate from Waymarking revenue.

 

I still dont understand this idea. As I see it, we pay our subscription for a service, which is duly given - and given very well. If we have no problem with the cost of the subscription, why should we have a problem with how that money is eventually spent ?

 

When you pay your phone bill, do you insist that the money be used only for voice calls, as you do not want the video calling facility they are developing ?

 

I cannot think of another industry where the customer dictates where the profits are spent, why should GC be different ?

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Waymarking should be separate from Geocaching. Separate subscription base, to be clear. Geocaching.com revenue should be wholly separate from Waymarking revenue.

 

Groundspeak is the revenue engine, not Geocaching.com.

 

By purchasing a Premium Membership, at Groundspeak.com you are financing the support and development of Member Features. These include all facets of the Groundspeak crown.

 

The solution to the Locationless and Virtual problem, long overdue, is Waymarking.

 

Let's try to work out the minor bugs and get rid of the poor examples of a Waymark, based solely on what a tourist might find interesting, or a group of like-minded individuals might be interested in.

 

This is not Geocaching.... and neither was Virtuals, Locationless, Web Cams, EarthCaches or Benchmarks. They were just stuck there for promoting alternatives. But now they are big enough to stand on their own.

 

:rolleyes: The Blue Quasar

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I too believe Waymarking will, in the end, prove to be a failure. And I forsee Groundspeak trying to keep it afloat (well past its expiration date) via revenue from the much more popular Geocaching.

If I can get stats on GC.com because they marked up the code at WM.com first...more power to WM.com no matter what you think will happen or does happen. It'd be worth "paying for both" just so that the next fix/feature that migrates from WM.com to GC.com comes to fruition.

 

If you don't want to pay for WM.com, then cancel your premium membership. Oh? You use PM features at GC.com that you don't want to lose? Imagine that, you're paying the same for them as you were before. Qualify and/or quantify how WM.com is reducing your GC.com experience before you continue to say that WM.com is costing GC.com PMs. Otherwise, you're just talking out your butt and ignoring the multiple valid responses to this tired complaint about WM.com.

 

...nevermind the fact that Night-Hawk said *nothing* about membership fees...you've just tossed it in to satisfy your need to grandstand your views on the failure of WM.com.

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I really think this project will fail. Does anybody think Waymarking will be a hit? Please tell me WHY you would use this site. I logged locationless caches for smileys... I NEVER visited someone else's find just for fun. If I could see a value in this site I might be interested.

 

Night-Hawk

If the only reason that you logged locationless and virtuals was for the smileys, then Waymarking will not work for you. (Unless TPTB decide at sometime to combine Waymarking stats with geocaching stats).

 

Visiting a waymark is not the same as visiting someone elses locationless find. You are confusing visiting a waymark with recording a waymark:

 

Waymarking Category = Locationless Cache

Category Manager = Locationless Cache Owner

Waymark = Locationless Cache find + Virtual Cache

Waymark Recorder (Guide) = Locationless Cache Finder + Virtual Cache Owner

Waymark Visitor = Virtual Cache Finder

 

Advantages of Waymark Categories over Locationless:

 

Category hierarchy/directory makes it easier to find categories

Location Filter makes it easier to find categories that have or do not have waymarks in a geographic region and thereby check if a waymark has already been recorded

Popularity Filter lets you hide unpopular categories

 

Advantages of Waymarks over Virtuals

 

Can look for waymarks in a particular category that interests you

No Wow requirement to jump through to get your virtual approved (although the category manager may have their own requirments that are just as subjective)

No 528 foot rule, vacation rule, or other rules that didn't make sense for virtual caches (at least to some people).

 

I won't post the disadvantages here. I have discussed what I feel are the shortcommings of Waymarking elsewhere. But in balance I think this is a good solution for locationless and virtuals and for that reason it will be a hit.

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...nevermind the fact that Night-Hawk said *nothing* about membership fees...you've just tossed it in to satisfy your need to grandstand your views on the failure of WM.com.

 

True... I NEVER said anything about money. Personally I would pay double the price for premium membership to GC... My question is WHY would anybody use Waymarking. I think many people are fooled by thinking that lots of people will use Waymarking so they can go see a view you like. Why not waymark the Washington Monument so you can have lots of "hits"?

 

My question was, and still is, WHO and WHY would someone come here to find someplace to go see? I have my share of virtuals and locationless caches, but I also had a "reason" to see or do whatever it was. Maybe for someone who wants to be the leader in Waymarking, this would be a good start.

 

Leave money out of this discussion... I never brought money into it. Personally, I could care less how anybody spends their money. That was not the issue I brought up.

Edited by Night-Hawk
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Then this is not for you.  Skydiving is not for everyone.  I personally see no reason to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, thus I don't do it.  Same principle applies here.  If you think it will fail, then you need to focus your attention and efforts towards something that you feel will succeed.

 

Baptist Deacon

Except that Night Hawk is funding Waymarking.

 

Waymarking should be separate from Geocaching. Separate subscription base, to be clear. Geocaching.com revenue should be wholly separate from Waymarking revenue.

When I go to McDonalds and buy a salad, I would love to be able to specify that the profits of my purchase only go to fund vegetarian items. That is not the way things work, however.

 

Geocaching.com premium memberships are percentage of the earnings that Groundspeak earns. There are also the sales of Groundspeak merchandise (t-shirts, mugs, travelbugs, etc.). Someday, there may be sales of Waymarking branded items. I don't think we have much of a say how a privately held company spends/re-invests its profits. I think they are doing a pretty good job so far.

 

--Marky

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My question is WHY would anybody use Waymarking. I think many people are fooled by thinking that lots of people will use Waymarking so they can go see a view you like. Why not waymark the Washington Monument so you can have lots of "hits"?

 

My question was, and still is, WHO and WHY would someone come here to find someplace to go see?

Given the wide range of people who geocache ... and the even wider range of people who don't... I'm really surprised that you don't think some percentage of them will find this entertaining.

 

(and in my opinion a good percentage of them, even including companies that want to add waypoints inside of their vehicle GPS systems for restaurants and other locations of interest that will have their own categories here which Groundspeak could sell as commercial datasets)

 

The interesting part is that there's no limit (once categories can be added) on what can be listed. I may not find certain categories (like "Cool Views") interesting to go visit just like you say...but I may find other categories extremely interesting (like "Classic BBQ Joints") and worth visiting.

 

Why not list the Washington Monument? If you're interested in getting the most visits at your waymarks, then you will look to be first to list the most popular locations that you can think of. If you're interested in listing the most waymarks, you'll mark everything just to see if there's a category it fits. If you're interested in seeing and doing everything and anything near you, you'll visit anything listed in your range.

 

My guess is the average user will have a number of categories of interest to them that they take particular pleasure in adding new waymarks. They will have a set of categories (and all the waymarks therein) that they'll keep loaded into a GSAK-like program to figure out what's near them to visit when they're touring. They'll have another set of waymarks that they haven't figured out whether they fit into a category or not and will search the tree trying to determine the right fit.

 

In the end, virtuals had the serious drawback that it had to pass an arbitrary criteria to get listed. Here, if there's a category for it, it's listable and therefore available to the community to go see if they're interested.

 

Some geocaches take me to see things I never knew existed in my own neighborhood and others take me to places worth visiting when I'm out of town...now, I'll have even more places to go see and do in and out of town because the overhead of getting the virtual approved or needing to hide a geocache is removed. Now, I get to list (and find) places all around town that fit the bill.

 

That's who (me) and why (see above).

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Night Hawk, I cant speak for anyone but myself and my husband (Tsegi Mike)....

 

We choose to use this new site because we find that it is fun. We like variety in our caching experience and have been frustrated at the lack with locationless moratorium and the difficulty in getting virtuals approved. Sometimes we find that after a long day of looking for micros hidden in urban rockfields, or micros in the light post, that it is fun to keep an eye open for a unique mailbox. We also like the idea of being able to travel to sites on Waymarking, once the database starts filling up a bit with other peoples waymarks besides our own. For those who are happy only with one type of cereal, then they do not need Waymarking. For those of us who like different cereal types to add variety in our breakfast, then Waymarking is cool.

 

I find myself looking at the bottom of the page to see what are the newest waymarks posted. You know, they are awesome to see.

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For those who are happy only with one type of cereal, then they do not need Waymarking. For those of us who like different cereal types to add variety in our breakfast, then Waymarking is cool.

Gosh. I never though about it in terms of breakfast cereal. I usually think about as different flavors of ice cream :rolleyes:

 

Perhaps the original poster is disappointed because they took the strawberry out of the neopolitan and moved it to the new site, and doesn't really care that you can get pistachio and cherry vanilla here as well.

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Perhaps the original poster is disappointed because they took the strawberry out of the neopolitan and moved it to the new site, and doesn't really care that you can get pistachio and cherry vanilla here as well.

Quite possibly...but it's a significant leap of logic that he makes in proposing that the new site will fail because he can't imagine that anyone would like cherry vanilla, pistachio, or strawberry (now that it's been removed from neopolitan and called "rippin' red berry").

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If you don't want to pay for WM.com, then cancel your premium membership. Oh? You use PM features at GC.com that you don't want to lose? Imagine that, you're paying the same for them as you were before. Qualify and/or quantify how WM.com is reducing your GC.com experience before you continue to say that WM.com is costing GC.com PMs. Otherwise, you're just talking out your butt and ignoring the multiple valid responses to this tired complaint about WM.com.

You're right. I'm flogging a dead horse for no good reason. Maybe because I have my first cold of the year and am in a cranky mood. I shouldn't be on the internets when I'm sick and cranky.

 

There may come a day when Groundspeak launches another domain and service that I especially love, but that others hate.

 

Just don't forget about GC.com with all the WM.com hype, Groundspeak! :rolleyes:

 

Over and out. No more Waymarking discussions for me. I'm just getting myself in trouble.

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Dogbreath, I don't think you should be intimidated into silence because of hostile emails and some amazing expressions of sycophancy.

 

I happen to agree with you.

 

I paid for Premium membership for PQs, and for the online mapping functionality.

There are a lot of problems and limitations with PQs and maps. For example, some land-locked caches are shown as being in the middle of the English Channel! A TB only map won't allow me to identify the caches they are in. The server is down a lot of the time - way more than the average of 1%.

 

I also paid for membership as a means of "contributing to the support and maintenance of the Geocaching.com site".

 

Some argue that the code development for WM.com will improve GC.com. I don't see any evidence of that, or that this extra functionality will even be applicable to GC. It would seem more sensible to fix what's wrong with GC first rather than hope some spin-offs elsewhere may help out. The point is that development time on a huge project like WM.com is bound to have a drain on resources available for "support and maintenance" of GC.com. It's an opportunity cost.

 

The argument that a commercial company can do what it likes in a free market doesn't hold water. Commercial companies launch new products that stand or fall on their own merits - there has to be a profit after all the costs of production. That test of viability is not present here because there is no separate pricing for using advanced features of GC.com and WM.com. We're paying for both whether we like it or not. So the consumer gets no choice and can't vote with their wallet. That's misusing the monopolistic position over geocaching worldwide that Groundspeak currently enjoys, in my opinion.

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It would seem more sensible to fix what's wrong with GC first

Which is exactly what they did.

 

Many of us geocachers have been stuck with a moratorium on locationless caches and the almost impossible to get approved virtual cache limitations. There were many of us who loved those kinds of caches and had to do without for...a couple of years now for the locationless at least. GC.com fixed that problem by coming up with Waymarking. Now those of us who complained that we didnt have our virtuals or our locationless have them back. Yay!

 

GC.com fixed something by giving us the alternative of Waymarking.

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Some argue that the code development for WM.com will improve GC.com. I don't see any evidence of that, or that this extra functionality will even be applicable to GC. It would seem more sensible to fix what's wrong with GC first rather than hope some spin-offs elsewhere may help out. The point is that development time on a huge project like WM.com is bound to have a drain on resources available for "support and maintenance" of GC.com. It's an opportunity cost.

Perhaps you're overlooking the following Waymarking.com features or promised features, some or all of which are easily migrated to the Geocaching.com codebase:

 

1. Multiple locations (like home and office) that are saved coordinates associated with your profile -- this has been requested for years and is already functional on Waymarking.com.

 

2. Stats -- lots of stuff promised, some of which may trickle over to the other site(?)

 

3. Groups -- the category manager group for Waymarking can translate over to a group of friends or a local geocaching group on GC.com.

 

There are probably others I'm forgetting. So the "sucking resources" argument is somewhat spurious.

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2. Stats -- lots of stuff promised, some of which may trickle over to the other site(?)

 

3. Groups -- the category manager group for Waymarking can translate over to a group of friends or a local geocaching group on GC.com.

Only if the database structures are similar, which I'm pretty sure they're not. Waymarking uses a directory structure, whereas Geocaching uses a flat structure. Statistical analysis will be written differently for each site, even if the presentation may look the same to each end-user. Statistical queries written for Waymarking will not transfer over to Geocaching.

 

The same for groups. Depends really on the database structures.

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2.  Stats -- lots of stuff promised, some of which may trickle over to the other site(?)

 

3.  Groups -- the category manager group for Waymarking can translate over to a group of friends or a local geocaching group on GC.com.

Only if the database structures are similar, which I'm pretty sure they're not. Waymarking uses a directory structure, whereas Geocaching uses a flat structure. Statistical analysis will be written differently for each site, even if the presentation may look the same to each end-user. Statistical queries written for Waymarking will not transfer over to Geocaching.

 

The same for groups. Depends really on the database structures.

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...dpost&p=1692549

 

And I quote:

 

Another point is that both sites have the same codebase, and that the enhancements and changes to Waymarking.com will be beneficial to geocaching.com. In fact I expect that Waymarking.com will eventually fund new and better features on geocaching.com - which seems like a win-win to me.

 

You don't know what you're talking about. Why do you continue to speak out on these things?

 

You can also do your own search for a thread called "Stats.." where Jeremy says that eventually stats might be brought over to GC.com although they'd be tucked away on a seperate tab as they are not going to ever be given the same attention on GC.com as they will be on WM.com.

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Why would anyone NOT use Waymarking.com ?

 

Use the best of what you have.

Clean up the bruised fuit and

Make jelly out of the rest.

 

If I understand this correctly, when you log a "locationless" cache you are in fact creating a "virtual cache" for others to find. By creating a "virtual" in this manner you become a cache owner even if all you wanted to do was log a "locationless" cache.

 

Before, if you found a "locationless" you logged it and that was it, now You HAVE to "maintain" that "virtual cache" whether you wanted it or not.

 

Thanks, but No Thanks,

 

John

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Before, if you found a "locationless" you logged it and that was it, now You HAVE to "maintain" that "virtual cache" whether you wanted it or not.

No, you don't have to maintain anything. You could do exactly as I have done and simply post the coordinates and description of the "virtual" (see Boston Beer Works in Brewpubs). If others choose to log a visit and never go to Boston Beer Works, what do I care? I wanted to point out one of the best Brewpubs in Boston and did.

 

Before, if anyone did visit a "find" from a locationless cache, they couldn't log it in any way (maybe a note) and as a result nobody knows how many cool stories might have come from people visiting sites that others found to be interesting in the search for locationless caches. Now, all the cool stories have a home...even the repeat visits.

 

In fact, if category managers are given some level of control over the visit logs of the waymarks, then you *definitely* don't _have_ to maintain the visit logs.

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The way I see it, now I can play with the maps for trips that I'm taking, find a traditional cache, a virtual and an earthcache all with 1/2 mile of each other. Great for a stop along me travels. (Yes, I really found this on I-68 in MD) In the future, I will have to check geocaching.com and then try to sort through Waymarking.com and it's many catorgies. Too much work and problems for me. I may however, on our travels, look for free Internet connections. Other than that, I see the site as a large list of stuff.

 

Terri

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You don't know what you're talking about. Why do you continue to speak out on these things?

 

Possibly because he cares enough to have an opinion, I think that deserves a bit of respect.

There's a difference between opinion and fact. When you present an argument, you are coming with an opinion grounded in facts.

 

Whether GC.com and WM.com have the same code base (and can therefore share code) is not an opinion; it is a fact.

 

I don't respect anyone's incorrect statements (whether that's from lack of necessary knowledge or intentional obfuscation). Making a statement like "That won't happen because of {incorrect statement X}" is not an opinion and it's based on false information, so it's not fact. It's just wrong.

 

I respect opinions. He doesn't believe WM.com will be a good direction for Groundspeak, etc. I don't think he has many facts to base that opinion on, but I respect his stance. I don't respect false testimony regardless of its presumption.

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Whether GC.com and WM.com have the same code base (and can therefore share code) is not an opinion; it is a fact.

I'll believe it when I see all these nifty WM.com features transported over to GC.com within mere months of WM.com going live to the public.

 

The facts I'm presented with are that both sites function very differently. The GC.com codebase is over 4 years old. Whereas the WM.com codebase was built from the ground up. There may be similarities at the most basic of levels ... but based upon what I see in terms of how the sites function, how the sites arrange their data, etc. I still contend that very little that is written for WM.com can just be moved over to GC.com with little to no modification.

Edited by dogbreathcanada
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I believe that there will likely be as many "light-bulb over the head" moments as there will be exact code moving from one site to the other. A fresh developer tackleing an old problem for a new site just might come up with an idea of how to do something and then realise it would work the same way for the other site... even if its not the exact same code. A great portion of putting together a large website/datebase/application is "process", regardless of the actual "code" that is written to make it happen. I think there are some good ideas coming out of the wm.com site and I can see how they can be applied to gc.com... and I don't even really care for Waymarking at all.

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Moving back on topic ...

 

Why Would Anybody Use Waymarking.com?

Two days ago, I decided that I would see if there were any nearby opportunities to create a "Medal Of Honor Resting Places" waymark. I did a bit of research, and found out that a cemetery not far from me (one that I've passed by a number of times) has a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient buried there.

 

So yesterday morning I visited the cemetery for the first time, found the gravestone of Nathaniel C. Barker, took some pictures, spent some time wandering through the cemetery, and enjoyed the moment. Later in the day, I did some research and submitted the waymark. It was approved a few hours later. So I learned something, and I was able to point others to an interesting spot.

 

This is why I will be using Waymarking.com.

 

Oh - and on the way back from the cemetery, I realized I was driving right by an Anheuser-Busch plant which I've never visited, but I remembered that they offer tours. So I spun by, grabbed he coordinates, took a few pictures, and created a Factory Tour waymark. <_<

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I'll believe it when I see all these nifty WM.com features transported over to GC.com within mere months of WM.com going live to the public.

 

The facts I'm presented with are that both sites function very differently. The GC.com codebase is over 4 years old. Whereas the WM.com codebase was built from the ground up. There may be similarities at the most basic of levels ... but based upon what I see in terms of how the sites function, how the sites arrange their data, etc. I still contend that very little that is written for WM.com can just be moved over to GC.com with little to no modification.

Believe it whenever you want. Your lack of belief isn't relevant to the facts.

 

Just because you're not familiar with the distinction between "front-end" and "back-end" software, you don't have any concept of "object-oriented code" to see how WM.com code can be used at GC.com, and you don't acknowledge that the guy who wrote the code said they're the same codebase...ALL of that together still doesn't change the facts underlying the two sites' code.

 

The guy writing it says it's essentially the same and things will go from one to the other. "Contend", "believe", postulate whatever you want, but nothing you've said makes any sense when it comes to what Jeremy said and what's completely reasonable about what he's said. It's like saying that muons can't possibly be anything like leptons because you don't see how it could destabilize....just because you can't mentally reverse-engineer the exact system actually in use here doesn't mean your argument that it must not exist that way is valid.

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I will toss it my two copper lincolns...

 

For me, I don't see the draw of Waymarking.com and I do not see that I will be using it except for getting some data on occasion (like the locations of the closest brewpub when on travel).

 

In comparison I use geocaching.com amost daily for fun, adventure, competition, etc. I have tried the locationless a couple of times and there are not for me and that's OK. I will however, miss the Earthcaches, Virtuals and Webcam which look like they are will be moving over to the Waymarking site. I however won't be moving with them. I will have to go grab as many as possible before they disappear!!!

 

-40-

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Just because you're not familiar with the distinction between "front-end" and "back-end" software, you don't have any concept of "object-oriented code" to see how WM.com code can be used at GC.com, and you don't acknowledge that the guy who wrote the code said they're the same codebase...ALL of that together still doesn't change the facts underlying the two sites' code.

Two different codebases written by two different people. And then you have one guy, who's not even writing the code any longer, making statements that there's a 1:1 relationship between the applications.

 

I chalk Jeremy's statements up to marketing-speak/management-speak. Smooth over the kerfuffle from the Waymarking.com introduction. "Geocaching is going to see a tonne of great new benefits from our work on Waymarking. Bear with us, people! Trust us!"

 

Whatever. Like I said, we'll see how fast these great new benefits start appearing once WM.com goes live to the public (e.g. out of beta). You hold your breath for that one, Jack.

 

Just because you have a statistical class over on WM.com, doesn't mean you can just move it over to GC.com and it'll start working, no changes. Since the underlying db model of the two sites are likely quite different, GCstat.class will have quite different underlying code than WMstat.class, even if they're both inherited from one GENERICstat.class.

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I will toss it my two copper lincolns...

 

For me, I don't see the draw of Waymarking.com and I do not see that I will be using it except for getting some data on occasion (like the locations of the closest brewpub when on travel).

 

In comparison I use geocaching.com amost daily for fun, adventure, competition, etc. I have tried the locationless a couple of times and there are not for me and that's OK. I will however, miss the Earthcaches, Virtuals and Webcam which look like they are will be moving over to the Waymarking site. I however won't be moving with them. I will have to go grab as many as possible before they disappear!!!

 

-40-

We're hunting up a storm prior to the move. We figure out where we staying on our cross country trip, check for virtuals/earthcaches and then regular caches because the easy/interesting ones for travelers are soon going to disappear into a sea of stuff.

 

Terri

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There have been tons of threads created by people to talk about certain cache types they don't like.

 

Some people dislike micros, others can't stand puzzles, some don't like urban caches, others don't like virtuals.

 

No matter what you do, there will always be those who don't like it. That's just the way of the world. This doesn't mean we shut them down. Why ruin the fun of many to satisfy a few nay-sayers.

 

Bottom line is if you don't like them, don't seek them.

Edited by WH
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Why I Would Use Waymarking.com

 

I'm always interested in learning new things, so anything that gets me to a new place or gets me to learn something new about a familiar place, great!

 

Yes, I'm one of the few that actually stops and reads those historical signs by the side of the road or on a building.

 

I actually stop and look at an unusual fountain, or trace the remnants of an old canal, or look at a factory building that has been remade into a residence.

 

As a child, my family traveled to many parts of the country by car. Some of the places we stopped at were bonafide tourist traps, but some of them were real gems. Waymarking, I think, will be a lot like that, only I hope to find more of the 'gems' that way or go to the tourist trap and be prepared to laugh at how ridiculous it will be.

 

In general, I plan to 'use' the site to learn about my community and country. Also, I plan to have fun along the way, too.

 

I started looking at this site because there were indications that the benchmarks were going over here. I also was hoping that they would open up the locationless part of geocaching.com so I could manage a locationless cache or two.

 

I might not be a 'heavy' user of this site. But I plan to contribute from time to time either logging waypoints or visits.

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Why ruin the fun of many to satisfy a few nay-sayers.

 

Because humanity is bossy by nature? :ph34r:

Isn't that what started this in the first place? For the most part, people understood the Locationless and Virtuals. But a few haters started causin' trouble and it ruined the fun for the many people who "got it".

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As far as whether GC.com and WM.com share a common codebase, my interpretation of what has been posted in other threads is closer to Dogbreathcanada's. I believe what Jeremy has said is that once the WM code has stablized and some additional features added to support geocaching, GC will migrate over to the new codebase. At that time new features like multiple origins and statistics will become available on GC.

 

It is clear already from the little we can see of WM that what we have is a very generic database for storing information about geographically located objects (waymarks). Each object belongs to a class (category). In addition to the geographic location and description, the object can have additional data defined for it (category variables). Logs can be attached to each object to record visits, notes, finds, should be archived notes, etc. It is clear that such a database could be applied to geocaching without too many changes. (Support for travel bugs is probably the only major enhancement that is needed). The WM database has been designed to be scalable (it has been tested with 400,000 waymarks). Moving geocaching to the new codebase should relieve some of the problems we have seen with server busy or PQs not running. Whatever you think of WM, I believe that GC will benefit in the future from this work.

Edited by tozainamboku
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Whatever you think of WM, I believe that GC will benefit in the future from this work.

It most likely will. Just saying it isn't a case of just copy-pasting code from one to the other, as Juggler seems to believe. One day it will be, but that will involve a substantial amount of work on GC.com.

Edited by dogbreathcanada
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I will toss it my two copper lincolns...

 

For me, I don't see the draw of Waymarking.com and I do not see that I will be using it except for getting some data on occasion (like the locations of the closest brewpub when on travel).

 

In comparison I use geocaching.com amost daily for fun, adventure, competition, etc. I have tried the locationless a couple of times and there are not for me and that's OK. I will however, miss the Earthcaches, Virtuals and Webcam which look like they are will be moving over to the Waymarking site. I however won't be moving with them. I will have to go grab as many as possible before they disappear!!!

 

-40-

I recently had the opportunity to listen while about 30 cachers like you (been around geocaching several years, have hundreds if not thousands of finds) talked about Waymarking.

You probably won't be surprised to hear that they all agreed with you. It's good that you took the time to say what you thought--a lot of the people who have been into caching for several years don't bother with the forums.

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You probably won't be surprised to hear that they all agreed with you.

Not surprising at all.

 

I think that at this point, the Waymarking site doesn't 'sell' itself particularly well to people who are used to using GC.com. The user interface is different, the filters take some getting used to, the searching process is somewhat different, and all the functionality isn't there yet. You can tell by the questions which keep coming up in the forums that there is some initial confusion when people are first exposed to the site.

 

The other problem is that the categories which have been put in place so far don't demonstrate the full potential of what will be available eventually. The category selection is getting better each day, but it's not there yet.

 

When people reflect on how they'll miss locationless and virtuals when these cache types are not longer available on GC.com, I can only assume that for the most part, they either don't fully understand what the new site has to offer, or they are disappointed that their WM.com finds won't be showing up in the GC.com find counts.

 

I'm confident that given time, the new site will show improvements in key areas, and more people who were initially reluctant to participate will recognize the value of Waymarking.

 

edit: double word

Edited by cache_test_dummies
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Then this is not for you.  Skydiving is not for everyone.  I personally see no reason to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, thus I don't do it.  Same principle applies here.  If you think it will fail, then you need to focus your attention and efforts towards something that you feel will succeed.

 

Baptist Deacon

Except that Night Hawk is funding Waymarking.

 

Waymarking should be separate from Geocaching. Separate subscription base, to be clear. Geocaching.com revenue should be wholly separate from Waymarking revenue.

 

Waymarking should sink or float on its own merits. It should be riding the coattails of Geocaching.

 

I too believe Waymarking will, in the end, prove to be a failure. And I forsee Groundspeak trying to keep it afloat (well past its expiration date) via revenue from the much more popular Geocaching.

Nice idea, but not practical unless we bring in outside auditors to enforce that GC and WM are separate.

 

Even if I end up disliking Waymarking, I want it to succeed financially so that Groundspeak will get the windfalls and keep the costs of Geocaching the same as now, or even lower. I also want to get the windfalls of their success by enjoying Waymarking without additional costs.

 

I echo Marky's sentiments about our role in telling privately held companies how to spend their revenues and profits (we shouldn't). For now, I don't see Jeremy spending his time improving his golf game with our membership fees, since I see him reply to our comments so often. :( Even if Groundspeak was a public corporation, don't forget the $$$huge costs$$$ involved in buying enough stocks and bonds to acquire enough votes to dictate what to do.

 

Waymarking's success/failure based on merit will occur regardless of separate fee structures, since it's in TPTB's best interest to make it succeed. In that case, I say we keep the fee structure the same.

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Whatever you think of WM, I believe that GC will benefit in the future from this work.

It most likely will. Just saying it isn't a case of just copy-pasting code from one to the other, as Juggler seems to believe. One day it will be, but that will involve a substantial amount of work on GC.com.

I gave up on this mental merry-go-round that detrained Night Hawk's post...but I'll be dead before you get to speak for me.

 

It's not cut-n-paste...but it's not going to be a big remodeling job where the only similarity between the two SQL queries is the keyword WHERE. It doesn't even sound like it's going to be much work in the end, but I never said "OMG, tomorrow they're giving us stats on GC.com 'cuz WM has it!".

 

You have a habit of ignoring everything said in order to bring your own version of reality to bear unless you're called upon it.

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Let's keep this specific thread on topic please (read as: take the Money/Code Base arguement somewhere else please)

 

I am totally in agreement with NorStar:

Yes, I'm one of the few that actually stops and reads those historical signs by the side of the road or on a building.

 

I actually stop and look at an unusual fountain, or trace the remnants of an old canal, or look at a factory building that has been remade into a residence.

 

As a child, my family traveled to many parts of the country by car. Some of the places we stopped at were bonafide tourist traps, but some of them were real gems. Waymarking, I think, will be a lot like that, only I hope to find more of the 'gems' that way or go to the tourist trap and be prepared to laugh at how ridiculous it will be.

 

Well said, and I am the same, and that is what appeals to me in Waymarking.

 

I also agree with Cache Test Dummies

The other problem is that the categories which have been put in place so far don't demonstrate the full potential of what will be available eventually. The category selection is getting better each day, but it's not there yet.

 

The lack of generic obvious topics makes Waymark creation that is exciting to the general masses difficult. I'm not saying that specific items (like Brew Pubs as an example) aren't interesting, just that it is a niche market.

 

When you don't have a broad ranged topic, like "War Memorials" or "Statues of Famous People" then it is frustrating to new people when they are looking for something to get their feet wet, but they feel emulates what Virtuals were supposed to be.

 

:huh: The Blue Quasar

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...I chalk Jeremy's statements up to marketing-speak/management-speak. ...

Are you talking about the same Jeremy that everyone else is? I've been wandering around these forums for years. I clearly remember Terse Jeremy, Ironic Jeremy, Direct Jeremy, Jokester Jeremy, and Snarky Jeremy. I don't think I've ever seen a post by Marketing-Speak Jeremy.

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