Two Dumb(ish) Questions

[+Team Sieni]

Hi

 

I've just discovered Waymarking and I have a couple of questions/thoughts. I've been reading quite a few threads but I'm still a bit puzzled. First, what (I think) I know, and secondly, my thoughts.

 

As I see it geocaching.com is returning to its roots, and all caches will have an ammo box/tupperware/other physical thing with log book at the end of it.

 

Virtual & webcam caches are moving over to Waymarking. They will be just two types of thing amongst many other kinds of waymarks. You can log your visits just as you do with GC.com, but there will be two places to go - one for physical (GC) and one for virtual (WM). I think that's a wee bit of a shame, but it's been done to death on other threads.

 

Waymarking could have different uses to GC. eg Industrial Heritage enthusiasts could use WM.com to log all of the installations on a long canal, say. And it wouldn't necessarily be all about logging visits. GC.com is still really about the sport of Geocaching and using a GPSr to find a log book and sign it.

 

Am I OK so far?

 

So here are my thoughts:

 

I suspect the simple hierarchical categorisation may be a bit restricting. Things could easily fall into many categories and categorisation systems. For starters, everything will be in a geographical (continent/country/... hierarchy). Before you ask, no I don't have a better idea. Perhaps the owner of a new category could go out and link to pre existing WMs. Eg my my imaginary industrial heritage group could log WWII pillboxes on the canal, but people interested in military installations may want these WPs in their category too, as might people interested in brick-built structures and so on. Or a silly example: Say I'm fixated with things beginning with "B" - could I create my own category and include all the B... waypoints?

 

Secondly - hold on - aren't physical Geocaches a category of waymarks? So why are they "the other side of the wall" over there in GC.com. So why not just re-organise GC.com to have a hierarchical directory over the top of it. Make existing cache reviewers the category owners - shove the virtual caches into another category - and there you are.

 

I'm sure there's a fine reason - I'm not being critical here, just trying to understand. Why two separate sites that are doing such similar things? (posting co-ordinates and providing a mechanism for logging visits)

 

Cheers

 

Andrew

[Jeremy]

I suspect the simple hierarchical categorisation may be a bit restricting. Things could easily fall into many categories and categorisation systems.

Only if you artificially restrict it. There will be obvious duplicates of people, places and things but the information will not nececessarily duplicate since it addresses a different subject matter. It will be our job to make it so different waymarks in different categories can be linked in a way that all information about the place, no matter what category it originates from, is available to the user.

 

Secondly - hold on - aren't physical Geocaches a category of waymarks?  So why are they "the other side of the wall" over there in GC.com.

 

Because Geocaching.com has many features specific to geocaching that isn't available on Waymarking.com... yet. Once these features are available you may see the information on both sites. Same goes for benchmarking features - which is why they aren't over on Waymarking.com either. However new waymark categories that mirror some features (such as UK Benchmarks) are on Waymarking.com.

 

  So why not just re-organise GC.com to have a hierarchical directory over the top of it.

 

Because although a geocache can be a waymark, a waymark isn't necessarily a geocache. So why host a Waymarking site on a geocaching site? It doesn't make sense. The whole premise of Waymarking.com is that it isn't geocaching but its roots are tied to geocaching and locationless caches.

 

The geocaching.com site is, essentially, a subcategory under Waymarking.com. But it would be silly to force that site over to the Waymarking site and remove many of the features currently available on geocaching.com. However the feature set on geocaching.com and reciprocal features on Waymarking.com will begin to merge as we continue working on the codebase, and both sites will benefit for it. So a better question to ask would be "so why don't just add geocaching to Waymarking.com so it fits under a subdirectory?" But I've answered that question above.

 

Why two separate sites that are doing such similar things?  (posting co-ordinates and providing a mechanism for logging visits)

 

The ultimate issue was that everything was being forced into the "cache" concept when it was a very poor effort to force new ideas on essentially a subcategory of a larger concept. So although they are doing similar things they aren't the same thing.

[+Team Sieni]

Thanks for your answers. I think I understand and I look forward to participating - in my own small way.

 

Andrew