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Mass Submits


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Will there be a method of mass submitting waymarks? For instance, let's say I get a hold of data for all Tunisian Benchmarks. The database contains 1500 unique benchmark entries.

 

Will Waymarking allow me a method of mass submitting all the data, given that I can format (on my own) the data into a described format as defined by Groundspeak?

 

Sounds like a useful feature, especially for things like benchmarks.

 

You could just use CSV, one row per waymark. If there's user-defined data (such as address) that could simply be appended onto the row.

 

Example Format (obviously doesn't contain all fields):

WAYMARKNAME, LAT, LONG, DESCRIPTION, USERDEFINED1, USERDEFINED2

Edited by dogbreathcanada
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I would say no for two reasons:

  • 1. I'm a firm believer that all waymark sites should be visited by the creator to verify coordinates, take pictures, make note of any points of interests in the area, etc.
  • 2. To use your example I would think that some of the Tunisian cachers would like the opportunity to create waymarks in their own area rather than have them all hogged by someone thousands of miles away.

Olar

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I'm a firm believer that all waymark sites should be visited by the creator to verify coordinates, take pictures, make note of any points of interests in the area, etc.

wait, your saying I didn't have to actually visit that mcdonalds to submit it??? <_<

Requirements for creating a waymark are up to the category manager. In the specific case of the McDonald's Restaurants category, an actual visit to the location is not required for waymark creation (to log a visit, however, you must have eaten there).

 

Most categories that I've seen do NOT require a visit to the location in order to create a waymark. This has been the subject of some debate: is it 'fair' (whatever that means) to create a waymark for a place you haven't been to? More importantly, can an accurate waymark be created without a fairly recent physical visit to the location?

 

Because of the quest for accuracy in waymark creation, with respect to the OP, I'd say short of some extrodinary set of circumstances, mass submits should not be supported. This is NOT a capability which should be opened up to the general public, as it will almost certainly be abused.

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I'm a firm believer that all waymark sites should be visited by the creator to verify coordinates, take pictures, make note of any points of interests in the area, etc.

wait, your saying I didn't have to actually visit that mcdonalds to submit it??? <_<

He-He, nor did I say you had to actually order something to eat. <_<

 

Actually I shudder at the thought of someone Waymarking the McD near my home without ever visiting it first. How would they know to put a warning in the description to beware of seagulls swarming the parking lot? A prime spot for a CITO event.

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My leaning is toward the idea that categories should allow the creation of waymarks with map-scaled coordinates without requiring a physical visit.

 

My reasoning is that this speeds up the proliferation of waymarks to log.

 

(Allowing mass submits is even faster, but should be accompanied by at least a set of coordinates for each item.)

 

If someone creates a waymark by physically being there, then they should do the first log for it too. <_<

 

My leaning for logs is to require a physical visit with pictures and a set of coordinates read from a GPSr on site.

 

However, each category manager makes their own rules for waymarks and logs. The above is just what I feel is the best-of-all-possible-worlds for Waymarking. <_<

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There are a few instances where this might be useful. Since it's a limited occurance (and nothing I'd want to see a standard tool for), I'd bet that it can be handled on a case-by-case basis with bootron/Jeremy et al.

For "official" databases, such as benchmarks or landmarks, I could see this as being very useful to the category owner, who might wish their category to be pre-populated with an entire set of waymarks. I think it should be a tool available to category owners though, not the general user community.

 

--Marky

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There are a few instances where this might be useful.  Since it's a limited occurance (and nothing I'd want to see a standard tool for), I'd bet that it can be handled on a case-by-case basis with bootron/Jeremy et al.

For "official" databases, such as benchmarks or landmarks, I could see this as being very useful to the category owner, who might wish their category to be pre-populated with an entire set of waymarks. I think it should be a tool available to category owners though, not the general user community.

 

--Marky

Good point on it being available to category owners only.

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Mass Submits would useful for:

 

1. Retail chains

2. Benchmarks

3. Government waystations (such as weather stations)

 

Probably others.

 

I'd envision a special input screen that would contain a large textarea box. Just copy-paste the preformatted text file into and click "Execute".

 

Error checking would have to be stringent on the server side. Anything that isn't formatted properly, and the entire file is discarded.

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As I sat here reading this thread, one thought kept popping into my head

 

"Why would anyone want to own every single possible location for a Waymark in a Catagory?"

 

But as I tried to think of how to reply to the OP that it didn't seem likely that it would happen... I suddenly realized that I have a Catagory that I would LOVE to own every single occurance as my own Waymarks.

 

I had never thought about that possibility.... that would be really cool.

 

But I still think that anyone that wants to own all of the Waymark locations in their Catagory... it should be a very specialized Catagory.

 

So, if someone owned the "7 Ancient Wonders" Catagory, and owned all 7 Waymarks in it... fine.

 

But if someone gets a database of every Rollercoaster in America... come on, give other people a chance.

 

:laughing: The Blue Quasar

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As I sat here reading this thread, one thought kept popping into my head

 

"Why would anyone want to own every single possible location for a Waymark in a Catagory?"

 

But as I tried to think of how to reply to the OP that it didn't seem likely that it would happen... I suddenly realized that I have a Catagory that I would LOVE to own every single occurance as my own Waymarks.

 

I had never thought about that possibility.... that would be really cool.

 

But I still think that anyone that wants to own all of the Waymark locations in their Catagory... it should be a very specialized Catagory.

 

So, if someone owned the "7 Ancient Wonders" Catagory, and owned all 7 Waymarks in it... fine.

 

But if someone gets a database of every Rollercoaster in America... come on, give other people a chance.

 

:laughing: The Blue Quasar

It's not about owning all the waymarks in a category, it's simply about populating the database with waymarks.

 

Why wait for individuals to slowly and haphazardly populate a benchmark category if, in one fell swoop, you can populate the entire category with highly accurate information from a complete official database?

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Who's to say that what he has is complete...or even up-to-date?

 

The fun could be in trying to prove that there are other waymarks out there that fit the category that weren't in the original meld (think of it as a game of rummy).

 

I still think this is only of importance to a minor subset of potential categories and therefore relegated to the "ask for permission on a case-by-case basis and GS can enter it for you".

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Why wait for individuals to slowly and haphazardly populate a benchmark category if, in one fell swoop, you can populate the entire category with highly accurate information from a complete official database?

Does "highly accurate" include the assurance that the benchmark is actually still there? You, the waymark creator via a mass download, cannot be certain of that unless you go and verify it yourself. So in essence what will happen is the first seeker becomes the creators means of verification. That's probably fine with most people as they become a true FTF and deserve a pat on the back. However if that particular benchmark has been removed or destroyed for whatever reason then you'll get a bunch of "no finds". Then what? Archive it immediately or go out yourself and try to find it? Rather difficult when you live a ways from that area. My very limited experience with benchmark hunting in Canada showed that not all listed on a Government database still actually existed so any kind of mass download from that source would be "haphazardly" populating the waymark category.

 

Olar

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Does "highly accurate" include the assurance that the benchmark is actually still there?

Whether we are discussing mass submits, or the creation of a single new waymark, the accuracy requirements for the category will ultimately remain in the hands of the category manager.

 

So the assumption is that proper and appropriate category management will result in a reasonable accuracy requirement. If a category manager doesn't care about accuracy, but has the means to do a massive upload, he'll have to figure out how to deal with all the DNFs, and presumably the category will suffer in terms of popularity.

 

I would expect that any individual or group which is managing a benchmark category would be seriously interested in accurate listings. Benchmark enthusiasts seem to be, in general, a precise and passionate lot.

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I think it should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. For benchmarks, I think it makes sense to pre-populate the database. As a matter of fact, during alpha-testing, Jeremy DID populate the waymark database with hundreds of thousands (or was it millions? I forget.) of points out of a NGS database.

 

For something like restaurants or statues, though, I don't think those should be mass submitted.

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We had millions of USGS placenames, separated by category, in the test server to test the load of millions of waymarks in the database.

 

In the future we do plan to allow bulk uploads of waymarks once we determine the best formula for the new GPX format. As long as the data fits the format it could be bulk uploaded. This would allow, for example, a handheld application to log a bunch of different points and bulk send them back to the site instead of using a browser/site method. We can, however, already do this sort of process in house for preset data like for NGS benchmarks. For now it will be a case-by-case basis only.

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Tsegi Mike and Desert Viking Posted on Sep 29 2005, 05:33 PM

  QUOTE (The Blue Quasar @ Sep 29 2005, 05:31 PM)

I suddenly realized that I have a Catagory that I would LOVE to own every single occurance as my own Waymarks.

 

 

Which is? 

 

I am not prepared to bring my Catagory into the light yet. I want to do the proper research on it first, and wait till people can submit Catagory Proposals.

 

If someone else suggests it 'on the dark side', being the massive list being made for no obvious reason to me, then I will be happy that they got it.

 

I am also waiting for the shake out of these issues that are being beta-tested now.

 

:P The Blue Quasar

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I would like to see a method for uploading hundreds of waymarks for the category owner. I happened to pick up the Canadian Benchmark category and my goal is to pre-populate it with some of the available online database information. I don't mind compiling it and formatting it before submitting it to the site. But since I'm dealing with the potential of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands waymarks it is not practical to enter them one by one so I'm hoping for this feature to come very soon.

 

A previous poster stated that by populating it this way there may be some that are no longer there or findable. I say good. The Benchmark category at geocaching.com was done the same way and I am a finder of a few of those. It did not matter to me if I didn't find it, it was the search that was fun. Why not list them here, the lists exist elsewhere anyway so it's not as if you're hiding potential sites. By populating the database here it makes it easier for everyone to see what's available. The FTF will have the added challenge of finding something that is not confirmed to be there. But then that's what FTF is all about isn't it?

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I'm a firm believer that all waymark sites should be visited by the creator to verify coordinates, take pictures, make note of any points of interests in the area, etc.

wait, your saying I didn't have to actually visit that mcdonalds to submit it??? :(

He-He, nor did I say you had to actually order something to eat. :)

 

Actually I shudder at the thought of someone Waymarking the McD near my home without ever visiting it first. How would they know to put a warning in the description to beware of seagulls swarming the parking lot? A prime spot for a CITO event.

Where did I say anything about eating there?? Those rattlesnakes I hear about scare me....:unsure:

 

(and on a totally unrelated matter, why do I treat every forum I don't much care about like the Off topic zone? :unsure: )

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