Category Proposal: Disney Benchmarks

[+The Cheeseheads]

Scattered throughout DisneyWorld are benchmark-like markers like this one:

 

 

I'm proposing a "Disney" subcategory under the Benchmarks category to waymark these.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

Wintertime is the main person for Disney benchmarks. She runs a website on Disney benchmarks and many people have contributed Disney benchmark coordinates for her website. She should be a category manager of waymarks for Disney benchmarks.

Edited November 10, 2005 by Black Dog Trackers

[Wintertime]

I think this would be a fun category! And I'd be happy to be part of the management team. The people who've been feeding me information from Anaheim and Orlando would probably be happy to help, too.

 

Given that I already have a database of coordinates for some 85 marks at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, would folks use that information to create waymarks? If so, then I'd want the people who found those marks to be acknowledged for their efforts (some of them have spent a *lot* of time looking for them). Perhaps they should become the owners of the marks they've found?

 

Or would the Waymarking game start fresh? I.e., not allow people to look at my page, but instead require them to find marks themselves, take their own GPS readings, and create waymarks from that? In that case (if my page wasn't being used in the game), then I wouldn't care so much about being involved in managing the category. As I said, I'm mostly interested in ensuring that my friends receive due credit for their work.

 

For those who haven't seen it, my Disneymarks page is at:

 

http://www.wintertime.com/OH/GC/Disney/disneymarks.html

 

 

Patty

[+Jake39]

WOW>>> Anything else would be redundant.

What a web-site 100s of them. And the photography

 

How could anybody beat that???

 

 

[+The Cheeseheads]

BTW... The benchmark in the OP is MK-1, the one in Toontown. Looks like someone ran something over it since Wintertime's original photo...

[+Klemmer]

I'm not very interested in Waymarking, but Wintertime brought this forum thread to my attention. We are two of the Disney Anaheim Benchmark uhhh.... "pioneers"? We have probably found 15+ in the parks and nearby Downtown Disney. We also have a "grandfathered" virtual geocache, still active, Disney California Adventure (DCA) Benchmarks #1 that uses 5 of the Disney Benchmarks in DCA. Waymarking involving those 5 would be redundant with the geocache.

 

We would be very interested in any NEW (previously unfound) Disney Benchmarks (as I know Wintertime would be as well). As the locations of the other ones are well documented between Wintertime's website and our virtual, I'm not sure how a waymark would work..... or if it could.

 

I'll keep an open mind, and be happy to assist Wintertime or whoever if a Waymark is setup that could work.

[+Tsegi Mike and Desert Viking]

I love this idea. As an armchair waymarker for this category, it would be great to see photos not only of the benchmarks, but also of the setting they are in. I will be watching this category.

[Wintertime]

BTW... The benchmark in the OP is MK-1, the one in Toontown.

Yep, I went looking for it on my web page when I saw your photo. ;-) I was hoping that you'd found one we didn't have!

 

Looks like someone ran something over it since Wintertime's original photo...

No, it's the same as it was in Nick's photo. Did you click on the photo on my page to bring up the larger version? You can see that big scrape across the lower part of the mark in his closeup photo.

 

Patty

[+ltleelim]

This is an idea that Patty and I have already discussed as a possible locationless cache. Now that all the locationless caches are moving to Waymarking, it's logical that Disney survey markers should be a category at Waymarking.

 

Patty (Wintertime) was the first to make a webpage and publicly share information about Disney benchmarks, so I would strongly support her to be the category manager. Waymarking also says that it will support group management to help spread the workload. I think Larry (Klemmer) would be a good co-manager (if he's interested) since he's been looking for Disney survey markers for a while. Since I have a supplementary webpage with aerial pictures of the Disney survey marker locations, I would also be interested in co-managing. (Please excuse me for suggesting myself. )

 

As to whether the category should be pre-populated with the known survey markers, I think it should be. I've noticed that some other categories are being pre-populated. And my impression so far is that, unlike geocaching, Waymarking is more about categorizing and organizing information than about finding. So I think that in the initial stages, Patty, Nick, Jason, Larry, and I should submit the ones that we each found, with the original find dates, to maintain an accurate historical record. (The longer we do this, the more we see Disney destroy old markers and install new ones. Things change over time.)

 

This could be great. I think a category will give Disney survey markers more exposure. We would welcome revisits. We would love to have more people searching, especially in other parks like the new Hong Kong Disneyland. (We know there are 11 markers there, but no one has looked yet.) I would love it if people could check sight lines for me (since I document those on my webpage).

 

Lloyd

[Jeremy]

Wintertime, would you like to manage the category? I have long admired your web site and would love for you to manage a Disney Benchmark category. We'll have group management in the near future so others can help you.

 

Let me know and I'll have OpinioNate set it up for you.

[Wintertime]

Jeremy--

 

Thank you very much for the kind comments about my Disney benchmarks website. Of course, I'd be happy to manage this category.

 

I do look forward to the team-management capability becoming available. Although a formalized team approach isn't possible right now, I definitely want to include Cheeseheads, Larry, Lloyd, Nick, et al in defining what this category will be. I assume the best way to do that would be via email? Or is there some team-discussion capability on the Waymarking site that I haven't noticed?

 

Thanks,

Patty

 

p.s. Jeremy, do you have an opinion about whether we should create Disney waymarks from the survey marks we've already found, or pretend that my page doesn't exist and make people find them on their own (using the honor system and hoping they don't look at my page)? The latter (finding them "from scratch") would probably be more fun for people, but it may not be realistic. It would be hard to keep people from discovering my list, or to at least verify that they didn't use it to find the markers. Also, as I mentioned earlier, I want the original finders of the marks to get credit for all the time they've spent on this project, so if we go ahead and create waymarks from my list, they can become the owners of the corresponding waymarks. I don't know whether you have a policy for or against creating waymarks from an existing database, or whether you're leaving that up to individual category owners.

Edited November 14, 2005 by Wintertime

[Jeremy]

Or is there some team-discussion capability on the Waymarking site that I haven't noticed?

There isn't any team management options available on the site at this time, but Bootron has been working hard with OpinioNate to get this completed by Jan-Feb. You'll be able to control every aspect of team management as the category manager.

 

OpinioNate is out of the office today but I'll make sure he gets on this first thing. Thanks

[+Granite of StoneSoup]

Jeremy,

 

Patty is a great choice to head up the Disney Benchmarks group. I have long admired her site as well.

 

This discussion has brought up a question in my mind that you should be able to answer. I have been thinking about proposing a group for Amusement Parks. I have the coordinates of a number of the major parks and in the past have found it difficult to locate them by address - at least an address that a GPS can us to plan a road trip. There are also a number of virtual caches in geocaching.com that are focused around fun sites in and around amusement parks. I have spoken with a number of people that really enjoy downloading all the "virtual" caches for an amusement park and then bringing their GPS to find new, fun bits of location trivia.

 

So, here is the question. Can a Waymark category exist under more than one heading?

 

Example:

Places >> Amusement Parks >> Walt Disney World >> WDW Benchmarks

Things >> Benchmarks >> WDW Benchmarks

 

A person visiting Walt Disney World will very likely want to download all the Waymarks within the park - including benchmarks. A person collecting benchmarks will probably think to look first under the Benchmarks category first. Both will likely want to find the same information. What do you think?

[Jeremy]

Both will likely want to find the same information. What do you think?

This is not really an appropriate place for this discussion, but it is a valid one. Post it in Getting Started and I can respond to it there.

[Wintertime]

Jeremy, I think I was editing my most recent posting just as you were replying to it this morning! If you have a chance, could you please look over the "p.s." and respond to it? Or, if you think this situation (creating waymarks from an existing database) is worth wider discussion, let me know and I'll start a new topic in the Getting Started forum.

 

Thanks!

Patty

[Jeremy]

Wintertime,

 

I don't really mind either way about whether they should be refound, but I think it would be just as fun to map them as it would be to find the ones already discovered. In fact it would make it even more difficult to find the ones that haven't been discovered already!

[Wintertime]

Thanks, Jeremy. I'll discuss everything with the gang and we'll pull together some rules for the category.

 

Patty

[+Shorelander]

As a benchmarker and a Disney fan, I was curious if anything ever came of this category?

[Jeremy]

I thought we were going to add this but I think we were still waiting on Wintertime. You could send an email to see the status, but we're still open to adding it.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

As I understand it, this is a situation that brings up the question - what is the difference between:

 

1. having separate (although similar) categories

 

and

 

2. having one category with a variable in it to separate the category into groups,

 

or

 

is there a difference?

 

It seems to me that there isn't really an objective difference. It's a subjective decision. For instance, the different historic marker categories by state could've been just one category with a separation variable; state. It could've even been an international category.

[Wintertime]

Hi, everyone.

 

I'm here, and the category has been set up and ready to go for months. However, we haven't been able to populate it with the known benchmarks yet because we don't have the Disneyland and Walt Disneyworld subcategories we need. I thought Nate might be able to create them for us, but I gathered from him and Jeremy that we'd need to do it ourselves when that capability was given to category owners.

 

I've been keeping an eye on the Getting Started with Waymarking forum for an announcement of the site updates that would include that capability. (As well, I believe, as group category management.) I was just thinking today that I should check the forums this weekend and see whether the site update had happened yet, since one of the site admins (Jeremy?) said a few weeks ago that they were on target for an end-of-February rollout.

 

Anyway, that's where we stand. My cohorts and I have the category all mapped out; we're just waiting to be able to implement it.

 

Patty

[+chstress53]

Wintertime This is my two cents worth, I think you are under a misimterpretation from TPTB, You propose a category it is accepted and as has happened they email you and then you create what you have done and then you click it to go live. TPTB THEN set up the taxonomy, and place them were it fits ( What you are calling sub-categories) .

 

Jeremy posted this Quite some time ago:

" I keep seeing this recommendation for a sub-category. There is no such thing as a proposed sub-category per se. When you make a request for a new waymark category you do just that - Ask for a waymark category to be created and you become the manager.

 

For example, my wife really enjoys factory tours. So I suggest the waymark category "Factory Tours" and put it through this process. If it goes past 2/3 rule (and possibly, as suggested, passes the veto rights of Groundspeak), it gets listed and the category is transferred. At that point it will be Groundspeak's role to put it in the taxonomy of the site, though suggestions as to where this goes is welcome.

 

What many folks are asking for in the way of a subcategory is really a waymark variable. For example, a type of blog is an option for the blogger category. With these variables you can further filter out information within that waymark category. They are not broken out into subcategories of Personal, War, etc. blogs.

 

The process outlined above helps better define the waymark category, which is turning out to be a good idea. It also makes sure the waymark category manager really wants to manage this category or if it is just a whim. From there the category can be further upgraded/downgraded to fit within a certain threshold. For a good example the McDonalds category has been severely downgraded and shouldn't show up in the directory unless you decide to show them all. This is illustrating that even categories that are listed can possibly be downgraded to obscurity.

 

I think they have been waiting for you. Might I suggest that you make proposals for both of what you are calling Disneyland & Walt Disney World. when those categories are accepted then TPTB place them in the approiate place . Or you could wait until the roll out and create these two new Categories at that time. As to populating the category, there has been discussion of adding data banks to some categories, maybe this is what you need.

Edited March 11, 2006 by chstress53

[Wintertime]

Might I suggest that you make proposals for both of what you are calling Disneyland & Walt Disney World. when those categories are accepted then TPTB place them in the approiate place . Or you could wait until the roll out and create these two new Categories at that time.

I did ask my Groundspeak contact a couple of times about making those categories but never heard back. So yes, I'm waiting till the rollout of the updated Waymarking software so that I can do it myself.

 

Patty

[+chstress53]

Might I suggest that you make proposals for both of what you are calling Disneyland & Walt Disney World. when those categories are accepted then TPTB place them in the approiate place . Or you could wait until the roll out and create these two new Categories at that time.

I did ask my Groundspeak contact a couple of times about making those categories but never heard back. So yes, I'm waiting till the rollout of the updated Waymarking software so that I can do it myself.

 

Patty

 

Great I can not wait for your category I think it is really cool, my grandkids will love this one.

[+Klemmer]

I'm one of Patty's "cohorts". All we want / need is an intelligent way to separate Disney "Florida" from Disney "California", with possibly a future addition of a Disney "International" section. Those of us familiar with the objects proposed to be waymarked agree it would be way too confusing to try to separate them only with some sort of naming convention. If a variable (or more than one) can do it, fine, let's get on with it. If not, and we are waiting for a site upgrade, OK, we wait. Throwing all Disney benchmarks into one huge catagory will not, I believe, be good for Waymarking or it's participants.

[+tozainamboku]

I'm one of Patty's "cohorts". All we want / need is an intelligent way to separate Disney "Florida" from Disney "California", with possibly a future addition of a Disney "International" section. Those of us familiar with the objects proposed to be waymarked agree it would be way too confusing to try to separate them only with some sort of naming convention. If a variable (or more than one) can do it, fine, let's get on with it. If not, and we are waiting for a site upgrade, OK, we wait. Throwing all Disney benchmarks into one huge catagory will not, I believe, be good for Waymarking or it's participants.

 

I would still recommend using a category variable to indicate which park the benchmark is in. This has and advantage over separate categories in that when a new park is built, you would just add it to the list of values allowed for the variable and not have to get the admins involved in creating a new subcategory. It would also allow the international waymarks to log Disney benchmarks right from the start.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

I suggested to Wintertime a long time ago in email that a simple variable would separate Disneyland from Disneyworld.

 

It would look like this:

Click the radio button that applies.

O Disneyland

O Disneyworld

 

All waymarks would be categorized as either one or the other.

 

But she and her group want 2 separate categories.

 

I don't understand the problem the group has with using a variable as above. I do understand that we are waiting for 2 things:

1. Search-by-variable is not yet implemented.

2. Neither is an ability for anyone to make a category or subcategory on their own.

I don't know if #2 will ever exist.

[+The Blue Quasar]

Boy I do hope this Category gets listed. This is a benchmark I would actually enjoy looking for.

 

I love Disney and getting that icon in my Waymark Profile would be well worth the time spent at Disney...

 

Did the topic of who gets to log the 'previously known' benchmarks get resolved? Tossing copper.... I'd say that Wintertime should allow the people that submitted them to her originally should be contacted and given 'first right of refusal'. Set a time limit, and you're covered both ways. If they don't act.. they can't complain.

 

The Blue Quasar

[+Black Dog Trackers]

I think all the Waymarking and logging could be done before the category is made live. Wintertime can give the link to the people who need to 'set up house'.

 

This can apply whether it is 2 categories or 1 category.

[Wintertime]

Hi, everyone.

 

I'll try to address all your questions. BTW, my name is Patty; "Wintertime" is just my geocaching nickname.

 

If it were as simple as having a single variable to distinguish DL marks from WDW marks, believe me, we would use that option instantly. But the DL/DCA and WDW marks have different styles, different possible locations, and other differences. We would have to list all possible variables for all possible marks in both Florida and California, and we feel that would make the Waymarking process confusing for users. We don't want people to get frustrated trying to create a new mark; we want them to have fun! All Disney benchmark waymarks are going to be in one of two possible clusters, so we want to make the process easier and cleaner by customizing things for each of those clusters.

 

We have indeed sent notes to everyone we know of who mentioned a Disney benchmark on the Geocaching.com forums, various Web sites, Internet discussion groups, etc. asking whether they want to own the waymark for the benchmark they found.

 

If there is a way to create a waymark without assigning it to a category, please let me know. AFAIK, any benchmarks we would create now would all end up in the main category, and I don't know what the process would be for splitting them later.

 

By the way, if any of you are sitting on newly found benchmarks, please go ahead and send me the information and photos! I'm just working on an update to my Web page and would be happy to include them. Then when we get the Waymarking situation sorted out, you would of course become the owner of that waymark.

 

Patty

[+Shorelander]

Patty,

 

I might be going to Castaway Cay this summer, and if I do, I'll be looking for benchmarks there. But if I found any, which category would they go in? Would you create a third subcategory for "International Disney Benchmarks"?

 

SLer

 

PS: I'm the guy who sent you a picture of Epcot-4 a couple months back. I hope to find some heretofore unknown marks next time I'm at a Disney!

[+Klemmer]

As Patty said, we are ready to populate the Disney Benchmarks category, and they will be input / owned by the first finder, as best we can locate them, and if they are interested. We just need subcategories, as Patty explained. Patty is the recognized expert of all the marks. Her Website almost makes Waymarks redundant, but she is willing (with some assistants) and able to do the Waymarking thing also. There are also two very knowldgeable "on scene" experts (one in each area). I'm the California guy.

 

It seems to us, as long time Disney fans (some would say fanatics!) that these benchmarks are different from others in important aspects. Five of them (at Disney California Adventure) together form an existing virtual geocache (grandfathered, of course). They need to be respected. Some Disney Benchmarks were found as long ago as early 2002, not long after geocaching was born, and well before geocaching's benchmarking stepchild was born. Does anyone need to be reminded of the place Disney holds in the hearts and minds of many millions of folks worldwide? We just want to do it right, make it fun, and hopefully keep it that way. There are a limited number of these marks, unless or until more are added. FINDING and logging these will be much more important than, for example, other types of benchmarks, where documenting (adding) them is the important point, for the most part.

 

The right folks are on it. Just a little patience please (and a little help from GC.com) and we'll be on our way.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

quoting Wintertime

We would have to list all possible variables for all possible marks in both Florida and California, and we feel that would make the Waymarking process confusing for users.

Apparently this is the core objection to having one category for Diseny benchmarks with a variable to select Disney World from Disneyland, but I cannot understand the meaning of it. Perhaps the plan is for Disney World to have a completely different list of variables from Disneyland? If so, perhaps the programming of Waymarking should be changed a bit so that if someone selects a particular radio button, then a particular group of subsequent selections appears.

 

I'm thinking that Patty and GC.com (OpinioNate/Jeremy) are actually waiting for each other while each doesn't understand what the other's holdup is.

Edited March 13, 2006 by Black Dog Trackers

[+ibycus]

Sounds like a really fun category... Can I ask what variables you have in mind for the benchmarks?

 

Looking over the site linked to above, it seems as though they could really all go together, so I must be missing something.

 

Personally what I would have is something like:

 

Park the benchmark is located in (radio buttons)

Markings on the benchmark (text input)

General Area within the park (long text input)

Description of area (long text input)

 

Requirement of photo of the benchmark along with a context photo.

 

The "general area" and description of the area would then be free form text, and could be adapted to what ever happens to come up.

[+ChapterhouseInc]

what's the status on this category?

 

now that groups are up and running, i will gladly serve on the 'board' though i will probable never post anything in this category, i hope to visit some.....

 

chapterhouse