Marks Not On This Database Can Now Be Waymarked

[+Black Dog Trackers]

The Waymarking category is now live and ready for logging geodetic disks that are not included in the benchmarking database.

 

I am the category manager and I do hope that I have done a good job of establishing the category.

 

The category is pretty much restricted to the disk type of marker. I was proposing this over at Waymarking and Groundspeak apparently agreed with this rather conservative approach.

 

Conversely, I am wanting to allow people to create waymarks without actually going to the mark if the location information comes from an online local database of benchmarks. This scenario will be similar to the original process whereby 700,000 benchmark locations were established for the benchmarking site, except that it will be manual. I don't know if/whether it will ever be possible to upload a dataset in one operation.

 

I have zero information on how/when/if the regular benchmarking area will move-to/change-to/evolve-to/become Waymarking, if ever.

 

In the Waymarking forums, Jeremy has said that, sometime early next year, Waymarking categories will likely be managed by teams of more than one person.

 

Please let me know here in the forum or via email if I have made some kind of errors in designing the category. I've spent several hours setting it up.

 

This "Recovered US Benchmarks" category can be found in the Waymarking directory. Click on "Benchmarks" in the "Things" area, and then click on "Recovered US Benchmarks".

 

As of writing this, I haven't even tried to log one yet - I hope it works.

[Papa-Bear-NYC]

Good job.

 

Couple of suggestions:

 

First suggestion: The phrase "US Benchmarks" might imply only those bench marks established by a U. S. government agency. I assume you actually meany any bench mark located in the U. S. (but not in the NGS database). These would include state, county, local, and orther assorted marks. You have the statement

there are thousands of benchmark discs that are not included in the NGS database. This waymark category is for Waymarking and logging them.

You might want to expand that slightly so it's clear that it includes any bench mark, not just U. S. government marks.

 

Second suggestion: The name is "Recovered US Benchmarks". Since you intend to include entries from various sources but not (necessarily) recovered, you may want to rephrase that slightly.

 

I know these are more-or-less covered in the "fine print" when you click on "details", but I thought you might avoid a little confusion if the top level phraseology was expanded on these points.

Edited November 19, 2005 by Papa-Bear-NYC

[+PFF]

Just tried an upload. It works!

 

-Paul-

[+Airmapper]

What about Pipe and cap markers?

[+Sagefox]

What about Pipe and cap markers?

And those great old concrete monuments with the copper nail?

[+seventhings]

BDT -

 

Well done ++++++!!!!.

 

I just uploaded one and encountered only one bug: I selected a "monumentation type" from the drop-down list, but the upload routine demanded that I type in a monumentation type in the field for monumentation types not listed in the drop-down list. Very minor thing; maybe my mistake.

 

Otherwise, very cool!

 

Will

[+Black Dog Trackers]

Papa-Bear-NYC -

 

First suggestion - the "U.S." part of the category name is a necessity because it defines which country the category is for. I see your point, though and addressed it in a parenthetical note. Let me know if that solves it.

 

Second suggestion - I suggested the name "U.S. Benchmarks, non-NGS" but Groundspeak wanted the name to be "Recovered US Benchmarks" because that name clearly doesn't preclude post-2000 NGS marks from being included.

I see your point about the word "Recovered". This worries me because I am assuming that the Waymarking concept does not preclude creating waymarks from databases without visiting the sites. There are definitely 2 points of view on this in the Waymarking forums but Jeremy, as I recall, definitely sides with making waymarks from databases if the category manager wishes to allow it. I do wish to allow it because that is what we have in the regular benchmarking area. They are essentially 700,000 waymarks created by Groundspeak and waiting for logs. I figure that this category should allow for the same thing. So, I designed the category to fit this concept in, although it was a kind of rough fit and had to make another adjustment on it a few minutes ago. Hopefully Groundspeak won't reject this on Monday, making me take out all the database stuff.

 

PFF - thank you for entering some waymarks! I definitely needed some tests!

 

Airmapper - Excellent point. Obviously, I'm wanting to make a clear path for disks that say they're a geodetic monument. Pipe caps do the same thing so I should figure out a way to say that explicitly.

 

Team Sagefox - I'm afraid of those at this point. People might put in every nail they find in concrete things, and I'd have to accept them.

 

seventhings - I'm pretty sure I have fixed that problem upon reading your post. Thank you!

[Wintertime]

Nifty idea, BDT. Now people can do something with all that pent-up frustration of having found marks that aren't listed on GC.com!

 

By the way, there will soon be another Waymarking category for Disney benchmarks. Jeremy has promised to set it up soon, and some other folks and I are currently defining all the specifications for it.

 

Patty

[+PFF]

BDT:

 

Several state boundary markers were rejected as not being the proper "type". Apparently, the system is looking only for "disks". Can you check on this? Marks, such as the one pictured below, are quite common from the 1800's. Many of them have been incorporated into the NGS data base, already. Others are coming. (Check your e-mail for additional information.)

 

Please see if you can get the site to be more flexible. Historic marks, such as the 100+ year old stones on state lines, are of considerable interest to many folks. It will be great if we can document these on Waymarking. Thanks in advance for your help--and a gold star for taking on this project!

 

-Paul-

 

 

Red tape placed by NCGS. Visited and photographed by GEOCAC (PFF).

[+Black Dog Trackers]

These old boundary markers are very cool indeed!

 

I think they should have their own waymark category.

 

Of course any of them that are BOTH a boundary marker AND a geodetic marker could be waymarked in both categories (assuming that a boundary marker category existed).

[Jeremy]

There may be some confusion.

 

We will (eventually) update the benchmark database on geocaching.com to show the ones that have been updated in the official NGS system. The ones I assumed would be added to the Recovered category were ones that are not in the current NGS database. IMO the geocaching database is irrelevent as the challenge is to recover otherwise unfound markers.

 

We can certainly change the name to something more appropriate but I think more discussion is needed.

 

HTH

[Jeremy]

BDT:

 

Several state boundary markers were rejected as not being the proper "type". Apparently, the system is looking only for "disks". Can you check on this? Marks, such as the one pictured below, are quite common from the 1800's. Many of them have been incorporated into the NGS data base, already. Others are coming. (Check your e-mail for additional information.)

They should be rejected. This category is very specific. These boundary markers should have their own category. They are cool though (I'm not saying they aren't!). They just don't fit.

[CallawayMT]

BDT,

 

I have been looking around in the benchmark Waymarking area and have a few questiions for you. First is that I was looking in the canadian benchmarks and I see a few benchmarks along the U.S.-Canadian border which already have PID's and are included in the regular benchmarking area of Geocaching. Why are they getting spread into this new area? I thought this area is for marks not in the regular database?

 

Next question: when I go to the Waymarking/Things/Benchmarks area I see links for Canadian Benchmarks and U.K. Trigpoints; I do not see any links for the Recovered U.S. Benchmarks. I have gotten there after looking at a gallery image and then getting a link within that area. Am I missing something here, or is there a direct link just like the Canadian and U.K. links on the first page? I know you are not responsible for the page layout, but it seems that they have made the U.S. benchmarks a little hidden.

 

CallawayMT

[+seventhings]

CallawayMT -

 

I think the BDT is out-of-pocket for a few days.

 

Regarding the ability to see the "Recovered US Benchmarks": This is a mystery. When I go to the site I can always see the Canadian things, the UK Tripoints and the Recovered US Benchmarks. If I don't LOGIN, I can't see the Portugese and Spanish points. When I actually LOGIN, I can see all five subcategories.

 

Try logging in and see if that gives you access to the "Recovered US Benchmarks" category.

 

Will

Edited November 25, 2005 by seventhings

[CallawayMT]

CallawayMT -

 

I think the BDT is out-of-pocket for a few days.

 

Regarding the ability to see the "Recovered US Benchmarks":  This is a mystery.  When I go to the site I can always see the Canadian things, the UK Tripoints and the Recovered US Benchmarks.  If I don't LOGIN, I can't see the Portugese and Spanish points.  When I actually LOGIN, I can see all five subcategories.

 

Try logging in and see if that gives you access to the "Recovered US Benchmarks" category.

 

Will

Will,

 

I think they do have some kinks to work out. I went and logged out and then I can see the U.S. category along with the U.K. and Canadian categories. I don't see any Spanish or Portugese categories at any time.

 

Thanks,

CallawayMT

 

P.S. I noticed this new note at the bottom of the screen: "There are subcategories containing waymarks that are not being displayed due to your filter (popularity or location) settings." , but my screen for the waymark directory states "Waymark Directory (no filter)". I still think they have kinks to work out.

Edited November 25, 2005 by CallawayMT

[+GEO*Trailblazer 1]

I added one as well.

Great job.

 

Why not start a category for each type.

Stone Monument.

Pipe Cap.

Copper rod.

Copper nail.

Chisled cross or square.

Intersection station.

If I missed one or 2 let me know.

 

I would be glad to host one or more of these to help out.

I have just been waiting for it to happen.

I asked for the category way back when it first started....but...............

It is there now.

[Z15]

I was trying this out and found a problem. At least for me.

 

I uploaded the wrong image and cannot for the life of me find a way to delete it? Is that not possible? With hundreds of BM images, this is bound to happen once in a while.

Edited November 26, 2005 by Z15

[+GEO*Trailblazer 1]

I was trying this out and found a problem. At least for me.

 

I uploaded the wrong image and cannot for the life of me find a way to delete it?  Is that not possible?  With hundreds of BM images, this is bound to happen once in a while.

Go to My Waymarks.

Click on the left name (the name you gave it).

go to that Gallery.

Click view image.

Check archive image.

Edited November 26, 2005 by GEO*Trailblazer 1

[Z15]

GIT-R-DONE! Thanks

 

Thats a new name for delete?

Edited November 26, 2005 by Z15

[Z15]

A tip on maps.

 

Google Maps are full of errors and I know there is a tendency now days to trust everything you find on line so if planning to go looking for waymarks or BM's, check other maps to see if they agree.

 

I found numerous errors and omissions on several maps in my area such as, road names are wrong, barely visible woods roads shown in same detail as the main paved roads . Roads not shown but been there for at least 50 yrs and more.

Edited November 26, 2005 by Z15

[+Black Dog Trackers]

CallawayMT -

 

As to your first question, it is true that PID's in the GC database from the NGS are not within scope of the Recovered US Benchmarks category. However the Canadian benchmarks category doesn't have such a limitation even for the large Canadian databses because those databases have never been in any of GC.com's sites. So the Canadians are Waymarking them from the Canadian perspective[/i}, which I think, is fair.

 

Your second is answered by this topic. I am guessing that the Recovered US Benchmarks category hasn't been 'voted up' in the popularity vote yet (hint hint).

[+Black Dog Trackers]

GEO*Trailblazer 1 -

 

The Recovered US Benchmarks category doesn't include:

Stone Monument, Copper rod, Copper nail, Chisled cross or square, or Intersection station, etc. because we (I) can't be totally sure that a given instance of one of these is a geodetic mark. However, if the mark is a disk, then we can read what it says and pretty well determine whether it is a geodetic mark or not. We can't read copper rods, chiseled squares, etc. to know its purpose. I did add the pipe cap type though; good point!

 

However, the category does allow ANY type of mark that is listed in an online geodetic mark database. In such a case, we do know that the item in question is a geodetic mark.

Edited November 27, 2005 by Black Dog Trackers

[itchytweed]

I know that here in Wisconsin, we have a page, http://sco.wisc.edu/geocat/index.php, that is called ControlFinder. It is a neat little applet that allows you to locate BM's in the state, whether they are county, state, feds, etc.

 

Hopefully other states have something like this in place.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

itchytweed -

 

Some do. Check out Zhanna's site for her collection of sites like this (click on "Resources", then "Local Control Monument Databases"). She has the Wisconsin one already.

 

The Recovered US Benchmarks category is set up so that anyone can use one of these databases and waymark all the marks in it (no matter what monumentation type) without even visiting them. Then anyone (including the one who waymarked them) can log the waymark if they visit it and provide a closeup photo of the disk. So if any of these is in your area, feel free to waymark the entire database! (It probably wouldn't be fair to waymark a whole database if you didn't intend to visit some of them too.)

 

CallawayMT -

 

Premium members can vote on a category. I just did, to upgrade the Recovered US Benchmarks category and now it is up from 60% to 50% (that is up). So now you should be able to see it.

 

For anyone, the voting is at the top of the category's page to the right of the title. There are 3 icons -

the first is to get all the category's pictures,

the second is declare the category a 'favorite' which applies to the search function (you can search all your 'favorite' waymark categories together), and

the third is to vote the category up or down. (You can change your up or down vote, but you can only vote once.) If a category is 50% or better (meaning a percentage number 50 or less), then only premium members can 'see' the category.

 

I'm assuming that if a category is suboptimal or run poorly by the manager(s), and people vote it down, it will be archived.

Edited November 27, 2005 by Black Dog Trackers

[itchytweed]

BDT -

 

Thanks for Zhanna's site. It is well done and full of info. I have relatives in PA so the pix bring back memories.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Somehow, I cannot muster any enthusiasm for whatsthepoint?.com. Okay, we found 6 or 8 non-NGS benchmark stations this weekend. But, what's the point? Guess that's just not my game. Sorry. Have fun.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

Harry Dolphin -

 

Thank you, we will try.

[+PFF]

Harry D wrote:

Guess that's just not my game. Sorry. Have fun.

 

Long term, we'll see how much "staying power" the site has. But it certainly got off to a good start: Over 70 waymarks created in the first ten days--with locations stretching from one coast to the other, and several in the middle of the US.

 

It is a little awkward to find yourself back at the top of the page after using the drop-down menus. Otherwise, things are working smoothly.

 

-Paul-