There Have Been A Lot Of Proposals (724 By Jan 15)

[+Black Dog Trackers]

On January 15, I examined all the category proposals by order of topic starting date.

From the beginning (August 15, 2005) to January 15, there have been 724 category proposals.

The averge is 145 proposals per month.

 

A few of the category proposals have been made into existing categories, as we know.

I wonder what will happen to the others.

[+silverquill]

Who knows? Maybe someone knows, but they are not telling! Why? A world-wide geocahing community awaits breathlessly for some morsel of news. There are a lot of us anxiously waiting for a chance to get on with Waymarking. There may be good reasons for the delay, but would it hurt so much to give us an update? Are we just wasting our time suggesting new, interesting categories? What should we be doing? How should we be doing it? Any clues?

[+The Blue Quasar]

Jeremy posted an update recently in this thread

 

Progress Report

 

The Blue Quasar

[+Black Dog Trackers]

My posting of this topic was not a way of asking about the time when this or that would happen.

Instead it was:

 

1. Just sort of a gee-whiz kind of thing to note how many proposals had been made so far. The number is rather larger than I had thought.

 

2. Saying that I am wondering how the previous proposals will fit in with a future state (non-beta-mode) when there's some voting system or something to approve a category. I'm not terribly concerned about this; it's just sort of a curiousity as to how things will sort out or be completely re-started, since we are in an unofficial proposal mode now.

 

On the subject of people demanding to know when this or that will be starting, I must say that in programming a large project, being able to say when it will be finished is not easy, and I think, more difficult than actually doing the programming, since doing the programming is a subset of the effort of finding out when it will be done.

So, I'm not asking when the beta mode will be over. It will happen when it happens and us complaining about it won't make it happen any sooner, and even if we knew the absolute date when it would happen, I doubt that we users would arrange our lives any differently.

[+tozainamboku]

I haven't looked at all of the proposals but from what I've see it looks like almost all would make good Waymarking categories.

• Even many that got only negative comments in the forum look like they would work for some small group of people that would be interested in that category. Popularity shouldn't be a deciding factor in approving a category.
  
• Most need some refinement. Proposals are usually being give with just a category title and in many cases someone needs to give a more detailed description of what would and would not constitute a waymark in that category.
  
• Most haven't considered that power or usefulness of category variables. In many case categories can be combined and variables used to distinguish types of waymarks in the category.
  

The proposals give me a good feeling for what could happen once the process of adding new categories opens up. I personally am not too concerned that there will be too many categories. There may be a lot of work keeping the directory heirarchy clean (I already have trouble finding things, because there are multiple categories I have to look under)

[+Team GeoDuo]

That means almost 5 proposals a day. There appears to be a lot of interest in this site. I just hope the interest and patience will continue.

Edited February 21, 2006 by geo-duo

[+silverquill]

 

So, I'm not asking when the beta mode will be over. It will happen when it happens and us complaining about it won't make it happen any sooner, and even if we knew the absolute date when it would happen, I doubt that we users would arrange our lives any differently.

 

Sorry if my post sounded too complaining. I want to cheer loudly for Jeremy, Sean and all the Groundspeak people who have had the vision for this and are putting in the hard work to make it happen!! Bravo, I say!

 

I guess I missed that update (thought I had my subscription in order) from Jeremy. Thanks Blue Quasar!

 

I've just felt like there has been this mad jumble of category proposals being posted here. I just didn't know if this is the approach we should be taking, if they were going into a black hole, or if they were being organized some way. Are we on track, do you think?

 

I'll try to reign in my enthusiasm.

 

Thanks again for the feedback.

[+silverquill]

I haven't looked at all of the proposals but from what I've see it looks like almost all would make good Waymarking categories.

• Even many that got only negative comments in the forum look like they would work for some small group of people that would be interested in that category. Popularity shouldn't be a deciding factor in approving a category.
  
• Most need some refinement. Proposals are usually being give with just a category title and in many cases someone needs to give a more detailed description of what would and would not constitute a waymark in that category.
  
• Most haven't considered that power or usefulness of category variables. In many case categories can be combined and variables used to distinguish types of waymarks in the category.
  

The proposals give me a good feeling for what could happen once the process of adding new categories opens up. I personally am not too concerned that there will be too many categories. There may be a lot of work keeping the directory heirarchy clean (I already have trouble finding things, because there are multiple categories I have to look under)

 

I whole heartedly agree with this! There are already some categories of fairly narrow interest, and that is fine. Specialized categories have their place. As I see it, that is part of the beauty of the whole Waymarking concept -- something for everyone. I find the voting process a bit arcane. Popularity is determined not by votes but ultimately by participation. But, even if a small group of people are interested in Waymarking pink elephants, then why not allow them a category? Certainly there should be some limits and criteria, but sheer popularity need not be the determining factor. If the Waymarking site becomes too bloated to the point of loosing functionality, then that becomes more critical. There might need to be a way of weeding out stagnate categories, for instance.

 

Of course refinement is needed. My understanding is that at this stage we are just making general suggestions and that if they are accepted they will be refined and fleshed out with descriptions, placement and marking requirements, variables, etc.

 

Again, I certainly agree, but at this point the categories are just suggestions, and before becoming active they will need to be put into the taxonomy of the site. Having worked on a similar large-scale project of developing a taxonomy for email newsletters and lists, I know how challenging it can be to come up with a logical, coherent taxonomy. I would hope it would be possible to cross-list categories within the structure.

 

I'm excited, too! Over 700 proposals -- and more to come -- there will be a lot of good times!

 

~~silverquill

[+Razak]

I agree that there needs to be a way to weed out categories, but I'm not sure if stagnant will necessarily work.

 

Depending on how they do stats for Waymarking, it may turn out that people will go and create and log waymarks that they don't even like only for the stats. This would create a problem especially for certain categories which have a ton of waymarks and a ton of opportunity to add more never going away even if only 5 or 6 people out of 1,000,000 actually want the category <cough>mcdonald's</cough>.

 

How to weed out the unpopular I don't know. It doesn't seem totally right to say that once a category gets 5,000 thumbs down that it is out... maybe it can be some sort of percentage. Maybe a category gets 6 months where they don't have to worry about it, and then after that if they have 10 times the thumbs down as they have thumbs up, it is on probation and if after another month it can't change this ratio it is removed or archived. They could then have a section for probationary categories for people to give a look over or something to see if they want to give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. This may work.... because really if Mcdonald's has 10,000 thumbs down should it stay because it has 100 thumbs up? I agree that the site shouldn't be about popularity, but at the same time, is there a certain point where a category is far too unpopular?

[+Black Dog Trackers]

silverquill

I find the voting process a bit arcane. Popularity is determined not by votes but ultimately by participation. But, even if a small group of people are interested in Waymarking pink elephants, then why not allow them a category? Certainly there should be some limits and criteria, but sheer popularity need not be the determining factor. If the Waymarking site becomes too bloated to the point of loosing functionality, then that becomes more critical. There might need to be a way of weeding out stagnant categories, for instance.

I agree that participation volume might be better than the popularity voting in the process of filtering new category proposals. Just approve them all as a first step. The things to get past are: for a while, categories that will ultimately be archived will take up space (no big deal), and if a category doesn't get X participation after Y time, or have some growth factor Z, it and all of its waymarks and logs will be lost (archived).

 

Razak

Depending on how they do stats for Waymarking, it may turn out that people will go and create and log waymarks that they don't even like only for the stats.

Well I'm no stats guy, but I must admit that if people find it fun to waymark a particular category just for the stats, then I think that category should live, no matter how insipid and even unlikable it is.

[+Team GeoDuo]

Black Dog Trackers

Well I'm no stats guy, but I must admit that if people find it fun to waymark a particular category just for the stats, then I think that category should live, no matter how insipid and even unlikable it is.

 

Here, Here, I agree totally.

 

I don't think running up the stats is a big issue. Each one of us are going to use this site in our own way so I think that getting out and enjoying Waymarking is the real issue.

 

Right now there are not to many waymarks for my area but I've been going through the categories trying to see what waymarks I can match to things in my little corner of the world.

 

Who knows maybe I need to turn off this computer, go out and get some fresh air and go waymark a MickyD's or two or three or ten or ......

[+Razak]

Well I'm no stats guy, but I must admit that if people find it fun to waymark a particular category just for the stats, then I think that category should live, no matter how insipid and even unlikable it is.

 

Maybe, but if they do leave it just because people are using it as a stat buffer, then they dadgum well better break down stats somehow to show it. If someone has 5000 waymarks found, I wanna know if it is because they sit and go to chains across their state because that is unimpressive, and even worse it makes me think less of these people... I think this will especially become an issue if they decide to combine Waymarking with geocaching stats... I think there will be a lot of geocachers who resent people who pass them up because someone is going to die at a young age from hamburger poisoning.

 

Either that or perhaps a happy medium would be that if you thumbs down a category, maybe your logs in that category would not count to how many visits a category has received when deciding if it should delete it.

 

Ya know the more I have to argue against the McDonald's categories of this site, the more distasteful I find this site as a whole... A site is only as good as it's worst features, and right now this site is not looking very good to me anymore... too bad too... was actually quite excited about Waymarking....