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Absentee Category Owners


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I am again the victim of an absentee category manager. This is for the Airports category. Nearly every time I post, I wait and wait and finally get approval. In this case, though, the Category Owner hasn't logged in to the site in almost four weeks. I don't know if he's MIA or what. I did e-mail him, hoping for a response.

 

Rather than wait until June, wouldn't it behoove the Groundspeak Gods to look into these absentee category owners? These little glitches can keep the game from being fun and might run some users off before group management is fully implemented.

 

And that raises another issue. What about category owners who don't recruit group members? Do they lose the category and does it go up for grabs?

 

showbizkid

Edited by showbizkid
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This is the notice that is displayed on the top of my waymarks category page:

 

We no longer are allowing individuals to manage categories. You must create a group to manage each category. You will be able to continue managing and editing your categories as you have been up until June 1st, 2006, but after this date you will lose all control of your category until you transfer it to a group.

 

Not sure if that answers the question, though.

Edited by Ambrosia
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I have been waiting since November of last year to have a Waymark approved in Devilish Locations category. I have made several attempts to contact the manager. What’s up with that? There should be some criteria for Waymark approvers. Is it possible for someone else to take over management of a Waymark category for an unresponsive manager?

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I have one that has been in the covered wagon category for going on four months. Then I did one for devilish locations and after I was almost done I noticed it was owned by the same individual who had let my wagon submission languish for months. I almost gave up on my effort but submitted anyway. That was a month ago plus. -_-

 

The least that could be done is to set the category on auto approve until a new manager/group is found.

 

Maybe offer it to the person who has created the most waymarks to this point and if they aren't interested open it up to the masses. Then whoever takes them on can create a group and get things going again.

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/me bookmarks this thread for potential anti-group discussions...

 

We're going to send an email to all category managers who have not converted to group management soon. If you post about an abandoned category here, and I can confirm it's not being managed, I may go in and turn on auto-approve.

 

If that happens I would appreciate you guys policing the category, though, as the potential for crappy data being submitted might increase.

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I have been waiting since November of last year to have a Waymark approved in Devilish Locations category. I have made several attempts to contact the manager. What’s up with that? There should be some criteria for Waymark approvers. Is it possible for someone else to take over management of a Waymark category for an unresponsive manager?

 

Well I've been waiting since 11/06 for the same category and it was finally approved today. So they must of done something. Its waits like this that make it not even worth the time or hassle. And out of all the waymarks that I started last year, only one has been logged, while my caches still get logged and logged and logged.

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Jeremy Posted Yesterday, 09:42 PM

It bears reminding that this game is marking locations for others to find, not finding locations that others have marked. After we have locations to find that part of the game happens.

 

I'm quite happy to do both now

 

It makes sense to fill the pool before you swim in it, but I'm the guy sitting at the bottom of the pool in 3 inches of water splashing away happily, waiting for the pool to finish filling.

 

If you want to visit a Waymark I've listed... come on and check it out! No need to wait, the line starts here!

 

:) The Blue Quasar

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yes, i have quite a few marks in the SE US, if anyone in the area wants to try to find them...navigating the site would be the only drawback to this process at the moment.

 

at what point will the finding start? it will HAVE to happen when people start trying to post marks that have already been created....i have found a few this way, and i log them as visits. when this becomes a widespread problem and complaints are posted is when, right?

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at what point will the finding start? it will HAVE to happen when people start trying to post marks that have already been created....i have found a few this way, and i log them as visits. when this becomes a widespread problem and complaints are posted is when, right?

 

Well the finding happens whenever you want. What I mean is that the current intent is not to be a database of waypoints for you to find. Geocaching was a "if you hide it they will come" concept while this is a scavenger hunt style game much like locationless caches. IMO the exciting part happens when a category gets filled up and it gets more difficult to find a new waymark for that category. Even more exciting is the new categories that are always cropping up and being added to the directory for you to seek out.

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Well the finding happens whenever you want. What I mean is that the current intent is not to be a database of waypoints for you to find. Geocaching was a "if you hide it they will come" concept while this is a scavenger hunt style game much like locationless caches. IMO the exciting part happens when a category gets filled up and it gets more difficult to find a new waymark for that category. Even more exciting is the new categories that are always cropping up and being added to the directory for you to seek out.

 

I like the exciting part Jeremy mentions , filling a category up, at least in my area, even if I am the only one filling it up. This is why I like the categories with that are more restrictive or limited in numbers. There are just so many Medal of Honor recipients graves and I have found them all within about 50 miles of me. I am now trying to find all the Revolutionary War veterans that are buried within 50 miles of me. There are not many in this area (eastern Missouri/SW Illinois) and I usually spend a couple of hours of research for each one I do find. I have done the research on 10 more, have them mapped out and now I just have to get out and find the grave. I would probably find it boring to find them using posted coordinates, much of the fun would be lost.

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...the current intent is not to be a database of waypoints for you to find. Geocaching was a "if you hide it they will come" concept while this is a scavenger hunt style game much like locationless caches.

Then why is Waymarking being promoted as a replacement for virtual caches if that is not the intent?

 

Seriously. Why?

 

I mean, this plan has been pretty clear to me (and many others, I think), but we are still being told that Waymarking is meant to replace virtual caches, webcams, and earthcaches. As you point out, it is really intended as a replacement for locationless caches. So why not be more upfront about that?

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Because the game is "Much like locationless" as Jeremy stated, but this elaboration might be helpful for you to see :

Creating the Category in Waymarking is similar to creating a locationless cache was on gc.cpm

creating the Waymark to the category on the Waymarking site is similar to the virtual cache was on gc.com

and when logging a find to a waymark it is similar to finding a cache

 

The above info has been in the forums often.

There of course has been more discussion regarding the category creation ( Similar to creating a Locationless cache, remember) as the site needs to be populated with categories before waymarks can be created. When there is a whole lot of categories there will be many waymarks in those categories popping up all the time and they are very similar to what the virtual was. Give the site time to grow. Help populate the categories by searching out and creating what you call a virtual in those categories. If you find something you think is missing then create a locationless ie Category for others to create a waymark ie Virtual.

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When there is a whole lot of categories there will be many waymarks in those categories popping up all the time and they are very similar to what the virtual was.

That is exactly what Jeremy just said that the site is not about.

 

Did you even read the post to which I was responding?

 

And I have less than zero interest in creating new categories. Sorry.

Edited by fizzymagic
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Ahhh. I see. The "visited" log type is just a clever ruse, a subterfuge. Yet again, the sharp eye uncovers the vast conspiracy to achieve world domination through subversive religion masquerading as science.

So asking someone to be honest is equivalent to being a conspiracy theorist? Wow.

 

OK, I'm gone. Any interest I might ever have had in Waymarking has been completely eliminated by this treatment. Congrats! You got rid of another potential waymarker!

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The Blue Quasar Posted Today, 04:56 AM

My Stats for both Visited and Owned are listed.

Yes I knew that.

 

I was asking why the site isn't showing other people's waymarks owned when you look at their stats.

 

The stats listing, has only one column of the waymarks they have visited. Why not 2 columns; one for owned, and one for visited?

 

Like this :D

								Waymarks visited	 Waymarks owned
Public Playgrounds						 15				  3
Compass Roses							  11				  1
NPS Passport Cancellation Stations		  9				  4
Equestrian Statues						  3
Sundials									2				  2
Yellow Arrow Lookup						 2

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{Giving my head a SHAKE}

 

I never even thought of that!

 

There's a place to look at other people's Waymarking stats? I thought the profile page and stuff was cut and copied from GC.

 

Well, this would be re-opening the whole "Why can't I get smilies for my Visits on my Cache account?".

 

I prefer the separtion... but still daydream about a Groundspeak portal to access each game with a more broken down interface... but I barely know HTML, and ASP is that snake that killed Cleopatra, so I'm useless to help.

 

:D The Blue Quasar

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When there is a whole lot of categories there will be many waymarks in those categories popping up all the time and they are very similar to what the virtual was.

That is exactly what Jeremy just said that the site is not about.

 

Did you even read the post to which I was responding?

 

And I have less than zero interest in creating new categories. Sorry.

 

Actually, I beleive what Jeremy was saying is the it isn't that type of game yet. Right now the categories still need to be made.

Edited by Dew Crew
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at what point will the finding start? it will HAVE to happen when people start trying to post marks that have already been created....i have found a few this way, and i log them as visits. when this becomes a widespread problem and complaints are posted is when, right?

 

Well the finding happens whenever you want. What I mean is that the current intent is not to be a database of waypoints for you to find. Geocaching was a "if you hide it they will come" concept while this is a scavenger hunt style game much like locationless caches. IMO the exciting part happens when a category gets filled up and it gets more difficult to find a new waymark for that category. Even more exciting is the new categories that are always cropping up and being added to the directory for you to seek out.

 

This thread has seriously gone "off topic", but while there's a "locationless caches v. virtual caches v. everything else" discussion, it's useful to re-read Jeremy's post (quoted above, with emphasis added). The current intent is to populate the database with new (and interesting) categories. That gets the "locationless cache" part of the game constructed. The present emphasis on category building and waymark entering is the way to get the game's breadth and depth up enough so it's interesting for more people to play (in both category building, waymark entering, and waymark finding roles).

 

At the same time, Waymarking supports finding existing waymarks (the virtual cache part of the game). Waymarks (at least in my area of Northern Virginia) are somewhat scarce at the moment, so emphasizing this part of the game over (interesting!) category development distracts category contributors and diverts resources at both the individual contributor and Groundspeak.com levels. I look forward to having (a) interesting categories and interesting and fun waymarks in those categories, and (:D a way of downloading those waymarks to my GPSr and PocketPC so I can enjoy those as much as I enjoy geocaches (including virtuals).

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...the current intent is not to be a database of waypoints for you to find. Geocaching was a "if you hide it they will come" concept while this is a scavenger hunt style game much like locationless caches.

Then why is Waymarking being promoted as a replacement for virtual caches if that is not the intent?

 

Seriously. Why?

 

I mean, this plan has been pretty clear to me (and many others, I think), but we are still being told that Waymarking is meant to replace virtual caches, webcams, and earthcaches. As you point out, it is really intended as a replacement for locationless caches. So why not be more upfront about that?

 

The current intent is to get the game populated with categories (nee locationless caches) and waymarks -- individual waymarks have the characteristics of virtuals, with the added feature of being organized by theme (category).

 

At the same time, the game supports finding waymarks (nee virtual caches), which I've done in my area.

 

The present category structure is a bit thin, so I've started a category (National Register of Historic Places) that interests me. I'm hoping that others will find that category interesting, and help populate it with interesting places to find / visit.

 

Web Cameras is an active Waymarking category; there were 175 waymarks in this category as of this morning. New waymarks are being accepted; I wasn't a web camera logger over at gc.com, so probably won't start up in this category anytime soon.

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Ahhh. I see. The "visited" log type is just a clever ruse, a subterfuge. Yet again, the sharp eye uncovers the vast conspiracy to achieve world domination through subversive religion masquerading as science.

So asking someone to be honest is equivalent to being a conspiracy theorist? Wow.

 

OK, I'm gone. Any interest I might ever have had in Waymarking has been completely eliminated by this treatment. Congrats! You got rid of another potential waymarker!

 

How melodramatic. Someone needs a hug.

 

wilsonjl put it pretty succinctly. Try some lateral thinking.

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