Waymarking

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

BTW, within a 10 km radius of my house:

 

84 Waymarks (not filtered in any way)

 

704 Geocaches

 

All aboard the failboat.

and how many virtuals?

 

and how many of those 704 caches actually reference a certain location of interest?

 

I do find it funny that some of the people who complain about uninteresting waymarks for places like McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts won't hesitate to hunt a geocache in a Home Depot parking lot.

 

Ya, I find that funny too.

In my case those LPCs come in a PQ that is loaded into my Blackberry. No muss, no fuss, I just select the next nearest and go hunt it, whatever it may be. When the nearest waymarks show up in my PQ I'll hunt them too.

[+narcissa]

BTW, within a 10 km radius of my house:

 

84 Waymarks (not filtered in any way)

 

704 Geocaches

 

All aboard the failboat.

and how many virtuals?

 

and how many of those 704 caches actually reference a certain location of interest?

 

I do find it funny that some of the people who complain about uninteresting waymarks for places like McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts won't hesitate to hunt a geocache in a Home Depot parking lot.

 

Can you point out some examples of this? I'm certainly not one to turn up my nose at an easy parking lot geocache, because under the right circumstances even they can be a source of fun for me. My main complaints with Waymarking are related to the way the site works, not so much what others choose to waymark.

 

You "bet" that there were more waymarks than geocaches in my area, and you were way off-base. Attributing your assumptions about "anti-waymarkers" to me is a sad attempt to distract fron the fact that you were wrong by a considerable margin. I actually like the idea of Waymarking, I just think it's poorly executed.

 

I can see the utility in Waymarking things like donut shops, gas stations etc. and it's a shame that Waymarking.com is so poorly designed, because it could compete with other sites that do the"POI" thing better. Instead, it's ended up being the lame, neglected sibling of Geocaching.com, and instead of trying to improve the site, Groundspeak keeps trying to force geocachers to use it by insisting that it's the "replacement" for virtual and locationless caches. It's really a very different thing, but it's still very poorly executed.

Edited April 30, 2010 by narcissa

[+narcissa]

BTW, within a 10 km radius of my house:

 

84 Waymarks (not filtered in any way)

 

704 Geocaches

 

All aboard the failboat.

and how many virtuals?

 

and how many of those 704 caches actually reference a certain location of interest?

 

I do find it funny that some of the people who complain about uninteresting waymarks for places like McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts won't hesitate to hunt a geocache in a Home Depot parking lot.

 

Ya, I find that funny too.

In my case those LPCs come in a PQ that is loaded into my Blackberry. No muss, no fuss, I just select the next nearest and go hunt it, whatever it may be. When the nearest waymarks show up in my PQ I'll hunt them too.

 

It would be even better if I could tell a PQ to pick up only the Waymarking categories I've designated, along with full descriptions, like geocaches. I'd be quite happy with that. Right now it's just too much hassle to filter categories and load the waymarks onto my GPS. Then have a central profile with geocaching finds and Waymarking finds right next to each other, and I'd probably get right into it. As it is right now, Geocaching.com is the site that works for me because I can drag and drop the GPX file from my PQ into my Dakota and go. If Waymarking could be included in that, I'd be more willing to wade through the excessively complicated interface to set up filters.

 

PQs there would be handy too for putting other types of waymarks on my GPS. Maybe I don't want to log a find at every Tim Horton's and Shell station, but it can be useful to know where they are. As it stands, there are several other, better ways to get data like that.

[+Team Cotati]

You know, the thing about waymarks? They have been around for a while now and they just do not seem to be all that popular.

 

I think that they are more popular than a visit to the dentist, but not by much.

 

And Wherigo's, no one hardly ever mentions those. What? Does anyone know how many of those there in the entire world?

[+Proud Soccer Mom]

You know, the thing about waymarks? They have been around for a while now and they just do not seem to be all that popular.

 

Except by Waymarkers, who seem to really enjoy the game.

 

And Wherigo's, no one hardly ever mentions those. What? Does anyone know how many of those there in the entire world?

 

Except people who build and play Wherigo cartridges, who seem to really enjoy the game.

 

I don't watch "Grey's Anatomy" and what I've heard about it doesn't interest me therefore it is not a popular show. While "Grey's Anatomy" fans may respect my opinion about the show, however uninformed, they probably would not accept my conclusion. There are people who enjoy playing these games. It's just that none of those people are you.

[+Team Cotati]

You know, the thing about waymarks? They have been around for a while now and they just do not seem to be all that popular.

 

Except by Waymarkers, who seem to really enjoy the game.

 

And Wherigo's, no one hardly ever mentions those. What? Does anyone know how many of those there in the entire world?

 

Except people who build and play Wherigo cartridges, who seem to really enjoy the game.

 

I don't watch "Grey's Anatomy" and what I've heard about it doesn't interest me therefore it is not a popular show. While "Grey's Anatomy" fans may respect my opinion about the show, however uninformed, they probably would not accept my conclusion. There are people who enjoy playing these games. It's just that none of those people are you.

 

I'm not quite certain what Grey's Anatomy has to do with anything. You are are not trying to say that that TV show might be the first in history to not be canceled as soon as it's ratings, aka popularity, become unacceptable to it's producers......are you? Or are you predicting the same fate wrt those beloved Wherigo's? Ever how many of them there might be in the entire world.

 

Whether I happen to enjoy playing those games, is hardly relevant. Whether you happen to enjoy Grey's Anatomy.....equally so.

[+dfx]

I didn't filter either category based on what I consider to be interesting. The raw numbers comparison was simply in response to briansnat's "bet" that there are more waymarks near me than geocaches.

actually no, that wasn't his bet, you may want to read his post again. his bet was "number of waymarks > number of virtuals", which is why i asked to clarify your numbers.

 

Filtering down to a comparable list of "interesting" waymarks vs. virtual geocaches, Earthcaches and "interesting" geocaches is still likely to favour geocaching. Ottawa is a very cache-dense area with an active caching community, and Canada's Parliament, not to mention numerous museums and monuments, are within 10km of me. There's no end of interesting spots to put caches, or at least start multi-caches.

and i bet there's at least one waymark in any location of a cache that you'd find interesting.

 

but in any case, comparing geocaches to virtuals/waymarks is like the good old apples and oranges. it's totally different things, with different intentions behind them.

a LPC can be fun if you like looking for containers (even if it's obvious where they are) and signing log sheets. a waymark in a parking lot thus won't be fun to you, and neither would a virtual.

a geocache in an interesting location is nice because of the location and because you enjoy looking for hidden containers and signing log sheets. a waymark in an interesting location is nice because of the location, and so is a virtual.

if someone can't be bothered looking for hidden containers, they will prefer the waymark or the virtual, but won't enjoy the geocache. (or more precisely, they might enjoy this particular one even without looking for/finding the cache, but definitely won't enjoy all those LPCs, which is indication enough that for them geocaching.com is the wrong website and so they'll stop using it.)

 

We all realized pretty early that Waymarking was a bust, and have instead opted to highlight locations of interest by incorporating them into geocaches. Perhaps if the Waymarking site had been better designed and integrated with geocaching from the get-go, it would have caught on here, but in talking to other Ottawa geocachers it's pretty clear that nobody wants to use a completely different site.

of course. geocaching is geocaching and Waymarking is Waymarking (and virtuals belong in this category too). i also don't use the Waymarking website, mostly due to lack of PQs. if it had that and/or were integrated into gc.com (not for the stats, but something like a checkbox "include your favorite waymark categories" on the PQ page) then i would.

 

so the solution to the problem is not bringing back virtuals, the solution is fixing the Waymarking website. leave virtuals where they belong.

[+tozainamboku]

I actually find the Waymarking site very well designed for what it is. It is neither a game of hide and seak of objects (Geocaching) or a site for simply listing and categorizing POIs (there are several sites to do this). Instead, TPTB looked at what they had learned from locationless caches and and virtuals and developed a concept for developing generalized database of geolocation information. If anything is poor about the design of Waymarking is that it doesn't emphasize this general approach enough.

 

When the beta release of Waymarking first came out, it was clear to me that geocaches were just a category of waymarks. The category could be describe as "locations where a container with a log book is hidden". The instructions for "visiting" such a location would be to sign your name in the log book; if there are trade items in the container, you made trade for them; and then log your visit online. There is really no need for a separate geoachign cache site. People could hide geocaches and list them in the Geocache Waymarking category.

 

Likewise, you could invent many other games within the framework of Waymarking. This could include several that would involve visits to interesting locations where you would find out the answers to some question (virtual caches, EarthCaches, etc.). Other games might include visting the location of a famous photograph and taking a photograph of what it looks from the same spot today or going to a place who coordinates are a palindrome.

 

Waymarking categories are can be extremely creative. That is what differentiates Waymarking from a POI sharing site. The categories can have its own unique rules for logging and all sorts of new games can be created. For geocachers looking for virtual caches, it may be hard to find these in myriad of Waymarking categories. One problem that virtual caches had was that no two people could agree on what made a good location for a virtual cache. The "Wow" requirement was a failed attempt to define something. I doubt that any one Waymarking category would satisfy everyone as a substitute for virtual caches. That is why you must go through the list of categories to find what it is you are interested in. Some people like going to historic markers, others could care less about a marker but want to visit a historic building or a battlefield. Some people like curiosities like funny signs or gigantic insect sculptures. There are Best Kept Secrets, and I just notice a new category call Waymarking University that collects categories with a educational aspect together.

 

At the same time, there will be some people who want to use Waymarking to create lists of POIs. Commercial categories like McDonalds or Dunkin' Donuts will always be there. As will games like "Where's in A Name" or "GPS tracklog art".

 

As the number of categories increases, it can be overwhelming. The Waymarking admins keep reorganizing and trying to add better navigation to help find the categories you might like. But they depend on feedback from Waymarking users. Sitting in the geocaching forums and complaining that Waymarking is poorly designed doesn't improve Waymarking any.

[+Proud Soccer Mom]

 

I'm not quite certain what Grey's Anatomy has to do with anything. (snip)

 

Whether I happen to enjoy playing those games, is hardly relevant. Whether you happen to enjoy Grey's Anatomy.....equally so.

 

Your logic seems to dictate that no one is playing or enjoying Waymarking or Wherigo simply because you obviously do not. I applied your logic to my television viewing preferences and realized that "Grey's Anatomy" - that I didn't even know was off the air and could not care less why - would be disliked by everyone because I had no interest in it.

 

While the logic you've presented can be hard to follow, I tried my best. Perhaps you can understand the difficulty in accepting your conclusions about these games since you refused to grasp the point of the analogy.

 

Since you now maintain that your personal opinion about these games has nothing to do with your conclusion, your conclusion is simply wrong and lacks any fact about the games.

 

To refresh your memory, you statements were:

"You know, the thing about waymarks? They have been around for a while now and they just do not seem to be all that popular."

 

This is untrue. They are very popular, especially to Waymarkers. People not even playing Waymarking find Waymarks tremendously useful for research and preservation. The game is increasingly visible. While Geocaching has "muggles" who might relocate or get rid of a cache container, Waymarkers must be careful that their original photography and text is not poached by people not playing the game. Waymarks appear in Google searches (Geocaches do not) and, in Historical Societies, you'll hear Waymarking mentioned long before anybody thinks about Geocaching.

 

"And Wherigo's, no one hardly ever mentions those. What? Does anyone know how many of those there in the entire world?"

 

I'm pretty sure people who are building and playing Wherigo cartridges are mentioning them quite a bit to other people who are building and playing Wherigo cartridges. This game is new and has a lot of development ahead of it. The people who are playing it now are helping develop the game with feedback. How many cartridges were you expecting to be placed worldwide while in its infancy? How many discussions about Wherigo were you expecting in the Geocaching forum? Maybe you could look in the Wherigo forum...

[+narcissa]

 

actually no, that wasn't his bet, you may want to read his post again. his bet was "number of waymarks > number of virtuals", which is why i asked to clarify your numbers.

 

 

Last night it simply said geocaches. I checked twice before hitting post because it seemed like such an absurd thing to say, even for him. It's pretty clear that briansnat is not interested in any kind of productive discussion with people who could be brought into Waymarking if the site was better designed.

[+narcissa]

Sitting in the geocaching forums and complaining that Waymarking is poorly designed doesn't improve Waymarking any.

 

Sitting in the geocaching forums writing tl;dr tirades about all the supposed benefits of Waymarking doesn't improve the site either.

 

Integrated pocket queries, integrated Groundspeak profiles. Have at it, developers.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

I actually find the Waymarking site very well designed for what it is. It is neither a game of hide and seak of objects (Geocaching) or a site for simply listing and categorizing POIs (there are several sites to do this)

 

...

 

As the number of categories increases, it can be overwhelming...

 

...

 

The Waymarking admins keep reorganizing and trying to add better navigation to help find the categories you might like. But they depend on feedback from Waymarking users. Sitting in the geocaching forums and complaining that Waymarking is poorly designed doesn't improve Waymarking any.

So you're saying that the Waymarking admins don't take our comments, criticisms and suggestions into account because we post them here instead of in the Waymarking forum? That's too bad.

 

The longer it takes for Groundspeak to respond to our concerns about Waymarking the less interest we have in paying to support it.

 

Let's go to an a la carte membership system... pay $29./yr. for access to geocaching.com premium benefits, $.75/yr. for access to Waymarking and $.25/yr. for access to Wherigo and see how quickly the funding for the last two dries up!

Edited April 30, 2010 by TheAlabamaRambler

[+narcissa]

So you're saying that the Waymarking admins don't take our comments, criticisms and suggestions into account because we post them here instead of in the Waymarking forum? That's too bad.

 

The longer it takes for Groundspeak to respond to our concerns about Waymarking the less interest we have in paying to support it.

 

Let's go to an a la carte membership system... pay $29. for access to geocaching.com premium benefits, $.75 for access to Waymarking and $.25 for access to Wherigo and see how quickly the funding for the last two dries up!

 

You'd think that the sheer absence of interest in Waymarking would be a big hint that something's wrong with the site.

 

While I suppose getting Waymarking's two fans come over here to shout at everybody else for not learning how to use it is cheaper than having developers make the site better, having briansnat and tozainamboku as your spokespeople doesn't exactly scream "Waymarking is fun!" does it?

[+WRITE SHOP ROBERT]

Here's the biggest thing I see with Waymarking...People go there from the Geocaching site and expect to find a million places they can just go visit and get credit, and then are disappointed that the nearest ones to them are all the simple commercial ones. There are similar problems with other games like Shutterspot, these games will still take several years to be built to a point where the visitors will have enough to choose from that they can play so lazily. The games right now are still in the stage where the hiders/listers are doing the work to create the list of points...it will take years, and lots more players. If there are no players near you that are putting in the work(and it is a LOT of work) to list new locations, then there will be nothing for you to look for.

 

For anyone who just wants to go out and visit existing Waymarks without doing some research about them first, I'd have to agree that the game at this stage would be boring and hard to navigate. Come back and try in 5 years.

[+WRITE SHOP ROBERT]

So you're saying that the Waymarking admins don't take our comments, criticisms and suggestions into account because we post them here instead of in the Waymarking forum? That's too bad.

 

The longer it takes for Groundspeak to respond to our concerns about Waymarking the less interest we have in paying to support it.

 

Let's go to an a la carte membership system... pay $29./mo. for access to geocaching.com premium benefits, $.75/mo. for access to Waymarking and $.25/mo. for access to Wherigo and see how quickly the funding for the last two dries up!

I don't follow the math...The cost of a membership here has always been the same...now that GS has thrown in some extras for FREE that you choose not to use, you think you should get a discount?? BTW, it's $30 per year, not per month.

 

edit for spelling

Edited April 30, 2010 by WRITE SHOP ROBERT

[+WRITE SHOP ROBERT]

So you're saying that the Waymarking admins don't take our comments, criticisms and suggestions into account because we post them here instead of in the Waymarking forum? That's too bad.

 

The longer it takes for Groundspeak to respond to our concerns about Waymarking the less interest we have in paying to support it.

 

Let's go to an a la carte membership system... pay $29. for access to geocaching.com premium benefits, $.75 for access to Waymarking and $.25 for access to Wherigo and see how quickly the funding for the last two dries up!

 

You'd think that the sheer absence of interest in Waymarking would be a big hint that something's wrong with the site.

 

While I suppose getting Waymarking's two fans come over here to shout at everybody else for not learning how to use it is cheaper than having developers make the site better, having briansnat and tozainamboku as your spokespeople doesn't exactly scream "Waymarking is fun!" does it?

Here we go with the arguement that only two people play the game...all the other players have been beaten down so badly that they no longer bother voicing any support for Waymarking(or never wasted time here anyway), so now we claim that only two people like it. WOW

 

I just don't get why folks have to gripe and cry about it...if you don't like it, don't play. How can you hate it sooo much that you have to sit around and talk smack just because some geocacher was asking about it? Waymarking in no way affects your geocaching game, so what exactly makes you so mad about it? Move on.

 

Waymarking is exactly like Geocaching...it will be as fun or as boring as you want to make it.

Edited April 30, 2010 by WRITE SHOP ROBERT

[+WRITE SHOP ROBERT]

Just a thought...for those who are shouting down Waymarking...

 

What did you expect to see when you visited the site?

What would you hope to see?

What would Waymarking have to offer to make it interesting to you?

Have you ever looked at the category list and tried listing new locations, or do you only want to log visits at existing locations?

[+narcissa]

 

Here we go with the arguement that only two people play the game...all the other players have been beaten down so badly that they no longer bother voicing any support for Waymarking(or never wasted time here anyway), so now we claim that only two people like it. WOW

 

I just don't get why folks have to gripe and cry about it...if you don't like it, don't play. How can you hate it sooo much that you have to sit around and talk smack just because some geocacher was asking about it? Waymarking in no way affects your geocaching game, so what exactly makes you so mad about it? Move on.

 

Waymarking is exactly like Geocaching...it will be as fun or as boring as you want to make it.

 

If you actually follow the arguments, you'd see that some of us are annoyed that geocaches we liked (virtuals) were taken away from us and "replaced" with something else (waymarks). That's all fine and good, except that the "replacement" is poorly designed and not integrated with Geocaching.com, so some of us who liked virtuals and, theoretically, should like waymarks, are left hanging.

 

I would like to use both sites, because I like finding geocache containers AND cool locations. I hope that one day, Waymarking.com will be better integrated with Geocaching.com so that Groundspeak's line that it's a "replacement" for virtuals isn't just an empty line, and I can get Waymarks into my GPS without so much hassle.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

So you're saying that the Waymarking admins don't take our comments, criticisms and suggestions into account because we post them here instead of in the Waymarking forum? That's too bad.

 

The longer it takes for Groundspeak to respond to our concerns about Waymarking the less interest we have in paying to support it.

 

Let's go to an a la carte membership system... pay $29./mo. for access to geocaching.com premium benefits, $.75/mo. for access to Waymarking and $.25/mo. for access to Wherigo and see how quickly the funding for the last two dries up!

I don't follow the math...The cost of a membership here has always been the same...now that GS has thrown in some extras for FREE that you choose not to use, you think you should get a discount?? BTW, it's $30 per year, not per month.

 

edit for spelling

Oops... cost changed to year, sorry!

 

The important math is not the precise allocation of numbers that I mentioned, but the fact that the development money for side ventures such as Waymarking and Wherigo come out of the fees that we pay for GEOCACHING access and benefits.

 

With an a la carte plan we would pay for the features we want and not for what has been clearly stated as some other game.

 

If Groundspeak wants to diversify and develop other games, great, but use the fees we pay for geocaching on geocaching!

[+narcissa]

Just a thought...for those who are shouting down Waymarking...

 

What did you expect to see when you visited the site?

What would you hope to see?

What would Waymarking have to offer to make it interesting to you?

Have you ever looked at the category list and tried listing new locations, or do you only want to log visits at existing locations?

 

All of these questions have been answered, repeatedly, in the many recent threads about this subject.

[+WRITE SHOP ROBERT]

.

 

I would like to use both sites, because I like finding geocache containers AND cool locations. I hope that one day, Waymarking.com will be better integrated with Geocaching.com so that Groundspeak's line that it's a "replacement" for virtuals isn't just an empty line, and I can get Waymarks into my GPS without so much hassle.

That would be great...if one only want's to visit existing waymarks. Is that the way that you would like to play the game(not sarcastic, a real question)? I think it's just not big enough yet to play that way. I haven't played with downloading waymarks yet, but I think there is a way. I agree that having a PC type function would be great, and I'm sure it will be offered when the database is bigger, especially to offer it to people who have no interest in geocaching, but might want to locate a lot of some other category.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Just a thought...for those who are shouting down Waymarking...

I'm not shouting down Waymarking, I am asking for integrated profiles and waymarks intermixed with geocaches in my PQs

 

What did you expect to see when you visited the site?

Honestly at first I thought that geocaches would become a Waymarking category. I expected to see Waymarking.com look and feel like geocaching.com. Instead it looks like two totally different development teams are working on each one... and they don't talk to each other!

 

What would you hope to see?

Integrated profiles, mixed waymarks and geocaches in PQs, a rational categorization of waymarks to eliminate the duplicates. Instead of a seperate waymark in 6 categories have a category field where a single waymark can be assigned to multiple categories.

 

What would Waymarking have to offer to make it interesting to you?

Redundant.

 

Have you ever looked at the category list and tried listing new locations, or do you only want to log visits at existing locations?

I own two waymarks. One even got a visit last year.

 

All of these questions have been answered, repeatedly, in the many recent threads about this subject.

Edited April 30, 2010 by TheAlabamaRambler

[+WRITE SHOP ROBERT]

Oops... cost changed to year, sorry!

 

The important math is not the precise allocation of numbers that I mentioned, but the fact that the development money for side ventures such as Waymarking and Wherigo come out of the fees that we pay for GEOCACHING access and benefits.

 

With an a la carte plan we would pay for the features we want and not for what has been clearly stated as some other game.

 

If Groundspeak wants to diversify and develop other games, great, but use the fees we pay for geocaching on geocaching!

Are we assuming that the only income GS has is from our membership fees? Personally I'm already getting everything I paid for from my membership, are you missing some of the things you paid for?

[Clan Riffster]

Sitting in the geocaching forums and complaining that Waymarking is poorly designed doesn't improve Waymarking any.

 

Sitting in the geocaching forums writing tl;dr tirades about all the supposed benefits of Waymarking doesn't improve the site either.

Now that I've looked up "tl;dr" on Google, I gotta agree with that one.

[+WRITE SHOP ROBERT]

Just a thought...for those who are shouting down Waymarking...

I'm not shouting down Waymarking, I am asking for integrated profiles and waymarks intermixed with geocaches in my PQs

 

What did you expect to see when you visited the site?

Honestly at first I thought that geocaches would become a Waymarking category. I expected to see Waymarking.com look and feel like geocaching.com. Instead it looks like two totally different development teams are working on each one... and they don't talk to each other!

 

What would you hope to see?

Integrated profiles, mixed waymarks and geocaches in PQs, a rational categorization of waymarks to eliminate the duplicates. Instead of a seperate waymark in 6 categories have a category field where a single waymark can be assigned to multiple categories.

 

What would Waymarking have to offer to make it interesting to you?

Redundant.

 

Have you ever looked at the category list and tried listing new locations, or do you only want to log visits at existing locations?

I own two waymarks. One even got a visit last year.

[Clan Riffster]

What would you hope to see?

Integrated profiles, mixed waymarks and geocaches in PQs, a rational categorization of waymarks to eliminate the duplicates. Instead of a seperate waymark in 6 categories have a category field where a single waymark can be assigned to multiple categories.

Ed, I like the way you think.

[+WRITE SHOP ROBERT]

Sitting in the geocaching forums and complaining that Waymarking is poorly designed doesn't improve Waymarking any.

 

Sitting in the geocaching forums writing tl;dr tirades about all the supposed benefits of Waymarking doesn't improve the site either.

Now that I've looked up "tl;dr" on Google, I gotta agree with that one.

Right...I notice even in the real world that if one says anything using more tham 17 sylables, they are a lunatic worthy of only blank stares. If it wasn't read, how can one know that it was a tirade?

[+dfx]

[+WRITE SHOP ROBERT]

I agree...this is WAY off the topic of the OP now...See Ya.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Oops... cost changed to year, sorry!

 

The important math is not the precise allocation of numbers that I mentioned, but the fact that the development money for side ventures such as Waymarking and Wherigo come out of the fees that we pay for GEOCACHING access and benefits.

 

With an a la carte plan we would pay for the features we want and not for what has been clearly stated as some other game.

 

If Groundspeak wants to diversify and develop other games, great, but use the fees we pay for geocaching on geocaching!

Are we assuming that the only income GS has is from our membership fees? Personally I'm already getting everything I paid for from my membership, are you missing some of the things you paid for?

I have no insight whatsoever into how Groundspeak runs its business.

 

If as you suggest none of the fees we pay for access to Groundspeak's operation of geocaching.com go into Groundspeak's diversification into other games then we (I) have no problems with whatever they want to do.

 

They've had, what, three years now to develop Waymarking.com out of a portion of the fees we pay for using geocaching.com, surely by now if that site is going to fly it can do so on it's own subscriptions.

[+cx1]

 

I just don't get why folks have to gripe and cry about it...if you don't like it, don't play.

 

Hmm, seems the same could be said about the anti-virtual crowd. Allowing new virts does not mean Waymarking has to go away.

I don't see many calls asking for your precious waymarks (which you are not even sure how to download) to be eliminated but rather most people seem to be asking for virtual caches to be brought back.

I am not anti-Waymarking but rather pro-virtual caches.

The problem is as it currently stands waymarks are not a satisfactory substitute for virtuals. Maybe someday it could be but why not return virtuals until Waymarking is actually a viable replacement?

[+dfx]

Hmm, seems the same could be said about the anti-virtual crowd. Allowing new virts does not mean Waymarking has to go away.

no, but virtuals as they used to exist were broken by design. they were removed for a good reason and cannot just be brought back without also bringing back major potential for a lot of problems.

 

they could only be brought back in a meaningful way if GS created very restrictive and specific requirements for them. an example of what that would look like is earthcaches.

 

as for everything else, that's where categories come into play, and that's what you have on Waymarking. it regulates itself.

 

I don't see many calls asking for your precious waymarks (which you are not even sure how to download) to be eliminated but rather most people seem to be asking for virtual caches to be brought back.

of course, for two reasons: certain shortcomings of the Waymarking website (mostly lack of PQs) and lack of integration with gc.com, with the latter being mostly about the stats (i.e. smiley points).

 

The problem is as it currently stands waymarks are not a satisfactory substitute for virtuals. Maybe someday it could be but why not return virtuals until Waymarking is actually a viable replacement?

Waymarking is a perfect substitute and replacement for virtuals, it's just the website that's not up to the task. the concept itself is great.

[+Vater_Araignee]

You know, the thing about waymarks? They have been around for a while now and they just do not seem to be all that popular.

 

I think that they are more popular than a visit to the dentist, but not by much.

 

And Wherigo's, no one hardly ever mentions those. What? Does anyone know how many of those there in the entire world?

Alabama			  | 8
Alaska			   | 1
Alberta			  | 12
Arizona			  | 9
Arkansas			 | 1
Australian C.T.	  | 2
Berlin			   | 3
British Columbia	 | 8
Brussels			 | 0
California		   | 44
Colorado			 | 5
District of Columbia | 1
Florida			  | 25
Hamburg			  | 1
Hawaii			   | 1

As you can see from the small sample, not a lot.

Nobody hardly mentions them because the tech is unsupported and very few can use it anyway.

Great concept and if I could get real tech support, I would learn how to make them and probably exclusively hide them because of the freedom they would allow.

There are many things that can be done by way of user support, it doesn't work for Wherigo.

 

Wherigo is a lame horse that would probably be better off sold to somebody willing to heal it.

Waymarking is a lame horse that has a chance to be healed, but only so that it is less lame.

Virts are lame horse and should be shot so less people who never had the chance to make one will not yell bring them back.

For me there is only one category in Waymarking that holds any interest for me and it has listings that I object to because of the ghost orchid indecent so I'm not going to log any of them.

I agree that Waymarking needs a gpx download containing Visit Instructions.

There needs to be a way to filter the crap out. Yeah, I see people say you can but they never say how, but thats only because they typically don't know. I have been all over the site and I can not find a single spot that let me either only show A, B, C, D, and E or exclude V, W, X, Y and Z. The ability to ignore catigories is spread out all over the place, you have to visit each category individually or even worse each subcategory, there should be a page with check boxes.

All of the expand and collapsing on the site is crap, there is a reason for the standard of navigation most web sites use and as soon as that standard is deviated from it by a site it becomes unfriendly.

Q: Why the hell does the "About Google Earth KML" section of Waymarking talk about "cache hunting"?

A: Lazy.

 

BUT, I have come to a conclusion, I need to get involved, and more people need to also, once we are involved and have made location contributions, that are significant, then we can start complaining about the other stuff.

 

PM if you are a Premium Member and want to help out.

Edited April 30, 2010 by Vater_Araignee

[+Team Cotati]

I didn't filter either category based on what I consider to be interesting. The raw numbers comparison was simply in response to briansnat's "bet" that there are more waymarks near me than geocaches.

actually no, that wasn't his bet, you may want to read his post again. his bet was "number of waymarks > number of virtuals", which is why i asked to clarify your numbers.

 

Filtering down to a comparable list of "interesting" waymarks vs. virtual geocaches, Earthcaches and "interesting" geocaches is still likely to favour geocaching. Ottawa is a very cache-dense area with an active caching community, and Canada's Parliament, not to mention numerous museums and monuments, are within 10km of me. There's no end of interesting spots to put caches, or at least start multi-caches.

and i bet there's at least one waymark in any location of a cache that you'd find interesting.

 

but in any case, comparing geocaches to virtuals/waymarks is like the good old apples and oranges. it's totally different things, with different intentions behind them.

a LPC can be fun if you like looking for containers (even if it's obvious where they are) and signing log sheets. a waymark in a parking lot thus won't be fun to you, and neither would a virtual.

a geocache in an interesting location is nice because of the location and because you enjoy looking for hidden containers and signing log sheets. a waymark in an interesting location is nice because of the location, and so is a virtual.

if someone can't be bothered looking for hidden containers, they will prefer the waymark or the virtual, but won't enjoy the geocache. (or more precisely, they might enjoy this particular one even without looking for/finding the cache, but definitely won't enjoy all those LPCs, which is indication enough that for them geocaching.com is the wrong website and so they'll stop using it.)

 

We all realized pretty early that Waymarking was a bust, and have instead opted to highlight locations of interest by incorporating them into geocaches. Perhaps if the Waymarking site had been better designed and integrated with geocaching from the get-go, it would have caught on here, but in talking to other Ottawa geocachers it's pretty clear that nobody wants to use a completely different site.

of course. geocaching is geocaching and Waymarking is Waymarking (and virtuals belong in this category too). i also don't use the Waymarking website, mostly due to lack of PQs. if it had that and/or were integrated into gc.com (not for the stats, but something like a checkbox "include your favorite waymark categories" on the PQ page) then i would.

 

so the solution to the problem is not bringing back virtuals, the solution is fixing the Waymarking website. leave virtuals where they belong.

 

When do you project that the Waymarking site is going to be 'fixed'?

 

And bringing back virtual caches is certainly a solution, that is obvious. Were they never stopped on this site, there would be no conversation on this topic.

[+BruceS]

[

 

BTW, within a 10 km radius of my house:

 

84 Waymarks (not filtered in any way)

 

704 Geocaches

 

All aboard the failboat.

 

 

Using your faulty logic lets look at other areas.

 

Washington DC

Waymarks 682 Geocaches 90

 

Which is the failboat? Ok small isolated area.

 

State of Missouri

Waymarks 7451 Geocaches 5728 (BTW only 113 are chain restaurants Waymarks)

 

Which is the failboat? Oh only one state.

 

Brazil

Waymarks 3831 Geocaches 475.

 

Does this mean that Geocaching is failing in theses places, No. It just indicates that your small statistical sample does not indicate success or failure of Waymarking.

 

I do agree with some of the other desires expressed in the thread, pocket queries would be nice and integrating statistics would be good.

Edited May 1, 2010 by BruceS

[+narcissa]

 

Which is the failboat? Ok small isolated area.

 

 

The failboat was briansnat's comment (before he edited it).

[+simpjkee]

they are poorly designed and have very few listings in my area.

Well, if one simply wants to visit places that are already listed, then one will need to wait until Waymarking grows a lot. For now the task of Waymarkers is to work on listing NEW locations that others can visit later. For anyone who thinks they might have an interest in the game, but find no listings near them, the course would be to look through the Category list for things that they would like to see listed, and start working on listing them.

 

Thats what I've been doing. There is an awesome park a couple miles from my house that didn't have a single Waymark in it a couple weeks ago. Now it has 25 simpjkee waymarks and counting.

[+simpjkee]

Good grief! I thought I asked a simple question! Man, there seem to be so many of you just waiting for an arguement, it's no wonder some newbies don't ask many questions.

 

If someone asks a question and others join to discuss the issues surrounding the question, what's the big deal? It's not like it is the newbies fault that others want to debate the issues. Nobody is going to say 'Waymarking is lame and it's all nativtxn's fault!' Newbie's should feel free to ask whatever questions they want and know that the discussion that ensues does not reflect poorly on them.

[+narcissa]

Good grief! I thought I asked a simple question! Man, there seem to be so many of you just waiting for an arguement, it's no wonder some newbies don't ask many questions.

 

If someone asks a question and others join to discuss the issues surrounding the question, what's the big deal? It's not like it is the newbies fault that others want to debate the issues. Nobody is going to say 'Waymarking is lame and it's all nativtxn's fault!' Newbie's should feel free to ask whatever questions they want and know that the discussion that ensues does not reflect poorly on them.

 

^This.

 

And, additionally, that the discussion that ensues is not an attack on them.

[+dfx]

When do you project that the Waymarking site is going to be 'fixed'?

are you asking me that? if so, why?

 

And bringing back virtual caches is certainly a solution, that is obvious. Were they never stopped on this site, there would be no conversation on this topic.

wrong, there would be plenty of discussion (read: rants, whining and complaining). either people would be complaining that there were too many virtuals, and too many lame ones, or alternatively they would be complaining about reviewers not publishing their virtuals because the reviewer thought it wasn't a good one. want proof? just search for "power trail" or "lpc" (except that you can't search for that cause it's below 5 letters )

 

The failboat was briansnat's comment (before he edited it).

i still don't buy that. you have his original post in your own post (quoted). granted, mods (well, some of them) have the privs to edit posts without putting the "edited by" note, but are you seriously suggesting a conspiracy?

Edited May 1, 2010 by dfx

[+simpjkee]

BUT, I have come to a conclusion, I need to get involved, and more people need to also, once we are involved and have made location contributions, that are significant, then we can start complaining about the other stuff.

I came to the same conclusion and after getting involved, I think Waymarking is way cool. Now that I've become involved, it is more than obvious that narcissa type comments are nothing more than nonsensical rambling. As long as her stats say 'placed = 0' and 'visited = 5', her opinion holds little to no value. I'm just bummed that I spent 3 years believing the nonsense that is constantly thrown around without trying it for myself.

[+simpjkee]

When do you project that the Waymarking site is going to be 'fixed'?

are you asking me that? if so, why?

 

And bringing back virtual caches is certainly a solution, that is obvious. Were they never stopped on this site, there would be no conversation on this topic.

wrong, there would be plenty of discussion (read: rants, whining and complaining). either people would be complaining that there were too many virtuals, and too many lame ones, or alternatively they would be complaining about reviewers not publishing their virtuals because the reviewer thought it wasn't a good one. want proof? just search for "power trail" or "lpc" (except that you can't search for that cause it's below 5 letters )

 

The failboat was briansnat's comment (before he edited it).

i still don't buy that. you have his original post in your own post (quoted). granted, mods (well, some of them) have the privs to edit posts without putting the "edited by" note, but are you seriously suggesting a conspiracy?

 

you could try 'lamp+post+cache'

[+tozainamboku]

Sitting in the geocaching forums and complaining that Waymarking is poorly designed doesn't improve Waymarking any.

 

Sitting in the geocaching forums writing tl;dr tirades about all the supposed benefits of Waymarking doesn't improve the site either.

Now that I've looked up "tl;dr" on Google, I gotta agree with that one.

It actually explains a lot.

 

TPTB decided to no longer publish new virtual caches and to tell people to use Waymarking for that purpose, they spent a lot of time explaining the decision. But for some it was tl;dr. Or perhaps they were read and just didn't satisfy some people.

 

When people try to help with ideas for using the Waymarking site, these suggestions are tl;dr (and aren't suggestions but tirades).

 

It's understandable. TPTB took away something you like (virtual caches) and tell you to learn a new site that is different than what you are use to. It's an imposition on you and you don't like like it.

 

Are there ways to make it easier for geocachers to use Waymarking to get an experience closer to finding virtual caches. Probably, but tl;dr.

[+WRITE SHOP ROBERT]

BUT, I have come to a conclusion, I need to get involved, and more people need to also, once we are involved and have made location contributions, that are significant, then we can start complaining about the other stuff.

I came to the same conclusion and after getting involved, I think Waymarking is way cool. Now that I've become involved, it is more than obvious that narcissa type comments are nothing more than nonsensical rambling. As long as her stats say 'placed = 0' and 'visited = 5', her opinion holds little to no value. I'm just bummed that I spent 3 years believing the nonsense that is constantly thrown around without trying it for myself.

I agree, and for those who complain that WM is just for McD's and SBUX...get yourself over there on occasion and vote on the new categories while they are in peer review, preventing the lame ones from getting approved.

[+cx1]

 

Washington DC

Waymarks 682 Geocaches 90

 

Which is the failboat? Ok small isolated area.

 

State of Missouri

Waymarks 7451 Geocaches 5728 (BTW only 113 are chain restaurants Waymarks)

 

Which is the failboat? Oh only one state.

 

Brazil

Waymarks 3831 Geocaches 475.

 

 

I would like to see logged visits of these waywarks vs logged visits to the geocaches. When looking for waymarks for my trip I noticed that many had never been visited even though they had been posted for a year or more. Seems like a big list of waymarks locally that no one bothers to go see. Yet geocaches always gets visits and logs (except my too difficult puzzle caches lol)

Edited May 1, 2010 by cx1

[Clan Riffster]

It's understandable. TPTB took away something you like (virtual caches) and tell you to learn a new site that is different than what you are use to.

Uh... Toz? Can I assume that's a collective "you"?

I don't care for virts or WMs.

[+briansnat]

 

actually no, that wasn't his bet, you may want to read his post again. his bet was "number of waymarks > number of virtuals", which is why i asked to clarify your numbers.

 

 

Last night it simply said geocaches. I checked twice before hitting post because it seemed like such an absurd thing to say, even for him. It's pretty clear that briansnat is not interested in any kind of productive discussion with people who could be brought into Waymarking if the site was better designed.

 

It was a typo that was corrected. I'm certainly interested in productive discussion. As I stated before I agree with some of the criticisms of Waymarking. I'd love for it to have PQs and profile integration between sites would be nice. The site at first can seem difficult to negotiate, but if you take a little time it actually works quite nicely and allows users to focus on the kinds of waymarks that they enjoy (I wish GC.com could do that for geoccaches).

 

My quarrel is with those who claim they love virtuals for the cool places that virtuals bring them and their educational value, yet dismiss Waymarking and those who say that waymarks are boring yet virutals are fascinating. If it really is about visiting interesting locations and educational value, Waymarking is certainly the answer to virutal caches. It's why I find the arguments about the educational factor and coolness of virtuals to be disingenuous and I suspect that if you scratch below the surface it's really about the smiley.

[+BruceS]

 

I would like to see logged visits of these waywarks vs logged visits to the geocaches. When looking for waymarks for my trip I noticed that many had never been visited even though they had been posted for a year or more. Seems like a big list of waymarks locally that no one bothers to go see. Yet geocaches always gets visits and logs (except my too difficult puzzle caches lol)

 

The person submitting the waymarks has no control over who visits and who logs visits. The orientation of Waymarking has been toward creating new waymarks as opposed to visiting them. Also waymarks get a different type of "visitor" than caches do. Waymarks are often returned near the top of the search list when people Google searches on various topics. I have received several emails from the various people (general public) thanking me for my waymark or asking to use photos from my waymarks for various uses. These have included family members of a Medal of Honor recipient whose grave I posted, a Vietnam veteran whose commemorative plaque I posted and he didn't even know the plaque existed, a Canadian heritage magazine who wanted to use my photos in their magazine. I will take those kind of unlogged visits over a TFTC log any day of the week.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

...The orientation of Waymarking has been toward creating new waymarks as opposed to visiting them...

Would you elaborate on that? Waymarking is an exercise in creating waymarks with no particular expectation that they will be visited? I'm sure I'm reading that wrong, or am I?

 

I created my two waymarks expecting that they would be visited and the visitor's experience logged as in geocaching. If I recall correctly one has never been visited, the other did get a few hits, about once per year.

 

Am I missing the point of Waymarking?

[+BruceS]

 

Would you elaborate on that? Waymarking is an exercise in creating waymarks with no particular expectation that they will be visited? I'm sure I'm reading that wrong, or am I?

 

 

You are reading more into it than I had intended. Up to this point the emphasis of Waymarking along with most site improvements have been for those creating Waymarks, I think there had to be some "critical mass" of Waymarks, this has been achieved in some areas and not in others. No where did I say that there no expectation of visits. As has been mentioned several times in this thread it would be good now to develop more tools to encourage visits such as pocket queries.

 

Most of my own visits originally started out with the intent of creating a new Waymark only to find there was one there already. I seldom search the site for Waymarks I intend to visit more often I search for areas with an absence of Waymarks and head to those.

Edited May 1, 2010 by BruceS