Recruiting "World's Strangest

[+kJfishman]

Recruiting for a new group.

 

The mission of this group is to document "The World's Strangest _______ " Fill in the blank.

 

Here are some sources for strange places. Popular Mechanics has lists of Strange places and things. There are other sources also. Just google "Strangest"

 

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/architecture/the-worlds-18-strangest-hotels#slide-1

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/gonzo/worlds-strangest-architecture-engineering

 

http://www.Waymarking.com/groups/details.aspx?f=1&guid=29b77c98-5f97-47be-b193-5e1124f7acd2

[+MountainWoods]

Have you also considered Roadside America? I always find it a source of oddities.

[+kJfishman]

Have you also considered Roadside America? I always find it a source of oddities.

 

Thank you for the suggestion. There is already a category "Roadside America". If you are interested we still need one more officer for this group.

[+kJfishman]

Have you also considered Roadside America? I always find it a source of oddities.

 

Thank you for the suggestion. There is already a category "Roadside America". If you are interested we still need one more officer for this group.

I guess I didn't think my repky through I can see some over lap between the 2 categories. Like I said your more than welcome to join the group.

[+saopaulo1]

Two questions comments:

 

Would it be expanded from Popular Mechanics?

 

Also

 

Some are double entries. Would it be one per place or one per place per category.

[GT.US]

The Roadside America is on US locations.

 

To me the category appears to be subjective. I like categories that you can look at and know it fits the category, and one mans strange is another mans normal. Examples being the mailbox cat which had many headaches attached to it while declining previously approved waymarks.

[+BruceS]

Would these already go into the Superlatives category?

[+kJfishman]

The Roadside America is on US locations.

 

To me the category appears to be subjective. I like categories that you can look at and know it fits the category, and one mans strange is another mans normal. Examples being the mailbox cat which had many headaches attached to it while declining previously approved waymarks.

 

There are a lot of subjective categories. It is like the category 1000 Places to See Before You Die list based based on lists.

[+kJfishman]

Would these already go into the Superlatives category?

 

There are a lot of subjective categories. It is like the category 1000 Places to See Before You Die list based based on lists.

[+kJfishman]

Two questions comments:

 

Would it be expanded from Popular Mechanics?

 

Also

 

Some are double entries. Would it be one per place or one per place per category.

 

Yes it could be expanded and it would be on a per place basis.

[+MountainWoods]

Ah. I didn't know that there was a Roadside America group. I'll take a look at that.

 

One of the many things to add to the Waymarking.com wish list is a way to see the tree of categories like one might see the tree of directories and files using an explorer (Nautilus, Windows Explorer, whatever). It'd sure be easier to see what is and isn't already there.

 

Oh well. Sorry to hijack your thread. Hope you find lots of good input for World's Strangest <things>.

[+lumbricus]

...One of the many things to add to the Waymarking.com wish list is a way to see the tree of categories like one might see the tree of directories and files using an explorer (Nautilus, Windows Explorer, whatever). It'd sure be easier to see what is and isn't already there...

 

http://www.Waymarking.com/cat/categorydirectory.aspx?f=1

[+MountainWoods]

Wow. Thanks! I don't know how you got there, but I've got that bookmarked. I didn't know it existed.

[+silverquill]

First, to answer Bruce's question--probably most of these would not qualify for the Superlatives category. Although we try to be flexible, we try to keep the category subjective so it is limited to quantifiable qualities. Longest, tallest, oldest, highest, etc. are the usual qualifiers. The claim does not have to be proven, we just ask that some objective source makes the claim or documents it. So, we can have several competing claims for shortest river in the world, for instance. Claims such as Most Beautiful, Most Famous, or strangest are just too subjective.

 

Yes, there are a lot of subjective categories, but that doesn't mean they are good categories. One of the early ones, Unique Weathervanes, can be a real headache to review. The one for mailboxes has similar problems, and then there is Odd-Shaped Buildings. What is odd? What is strange? (There could be a lot of overlap between those two categories, by the way.)

 

I think the only way to have a category like this is to confine it to a list, or lists. That keeps it objective. Roadside America does this, as does Restaurants, Diners and Dives. I did this for Engineering Landmarks as well, just so we don't have to decide what qualifies. The Popular Mechanics lists could be a good starting point. Are there any similar lists that could give this a more global scope?

 

Just leaving it open to whatever someone things is the strangest in the world is not a good idea, it seems to me.

[+kJfishman]

First, to answer Bruce's question--probably most of these would not qualify for the Superlatives category. Although we try to be flexible, we try to keep the category subjective so it is limited to quantifiable qualities. Longest, tallest, oldest, highest, etc. are the usual qualifiers. The claim does not have to be proven, we just ask that some objective source makes the claim or documents it. So, we can have several competing claims for shortest river in the world, for instance. Claims such as Most Beautiful, Most Famous, or strangest are just too subjective.

 

Yes, there are a lot of subjective categories, but that doesn't mean they are good categories. One of the early ones, Unique Weathervanes, can be a real headache to review. The one for mailboxes has similar problems, and then there is Odd-Shaped Buildings. What is odd? What is strange? (There could be a lot of overlap between those two categories, by the way.)

 

I think the only way to have a category like this is to confine it to a list, or lists. That keeps it objective. Roadside America does this, as does Restaurants, Diners and Dives. I did this for Engineering Landmarks as well, just so we don't have to decide what qualifies. The Popular Mechanics lists could be a good starting point. Are there any similar lists that could give this a more global scope?

 

Just leaving it open to whatever someone things is the strangest in the world is not a good idea, it seems to me.

 

Silverquill, thank you for your response. The intent is to make it list based, not an opinion based category.

[+fi67]

Sometimes list based categories are a good choice. But I do have my reservations when the list itself is subjective and far from comprehensive. In these cases the officers just give the responsibility to some other source that is maybe unreliable, out of their control, and in most cases geographically limited.

 

It's a good idea to require an external resource, but you will loose a large number of great potential submissions (and frustrate the waymarkers finding them) when you concentrate on a pre-defined number of lists.

 

Just my 2cts.

[+silverquill]

Sometimes list based categories are a good choice. But I do have my reservations when the list itself is subjective and far from comprehensive. In these cases the officers just give the responsibility to some other source that is maybe unreliable, out of their control, and in most cases geographically limited.

 

It's a good idea to require an external resource, but you will loose a large number of great potential submissions (and frustrate the waymarkers finding them) when you concentrate on a pre-defined number of lists.

 

Just my 2cts.

Sure, I suppose that's one way of looking at it. And we have quite a few categories like that. Roadside America is one, I think. Diners and Dives is another. In a way, Engineering Landmarks is another, although we accept the list makers as a little more authoritative. So, in the case of "strangest," we are looking at a totally subjective judgment. Strangest, like beauty, we may say is in the eye of the beholder. In this case, by making it list-based, we remove the subjectivity from the category officers and placing it on the list compilers. That makes the acceptance criteria objective. That really removes the burden from the officers and eliminates the possibility of disputes, which as we have seen can be quite unpleasant. Sure, there would be a lot of strange sites that we'd lose, but I think that is an acceptable trade-off.

 

Sure wish we had a list for Odd Buildings sometimes! Who knows what's odd anymore?

 

That's my 10won, which doesn't equal 2cts. at today's exchange rate.

[+MountainWoods]

I'm relatively new to Waymarking, but it seems to me that if you want to make the category subjective, that simply puts the onus on the potential visitor to decide whether they want to visit the waymark or not. I don't see an issue with that, myself.

 

In fact, I do the same "mental filtering" on other waymark categories that are pretty objective - maybe due to the strenousness of reaching the waymark; or although I'm interest in the category, I'm just not interested in that particular instance; or whatever.

 

The only issue I see with that is not the fault of the intent of your new category, but it's a fault with Waymarking.com: You cannot put an individual waymark in an ignore list, only an entire category can be ignored. So if the user performs queries from time to time (that do not exclude the new Strangest category, of course), they may see waymarks that really are not interesting to them, and they have to keep filtering them out.

 

But then, that is true of all of the categories - again, because you cannot ignore a specific waymark. (There are a lot of survey markers I'd like to ignore, but not the whole category.)