Jump to content

New Category: National Geographic Locations


Recommended Posts

Is there any online resource with the locations?

Or do I need the magazines?

 

There´s their online site. You can check the major articles for every edition and in the diferent countrys.

 

If you have the maganize, great... :) I like them, if not, you can search the web.

 

For example, from the major site (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/) for Feb:

 

"Features

Keillor Bus

Garrison Keillor’s Memory Map

He is guided by memories of boyhood bike rides, the ever present Mississippi, and the undeniable power of rhubarb.

 

Il Duomo

Brunelleschi’s Dome

How did a hot-tempered goldsmith create the miraculous edifice in Florence?

 

Yukon

Gold Fever in the Yukon

Prospectors invade Canada’s great wilderness.

 

Mela

Karma of the Crowd

Millions of pilgrims flock to a Hindu gathering in India—and find inner peace in numbers.

 

Moment Bear

The Moment: At Last, a Bear

Photographer Paul Nicklen waited for days to capture a grizzly close-up."

 

When you clik on the features, it will open a new window with the info for that article, and the needed location.

Link to comment

What about a category about the locations described or refered on the NG magazine?

I guess the outcome would be thousands of awesome waymarks filled with good pictures in all kind of places from everywere.

How about Conde Naste Traveler?

 

Many fine articles, & the monthly photo identification contest, "Where in the World Am I?" gives great epic cache placement ideas. (Sadly, I am unable to maintain a micro at Taipei 101, the world's tallest building from 2004 to 2010.) :cry:

Link to comment

Well, thank you all very much for the inputs, the goods one and the not so good ones. :)

 

Let me try to shed some light about the issues raised... responding to the issues posted in the votes.

 

1 - The poor discussion in the proper forum.

Well, is this matter new? I see (until now) 6 Replies in 75 Views in my topic!

I thought that the interest in the discussion was none.

I can give you many more examples like the "New Category: Geocaching Event Sites (world-wide) " with 8 Replies for 229 Views.

But, maybe it is only my impression and I sincerely apologize for that!

 

2 - From - BruceS

"This category may have merit however the category description need some work. What do you want included in the submission...What information is wanted in description."

-I give you that! :) Thank you! Either way, this will be done right way, no matter if it passes or not.

"What do you want included in the submission...need to set minimum number photos (1, more than 1), realizing more would be desired for broader topic."

-Thank for the suggestion, also to be done!

Also would be good to have native English speaking individual review description as the translation needs some help.

-Roger that. :)

"I know idea was brought up in forums however this was posted before discussion. It would have been better to post the link to category so it could have been viewed before putting to vote."

-My bad, didn't realize the possibility to do this.

 

3 - From Max and 99

"Are you referring to NG Magazine or National Geographic Magazine? Come on, guys. Call it what it is. NG Magazine is an online entertainment source, so do you want submissions for any place mentioned in their magazine? If not, call the category National Geographic, NOT NG."

Ok, it was a matter of shortening the category name and avoiding issues with copyrights or so.

 

4 - From condor1

"National Geographic Magazine... didn't quite get the NG was an attempt to circumvent copywrite."

...as above.

"1. Needs more specific requirements for posting."

...as above.

"2. This one will be a bear to review if there are multiple articles in different issues."

"3. Set specific minimum guidelines for number of pictures."

...as above.

"4. Describe specific information requirements in the Long Description."

...as above.

"These are just a few, but I review in 38 categories and have seen many well documented categories as well as some way to generic ones. Refine the category before letting it publish."

Thank you very much!

 

5 - thebeav69

"I like the idea but I had no way of knowing that this was for the National Geographic magazine. I also don't appreciate categories appearing in Peer Review without a proper forum debate to hash out the details, like working on this poorly written long description, for one. I can't approve until the verbiage is made more clear."

Ok, answered above.

 

6 - Benchmark Blasterz

"We think this needs a narrower focus - any place mentioned in any Nat Geo magazine article published anytime seems overly broad."

This is not the goal. The goal is to focus in the Subject of the Article. For example, if the article´s about a Lake, ONE waymark about the lake can be posted, not one about the pier described and another about the diving platforms described and another about the boat ramp described and so on.

One WM for the Major Subject, the one the title refers to.

"I also think the long description needs tightening up -- more specifics would help reviewers and WM posters. Bring this back to the forum and let's work on it together, then you will get a yes from us!"

...as above.

 

7 - Tuena

"You're giving lip service to the forum discussion. NG means absolutely nothing. If it is an attempt to circumvent copyright then should you have progressed with the idea? The instruction are too brief. My doctor's reception has National Geographic's so old they should be handed over to the National Archive. How would you verify an article from one of these magazine? I clicked on your link in the forum but that's no good as should be in the instructions. I did a search of National Geographic Magazine website for a year in the 1970s for Australian articles & got 4 but only one was actually in Australia. I then did a search for Skylab which crashed in Australia's outback. Got an error eg This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below. Forum discussion would have raised this & other concerns. Appears you would be hard pressed to reject postings of articles appearing in old magazines."

I get the concerns. If you find that special place you want to point out in one old magazine (!great!) you should do what you can to prove it exists, no? A rough picture of the cover or the index should suffice, I guess. Speaking for myself, I not expecting to get bogus waymarks just to get the grid complete...

 

8 - ddtfamily

"If calling this "National Geographic" rather than "NG" isn't possible, it shouldn't be a category. But assuming we can just call it what it is, I'm confused about how this adds to the Waymarking "catalog", if you will. Essentially anything in National Geographic already exists as a Wikipedia article and is therefore, waymarkable in that category. I don't see the purpose of this category."

Well, let me point out that most of what we waymark may already exist in the Wikipedia, all the different museums categories, churches, castles, forts, and so on. For me this is not realy a problem. Either way, I thing this isn't not true "anything in National Geographic already exists as a Wikipedia article".

 

9 - stinger503

"Too prevalent, what happens if multiple articles cover the same subject. Or better yet, what happens if different countries cover the same subject?"

Well, this is in the description.

 

More as soon as possible... :) ... fell free to exploit all the above, please.

Link to comment

@Chasing Blue Sky

 

"Comments:

While your proposal has a nugget of something that could be a good category, you rushed through peer review so fast that you didn't give it time to gather an appropriate amount of input. There are many experienced waymarkers who have been through this process, some many times, who could have given you excellent guidance. But you didn't stick around long enough to have benefited from their wealth of knowledge. Clearly, one day is way too quick to gather enough helpful information to improve, refine and focus your category. Certainly, not all waymarkers read the forums on a daily basis. Realistically, if this were my submission, I would have waited at least a week after getting my last category proposal comment in the forums, before thinking of going to peer review. Had you really taken the time to get input from others, you likely would have avoided many, if not all, of the "Nay" votes here. Many of the problems I see have already been stated. I'll expand on one that I see as a fatal flaw - that the category is too broad. Any main article from any of the international National Geographic magazines, really? Do you intend to allow submissions for the National Geographic TV sites, as well? They are also listed on the National Geographic website. Even if not, I believe the category is too broad. How would you manage a submission for, say, Paris? I understand that you would only allow one submission - great. At least in the beginning, the first Paris submission is the easy part. I see that the City of Paris is 33.5 square miles. Where in that huge area should the geo-location be? Can it be anywhere in the city? Should the location be somehow tied to the picture(s) being submitted with the proposed waymark? What if the submitter uploaded pictures of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Louvre? Again, where should the geo-location be? How do you keep any other waymarkers from wasting their time submitting a Paris waymark, when they couldn't see your category icon on the map? What if there are many of your category icons within Paris for specific sites/objects? Do they have to search them all to see if one is for Paris, itself? Do waymarkers have to wade through the entire list of your category's waymarks to determine whether Paris has already been submitted. Wading through the first 20 or so submissions might not be so cumbersome; will waymarkers be so eager to search out Paris in your category when there are thousands of waymarks in your category? Two or three years down the road, are you going to remember all of the waymarks that have been approved? Are you going to have to research each submission to ensure that the article it is referencing hasn't already been submitted? How will you keep track? Do you really want to take on that kind of responsibility? My suggestion, and it's only a suggestion, is that if you want to pursue this category idea, you should approach it more like the following categories: Ansel Adams Photo Hunt, Tourist Stamps Photos, Photos Then and Now, and Movie Locations. In other words, the object is to find a picture found in National Geographic and do your best to reproduce it - in person. That way, you are focusing waymarkers on a specific location, even if that location is a sweeping view overlooking Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower. That would narrow the category focus, it would tie it to a specific site or object at a specific location, and make it easy to tell if it has already been submitted - for both the submitter and you! Just my two cents - OK, maybe a few more than two..."

 

Well, thank you! :) Realy.

Let me try to explain a bit my thoughts.

First, when I want to submit a WM, I use the "search". For example, I want to know if there´s a WM related to "way of st james" in Portugal. It´s easy with the search, right?

So, when I say that the name fo the WM should be "Article denomination" it was supposed to mean the Article Name, so that if I have "the" WM in Paris and the article name was "The City of Lights" (the waymark should have the same name) when another waymarker search it, even not chosing the country, the search result will return it easily. I guess. That was my thought.

Ok, it is probably better to narrow it to just One Edition, the one in "nationalgeographic.com" in order to get allways the same name and not one in Portuguese, other in Spanish and so on.

 

edit - and it would be less prevalent.

Edited by RuiJSDuarte
Link to comment

 

1 - The poor discussion in the proper forum.

Well, is this matter new? I see (until now) 6 Replies in 75 Views in my topic!

I thought that the interest in the discussion was none.

I can give you many more examples like the "New Category: Geocaching Event Sites (world-wide) " with 8 Replies for 229 Views.

But, maybe it is only my impression and I sincerely apologize for that!

 

 

RuiJSDuarte,

I think you may have misread the clue: if the interest in the discussion is none, that could mean the interest in the category is none, and peer review would not fare well. If you had waited more than 1 day, THEN you'd likely get more responses, better feedback, and more informed suggestions.

 

I suspect that the title in the Geocaching Event Sites might have gotten a lot of hits from the Geocaching community, wondering what the discussion was about. Just my thoughts.

 

You have been given some GREAT advice in the peer review (normally that would be offered in the forum discussion). I hope you take these suggestions to heart and discuss a new write-up with the community. You might have a really good chance of a successful category. Good luck to you.

Link to comment
9 - stinger503"Too prevalent, what happens if multiple articles cover the same subject. Or better yet, what happens if different countries cover the same subject?"

Well, this is in the description.

 

So you could have 10 different NG waymarks for the Leaning Tower of Pisa? My argument stands, Too Prevalent.

Edited by stinger503
Link to comment

@Chasing Blue Sky

 

"Comments:

While your proposal has a nugget of something that could be a good category, you rushed through peer review so fast that you didn't give it time to gather an appropriate amount of input. There are many experienced waymarkers who have been through this process, some many times, who could have given you excellent guidance. But you didn't stick around long enough to have benefited from their wealth of knowledge. Clearly, one day is way too quick to gather enough helpful information to improve, refine and focus your category. Certainly, not all waymarkers read the forums on a daily basis. Realistically, if this were my submission, I would have waited at least a week after getting my last category proposal comment in the forums, before thinking of going to peer review. Had you really taken the time to get input from others, you likely would have avoided many, if not all, of the "Nay" votes here. Many of the problems I see have already been stated. I'll expand on one that I see as a fatal flaw - that the category is too broad. Any main article from any of the international National Geographic magazines, really? Do you intend to allow submissions for the National Geographic TV sites, as well? They are also listed on the National Geographic website. Even if not, I believe the category is too broad. How would you manage a submission for, say, Paris? I understand that you would only allow one submission - great. At least in the beginning, the first Paris submission is the easy part. I see that the City of Paris is 33.5 square miles. Where in that huge area should the geo-location be? Can it be anywhere in the city? Should the location be somehow tied to the picture(s) being submitted with the proposed waymark? What if the submitter uploaded pictures of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Louvre? Again, where should the geo-location be? How do you keep any other waymarkers from wasting their time submitting a Paris waymark, when they couldn't see your category icon on the map? What if there are many of your category icons within Paris for specific sites/objects? Do they have to search them all to see if one is for Paris, itself? Do waymarkers have to wade through the entire list of your category's waymarks to determine whether Paris has already been submitted. Wading through the first 20 or so submissions might not be so cumbersome; will waymarkers be so eager to search out Paris in your category when there are thousands of waymarks in your category? Two or three years down the road, are you going to remember all of the waymarks that have been approved? Are you going to have to research each submission to ensure that the article it is referencing hasn't already been submitted? How will you keep track? Do you really want to take on that kind of responsibility? My suggestion, and it's only a suggestion, is that if you want to pursue this category idea, you should approach it more like the following categories: Ansel Adams Photo Hunt, Tourist Stamps Photos, Photos Then and Now, and Movie Locations. In other words, the object is to find a picture found in National Geographic and do your best to reproduce it - in person. That way, you are focusing waymarkers on a specific location, even if that location is a sweeping view overlooking Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower. That would narrow the category focus, it would tie it to a specific site or object at a specific location, and make it easy to tell if it has already been submitted - for both the submitter and you! Just my two cents - OK, maybe a few more than two..."

 

Well, thank you! :) Realy.

Let me try to explain a bit my thoughts.

First, when I want to submit a WM, I use the "search". For example, I want to know if there´s a WM related to "way of st james" in Portugal. It´s easy with the search, right?

So, when I say that the name fo the WM should be "Article denomination" it was supposed to mean the Article Name, so that if I have "the" WM in Paris and the article name was "The City of Lights" (the waymark should have the same name) when another waymarker search it, even not chosing the country, the search result will return it easily. I guess. That was my thought.

Ok, it is probably better to narrow it to just One Edition, the one in "nationalgeographic.com" in order to get allways the same name and not one in Portuguese, other in Spanish and so on.

 

edit - and it would be less prevalent.

 

OK, I knew I said more than I wanted to, but until I submitted it, I had no idea I'd written that much... :blink:

Link to comment

In theory the forum discussion is a great way to get feedback and improve a category description. In reality, peer review has proven to be much more effective. In 1 day of peer review the number of participants vs the number of participants in the forum speaks for itself. I'm sorry, but this is true.

 

The argument about this category being redundant to the category "wikipedia entries" is just silly. Wikipedia entries is redundant to pretty much everything, including the Wikipedia site itself!!

 

Thanks everyone for the critics and suggestions.

Link to comment

We Blasterz appreciate the category proposers maintaining a polite and respectful attitude in the face of the NO votes and the reasons given for those NO votes. We have had another Waymark category proposer get extremely offended and lash out at us personally because we voted NO on their category idea (that did not pass overwhelmingly).

 

So thank you NatGeo category guys (and gals) for hanging in and staying positive. You are the kind of waymakers that will advance the hobby and grow it.

Link to comment

I just see this category as overlapping with so many others. My way of thinking is that a category should be able to hold items that can't be covered by other categories. That is, there should be quite a few (majority?) of the items in that category that are unique to that category. Clearly there are some categories that don't fall under this criteria, like Wikipedia and News Articles, but I consider those to be old-school like many of the region-based and commercial ones and have a low chance of passing today's peer review. If you look at the list of newest categories, nearly all of them are narrow enough that most, if not all in some cases, of their Waymarks are unique to that category and wouldn't fit anywhere else. That's what I'm looking for in a new category, and this proposed one just doesn't fit that. You could pick nearly any topic of a National Geographic* article and it would fit somewhere in one of the existing categories.

 

This is just my personal opinion, but it seems to at least partially echo what some others are saying here.

 

*(BTW, what's so dirty about those two words?)

Link to comment

In theory the forum discussion is a great way to get feedback and improve a category description.

 

In reality, peer review has proven to be much more effective.

 

In 1 day of peer review the number of participants vs the number of participants in the forum speaks for itself. I'm sorry, but this is true.

 

Thanks everyone for the critics and suggestions.

Link to comment

I did a fast count on the votes (and some research from the profiles):

  • 15 yea votes altogether
  • -3 of them from the officers
  • -5 of them from waymarkers with 0/0 Posts and Visits
  • -2 of them from waymarkers with 1 or 2 posts and a few visits
  • ==> only 5 (more) active waymarkers votes with yea

Only a wild guess: a few votes from some geocaching buddies? :ph34r:

But that is not a fine manner! :angry:

 

And this is another (old) topic ...

Did you also count the "deny" votes and research the profiles?

Edited by paulohercules
Link to comment

Let me shed some light were too... There´s a Portuguese Forum, called Geopt, dedicated to Geocaching that is growning in Waymarking visibility too, thanks to a few Geoachers/Waymarkers and to the discussions around the theme.

There´s the place where most activity around both those subjects starts. I hope to convert some more Geocachers to Waymarking there and you can find some of them in those numbers you present.

Link to comment

So, continuing the discussion... :)

 

The Table of contents for Feb2014 - http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/table-of-contents

 

@Tante.Hossi

[Many good reasons for 'NAY' have already been written. Here's one more: It's totally redundant to the existing category 'Newsarticle Locations', where all the locations of those magazine articles can be posted.]

-That´s just for news (in Portugal news and articles are diffent things) and just for online ones.

-And if we narrow the sources for only printed magazines (and for just the magazine from a specifc country)? That will do for you?

 

@Sage Rat 5

"Advertisement for magazine sales"

Well, i´m a polite guy... and for me this is not a problem. Anyone can borrow my library card fi needed.

 

@Metro2

"I think this will make a good category..but as others have mentioned...first it should have "National Geographic" in it's title. Secondly, there should be time to discuss in the forums for the many good suggestions already mentioned here in peer review."

Both taking care of.

 

@Noe1

"The fact that about the particular place writes (any) magazine for me does not bring any added value to the place. I'm sure that 100% of the places about which NG writes can be placed into one or more existing categories - eg wikipedia entries. For me very strongly not."

Just to say that I will not adress matthers regarding the wikipedia! I personnaly consider a waste of time.

 

Besides the (to me now) obvious poor description and so described by @BruceS I think that most of the other issues would be solved if One Printed Edition was chosen to be used. The "Original Edition" is the obvious choise but for those who keeps repeting wikipedia the Portuguese Edition can be better as I will bet some money against the heavyweight Wikipedia vs the Portuguese locations described.

 

Tahks a lot for all the imputs! B)

Link to comment

Let me shed some light were too... There´s a Portuguese Forum, called Geopt, dedicated to Geocaching that is growning in Waymarking visibility too, thanks to a few Geoachers/Waymarkers and to the discussions around the theme.

There´s the place where most activity around both those subjects starts. I hope to convert some more Geocachers to Waymarking there and you can find some of them in those numbers you present.

 

However using that forum to recruit "ringers" who do not care about Waymarking and will not participate in Waymarking to vote yes for a category that is not ready is bad form and is a disservice to Waymarking.

Link to comment

Let me shed some light were too... There´s a Portuguese Forum, called Geopt, dedicated to Geocaching that is growning in Waymarking visibility too, thanks to a few Geoachers/Waymarkers and to the discussions around the theme.

There´s the place where most activity around both those subjects starts. I hope to convert some more Geocachers to Waymarking there and you can find some of them in those numbers you present.

 

However using that forum to recruit "ringers" who do not care about Waymarking and will not participate in Waymarking to vote yes for a category that is not ready is bad form and is a disservice to Waymarking.

 

You didn´t understand my comment. I´m recruiting them to became Waymarkers. Just. The forum have hundreds of users...

Link to comment

Let me shed some light were too... There´s a Portuguese Forum, called Geopt, dedicated to Geocaching that is growning in Waymarking visibility too, thanks to a few Geoachers/Waymarkers and to the discussions around the theme.

There´s the place where most activity around both those subjects starts. I hope to convert some more Geocachers to Waymarking there and you can find some of them in those numbers you present.

 

However using that forum to recruit "ringers" who do not care about Waymarking and will not participate in Waymarking to vote yes for a category that is not ready is bad form and is a disservice to Waymarking.

 

You didn´t understand my comment. I´m recruiting them to became Waymarkers. Just. The forum have hundreds of users...

 

I understood your comment quite well... this has been seen many times before. As Tante.Hossi said "And this is another (old) topic ..." The first activity of someone becoming a Waymarker should not be voting yes for a category that is not ready... it should be visiting/submitting waymarks.

Link to comment

First, when I want to submit a WM, I use the "search". For example, I want to know if there´s a WM related to "way of st james" in Portugal. It´s easy with the search, right?

So, when I say that the name fo the WM should be "Article denomination" it was supposed to mean the Article Name, so that if I have "the" WM in Paris and the article name was "The City of Lights" (the waymark should have the same name) when another waymarker search it, even not chosing the country, the search result will return it easily. I guess. That was my thought.

In theory this sounds not too bad, except that it is cumbersome and nobody is going to do this, because all other categories can be done without.

 

In real life, however, the situation is different; keyword search is messed up and does not work as expected, not at all. Under these circumstances the category is doomed to be turned into an unmanageable chaos as soon as there is a substantial number of submissions.

Link to comment

Well, my first thoughts into the NG categorie came from were "http://www.geopt.org/index.php?option=com_jfusion&Itemid=53&jfile=viewtopic.php&f=124&t=572&p=177787#p177787", a topic regarding the show-off of new obtain waymarks... so, you can think that but we are doing our bit to "recruit" new people to WM.

Odly enouth, it just reach 1000 posts and was created a long ago. There´s some more topics of Waymarking discussions there, with a good amounth of opinions too.

 

Take a look.

Link to comment

Let me see if I can TRY to add something useful to this thread.

 

A few months ago, I came up with what I thought would be a pretty easy to pass category. Ice Vending Machines. Unfortunately since it was my first attempt at such a task, I failed to understand the process.

 

Create a group.

Gather at least two other like minded individuals.

Write up your category description.

Have your group review and make changes if necessary.

 

Step 1. Post the category information (link to page if you know how) in Recruiting and Category Proposal.

Step 2a. Allow sufficient time for comments.

Step 2b. Listen to what is being posted by others.

Step 2c. Take ALL comments as being HELPFUL NOT CRITICIZING.

Step 3a. Based on the comments, edit and repost.

Step 3b. Listen to what is being posted by others.

Step 3c. If the comments are negative, ask for suggestions/help.

Step 4. If MOST of the comments are negative, maybe it isn't such a good idea.

 

Should you decide to put it to PEER REVIEW: Be prepared for rejection.

 

Never personally attack someone for their comment as to a NAY VOTE.

 

Remember that users can vote anonymously, you can not track those.

 

Recently there was a category proposed for Little Caesars Pizza Restaurants.

Leader joined in 2006. He has 2682 Waymarks and 1032 Visits.

Officer 1 joined 2005. He has 2359 Waymarks and 1539 Visits.

Officer 2 joined 2012. He has 457 Waymarks and 1177 Visits.

Officer 3 joined 2011. He has 1701 Waymarks and 2050 Visits.

 

Based on these statistics, you would think that these Waymarkers would KNOW what makes a good category. IT FAILED PEER REVIEW.

 

Most of those who reply to proposed categories are the ones who care about this activity. Just because a message show being read 500 times, does not mean that it was READ. I preview EVERY new message that comes across this forum. If it isn't something that I care about, it will still show as being read.

 

Don't get me wrong. I think your idea had merit. The reasons posted by others as to why it should not become a new category were valid.

 

The whole purpose of PEER REVIEW is for Waymarkers as a whole to judge if the category will be approved. This process is better than if it were left up a select few to decide. Before you say that is the case here, please remember that you have no way of tracking ANONYMOUS votes. I voted ANONYMOUSLY on this issue, I voted NAY.

 

I hope this sheds some light on things, from the view of someone who recently had a category rejected.

 

Please take a look at the following message threads. These are from my failed attempt at a new category. The comments might not be the same, but you can see from the beginning that had I listened to the group I would not have put the category into Peer Review.

 

Initial Message

 

Defensive Message

Link to comment

Let me see if I can TRY to add something useful to this thread.

 

A few months ago, I came up with what I thought would be a pretty easy to pass category. Ice Vending Machines. Unfortunately since it was my first attempt at such a task, I failed to understand the process.

 

Create a group.

Gather at least two other like minded individuals.

Write up your category description.

Have your group review and make changes if necessary.

 

Step 1. Post the category information (link to page if you know how) in Recruiting and Category Proposal.

Step 2a. Allow sufficient time for comments.

Step 2b. Listen to what is being posted by others.

Step 2c. Take ALL comments as being HELPFUL NOT CRITICIZING.

Step 3a. Based on the comments, edit and repost.

Step 3b. Listen to what is being posted by others.

Step 3c. If the comments are negative, ask for suggestions/help.

Step 4. If MOST of the comments are negative, maybe it isn't such a good idea.

 

Should you decide to put it to PEER REVIEW: Be prepared for rejection.

 

Never personally attack someone for their comment as to a NAY VOTE.

 

Remember that users can vote anonymously, you can not track those.

 

Recently there was a category proposed for Little Caesars Pizza Restaurants.

Leader joined in 2006. He has 2682 Waymarks and 1032 Visits.

Officer 1 joined 2005. He has 2359 Waymarks and 1539 Visits.

Officer 2 joined 2012. He has 457 Waymarks and 1177 Visits.

Officer 3 joined 2011. He has 1701 Waymarks and 2050 Visits.

 

Based on these statistics, you would think that these Waymarkers would KNOW what makes a good category. IT FAILED PEER REVIEW.

 

Most of those who reply to proposed categories are the ones who care about this activity. Just because a message show being read 500 times, does not mean that it was READ. I preview EVERY new message that comes across this forum. If it isn't something that I care about, it will still show as being read.

 

Don't get me wrong. I think your idea had merit. The reasons posted by others as to why it should not become a new category were valid.

 

The whole purpose of PEER REVIEW is for Waymarkers as a whole to judge if the category will be approved. This process is better than if it were left up a select few to decide. Before you say that is the case here, please remember that you have no way of tracking ANONYMOUS votes. I voted ANONYMOUSLY on this issue, I voted NAY.

 

I hope this sheds some light on things, from the view of someone who recently had a category rejected.

 

 

Wow, that was very well stated!

Link to comment

I did a fast count on the votes (and some research from the profiles):

  • 15 yea votes altogether
  • -3 of them from the officers
  • -5 of them from waymarkers with 0/0 Posts and Visits
  • -2 of them from waymarkers with 1 or 2 posts and a few visits
  • ==> only 5 (more) active waymarkers votes with yea

Only a wild guess: a few votes from some geocaching buddies? :ph34r:

But that is not a fine manner! :angry:

 

And this is another (old) topic ...

Did you also count the "deny" votes and research the profiles?

That is why we have a box that we can check and cast a secret ballot. :ph34r:

Link to comment

I did a fast count on the votes (and some research from the profiles):

  • 15 yea votes altogether
  • -3 of them from the officers
  • -5 of them from waymarkers with 0/0 Posts and Visits
  • -2 of them from waymarkers with 1 or 2 posts and a few visits
  • ==> only 5 (more) active waymarkers votes with yea

Only a wild guess: a few votes from some geocaching buddies? :ph34r:

But that is not a fine manner! :angry:

 

And this is another (old) topic ...

From what I remember the only requirement to be able to vote is to be a premium member.

Edit 2: Why should I pay for a Groundspeak Membership?

 

I know several geocachers who, despite having created or visited waymarks (free time is scarce) know very well what is Waymarking.

So they can not have the experience of creating and visiting waymarks, but they have plenty of knowledge about Waymarking.

 

Edit 1: Of course as an officer I voted "Yea" in a project that I approve and support...

Edited by paulohercules
Link to comment

Let me shed some light were too... There´s a Portuguese Forum, called Geopt, dedicated to Geocaching that is growning in Waymarking visibility too, thanks to a few Geoachers/Waymarkers and to the discussions around the theme.

There´s the place where most activity around both those subjects starts. I hope to convert some more Geocachers to Waymarking there and you can find some of them in those numbers you present.

 

However using that forum to recruit "ringers" who do not care about Waymarking and will not participate in Waymarking to vote yes for a category that is not ready is bad form and is a disservice to Waymarking.

 

You didn´t understand my comment. I´m recruiting them to became Waymarkers. Just. The forum have hundreds of users...

 

I understood your comment quite well... this has been seen many times before. As Tante.Hossi said "And this is another (old) topic ..." The first activity of someone becoming a Waymarker should not be voting yes for a category that is not ready... it should be visiting/submitting waymarks.

So, although I can vote for the presidential election above 18 years old, I should only use my vote, after being a politician or maybe a mayor. Nice!

Link to comment

I just see this category as overlapping with so many others. My way of thinking is that a category should be able to hold items that can't be covered by other categories. That is, there should be quite a few (majority?) of the items in that category that are unique to that category. Clearly there are some categories that don't fall under this criteria, like Wikipedia and News Articles, but I consider those to be old-school like many of the region-based and commercial ones and have a low chance of passing today's peer review. If you look at the list of newest categories, nearly all of them are narrow enough that most, if not all in some cases, of their Waymarks are unique to that category and wouldn't fit anywhere else. That's what I'm looking for in a new category, and this proposed one just doesn't fit that. You could pick nearly any topic of a National Geographic* article and it would fit somewhere in one of the existing categories.

 

This is just my personal opinion, but it seems to at least partially echo what some others are saying here.

 

*(BTW, what's so dirty about those two words?)

 

It's my personal understanding of categories here too.

That's why I would never vote yea for idea of this kind.

Under some circumstances (mentioned by others here) I would vote Abstain, as I respect others' opinion about categorization.

 

But this should not be about opinion if we take existing rules - Global / Redundancy / Prevalence / Informative - as objective criteria. This proposal is just clearly 100% redundant. Which equals objective Nay without any personal feelings. Isn't it like 0.1 mile rule of geocaching?

Link to comment

First, when I want to submit a WM, I use the "search". For example, I want to know if there´s a WM related to "way of st james" in Portugal. It´s easy with the search, right?

So, when I say that the name fo the WM should be "Article denomination" it was supposed to mean the Article Name, so that if I have "the" WM in Paris and the article name was "The City of Lights" (the waymark should have the same name) when another waymarker search it, even not chosing the country, the search result will return it easily. I guess. That was my thought.

In theory this sounds not too bad, except that it is cumbersome and nobody is going to do this, because all other categories can be done without.

 

In real life, however, the situation is different; keyword search is messed up and does not work as expected, not at all. Under these circumstances the category is doomed to be turned into an unmanageable chaos as soon as there is a substantial number of submissions.

 

That has been my experience as well. When I use the waymark search, I only use it for narrowing down on a location - a general location. When I've tried to use the keyword along with the location search, it never provides what I'm looking for - even when it's a waymark that I know should be there.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...