Waymarking Fingerprints

[+fi67]

The extended statistics DougK recently published on his home page have inspired me to play a bit with some of these numbers.

 

My idea was that the breakdown of the posting numbers into departments can be seen as a vector in a 15-dimensional continuum; when I normalize this vector to a common length, all this vectors are coordinates on the "surface" of a multi-sphere.

 

Now this is pretty useless, because a human being is completely lost in such a continuum, our brains are just not made for these things. But the distance between two of those multi-coordinates are a simple length and the maths behind are surprisingly simple. So the big picture is stored somewhere and not accessible for our imagination, but I can find relations between a given coordinate (e.g. all waymarks by the same poster or within the same area) and easily find the distance to all other sets.

 

So first I checked how close the "fingerprints" of different countries are to the whole set of all waymarks.

 

When the length of this vector is set to 100, how far are the countries with over 1000 waymarks to the average? (After having seen lots of these numbers I can say that distances below 30 are very close, below 40 can still be seen as neighbours.)

 

1. United States, distance 17.15 (this is no surprise, the country with more than two thirds of all waymarks is doomed to be close to the average)

2. Canada, distance 17.22 (this is extremely close)

3. Portugal, 29.38

4. New Zealand 31.42

5. Switzerland 41.29

6. Austria 41.44

7. Germany 42.65

8. Finland 50.50

9. Spain 52.73

10. Italy 54.58

 

Counties that have high numbers, maybe a national category, in departments that are not very wide-spread in the rest of the world have large distances like the Netherlands (116.38) or South Africa (107.90). These countries have a larger distance to the average than someone who has never waymarked at all, which would result in a distance of 100.

 

And remember, this has nothing to do with quality or anything like that, it's neither good nor bad to be close or far away. It's just a neutral fingerprint, that can show some relations, some with a reason, some accidental, that's all.

 

What about users?

 

The waymarkers with a fingerprint closest to the complete database are:

 

1. linkys, 23.29

2. NorStar, 27.00

3. Dunbar Loop, 29.49

4. cldisme, 31.33

5. Chasing Blue Sky, 31.90

6. Benchmark Blasterz, 32.06

7. PTCRAZY, 32.42

8. ChaptehouseInc, 32.82

9. Peter and Gloria, 33.52

10. GT.US, 33.60

 

The most extreme idividualists here are HitchinLookers (120.03), Meirion (116.38), and bill&ben (113.85), surprisingly they are all from the UK and this is also a reason that the UK cannot be found in the list of the most average countries.

 

These are the basic numbers, I will soon follow up with some detailed country numbers, that are quite interesting.

 

This formula can be used to compare almost any set of waymarks, like who is closest to me? What is someone's distance to a country/region/user in 2014 compared to the years before? and many more.

 

If you are interested in specific numbers, just ask.

 

Just a nice footnote for now: just after I had finished my sheet with the calculations, I read an article in my favorite IT journal about automated text (especially email) analysis like it is done by the NSA and others, and... oops, that's only a highly sophisticated cousin of what I have done, but based on the same core priciples.

[+lumbricus]

Very interesting, I'm looking forward to read more of these stats.

[+fi67]

Some more numbers:

 

I have checked the Waymarking pattern for waymarkers with over 1000 posts compared to all countries with more than 2000 posts.

 

The pattern for the users is calculated from all waymarks, not only those in the given country; it does not even matter if this person has ever visited that country.

 

The results:

 

United States

 

21.42 linkys

23.78 Benchmark Blasterz

24.77 cldisme

29.02 PTCRAZY

30.50 Chasing Blue Sky

32.19 scrambler390

32.34 vhasler

32.90 NorStar

33.67 Dunbar Loop

33.92 Marine Biologist

 

This list is similar to the global list. There are four users closer than 30. And most of the users are from the US.

 

United Kingdom

 

25.38 Dragontree

27.10 Master Mariner

35.67 N!TR0

37.30 GEO*Trailblazer 1

42.54 flipflopnick

45.54 Norfolk12

55.97 BK-Hunters

58.96 kJfishman

59.31 Peter and Gloria

59.46 gladtobehere

 

The UK list is different, the distances are generally larger. There are only two users below 30, both are locals. Five out of the ten closests are from the UK.

 

Canada

 

22.85 ChapterhouseInc

29.36 GT.US

30.26 Peter and Gloria

33.95 linkys

35.89 monkeys4ever

35.91 cldisme

37.52 silverquill

38.37 NorStar

38.38 hotshoe

39.09 BK-Hunters

 

Canada has a similar pattern as the US, so there are some users that are also on the US lists. Only two below 30, but more below 40 than the UK. I think two users on the list are Canadians (or have at least a significant number of waymarks posted there).

 

Czech Republic

 

35.03 N!TR0

35.11 Master Mariner

38.67 flipflopnick

44.49 Dragontree

45.49 Norfolk12

49.99 BK-Hunters

51.84 ToRo61

57.22 vraatja

60.98 kJfishman

61.14 GEO*Trailblazer 1

 

That's the first surprising result. The Czech list is dominated by people from the UK who have never been there. Both countries have more than average "Measurement Standards" waymarks, but the Czech waymarkers with over 1000 posts seem to have other favorites. Still, no one closer than 35, no local users closer than 50. Two Czech users are on the list. Of course, there are probaly several Czech waymarkers closer, just not the ones with over 1000 posts.

 

Germany

 

25.69 luzzi1971

32.24 kJfishman

32.94 BK-Hunters

33.74 Tante.Hossi

34.30 flipflopnick

39.62 manchanegra

39.89 GT.US

39.89 silverquill

40.61 veritas vita

42.74 Vermontish

 

luzzi1971 is the only user closer than 30. He is not German, but he lives not far behind the border and has a couple of hundred waymarks posted in Germany. Germany's most active Waymarker Tante.Hossi is quite close. No other German waymarkers on the list.

 

Portugal

 

24.24 fi67

24.71 kJfishman

27.85 Vermontish

27.96 NorStar

30.75 silverquill

32.35 razalas

33.23 Dunbar Loop

35.38 cldisme

35.86 luzzi1971

37.26 linkys

 

Another surprise, the most typical average Portuguese Waymarker is ... me? Well, why not? Four users closer than 30. Although there are a lot of Portuguese Waymarkers, razalas is the only one that is fairly close to the national average.

 

France

 

35.47 thebeav69

40.41 vraatja

52.00 Meirion

52.46 N!TR0

52.50 Dragontree

62.78 Master Mariner

67.25 GEO*Trailblazer 1

68.22 Volcanoguy

69.48 Peter and Gloria

72.83 ChapterhouseInc

 

Also France is extremely strong in "Measurement Standards" and has little Waymarkers in the millenium club. So this results are purely accidential, I am not sure if anyone on this list has ever visited France.

 

Netherlands

 

100.58 Torgut

101.25 The 2 Newlyweds

104.80 kJfishman

105.24 DougK

106.93 debbado

108.46 outdoorboy34

110.89 macleod1

111.98 Dunbar Loop

113.41 hotshoe

113.71 BK-Hunters

 

No Waymarker (with over 1000 posts) is closer than 100 to the Dutch average! My grandmother is closer than anyone here. That is because the Netherlands have very popular national categories in the "Recreation" department. This is very exotic.

 

Australia

 

21.44 N!TR0

36.40 Dragontree

43.72 Master Mariner

51.54 Peter and Gloria

53.32 flipflopnick

58.04 NorStar

60.69 kJfishman

60.80 GEO*Trailblazer 1

61.12 thebeav69

61.92 Norfolk12

 

Australia looks similar to the UK, and the list is dominated by British waymarkers. Also the Chech pattern is not very different.

 

Brazil

 

24.82 saopaulo1

34.88 macleod1

35.23 ucdvicky

44.15 wildwoodke

47.12 Torgut

47.22 The 2 Newlyweds

52.89 outdoorboy34

52.96 thegorilla23

55.02 silverquill

55.59 GT.US

 

Most Brazilian waymarks are by saopaulo1. So it makes sense that he is closest. This shows that his Waymarking habits abroad are similar to the ones at home.

 

New Zealand

 

26.38 Dunbar Loop

33.00 Chasing Blue Sky

36.64 Marine Biologist

36.99 linkys

37.76 kJfishman

39.09 BK-Hunters

40.23 hotshoe

40.85 NorStar

43.08 Benchmark Blasterz

43.37 Vermontish

 

The NZ pattern is somewhere in between Portugal and the US, when you look at the numbers. The only user closer than 30 is a local (or was very active there, at least).

 

Switzerland

 

10.41 fi67

22.43 Vermontish

26.51 razalas

29.44 NorStar

32.66 kJfishman

35.39 Dunbar Loop

36.32 RakeInTheCache

38.10 silverquill

40.86 cldisme

41.18 luzzi1971

 

Most Swiss waymarks are mine, most of my waymarks are in Switzerland, so I expected my close distance here. When you look at the other users, Switzerland is located somewhere near Portugal and NZ, also not too far from Germany and the US.

 

Austria

 

19.90 luzzi1971

29.93 kJfishman

32.55 BK-Hunters

37.38 flipflopnick

38.43 GT.US

39.26 Tante.Hossi

39.40 silverquill

39.70 Dunbar Loop

40.23 Vermontish

41.97 manchanegra

 

Closest to the Austria pattern is Austria's most active waymarker, no surprise. Generally Austria is a bit similar to Germany, but also not too far from the NZ-PT-CH cluster

 

Spain

 

39.88 Dragontree

41.81 flipflopnick

43.98 BK-Hunters

46.32 N!TR0

47.53 kJfishman

47.64 Master Mariner

49.74 luzzi1971

52.41 bluesnote

54.69 ChapterhouseInc

55.31 manchanegra

 

There is no active Waymarking community in Spain, as far as I can see. Most waymarks were created by tourists. The common result is similar to the UK-CZ-AU group, but also a bit into the direction of Austria.

[+lumbricus]

Now I don't get it. Where am I?

[+silverquill]

I don't understand either set of numbers, but I struggled with statistics.

 

For the second group, why would I appear on five or six countries where I have NO waymarks, and another where I have only one, but NOT on any of the other 12 countries where I have waymarks? I suppose some of those don't have 2,000 waymarks. Korea could have that many if I ever got them all posted. I should try to bring it up to 1,000 at least.

 

Where is one stat I would really like to see -- how many UNIQUE waymark contributors have there been since the beginning? To see annual figures on this would also be interesting.

 

And, as Waymarking.com has become more and more international, are there any stats to show this progression, either by waymarks per country or per waymarkers?

 

Long live the number crunchers!

[+fi67]

I don't understand either set of numbers, but I struggled with statistics.

 

For the second group, why would I appear on five or six countries where I have NO waymarks, and another where I have only one, but NOT on any of the other 12 countries where I have waymarks? I suppose some of those don't have 2,000 waymarks. Korea could have that many if I ever got them all posted. I should try to bring it up to 1,000 at least.

These numbers are not about quantity or size, they describe patterns. I compare the statistical distribution of the different departments within your posting habits to the ones of others. These results show that the pattern of your waymarks, the way you distribute the postings over the different Waymarking departments, has some similarities with the ones found in Portugal, a bit less Canada or Switzerland. It does not mean that you have done any of the waymarks in these countries, it's just a similar pattern. And that your waymarks dominate Korea does not necessarily mean that your global pattern is very similar to the Korean one.

 

What I think is interesting in these statistic is the fact, that there are some groups of countries that are close together in the patterns like the UK-CZ-AU, US-CA, PT-CH-NZ and others that are very singular without close neighbors like the Netherland, France and Brazil.

Where is one stat I would really like to see -- how many UNIQUE waymark contributors have there been since the beginning? To see annual figures on this would also be interesting.

 

And, as Waymarking.com has become more and more international, are there any stats to show this progression, either by waymarks per country or per waymarkers?

 

Long live the number crunchers!

Oh, yes! I would like to see those, too. But they cannot be obtained without direct access to the database. The possibilities we have over the web site do not allow this.

Edited June 25, 2014 by fi67

[+fi67]

Now I don't get it. Where am I?

You are quite an individualist. The departmental distribution of your waymarks is not very common. Your closest country patterns are Switzerland (46.45) and Portugal (47.79), but this is not very close. There is one user that has a distance to you that is below 40: razalas with 37.70

[+BruceS]

I don't see my numbers anywhere. I would guess I as my posting are quite tilted to one department I don't follow any country norm.

[+fi67]

I don't see my numbers anywhere. I would guess I as my posting are quite tilted to one department I don't follow any country norm.

Exactly, the specialists are usually far aaway from the average.

 

The country closest to your fingerprint is the US with a distance of 42.43. But there are some other users fairly close: ddtfamily 18.41, onfire4jesus 22.62, iconions 29.16, and twelve more who are closer than 40.

[+NorStar]

On the other hand, I appear to be THE VERY EXAMPLE of the world and US distributions, coming in 2nd and 8th, resp. and on many of the other lists. Not sure how to take that...trying to be different and only end up being the poster child of average....

 

Thanks for the work - I encourage more data!

Edited July 4, 2014 by NorStar

[+dtrebilc]

When I originally saw this post I wondered whether a similar thing could be done for places rather than people. I'm sure a place's location and history will to some extent affect the type of waymarks posted. (Of course with such a small volume of waymarks ACTUALLY posted compared to the total population of things in the world that COULD be posted the results won't be perfect, and in many ways will reflect the interests of the waymarkers that have done the posting).

 

Originally I couldn't decide how to define 'place', but have recently realised that in Waymarking terms it can be simply be all waymarks within a specified radius from a selected waymark. 

 

When I'm going to go to a new place I always look to see what waymarks exist to give me an idea of what the place is like, but to do this you can only view the waymarks 25 at a time and its difficult to get an overall feel of the place.

 

I don't know whether the type of analysis you do would work with places but would be interested to know what you think.

 

As a retired programmer I would love to have a go at analysing data myself, but I don't know how you extract the relevant information or how it's organised /processed.

[+fi67]

It is no problem to calculate this fingerprint for a given coordinate and a defined radius. But this fingerprint is just a 15-dimensional vector. No human being can make anything useful of that. You always have to compare two fingerprints, the result is a simple distance, a number we can understand.

 

There are several approaches for something you might want to see. One example could be to create an ideal master pattern for you. If you would waymark an unexplored area that has absolutely everything to offer, how would your department distribution look? E.g. 20% History, 15% Structures, 12% Nature, 10% Buildings, and so on. Then we can calculate the distances between this master and some areas you would like to visit.

 

But whatever the result is, it does not say anything about the real place, just what has already been waymarked there. A close distance means, it is a good place to visit waymarks, but maybe the area is already saturated in your favorite fields. On the other hand, a very distant number could say, the best places are still left for you to take, or this area just has nothing interesting to offer at all. We don't know. We will never know. These data are just not in the numbers.

 

In my opinion these fingerprints are nice to analyze the past but not at all useful for planning the future.

 

You will have to wait some two weeks for more details or formulas. I am in the mountains right now without access to a real computer, even less to the one with my old calculations and data.

[+dtrebilc]

Thanks for replying so quickly.

 

I wasn't really sure whether anything useful could be determined from the information, but based on your original post I guess comparing the results with either the total database, or the total set of waymarks for the country would say how close to the average that place was.

 

The percentage breakdown by department might also be interesting in itself as an indication of what the place is like.

 

Anyway  I hope you have a great time in the mountains.

 

Dave

[+PISA-caching]

It's interesting to see that I'm not in the statistics for Austria, although 1/5 of the Austrian waymarks are mine and they are the majority of all the waymarks I posted.

[+T0SHEA]

I like to be able to visualize things and avoid 15 dimension objects whenever possible. ? You're apparently using advanced math with which I'm not familiar, so I have an alternative which people might be able to find more digestible. It may be completely off the mark but your last post makes me think an alternative, and much simpler method, might help me, if not others, understand the point of this. Here it is:

 

For each Waymarker or each area under investigation plot a two dimensional radial graph with 15 vectors, each separated by 24 degrees. Then calculate and plot a 16th vector which represents the vector sum of the 15 vectors. To find the "distance" between Waymarkers, areas, etc. simply measure the "distance" between the ends of the 16th vector from two individual graphs. Is this anything near what you're doing?

I've never tried it, but something like Excel might be just the ticket for calculating and plotting vector sums.

Keith

 

[+fi67]

12 hours ago, PISA-caching said:

It's interesting to see that I'm not in the statistics for Austria, although 1/5 of the Austrian waymarks are mine and they are the majority of all the waymarks I posted.

Those numbers are from 2014. The current data could be very different.

[+fi67]

8 hours ago, BK-Hunters said:

Is this anything near what you're doing?

Sort of. Your plan looks a bit like what I originally wanted to do when I played with those numbers.

But I soon found out, that it is absolutely necessary to keep all 15 dimensions until the bitter end.

When you look at the stars, you have no idea how the constellations would look like from a totally different angle. You loose a lot of information just by reducing from three dimensions to two. This information loss grows exponentially with higher dimensions.

The result is a number. But this number is not a distance anymore. It is almost pure random. Very distant patterns can have an identical vector.

[+T0SHEA]

Now I have to sit and think for a while to figure out whether I agree or not. It makes for a very interesting thought experiment, I will say.

This part disturbs me at present: "Very distant patterns can have an identical vector." It needs rumination on my part.

Keith

[+PISA-caching]

3 hours ago, fi67 said:

Those numbers are from 2014. The current data could be very different.

 

That makes sense. :-) I have to remember to always read the fine print.