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Category monopoly in a country


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Whenever I post a waymark in a new category, I'm curious to see, if there are other waymarks of that category in that country. For example: Lately, I posted my first Junk Design House waymark and it was and still is the only one in Austria. And now I wanted to know, for how many other categories I have a "monopoly" in Austria or other countries. So far (= after checking the first 4 lines of the category grid) I learned that I have the only Garage Door Art, Pikachu Sightings, Suspension Bridges and Presidential Birthplaces waymarks in Austria and the only Holiday Displays waymark in Croatia. I'm sure that there are many more, but unfortunately, there is no easy way to get that kind of statistics (or at least I don't know how to do it), but I wonder, if anybody out there has similar thoughts or am I alone with this "problem"?

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These numbers are hard to track, because they can change every day.

What I track is the firsts in a country (and each first is a solitaire at the date of approval). My number is 497 at the moment, most in Switzerland, some in Germany, France, Italy and Greece.

I am quite privileged, because I am the only one here, while you are already the third icon hunter in the history of Austrian Waymarking.

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5 minutes ago, fi67 said:

These numbers are hard to track, because they can change every day.

What I track is the firsts in a country (and each first is a solitaire at the date of approval). My number is 497 at the moment, most in Switzerland, some in Germany, France, Italy and Greece.

I am quite privileged, because I am the only one here, while you are already the third icon hunter in the history of Austrian Waymarking.

Wow, 497 is a lot. I don't even have posted in that many categories. And yes, you're right, there are (and have been) others (Austrians and tourists) who were faster than me, but every now and then I find a category they all missed.

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I changed my mind and will track it like you do it. Like you said, the "monopoly" can be lost anytime. Thanks for that suggestion. Just for the records: I now checked all the categories and (if I haven't missed anything) I have posted the first waymark in a specific category in a specific country 80 times so far. Most of them of course in Austria, but also in Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden. I was surprised by the number of countries - I expected to find 2 or 3 (beside Austria). In one category (Free Community Book Exchanges) I was lucky enough to have the first waymark in 2 countries (Austria and Sweden).

Talking about statistics: Is there any (easy) way to see which categories have been covered in a specific country (or US state)? Something like a category grid for a country would be nice.

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I wish there were answers to your questions.  In any case, keep up the good work.  Both of you continue to be Waymarking pioneers in your region.  I have firsts-in-a-country because I am one of those Waymarking tourists fortunate to visit exotic locations (more than 30 firsts).  I have another dozen firsts-in-Canada because I got too excited by some of the new categories.

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Fortunately, I read about this ghost bike in the newspapers and once the weather was good enough for taking photos I visited it and created the waymark. In the category description I found a link to ghostbikes.org and learned that there have been ghost bikes in Austria 10 years ago already. I should have checked that earlier.

Also in the newspapers I read about the first Apple Store that was to be opened in Wien and I created that waymark several days before the opening, just to make sure that nobody else does it before me. :-) I once missed to post the first Hard Rock Cafe in Austria, so I wanted to make sure that this doesn't happen again. :-)

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14 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

I know of only one state first for me, so you have me beat by a longshot! 

 

I just went thru the first 10 lines of the category grid, the oldest categories. You have:

First in OK in: outdoor mazes, web cams, book crossing zones (also first in ND, KS and MS), living statues, out of place graves, garage door art, dog statues, relocated structures, musician statues, jazz clubs (one and only), topiaries (first and only 2), dead poets (one and only), and compass rose (one and only).

First amusement park in AR, first art vehicle in MS, first moon tree in AR.

there are 40+ lines to go thru!

 

and that''s out of the (only) 364 categories you've posted (I've posted in 456)

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42 minutes ago, vulture1957 said:

 

I just went thru the first 10 lines of the category grid, the oldest categories. You have:

First in OK in: outdoor mazes, web cams, book crossing zones (also first in ND, KS and MS), living statues, out of place graves, garage door art, dog statues, relocated structures, musician statues, jazz clubs (one and only), topiaries (first and only 2), dead poets (one and only), and compass rose (one and only).

First amusement park in AR, first art vehicle in MS, first moon tree in AR.

there are 40+ lines to go thru!

 

and that''s out of the (only) 364 categories you've posted (I've posted in 456)

Well that was nice of you. I don't even remember some of those! 

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On 12/12/2019 at 1:14 AM, Max and 99 said:

I know of only one state first for me, so you have me beat by a longshot! 

Wow, was this being humble!  One hundred, thirty-seven categories with a first in state, and some have firsts in multiple states. 137 out of 364, better than 1/3 of the categories they've posted in!   and this is only checking OK in most instances.

Edited by vulture1957
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11 minutes ago, vulture1957 said:

Wow, was this being humble!  One hundred, thirty-seven categories with a first in state, and some have firsts in multiple states. 137 out of 364, better than 1/3 of the categories they've posted in!   and this is only checking OK in most instances.

Haha. All I knew for sure was first centenarian in North Dakota. I never would have guessed on those others!

Edited by Max and 99
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On 3/26/2018 at 4:49 PM, razalas said:

Interesting, I'll check how many first waymark of a category in a country I have.

 

Finally I had a little time to do it and the result was 222 categories with a first in a  country.

 

88 Portugal

78 Spain

37 Italy 

15 Gibraltar

4   France

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This project was a nice distraction.  I have posted the first waymark of a category in a country 49 times.  Many of those were in small island nations but a lot were in the large country in which I reside. 

 

19 Canada

13 Bahamas

4 Saint Pierre and Miquelon (before 2017 all waymarks here were my posts)

4 Guadeloupe

3 US Virgin Islands

2 Puerto Rico

2 Saint Lucia

1 Antigua and Barbuda

 

Four times I have posted the first waymark of a category, anywhere in the world.

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On 12/20/2019 at 3:06 AM, bluesnote said:

I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

 

Yes, there definitely are more than that. I just gave it a shot and looked at your waymarks in Mexico. And within these I checked the category "Non-Specific Veteran Memorials" and it's still the only waymark in this category in Mexico.

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On 12/25/2019 at 4:41 AM, PISA-caching said:

 

Yes, there definitely are more than that. I just gave it a shot and looked at your waymarks in Mexico. And within these I checked the category "Non-Specific Veteran Memorials" and it's still the only waymark in this category in Mexico.

Ah, I forgot about that one. Good catch!

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Last time I went thru the listings, I was only looking for First in the state. With all the people who have been Waymarking in Oklahoma, especially before I started, I didn't think that there would be many categories that I had the monopoly for waymarks in Oklahoma. I went back thru the listings and found that I have a monopoly (today) for 50 categories! But The Snowdog is running around like crazy, getting new waymarks in categories, so my listing will start to dwindle. Even Max & 99 are starting to get some waymarks in different categories.

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On ‎12‎/‎31‎/‎2019 at 4:32 AM, vulture1957 said:

...so my listing will start to dwindle...

 

I won't start to keep a list of my monopoly waymarks, because there are only a few that will remain being a monopoly in the future. One of them is the only "Medal Of Honor Resting Places" in Montenegro or the only "Tattoo Shops/Parlors" and "Beatlemania!" in Monaco. Instead I keep a list of all the first posted waymarks in a specific country/category combination. That list is at around 150 at the moment.

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Now I have cleared my backlog and now it's time for some new stats, because I don't know, when I can build up a new one.

Currently I have 543 First-Category-Post-in-a-Country waymarks. 29 more than at the beginning of January, all over 2019 I only managed to add three new ones.

Switzerland 466 (6 of them being the first worldwide)

Greece 35

Albania 14

France 11

Germany 10

Italy 7

Considering that I only spent like two hours in that country, the Albanian numbers are quite crazy.

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As it is a milestone for me I thought that it is time to update my stats. I now have 200 First-Category-Post-in-a-Country waymarks (Copyright by fi67 ;)). That's more than double of what I had 3 years ago. Also, due to our travels of the last few years, the number of different countries has increased from 9 to 15. The 200 waymarks per country:

 

Austria - 113
Albania - 6
Bosnia and Herzegovina - 4
Croatia - 2
Hungary - 1
Italy - 1
Monaco - 14
Montenegro - 2
North Macedonia - 21
Norway - 2
Poland - 1
Serbia - 19
Slovakia - 4
Slovenia - 1
Sweden - 9

 

With these 200 waymarks I covered 183 different categories, which means that there are a few categories, where I have the first waymark in different countries. For example, I have the first "Official Local Tourism Attractions" waymark in Bosnia & Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia.

Edited by PISA-caching
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I don't know how you can keep track of all that! It would nice to have mechanisms providing detailed stats in WM but then, I am afraid, cheaters would appear, like in GC, and one of the kood things of this hobby - the absence of cheaters, as far as I know - would end.

 

Myself, perhaps I am a bit more ambitious: I aim at monopolies in specific countries. For example, Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea-Bissau and East Timor. 

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14 hours ago, Torgut said:

I don't know how you can keep track of all that! It would nice to have mechanisms providing detailed stats in WM but then, I am afraid, cheaters would appear, like in GC, and one of the kood things of this hobby - the absence of cheaters, as far as I know - would end.

 

Myself, perhaps I am a bit more ambitious: I aim at monopolies in specific countries. For example, Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea-Bissau and East Timor. 

 

First of all: The title of this thread should be changed to "First post in category-country-combination", because I don't keep track of the monopolies I have (that might change every minute). Instead I keep track of all the category-country-combinations that I have the first waymark posted in.

 

At first I went through all the categories I have on the "Waymarks Posted" category grid. Not that many in 2017. ;) If you click on one of that icons, you get a list of the waymarks you posted in that category. One by one I checked all the categories and found that I  have waymarks for a specific category in just one country (f.e. Bloggers in Austria) or in several countries (f.e. Wikipedia Entries in Austria, Denmark, Sweden etc.). I decided which combination was worth a check and found, that I have just the second waymark in the Bloggers-Austria-combination, the second Ginormous Everyday Object in Austria and so on. It took several days until I had reached the bottom of the grid. And from that day on I decide on every new waymark, if this might be the first waymark in this category-country-combination. And if I see there is a chance, I check it. So, with this method, it is also possible that I missed one or the other combination, but definitely not many.

 

Today, when I go through the photos of a travel I look for photos that might get me a new combination and do the rest when I find the time to do them. For example, I have photos of Statues of Religious Figures in North Macedonia, but this combination has already been done. So I log a visit of it, and create a waymark in the Mosques category in North Macedonia instead and have another category-country-combination on my list. I have an Excel-Sheet with columns for category, country, URL of the according search, posting date and another column where I write "pending" until the waymark is approved. With the URL I can check, if I still have the first waymark in that combination, because it COULD be that another waymark from another user was also reviewed at the same time, but approved before mine. Sounds complicated, but every check is just a few clicks.

 

I started checking your icons (a lot more than I had to check for myself in 2017, wow!), but soon I found that you have f.e. the first Outdoor Mazes waymark in United Arab Emirates. And if you have the only waymarks in the countries that you mentioned, you also posted in several category-country-combinations for the first time. And no cheater can ever do anything to change that.

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Of course, going for monopolies is an interesting hunt. But they can go away in a second and then they will never come back, and you wouldn't even notice.

 

I currently checked my largest monopolies. As of today I have posted all 103 Municipal Flags, 72 Churchyard Cemeteries, and 68 Historic Transformer Stations that exist in Switzerland.

  • Surprised 1
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Wow, I defintely do not have such large monopolies. Especially, because we have several Waymarking tourists from other countries, but also a few Austrian waymarkers creating waymarks in Austria. And, I don't create many waymarks in one category, but try to create waymarks in categories, that I have not posted yet.

 

I have been to Zürich in 2010 (1 year before I started Waymarking) and logged a visit at 23 waymarks, but didn't create one. Maybe I will go through the photos of 2010 once more and see, if I can at least create one waymark in Switzerland. :-)

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