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Nobel Prize question


GT.US

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The nobel category approver has gone through and worked hard and spent a lot of time to clean up the category. I have a simple yes or no question, I can't seem to get answered by the approver. I have a memorial to a Nobel Lauriet that was created before the prize was awarded. Will it ever be valid for the category? It was recently reevaluated but couldn't tell From the explanation if I needed to do more work, or if it will never be valid. Yes or no please? http://www.Waymarking.com/waymarks/WMF6BM_PHYSIOLOGY_MEDICINE_Dr_Robert_Koch_1905_Brijuni_Croatia

 

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2 hours ago, GT.US said:

The nobel category approver has gone through and worked hard and spent a lot of time to clean up the category. I have a simple yes or no question, I can't seem to get answered by the approver. I have a memorial to a Nobel Lauriet that was created before the prize was awarded. Will it ever be valid for the category? It was recently reevaluated but couldn't tell From the explanation if I needed to do more work, or if it will never be valid. Yes or no please? http://www.Waymarking.com/waymarks/WMF6BM_PHYSIOLOGY_MEDICINE_Dr_Robert_Koch_1905_Brijuni_Croatia

 

What I would do if I were you is write more to tie the memorial to the work of Koch. Right now the waymark reads like a citizen memorial. It is not focused on the Nobel prize at all. So I’d rewrite and see what happened :)

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Wow - looks like dozens of approved waymarks have been declined in the category in the clean-up. Many of the declines were of locations referencing Nobel Laureates without clear mentions of the Nobel prize, and some were declined because of lack of adherence to photo requirements.  But it looks to me like some declined waymarks were reapproved once shown to meet category guidelines. 

Is there anything at your location that mentions the Nobel Prize? That could be waymarked.

From the category description:

Around the world there are plaques, memorials and special sites honoring nobel laureates and their accomplishments.  

In order to qualify as a waymark, a site must identify the specific laureate and include a clear reference to his/her status as a Nobel laureate. The connection must be clear. 

Any type of memorial, plaque or commemorative site will qualify, as long as there is a clear identity and connection.  

Some examples of sites that may NOT qualify are: The university or institution with which the larureate is associated, the town where they live, an institution or other place bearing their name, etc.  UNLESS there is a plaque, monument, or something clearly commemorating the person's Nobel laureate status. In the case of an organization recipient of the award, the same standards apply - some clear commemoration of laureate status must exist at the waymark site. The same standards apply to streets and signs named for laureates. This will NOT be accepted.”

 

 

Edited by Benchmark Blasterz
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I know it is not my place to comment but I can't resist.  Many of the denied Nobel Prize waymarks were clearly in spaces dedicated to multiple Nobel Prize winners.  In those cases, the very location of the denied waymark met the spirit of that category requirement.

Edited by elyob
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The leader isn't active for a long time now. I reviewed the incoming waymarks the last years. One officer denied more than 50 maybe up to 100, some back to 2008 (approved by the leader) one day before Christmas. I don't like these actions, made me sad. I quit the group. It looks like I have been to lax in reviewing, so I'm out.

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51 minutes ago, lumbricus said:

The leader isn't active for a long time now. I reviewed the incoming waymarks the last years. One officer denied more than 50 maybe up to 100, some back to 2008 (approved by the leader) one day before Christmas. I don't like these actions, made me sad. I quit the group. It looks like I have been to lax in reviewing, so I'm out.

 

I'm sorry that things like that happen in Waymarking, and becoming even more inactive concerns me. There are a few of us that created categories and would now like to exit Waymarking, but look at what just happened as an example. These people are core members, and I don't like what happened either.

So maybe you could think more on the subject of allowing category creators to lock the category to prevent a future office to delete or change things?

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1 hour ago, lumbricus said:

The leader isn't active for a long time now. I reviewed the incoming waymarks the last years. One officer denied more than 50 maybe up to 100, some back to 2008 (approved by the leader) one day before Christmas. I don't like these actions, made me sad. I quit the group. It looks like I have been to lax in reviewing, so I'm out.

CAPS and bold for emphasis, not shouting. 

I saw that you had quit the group, Andreas. I hope all is well with SilverQuill. He is a waymarker who taught me a lot and who I respect. Same goes for you :) 

It’s hard for officers, waymarkers, AND visitors when waymarks approved many years ago get purged in a top-to-bottom review. I lost 2 waymarks in a purge of Artesian Wells a few years ago, but was able to get them back after some back and forth. 

I get why purges happen, and also why purges NEED to happen sometimes. But that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with as an officer, poster, or visitor, especially in a rare category when you are talking about purging waymark that possibly take away an icon. 

Every category group has their own set of guidelines and rules. Category owners and officers can run their category the way they want to. I don’t have a problem with that AS LONG AS the rules and guidelines are clear. I also don’t have an issue with CHANGING category guidelines, AS LONG AS the changes are clear so that posters know what is and is not allowed any longer.

It is up to each category group to decide whether to grandfather waymarks as part of a purge, but I would hope that very old waymarks would be grandfathered, even if an explanatory comment about them on the category page were neeeded.  

Waymarking with it’s rules and guidelines is susceptible to black-or-white thinking, but the world is grey. This is not a statement to throw out all guidelines, but an expression of hope that officers would use judgement and discretion when doing a purge not to alienate or turn off other waymarkers, who feel frustration and anger when a long-approved waymark is suddenly declined.

My purged Artesian wells were declined after several years with the note “doesn't fit the category,” which was not correct. Fortunately, I was able to re-prove to the purging officer that it did and my waymarks were restored. How many Artesian Wells waymarks were purged and their owners just walked away I do not know. 

I hope that many of the purged Nobel Laureate waymarks can be similarly reapproved, or older ones could be grandfathered. I’ll help anybody write a better description if that asstance is requested, but in this case it seemed like the declines were more about the photos and what is NOT at the formerly waymarked place. 

Edited by Benchmark Blasterz
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A little sad to see the gravesite of our local Laureate retroactively rejected.  Unfortunately, as requested in the Note I received, there was nothing at the gravesite to identify the Author as a Laureate, and even when he was living, when asked if he thought he deserved the prize (quite a controversy at the time), he stated, "Frankly, No".  Oh well.  His medal is in a University Library about an hour away.  Maybe I'll get up that way at some time, unless someone has already beat me to it :)

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I understand that sometimes standards get degraded, and a thorough look back and purge is one option. It's not my personal favorite, as I'd be more inclined to label [legacy} of [GF] for grandfathered, so the waymark couldn't be cited as a standard. 

I appreciate the suggestions for updating the waymark for resubmission. I'm keen to go that route. 

As far as I can tell, the memorial was made before he received the Nobel Prize. This is why the monument only mentions the Dr. and his work. So this is why I ask if a memorial to a Nobel Laureate before he attained that honor is acceptable. He is the Nobel Laureate, and the memorial is to him, so even if he weren't a Nobel Laureate when it was created when he attained that status, the memorial is then a memorial to a Nobel Laureate.

Interestingly, the wikipedia article on the Dr. no longer mentions this memorial, but I am now finding numerous other references

More interesting mentions of the monument:

 

http://www.istrianet.org/istria/illustri/non-istrian/koch/brioni-malaria.htm

http://www.np-brijuni.hr/en/cultural_and_historic_heritage/sites_worth_seeing

https://www.wellbeskandi.se/story-brijuni-islands/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2121595/

 

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This was a very, very unfortunate action in my opinion.

Some remember the purge in the Artesian Wells category some time ago and see some analogies, but that was a different case. It is clearly defined what an Artesian Well is and what not. Obviously, many waymarkers had no clue and submitted things like draw wells (Artesian sounds somewhat ancient, doesn't it?) and it turned out that many officers had no clue either and approved that stuff. Of course, this should not have happened, but once it had, the category needed to be cleaned. Because there is no way to change the posting requirements that make a non-artesian well into one i.e. a geological anomaly, that can have a man-made structure using it, but does not have to.

Now, here we have Nobel laureates. This is much simpler. The complete list of all laureates is easy to find. There were hardly any waymarks in the category that were completely wrong. But we have this extra requirement to have a clear connection to the status as a Nobel laureate. What does this exactly mean? And does it make sense at all?

When a person was honored with a monument, because he was a great scientist, and when this person was honored with a Nobel prize, because he was a great scientist, then this connection is clear enough in my opinion and it is quite silly and nitpick to insist on a plaque that explicitly mentions the Nobel prize. There are very little exceptions to this. I have a few in mind, but generally this extra requirement is not really needed. It does not make the category better, it does not prevent bad submissions, but it prevents some great locations that would fit the spirit of the category.

Still, it is a written requirement. Many categories have questionable requirements, this does not make them invalid. But as it looks, the leader of the category did not take this point too serious anymore or had a different interpretation. In this case,  it is totally inappropriate when another officer starts mass denials without any warning or thinking about other options.

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I had submitted two waymarks recently into this category, approved by lumbricus and were denied by the leader, stating it must have a clear connection to the Nobel winner. I think this requirement is really holding the community back as it explains way the category has low numbers to begin with. Most of these monuments are so obvious, that they don't include this information to the visitor. I would make sense to include any memorial to a Nobel prize winner, so long as we can prove the person did in fact win at least one award. It would make it one of my favorite categories to waymark in and one of the most interesting if this requirement was omitted. I submitted a Marie Curie bust and was denied because the monument didn't have a "clear connection" when in fact she did was the first person to win two Nobel prizes in science. I think this requirement needs to be removed as most of the Waymarking community can agree. Can wayfrog step in or is this not possible?

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12 hours ago, bluesnote said:

I had submitted two waymarks recently into this category, approved by lumbricus and were denied by the leader, stating it must have a clear connection to the Nobel winner. I think this requirement is really holding the community back as it explains way the category has low numbers to begin with. Most of these monuments are so obvious, that they don't include this information to the visitor. I would make sense to include any memorial to a Nobel prize winner, so long as we can prove the person did in fact win at least one award. It would make it one of my favorite categories to waymark in and one of the most interesting if this requirement was omitted. I submitted a Marie Curie bust and was denied because the monument didn't have a "clear connection" when in fact she did was the first person to win two Nobel prizes in science. I think this requirement needs to be removed as most of the Waymarking community can agree. Can wayfrog step in or is this not possible?

The category guidelines are set by the category owners and officers. If THEY want to change the category requirements THEY can.  Except in voting, category management is NOT a democracy. 

Personally, I would not support a majority vote of disgruntled waymarkers overriding the desires of the category creators and managers as to what they want in their category.  I also do not think it is appropriate for Groundspeak to barge into a category to fundamentally change or dilute the category requirements.

Categories are conceived of and created by individuals, proposed to and then approved or denied in peer review by the community. If the community doesn't like or want a proposed category, or doesn't like the restrictions/exclusions in the proposed category, then the appropriate course of action is to vote NO in peer review. 

Once the category is live, waymarkers who want to post a waymark there have to meet the guidelines. If the guidelines are not met, or if they cannot be met, then the thing is not appropriate for the category. Dealing with these kinds of disappointments is part of Waymarking. 

Categories are not catch-alls for everything tangentially related to the category. Categories have a purpose, and guidelines, and a rationale for existence. That rationale could be "find all the X in the world and post them here" or it could be "find places or things connected to X with proof of that connection and post them here." Both rationales are equally valid, but if category owners want a more restrictive rationale, they can have that and God bless them.

I joined the Nobel Laureates category and read all the approvals and declines. The declines I saw were all made for not meeting the long-standing category guidelines. Reviewers worked with posters to gather missing information and meet guidelines when possible.  In some cases, the required signage did not exist at the site and so the declined waymark could never meet guidelines. All that decline meant was that the proposed waymark was not appropriate for Nobel Laureates -- it could still be accepted in Statues of Historic Figures, or another appropriate category.

Not everything can be waymarked in every category. Exclusions and standards apply.

Reviewer decisions and interpretations of the categories they manage should be respected, even if particular waymarkers disagree with them. It is the REVIEWER'S responsibility to say yes or no, and the POSTER'S responsibility to fix flaws. If flaws cannot be fixed, arguing is futile. 

Reviewers and owners have a vision for the kinds of things they want in the category. Our responsibility as posters is to meet those expectations and submit things to the categories that meet the category owners' vision and guidelines.  When we posters do that, our waymarks get approved. When we don't, they get declined.

Sic Semper Waymarking.

Edited by Benchmark Blasterz
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The simple answer to the original question would be a no.

"In order to qualify as a waymark, a site must identify the specific laureate and include a clear reference to his/her status as a Nobel laureate. The connection must be clear." (from the Expanded Description)

It appears this is an impossibility as the memorial predated the award.

If I were a reviewer in the category I would have to decline it.

Keith

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This is what the mission of the category is listed as:

founder: silverquill
date created: 8/7/2007
no. of members: 15
description/mission statement:
Nobel Laureates are recognized internationally as men, women, teams, and organizations who have made exceptional contributions to society. Here we find memorials and other sites honoring them and their work.
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2 hours ago, GT.US said:

This is what the mission of the category is listed as:

founder: silverquill
date created: 8/7/2007
no. of members: 15
description/mission statement:
Nobel Laureates are recognized internationally as men, women, teams, and organizations who have made exceptional contributions to society. Here we find memorials and other sites honoring them and their work.

I don't disagree with that, but the Expanded Description does state that:

"In order to qualify as a waymark, a site must identify the specific laureate and include a clear reference to his/her status as a Nobel laureate. The connection must be clear."

I don't think there's any way around that, short of having the description modified. The "mission statement" isn't part of the requirements or the description. Unfortunately, Waymarks must adhere to the requirements, not the mission statement.

Keith

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"In order to qualify as a waymark, a site must identify the specific laureate and include a clear reference to his/her status as a Nobel laureate. The connection must be clear."

I read the AND as applying to the waymark and not the Memorial.

In order to qualify as a waymark, (a site must identify the specific laureate) and include a clear reference to his/her status as a Nobel Laureate. The connection must be clear,

If the intent was that the site memorial must include a reference to the prize itself, it would have been written

In order to qualify as a waymark, a site must identify the specific laureate and  the site must include a clear reference to his/her status as a Nobel Laureate.. The connection must be clear.

Supporting this would be the fact that a huge percentage of waymarkers and approvers also interpreted the sentence that way for many years, before it was randomly interpreted differently.

 

especially when combined with the mission statement below :

description/mission statement:
Nobel Laureates are recognized internationally as men, women, teams, and organizations who have made exceptional contributions to society. Here we find memorials and other sites honoring them and their work.

 

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I asked that this be sent to a group vote. The reply I got was "No vote needed because it will only stagnate because of inactive officers."

Since when are we to be denied a group vote because the officers have issues?

Next step is to escalate to TPTB. At least that's how we addressed these things in the past.

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12 hours ago, elyob said:

Was there any edit of the category description?

I agree this requirement is the issue origin :

"In order to qualify as a waymark, a site must identify the specific laureate and include a clear reference to his/her status as a Nobel laureate. The connection must be clear. "

Is it really necessary to have this reference ? A web page reference to the laureate and the prize could be enought

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On 1/2/2018 at 6:10 PM, GT.US said:

"In order to qualify as a waymark, a site must identify the specific laureate and include a clear reference to his/her status as a Nobel laureate. The connection must be clear."

I read the AND as applying to the waymark and not the Memorial.

In order to qualify as a waymark, (a site must identify the specific laureate) and include a clear reference to his/her status as a Nobel Laureate. The connection must be clear,

If the intent was that the site memorial must include a reference to the prize itself, it would have been written

In order to qualify as a waymark, a site must identify the specific laureate and  the site must include a clear reference to his/her status as a Nobel Laureate.. The connection must be clear.

Supporting this would be the fact that a huge percentage of waymarkers and approvers also interpreted the sentence that way for many years, before it was randomly interpreted differently.

I'm sorry, but this sentence is not open to interpretation:

"In order to qualify as a waymark, a site must identify the specific laureate and include a clear reference to his/her status as a Nobel laureate. The connection must be clear."

"Site" in the sentence is not superseded by another subject prior to the word "include", therefore "include" must refer to "site", as does "identify". The sentence CANNOT be correctly interpreted any other way. It can only be incorrectly interpreted to mean otherwise.

If anyone, in particular a category officer, chooses to employ a different interpretation then that sentence MUST BE revised to state so. Ambiguity and/or misinterpretation are not our friends.

Keith

Edited by BK-Hunters
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