A Portuguese Lament

[+Torgut]

I think I will never understand what's truly wrong with WM. Why didn't it never took off. Why it's almost impossible to convince people to actively join the hobby. Of course, a dozen of reasons can be mentioned. But I still don't think those classic reasons justify it all. I tried to persuade more than a handful of my buddies to join, with results varying from a complete ignore to a couple of submitted WM followed by abandonment.

 

All of this to say that we came to a point where I suspect I am the only active Portuguese submitting WM's. Portuguese officers are still active reviewing submitted WM's but I don't see anyone else creating new ones. Specially sad in a country with no issues regarding access to technology, with 10 million inhabitants and a rich past in Geocaching and even Waymarking... there was a moment when this small country was in the 5th position in WM ranking by countries. Oh Well........

[+PISA-caching]

I think I could come up with more than a dozen of reasons. :-) But seriously spoken: I think that there are several key reasons.

• Pictures! One of the reasons is the "gallery" of waymarks. I don't expect a high-tech gallery, but at least I want to be able to browse through a gallery (with left and right arrows). How can I convince somebody to upload photos and write a description and everything, if they are presented like they are presented now?
• Language! If you want to create a Geocache, you don't have to add an English Translation (which I hate - have you ever tried to solve a Polish mystery Cache? :-( ), but Waymarking insists on English text. I know a few geocachers who don't speak English at all and so they will never post waymarks. Instead they will continue to post and visit Geocaches.
• "Rewards": If you visit a geocache in a specific area or time period, you might earn a beautifully designed souvenir. For every Waymarking category you visit, you get a cute tiny Icon on your category grid.
• Changes: Geocaching brings something new almost every year (Lab Caches, The Maze, The Video Contest, Message Center, Giga Events, Redesign of the website,....), while we have to create new categories to have at least something new every now and then.
• Mobile: Grab your mobile phone and go out geocaching and you will have fun. Try that with Waymarking and you will quit very soon. :-(

And those are just the ones that immediately came to my mind.

[+Torgut]

Oh man, WM was a flop from the beginning, and in the beginning not one of those reasons would make sense. Anyway, as I said, we all know plenty of reasons, that's not the point :-) Waymark has a strange effect on people, they just aren't teased by the concept, and that truly puzzles me.

[+elyob]

Despite these depressing thoughts about our hobby, Waymarking is still my first choice for GPS play, easily.  Compared to the rest of Groundspeak's universe, we must be strange animals.

[+PISA-caching]

6 hours ago, elyob said:

... Waymarking is still my first choice for GPS play, easily....

 

To avoid misunderstandings: Mine too! After finding 5,000+ geocaches over the last 10 years I haven't learned half of what I learned while visiting & posting waymarks. AND, I earned all kind of useless knowledge by solving mystery caches and tons of interesting facts about my hometown and all the other countries that we fortunately had the opportunity to visit.

[razalas]

On 12/14/2019 at 9:42 AM, Torgut said:

All of this to say that we came to a point where I suspect I am the only active Portuguese submitting WM's.

 

For several reasons I haven't had much time to Waymarking (and geocaching), but I continue creating waymarks.

[+RakeInTheCache]

I have more or less stopped geocaching and focus exclusively on waymarks.  There's the element of discovery, of learning, "owning", and directing others to an interesting location which is less time consuming than creating a geocache.

 

I think the drop out rate isn't unique to Portuguese hobbyists.  People move on in their lives.  They find other interests.  It's a pity that when they do, they often don't hand over the reigns to persons willing to take over as officers or group leaders.

 

I find the most frustrating inaction on the part of Groundspeak is setting up a fair way for active and committed hobbyists to take over leadership of inactive groups.  

[+cerberus1]

On ‎12‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 6:01 PM, Torgut said:

Waymark has a strange effect on people, they just aren't teased by the concept, and that truly puzzles me.

 

You started in '04.   Same here, and the same month too.     

I noticed you didn't find any Locationless caches while they were available.    Curious,  why not ?

 

We liked the idea that we were to find a location to something that no one else found before.  

 

There's a lot of people who never looked for that cache type, yet they've asked for it to be "brought back" for years (that stat thing...).   

If you can figure out why you never looked for Locationless caches (their end the reason Waymarking was created...), yet favor this one (though you still geocache too ;-),  maybe  you'll figure it out.  

[+Torgut]

I see people write in this topic like, "no, no, I like WM more than GC" and so... well, that's clear. You are here. There a few dozen. One hundred? Not much more. In the whole world. That's the point for reflection. 

 

I read the words "depressive thoughts". This is like saying a doctor is having depressive thoughts because he is analyzing a disease. It's not depressive, it's curiosity by the facts.

 

Razalas, actually, before posting this, I checked your latest WM. Either I saw it wrong or it was months old. 

 

Cerberus1, I am not fully aware of what those locationless were. I have a deep deep memory of something with that name. For some reason I can't recall they were not my cup of tea, unlike the virtual, now fortunately revived in a controlled way (as should be all the caches). That's what I asked to be brought back and they were. 

 

"I think the drop out rate isn't unique to Portuguese hobbyists."  ---- Perhaps not unique, but for a reason the country dropped in the ranking from the 5th position to the 10th or so. 

Edited December 24, 2019 by Torgut

[+elyob]

Season's Greetings!

[+RakeInTheCache]

On 12/24/2019 at 2:44 PM, Torgut said:

I see people write in this topic like, "no, no, I like WM more than GC" and so... well, that's clear. You are here. There a few dozen. One hundred? Not much more. In the whole world. That's the point for reflection. 

 

Maybe 100 creating waymarks but many more visiting them. I get visit notifications nearly every day.