Letter campaign

[+elyob]

Apparently, recent peer votes are being influenced by vote-gathering campaigns that we don't usually see.  Is this a concern or simply a new way of doing business playing the game of Waymarking?

Edited November 17, 2022 by elyob

[+T0SHEA]

33 minutes ago, elyob said:

Apparently, recent peer votes are being influenced by vote-gathering campaigns that we don't usually see.  Is this a concern or simply a new way of doing business?

 

I have already received correspondence about this same issue. It appears it maybe also happening with the newest peer review.  

Most of the voters, I do not recognize, and after some profile searches, the majority are not waymarkers evident by the lack of approved waymarks.

 

I am concerned, as this matter warrants further consideration. 

 

If these are vote-gathering campaigns, this is an unfair advantage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by T0SHEA

[+ScroogieII]

23 hours ago, elyob said:

Apparently, recent peer votes are being influenced by vote-gathering campaigns that we don't usually see.  Is this a concern or simply a new way of doing business?

 

Good point!!!

Now I have to figure out whether this is truly unethical behavior, should it really be happening.

Such behavior, should it be weaponized, also could be employed to quash otherwise worthy proposals, not just push less worthy proposals over the top.

Keith

EDIT:

Further to the above, it seems I've created "Much Ado About Nothing".

It was with insufficient research that I wrote the above.

 If a "Letter Campaign" was, indeed, undertaken, it appears to have been aimed exclusively, or almost exclusively, at relatively active Waymarkers, the intention being to encourage Peer Review voting. Admittedly, the alleged "campaign" was resoundingly successful, in that it elicited a substantially greater number of votes than have other recent proposals, and included "ayes", "nays" and abstentions.

Hence, I see no skullduggery here, so I'll have to call it "No Harm, No Foul".

Keith

Edited November 17, 2022 by ScroogieII

[+BeayPepe]

A small community of waymarkers has recently been created in Spain. All of us, geocachers. We have a WhatsApp group and we communicate there. In this group, we discussed the possibility of creating a category (City Names in giant letters) and we are trying it. We are not doing any bussiness

[+Ariberna]

4 hours ago, BeayPepe said:

A small community of waymarkers has recently been created in Spain. All of us, geocachers. We have a WhatsApp group and we communicate there. In this group, we discussed the possibility of creating a category (City Names in giant letters) and we are trying it. We are not doing any bussiness

Certain, you're right

[+Walking Boots]

4 hours ago, Ariberna said:

Certain, you're right

Are you part of that group?

[+Ariberna]

yes, beaypepe call me for enter.

But I said that I think that before we could be write in forum,

Sorry, but I never been in one group and later he put me officer and we have a votation in group and the topic advance to this point.

 

I always thought that for create new cathegory were the revisors that send a cathegory for vote, not a group.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Ariberna

[+Ariberna]

Or what group do you say: group of the WM page or group of the whatsapp?

[+ScroogieII]

6 minutes ago, Ariberna said:

Or what group do you say: group of the WM page or group of the whatsapp?

 

I think he meant the whatsapp group.

[+ScroogieII]

12 hours ago, BeayPepe said:

A small community of waymarkers has recently been created in Spain. All of us, geocachers. We have a WhatsApp group and we communicate there. In this group, we discussed the possibility of creating a category (City Names in giant letters) and we are trying it. We are not doing any bussiness

 

Thank You,  BeayPepe, for the explanation. AND - Welcome to the Wild and Wooly World of Waymarking.

First, it wasn't your Peer Review submission that caused my initial concern, but another, for which I initially overreacted by speaking before researching.

Keith

[Becktracker]

The peer review vote for my category is now closed and so I can give clarity to the members who din't recieve a message by me. In order to attract more waymarkers to the vote (and potentially get more yea votes) I asked each of the Dutch waymarkers I know to vote and I also sent messages to the 200 waymarkers with the most waymarks in which I asked them to support my category if they liked it. This message was not sent to the members that stated that they were going to vote nay. It was a rogue action, totally unrelated to the group of Spanish waymarkers with the Giant letters.

 

It is lobbying, I admit it, but everyone was free to vote. If I am the one who introduced this I'm surprised it took so long. 

[+elyob]

Both of those strategies have been used in the past.  Some waymarkers were angry about the use of such strategies.  Today, what do people think about those vote-gathering strategies?

[+ScroogieII]

6 hours ago, elyob said:

Both of those strategies have been used in the past.  Some waymarkers were angry about the use of such strategies.  Today, what do people think about those vote-gathering strategies?

 

I'm not at all fussy about Becktracker's methodology. He intentionally tried to slant the vote in his favour by selectively messaging Waymarkers: "This message was not sent to the members that stated that they were going to vote nay." It's on a par with the type of thing we hear of crooked or corrupt politicians doing.

A single, small point in his favour is that he has admitted it. The corrupt politician would go to the ends of the earth to keep such information from the voters.

Keith

Edited November 18, 2022 by ScroogieII

[Becktracker]

If I am a corrupt politician, does this mean I don't need to pay taxes anymore? 

[+ScroogieII]

On 11/18/2022 at 11:26 AM, Becktracker said:

If I am a corrupt politician, does this mean I don't need to pay taxes anymore? 

 

Really, no comment.

[+FamilieFrohne]

On 11/18/2022 at 8:26 PM, Becktracker said:

If I am a corrupt politician, does this mean I don't need to pay taxes anymore? 

Taxes (and Death) are inevitable. If you are a corrupt politician you may avoid some taxes by a change in the tax laws - but the common taxes (like VAT) would even apply to you.

[+Bear and Ragged]

And death comes to us all, in the end.

[+ScroogieII]

On 11/20/2022 at 2:55 AM, FamilieFrohne said:

Taxes (and Death) are inevitable. If you are a corrupt politician you may avoid some taxes by a change in the tax laws - but the common taxes (like VAT) would even apply to you.

 

But Erik, as a corrupt politician he would certainly do anything in his power to avoid paying said taxes, then maybe grease a few palms in the tax department to forestall investigation.

Edited November 21, 2022 by ScroogieII

[+T0SHEA]

Excuse me, we need to get back on topic. There are far greater concerns...

[+elyob]

I will restate my original question.  For the next category in peer review, are we okay with campaigns by group members to increase the votes to accept a new category?

[+T0SHEA]

29 minutes ago, elyob said:

I will restate my original question.  For the next category in peer review, are we okay with campaigns by group members to increase the votes to accept a new category?

 

Like the one that was in peer review with only two photos required?  If accepted, it will be completely changed, to who knows what. There is no opportunity to review the changes, it is too late for any kind of vote to determine the merits of the proposal

 

My concern, it will become who can campaign for the most votes, either to deny or approve.  

 

Group A has 20 votes, group B has 45 votes, group C will not be out done, they willl solicit for 75 votes and so on. 

 

If this is the new trend, Waymarking will change forever and not necessarily for the better. 

 

What is the point, why even bother with peer review.

 

If this continues, peer review will become a mockery and we will regress to pre peer review. Of course, this is just my opinion. 

 

[+Ariberna]

I understand the concern of some people about the votes, but maybe it is that things are being done wrong.

This is the first time I've been in a group, and I had no idea how this worked. If there is a voting campaign, then there may be and influence, and change Waymarking, of course. I'm not saying it's good or bad.

But there are more things that can be changed and improved in WM. One of them is that the published categories are more global and inclusive. There are still closed categories in the USA that do not want to open up to the rest of the world. Nor can anyone have an attitude of saying something like "as long as I follow the WM community, it will not approve a business brand" Why does there have to be one category of granite for a place (it is important darmoor granite that galician granite? and three categories (minimum) for a Catholic church? for instance. I am in the group of letters of cities and I do not know what the vote has ended, when there are people who know the votes cast at all times.

Why are there reviewers with 10 or 20 published WMs, for example or reviewers with 0 or little visits? There are many things that could be improved and not just worry about a couple of votes.

If anyone thinks that people should have minimum of aims for vote, may be minimum for review and other things

[+Ariberna]

Sorry for the long text, but now, there are a lot of people in Spain that begin WM because is tired of Geocaching and want a change and some new. And I think that in other countries there are some new WM people too.

We are grow up together and we can improve better.