Mountain Gaps and/or Mountain Passes

[+PISA-caching]

I'm back from Spain/Andorra and started to post a few visits. While searching for WM that I saw in the last couple of days I stumbled over https://www.Waymarking.com/waymarks/wmYZTR in the category Named Mountain Gaps. I have neither posted a visit or created a new WM in that category, so I read the description, which says: "[...] Only submissions of official "Gaps" (as indicated on topographical maps) will be accepted. Named mountain "Passes" do not qualify for this category. [...]". But in the category I find a lot of "Passes" and not all of them have been approved by wayfrog (who might be less strict when approving hundreds of WM in various categories). So, I have some questions:

 

1. What exactly is the difference between a "Gap" and a "Pass"? My guess is, that a "Gap" is between two named mountains, while a "Pass" is a way/street over ONE named mountain. Right?
2. Are "Passes" ok now, although the category description says no?
3. The category description also mentions: "[...] All submissions will be verified via topzone or similiar website. [...]", but I can't find a "topzone" website. Does it still exist (what is the URL then?) or are there other websites, where I can check if I can find what I want to post in the future?

[+ScroogieII]

14 hours ago, PISA-caching said:

What exactly is the difference between a "Gap" and a "Pass"? My guess is, that a "Gap" is between two named mountains, while a "Pass" is a way/street over ONE named mountain. Right?

 

Really, as far as I have been able to ascertain, the two quoted words are, to most folks here, mostly interchangeable.

"Gap", however, seems more often used in the east, or southeast, of the US, while the same geologic formation is more often just a "pass" outside of that region.

Though I can't be anywhere near certain, I feel that "Pass" is simply a more recently adopted semantic replacement for "Gap", with "Gap" falling slowly into disuse.

Hence the admission of many "Passes" to the category.

As an example, I've driven through many small "Passes" which would, a century (or two) ago, almost certainly have been referred to as "Gaps".

Keith

EDIT: How simple our lives could become should TPTB consent to annexing "and Passes" to the category name.

Edited November 16, 2023 by ScroogieII

[+bluesnote]

I agree with Keith, the two words are interchangeable. Typically, from my experience, "gap" is designated for roads and "pass" for interstates or highways. But I have seen the word "gap" used for an interstate crossing albeit it was called a "gap" historically before the interstate was built through. 

[+PISA-caching]

Ok, thanks for the information. So, the sentence "Named mountain 'Passes' do not qualify for this category."  in the category description is simply to be ignored?

[+fi67]

My suspicion is that this category was not very well thought out and never reworked.

 

Probably created with only English speaking countries in mind. They wanted to accept gaps that do not have the word "Pass" in the name. Later they realized that they had to accept all passes of the world except the ones from English or German speaking areas. So they sort of unofficially grandfathered this requirement. But is still there and when an officer has a bad day an occasional denial is absolutely possible. It's a mess.