Groundspeak Portal

the blue quasar:

Did you ever think that maybe SBELL11 is trying to preserve the original format of their Locationless Cache?

No maybe about it. That's how one of the group officers described it. My reaction: "And the point of that is...?"

That may be how LCs were handled, but it is no longer part of that environment. It is no longer a locationless cache, it is a waymark cat; the current thinking of the vast majority of cat mangement groups (based on the number of categories doing it) is that pictures of GPSr's are passe. A picture of a GPSr proves absolutely nothing, and requiring it in either posting a waymark or logging a visit is archaic.

This discussion is off topic - the Minor League Baseball Stadiums category has most certainly not been abandoned.

cache_test_dummies:

This discussion is off topic - the Minor League Baseball Stadiums category has most certainly not been abandoned.

The discussion certainly boosted online visits to my MLBS waymark!

were their gpses in the gallery?

Can someone please tell me if the following categories are abandoned? The officers refuse to publish my waymarks from December and New Years. The categories are:
1. Roman Catholic Churches
2. Ghost Signs
3. City and Town Halls
4. Welcome Signs (voting on my sub. since 12/31/09)

Thanks!

math teacher:

Can someone please tell me if the following categories are abandoned? The officers refuse to publish my waymarks from December and New Years. The categories are:
1. Roman Catholic Churches
2. Ghost Signs
3. City and Town Halls
4. Welcome Signs (voting on my sub. since 12/31/09) Thanks!

Roman Catholic Churches and City and Town Halls are not abandoned.  They are both led by Silverquil and I know he is traveling with limited internet access.

The Welcome Sign is probably stuck in vote limbo contact someone from the group and have them go to their group page and it will be released.

Ok. Thanks. I hope Larry is doing well. Maybe we could convince him to get some new officers who are little more involved? Or, should I mind my own business! :0)-

math teacher:

Ok. Thanks. I hope Larry is doing well. Maybe we could convince him to get some new officers who are little more involved? Or, should I mind my own business! :0)-

He popped in and made a comment that he sees he has some groups that need some attention.

The Texas Historical Marker category does have a problem. Presently I have over 30 waypoints waiting approval. Most of which are about 2 weeks old.

There are 4 officers which all have been online within the past few days but only one officer is approving and at the rate of one or two a day.

During the time of my backlog one of the officers has submitted some waymarks which were immediately approved by one of the other officers.

txoilgas:

The Texas Historical Marker category does have a problem. Presently I have over 30 waypoints waiting approval. Most of which are about 2 weeks old. There are 4 officers which all have been online within the past few days but only one officer is approving and at the rate of one or two a day. During the time of my backlog one of the officers has submitted some waymarks which were immediately approved by one of the other officers.

Since that time you became so prolific, around the beginning of the holidays, the order that waymarks are presented to the reviewers has changed. Personally, I PREFERRED that they were listed in order of submission with the categories mixed (if one clicks the link to view all waymarks needing review), but apparently this was considered a bug and was "fixed". When that happened, the list suddenly changed over to when the waymark was CREATED and not when it was submitted for approval. Some stuff from 2008 suddenly showed up in the queue.

I'm not saying that this is what you experienced. I will say that I personally have been plugging along reviewing in the order that the waymarks are presented. Other reviewers review in their own ways, and I do not speak for them.

I apologize for not going faster than I have, but as I explained in a personal email, I find that I get sloppy...

Nope! Welcome Signs is an active category. :- We're being added to quite often, and all our officers are active. I'm sorry if your waymark was hung up in voting. I try and go to the group page often, to free up waymarks, but the holidays probably had something to do with yours.

math teacher:

Can someone please tell me if the following categories are abandoned? The officers refuse to publish my waymarks from December and New Years. The categories are:
1. Roman Catholic Churches
2. Ghost Signs
3. City and Town Halls
4. Welcome Signs (voting on my sub. since 12/31/09)

Thanks!

txoilgas:

The Texas Historical Marker category does have a problem. Presently I have over 30 waypoints waiting approval. Most of which are about 2 weeks old. There are 4 officers which all have been online within the past few days but only one officer is approving and at the rate of one or two a day. During the time of my backlog one of the officers has submitted some waymarks which were immediately approved by one of the other officers.

It seems that the Virginia Historical Marker category has a problem as well.  A number of my waymark submissions have not been reviewed since November and early December, but a few recent submissions were approved.  There are three officers and the enrollment is off.  One officer replied that he's overwhelmed and that it would be nice to have more reviewers, but there's nothing he can do. 

Antique Shops is an other problem category. The leader hasn't signed in for a month, the second is out of the country so understandably isn't active, the 3rd officer hasn't signed in for 2 months.  Waymarking should be able to promote regular members, if available, to officer or appoint volunteers that are will to help out with neglected categories.

Another idea is a pool of people who can review waymarks in any category that have been submitted and not acted on for more than 30 days, maybe even lower that to 14 days.  I think there is a lot of frustated Waymarkers that may quit waymarking because of long waits.

A good example of a group well managed is First of its kind. They have plenty of officers and they review submissions the same day usually.

kjfishman:

Another idea is a pool of people who can review waymarks in any category that have been submitted and not acted on for more than 30 days, maybe even lower that to 14 days.  I think there is a lot of frustated Waymarkers that may quit waymarking because of long waits

I REALLY like that idea...

gt.us:

kjfishman:

Another idea is a pool of people who can review waymarks in any category that have been submitted and not acted on for more than 30 days, maybe even lower that to 14 days.  I think there is a lot of frustated Waymarkers that may quit waymarking because of long waits

I REALLY like that idea...

or even worse, nEW waymarkers that may never get a start because they gave up after one ignored attempt.

ambrosia:

Nope! Welcome Signs is an active category. :- We're being added to quite often, and all our officers are active. I'm sorry if your waymark was hung up in voting. I try and go to the group page often, to free up waymarks, but the holidays probably had something to do with yours.

math teacher:

Can someone please tell me if the following categories are abandoned? The officers refuse to publish my waymarks from December and New Years. The categories are:
1. Roman Catholic Churches
2. Ghost Signs
3. City and Town Halls
4. Welcome Signs (voting on my sub. since 12/31/09)

Thanks!

Thanks for responding.

opinionate:

I am sympathetic to slow officer review as I get busy and can be very bad about handling my queue, but I agree that something must be done about certain categories.

If you know of groups that have waymarks in their queue (let's say for longer than two months), and are willing to join as an officer, name them here and I will open enrollment and invite you to join it. I hesitate at this point to unseat any leaders but I think it's fair to promote officers to clear a blocked queue.

Instead of waiting for you to accept the invitation I will spoof your login and accept it so the whole thing can be done in one go. Otherwise I'll forget to promote you to officer status (no emails to me since I'm not part of the groups).

If any group officers object to this treatment they can wake up and do the job themselves.

I am willing to join this group as an officer to clear the back log in this category. Could someone please assist. No approvals now for about 8 months.

math teacher:

Ok. Thanks. I hope Larry is doing well. Maybe we could convince him to get some new officers who are little more involved? Or, should I mind my own business! :0)-

Yeah, mind your own business!   Oh, this is your business . . . .  and I really need to apologize for not keeping up with things lately.   It is the first time I've ever let waymarking get pushed to the back burner - just a combination of things that aren't important to rehearse.

One thing it has shown me is which categories do need some additional active officers to take up the slack when I'm not able to carry the load!  So, I'll try to remedy that shortly. 

This has also taught me that it is important to be more patient than I often am.  We just do not always understand the circumstances that cause waymarks to linger or categories to be lagging.  That's not to say that we shouldn't work on solutions where there really are persistent and long-term problems with categories.

You know, I guess I need to let somebody know what to do if I should suddenly fall seriously ill, injured, or dead!   Seriously.  We just got our Korean drives licenses and a small car and taking our first road trip tomorrow (national holiday weekend) so I'll try to be careful. 

Anyway, I hope no one is too mad at me.  I will be back to a more regular schedule as our new school  year starts next week, though I'll have some extra classes to teach.  Finished the intensive course to have a TESOL certificate, and have signed a contract for another year.  But, that's probably more than anyone wanted to know.  Time to update the blog.

Bruce - had a great time with the geocachers you put me in touch with.  They finally made it to Korea last week, and we found some caches together.  Thanks!

...hmmm, "Pedestrian Suspension Bridges " category looks also slightly hibernated :) Leader - last login 10/9/2009 Officer 1 - last login 3/16/2007 Officer 2A - last login 2/24/2009 Officer 2B - last login 9/17/2009 ..pity :(

opinionate:

I am sympathetic to slow officer review as I get busy and can be very bad about handling my queue, but I agree that something must be done about certain categories.

If you know of groups that have waymarks in their queue (let's say for longer than two months), and are willing to join as an officer, name them here and I will open enrollment and invite you to join it. I hesitate at this point to unseat any leaders but I think it's fair to promote officers to clear a blocked queue.

Instead of waiting for you to accept the invitation I will spoof your login and accept it so the whole thing can be done in one go. Otherwise I'll forget to promote you to officer status (no emails to me since I'm not part of the groups).

If any group officers object to this treatment they can wake up and do the job themselves.

Nate,

I'm a member of the Pedestrian Suspension Bridges category.  If you can promote me, I will help get that cat active again.  Thanks.

Dave

team farkle 7:

What do you say we start a group called trouble shooters (or something like that) and put it out there that we've formed for the purpose of helping others get these groups back on track.

I would be more than happy to help out in a 'trouble-shooters' capacity. I have volunteered to be an Officer in a few groups just because they needed an active Officer. I know that Waymarking grows and thrives by members being involved. I do agree with many of the prior suggestions about a better system to remove inactive or hostile ('holding a group hostage' is a common term) leaders/officers. The log on time is valid, but should also have the ability to 'suspend' your position (Leader or Officer) for a 3 to 6 month period in case of illness or other demands on your time. Before a person could 'suspend' their activities, they would have to promote an active replacement.

I use this suggestion of 'suspend' as I have used that feature in the Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (www.raogk.org) that I work with. I have about 6 weeks out of the year I am just too busy to help do genealogical lookups for people. So I 'suspend' my availability until my work load calms down. RAOGK does not allow people to suspend for more than 6 months, which avoids people not being effective for the group.

Same idea applies to Waymarking. No one 'forces' someone to be a Leader or Officer - it is a privilege and a responsibility. If a person's life changes so they can no longer be active, a transparent method (as has already been suggested) needs to be instituted.

Take care,
Outspoken1

I have tried what TF7 suggests.

I started a group called "Category Support" that has clearly defined criteria for assisting categories. No one really took advantage of it. Unfortunately the group just gets lost in the masses.

Hi Team of Many Beans,

In the case of - Pedestrian Suspension Bridges which is now becoming a category that I am very passionate about getting moving again, it appears that there are no officers willing to assist and they have all gone away. I have tried every option that I can see throughout this thread nad it looks as though we are stymied. As one who has been fairly active in the Waymarking for a long time, what would be your suggested next step? Do you know if Groundspeak know or even care of this type of situation? All emails I have sent are ignored.

Regards,

Rabbitto

I'll send some emails next week and see what we can do to help.

One of many beans.

I would recommend taking down names from people that joined category support and inviting them to join your group, then promote to officer level.

The category support group is people who have expressed a desire to pitch in when necessary.