Groundspeak Portal

chapterhouseinc:

how about this: you get locked out of your waymark, but you are still an officer with editing access to the mark? shouldnt that box 'not exist' on such marks?

Yup.

But in addition to taking away that officer's Edit button for that waymark, you'd also have to disable the box that would allow the officer to approve requested changes to the waymark. Otherwise, the officer could just request the changes to the waymark they were locked out of, and then, as an officer in that category, approve the changes.

It's enough to make your head swim!

Of course, it's not going to come down to all this. But it does make you think about the law of unintended consequences.

chapterhouseinc:

how about this: you get locked out of your waymark, but you are still an officer with editing access to the mark? shouldnt that box 'not exist' on such marks?

This does bring up an interesting point.  Currently a group officer can block the original submitter from editing the waymark.  This has been used very sparingly.  However now with edits being opened up to others is that lock going to be removed?

the blue quasar:

It has always been my understanding that if I create a listing, all of the content including my text and images are protected under the Waymarking Terms of Use and likely by intellectual property laws. With that in mind I have been open to allowing Category Officers the right to make minor edits to my works. Now it appears that anyone can come along and copy, change, modify or take ownership of my content. That does not bode well with me nor do I wish to see the works of my friends in the Waymarking community being regurgitated by others as if their own. In short, I wish to continue to be able to protect my content and not allow it to me augmented or recycled without my consent.

You own your original content. Groundspeak also shares ownership and can modify the content, which would happen in the case of further edits of that content by the community. Whether you own the results of the collaborative effort is a question for the lawyers but my non-lawyer assumption is no.

I understand your interest in protecting your content in the format you initially presented it. I'd suggest making a local copy of that content to preserve it.

norstar:

I find the idea of trading or voluntarily giving waymarks to other players intriguing and needed.  Eventually, people will leave or maybe GroundSpeak will receive a notice saying that 'so-and-so has just passed away.'  If there is no way to transfer ownership (as currently understood) to another player, the waymark has no active caretaker, other than the officers of that category.  Trading or giving away waymarks would help keep waymarks up to date, since there would be someone who is taking interest in it.  I'm not sure that I would be willing to trade my waymarks (it's more about my self progress than getting all the tiles).

I know that I haven't been a contributor to the forums for a while, so Nate asked me to step in for this thread since the new feature is causing some concern by the core members of the activity. This concept of waymarks being "owned" does concern me, so I want to post my thoughts on the matter.

This is not geocaching. As such, there is no physical container represented by a listing on the web site. The waymark itself already has an owner and the likelihood of it being owned by the person who  listed it is pretty low. Waymarkers are discovering and listing unique and useful locations around the world that were there already, and documenting information about that location.

What that means is there is really no "land grab" here. Ownership of listings should be owned by the community. There should certainly be credit where credit is due - whether the person who discovered the location or documented it well, both contributed to listing it so others can enjoy it.

So, IMO, if the current culture of waymarking is that you own these locations, I say that the culture is broken. For waymarking to succeed it should be both fun and inviting for those to contribute useful information to the cause. If locking down waymarks from being improved over time is a result of the existing culture, that culture should be changed. I personally don't support any changes or features that encourage ownership of waymarks. I'd rather focus on improving the quality and quantity of them.

I wanted to follow up to explain the intent of the new feature. It was not, as many posts are focusing, meant as a way for newbies to easily post their waymark even if they didn't know the category exists. The intent was to create a way for people to post locations that don't have categories at all.

Right now you can either post a waymark in an existing category or hold on to that location until a category exists. Or if you are feeling particularly motivated, you can create your own category and find several officers to help. This new feature also allows you to post the waymark and hope that someone else will see a trend and create a new category for the waymark.

Time will tell whether this new feature will encourage new waymarks that have no category, but the hope is that we create messaging and tools to make this behavior happen. Granted, it will be used for waymarks that do have categories but my hope is that this will be the exception, not the rule.

jeremy:

I know that I haven't been a contributor to the forums for a while, so Nate asked me to step in for this thread since the new feature is causing some concern by the core members of the activity. This concept of waymarks being "owned" does concern me, so I want to post my thoughts on the matter.

This is not geocaching. As such, there is no physical container represented by a listing on the web site. The waymark itself already has an owner and the likelihood of it being owned by the person who  listed it is pretty low. Waymarkers are discovering and listing unique and useful locations around the world that were there already, and documenting information about that location.

What that means is there is really no "land grab" here. Ownership of listings should be owned by the community. There should certainly be credit where credit is due - whether the person who discovered the location or documented it well, both contributed to listing it so others can enjoy it.

So, IMO, if the current culture of waymarking is that you own these locations, I say that the culture is broken. For waymarking to succeed it should be both fun and inviting for those to contribute useful information to the cause. If locking down waymarks from being improved over time is a result of the existing culture, that culture should be changed. I personally don't support any changes or features that encourage ownership of waymarks. I'd rather focus on improving the quality and quantity of them.

I don't think there is any feeling of owning the location which is quite evident by multiple waymarkers submitting the same location in different categories.  However there is an ownership of the waymark submission itself.   It is that ownership which helps to insure quality of the waymarks submitted.   I do not choose to own waymarks not submitted by me, I review those that are submitted in categories I help manage to insure they meet the requirements of the category  however even there I don't feel I have ownership of those waymark, I am just a contributor to their quality and it is so noted when it says I reviewed it on the waymark page.

If now all waymarks are owned by the community then remove all stats, all grids, and all state colors as they have now been rendered meaningless.   May as well remove the submitted by on the waymark page because that too is meaningless as that would be too "bourgeois" to actually claim ownership of "community property"  

jeremy:

I wanted to follow up to explain the intent of the new feature. It was not, as many posts are focusing, meant as a way for newbies to easily post their waymark even if they didn't know the category exists. The intent was to create a way for people to post locations that don't have categories at all.

I am probably responsible for promoting the intent that uncategorized waymarks would be a way for users who are unfamiliar with the categories available to submit a location, but I should have expanded on that view. I do believe this is a part of it, although Jeremy's clarification makes the most sense today. The followup step to posting waymarks that have no category at all is to identify trends and create categories that fulfill an obvious need.

"Oh look, there are a number of uncategorized Whatsits. I should create a category for those."

jeremy:

I wanted to follow up to explain the intent of the new feature. It was not, as many posts are focusing, meant as a way for newbies to easily post their waymark even if they didn't know the category exists. The intent was to create a way for people to post locations that don't have categories at all.

Right now you can either post a waymark in an existing category or hold on to that location until a category exists. Or if you are feeling particularly motivated, you can create your own category and find several officers to help. This new feature also allows you to post the waymark and hope that someone else will see a trend and create a new category for the waymark.

Time will tell whether this new feature will encourage new waymarks that have no category, but the hope is that we create messaging and tools to make this behavior happen. Granted, it will be used for waymarks that do have categories but my hope is that this will be the exception, not the rule.

If this is the intent then make it so that I can post them in this holding place and when the category is created only I can submit it...  The current implementation only foster disharmony when someone "poaches" a waymark I have put in the holding area waiting for a category.

BruceS:

If this is the intent then make it so that I can post them in this holding place and when the category is created only I can submit it...  The current implementation only foster disharmony when someone "poaches" a waymark I have put in the holding area waiting for a category.

The unfinished waymark feature provides this already. You can either publish it to uncategorized waymarks or keep it unfinished until the category is available. If you were to, say, play it by your own rules, you could identify the category yourself and finish your waymark once the category is available.

BruceS:

I don't think there is any feeling of owning the location which is quite evident by multiple waymarkers submitting the same location in different categories.  However there is an ownership of the waymark submission itself.   It is that ownership which helps to insure quality of the waymarks submitted. 

I disagree in that, by "owning" a listing in a waymark category, you are claiming ownership of any and all content of that location in that category forever. That doesn't make sense since you are blocking any contributions by others about that location if you feel like it.

If now all waymarks are owned by the community then remove all stats, all grids, and all state colors as they have now been rendered meaningless.   May as well remove the submitted by on the waymark page because that too is meaningless as that would be too "bourgeois" to actually claim ownership of "community property"  

I disagree. You can certainly award people for their contributions in a category and for a listing, which would be more of a meritocracy - something I'd prefer over a dictatorship.

jeremy:

BruceS:

If this is the intent then make it so that I can post them in this holding place and when the category is created only I can submit it...  The current implementation only foster disharmony when someone "poaches" a waymark I have put in the holding area waiting for a category.

The unfinished waymark feature provides this already. You can either publish it to uncategorized waymarks or keep it unfinished until the category is available. If you were to, say, play it by your own rules, you could identify the category yourself and finish your waymark once the category is available.

The current unfinished waymark feature does not provide this.  It requires that the waymark be completed in a specific category complete the variable in that category and it is only submittable in that category.

BruceS:

jeremy:

BruceS:

If this is the intent then make it so that I can post them in this holding place and when the category is created only I can submit it...  The current implementation only foster disharmony when someone "poaches" a waymark I have put in the holding area waiting for a category.

The unfinished waymark feature provides this already. You can either publish it to uncategorized waymarks or keep it unfinished until the category is available. If you were to, say, play it by your own rules, you could identify the category yourself and finish your waymark once the category is available.

The current unfinished waymark feature does not provide this.  It requires that the waymark be completed in a specific category complete the variable in that category and it is only submittable in that category.

I guess I don't understand the point you are making. The new uncategorized waymark feature supports the ability to post an unfinished waymark in your queue. You can, at that point, either submit it as "finished" and make it public for someone to categorize it, or store it as "unfinished" until a category is available to accomodate your waymark. If you don't want your waymark "poached" you just leave it unfinished.

there is an fundamental difference between 'there is no place to put this' and 'i dont know if this fits anywhere'......

the term you shouldve used is 'poster' instead of waymark 'owner'.....

IMO the new feature should only focus on things that do not yet have a category. period.
none of this n00b just posting crap for others to sort. take swizzle, he was a n00b, but he chose to use the existing community to edicate himself about this beast we call waymarking.

and i thought the idea from the onset was PEER REVIEW. none of this bickering amongst ourselves about trivial nonsense. look at the state of the game (um, bears? aviaries?). everyone has been all me, me, me....never us, us, us.......as BQ states, there are certain intellectual rights--my presentation and gallery collection. yes, waymarks are owned by the community as a whole--my waymark description is public property for them to visit--but only one person get a log notification (we dont have a watch this waymark function).

it is not that i own the location, but i have the distinction of sharing it with everyone else.

you say "For waymarking to succeed it should be both fun and inviting for those to contribute useful information to the cause. " then why [for example] have certain practices been allowed to flourish that have inherently suppressed the ability to contribute a limited posting so that other might be able to provide the details to make the mark fulfill the categories intentions--case in point: my 2 religious statues in a cemetery. it is the garden of apostles (or something), yes this does narrow it down some, but why cant i have it out there for the experts to tell me: why, that one os matthew, cause his right hand is......and he is holding a ......in the left.

yes, 'orphan marks' will be a way to enable this process, in a workaround way. as id there should be an 'conditionally approve this mark for the community to fill in the details before being listed in the main section of the category.
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if you had used poster instead of owner, the idea behind it is the same. i 'found it', i 'researched it', i made it my own by presenting it as it is.
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i post a penny smasher. i neglect to include the specific designs available. disney princess comes along and, in her log, provides this new information. as a responsible owner, i would then update the mark to include this 'new' info. the mark is still 'mine', but one of my peers helped to make it better.
----

with so many subjective categories, we have many opinions on topics (what is funny and what is not). what when all these differing opinions disagree about the content of the mark?

take the dinosaur world roadside attraction i just posted. as with all of 'my' marks in that category the description is the article as it is listed on the resource site. yet, the approved made comments about not liking the mention of religion and evolution in the article. the category is based upon roadsideamerica.com, i didnt write the article. so then, am i to let the naysayers edit my mark because they have issue with the ideas presented? [a la wiki?] again, IMO, censorship is wrong. as long as it is family friendly (nude beaches?), it is ok. maybe this is a good chance for tolerance education.

but, as stated above you could only do that with a sock puppet--

opinionate:

>
You cannot clone your own waymark

edit: see, you have been hiding details......but why put all the effort into creating it, to sit on it, to have the category appear and someone else post before you?

jeremy:

BruceS:

I don't think there is any feeling of owning the location which is quite evident by multiple waymarkers submitting the same location in different categories.  However there is an ownership of the waymark submission itself.   It is that ownership which helps to insure quality of the waymarks submitted. 

I disagree in that, by "owning" a listing in a waymark category, you are claiming ownership of any and all content of that location in that category forever. That doesn't make sense since you are blocking any contributions by others about that location if you feel like it.

The community can already contribute to the "community owned waymark" which just happens to be maintained by me and I did the work to submit, take the photos of and has my name on the top and if it looks like crap is mine it reflect on me etc....   They can post visit logs and notes.  If they post information that should me added I can add it.  If not I choose not to add it, the information is still available to be read in the other person's visit or notes log.

If now all waymarks are owned by the community then remove all stats, all grids, and all state colors as they have now been rendered meaningless.   May as well remove the submitted by on the waymark page because that too is meaningless as that would be too "bourgeois" to actually claim ownership of "community property"  

I disagree. You can certainly award people for their contributions in a category and for a listing, which would be more of a meritocracy - something I'd prefer over a dictatorship.

And meritocracy will lead to mediocrity   j/k.     However declaring that they are now the community's does not reward the initial contributor his "ownership" has now been stripped along with a sense of pride that may come with it.

jeremy:

BruceS:

jeremy:

BruceS:

If this is the intent then make it so that I can post them in this holding place and when the category is created only I can submit it...  The current implementation only foster disharmony when someone "poaches" a waymark I have put in the holding area waiting for a category.

The unfinished waymark feature provides this already. You can either publish it to uncategorized waymarks or keep it unfinished until the category is available. If you were to, say, play it by your own rules, you could identify the category yourself and finish your waymark once the category is available.

The current unfinished waymark feature does not provide this.  It requires that the waymark be completed in a specific category complete the variable in that category and it is only submittable in that category.

I guess I don't understand the point you are making. The new uncategorized waymark feature supports the ability to post an unfinished waymark in your queue. You can, at that point, either submit it as "finished" and make it public for someone to categorize it, or store it as "unfinished" until a category is available to accomodate your waymark. If you don't want your waymark "poached" you just leave it unfinished.

I was keying off the where you said it does this already... the current does not... the one to be released has been seen so I was not aware that uncategorized could saved in my unfinished.

BruceS:

And meritocracy will lead to mediocrity   j/k.     However declaring that they are now the community's does not reward the initial contributor his "ownership" has now been stripped along with a sense of pride that may come with it.

We're rewarding people for discovery, not ownership. Historically, humans have recognized the explorers by naming the locations they discover. Ultimately those explorers don't own those locations.

Granted, Chinese Admiral Cheng Ho initially discovered America in 1421 and it isn't called Chenghoia, but that's just a straw man argument. And no, I'm not advocating every waymark be deemed "BruceS markstopia" either, but that you should have credit listed as the person who discovered the waymark and contributed to the content within.

BruceS:

jeremy:

I guess I don't understand the point you are making. The new uncategorized waymark feature supports the ability to post an unfinished waymark in your queue. You can, at that point, either submit it as "finished" and make it public for someone to categorize it, or store it as "unfinished" until a category is available to accomodate your waymark. If you don't want your waymark "poached" you just leave it unfinished.

I was keying off the where you said it does this already... the current does not... the one to be released has been seen so I was not aware that uncategorized could saved in my unfinished.

Yeah. I wasn't living in the present. Sorry about that. A base waymark (uncategorized) does not have to be published anywhere. There's always a "draft" option.

BruceS:

chapterhouseinc:

how about this: you get locked out of your waymark, but you are still an officer with editing access to the mark? shouldnt that box 'not exist' on such marks?

This does bring up an interesting point.  Currently a group officer can block the original submitter from editing the waymark.  This has been used very sparingly.  However now with edits being opened up to others is that lock going to be removed?

Is anything stopping someone from erasing a photo from the waymark in an edit. I know it sounds extreme, but it's something I thought of.

BruceS:

jeremy:

I know that I haven't been a contributor to the forums for a while, so Nate asked me to step in for this thread since the new feature is causing some concern by the core members of the activity. This concept of waymarks being "owned" does concern me, so I want to post my thoughts on the matter.

This is not geocaching. As such, there is no physical container represented by a listing on the web site. The waymark itself already has an owner and the likelihood of it being owned by the person who  listed it is pretty low. Waymarkers are discovering and listing unique and useful locations around the world that were there already, and documenting information about that location.

What that means is there is really no "land grab" here. Ownership of listings should be owned by the community. There should certainly be credit where credit is due - whether the person who discovered the location or documented it well, both contributed to listing it so others can enjoy it.

So, IMO, if the current culture of waymarking is that you own these locations, I say that the culture is broken. For waymarking to succeed it should be both fun and inviting for those to contribute useful information to the cause. If locking down waymarks from being improved over time is a result of the existing culture, that culture should be changed. I personally don't support any changes or features that encourage ownership of waymarks. I'd rather focus on improving the quality and quantity of them.

I don't think there is any feeling of owning the location which is quite evident by multiple waymarkers submitting the same location in different categories.  However there is an ownership of the waymark submission itself.   It is that ownership which helps to insure quality of the waymarks submitted.   I do not choose to own waymarks not submitted by me, I review those that are submitted in categories I help manage to insure they meet the requirements of the category  however even there I don't feel I have ownership of those waymark, I am just a contributor to their quality and it is so noted when it says I reviewed it on the waymark page.

If now all waymarks are owned by the community then remove all stats, all grids, and all state colors as they have now been rendered meaningless.   May as well remove the submitted by on the waymark page because that too is meaningless as that would be too "bourgeois" to actually claim ownership of "community property"  

To bring Geocaching into the picture. Sure there's a container owned by the person, but there's also a write up. I doubt many cachers would be happy if their write ups were edited by third persons. What about the remaining virtual caches, should we be able to edit those?

IMO, there is nothing wrong with the current process of editing/adding to existing marks, other than the fact that noone is providing new info.

maybe this new edit process is too many decades too soon.....

jeremy:

BruceS:

And meritocracy will lead to mediocrity   j/k.     However declaring that they are now the community's does not reward the initial contributor his "ownership" has now been stripped along with a sense of pride that may come with it.

We're rewarding people for discovery, not ownership. Historically, humans have recognized the explorers by naming the locations they discover. Ultimately those explorers don't own those locations.

Granted, Chinese Admiral Cheng Ho initially discovered America in 1421 and it isn't called Chenghoia, but that's just a straw man argument. And no, I'm not advocating every waymark be deemed "BruceS markstopia" either, but that you should have credit listed as the person who discovered the waymark and contributed to the content within.

I agree here.   In that past I have stated that we probably should not have had two stats (waymarks submitted and waymarks visit) but only one ... visits or in your terminology maybe a better word would be "Discoveries"  Now some of the Discoveries would require more work in they would be need to submit the waymark and a re-Discovery would only ask that I contribute (log, photo whatever) but it is still a Discovery as the world is ever changing so the location is not the same today as yesterday.   What would the impact of this  be... I don't know...

Well, I was going to just wait and see how it unfolded but guess I'll weigh in with some thoughts.

First thanks to jeremy for weighing in on the topic. I miss seeing you in the forums.

Nest , some edits do not bother me. I use the privileged as a manager from time to time.  However, I am also concerned about the "ownership issue". I have run afoul of other waymarkers unintentionally due to edits.

As an example, I had sent an email to a user about a waymark that was erroneous in its information. It was  a good waymark but the facts were not what the waymark stated. I sent a very polite note to the user sharing the proper information and requesting an update and I indicated that I would add the information by such and such a date if it was not updated. Turns out he never got the email and was incensed when he saw the edit. OOOH it was not pretty. Can you say angry emails and archived waymarks. Based on his response, I can see this fairly prolific waymarker going away and others may as well but who knows. The user indicated he would archive all of his waymarks if I edited any of his waymarks again. Well we worked it out but the waymark is still archived.

I fear that many users feel very strongly about this. In the example I cite above that waymarker did exactly what  cache test dummies indicated that they might do in a similar situation.

I don't think that most feel the location itself is theirs but the effort and time in the page itself is. We don't own the tree but own the thoughts that we shared about the tree to refer to opinionate's analogy. 

So we shall see, as I stated in my first post if this will be a boon or hindrance to waymarking.

WOW! Where to even begin...?

If someone, noob or otherwise has a location to share, but cannot figure out which of the 900+ categories it should be posted, and another comes along and says, "category x" will work, it should go to the OP to post. Likewise with a location that there isn't an existing category.

Let it wait until one comes along. I personally would not be thrilled to have found something 5 years ago with no idea what to do with it and then have the waymark pulled out from under me.

"Who owns the tree?"

I do, or at least 16 "trees".

I currently have 16 waymarks on my property, and have plans for a treehouse that when finished will look convincingly enough to post into the Caboose category (or not), a rose compass surrounding said treehouse, and am also collecting bottles for a bottle tree. Okay, I know I'm not right...

I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around my waymarks edited by anyone other than the group officers, and for the most part they're usually making suggestions. Mainly because I believe there'd be a valid reason for it, but other than that, no thanks, post a visit.

Now what I think might be a better solution is if the visits appeared differently.

Instead of a list of visits at the bottom of the page, why not have them appear just under Visit Instructions? Instead of a list of who visited, have the comments in full on the waymark page, complete with thumbnail to the visitor's default image.

Then under the posted visits have the "Search For..."

I do think there's a good chance that folks might start archiving their stuff if it's no longer considered theirs. And then we'll have to change the announcement of 200,000 waymarks on the home page.

 

I have mixed feelings about much of what has been discussed here.

In a perfect world, I would like to see Waymarking more like a wiki, where one person starts it, and others contribute. I have observed that each of us has different 'gifts'. If my gift is spotting a non-specific veterans memorial at 2000 ft, slamming on my brakes, and hitting the mark button on the GPS, it would be nice if the person with the gift of flowery prose could make the words pretty. The end result is the best possible waymark.

Having been around the block a time or two, I have come to see that for every active waymarker there is another totally different idea of how the game is played. The very minimal enforced structure has made each category a totally different version of the game. The lack of structure has been a source of headache for strong opinioned people (myself included) that end up butting heads.

To put these people together in a sandbox and a list of rules that includes "play nice", is a recipe for disaster.

In addition to the human relations portion of the 'creating waymarks in a sandbox' experiment, I have one other concern about the physical mechanics of how it will all work.

Would it be possible to provide some of the data models used in development? At a minimim, it would be valuable to see the activity diagram and use case models. In my role as a business analyst, I have found them to be a good tools for simplifying the processes to a point where it is easy for anyone to understand what is happening. Do you consider the end users (waymarkers) of the system to be stakeholders in the project? If so, somthing above and beyond a forum discussion might be in order. I like the idea of being able to look at some of the data models, because it would be a way for people that were envisioning themselves using the process to easily spot gaps.