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Hi there...
The category Natural Lakes were recently denied in peer review.
We still think that it's a viable category, so we would appreciate some help to resolve the points of discord.

The main argument against were the problems with really large lakes and the multiple waymarks.
It's not our intention to have multiple waymarks for any lakes, but we fill that in really large lakes there might exist multiple points deserving a waymark (we are thinking of visitors center for example). But if the community thinks it should be restrained to one waymark per lake that is ok, no objection there. How should we deal with this?

The other argument against was the prevalence, and we honestly don't agree. Sure, there are some areas in the world were natural lakes are too prevalent, but there are many others where there are none! And even in the areas were they might be too prevalent will all be waymarked? If they will, great. We'll have a great category, full of nice location to visit. It's not like we are talking about neon signs or anything like that (which by the way, are much more prevalent and uninteresting).

Hi Tmob!
We love mountain lakes so We like also your category.
Nevertheless, We agree with opinion that one lake = just one waymark.

tmob:

But if the community thinks it should be restrained to one waymark per lake that is ok, no objection there. How should we deal with this?

We have this idea:
If you request that the official name of the lake (i.e., the name used on google map) must be used at the beginning of the waymark title, you will be able to search for duplicity.

For example:
Lago di Garda, Italy --- it is correct.
Lago di Garda (Lake Garda), Italy --- it is correct.
Lake Garda, Italy --- It is the wrong name for waymark

If you use this format, you can sort all existing "Natural lakes" waymarks by alphabet.

The other argument against was the prevalence, and we honestly don't agree. Sure, there are some areas in the world were natural lakes are too prevalent, but there are many others where there are none!

You are right.
In Minnesota, there are about 12 000 lakes but in the Czech Republic, there are more than 25 000 payphones. It is a similar case but the category of payphones is still funny. Local prevalence is not a problem.

I still think the main problems you have are the two you outlined.   I can think of many lakes where their size could easily warrant several waymarks and I don't even have raise to the level of Great Lake (where hundreds or thousands of waymarks could not properly waymark features of the lake).   Lakes even 10 or 20 miles long may have hundred miles of shoreline and many hundreds of significant features.

It is true there are places where there are no natural lakes (including the state I currently live)  however I have also lived where there are 10's of thousands of lakes thus I have seen both extremes.  Most places where glaciers visited during the last ice age will have a great abundance of lakes.

One other problem I see is the insistence on natural lakes, I think this will be management nightmare.  Many people may not know whether a lake is a natural or not and they will waymark it.  Then someone will waymark a neighboring lake and the reviewing officer will notice the dam and decline.... the person with the declined waymark will then complain that you accepted the neighboring "unnatural" lake. 

Ursus Pipa:

Hi Tmob!

We have this idea:
If you request that the official name of the lake (i.e., the name used on google map) must be used at the beginning of the waymark title, you will be able to search for duplicity.

For example:
Lago di Garda, Italy --- it is correct.
Lago di Garda (Lake Garda), Italy --- it is correct.
Lake Garda, Italy --- It is the wrong name for waymark

If you use this format, you can sort all existing "Natural lakes" waymarks by alphabet.

This will work somewhat where all lakes are named.... there are a million plus lakes in the State of Alaska... many if not most are not named.   The other problem are the number of repeat names for lakes.  Take this link, it lists roughly 10% of the lakes in Minnesota, there are not many names that are not repeated at least twice and sometimes within the same county... throw in the other 90% of the lakes and the repeats will be many more.

Artificial Lakes were excluded to prevent the duplication of waymarks, as part of them were already covered in the water dams category, and we were not really looking for an artificial lake in City park.

As in any other category, reviewers have to believe in the information given by the person submitting the waymark. If someone says it is natural lake than we believe it.

About the name of the lake, i don't think that will be a problem.
If there is an official name, use it.
If it is a common name, and there are other lakes with the same name, add some other reference to identify it.
If there is no name at all, give us some reference about it's location.

I'll add this information on the posting a waymark recomendations.

A way to prevent a large number of submissions, and solve the issue of prevalence, is to

tmob:

This will eliminate many small lakes, considered in the "10000 lakes" of Minnesota.

What do you say?

In my opinion it is not a good idea.
Most kettle lakes in mountains and other tarns have area about a few hectares only. This small mountain lakes are often more interesting and picturesque than some larger lakes.
If the category is limited to lakes with an area larger of more than one square kilometer, many interesting lakes will be omitted.
It would be a pitty.

Don´t worry about local prevalence.
Many small lakes are beautiful goals for waymarking!

I am in the "not a good idea" camp. 

The large lake issue is a HUGE administrative problem - particularly with the Great Lakes.  Finding and filtering for them is a nightmare.  Which country should I search for Lake Superior let alone which state or province?

Then there is the verification issue of whether or not it is natural.  Take Lake Andrea in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, for instance. 

Now that you have seen it, tell me if that is a natural lake or a man-made lake.

Lastly, what part of the lake are you interested in waymarking?  Your initial category idea seemed to be geared towards how humans interact with the lake.  But then you would simply be duplicating exisiting categories of beaches, boat ramps, fishing holes, scenic lookout points, canoe tours, etc.

If you are only interested in the geology and limnology of a lake, then you end up duplicating the Places of Geologic Importance category.

Sorry, I do not see this as a viable category idea.

cldisme:

I am in the "not a good idea" camp. 

The large lake issue is a HUGE administrative problem - particularly with the Great Lakes.  Finding and filtering for them is a nightmare.  Which country should I search for Lake Superior let alone which state or province?

That's why the sentence about multiple waymarks was in the description! Maybe if the category excluded all the larger lakes things would be easier.

cldisme:

Then there is the verification issue of whether or not it is natural.  Take Lake Andrea in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, for instance. 

Now that you have seen it, tell me if that is a natural lake or a man-made lake.

If you are talking about it, it must be man-made. But tell something, it looks like a natural one, right? We have no problem with artificial lakes per se, we just don't want water dams and stuff like that, because there is already a category for it.

cldisme:

Lastly, what part of the lake are you interested in waymarking?  Your initial category idea seemed to be geared towards how humans interact with the lake.  But then you would simply be duplicating exisiting categories of beaches, boat ramps, fishing holes, scenic lookout points, canoe tours, etc.

If you are only interested in the geology and limnology of a lake, then you end up duplicating the Places of Geologic Importance category.

Sorry, I do not see this as a viable category idea.

The category is for waymarking the lakes. Not the beaches, not the boat  ramps, not the scenic lookout points, not the canoe tours, not even the geologic places. It's lakes, natural lakes. Just that.

By your line of thought you would only need one category: "Stuff", another would be a duplication.

I do like lakes and I would love to see a category for them.

But I currently do not see a good solution for the administrative problems, especially when it comes to very large lakes.

I would say one waymark per lake, regardless of the size. Don't ask me how to manage this; I am just happy not to be an officer in that group.

Two more questions came to my mind.
1. Where could this waymark be visited? Only at the original coordinates or anywhere at or on the lake? I would prefer the latter.

2. I know some lakes with different parts with distinct names that are only connected with very narrow straits, but are still considered to be an entity. An example would be Lake Constance in the three countries corner of Austria, Germany and Switzerland. It is usually classified as one lake but there are in fact two connected by a short river. Or Lake Lucerne has an appendix lake in the south-west connected with a strait of less than 100 meters; the main lake itself has a two narrow parts, the three parts (would sub-lakes be a term for it?) have different names. What would you do with these cases?

fi67:

I would say one waymark per lake, regardless of the size. Don't ask me how to manage this; I am just happy not to be an officer in that group.

Here is this possibility - if you view the unpublished waymark you can see other waymarks from the same category at a distance of 200 miles or 200 kilometers.
These nearby waymarks will be displayed on the small map on the right top corner of the page. You can zoom and move this map as you need. So You will see whether another waymark icon has not been on the lake
The only condition is that the coordinates of the waymark must be located on the shore or on the surface of the lake.
It is not difficult for officers.

Ursus Pipa:

fi67:

I would say one waymark per lake, regardless of the size. Don't ask me how to manage this; I am just happy not to be an officer in that group.

Here is this possibility - if you view the unpublished waymark you can see other waymarks from the same category at a distance of 200 miles or 200 kilometers.
These nearby waymarks will be displayed on the small map on the right top corner of the page. You can zoom and move this map as you need. So You will see whether another waymark icon has not been on the lake
The only condition is that the coordinates of the waymark must be located on the shore or on the surface of the lake.
It is not difficult for officers.

That's more or less what i was going to answer. Thanks for your help!

Ursus Pipa:

fi67:

I would say one waymark per lake, regardless of the size. Don't ask me how to manage this; I am just happy not to be an officer in that group.

Here is this possibility - if you view the unpublished waymark you can see other waymarks from the same category at a distance of 200 miles or 200 kilometers.
These nearby waymarks will be displayed on the small map on the right top corner of the page. You can zoom and move this map as you need. So You will see whether another waymark icon has not been on the lake
The only condition is that the coordinates of the waymark must be located on the shore or on the surface of the lake.
It is not difficult for officers.

Actually on that map you will see only the closest 25 waymarks (unless you change pages) in the category thus it quite probably on a large lake that there will be 25 other lakes that could be closer than that lake's waymark.  I can think of many lakes where there are 25 lakes closer to one end of a lake than the other end of lake is.  I don't view this as a simple thing for the officers.

BruceS:

Actually on that map you will see only the closest 25 waymarks (unless you change pages) in the category thus it quite probably on a large lake that there will be 25 other lakes that could be closer than that lake's waymark.  I can think of many lakes where there are 25 lakes closer to one end of a lake than the other end of lake is.  I don't view this as a simple thing for the officers.

You are thinking about the worst case scenario. Even though, it's easy to solve, just change to the next page.
The way i see things, if this category ever pass on peer review, it will not just start to be  everyone's favorite category, which means that we will not have submissions for all the 10000 lakes of Minnesota, nor any other region with large quantity of lakes.
As in any other category, officers will be humans, so errors will happen. If they are found, can be corrected.
We were just trying to create a simple, fun and outdoorsy category, with interesting locations, but we are getting a bit demotivated with all this.

tmob:

We were just trying to create a simple, fun and outdoorsy category, with interesting locations, but we are getting a bit demotivated with all this.

Simple is just not going to happen.  You are trying to assign a single, one-dimensional point to a two-dimensional area.

cldisme:

tmob:

We were just trying to create a simple, fun and outdoorsy category, with interesting locations, but we are getting a bit demotivated with all this.

Simple is just not going to happen.  You are trying to assign a single, one-dimensional point to a two-dimensional area.

Sure, it will be the first one.
Without checking the list of categories i can remember of the national/state parks, public access lands or volcano watching, for example, but there are more.

By simple, i mean, people submitting the waymark was able to choose the best coordinates for the waymark; without restrict rules, because not lakes are equals.

We have been discussing this subject and trying to solve some of the problems pointed out.

We have two different propositions:

a) Change the category subject, focusing only on small dimension lakes (less than 10km² (3.8 sq mi) of surface area); This will restrain the number of possible waymarks, controlling the over prevalence issue; it will also eliminate the problems with managing the number of waymarks per lake, being the category focused in locations that can actually be waymarked and visited.

b) Keep the original premise, waymark all lakes, and accept multiple submissions per lake; in larger lakes, which seeing things with straightforwardness, will be a minority, it would be acceptable 1 waymark per county (or similar administrative division). County name should be identified in the waymark name.

About the coordinates of the waymark it should be chosen by the person submitting the waymark; we suggest a main scenic lookout where it is possible to view a major portion of the lake or a visitors center.

We would really like constructive feedback on this.

I tend to like categories which are more inclusive rather then exclusive. That's why I think the B) proposal is a balanced one. Got my support.

Both of yours solutions are applicable, but we also prefer the second proposal.

tmob:

accept multiple submissions per lake; in larger lakes, which seeing things with straightforwardness, will be a minority, it would be acceptable 1 waymark per county (or similar administrative division). County name should be identified in the waymark name.

We think that would be better if you use only the administrative units which are used by the server waymarking.com (ie "country" and "state/province").
Use of smaller administrative units (such as districts and counties) may lead to confusion.

We believe that the category of natural lakes will be interesting for many waymarkers.
Who is not interested in this subject should keep in mind this principle: "If you think a number of people will enjoy the category, even if you won't personally, you should vote "yea" and perhaps give some recommendations for improvement."

Several points come to my mind.
Discussing a proposal in the forums is wearing but productive. Take heart from all the useful advice. A proposal rarely gets through Peer Review without passage through the forums.

Large lakes are simply posted once by original Waymarker. Subsequent visitors post a log from wherever they are on the lake shore. Simples! <-- reference to UK advert on TV

Naming
Lake Constance is called Bodensee on my map. A Germanic name perhaps. "See" implies lake.
Perhaps include all other names in the title or text. Once a name is used for the same lake, only logs can be added for that lake.

Google often gets it wrong. So does Wikipedia. Also misnomers would irritate. For instance most of the English lakes in Cumbria already have lake in their name. eg Coniston Water, Grasmere and England's largest lake, Windermere. Mere means stretch of open water. Incorrect terminology would be to add the word lake after any of these names. In Scotland loch has similar etymology. Wales uses LLyn, Eire uses Lough.

Determining the surface area would be asking a lot.

Minimum size might be relevant. Maximum might not. Length and width can be measured on a map.

To avoid cross posting, perhaps include text along the lines of  "If your posting is already in another Category, it needs to be remarkable in it's own right. Be prepared for a denial by this Category's Managers." I often post leaving the decision as to whether it is suitable for the Category up to the reviewer's discretion. Often groups are keen to have your posting in their Category as well. Personally I try to write something different for each posting.

Hope all above helps. Get a range of officers involved to polish your Category Proposal and try again.