Groundspeak Portal

Good to hear... as this was one of the troubled categories, I guess we can simply go back to complaining about the Funny Mailboxes one...

Wait, that's being fixed too... so now what?

A site with no category issues??? Dare to dream!

BQ

Thanx for the "Vote" of approval BQ
-- I did a bit of housecleaning  only,   moved a couple of sentences and paragraphs around and in the process "P***ed" off a few Waymarkers.
- So with that done, I resigned and now moving on to another Category.
--- and with a new name too Themed Homemade Mailboxes.

Ironically nobody complained about the odd name I added --> Mailbox Connoisseurs <--

So now that I'm in and cleaned up an abandoned category - how can I clean out the one that I've got sitting in there since last October? I emailed the other officers in the group & asked one of them to approve mine but received no reply.  I don't want to approve my own - could a Groundspeak admin jump in  & approve it?

 

Ernmark:

So now that I'm in and cleaned up an abandoned category - how can I clean out the one that I've got sitting in there since last October? I emailed the other officers in the group & asked one of them to approve mine but received no reply.  I don't want to approve my own - could a Groundspeak admin jump in  & approve it?

The best thing to do now if there are regular members in the group put one up for promotion.  I had to do this in a couple categories to get my own waymarks approved.

Or you could email one of the leaders of the Category Support Group and they could send an email to the group members who might be interested in assisting. If you promoted a few active waymarkers you could then begin demoting non active ones and get control of the category again.

Here's what I can do:

Permissions:

Can Edit Waymarks Can Recruit New Members Can Review Waymarks Can Send Group Emails

How would I be able to promote someone to be an officer? There were a few people interested in helping out..

Ernmark:

Here's what I can do:

Permissions:

Can Edit Waymarks Can Recruit New Members Can Review Waymarks Can Send Group Emails

How would I be able to promote someone to be an officer? There were a few people interested in helping out..

Click on the member you wish to have promoted from the group. It should then have a link that says "Promote Member" toward the bottom of the page. This puts it to a vote, Then you would go to the group detail page and from there you can go to vote. Your single yea vote should do it, unless some of the deadwood shows up and votes no, but it's unlikely.

team farkle 7:

Ernmark:

Here's what I can do:

Permissions:

Can Edit Waymarks Can Recruit New Members Can Review Waymarks Can Send Group Emails

How would I be able to promote someone to be an officer? There were a few people interested in helping out..

Click on the member you wish to have promoted from the group. It should then have a link that says "Promote Member" toward the bottom of the page. This puts it to a vote, Then you would go to the group detail page and from there you can go to vote. Your single yea vote should do it, unless some of the deadwood shows up and votes no, but it's unlikely.

Or if they are not new members since you can recruit new members use that function to invite the user to your group.

On your groups detail page there are several tabs across the top. One of them should say invite. Select that and follow the instruction on the page to invite someone to join in assisting you with the category. Once they are members you still need to promote them I believe.

..sounds good - I'll get the ball rollin'!

Not to revisit the shame, but a quick question - just checked in on the DE Historical Marker Category (which is pretty quiet right now w/ 2 of us active ossifers in there) & thought of a quick question - My call # is 13 & the next up is 5 or 6 ...does that mean that there were a 7 thru 12 that came & went at some point?

- E

 

Exact Replicas is mighty slow to approve.  Anyone else have an experience with this category to share?

Had mine (WM6BA6) go through within a day or so of submitting, Lee-2 reviewd/approved.

I've had waymarks waiting over ten days in McDonalds and in Rest Areas.  I know McD's is a Groundspeak category and they're busy, but that's why we have group management, isn't it?  Seems a couple more active officers would help. 

I'm one of three officers in Rest Areas, but review 90% of the waymarks.  The group leader never reviews any, though he apparently logs into Waymarking.  Notes to him are always ignored, so I have a hard time getting my own waymarks reviewed.  I'm officer in several categories like this.

Enrollment is turned off for the Rest Area Group.  I'm willing to help out if I'm able to join.

silverquill:

I'm officer in several categories like this.

SQ, if you list them, we shall come.

Pedestrian Suspension Bridges category also looks as after "swine flu" epidemy :).

yea, i remember when McDs was alomst auto approve speed....i got several sitting there too....wiki, another pet of theirs, has been slow too....

i have a lot of approvals in my mail now, but that still leaves about 40+ in ques for 6 days now.....yea, i understand the weekend and all, but.....

in my problem categories i have a bad leader (absent since beta), no editing privlidges (make group public, language clarification), or no 'promotable' groupies (as i dont know that theyre up to it, or cant get votes to promote)......

granted i stopped joining groups a while back, but ive thought about joining some that perk my intrest, so i dont get stuck as the lone leader of something i dont really care about--although those arent very popular categories.

one group needs one (some) officer(s) from a (few) nonenglish speaking european country(ies)....

TeamTFG from South Africa is the only "active" office last logged in on 6/17/09 and early May before then.  I have emailed him repeatedly about being promoted as an officer to give a stateside presence - and then to clean house if we can.  Also included the notice in the private section of posted waymarks awaiting approval.

Time for gc.com to step in and take some real action.

 

vhasler:

TeamTFG from South Africa is the only "active" office last logged in on 6/17/09 and early May before then.  I have emailed him repeatedly about being promoted as an officer to give a stateside presence - and then to clean house if we can.  Also included the notice in the private section of posted waymarks awaiting approval.

Time for gc.com to step in and take some real action.

 

Yippers, the officer in charge has not logged in since summer of '08. We belong to this group to and have no way to help.

vhasler:

Time for gc.com to step in and take some real action.

I sure agree with this.

After extensive discussion on this issue, it became obvious that under the current structure and functions, there is only so much we can do when a category falls into a state like this.  And, to my knowledge, there has been absolutely NO response from Groundspeak. 

They seem to be worried about losing potential waymarks and propose major changes that fundamentally effect the way waymarks are created, submitted, and approved.   Yet, we know that we are losing waymarks because of these non-functioning categories or poorly managed categories.  I'd rather see some functions, features and policies to help us deal with these before we go fooling around with elaborate point systems.

Think what happens if a new waymarker submits a waymark to one of these troubled categories?  Likely, that person will become so frustrated that we'll never see another waymark.  I have waymarks to submit that will just sit in my folder because there is no sense in putting in the time to create and submit a waymark that will never get approved.  Other cateogories I avoid just because getting them reviewed is such a hassle.

silverquill:

Think what happens if a new waymarker submits a waymark to one of these troubled categories?  Likely, that person will become so frustrated that we'll never see another waymark.  I have waymarks to submit that will just sit in my folder because there is no sense in putting in the time to create and submit a waymark that will never get approved.  Other cateogories I avoid just because getting them reviewed is such a hassle.

I agree that this is one of the biggest threats to the future of the hobby.

It's definately frustrating to submit to a category and know up front that your mark is going to sit there indefinately. If your a "grid" player it's got to be even more maddening. Surely there is a way for the powers that be to allow users to select a group co-leader and promote them for the purpose of adding active members, editing, etc. I wouldn't advocate just booting someone out as leader, but perhaps adding a "mentor" as co-leader, promoting active officers and then letting the group of active members make that decision. I like the idea that the basis of Waymarking structure is to be user led and user managed. I can also see this "priviledge" having the potential of being abused, I think the chances are greatly reduced in a community of like minded people, but it's there never the less. Perhaps some guidelines on "absenteeism" before a mentor could be put in place. If GS.com was able to put this in place within the site, active members could take over the management of the process and create a forum to discuss the issues and decisions beforehand and recruit new blood. There are some great categories out there that are going to be lost unless this is resolved, and I'm sure we lose new waymarkers who end up only submitting to one of the abandoned categories and no others. When I first started waymarking I ended up in one of "those" categories, but also in a few where I got quick approvals and positive comments. Those members are the reason I'm still waymarking. If not for them I would have thought, "why bother" and probably given up pretty quickly. TBT already has a category support group in place..."Hello My name is Marbill and I am a waymarking junkie"...LOL! Maybe with help from GS we could build on that...

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.

... and if a "Category Leader",  or any Officer,  is not a Premium Member any more  he/she will continue to be the "Leader" or "Officer" of the Category ???? 

Part of the problem is not only leaders who do not do anything but categories where one officer is keeping it afloat but without the ability to make needed changes because they do not have edit abilities.

There needs to be a natural attrition process so that if a leader does not log in for a time (quarterly) then the edit ability at least gets turned on for the group.

In the railroad bridges group our leader was absent for over six months but logged on last month. I have tried to contact them several times regarding the category with no luck and there are problems that need to be addressed but in any of these scenarios this problem is still....a problem.

Don't misunderstand. I really appreciate the offer you extend here and for categories where there is absolutely no one doing anything this is wonderful and may bring some resolution to those problems.

 I am just noting that the problem goes deeper than a simple abandoned category and includes many categories that seem to operate just fine when in actuality they suffer from the same issues except for one member who gives the cat. an illusion of peachiness.