Groundspeak Portal

WE ARE UPSET AT TWO INDIVIDUALS ON HERE. I AM NOT GONNA MENTION ANY NAMES. we are on vacation in gatlinburg--pigeon forge, tn and waymarking and geocaching. we have been logging as we go, and not having a chance to post pics or log fully. just trying to keep up with what we are doing and finding. we get two emails that piss me off and make me want to stop waymarking. most of these waymarks have never been found, instead of saying thanks for finding my waymark, we get told this is not urban geocaching, need to post pics,etc. we are on vacation and enjoying ourselves and dont want to spend hours logging and posting this week. so please waymark owners give people on vacation a chance to follow up, i know most of you owners as we are also, have a little time to wait on people. it is just fun to have people to find my caches and waymarks. please think before you email someone in the future about requirements, look at the profile and see where they are from, they could be new to waymarking and you could make them upset and not ever do our great game/hobby again.

Here's a tip:

Next time you're using this POST NOW/PIX LATER approach to posting your visit, add a "Photos coming" notation with your post. 

 

My advice.  Enjoy your vacation and post when you get home.  There is little enjoyment for the waymark owner to get a copy and pasted message that you stopped by their waymark.   Wait until you get home when you can take the time to write a good enjoyable log and upload your photo.  The logs on waymarking can not be changed after you get home, they become none editable.  Thus if you want to give a good log you either have to delete your earlier one and a new one or post your better log as a note.

You would not post a find on a geocache and say I will sign the log book later would you?

I like Bruce's idea better.

bruce has the best suggestion: wait till you arent on vacation anymore.

you complain of wasting time on your vacation logging, well, follow his guideline and wait till you get home.....just think of how many more of my marks you couldve found instead of posting the cut/paste logs the ellicited my note that sent you over the edge (or was my note first and the other sent you over)

i also see that i wasnt the only one. i wonder who the other was? i bet i could find out in less than 5 clicks from the waymarking home page. doesnt seem that you are getting any sympathy on here either.....

PS: the 'pic will be uploaded later' is just as armcharish......

I would suggest waiting 'til you get home. That's what I do. Why waste time doing any writting when you're on vacation. Just take photos. When I get home I usually resize my photos and divide them into waymark and visit folders. It's not like your visits are going be any worse or better if you wait a week to do them.

man, do you know how many folders(visit, post, upload and delete, sit on until someone else posts), on how many drives i have (i own 3 externals).....just sorting pics from a vacation can take a whole day......

Whether its a long vacation or a short road trip to a nearby area, you might want to enter all the information in a new WM and click on 'save and submit later'... then you can add the photos and submit.   I have done this when I want to enter all the information I have at the time (coords, description, etc, --- or sometimes it will be the photos and I need time to get more info for the long description) and then can add the missing pieces and submit the WM for approval. 

Don't be discouraged -- Waymarking, like vacation - is meant to be FUN!

Agreed, be patient and log all your activities when you get home.  I'm sure you wanted to let the WO know that they had a visitor, but I can't imagine anyone needing to know immediately.

I rarely log anything on the same day anymore... but if Waymarking had 'sticky dates' like Geocaching, then it would be easier.

BQ

I never post without the picture.  I take a lot of photos (my current digital is at 16K images) so I keep an image directory and every day add a sub-directory titled with the calendar date and where we were.  That way I can sort things out later.  If I don't have time to log stuff, I give priority to retrieving any trackables we pick up and leaving a note on caches found to drop a trackable we have left.  Later on when I log, I just delete the drop note.

yes, those pesky, slippery dates.....

and if i could get the name of my uploaded pic back on that page i wouldnt have to let things (resized pics) sit in the rubbish bin until it gets approved so i know when i was there--you know, right click on pic on waymark page, open in new window, and there [was] the date on my pic......that is if you know all my pics are named in this format: 'date - pic #'.....

i have several forms of 'to do' waymark pics.....i archive the 'finished' ones in a foler system for year, month, and date if that was an extremely large number of pics.......

Oh! I love Pigeon Forge! Dollywood, y'all!!!

I guess no one here has down time while they wait on their spouse. I'd rather do something than just sit and wait. Posting quick notes on waymarks sounds good to me. But I wouldn't want to get real involved as I may need to leave quickly, I can't make the wife wait like she makes me.

Also, some people act like it's a personal insult if you didn't spend an hour enjoying their perfect waymark and then another writing about your visit.

Fatcat

fatcat161:

I guess no one here has down time while they wait on their spouse. I'd rather do something than just sit and wait. Posting quick notes on waymarks sounds good to me. But I wouldn't want to get real involved as I may need to leave quickly, I can't make the wife wait like she makes me.

Also, some people act like it's a personal insult if you didn't spend an hour enjoying their perfect waymark and then another writing about your visit.

Fatcat

No one is asking someone to spend an hour writing about the waymark... only that they meet the requirements of the visit.  The OP indicated they were putting in preliminary logs incomplete logs that they planned on expanding when they got home thus the advise to wait and do the log correctly once they got home.  If you have time to do it when on the road you have time to do it completely.

BruceS:

fatcat161:

Also, some people act like it's a personal insult if you didn't spend an hour enjoying their perfect waymark and then another writing about your visit.

No one is asking someone to spend an hour writing about the waymark

So if I make it a requirement that an hour be spent at the waymark and another writing about the visit (preferrably with the Minutes of that visit hour included), this wouldn't be well received?

At least tell me that my five photo minimum requirement is okay!

My thoughts on Pigeon Forge:
"Well, the mountain was so beautiful that this guy built a mall and a pizza shack
Yeah, he built an ugly city because he wanted the mountain to love him back"
- Dar Williams, "What Do You Love More Than Love"

Redneck Parrotheads:

BruceS:

fatcat161:

Also, some people act like it's a personal insult if you didn't spend an hour enjoying their perfect waymark and then another writing about your visit.

No one is asking someone to spend an hour writing about the waymark

So if I make it a requirement that an hour be spent at the waymark and another writing about the visit (preferrably with the Minutes of that visit hour included), this wouldn't be well received?

At least tell me that my five photo minimum requirement is okay!

These were normal category requirements of posting one photo... nothing bizarre like you suggested.  The OP said his plan was to post photos when he got home... my suggestion was to wait until then to do the log.

BruceS:

Redneck Parrotheads:

BruceS:

fatcat161:

Also, some people act like it's a personal insult if you didn't spend an hour enjoying their perfect waymark and then another writing about your visit.

No one is asking someone to spend an hour writing about the waymark

So if I make it a requirement that an hour be spent at the waymark and another writing about the visit (preferrably with the Minutes of that visit hour included), this wouldn't be well received?

At least tell me that my five photo minimum requirement is okay!

These were normal category requirements of posting one photo... nothing bizarre like you suggested.  The OP said his plan was to post photos when he got home... my suggestion was to wait until then to do the log.

I confess to being torn on this.

On one side, I can see the desire to document the visit while it is fresh in the mind especially if you have the free time.

However, shifting the photo upload to a later date means extra work for the listing owner as they would have to keep checking for compliance. That hardly seems fair.

Of course, both of those being said I also see no reason that one cannot upload photos when they do their logs anyway. Most modern computers have USB to download directly from the camera, or a SD-USB converter key is pretty cheap.

BQ

Let the jury decide.... did any of these logs indicate that more information or pictures were coming?

nice little shopping place on a rainy day <did you go inside?  What did you like?

Rainy day for gocarts

Cool piece of calm in such a high traffic town
Cool piece of calm in such a high traffic town <cut-n-paste
Cool piece of calm <cut-n-paste

Rainy day for Bungee jumping

Stayed across the street from this place

Not sure if anyone will need this on their next trip to PF but the rate is 15 minutes for $2.00  < this post finally addresses the logging requirements

Did a driveby in a rainy afternoon <Visit Instructions:
To log a visit, you must post a photo of you in front of the building described, with your GPS in the photo. No drive by photos.

Staying right down the road for the weekend

 

Eight word logs max are like getting TNLNSL TFTC on a bunch of urban micros.  The request to you was to put a "bit" more thought into the visit posts (which I believe gs should show the text with the main waymark - and not have to click for a separate page).  Build up the waymark by giving different experiences - even for the commercial ones.  Not every geocache or waymark has to be found on a vacation, but hopefully will show you something you didn't expect while there.

And I was not trying to be a visit police as I don't care if you're in the pictures with/without GPSr.  Just let me know if things have changed - like the McDs being completely torn down and rebuilt with a new store design.  Or the helicoptor being moved down the street.

 

I certainly feel your pain, and since I don't recall EVER deleting a Note/Visit Log, I'm pretty sure it wasn't me ;)

I agree with most of the above, but it does sound like a problem crying out for a solution.  Yeesh, what I wouldn't give for Field Note support like on GC (either Garmin CO or an iPhone version).

Have a great vacation!

field note= picture.....

if you cant remind yourself of you visit and the stories to share with pictures, might i suggest the 'garp notepad'--need: one small spiral notepad [how bout a write in the rain caching one], one writing implement, and one piece of string. tie string in loop on pad, large enough to fit over your head. insert pen in spiral loop. at each waymark make note about what to say in your log.

though  i bet there will still be copy/pasting......

no, really. it is a problem crying for a solution. in my waymarking world the problem seems to be growing.....yea, this guy hit a lot of marks. what about the one i just got for a stone mountain (GA) benchmark? no pic. and if you logged the benchmark on top of the mountain, why didnt you log the other umpteen marks you walked on top of (the mountain itself is a civil war memorial).....thi just doesnt seem logical, log one mark but ignore lots of others with virtually the same coords.....

ok, how about this: instead of me having to click on th visit this log link to see the pics.....why not include them in the notification? maybe even have a notation if no pic is needed.....

someone asked to have the visit requirements on the waymark page.....they are. near the bottom, just above the logged visit list.....this is where i direct them to look for it, and where i copy/paste from to include in their email i send talking about pic uploads....

anyway. i place this (no pics) in the armchair divistion of things, which seems to be getting better [seems=those engaging in this type of activity know which names to avoid, hitting those who dont care/dont pay attention]

and we have hit another point: BAD LOGS.....yea, you vist a mcds. who cares, really. but you saw the statue of dolly parton in her hometown. you hiked to the top of stone mountain. you went to cumberland island national seashore. you took a tour at mammoth cave national park. you went to walt disney world. all of this, and you tell me you didnt take a picture? you cant share some tidbit unique to that waymark? bah!

One of the reasons I would write a quick log while travelling and upload the photo later is that it's sometimes hard to re-find a waymark listing. My usual way of finding them is to view nearest waymarks from a geocache.

I recently found that if I click the waymarks tab, and scroll down, it shows me the waymarks I have looked at recently, and that give me a starting point to reconstruct the waymarks I looked at, and that gives me some time to hold back from rushing to get a log in.

I've been trying to figure out the WIFM (Whats in it for me?) of logging a visit to a waymark. Personally, it's a place to upload some photos for my family and friends to look at. Sometimes, it's an icon that I couldn't find anything to waymark myself. Is the Google Earth "footprint" a reason why someone might want to log a waymark? Would it document their travels? Other than a 'number' that means practically nothing to most people, I can't see why someone would want to take the time to log a visit with a crummy log. I can't see the WIFM.

BruceS:

Redneck Parrotheads:

BruceS:

fatcat161:

Also, some people act like it's a personal insult if you didn't spend an hour enjoying their perfect waymark and then another writing about your visit.

No one is asking someone to spend an hour writing about the waymark

So if I make it a requirement that an hour be spent at the waymark and another writing about the visit (preferrably with the Minutes of that visit hour included), this wouldn't be well received?

At least tell me that my five photo minimum requirement is okay!

These were normal category requirements of posting one photo... nothing bizarre like you suggested.  The OP said his plan was to post photos when he got home... my suggestion was to wait until then to do the log.

Oh my. Next time I'll include a drawing of my joke or a "/sarcasm" tag so it's more obvious.

touchstone:

I certainly feel your pain, and since I don't recall EVER deleting a Note/Visit Log, I'm pretty sure it wasn't me ;)

I agree with most of the above, but it does sound like a problem crying out for a solution.  Yeesh, what I wouldn't give for Field Note support like on GC (either Garmin CO or an iPhone version).

Have a great vacation!

I really like the idea of field notes and use them via my iPhone while playing that other game. They (or something like them) seem like a perfect solution.

Alternatively just leaving a Note instead of a Visited should also suffice. When time to upload the photos, the Note contents could be copy/pasted/tweaked into a Visit with Photos.

We spent the last week on vacation in South Carolina.  We went to Savannah, toured the SC mountains and picked up a ton waymarks between here and there.  We carry our "Fat Book"  which consists of a fat spiral notebook and an ink pen.  I name the waymarks in my GPS (we call her gypsy) and make notes in the fat book.  I also take pictures of any markers that have necessary info. When I have a few minutes I log as I go like while the kids are swimming at the hotel, but I arrived home with a huge back log to post.  I very rarely post a visit without a picture, but while logging all our visits I was suprised to see how many folks do.  Any way, I'm still posting and visiting and probably will be for weeks.  I figure that if the worst thing that happens is that I mess up a date, I'm in pretty good shape.  I've had time to organize and compress, research and write.  Some of the posts are short and sweet since there isnt much to say about a water tower http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM6739  but ones like the Chatooga River http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM67AE and the  State Parks http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM6755 take more time.  I've been considering a wireless card that I can use while hubby drives, but they can be pricey!