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.