Groundspeak Portal

Waymarking has a forum for each category (I think).  Some of mine I haven't looked at in a year.  Some I've never looked at.  No problem, I'm almost positive there's no posts for them.  There's no index for them that I can find.  They seem to be hidden in the shadows of waymarking.  The only way to even see them is to go to a category and then, on the right, click on "Find related topics", then adjust the default time period.

So, I bookmarked (favorited or whatever you want to call it) the forums of all the categories in which I'm an officer.  I noticed none of them has any message within the 3-month default time period.  How often will I check them, I wonder?

So, in Waymarking, pretty much no one discusses any category except when it is not yet a category; a proposed category.  Is that good or bad?  I think it's bad.  They won't evolve if they're not discussed, unless people want to start emailing other officers, which is a pain because there's no 'reply-to-all' feature.  There's an Administration place in each category forum.  I don't know how it works.  Is it just for officers to see?  I don't know.  I can see the word Adminisration in categories in which I'm not an officer.

The reason people don't discuss categories in their forums I think is simple - they're hard to find, and hard to see - there's no index for them that I can find, even in the "My Categories" page, and there's no friendly little yellow triangle that tells an officer - Hey, There is Work for You to Do.

Perhaps I'm just ranting against myself for being a bad officer and not making it a habit of looking at 'my categories' forums, but I think the website need to have some more menu support for this possibly valuable type of forum.

Posts to these category do show if you do a "not read" search.  (my normal way of entering the forums).  As far as I know the only way to initiate a thread in these categories is through the category page.  There has been some discussion in some categories, though not many.

It *would* be nice if the forums were indexed/organized as they are on geocaching.com

I've been wondering why the sites are organized differently:

The forums are one just thing.

The first thing that struck me as odd was the manner in which the uploaded waymark pictures and galleries are managed; specifically, that you cannot edit a picture or it's caption/description like you can (EASILY) on the geocaching website...instead you must delete/archive and reload.

And since BDT of the benchmarks category started this thread, I'll ask...Why is there a separate category for Azimuth Marks, when one can assign the type = "Azimuth Mark" within the benchmarks category?

Gee...I've really gone a bit multi-thread in this response, huh...

I guess some category-oriented forums would be useful :-)

begneiss:

It *would* be nice if the forums were indexed/organized as they are on geocaching.com

Main reason they work differently is that Groundspeak was using different forum software for Waymarking.  The software is does allow greater capabilities than the software used for Geocaching forums.  These capabilites include the having forum areas for each category and having location based forum posts.  The software does need some work to reach its potential. 

begneiss:

I've been wondering why the sites are organized differently: The forums are one just thing. The first thing that struck me as odd was the manner in which the uploaded waymark pictures and galleries are managed; specifically, that you cannot edit a picture or it's caption/description like you can (EASILY) on the geocaching website...instead you must delete/archive and reload.

The photo management has been addressed in the thread on things that need to be enhanced on the site.

begneiss:

And since BDT of the benchmarks category started this thread, I'll ask...Why is there a separate category for Azimuth Marks, when one can assign the type = "Azimuth Mark" within the benchmarks category? Gee...I've really gone a bit multi-thread in this response, huh... I guess some category-oriented forums would be useful :-)

I believe this is just a result of how categories evolve in Waymarking.  The azimuth marks in the azimuth mark category can not be listed separately in the database but only referenced on other marks page.

BruceS:

Posts to these category do show if you do a "not read" search.  (my normal way of entering the forums).  As far as I know the only way to initiate a thread in these categories is through the category page.  There has been some discussion in some categories, though not many.

That's how I check the forums too.

And I've done my best to put stuff in the category forums. On the two categories I created,  the comments rec'd during peer review are in a post in the category forum.  I've done a couple of other posts in other cat forums too.

I must admit that I don't keep up with all the waymarking posts.  I read titles and don't open most of them, so the un-read list for me is 95% redundant, since I know there are many unread by me, so I'm not in the habit of looking at it.  That is a good passive solution, but too passive I think.

0ccam:

And I've done my best to put stuff in the category forums. On the two categories I created,  the comments rec'd during peer review are in a post in the category forum.  I've done a couple of other posts in other cat forums too.

This is a good idea.  I also check the category-specific forums by clicking on 'Posts not Read.'  I posted a question to National Wildlife Refuges a few months ago, and I don't think it was ever answered.

JimmyEv:

  I posted a question to National Wildlife Refuges a few months ago, and I don't think it was ever answered.

This might indicate a need that when a new forum thread is initiated for a category that an email is sent to the group managing the category of the existence of the thread.

Yes, either that or one of those little yellow triangles somewhere on the My Categories page (which ought to have links to the categories' forums!!!).

Thanks. I understand better now how the WM forum is structured and how to utilize it. Cheers.

Well, I never even knew there were any forums for each cat until I read this - I'll have to go and have a look.

I assumed the links on the waymark page came to these main forums.

martlakes:

Well, I never even knew there were any forums for each cat until I read this - I'll have to go and have a look.

I assumed the links on the waymark page came to these main forums.

They come into this forum.  They just create threads that are not in the main directory structure.

duplicate

Leaders (and Officers with editing permissions) can add an HTML link on their Category page that goes directly to the forum topic about the Category.  This way people that view your Category can quickly navigate to any relevent discussions.

One problem is that more than one forum topic can be created about a category.  This is only a problem based on the above suggestion, not in general practice.

 

BQ

 

 

It seems like it would be easier to have a forum for each of the 15 waymarking departments rather than the nearly 700 categories. I really don't think that the category forums will be used unless they are changed.  Most officers don't even know when someone has posted a question in their category's forum, so they aren't functioning at this point.