Groundspeak Portal

Ok, so I think the animal category in Waymarking is a little sad so I wanted to get thoughts on a new one. Specifically, I'd like to get a category going for specific animal species.  Now I realize that we could do it the easy way and just have millions of specific species, so we would have one for Red Panda, Giant Panda, Black Bear, Brown Bear, Spectacled Bear, Polar Bear, etc... However I don't like that particular route because we end up with far too many categories and find ourselves in glut.

Instead, I'd rather see an Animal Sightings category where waymarkers could post their specific animals and then visitors could post sightings of that type of animal with coords in the visit. In a way, this is more like the Photo Goals category where people can set goals and then visitors go and copy those goals and make the post, it is not necessarily location specific. (A wonderful category btw).

I think the added niceness of this type of category is that waymarkers could set specific requirements on the post. Like "Elephants not in Zoos or Circuses" which would make that particular waymark a little more difficult than straight "Elephants." Yet leave it open for "Giant Panda" which are rare and difficult to find and don't generally need a secondary requirement.

I suspect that this crowd may lean to making species specific categories rather than making a single category that could encompass all species, but I wanted to put it out there anyway.

Maybe I am not understanding what you are proposing but what it sound like is that the first person that walks through a zoo would waymark every cage for each type of animal.  Thus one for the black bear cage, another for the polar bears, one for grizzly bears etc.  Then that animal type can't be submitted again as a waymark unless they do so with with conditions but that animal type can be visited anywhere. 

So if I get it right the first person that can get to any zoo can pretty much waymark all the animals but those can't be waymarked again anywhere in the world except by put some ALR.    If the first person did a zoo Black Bear and just wrote up the waymark as any black bear then that is the last "general black bear waymark allowed worldwide.   If someone else wanted to submit another black bear waymark they would have do some kind of "I want black bears but not ones in zoos".   And the next person that wanted to do a Black Bear waymark would have to specify "I want only Black Bears standing on their hind legs."  And if someone else wants to do a Black Bear waymark they will do something  saying only black bears eating marshmallows.....   I just don't think your idea is workable.  Waymarking is about marking locations.

Good point... Ahh well... worth a thought=)

But feel free to write a category for Elephants in Captivity that focuses on locations where Elephants can be visited in a safe and controlled environment for people.

lol, I try to stay away from the generic ones as best I can... the attempt is to try to find a more interesting way to do it. Like I said, I don't particularly want there to be a load of different animal categories for each particular species... it'd be too much. I thought it might be better to have a single category for all of them to lower the bloat, but like Bruce said, someone would just go and take em all right off the bat and the only  way to limit that would be far too artificial for my liking (and likely anyone else's).

What about an endangered/threatened animals category?  Waymarks could be posted for each location where the waymarker sited an endangered/threatened animal.  If the same species is posted more than once in different locations, fabulous!  Zoo animals would be "visited" most often.  But for wild animals, when posting a new waymark, we get a warning if there's already a waymark within a certain distance in that category, if that warning comes up for the same type of animal, a visit should be posted instead of a new waymark. 

I'd like to see plants and animals kept separate here, but similar categories for both could be fun.

There are endangered species websites that list by region like this and this and of course the WWF  lists them too.  I was really surprised to see so many in my home state.

yramc600:

What about an endangered/threatened animals category?  Waymarks could be posted for each location where the waymarker sited an endangered/threatened animal.  If the same species is posted more than once in different locations, fabulous!  Zoo animals would be "visited" most often.  But for wild animals, when posting a new waymark, we get a warning if there's already a waymark within a certain distance in that category, if that warning comes up for the same type of animal, a visit should be posted instead of a new waymark. 

I'd like to see plants and animals kept separate here, but similar categories for both could be fun.

There are endangered species websites that list by region like this and this and of course the WWF  lists them too.  I was really surprised to see so many in my home state.

Are you saying make this a just wild animal sighting? Or just be ok with the fact that black rhino would see many waymarks? I still like the thought of having just a single category for all species rather than separating them out into different categories. For this particular idea we could also seperate it out a little bit to prevent a little of the waymark bloat to be "endangered animals," "threatened animals," "endangered plants," etc. You could also narrow out mammals, reptiles, birds etc for a little more. I don't mind the idea of adding the 10-15 cats that might ensue... I'm personally just more concerned with the 2-5k plus categories we'd get if we started adding individual species as categories in and of themselves.

If we made a category like this where we were ok with seperate species being in there multiple times, we would definitely need to come up with some limitations on how many waymarks in a radius like say within 10-25 miles (Personally, I'd rather start big and maybe in time have a lower radius if it was called for, rather than start small and realize we started it too small and need to go up later therefor needing to delete waymarks which is awful). Would also need to come up with a naming system to allow for differentiating between them.

Razak:

If we made a category like this where we were ok with seperate species being in there multiple times, we would definitely need to come up with some limitations on how many waymarks in a radius like say within 10-25 miles (Personally, I'd rather start big and maybe in time have a lower radius if it was called for, rather than start small and realize we started it too small and need to go up later therefor needing to delete waymarks which is awful). Would also need to come up with a naming system to allow for differentiating between them.

I would not limit waymarks by  some distance other than making sure that the same site is not being waymarked.   For example if you did the a category for endangered/threatened animals and allowed animals in zoos.  Why would you want to put at 10-25 mile limit, in St. Louis if I waymarked the elephants at Grants Farm a person would not be able to waymark the elephants at the St. Louis zoo as they are less than 10 miles a part... they are definitely different elephants.

I would not separate them to a threatened category and another endangered category, mainly because animals move between the lists depending on their current status thus it would make for very inconsistent waymarking. 

Not sure what the concern is with waymarking bloat in a single category... even the largest current category U.S. National Register of Historic Place typically gets 10-20 waymarks in day  and only peaks when one of us does a waymark run in the category.

I was just thinking one category, both wild and zoo type animals, endangered and threatened together since species can change from one to the other relatively quickly and quietly.  (And then, a category for endangered and threatened plants, but that's a different topic that we can discuss later, so only 2 new categories in all) 

I think I can explain my thoughts better using an example:

Our NC Zoo has endangered Snuffelupagus, so I waymark them from one viewing location within the Zoo.  Their enclosure is big, so someone else comes along and wants to waymark them from the viewing area on the other side of the park, let's call it half a mile away.  That person would get a warning from the waymarking website (currently, this happens automatically during the submission process) saying there is another waymark within the endangered/threatened category within a half mile.  This second person then posts a "visit" to my Snuffy waymark instead of posting a new one.  Next to the Snuffy viewing area there are threatened Big Birds that I didn't waymark but the second person can.  If a third person comes along to see Snuffy and Big Bird, but they're hiding behind the bushes, that third person doesn't get to "visit" because he/she didn't see the animals and can't post a photo of the animal.

If a private farm in the same county as the Zoo also has Big Birds easily visible from the road or from the viewing area the farm has set up, that should be a separate waymark, as it's a separate site and a separate set of animals.  I don't think the category needs to set an arbitrary distance limit for these, just say that each set of animals gets its own waymark. 

For the case of large animal reserves with herds running about and the possibility of viewing the same animals miles and miles apart, I'd be alright with different waymarks for each sighting.  I think this won't be a major problem, as a lot of waymarkers don't live in the African Savannah or places like that. 

Really, you're not waymarking the animal you're waymarking the spot to view the animal.  It'd be impossible to waymark the animal as you're not going to walk up and touch it in most cases and the animal will probably, at some point in its life and more likely in the next few seconds, move. 

I really don't want to see 10-15 new categories for these.  I'd like to just see "animals" and later "plants".  I think it would get cluttered and confusing for the average waymarker to break it down more than that.

Ahh poor snuffelupuguses, or is it snuffelupugi? We really should take care of them better!

I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. I still see worthiness of splitting it up a little more though I do agree that perhaps threatened/endangered split was a bit much. I wouldn't mind seeing in addition to your plants to also split off insects, although those might be less numerous (really depends there are more bugs than anything else but people notice them less and I don't think they make endangered list quite as easily).

I think naming the Category should be something to the effect of IUCN Red List Animals as that is the more internationalized list of endangered species. They also only seem to update their list once a year which might mean less fluctuation in the list (whereas I know our national and state lists fluctuate monthly almost which can be a pain). I think we have a good list here actually so I went and created a group tentaviely called Animal Kingdom (don't think that is a good one but I can't think of one now) if anyone wants to help manage this.

The IUCN actually has a few categories of threatened (endangered being one of them). I think for this list category that it'd be good to include Extinct in the Wild, Critically Endangered, Endangered, and Vulnerable.

The Red List itself can be found here. Wikipedia has done a good job of listing out all teh animals and splitting em up by categories EW, CE, EN, and VU. The website to the IUCN can be found here.

It may also be a nice idea to at least suggest that waymarkers include links to information that is relevant to the animal species waymarked. Even if it is just a link to the actual wikipedia entry for that animal. I think it'd be nice for people browsing through the waymarks to find out more easily.

Joined.  I like your ideas for making it more international, and also for the website reference. 

Here is what I came up with for this category, we could use a third officer to get it started if anyone is interested:

The Red List is a list of plant and animal species put together by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources for the purposes of evaluating the extinction threat of those species.

This category is meant to track where these species can be viewed. In particular, we are interested in tracking animals that are Extinct in the Wild, Critically Endangered, Endangered, and Vulnerable species. These animals can be found in zoos, animal preserves, farms, parks, etc. The main condition is that they must be openly viewable by the general public, even if it is irregular such as in the wild or park.

To log a waymark, please ensure that the group of animals that are being waymarked has not previously been waymarked. To do this, ensure that there is no other waymark within 0.5 miles of any existing waymark for that species. If you feel that the animals that you are waymarking are different from existing waymarks, please note why you think they are different in your request and we will take it into consideration.

Once that is done get the coords of the animal and take a picture, and get any requirements that may be needed in order to view the animals (such as entry fees for a zoo or hours of operation). Also, while not required, a link to more information for the animal species would be appreciated.

To visit a waymark, take a picture of the animals as well as mark the time that they were seen and anything interesting that may have occurred on the visit. Please only log the visit if you have actually SEEN the animal. If the animal wasn't in the vicinity when you visited, it wasn't an actual visit.

Does a statue that has had a fig leaf added after the fact still count as a Bare statue?

gt.us:

Does a statue that has had a fig leaf added after the fact still count as a Bare statue?

*drumfill*

gt.us:

Does a statue that has had a fig leaf added after the fact still count as a Bare statue?

Not if your last name is Ashcroft.

gt.us:

Does a statue that has had a fig leaf added after the fact still count as a Bare statue?

Nope: Because with a fig leaf, the statue is safe for American TV.  See?