Groundspeak Portal

I know there has been some discussion about rounding up the abandonned categories into a public list somewhere.  Has there been any action taken on this?  Do we have a place to list these?  What should the criteria be?

For example : no officer logged into the site in X days (how long?) and waymark submitted and pending for Y (how long?) days?  What should  X and Y be?

Other thoughts out there?

I'm not sure what the issue is...  At times I think it's abandoned categories, but a number of times I look at them and find that everyone in the group is active.  Are the people on the groups in too many other groups?  At times like that, I start calling it Waitmarking because I marked the spot, now I'm waiting...

At the moment I have:

1 - 15 days out (4 officers, 3 active)

1 - 16 days out (Only one rarely active officer, 4 inactive officers)

1 - 17 days out Only one rarely active officer, 3 who've not logged in since 2006 or 7)

Personally, after 6 months of inactivity, members should be demoted from officer position and if all of the officers are gone, Groundspeak/WayReviewer/etc needs to give someone officer power so the group can start up again.

ODragon:

I'm not sure what the issue is...  At times I think it's abandoned categories, but a number of times I look at them and find that everyone in the group is active.  Are the people on the groups in too many other groups?  At times like that, I start calling it Waitmarking because I marked the spot, now I'm waiting...

At the moment I have:

1 - 15 days out (4 officers, 3 active)

1 - 16 days out (Only one rarely active officer, 4 inactive officers)

1 - 17 days out Only one rarely active officer, 3 who've not logged in since 2006 or 7)

Personally, after 6 months of inactivity, members should be demoted from officer position and if all of the officers are gone, Groundspeak/WayReviewer/etc needs to give someone officer power so the group can start up again.

Let's work from the premise that one of the reasons that "groups" were invented in Waymarking was to improve the time for listings to be accepted. You know, in case someone is kinda busy or on vacation.

We have four scenarios it would seem.
1. At least three officers are active and submissions are being accepted or declined in a timely fashion.
2. At least three officers are active but for reasons that are not known submissions are not getting accepted or declined.
3. Less than three officers are active but somehow manage to accept and decline or decline in a timely fashion anyway.
4. Less than three officer are active and very rarely, if ever, new submissions are accepted or declined.

Fortunately scenario #1 is the most common. However, the groups in 2,3 and 4 are all broken in my opinion. #2 might need nudges from people submitting and might have some internal issues that need to be addressed by the leader. #3 can continue to function as the issue is hidden but it is unlikely to remain that way for a long time. #4 is like the dead car at the side of the road. It needs to be tagged, and eventually if required... towed away.

Let's start with this. How do we define an absent officer? What should be done when an officer is identified as being absent? What happens when a category goes on probation should officers get demoted automatically?

Here's my approach for what might be an automated system.

If an officer does not log onto waymarking within 60 days they would be demoted to "regular member" for all groups that they are members in. This would be regardless of being the leader or any rank of officer. Promotion of a new leader to be handled by the process already in place.

Should a group and its category go on probation for having less than 3 officers, they would have one month to resolve it. Failing to do so would automatically make the category "up for adoption". The first to adopt it would become leader automatically.

As for listings that are not getting reviewed regardless of the state of the group. After 72 hours another email should be issued to remind all officers that they have pending items to review. Should a total of one week go by then the leader should be demoted to regular member status. Sounds harsh, but a leader is responsible for ensuring that their category and group are functioning properly since they did want the category created and the customers of that category do have the expectation that their submissions will be looked at and either accepted or declined as appropriate.

BQ

It doesn't sound harsh. It sounds clear. Except maybe the 1 week for pending items. My last trip to Europe either the hotel didn't have internet service, or you had to pay another 10 Euros for service, so I did without. I like your other suggestions on timeframes. What is the procedure to promote a new leader? Personally I like the idea of a "coup attempt", where an officer can oust the absent leader after the 60 day timeframe. At least you would have a leader that really wants to be active in the category. Do you send a warning note to the absent members or wait until the demotion is done?

s5280ft:

It doesn't sound harsh. It sounds clear. Except maybe the 1 week for pending items. My last trip to Europe either the hotel didn't have internet service, or you had to pay another 10 Euros for service, so I did without. I like your other suggestions on timeframes. What is the procedure to promote a new leader? Personally I like the idea of a "coup attempt", where an officer can oust the absent leader after the 60 day timeframe. At least you would have a leader that really wants to be active in the category. Do you send a warning note to the absent members or wait until the demotion is done?

This wasn't an action to be taken by others, it was a suggestion of an automated process. If any officer does not log in within 60 days they are automatically demoted to regular member status by the site system.

The demoting of the leader if any listing is not 'reviewed' within one week is based on the fact that there are supposed to be three officers at least. If as a leader your officers are not acting, it is either because they shouldn't be officers since they don't care, or the leader is a control freak and added two officers as 'filler'. As a leader, you can always recruit more officers in case some are not working out.

Group management is exactly that. Spending the time to make sure that the group you are leading is up to the task of handling the category properly, effectively and in a timely fashion. Being a leader is not just creating a category for people to add Waymarks into, it is making sure that the category continues to work for the entire community.

As for the 'coup', my opinion is that 100% vote needed to oust a leader is excessively high. 66% seems better. In the small groups of just three officers, this would allow them to resolve their issues and get a new leader internally or externally.

BQ

edit to add: Actually I kind of like your idea about a manual process. I'll expand it further though. Any player should be able to call for a status change on an officer if that officer has not logged in for 60+ days. There could be one for unreviewed listings too, to be used by players that are left waiting for their submissions to be reviewed for more than a week.

I still think that an automatic process is better as it is less likely to provoke a reaction. With the auto-eject, you did it to yourself. With a manual-eject, it's personal.

As a group member, what could I do if the officers were demoted? Maybe I would take over a group, but how could I become an officer and do so if not promoted by an officer (who is absent)?

Fatcat

Another thing, I'm not in many groups because most I am interested in seem to have large active groups. I don't see the point in just being another member (without any responsibilities). However, I would be willing to help (even in a cat I'm not greatly interested in) in a group but I don't know where I'm needed. I don't have time to research every group and find where help is needed.

As above, then if I join, how do I get to be an officer?

Fatcat

ODragon:

I'm not sure what the issue is...  At times I think it's abandoned categories, but a number of times I look at them and find that everyone in the group is active.  Are the people on the groups in too many other groups?  At times like that, I start calling it Waitmarking because I marked the spot, now I'm waiting...

At the moment I have:

1 - 15 days out (4 officers, 3 active)

1 - 16 days out (Only one rarely active officer, 4 inactive officers)

1 - 17 days out Only one rarely active officer, 3 who've not logged in since 2006 or 7)

Personally, after 6 months of inactivity, members should be demoted from officer position and if all of the officers are gone, Groundspeak/WayReviewer/etc needs to give someone officer power so the group can start up again.

I think we all recognize this as a problem, but I'm not sure we know what the solution is.

I have one waymark still awaiting review after two weeks.  I've not sent any notes to the officers - just running my own experiement to see if I can set a record for the longest wait time for a waymark review.

Hikenutty's current poll is about officer demontion after three months of inactivity.  I think that is certainly a reasonable time frame.  Even if there are extenuating circumstances, such as military deployment, it still means that the person cannot fulfill the role of an officer.  It is not a position to hold, but a service to be performed!  There ought to be a cut-off point for inactivity whether it is 60, 90, or 120 days.

Maybe a whole category should fall into probationary status if no officers log in for 30 days, or 60 days.  Guess that really doesn't solve the problem unless there is then a way to rescue a probationary category.

Another part of the solution might be for automatic approval for a waymark 15 days after submission (or 30 at most) so they don't get stuck in limbo just because of inactive officers.  While one officer might not be able to log in for a few weeks due to travel, illness, etc., there should be at least two other officers who are active.  That is the whole point of group managment.

Knowing ODragon's tale of woe, I feel like a whiner since mine has only been out there for 9 days without response.  Only one of the officers is active and the category does not appear to have any waymarks published since August.  I have others to post in the category, but have a why bother feeling.  I like Hikenutty's suggestion to review for activity by category officers.

silverquill:

I've not sent any notes to the officers - just running my own experiement to see if I can set a record for the longest wait time for a waymark review.

I had one that took 59 days (in a category that you are an officer of, although, I don't know if that was true at the time).  I WaitMark a lot!

silverquill:

Hikenutty's current poll is about officer demontion after three months of inactivity.  I think that is certainly a reasonable time frame.  Even if there are extenuating circumstances, such as military deployment, it still means that the person cannot fulfill the role of an officer.  It is not a position to hold, but a service to be performed!  There ought to be a cut-off point for inactivity whether it is 60, 90, or 120 days.

I agree that 3 months is a reasonable amount of time.  I said 6 months because I'm usually too far to one side and to make up for it, go too far to the other.  Heck I would be ok with 2 months even. 

The related problem is dealing with the categories when they HAVE active officers and things still aren't getting published.

ODragon:

I had one that took 59 days (in a category that you are an officer of, although, I don't know if that was true at the time).  I WaitMark a lot!

Many of the old waiting ones were waymarks stuck in limbo after a vote and not because it was not reviewed.  I had one that was in that state for 9 months (I didn't realize it was there either)  This problem has been fixed with a sweep that is done automatically which releasing those stuck in vote limbo.  I

There are always isolated incedents, I kinda thought the direction of this thread was really targeting how to deal with people who haven't logged on.

globetrotters.us:

There are always isolated incedents, I kinda thought the direction of this thread was really targeting how to deal with people who haven't logged on.

I think it is for the most part however, categories with active officers that aren't publishing the waymarks in said category could be considered just as abandoned...

I can see where someone would have waymarking.com as their home page, to it registered a visit each day, when in reality they don't ever look at it.

Firstly, I think that leaders should have the ability to demote officers to regular member without the approval of other officers if the officer has not logged in for x number of days.

Secondly I think it would be useful to come up with a definition of "distressed categories".  The discussion in this thread has already gone a long way toward making progress on this.  Distressed categories could be flagged somehow on the web site.  A distressed category would be opened to any premium member for a "rescue attempt". A successful rescue attempt will result in the premium member becoming the leader of the category and the former leader being demoted to officer status.  The new leader will then have the ability to demote any of the "dead wood" officers (see first point),  dismiss inactive regular members, open up the category to new members, and promote interested members to leadership positions.

A rescue attempt can be thwarted by the existing leader within a certain amount of time.  A rescue attempt could also be thwarted by an officer.  In this case the rescue attempt would serve as a "wake up" call with the result of jump starting the category back to life under the original leadership.

This approach would rely on the premise that officers will act in the best interest of the category and not selfishly hold on to power or maliciously try to stifle the category.  Either they will have the chance to resucitate themselves or allow the category to be "rescued" by a more active leadership.

 

Great discussion and I agree that this is a problem that needs a fix.

Lets not forget about the categories that are problem categories without appearing to be.

Let me explain.

I am an officer in a couple categories that have three officers. I am the only active waymarker but with no permissions allowed to me. I cannot demote without a 100% vote. I have promoted a few folks to officer status in one of them but I am still hamstrung about ousting the others. The category is in need of clarification and updating but it will never happen because each waymark is reviewed in a timely fashion.....by me. If I drop dead so does the category.

So hopefully a fix will include provisions for situations like this. Some of the ideas listed above will help this but the situation is a variation on the one being discussed.

TheBeanTeam:

Great discussion and I agree that this is a problem that needs a fix.

Lets not forget about the categories that are problem categories without appearing to be.

Let me explain.

I am an officer in a couple categories that have three officers. I am the only active waymarker but with no permissions allowed to me. I cannot demote without a 100% vote. I have promoted a few folks to officer status in one of them but I am still hamstrung about ousting the others. The category is in need of clarification and updating but it will never happen because each waymark is reviewed in a timely fashion.....by me. If I drop dead so does the category.

So hopefully a fix will include provisions for situations like this. Some of the ideas listed above will help this but the situation is a variation on the one being discussed.

I agree.  There are far more of these than the truly abandoned categories.  These are basically leaderless categories with a caretaker approving all the waymarks.  What makes it really tough is when the leader has set open enrollment to off, set edit to no, there are no regular members to promote, and the leader skips town (but doesn't quit)

BruceS:

TheBeanTeam:

Great discussion and I agree that this is a problem that needs a fix.

Lets not forget about the categories that are problem categories without appearing to be.

Let me explain.

I am an officer in a couple categories that have three officers. I am the only active waymarker but with no permissions allowed to me. I cannot demote without a 100% vote. I have promoted a few folks to officer status in one of them but I am still hamstrung about ousting the others. The category is in need of clarification and updating but it will never happen because each waymark is reviewed in a timely fashion.....by me. If I drop dead so does the category.

So hopefully a fix will include provisions for situations like this. Some of the ideas listed above will help this but the situation is a variation on the one being discussed.

I agree.  There are far more of these than the truly abandoned categories.  These are basically leaderless categories with a caretaker approving all the waymarks.  What makes it really tough is when the leader has set open enrollment to off, set edit to no, there are no regular members to promote, and the leader skips town (but doesn't quit)

That's when the "coup attempt" button should become visible. After 30, 60, 90 days of no login, the leader should be able to be deposed. We need something. HELP GROUNDSPEAK!

TheBeanTeam:

Great discussion and I agree that this is a problem that needs a fix.

Lets not forget about the categories that are problem categories without appearing to be.

Let me explain.

I am an officer in a couple categories that have three officers. I am the only active waymarker but with no permissions allowed to me. I cannot demote without a 100% vote. I have promoted a few folks to officer status in one of them but I am still hamstrung about ousting the others. The category is in need of clarification and updating but it will never happen because each waymark is reviewed in a timely fashion.....by me. If I drop dead so does the category.

So hopefully a fix will include provisions for situations like this. Some of the ideas listed above will help this but the situation is a variation on the one being discussed.

Yep, I'm in several of those kinds of categories!  It can be very frustrating as most of them are ones in which I don't have a high degree of itnerest in but I don't want them to flounder completely. 

I'm not sure how a rescue or coup feature could be implemented, but something like that is needed.  I know our good Groundspeak people have their hands full with other projects and don't need to get personally involved on a regular basis with trying to regulate groups and categories.

I wonder if a trouble-shooting team could be set up that would review troubled categories with some capability of intervening?  

TheBeanTeam:

Great discussion and I agree that this is a problem that needs a fix.

Lets not forget about the categories that are problem categories without appearing to be.

Let me explain.

I am an officer in a couple categories that have three officers. I am the only active waymarker but with no permissions allowed to me. I cannot demote without a 100% vote. I have promoted a few folks to officer status in one of them but I am still hamstrung about ousting the others. The category is in need of clarification and updating but it will never happen because each waymark is reviewed in a timely fashion.....by me. If I drop dead so does the category.

So hopefully a fix will include provisions for situations like this. Some of the ideas listed above will help this but the situation is a variation on the one being discussed.

This is one of the four that was presented earlier

the blue quasar:

We have four scenarios it would seem.
1. At least three officers are active and submissions are being accepted or declined in a timely fashion.
2. At least three officers are active but for reasons that are not known submissions are not getting accepted or declined.
3. Less than three officers are active but somehow manage to accept and decline or decline in a timely fashion anyway.
4. Less than three officer are active and very rarely, if ever, new submissions are accepted or declined.

What I'm suggesting is that an automated process is required. Conditions created and a flow chart of processes.

As Silverquill pointed out, Groundspeak is a busy place and I think that if we can create a method to address what we all know is a concern/issue then we will be much further along to getting this resolved.

There are two issues here, "absent officers" and "unresponsive officers". The first are gone, the second are not acting.

BQ

the blue quasar:

What I'm suggesting is that an automated process is required.

How automated is automated?  Would this mean that deadbeats would get booted without any intervention from a Groundspeak representative or a member?  My concern is that many of these distressed categories may not have any member currently suitable to take over leadership.  If everyone got booted then the category would remain distressed.

Rather than have a fully automated solution because it might not solve the problem and lead to categories in probation,  I think that allowing premium members to intervene (a.k.a coup method) once the category has reached a distressed state allows for a real solution to those categories which are interesting enough to attract interest by another premium member.

But while waiting for a solution from Groundspeak, I think it would still be worthwhile to maintain a list somewhere of distressed categories.

As stated before, even with an automated process that might eject some or all of the officers then the Category would automatically be placed 'on probation' for one month after which it would become available for adoption.

Regular members, if available, that have premium memberships should get first dibs.

I'm tired of seeing comments in here from active and interested people about their "Waitmarks" and it is sad that a term like that has been coined. I see no reason to defend people that can't even be bothered to log in to Waymarking to maintain something that they created.

Baking a cake and then letting it go stale is stupid.

BQ

There should be an automated report sent to an administrator at Groundspeak who could maunally remove/add officers and even the leader. Maybe they would just open joining to get people in then promote but someone whit power to do something would at least look at it.

Fatcat

TheBeanTeam:

I am an officer in a couple categories that have three officers. I am the only active waymarker but with no permissions allowed to me. I cannot demote without a 100% vote. I have promoted a few folks to officer status in one of them but I am still hamstrung about ousting the others. The category is in need of clarification and updating but it will never happen because each waymark is reviewed in a timely fashion.....by me. If I drop dead so does the category. 

Hey Bean,

I would continue inviting others to join and then put up for promotion until you have a good 2/3 on your side. Then you can put up for vote the demotion of  the dead wood. Once they're gone your new officers would then help oust the deadwood leader. Or, should said leader log in and see that there's a whole bunch of new officers and all the old ones gone, perhaps then the leader will start paying more attention to the category. If not, off with his head, to coin a phrase...

I recently had some success with this myself. Fortunately, I didn't have to go so far as to oust the leader. They logged in and my guess, smelled the writing on the wall. (I love mixed metaphors.) In fact, once I had the deck stacked, the leader took it upon themselves to get rid of the deadwood. They may have read this thread as well...

Personally, I think if Groundspeak got rid of the option to close a group this would help a good deal also. As a leader of a few groups, I'm more than happy when anyone joins in. Whether they get promoted is determined by my familiarity with said member and the volume  of waymarks the group sees.

What do you say we start a group called trouble shooters (or something like that) and put it out there that we've formed for the purpose of helping others get these groups back on track.