Sunday, September 30, 2007

Rain, rain and more rain: Waymarking in Washington State

So, the rain is upon us in ernest here in Washington state. We're not talking a downpour: a storm with a beginning and end. No, we're talking gray skies and a steady drizzle that will continue through April. Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, but not much. We will have some dry days, but the gray is here to stay. Blue skies won't be back until spring. It will slow my waymarking, but it won't stop me.

So Saturday while my son was rehearsing with his orchestral group in Tacoma we wandered over to the New Tacoma Cemetery to do some waymarking. The grass was deep and spongey with moss, each step squishy with water, as we wandered the rows looking for the grave of a Medal of Honor awardee. The water slowly seeped into my shoes, soaking my socks and numbing my toes. After five minutes the grave was found and a transformation had taken place in me. I had let go of my longing for more sunshine and resigned myself to the long damp fall/winter ahead of me. I started to appreciate the beauty of the drizzle and what it means for the landscape: mosses of every shade of green, from deep evergreen to a startling chartreuse; evergreen trees everywhere that in the winter try to make up for the lack of color elsewhere; the sound of the water dripping from leaf to leaf like some massive yet gentle percussion instrument.

It is what you focus on that gets you through the gray season here. You can either mope around inside about the summer you're missing, or embrace the simple beauty of the rain and get out and experience it. Whatever the case, get your raincoat and umbrella out. You'll need them.
The picture above is of a moss-covered gravestone I came across while waymarking the waymark "Pfc. Richard Beatty Anderson, Marine Corps" in the "Medal of Honor Graves" category. After waymarking at the cemetery we warmed up and an incredible bakery, Corina Bakery, in downtown Tacoma with french-pressed coffee and cake.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Posting a Waymark from a Waymark

Have you ever posted an Internet cafe or wifi waymark from the waymark? I suppose those of you who pay for wifi on their cellphones or PDA's find nothing interesting about this, but it was kind of cool to be sitting inside an internet cafe and doing the write-up describing my surroundings. I felt a bit like a restaurant reviewer and was trying my best to not seem sneaky, but I didn't want a waitress looking over my shoulder and seeing a bunch of pictures of the place on my computer. I didn't feel like explaining waymarking - I just want to kick back on their comfy couch, drink my coffee and post away.

I sat there and posted waymarks for the building (an old Odd Fellows Lodge,) and for Dog-Friendly Restaurants, Internet Cafe and Wifi hotspots (the One Heart Cafe that I was sitting in.) What a cool location. The Merlino Art Center is this great old building that was built in 1925 as a fraternal lodge but is now an art hotspot in the very artsy town of Tacoma. The building holds a non-profit indie film theater, a cafe, 2 art galleries and a bakery on the retail level and above it is filled with artists studios, most of which are open to the public on the third Thursday of each month. I hear the bakery, Corina Bakery, is excellent and I'll have to go back and waymark it, along with Two Vaults Gallery - one my favorite art galleries in the city.

So it goes without saying that a pretty artsy crowd hangs out here. Typically I wouldn't be too out of place here, however last night I was covered in Nike swag given to me by my sister who works for Nike at their HQ. What can I say? It was free and comfortable. I had my t-shirt, pullover, and hat on and "swooshed" my way through the restaurant while onlookers stared. The uniform of choice at the Merlino is funky mismatched clothes, Converse hightops, and multiple piercings so I stuck out like a sore thumb. That's the funny thing about the arts community. They get very pretentious about not being pretentious. :)

Some of the above waymarks are still waiting to be reviewed, so you might not be able to view them immediately.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Say Goodbye to Visit Requirements

Last night was the 2nd official Waymarking Town Hall and I am officially no longer an IRC virgin. I have been initiated into the world of IRC and I quickly learned that I need to brush up on my typing skills. What a great tool, though! A conversation that would have taken a week on the forums took an hour in the town hall (give or take a few minutes for Canadian jokes. :)

Anyhow, the main topic of the night was whether or not there should be requirements to log a visit to a waymark. I was surprised because it was pretty unanimous that the visit requirements be done away with. How many shots of a McWaymark are really necessary and who's going to visit said McWaymark if they have to photograph themselves in front of a fast food establishment? It's not just about the business/commerce waymarks though. Do we really need to be waymark police? Will it kill us to have to put up with a few "TFTW" logs? I don't think so. If someone feels the need to be an armchair visitor, who has lost out? - you, who had the experience of being there, or the person who missed that chance and is lame enough to lie that they were there. When all is said and done, people will get out of the game what they put into it and no requirement is going to force them to have more or less fun. Sure, it's nice to hear what other people think about a place that you took the time to create a waymark for, but I'm guessing that for a cool, unique waymark you will still hear all about what people think. I realize that waymarking games might still need some requirements, but that's different, so if you disagree with me, don't start bringing up games to support your argument.

I'm offering up an alternative to the requirements that are currently out there: Visit "suggestions". There's no reason that you can't ask people to let you know how their visit went or to upload a picture they might have taken, just don't MAKE them do it. Let them know that the information from their logs gives a waymark a wider perspective and makes it a better waymark. Thank them in advance for helping out and bettering your waymark with their information. Kill them with kindness and I bet most of your visitors' logs will be even better than when you required them to spit out specific information.

If everyone out there who agrees with me takes steps to promote this change to visit logs then we have the power to make a difference. State your opinion (WITHOUT YELLING) in the forums. Post about it on your own blog. Most importantly, go back and edit all of the categories that you lead so they now have "visit suggestions". For groups that you're an officer in, not a leader, email your group leader and ask them if they would consider changing the category's visit requirements. Make it your waymarking mantra and before you know it, visit requirements as we know them will be a thing of the past. At the end of this post is some standard text that most categories could use as visit suggestions. Feel free to copy it and use it to edit the categories that you currently lead or to offer it to leaders of groups that you're an officer in.

I think that for waymarking to grow outside of the geocaching, gps-toting world this change is important. If you agree PLEASE take the initiative to start today and go change the visit requirements in your categories. And for those at Groundspeak who read this, PLEASE change the "Visit Requirements" text on the category creation page to something different. It doesn't have to be "suggestions", maybe just "Logging a Visit", but taking away the word "requirement" will jump start this change.

Go forth and "suggest". :)

Here's that text that I offered:
To help give a different perspective and to better the waymark for future visitors please tell us about your visit and upload a favorite photograph you took of the waymark. Although visiting this waymark in person is the only thing required of you to receive credit for your visit, taking the time to add this information is greatly appreciated.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Surprise Disoveries

Have you ever been browsing the grid and all of a sudden you remember a location that you can cross-post into an especially tough category? Or out of the blue remember a location that you drive by daily that would fit into one of those tough categories? This happened to me three times this week.

For my bingo I needed to find a WWII Site and a Railroad Disaster site. I knew of several WWII sites that I could use, but the railroad site eluded me. Then out of nowhere I remembered some info I had come across when doing research for some of my Seattle monorail waymarks. The monorail had crashed at the Seattle Center station back in the 1970's and I have that station waymarked in 5 or more categories - a happy discovery.

Another discovery was a forgotten shipwreck. I was looking through past summer photos and remembered a cool park that I had visited two summers ago on the Pacific coast. While there I waymarked the ruins of an old ship, the S.S. Catala. I hadn't thought about the category at the time - just waymarked the place so I could find it later on my next visit to the coast. So I loaded the info and photos up and at this point am waiting for it to be reviewed.

The final find is a place that I drive by every Saturday on my way to downtown Tacoma. There's a gated community with a faux lighthouse that's used as the guardhouse at the front entrance. I've always thought that it was so cheesy, especially for a development with only about 10 houses that have a water view (of the distant industrial Tacoma harbor). The gatehouse isn't one of those. As I drove by it today it finally clicked, "hey, a landlocked lighthouse!". I'll be finishing the submission of that waymark later today.

There are so many categories now that it's easy for me to forget about a few until I browse the grid trying to fill in holes. As new categories are created I forget about some of those older waymarks I have that can be cross-posted. It's my own version of being a dreaded armchair waymarker. So you waymarkers out there, don't forget to look back at some of those old waymarks. You never know what you'll find.

The above photo is of the S.S. Catala. It was taken the day before it was discovered that the ship was full of oil. A couple friends and I just happened to discover it on a girls weekend to the coast. We returned home to see it on the front page of the paper. The EPA is now excavating the vessel and removing the oil from this protected habitat of two birds on the endangered species list. So far 13,000 gallons have been removed from 2 of the 5 tanks.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

BINGO!

So after months of focusing on trying to fill up my grid I finally have a bingo. We took a two hour drive up to the beautiful Port Townsend area to waymark Fort Worden in the "World War II Sites" category. It was pretty exciting, because believe it or not, I don't really focus on trying to get bingos (20 category icons in a row on the category grid.) My favorite thing is more of a "blackout" style of playing, that is, trying to grab as many icons as possible and fill out my grid, no matter where the icon might be located on the grid. When I notice that I have 17 or 18 in a row though, I sit up and take notice. This was one of the few rows that is possible to completely fill without having to do a lot of travelling out of the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S.

It was a great day and we had a lot more fun that we expected to have at Fort Worden. The weather was beautiful and the clear blue skies allowed views of the islands and Mt. Baker. The best part was climbing around in and on the old batteries built in the early part of the 20th century. 150 photos and a sunburn later we hopped in the car and headed for home, crossing our fingers that the waymark would be accepted. The only disappointment of the day was that there was a Wooden Boat Festival taking place in Port Townsend and it was so crazy we couldn't find parking to stop at our favorite ice cream parlor, "Elevated Ice Cream". It was rated as one of the seven best ice cream shops in the nation on the Food Channel and I can vouch for it. The ginger ice cream is to die for! Oh well, maybe my next bingo will bring me back to town. :)

The photo above is of the Point Wilson Lighthouse backdropped by Mt. Baker. The lighthouse is located on the grounds of Fort Worden. Rose Red has waymarked it in the Coastal Lighthouse and NRHP categories, and I have included it as a stop in my Fort Worden Waytour waymark.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

A "Fast" Visit

I go on and on about how much I can't stand chain business categories, but I have to admit that as much as I hate them, I always try to post one waymark (or log one visit) to a category before I chuck the category over into my ignore list. A bit hypocritical, but I'm a slave to the grid. The thing is, I always assumed my fast food waymarks would sink into database oblivion, never to be heard from again. I was wrong.

Today I came home from a day full of sun, beach, and waymarking to see that I had visits to about 10 of my waymarks. I read through, and this guy really seemed to have enjoyed the waymarks - the fair, a BBQ restaurant, and a few more I can't remember. Then I see the last one - Wendy's. I was mortified. Someone actually logged a visit to my one and only Wendy's waymark. And here was the log - "Why?" I felt the need to email back and say thanks for visiting my waymarks and thanks for rating my Wendy's restaurant a 2, because I think it sucks too.

So the moral to this tale is - if you don't want to be associated with a waymark, don't post it folks. Will I learn my lesson and not post to the new KFC category if it's approved? Probably not. That could mess up a grid bingo! Hopefully you aren't as addicted to the grid as I am, though, and you can learn from my embarrassment. ;)

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Category Crush

At the danger of angering some of the folks who read this blog, I'm going to go on a little rant here. What is with all of the lame categories lately? I understand people getting excited about waymarking and wanting to jump right in and create a category, but give me a break! Some of the things coming through peer review I find odd - boy scout created footbridges rather than just plain footbridges. I have to admit I wasn't especially fond of the footbridges category, but it's grown on me. However - is this really a category that needs to have other variations? And the Jeep trails category - who cares what club/vehicle type creates the trail? Isn't the off-roading category sufficient?

The recent flood of new categories can be seen as a good thing, though. It likely means that a lot of new people are starting to waymark. But it is bringing up a flaw in the system. Categories are getting approved that are duplicates of other categories and peer review isn't weeding these out. Take the recent "Exceptional Restaurants". This sounds very similar to the "Independent Diners" category (which is for all recommended restaurants, not just diners.) Do both of these need to be on the category list? Or Domino's pizza (seen in peer review - I don't know if it passed) - doesn't that fit in the "take-out food" category? Peer review works on some of these duplicate categories, but not all of them. As more people start waymarking, more of these categories will make it through peer review and the grid will be clogged with narrowly focused categories. And as BruceS noted in the forums, once a category is approved, it's on the grid for good.

Silverquill recently proposed a mandated submission of category ideas to the forums before they are allowed to go to peer review. Yes, this won't always work because people will list it in the forums and then not really look at the comments being made. It also will leave the evolution of waymarking in the hands of the small group of people who frequent the forums. But something needs to be done! And it seems like some type of category discussion prior to peer review is the answer. At the very least there should be some place where people can submit the category idea and people more familiar with the grid can let them know which categories are similar and if their idea duplicates another. I'd love to hear some opinions on this. Anyone? Or is it just me who is bothered by this.