Car-marking

I've noticed recently that several of the category descriptions say something about waymarks with "photos taken from car windows will be denied." Well, I'm here to tell you that most commercial waymarks that I post have photos taken from car windows. Who cares?! Now, I realize that you don't want a photo with an antenna running through it or part of the car door in the shot, but if it's a business, it's not like we are photographing a breathtaking or even interesting subject that needs extra care taken with the angle of the shot. Why would I get out of the car to photograph a cigar store, or a Burger King, or a Pizza Hut? I'm not going inside the places, for God's sake!

Now I know that some of you are saying, "but you have to get out of the car anyhow to get the coordinates at the door." Actually, no, I don't really. For the sake of the category officers I will try to get as close to the door as possible, but again, puleeeeeease, what is with this requirement?! If I take the coordinates from the first row of the parking lot, 15 feet from the entrance, is some poor waymark visitor that's going to show up, find the coordinates, and then say, "damn it! There's no McDonalds at this spot! Where the hell is the McDonalds?!" No, they will know where the McDonalds is from a mile down the road. That's what thirty foot golden arches are for.

Sometimes, it is important to be absolutely exact with your coordinates - a benchmark, a historic marker, a Toynbee tile.... But a restaurant or other business establishment is not a tiny, difficult to locate spot. If you can get a person within 20 feet of the door, unless they're an idiot they should manage to look up and notice the business. An exception to this rule might be a business inside a mall - then it would be important to get coordinates at the closest mall entrance, not from the far reaches of the parking lot. But that's the thing, people. There are always exceptions. Being rigid will just cause your category to lose some perfectly good waymarks. Is a waymark really less worthy of your category because the coordinates are 15 feet from the door? In my opinion, no.

So before you hit that deny button, take a deep breath, count to ten, and then ask yourself "is this really worth turning down a perfectly good waymark?" My guess is that 9 times out of 10 the answer will be (should be) no.

I'm sure that some of you are wondering if a denial spurred this diatribe. Nope. I have never had a waymark declined because the information and photos were taken from my car. It's just that most of the ultra rigid requirements, IMO, are detrimental to the hobby and really turn new people off from continuing to waymark. This is just the most recent of the many rigid requirements that I happened to come across right before writing this blog post.

Oh, BTW, the photo above is of "Bob's World Famous Java Jive", a US Route 99 Americana landmark in south Tacoma, and YES, I took this photo through my car window.