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.