[neonride93]

I have been Geocaching for a number of years, and have decided to give Waymarking another shot. ( My closest Waymark is a McDonalds, and that didn't thrill me three years ago). I have been Waymarking again now for a few months, and have started placing them as well. My question is this.... is it worth it? In my area there are only a handful of people and most just like to place, no seakers. I have placed 15 in my city and not one has been visited in about a 3-5 month time frame. Does ground speak have any plans to promote, or even update the Waymarking site? or is this a lost child that wont die? I really like the idea, and once you get pasts the starbucks and subways(waymarkings lamp post caches) , there are some really interesting things to find and seek out. How do I get my area more involved.... I really want to be active, but if I am the only voice in the woods is it worth yelling?


Andy
Appleton WI

[Max and 99]

Some of us really enjoy documenting things, regardless of whether or not anyone visits the page we write up.

Even if no one ever visits my Smithsonian Art waymarks, headstones of Centenarians, Woodmen of the World markers, etc. I really enjoyed documenting those. I think it was close to a year before anyone in my area started Waymarking, and that was only because I started placing geocaches that were Waymark Challenges.

[neonride93]

Max and 99, on 09 April 2012 - 07:09 PM, said:

Some of us really enjoy documenting things, regardless of whether or not anyone visits the page we write up.

Even if no one ever visits my Smithsonian Art waymarks, headstones of Centenarians, Woodmen of the World markers, etc. I really enjoyed documenting those. I think it was close to a year before anyone in my area started Waymarking, and that was only because I started placing geocaches that were Waymark Challenges.

Can you give me an exsample of your challanges? I would love to get people Waymarking, and we have several hundred with a 20 miles or so of my city....

[Max and 99]

neonride93, on 09 April 2012 - 07:16 PM, said:

Can you give me an exsample of your challanges? I would love to get people Waymarking, and we have several hundred with a 20 miles or so of my city....

Just click on my profile on the left, and then click on the geocaches tab. Easy peasy.

This post has been edited by Max and 99: 09 April 2012 - 07:21 PM

[neonride93]

That is an awesome Idea Max!!! They only downside is that my area is also loaded with Puzzle Caches, and most people will ignore new ones but there are a few that would be game to play.

[fi67]

There are many ways to play the game. You will have to find out how you enjoy this the most. However, there are a few certain approaches that are very likely unsuccesfull, one of them is waiting for visits. Many (most?) waymarkers don't care much for visits.

The analogy seems obvious in the beginning: Posting a visit is like hiding a cache, visiting is like finding. And indeed, this was the way it was planned by Groundspeak when it started. But this point of view turned out to be completely wrong. The majority of active waymarkers decided to go another route. If you have to have an anology with geocaching then you can think: managing a category is like hiding, posting is like visiting (with big differences, of course).

When I post a waymark, I would never ever think about getting a visit there one day. Sometimes this even happens and this is nice, but in the end it is completely irrelevant. Receiving visit logs is none of my many targets I try to achieve in Waymarking.

[Checkmark]

neonride93, on 09 April 2012 - 06:45 PM, said:

I have been Geocaching for a number of years, and have decided to give Waymarking another shot. ( My closest Waymark is a McDonalds, and that didn't thrill me three years ago). I have been Waymarking again now for a few months, and have started placing them as well. My question is this.... is it worth it? In my area there are only a handful of people and most just like to place, no seakers. I have placed 15 in my city and not one has been visited in about a 3-5 month time frame. Does ground speak have any plans to promote, or even update the Waymarking site? or is this a lost child that wont die? I really like the idea, and once you get pasts the starbucks and subways(waymarkings lamp post caches) , there are some really interesting things to find and seek out. How do I get my area more involved.... I really want to be active, but if I am the only voice in the woods is it worth yelling?


Andy
Appleton WI

Often this is the crux of the discussion. People for whatever reason are willing to lift the cover at the base of a lamp at a fast food restaurant to increase their perceived score but remain unwilling to log the actual location. It could have something to do with the a-ha moment of finding the container. This may even be true when it is obvious where the geocache has to be. Quality is subjective. Some could also respond that lamp cover caches get few favorite points despite being logged frequently.

I've never bought into the idea that it is the quality. People make listings to share something with others. For me I would rather say that I ate at a certain fast food location than find a HAK on the dumpster out back. I would log both though.

[Team Sieni]

For me, like fi67, visits are a nice bonus, but not the main reason for posting a WM. I get satisfaction and fun out of finding interesting things, and out of creating good write-ups of the things I've found. Way back when I was pretty much the only WMer in my area tha wasn't a bad thing for me. It meant I had a free hand finding things. I log visits to WMs where the category is something that interests me. So is it worth it? For me, very, very much so. For someone else ... maybe not.

[calumphing_four]

Max and 99, on 09 April 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

neonride93, on 09 April 2012 - 07:16 PM, said:

Can you give me an exsample of your challanges? I would love to get people Waymarking, and we have several hundred with a 20 miles or so of my city....

Just click on my profile on the left, and then click on the geocaches tab. Easy peasy.

Here's a couple of examples from Adelaide, Australia:
Mrs Flipper's Waymark Challenge #1
SA Web Cam Challenge
Cheers

[GT.US]

I had an odd conversation with my husband yesterday.

HiM: "Are you GT.US on Waymarking"?
Me: "Yes"
Him: "I was looking for mountain bike trails this morning, and I found one you had listed in Monroe"
Me: "I like posting Mountain Bike Trails"
Him: "Why do you bother"
Me: "Because of people like you that are looking for mountain bike trails"

Then I went on to explain that even though I very rarely get a "Visit" or a comment on my waymark, I do see that people are viewing them, and they are useful.

The more I think about it the more I think it would be useful for there to be functionality for a person to leave a comment without having a Waymarking.com logon. Right now, the only non-geocachign non-Waymarking comments and visits I get are from people with somthing they really want to say, and are willing to jump through hoops to do it. EG. this is no longer there.

My other big hobby is genealogy. Last week someone posted a link to a milestone waymark, and asked the TN genealogy group a question about it. It was nice to see that they were viewing and using waymarks, but it enforced my opinion that there should be some sort of a guest accesss to Waymarking.com. It was easier for the person to ask the genealogy group the question than to create a Waymarking.com account to contact the waymark poster.

[Max and 99]

Just this weekend I got a nice visit to a cemetery waymark. The visitor made the following comment:

Under this ground rests the DNA of the descendents of Johann Sebastian Bach. The Friedemann family came to Oklahoma from Annette, Volhynia, Ukraine and were the direct descendents of Bach's eldest, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. An account of this was written in Bach Perspectives: Vol. 5: Bach in America, Stephen A. Crist, ed. Here, noted Bach historian Christoph Wolff focuses on Bach's descendants in America, particularly Friederica Sophia Bach, the daughter of Bach's eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann.

That information added to the waymark page could really help someone looking for their family history. These kinds of visits make it all worthwhile! Even if no one else ever visits this waymark, I'll still be so very glad that I took photos and got coordinates.

GT.US: Hilarious story about your husband!

[Ianatlarge]

I have found that Waymarking has become an indispensable part of my life. As a traveller, it gives me a great incentive to go out and see things—and then waymark them. Also, of course, it exercises the mind, maybe not so much with the neon and sbux, but writing up an historical statue, a museum, or something similar provides a brain stimulus (for us old folk), and I can learn something new. I do get a feeling of triumph (though of course this is not really important), when I enter a new area, entirely unwaymarked, and score the top dozen or twenty spots in the city or town. Cool.

I am not much of a visitor myself, in fact I have maybe 100 unrecorded visits on my computer. Having said that I find that more and more people are visiting my waymarks. It is fun to receive a message of thanks, hear a little of their story, and to learn what they are doing (maybe I should do the same?).


Neonrider, perhaps you need to find a category or three that particularly interest you?
Maybe it is Vegetarian Restaurants? Don't recall seeing your name on the list !

This post has been edited by Ianatlarge: 16 April 2012 - 09:37 PM

[silverquill]

Is it worth it?
Absolutely!

Although Waymarking.com is a sister site to Geocaching.com and has its roots in that GPS based game, it has different goals and purposes that are much broader - and quite diverse.

I was fairly new to geocaching when I stumbled across Waymarking.com It sounded cool, so I stopped by a McD's, grabbed coordinates and a photo and posted it. (There weren't many categories to choose from in those days). Then, I got assigned new categories for historical markers in two states. Suddenly, I had a reason to stop and read all of those roadside markers I had whizzed by for so long! I learned a lot and enjoyed sharing them with others.

As Waymarking developed, so did my approach from "here it is; here are coodinates and a photo" to something with more depth. I think Waymarking.com has evolved into something quite remarkable, in quite divergent directions from Geocaching.com, but has yet to realize its full potential.

So, why do I think it is worth it?

1). Primarily, Waymarking is "worth it" for what I personally get out of it. It has indeed taken me to new and interesting locations! It has changed the way I see the world. But, it has been the process of researching and writing up descriptions that has enriched me the most. I've learned so much about so many things that I would never have thought to investigate - from history and art to scenic sites and, yes, even businesses. Waymarking is about the tell of the story. Of course some sites have more of a story to tell than others! I like the Groundspeak motto, "the voice of location."

2). Sharing these discoveries, though, is particularly fulfilling. Waymarking.com has become a still small but growing body of knowledge on the web as we approach 400,000 individual waymarks. We are not Flckr or Wikipedia, but something different. Our waymarks often come up in web searches. As others have said, web visits are more common than logged physical visits. Wish we could track it some way. But, Groundspeak is impressed by the number of hits Waymarking.com gets everyday!

3). Doing my small part to contribute to the Waymarking community has also been gratifying - creating and helping to manage categories, mentoring new waymarkers, and supporting Waymarking in general. These things are hard to quantify, but are definitely some of the things that make it all worthwhile.

So, what's the future of Waymarking.com? Well, that deserves another thread. But, I think it is clear that if one's primary goal is to garner multiple visits to waymarks, then there is bound to be disappointment. This is a pleasant, but minor, part of Waymarking. For some, but not many, visiting waymarks is the primary activity. I enjoy reading visit logs, though some are the equivalent of, "TFTC." And, I get them for Subways and McDonalds as well as for the "Wow!" sites that we love.

Groundspeak is committed to sustaining Waymarking.com. It is just a matter of not having the resources to throw at a non-revenue generating part of the family at the moment. And, the grassroots community is here to stay, as Waymarking.com becomes more international. Now, with over 1,000 categories of all types, we've gained a breadth that has room for almost any interest.

So, that is just a very personal answer to your question. I guess each person will have to work out his own answer, but I think there is a lot here to discover and do that is very much "worth it."

[Canadianzombie]

I always used to see a location when geocaching and say "that'd be a cool spot for a geocache", now I also look at things and say "that'd be a cool waymark". I've visited spots I never knew about before to cache, but have also done the same with Waymarking. I've learned about things I had no knowledge of before as well. So is it worth it, most certainly, but worth is subjective I suppose.
Cheers
CZ

[mrcanoehead224]

Checkmark, on 10 April 2012 - 03:28 AM, said:

Often this is the crux of the discussion. People for whatever reason are willing to lift the cover at the base of a lamp at a fast food restaurant to increase their perceived score but remain unwilling to log the actual location. It could have something to do with the a-ha moment of finding the container. This may even be true when it is obvious where the geocache has to be. Quality is subjective. Some could also respond that lamp cover caches get few favorite points despite being logged frequently.

For me, it's the ease of doing a PQ to find those LPCs. The management of gpx files is much easier on geocaching.com. In fact, I came here today to find an easier way to get a full gpx for Waymarking rather than clicking on each one and loading the page then downloading the gpx. I like Waymarking but just find it too cumbersome to get into seriously. But I will keep looking. thanks.

GT.US, on 16 April 2012 - 05:17 AM, said:

Me: "Because of people like you that are looking for mountain bike trails"

Hilarious, I'm picturing a dead pan delivery as well.

Canadianzombie, on 27 April 2012 - 12:17 AM, said:

I always used to see a location when geocaching and say "that'd be a cool spot for a geocache", now I also look at things and say "that'd be a cool waymark". I've visited spots I never knew about before to cache, but have also done the same with Waymarking. I've learned about things I had no knowledge of before as well. So is it worth it, most certainly, but worth is subjective I suppose.
Cheers
CZ

My 14 yr old daughter (who is not much of a caching fan anymore) has asked me to create some waymarks for cool things we see.

[Max and 99]

mrcanoehead224, on 07 May 2012 - 09:53 AM, said:

My 14 yr old daughter (who is not much of a caching fan anymore) has asked me to create some waymarks for cool things we see.

My 13 yr. old LOVES to help me photograph the things I waymark. He now knows all the angles to include, and does a GREAT job!

[jtkl]

We have been geocaching for a few years and enjoy finding the places but get frustrated spending time trying to find the cache. We thought we'd check out Waymarking so we can visit places and not worry about finding something. I think we will use it much more for visiting rather than posting new places. We may get to that later. We're going to San Francisco soon so I looked at waymarks there and I'm really excited by what's been posted. I started looking at the forum, though, to find out how to download the coordinates to our GPSr. I'll keep looking for that. Oh, and to Andy in Appleton...we live in Oconto so we will get to your area and check out your waymarks!

[Max and 99]

jtkl, on 09 May 2012 - 08:14 PM, said:

We have been geocaching for a few years and enjoy finding the places but get frustrated spending time trying to find the cache. We thought we'd check out Waymarking so we can visit places and not worry about finding something. I think we will use it much more for visiting rather than posting new places. We may get to that later. We're going to San Francisco soon so I looked at waymarks there and I'm really excited by what's been posted. I started looking at the forum, though, to find out how to download the coordinates to our GPSr. I'll keep looking for that. Oh, and to Andy in Appleton...we live in Oconto so we will get to your area and check out your waymarks!

A LOT of new waymarks in San Francisco were recently posted by saopaulo. Plenty to visit in that area!

One suggestion: read the visit instructions for different categories. Most require a photo, some will accept a descriptive log instead. I suspect you will have more than enough photos to post waymark visits!
Have fun!

[CanonShooters]

As a beginner waymarker, I agree with the question "is it worth it?" I have been very frustrated with the format and access offered via the Waymarking web page.
For example, I would like to introduce my first waymark to geocachers who head out to locate a new cache I will soon list. The geocache and the waymark are very close together. My question is ... how do I tell my geocache readers to locate the waymark information? I went to waymark.com and attempted to enter the waymark ID # (WMEAJ2), but could not find a place to do a search by that identifying number. I attempted using the waymark name (First Lady Rose Garden) and got lots of other gardens by the same name all over the world. I know I can qualify the search to bring it closer, but what I want is an easy way for my friends (or anyone, for that matter) to locate a specific waymark. (Truth be told, if it were not too close to certain existing geocache I would have made it into a geocache rather than a waymark.)

I don't find Waymarking.com very friendly at all to those seeking to find waymarks. It seems to focus much more on those who define waymarks.

Also, unlike geocaches which can be pretty much guaranteed to have a FTF within a day (i.e., a very short time) after its listing, I see many waymarks sitting unvisited. My one waymark has had no visitors in the few weeks of its life. Unlike some readers of this forum, I am not very satisfied with just the activity of researching and writing up a waymark. I want something to come of it.

[BruceS]

CanonShooters, on 13 May 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

I went to waymark.com and attempted to enter the waymark ID # (WMEAJ2), but could not find a place to do a search by that identifying number.

To do this search type in WMEAJ2 right in the box you typed in the name and it will come up. Also if it is near the cache you placed just have them do a search from the cache page for nearest waymarks, yours is the closest at .3 miles.

But adding additional logging requirements over what the category requires as you have done will not lead to more visits.

[fi67]

CanonShooters, on 13 May 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

As a beginner waymarker, I agree with the question "is it worth it?" I have been very frustrated with the format and access offered via the Waymarking web page.
For example, I would like to introduce my first waymark to geocachers who head out to locate a new cache I will soon list. The geocache and the waymark are very close together. My question is ... how do I tell my geocache readers to locate the waymark information? I went to waymark.com and attempted to enter the waymark ID # (WMEAJ2), but could not find a place to do a search by that identifying number. I attempted using the waymark name (First Lady Rose Garden) and got lots of other gardens by the same name all over the world. I know I can qualify the search to bring it closer, but what I want is an easy way for my friends (or anyone, for that matter) to locate a specific waymark. (Truth be told, if it were not too close to certain existing geocache I would have made it into a geocache rather than a waymark.)

I don't find Waymarking.com very friendly at all to those seeking to find waymarks. It seems to focus much more on those who define waymarks.

Also, unlike geocaches which can be pretty much guaranteed to have a FTF within a day (i.e., a very short time) after its listing, I see many waymarks sitting unvisited. My one waymark has had no visitors in the few weeks of its life. Unlike some readers of this forum, I am not very satisfied with just the activity of researching and writing up a waymark. I want something to come of it.

In my opinion this waymark is not a waymark but a virtual cache. The category managers define what the logging requirements are, this waymark should not have been approved with these additional requirements.

[Max and 99]

Hey, how did that waymark get published? That is totally inappropriate to add all of those extra requirements in order to turn it in to a virtual cache. I hope it gets re-evaluated.

Remove all the extra requirements, and it's a nice waymark!

Most of my local waymark visits are from Geocaching Challenge Caches that have incorporated Waymarking.

But if I didn't get those visits, I'd still be OK with the work I put into documenting things.

[GT.US]

CanonShooters, on 13 May 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

<snip>
Also, unlike geocaches which can be pretty much guaranteed to have a FTF within a day (i.e., a very short time) after its listing, I see many waymarks sitting unvisited. My one waymark has had no visitors in the few weeks of its life. Unlike some readers of this forum, I am not very satisfied with just the activity of researching and writing up a waymark. I want something to come of it.

The people getting value from the waymark you post most likely don't have a GC.com ID. People use waymarks for research and information because they come up in Google searches. Just like we have categories for ghost signs (for example) there are whole websites of people that care about ghost signs. Or railroads, or mountain bikers, or most of the waymark categories. If someone who is not a Geocacher sees your waymark, odds are you will never get a visit log from them. There are very few Geocachers in the world compared to the sum of non-geocachers that have an interest in some slice of Waymarking.

[Country_Wife]

GT.US, on 17 May 2012 - 07:35 AM, said:

The people getting value from the waymark you post most likely don't have a GC.com ID. People use waymarks for research and information because they come up in Google searches.

I can second that. I'm very new to Waymarking. I first learned about the site because it kept coming up in my search for information on less-known local landmarks. Now I've started logging my visits to those waymarks, and it looks like I will be the first one to visit many of them. But I was impressed enough by the quantity and quality of the info to get started here on Waymarking myself, even though I don't own a GPS (yet).

[Max and 99]

Someone get that girl a GPS!

[neonride93]

I had no idea this topic would garner this much of a response and several weeks later!!! I plan on keeping up with it, and hope people are getting some value from my work other then me. I also plan on using geocaching.com challenges to get more people interested in it.

[silverquill]

CanonShooters, on 13 May 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

I don't find Waymarking.com very friendly at all to those seeking to find waymarks. It seems to focus much more on those who define waymarks.

Also, unlike geocaches which can be pretty much guaranteed to have a FTF within a day (i.e., a very short time) after its listing, I see many waymarks sitting unvisited. My one waymark has had no visitors in the few weeks of its life. Unlike some readers of this forum, I am not very satisfied with just the activity of researching and writing up a waymark. I want something to come of it.

Well, you are right in saying that Waymarking.com is NOT very accommodating to those who want to find and visit waymarks. It is a bit of a mystery to me why they lament the lack of visits, yet do not provide the tools to facilitate this. If people can't download PQ's, have better search functions, etc. then it should be no surprise that visits are fewer than they would like.

I'm still of the opinion, however, that garnering visits is NOT the real value or goal of Waymarking.com as it has developed. This aspect should not be ignored, for it is a valuable part of the hobby, but anyone who finds this as the main value in creating waymarks will be disappointed. It is true that many will never be visited, or visited infrequently.

Also, remember that Waymarking is a lot newer than Geocaching. When I visited the U.S. last summer, after several years' absence, I was absolutely astounded at the mushrooming of caches. The area around my home town had only two or three caches, including mine, and now it has a several dozen and the cache density was mind-boggling. What will the waymark concentration be when it is as old as Geocaching? Another five years and we should have an idea. That too will make visiting and logging waymarks more likely.

[bpratt]

One of the things that I like most about Waymarking (and caching) is when you do a google search for something and a Waymark (or cache) is one of the top results. What we are doing can help people who are not even playing the game. I'll bet some day some kid will be sighting Waymarking pages as a source for a school report. Even if they can not use our pages directly the links we give sighting our sources should be useful to them.

[QuesterMark]

I was lucky in that my work gave me an iPad and I got to request one with a 3G cell network capability. I have to pay that bill, but that's ok.

The iPad enables me to determine my present coordinates (if I happen not to have anything else handy) and then look those coords up on Waymarking.com and see all the posted waymarks in the area. I can gather all the pics and coords that I want to--and tell whether something's been waymarked yet.

I think my visits have increased since I got this kind of access on site, since Groundspeak hasn't gotten around to facilitating any other bulk methods.

[N!TR0]

Id say I do it because I enjoy it. I like finding things that people (in my area) acutually do come and find.
Granted not many, but I must have a few dozen finds.
Its nice to do them.

Fav:-
Trig markers
Dated Buildings
Pub signs

[MountainWoods]

I thought this site was inactive when I first came to it!

I started geocaching in February 2012. I didn't really notice Waymarking.com until about October, 2012¹. I did some searches and found that there were TONS of waymarks in my area², but that most of them had not been visited in the 4 to 8 years that they had been in place. I thought that the site was inactive, until I saw the activities listed on the Home page. Then I considered that, perhaps, the recreation is more "hot" in some areas than in others?

However, I did notice that the number of waymarks is going up slowly (relatively) compared to geocaches. Or am I wrong?

Why do I bother? Same things that other folks have said.

• Some waymarks take me to new places.
  
• Some waymarks teach me something new.
  
• Many of them make me stop and think.

What would help? In MY opinion (humble or not):

• It would help if a person's profile page on all Groundspeak sites included the user's statistics from the other sites -- probably with a configuration option to allow/disallow the feature (or choose which of the 3 sites to include in the other sites). There is a way to do it, but it isn't well advertised.³
  
• It would greatly help if the site were as easy to use as geocaching.com, but it clearly is not. Here are just some of the issues with Waymarking.com (are they listening?):
  
  • There's no map feature like geocaching.com has. Oh yeah, you can search from the center of the tiny map. But it's so small, and it only shows the few found waymarks for that search. When you map a location on geocaching.com, you can pan that map all over the place and see more and more geocaches in other areas -- let your mind roam. You cannot do that with the tiny, limited Waymarking.com map.
    
  • Clicking on a specific waymark in a search brings your browser to that waymark, rather than bringing up a new browser window. Now that is a bit subjective I guess. Some folks might not like the way that geocaching.com brings up a separate browser, but I like it. Perhaps that should be a user preference. Anyway, I always have to remember to right click on the link in Waymarking.com and use Open in New Tab. Otherwise, ya gotta use Back a lot to get back to your search page (which may have expired).
    
  • If you goof up a picture caption, you cannot change it. You have to delete the picture and re-add it with the corrected caption.
  
  There are more things that I occasionally mutter to myself, but I've forgotten what they are whilst sitting here typing. (Ain't that always the way?)

Notes:
[1] The geocaching site, does mention Waymarking, but I wouldn't say that it actually promotes it. I was surprised to learn that my login worked on Waymarking.com! Then I realized it was a "Groundspeak thing", not a "geocaching.com thing."
[2] Mostly thanks to GEO*Trailblazer.
[3] Being a professional software application architect, I was able to figure it out using View Source.

[silverquill]

MountainWoods, on 03 December 2012 - 03:35 PM, said:

I thought this site was inactive when I first came to it!

What would help? In MY opinion (humble or not):
[list]
[*]It would help if a person's profile page on all Groundspeak sites included the user's statistics from the other sites -- probably with a configuration option to allow/disallow the feature (or choose which of the 3 sites to include in the other sites). There is a way to do it, but it isn't well advertised.

Wow, your list is so short!

Some of us have long lists by now. I do think your point here is a good one. I think we're in kind of a "Catch-22" situation here. Groundspeak feels they can't invest the personnel and resources to develop new things for Waymarking.com since it does not bring in any revenue and hasn't become more widely used. Yet, without improving functionality and adding some new features, Waymarking.com stumbles along, supported by a group of dedicated enthusiasts.

There was a willingness to include the new "Challenges" in everyone's profile. Why is there a continued reluctance to include Waymarking stats in our profiles? Maybe I'm missing something. Challenges was an idea that just didn't catch on, but Waymarking has thrived. Certainly I think there is more that could be done on the Geocaching side to promote Waymarking.

While the emphasis early on has been on creating waymarks rather than visiting them, I think there is a large enough base out there to start thinking about ways to encourage visits. Other than increased visibility and promotion, the two items that always seem to filter to the top of the list are Pocket Queries and an API. I think both of these would achieve the goal that Groundspeak would like to see - increased visits.

Maybe it will take someone volunteering their professional service to get the ball rolling a little faster.

[N!TR0]

welcome, I keep popping in and out of this forum as I keep forgetting my login, but welcome, it is always worth trying some thing new even if you are unsure, give it a go, what have you got to loose?

[Outspoken1]

I find Waymarking a very enjoyable hobby that is well worth it to me. The benefits I have received include ...

- Noticing things I have walked past for decades!!

- Learning about things our ancestors did to give us this wonderful lifestyle

- Seeing new art that challenges me; seeing old art that inspires me

- Having people ask to use my Waymark photos and or reference in their books, speeches, legislation

- Giving my customers a CD of my most interesting Waymark photos last year for the holidays and having them ask if I was going to do that again this year!! (well, sure!!)

- Seeing the world though other's eyes

- Reading the newspaper or seeing something on television and thinking, "I need to go Waymark that!!"

- Meeting people all over the world with this shared interest

- Having a hobby that can occupy a brief hour or a full day for the cost of gasoline, batteries

- Having over 1,000 Waymarks sitting on my computer to be uploaded during bitter cold, snowy days

- Helping local, state and national agencies (such as Smithsonian Art or NRHP or the Deutsche Denkmallisten [German Monument Registers0) maintain their databases about various art and historical items

Yep, I'm hooked and I hope, if you enjoy this hobby, will join us in our shared Waymarking hobby!

Take care,
Ooutspoken1