Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Townhall meeting 9/3/08

So in tonight's townhall the following has been discussed. This is a real-time rundown, so I apologize for grammatical and typographical errors:

- Phoenix has been backburnered
- The first priority for Waymarking was the forums, which are now fixed so priorities are being rearranged.
- There is still work being done to improve both Waymarking and Geocaching via incremental fixes instead of the one fell swoop of Phoenix
- Another priority is a .GPX solution for Waymarking
- .GPX will not have thoroughly detailed info at first, but will work easily with GSAK and its ilk. Variables will likely be appended to the long text description in the .GPX. Though details are still being hashed out. May work more along the lines of the "My Finds" query in GC.com
- "Garmin Content Toolkit, Orphaned Waymarks" (Garmin content toolkit was not discussed beyond this)
- Plans to aid communication on the site such as private forums
- Ways to search archived/invisible Waymarks will be addressed along with orphan Waymarks
- Setting up an "orphan queue" would require ALL variables to be optional. Variables may be switch over to a function of visiting rather than posting.
- Concern was discussed over lazy waymarkers putting out weak marks and having other folks do most of the work by filling in variables. (more discussion later, concerns are to be posted in the forums)
- Increased photo size
- Photo storage (temporary)
- Links directly to Flickr/Photobucket
- Kudos (awards one can give to other Waymarkers)
- Activation button at the end of the new cat creation wizard
- Cross linking photos to end multiple uploads when cross-posting a Waymark. Something like a bucket in which photos are dumped, and then one would be given an option to pull from that bucket when creating a WM. With possibly a 7 day "decay"
- Photo bug when U/Ling larger photos is still not fixed, but is being worked on.
- lobot mailer specific to Waymarking
- Deadbeat leaders/officers - GS may monitor how often they log in for a start. Or display average approval times on the cats
- New games (Nothing was discussed in detail, just mention that Nate and Sean have been working on new games, such as "scavenger hunt, and mini bingo". For instance, a list is generated for 10 or so nearby Waymarks based on one's own favorite cats. One then visits all in that list and earns an award. A number of these scavenger hunts could be on going in various states of completion, with a bingoesque format overall
- Removing closest Waymarks found from the list was broken with the last upgrade,


This list are just some of the ideas being kicked around over at the lily pad. They are expecting implementation of these ideas within the next 6-12 months at this point. Personally, it sounds like some great ideas upon which to build, along with some great ideas as listed.