paleolith

You should have upgraded to GSAK v8. Five clicks total would have uploaded the entire list to your bookmark list. Edward

I'm currently #19 in found log length on mygeocachingprofile.com, yet I very seldom run into the log length limit. One reason is that I tend to write the story of a day, and I can shift elements from one cache to another. No one has ever complained that my logs are too long. Of course, by saying that, I'm inviting complaints ... If it's an easy change and wouldn't cause any problems, I'd say do it. But if it's going to take a significant effort, or if there are related problems, I'm happy to continue as is. Edward

The same applies to photos attached to the cache description. At one time it was possible to write the cache description to use lightbox, but that was eliminated in an HTML control cleanup. GS should provide us a better way to view all the images attached to the description. (And even better, a way to specify no link to the image if it's embedded in the HTML description. There are ways to do this -- attach the images to a log on an inactive cache -- but those workarounds are much more difficult.) Edward

While this is technically correct, v3.5 is only about 8 months out of date. The intervening releases were not really major releases -- it was just a version jump to bring it more nearly in line with other browsers. Edward

The huge problem with such polls is that the responders are self-selected. A self-selected poll means nothing. And I do not use the word "nothing" lightly: it means nothing. Reid's Second Law of Statistics: Never Underestimate the Power of Selection. I much prefer the way GS is doing it now. They appear to be listening to the informed voices who post here with information and ideas. But we cannot speak for the 99% who never participate in the forums, and who are almost certainly quite different from us in many ways. The very fact of posting here, even reading here, makes us unrepresentative of the community. And the community did not elect us to speak for them. As a result, using polls here would actually make geocaching less democratic. Not that it's ever been democratic, but still. So I prefer that GS continue listening to us and attempting to decide what's best for the entire community. They won't always be right, not by a long shot, and I'll be here helping to hold their feet to the fire. But they'll be right more often than our votes would be. Edward

Definitely a great idea. Another aspect is that, while there are good reasons not to send bounces to messages sent to the noreply address, those reasons would not apply to the disposable address. So if someone replies after the time limit has expired, they'll know the message didn't go through. If the disposable addresses start getting on spam lists, the bounce could be disabled after a few months. Edward

I'm not completely certain, but I *think* that last month the logs only started loading when you paged (or scrolled) down. You could open the cache page and hit End and you'd see the end of the description with no logs. If you do that today, you'll see the 25th log at the bottom of the page (by my quick count). But in any case, yes, it's definitely faster now than it was last week. Edward

Leader carries loppers and pruning saw. Don't need them? You're not seriously in the woods. Edward

TeamPumpJack, If you are doing enough geocaching to need a map, then you need GSAK. As mentioned earlier in the thread, download the PQ into GSAK, then use the macro Google_Map_V3.gsk. It displays a map of exactly what you want to see, and in addition does clustering. Extremely useful. Edward

Right, but do it for BBCode too. Last time I looked (no, I didn't look today) there wasn't even a clear statement that BBCode was supported in cache descriptions. Despite the similarities, I think the BBCode is enough easier to be worth describing how it's supported. Edward

I agree, this is needed. With modifications and additional design of course -- I'm sure the OP would not disagree. Require 3 (or perhaps more) reports to mark a TB missing. Ignore the passage of time. Use a text marker, perhaps "(reported missing)", for easy comprehension. Do NOT use Yet Another Icon whose meaning we have to remember. Too many already. Do NOT use gray text. It's bad enough that GS is already using freaking gray text in the fashionable manner of thirty-something web designers who have not yet experienced the joy of lessened contrast perception that comes with age. The CO or TO should be able to clear "missing" reports with a new log type. Possibly the TB should remain in the inventory indefinitely on the main cache page, as an indication that proper maintenance is not taking place, but be ignored in other contexts. Edward

Definitely ... though it isn't a huge deal, I've often wanted to do this. It's become easier with the latest GSAK: load a PQ of the bookmark list into a new database, and do geocaching.com access -> add to bookmark list. That's still going around my elbow to get to my mouth. And it should be a relatively easy thing to implement, since the function to add a list of GC#s to a list is already present. Edward

I don't understand why the blog link is a problem. If it's considered commercial just because it's on blogspot, then host it on your own web site. The one Stash DNF I looked at was pretty uninteresting, pretty much just a link to the blog. I think I'd object to that. If Stash were telling a good story and posting the photos to the cache log, in addition to the link, that would provide something of interest on the cache page. You could also post Stash's story as part of your Found log, so that there isn't any fake log. Now, whether that CO was just irritable to start with, or got irritated by the fake DNFs, I can't tell. It does sound like the spoiler photos claim was bogus, though without examining all of them AND finding the relevant caches, I really can't judge. Hopefully GS won't ask you to stop posting non-spoiler photos. But I'd say just avoid this CO's caches. Edward

I would suggest that you NOT drop the duplicate TB! Offer to mail it to the owner. Edward

Yeah, I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out the Dolphin's complaint too. Exactly when does the log you are reading move off the viewport? I haven't seen that happen. "Find all nearby benchmarks" is above the logs, and I don't remember there ever being any links below the logs except the one to view them all, and there's no longer a need for it, so you never need to page all the way to the end just to find some link. (Are you by any chance using IE4?) In the version released Tuesday, the most recent 25 logs are preloaded, so in many cases you get any logs you need without waiting for them to load. Personally I love it. I can look at all the logs I want without waiting for a full page load. I can look at the last six logs of a cache with a thousand logs without incurring the overhead of listing them all. The only thing missing to me is an easy way to locate a particular log: by a certain cacher, from a certain date, or the publication log. This could be addressed by a search function, or by having a button to load all logs. For the 1% of us who would use it, the load all logs is probably simpler. Edward

Well, isn't that just the most obvious thing in the world? </sarcasm> Seriously, I count 47 links on a normal cache page before even getting to the description, so it wasn't to shorten the page. It could have been placed directly under the state/city, pushing the bearing/distance from home down into the empty line. How many new users will never click on the state/city, just because there's no indication that it's a map link? I would not have guessed. In UI jargon, there's no affordability that it's a map link. And because nearly every article in Wikipedia links to other articles whenever a city, state, or country is mentioned, I've become accustomed to ignoring those links. I know, there's also a "view larger map" that does the same thing -- except that it's way down on a page and has a target=_blank so that it OPENS A NEW TAB -- geez folks, I KNOW HOW to open a new tab, so don't assume that you know how to manage my tabs better than I do. That's just RUDE. So I do not think this was exactly the brightest of the changes. (Stops to catch breath.) I thank you very much for ditching GetSatisfaction/UserVoice. I only wish that those of us with prior experience from the user side had been able to save you from doing that. Several other changes are also very welcome. I make these points to try to prove that my view is not all negative. I even like the reformatting of the box where I wish the View Map link still appeared. Ah, who am I kidding, I hate it all. There, now I feel better. Edward

Old maxim: "Stupidity is not illegal". Applies to geocaching. Edward

There seem to be a couple of different issues here. 4wheelin_fool and a couple of others, like jkhuggins, understand that stalking does not necessarily involve physical danger, real or perceived. Creating detrimental psychological conditions is also referred to as stalking. If someone creepy is gathering information about you and making it known to you that they are doing so, that's creepy. Unless you have even thicker skin than most here, that WILL affect your behavior in bad ways. Those who think it doesn't, mostly have not experienced these situations or seen it happen to a family member or close friend. In addition, asking the OP to disclose more information misses the point that more disclosure is exactly what is to be avoided in a stalking situation. OTOH, reviewing the OP's past posts to the forums, and logs to at least one cache, tells me that the OP has exhibited aggressive and inflexible behavior towards other cachers. This person's logs and postings indicate someone with a lot of difficulty figuring out how to get along with others. The basic intentions appear to be fine, but then the inflexibility in working through the situation causes the real problems. So it's even more complex than it appears. Edward

My two challenge caches have similar wording, but you are probably talking about something a bit different. Mine say you are welcome to visit, sign the log, post notes ... and in fact people have done that, posting quite a few note visits. But my caches also require them to revisit the cache after completing the requirements to log the find, and it sounds to me like you are talking about signing the log on one day and logging the find on a much later day without revisiting the cache. Why would people visit my caches to just post notes? Most often it's because they are with a group and some have qualified for the find. In some cases they are passing by and want to go ahead and check it out. Ask toz how well that worked out for him ... In one case the location of the hide has become a bit notorious and I think some are visiting partly to check it out. It's also notable that mine deal with a compact geographical area, so revisiting is not a burden. So I won't claim to be making any statement about how challenge caches in general ought to be run. And as a final note, I'll point out that both of mine contain the statement that "this is for fun and you are on the honor system". Which is just a restatement of geocaching, but after a long list of rules I think it's worth reiterating. Edward

When I was spending time in SoCal, almost all caches I found required a hike of some sort, some short, some long. It's true that I drove to the trailhead, but probably 1% of my finds there required less than a 1/10 mile hike. Now I'm mostly home in Florida and I only cache by bicycle, and by that I mean I start from home. Hasn't built up my count very fast. It's pulling down my terrain average, since I don't get terrain credit for non-required effort. But it helps get me out on the bike, especially when the weather's too hot to enjoy it without a good reason. (This August and this summer were both the hottest and driest on record in Tallahassee. One day in June it hit 105F, the hottest ever recorded here. Rainfall YTD is about half of average.) Edward

Other places to stash photos so they are on gc.com and not dependent on an external host: -- on a log on a cache page which you do not intend to publish -- on a note log, then delete the log -- on a regular note on the cache (meaning they can be viewed directly too) The last can also be a good way to give additional details which are excessive for the description, or things like initial cache contents which are interesting at the time but not ten years later (and you've surely seen old cache pages that still list the initial contents even though the container has been replaced twice). Remember that each log has its own URL, so you can link to it from the description. Edward

You can also look at the bookmark list of TPRD caches. As it happens, the TPRD employee / geocacher who set those caches has moved to another department, and the caches are being maintained by local volunteers through TAG. The TPRD account that Joshism linked is now maintained by one of those volunteers. Nonetheless, TPRD definitely continues to support the program, providing cache supplies and geocoin prizes. They also allow private geocaches in city parks, although they have no stated policy. Value? Can't say, and I doubt anyone else can say. The simple number of people added to the attendance at any one park is small. However, many of those end up visiting many of the parks. This may be a fairly vocal group of people who have become aware of just how many parks the city manages -- certainly far more than I was previously aware of. Thus the "branding" may be of more value than the number of recreation visits would indicate. I found five of the TPRD caches Friday, and Saturday I attended a local event which included most of the volunteers mentioned. I'm currently the volunteer maintainer for ... I think it's ten of the caches. I've placed seven of my own caches on the city park in my neighborhood. Edward

This thread is schedule for odd-numbered months, but I guess we'll have to accept a deviation. Usually someone posts a story about logging a DNF on their own cache, but that important part of the scheduled thread seems to have been missed this time. I haven't done it so I can't fill that in. Potato Finder summarized well the two situations where I've logged a find on a cache I owned. In one case, I adopted a cache I had not yet found. I found it and logged a find. Someone else later adopted it from me. In two cases, I logged finds on challenge caches (not Challenges, grr) which I developed and published. No one has ridiculed for doing so, and I was not even close to being FTF on either. (Of course I realize the claim that I have not experienced ridicule invites ridicule, so I'll say now that I'll only listen to such ridicule from others who have found those caches.) I placed two caches which someone else has adopted. Because gc.com does not distinguish between hider and owner, I no longer have any strong link to these caches -- a few notes and owner maintenance logs, but nothing that shows on my profile. I've thought about logging finds just to have these links, but I haven't and probably won't -- after all, a found log is still a weak link. The solution here would be for gc.com to make the hider/owner distinction. All of this really says that it's not your technical relationship to the cache that matters, but whether finding it should be trivial due to your prior relationship with the cache. Edward

I found yet another minor improvement. I can move the log date closer to the log type as follows: .LogType {width:20% !important} .LogType + div {width:76% !important; text-align:left !important} I haven't seen this mess up any other formatting. I'm not entirely sure I prefer it to the default -- while it gets the date back closer to the important stuff, it looks a bit more cluttered, and it's not at the far left as I'd prefer. I'll probably keep it though. As with most of the other CSS spec changes I've proposed, it's independent of the others. (I think I've mentioned before that the date could probably be moved to the far left, but that would require JavaScript as well as CSS.) So here's my complete specs now: /* Make avatars on logs just totally vanish. I don't know whether this prevents the download. */ .logOwnerAvatar {display:none !important} /* Tighten up the spacing in the log. Readability is not reduced at all, due to the alternating background colors and the bold log type. */ .LogDisplayRight .LogText {min-height: 0 !important; padding-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important} /* Try to stop the View Log from taking up a whole line all for itself. This occasionally (perhaps 1 log in 10) causes the View Log to overlap a bit of the log text. If this bothers you, remove this line. The only cost of removing it is a bit of extra space at the bottom of most logs. */ .LogText + .AlignRight {margin-top: -20px !important} /* I also don't care whether the logger is a premium member, and showing that sometimes forces an extra line in the log entry, so don't show it. This is optional and independent of the other specs. */ .logOwnerBadge {display:none !important} /* All the smily faces in the left column confuse me because it's the same image as for the Found It log, so don't show it. But then the counts need to be bolder. This is optional and independent of the other specs. */ .logOwnerStats img {display:none !important} .logOwnerStats {font-weight: bold !important; color:#000000 !important} /* All the following adjustments to text size and color are optional and independent of the other specs. */ /* Make the log date display larger and bolder. */ .LogDate {font-weight: bold !important; font-size: 100% !important; color: #000000 !important} /* Move the log date closer to the log type. */ .LogType {width:20% !important} .LogType + div {width:76% !important; text-align:left !important} /* Well, now it's obvious that the log type is not black either. I'm a man, I can fix that. http://emmanuelfonte.posterous.com/im-a-man-i-can-fix-that */ .LogType {color: #000000 !important} /* and the log text too ... */ .LogText {color: black !important} Edward

One thing I notice is that there's no "ignore" link or button on the Challenge page. Since there's such a link on a cache page, many may be looking for it on the Challenge page. When they don't find it, they look for something else to have the same effect. The only negative links are "thumbs down" and "flag". I can "accept" a Challenge, but I cannot "decline" or "ignore" it. So how many are clicking thumbs down simply because there's no "ignore"? I doubt this is the top factor, and might only be a small one, but it probably should be on the list. You can't assume that everyone reads the detailed description, not even close. cezanne has described a common phenomenon in Vienna, the vote that really means "I live here and don't want to be bothered". How many of these would just "ignore" if that option were available? Seems to me that while omitting the "ignore" option initially might not have been a problem on its own, that it may interact badly with the voting system. Edward