Firth of Forth

I think you'll find that those of us who run pocket queries would rather specify which counties we want rather than getting all of the UK If you live close to an expance of water (Like the wash) and run a querie for the closest caches I will get some in Lincolnshire which are over 100 miles away to drive but about 20 by the crow, much easier to specify "Norfolk" There are other places like cornwall and wales that would have the same prob. Unless I'm missing something - What problem does Cornwall have? There's a similar problem for any of us northerners who live along any of the firths or sea lochs. My nearest unfound caches are across the Firth of Forth in Fife.

Its not up-to-date as far as Scotland is concerned as it shows the old administrative regions which dont exist anymore (blame the Tories who thought that by changing the voting geography they would gain more parliamentary seats - did it work? Nah!) That is the link to the map that I posted earlier and shows the current administrative councils (32 of them) for Scotland.

I wonder if the extra perk of having an audit log on premium member caches may be an incentive for those cachers who remain undecided about becoming a member, to opt to do so.

Edinburgh is an obvious choice in Scotland, not only for the plentiful caches, but also for all of the other tourist attractions. Have a look at Haggis Hunter's bookmarks, or do a search based on the most central cache, 'Crag & Tail', (which is right under the rock on which the castle sits).

You'll be lucky. Lots of people in the British Isles get confused (and hot under the collar at times!) about what constitutes the UK, Great Britain, the British Isles, Ireland etc etc etc.

That's a strange way of thinking about it. No, most people who do PMO caches seem to justify the reason as being a bit of fun to see who has been looking at their cache? Perhaps 'bit of fun' should have been better put as 'interesting'. As a previous poster said "It was interesting to see users from other parts of the country in the audit log and wonder what drew their attention to my cache, along with all the local cachers that I recognized." I would certainly expect local cachers in Scotland to have a look, even from as far away as Angus. One can also speculate about who is going to be FTF

That's a strange way of thinking about it. If the requested feature where like the current MOC audit, then all you'd need to do is get the info from PQs. Since those that got thats caches info from a PQ is not recorded in the audit log . But you have to be a premium member to get PQs, so the only way to stay 'hidden', as it were, is to pay for membership. Somehow I think we're going round in circles.

Not at all!

Interesting logic applied here. If people use the loophole they obviously are partnered with a member. The only ways to know if they're a member or not is to scrutinize the audit log or go check their profile (I think those are the only ways). If they haven't caused problems then I would wonder (not for very long, mind you) why anyone would care if they're exploiting the loophole. If you want the audit log, switch the cache back to members only. I agree with pdxmarathonman. The logic used for removing the PMO status on the cache(s) in question was very convoluted and, to me, extremely confusing. We own a great many PMO caches -- in fact, the majority of our caches are PMOC -- and we never mind the occasional non-PM finder who finds the cache and uses one of the 644 known loopholes on the system to log it; and, we encourage non-PMs who find our caches to file logs (using one of those loopholes.) In actual fact, our post-facto research shows that logged finds by non-PMOs constitute fewer than 1% of finds on our PMO caches, and, in each case, the non-PM was accompanied on their hunt by a geocacher who was a PM. In fact, in the majority of the cases, the non-PM was a child under 18 years of age who was accompanied by their PM parent on the find. To us, this is not a cause for worry or concern; we are not the Geocache Rightneousness Police (GRP.) The logging of member only caches by non-members isn't the issue I'm trying to ask a question about. Maybe I'm flogging a dead horse. The issue of server capacity is one that I hadn't thought of, not being a techy sort of person. If that is a problem, then I wonder if a way round it is that the audit log feature could be time-limited, as it's mostly for new caches that cachers find it more interesting. It's not something that is a burning issue for me. There are probably other features that have a higher priority (such as the split of countries into regions as discussed on another thread in this forum).

It's already a feature. Noone would be able to make an overall track of anyone's 'movements', as they would only be able to see audit logs for their own caches. That's a strange way of thinking about it.

In my post above I proposed to include just the intermediate level for the UK, splitting the country up in Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Then, when an additional level is added, the counties can be inserted. I am afraid that otherwise the whole plan will disappear from the agenda again, because the Americans will like the idea of counties too, and for them to have counties, an additional 'layer' of data has to be added. (I did include the counties for Ireland, because that is there is no intermediate level there. Let's at least try to get SOMETHING implemented, even though it's not going to be perfect for everyone. Fair enough - though if Scotland becomes independent, as indicated in my post, this may have to be reconsidered!!

It would be best not to mix up the Scottish, Welsh, English and Northern Ireland administrative regions. The pundits suggest that the SNP (Scottish National Party) may lead the government after the next Scottish parliamentary election in May and their agenda, of course, is for an independent Scotland. In Scotland there are 32 administrative councils; the list above is incorrect as of 1996. 1.Inverclyde 2.Renfrewshire 3.West Dunbartonshire 4.East Dunbartonshire 5.Glasgow 6.East Renfrewshire 7.North Lanarkshire 8.Falkirk 9.West Lothian 10.Edinburgh 11.Midlothian 12.East Lothian 13.Clackmannanshire 14.Fife 15.Dundee 16.Angus 17.Aberdeenshire 18.Aberdeen 19.Moray 20Highland 21.Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles) 22.Argyll and Bute 23.Perth and Kinross 24.Stirling 25.North Ayrshire 26East Ayrshire 27South Ayrshire 28Dumfries and Galloway 29South Lanarkshire 30.Scottish Borders Orkney Islands Shetland Islands

Not necessarily. All it takes is for another cacher who is a member to email a non-member the url (as I understand it since I have never done it). Why have members-only caches if they aren't, then? Perhaps the whole thing should be abandoned. I think may have misunderstood. Sending the url to a non-member isn't going allow them to see the page, if they use the link its going to tell them they can't view the page just like if they tried viewing from any search results. To LOG the page they can change the url, which may be what your thinking of (the 'loophole' is explained here, and probably a few others places for those that care). To get the location of a MOC a non PM member would have to either get the info from a PM member, figure out the location by using distances from known locations (like if a TB is logged into the cache, or other caches/coords. I've never actually done it that way, but it supposed to be possiable) or as someone said just stumble across it. As for putting the audit feature on regular caches, that sounds interesting . Given people need to be logged in to see the coords now, I wonder how difficult it would be put in such a feature? I meant the url for the logging page, sorry, which can be viewed and then submitted by a non-member. Of course, they cannot subsequently see their log on the cache page. Yes, a premium member would also have to tell a non-member what the coordinates are, too, or copy and paste the cache page, or give some information about the location of the cache.

Exactly. At least two people here understand the point so far!

If you want the audit log, switch the cache back to members only. Yes, that's what I would like but without the difficulties that can arise from caches being members only. This is not about blaming people for logging members only caches; it's simply a request for these two things (members only and audit log) to be separated. I could make all of my caches members only to be able to see the audit logs, but I think that would be much misinterpreted! There are cachers who would delete logs from non-members and this is the problem that I think should be avoided, if possible.

If you read what I have said, I have specifically stated that I would not and didn't delete any logs.

Not necessarily. All it takes is for another cacher who is a member to email a non-member the url (as I understand it since I have never done it). Why have members-only caches if they aren't, then? Perhaps the whole thing should be abandoned.

I totally applaud the actions taken by the Edinburgh cachers to raise money for the Spinal Injuries unit helping Billy Twigger, however I can see where some people may have reservations. The individuals and companies involved in donating the coins/TB tags/membership/GPS etc, all did so in the knowledge that they were supporting the spinal injuries unit. Looking at the prizes donated, it would not be unreasonable to put an e-bay value of £400-500 on the items before taking into account any particularly rare coins. According to the cache page the tombola raised £140 out of a total of £228 which was a fair amount of money for a group of 30ish caching teams to raise Perhaps for a future fundraiser the tombola or raffle organisers should maybe look more fully at how they can raise the maximum amount of money for their cause? May I also take a moment to congratulate HayLin for her thoughtfulness and wish HaggisHunter all the best in the challenge he has set himself This is fair enough as regards a future event, but in relation to the recent event it's really missing the point. From the start it was clear to those who donated that it would be for a raffle/tombola, and not by raising money on ebay. It was never about raising the maximum amount of money from selling each of the items that were donated. I'd like people to consider what this kind of discussion will do for Ewan and his family. So far, they have been bouyed up by the positive responses that they have read on the geocaching community forum. How are they going to feel about people getting into disagreements about this fundraising event?? I, for one, am never going to get involved in a fundraising event, as it's guaranteed that someone somewhere won't like what I decide to. Rather than applaud what the event organisers have done (as Team Clova have done), there has been criticism. That's appalling, in my view.

I sometimes make my new caches members only for a short period of time as it's a bit of fun to see who has been looking at the page through the audit log. However, recently this has caused problems as non-members who object to 'selective availibility' go ahead and log them anyway through the loophole. I don't want to start deleting logs and getting into a wrangle with people, so I just changed the caches so that they are open to all - my hand has been forced as it were, earlier than anticipated. I wonder if it's possible to make the audit logs a members only perk without caches having to be listed as only available to members. Since non-members can get round this, it seems a bit pointless, and has lots of potential for people falling out. Thanks.

Please, let's not get into a wrangle over this. Everyone has been very generous, and everyone has made efforts to raise funds for charity. A lot of money has been raised. There was a lot of organisation to do for the Hogmanay event - and those who had to organise the fund raising activities really didn't get a chance to socialise at the event as they were kept permanently busy! It will really detract from the goodwill and the spirit of things if people start to argue about how things were done.

In my view, it's best not to be too hasty to do this. Sometimes cachers can't remember which cache they put a TB in - or get them mixed up. Sometimes the TB has been taken by someone who is on holdaiy and it may be a while before they can update the logs. It's often the case that the TB turns up somewhere else later on.

Well done for getting everything sorted out so speedily! What an exciting idea! I'm interested but would need some more details about the cost and timings. PS A big bold line on the cache page stating the date of the event might help as it's not immediately obvious and it was some years into caching before I realised that the 'date published' was actually the event date.

Go Forth on Cramond Island in the Firth of Forth is a great cache. Not done The Exotic Islets of Fife in the Firth of Tay yet, but it looks good too.

I got mine a while ago, on the basis of having found earthcaches in Scotland and N Ireland. I think the pin took about 4 weeks to arrive.

"A project so pointless as to be vital to our national well-being." says a review. Hmm....could say that about caching as well, I think.