-CJ-

Definitely. Every task has some number of obvious, quick, excellently looking, wrong solutions. Has anything similar happened to my caches? Yes. It often required some nerves and politeness to avoid conflicts. Sometimes people tend to blame COs for every wrong move they do. However IMHO this is not the reason for being rude with them.

Thank you.

Please don't talk on behalf of the whole world

Dear Walts Hunting, I nevertheless believe that the practice of grabbing geocaches without reading anything about the game is not a good reason for leaving the website without improvements. "Whole set of steps"? We're talking about adding several new strings to the website - very small changes that are made, and this should be done only once.

Thank you but the question was not about how/what COs should delete in logs; it was about changes that could be made to the website interface for cache seekers to understand the "spoiler theme" better. (This is why I posted to the "Website" forum and not to "How do I..." forum). Just an idea, but isn't it worth doing? Small changes to make everyone happier? On my part I'll be happy to translate the Glossary as soon as it is available for translation.

I look at this not as a single error in a phrase but as a problem that could/should be solved (at least partially) so different means would help. Currently we (in our national community) explain "the spoiler problem" to cachers - because people often don't think about spoilers at all. Geocaching.com lacks user-friendly explanations. In some cases people know what are spoilers and believe they're doing good by publishing them: "I had some troubles with satellite reception in the area and it took me long to find the cache; I wish other players don't want to be in such situation so they might enjoy additional help from me". I thought about doing this. However, geocaching has been (to certain extent) a social game and most spoilers have been published by newbies. Log deletion seems to be too strict and straigtforward action and may leave a newbie confused.

I'm one of the COs who has dozens of active geocaches in the area where the game hasn't been much developed and English is not a common language. I face the problem of spoiler logs and photos. Spoilers are generally considered to be no good. Geocaching Glossary: "In geocaching, a spoiler gives away details of a cache location and can ruin the experience of the find". Sadly, the glossary has not been translated into our language so few people can read it. The only hyperlink to this phrase is shown in small letters above logs on a cache page. It's only a warning, no negative wording about spoilers. When one posts a new log there's nothing at this page about spoilers. Spoilers aren't mentiioned in Geocaching 101 and on the "Finding your first geocache" webpage. There are some explanations in the Help Center but they aren't linked from other pages and haven't been translated. As I see it, newbies don't even think about whether they post spoilers or not. Each time I have to write a PM to such person (if their emails were validated). My suggestions are: 1. Add the Geocaching Glossary to the list of materials available for translation. 2. Slightly change the string above logs from "**Warning! Spoilers may be included in the descriptions or links" to something like that: "**Warning! Spoilers are considered bad but still may occur in the descriptions or links". 3. Add a warning string to the log submission form, something like "Please avoid publishing spoilers both in text or photos!" with a hyperlink to the Glossary. 4. Add similar strings to Geocaching 101 and the "Finding your first geocache" webpage. With this, I hope, we could increase understanding of publishing of spoilers as poor practice in geocaching.

Thank you Keystone. Could you try to drive more attention of the Groundspeak HQs to this bug so it is fixed? As a volunteer reviewer I had to change my translation of the text explanation above the field so it became more clear what data is expected from users. Better than nothing.

They are geocaches. Virtuals are not. In all these discussions there are (at least) two arguements that IMHO should not be used. 1) "I like virtuals because they take me to so many wonderful places". It's not a unique feature of a virtual - to take someone to a beautiful place. All geocaches can do the same. Tourist guides can help with this too. Today there are many websites that may become great companions in one's trips, even provide GPS coordinates. 2) "Look at that dusty powertrail micros, are they better than virtuals?" Probably not, but it's a question of quality but not of a cache type. Give green light to virtuals and you'll witness how owners of that poor micros quickly publish tons of even poorer virtuals.

The answers are pretty funny. I will think about a list of Russian proverbs as a source of wise encouraging phrases for this field. However I raised this issue because I thought that newbies who were required to add some unknown information for their caches to be published could be confused easily. It's even more confusing because "your comments" field is usually optional in online forms. Situations when you're required to add at least a slash (or dot or comma or "hi" or "thanks") in some field to get the whole form being processed has been seen as a logical bug. Currently this can be fixed, in my opinion, but after a while COs will get into a habit to fill this field with rubbish and their attitude to this important field may become different.

Virtuals are like weed. You allow weed because in some really specific situations it's too hard for anything useful to grow (because of the soil, for example) so you're happy with weed which grows easily and gives nice flowers. After a while you see that weed is everywhere within your land. Soon after that you are trying to persuade your neighbours that weed is your agriculture. Don't be narrow-focused, limited on your piece of land. See how weed behaves itself at the other side of the fence.

I've always been intrigued by the fact that WYSIWYG editor is shown only when the cache is being published but not when it is being edited. With the changed design/functionality I hoped that the problem would be gone. However it's still there. If the editor is already installed and works nicely - why cannot it be switched on?

A most common multi is a series of virtuals plus a "tortured math" plus a traditional cache in the end of the line. I enjoy only one component of this scheme (the last one). Sadly, to get to it I have to pass through the first two stages. This is why I'm not fond of multis. I'm pretty sure there are different multis that are really interesting but... but. We have enough caches of this type on our national website around here. They all sound like (Russian letters) "N 55.44.(А*Б*В*Г*Д+Е*Ж*И*К*Л-Б*В*П+Б*Е-М)+Б+М Е 37.36.(Н*П*Б+Б*В-В)-Б*(В+Н)" - with (surprise!) a magnetic nano in the end. For higher caliber cachers, you say? Maybe.

New users supposedly have even less understanding when they are required to add something about their cache. I certainly can but I'm not talking about how to circumvent this requirement.

June 15, as far as I can see from our correspondence.

When publishing my new geocache I was suggested to add a note to my reviewer. It was a simple traditional cache in a SideTracked series (I've published a dozen of similar caches already). I had no ideas about what to add to my description so added nothing. I got an error message saying that my comment was missing. I wrote "it's a cache" and managed to get through. With my previous cache (of the same kind) it was "thank you". This field was optional earlier. Sounded reasonable. Sometimes I really needed to add data (puzzles, maintenance plans). In most cases (e.g. simple traditional caches in my own city) I had nothing to add and left this field blank. The text above the field still says it's optional: "If there is any additional information you want to provide about your geocache, include it below". I reported this bug to the translation HQ (I'm a volunteer translator). What I wish to ask in this thread is its mandatory status. The colleagues explained: "The reviewer note was made mandatory on purpose. The reviewers are mostly reporting improvements in the cache owners telling them more about their cache hide. We want cache owners to understand that it helps improve the review process if they provide more information and not less". Well, I suppose I'm not as clever as I could be so there's a necessity to make me understand the importance of this field every time I publish a geocache (I own >60 caches). Don't you think that this should be done in some other way? For example, more information explaining the meaning/purpose of this field + an additional window saying "Are you REALLY going to leave the field blank? Your comment would help to improve your cache and make the review process smooth".

No, he said the problem was with additional points. He removed them and got his cache published. After that he added his points. Looked like the bug described above in this thread.

korinskiy. His situation appeared to be the same as one described above. I just wonder if that error message is changed since "See 'EntityValidationErrors' property for more details" makes little sense to me and could confuse other players, especially those who speak no/little English.

One of my friends also saw that "Validation failed for one or more entities. See 'EntityValidationErrors' property for more details" message. I believe that displaying this message ("EntityValidationErrors property") is a technical bug to be replaced with something comprehended for a common user, right?

Коллеги-геокешеры! Мы рады сообщить, что сайт geocaching.com с нашей помощью получил русский перевод интерфейса. Чтобы увидеть результат, на главной странице сайта в правом верхнем углу выберите "Русский" вместо "English". Если вы зарегистрированы на geocaching.com, сайт запомнит ваш выбор. Сегодня в большой команде волонтеров-переводчиков больше 130 человек со всего мира. Сайт уже переведен (или переводится) на 28 языков. Теперь он есть и на русском. Объем работы составил около 70 тысяч слов (более 452 тысяч знаков). Перевод сайта не является полным, так как Groundspeak предоставляет материалы постепенно. Мы продолжаем переводить текст по мере поступления. Если вы встретите ошибку или у вас появятся пожелания к переводу, пожалуйста, напишите нам. Мы благодарим Groundspeak за удобный интерфейс для работы и оперативную техническую поддержку. BurKhan, Vold, CJ волонтеры geocaching.com

I thought about this variant but I'm not sure that logs are good place to sort out such questions. What if he/she wishes to post another log to answer? I will be forced to erase one more log and give another explanation...

As an example, yesterday I had to encrypt a text spoiler in a cache log posted to one of my geocaches. I would like to contact the newbie author and explain that logs aren't good for giving hints to other cachers) but his e-mail hasn't been validated. Today I noticed he posted the same text once again. Still cannot contact him. Had to delete the log. I don't want newbies to get insulted with encrypted or erased logs but I need to maintain my caches and take care of other players. Dear Groundspeak, if you prevent me from contacting a user by email, please explain how I could do this in any other way.

Be sure, I'd also rather go hiking to the mountains and enjoy nice views, nature and the air of freedom than spend all my day collecting 50 power trail micros along some dusty road. Mind that if virtuals are allowed the game may get thousands of virtuals placed just because there was a spot, and very quickly since virtuals are much easier to create and don't need maintenance. So every second "cache" will be "count these steps" or "count those windows" or "count the high pillars". EarthCache is a good compromise in my opinion (as for virtuals) and education about good geocaching practice is a perspective way of thinking (as for geocaching at whole).

When he/she used to see neutral comments as potential personal insults against him or his cache.

It's not about an experience of geocaching. We're talking about two different hobbies. They are tourism (visiting and enjoying interesting places) and geocaching (searching for hidden "treasures"). Placing caches everywhere "just because you can" is probably a dark side of geocaching. But simply walking/driving and marking places I visit is in my opinion not geocaching at all. So please be careful with your wishes