pcanning

Thanks for the tips, I updated the formulas as you said on coords tab. I also added conditional formatting to the main tab. Your "organized coords" worksheet is missing the coordinates for "coords!q3:q11"

Much like "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder", "geocaching is what it is, or isn't, in the eyes of the geocacher". For a geocacher who wants to keep score, it is about the score or numbers. For someone who's in it purely for the joy of it, it's about the journey. To each his own. One of the disturbing things about this and other discussions, about logging in particular, is that too many people are trying to preserve what geocaching means to them at the cost of imposing their will on others. Feature enhancements like those expressed in this discussion allow each person to enjoy geocaching in their own way. There are no "rules" requiring online logging of geocaches or of their length or minimum content. There are no "rules" about geocaching not being a numbers game or a scored event. If geocaching isn't about scores or numbers then why do any exist? We celebrate geocaching milestones as expressed in numbers of caches found. Where are the suggestions from the idealists to remove all numbers (find counts, trackables found, items owned / released, etc.) from geocaching.com. Where are the suggestions to close the database connections so that itsnotaboutthenumbers, cachestats, and other geocaching statistics engines don't have any data to work with? Why aren't geocaching milestones expressed in time spent in the hobby rather than in find counts? Oh, wait, is it possible we might not want to equally celebrate two people in the hobby, each for 4 years, but one with 4 finds done on their first and only day of caching and the other with 4000 finds? For those of you who would impose your version of geocaching on others, what's next? Shall we require all access to geocaching.com be done from a particular web browser? Shall we limit users to a specific set of software tools with which to geocache with (e.g. you can use GSAK, but not gpxview)? Shall logs have to be checked for proper grammar, capitalization, and spelling? Should Microsoft poll one set of users and modify its Office suite of applications to suit just them and not consider feature enhancements that benefit different classes of users?

Quick, easy, not-worth-reading logs aren't going away. A feature like this would reduce them. Aside from this forum topic about a potential feature enhancement, there are AT LEAST 3 others with hundreds of posts that focus on those short logs with the majority of the posts being against them. This feature would reduce the logs that 'everyone' seems to hate. For that reason alone there should be more support for it. There are a few well written explanations of why people write short logs that I'll not repeat here. Regardless of whether the majority of cachers want to see longer, more descriptive logs, the short ones won't go away and it's no one's place to tell others how to enjoy their geocaching activities. Regardless of what geocaching once was for a select few, it has grown and will morph into something other than what it was in its infancy. Everyone needs to realize that and get past it. This feature suggestion is one way to reduce the logs that people don't appreciate. Another feature that would accomplish that would be allowing someone to log a find without any written log whatsoever. Let people score the number without having something specific to say. Short one-word logs might disappear in favor of zero-word logs if that were available. Would a cache owner rather see 20 "TFTC" logs, or simply know 20 people found their cache without wasting their time to read these 'zero' logs? I understand they'd rather read 20 descriptive logs, but that simply ISN'T going to happen in all cases. Like it or not, short logs live and will continue to do so. The question asked by this forum topic and my embedded suggestion in this post is whether you want to allow the reduction of those through feature enhancements.

I'm not sure I see the "too many variables". I think it boils down to 2 accounts, 1 author. The rest is simply perspective or background. I realize the workload is my choice, but for the sake of being able to look back at the logs from either account, I'd rather cut & paste the log than use a generic log. Many of my logs are generic, but when I choose to write a descriptive account or when I mention specific TBs by name that were dropped or retrieved, I want that info available to both accounts. The group log feature described here would accomplish that, essentially making both accounts co-owners of the log - 1 log, 1 author, 1 perspective, 2 accounts. (It's not lost on me that the feature describer also accounts for having multiple perspectives by having additional descriptions added by different account holders later. Mine isn't the primary use for which he/she would intend this feature to be used, but it is a valid use of it.)

I love this idea. I cache both alone and with my team, consisting of my kids, my girlfriend, and her daughter. I maintain accounts for me individually and for the team. We have a rule that there must be at least 2 of us from the team in order to count the find as a team find. When we hunt as a team, I'm logging for both the team and my individual account. Consequently, I do a cut & paste from one account to the other. A feature like this would reduce my workload and the frustration of cache owners and future hunters of these caches from reading multiple, redundant logs. I know it's a bummer for me when my PDA with gpxview gives me only the most recent 5 logs and 2 or more are the same or virtually so. I know I'm creating that same situation for others when I do my logging, but I'm not going to write two separate stories for the same find. As for the other members of the team - none have shown an interest in logging. My kids love the hunt, but have shown zero interest in logging. My girlfriend has recently started her own individual account, but is yet to log ANY of the finds she's made since then. I sometimes ask whether anyone wants me to add anything to a log, but in those cases the same input is entered as part of both find logs. Great idea. I agree that a feature like this would reduce the boring logs while still providing people the opportunity to write their gloriously descriptive unique experiences either as part of a group log or as a separate log, as they prefer.

Do not check with your baggage. If your baggage goes missing kiss your GPSr good bye, as the airline will not pay for lost electronics. I encountered something similar first hand. On a flight from Seattle thru San Francisco to Honolulu, my bag was opened and a handful of items were missing - my GPS and some smaller items of sentimental value. The bag did arrive in Honolulu, but it arrived at baggage claim with the top unfastened - obviously opened - and it's not something that could have happened on its own. There was no TSA notice of search. The airline reimbursed the estimated cost of all the items except the electronics. My GPS will always travel in my hand carried baggage whether I can turn it on in the aircraft or not.