eigengott

I would list it as a multi-cache since the given coordinates are the actual starting point for this cache. See http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=67008 for Jeremys fine explanation of mystery vs. multi cache.

Do you have any guess, why he plunders? If it's just for the value of the cache container or it's contents, downgrading to real cheap stuff might be a solution. But if it's a cry for attention, you better do nothing instead of feeding him. Let him steal the rest of the caches in the area, wait a decent time after the menace has stopped and hope he has completely lost interest. Yes, that's hard to do...

No, this hasn't to do with paying or not paying - hammering a web site with a (dumb) robot is indeed bad practice, just as Markwell pointed out. The real fix with this problem is educating people, i think. It's not only lazyness but lack of knowledge. A simple message on the image upload page like "If your image contains information essential for finding the cache, please make sure to reference it in your HTML code for the cache, so that people which print out the cache page have this information." would be a GOOD thing.

Thanks for the clarification, Jeremy. And no, i won't quit premium - this site is good enough to support it, even if the .gpx-stuff didn't turned out as expected (and announced... ). I just wrote a perl script which converts a gpx file to another one with the links included. Essentially spidering gc.com for the missing information. An ugly kludge, but it works. No xml-schema extension is needed for this, tools like GSAK work perfectly with the new file. If anyone else has use for it: http://www.eigengott.de/geocaching/gpxcomplete.pl

Though i agree with your interpretation of the photo upload feature, there is nothing on the gc.com site, which says anything about it's purpose. Not even a warning to not use these images for essential information. And in some parts of the world there are substantial numbers of caches, which rely on these images to get found. If it were just 5% (or less), i wouldn't ask for this (minor) feature addition.

No point to get angry: you can make this an option for pocket queries (default: NO, i don't want those links).

No, get real. The site offers to add images to the cache description. Some owners actually use this feature. So either this feature should be disabled (bad), or the complete data should end up in the .gpx record. Why not make this site a bit more convenient?

Here is an example: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GC5232 There are lots of them, at least here in Germany. And after all: Is it really that difficult, to add something like [Additional Images] http://img.Groundspeak.com/cache/21042_200.jpg http://img.Groundspeak.com/cache/21042_300.jpg at the end of the long cache description?

The .gpx records currently delivered (either through a pocket query or a direct download) don't include the complete cache description. The links to images uploaded to the cache description are missing. That makes these .gpx records pretty useless for me. I became premium member in the hope to go paperless with a PDA, using .gpx records for the offline cache descriptions. Will this gap be fixed anytime soon? Just to avoid confusion: I don't want the images themselves, just the links. And i don't talk about the images uploaded with log entries, just those uploaded by the cache owner with his/her cache description.

Or shoukd the party, which believes a physical is possible instead of the virtual, contact the owner of the virtual und try to convince her/him to do this conversion?

Yes. See for example Geolutins. Or see Hitchhiker 42, a GC mystery cache used as hitchhiker. Though that one - as beeing a moving cache - wouldn't be approved today.

Stepping out of the hotel on a business trip, taking a waypoint. Then exploring the bars of the (unknown) town. At the exit of the last bar - reasonable drunk - just pressing the button for the hotel waypoint and walking back there in almost no time.

Hmm, until now i thought the information on the other site was open anyway (they even have a XML feed for their caches to be used by other sites). And as default the "no distribution allowed" option is selected... So this might be as well quite the opposite: closing down, not opening up the database. For that reason the most interesting question is: what flag do have all the caches and log entries entered *before* this option was introduced?

I vote for b. Some (all?) GPSr can calculate the distance between any two stored waypoints. Just sum them up. And the result is deterministic, given the cachers got the waypoints right - so you don't have to worry about accuracy.