Hynr
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Posts posted by Hynr
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Amazing thread. Another bashing of a person who is relatively new, has an interesting idea and is pretty much fed a bunch of condescending crap. I predict that in a few days there will be a repeat of the thread wondering if folks at the forums are being scared off by insulting stuff being generated by moderators and frequent posters.
Enchanted Shadow, you are not alone in desiring the things you suggest. You are also (sadly) not the first to get this treatment. Someone should have just pointed out early in the thread that the limits are artificial and Jeremy (who, and I know this is hard to believe given his reply to you, is the guy in charge here) is not interested in changing it. It's his game and you are supposed to play it his way. The fact that some of us want to play it a little differently is lost on many individuals here. I do think that Jeremey does understand it, but he feels he needs to do it this way.
I will continue to play the game my way (which appears to be similar to the way you want to do it). Finding the work-arounds to achieve that is part of the fun. It's a bit like the fact that the GPS itself is not perfect at showing you where the cache is. You've got to use your skills. I personally am impressed that you got to the PQs and the GSAK information management as fast as you did and I would certainly in interested in exchanging ideas with you.
So, don't let the negative feedback stop you from posting your ideas. You just have to ignore some of the rough edges that are exhibited here occaisionally.
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I think the “parking” characteristic is especially useful as “not”- item. I generally really appreciate a warning when there is no parking nearby. I do like Hemlock’s suggestion of a firm distance, but honestly I would consider half that distance (½ of 528ft) a more ideal cut-off. But I am happy with anything, as long as we don’t make this characteristic useless by letting everyone guess.
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I very much like the new attributes feature and it seems like we will be seeing some revision and elaboration. As folks comment, I hope everyone keeps in mind that we do not need every possible cache characteristic iconized or categorized. We need to balance the need for information with the need for mystery. Geocaching is about mystery and exploration. I am happy to see those things eliminated or clarified that can be dangerous or a nuisance, but let’s not eliminate surprise and mystery.
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I like the new feature. I just went through and updated all my cache pages. Going through it generated a few minor questions:
1. One thing that seems to require a bit more definition is "Dangerous area". It seems to me that geocaches are not allowed in "dangerous areas"; so how does this attribute make sense?
2. I have a rough notion what "wheelchair accessible" means, but it really would help me to have a link to some information provided by wheel-chair-bound geocachers as to what they consider accessible or inaccessible.
It might make sense to create an Attributes Glossary web page. These questions that are coming up now will pop up continually from here on out.
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It's the middle of a holiday weekend...
OT: which?
In the US we have Martin Luther King holiday tomorrow (Monday).
I don't agree with Hemlock - it's probably a great time to bump a topic back to the top because so many cachers will be active and TPTB typically weigh in on weekends anyway.
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I like this "team" concept. Presumably if one were on a team, one could identify in PQs which of one's teams should be represented by the PQ. This would be really cool, because it would be possible for ad hoc groups to get together and figure out which caches in a region had not yet been found by everyone in the group. I think it would facilitate friendships by encouraging folks to get together.
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It's VERY slow for me. nearly a minute or two wait for any one response. But at least it's not dropping my logs after I submit them.
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I've had a mortal PDA failure in a front pocket (for no apparent reason), none yet in a rear pocket.
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I like the idea.
My current family plan is one premium membership (my wife) and one regular membership (for me). I don't really need a second premium membership because I have figured out how to get around all the limitations, but if it costs a few buck on top of the current premium membership fees, I would gladly pay it.
But it would be a problem for GC to police such a system because of the annoymity of each of us in the system. How is Jeremy going to verify that users claiming to be a family really are?
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"Hacking a geocache" is when you find that you have to use a lot of force to get into a cache where the hint said "stumped". Apparently someone has figured out how to use a GPS instead of an ax.
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I don't generally listen much to music while caching. But if I did, this one would be on the CD:
"On the road again" - Willie Nelson
Especially if you sing along. And when Willie sing "making music", you sing "go caching".
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Please, please don't change the current way in which archived caches are handled on the website....
This thread has nothing to do with the removal process of caches or how archived caches are listed at the web site. At the web site one can currently see both disabled and archived geocaches (if you know how to do it).
This thread concerns only obtaining data in PQs on caches that are not active. Having the ability to obtain data on archived caches is important to some and I don't see how it could compromise any agreements.
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I too would like to see this added to PQs.
But, if possible, I would prefer that archived ones not be simply included in the "is not active" search. I would suggest changing "is not active" to "is temporarily disabled" and add "is archived" and "is not archived" as two new check-boxes.
I would prefer that the gpx data in the PQ differentiate between the two types of non-availability.
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This only makes sense if you download a PQ gpx file directly into a GPS with EasyGPS or something like it. If you are merging new data with any amount of off-line data, then this advice is precisely what you DON'T want to do because the problem is that the archive status on existing caches in your off-line data cannot not change if you don't get that information sent to you.Don't forget to check off that box for 'is active' in yout PQ. That way you don't get disabled caches sent to you.
The notion of "stale data" is silly. Data are not like fruit, beer or breakfast cereal. It is the lack of the update that is the problem, not the quality of the old data. The old logs are frequently more useful than the most recent logs. E.g.: a old log that says something like "found it 30 meters north of posted coords", or "nearly stepped on it" is much more useful than a recent log that says "found it with BeachBunny on our 30 cache seep of the area" or the ever popular "TN LN SL TFTC".Wouldn't it be easier to just not store stale data?The method I use to handle this issue is to use GSAK to manage the data that I obtain with PQs. By leaving both the "is active" and "is not active" boxes unchecked the PQ brings you both types; as they are read into the GSAK database the disabled ones are marked as "archived" and you can filter these out. The problem remains that "is not active" only includes the caches that are temporarily disabled and not the ones that are permanently archived (which is probably as it should be). So if a cache gets archived without ever being disabled, then you don't get updates for that. The only way I have found to deal with that issue is to scan down column of "Last Updated" and manually check on these to see which are not being updated because of being permanently archived. In GSAK you can manualy change the archive status of such records.
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Someone opened the spigot and the pent-up geo-mail is flowing....
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The PQs I requested earlier today were created 2 hours ago and still have not arrived. Perhaps the mail server need some nudging?
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Parking is not an "attribute." All caches have parking; it is a question of where.
Not quite. As soon as parking is far enough away (which is obviously not a question of distance in time), there is no way of logically associating a parking area to a cache IMHO.
Let's assume that the parking area is some five hours' walking distance from a cache and fifteen minutes by cablecar - would you associate the parking area to the cache???
BalkanSabranje
I would think that if you have to take a cable car, then that will be specified in the text. In this example the "parking neaby" attribute would probably not be selected unless you make it a multi-stage that starts in the parking lot of the cable-car facility.
I suspect the descritive text for the meaning of the attributes need to be pretty specific about the fact that "parking" means being able to park any normal sedan (some folks at this site pride themselves in driving their off-road vehicles to ANY location on the plante and parking it there) and that it refers to a clearly legal parking spot (not in front of a gate to private property, 3-ft shoulder, etc). Also, as BalkanSabranje illustrates, the term "nearby" will need some definition (I would suggest 512ft).
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The most common problem that I am aware of it due to the logic of the page. If you check both "found" and "not found", then you will not get anything; to get a PQ with the caches that you found as well as the ones you did not find, then you need to leave both these boxes unchecked.
Ditto for any mutually exclusive items such as "available" and "not available".
If this does not resovle you problem, then open up the PQ screen at the GC website, and grab the URL (the http://... line) and paste it into your message. This allows us to look at what you are doing (we can not edit yours for you; for us it is a copy to look at).
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When logging a find I can drop a TB; but I can no longer do it when I edit a log that I made earlier (the little drop-down list is missing on the "edit a log" page). So now I can only drop it by making another post to that cache page rather than editing my log.
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At launch (early January) we'll only have the ability to view attributes on the cache listing and edit attributes for each listing. Once that is properly tested we'll start adding search capabilities.
We'll need some sort of incentive program to get folks to update their cache pages. Maybe something like: anyone that gets her/his pages updated within the first week after launch gets a free TB, or a discount on something, or some other goody.
I guess with the "search" part not coming up at the start of this, we wont be seeing this feature in PQs for quite some time. Any ideas on time-frame (3 months, 6, longer)?
Will the gpx files include the new attributes at launch, or is that something that we would be waiting for?
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I would say that most geocachers would prefer that you segment a monster cache into a series of separate caches and then make the final stage dependant on the others. So instead of creating a 5-stage multi-cache with a difficulty of 5 and terrain of 5, create 4 traditionals with lower difficulty (maybe ranging from 3.5 to 4.5) and then letting the last one depend on these 4 in some way. This will also make servicing a lot simpler for you.
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I would suggest skipping the purchased paper maps. Instead go straight to the software products that you can buy. You can then superimpose the cache waypoints right on the map, so that you can see exactly where you need to go. Like so:
Then you print that out and use it as your paper map. You can get whatever detail you like by zooming in or out.
The above is a small cropped screen section from DeLome Street Atlas (Microsoft Streets and Trips can do this as well but lacks features that DeLorme has). The sample illustrates one of the major reasons why I use maps: I hate ending up on the wrong side of a river or creek. With maps you can generally tell which side you need to appoach from.
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Hey, this tread is so great, why don't we do this in all the threads. But then with more meaning...
.... wait ... oh yeah, we already have that feature.... nevermind.
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I have often wondered how to do a large number of caches per day. When I first started I thought 10 caches/day was pretty extreme. Now I do 10 caches per day pretty routinely (but only on weekends and holidays). I find that level fairly satsifying. I don't shy away from hard ones. My personal highest in one day is around 25 and on that day I didn't start until 10 am and had to stop at dusk (about 6pm). Basically if I plan a route in an area that I have a good map for, and have someone with me that is willing to drive and follow my navigation instructions, then I can generally get 4 to 6 per hour. If I did only the easy ones then that number would be higher. I have tried to do a bit of night caching, but I can generally only get 2 or 3 per hour in the dark.
With regard to some of the general comments about about power cachers, I would say that the comments may be a bit misguided. I have met a lot of cachers and I find that none of them fit a stereotype like that. I would say that most do all types of caching adventures. It is generally not practical to mix them all into the same caching trip.
Another thing I might share from my vantage point: if you have 1000 caches found, then you probably have very few to find near your home. Thus every trip out to go geocaching means a substantial road trip. Most of us want to get as much into that as possible.
The main suggestions I would make to someone who wants to try a day where the primary focus is the numbers (i.e. purely for the sake of getting a high find count): (1) go into an area where you have not been before and where there is good cache density, (2) plot them out on a map, (3) inspect all the cache desricptions on-line to remove any from your list that seem absurd to you and to solve any puzzle caches and to identify any special equipment you might need (step-stools, tweezers, gloves, flashlight...) - and select many more than you can reasonably do (that gives you options), (4) transfer all waypoints into your GSP before you leave and print out or put into a PDA all the cache descriptions, (5) Bring a friend along who is interested in helping you search; the more friends you have with you the higher the rate.
At the end of the day, it will have been fun for many other reasons than the high cache-count. My main advice: Enjoy - but stop as soon as you find yourself not enjoying it. If the number thing is not for you, then do it your way and don't worry about what others think or say.
Gc.com's New Look
in Website
Posted
I agree with Hemlock; I prefer the way that there is now less screen space dedicated to background. I have to increase my broser's display font size to a greater level than typically intended by the page developers and I need all the screen real estate just to see what I need to see. In fact, I would not be upset if the border around the sides were completely eliminated.