Yamar

A counter proposal that I think more people would approve of would be to allow some PQs be marked as "not a priority". I have quite a number that I'd mark that way if there was a mechanism to do so. EG, I have PQs that send me all my found caches (for reasons I won't explain here). I certainly don't need those run at the top of the queue, but yet since I run them once a week they come fairly early in the day.

You can actually do this as a premium member with pocket queries. You can set up a pocket query to give you all the caches with bugs in them centered on a coordinate set.

Yeah... I never understood why there are two markup languages now. I suppose the square brackets are a bit easier to use, but only just barely. sigh... Now those of us that know both can't figure out which site uses which form. (then there is slashdot, which uses a modified version of HTML... sigh...)

Cool, thanks. I actually usee a newer copy but didn't know they added that functionality (those changelogs are annoyingly boring to read the few interesting items out of the list of more mundane fixes... I wish they'd separate it into features/fixes).

Did you convert it from the .gpx file to something mapsource understands first? mapsource doesn't read the .gpx files directly. You need something to convert it like gpsbabel, or gsak or ...

It's not that easy, I'm afraid. If you read past forums you'll find that different caches take different amounts of work. The reviewers are quite busy and spend a lot of time reviewing caches and thus the process is far from just simply clicking a checkbox. The longer caches (multis for example) often take longer to approve because there is more work to be done to assure they're ok. The short answer is: be patient. The longer answer includes: give the reviewer as much information as you can in reviewer notes about things they may notice. EG, if it's near a rail-road track say it is and how far it is and put a warning in the description that cachers need not go anywhere near the tracks. Everything you can do to help them out in reviewing it will speed up your approval. And remember, they're volunteers!

Jeremy, The website design is far from broken. It's quite good. It's not perfect, IMHO, and hence my attempt at suggestions to help you out. Anyway, the problem I was originally trying to get around in some of these threads was not how to contact the Groundspeak staff. The guidelines say to contact your local approver. IMHO, that's where things are lacking and where a link would help. (I wouldn't think that adding a link would justify changing the date, actually, since you're not changing the wording of the policy). Feel free to close this thread if you're tired of listening to us. I'll personally leave it open for now as it does seem discussion is still continuing.

You should wait till you see my "Can't we all get along cache" I've been meaning to place for a while... Might be a good time to start planning it I think.

Yep. We're at an impass. There isn't data to list an easy way to contact a local approver or find out who one is (even though the guidelines suggest in multiple places that you should contact a "local approver" with questions about a potential placement before beginning other parts of the process). Newbies will either have to look at the near by caches and figure out who the approver might be or figuring out that the forums exist and posting there. That seems to be the official policy of the site and if so, then that's that. I'll close the topic. [if anyone has something informative to add that hasn't been stated, let me know and I'll reopen it]

This: to this: "If you have a cache idea you believe is novel, <a href="http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?act=Post&CODE=00&f=6">contact Geocaching.com</a> before placing and reporting it on the Geocaching.com web site." Actually... there are a number of instances in the guidelines where the link would be useful. This is one example out of 4ish.

Good, so you have html code you can cut and paste from ;-) :-) :-) :-)

This suggest was only to make it easier for people to contact their approvers, especially if they're not certain who it is. As many have pointed out, you can jump through less-than-obvious hoops to figure out who your approver is and contact them. My suggestion was merely to help newbies figure it out in an easier and straight forward way. Personally, I don't have a problem. I know who my approvers are (though I have yet to place a cache to the far west of me where the approvers are quite possibly a different crowd; I could still figure it out by looking at the bottom of a number of web pages. But wouldn't it be easier on everyone if there was a simple address mapping to mail to that would get automatically redirected?) Anyway, it's been explained that this isn't possible since the data is not there to create a mapping. Thus, my suggestion is unimplementable currently I believe.

Actually, the paragraph above already talks about that:

Excellent suggestion. Can we make the move happen (someone)?

That's what I was afraid of. Oh well, it was just an idea to help the users. If it's not possible, then it's not possible! Thanks.

Anyway, question answered (distance from any point to any point). Thanks for the info. That's what I suspected but just noticed it wasn't in the "guidelines". IMHO, it should probably be put in there just for clarity sake. (since the answer was found, I'll close the thread)

It's about the website, right? I was merely trying to help by posting suggested edits to the guidelines.

Edited to remove a comment some found offensive (it wasn't supposed to be. Huge appologies if you thought otherwise). Adding more smilies. :-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-):-)

No no no. I do know who mine are. But, they did recently change and I didn't know that during the change period. And they do change. And there are multiple reviewers and I want to mail them all at once and don't want to have to personally keep track. When everyone is forced et personally keep track of stuff like that, errors happen regardless of how old a cacher is or how new (who certainly make more). It's just a convenience. A process improvement. Likely, it's an easy one. And it would be much more accurate. (I'd bet that my potential cache-placement circle overlaps multiple zones too but I don't know where those boundaries actually are.)

These sorts of problems seem to crop up enough that maybe a 1 week or so extension would be wise for ending times (with a warning message sent via email). If a user did actually pay up for the next period, it obviously would start from the original closing date so they couldn't get free time.

'Virtual Cache Logging Guidelines Logging a virtual cache find requires compliance with the requirements stated by the poster, including answering the required questions by e-mail to the poster, providing original photos if so requested, etc. Answers to questions, hints or clues should not be placed in the logs, even if encrypted. " Why is that section in the rules about posting new caches? People who are logging virtual caches do not read that page. Only people creating them do. It should be removed, IMHO (and placed somewhere else if deemed important).

I've been searching the rules for specific details about the 512 ft rule trying to answer this question (hence the reason for the other questions because I've been doing a critical review). The problem is the guidelines don't answer it, and my local reviewer doesn't do exceptions (as previously mentioned, this is probably a good thing IMHO to avoid confusion). I found a plaque the other day that completely startled me. I had no idea about this piece of local history. But it's 450 feet from the start of another multi. I can't make it a virtual, of course, but I was thinking about making it a multi where the final cache would be father away from the conflicting one (of course). However, the guidelines only talk about distance generically and don't reference points along the line. Is it distance from start to start? Is it distance from any point to any point? Is it distance from any point along a line to any other point along a line for the other cache? (eg, if 1 multi has a .2 mile gap between the two points, is another cache allowed right at the .1 mile point in between?) I realize that most approvers don't even have knowledge about start end and middle points, but some do and wondered what the official ruling is on this topic?

It'd be quite a bit nicer if you could email your local approvers in an easy way prior to setting up a cache (as is frequently recommended in the forums and in the rules). It's hard to do this in areas where multiple approvers may be in control of an area. Specifically, if you could email some address and have it get to all of your local approvers it would excellent. There are a few ways you could do this: admin-state@admin.geocaching.com admin-ZIP@admin.geocaching.com for example. You'd need the reviewer help to do this, of course, but it would be fairly easy to do the first since I think you likely have the info. The second would be much more useful in high-density states, however. I think eve that would be fairly useful. You probably have coordinates for admins already, and that an a admin-search radius tied to the zip code DB would easily let you create mail alias maps.

"If you have a cache idea you believe is novel, contact Geocaching.com before placing and reporting it on the Geocaching.com web site." Might I suggest you put in a quick () note saying what method to use when contacting the web site? There are a number to pick from (many of which discussed above). A link would be even better.

It would be easier, as I've suggested, to implement many of the checks during submission time as warnings. Many of the rules are codeable such that warnings or errors can help reduce the load of the approvers so that only the acknowledged exception requests need to be dealt with.