Pi+m+s

Hi, I seldomly post, but felt encouraged to spill my feelings about the matter of hostility in forums... Perhaps people who trigger this hostility are not really angry, but incapable of putting nuances in their posts. In fact, in my old circle of fellow-students in Electrical engeneering, there are quite a few people who post on forums regularly and lacked this capacity of nuance even in daily face to face conversation. Together with the other lurkers, I'll go back to my more comfortable position of commenting without actually being overheard now...

While doing the dishes I was pondering over it some more. I still think there are two categories in attributes (not mutually exclusive) 1) Giving information to the potential cacher who found your cache-page 2) Providing information to a search-engine for those caches who have specific wishes. I hope most people agree with me that geocaching encompasses the Forest Gump principle: Geocaching is like a box of chocolates, you never know what ya gonna get. From this principle, I find that attributes of category 1) should still contain minimal information. Personally, instead of stating 'poisonous plants', I would prefer 'wear covering clothes', and instead of 'ticks' I would also prefer 'wear covering clothes'. On the other hand, because of 2), the attributes should contain 'often queried information', and therefore state details like 'boat' or 'swim' rather than just 'wet'. I think the desired level of accuracy for attributes can only be found by letting the number grow in a moderated way, and by looking at what is actually used in cache pages. Furthermore, editing the cache pages can be done in a similar way as with the clickable smileys. Only show the often used and most general attributes in the standard list, and save the more subtle attributes for an extended list that people may refer to if they want. Finally, it is very important to weigh the value of the symbols and their descriptions. I read in an earlier post that someone equated 'puzzle cache' with 'read the instructions first'. However, my feeling is that 'read the instructions' is MUCH broader, because I would hesitate to call a cach with the requirement to 'state the number of pilars in your log' a puzzle cache. Still it requires you to read the log. IMHO 'read the instructions first' is an icon of category 1), while 'puzzle cache' is an icon of category 2).

Hi All, I was pointed to this post because I asked a question about having a way to know whether a cache would include an interesting hike. Now, looking through the above remarks I summarize the following: 1) Adding attributes is already done. 2) Still, it is a great idea to standardize it in the geocaching.com site, because we may then run queries on them. 3) There is some (I think justified) concern about allowing too many attributes. 4) On the other hand there is some concern (also justified) about the right choice of names and detail for attributes. Furthermore I have the following ideas - As was mentioned by others, the idea of a 'prepare for anything' attribute appeals to my boyscout nature. - Furthermore, I feel the absence of icons DOES NOT SAY ANYTHING. So maybe we should be able to chose between YES, NO, Not Applicable, A Number (sometimes) and NO INFORMATION.

Actually, here in Holland there is no back country, just back yards So, regarding to your remark that you can always pick a parking lot that is further away, here the reverse holds as well. There is almost always a parking lot within 8 km / 5 miles. In this flatland, the only way to 'ensure' a longer hike, is by building a multicache. I like the idea of cache attributes very much. Some dutch cache pages already have icons in them that give more information about the terrain like buggy friendly and long walk. I haven't seen the 'bring your canoo' icon yet, but I'm looking forward to it!

Hi folks, I'm quite new to caching (11 finds) and extremely new to using forums, but as far as I could tell this one is not mentioned anywhere yet. I'm not sure if this is the right place for the suggestion, but here it goes: The caches I like best at the moment, are those for which you have to put your hiking boots on. Still, almost all regular caches and many multi-caches as well, take only 1 or 2 kilometers (yes, a european speaking) to finish. Often, the cache description contains some information as to the distance you need to walk, but I would be very pleased if there is some way to search specifically for caches that will require (for example) between 10 and 20 km. Any comments?