Toniczech

I'm also facing the same above mentioned bug (first noticed it at about 02:45 UTC today, on beginning of my early morning GC session at PC). The "nearby caches" ling on cache listing pages gives a list of caches nearest to my Home Location instead of correct list of nearby caches related to that particular source cache location. For me it is especially serious disruption in my GC life, because my visual handicap prevents me from seeing location of caches on maps and I effectiveůy reůy on "nearby caches" textual display as the primary (and only) method to get at least some grasp of caches location within a particular area of interest. In a situation, when I need to make preparations for a GC trip to Copenhagen within next several days every hour of such an unsolved disruption is very very unwelcome... :-( I hope it will be fixed soon.

For me it comes as a very undesired and unpleasant change. At least I'm glad, the old search (which I prefer for many reasons, already mentioned by fellow cacjers here, remains accessible via the old-style url string, but, If possible, for me a general opt-out switch (akin to opt-out I use every month to stay by the old logging form) would be very appreciated. Such is my opinion as a veteran cacher who is PM: A significant part of my GC-activities revolve around using the old-search and the new search makes many of these tasks difficult or impossible to carry, The old compact layout of the table is much more useful and for me personally much more visually accessible. I'm geocaching with a serious visual impairment. Which means everything on my monitor is displayed at 300-400 % size. The new search is not very space-efficient even when displayed in 100%, but gets very very expanded and stretched when viewed at higher percentage of size. The result is that the right half of the table disappears beyod right limit of the screen, while the visible left half seems to have a lot of space between columns seemingly unused. This is in sharp contrast with the compact way old form looks. Secondly, as a big local "caretaker" I spend quite significant amount of time searching (via "nearest", "hidden by" etc. links from cache listing pages) for potentially orphaned, neglected or othervise endangered caches, with the goal to fix them, to make other fellow cachers to fix them, to mediate their adoption etc. This includes lots of search, not even for the (until yesterday) simple task of discovering and indentifying those endangered caches, but also for assesment of status of their creators/owners (i. e. recent trends in their geocaching activity - how much they were caching last yer compared to year before etc.). The same for evaluation of potential future adoptive owners - the search through their hides and finds is essential for evaluation of their capabilities to function as a responsible and long-term reliable CO. The NM icon in the old form is extremely helpful in this process. One can instaneously see which cache in the particular area or in someone's portfolio of hides needs attention and help from others. I consider this an essential feature and demand it to be incorporated enen into the new search. Another thing I must object, is the way cache icon is handled. The new form shows the icon of archived caches in a "faded" white version, which is very impractical for my visual imparment - while the color icons are easily to distinguish whether the cache is Traditional, Multi, Mystery or whatever, the faded icons seem effectively all the same for me. (The same objection I have towards analogous icon handling in archived listings.) I concur with the demand on default sort by date found and with the demand on including the date of my visit to the new search. IMO the way the old search handles this, is quite good (two dates below each other in one column - one for the other person's date of find, second for my date of find (if my find exists). Well, I can imagine that two dates in one table column would likely be incompatible with the sortable nature of the new search. For this and many other reasons I call for keeping the old seach alive infinitely. Please don't phase it out entirely in some forseeable future. It still has a lot of usability, it is in some (for many people important) way superior to the new search and it is also the unbroken bridge, that connects GC two decades ago with the preset and with the future. This is my 20th year in the game; I have been in it throughout almost all GC history; and I never witnessed a website change with more profound (and, as I fear, in some ways potentially harmful and community-destructive) impact on the ways we work with cache search. I have been using the old search since 2002 and are quite comfortable with it. (In fact, as any searching "graophically" on the map is effectively extremely unfriendly to my eyesight; the more textual table of the old search is the only way I can effectively browse through caches on the website. The new search undoubtedly has advanced features that are (or will be, after some improvements) useful for many others, but the old serch remanins important for many and vital for some anyway. Bear this in mind when thinking over the future of the old search. What about a possibility to make the order of columns (and which of them to show or not to show) somehow customizable via user-set preferences. For me, in some context, the most important data come within last columns, while the middle of the screen is stuffed with info of less interest for me. Therefore I'd like a possibility to individually pre-set certain columns to "more prominent" left margin. Something like that. Also the possibility to individually switch-off displaying (in some contexts) "obtrusive" textual labels "ARCHIVED" and "PREMIUM" near above cache name would be appreciated. For me, as a PM the importance of such a info directly from search table is very low. The Premium status of a particular cache is enough detectable during a closer look into a particular listing of interest. For BM the "PREMIUM" label of course makes perfect sense. And what I'm missing in the new search, is a possibility of showing nearest caches for a position or region as they were "alive" on a particular date in the past. Eg. to be able to look exactly which caches there were in my country as of, let's say, May 1, 2005. GC encompasses not only 2D coordinates of space, it has also accumulated a lot of history in the 4th dimension of time. Let the bygone caches and stories and stories get closer and easily accessible to present generations of cachers. A possibility for them to see the cache "roster for the past", i.e. the spatial search displaying the respective results as if they were for any selected date in the past. And OT BTW thanks a lot for the not-long-ago introduced Great story feature. A complementary thumb-down button would be sometimes also useful. :-)

Thanks a lot for helpful advice. The issue of the "impassable "I agree" button really seems to be somehow related to log-in/log-out status. I run FF 52.9... under Windows XP and do not allow the browser to remember my username and password (i.e. the incorrectly remembered status apparently stems from the GC.com site itself, be it settings, cookies or whatever). At first I tried to log out in FF, but due to aforesaid pop-up window blocking the whole screen I found this effectively impossible. But after installing Midori 0.5 I was able to log in and click through the ToU consent, finally breaking the whole curse. :-) In total c. 16 hours of anger and time-wasting just because of some minor bug unnoticed/unresolved by GS programmers. Instead of greeting my friends at airport, instead of sending New Year's wishes and reports about cache maintenance recently performed, I was forced to waste my time in IT matters (Greek to me) - just because of some formal legal clauses added to ToU & PP - as a subscriber I found this a very unsatisfactory day of service. Tongue-in-cheek: GS makes us celebrate the official GC Day (and other GC "holidays" yearly. And they also bless us with several unofficial "IT Awareness Day" celebrations per year. ;-) So I pray: Let those more conservative users live and play in peace - less novelties (or at least opt-out possibility accompanying each of them) and more stability.

I have a seemingly unsurmountable problem to pass through the pop-up window that announces the changes and asks for my consent. Clicking on the "Í agree" button but nothing happens and I remain effectively stuck in the middle of the process. Is there any additional check-in box I need to activate or what? Not sure about that because of my visual imparment but anyway I can't see anything more than the announcement and blue "I agree" button below. Where I am expected to click or what additional action to peform in order to express my consent and to be eventually able to log a cache (as I had intended before the whole redirect to this ToU matter). In contrast, the changes of bookmarking interface in autumn, desoite seemingly using similar pop-up window interface work fine (although with some degree of visual inconvenience) for me. So what's wrong? Thanks for your advice and help.

The new format of Subject is of almost no use for me compared to the old scheme Who Did What, which contained tho most important infos in the initial three words. In the new format I have to read through almost whole line in order to get at least part of it. Please restore the old scheme (or at least make a customization through personal settings an option. I run dozens of notifications for Publications and Archivations covering the whole territory of our country plus adjacent fractions of neighbouring countries. This means there are dozens of "initial coordinates" quite randomly scattered over the territory watched, thus making any information obout distance and direction from such a point meaningless for me. For me of much better value was the name of Rewiewer responsible for the action performed - one could easily at one glance guess the region/countra behind it. Also the replacement of "Published" with "New" seems very unhappy to me. As a keyword used in mail filtering Published is much more specific than New (there are many caches that simply have the adjective New in thire names and perhaps even some cachers). In any case (as you offer no History tool (akin Wikipedia's History) which would allow users to search and see which caches existed by a particular date in the past - this is more and more important as our game gets older and older) I have to visually pass through many dozens of Archived notifications daily in order to sort them and put them into appropriate regional bookmark lists of archived caches (and similarly to pass through many dozens of Published notifications. What I expect in this process is an easy-to-read (for humans!) formatting of e-mail Subject. But the new format slips almost contrary to obscurity and does not allow for fast reading. "Watchlist Notification:"? IMHO the word Notification is completely redundant here, Watchlist is enough, like prior to the change. The same applies to the "Owner Notification" redundancy. Owner was completely OK. "XY cache has a new log"? What type of log?! That's important for me. Whether Found it, it is of less priority, not necessary to read through all of them at given moment but Write note may contain some important news and so on... I need to see the type of log in the Subject. And I would also like to ask you for removal of graphics from notification and watchlist messages. It is only distracting. And the same for e-mails to another player. GS graphics is appropriate for the Weekly Newsletter but not for private messages between players. I am very very very angry that you introduce novelties with deep impact on daily functioning and routines of your users without really consulting them and without offering them an opt-out from changes or making such canges matter of personal Settings. I ask all responsible people in the Hamster City, please stop introducing new and new crap nobody really needs nor wants and create some feature really usable for many - I think users would appreciate a Sandbox for testing of new listing without creation of actual GC-code in their personal menu.

I share AHA's objections too. At least for some of experienced geocachers the old report form "all-in-one-page" was of better use than this "feeding step by step with a teaspoon". Any chance of getting the optional link to the old form back? For a comparsion have a look to Wikipedia: Their developers also gradually introduced lots of similar wannabe "progressive" features regarding skin, editing interface and - very similarly to our case - form for image uploads - but, what is important, they apparently have their users in higher esteem, because they keep the older variants functional and accessible for those users who prefer them.

Today I have the above mentioned problem too. Logs below 25 most recent not loading and Cache Logbook does not display any log at all. Using WinXP Pro SP2, Chromium 16.0.886.0.

Yes, I'm encountering the same problem after last night site upfate: Loading of logs at bottom of cache listing page freezes with a "Loading cahe logs" message after 20 or so newest entries and the Cache Logbook / All logs page doesn't even show a single one log (showing "No logs found" message). I use Chromium 16.0.886.0. Fix it as soon as possible, please - without access to logs of others the fun of the game is severely diminished. And one more critical remark: To have Log your visit link renamed into Found it seems to me as a wrong step. Many logs are of WN, DNF, NM etc. sort, therefore it seems unappropriate to label the access to them in such oversimplified manner as FI.

As a native from that country I suggest: Feel free to write your logs in English, especially if they are short. It is more genuine and more comfortable - not only for you to write but also for many Czech cachers to read. And what more, it is also a subtle way to show demand for an "international" version of the listing which is often missing.

As www.geocaching.cz has been down since November 12, some aspects of geocaching life in the Czech Republic are heavily disrupted. I hereby ask the administrator and all skilled volunteers from CZ to make a joint effort in bringing the hub of our community back to life as soon as possible. S výpadkem GC.cz postrádáme řadu věcí důležitých pro tuzemskou geokomunitu. Zvláště s ohledem na čerstvou televizní medializaci je taková situace dvojnásob nešťastná - návody a fórum mají pro nováčky vitální funkci. Situaci je třeba řešit a myslím, že prozatím by bylo nejlepší vést diskusi o opravě tady, oficiálně přes tohle fórum, protože je provázané s našimi stávajícími účty na GC.com, což předejde zmatkům s anonymitou nebo dokonce vydáváním se za někoho jiného. Úvodem by bylo vhodné, kdyby nás admin podrobněji seznámil s okolnostmi a technickými aspekty celé záležitosti. Pro mne samotného jsou tyhle počítačové vymoženosti těžko pochopitelná magie, ale máme ve svých řadách spoustu spoustu spoustu expertů (jak ostatně hromady mysterek i logů k nim dokládají ) a někteří kolegové už předběžně asistenci se zprovozněním stránek přímo nabídli. Nuže, hic Rhodus, přátelé, dokažte, co umíte.

Wouldn't it consume/waste too many waypoint designations if everyone does so?

I'm used to write quite long logs. Several hundreds of characters at least, even more... And that 4000-limit sometimes badly affects this so that I have to split my log in one Found it and one (or several) Note(s) following it. Why the need for such workarounds, why so much inconvenience? Couldn't you guys from Groundspeak lift the length limitation at least up to 10000 or 15000? And one more feature I propose: One can freely and unnoticed work on a listing before it is published. OK. But once listing goes published, every change I make is imminently displayed to public, because there is no "sandbox" option for already published (and possibly long time working) caches where one could test and change text and graphics of the listing live on GC.com, without hesitation and fear of possible disturbing readers with such experiments.

Thanks to Jedla for the map and list of regions of the Czech Republic and to BalkanSabranje for adding of this topic to our local forum. As for me, I prefer the division into 77 former districts (okresy) than 14 new regions (kraje). (You can see both on the map above.) The older division into districts (though unofficial now) is still quite living and common among people in CZE.

Czech packet for Estonia is on the way.

As the forum is in Czech only, I add an advice, how to post your message there. Go directly to NEW THREAD (Nove vlakno) page and write, what's on your mind. You don't need any registration. Some useful words: Jméno: = Name: (your name or nick) E-mail: (it will not appear on the site) Nadpis: = Topic: Zbývá napsat: 4096 písmen = 4096 letters left (you have enough space to express yourself) Text: (your message)

We still need someone from Cyprus, Latvia and Malta.

OK, I have understood it. I'm going to get some suitable items for you and the others to join us in the next days. My address is on way to you. I think you should try to submit this topic also in the Nordic and Baltic Countries forum. And as regards Poland or Malta, how about asking some of the few local cachers directly? So, here are three participants at this moment: SLO - Marep SVK - Igi CZE - Toniczech Waiting for the seven remaining...

Zdravo, Marep! I'm from the Czech Republic and would like to participate in this project too. In our country we have all caches and their finds on GC.com, but there is also a base site of Czech cachers www.geocaching.cz with forums and map. Where should the pan-EU cache be - in Slovenia or in Brussels? :-) And what is the expected size? If you wish, send me details by e-mail. Toni (Toniczech, antoni AT post cz)

So here is the territory of my geo-activities - Czechia. I have also some finds in other countries (Hungary, Austria, Germany), but the map doesn't show them all.

I sometimes carry my GPSr in pocket instead of wristwatch...

Regular or micro - it's your choice. There is no exact rule for it. Here is my example: I was using a 0.5 l container for one of my caches. The cache was listed as a micro, but in the description I mentioned: Not exactly a micro cache, but smaller than a regular one. IMHO the containers of volume smaller than 0.5 l should be listed as micros.

My daily maximum is 28 miles for only two caches. I was hiking in border area between Germany and the Czech Republic and there was no border crossing for 8 miles, then I missed the train and had to go another 6 miles to the town... I did about 20 miles several times, but usually from 5 to 8 miles.

No, there are some caches (about 20) only on GC.sk. Slovak and Czech languages are mutually very well intelligible, so I'll try to translate some basic instruction of them into English for you (but you'll have to wait a few days). This situation is very similar to that in Hungaria. The Hungarians have an excellent http://www.geocaching.hu, but in Hungarian only (which is all Greek to me) . Their "geo-traffic" concentrates on GC.hu and only a minority of Hungarian geocachers logs their visits also on GC.com. There is another reason (except the language), why some caches in Slovakia aren't listed on GC.com. Not all of them comply with the GC.com rules (burried caches etc.) Slovak geocachers are very astute and some of their treasures are quite hard to find. We, geocachers (or most of us), like to share their "hunting experiences". We have different native languages - French, German, Czech, which allow us to express 100 % of our feelings and experiences. But only among people of the same native language. This doesn't apply for English as the language of our mutual communication. We're able to express (let's say) 95 % of "technical information", but much less of those "heart feelings" when we communicate in foreign language. That's why it's so attractive to use those GC.national sites. I appreciate the international character of geocaching and try to preserve it. On this point I'm agreed with most of my Czech colleagues. There is another important aspect - most of geocachers in CZE (and wihout any doubt also in SVK, HUN etc.) are people connected with IT or electronic, well educated and betwen 20-35 years of age. We can call them "1st and 2nd generation of geocachers". They can speak English. But as the use of GPS spreads, there appears geocachers, for whom English is quite strange language - major part of the mid-aged and older people in our country knows only a bit Russian... All Czech caches are on GC.com. We have our national hub on http://geocaching.globenet.cz or recently already on http://www.geocaching.cz. You can find there a map of caches in the Czech Republic (more detailed than on brillig.com). But this site serves mostly for the communication within our Czech geo-community, if we need to log our visits, we use GC.com. This is quite similar to the situation in Austria isn't it? I visit all caches I can. No matter whether it's traditional, micro, multi, city cache, deep forrest or high mountain. A cache is there - and that's enough. Please mail me when you intend to travel to CZE and SVK. By car? What type of lanscape do you prefer for hiking? We have some nice areas of limestone hills and sanstone rocks or volcanic hills (such a little Auvergne ) in Bohemia. I'm not so familiar with hiking in Slovakia, but give me a few days and I'll try to find out which maps of CZE would be the best for you. The whole territory of CZE is covered with two series 1:50.000 maps by KCT and ShocArt publishers. There are also 1:25.000 maps of some selected regions of northern Bohemia (Krkonose/Giant Mts., Ceskosaske Svycarsko/Elbe Sandstones, etc.). An electronic 1:50.000 map for GPSr use (based on KCT map, but with less details) has been recently published. I'll also send you some suggestions for good caches in CZE. ¨Meanwhile you can ask some informations using these links: Directories of information centers in SVK http://www.infoslovak.sk/english.htm and in CZE http://www.atic.cz (useful words: stredisko=centre, kraj=region, cestovni/a=travel (adj.)). Toni (Toniczech, antoni@post.cz)

You can order hiking maps of Slovakia through this site http://www.vku.sk/uk_05_03.html. Vojensky kartograficky ustav is a leading map publisher in Slovakia. The popularity of geocaching in Slovakia is not so low as it might see at GC.com, but local cachers prefer to use this site: http://www.geocaching.sk (in Slovak only).

I have cached in the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Hungary. Also found caches planted by Belgian, Finnish and US geocachers. I didn't notice any significant differences.