Morton

Believe it or not, I actually considered changing my real name (Richard) to Morton. It was after I'd been on a conference call with four people all called Richard, and I thought... perhaps it's just a bit common? I might have done it, except that I'm "known" professionally and it would have meant I'd have to go back to square one building up a reputation. Morton's a name I've used for all kinds of things over the years, so it feels very natural to me - I can't even remember why I first chose it now, but it would have been waaaay back in the early 90's.

I'm sorry, but Moote is right - there are various bits and pieces of legislation and statutory instruments which require you to publicize your real identity, as well as a contact address (which I see you do already have in your Ts & Cs). These include the Business Names Act 1985, the Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008 if you're incorporated, and (since you're selling stuff over the web) the Distance Selling Regulations 2000. To be fair, a HUGE number of websites don't contain these details. The most likely realistic consequence is that they'll find themselves unable to enforce a contract, or will be at a disadvantage if they're sued for any reason. As Moote points out it'll also put savvier customers off ordering in the first place. Fortunately, it's easy to fix just by including your real name (or company's legal name) and contact address, and if you're a company your registration number, country of registration and registered address - all in an obvious place on your website. Burying it in the T&C's probably isn't a good idea, although you'll want to get proper qualified advice if you care about that one. Cheers Richard (a company director in real life)

This is really a "me too", but in threads like this I guess that's still helpful. The iPhone app is frustratingly limited, but still good enough to be worth buying. Forget any thought of using it for multis, or anything else even remotely complicated like that. It doesn't understand additional waypoints and you can't change the coordinates it has stored for a cache (except by a baroque arrangement involving uploading a modified GPX file to gc.com). Also, don't expect your iPhone's GPS to be as accurate as a dedicated device. Some people swear that it is, but that certainly hasn't been my experience. I've got a 3G. What it *is* good for: If you unexpectedly have a few minutes waiting for a train or something, and just want to have a quick look to see whether there's an easy cache nearby. Before I had the app, it had never struck me to want to do this, but now that I can I've found it's good fun. Also, it's brilliant for logging. Basically you can submit a draft log called a "field note" from your iPhone, which is private to you so you don't have to worry about any typos etc. Then they all show up in your account on the website, where you can easily tidy them up and submit them properly. I like to write "proper" logs but I always found it a bit of a chore if I'd been on a big trip - now that I can do them in bits and pieces during the day, it's enjoyable again. The £5.99 price tag is a bit steep for an iPhone app, but not very much in the overall scheme of things. So I say go for it.

...that's except for viewers in Scotland, where the "needs done" construct may be used in polite society without fear of embarrassment. I'm guessing the same might be true of (parts of?) the US, but I don't know for sure. (But yes, perhaps a less abrupt phrasing would be helpful, which I realise was your main point...)

Quite. It's a shame that people have to be this way. What it is completely valid to say, though, is that the series will be better if you're discerning in choosing the locations... Placing a cache (of any size) outside every fire station in the area might not make for the best experience. On the other hand, if they're historic sites, or offer you an interesting view of something you don't normally see - and especially if there's some good information on the cache page - well, great Best of luck with your series. Cheers Richard From Edinburgh, birthplace of the professional fire service. Oh, all right - Paris might have beaten us to it by a year or so. But we don't talk about that.

It's not exactly the most helpful holding page I've ever seen, but the two numbered paragraphs are quotes from Groundspeak's release note of Nov 4 (here it is). I assume it's intended to point out the irony that Groundspeak broke INATN in the same release that they decided to start linking to it. What this (almost certainly) means is that the last PQ you uploaded is still safe and sound and working fine, but that you won't be able to upload any more until the problem is sorted. Cheers Richard

Speaking as one old-fashioned enough to turn and nod every time I walk past the Cenotaph, I've done many of these from the Scottish series. It would be crass to put something actually on the memorial itself (and would probably be against all sorts of other placement rules anyway), but I don't feel uncomfortable when it's a few feet away. Spending time at a memorial doesn't show any disrespect; quite the reverse. Of course it does depend on the manner of your visit. I'm always careful to take my time and pay my respects properly. If a car full of cachers pulled up, noisily stormed around for a couple of minutes and then raced off again, well that would be another thing entirely. Perhaps it depends a bit on the individual monument as well. There's one in Edinburgh which is essentially used as a picnic area; nobody seems to mind, and in fact it's quite nice that there are always people there. On the other hand, I passed a very formal one in Brighton the other week which was decked out with signs telling people not to sit down. I don't think either's right or wrong, they were just very different.

A six-figure reference is accurate to 100m, which on your map would be 1mm, so it's possible to measure it accurately. From what you're saying, though, I think the problem is with the grid lines drawn on your map. The OS 1:50k (Landranger) and 1:25k (Explorer) maps have grid lines drawn every 1km, so each four-figure reference corresponds to a square that's already drawn on the map*. That makes it relatively easy to measure or estimate the proportion of the distance across the square, and get the six-figure reference that way. If you're having to work off a map which doesn't have lines at each four-figure reference, then it will all be that much more complicated. Unless your test calls for you to use this particular map, I think you'll find it a lot easier if you use a Landranger - or Explorer, but Landranger is probably more realistic if you're planning to navigate on roads. If you're a member of a library you may well find you can borrow them! Cheers Richard * As there are known pedants in this forum , of course if you round properly the four-figure reference represents an area surrounding the intersections of the lines, rather than the square they make. But "4-digit-reference = square" is a good visualization for the sole purpose of reading off the six-figure reference...

The first 5 digits are the easting, then the last 5 digits are the northing. The "extra" digits in each case refine the accuracy in exactly the same way as a 6-figure grid reference refines the accuracy of a 4-figure reference. So for example, AB 12345 67890 is near to AB 123 678. I'd advise you NOT to try to use British grid for caching, though. It feels appealing because it's the system you already know, but everyone else uses lat/long - for example, multi-caches will always give you final coordinates in that format. If you use British grid some of the time, you'll forever be switching back and forth between the two formats. And that can get confusing... as I discovered a couple of weekends ago when I wound up trying to find a cache using the wrong datum Cheers Richard

Completely agree with Amberel, above. It was released too soon. I got some way down the path of developing a cartridge, but found the Builder too clumsy and buggy for what i wanted to do. At that point, I had the skills and the desire to switch to writing the cartridge in LUA (the programming language which underpins Wherigo), but was stymied by a complete lack of documentation. I too am involved in software, so this isn't just a naive user expecting everything to be perfect. I also had at the back of my mind that this is all a money-making wheeze for Groundspeak. I have no problem whatever with the principle of that (I have my own business, and making money is what it's all about). However, it made me less willing to persevere and overcome the problems than I might have been if it was, say, an open development project. All's not lost though - I could easily be brought back on board when they release the next version. The initial experience has been disappointing, but not terminally so. Cheers Richard

Warning - I have spent some time in the past looking at this area, and I believe I know what I'm talking about, but I'm not a qualified lawyer either. Place no reliance on the following. Volenti is indeed the principle which endorses risk-taking in any sport, and other areas of life. It's an absolute defence, which trumps all other considerations. But it only applies to a risk which a reasonable person in the claimant's position would have known about. It doesn't completely free the other participants of all responsibility. Example 1: You place a cache in woodland, in a moderately overgrown area 50 metres from the path. A would-be finder trips over a tree root and breaks his ankle. A court would probably decide that a reasonable person, on looking at the area, would be aware of the risk of tripping over a tree root. The court also accepts that the cacher entered the area voluntarily and no duress was involved, so volenti applies and the case against you is thrown out without further discussion. Example 2: You place a cache in an area where there are a lot of open mine shafts. You don't mention this on the cache page or do anything else to warn people, and there are no fences or notices on the ground. A would-be finder falls down a mine shaft and breaks his leg. A court might decide that a reasonable person wouldn't have anticipated the risk of falling down a mine shaft. Volenti doesn't apply - which doesn't mean you're inevitably held to blame (for example, you might not have known about the mine shafts either!), it just means that other factors would come into play. As with so much, this is simply a formalization of common sense, but of course no two people ever quite agree on what "common sense" is. So to make absolutely sure a reasonable person knows about a risk, it may be prudent to tell them about it, even if it seems obvious to you. You need to be specific, though - general "disclaimers" like "you assume all the risks" don't achieve much in this area, because they don't contribute much to a reasonable person's ability to understand the risk they are taking. I once (in New Zealand) went on a trip where you got to walk on an active volcano, and the company which organized it made me sign to say that I knew active volcanos could erupt. It quite seriously hadn't occurred to me until that moment Cheers Richard

Yes, and that link makes it clear that there were extensive negotiations between the BMC and the relevant authority (English Nature in this case), resulting in a quite detailed definition of exactly where you can and can't go in the area. (For anyone who hasn't visited the link, "you can't strip the crag of vegetation" isn't a full summary of what it says ) If you went through a similar process with your (hypothetical) geocache site of choice - leading to formal documented agreement with the landowner and the competent body in your area, and with the limitations all explained on the cache page - then I'm sure your friendly local reviewer would be happy to publish the cache. This doesn't change the basic fact that [a] there are places within some SSSIs where it would be illegal to allow the placement of a cache, there are other places within SSSIs where it wouldn't be illegal to allow the placement of a cache and [c] the landowner will know which is which because they get served the notification. So, no blanket bans, no blanket permission and no simple summary of the rules; it has to be discussed and decided case by case. Sometimes life's like that.

This isn't my area of expertise so the following should not be taken as advice. But from a quick look, Section 28 appears to allow the appropriate authority to make an order which says, for example, "the cliffs in this area are a special habitat which might be damaged by climbing them". The landowner then may not permit that activity to happen, except in various special circumstances. If the landowner then knowingly allowed a geocache to be placed where it could only be accessed by climbing the cliff, they would obviously be "permitting" it, in my view, and would be open to prosecution. (Of course the more important reason for not placing the cache there would be a moral one - to avoid damaging the sensitive area - but as the law has been brought up, I think that's one way it would apply. There may well be other ways too.) The key thing here is that it's perfectly possible for the SSSI next door to have completely common-or-garden unexceptional cliffs, but be important for some other reason. In that case, the order wouldn't mention the cliffs and it would be fine to climb them, all other things being equal. So the comments like "there's no blanket ban on placing caches in SSSIs" are true (subject to landowner permission of course) but not necessarily relevant. As Deci said: "Sometimes there are specific reasons why a cache may not be placed in a specific location, the Landowner being the best person to know this."

I realise this is a very old thread, but for anyone who searches the forums in the hope of finding a solution to this problem - here it is. If you are in a region which uses dd/mm/yy date format, and created and saved a cartridge with a version of the builder created before the second February release, you may not be able to open it with the latest Builder. The solution appears to be to edit the .lua file in a text editor (such as Notepad), locate the dates near the top of the file which look something like: cart[your-cartridge-name].CreateDate="15/02/2008 20:33:23" cart[your-cartridge-name].PublishDate="01/01/0001 00:00:00" cart[your-cartridge-name].UpdateDate="18/07/2008 23:58:27" cart[your-cartridge-name].LastPlayedDate="01/01/0001 00:00:00" ...and change the dates so they are in mm/dd/yyyy format. Then the cartridge will open. The backwards-compatibility bug was presumably added by the fix for localization issues described earlier in this thread.

I don't think that would be allowed actually. From the listing guidelines: "GPS usage is an essential element of geocaching. Therefore, although it is possible to find a cache without a GPS, the option of using accurate GPS coordinates as an integral part of the cache hunt must be demonstrated for all physical cache submissions." Coordinates which just lead to the general area don't meet this criterion IMO. The Stagecoach Stash cache quoted above meets the "integral GPS" rule by having a micro cache you need to find, using your GPS, first. It's quite a neat way of including both elements in one hunt, and maybe would help draw people across from one style to the other. I've always imagined the idea behind a letterbox hybrid was "dual listing" - that you could provide separate letterbox-style instructions and geocache-style coordinates which led to the same box. But I'm guessing and could well be wrong. Cheers Richard

Hi Chud I didn't express myself well by implying I meant "the same as everyone else". I actually meant that moderators should be able to state an opinion in their role as moderator. There's a role for friendly advice as well as formal sanctions. Previous UK-based mods, including Lactodorum and Eckington used to do this sometimes. But I agree with the wider point you make. Cheers Richard

Oh, come on! We all know why sock puppet accounts are a problem, we all know the nefarious ways people use them - and we all know that creating an account for your dog doesn't fall into any of those categories. Why make an issue of it? If you want to be legalistic, though, I see that the guidelines define a sock puppet account as one created for the purpose of posting anonymously. On the assumption that mtn-man's dog is identified as such, the guideline doesn't seem to apply. (In the interests of balance, I perhaps ought to say that I didn't see all that much wrong with the original posting... unless it contained messages which I didn't spot. But then, mtn-man didn't delete it - he just said he thought it wasn't a good idea. And he's surely as entitled to express his opinion as anyone else is.) Regards Richard

Oh good Lord - what have I started. There's nothing to see here, move along

I'm not sure you can put a logical explanation on it James, it's just that some things are still raw and tender, while in other cases we're at peace with ourselves. I don't think the amount of time passed has much to do with it. Here in Scotland for example, I'd be moderately careful what I said about Culloden, and THAT happened in 1746. If I had cause to refer to Sharpeville in some public context, I'd be especially cautious - primarily because it's part of the narrative of a complex and sensitive period, easing towards reconciliation, and about which I know very little. It's extremely difficult to understand the nuances, and to spot the unintended apple-carts our words might upset. One specific thing I'd do would be to avoid the word "massacre", notwithstanding that it's commonly used to refer to the tragic events of 1960. I realise that many people are going to disagree with me on this one (and, sorry, it's very unlikely I'll be willing to debate the point, for exactly the reason outlined above). As in previous posts, though, I'm trying to present an alternative point of view. Best wishes Richard

Alan Mandarin's detailed post highlighted several reasons why she stepped down. In the other thread, you expressed a belief that one of her paragraphs was the "key" one. This paragraph was indeed to do with Groundspeak. In doing so, you chose to overlook the paragraph in which she alluded to the behaviour of certain forum contributors, particularly their treatment of reviewers. I can't and wouldn't try to second-guess the relative importance of the reasons. But it concerns me that you're trumpeting the one involving Groundspeak - while ignoring the one which could, perhaps, reflect a little bit on you, together with everybody else here. Regards Richard

I concur. Mandarin's post is admirably reasoned and balanced, and highlights fault on all sides. I've taken on board the parts which didn't quite fit my previous worldview; it would be nice to think that others will find it within themselves to do the same. Although I haven't contributed much here lately, I still very much appreciate the efforts of the forum moderators and I'm sorry for how it's ended. Thank you mandarin and Deceangi.

Hello, and thank you for taking the time to reply. "Not posting" isn't the same as "not reading". I assure you I've been following avidly, as I suspect many more are doing still. That said, there have been a LOT of threads recently - so if I have indeed posted exactly the same as someone else, feel free to count it as a "me too". Just so long as I'm counted somehow! I don't honestly see how that would have worked. At risk of stretching the analogy till it breaks, it would be like speculating loudly in front of my GP about why I might be taking Prozac, than asking my GP to outline a few common reasons why they prescribe Prozac. If the GP had any sense they wouldn't get involved. In your thoughtful post http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...t&p=3699111 you acknowledged the possibility of "causing a little embarrassment", and pointed out, to put it crudely, that it would be the cache setter's fault. To an extent I agree, but there have been cases lately of people using the forums to challenge reviewer decisions about caches they didn't set. So - while it might have killed that one discussion - as I said in my previous post, I would only see the general clamour getting greater and greater. It is a fine judgement, though, and I wouldn't for a moment suggest everyone should agree with the reviewers' decision. The main point of posting was to say that not everyone disagrees with them, either. Thanks again Richard

...leads to a tornado in Idaho. It isn't the size of the thing, it is its wider consequences. Nice to hear from mandarin on a couple of other points, but the question, the big one of what was wrong with the last little bit dropped from mcwombles cache page to get it listed, isn't being answered. It is only a tiny detail, but the issue of what is ok and what isn't ok to refer to on a cache page is a far larger deal. Deceangi has explained why he isn't answering. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...t&p=3699084 You might disagree with the reason, but you should at least acknowledge and respect it. Here's an analogy. If you ask a doctor to explain why they'd prescribe a particular drug, they could happily reel off a few "guidelines"... but if you ask the same doctor why they prescribed me that drug, there's no way they'll answer the question. Personalizing it with a specific example changes the context completely, and once you've personalized, there's no way back. Now I do realise that what we're discussing here is nowhere near as sensitive as my medical records, but it's still true that - if I were a cache setter whose cache had been rejected by a reviewer - I wouldn't want them to discuss the situation in public. Let's not mistake discretion for censorship: it's been made clear the cache setter can reveal the dialogue if they want to. Mcwomble chose not to do that, so the reviewers are sticking to their principle of confidentiality. I think that's the position they have to take - even for this storm-in-a-teacup example - or the demands in this forum would just grow more and more strident, and there'd be no way ever to draw the line again. For what it's worth, I also think it's a principled and honourable position; and one that's been maintained in the face of a hostile, sometimes even nasty, debate. So with due respect to you, Simply Paul - and while agreeing that you have considerable reason to be upset with Groundspeak more generally - I find myself feeling it's the reviewers who are "standing up for traditional values" this time round. Regards Richard (One of the silent majority... or is it a minority? There's no way to tell. Either way, I've watched some of what's been said - not by Simply Paul - with increasing horror, and I've realised that if I'm to be true to my values, I can't be silent any more.)

I think so; at least, I have a set of coordinates which is near a road near Raleigh. If I lived in the area, I'd be confident enough to go to that location and expect to find the cache there. If I'm correct, solving the crossword clue is 90% of the way towards getting the coordinates - though there's a BIG intuitive leap you have to make to get the last 10%. It's really a very neat idea and no, I've never seen it done before. Cheers Richard

I should know better than to even consider posting to this thread, but... If it's really just Paypal which puts you off, there's an option to pay directly through Groundspeak. Go to http://www.geocaching.com/subscribe/ and then look for the link which says "Groundspeak Store" just above the Paypal buttons. If you do it this way, Groundspeak charges your card directly in US$ and there's no Paypal involved. (Why they offer the choice is a mystery to me, but I assume there's some good reason.)