
ClayJar
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Posts posted by ClayJar
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When I first started, people were willing to give the benefit of a doubt to the admins who pour themselves into running Geocaching.com as well and as responsibly as they can. Now there are far too many people who assume the worst just because they don't get their way.
Originally posted by bigredmed:Now we are seeing the same kind of rigidity with VC's. Pretty soon, these will be dumped. Again, not to grow the game into a new direction, just to dump them.
In a sense, the coming of adversity from the outside necessitated changes that themselves incited adversity from within. Yet, perhaps, the addition of some of the more reasonable voices of dissent has strengthened the geocaching community. As long as the greater geocaching community doesn't let the disillusioned few taint their vision, having dissent may help in the long run.
As for myself, I must say that my style of caching has changed greatly from when I signed up as a neocacher back on May 29, 2001. I can only hope that in the same way my caching style has matured into less of a compulsion and more of a welcome enjoyment, I have also grown from being just another user to become a useful supporter (by assent or dissent, as necessary) of the geocaching community.
(Oh, and of course, CITO was a mere mention in the beginning, but now I'll TO, even if I'm not CIing at the moment. I even picked up trash at a park during lunch the other day, for no reason other than I decided to have lunch there and it needed some picking up.)
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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(Disclaimer: In order to get Pocket Queries, you'll need to be a paying member of Geocaching.com. You can send $3 to try it out for a month, or it's $30 per year, and if you don't think it's worth it, well, you will.)
Okay, if you get Pocket Queries in GPX form (one of the options, and by far the most widely useful), you can use programs like Watcher to do all sorts of cool things. Watcher will, for example, let you sort and filter by a great plethora of things.
For example, if you want to filter out anything with terrain less than three and a half stars, and also remove all micros, virtuals, locationless, and webcams from the list, and then sort it by distance from one of the caches (or anywhere else), and also only include caches south, southeast, or east of you, and hide the ones you've already found... Well, Watcher will let you do that. (That's just one example. There *are* a few things Watcher *doesn't* have yet, but brdad's keeping that list so I can tackle them as fast as I can get to them.
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Anyway, I should be around the geocaching chat tonight, and others are there as well, so if you'd like a little tour of what Watcher, gpsbabel, Spinner, gpxdoc, and all the rest of the stuff can do, I'm sure most of the regulars would be delighted to show off. I have a feeling that a few minutes with Watcher will be enough to make a couple bucks to support the site (and get PQs as a benefit) seem like you're stealing Jeremy's candy.
(Just to give you an idea, the columns available in Watcher as of a couple versions ago include, but are not necessarily limited to: Cache Status, GCID, Waypoint Name, Travel Bugs*, Ignore List*, Found List*, Marked List*, Cache Type*, Cache Name, Placed By, Cache Owner, Cache Size, Difficulty, Terrain, Distance (and direction), State, Country, Coordinates*, Date Hidden, Last found, Last Not Found, Exported Date, and Log Icons*. [The columns with a * cannot be sorted, since no logical sort exists, but the rest of them can be sorted in any order/sub-order/whatever... You can sort by Terrain, sub-sort by Difficulty, sub-sub-sort by State, sub-sub-sub-sort by Owner, and sub^4-sort by Cache Name, if you follow.])
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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Yep, because otherwise he'd have all of the application developers scrambling to figure out where the new type came from and what it is.
Originally posted by Jeremy:The current design of the site would stick them into pocket queries, so I need to fix that before I can allow that feature.
(Incidentally, if you decide to somehow let the approvers get their approval subqueues in PQ form, not that you would, of course, but if you do, I'd gladly add it into Watcher for them, as long as I know what it's called.
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[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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Every time someone mentions new cache icons I think about Watcher's cache icons... then I go on about my business. At least so far, I've received no requests to change Watcher's icons, so I suppose I'm safe.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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Um, then again, a lot of the desired features can be provided via PQ GPX applications (Watcher, Spinner, etc). If you want a feature that's not provided by default, it may be something that can be done locally. (And doing it locally means you can do it however you'd like, too.
Originally posted by brad.32:Oh, so geocaching.com will only have cosmetic changes and people should start splinter web sites when they want additional features and otherwise duplicate this site.
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If canoe rentals were available, it would not fall in the terrain 5, special equipment required, category. It would be similar to a cache on a populated island where a ferry is the only access; you don't need to bring your own boat. Any fees that may be required should be indicated on the cache page, of course, but that's just common courtesy.
Originally posted by Team Bamageek:I know one place in particular where a boat is required becase a cache is on an island, however, the cache is fairly easy and also there is a canoe rental available on site. Would a site like this still require a 5 rating?
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This is yet another thing that would be handled by the oft-discussed (sometimes at length) "cache attributes". Once we get closer to them, I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion, but in the meantime.
An offset cache is indeed a multi, as there is, by definition, more than one waypoint (the original and the final).
As for a puzzle attribute, there exist caches wherein only one waypoint is used, but that waypoint does not have its coordinates given in cleartext. Such caches are single-waypointed, and so they do not qualify as multi-caches. If, however, the "puzzle" were to find some relation between the published coordinates on the cache page and the actual coordinates, the cache would involve more than one waypoint and would therefore be a multi-cache.
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A "boat required" (i.e. "hydrocache") flag was among the many "cache attributes" discussed at length. It may be a while before such "cache attributes" are implemented, but they were indeed discussed at length a while back and from the sound of things, they'll come in time.
In the meantime, we're just going to have to do our best. (I have the opposite "problem"... I'm *trying* to find them.) Anyway, don't begin holding your breath just yet, but don't give up on it, either. Eventually it'll come (but you'll still have to read the descriptions, just in case a cache doesn't have the flag set).
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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If you are going to pursue this line of thought, then take it to the logical conclusion. Throw out all the cache types and all the cache sizes and the bathwater and the baby, and then just have cache attributes without anything else at all. Then you can be content with something like:
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*OR* we can keep the cache types and cache sizes and sometime in the future add cache attributes. There's no reason to create a different type for every possible combination, and there are plenty of reasons to abstain.
[Y/N] Logbook[Y/N] Trading[Y/N] Theme[Y/N] Waterproof[Y/N] Rectangular[Y/N] Blue[Y/N] White[Y/N] Green[Y/N] Purple[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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At first glance, the comment about "virtual" being a member of both the cache type and cache size enumerations is irrelevant. However, upon further consideration, one could easily say that the existance of the "virtual" designation for cache size *substantiates* the case for *not* having a "micro" cache *type*.
Why bother having a "virtual" cache size if there already exists a "virtual" cache type? Quite obviously, because the container is not necessarily the defining datum of what type of cache it is. For example, if you have a cache with more than one waypoint, it is *by definition* a multi-cache. The type, then, should be multi-cache, regardless of the particular size of the waypoints. The existence of a cache size parameter allows the cache hider to specify additional information regarding the items or information to be located.
To call a multi-cache that is made up of informational waypoints with no physical containers a "virtual cache" instead of a "multi-cache" of size "virtual" is to lose information. While the existence of both a virtual cache type and a virtual cache size is indeed redundant, it does not in any way substantiate any hypothetical need for additional size-dependant cache types. If anything, it indicates an inefficiency in cache type and size designations, although it is easily noted that to "correct" this redundancy would not be advisable due to application and user expectation issues.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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If a new cache type was added for every style people came up with, we would rapidly evolve a tremendous number of cache types. This is a programming problem, since it would affect not just Geocaching.com, but also all the other programs that make use of the data (Watcher, for example). Watcher would have to be extended for every additional type added, and it would make selecting by type rather unmanageable.
The issue lies with the fact that the number of cache types must be kept low in order for the cache types to be useful, but since the number of cache types *is* limited, it is impossible to put every possible variation into that set of cache types. The proposed solution is to add something called "cache attributes" to the fray. What these "cache attributes" would be are "flags" to stick on your cache to label it as a whatever. "Puzzle cache" could be an attribute; "themed cache" could be another; et cetera.
One useful thing about these "cache attributes" would be that they are not mutually exclusive. You could have a multi-cache that has both the "puzzle cache" and "themed cache" markers set. Additionally, "cache attributes", being a very diverse set of values, would be handled significantly differently from a programming perspective. (I won't bore you with details, but "cache attributes" would logically be assumed to be a many-valued set possibly including unknowns. The approach to using them programmatically would be different than an assumed invariant set of options for a single type declaration, even though technically one *could* use similar methods.)
Anyway, long story short: No, it wouldn't be wise to extend the cache type value enumeration for every possible cache style (and anyway, that would not be capable of handling multi-valued options). "Cache attributes" are a much better and complete solution to the problem, but we don't have those yet (they have been discussed at length previously, but there is still much to do implementation-wise before they can exist).
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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Although fun and games are entertaining, for some at least, I would be remiss if I were to abstain from voicing an additional "Please, not here" vote. Geocaching fun and games for the little ones might be nice, but please not via a "cute" cursor or something.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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If I've said it once, I've said it thirteen bajillion times (well, okay, at least twelve times), if you want to do the things Watcher does, just use Watcher already.
(This doesn't fall under the "if Watcher doesn't do what you want, ask for it" banner, since Watcher's done this for umpteen years... well, at least for a very long time.)
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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Well, since you double-posted, you'll have to just ignore this and see the other post.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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Do me a favor? Sign up with infone (888-411-1111) and see if they'll do geocaches. It appears that they probably would, and if you try it, you can let us all know. It's free for the first 5 calls, and after that, it's 89 cents for the first 15 minutes and 5 cents each after that.
If you were out in the middle of nowhere and decided you needed coordinates to some caches, 89 cents wouldn't be too bad, eh?
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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Um, Watcher doesn't *rate* caches at all. The "status" smileys are simply there to give a ***very*** rudimentary summary of the last (up to) five logs. They are useful for getting a very quick, very simple overview of the last five logs, but they *certainly* are not qualified to be a *rating*.
Originally posted by Prime Suspect:It's not unlike the flawed scheme used in Watcher to rate a cache as good/okay/poor/bad, where a single cache hunter can give a cache a "bad" rating if they're having problems with a tricky cache.
Edit: Here's a direct quote from the Watcher help about the cache status icons. If you would like to suggest additional or alternate language, please feel free to do so.
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Cache Status: This column displays the cache status using a simple formula. This column can be sorted by clicking on the column title at the top of the screen. Descriptions of the icons are as follows:No not-found or archive it logs, and at least one found.
Found log since last not-found or archive it log.
No found or archive it logs since last Not-found log.
"Needs Archived" is the latest log type.
Only notes.
No logs.
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[This message was edited by ClayJar on October 15, 2003 at 04:18 AM.]
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As long as we're mentioning the software that already does this, take a look at Watcher. It's been doing multiple center (i.e. "home") locations for quite some time now (including sorting, distances, and directions), and it has the ability to have a "todo" list (and also the ability to stick notes on caches... so if you start a multi, for example, or if you need to remember something about a cache you did, you can do that in Watcher).
Anyway, feel free to try Watcher out and tell me about anything you see that you like or don't like (or even that you don't see). It may be getting near a year old, but it's not really slowing down much yet.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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Webcam caches used to have the standard options when logging them, but recently, "Webcam Photo Taken" has taken the place of "Found it" on webcam caches. I had to release a new version of Watcher to handle counting "Webcam Photo Taken" as equivalent to a "Found it" log, and I imagine they're simply a little lagged in getting an equivalence added to their code.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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Frankly, although I abstain from replying to the archival mentioned in this thread, I will point out that it is far more logical to post a new cache page for each meeting. Then they all remain there for future reference. As far as handling the "so everyone gets notified" thing... um... just *post a log* to the old page pointing to the new one?!?
I know of a few who do the "recycle the old" thing, and I know of many who rightly give a new cache page to each new event cache (and even link to the old ones), and it's so much nicer, indeed. I believe you're doing it wrong, but that's up to you.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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I just give each PQ a different name when I create it, and then I upload all the Mobis to my PDA, merge all the GPX files in Watcher and filter them into sets based on various and sundry criteria, and then load those onto my Meridian's SD card. I don't exactly understand what problem you seem to be having, as I've had files from almost a dozen PQs on my PDA at one time.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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It sounds like the problem isn't that they now prevent people from moving caches, since that is adequately covered by the ability to disable a cache. Rather, as you validly bring up, some users do not understand about temporarily disabling caches. This could be regular old 'mericans just not bothering to read, in which case there's only a little that can be done (perhaps giving an "Are you sure you want to archive and not just _temporarily_disable_ this cache?" would be valid).
As for the non-natively (or even not at all) English speaking people... that's a bit tougher. I don't know if the rewrite has made Geocaching.com translated UIs more possible, but that seems as if it's a question worth asking. Without native translations, I'm afraid that it's up to the user to figure out what things mean, which is indeed an additional burden compared to their English-speaking counterparts, but language problems are orthogonal to the discussion at hand.
As for the subject at hand, i.e. the inability to arbitrarily change coordinates without approver interaction, I don't see a problem with that. You had to get the cache approved when you created it, and if you move it that far, you're making a new cache. It might be in the same container with the same contents, but just because you're recycling doesn't make it the same as the original. (If coordinates didn't matter, then what was all that piracy thing?)
Perhaps a more acceptable solution for you would be to allow you to move the cache arbitrarily, but if you move it too far, it drops back to the approval queue? That would make it completely unviewable in the meantime, and if it never got reapproved, what would happen then (could you even view the 'archived' cache if it was never reapproved)? I would much rather see the hider temporarily disable it, but perhaps you are of another opinion?
*Would* you think that, perhaps, de-approving it would be a more valid way to handle it? Then the coordinates could be changed at will, but it would preserve the reapproval process. Just an idea. I can't say it would add extra work to the approvers, either, since they have to change the coordinates as it's set up right now.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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Nah, it's surely in the *millions*, perhaps even *billions*!
Originally posted by Captain_Morgan&Family:I would like to see how many caches have been archived because the owner can't change the coordinates. Tens, hundreds ? And what's the situation after a year?
[...]
Oh well, now it seems that some poor rookie geocacher went to search his second cache and searched it from totally wrong coordinates, thanks to this new "feature".
Um, is it just me, or would this be a good opportunity to remind people that, should there be a problem with their cache, they can temporarily disable it? Seems easy enough to me: there's a problem with the cache that prevents it from being viable, at least for the moment, so I disable it. Now, admittedly, I did win a National Merit Scholarship back in my day, so I might not quite be average, but surely it can't be *that* difficult to figure out, eh?
(Oops, did I say
? I'm sorry, I must have meant
.)
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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For the first part, you're asking if you can select and print multiple cache pages right from the list? That was mentioned by someone as a possible Watcher feature a long time ago, but nobody seemed to want it. It might be interesting to think about adding something like that to Watcher. (Drop by the geocaching chats sometime; it'd be an interesting thing to discuss.)
As for linking the hint from the cache page in Mobi, yeah, that'd be sweet. (It can take a minute or two to look up the hint... then again, I really ought to use one of the GPX->PalmDoc tools... in fact, I should get to adding the PalmDoc export module directly to Watcher. It's way overdue.)
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
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Since this is the third post, see the original post to reply.
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System
Cache searching
in Website
Posted
If you want to have all the options and extras and capabilities and all, then by all means augment your browsing with Pocket Queries and programs. If you want just the basics, then here you are. Until you've tried Pocket Queries with Watcher et al, you might not see how useful they are, but they are indeed that useful. (You do one query to pull up to 500 caches, and then do all the searching and sorting and filtering and converting and mangling that you could almost ever want. It's like having Geocaching.com on steroids on your desktop, but if you don't want that, you can always just stick with "plain ole" Geocaching.com.
)
[[[ ClayJar Networks ]]]
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