Gc.com Tries To Muggleproof The Listings?

[Mr.Yuck]

Mopar,

 

did you ever user the maps of Buxley's to prepare a geocaching trip ?

 

Don´t get me wrong, I really appreciate all the work that geocachers are doing to make  this hobby interesting, but the Buxley´s maps are not very helpful, because you can´t zoom in.

 

For example: Try to find a cache close to the town Siegen here at Buxley´s :

http://www.brillig.com/geocaching/germany.shtml

 

and then look at this map:

http://geocaching.homelinux.net/maps/mapde...liches%20Hessen

 

or at this zoomed version:

http://geocaching.homelinux.net/maps/mapde...l=hessen&zoom=1

 

As you can see most of the german cache owners are moving their caches now from Geocaching.com to Navicache.com and/or Opencaching.de.

 

Beardieteam

Buxley's maps don't zoom to the same levels in all places, Germany doesn't seem to zoom at all.

 

I'm not Mopar but I don't think he uses Buxley's for much...

 

Buxley's maps caches from both Navicache and GC.com so I must have missed how you've determined that german caches are leaving gc.com?? I've heard Navicache is relatively strong in Germany, but I have no idea how to find numbers for this, any help?

Wasn't there a time when the word Navicache couldn't be uttered in these forums?

 

Navicache is based out of Rochester, N.Y. btw. I have no idea why it is so strong in Germany.

 

Well since someone had to ask.....

 

A roundabout manual way, but here goes. you can tell the total number of caches on Navicache by clicking the "Newest Caches" link at the top of the main page when logged in. Today, October 24th, 2005, there are 237 pages of caches, 25 caches per page, 25 x 236 = 5,900. Count the number of caches on the "last page" which is 16, so Navicache currently has 5,916 listings.

 

Do a "detailed search" for Germany. There are 117 pages of caches, 25 on a page again. 116 x 25 = 2,900, there are 10 caches on the last page. There are currently 2,910 Navicache listings in Germany.

 

2,910/5,916 x 100 = 49.18 % of Navicache listings are in Germany.

[+stone-cacher]

Navicache doesn't scape this site.

That is true. Navicache doesn't scrape the web site. Many scrapers originate from folks who seem to just want all the data on the web site. And although some of them are "nice" to the machines (and database), most of them are not.

 

Buxley is working with Groundspeak to show Geocaching.com caches on the maps. I am not in the direct discussions so I don't know the details.

I became a premium member to support the efforts on GC.COM and to improve the work. I think that most of the new features are real benefits but the "hiding" of coords is not. For me they should be visible. If the reason to hide them is that spiders try to get the informations for additional features on their sites and create traffic by this, there should be another solution. Can't the coords and the basic cache informations (waypoint, name, type, date) be available for download? Why not have a place where all these informations are available on a "by country" basis? This could be a big benefit for the cachers and unload GC.COM. GC.COM can not provide interactive maps for germany as GEOCACHING.DE or Austria as GEOCACHING.AT. You can see it on examples with features "available only for US". Nice for the US guys but not so nice for german, austrian, swedish, french, ... guys. Give them a possibility to add some value to the basic informations (like a search via citycode (Postleitzahl) in Germany. The final link will always be to GC.COM and the logging will be done there. I don't like to publish my caches in Navicache or Opencache. I want a single database in GC.COM. But this database should be available for further use and additional features provided by others than GC.COM (maybe the download of the basic data by country can be protected with a password and only be availabe after another type of authentification).

 

And if some people just go for caches and do a paperlog without internet log. Why not? It's up to them. They might have their reasons but they like to go into the forests and visit the countryside. Let them do. Sooner or later they will log, be sure !

 

By the way: There are always some people trying to disturb. Just leave them aside and ignore them as long as possible. Normally they cool down after a while.

 

I hope my english is good enough to make my words understandable. I like GC.COM as the central database. I dislike the keeping of the cache data as "non public". The cachers contribute the caches to be freely used by the cachers community.

 

... and therefor I personally don't like "member only" caches. I will never go for one of this type (but that's my own decission, I know). This feature is useless for me.