PQ issue with "date placed"

[+Hynr]

I note that when selecting the "date placed" year in both regular and route PQs, that the start and end years are limited.

 

In the route PQ the maximum year is 2007. So events that are coming up in 2008 are not included in PQs that use the “date placed” setting. I would point out that there are a lot of folks creating route PQs focussed on Geowoodstock6 GC134MJ and this cache is not showing up in such PQs for this reason.

 

In both types of PQs the earliest date is also limited. Logically this makes sense, but there are caches with corrupt placed dates in 1901 (GCWD69, GC14GMN, ... perhaps others) and these could only be obtained if the date range were allowed to go back to 1900. Since using “date placed” is the only method for dealing with archived caches, fixing this is important for many geocachers.

[+Isonzo Karst]

Yes, there were quite a slew of caches that came out with that 1901 date placement. They clutter up the oldest cache list. Some of the owners have manually corrected and some haven't. I hadn't thought about how it makes them invisible for those using date range PQs.

 

I hope that 2008 gets added shortly - we're definitely into January events being listed, aside from GW5.

 

There used to one with a 1700s placed date, but it seems to have been changed.

[OpinioNate]

I'll see if we can add 2008 to the PQ generator. As for the earlier dates, we can't be adding all the years from 1901 through the present day. For those few caches people should be contacting the owner, or if that doesn't work send them to contact@geocaching to have them fixed.

[+trainlove]

Perhaps the PQ generator should be changed to use 'Published DAte' not 'Placed Date'. Then there could be no possibility of an error, either intentional or otherwise.

 

Refer to the reason for that in this post:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...t&p=3084344

[+Hynr]

I'll see if we can add 2008 to the PQ generator.

"If"?????

 

As for the earlier dates, we can't be adding all the years from 1901 through the present day.

I agree, that would be a rediculous list; How about having the first item in the list be "<2000"; or "1900" if you know there are no earlier dates.

 

For those few caches people should be contacting the owner, or if that doesn't work send them to contact@geocaching to have them fixed.

I would send you a list for my region, but unfortunately, because they are pre 2000 and don't come in my PQs, I don't have them in my database with the corrupt date, so I can't search for them in my database. And since the PQ's don't allow searching for them, ... "Catch22"

 

But, OpinionNate, YOU do have them in YOUR database.

 

How about running this sort of algorithm: for every cache with a placed date prior to 1999, replace the "placed" date with the date of the first log. In recent months that would be the log of the approver and most likely a much less erroneous date, sometimes even correct.

[markandlynn]

I'll see if we can add 2008 to the PQ generator. As for the earlier dates, we can't be adding all the years from 1901 through the present day. For those few caches people should be contacting the owner, or if that doesn't work send them to contact@geocaching to have them fixed.

 

Can you suggest an easy way to obtain this information the only way i can think of is with a PQ which brings up a circular agument .......

 

If the cache placer can select the dates back to this why cant a pq do the same.

 

also what's to prevent them going back and editing the placed date straight after you edit it for them.

 

I see hynr had the same thought..

[+Markwell]

Advanced search page, go to the state. They'll be listed in date order. Click the last page and you should see the caches with the oldest dates.

 

A more elegant solution for the PQ generator: Since the system already has some type of calendar interface (it allows August 31, 2007 but when you change the month to Septemeber the 31 automatically changes to 30), why not have the min and max of allowable dates of the PQ to be the min and max of all of the published caches' date placed. That way no one has to monitor what dates are possible and extend the years, and we don't have to have horrendous dates.

 

If someone has a PUBLISHED cache with a date placed on July 15, 1997, then the system would allow that as the earliest possible date. When that cache gets archived or the date gets fixed to something more reasonable, when the PQ generator page loads the next time, it would check for the min date again (or run the query for the min date daily and store it somewhere else in the database).

 

Almost the same thing for the max date (once someone has a published future event for July 19, 2009, THAT would become the maximum allowable date for new PQs). I would suggest however that add at least one year be added to the max date (if not 18 months). Many people, myself included, have PQs set for a range of dates for a region - the most efficient way to get all of the caches without redundant caches included in the separate PQs. For example, I have date ranges from 2000-2004, 2004-2005, 2005-2006, etc.

 

The "most current" of my pocket queries has caches from July of 2007 to December 31 2010 (I had set this up a while ago). If that PQ didn't fill up to over 500, I could potentially leave it alone and be sure to capture all of the caches until Dec 31 2010. It will fill up before then and I'll have to adjust my queries and possibly make a new one - but then I'd like to be able to let the new set sit for as long as possible as well.

 

So I would suggest the maximum end date for placed caches be 18 months after the maximum date of published caches in the system.

[+Isonzo Karst]

I just noticed that the changes in the cache submit form now allow any placement year to be entered.

I edited a cache page of mine to 1800. This was accepted.

 

There used to be be a pull down menu on placement year that went back to 2000 and no further. The few caches with earlier dates were some kind of site hiccup. All the 1901 dated caches in Florida were dates created by the website, not the owner.

 

Now you can select any date! I think this may be step in the wrong direction....

Edited November 20, 2007 by Isonzo Karst

[+Miragee]

Here is one of those caches, GC16YY7, "Beyond Center Field," with the 1901 Placed Date that needs to be fixed. I emailed the cache owner and he wrote back saying he has tried to change the date, but cannot . . .

 

I have to manually update that cache since it doesn't come into my "Date Placed" PQs.

[+Hynr]

Still can't set placed dates beyond Dec 31 2007 in PQs based on routes.

Such PQs are now missing January events.

[+Markwell]

I just updated my PQs on Thursday, and chose Dec 31 2008...

[+Hynr]

The regular PQs go up to 2008; Route PQs only allow date placed selections up to 2007.