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'short description' purpose?

paleolith

By paleolith
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paleolith

+paleolith

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Posted

Does the 'short description' do anything besides appear as the first paragraph of the description?

 

I've read (in the past) everything I can find on gc.com and do not remember anything saying how the short description should be used. In my experience I've never seen it do anything else, so I've taken to leaving it blank on my caches because that makes maintaining the description easier.

 

But today someone mentioned to me that maybe some GPSrs will store the short description but not the long descriptions. Since my Vista HCx only holds 30 characters of description (nearly my only complaint about the unit), and I use all this space for cache name etc, I wouldn't have noticed.

 

Searching the forum yields a couple of comments which seem to support this idea, but just offhand comments, no details.

 

So what does it do? And is there documentation that I missed? I am an RTFM kind of guy.

 

Edward

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Prime Suspect

+Prime Suspect

Posted
Posted (edited)

Does the 'short description' do anything besides appear as the first paragraph of the description?

 

I've read (in the past) everything I can find on gc.com and do not remember anything saying how the short description should be used. In my experience I've never seen it do anything else, so I've taken to leaving it blank on my caches because that makes maintaining the description easier.

 

But today someone mentioned to me that maybe some GPSrs will store the short description but not the long descriptions. Since my Vista HCx only holds 30 characters of description (nearly my only complaint about the unit), and I use all this space for cache name etc, I wouldn't have noticed.

 

Searching the forum yields a couple of comments which seem to support this idea, but just offhand comments, no details.

 

So what does it do? And is there documentation that I missed? I am an RTFM kind of guy.

 

Edward

It's an anachronistic design. Originally, the SD was supposed to be a brief overview, and the LD was to contain more detailed info. But there's no place on the site where just the short or long descriptions are shown, so they might as well just be one big input field. The same thing happened with the profile pages. They used to be separated into these predefined sections (news, hobbies, etc.) but they were finally merged into one big input field.

 

A lot of people skip the SD entirely, since its length is so restricted, and just use the LD for everything. Originally the SD had wider margins, which set it apart, but that's no longer the case.

Edited by Prime Suspect
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dfx

+dfx

Posted
Posted (edited)
Many programs out there can look at just one or the other, if you are trying to download a lot of info to your gps, pda, or whatever else you my have, but want to maximize space, its possible to just load the short description.

this. the short description is a short description. some GPS devices or software packages (being fed the data through PQs) may display it in a kind of overview screen, giving the user a quick idea of what the cache is all about, with the long description being shown only when explicitly requested. not that i'm aware of any software that would do that, but it's possible.

 

personally i only put something in the SD for multis, telling the cacher about how many stages there are, how long it's gonna take etc.

Edited by dfx
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BlueDeuce

+BlueDeuce

Posted
Posted (edited)

Does the 'short description' do anything besides appear as the first paragraph of the description?

 

I've read (in the past) everything I can find on gc.com and do not remember anything saying how the short description should be used. In my experience I've never seen it do anything else, so I've taken to leaving it blank on my caches because that makes maintaining the description easier.

 

But today someone mentioned to me that maybe some GPSrs will store the short description but not the long descriptions. Since my Vista HCx only holds 30 characters of description (nearly my only complaint about the unit), and I use all this space for cache name etc, I wouldn't have noticed.

 

Searching the forum yields a couple of comments which seem to support this idea, but just offhand comments, no details.

 

So what does it do? And is there documentation that I missed? I am an RTFM kind of guy.

 

Edward

It's an anachronistic design. Originally, the SD was supposed to be a brief overview, and the LD was to contain more detailed info. But there's no place on the site where just the short or long descriptions are shown, so they might as well just be one big input field. The same thing happened with the profile pages. They used to be separated into these predefined sections (news, hobbies, etc.) but they were finally merged into one big input field.

 

A lot of people skip the SD entirely, since its length is so restricted, and just use the LD for everything. Originally the SD had wider margins, which set it apart, but that's no longer the case.

 

Honest question.

 

Is there a problem if I do use the brief overview/paragraph summary in the SD?

 

Edit: I mean technically.

Edited by BlueDeuce
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paleolith

+paleolith

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Thanks for all the answers. (I think.) I'll probably keep on ignoring the short description, unless and until GS comes out with official recommendations on its use. Without guidance, it seems the actual use is so varied that there's not much point.

 

Edward

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knowschad

knowschad

Posted
Posted
Because I was wondering. okay?

well, then: why were you wondering? because now i'm wondering too :(

 

Can I just ask a question without having it picked apart?

Why would you wonder that? Now you have me wondering if I can ask a question without having it picked apart. :D
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Mr.Yuck

Mr.Yuck

Posted
Posted

OK, but at least on the printer friendly cache page one can hide the short and the long description seperately :yikes:

 

Which is the reason I've noticed that so many people repeat the information they put in the short description in the long descriptiin. Just a Generic made-up example, a short description of "A quick park-n-grab in Washingtion Park" would be a one sentence paragraph. Then the people often will repeat that same exact sentence in the first sentence of their long description!! Seen it too many times to count.

 

Personally, I never use it. Go 'head, do away with it. :D

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