[FEATURE] Restrict Distance on "Nearest"

[knowschad]

It appears that when any of the various "Find Nearest" links are clicked, the radius used is 50 miles. I would love to have the ability to specify the radius (less than 50 miles is what I am most interested in). I would find that most useful when I sort by favorites. I want to find favorites near where I will be caching, not 50 miles from there (which I can get, of course, but only by paging through those further away)

[+Lil Devil]

I agree that some sort of interface to input distance would be nice, but in the meantime you can add &dist=5 to the URL, where 5 is the number of miles.

[knowschad]

I agree that some sort of interface to input distance would be nice, but in the meantime you can add &dist=5 to the URL, where 5 is the number of miles.

 

Good trick! I need to remember to look closer at URLs.

 

(Could this be a job for....

GREASE MONKEY!!!

[knowschad]

Moun10man, can I get an opinion on this before it scrolls out of sight? Thanks.

[Moun10Bike]

Who's Moun10man?

[+niraD]

Who's Moun10man?

Apparently, a basic member who hasn't logged in for more than 4 years...

[knowschad]

Who's Moun10man?

 

Why, a cross between two of the best geocachers in the world, of course! Mtn-man and Moun10bike.

 

oops... sorry.

Edited November 18, 2011 by knowschad

[knowschad]

Has this request been submitted, declined, or ignored? It seems to me to be a reasonable, useful, and easy to impliment request.

[Moun10Bike]

Has this request been submitted, declined, or ignored? It seems to me to be a reasonable, useful, and easy to impliment request.

 

As indicated in the pinned topic at the top of the board, we will rarely respond immediately to feature requests. If an idea is already in our database we will note it, but otherwise we will wait to see what ideas have the most traction before adding them to our database.

 

[+niraD]

If an idea is already in our database we will note it, but otherwise we will wait to see what ideas have the most traction before adding them to our database.

How do you measure "traction"? If someone posts a suggestion that seems obvious to others, and is completely non-controversial, then it isn't likely to get many responses. If you're measuring "traction" by the number of responses, then such suggestions will fall by the wayside.

 

Or do you want to encourage "+1" responses?

[Moun10Bike]

Sorry, but there is no objective measure for "traction". Assessing whether something is added to our database depends on a number of factors both internal and external. I can say, however, that "+1" responses have no effect on whether or not something is added. We'd rather see intelligent commentary on the need for a specific feature and why it is more important than the multitude of existing stories that have already been requested.

[knowschad]

OK, fair enough. But if an idea is allowed to fall off the first page, it is very unlikely to be able to gain such traction.

 

To facilitate further discussion,

 

Have you ever wanted to see what the most favorited cache is in your immediate area? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to enter a distance to look, instead of accepting the default of 50 miles?

 

 

 

On a more technical level, it has been shown that the ability already exists by using a distance parameter in the URL, so all that would be required would be a text entry box that would plug that value into the &dist= parameter.

[Moun10Bike]

I rarely use the "Nearest" links on a cache page for such functionality. They are supposed to be basic searches for what's around. If I want a more detailed search, I use the /seek page, PQs, or GSAK.

[knowschad]

I rarely use the "Nearest" links on a cache page for such functionality. They are supposed to be basic searches for what's around. If I want a more detailed search, I use the /seek page, PQs, or GSAK.

 

Interesting. I use it quite often to get a feel for the area before I decide whether or not to run a pocket query. For instance, I might want to see how many caches in the area that I'm interested in have been favored. Using the Nearest Caches link gives me a list that is sorted by those nearest my target, but once I click on the Favorites column to sort by that, I'm looking at caches 50 miles away. If I was able to specify the radius, I would be able to see the most favorited caches within the distance that I am interested in driving.

[+rediguana]

OK. The best reason I can think of is that the concept of Nearest changes over time based on how many caches one has done. If one is starting off in a cache-dense city, it may make a lot of sense to be able to set a starting nearest distance of only 5 or 20km, for example. Over time, as the near caches are found, the cacher should be able to expand the distance, e.g. to 50 or 100km depending once they've cleared out the nearer caches.