Geocachetourist.com

[+stenpils]

HNY All!

 

Just thought id plug a new site dedicated to being a quick look guide to the recommended caches in a particular area to try and capture the essence of the geocaching scene www.geocachetourist.com

 

The philosophy of the site is here: www.geocachetourist.com/geocache-tourist-raison/

 

Anyway i also thought this would be a good place to canvass your opinions on the interactive map of the UK + Ireland cacheing regions map on the home page, particularly in respect of factual accuracy.

 

Any thoughts greatly appreciated!

 

Cheers, Paul aka Stenpils

[+dartymoor]

I like the idea a lot, and the site already has the bones in place.

 

What I would like: Series recommendations highlighted, or a "day walk" of various lengths incorporating a series or a number of caches in an area in a nice way in my area.

 

A list of walks in an area, perhaps with a flag on the map for the start point. Length and terrain clearly marked on the list, and user rankings and comments.

 

Eg:

 

Devon Chulmleigh Loop 6 miles. 22 caches in series. 3 additional caches en route. Terrain 3/5. Views: 3/5. Caches: 2/5 Recommended by Dartymoor. Thumbsup: 12 Notes: Unfriendly stile make it bad for dogs.

 

Devon Aylesbury Common 4 miles. 9 caches in series. 2 additional caches en route. Terrain 2/5. Views 3/5. Caches 4.5. Recommended by Dartymoor. Thumbsup: 16 Notes: Pretty RSPB area, of interest to birdwatchers.

 

And so on. Perhaps even user ability to flag which ones they've completed, and email notification of new ones in your area.

 

The only downside of this would be when caches are disabled and the information becomes obsolete, so some user method of voting to archive walks needed too.

 

Also - your host is slow at the moment, and you've scaled some images instead of properly thumbnailing them thus making the graphic loading unneccessarily slower - but small gripes on a proof of concept site, overall it could be a winner!

[+Morton]

Paul - I looked at your website when it launched. I think it's a brilliant idea, and I'd have liked to have written a piece on Edinburgh. But I couldn't possibly accept the T&C "the content you’ve submitted is given over to The Geocache Tourist, and becomes the property of the website".

 

This goes far beyond saying that I don't get paid - it's requiring me to give up my copyright. This is a big deal because, for example, if a newspaper later asked me to write a similar piece, I'd have to be very careful not to infringe the copyright in my own work. It's just not reasonable to put that kind of constraint on an unpaid volunteer.

 

I know it's a tricky area and I'm a professional writer, so I probably have a different slant to most. Still - I wonder whether you really intended quite what you've written here. There are other ways of protecting your own interests without demanding quite so much from the contributors. I'd be very happy to discuss my concerns further, if there's some scope to bridge the gap.

 

Cheers

Richard

[+dartymoor]

Just been made aware of http://www.geocachetrails.com/ which seems to do much of what I wanted already!

[+stenpils]

This goes far beyond saying that I don't get paid - it's requiring me to give up my copyright. This is a big deal because, for example, if a newspaper later asked me to write a similar piece, I'd have to be very careful not to infringe the copyright in my own work. It's just not reasonable to put that kind of constraint on an unpaid volunteer.

.....Still - I wonder whether you really intended quite what you've written here.

 

Thanks for the feedback, you're right probably doesn't read as intended. But now I read it back I'm not sure how I intended it, but certainly not in a way that puts people like yourself off from offering advice, or evangelising about your local caching scene.

 

That term is now just plain gone, as a result, but I do wonder if I need to find a way of wording something that means - "only to be reproduced outside of this site with original author's permission" - because I imagine each individual author might have different opinion on whether they are willing to be quoted. It's a non-commercial blog site so there's no big copyright preciousness on my part, so no probs removing the contentious line! Thanks for pointing it out. :-)

 

@DartyMoor, yes the trails site is a good one - it's Trail-centric whereas GeocacheTourist is area-centric! I've spoken to the site owner of trails just to say hi, and chew the phat about operating such sites!

 

Edited for Typos.

Edited January 6, 2012 by stenpils

[+Morton]

That term is now just plain gone, as a result, but I do wonder if I need to find a way of wording something that means - "only to be reproduced outside of this site with original author's permission" - because I imagine each individual author might have different opinion on whether they are willing to be quoted.

Ah, I see - that's the opposite of what I thought you were aiming for. Technically, you don't have anything to worry about there, because the default position is that nobody's allowed to reproduce anything without permission of the copyright holder. But it wouldn't hurt to put a standard "All rights reserved" in the footer or somewhere similar, just to stop anyone claiming they thought they had permission because they didn't see anything to the contrary.

 

What I *thought* you were aiming to do was to protect yourself against a contributor later saying "I never agreed you could use it in the way you are doing (and so here's an invoice)". The normal (ethical) way to do this is to say that the contributor retains ownership but grants you a licence, on some terms which you clearly specify. For example that's what Groundspeak do in Clause 6 of their T&C's here. It's getting a bit too esoteric for this forum, but if you contact me through my profile, I can point out a couple of things you might want to think about.

 

Thanks for getting back to me - I wish I'd written to you when I noticed it in the first place, but I was really busy at the time, and maybe I made an assumption I shouldn't have done. My apologies.

 

Now then, can I basgy Edinburgh?

 

Cheers

Richard

Edited January 6, 2012 by Morton

[+stenpils]

Now then, can I basgy Edinburgh?

 

Of course! Just let me know whether you want to send e.g. a word doc which I'll then work up, or whether you want author access to the Wordpress back-end and DIY - entirely your call - cool the first piece in Scotland. :-)

[+Haggis Hunter]

 

Now then, can I basgy Edinburgh?

 

Cool, I look forward to reading the finished article.