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Authorization ( Permission ) Database

adomatis

By adomatis
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adomatis

+adomatis

Posted
Posted

There are many discussions in this forum about getting permission to place a cache. It is such an essential element of geocaching, that I can't believe that so little has been done to consolidate what info has already been collected and put it in a place on geocaching.com that is easy to find and easy to use. Do we agree that this is a good idea?

 

- Doug Adomatis

Travel by GPS

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Ttepee

+Ttepee

Posted
Posted

I do agree that this would be a great idea. The caches that I have set up with cooperation from the parks are great. But honestly there's still something missing... I need to email the land use managers and ask if I may use them as a contact person to keep the door of communication open to the geocaching community. I don't want to become the local georat by reporting any newly placed caches.... but I would like people to realize that geocaching can be done with the parks support and enthusiasm.

 

It would be nice to have a new feature added that would collect this data. Just a couple of quick optional questions, Something like:

 

Park system/land owner identification

Contact email and/or phone number

Permit required Y/N

Special instructions

 

These being optional questions asked on a cache submission form. It does make sense that this information would be best collected and offered for viewing by geocaching.com It also does sound like a hefty project for a quickly growing and changing overworked website. How about giving us an idea though... is it something you geopuppets forsee in the future? or is it an area the website is trying not to get too involved with, leaving it more in the hands of local geo-associations? With more and more of us trying to legitamize and authorize cache placements it would be a very helpful bit of data to be able to share

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mtn-man

+mtn-man

Posted
Posted

Doug, good topic! Maybe Geocachers can post some of these areas here. People who approve caches are most likely spread around the country so starting a list here would be benificial. Local cachers know what is prohibited or not. Let's start posting those areas here:

 

*Georgia State Parks have currently banned Geocaching. (GGA is working to get them back under certain conditions.)

 

*Garden of the Gods Park near Colorado Springs, CO is asking that caches be removed. (I saw this one while researching caches to find while there.)

 

I support the Georgia Geocachers Association, or the GGA!

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adomatis

+adomatis

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  • Author
Posted

Thanks Mtn-man. Good info. but this thread could get outta hand if everyone contributed. I'm hoping for a simple database with property name, contact info, and guidelines. It would be great if it was a feature of geocaching.com. I hate to have to go to another website for cache critical info. My intention is to rally a consensus, get the wheels moving.

 

- Doug Adomatis

Travel by GPS

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Dekaner

+Dekaner

Posted
Posted

I read this last night, thought about posting, deciding I should sleep on it first. Well, I did, and here I am still posting.

 

I saw this awhile back on one of the other forums and I emailed the person trying to put it all together and got no response. No matter, we all get busy.

 

As I'm currently trying to place a few caches, I believe that this is critical information. Not only are we cutting through red tape to find the right person to talk to, we are saving ourselves and themselves lots of headaches. Further, I believe that some of these people can be used (with their permission) as references to further reinforce Geocaching.

 

To the point:

 

I would be happy to assist in anyway that I can to get this project off the ground. I can provide my services to develop or just simply host (at no charge of course) some sort of project. I co-locate a Linux server and support MySQL and PHP that I could make available. I can be reached at dekaner@kkf2a.com .

 

- Dekaner of Team KKF2A

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mtn-man

+mtn-man

Posted
Posted

Sorry, but I figured that this thread would be as good a place as any to place the information so it would be easily accessible to Geocaching.com. I can only imagine that there would be agreement that a central base of information about acceptable or unacceptable places to hide cache is greatly needed. I personally wish that people would post banned areas here (NC State Parks do not allow caching either, by the way). If not here in this thread, where Geocachers discuss Geocaching regularly, then where? (No offense Dekaner, but I would rather see the information being compiled where cachers are regularly looking.)

 

I support the Georgia Geocachers Association, or the GGA!

 

[This message was edited by mtn-man on May 11, 2002 at 08:44 AM.]

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adomatis

+adomatis

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks DeKaner! I was hoping someone would step up to the plate. I'll have to step aside when come to the back-end stuff, I'm not a programmer, but I can help in other ways. Let's start with a list of form fields:

Propery Name

Property Type (NP, SP, ...

Contact Name

Contact Title

Contact Phone

Contact email

Contact Address

Caching Guidelines

?

 

- Doug Adomatis

Travel by GPS

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adomatis

+adomatis

Posted
  • Author
Posted

No worries Mtn-man.

Regarding your comment about North Carolina, I have a cache, albiet temporarly archived, in NC newest "Gorges SP." I got permission from the superintendt. The cache is Turkey Pen #37 and I took it off-line cause evendently a bear got into it and I haven't had a chance to get up there in a while.

Anyway, Case and Point, we need a database because even though there may be a general stance against GeoCaching in a given park system, individual units within the system may allow it.

 

- Doug Adomatis

Travel by GPS

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Dekaner

+Dekaner

Posted
Posted

Ideally this would be a relational database.

 

Thinking about it from a end-user perspective, I would want to search the information two ways:

 

List any data for this area. -or- List any data for this type of park. Not necessarily in that order.

 

So we'd want to track the basics:

 

- Country (Lets not discriminate!)

- State/Province/Etc.

- County?

- City/Town/Etc.

 

And then:

 

- Location Name

- Location Type (It may not even be a park!)

- Current Stance Towards Geocaching

- Contact notes.

 

You may want more than one:

- Contact Name

- Contact Address

- Contact Phone

- Contact Email

 

Then you want information about what has transpired with that park logged as well for future contacts.

 

Eventually it would be nice to be able to have people submit their own information, but to move this project along would it be easier to have us enter it manually? I think we'll get a lot more lookups than submissions (well maybe not at first...)

 

Yes/No/Maybe?

 

- Dekaner of Team KKF2A

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adomatis

+adomatis

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I have no doubt that a permission database will get a fair amount of traffic.

 

It would be good to build the database with relational in mind. There is an obvious relationships between The property, the management, the caches, and the cachers.

 

As far as the user interface on the submissions side, a form with all the appropriate questions and answer selections seems straight forward. In regard to look-ups, I think keyword searching would be very important.

 

The number of comment fileds/text boxes should be kept to a minimun, using drop-down selection boxes, radio buttons, etc when ever possible.

 

What are the options for "Stance" Yes/no/maybe ?

 

I do agree there should be some room for free- form comments, allowing submitters to give important details.

 

I'll work on a form on my web that we can play around with. I invite other webmasters to do the same. Post the links here and we can practice making submissions on each other's site. What do you all think?

 

- Doug Adomatis

Travel by GPS

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Dekaner

+Dekaner

Posted
Posted

I don't want this thread to die, so I am posting an update.

 

Doug and I have been in conact over the past week and I am working on a beta to try out before we open this up to the public.

 

If anyone wants to be a part of that beta, please email me directly at dekaner@kkf2a.com and we'll go from there!

 

- Dekaner of Team KKF2A

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parkrrrr

+parkrrrr

Posted
Posted

"Province" is misspelled...

 

Beyond that, I think you need a property type of "Preserve", whether that means Nature Preserve, Wildlife Preserve, or whatever. Also, it might not hurt to have entries for entire organizations. I'm thinking, here, of an organization like ACRES here in northeast Indiana, which has over two dozen properties, some of which contain trails and so on, but one blanket stance on geocaching. It's not clear how precise the search will be, so entering a Property Name of "ACRES Preserves" might or might not be good enough.

 

warm.gif

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Travisty

Travisty

Posted
Posted

This is a great idea so I would like to bullet a few features that would be important to at least myself.

  • Standard permission form including someone willing to step up and be our contact for the landowner/park service for that area.

  • A way to limit the number of geocaches within a particular park or development.

  • A way for the landowner to revoke or reinstate permission due to heavy traffic or impact damage to the area or wildlife.

  • Therefore needing the ability to display off limits areas to fellow geocache placers as well as areas that already have permissions and quotas.

 

This would be very useful for everyone, plus you could tie comments that the landowner would like everyone to know about a particular area when you seek a cache in that area (i.e. close all gates, pack-out all trash, don't pester the livestock, be alert for snakes, don't eat the purple mushrooms, etc.). This would be good information that is not always made available on the cache page or by the cache placer, and would truly be valuable to us geocachers.

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adomatis

+adomatis

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  • Author
Posted

OK. I've made some changes based on suggestions made here. Please see the updatedPermission Database Submission Form on my web and - please, by all means - post your feedback here. This is a great way to hash out the form.

 

The more I think about this the more questions I have. I like having the submitter as an alternate, or back up contact. That answers some of my questions. Another set of questions I have are in regard to updating property records and reconciling dublicate records.

Any more comments? questions?

 

- Doug Adomatis

Travel by GPS

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Alan2

+Alan2

Posted
Posted

Great idea. Thanks for the form. One sugggestion. Yes or No - it's too easy to check No if the land manager as any concerns. Why not add Maybe - Please provide the following information or answer the following quesitons. Or "Call our office at the following number so we can discuss. I have some questions".

 

ALan

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