Netherlands Antillies

[+g-o-cashers]

There have always been some weird things with how Groundspeak reports countries in the Caribbean, several years ago a problem similar to the one below was fixed with Nevis and St. Kitts so I'm hoping Groundspeak will do the same here.

 

The majority of the issue is with a country (country_id=148) called "Netherland Antilles". This country no longer exists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_Antilles . The 6 islands in the former country have broken into 3 autonomous countries, Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten, plus Saba, Sint Eustiatius and Bonaire are special municipalities of the Netherlands and part of an entity called the Dutch Caribbean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Caribbean.

 

Even before the Netherland Antilles went way Groundspeak had its own problems allowing some of the "entities" (Bonaire, Sint Maarten, Curacao, Saba) to have caches in both the Netherlands Antilles and the individual entity. In addition, Sint Maarten was never broken out as a separate country.

 

Why does this matter? If you cache in the Caribbean you end up with some extra countries you really shouldn't have and miss out on a few you should. This would actually give me one fewer countries visited, so I'm not trying to jack up my stats here.

 

Recommendation:

- Remove "Netherland Antilles" as a country (country_id=148), currently there are 26 active caches in the this country_id (I'm sure there are more which are archived)

- Create a new country_id for Sint Maarten, since it really is a country

- Move all of the Netherland Antilles caches (9) and St. Martin (yes these are different countries) caches (2, GC1QF1D & GC2PJXN) which are located in Sint Maarten to the new Sint Maarten country_id

- Move Netherland Antilles caches located in Bonaire (6) to country_id 275

- Move Netherland Antilles caches located in Saba (6) to country_id 277

- Move Netherland Antilles caches located in Curacao (5) to country_id 54

 

Technically you could move Bonaire, St. Eustiatius and Saba to another new country or to a "state" in the Netherlands country_id and this might be more correct, but it seems in the spirit of things to keep these three islands as separate countries in the Grounspeak World!

 

GO$Rs

[Moun10Bike]

Thank you for pointing out this geopolitical change. I have entered a story into our backlog to address it.

[+RogSil]

Thank you for pointing out this geopolitical change. I have entered a story into our backlog to address it.

 

As we returned from Bonaire including 4 caches stated as found in the Netherland Antilles: Will there be a change soon or did that problem get no attention at all? By the way: A flag for Bonaire would be highly appreciated

Edited December 16, 2015 by RogSil

[+irisisleuk]

Thank you for pointing out this geopolitical change. I have entered a story into our backlog to address it.

 

As we returned from Bonaire including 4 caches stated as found in the Netherland Antilles: Will there be a change soon or did that problem get no attention at all? By the way: A flag for Bonaire would be highly appreciated

 

The 3 of the 4 caches you found that are in the Netherlands Antilles were placed when Bonaire was still part of the Netherlands Antilles. I would prefer not to change history for these caches.

Strange thing is that one cache (GC678ZG) you found was placed this year and I can't imagine why a CO living there would add a country name that doesn't exist as a country anymore! Really weird.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Thank you for pointing out this geopolitical change. I have entered a story into our backlog to address it.

 

As we returned from Bonaire including 4 caches stated as found in the Netherland Antilles: Will there be a change soon or did that problem get no attention at all? By the way: A flag for Bonaire would be highly appreciated

 

The 3 of the 4 caches you found that are in the Netherlands Antilles were placed when Bonaire was still part of the Netherlands Antilles. I would prefer not to change history for these caches.

 

I was going to make this point as well. The OP has presented a detailed description of country name changes but, as you suggest, there are a bunch of caches listed as in Netherland Antilles that were placed before the dissolution of the country. This topic has come up many times in the past, primarily noting that Sint Maarten isn't available as an option when selecting a country.

 

 

[+RogSil]

Well, to me it seems ok to NOT chance the chaches afterwards, despite the fact that the number of countries is invalid. In our favor but still incorrect. However, Netherlands Antilles should be removed for new caches. Nothing big, of course.

Having the flag (like Aruba and Curacao also have) would be more interesting to me at this point of time

[+g-o-cashers]

Interesting discussion, it seems like there are three options:

 

1) Have the country_id associated with the cache reflect the country that the cache is currently located in, recognizing that this could change over time. This was my assumption in my original post.

2) Have the country_id associated with the cache reflect the country that the cache was placed in, never changing the country_id of the cache.

3) Have the country_id associated with the cache reflect the country that the cache is currently located in, but have the user's log include a country_id based on the date the user found the cache.

 

Option 3) might be the most correct approach, but I'm guessing this would be significantly more complex to implement. One could argue that Groundspeak should do this for all cache parameters since I've found many caches which have changed T/D ratings, type, owner, etc. over time. If my logs reflected what I found based on my find date, that is probably the more correct but one that is harder to implement and requires Groundspeak's data models to evolve.

 

In my opinion, 1) is the next best option because it reflects current reality and is consistent with the way other cache parameters are handled. It does mean I might "lose" countries, but I'm okay with that. Option 2) seems like the worst option, since someone logging an old cache placed in a different country gets credit for a country that might not exist any longer and they wouldn't get credit for the actual country they are logging the cache in.

 

I also realized there was a mistake in my original post. Bonaire, Eustasia and Saba are part of the Caribbean Netherlands .

 

GO$Rs

[+g-o-cashers]

Bump.  Since this was on Groundspeak's backlog, I'm hoping we might eventually see some changes here.  Planning a trip to the area and noticed many of these small island countries and territories are still out of date.

 

GO$Rs

[+The A-Team]

On ‎6‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 6:40 AM, g-o-cashers said:

Bump.  Since this was on Groundspeak's backlog, I'm hoping we might eventually see some changes here.  Planning a trip to the area and noticed many of these small island countries and territories are still out of date.

 

GO$Rs

FYI, there does appear to be some work finally happening on this front. Back in April, API partners received a message letting them know that HQ would be adding, removing, and renaming some regions and countries. A discussion of this on the GSAK forums can be seen here. The first phase of that work (renaming) has been completed, and I think it's reasonable to assume that fixing the Netherlands Antilles issue will be part of one of the subsequent phases. So far, we haven't heard anything about timing, but I have to expect it will happen in the near future.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

On 6/11/2018 at 3:47 PM, The A-Team said:

FYI, there does appear to be some work finally happening on this front. Back in April, API partners received a message letting them know that HQ would be adding, removing, and renaming some regions and countries. A discussion of this on the GSAK forums can be seen here. The first phase of that work (renaming) has been completed, and I think it's reasonable to assume that fixing the Netherlands Antilles issue will be part of one of the subsequent phases. So far, we haven't heard anything about timing, but I have to expect it will happen in the near future.

 

  Here are the name changes (pulled from that thread)

 

Canada, Quebec - is now Canada, Québec
    Cape Verde is now Cabo Verde
    Czech Republic is now Czechia
        Hlavni mesto Praha is now  Hlavní město Praha
        Jihocesky kraj is now  Jihočeský kraj
        Jihomoravsky kraj is now  Jihomoravský kraj
        Karlovarsky kraj is now  Karlovarský kraj
        Kraj Vysocina is now  Kraj Vysočina
        Kralovehradecky kraj is now  Královéhradecký kraj
        Liberecky kraj is now  Liberecký kraj
        Moravskoslezsky kraj is now  Moravskoslezský kraj
        Olomoucky kraj is now  Olomoucký kraj
        Pardubicky kraj is now  Pardubický kraj
        Plzensky kraj is now  Plzeňský kraj
        Stredocesky kraj is now  Středočeský kraj
        Ustecky kraj is now  Ústecký kraj
        Zlinsky kraj is now Zlínský kraj
    East Timor is now Timor-Leste
    French Southern Territories is now French Southern and Antarctic Territories
    Heard Island And Mcdonald Islands is now Heard Island and McDonald Islands
    Ivory Coast is now Côte d'Ivoire
    Macau is now Macao
    Pitcairn Islands is now  Pitcairn
    Reunion is now  Réunion
    South Georgia and Sandwich Islands is now  South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
    St Barthelemy is now  Saint Barthélemy
    St Pierre Miquelon is now  Saint Pierre and Miquelon
    St Vince Grenadines is now  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
    Svalbard and Jan Mayen is now  Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands
    United Kingdom, Northeast England is now United Kingdom, North East England
    United Kingdom, Northwest England is now United Kingdom, North West England
    Wallis And Futuna Islands is now  Wallis and Futuna Islands

 

Note that they're just changes to the strings used for each region (mostly adding diacritics).  Adding or changing regions is a bit more work but it's good to see that they're working on it.  One comment mentions the Netherlands Antilles (Sint Maarten vs. Saint Martin) and is issue with Northern Ireland as part of Ireland (and not the UK).  I would think that they'll fix the Netherland Antilles issue but I doubt that they'll change their decision on Northern Ireland. 

[+IceColdUK]

My old Netherlands Antilles finds are now showing as Sint Maarten. :-)

[+NYPaddleCacher]

On 7/5/2018 at 10:26 AM, IceColdUK said:

My old Netherlands Antilles finds are now showing as Sint Maarten. :-)

Good to see that they finally got around to fixing this.  Out of curiosity, were any of those find on caches placed and found prior to 2010?  Prior to 2010 the island *was* called Netherland Antilles, and it would to make sense that if one found a cache prior to 2010 it should reflect what the country was called at the time it was found.  

[+IceColdUK]

8 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

Good to see that they finally got around to fixing this.  Out of curiosity, were any of those find on caches placed and found prior to 2010?  Prior to 2010 the island *was* called Netherland Antilles, and it would to make sense that if one found a cache prior to 2010 it should reflect what the country was called at the time it was found.  

 

I found the five caches in 2014, but I see that two were placed in August 2010, a couple of months before the change to the (half-)island's status.  I think a cache placed and found prior to the change in 2010, *should* show as a find in Netherlands Antilles.  But in the case of a 'pre-2010' cache found after the change, I think that Sint Maarten is probably more appropriate - the cache may have been placed in Netherlands Antilles, but it was found in Sint Maarten ... even if it has taken 4 years for Groundspeak to agree!  Interesting question. :-)

[+Difool]

You can still choose to place caches in Netherlands Antillies, here ( https://coord.info/GC8DP23 ) is one place last year, and it's still an option when you create a cache.

[+Difool]

On 2/29/2020 at 9:38 PM, Difool said:

You can still choose to place caches in Netherlands Antillies, here ( https://coord.info/GC8DP23 ) is one place last year, and it's still an option when you create a cache.

Ok, Netherlands Antilles has now been removed as an option when placing a cache.