east, south v west, north dichotomy

[+Ianatlarge]

Now, I never like to cause trouble, but—and I realise that this problem has been highlighted before, but — to reiterate, again, the problem is that sometimes (for sometimes read often, for often read near always) the south and east designated coordinates are swapped to north and west. This means, for me, that things end up in the Pacific Ocean, which then necessitates a re-edit of the waymark. Now, this might not seem like much, but it happens most times, and for people who like to edit (such as myself), it means that each time I save the waymark, there is a chance that it will be flipped, again. There is a great deal of extra work involved, due to this bug.

[+Max and 99]

I don't know how you put up with that, Big Tofu. It would frustrate me terribly! You waymarkers who deal with this issue have a lot of patience.

[+Chasing Blue Sky]

Now, I never like to cause trouble, but—and I realise that this problem has been highlighted before, but — to reiterate, again, the problem is that sometimes (for sometimes read often, for often read near always) the south and east designated coordinates are swapped to north and west. This means, for me, that things end up in the Pacific Ocean, which then necessitates a re-edit of the waymark. Now, this might not seem like much, but it happens most times, and for people who like to edit (such as myself), it means that each time I save the waymark, there is a chance that it will be flipped, again. There is a great deal of extra work involved, due to this bug.

 

Fortunately, as far as this bug goes anyway, I live in the western hemisphere, so this bug has had very little impact on me. However, in August 2012 my family and I made our first visit to Europe. When submitting waymarks for the places I went in Europe, once I'd put in all the information and clicked to go to the "add photos" screen, the "E" would always switch the "W". I've only found two ways around this and they don't always work every time, but do reduce the headache.

 

The first, and not the best, is once you move to the "add photo" screen, immediately go back to the edit screen and change the "W" to "E", or "N" to "S". Since you know it's going to do it, just take care of it first, before adding photos. Sometimes, even then it won't take and you have to do it again.

 

The second, and I've found better option, is when you're initially adding information to your waymark, leave the directions as "N" and "W". Only when you're done and ready to move to the "add photo" screen do you want to change the "N" to "S" and/or the "W" to "E". Generally, that works, if it the very last thing you do.

 

The other problem you have to watch out for, even if you've done as I've suggested and things actually worked, is if you get to the submit screen and notice that you have to make an edit to your waymark. When you make the edit, and don't re-select "E" or "S", it will almost always revert back to "N" or "W". So be careful when you have to go back and edit, even when you had it correct the first time you saved it.

 

Hope that made sense and was helpful. CBS

[+DougK]

I've also experienced this problem, having posted some European waymarks recently. My remembrance was a reversal rate as high as 3 out of 4 saves. It seemed like I spent twice as many times editing a waymark as my usual US waymarks. It is annoying.

 

Another result of this problem: If either direction is flipped when the waymark is first being created, then the creator gets improper/invalid proximity checking done.

(probably no feedback, or if anything is reported, it's likely irrelevant).

[+Ianatlarge]

Thanks guys for the advice, it does help, also adding an '"-" to the coords, usually works as well, but—it gets old fast.

"Waymarkers burden".

[+Rikitan]

Thanks guys for the advice, it does help, also adding an '"-" to the coords, usually works as well, but—it gets old fast.

"Waymarkers burden".

 

cool tip

[+Rikitan]

Thanks guys for the advice, it does help, also adding an '"-" to the coords, usually works as well, but—it gets old fast.

"Waymarkers burden".

 

cool tip

 

.. but actually, it does not work here

 

[+silverquill]

I'll have to try Ian's tip. But, I've just had to live with it for a long time, and since I still have a huge backlog from Asia, it will be a long road. Seems as if it should be a simple fix, but I don't really know. I mean, as far as I know, this doesn't happen over on Geocaching.com.

 

I fix would sure help encourage international participation.