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Language Requirements for Cache Descriptions


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But what if I don't want to expose some bad historical events that Greeks are ashamed for ? A story that must be keep between locals to avoid happen again ? In your country everything is correct ? Some things, must be known but also stay in the 'family'!

This cache is not the case. Really.

 

Interesting issue - now there's a possible reason. But is such "privacy" consistent with an internationally visited site?

 

On the other questions, the US is not perfect and has acknowledged mistakes. Many European countries have also. Besides, even if it stays "private" by having the text in Greek only, wouldn't cachers figure out the "secret" either through an auto translation or through an online search to learn of the historical significance of the site?

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The original poster's questions have all been answered and reflect the response he got back in post #6.

Except for earthcaches there are no published language guidelines. You are free to write your cache description in any language you want. Many here would advocate the use of the native language AND English, but that is not being mandated.

Edited by cheech gang
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But what if I don't want to expose some bad historical events that Greeks are ashamed for ? A story that must be keep between locals to avoid happen again ? In your country everything is correct ? Some things, must be known but also stay in the 'family'!

This cache is not the case. Really. But was violating my rights by forcing me to do what I didn't have to.

Wow! Are we to interpret the reason to put the cache page in Greek only is to be able to reference something you'd rather not bring up in front of the rest of the world? I can't believe what I am reading here, it sure sounds like it.

What I'm reading here is that that is NOT the reason. Rather, the OP wanted to point out that forcing the cache listing to have an English translation is beyond the current powers of a reviewer. Groundspeak has affirmed the OP's view.

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Hi all,

I'm new Greece reviewer that has been causing this discussion firestorm. This thread grew to be much larger than this one cache, I would like to post here what I wrote the CO just before publishing GC5FD0N.

I have a knack for shooting myself in the foot. So I sincerely hope that sharing this letter with the forum will be seen in the light that I intended it.

 

 

Dear George & Christina,

 

I was following the discussion on the GS forum, as were other people. There are some good points raised there, but others that I firmly disagree with, as well as some unfortunate misquotes of what I wrote you. Ultimately, as you know, both the consensus and the GS opinion came down to allowing caches with no text in English at all. As such I will follow the vote of the majority and I will publish this and similar caches going forward.

 

I may be misreading, but from the tone of many replies I got the sense that what people *really* want is a local reviewer. I'd like to go on record here that if you or someone else in the community would like to offer yourself up as a reviewer candidate, I would be more than happy to pass the names along to GS for their consideration. That is how I got this "job" myself.

 

However, until you have a local reviewer you're going to mainly be stuck with me, and I suggest we try to make the most of it. Please remember that I'm just a volunteer, and that I spend an hour or so doing this most nights, following a typical 10-hour work day as an analyst in an international hedge fund.

 

Since I obviously can't speak Greek, I will always need at least an adequate English translation of the Greek description in order for me to be able to review the cache. Google-translate can be helpful in some cases, but it generally messes things us with the Geocaching terminology. If the CO really can't write in English, I will ask GS to have a Greek volunteer translator who can help out in such cases.

 

Once we have the English translation in hand, I continue to be of the opinion that including it in the description is the "nice thing to do", and it will almost certainly increase the number of visitors. But it will be optional, and ultimately up to the individual CO.

 

With this I hope we can put all ill-feelings behind us and enjoy this hobby/sport as it was intended, with as little politics as possible.

 

Sincerely,

Matmonai

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I totally agree with Matmonai, especially about the point of being nice and including English even if it not a requirement. And also about enjoying our favorite game as much as possible. Here is our reply to the reviewer, with thanks for his time and cooperation in resolving this issue and, as someone said, going back to our regularly scheduled program :)

 

Dear Matmonai,

 

Thank you for publishing our cache, and also thank you for taking the time to write your lengthy message.

We too are happy that this misunderstanding has been resolved and put behind us. Although, as you mention, both the consensus and the GS opinion came down to allowing caches with no text in English at all, we will continue to include English text with most of our cache descriptions, as we have done in the past.

 

There are caches, like the one just published, that do not really need any information (in either Greek or English) other than the hint to be found. But for the majority of caches, I can only agree that including both English and Greek is the nice thing to do, especially for caches, placed by both myself and others, near sites of historical / archaeological / natural interest. For caches such as these, we have and will continue to include not only the obvious information about the cache, but also about the site itself, taking geocaching beyond a mere hide-and-seek game.

 

Having put this misunderstanding aside, I too hope that there are no ill feelings on either side. In fact, I appreciate your volunteering your time to the game, and hope for a friendly cooperation, promoting (by placing / reviewing caches respectively) our favorite hobby/pastime.

 

Take care and thank you,

George & Christina

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Once we have the English translation in hand, I continue to be of the opinion that including it in the description is the "nice thing to do", and it will almost certainly increase the number of visitors. But it will be optional, and ultimately up to the individual CO.

 

As an American English-speaker who is not likely ever to be caching in Greece or any other country outside of North America, let me just say that if I were ever to be caching in another country, I would certainly appreciate cache pages in English, in fact I would only consider looking for caches with any necessary information in English, but I do not support a rule that all cache pages in Greece or Russia or Japan or any other country must have an English translation.

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Ummm...you do realize that Groundspeak is a private company. You really don't have any rights on this website, other than the ones that Groundspeak grants you :ph34r:

 

I think this is probably not true. It is easy to imagine examples of outrageous discrimination that would provoke lawsuits or even get the site shut down. "No -----------'s may have caches published on this website." "This agency does not hire --------'s." Just because you have a private company does not mean you can do anything you want.

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Ummm...you do realize that Groundspeak is a private company. You really don't have any rights on this website, other than the ones that Groundspeak grants you :ph34r:

 

I think this is probably not true. It is easy to imagine examples of outrageous discrimination that would provoke lawsuits or even get the site shut down. "No -----------'s may have caches published on this website." "This agency does not hire --------'s." Just because you have a private company does not mean you can do anything you want.

 

Ok, now this is going off on a completely irrelevant tangent.

I hope the thread gets closed down before the sentiments stated 2 and 5 posts above get lost in the noise.

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Ummm...you do realize that Groundspeak is a private company. You really don't have any rights on this website, other than the ones that Groundspeak grants you :ph34r:

 

I think this is probably not true. It is easy to imagine examples of outrageous discrimination that would provoke lawsuits or even get the site shut down. "No -----------'s may have caches published on this website." "This agency does not hire --------'s." Just because you have a private company does not mean you can do anything you want.

 

Ok, now this is going off on a completely irrelevant tangent.

I hope the thread gets closed down before the sentiments stated 2 and 5 posts above get lost in the noise.

 

I am happy the issue has been resolved, and I don't disagree with the sentiments you referenced. But the question was not whether it would be NICE to have English descriptions in the listing, but whether GS and its representatives (reviewers) can or should disallow a cache description in ONE PARTICULAR LANGUAGE without English enhancement. I think that my response was right on point, and the question has been answered.

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I do not fluently speak any other language besides English, and IMHO the Greek Cacher is correct. As an example; suppose Groundspeak were to determine that all caches must be translated into Klingon? Would we feel the same? Just because a large preponderance of the caching community speaks English (which I assume is so, but have no basis in fact) doesn't mean we have the right to force others to create caches for our convenience. When I cache I do a PQ, load it into my GPS and then navigate to GZ. I occasionally read the cache page if I am having difficulty, but have found many caches with nothing more than the coordinates and size. I believe the reviewer is within their rights to request a translation that s/he can understand to complete the diligence necessary to review and publish a cache, but inclusion of the translation on the cache page shouldn't be the sole obstacle to publication.

Edited by ras_oscar
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