"Collection" vs. "collection"

[+kunarion]

In the Geocaching.com Help Center, the info about Trackable "Collections" is badly worded: "Trackables in a collection tend to be collectible"

 

Groundspeak made a huge mess of things by naming the site features "Collection" and "Collectible", words that already had meanings as it applied to people keeping things. Groundspeak needs to unscramble the mess.

 

The text has been like this for years. Please fix that. Trackables are not to be "collected". People in this Forum to this day say they can't tell that Trackables upon being marked "Collectible", are not to be be pocketed. Figure out a suitable way to explain it, and lay it out there. We need confirmation that the text on a TB "Don't Keep Me" means just that -- nobody is to silently, unilaterally take any Trackable to keep, regardless of a menu setting. It must be at the concession of the Owner. Also, if a Trackable is to be placed into digital Inventory system on the site called the "Collection", of course proper logs are made. You are not to simply take and add Trackables to your personal junk drawer "collection".

 

Whoever is writing the Help File does not understand what "Collectible" and "Collection" mean as site functions. There are specific reasons to mark a Trackable "Collectible". There are procedures to then place the item into a "Collection". Definitions and examples are in order. Be sure that everyone knows that Trackables remain the property of the Owner, and the Owner alone gets to choose who, if anyone, keeps the item.

 

Most people don't need to use the "Collection" nor mark their Trackable "Collectible". This is why, above all, point out that everyone needs to just remember that Trackables have a "Do Not Keep Me" policy. That by default, you always will place it into a cache, and ideally also log that you did so (and if you can't figure it out or don't want to figure it out, place it into a suitable cache, such as the one you removed it from). That they don't need to get bogged down with the details of the "Collection". If the intent for the Trackable is to travel, don't even mess with the "Collectible" button.

 

While we're at it, why not make a paragraph about what happens if all else fails. To the sticky-fingered who can't bear to part with the Trackable, we request that at least they post a note telling what happened, so we can start a revived version of the Trackable. Whether they lost it, or stole it (or especially to say so if they define "collectible" as permission to keep the item), or they know someone who did. Once you've removed a Trackable from a cache, always post some kind of suitable log so the Owner doesn't have to guess. Don't make people beg for news. Treat the property owner with due respect.

 

And make it clear that unless the Trackable page specifies otherwise, that finders are to place the Trackables into caches, not carry other people's Trackables around forevermore.

Edited December 14, 2015 by kunarion

[+Isonzo Karst]

Hello there ku.

 

I'm pretty sure you're wrong about what "collectible" means to Geocaching.com. Ie, collectible does mean, keep it.

99% of the time, someone makes their own item "collectible" so they can move it into their "collection". But people DO release coins and bugs that others can keep.

 

Recall that the first couple of iterations of the Lackey coin were all owned by Signal, but you could keep 'em.

( You could/can ask for them to be transferred to your ownership now http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=165 )

 

Because of that, the code writing on this feature when new was defaulted to ALL existing trackables were collectible ;-) - whoever wrote the code was looking at what HQ did. And HQ released stuff that users could keep.

 

It was worked out in these forums that as a default, that was backwards. (Convenient for HQ, whose released trackables could be kept, but forcing all other trackable owners to know about the new feature, understand it, log on to each trackable page, and edit to NOT collectible.)

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I've edited the article you linked, making the quote in your original post no longer a match for the article language.

 

I agree completely about confusing nomenclature.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Isonzo Karst