No link to map in description header of foreign caches

[+dprovan]

In the header of any cache description, just to the right of the coordinates there's text that says "In <state>, <country>". When I look at the description of any cache in the United States, that "<state>, <country>" text is a link to the geocaching.com map centered at the cache, but for any cache outside the United States, that same text is just plain text with no link. To look at the same map for those caches, I have to scroll down to the little map in the right column and click on "View Larger Map".

Why is that?

[+dprovan]

Hmmm... I was expecting a quick, simple answer, but I guess it's a great mystery.

Do people in other countries see the link only for caches in their country, or is this really a US vs. the world thing?

[+HHL]

1 minute ago, dprovan said:

Hmmm... I was expecting a quick, simple answer, but I guess it's a great mystery.

Do people in other countries see the link only for caches in their country, or is this really a US vs. the world thing?

The latter.

[Blue Square Thing]

USA vs the World

I imagine it's something to do with geography. They clearly need more help knowing where places are 

[Moun10Bike]

In the old days, those links went to the dedicated state page (example for Washington). When those pages were deprecated, the link was changed rather than removed altogether. I believe this was because it was determined to be too risky to mess with the old spaghetti code holding the cache pages together and remove the logic that determined if a cache was in the US.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I am in Germany right now (Berlin) and checked a listing for a cache I found yesterday.  I has "Berlin, Germany" but not as a link.  Berlin is the name of the city and the Bundeslander (the equivalent of a state in the US).  I can check when I get to Copehagen tonight and Helsinki tomorrow night but I suspect that it will be similar (no links).  Making text a link is about the most simple thing one can do when developing a web page, even if it's using old spaghetti code.  The fact that it's still displaying the country and region, but not as a link, would indicate that it hasn't removed the logic that determined if the cache was in the U.S.  It's retrieving those values and behaving differently depending on the country.

[+dprovan]

21 hours ago, Moun10Bike said:

In the old days, those links went to the dedicated state page (example for Washington). When those pages were deprecated, the link was changed rather than removed altogether. I believe this was because it was determined to be too risky to mess with the old spaghetti code holding the cache pages together and remove the logic that determined if a cache was in the US.

Thanks. Now I know. Not an explanation I ever could have imagined. The last thing I expected was that the link's existence is just a fluke.

I use that link more than any other link on the cache description page, so now I feel bad that the rest of the world doesn't have it.

[+HHL]

On 29.9.2017 at 7:35 AM, NYPaddleCacher said:

[...] I can check when I get to Copehagen tonight and Helsinki tomorrow [...]

Those two countries unfortunately (from the PQ user's point of view) are not seperated into states by Groundspeak. The unlinked entry is: In Denmark and In Finland.

Hans

[+NYPaddleCacher]

3 hours ago, HHL said:

Those two countries unfortunately (from the PQ user's point of view) are not seperated into states by Groundspeak. The unlinked entry is: In Denmark and In Finland.

Hans

Found a couple in Copenhagen today (currently sitting at the airport) and went over to Sweden this morning for a few.  The ones in Sweden seem to display region, but it's not linkable.