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Release Notes (Website: Edit Cache Listing page) - December 5, 2017


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8 hours ago, ShammyLevva said:
23 hours ago, LivingInNarnia said:

Thank you! The Related Web Page option was removed from the Cache Submission Process a few years ago. And now, it is removed from future listings (only old listings that already had that field filled out will show up). The cartridge link and information related to puzzles should be provided in the description.  (It should also be noted that the related web page is already not displayed in the mobile app). 

This simply isn't true. I created a new puzzle cache last month and it has a related web page link where the solution is recorded. So the related web page option could not have been removed "a few years ago". 

They didn't say the option was removed a few years ago. They said it was removed from the Cache Submission Process a few years ago. It has still been available on the old edit page all along, so you could still utilize it after you initially created your listing. That had to be what you did with your recent cache.

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3 hours ago, Pontiac_CZ said:

I upload images to my caches, use their links in the listing and delete them afterwards so they do not show up in the cache gallery and under the listing. So far none of them has disappeared.

That's risky. While the images haven't been deleted yet, there's no guarantee that they won't be at some point in the future. AWS storage costs money. It's entirely foreseeable that HQ may decide to remove all orphaned images at some point in order to reduce the amount of storage being used. They did this in the past when the images were still stored on their own servers, so it isn't a stretch of the imagination to think that they may do it again.

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3 hours ago, hzoi said:
21 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Except I've never seen a PET preform in this country (Australia) and have no idea how big one is. Whatever description is used, it has to be something easily recognised globally. I prefer the definitions in litres as they're unambiguous, but then I live in a metric country and have a good intuitive feel of how big a litre is.

Interesting.  They were pretty common throughout Europe when I left in 2009, and I've noticed them more and more in the USA over the past few years.

What's the typical micro of choice in Australia?

Bison tubes and Eclipse tins (the latter are leaky and quickly rust but people still insist on using them). Having said that, of course the very next cache I found was a PET preform, so maybe there are more about than I realised and I just hadn't associated the object with the name. The online geocaching retailers sell them but I haven't seen them in other shops.

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52 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

That would be a very cruel joke to inflict on a wheelchair-bound cacher, so I sincerely hope you're joking.

Not at all.  It is intended as a way for a cacher to know that a wheelchair-bound friend can accompany them on their trip.

Since T1, by definition, means that the site is accessible AND the cache can be reached from the wheelchair, my thought is that any other T value plus the attribute would imply that the site can be reached by wheelchair, but the cache cannot be.

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43 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

It is intended as a way for a cacher to know that a wheelchair-bound friend can accompany them on their trip.

I've never seen that definition used in relation to the wheelchair attribute. It was always my understanding that "Wheelchair Accessible" refers to accessing the cache, not just that some aspect of the experience is wheelchair-accessible.

There really needs to be a clear, unambiguous definition of how the Wheelchair Accessible attribute should be used. HQ, can you please come up with one so everyone is on the same page? I can't find any articles in the Help Center that provide such guidance and there seem to be differing opinions regarding its use, which means the attribute is probably being widely misused and not very useful.

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11 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

There really needs to be a clear, unambiguous definition of how the Wheelchair Accessible attribute should be used

Person on Wheelchair can reach the cache, sign the logbook and return the cache, without assistance of others.

 

That's it.

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14 hours ago, Phronimos said:

Personally I’m VERY disappointed with the whole new cache listing changes. I always create, then review the finished product, and finally Submit. But now I am not able to edit my newly created cache listing. Yes, I’ve checked the Conditions checkbox, clicked Save and Preview, and my changes are not reflected in the listing. I’ve submitted the cache. Then cancelled the submission, edited, saved and resubmitted - another three times. Now it’s in the Reviewer’s queue again and the listing does not reflect my changes. After 108 hides I am reticent to hide any more. This is SO FRUSTRATING!

Also why does an event have to be a T1? I’ve held events with D1/T4 in the past - on the summit of a mountain!

Like me Phronimos lives in New Zealand and we do not have States or Provinces in our country but before the new changes we were able to choose North Island or South Island. Now we are unable to edit our submitted cache pages as the State/Province drop down box does not recognize North or South Island despite the option being there. I have proved this by changing my country to US and choosing Alabama and I successfully edited my cache. When I choose New Zealand and North Island, I get a red error saying please choose a State or Province (see attached photo) and any edit I have done is not saved. Can this bug/error please be addressed

gc error.JPG

Edited by merlot58
typo
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56 minutes ago, Rikitan said:

Person on Wheelchair can reach the cache, sign the logbook and return the cache, without assistance of others.

What are the capabilities of this standardized "Person on Wheelchair"?

The capabilities of the wheelchair users I've know have varied widely. My puzzle cache is rated T1 and has the wheelchair accessible attribute, but not all of the wheelchair users I've known could retrieve and replace it.

There's a good reason why the Handicaching site uses a much more detailed rating system than the geocaching.com distinctions of one-star terrain vs higher terrain ratings, or wheelchair accessible vs not wheelchair accessible.

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On 12/5/2017 at 3:00 PM, The A-Team said:

If just icons are going to be used without the accompanying labels, then there at least needs to be a tooltip on each one so they're more identifiable. Right now you get nothing if you hover over them. Yes, you can click on the link to visit another page to look up what each attribute is, but that information needs to be available on the icons with either a label or tooltip.

The new icon for "Hunting" is not very clear.  It took me a long time to find it.

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On 5.12.2017 at 11:55 PM, barefootjeff said:

Except I've never seen a PET preform in this country (Australia) and have no idea how big one is. Whatever description is used, it has to be something easily recognised globally. I prefer the definitions in litres as they're unambiguous, but then I live in a metric country and have a good intuitive feel of how big a litre is.

Over here (Germany) they are more than common and you find them everywhere. Smallest are about 30ml and my biggest is about 350ml, I would guess. Most usual sizes here all are below 100ml, but compared to a film canister they seem to be big, so quite some use "small" as their size which isn't correct.

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20 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

Some time ago I tried to submit a cache with T1.5 and the wheelchair attribute but my reviewer disallowed it.  The situation was a flat accessible path to GZ, but the cache was 6ft off the ground.

Does this change mean that the wheelchair attribute can now be added to higher terrain caches?  T4 + Wheelchair attribute for a flat accessible path to the base of a tree with a T4 climb to the cache?

If so, that is great!

This isn't exactly what I would understand as wheelchair accessible. How should this person get the cache then? Most of the caches would be accessible then... I would more think about a loooooooooong multi, that according to the tool would be a T2/T3/T4, but still might work for wheelchair cachers including the final.

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1 hour ago, Rikitan said:
1 hour ago, The A-Team said:

There really needs to be a clear, unambiguous definition of how the Wheelchair Accessible attribute should be used

Person on Wheelchair can reach the cache, sign the logbook and return the cache, without assistance of others.

If that were true, then the attribute should not be available for T1.5+ rated listings, but it is, so, the alternate interpretation is also valid.

Edited by thebruce0
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8 hours ago, BlueRajah said:

It should never be difficult to find an event. They are open to all at the coords.

So there should not be an event with a D5, or challenges that require it.  In my opinion.

What about events that are REALLY tough to reach. Like on a high mountain? Lots of equipment needed, tough weather condition? Still just D1 in your eyes?

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15 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

If that were true, then the attribute should not be available for T1.5+ rated listings, but it is, so, the alternate interpretation is also valid.

You're wrong ;) You missed the caches that have many stages and longer distances in between. They have also higher T ratings just that for!

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6 minutes ago, Moun10Bike said:

Absolutely. You are describing the T rating, not the D rating.

I know what you mean, but at least over here we also use the D rating to distinguish the difficulty to reach the spot itself. Like D1/T5 ladder cache or a D3/4/5 where you need to use a rope plus more to get up a 100ft tree. Same would work for events in my eyes. Using a boat on a lake to meet at an island pretty sure is D1/T5. Same event in the ocean 5 miles off the shore? Still D1?

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11 minutes ago, monsterbox said:

I know what you mean, but at least over here we also use the D rating to distinguish the difficulty to reach the spot itself. Like D1/T5 ladder cache or a D3/4/5 where you need to use a rope plus more to get up a 100ft tree. Same would work for events in my eyes. Using a boat on a lake to meet at an island pretty sure is D1/T5. Same event in the ocean 5 miles off the shore? Still D1?

But that's still terrain.   Terrain is how you get there.  Difficulty is how hard is it to find it once you are at GZ.

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8 minutes ago, monsterbox said:

I know what you mean, but at least over here we also use the D rating to distinguish the difficulty to reach the spot itself. Like D1/T5 ladder cache or a D3/4/5 where you need to use a rope plus more to get up a 100ft tree. Same would work for events in my eyes. Using a boat on a lake to meet at an island pretty sure is D1/T5. Same event in the ocean 5 miles off the shore? Still D1?

Yes, absolutely still a D1. The challenge is in getting 5 miles offshore in the ocean, which is entirely T. Only if a difficult puzzle was required to determine where the event was being held (not permissible by the guidelines) or the attendees were all invisible and the seeker had to try and find them would it warrant bumping up the D.

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7 minutes ago, Moun10Bike said:

Yes, absolutely still a D1. The challenge is in getting 5 miles offshore in the ocean, which is entirely T. Only if a difficult puzzle was required to determine where the event was being held (not permissible by the guidelines) or the attendees were all invisible and the seeker had to try and find them would it warrant bumping up the D.

Or if there was a trap door at GZ that everybody was hiding inside of.

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8 minutes ago, Moun10Bike said:

Yes, absolutely still a D1. The challenge is in getting 5 miles offshore in the ocean, which is entirely T. Only if a difficult puzzle was required to determine where the event was being held (not permissible by the guidelines) or the attendees were all invisible and the seeker had to try and find them would it warrant bumping up the D.

Ok, tough luck for me then as I still see it different to the/your official view ;)

 

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Difficulty measures how hard it is to find the cache and sign the log.  It is impacted by things like challenging puzzles, incredible camouflage, tiny containers, etc.

What's the difficulty in finding an event?  Are the people hiding?  Did they turn off the lights inside the restaurant?

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8 minutes ago, Moun10Bike said:

Yes, absolutely still a D1. The challenge is in getting 5 miles offshore in the ocean, which is entirely T. Only if a difficult puzzle was required to determine where the event was being held (not permissible by the guidelines) or the attendees were all invisible and the seeker had to try and find them would it warrant bumping up the D.

FWIW, I've had ideas for event locations that would be higher than D1, but they're based on the event location being non-trivial to find even if you reach the posted coordinates. For example, some restaurants have private rooms that are accessed by a hidden/secret door; if the staff is instructed not to show people the hidden/secret door, and to let people search for the hidden/secret door on their own, then that could be higher than D1. Or if the event is located in a multi-story building and there are multiple restaurants at the posted coordinates, and the event didn't specify which restaurant or which floor to go to, then that could be higher than D1.

But given that Groundspeak won't allow event organizers to use a puzzle to determine the event location, I doubt such hard-to-find events would be published either.

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10 minutes ago, ChileHead said:

But that's still terrain.   Terrain is how you get there.  Difficulty is how hard is it to find it once you are at GZ.

As I already said, over here we used the system way different then. And we still do! With all the "normal" caches ;) I would never ever rate that 5 miles off cache a D1 even if the box would be in plain sight. But that might be different in different countries. Anyways, as I'm not the one to decide I can only comment what I think about it!

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9 minutes ago, monsterbox said:

I would never ever rate that 5 miles off cache a D1 even if the box would be in plain sight

A box in plain sight sounds like the perfect example of a D1 cache to me. (And yes, I have tripped over such a cache before, much to the amusement of my geocaching companions at the time.)

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I'm confused.  I was under the impression that Groundspeak has gone to a "push new features and quickly iterate" development mode.  Yet the grossly deficient coordinate checker introduced in the middle of October, more than a month and a half ago, has not yet been fixed, despite the rather obvious existence of code in the GS codebase to do so.

Am I incorrect about the feature release cycle?  Is it really the intent to keep adding useless or flawed features while ignoring existing problems? I mean, some of the changes announced this month were nice, but none really addressed the site's significant usability issues. 

And I am not just talking about the coordinate checker, either.  For example, how does one navigate directly from one cache page to another by GC number?  Can't be done. Can't even be done via the Search menu item.  I end up manually pasting the GC number into the URL in the appropriate place, which is kind of ridiculous.

Yet developer hours are being wasted on making cache submission more difficult (no editing the cache after submission, even to correct minor mistakes in wording) or constrained (events must be one star) or needlessly dependent on Javascript (waypoints, attributes).

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23 hours ago, merlot58 said:

Like me Phronimos lives in New Zealand and we do not have States or Provinces in our country but before the new changes we were able to choose North Island or South Island. Now we are unable to edit our submitted cache pages as the State/Province drop down box does not recognize North or South Island despite the option being there. I have proved this by changing my country to US and choosing Alabama and I successfully edited my cache. When I choose New Zealand and North Island, I get a red error saying please choose a State or Province (see attached photo) and any edit I have done is not saved. Can this bug/error please be addressed

gc error.JPG

We are aware of this bug and we are looking into it! Thank you for reporting here. UPDATE: this bug is fixed. 

Edited by LivingInNarnia
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4 hours ago, The A-Team said:

I'm seeing the same thing on any disabled or archived caches. This box seems to have replaced the red text that used to indicate that status a bit lower down on the listing page. This change, along with the inability to upload images to an archived cache - without any release notes - makes it feel like these are changes that weren't meant to be rolled out yet.

In this release we also updated the cache state messaging which you notice in the blue box -  for example locked, disable, or archived caches. The old red text was hard to read and sometimes confusing - the updates bring it in line with how we are messaging on the website. 

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8 hours ago, yellow.warbler said:

If I happen to accidentally delete the link to a Related Webpage on an old puzzle, and forget to input the new link (which I am apt to do because I am very spacey), then that field would be removed from my old puzzle forever and I'd have no way to fix my mistake and put the Related Webpage back.  They should at least give a warning when you are about to do that on an old cache but I highly doubt they will.

Thanks for the feedback, we'll take this into consideration as we make updates/fixes to the page. 

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1 hour ago, niraD said:

A box in plain sight sounds like the perfect example of a D1 cache to me. (And yes, I have tripped over such a cache before, much to the amusement of my geocaching companions at the time.)

Ok, different example... Once I had a cache in an old WWII bunker. You first needed to descend on a rope into a dark hole, some 8m down. In there you needed to climb to the 2nd floor. Telescope ladder helped ;) Then you needed to enter the next room through a hole in the wall about 2,5m up, 2nd hole slightly lower the right side of it. After that descend back to the first floor. 4m down, rope again.

Finally crawl into a narrow tunnel with the cache on its end. It was absolutely clear where the box is. Still just D1 for you? I hope not :)

Edited by monsterbox
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17 minutes ago, monsterbox said:

Ok, different example... Once I had a cache in an olrd WWII bunker. You first needed to descend on a rope into a dark hole, some 8m down. In there you needed to climb to the 2nd floor. Telescope ladder helped ;) Then you needed to enter the next room through a hole in the wall about 2,5m up, 2nd hole slightly lower the right side of it. After that descend back to the first floor. 4m down, rope again.

Finally crawl into a narrow tunnel with the cache on its end. It was absolutely clear where the box is. Still just D1 for you? I hope not :)

It sounds like the adventure you described (starting with "descend on a rope" and ending with "crawl into a narrow tunnel") is part of the "Physical effort needed to arrive at coordinates." As such, it affects the terrain rating, not the difficulty rating.

It sounds like the "Effort needed to solve and find the cache and logbook at GZ" is pretty minimal, assuming that the end of the "narrow tunnel" is GZ, and assuming that it really is "absolutely clear where the box is" once I get there. As such, that sounds like a D1.

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1 hour ago, niraD said:

But given that Groundspeak won't allow event organizers to use a puzzle to determine the event location, I doubt such hard-to-find events would be published either.

They probably would, as long as the listing explains how to get to the event... and thus making it a D1 again. :P

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Don't we all know somebody who's failed to find an event?

Incompetent with maps, or perhaps didn't check the restaurant's patio out back?  That happened.  Event was on the patio on a beautiful evening.  Cacher looks around the restaurant, sees nobody, shrugs and leaves.  (And logs an attended no less!)

Just for him, I raised the difficulty for the next event.

<ontopic>Enforcing D1 constricts flexibility needed for the real world.</ontopic>

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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3 hours ago, monsterbox said:

This isn't exactly what I would understand as wheelchair accessible. How should this person get the cache then? Most of the caches would be accessible then... I would more think about a loooooooooong multi, that according to the tool would be a T2/T3/T4, but still might work for wheelchair cachers including the final.

I realise, now, that my example was flawed, but what I was trying to achieve was triggered by my Mother-in-Law.  Many years ago she was forced to use a wheelchair for the last several years of her life and we used to go on day trips with her.  If we went to the seaside, the kids and some of the adults would go swimming while other adults stayed on the boardwalk with her.  There was no caching back then, but rolling the situation forward to today, it would be nice for someone in a similar situation to be able to plan a day trip where they could take the wheelchair and some of the group could find some caches on the way.

I had envisaged using the T rating to define the cache and the attribute to show that a wheelchair could accompany the party.  In the same way that "Stroller Accessible" means you can push a stroller there, not that the child in the stroller can reach the cache.  That, I now know isn't the way HQ intend the attribute to be used, but I still think it would be a good feature to have.  Maybe expand the meaning of the Stroller attribute to include wheelchairs, prams etc. 

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4 hours ago, monsterbox said:

As I already said, over here we used the system way different then. And we still do! With all the "normal" caches ;) I would never ever rate that 5 miles off cache a D1 even if the box would be in plain sight. But that might be different in different countries. Anyways, as I'm not the one to decide I can only comment what I think about it!

Okay, but y'all are doing it wrong, and you still owe me a steak! :D

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8 hours ago, Keystone said:

What's the difficulty in finding an event?  Are the people hiding?  Did they turn off the lights inside the restaurant?

I hesitate to reply as it's going off topic and I don't really care but....

I've been to a couple of events at the "Hyde Park Winter Wonderland" in London, which were held in the Bavarian Beer hall, which is a large hall full of trestle tables and somewhere between 1,000-2,000 people. Because I know the regular faces to look out for I found the events with only slight difficulty, many people took ages to find them, and some never did... Those events had higher D rarings.

 

Just sayin :ph34r:

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9 hours ago, niraD said:

a good reason why the Handicaching site uses a much more detailed rating system than the geocaching.com distinctions of one-star terrain vs higher terrain ratings, or wheelchair accessible vs not wheelchair accessible.

Yes, good point. I simplified Handicaching rating system into one sentence. It is usually enough to assess the cache. When in doubts, go into Handicaching for more details, absolutelly agree. Thank you for your remark.

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3 hours ago, estherandben608 said:

Is it just me, or is has the ability to drop a TB when creating a new cache disappeared?

I think you can still change log type to Write note from default Reviewer note. Or drop it with Reviewer note, it should work. Please, let me know if not.

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On 2017-12-05 at 9:57 PM, niraD said:

Have you tested this with colorblind users to see if the shades of blue and green that you use can be distinguished by them?

 

As beeing colourblind I have a lifetime experience with the fact that web designers often totally ignore 8-10% of the male population :mellow:

I can report that at least for me the green and brown are totally impossible to distinguish (the blue is not a problem for me), however, they at least have a very clear icon. It would be nice if the colours had been seleced in a way that would allow colourblind persons to distinguish the colours too, but since the icons are unique they can still be accepted. At least from my ponit of view.

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9 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

If that were true, then the attribute should not be available for T1.5+ rated listings, but it is, so, the alternate interpretation is also valid.

Imagine 10kms long multicache on flat terrain, completelly accessible by Wheelchair user. 

How would I rate terrain? ~2-3 stars

Would I label it as Wheelchair accessible? Sure.

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When I submitted a mystery cache a couple of years ago, I persuaded my local reviewer to allow fractionally more than 2 miles between the posted coords and the final.  (The posted coords provided a subtle clue to the puzzle.)

I would guess there are many existing (older) caches that are considerably more than 2 miles from their posted coordinates.

What was a guideline, is now being strictly enforced by the code, even for these existing caches.  I've just tried to update my listing (simply to change the hint), but cannot save the change: Final coordinates are more than 3.2 km from the Posted Coordinates.

Is there any way round this?

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On 12/5/2017 at 3:22 PM, Tungstène said:

Same thing here. But maybe I misunderstood what is the intent with this field's deletion. Plus, some owners use them to link to their Wherigo cartridge. 

Related Web Page link isn't visible except on desktop. Users of apps and mobile versions of the site (phone/tablet) don't see it.

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I noticed that the coordinate verification thing for waypoints is a bit too unforgiving.

  1. N 59° 18.725' E 14° 36.573' is OK
  2. N59° 18.725' E 14° 36.573' is NOT OK
  3. N 59° 18,725' E 14° 36.573' is NOT OK

The detected problem in 2 above is a missing space between "N" and "59"
The detected problem in 3 is a decimal comma instead of decimal dot.

In none of these cases the website tells the user what the problem is. Either you get a "Please enter valid coordinates." or "Please enter latitude and longitude values in DDM format only.". What does DDM even mean? An example of correctly formatted coordinates would be more helpful.

Why not use the same verification rules as the "corrected coordinates" field uses? It seems more forgiving and at least can parse the number 2 version above.

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5 hours ago, Rikitan said:
14 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

If that were true, then the attribute should not be available for T1.5+ rated listings, but it is, so, the alternate interpretation is also valid.

Imagine 10kms long multicache on flat terrain, completelly accessible by Wheelchair user. 

How would I rate terrain? ~2-3 stars

Would I label it as Wheelchair accessible? Sure.

Exactly what I'm saying

 

4 hours ago, arisoft said:
5 hours ago, 10011010 said:

1. How come there is no link back to view the cache page?

There is "save" and "save and preview" instead. Use Ctrl+Back to open preview in different tab.

Yep I tend to have at least 2 tabs open so a refresh is all that's needed rather than back and forth navigation.  Now that waypoints and attributes are on the same page that's really only 2 tabs I'd have open (edit+preview).

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On 12/5/2017 at 7:53 PM, arisoft said:

The problem is that now you have to check them every time you want to save your draft. Before you had to check two check boxes only once.

It has always been necessary to click two buttons to save edits (I have read  understood guidelines, I agree to terms of use). Now it's necessary to click one - an improvement. 

 A Team has already spoken to this, but I'll repeat, the CSP has not had a related web page field for years. It WAS on the edit page. Now it's not. Most devices don't show it.

Those puzzles that rely on it will need to careful ! 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Joshism said:

Related Web Page link isn't visible except on desktop. Users of apps and mobile versions of the site (phone/tablet) don't see it.

Maybe that is the primary reason?

When I created my first Wherigo, I used the Related Web Page to link to the cartridge on Wherigo.com, and nowhere else.   Later I got feedback from app users that it was easier for them if I had a link in the description itself, so I added that.    

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