United States Missing from Country List in PQ

[+C3GPS]

When trying to create a PQ, why is United States not there?

To be exact, in the Within section, Countries list

US states exist in the States list, however.

[+niraD]

3 hours ago, C3GPS said:

When trying to create a PQ, why is United States not there?

There are far too many geocaches in the US for a PQ of the entire country to make sense.

[+hzoi]

11 hours ago, niraD said:

15 hours ago, C3GPS said:

When trying to create a PQ, why is United States not there?

There are far too many geocaches in the US for a PQ of the entire country to make sense.

It's true that a PQ spanning the US has to be pretty narrow in scope to produce useful results, which is likely why it was omitted.  That said, it doesn't make sense for it to be the only missing country; I'd support having it added.

Interestingly, one can still select all 50 states when putting together a pocket query.  In fact, you can select every state when you set up a pocket query, just by clicking on Abruzzo and then scrolling down and shift-clicking on Zuid-Holland.  It's difficult to get a PQ result that doesn't hit the 10000 cache limit, but it's possible.

Side note, there are at least three "states" included in the state list that are not states and have no geocaches: Armed Forces Americas, Armed Forces Europe, and Armed Forces Pacific.  I don't even see how it's possible for them to be selected on the cache placement page.  So perhaps they can be taken out of the state list when the US is added to the country list.

[+HHL]

Use this template and change it to your needs:

https://www.geocaching.com/pocket/gcquery.aspx?guid=4161ac1d-cddb-4319-911a-33397fef0b80

[+igator210]

14 hours ago, niraD said:

There are far too many geocaches in the US for a PQ of the entire country to make sense.

But yet in the main Search function, you can filter on United States and get all 1 million caches.

[+The A-Team]

10 minutes ago, igator210 said:

But yet in the main Search function, you can filter on United States and get all 1 million caches.

The new Search function uses a different sub-system than the ancient PQ system. TPTB were probably able to use more modern software technology to allow the new Search to perform searches more efficiently. Whenever the PQ system gets replaced, I expect the new system would be able to handle US-wide or even global searches.

[+HHL]

10 minutes ago, igator210 said:

But yet in the main Search function, you can filter on United States and get all 1 million caches.

Yes, but you can only list or map the first 1000 caches. This limit is (compared to newer GPSrs and the api limits) pretty outdated and should be raised asap. (together with a limit update on PQs and Bookmark Lists).

Hans

[+C3GPS]

To be fair, I understand that there are too many caches in the US to get in 1 or even 10 pocket queries. However, it's not relevant. Say you live somewhere in the upper northeast where you might be able to get caches in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Canada. I get that you can choose the 3 states individually, but you shouldn't have to.

What doesn't make sense is having all the other countries in that list but not the United States. If we just go by what "makes sense" based on how many caches are in a country, then you could remove most countries, if not all, from that list.

[+Mausebiber]

Quote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S94ohyErSw

 

 

[+The Snowdog]

Actually searching the entire US can be useful if looking for rare combinations of D/T, size, type, attributes, and so on. I'm working on a challenge where there are perhaps two dozen caches with the properties I need in the entire country; a PQ to show them all would have been nice.

Edited January 28, 2018 by The Snowdog

[+HHL]

3 hours ago, The Snowdog said:

[...] a PQ to show them all would have been nice.

This:

 

[+C3GPS]

Everyone here knows that we can pick the individual states and we all know how to do it. However, that doesn't answer the question as to why the US isn't a choice in the country list. I suspect that it will take a Lackey to answer the question.