Your geocache nickname and description will be displayed publicly

[+Max and 99]

I came across something by accident the other day, on my phone. I must have been using the browser, not the app, because it's the only place I can duplicate what I found.

 

When I click on My Lists, choose a list that is Private, then click to edit an individual geocache name, it says this:

 

Your geocache nickname and description will be displayed publicly

 

I'm trying to understand why it will be displayed publicly. The nickname and description is only for me,  and the list is private, so I know I'm missing something.  And why does it have a box to describe the List, when I would expect it to say describe the geocache (like notes).

 

Thanks for your help.

 

 

 

 

[+IceColdUK]

I haven’t tested but I would assume the pop-up isn’t distinguishing between private and public lists.  I guess it still acts as a warning that should you make your private list public in future, these nicknames will be displayed publicly - so careful how you name them!

 

Agree, the ‘help’ in the description box looks wrong.  Maybe “Add a description for your List” would be better?

[+Max and 99]

That makes sense!

[+dprovan]

On 5/17/2020 at 2:46 AM, IceColdUK said:

I haven’t tested but I would assume the pop-up isn’t distinguishing between private and public lists.  I guess it still acts as a warning that should you make your private list public in future, these nicknames will be displayed publicly - so careful how you name them!

I think your guess is almost certainly correct. And let's remember that even though you're creating a private list, you can make it public later. Should say something more like, "If this list is made public, everyone will see the name and description."

 

On 5/17/2020 at 2:46 AM, IceColdUK said:

Agree, the ‘help’ in the description box looks wrong.  Maybe “Add a description for your List” would be better?

That clearly looks like someone just copied the code from list creation and forgot to update the box's "help" to reflect the difference in what's being put in the box.

 

But this comes close to something that's always annoyed me about geocache lists, but I wonder if it's not because, as a software developer, I have a clearer distinction in my head between an item in a list, and the thing the item refers to. It says "Geocaching Nickname" and "Geocache Description", but what you're providing is the name of the list entry, not a nickname for the geocache, and your providing a description of the list entry, something that relates the geocache to the list, but that is, in my experience, never a description of the geocache. I suspect the developer was unclear about that concept, but I can't rule out the possibility that the developer is just smarter than I am and is anticipating that users will be unclear on that concept.

Edited May 19, 2020 by dprovan

[+coachstahly]

I got that as well on the browser, as I was attempting to figure out if individual caches in lists could be edited to add information to their "box" within the list.  It was for the CO NM suggestion thread but I opted to leave off that part if there was the off-chance that the information would truly be made public, despite the fact that the list would be tagged as private.