What's the deal with the Maps section just languishing in non-maintenance?

[+ccurzio]

There has been a long-standing issue with the website team simply ignoring the "Maps" section of user statistics. A long while back (maybe a year or two?) I had contacted GC asking why the country of Aruba was not included as part of South America. I received a generic "we are constantly working hard to add countries" message of some kind in response, but literally nothing has changed.

 

"Caches You've Found in Asia" has also only ever displayed a zoomed-out world view. There's also no "North America" (or even "Central America") section so countries like Mexico and Panama are just in limbo.

 

Does anyone at GC even work on the maps anymore?

[+Isonzo Karst]

That unit stats unit was brought over from some pre-existing stats site.  I don't think that it's been altered in any way since (2009?) 

Rather than fiddle with it, I'd expect, eventually, maybe, a whole new unit.

[Moun10Bike]

The maps in the stats are actually a Google module. They rely on what Google calls a country (which is why the countries there don't match up precisely with what are available on Geocaching.com), it's why Asia shows such a wide view, and it's why Aruba doesn't trigger a find for South America.

[+ccurzio]

5 hours ago, Moun10Bike said:

The maps in the stats are actually a Google module. They rely on what Google calls a country (which is why the countries there don't match up precisely with what are available on Geocaching.com), it's why Asia shows such a wide view, and it's why Aruba doesn't trigger a find for South America.

 

I believe what you're saying is accurate to a certain extent, but I have trouble with believing that Google isn't categorizing Aruba as part of South America. And then why would I get a message saying that the GC folks are "constantly working to add countries," when (if what you're saying is accurate) the response should be "that's not within our control?"

 

Can you point me to where I can learn more about this module? Maybe I can open a bug with Google to get it fixed.

 

Thanks for the info.

[Moun10Bike]

17 minutes ago, ccurzio said:

I believe what you're saying is accurate to a certain extent, but I have trouble with believing that Google isn't categorizing Aruba as part of South America. And then why would I get a message saying that the GC folks are "constantly working to add countries," when (if what you're saying is accurate) the response should be "that's not within our control?"

 

I'm sure that Google is aware that Aruba is in South America, but that portion of Google's map in their module seems to lump all of the islands in the southern portion of the Caribbean into one entity. If you hover over Aruba on the map on the statistics page, you'll see that all of those islands highlight at once. I suspect that it is looking for some designation for the group that it does not see when told to color in "Aruba." But yes, it's possible that we are doing something incorrect on our side of things.

 

As for the response you received from one of our support personnel, you have to understand that they are relatively inexperienced and they are not going to be aware of all of the ins-and-outs of the technical side of things. The statement that we are "constantly working to add countries" is absolutely correct, though. Most recently we have added the countries that formerly comprised the Netherlands Antilles, South Sudan, Montenegro, et al. We also just changed the name of Turkey to its new name, Türkiye. That doesn't mean what we have is always going to align with Google. For example, Google shows Kosovo on the map, but we still list caches there as Serbia as that is how the UN currently recognizes that territory. As a result, cachers who find a cache in what is known as Kosovo will see Serbia colored in on their map while the polygon for Kosovo remains unshaded.

 

17 minutes ago, ccurzio said:

Can you point me to where I can learn more about this module? Maybe I can open a bug with Google to get it fixed.

 

Knock yourself out: https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/gallery/geochart

[+hzoi]

On 10/3/2022 at 12:35 PM, Isonzo Karst said:

That unit stats unit was brought over from some pre-existing stats site.

 

mygeocachingprofile.com, I believe. I still upload a PQ to it occasionally, though project-GC is much more useful.

 

(I miss It's Not about The Numbers, purely for nostalgia's sake. I was still using their blue/red/burgundy color scheme on my GSAK maps until I finally decided rainbow looked nicer.)

[+Oxford Stone]

I just noticed that gc.com stats list Cyprus as an Asian country - and don't even get me started on what they've done to Ireland.