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Feature Enhancement: States


tobsas

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United Kingdom England

United Kingdom Northern Ireland

United Kingdom Scotland

United Kingdom Wales

 

Cornwall ?

 

Channel islands ?

 

Outer hebridies ?

 

The UK would be better served by a states (counties) list. One level of coding for the current counties list no need for sub levels.

I think that the word counties means something different in the UK i mainly cache in Shropshire cause thats where i live

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It would be best not to mix up the Scottish, Welsh, English and Norethern Ireland administrative regions. In Scotland there are 32 administrative councils; the list above is incorrect as of 1996.

 

 

I my post above I proposed to include just the intermediate level for the UK, splitting the country up in Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Then, when an additional level is added, the counties can be inserted. I am afraid that otherwise the whole plan will disappear from the agenda again, because the Americans will like the idea of counties too, and for them to have counties, an additional 'layer' of data has to be added. (I did include the counties for Ireland, because that is there is no intermediate level there.

Let's at least try to get SOMETHING implemented, even though it's not going to be perfect for everyone.

kdv I can see where you are coming from. However what people don't realise is that the United kingdom is made up of four countries, although the main decisions are made in London, we all have our own parliaments and our own laws.

 

When we refer to a county this is exactly the same as a region or even a state! albeit on a different scale to the US States.

It wasn't that long ago that the Scottish counties where in fact called regions!!

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It would be best not to mix up the Scottish, Welsh, English and Norethern Ireland administrative regions. In Scotland there are 32 administrative councils; the list above is incorrect as of 1996.

 

 

I my post above I proposed to include just the intermediate level for the UK, splitting the country up in Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Then, when an additional level is added, the counties can be inserted. I am afraid that otherwise the whole plan will disappear from the agenda again, because the Americans will like the idea of counties too, and for them to have counties, an additional 'layer' of data has to be added. (I did include the counties for Ireland, because that is there is no intermediate level there.

Let's at least try to get SOMETHING implemented, even though it's not going to be perfect for everyone.

 

I have to say that that is a great shame. The USA has of the same order of States as we have Counties - the term 'counties' is not equivalent. It is only the historical accident of a once-common language that is generating this problem - were we speaking different languages I am sure you would implement British counties without an issue. I suppose we should be thankful that this does not break down to the level of cities where the difference of meaning more extreme.

 

Including the countries that make up the United Kingdom is frankly pointless - with only 4, people tend to know in which one a particular county is located.

 

So - is Geo-caching an American hobby, or a global one? Are we to be forced on this website to adopt American meanings for words, and by doing so have the utility of the website restricted, or can we accept that the same words mean different things in different countries, and adopt the meaning that is appropriate for each country.

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Why not replace the country 'UK' with the actual countries (i.e England, Scotland, Wales & N Ireland) at the top level, then the counties below that?

 

Of course, then we'd get into the arguments about whether to use historic counties (e.g. westmorland, cumberland, West/East/North riding etc) or the current ones (Cumbria, N/S/E/W Yorks, North Lincs etc).

Then, when multi-levels are implemented(?) that could further split into districts (e.g. South Lakeland, Eden etc).

And then why not go down to the level of parishes! :huh:

 

All in all, I tend to use G:UK for searches by county anyway.

 

In terms of the semantics, why not use 1st level, 2nd level etc? But that runs into the problem that in Scotland/Wales/N Ireland the 2nd level is the country, but in England it's the county. Maybe the non-elected regional assembly areas could be used?

 

Don't forget that the Isle of Man isn't part of the UK. Aren't the Channel Islands 'protectorates' rather than part of the UK as well?

 

I shall now retreat back into my hole and watch the entire discussion degenerate into civil war: B)

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Isle of Man seems an obvious one, as it's not a part of the UK, but is one of the British Isles...

The Isle of Man is already a separate "country". Fair enough, I think, as there is a separate currency, Parliament, language etc.

 

Questions:

1. what are the main advantages to having these subdivisions (partly to "sell" the idea to me, partly so I can decide what type of feature to support). Personally, I'd rather have "About 32 miles north of Birmingham" on the cache page rather than "In Staffordshire Moorlands". I'm imagining that this is meant to be a guide to the cache location rather than a filtering mechanism as I can't imagine any filter by county being much use.

 

2. We'd have to use the "modern" boundaries rather than the "traditional"ones: nowadays many people wouldn't really know where Westmorland is (for instance). But these Administrative County boundaries are often changed - is it proposed to keep cache details up to date?

 

HH

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Why not replace the country 'UK' with the actual countries (i.e England, Scotland, Wales & N Ireland) at the top level, then the counties below that?

 

I can deffinately see a need for UK Counties (Current Counties), this would make Pocket Queries much more useful for me. I am assuming that this can't be that difficult to achieve, after all Geocache UK seem to be able to do it...... hmmmm :huh:

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I was mainly afraid that the 'political degeneration' of this issue had discouraged the people in charge from implementing anything at all. One thing that would be useful to know is how likely it is that there is going to be an additional level (.e.g US - US states - State counties). If this is going to happen soon, I would suggest sticking with the division of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and then shortly after add the counties level.

If the counties level is not going to happen anytime soon, then I would be all for implementing British counties directly. When this discussion started originally, some Americans said 'if they get conties, we want counties too' and yes, maybe it is a bit unfortunate that the terms are identical in both countries, while the meanings are not. Apart from the UK (on average) being more densely populated, I think it's also a cultural thing: Americans are just more used to travel over long distances (and hey, petrol/gas is about 10 times as cheap there!).

Again, I think the important thing is to get SOMETHING done. If Jeremy finds it 'politically' acceptable to implement British counties, I will adjust the spreadsheet accordingly. For 'jealous' Americans: remember that the secondary level is already implemented (it's where you have your states). For almost all other countries the field under the nation level always has the value "Not Applicable". I know you want counties to, but that requires additional code, whereas for the UK the existing code can be used.

Also, can someone from the UK mail me with some more specific info about this? How is everything structured exactly (especially anything that's not part of England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, some islands maybe? Channel Islands, Isle of Man, anything else that should be considered?)

 

For Jeremy: how likely is it that the counties (i.e.secondary level, so US counties can be implmented too) is going to be implemented any time soon?

Also for Jeremy: don't worry, not all countries are as 'messy' as the UK :huh:

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Isle of Man seems an obvious one, as it's not a part of the UK, but is one of the British Isles...

The Isle of Man is already a separate "country". Fair enough, I think, as there is a separate currency, Parliament, language etc.

 

Questions:

1. what are the main advantages to having these subdivisions (partly to "sell" the idea to me, partly so I can .

 

 

HH

 

I live on the staffordshire / shropshire border.

 

Targeting PQ's at those states would make it easier for me when planning caching trips.

 

Searching potential holiday destinations (we are no longer put off a return BTW :huh: ) on this website would be easier.

Cache density for holiday visits would be a quick search away.

 

The old workround of having the entire UK database is on the verge of being defunct so UK states would ease the pain of this loss.

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Have a look at our profile page for the way counties are laid out in the UK

If not about the numbers can do it..............................

We are not aguing about wanting something its just that counties would be more usefull (the majority of UK caches have in brackets at the end (Alchemy Quest Gold (Shropshire)) for example..

Just look at the shape of the country look at cornwall

UK states

kdv have a look at the drop down list of countries on the search page you will find Guernsey and Jersey listed but not Sark (another channel island) The isle of man is an independent country and is also listed independently so seems OK.

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I can deffinately see a need for UK Counties (Current Counties), this would make Pocket Queries much more useful for me. I am assuming that this can't be that difficult to achieve, after all Geocache UK seem to be able to do it...... hmmmm :huh:

I'm still not convinced that you'll get any benefit from this in a PQ - you can already ask for caches within a radius of a centre point (15 miles from a cache in Bracknell, for instance). No-one has sold me the idea yet: although I can see a slight benefit from knowing which part of the country a cache is in at a glance I think that there are better ways of showing this.

 

Bearing in mind that counties are mostly meaningless when travelling in the UK (i.e. you can drive over county borders several times in a short excursion without noticing), I don't see much use for classifying caches by county. I used to live in Long Eaton (half in Notts, half in Derbyshire, very close to Leicestershire), where any filtering by county would eliminate many local caches.

 

But if we do use UK counties, why not US counties as well? IMO they are comparable.

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I'm still not convinced that you'll get any benefit from this in a PQ - you can already ask for caches within a radius of a centre point (15 miles from a cache in Bracknell, for instance). No-one has sold me the idea yet: although I can see a slight benefit from knowing which part of the country a cache is in at a glance I think that there are better ways of showing this.

 

Bearing in mind that counties are mostly meaningless when travelling in the UK (i.e. you can drive over county borders several times in a short excursion without noticing), I don't see much use for classifying caches by county. I used to live in Long Eaton (half in Notts, half in Derbyshire, very close to Leicestershire), where any filtering by county would eliminate many local caches.

 

But if we do use UK counties, why not US counties as well? IMO they are comparable.

 

I don't know about the usefulness of this fro the UK (I don't live or cache there), but for instance in The Netherlands it would be really useful, because if you just use the 'distances from center waypoint) half the time you would wind up in a different country altogether (Germany and/or Belgium). Plus in may regions there are regional geocaching communities that would like to be able to list 'their' caches in a simple manner.

 

Again, about UK vs. US counties: for implementation of US counties a new code level will be needed, because the division level that is not being used for most countries, IS being used for the US, and it's filled with STATES, not counties. That means that right now adding UK counties will be much simpler than adding US counties.

Edited by kdv
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Have a look at our profile page for the way counties are laid out in the UK

If not about the numbers can do it..............................

We are not aguing about wanting something its just that counties would be more usefull (the majority of UK caches have in brackets at the end (Alchemy Quest Gold (Shropshire)) for example..

Just look at the shape of the country look at cornwall

UK states

kdv have a look at the drop down list of countries on the search page you will find Guernsey and Jersey listed but not Sark (another channel island) The isle of man is an independent country and is also listed independently so seems OK.

 

If I understand correctly INATN is aready using some sort of regional division database. I am going to write to them to see if we can get our list in sync with theirs db. I think it will be in their nterest too, eventually...

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I should add,

earlier in the discussion, there were some worries about the geographical data for county/region outlines of the UK, they are all available here: http://nearby.org.uk/counties/

 

So, if this issue still exists, take a look.

 

And, as far as I know, that list should also be accurate.

 

Details on the county/regional systems in England, Scotland, Wales and NI is listed on wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counties_of_the_United_Kingdom

 

As far as which counties to use, I'm not sure, but the most likely set would be ceremonial (current) ones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceremonial_counties_of_England

Edited by Edgemaster
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I can deffinately see a need for UK Counties (Current Counties), this would make Pocket Queries much more useful for me. I am assuming that this can't be that difficult to achieve, after all Geocache UK seem to be able to do it...... hmmmm :huh:

I'm still not convinced that you'll get any benefit from this in a PQ - you can already ask for caches within a radius of a centre point (15 miles from a cache in Bracknell, for instance). No-one has sold me the idea yet: although I can see a slight benefit from knowing which part of the country a cache is in at a glance I think that there are better ways of showing this.

 

I would benefit from a counties PQ search - at the moment my nearest caches PQ gets me loads of London caches which I'm not interested in because they are a pain to get to by car (very busy roads) and Essex caches which aren't actually that near as the Thames esturary is in the way! And because of all the London and Essex caches, not all the Kent caches make it into the PQ within the 500 limit.

 

Lisa

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I don't know about the usefulness of this fro the UK (I don't live or cache there), but for instance in The Netherlands it would be really useful, because if you just use the 'distances from center waypoint) half the time you would wind up in a different country altogether (Germany and/or Belgium). Plus in may regions there are regional geocaching communities that would like to be able to list 'their' caches in a simple manner.

That's why I made the point about UK counties being meaningless on the ground (in comparison with country borders). It may not be a trivial matter to cross into another country, so if you use the 'distances from center waypoint' filter you'd also use the 'country' filter to make sure you only listed caches in your country. Why would you use a 'county' filter though? AFAIK you can cross freely between regions in the Netherlands.

 

One thing I do often have a problem with, is finding a centre point for a pocket query; and I'd love to be able to select (for example) "Paris (France)" as a centre point without having to investigate which coordinates to use. I've noted other cachers having the same trouble ("I'm visiting York next week - can you tell me whether there are any caches within easy walking distance of the city centre?"). I'd find a list of caches within 3 miles of York (UK) much more useful than a list of all caches in Yorkshire (UK)!

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That's why I made the point about UK counties being meaningless on the ground (in comparison with country borders). It may not be a trivial matter to cross into another country, so if you use the 'distances from center waypoint' filter you'd also use the 'country' filter to make sure you only listed caches in your country. Why would you use a 'county' filter though? AFAIK you can cross freely between regions in the Netherlands.

 

One thing I do often have a problem with, is finding a centre point for a pocket query; and I'd love to be able to select (for example) "Paris (France)" as a centre point without having to investigate which coordinates to use. I've noted other cachers having the same trouble ("I'm visiting York next week - can you tell me whether there are any caches within easy walking distance of the city centre?"). I'd find a list of caches within 3 miles of York (UK) much more useful than a list of all caches in Yorkshire (UK)!

 

Two points here, one, some places are a pain to get to, as noted above, the Thames estury could be in the way, and the county border just happens to be along the river. Much more useful for a PQ of the county, since geographical features are often considered when the borders were decided.

 

With the second point, this is a different situation, PQs and one-off searches have different target audiences, for a visitor, you'd want a centre point search, but if you're a local cacher, and wanted a list of localish caches, the counties list helps, as noted above, some places are harder to get to over the greater area.

 

Another example is the Wirral Peninsula. I've been told it's a pain.

 

I hope I've made some sense. Now, more arguments are likely to sway this topic too far from its point.

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I would benefit from a counties PQ search - at the moment my nearest caches PQ gets me loads of London caches which I'm not interested in because they are a pain to get to by car (very busy roads) and Essex caches which aren't actually that near as the Thames esturary is in the way! And because of all the London and Essex caches, not all the Kent caches make it into the PQ within the 500 limit.

 

Lisa

Good point: but what if you live in the SW corner of Kent? The majority of your local caches are in probably in Sussex and Surrey. If you were limited to the 500 closest in Kent, you might get some more than an hour's drive away but miss dozens of nearby ones. If you prefer to stick to Kent, you can just use a centre point near the middle of Kent anyway.

Edited by Happy Humphrey
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United Kingdom England

United Kingdom Northern Ireland

United Kingdom Scotland

United Kingdom Wales

 

Cornwall ?

 

Channel islands ?

 

Outer hebridies ?

 

Personally, I don't think this list is much use and think that some sort of county system is the only way to go. You have to accept that there will always be people moaning that their favourite county isn't included, but keep in mind why people want this functionality and ignore the moaners. I think people want it simply because many of the British County boundaries coincide with convenient geographical features. So, by setting a pocket query limiting the search to a particular county you can have a list of all the "local" caches or eliminate "problem" caches that are the wrong side of the river etc.

 

Yes, some people won't use it, and there will be complaints because in this matter you certainly can't please everyone. A constructive list based on as few counties possible is what you want though (if you want to be less political about it you could call them "areas"). For this reason, I suggest you pick a rough list of old counties (because this is what most people relate to in my experience) and make a few changes to adjust some of the counties that really don't exist any more. That way you should get a list with a sensible number of "areas". Another alternative would be to stick some counties together to form slightly larger "regions" with borders in sensible places, but for this to work you would need to get opinions of some very local cachers. Hmmmm... Maybe this is a discusion for the local forum...

 

B.

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I have updated the spreadsheet to include UK counties, based on the listing used on www.itsnotaboutthenumbers.com/. I've also added Russian republics instead of regions, plus regions for Japan and a couple of other small thingies.

For the download link see my previous post.

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Good point: but what if you live in the SW corner of Kent? The majority of your local caches are in probably in Sussex and Surrey. If you were limited to the 500 closest in Kent, you might get some more than an hour's drive away but miss dozens of nearby ones. If you prefer to stick to Kent, you can just use a centre point near the middle of Kent anyway.

I had a nightmare trying to organise my PQ for the East Lothian event last year. I knew caches in the Borders would have been out of the way, and the caches in Fife just unreachable unless you drove back through to the bridge, which totally defeats the point of the event being in East Lothian. I found that with the type of radius search that we have and you appear to like brought up far to many caches that where unreachable. If I had been able to make up a PQ search with just East Lothian, this would have saved me a hell of a lot of time.

 

Something that amazes me about these forums, is that when someone can't see how a suggestion benefits them, those people are against the idea from the word go. No wonder TPTB don't always go ahead and implement things when you have to argue your case with those that can ignore the suggested upgrade!!

 

Please Geocachers of the world, accept that others may do things differently and what you don't need or benefit from, may be of great benefit to others. :D

Edited by Haggis Hunter
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I should add,

earlier in the discussion, there were some worries about the geographical data for county/region outlines of the UK, they are all available here: http://nearby.org.uk/counties/

 

So, if this issue still exists, take a look.

 

And, as far as I know, that list should also be accurate.

Its not up-to-date as far as Scotland is concerned as it shows the old administrative regions which dont exist anymore (blame the Tories who thought that by changing the voting geography they would gain more parliamentary seats - did it work? Nah!)

 

Details on the county/regional systems in England, Scotland, Wales and NI is listed on wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counties_of_the_United_Kingdom

 

That is the link to the map that I posted earlier and shows the current administrative councils (32 of them) for Scotland.

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The Island of Ireland

* denote's Northern Ireland

 

**** Denotes changes made to County Dublin

 

County Fingal, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, and South Dublin replaced the now non-existent County Dublin, which was effectively abolished when the Local Government Act 2001 (Section 10) was enacted

Edited by The Windsockers
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United Kingdom England

United Kingdom Northern Ireland

United Kingdom Scotland

United Kingdom Wales

 

Cornwall ?

 

Channel islands ?

 

Outer hebridies ?

 

The UK would be better served by a states (counties) list. One level of coding for the current counties list no need for sub levels.

I think that the word counties means something different in the UK i mainly cache in Shropshire cause thats where i live

 

I definately think that we should just use United Kingdom, England; United Kingdom, Northern Ireland; United Kingdom, Scotland and United Kingdom, Wales. Why? The names of them don't change, much like the names of the 50 states don't. However, the names of the administrative counties / regions / boroughs etc do. Whilst I can think of the benefits of searching queries by country (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) I can see no benefit of searching by county. Where I am in north Wales, geocacheuk.com thinks that we have two counties (we actually have 6, due to changes in 1996) and in those 'two' counties we have under 300 caches. Some counties are going to have even less, and in other areas (south east England springs to mind) there are many many caches.

 

I like the idea of making the search more specific, if required, for the UK, but going down to a County level just turns it into a paper exercise of keeping records up to date and we'd only complain when X county is not available when it has been known as Y for the past 3 and half years anyhow!

 

So, for reiteration, stick with the names of the four home nations. England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

 

Thanks for the opportunity to vent! :D

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United Kingdom England

United Kingdom Northern Ireland

United Kingdom Scotland

United Kingdom Wales

 

Cornwall ?

 

Channel islands ?

 

Outer hebridies ?

 

The UK would be better served by a states (counties) list. One level of coding for the current counties list no need for sub levels.

I think that the word counties means something different in the UK i mainly cache in Shropshire cause thats where i live

 

I definately think that we should just use United Kingdom, England; United Kingdom, Northern Ireland; United Kingdom, Scotland and United Kingdom, Wales. Why? The names of them don't change, much like the names of the 50 states don't. However, the names of the administrative counties / regions / boroughs etc do. Whilst I can think of the benefits of searching queries by country (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) I can see no benefit of searching by county. Where I am in north Wales, geocacheuk.com thinks that we have two counties (we actually have 6, due to changes in 1996) and in those 'two' counties we have under 300 caches. Some counties are going to have even less, and in other areas (south east England springs to mind) there are many many caches.

 

I like the idea of making the search more specific, if required, for the UK, but going down to a County level just turns it into a paper exercise of keeping records up to date and we'd only complain when X county is not available when it has been known as Y for the past 3 and half years anyhow!

 

So, for reiteration, stick with the names of the four home nations. England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

 

Thanks for the opportunity to vent! :D

 

I think I would prefer us to be split into counties as those of us that live next to a large inlet of water, The Wash, the Humber etc. May have a cache listed as being 20 miles away but to drive to the cache around the wash may be over 100 miles. if I could specify my home county of norfolk I could get those closest to drive to. There are lots of examples around the country because we live on an island.

When i get notification of events the closest to me are usualy in Holland :D

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The Island of Ireland

<snip>

 

All these counties are already in the updated spreadsheet. The ones referring to the republic as part of Ireland, the other ones as part of the UK (it would be great if the Island of Ireland had a political status, but we can't go into politics here:)

 

Reminder for everyone: if you want to give input, please first check out the spreadsheet I have posted, and then send me preferably a private message with additional /corected info. If there are things to be discussed of course we can do it here, but I think it would be great if we could keep the clutter to a minimum, so as not to discourage Jeremy from implementing this at all :D

Edited by kdv
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Something that amazes me about these forums, is that when someone can't see how a suggestion benefits them, those people are against the idea from the word go. No wonder TPTB don't always go ahead and implement things when you have to argue your case with those that can ignore the suggested upgrade!!

 

Please Geocachers of the world, accept that others may do things differently and what you don't need or benefit from, may be of great benefit to others. :D

I'm still convinced that we'll miss the opportunity to implement something much better if we agree to these arbitrary "county" divisions. It appears to be a lot of effort for something which only a minority will find slightly useful - the same effort would be better applied to a more clever filter function in the pocket query which would be of use to the same minority plus a much larger group as well.

 

For instance, we now have "caches along a route" which works brilliantly. Why not allow a cacher to define an area in the same way, then have the PQ return all the caches in that area? If you like to only cache inside your county, then define the county as your area. If you want everything south of a river, define an area with the river as the boundary.

 

Sounds like a much better upgrade to me - also there are no "political" arguments and no problems when administrative boundaries are changed.

 

HH

Edited by Happy Humphrey
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I would benefit from a counties PQ search - at the moment my nearest caches PQ gets me loads of London caches which I'm not interested in because they are a pain to get to by car (very busy roads) and Essex caches which aren't actually that near as the Thames esturary is in the way! And because of all the London and Essex caches, not all the Kent caches make it into the PQ within the 500 limit.

 

Lisa

Good point: but what if you live in the SW corner of Kent? The majority of your local caches are in probably in Sussex and Surrey. If you were limited to the 500 closest in Kent, you might get some more than an hour's drive away but miss dozens of nearby ones. If you prefer to stick to Kent, you can just use a centre point near the middle of Kent anyway.

 

If I put a PQ in for the centre of Kent I would still loose some Kent caches due to the high density of London caches. I live in north Kent but most of my caching activity is in Kent and Sussex so it would be a simple matter for me to have 2 queries - one for Kent and one for Sussex.

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Why not allow a cacher to define an area in the same way, then have the PQ return all the caches in that area? If you like to only cache inside your county, then define the county as your area. If you want everything south of a river, define an area with the river as the boundary.

 

Sounds like a much better upgrade to me - also there are no "political" arguments and no problems when administrative boundaries are changed.

 

HH

 

Now that is an EXCELLENT idea! That's what I currently do with GSAK, except it takes 3 PQs at the moment to cover the area I want, even though the area I am interested in contains less than 500 caches. Which was fine until I found out by chance my PQs were missing off the extreme SE of Kent - cue an annoying rejig of the PQs to cover everything.

 

Lisa

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Something that amazes me about these forums, is that when someone can't see how a suggestion benefits them, those people are against the idea from the word go. No wonder TPTB don't always go ahead and implement things when you have to argue your case with those that can ignore the suggested upgrade!!

 

Please Geocachers of the world, accept that others may do things differently and what you don't need or benefit from, may be of great benefit to others. :D

I'm still convinced that we'll miss the opportunity to implement something much better if we agree to these arbitrary "county" divisions. It appears to be a lot of effort for something which only a minority will find slightly useful - the same effort would be better applied to a more clever filter function in the pocket query which would be of use to the same minority plus a much larger group as well.

 

For instance, we now have "caches along a route" which works brilliantly. Why not allow a cacher to define an area in the same way, then have the PQ return all the caches in that area? If you like to only cache inside your county, then define the county as your area. If you want everything south of a river, define an area with the river as the boundary.

 

Sounds like a much better upgrade to me - also there are no "political" arguments and no problems when administrative boundaries are changed.

 

HH

 

What we have been trying to get done here is just fill in an existing field with data for all countries, not just the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Belgium. What you are talking about is something completely different, which could be interesting and useful too IMO. I suppose you are talking about defining 'personal' polygons to filter on? By all means, do start lobbying for it! But maybe it should be a separate topic, as I really don't see why it should be an either/or with the regional (administrative) subdivisions, for which, sorry, I know I am repeating myself, not much more will be required than to fill an already existing field with data for more than just 5 countries.

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Now that is an EXCELLENT idea! ....

Thanks!

 

Just to flesh the idea out a little, I'd imagine that you'd be able to save and share any defined areas - so if someone else has defined a "Kent" boundary you could just use it (similar to "caches along a route"). You would also have the facility to define a centre point (which wouldn't be shared, but would default to the geographical centre of the area), so that if there are more than 500 caches in the area you'd get the most useful ones.

 

The Silver Standard version would give you an estimate of cache numbers within the area before you submit the PQ, so you know whether to expand or contract it. The Gold Standard would allow up to 1000 cache details to be returned in the GPX file.

 

HH

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If I understand correctly INATN is aready using some sort of regional division database. I am going to write to them to see if we can get our list in sync with theirs db. I think it will be in their nterest too, eventually...

 

I should add,

earlier in the discussion, there were some worries about the geographical data for county/region outlines of the UK, they are all available here: http://nearby.org.uk/counties/

My ears were burning, so I knew someone was talking about me...

 

I use the shape files from nearby.org.uk (with permission) to do the county mapping on my site for the UK and Ireland. (Last I checked, NI data wasn't available there. I have shapefiles for NI, but I have no clue where I found them...) Since the counties aren't named in PQs, I go at it the hard way, and calculate in which county each cache falls using the same algorithm that I use for US counties.

 

For my own selfish reasons, I'd love to see the county names built into the cache metadata so I don't have to figure them out by hand each time.

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... maybe it should be a separate topic, as I really don't see why it should be an either/or with the regional (administrative) subdivisions,

Maybe you're right, and apologies if I appear to be attempting to derail a different train of thought. But it appears from the responses here that people don't really want to know what county a cache is in, but that they want to limit the pocket query searches to within certain boundaries. I think that using counties for this is a rather arbitrary and limiting method, although I agree that it has some value from the point of view of a quick indication of general cache location.

not much more will be required than to fill an already existing field with data for more than just 5 countries.

Although you've heroically volunteered to gather and input the data - no small task IMO - I don't think that you should be lumbered with keeping it up to date for the next few years. That's ignoring the inevitable controversy of the British and Irish divisions (which we've touched on very briefly here), and the grumbles when a cache turns out to be just a few feet inside the Yorkshire border but is defined as "Lancashire"!.

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Maybe you're right, and apologies if I appear to be attempting to derail a different train of thought. But it appears from the responses here that people don't really want to know what county a cache is in, but that they want to limit the pocket query searches to within certain boundaries. I think that using counties for this is a rather arbitrary and limiting method, although I agree that it has some value from the point of view of a quick indication of general cache location.

 

 

Well the world is bigger than just the UK. I for one would be VERY happy to see this happening (personally I don't care about counties in the UK, but about regions in Italy and provinces in the Netherlands). On the Italian geocaching site, the webmaster reinserts each and every new cache to classify them based on regions, so people can filter them on regions on that website, and this is appreciated A LOT by all Italian cachers. I also keep an eye on the Dutch geocaching community and they also would LOVE to see this happen. And if you have read all of this thread, you will see that a lot of people from all sorts of different countries would applaud this. In fact, the only opponents I have seen so far are British. Maybe we can just forget about the British subdivision and only do all other countries? :D that way Americans who would like to see their counties listed will also be less jealous!

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As noted, stop the discussion, the list is being compiled, let it happen.

 

Take the polygon discussion into a new topic, and I'd also recommend taking all UK-specific discussion to this thread. If here gets more cluttered, things could be missed.

 

This post is because the thread is being bogged down too much.

Edited by Edgemaster
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Well the world is bigger than just the UK. I for one would be VERY happy to see this happening (personally I don't care about counties in the UK, but about regions in Italy and provinces in the Netherlands). On the Italian geocaching site, the webmaster reinserts each and every new cache to classify them based on regions, so people can filter them on regions on that website, and this is appreciated A LOT by all Italian cachers. I also keep an eye on the Dutch geocaching community and they also would LOVE to see this happen. And if you have read all of this thread, you will see that a lot of people from all sorts of different countries would applaud this. In fact, the only opponents I have seen so far are British. Maybe we can just forget about the British subdivision and only do all other countries? :D that way Americans who would like to see their counties listed will also be less jealous!

I was looking for a more universal soution - my examples happened to be British because so many Brits are interested. I think that British regions being so difficult, some of the pitfalls of the original "States/ counties" suggestion are bound to be pointed out by Brits as we have so much trouble with such things.

 

My alternative would appear to fit very well with the Italian requirements, however, and is less work. You haven't mentioned what's wrong with someone (the Italian webmaster perhaps?) defining (for example) Umbria as a region via my suggested "caches in a shape" method and a geocacher using this "shape" and centering a PQ on (say) Terni. This would eliminate the offensive caches in Lazio (as you require), but giving the 500 caches inside Umbria and nearest to Terni.

 

It would also be useful if you cache in (say) Santa Clara county, but you're only interested in the Los Gatos sector (for instance). Or anywhere - far from being a UK solution as you suggest (I'm not in the UK either!).

 

HH

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I was looking for a more universal soution - my examples happened to be British because so many Brits are interested. I think that British regions being so difficult, some of the pitfalls of the original "States/ counties" suggestion are bound to be pointed out by Brits as we have so much trouble with such things.

 

My alternative would appear to fit very well with the Italian requirements, however, and is less work. You haven't mentioned what's wrong with someone (the Italian webmaster perhaps?) defining (for example) Umbria as a region via my suggested "caches in a shape" method and a geocacher using this "shape" and centering a PQ on (say) Terni. This would eliminate the offensive caches in Lazio (as you require), but giving the 500 caches inside Umbria and nearest to Terni.

 

It would also be useful if you cache in (say) Santa Clara county, but you're only interested in the Los Gatos sector (for instance). Or anywhere - far from being a UK solution as you suggest (I'm not in the UK either!).

 

HH

 

If you can get the Americans to accept that their states will be deleted from the system and substituted with your alternative solution, it will be ok with me too :D

One of my points was that your "caches in a shape" method requires implementing a NEWfeature. I am only asking for an EXISTING field to be filled with data. I don't see what you could have against this. Also, if I understand correctly, your solution would require people (individually or collectively) to define their own polygons, and I don't think everyone is so technology savvy that they will be able to do this. By the way, instead of trying to 'block' this, why don't you start your lobby for your method (preferably in a new thread :D

Edited by kdv
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If you can get the Americans to accept that their states will be deleted from the system and substituted with your alternative solution, it will be ok with me too :D

No, I was never suggesting this at all. I'm happy that we continue with states and countries. I was offering a solution to smaller areas (counties, departments etc) as there seemed to be a "pocket query" aspect which turns out to be a red herring.

 

One of my points was that your "caches in a shape" method requires implementing a NEWfeature. I am only asking for an EXISTING field to be filled with data. I don't see what you could have against this. And instead of trying to 'block' this, why don't you start your lobby for your method (preferably in a new thread :D

I have nothing against it, and would not want to block it now that you've explained that some cachers need to limit their queries to within certain regional boundaries for local reasons unrelated to geography.

 

As for "caches within a shape" - I'll go to the "New Feature" list and see if it's already been suggested: sorry to butt in to your thread! :D

 

HH

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What we have been trying to get done here is just fill in an existing field with data for all countries, not just the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Belgium.

 

There's a key point to be found in that remark: consistency of the data available across all geographical areas. For me, seeing that Belgium (a neighbour country to me) and the US have more detailed, and IMHO useful, data available while my area (NL) has not, is a bit ... unsettling.

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Maybe you're right, and apologies if I appear to be attempting to derail a different train of thought. But it appears from the responses here that people don't really want to know what county a cache is in, but that they want to limit the pocket query searches to within certain boundaries. I think that using counties for this is a rather arbitrary and limiting method, although I agree that it has some value from the point of view of a quick indication of general cache location.

 

 

To make it absolutely clear, so that the volume of posting from one person doesn't derail the plans, I am based in the UK, and I want caches in the UK to be classified by county. I see it as an extremely useful feature, and one that can apparently be implemented without rewriting the system.

 

Further, I can see that it does no harm for those people like HH who are not interested in counties, and further may do good, as it will allow those of us who find counties useful to cease having to include the county name in the titles of all our caches.

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Another example is the Wirral Peninsula. I've been told it's a pain.

 

 

It is ....... a PQ centred somewhere on the Wirral takes some careful plotting (in fact the best way to do it is either 2 PQ centres or by using the Caches along a Route (straightish line down the middle) function) to make sure it doesn't include caches the other side of the Mersey (Liverpool, Merseyside) or the Dee (Wales counties).

 

But The Wirral, while a geographical area, is part of two counties; Merseyside (which is mainly the Liverpool side of the River and Cheshire, which is to the south.

So to search for Wirral caches, you would still need to take into account the River Mersey within a Merseyside, county PQ. The Welsh side of the Dee would be catered for by the county listing.

 

The Thames (Kent and Essex) presents a similar problem as would various other counties bounded by large (by UK standards) rivers or expanses of water (Humber, The Wash, Bristol Channel and the Severn, The Solent/Southampton Water, Firth of Forth, Firth of Tay, not to mention all the Lochs, the Clyde etc... on the West Coast of Scotland, Solway Firth).

 

I think, in general, a county (read state, because this is US based !!) choice would make things a lot easier in some respects, but in others would make it more difficult, unless the PQ can be run with or with out county selection and with multiple county selection, in which case the ideal compromise is possible.

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I think, in general, a county (read state, because this is US based !!) choice would make things a lot easier in some respects, but in others would make it more difficult, unless the PQ can be run with or with out county selection and with multiple county selection, in which case the ideal compromise is possible.

 

Of course it will be possibile to run PQs with or without county selection. In the current system it's also possibile to filter on country level without specifying e.g. a US state. So I guess you could just use the county selection in those cases when it makes things easier, and not when it makes things more difficult.

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The Island of Ireland

<snip>

 

All these counties are already in the updated spreadsheet. The ones referring to the republic as part of Ireland, the other ones as part of the UK (it would be great if the Island of Ireland had a political status, but we can't go into politics here:) :P

 

 

There's a change to the County Dublin you have on your list:

 

**** Denotes changes made to County Dublin

 

County Fingal, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, and South Dublin replaced the now non-existent County Dublin, which was effectively abolished when the Local Government Act 2001 (Section 10) was enacted

 

 

Similarly, County Tipperary has been replaced in legislation with North and South Tipperary.

 

<_<

 

 

posted here as cant get the pm to work :unsure:

Edited by The Windsockers
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County Fingal, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, and South Dublin replaced the now non-existent County Dublin

 

Similarly, County Tipperary North and South Tipperary.

 

 

I actually did read somewhere about the change to County Dublin. I thought I'd get away with leaving it anyway, but you caught me in the act :P

My reasoning for leaving just "Dublin" was that "Fingal, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, and South Dublin" is a very long string (i'ts just one county that has changes name, right, or are this 3 separate counties now? If it's still just one county, do you, as an Irishman (It's you who will have to work with it) think that this long string is workable? Will you really be looking for this county name and start typing "Fin..." in the dropdown box when you place/want to look for a cache in Dublin?

 

About Tipperary, are they 2 different counties now or is this (also?) just a name change of 1 single county?

 

On a personal note (I've lived in Dublin myself a couple of years), what happened to North Dublin? Is that part of Wexford now?? (Or maybe it's Fingal, which I'm afraid doesn't ring a bell with me.)

Edited by kdv
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I think, in general, a county (read state, because this is US based !!) choice would make things a lot easier in some respects, but in others would make it more difficult, unless the PQ can be run with or with out county selection and with multiple county selection, in which case the ideal compromise is possible.

 

Of course it will be possibile to run PQs with or without county selection. In the current system it's also possibile to filter on country level without specifying e.g. a US state. So I guess you could just use the county selection in those cases when it makes things easier, and not when it makes things more difficult.

 

Will it possible to select one than one county at a time. Maybe limit to max 3 or 4 counties ?

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