Feature Enhancement: States

February 14, 2008

EDIT: realised I repeated something I already said

Edited February 14, 2008 by minstrelcat

February 14, 2008

I've merely been collecting input from people from various countries, integrating their contributions yo this thread in one spreadsheet.

Sorry KDV but your list for the UK in particular Wales is not what is in current usage, you've listed the Ceremonial Preserved Counties of Wale Clwyd for example is comprised of Conway,Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham all seperate counties. There are currently 22 counties in Wales and not the 8 ceremonial ones listed.

OpinioNate I'll post the question in the UK forum and get back to you with a definitive list.

About Ireland: I had just 'Tipperary' as a county at first too, but was corrected by a contributing Irishman who stated that it's been split up in two separate counties.

Again, I think UK and Ireland should be handled at the same time, because of the 'overlapping' counties issue. See my previous post.

2.1k · February 15, 2008

I appreciate your efforts in compiling a list. It would be a good idea to post the list here when completed so a consensus can be reached before updating the site since there seems to be some disagreement.

February 15, 2008

I appreciate your efforts in compiling a list. It would be a good idea to post the list here when completed so a consensus can be reached before updating the site since there seems to be some disagreement.

By now the list is huge, a bit too much to post here. The contents have been discussed throughout this thread, and I have adapted it continuously. Anyone can look at the list and post feedback here, as has been done all along. Some discussions (like about Tipperary) are repeated now, as one can see if they read the entire thread.

1.6k · February 15, 2008

I appreciate your efforts in compiling a list. It would be a good idea to post the list here when completed so a consensus can be reached before updating the site since there seems to be some disagreement.

Nate I'll be able to post a definitive list for the UK Mainland shortly after Noon (GMT) on Saturday. The list for Northern Ireland is a seperate issue which we will have resolved in a short period after the mainland one has. Dependant on which choice is made, there will be another issue to resolve before we will be able to supply the definitive list for Northern Ireland.

As far as I'm aware from discussions with cachers in Ireland (RoI), their preference is for the original counties as listed on the creation of the Free state in 1921 and not the current administration boundary's now being used. This will be confirmed by the Ireland Reviewer Croaghan, once the Northern Ireland list has been resolved [as this affects caches listed in both the UK and Ireland which are located in Northern Ireland]

1.6k · February 23, 2008

After much discussions and taking into account all opinions expressed on the Issue, the 3 UK Reviewers Eckington, Lactodorum and myself along with Croaghan the Reviewer for Ireland have proposed to Groundspeak that the following list be applied to the United Kingdom and to Ireland.

United Kingdom Areas

Scotland North

Scotland South

North East England

North West England

Yorkshire and Humber

East Midlands

West Midlands

North Wales

South Wales

East of England

London

South of England

South West of England

South East of England

Ulster [covering caches in Northern Ireland listed as being in the UK]

Ireland

Ulster [Covering part of the RoI and caches in Northern Ireland listed as being in Ireland]

Munster

Dublin

Connact

Leinster

Whilst we are aware that this will not satisfy everyone, it is we believe the most workable solution.

Deceangi Volunteer UK Reviewer

Edited February 23, 2008 by Deceangi

February 23, 2008

I think it's excellent that all UK/Irish reviewers have been involved in this decision. I was just wondering if there is a specific reason why you would list "Scotland North" and Scotland South", but, for instance, "Nprth Wales" and "South Wales". Wouldn't it make more sense to put the "North" and "South" bit at the beginning everywhere?

1.2k · May 14, 2008

Could TPTB perhaps update us on when (if?) this enhancement (UK regions) will be implemented?

Thanks.

Edited May 14, 2008 by The Hornet

1.6k · May 14, 2008

Upps sorry folks I meant to update folks about this. Miss Jenn has chased this up, and asked me to give her a nudge in 2 weeks to see whats happening. This has not been forgotten I promise.

1.2k · May 31, 2008

Time for a nudge I think. :rolleyes:

1.2k · July 5, 2008

May 14 2008, 01:16 PM' post='3472262']
Miss Jenn has chased this up, and asked me to give her a nudge in 2 weeks to see whats happening.

The two week nudge was two months ago. Any more news?

Edited July 5, 2008 by The Hornet

July 13, 2008

Are there any plans to separate "Countries" from "States/Provinces/..." everywhere on the site?

Example:

On the gc.com homepage, there is: "Upcoming Geocaching Events: ... (Hessen), ... (UK), ... (Florida).

Now, Hessen and Florida are States, while UK is a country. This issue also turns up on cache pages themselves.

It would be very nice to finally have some consistency.

July 13, 2008

I appreciate your efforts in compiling a list. It would be a good idea to post the list here when completed so a consensus can be reached before updating the site since there seems to be some disagreement.

There's never been any disagreement on the Austrian states, so could you pleeeeaaaaase add them?

TIA,

ime

1.1k · July 13, 2008

We in the UK have 'agreed' to having regions that was months ago and GC promised it would be sorted soon, but we wait and wait :unsure: We have almost 30,000 caches in the UK and no way to sort one area from another, not even by country ie England, Scotland or Wales.

July 14, 2008

We in the UK have 'agreed' to having regions that was months ago and GC promised it would be sorted soon, but we wait and wait We have almost 30,000 caches in the UK and no way to sort one area from another, not even by country ie England, Scotland or Wales.

Not to disagree, but we have over 50,000 caches in California and no way to divide them up.... counties is probably too much to ask... :blink:

1.2k · July 17, 2008

We in the UK have 'agreed' to having regions that was months ago and GC promised it would be sorted soon, but we wait and wait We have almost 30,000 caches in the UK and no way to sort one area from another, not even by country ie England, Scotland or Wales.

This is an ongoing discussion in the UK forum. We were promised an answer by Groundspeak ages ago but despite this promise we have still heard nothing. If GSP see this message could someone PLEASE let us know what's going on? Pretty please even!!

1.3k · July 17, 2008

We in the UK have 'agreed' to having regions that was months ago and GC promised it would be sorted soon, but we wait and wait We have almost 30,000 caches in the UK and no way to sort one area from another, not even by country ie England, Scotland or Wales.

Not to disagree, but we have over 50,000 caches in California and no way to divide them up.... counties is probably too much to ask...

Why?

July 17, 2008

We in the UK have 'agreed' to having regions that was months ago and GC promised it would be sorted soon, but we wait and wait We have almost 30,000 caches in the UK and no way to sort one area from another, not even by country ie England, Scotland or Wales.

Not to disagree, but we have over 50,000 caches in California and no way to divide them up.... counties is probably too much to ask...

Why?

Because that would mean that the structure of the database has to be changed.

The purpose of this thread was (and is) to ask Groundspeak to fill a field in the database which is already there ("staate") with content for countries where there is so far no content - like Austria: The names of the staates have been mentioned in the very first posting of this thread back in August 2004 (yes, twothousandfour) and which have not been implemented till now. So I think it should be easier to copy and paste them in instead of changing the structure of the database.

Edited July 17, 2008 by tobsas

July 22, 2008

After much discussions and taking into account all opinions expressed on the Issue, the 3 UK Reviewers Eckington, Lactodorum and myself along with Croaghan the Reviewer for Ireland have proposed to Groundspeak that the following list be applied to the United Kingdom and to Ireland.

United Kingdom Areas

Scotland North

Scotland South

North East England

North West England

Yorkshire and Humber

East Midlands

West Midlands

North Wales

South Wales

East of England

London

South of England

South West of England

South East of England

Ulster [covering caches in Northern Ireland listed as being in the UK]

Ireland

Ulster [Covering part of the RoI and caches in Northern Ireland listed as being in Ireland]

Munster

Dublin

Connact

Leinster

Whilst we are aware that this will not satisfy everyone, it is we believe the most workable solution.

Deceangi Volunteer UK Reviewer

This is for Edit Listing Admin.

There are typos in the Edit Listing/Select State or Province (sic) for UK areas. In his list above, Deceangi has them correct - e.g. North West England, whereas you have it as Northwest England.

In the States you may have Southwest Airlines, but there is no such word as Southwest in the English language when describing an area, it is South West. Please correct asap, ta!

3.9k · July 23, 2008

In the States you may have Southwest Airlines, but there is no such word as Southwest in the English language when describing an area, it is South West. Please correct asap, ta!

Have you told Air Southwest about this?

If you hunt around on Google, you'll find that various organisations and companies in the UK and the US use "Southwest", "South-West", "South West", and even "SouthWest" (so-called "camel-case", because of the "hump" in the middle). This sort of thing is more a question of the house style guide. My wife is a proofreader and for every customer, she has to "load" her brain with a new set of rules (eg, for one customer, "Dr" for Doctor has no dot after it whereas "Prof." for Professor does, because the "." represents letters left out ).

Americans might well use "Southwest" more because their English spelling is sometimes more influenced than British spelling by the general German[ic] tendency to run nouns together.

I suspect that these things tend to go with fashion. I grew up in the 60s and "South-West" with the hyphen looks best to me, followed by "Southwest". The space between "South" and "West" seems to my eyes to separate them too much, especially since there's also "South of England" etc. But if you asked me to write the list of regions from memory one week and then again a week later, I doubt if I'd do it consistently.

All that said, I'm slightly surprised that the list wasn't copy/pasted, but then our PersonnelHuman Resources department where I work manages to take electronic job applications and retype peoples' names wrong, which is a barrel of laughs when they turn up here in the IT department demanding to know why "we" have messed up their new e-mail address. Or perhaps it was copy/pasted and the list which the reviewers formally submitted to Groundspeak was retyped after being discussed in the forums.

1.7k · July 23, 2008

Useless post.........

Ya know I use to laugh with people when they realized that they could fit their country into Michigan two or three times but after reading those, no, trying to read those lists, Michigan just doesn't seem so big anymore. Our lakes are still great.

July 25, 2008

Are there any plans to separate "Countries" from "States/Provinces/..." everywhere on the site?

...

It would be very nice to finally have some consistency.

Sorry to repeat myself, but are there any plans for consistency across the site?

July 27, 2008

As i think there has been a little bit uneven representation in this thread, I would like to say that there are still many geocachers in Sweden that would like to see this becoming reality. I have not read this entire thread, therefore I may repeat something said earlier, but is it enough to write in this thread to make Groundspeak aware of our wish?

I have with pleasure seen that this facility has been brought into use in Norway. I have hard to see that Norway should be anymore important than any other country, so why not apply Sweden too?

You have got a list of the so called "län" of Sweden, the biggest politcal regions of Sweden. The main question for Sweden as well as I can see it is if we should use the political or historical regions, but since that is the same thing for my region I can not say I really care.

Is there any ongoing work made by Groundspeak in this question right now? And is there a chans that Swden might get this facility? It would sure please both me and many other Swedish geocachers.

July 29, 2008

Here are the regions (staate) for Sweden

Blekinge

Bohuslän

Dalarna

Gotland

Gästrikland

Halland

Hälsingland

Härjedalen

Jämtland

Lappland

Medelpad

Norrbotten

Skåne

Småland

Värmland

Västerbotten

Västmanland

Ångermanland

Öland

What have to be done to get this implemented?

A lot of countries already have this e.g Norway our neighbour. Who decide this?

rgds olandstoken

As i think there has been a little bit uneven representation in this thread, I would like to say that there are still many geocachers in Sweden that would like to see this becoming reality. I have not read this entire thread, therefore I may repeat something said earlier, but is it enough to write in this thread to make Groundspeak aware of our wish?

I have with pleasure seen that this facility has been brought into use in Norway. I have hard to see that Norway should be anymore important than any other country, so why not apply Sweden too?

You have got a list of the so called "län" of Sweden, the biggest politcal regions of Sweden. The main question for Sweden as well as I can see it is if we should use the political or historical regions, but since that is the same thing for my region I can not say I really care.

Is there any ongoing work made by Groundspeak in this question right now? And is there a chans that Swden might get this facility? It would sure please both me and many other Swedish geocachers.

4.1k · July 31, 2008

My suggestion for any of you who feel a strong need to have "states" listed for your country is this:

Contact your reviewer(s) to compile an appropriate list of "states" and have that reviewer send it to me.

I personally would feel much better knowing that the reviewer(s) of the area agrees with the list provided.

I cannot tell you when items like this will be implemented. I can put them on the right list, though.

August 1, 2008

My suggestion for any of you who feel a strong need to have "states" listed for your country is this:

Contact your reviewer(s) to compile an appropriate list of "states" (...)

Done.

1.3k · August 1, 2008

I actually posted this already in 2004, but I think it's time to remind that we need this feature in Finland too, sooner than better.

So here's the list of Finnish provinces:

- Province of Southern Finland

- Province of Western Finland

- Province of Eastern Finland

- Province of Oulu

- Province of Lapland

But in fact I'd prefer to see them in Finnish:

- Etelä-Suomen Lääni

- Länsi-Suomen Lääni

- Itä-Suomen Lääni

- Oulun Lääni

- Lapin Lääni

In addition to those we have naturally Province of Åland,

but here in geocaching.com it's part of Aland Islands,

so it's not necessary to add it to system.

August 3, 2008

I actually posted this already in 2004, but I think it's time to remind that we need this feature in Finland too, sooner than better.

So here's the list of Finnish provinces:

According to YLE news in March 2008, the Finnish provinces will become obsolete in year 2010. The Wikipedia article about Finnish provinces has a link to the news article.

There has been a discussion about Finnish provinces / regions on the Finnish area of the forum in this thread (in English). Apparently a better division would be using the traditional regions ("maakunta") instead, if any at all is needed.

The list of Finnish regions:

Etelä-Karjala
Etelä-Pohjanmaa
Etelä-Savo
Itä-Uusimaa
Kanta-Häme
Kymenlaakso
Keski-Pohjanmaa
Keski-Suomi
Kainuu
Lappi
Pohjanmaa
Päijät-Häme
Pirkanmaa
Pohjois-Karjala
Pohjois-Pohjanmaa
Pohjois-Savo
Satakunta
Uusimaa
Varsinais-Suomi
Åland

Note that Åland exists as a separate country within geocaching.com, Aland Islands.

August 3, 2008

I actually posted this already in 2004, but I think it's time to remind that we need this feature in Finland too, sooner than better.

Why do we "need" it? Finland is a single state. Not a federation consisting of multiple states. And the six province division you suggested is about the worst possible way of subdividing Finland, as those provinces are an artificial division which is totally meaningless to ordinary people and will be abolished in 2010. Also the number of caches on Finland can't be used as justification for subdividing Finland to smaller units. We currently have about 6000 caches listed on gc.com, which is about the same as in the smaller individual states of USA. And one ninth of the number of caches in California alone!

What we do need is just the opposite: Currently what is listed as 'Finland' in gc.com is not really Finland, but just the continental part of it and the province of Åland is listed as a different country 'Aland Islands', which it is not. We need to have this error corrected. Åland is a part of Finland so the caches in there should be lested as being in Finland. And removing this erroneous division is trivial to do. Unlinke adding a new division. If Finland would be subdivided to smaller units, then unless Groundspeak can somehow magically determine the correct slot for every cache based of its coordinates, we'll only have the new caches in the subdivided provinces. All the old caches would stay in just 'Finland' unless their owners are active enough to edit the cache description. The subdivision is totally useless if the data is not complete, because if you want to search for caches in your own province, you'll still have to search for the whole Finland to make sure you don't miss those caches that don't have their country information updated.

August 5, 2008

Question about Finnish states is now escalated to local reviewers.

August 24, 2008

My suggestion for any of you who feel a strong need to have "states" listed for your country is this:

Contact your reviewer(s) to compile an appropriate list of "states" (...)

Done.

MissJenn, is there anything new on the email our local reviewer (Tafari) sent you with the list of Austrian states?

4.1k · August 25, 2008

I said above: I cannot tell you when items like this will be implemented. I can put them on the right list, though.

October 24, 2008

4 years and 4 months later:

*bump* and thanks in advance.

November 23, 2008

Are there any plans to separate "Countries" from "States/Provinces/..." everywhere on the site?

...

It would be very nice to finally have some consistency.

Sorry to repeat myself, but are there any plans for consistency across the site?

Repeating myself again: are there any plans for consistency across the site?

December 20, 2008

Bumb.

Four years and five months later - this would be a great time for a little xmas present!

December 22, 2008

Repeating myself again: are there any plans for consistency across the site?

You mean their inconsistency isn't consistent enough for you?

December 22, 2008

Repeating myself again: are there any plans for consistency across the site?
You mean their inconsistency isn't consistent enough for you?

No, it is pretty inconsistently inconsistent now. For some countries, a cache is shown to be in a Province, but the next cache 2 km down the road is shown to be in a country!

Example: GC1H87C and GCV5RV.

4.1k · December 22, 2008

For some countries, a cache is shown to be in a Province, but the next cache 2 km down the road is shown to be in a country!

Example: GC1H87C and GCV5RV.

Once the cache owner adds the province info, it will be reflected on the cache details page.

December 30, 2008

My suggestion for any of you who feel a strong need to have "states" listed for your country is this:

Contact your reviewer(s) to compile an appropriate list of "states" (...)

Done.

MissJenn, is there anything new on the email our local reviewer (Tafari) sent you with the list of Austrian states?

I said above: I cannot tell you when items like this will be implemented. I can put them on the right list, though.

Miss Jenn, could you please give us information on how this list is treated (is there anyone "workin on it")?

Thanks in advance,

i.

Edited December 30, 2008 by ime

February 22, 2009

another *bump*

April 30, 2009

I think it would be very useful if states outside of the US could be added to the system, so we can also search by state or know in which state a TravelBug is located.

Here is a begining with the german speaking countries, I hope that people from other countries can provide their states too.

(...)

Austria (in alphabetical order)

Burgenland

Kärnten

Niederösterreich

Oberösterreich

Salzburg

Steiermark

Tirol

Vorarlberg

Wien

Greetings from Germany,

Tobias

*bumb*

April 30, 2009

Still no action about changing to North West England rather than Northwest England, it just isn't good grammar and wrong. But what hope do we have of anything happening?

Unh.,

July 22, 2009

We're getting close to fifth anniversary for ths request...

4.1k · July 22, 2009

My (many and recent) communications on this topic have been directly with the reviewers of the affected areas.

July 27, 2009

My (many and recent) communications on this topic have been directly with the reviewers of the affected areas.

Miss Jenn, as this was and is a user request (not a reviewer request) it would be reasonable and fair to inform the users as well.

Thanks in advance,

ime

July 27, 2009

My (many and recent) communications on this topic have been directly with the reviewers of the affected areas.

Miss Jenn, as this was and is a user request (not a reviewer request) it would be reasonable and fair to inform the users as well.

Thanks in advance,

ime

It is a reveiwer request since a long time also. Information for Austrian users is given in the Austrian Reviewer blog and the Austrian Geocaching Forums. See here and here.

Maybe Google can help you to stay up to date too?

6.8k · July 28, 2009

It is a reveiwer request since a long time also.

Not long compared to 5 years - at that time you have not even have started with geocaching.

I do not care about States/Bundeslaender for Austria on gc.com, but I still regard it as strange that that many

countries (among them countries where geocaching is less popular than in Austria) that forwarded their wish after Austria got fulfilled their wish much earlier.

Cezanne

July 28, 2009

Cezanne, you won't win. They just don't want to help. Strange....

Unh.

July 28, 2009

It is a reveiwer request since a long time also.

Not long compared to 5 years ...

You are right. But it doesn't depend on the time you (or anybody other) is waiting. It depends on the fact that somebody is doing something for. I did (even it is not my first responsibility) and as you can see at the above linked sites it will become reality soon. So I can't do more as I have done in the past and the result is that what many users in Austria are awaiting. For me that sounds like: Problem solved. I don't care about who is the first country with states on gc.com. For me the main issure is, that it will become truth.

Don't ask me why nothing happend before I became a reviewer because I don't know.

6.8k · July 28, 2009

It is a reveiwer request since a long time also.

Not long compared to 5 years ...

You are right. But it doesn't depend on the time you (or anybody other) is waiting. It depends on the fact that somebody is doing something for.

I do not agree at all. The length of a time period is something which does not depend at all on the actions of anyone. Moreover, other Austrian cachers before you have addressed Groundspeak several times regarding the introduction of states.

Moreover, as I already mentioned I do not care at all about the implementation of the state division for Austria as I am not going to use this feature, so I have never waited for it. The time it took to implement the request, however, influences however my perception of Groundspeak's appreciation of Austria's geocaching community.

I don't care about who is the first country with states on gc.com. For me the main issure is, that it will become truth.

Confer what I wrote above.

Don't ask me why nothing happend before I became a reviewer because I don't know.

I did not ask you any question here. I was already familiar with all what you wrote here and in the links you provided. Moreover, I do not regard the implementation of States for Austria on gc.com as your personal success story and it might be be better for you not to sell it that way. You are reviewer for more than one year and there are countries (with less caches than Austria and only one reviewer at the time of introduction) where the request for states had been implemented much more quickly. If the decisions of Groundspeak would mainly depend on the activity of the involved reviewers (something which I do not think to be the case), it would rather mean that other reviewers did a better job in that regard than you.

Cezanne

Edited July 28, 2009 by cezanne

Feature Enhancement: States

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