Nightcaches

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caughtatwork
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Nightcaches

Post by caughtatwork » 20 August 15 10:05 am

I was having a chat to a fellow GCA geocacher a while ago and they mentioned a potential new cache type. It seems that there are a mad number of people who are almost exclusively GC cachers who love night caching. Seriously love it. They will even organise trips to go night caching. If we can tap into a cache type which is a night cache we might have an opportunity to promote Geocaching Australia as a place to find geocaches.

You may ask what the difference is between a multi cache and a night cache (example).
http://coord.info/GC1ZM6C

Nothing. A night cache is a multi cache that you can only (supposedly) complete at night. However, GC have a number of rules with regards to night caches including the use of GPS AFTER you have reached the start point. e.g. A set of numbers to gather in the middle of the cache which you must use your GPS to navigate to. Then you can continue to follow the markers.

At Geocaching Australia we could do the "your own rules" approach and have no restriction at all about having to use a GPS in the middle of the cache. Getting to the start would be the GPS use and after than , open slather on how you want to direct them around your night course. We could take on some of the night caches which cannot be published at GC due to their rules.

If we specifically market this as a night cache (yes, it's a multi cache, but so is a beacon cache), we might win over some people from GC to Geocaching Australia where they may also check out other cache types. The hope is that if you can't publish it on GC, try your luck at Geocaching Australia. There are no laws being bent or ignored. Just freedom from arbitrary rules.

One drawback is that in your GPS there is no "night cache" type / icon because GPS manufacturers were extremely short sighted in how they supported the GPX format and the enumerated cache types. So, the same as a movable cache, we could have it in the GPX file as <type>Geocache|Other</type> and it would show up a different icon or <type>Geocache|Multi-cache</type> which would show the multi cache icon and let the user sort out whether it's a day or night activity.

This has been to the senate and there was:
1 - ::shrug:: from a previous senator.
1 - a point that we need to attract the hiders before we can attract the finders (the usual catch-22 scenario) from a previous senator.
1 - Question about GSAK* and how the new type would impact it (see further below if you want) from a current senator.
1 - I've never heard a cacher say......."Geez, I hate night caches" certainly worth the time of exploring this type of cache further from a current senator.

Given there was a pretty lacklustre response I'll put this out to the community for feedback. What do you think?

*The question about GSAK:
Groundspeak created a problem for everyone when they set up their own XSD and did not enumerate the values of the cache types. http://www.groundspeak.com/cache/1/0/1/cache.xsd

When Geocaching Australia set our up, we enumerated the cache types. http://geocaching.com.au/geocache/1/geocache.xsd

What this has caused is everyone who reads a GPX file now assumes that because the types are not enumerated they have to have their own reference list. They check a cache against their own list and if it's not there they either go the "unknown" route or they crash and burn. We can probably get Clyde to work in a "new" cache type, but until everyone upgraded their GSAK, they've also got a problem, so the short term solution is an existing cache type.

As we have to use the groundspeak namespace (because Garmin got into bed with Groundspeak and only recognise groundspeak namespaced caches as caches and then everyone assumed this was the standard and went the same way), we cannot add anything to the list because it's not enumerated and therefore will cause some programs to crash. Groundspeak saw this when they tried to rename Mystery / Unknown caches in the GPX files. Everything went up in flames. The same applies to everyone. No-one can introduce a new cache type. For example, opencaching.us has a type called a "Guest Book" cache. In the GPX file it needs to go out as <type>Geocache|Unknown Cache</type> because of the problem I just described. So, neither Groundspeak nor anyone other listing site in the world can add a new geocache type. Fun times for everyone.

So what we would to do it probably put them out as "Other" and let the end user work out what they are. It's what we do for movable caches now. <type>Geocache|Other</type> TrigPoints go out as Benchmarks <type>Geocache|Benchmark</type>. We could do <type>Geocache|Multi-cache</type> and let the user sort out whether it's a day or night multi (I like this idea personally).

MavEtJu
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Re: Nightcaches

Post by MavEtJu » 20 August 15 11:09 am

The X in XML stands for Extensible, which means you can extend it is needed. Groundspeak did so when they added their extension for the groundspeak:cache definition in the GPX XML standard. As such, there is nothing stopping you from adding a GeocachingAustralia extension to the exported GPX files which has this extra information properly in it while staying backwards (for the real meaning and the implied meaning) compatible for the XML parsers which don't understand it.

Oh and for special night caches, I'm all in favour of being able to identify special categories properly.

Edwin

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caughtatwork
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Re: Nightcaches

Post by caughtatwork » 20 August 15 11:42 am

Team MavEtJu wrote:The X in XML stands for Extensible, which means you can extend it is needed. Groundspeak did so when they added their extension for the groundspeak:cache definition in the GPX XML standard. As such, there is nothing stopping you from adding a GeocachingAustralia extension to the exported GPX files which has this extra information properly in it while staying backwards (for the real meaning and the implied meaning) compatible for the XML parsers which don't understand it.

Oh and for special night caches, I'm all in favour of being able to identify special categories properly.

Edwin
Yes there is.

The original GPX file had no namespace. We have a GPX file that uses that definition. Go to your setting and choose v1.0 of the GPX file format. No GPS in use will recognise it. No app (with a very small number of exceptions) will recognise it. So your caches do not come up as caches. They come up (at best) waypoints if at all.

By default, everyone has chosen to use the GS namespaced format and a lot of them are so badly written they fail when encountering unknown values. Fallback to a valid set of data if the file is different. Ha! These things are written by inexperienced people which go on to become widely used and if it fails to load the data, the blame is on Geocaching Australia and then no-one will use the files and we have no users.

Your argument, while valid, is a real world issue which we at Geocaching Australia have been fighting for years and cannot hope to win. As I said, even Groundspeak failed when they tried to rename the Mystery / Unknown cache type as all the devices and apps failed. I know from experience they will not handle any namespace and data other than the stuff from groundspeak. Search the groundspeak forums for that issue and see that the resolution was to remove the change. This all happened about a year ago.

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Re: Nightcaches

Post by MavEtJu » 20 August 15 12:48 pm

caughtatwork wrote:The original GPX file had no namespace. We have a GPX file that uses that definition. Go to your setting and choose v1.0 of the GPX file format. No GPS in use will recognise it. No app (with a very small number of exceptions) will recognise it. So your caches do not come up as caches. They come up (at best) waypoints if at all.
But by GPX standards a geocache is nothing more than a waypoint with some additional information on it.
caughtatwork wrote:By default, everyone has chosen to use the GS namespaced format and a lot of them are so badly written they fail when encountering unknown values. Fallback to a valid set of data if the file is different. Ha! These things are written by inexperienced people which go on to become widely used and if it fails to load the data, the blame is on Geocaching Australia and then no-one will use the files and we have no users.
I won't shred a tear for an application which can't deal properly with changes in the input format.
caughtatwork wrote:Your argument, while valid, is a real world issue which we at Geocaching Australia have been fighting for years and cannot hope to win. As I said, even Groundspeak failed when they tried to rename the Mystery / Unknown cache type as all the devices and apps failed. I know from experience they will not handle any namespace and data other than the stuff from groundspeak. Search the groundspeak forums for that issue and see that the resolution was to remove the change. This all happened about a year ago.
That sounds more that they changed the format without being backwards compatible. XML can deal with this. Applications should be able to deal with it. If they can't, that is not the XML files fault.

Edwin

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fluffyfish
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Re: Nightcaches

Post by fluffyfish » 20 August 15 12:50 pm

Great idea. Done one, maybe two night caches. Something different and definitely worth pursuing them as a cache type (pending all the complications above which I didn't really read).

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Re: Nightcaches

Post by biggles1024 » 20 August 15 2:38 pm

I'm one of those people who love nightcaches, especially when they're located in interesting locations. The nightcaches at Point Nepean are among my favourites. What's not to love about moving in and around fortifications from the 19th century? \:D/
This sounds like a great initiative from GCA. =D>

Edit: I have at the time of writing found 38 actual nightcaches, not just ordinary caches that I've found at night.

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Re: Nightcaches

Post by MavEtJu » 20 August 15 6:46 pm

biggles1024 wrote:Edit: I have at the time of writing found 38 actual nightcaches, not just ordinary caches that I've found at night.
Do you have a list with them?

Edwin

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Re: Nightcaches

Post by Now_To_Morrow » 20 August 15 10:42 pm

Team MavEtJu wrote:
biggles1024 wrote:Edit: I have at the time of writing found 38 actual nightcaches, not just ordinary caches that I've found at night.
Do you have a list with them?

Edwin

...and which ones are the best. I may not get to do any for a while but I'd like to know what makes a decent night cache if I'm going to hide one or more.

biggles1024
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Re: Nightcaches

Post by biggles1024 » 21 August 15 9:44 am

Team MavEtJu wrote:
biggles1024 wrote:Edit: I have at the time of writing found 38 actual nightcaches, not just ordinary caches that I've found at night.
Do you have a list with them?

Edwin
No I don't. You can create a pocket query based on Point Nepean and only those caches with the Night Cache attribute or search for a public bookmark list.

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Re: Nightcaches

Post by biggles1024 » 21 August 15 9:46 am

No_Tomorrow wrote:
Team MavEtJu wrote:
biggles1024 wrote:Edit: I have at the time of writing found 38 actual nightcaches, not just ordinary caches that I've found at night.
Do you have a list with them?

Edwin

...and which ones are the best. I may not get to do any for a while but I'd like to know what makes a decent night cache if I'm going to hide one or more.
"Best" is too subjective. I like the more difficult ones but others whinge and whine when the path they need to follow isn't laid out like an airport runway. The remaining N/C's on Point Nepean, one was archived earlier this year would be my favourites.

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