Shutterspots.... why?

swampgecko · Post by **swampgecko** » 19 September 05 9:18 pm

If I may, why are we now listing shutterspots amongst the caches?
They are similar to the virtuals that are now "virtually" defunct on geocaching.com, and as such we have our own virtual and locationless caches on GCA.

Unless people are aware of the basis of the shutterspot site there could be confusion in regards to what a SH coded "cache" is all about.

What do others think about listing of Shutterspots on the GCA pages?

Scout does a good job with his site, and I like to nab the occasional geodash spot and shutterspot.

Personally, If the site is going to list Shutterspots, why not list the "waymarking stuff" as well, or go the whole hog and list every cache in Australia that is listed on any database, including navicache and terracaching?

riblit · Post by **riblit** » 19 September 05 10:02 pm

This came about during the alpha testing of the log import wizard - we needed to test all log types and data permutations that may be thrown at it ( ok, we missed one) as we have no idea as to what a cacher has in his/her database.

One of the things we have to work with is the way GSAK formats its GPX file. Irrespective of the source of the data it uses the same namespace and author so apart from a guess based on waypoint names there is no way of easily discerning the ultimate source of the data.

For those unaware:
A shutterspot is like a virtual cache, except the coords are deliberately changed by the listing website so to make the location a bit of a search. A bit like having SA turned on.

swampgecko · Post by **swampgecko** » 19 September 05 10:08 pm

I use seperate data bases for everything these days, found it was getting too much combining them all.

So I have GC, GCA, SHutterspots, geodashing and Trigs, and never shall they mix, I also have them as seperate documents on the PDA... The only thing that does have them combined is the GPS, but I only load up those that are required for the day's/weekend's activities

president & 1st lady · Post by **president & 1st lady** » 19 September 05 10:48 pm

I don't mind them appearing, but it would be good if they were easily identified as shutterspots. ATM you have to view the page to tell which one it is. Perhaps a little picture, or different text, just something to differentiate caches from shutterspots.

1st lady

ideology · Post by **ideology** » 20 September 05 7:39 am

hi swampy,

as riblit says, we assumed that as soon as we released the gpx import function that someone would throw a file at it containing more than just geocaches, so we tested it to see how it went. it's not permanent at the moment because there is no feed to keep the information up to date.

as to why they should be listed here, we think it would be nice to be able to see a map of a cache and say "ooh, there's a shutterspot nearby, let's try to get it" etc. we figured "why not?" scout is thinking the same thing, and we are supplying him a feed of gca caches so he can plot them on maps and stuff. the outgoing feed is running at about 6am daily. we plan to build an incoming feed and run it at a similar frequency. the idea is that both sites could benefit from showcasing each other's caches

at the moment all the icons and stuff are the same but if we figure out an icon for a shutterspot and as our friends in the whitehouse suggest plus do some changes on the cache pages, we could differentiate them from geocaches to minimise confusion. the only reason there's not a decent link back to the main shutterspot page is that we couldn't figure out a link of a format which uses the waypoint name. as soon as we do, we'll get the link going.

we are in dialogue with scout and are keen to work with him to at least get unified maps going, possibly more. that's part of why we released some of the recent google mapping stuff.

Scout · Post by **Scout** » 21 September 05 3:44 am

ideology wrote:we are in dialogue with scout and are keen to work with him to at least get unified maps going, possibly more. that's part of why we released some of the recent google mapping stuff.

I don't have much to add except the world is full of possibilities.

Thanks to the cooperation of Geocaching Australia, I can produce maps that list geocaches from GCA. Check out http://geocaching.gpsgames.org .

If GCA is interested in listing any of the waypoints on the various games of GPSgames.org, I'll be trying to cooperate.

Cached · Post by **Cached** » 21 September 05 9:09 am

I like the idea of having them all there - I might actually do a shutterspot if it comes up on my hitlist etc.

riblit · Post by **riblit** » 21 September 05 11:37 am

Scout wrote:
ideology wrote:we are in dialogue with scout and are keen to work with him to at least get unified maps going, possibly more. that's part of why we released some of the recent google mapping stuff.
I don't have much to add except the world is full of possibilities.

Thanks to the cooperation of Geocaching Australia, I can produce maps that list geocaches from GCA. Check out http://geocaching.gpsgames.org .

If GCA is interested in listing any of the waypoints on the various games of GPSgames.org, I'll be trying to cooperate.

looks good Scout. I found a couple of Navicaches near Sydney that I didn't know existed.

ideology · Post by **ideology** » 24 September 05 10:04 am

we've added a graphic to shutterspot pages to clearly indicate what they are
you can just click on the graphic to go straight to the shutterspot listing on gpsgames.org

for example: http://geocaching.com.au/cache/sh0049

we haven't set up a feed for shutterspots yet, but scout has shown us how to do it so we hope to be able to get that going in future.

in the meantime, these are just placeholder pages for any shutterspots that people happen to have in their gpx files that they upload