movable cache location

[mtrax]

with all these Gnomes about and when I was travelling out of town I occasionally saw one of these pop-up on my GPS only to find it was picked up , so it made me think should the current location be disabled when Movable cache has been picked up?
So currently if I see a cache I need some how to check if its a movable then check if some has it? all this is difficult, is there a way to improve this?
perhaps some status appearing in Cache description to indicate if its at location?

Anyone else have some ideas?

[Apty]

I'm with you, mtrax.

I'm enjoying picking up gnomes and moving them on, but it frustrates the "gnome-juice" outa me when I try to go for one and it's moved on.

Can someone (C @ W?) tell me if I would get lambasted if I set the coords to something like S0 0.000 E0 0.000, and/or if this will cause any 'structural damage' to website / queries etc?????

Are there other solutions?

[mtrax]

I would suspect setting the coords = 0 would upset the distance calculation.
I think there are two problems , 1/ how to show on GCA map and query and 2/ how to indicate in GPX data.
Perhaps setting state so GPS devices can recognise this ...

[solomonfamily]

We too have talked about this amongst ourselves.

My other issue is I cant create a query to give me "moveable caches near me that I either haven't found" and "moveables near me that I have found and at least two other cachers have found that cache after I have found it last..."

I like the idea of a status tag on the cache page saying "In Transit"

Dad had been tossing around ideas about a biodegradable flag to be left at GZ (also discussed in a different thread) - but I dont want to travel only to find a flag.

[Bewilderbeest]

with all these Gnomes about and when I was travelling out of town I occasionally saw one of these pop-up on my GPS only to find it was picked up , so it made me think should the current location be disabled when Movable cache has been picked up?
So currently if I see a cache I need some how to check if its a movable then check if some has it? all this is difficult, is there a way to improve this?
perhaps some status appearing in Cache description to indicate if its at location?

Anyone else have some ideas?

I dont even look at gnomes when the last log is a "found". I only look at those that have "moved". Found ones are almost definitely gone, moved ones MAY still be there

It's a bit peculiar with a cache race - a find almost certainly means it has moved, but other times it's not unusual for a moveable cache to be found but not taken - which makes the idea of automatically disabling a found moveable somewhat problematic...

[mtrax]

So perhaps we need a grab as well as found

[Richary]

Something I was thinking about today, that is related to this topic. When a gnome (or moveable) is moved I get a notification email if it is within my warning radius. But the email consists of the original cache description which is in itself fairly useless when determining where it is hidden now.

For a Moved log I would prefer the email to give me the new hiders log and hint, though it's not a huge problem as I get the email on a laptop at home/work/mobile so looking at the page isn't a problem. It may be more of a problem for those who get the emails on phones however.

[Damo.]

Something I was thinking about today, that is related to this topic. When a gnome (or moveable) is moved I get a notification email if it is within my warning radius. But the email consists of the original cache description which is in itself fairly useless when determining where it is hidden now.

The "moved" log is treated like a "published" log for the notification emails which is the reason for that.

Would take a considerable amount of coding I imagine but ideally there would need to be another found log type. (And specific details for what they are so people aren't confused about how to log!)

• Found and left where it is. (Still available to find at listed location)
• Found and removed. (Not currently available to find)
• Moved. (Placed in new location and available to find)

The Found and Removed log would at minimum add a banner on the page saying "Found and Removed by X. Still to be re-hidden." (Could a nag email automatically be sent out after a week if still not rehidden?)
As for locations on maps etc, possibly it could flag them as temp disabled which would remove them from some of the search results.
Problem with this is that if someone uses the wrong log type it could be out of mind, out of sight for caches which are still there.

[caughtatwork]

We've been through this before, a number of times.
There is NO way to tell if a cache is in the hands of someone or in the field.
The ONLY way is to read the logs.

A found with no-cords is likely in someone's hands.
A found with co-ords is likely in the field.
A moved is likely in the field.
Any time anyone can pick it up and not log it for hours or days and so you don't know if it's there or not.

Setting the co-ords to 0,0 would falsify the game results and will DQ the cache.

[solomonfamily]

We've been through this before, a number of times.
There is NO way to tell if a cache is in the hands of someone or in the field.
The ONLY way is to read the logs.

A found with no-cords is likely in someone's hands.
A found with co-ords is likely in the field.
A moved is likely in the field.
Any time anyone can pick it up and not log it for hours or days and so you don't know if it's there or not.

Setting the co-ords to 0,0 would falsify the game results and will DQ the cache.

So a rule for the race "When you find and remove the cache you must say so in your log"

I am a poor hunter - so a few times in this race I have posted a DNF with a comment "maybe it's moved" and then returned some time after after no other logs being posted fo it. On our next visit (or sent dad in ) and found it there - I wonder if others read a DNF and decide not to go for it....

[mtrax]

perhaps I missed some of the arguements but why can't there be a log action like the TB eg Grab/Retrieve ?
ie it seems a bit hit/miss to rely on find indicating that they have moved it?

[solomonfamily]

What I am doing now is when I run my moveable query I am downloading it to its own GSAK database then using a filter I only include published 1/12/10. I am now playing with different filters to get the right result