What's new on Geocaching Australia

[CraigRat]

Twitter Feed
After much procrastination, I've got my head around the new Twitter OAuth authentication and re-instated the Twitter feeds.

Follow the Log fees on twitter @GCA_logs (WARNING: This feed can get quite noisy!!)
and the Updates feed (new caches/site information) on @GCA_Updates

I'll be monitoring performance, if it holds up log posting too much I'll look at another way of doing it!

[CraigRat]

Thanks to a great suggestion by Darth Trader we've split up the Twitter Log feed in to state by state feeds

This is a great problem for us to have, and we are stoked with the amount of logs flooding in on GCA caches, both Gnome based and not!

They can be accessed on twitter at:
@GCA_Logs_ACT
@GCA_Logs_VIC
@GCA_Logs_TAS
@GCA_Logs_SA
@GCA_Logs_QLD
@GCA_Logs_NSW
@GCA_Logs_NT
@GCA_Logs_WA

and for our cousins over the ditch:
@GCA_Logs_NI
@GCA_Logs_SI

Locationless Logs now go to @GCA_Logs_LO

[darth trader]

even a feed for the South Island?
Craigrat IS the Bringer of Awesome.

[CraigRat]

even a feed for the South Island

But not much good as I don't think theres ever been a GCA cache on the SI (although there is/was a gnome there now)

But that doesn't deter us and our plans for world domination

[pwags]

I don't think theres ever been a GCA cache on the SI (although there is/was a gnome there now)

My very lonely gnome in Christchurch looks like it won't be found until the NZ mega event in 2012!

[caughtatwork]

As indicated by many threads on the subject, the locale lookup at GCA is a little less than optimal.

We have a limited postcode database and many locales map to the same postcode, but we don't know the "common name" for the locales and so we choose the "first one" to return. Also where a cache is in suburb A, but is closer (in distance) to suburb B, we have chosen suburb B which has confused some people.

Tonight we have implemented a new locale creation process using the Google Maps API to return the locale name based on the lat and lon. I have done extensive testing in Australia and overseas and the locales all seem to work from what I have been able to see.

GC caches that are overseas will not have a locale attached, but GCA caches (from today) will have (hopefully) their correct locale associated with them. It also means, again hopefully, that GCA caches which move overseas will end up with the correct locale and country.

Please let us know if anything goes wonky. It's also possible that the daily email notification may contain many updates to locales as the database shifts to the new details. We apologise for that.

[hgl]

Tonight we have implemented a new locale creation process using the Google Maps API to return the locale name based on the lat and lon. I have done extensive testing in Australia and overseas and the locales all seem to work from what I have been able to see.

Awesome work, I have had a few GCA report in odd places, this will be great!

[tatty]

Can I ask what the B's and C next to cachers names on the neighbours page means, there is no mention on the help/wiki link and I have never seen them there before?

Actually I just worked out what has changed, it used to list the suburb and instead it now has just B or C.
http://geocaching.com.au/cacher/Tatty/neighbours

[mtrax]

where do you see this locale? eg this one should be showing in Rivett but still showing in Stirling,
no big deal but just in-case you needed to know..
thanks
whoops here is the cache name
http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga0896

[caughtatwork]

Can I ask what the B's and C next to cachers names on the neighbours page means, there is no mention on the help/wiki link and I have never seen them there before?

Actually I just worked out what has changed, it used to list the suburb and instead it now has just B or C.
http://geocaching.com.au/cacher/Tatty/neighbours

That would be called a bug
It's now been fixed, thanks for bringing this to my attention.

[caughtatwork]

where do you see this locale? eg this one should be showing in Rivett but still showing in Stirling,
no big deal but just in-case you needed to know..
thanks

Locales are shown after the cache name.
Which one (by the way)?

[tatty]

Fantastic, thanks for the quick fix! Looks much better now that some of the suburbs are actual suburbs too, I could never work out where some of the more obscure area names were

[mtrax]

where do you see this locale? eg this one should be showing in Rivett but still showing in Stirling,
no big deal but just in-case you needed to know..
thanks

Locales are shown after the cache name.
Which one (by the way)?

http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga0896

[caughtatwork]

Ahh, the locale name is generated at the time the cache is saved (or updated).
As Stirling was set from the old locale system it stayed there.
I just edited (no change) your cache and it's now updated to Rivett.

[blossom*]

Well done on getting the suburb more accurate. I can see it must have been difficult as there have been a few glitches. Here's another one

http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga2888

The "state" is showing as just "New"