Geocaching Australia

It is so refreshing to see that Groundspeak are trying to raise awareness of what is expected from the caching community to keep this game going at a standard that will ensure that we can all continue to enjoy it.

Each week the Groundspeak email has a message and last weeks email mentioned:
"Within the geocaching community, the responsibilities of a courteous geocacher include respecting fellow geocachers, taking care of the environment and maintaining your caches, among other things...."

I would like to once more add to the "among other things" that courteous cachers should provide corrected co-ordinates by clicking on the "Add a coordinate to this log" box of the log page, when they find that a cache is more than say 20 metres from the posted co-ords.

On Saturday we found 4 caches in a row that were from 120 to 795 metres out and unfortunately there was not one corrected co-ord from anyone (although on one of the caches the corrected co-ords was mentioned in the log, but the cacher didn't use the "Add a coordinate to this log" box.) It doesn't take much time to get a reading and then post it on the cache page to help future cachers.

It is also the courteous owner who should update the co-ords when they are alerted to the error.

How do you even FIND caches that are so far from the listed coords? I'd struggle beyond 30 metres and probably less.

Agree with the sentiment. By the same token I often visit caches that have missing TBs and GCs and often no one has noted they are missing either in the cache or the trackable log. I make a point of doing it now and advising either or both the CO and trackable owner to mark them missing to stop them showing up in the cache.

Beyond the obvious benefit of the corrected coordinates showing at the top of the log is there any advantage to ticking the corrected coordinate box.
Usually people will document in a log the reason why they are supplying a different coordinate than the one listed and supply that coordinate.
I dont think the cache listing (not the logs) changes in any way because a corrected coordinate box has been tick which might be why it isnt always done.
My experience is unless you have access to all the logs you arent going to see a corrected coordinate regardless of it being in the body or at the top of a log.
It would be good if ticking the add coordinate box modified the listing and added a line to the end of the cache discription stating that caching team X reports the cache as being found at location Y

SA_ParrotHead wrote:Beyond the obvious benefit of the corrected coordinates showing at the top of the log is there any advantage to ticking the corrected coordinate box.

When you tick the "Add corrected co-ords" box you then enter the corrected co-ords in the fileds provided. The corrected co-ords then show up in bold at the top of the log so that it is easy to spot without having to read every single log. With my GPS, I can have practically unlimited logs loaded into the GPS.

SA_ParrotHead wrote:Usually people will document in a log the reason why they are supplying a different coordinate than the one listed and supply that coordinate.

If they do it means that you have to troll through every log looking - whereas if it shows on the top of the log in bold - it is easy to spot.

SA_ParrotHead wrote:It would be good if ticking the add coordinate box modified the listing and added a line to the end of the cache discription stating that caching team X reports the cache as being found at location Y

That would be fantastic! It would then mean that cache owners who aren't maintaining their caches are not misleading others.

But remember to NOT add coordinates for a puzzle cache.

You can manually add an offset.

pprass wrote:

SA_ParrotHead wrote:Beyond the obvious benefit of the corrected coordinates showing at the top of the log is there any advantage to ticking the corrected coordinate box.

When you tick the "Add corrected co-ords" box you then enter the corrected co-ords in the fileds provided. The corrected co-ords then show up in bold at the top of the log so that it is easy to spot without having to read every single log. With my GPS, I can have practically unlimited logs loaded into the GPS.

Are you sure that's a native function when being sent to a GPS?
The bold bit appears on the cache page at GC, but I'm not sure it gets sent to the GPS.
Or does it?

I've often had the same thought -- it would indeed be a kindness if more geocachers posted corrected coordinates when the cache is obviously quite a distance from the published coordinates. And most COs will also appreciate a polite correction.

795 metres 'out' is an entirely different ballgame, however! Practically in another state . . . Must have had a good clue or Superman's x-ray vision!

But I'd say that if a cache is more than 10-12 metres out, then a tick of the box and an entry of suggested coordinates is in order. Anything less than this is still more or less within the limits of GPSr accuracy.

I've slowly realised that many people don't read the earlier logs when they go geocaching. So this effort won't help them. But that's their choice.

But the rest of us appreciate the thoughtfulness.

A good issue to raise . . .

caughtatwork wrote:...Are you sure that's a native function when being sent to a GPS?

This is how the Magellan shows the log:



Not in bold, there is something going on with the HTML format with Groundspeak, but it shows in the first line.

Sweet. Didn't know that.

pprass wrote:On Saturday we found 4 caches in a row that were from 120 to 795 metres out

Chip and I are driving up the coast for Easter and have this hiders other cache, http://coord.info/GC2Q0XA, on our hit list. It concerns me that we may waste our time looking in the wrong spot. Time is important when trying to drive from Wollongong to Byron Bay and cache along the way!!!

Is there a way that this hider can be reported to Groundspeak? 795m out is just insane!

795m?
Log an SBA.
Write to i,Riblit.
Write to theUMP.
Don't tolerate this sort of rubbish.
Act now, clean up the game.

http://forum.geocaching.com.au/viewtopi ... =2&t=15847

pprass wrote:On Saturday we found 4 caches in a row that were from 120 to 795 metres out...

Pprass search pattern looking for a cache 795m out

No Rabbitto, that's his hair!