Geocheckpointing

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Richary
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Geocheckpointing

Post by Richary » 10 February 15 10:54 pm

Looks like there is a new site out there dedicated to listing virtuals, at Geocaching NSW we received an email about it. Nothing so far placed near home, but as a registered member and doing a lot of things you can then be able to download GPX files, whether they will be compatible to upload here for stats I have no idea. And I'm not ready to pay $30 for a membership when there is nothing to find here. Anyway, check it out if you feel like it, of course Geocaching Australia allows you to list virtuals anyway if you want so I wouldn't worry about it unless it takes off in Australia.

http://www.geocheckpointing.com/

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caughtatwork
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Re: Geocheckpointing

Post by caughtatwork » 11 February 15 12:08 pm

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
				<gpx xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" version="1.0" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/0 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/0/gpx.xsd http://www.groundspeak.com/cache/1/0 http://www.groundspeak.com/cache/1/0/cache.xsd" xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/0">
				 <wpt lat="-37.601452" lon="144.244400">
				  <time></time>
				  <name>GCP628</name>
				  <desc>Welcome to Ballan</desc>
				  <url>http://www.geocheckpointing.com/members/gcp-detail.php?id=628</url>
				  <urlname>Welcome to Ballan</urlname>
				  <sym>Geocache</sym>
				  <type>Geocache|Virtual Cache</type>
				  <groundspeak:cache id="628" available="True" archived="False" xmlns:groundspeak="http://www.groundspeak.com/cache/1/0">
				   <groundspeak:name>Welcome to Ballan</groundspeak:name>
				   <groundspeak:placed_by>1383</groundspeak:placed_by>
				   <groundspeak:owner id="1383">1383</groundspeak:owner>
				   <groundspeak:type>Virtual Cache</groundspeak:type>
				   <groundspeak:container>Regular</groundspeak:container>
				   <groundspeak:difficulty>1</groundspeak:difficulty>
				   <groundspeak:terrain>2</groundspeak:terrain>
				   <groundspeak:country></groundspeak:country>
				   <groundspeak:state></groundspeak:state>
				   <groundspeak:short_description html="False"></groundspeak:short_description>
				   <groundspeak:long_description html="False"> A quaint historical town just of the freeway between Melbourne and Ballarat. Lots of interesting buildings and places to see. A nice town to stop for a break  on your way to Adelaide.</groundspeak:long_description>
				   <groundspeak:encoded_hints></groundspeak:encoded_hints>
				   <groundspeak:logs />
				   <groundspeak:travelbugs />
				  </groundspeak:cache>
				 </wpt>
				</gpx>
The schema appears to use the Groundspeak namespace, so I guess anything that can read the GS GPX files should be able to read this.

A couple of weird things (I suppose).

Who owns it? Apparently someone called 1383 (actually it's owned by Kinkell1). So you can't use the GPX file to see who owns what.
<groundspeak:placed_by>1383</groundspeak:placed_by>
<groundspeak:owner id="1383">1383</groundspeak:owner>

There are no logs, so you can't see who found it either.
<groundspeak:logs />

The name will (possibly) conflict with the GC code names as they will both start with GC.
<name>GCP628</name>

Difficulty seems to be a default of 1
<groundspeak:difficulty>1</groundspeak:difficulty>

Looks a little hokey and if they expect people to pay $30.00 USD they will need to address some of the data clash concerns and usability of the site.

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Richary
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Re: Geocheckpointing

Post by Richary » 11 February 15 8:55 pm

caughtatwork wrote: A couple of weird things (I suppose).

Who owns it? Apparently someone called 1383 (actually it's owned by Kinkell1). So you can't use the GPX file to see who owns what.
<groundspeak:placed_by>1383</groundspeak:placed_by>
<groundspeak:owner id="1383">1383</groundspeak:owner>

There are no logs, so you can't see who found it either.
<groundspeak:logs />

The name will (possibly) conflict with the GC code names as they will both start with GC.
<name>GCP628</name>

Difficulty seems to be a default of 1
<groundspeak:difficulty>1</groundspeak:difficulty>

Looks a little hokey and if they expect people to pay $30.00 USD they will need to address some of the data clash concerns and usability of the site.
The name conflict sounds like a potential biggie for a site like GCA that amalgamates logs from multiple sites. Is it worth inserting some code to the import routines to filter out any one that contains the <url>http://www.geocheckpointing.com phrase? Otherwise someone might decide to import a file from here and inadvertently cause problems?

I suspect that the frequent references to groundspeak and www.groundspeak.com in their GPX may well cause them problems (unless it is another secret thing from GS to compete with waymarking which I don't think ever really took off, but if that was the case I don't think they would have been silly enough to use GC as the prefix). Though the site registration is to Petr Sejba with a Czech email address and a host registration in England.

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CraigRat
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Re: Geocheckpointing

Post by CraigRat » 12 February 15 6:47 am

caughtatwork wrote:The name will (possibly) conflict with the GC code names as they will both start with GC.
<name>GCP628</name>
Dumbest thing they could have done.
caughtatwork wrote:Looks a little hokey and if they expect people to pay $30.00 USD they will need to address some of the data clash concerns and usability of the site.
People bitch about $30 for Groundspeak... If your site offers only 5% of the functionality and features, perhaps price it accordingly. :roll:

Laighside Legends
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Re: Geocheckpointing

Post by Laighside Legends » 12 February 15 6:29 pm

CraigRat wrote:People bitch about $30 for Groundspeak... If your site offers only 5% of the functionality and features, perhaps price it accordingly. :roll:
By that logic, GCA should be worth about $100 a month shouldn't it... :mrgreen:

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caughtatwork
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Re: Geocheckpointing

Post by caughtatwork » 12 February 15 6:39 pm

Laighside Legends wrote:
CraigRat wrote:People bitch about $30 for Groundspeak... If your site offers only 5% of the functionality and features, perhaps price it accordingly. :roll:
By that logic, GCA should be worth about $100 a month shouldn't it... :mrgreen:
Yes, yes it is. I notice your payment hasn't been made this month, by the way :-)

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spatialriq
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Re: Geocheckpointing

Post by spatialriq » 13 February 15 3:56 pm

This has been around for awhile. I hid one in Perth about 2 years ago as I stumbled across the app for it. I recall it being originally written by some guy in Europe (Slovakia comes to mind). The app was pretty ordinary and once I changed phones I couldn't find it in the android store again so gave up. Just logged in again .. looks like there's now 3 in Perth, what growth!!!.

Don't really have the urge to pursue it, busy enough with GC, GCA and that QR game of which one cannot speak :lol:

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spatialriq
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Re: Geocheckpointing

Post by spatialriq » 13 February 15 3:59 pm

Oh, and originally the geocheckpoint was a printed piece of paper with a code on it such as GKQ or TWP. You recorded the code and then entered it online to show you'd been there. Looks like it's completely virtual now so pretty much a geocaching/munzee hybrid ... so something like sighter I guess.

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CraigRat
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Re: Geocheckpointing

Post by CraigRat » 13 February 15 6:05 pm

spatialriq wrote:and that QR game of which one cannot speak :lol:
I know this was probably said tongue in cheek, but Munzee isn't a dirty word here :lol:

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