Locationless caches

[Laighside Legends]

The organisation of locationless caches has come up before. Do you have any suggestions as how they can be organised to make their usability any better?

Other than being able to search within the body of the description (as not all cache names give a clear idea of what you'd be looking for), maybe some form of categorisation or grouping? Perhaps something like "markers, signs and notices", "structures", "alpha and numeric games", "animals", "challenges", "beach and water", etc..... or use tags and pull them out based on their tags. If you can view them in categories they may seem less overwhelming.

This is my biggest problem with them - I don't know what I'm looking for! A few years ago I went though a made a list of all the items that you are actually looking for (and the GA code to log them with). But of course that is well out of date now. And then there are all the 'special' ones that aren't "find this item"...

I find the number of 'locationless' caches that actually require you to be in a specific area frustrating. It would be great if they had at least their state attributed to them so I could filter those out.

Yeah, some people don't get the difference between locationless and virtual cache types.

It's easy really:
Virtual: Usually tied to a single location
Locationless: anywhere and everywhere.

The problem here is where does "Anywhere in Sydney but only in Sydney" fit?

[caughtatwork]

The organisation of locationless caches has come up before. Do you have any suggestions as how they can be organised to make their usability any better?

Other than being able to search within the body of the description (as not all cache names give a clear idea of what you'd be looking for), maybe some form of categorisation or grouping? Perhaps something like "markers, signs and notices", "structures", "alpha and numeric games", "animals", "challenges", "beach and water", etc..... or use tags and pull them out based on their tags. If you can view them in categories they may seem less overwhelming.

Tags They're there for this type of categorisation. Of course if no-one uses them, they're useless.

[caughtatwork]

The organisation of locationless caches has come up before. Do you have any suggestions as how they can be organised to make their usability any better?

Other than being able to search within the body of the description (as not all cache names give a clear idea of what you'd be looking for), maybe some form of categorisation or grouping? Perhaps something like "markers, signs and notices", "structures", "alpha and numeric games", "animals", "challenges", "beach and water", etc..... or use tags and pull them out based on their tags. If you can view them in categories they may seem less overwhelming.

I'm one of those out of the way cachers that likes the idea of being able to do locationles caches, however, when I find something I recall can be "found", I can't find it again because a lot of the names are confusing. I have a heap of locationless photos on my phone that have never made it beyond. I do write lists but promptly lose them.

Then please suggest how this can be improved. Always open and willing to add code to make things easier but "names are confusing" doesn't let me know how to fix it. You could add the cache to your watchlist so you can remember that there was "something" you wanted to do with that cache at some future point. You can also add it to your favourites and give it an name you can use in the future. e.g. A locationless cache called "move along" (example) I can add to my favorites and call "steam trains in Victoria" if that's what I'm going to try and find. Then when I check my favourites I know which cache it was.

[caughtatwork]

The organisation of locationless caches has come up before. Do you have any suggestions as how they can be organised to make their usability any better?

Other than being able to search within the body of the description (as not all cache names give a clear idea of what you'd be looking for), maybe some form of categorisation or grouping? Perhaps something like "markers, signs and notices", "structures", "alpha and numeric games", "animals", "challenges", "beach and water", etc..... or use tags and pull them out based on their tags. If you can view them in categories they may seem less overwhelming.

This is my biggest problem with them - I don't know what I'm looking for! A few years ago I went though a made a list of all the items that you are actually looking for (and the GA code to log them with). But of course that is well out of date now. And then there are all the 'special' ones that aren't "find this item"...

I find the number of 'locationless' caches that actually require you to be in a specific area frustrating. It would be great if they had at least their state attributed to them so I could filter those out.

Yeah, some people don't get the difference between locationless and virtual cache types.

It's easy really:
Virtual: Usually tied to a single location
Locationless: anywhere and everywhere.

The problem here is where does "Anywhere in Sydney but only in Sydney" fit?

If you don't know what you're looking for then anything you find should be OK
I sense a feeling that a full text search of the cache name and description would help. e.g. I find a great letter box but letter box is not in the cache name. I currently can't search the descriptions to see what is there and look for "letterbox". We can't currently turn on full text searches in our DB (too old), but the new server will solve that as we'll be on a new DB version.
We're still trying to sort out the installation logistics for the new server.

[Laighside Legends]

Actually I think there is a loctionless that is "find something you think is interesting" so "anything you find should be OK" is probably more accurate than you think! I guess the problem is when I find a letterbox, how do I find the right locationless to log it on? A full text search might be the solution to that...

[ziggiau]

I sense a feeling that a full text search of the cache name and description would help. ... We can't currently turn on full text searches in our DB (too old), but the new server will solve that as we'll be on a new DB version.

This was raised once before and because I knew the new gear wasn't in place yet I didn't want to push that point.

I took a look at my planned caches list yesterday and found it chock full of locationless caches that I'd forgotten that I wanted to do. At least I made note of them.

I also have oodles of photos that I take of stuff I see hoping that it may fit into some locationless category. Sometimes even the locationless caches I own myself I don't log promptly, maybe because the incentive of dZ points isn't on offer so it make me lazy . I loved No Tomorrow's video for "Locationless by 12" (http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga7102 with the video at http://youtu.be/M0dNB7EwKQk) as that inspired me to have a go at it myself. Maybe, with the plethora of locationless options, we could use them as the basis for a future game or challenge?

[CraigRat]

The new box will have a new indexing search engine called solr which will allow full text searching (and an interacive searchbox, finally!)

We probably need to look at how we can improve locationless tagging and categorising in the future.

[ziggiau]

Pop it on the to-do list. If I get enthusiastic (or bored), I'll try and come up with some kind of categorising system that should help a little.

[No_Tomorrow]

I see there is a locationless for 1km+ above sea level. Is there one for below sea level?

[There and Back Again]

Locationless caches have been bugging me for a long time, but having 7 of them just arrive in my inbox has prompted me to write. I don't think they are geocaches. Take a picture of a plane taking off? How is that a geocache? This is the definition of geocaching from geocaching.com: Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.
Although I do accept that you might be finding a view or sign or whatever, you still need a GPS to find it - not find it without a GPS then publish coordinate. If you are going to run photo op competitions, perhaps you should run it separately from the geocaching site. I suppose it's still a treasure hunt, but it certainly isn't geocaching.

[caughtatwork]

geocaching.com do not define geocaching world wide. They only define geocaching for their site. We do not abide by their small definition, we take a much broader view.

[CraigRat]

Locationless caches are easy to ignore on our site.

There is a small but loyal userbase who enjoy them for many reasons, including disability or regional isolation which could limit their physical access to caches.

I don't go out of my way for them, but others do, and if someone enjoys finding and photographing public bbq's or whatnot, then who are we to stop that?

[2y'stassies]

Agree with craigrat. We have several geocaching friends who are nolonger able to walk very far on uneven ground who love Locationless caches as they enable them to continue a hobby that they have enjoyed for more years than us. They are still able to go for a drive and find something.

[J_&_J]

Geocaching.com had locationless caches well before they started appearing on geocaching.com.au.

A list of 382 of them can be seen here: https://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/vi ... 8dc0779a04

Groundspeak decided to move the goalposts on their site for whatever reason, while GCA still provides a broader variety of cache types to suit all tastes.

[WazzaAndWenches]

Geocaching.com had locationless caches well before they started appearing on geocaching.com.au.

GC spun off their locationless caches to waymarking.com a few years ago.

IMHO locationless caches should stay as they currently are at GCA. It's a long drive from home to the nearest physical GCA cache. Add a busy job and the chances of me logging more than 3-4 physical caches per year is very, very slim. If it wasn't for another cacher visiting town and dropping off a few moveable caches to me every few months I probably would not be able to log anything other than locationless caches.

As CR said, they're easy to ignore if you're not interested in them.