[RVRoadTrip]

On Opencaching.us, there are guidelines for placing caches… it is contained in the Wiki. It states where you should or should not place caches, what should and should not be in them, etc, etc. But as with rules on most other places… who reads them, right? 🙂

One bonus on Opencaching.us is that YOU have the option to rate the cache, comment on the cache and to report the cache if it violates a “rule”. I would much rather have the geocaching community judge the cache rather than a paid employee who may or may not even geocache. Anyone can say anything when submitting a cache but peer review is very hard to get around when someone has actually been to the cache. A poorly placed cache will get flagged and action taken as necessary. I was geocaching yesterday and saw several on GC.com that no longer existed in real life AND had been clearly stated on GC.com yet they still showed up in queries months later.

This site is part of the Opencaching Open Source Project. A lot of people wrote the code and maintain the code and the various Opencaching.xx sites around the world. It’s not really just 2 people when you look at the big picture, just 2 “visible” people at the US site. The data (just like the data on GC.com) came from YOU and we feel it belongs to you. Should you have to pay for what is already yours? We don’t think so.

My objective in starting the site is simply to provide a free alternative to GC.com. To have a free site with the features geocachers have asked for and using generally accepted principles. Is it perfect? Certainly not but I want to do the very best I can. Will it please everyone? Not a chance, but I knew that going in. 😉

Hope that addressed most of the issue brought up thus far. Have fun geocaching!

Jerry (RVRoadTrip)
OC US Admin

[RVRoadTrip]

@GeoBill wrote:

You should try to get the Delorme Plugin for send to gps also.
Are you going to have a photo section for logging a cache or will they just need to be added to the log section with BBcode and hosted somewhere else? Sorry, now that I have added a log I see the picture section. Site looks good so far.
The Searchers

I’ll check on the Delorme plugin. Glad you found the picture info.

[RVRoadTrip]

@glorkar wrote:

Just a few user issue things:

1. Is there a way to change the date format? dd/mm/yyyy (9/8/2010) is okay, but most people in the States are more familiar with mm/dd/yyyy (8/9/2010.)

2. I logged a note for OU0002 Forsyth Park and it showed up on the cache page as a comment. On the found/not found/etc… stats shown on the page there are categories for both. Perhaps change the wording in the log options to comment? Also, when I clicked on the link for notes on that stats column, on the next page there is a link to see a description of cache notes. I clicked it and the page is not up yet.

3. When entering profile information, it would be nice to have a “find me” option for entering home coordinates. I’ll be honest, I had to look mine up on GC.com. On a related note, can the default longitude be set to West instead of East? I’m sure more than a few people would miss that little detail without the auto fill-in option.

4. One of the attribute icons is for a flashlight. In Europe they call it a torch. Maybe change the wording? Small thing, I know.

That’s all I’ve found for now. But don’t worry…I’ll keep looking 🙂

All fixed. Thanks!

[RVRoadTrip]

@glorkar wrote:

Just got a cache placement notification in my mailbox.
Link to cache is broken: http://opencaching.us/viewcache.php?wp=OU0004
The distance is listed in km
Type and Size are both in Polish

– The UK version of the site has a ton of pages that they never translated! I have their files and use what I can of them.

– We just need to resolve this to http://www.opencaching.us/viewcache.php?wp=OU0004 – It is on our “to do list”. 🙂

The distance is listed in km – fixed.
Type and Size are both in Polish – fixed.

[RVRoadTrip]

Any feedback is appreciated. It is never considered to be too critical. I like things done right if I can. 🙂

We are aware of the “gobbledy-gook” when you try to zip code search with a blank field.

You can enter more than one cache so we can test layout on results pages.

Arrghhh, the translations! LOL Thanks for pointing them out. Have you ever tried to translate Polish to English? How do I translate ‘You tried to like the mailbox.”? hehe

Can you elaborate or show an example of what you mean by “friending” other cachers?

[RVRoadTrip]

@glorkar wrote:

@TyeDyeSkyGuy wrote:

Doesn’t appear to be becoming to popular yet. CodeJunkie has the most recent cache posted. And that was two days ago.

Not putting down the site, or the effort, still haven’t had a chance to check it in full.

Right now we are the test group. Once all/most of the bugs are fixed, the site will go “live.” Not many people know about it yet.

Am I right in thinking that?

You are correct. We have not advertised the site to the general public. The home page also states that it is not ready for public use (should anyone stumble upon it). All WI-Geo members are welcome to test the site.

[RVRoadTrip]

Thanks Glorkar! I will look into these issues and correct them.

[RVRoadTrip]

@grandpa_r wrote:

I don’t think these questions have been answered yet!

Have you proposed this to other states? If so, what has been their response?

I looked at a few other state geocaching forums and Wisconsin seemed to have the most activity of the ones I saw. Thus, I posted here hoping for the most feedback. Once we get a little feedback and have the site ready for launch, we will let everyone, everywhere know about it.

I do understand the analogy of the grocery stores and I can certainly relate to it. However, if you and your friends did use the new store, it would quickly have as much variety as the other one. 🙂 Our intent is to offer cache data an easy-to-use site at no cost to the geocaching community. Our hope is that cache owners will see the long term value in this to new and existing geocachers and submit their cache data on our site.

In a nutshell, we want more people to get into geocaching and providing a free service is one way to help do that.

[RVRoadTrip]

Thanks for the test entry and your feedback. We’ll check as to why you were shown the incorrect map.

[RVRoadTrip]

@Captain and Mate wrote:

So, we could hide a cache and publish info. about it on this new site. Will there be any guidelines, or could we hide it anywhere we want (on private property, in a dangerous place, in a place that will aggravate Homeland Security folks, etc.)? If there is no review of what gets published, that could open a whole can of worms that could be very harmful to the sport. A side note: what would motivate someone who’s been with Groundspeak for a long time, is happy with the site, and has a lot of finds to suddenly want to switch? Will it offer the same advanced features that premium members pay for now ($35/per year?).

There are guidelines posted on the site for the sport, the same generally accepted principles used all over the world. This is a team effort by several geocachers, not just me… we are doing it to help the sport grow. People tend to prefer free. 🙂 If you are happy with Groundspeak and paying for their services, then by all means continue to use them. But if you would like to support the fact that accessing Geocaching location info should be free to everyone, then you think as we do.

We will offer these and other features for free (this is what Groundspeak charges for):

1. Organize Your Favorites
2. Custom Searches
3. Be instantly notified of Geocaches
4. Caches Along a Route (checking on this one)
5. Seek and create Caches of all types

If you’re willing to help test the site, we appreciate it. If you would like to find out more about the site… just visit it. If you’re not interested, that’s OK, too. In any case, have fun geocaching!

Jerry

[RVRoadTrip]

1) I am. 🙂
2) There is one Adsense frame per page.

The coding and site maintenance is done by volunteers, your fellow geocachers. I personally paid the server setup fees and the monthly bandwidth fees. I would eventually like the site to generate enough ad revenue to cover the monthly fee. It is not a big amount…

[RVRoadTrip]

Geocaching.com requires a paid subscription for advances services, such as running queries. A basic subscription is free but you are limited in accessing the geocache information that the public has submitted. Their site will explain the differences in detail.

Using the term geocaching is not a copyright infringement. The term was specifically registered by Groundspeak so that its use could not be restricted by another entity.

The difference in sites is one is free and the other requires a paid membership for advanced services.

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