opencaching.com

Team BMW-Biker · Joined: 01 Oct 2003 Posts: 209

Hi,

CoyoteRed · Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 220

I would think the OWNER tag would be good doing searches like that.

The PLACED_BY is more freeform. For intance, a few cacher's get together to place a cache. There would be multiple instances of OWNER, but only one PLACED_BY and they could put in a name they made up for their team.

That is what I was thinking, anyway.

CR
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"...been know to miss the finer points."

Guest · Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 1:32 pm Post subject:

CoyoteRed · Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 220

If teh GPX file is properly written the PLACE_BY should default to OWNER I agree. It's just an option that is to be left open for the owner to change if he wants to.

CR
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"...been know to miss the finer points."

Scout · Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Posts: 235

I see no reason to allow free-form names. If you want to do searches based on "owner" or "placed-by" you have to force these values to match registered names.

If people want to mention that their dog picked out the spot (ewwww!) or their cousin from Jersey came along on the trip, they can include that in the free-form description. Turning the owner and/or placed-by fields into free-form mental dumps is a mistake.
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Scout http://GPSgames.org

CoyoteRed · Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 220

Actually, the way I proposed is the way it's done now at gc.com. The PLACED_BY is user input. I know of a series of caches placed by several cachers. Some are owned by one, more are owned by another, and the rest are owned by a third. However, all of the caches are PLACED_BY the same handle.

CR
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"...been know to miss the finer points."

Scout · Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Posts: 235

How does gc.com distinguish "owner" from "placed by"? I must have missed it on the cache page.
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Scout http://GPSgames.org

CoyoteRed · Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 220

Look at this cache page. The freeform placed_by is presented on the page as "by:whoever" directly below the cache title. However, I am now the owner of this cache, so I have the rights of editing and the [profile] goes to my page.

When you create or edit a cache page it will ask you "Who placed the cache?" It already knows who is creating or editing the cache.

In fact, I could place a cache and have it say "placed by Scout."

See, there is a difference between placed by and owner.

CR
_________________
"...been know to miss the finer points."

Scout · Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Posts: 235

Then gc.com can offer no good way to do searches on who placed caches because the "by:" field is free-form.

Having separate "owner" and "placed by" fields is good. Better would be to track all owners over time, with the hider being the first owner.

The database should allow only registered IDs in these fields. That allows for searches that are guaranteed to find what you're looking for no matter what the hider put in some free-form "placed by" field.

If the database also stores some free form value for "owner" or "placed by" or anything else for that matter, that's OK, too.
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Scout http://GPSgames.org

CoyoteRed · Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 220

The only search gc.com offers is by owner. By that's not to say you couldn't do a search by placed_by. It would be fairly easy thing to do. however, one misspelled placed-by and that cache gets overlooked, but the onus is on the owner.

The OWNER element would be some kind of registered ID. How that registration is to be handled is yet to be determined. The idea of OUUA is a good one as it could be keeping track of all users and all sites on that network. Therefore, a user registers on the OUUA and is issued an ID. The ID can be forever and the user could change his name. It's all handled by the OUUA for authentication purposes.

CR
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"...been know to miss the finer points."

Team BMW-Biker · Joined: 01 Oct 2003 Posts: 209

CoyoteRed · Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 220

Yeah, I've been told be people smarter than me in database manipulation that you never delete a record.

Besides, any activity by a cacher should be forever. The status of it may change or invalidated, but never deleted.

I've been hoping to get a couple of more people in here to weight in on this.

CR
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"...been know to miss the finer points."

Guest · Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:32 pm Post subject:

The Diver · Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 6:13 pm Post subject:

Scout · Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Posts: 235

Remember the ownership issue. If opencaching makes claims that the caches and cache information are owned by the cachers, not the Webmaster, then you need to give them the right to delete their cache information, not just "archive" it or "hide" it.
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Scout http://GPSgames.org