Geocaching Australia Development List

This page lists the development ideas for Geocaching Australia. If you want something added to this list, please post your request in the forum.

For changes to the Wiki, see the Wiki Development List.

Roadmap

Where are we heading?

Work in Progress by your primary developers

caughtatwork

• Add new link under caches to "Log a Cache" with data entry box for the code or name with explanation and direct jump to the "/my/log/new" page.
• Moveables caches to look at whether a "found and moved" icon can be made up where a found has co-ords.
• Add state to http://wiki.geocaching.com.au/wiki/Cache_alerts to restrict caches to a stated state, even if it's inside the radius selected. i.e. Stops Tasmanian caches showing up in Victorian alerts. Trouble will occur for non-Australia cachers when their state won't be selectable. Want to try and keep the site as international as possible.
• Add ability for "NOT=Tag" in My Query function so as to ignore things like cache race entrants.
• Add functionality to alerts to stop alerts on moveables if already found. Should be able to make this user by user selection, but not cache by cache.
• Allow toolbox to handle this format 33° 51′ 59.36″ S, 151° 12′ 27.34″ E
• The "Find a Geocache Zone" page has "Warning Zone Checker" where you put in GPS co-ordinates and click 'Check'. Awesome! Simple request: can you add this "Warning Zone Checker" onto the page used to create new cache, please?

CraigRat

• Migration to new server **SOON!!! YAY**
• OAuth/Opencaching API integration to enable site to work with many more mobile applications
• overall look and feel of the site/menus etc
• Downloadable hotlists (csv, gpx etc) e.g : http://geocaching.com.au/my/hotlist/firsttofind.gpx
• Bulk/batch upload of logs - Have server notify you after it's all updated and processed.
• Custom list of waypoints - Solved a few puzzles? Place em here so they come up on YOUR map - perhaps link to cache - viewable buy user only.
• Possibly add a 'permission to display' to cache owners for external site listed caches allow to full listing details on GCA... Opt in only of course.
• Add log limit to queries.

2016 'What can we do for you" Requests

• Having an app for us phone cachers would also be super (and would bring in more people) but I'm completely aware of the current status. Just saying that it should still be on the long term to-do list.
• An app for "i" devices. Yep, I know someone external is currently playing around with a new GC app and is looking into adding GCA functionality. The sooner, the better.
• Geosportz please. Its an Olympic year. The last two were so much fun.
• I have recently started researching locationless caches and I frustration I found quite early on is that there are a fair number that aren't technically locationless. I'd love it if these type of locationless could have the state you need to be in to complete them added to the attributes. This way I would stop looking at the Queensland bus one, for example. . There need to be other ways to work out what locationless caches are about, so a text search needs to be allowed, or tagging to categorise them. I'd be looking for a whole of solution approach to locationless cache rather than piecemeal.
• Would it be possible to get stats on just the caches returned from a query? (think along the lines of setting a query in GSAK and then running FindStatGen) But this could be extended beyond just found caches. Could be used to answer questions along the lines of, of the caches in the zone x which has the most finds?, what percentage of SA's caches are micros?, In which month were the most events held?, Of the caches hidden by x and found by me what percentage are puzzles?, and so on...
• NFC caches
• Add EPE to cache submission so finder can see how accurate the previous recording was. How to output in GPX file?
• For My Queries when you use a ZONE ID to restrict the caches archived caches are excluded due to the function that gets caches from the zone. Include archived caches is they are wanted.
• Add zoneid to the dragonzone table for faster look ups of what zone a dZ cache is in or not. Then look for way to help people understand what their clan can easily take over with minimal effort.

Ideas

• Improve Tag and Gallery visualisation
• Administrative Pages for Tags and Gallery, plus some stat generation
• Upload of MP3 files for podcaches
• Add a notification bar to the header to allow notification of save/edit/addition rather than a blank page with a 'return to what you were doing' link
• Add a way to bulk tag caches (e.g powertrails)
• Meetup Events to facilitate group caching (to plan best date and area/geocaches)

Fix Bugs/Basic Functionality

• Tag virtual caches

Search

Better Search options, searching all items (logs/gallery/tags/cachers/caches etc etc as requested in obscene detail by the one known only as "The Ginger Loon")

Add API for Cache name search eg Android app (for authenticated users)

"Advanced" search options: (from search bar - not my query page)

• Filter by cache type
• Filter by cache owner
• Filter by state

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Additional functionality

• GeoLists
• Site map
• Automatic winners' page for finders
• When logging a cache, allow a non-published note to the owner (sends PM?)
• HTML export from various cacher statistics pages (allow editing through FCK editor).
• Generate a GPX file based on the caches visible from a Google Map page.
• Change the icons on the logs to a drop down list to save space / make look consistent.
• Allow cachers to add listing site prefixes to their ignore lists (like OX, OU, OK, GC, etc).

Gallery

• Cacher specific galleries in new gallery system

Stats

• Cache(r) half life, plot decline in find frequency
• Cache(r) find frequency. Straight, and vs diff/terr
• team v location: where different teams are putting their caches. colours represent teams
• terrain v difficulty: correlated as most people don't understand the difference?
• terrain v location: urban are are easy terrain, the ones away are harder?
• difficulty v location: opposite to above
• team cache style profiles: terrain v location, coloured blob represents team. colour gets brighter/blob larger as teams plant more caches of that style.
• hit/miss ratio v terrain, difficulty
• time to first find v location, time: hypothesis is that ttff is small in sydney but large further out. other hypothsis is that average ttff has decreased significantly over the past 12 months
• team territorial analysis - thematic plot of where each team is usually active. for each team, assign (say) 5 points for a cache that they have laid, 2 points for a first find and 1 point for a normal find. then start shading areas based on the pointscore and see what you get. should be able to see odlid dave sitting down there in jannali, dogs up in hornsby, etc

Mapping

• Integrate GPSBabel to support zillions of formats
• add more filters eg GCA only , cache-types

Rejections

Ideas that have been proposed in the past but were rejected or did not progress at the time. These may always be brought up again in the future as times, minds and attitudes change with the influx of new players or the changing of the game over time.

• Codeword caches. As an add on to a cache you may be required to locate the codeword at the location. These may be too similar to virtual caches which have no box, history caches which require Q&A and not a box. Geocaching is about a box, not finding a codeword in a message oin a plaque.
• Regular "Virtual" Event Activities _i.e. a scavenger hunt). A geocaching adventure where your location is independent of physical geocaches. A set of "requirements" is published in the event listing. The requirements are all virtual requirements in that they do not require a physical cache find, but virtual activities which can be achieved anywhere.
• Hunt the wocket (cache). A wocket is a cache. You have an event ... but it's a special event where people gather at a starting spot. There are 3 (or any number up to n depending on how many participants you have) special caches at the gathering spot. Each one with the organisers (need 1 organiser for each special cache (wocket)). The event starts. Each organiser heads off in a direction. They can be similar or different. 10 minutes later they stop and hide the geocache. They update the co-ordinates of their cache. The game is now on. Each of the teams at the event move towards a cache. They are not going to be in the same park, they're most likely a few km away by now. They will need to choose which one they head towards. They have 15 minutes to find the cache. The first person to find the cache gets 10 points. The next person gets 9, then 8, 7, 6 etc., until there are no more points to allocate or the time has expired. One you've found the cache you can head off to find one of the other in the game or you can wait. There's some strategy needed to decide how and where you are going. Your team cannot split up. After the 15 minutes is up the game piece moves on. Again a 10 minute travel time for the cache, hide and update the co-ords. The participants now have 15 minutes to get to the cache and collect some more points. After a few hours, the game is over and everyone gathers back at a central location for the rest of the event which is congratulating the winners (points are added up obviously), commiserating the losers, bitching about inaccurate co-ordinates or how much the rules of hunt the wocket suck.
• Geocaching Australia organises an Australia wide Rubber Duck Race. It's held in one town on a flowing body of water -- OR -- in each capital city.

Permission is sought from the water owner (all capitals is going to be a logistical nightmare). People sponsor their way into the Rubber Duck Race for a nominal amount, (making numbers up), say $5.00. The winner, er, wins (something). The ducks are extracted from the body of water (including any who got lost along the way). The ducks are then released as movable Geocaching Australia Rubber Duck Geocaches. A few hundred identical Rubber Ducks are now available as Geocaching Australia geocaches.

• Dead Drop Caches http://wiki.opencaching.us/index.php/Dead_Drop_Caches
• Bit Caches http://wiki.opencaching.us/index.php/BIT_Caches
• Confluence caches - We are not restricted to just the degree confluence. If there are a number of degree confluences which are restricted by being on private property, we could increase the scope of the confluence caches by allowing a high frequency. e.g. Instead of just S37 E144 we could have S37 45 E144 45. Although that would increase the total number of possible confluences by a factor of 360 (60 x 60) to around 36,000. That seems a little over the top to me and I'd suspect that a significant number would be inaccessible as they would be on private property, especially in the urban areas. S37 10 E 144 10, S37 10 E 144 20, S37 10 E 144 20, etc would increase the CC's to around 8,000, again private property being most likely to kill a huge swathe of them.
• GeoTours - This is the first geotour we had listed on Geocaching Australia. http://geocaching.com.au/tags/view/all/savannah%20way/ Do more of these. Offer landing pages for the tour operators.