Well, thats the problem. It's far from perfect I know, but I haven't see anyone come up with a really practical alternative. If I see one then I will happily ditch my effort and support the better system. I hoped that someone like Jeremy (who obviously has a lot of good ideas) would take the code and work it into something even better. For example, maybe it would be best if the cache location and style were just removed altogether? I don't know. If you reduce the items in the list down like you have, what do you take out and what do you leave in? For example, I see that in your list you have omitted the single most important thing for my wife - accurate distance to the cache from the nearest parking. Different things are important to different people. Also, since writing it, I've been asked by people to add a surface type of X, a route obsticle Y, which I have done, but it shows that I thought it was complete enough when something else doesn't think so. A simple list would produce a lot more requests I'm sure, and it would end up as a less well structured big list. So, to counter the complaint that it spoils the fun (which I agree with to a degree), I provided the option to encode the text. Now the problem becomes, how do you decode all that text - what a chore. If you provide an automated decoding method then you may as well not bother encoding the text in the first place. Note that you can always generate the text and then chop out parts you don't want. An example off the top of my head where I don't think it will spoil the fun is in puzzle caches. There you can work out the final location of the cache and even if you have a description of the route, there is a lot of fun in seeing for yourself if you correctly worked out the right pile of rocks it is under, even if the text said "under a pile of rocks". My view is that providing something, anything, is better than nothing, and that is what I set out to do. I also hoped that by creating something, anything, it would start a really useful, constructive discussion on the subject with the aim of creating something better, but unfortunately that didn't happen and I doubt that it really will. Maybe if more geocachers are exposed to my current system, there will be more discussion on how to make a better system? Remember that a lot of geocachers don't read the forums or this list, so their only exposure might come because someone generated the guidelines and put them on their cache page. Regarding your PS, I think that a lot of the discussion on the gc.com forum with regard to rules turns into a "lawyerish" (is that a word?) discussion on the fine detail, which becomes the focus of the debate. The same thing can happen with a tool for handicap accessibility. I think that you have to be pragmatic and draw the line somewhere. I don't think 100% inclusion is ever going to be possible, but isn't 80% inclusion better than say 70%? However, an over-simplifed system might not provide any benefit and most geocachers might not see the point using it. Maybe I should just go ahead and create a second, simpler system like you suggested, advertise it and see if the support is greater than the first system... It would be great if the members of this list would give me some guidance on this issue - I have the ability to write the code. If you prefer to contact me privately, my address is andy @ britishideas dot com. Andy -----Original Message----- From: az-geocaching-admin@listserv.azgeocaching.com [mailto:az-geocaching-admin@listserv.azgeocaching.com]On Behalf Of Brian Cluff Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 7:20 PM To: listserv@azgeocaching.com Subject: Re: [Az-Geocaching] opencaching.com Andrew Ayre wrote: > Also the guy running opencaching.com has shown an interest in integrating my > Handicap Accessibility Guideline Generator into the site. Something that > geocaching.com appears to have no interest in doing, despite my offer to > Jeremy of the PHP code for free... Jeremy might have had a problem with your HGG, for the same reason that I did. It's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too fine grained. Not only would it take a significant amount of time to fill it out, but it would squeeze all the fun out of hiding a cache for cacher. You would literally need a clipboard and a large list of things to continually scan for while hiding the cache to make sure that not a single thing got missed. Now don't get me wrong, I think it's a wonderful thing to try and include as many people as possible, but it seems like the amount of deatil would squeeze the fun out of geocaching for the people that it is intended for... you need to leave a little something suprise in the end. I think you would be better off with just boiling the whole thing down to just a few questions like the ratings rather than breaking down every little detail, something like: handicap friendly Parking or Starting Point coords:___ Parking or Starting Point diffuculty: (0-9) Cache Vicinity terrain: (0-9) bending required (yes no) bathrooms nearby (yes no) cache may be difficult to open (yes no) The cache location and style section in particular is so detailed as to make it no fun at all. I'm suprised there isn't a close up picture of the cache and cache hiding location from a distance in that section. You can't cater to everyone, so just make it general and make a definition of what the different ratings appoximatly mean and leave it up to the people to decide if they want to go to the cache or not. Brian Cluff Team Snaptek P.S. You did leave out a place to list all plants in the area. We wouldn't want to leave out people with severe allergies. :) There is also no mention of the amount of thorns and other stickers that might get into a seeing eye dog's feet :) ____________________________________________________________ Az-Geocaching mailing list listserv@azgeocaching.com To edit your setting, subscribe or unsubscribe visit: http://listserv.azgeocaching.com/mailman/listinfo/az-geocaching Arizona's Geocaching Resource http://www.azgeocaching.com