LonelyCache

This topic was brought up on the facebook page. Since the sites forums are up and running let's get something going here.

As for regions, should the old DGP regions still be used? Should new regions be created? If new regions were created where should the boundaries be drawn? Do we even want to have regions on this new site?

I like the idea of regions. I know I liked to concentrate on certain stats for certain regions. I would like to have some sort of regions on a smaller scale than states. Perhaps we'll use counties, though counties are very different from state to state. For example, AZ has 15 counties while CO has 64. That's quite a difference.

I hesitate to use the regions that were created for the DGP. I'm no lawyer but the regions just seem more like DGP property that I would need permission to use more than anything else. If we did use them, I doubt anything would come of it, but I'd just assume not.

Whatever we do, regions, counties, or both, it will come a bit later. To start we'll just have state and overall leader boards.

In my opinion counties is the perfect idea.

- The boundaries are set, no debate, no need to explain why a line was picked.

- Counties are important to cachers already, many try to cache in each county, get a certain number in each county, etc.

- GSAK macros are available to add the county to your data, obviously we could make macros for the LCP boundaries, but why add extra work?

- People know the counties, talking about them would be easy, you could just say "I'm the leader for Juab County on LCP." and not have people need to be familiar with the site to have any idea what you're talking about.

Looking at the New Mexico regions on DGP, it seemed the logical way to divide the areas up, through geological features. These features aren't going to change, and a minor modification to the lines, and maybe changing the names a bit, could get you off of any legal conundrum. New Mexico counties are big enough for the most part to serve as regions. Nevada's may be too big, though they might themselves serve as regional boundaries. Same with AZ. Colorado's may be too small and could be divided into larger chunks made up of multiple counties. Something to think about anyways.

Thanks for setting all this up.

Victor

How about break each state into 4 different quadrants. That would keep the programming simple.

Another possibility would be to use Delorme pages or more likely a grouping of them to define a region - advantage is that the boundaries are probably already available due to all the DeLorme challenges.

Corfman Clan wrote:I like the idea of regions. I know I liked to concentrate on certain stats for certain regions. I would like to have some sort of regions on a smaller scale than states. Perhaps we'll use counties, though counties are very different from state to state. For example, AZ has 15 counties while CO has 64. That's quite a difference.

Great Point... "IF" this project ever gets bigger, ie, countrywide, there is a huge disparity of county size and number across the states.

Corfman Clan wrote: I hesitate to use the regions that were created for the DGP. I'm no lawyer but the regions just seem more like DGP property that I would need permission to use more than anything else. If we did use them, I doubt anything would come of it, but I'd just assume not.

I actually see that the DGP regions could be easier to implement ( if permission were given) since this brainchild originated from the dissapearance of the DGP and its lost followers searching for the DGPs return and now replacement. Why reinvent the wheel?
If this is not an acceptable route, I like the idea of splitting the states into reasonably equal parts, but I don't think 1/4's are going to be realistic. Not sure what a reasonable size could be either....1/8's, 1/16's....maybe look at some state like CO and see what their ave County size is and relate that Square mileage to other states and their regions.?

I'm in favor of using either the old DGP regions or counties as regions with the DGP regions being my first choice.

Generally, I liked the way DGP's regions were set up. At least in my area, there was obviously careful thought put into using natural boundaries based on geography and population. I was especially impressed when I inspected the caches along the "Bonneville" and "Cache" Utah boundary and found that DGPAdmin drew the line exactly the right way to divide the desert/uninhabited (or sparsely inhabited) areas from the populated/mountainous areas of Box Elder County. Same between the "Wasatch" and "Ogden" regions, both of which include Weber County.

Using counties is easy and has several advantages, but I really liked the idea of using regions the way DGP did, dividing states into areas that have common backcountry elements (desert basin vs. mountain hikes vs. slot canyons vs. red rock vs. urban camouflage, etc.).

Just my two cents.

Being somewhat of a programmer and surveyor myself, I realize the very large amount of work required to create arbitrary region boundaries vs. using something already existing, like counties. Of course, once it's done, it's done, but it would still take a LOT of work to do it 'right' for every state, and eventually other countries(?) The current DGP regions do make good sense, in terms of geographic/population areas, so if there were a way to extend that without a huge amount of work, it would be really nice. Perhaps the various Regional Geocaching organizations could organize volunteers to come up with region boundaries for their local areas, plus create the coordinate point files necessary to describe them. If the LCP site could include a formal protocol for proposing and submitting regional boundaries for inclusion, it would simply become a matter of someone at LCP checking the file(s) for proper format, and then adding them into the system.

I am for WHATEVER gets it up and running!!!!! just looking forward to having SOMETHING, ANYTHING that makes it fun and challenging AGAIN!!!!!!

How about Delorme pages or USGS Quad maps?

As with everything else, I'd like to see no change from DGP - use the same DGP regions. However, if that is impossible for legal or technical reasons, county boundaries seem like the next best thing to me. Lots of regions means lots of people get the chance to be a big frog in their local little pond. To me that's the really addicting thing about DGP - the thrill of moving up on a leader board.

MooseMob wrote:How about Delorme pages or USGS Quad maps?

The USGS Quad Maps sound like a good idea also if having the original DGP regions can't be worked out.

I liked the DGP regions also. Living in Las Vegas there was Yucca Vegas and Area 51 regions that you could watch your stats on, if we went to countys most of that would be just Clark County.

RockyMtnRidgeRunner wrote:As with everything else, I'd like to see no change from DGP - use the same DGP regions. However, if that is impossible for legal or technical reasons, county boundaries seem like the next best thing to me. Lots of regions means lots of people get the chance to be a big frog in their local little pond. To me that's the really addicting thing about DGP - the thrill of moving up on a leader board.

I'm with RockyMtnRidgeRunner and would just like to see the DGP back up and running with no changes made. I think that'll be enough of a challenge without adding any changes to the mix...

I would like to see the DGP regions if possible. That's what I'm used to.

MooseMob wrote:How about Delorme pages or USGS Quad maps?

I too am in favor of keeping the DGP regions if possible. If not, these alternatives make sense to me. As a GSAK user, I like the fact that there are predefined boundaries and macros devoted to both USGS quads and DeLorme pages.

I did not like the DGP regions at all. Many counties here are broken down by watersheds/rivers. That seems to make more sense. I cache on this side of the mountian, not on the other.

I am not that fond of Delorme or USGS, but I do like them better than the idea of the old areas.

It would be easy to get the county marks and do, so I would go with that.

What about regions and counties. Have county leaderboards, then combine 4-5 counties (or more as need/geography may warrent) into larger regional leadership. Then people can chase their county numbers, and work into larger region/state/national. In the long term it would create more interest. It may pull people into watching county numbers, then that grows into interest in region/state boards.

If we have to use something other than the DGP regions, then I'd go with counties. The USGS quads are nice, but too small and they overlap the State boundries.