Re: Checker for another cool old challenge - GC1G0CX

https://coord.info/GC1G0CX

so this challenge requires a find in 91 different Texas towns.

see below the dotted line for the data I have on these towns.

1. if the name of the town is followed by a number, that number is the OSM relation-id and can be used to create a polygon for that town. e.g., 01. Waco 113870

2. Hamlets and Villages do not have polygons, just nodes, and I have included the node point. Let's consider a find within 5 miles of the node as meeting the requirement. e.g.,
34. Mill Creek - Hamlet in Washington County at 30.1554944,-96.4933026

3. Some Hamlet and Village names appear more than once in Texas, so for those, any find within 5 miles of ANY of the nodes with that name shall be considered meeting the requirement. e.g.,
33. Cedar Creek
a. Hamlet in Bastrop County at 30.0871611,-97.5008303
b. Hamlet in Waller County at 30.1946583,-96.0602354

4. #67 Angelina no longer exists, use Angelina County for Angelina.

5. #43 Round Lake needs some more clarification, so skip that one for now.

6. #65 Panorama needs some more clarification, so skip that one for now.

7. For any of the towns that a cacher does not have a find, it would be nice if the checker can say something like:
Pine Mills - You have no finds and there are currently no active caches that are within the required area.
OR
Pine Mills - You have no finds and there are currently X number of caches that are within the required area.
----------------------------------------

Here is the edited full list.
77 cities/towns with polygon data from OSM
1 county (Angelina) with polygon data from OSM
13 Hamlet/Village/Lake with center point

01. Waco 113870
02. Hico 113235
03. Hondo 113929
04. Navasota 6586797
05. Winnsboro 6603700
06. Jacksboro 114710
07. Hillsboro 113504
08. Santa Rosa 1807451
09. Austin 113314
10. Houston 2688911
11. Galveston 114559
12. Texarkana 6603682
13. Frisco 6579857
14. Buffalo 6603568
15. Conroe 114087
16. Corsicana 6571622
17. Goliad 6587476
18. Groesbeck 8476266
19. Glen Rose 6571638
20. Red Oak 8446130
21. Post Oak
a. Hamlet in Blanco County at 30.3035328,-98.5419731
b. Hamlet in Delta County at 33.3981649,-95.6030124
c. Hamlet in Lamar County at 33.7159409,-95.3235633
d. Hamlet in Lee County at 30.2615041,-96.7141438
e. Hamlet in Fannin County at 33.7145462,-96.0838657
f. Hamlet in Houston County at 31.5232342,-95.3391119
g. Hamlet in Fayette County at 30.0007069,-96.8619993
22. Live Oak 2314750
23. Lone Oak 6603631
24. Krugerville 114828
25. Pflugerville 6586521
26. Van Horn 6587606
27. Val Verde 1814625
28. Brackettville 6587583
29. Bartonville 6571608
30. Beeville 6587460

31. Bulverde 113615
32. Bear Creek 6586484
33. Cedar Creek
a. Hamlet in Bastrop County at 30.0871611,-97.5008303
b. Hamlet in Waller County at 30.1946583,-96.0602354
34. Mill Creek
Hamlet in Washington County at 30.1554944,-96.4933026
35. Mineola 114501
36. Maypearl 6571655
37. Monahans 113808
38. Telephone
Hamlet in Fannin County at 33.7812114,-96.0180316
39. Tuscola 13569621
40. Redwater 6603667
41. Round Rock 115318
42. Round Top 9228320
43. Round Lake - there is no Hamlet/Village in Texas named Round Lake but there are 10 lakes with that name
a. Lake in Conroe County at 30.2471208,-95.4739325439088
b. Lake in Liberty County at 30.35119545,-94.79559722454078
c. Lake in Chambers County at 29.820384,-94.7673903170769
d. Lake in Navarro County at 32.2345746,-96.22779730822103
e. Lake in Wood County at 32.7592184,-95.27098964999999
f. Lake in Henderson County at 32.0320756,-96.0495708684922
g. Lake in Newton County at 31.026602349999997,-93.52016758603307
h. Lake in Hardin County at 30.314439999999998,-94.19626847174762
i. Lake in San Patricio County at 27.9694278,-97.7905589495256
j. Lake in Harrison County at 32.3792501,-94.42603370504511
45. Southlake 114885
46. Springlake 6595945
47. Greenville 6603605
48. Gatesville 114494
49. Gainesville 115370
50. Alameda - no longer exists
Village was located in Eastland County at 32.33402280, -98.64644500
51. Kerrville 7718574
52. Kellyville
Hamlet in Marion County at 32.7793056,-94.409362
53. Bastrop 113464
54. Benavides 6587461
55. Somerville 6605768
56. Smithville 113466
57. Stephenville 8062338
58. Prairie View 6586809
59. Luckenbach
Hamlet in Gillespie County at 30.1790941,-98.7578121
60. Longview 113276

61. Plainview 6595934
62. Idalou 6595904
63. Justin 6571647
64. Junction 115263
65. Panorama [Village] 6586804
66. Pasadena 115365
67. Angelina [County] 1840971 (there is no longer a town of Angelina, but it was somewhere in Angelina County)
68. Lorena 6584717
69. Valley Mills 6584730
70. Pine Mills
Hamlet in Wood County at 32.7417149,-95.2899898
71. Dime Box
Village in Lee County at 30.3567104,-96.825054
72. Duncanville 6406331
73. New Home 8476378
74. New Hope
a. Hamlet in Collin County at 33.2101158,-96.5652671
b. Hamlet in Dallas County at 32.8140079,-96.5957221
c. Hamlet in Denton County at 33.234563,-96.9886183
d. Hamlet in Liberty County at 30.2127112,-94.7418674
e. Hamlet in Bowie County at 33.442337,-94.7035429
f. Hamlet in Cherokee County at 31.9235012,-95.3085604
g. Hamlet in Wood County at 32.6565232,-95.418287
h. Hamlet in Henderson County at 32.2507063,-95.5963487
i. Hamlet in Limestone County at 31.4112868,-96.2813586
j. Hamlet in Smith County at 32.1712678,-95.3146733
k. Hamlet in Jones County at 32.8684456,-99.7995373
l. Hamlet in Rusk County at 32.3437643,-94.7710457
m. Hamlet in Polk County at 30.6168654,-94.9768789
n. Hamlet in San Augustine County at 31.5496259,-94.2621443
o. Hamlet in Franklin County at 33.0181771,-95.1691074
75. New Deal 6595926
76. Liberty Hill 11262850
77. Rockport 6587514
78. Rock Creek
Hamlet in Briscoe County at 34.4634835,-101.4354016
79. Bridgeport 115288
80. Brownwood 113261
81. Cleburne 115251
82. Comanche 9244626
83. Cut and Shoot 6586772
84. Cottonwood 6571623
85. Bayview 114533
86. Bayside 6587459
87. Baytown 113542
88. Bay City 6586762
89. Falls City 6587472
90. Center City
Hamlet in Mills County at 31.4704394,-98.4089282
91. Bridge City 114737



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2023 07:43PM by DrPflug. (view changes)

A couple notes.

Quote

Let's consider a find within 5 miles of the node as meeting the requirement.

We should talk to the cache owner about this; that's not a call that you or I can make. The description seems to indicate that the closest cache should be used, if possible.

Quote

4. #67 Angelina no longer exists, use Angelina County for Angelina.

Seems fair, but we should check with the CO.

Quote

Pine Mills - You have no finds and there are currently no active caches that are within the required area.
OR
Pine Mills - You have no finds and there are currently X number of caches that are within the required area.

That is in theory possible, but quite intensive on the checker system. It may not be possible for this to be included, but I'll have to write the script to know for sure.

I have already reached out to the CO. He is from this area and is still active. He thinks the checker would be a good tool for folks to use to see where they stand..... but not the final determining factor on whether one could claim a smiley. ..... he would allow exceptions due to factors as to lack of caches in a given area.... or the checker says I didn't find one in Hico but I found this one and it's just outside Hico, etc. So he's good with having a checker, but may want to make some changes based on what the first cut of the checker shows as results. So would you mind proceding with a draft and we'll adjust...... I get the feeling you like working on this stuff......(I could be wrong)

Quote

but not the final determining factor on whether one could claim a smiley ... he would allow exceptions due to factors as to lack of caches in a given area

If there's ever a disagreement between CO and finder, HQ will use the challenge checker to determine who's "right". If the challenge checker says that the finder qualifies, the log stands; otherwise, it can be deleted. With fuzziness like that, I'm hesitant to proceed...

I could set it up to be non-authoritative ("unlinked") but then it would not appear in searches. Plus, players may still see the checker as authoritative and get into arguments about who does/doesn't qualify, etc. -- I have seen it. And it is not pleasant for me if a checker that I have spent hours working on to be in the middle of it.

well, I doubt that will happen here. The CO Indigo Parish has been very forgiving on cities as this Challenge is "fuzzy" in a lot of ways. I look at the challenge checker here as more of an aid on seeing what cities I have left to complete.

But I understand your concern. I've never seen it myself, but I'm sure it happens. Would you be willing to just make it non-authoritative as your described and I'll let Indigo Parish know that he can let folks that are working on the challenge know about it to use as a tool for checking progress? I know he'll be way more lenient than the checker.

But if it's too much work for probably not that many users still working on this, I understand.

Alright. What I may go with is a checker that does a certain radius around each town. If this CO insists that they are willing to be lenient then this is easier to tag and probably less confusing. (The other cache you requested a checker for specifically says "cache must be inside the city limits of that city or its ETJ", so OSM polygons.)

sounds reasonable. The only large city in the list is Austin. Let me know if you need me to do any grunt work.

A checker is ready at: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/80041

I've messaged you (via Geocaching.com) a link to a spreadsheet where you can suggest changes to the lat/lng/radius of each circle. Feel free to share this link with the CO -- but you'll have to tell me if you make changes so I can copy them over to the script.

Great, I just got some coords for the town of Angelina (#66). New coords and radius are in the spreadsheet.

also Changed Waco (#1) to 5 miles.

Question, are the coords you are using what OSM considers the center point for the town? I think we may need to play around with the size of the radius for some towns (e.g. Houston, Austin) to make sure it includes the whole polygon. Are you aware of any tools that might help to visualize a circle (of radius x miles) around a city ?? I will be looking.

I will consult with the CO as well as a few local finishers of this challenge.

I used the whichever node was tagged "admin_center" (or "label", if there wasn't one, or eyeballed it to be a roughly central intersection if there wasn't either) as the center, since that was reasonably easy to do via the OSM API.

I would recommend https://geo.javawa.nl/coordcalc/index_en.html for circles: select "10. Intersection points of two circles" in the dropdown at the top-left, and Settings (top right) > Display calculated coordinates > "Decimal". You should be able to drag the pins around on the map and/or change their radius and center point at the bottom-left.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2023 12:44AM by Hügh. (view changes)

Made the radius for Waco = 4. For the two non-existing towns Angelina and Alameda, the radius is now 6 because they are really not close to anything. Changes noted in the spreadsheet.

Wonderful. Do you expect to be making any additional changes? If not, I'll copy everything over and then publish the checker to by linking to the GC code.

I don't anticipate making additional changes.

Wonderful, checker is released as: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC1G0CX/80041

It looks excellent. Now that the CO has seen the script, he loves it and really wants it to be definitive. But he thinks it needs to be more forgiving in many cases. Namely,
1. For the smaller towns with sparse caches I'd like to default to 10 miles. Very charitable.
2. For the smaller towns with dense caches -- like suburbs -- I'd like the radius to be at least large enough to include 10 active caches.
3. For the larger towns I'd like the radius to charitably include the entire town even if it adds some stuff outside the city limits proper since cities aren't circles.

I can quickly identify the towns for #1, and I think we've already done #3 (Waco, Austin, and Houston).

#2 is going to take us some time to determine by looking at available caches around these cities.

So I'll be updating that spreadsheet with new radius info and will let you know when we're done.

Sounds good!

spreadsheet is updated! Let's see the results produced now by the checker with the new radius'.
if there is an "x" in the last column, it's one I changed.
NOTE: there are new coords for Val Verde. I think you used the county of Val Verde, but we want the town of Val Verde in Milam county.

Updated.

spreadsheet update once more, hopefully last time. 5 Changes noted by xxx
Groesbeck = 5
Springlake = 15
Benavides = 15
New Home = 15
Falls City = 15

Not a problem - changed those five.

thanks - I'll run the results by the CO and see what he thinks.

8 more changes using the CO's list of qualifications

Navasota, 5 miles
Live Oak, 2
Bracketville, 6
Bartonville, 4
Bulverde, 4
Brownville, 6
Bayview - have the name read Bayview (Cameron County) - no change to coords or radius

add a second Bayview
Bayview (Galveston County), 29.5149519 -95.004372, 7 miles

Changes made.

thanks. I keep finding new stuff as I go thru the qualifiers for this challenge.

City 83, Cottonwood. Should now read Cottonwood (Kaufman County) because
added 7 more Cottonwoods..... see spreadsheet for coords and radius.

No problem; I've added those.

PS. If you add duplicate cities (where they are the same same so only one counts), you can just use the same ID number, no need for a/b/c... -- the script looks at the ID number to figure out if a city of the same name has been found elsewhere.

ok,
City 32 - Bear Creek
added two more Bear Creeks to the spreadsheet.

No problem, updated.

Pasadena - new radius = 6 miles
Rockport - new radius = 10 miles
Texarkana - new radius = 5 miles
Greenville - new radius = 4 miles
Duncanville - new radius = 4 miles
Alameda - new radius = 10 miles
Bartonville - new radius = 5 miles

City 77, Rock Creek, added two more cities named Rock Creek

City 75, Liberty Hill, added five more cities named Liberty Hill

City 23, Lone Oak, added five more cities named Lone Oak

City 60, Plainview, added six more cities named Plainview

===== DONE ======== Let's see where we are now.



Edited 14 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2023 02:12AM by DrPflug. (view changes)

see previous message. these changes should get us very close. It's possible a user who posted a smiley completely missed a city though. we shall see.

#65 Panorama - use Panorama Village - OSM-id 6586804

#43 Round Lake

43. Round Lake - there is no Hamlet/Village in Texas named Round Lake but there are 10 lakes with that name
a. Lake in Conroe County at 30.2471208,-95.4739325439088
b. Lake in Liberty County at 30.35119545,-94.79559722454078
c. Lake in Chambers County at 29.820384,-94.7673903170769
d. Lake in Navarro County at 32.2345746,-96.22779730822103
e. Lake in Wood County at 32.7592184,-95.27098964999999
f. Lake in Henderson County at 32.0320756,-96.0495708684922
g. Lake in Newton County at 31.026602349999997,-93.52016758603307
h. Lake in Hardin County at 30.314439999999998,-94.19626847174762
i. Lake in San Patricio County at 27.9694278,-97.7905589495256
j. Lake in Harrison County at 32.3792501,-94.42603370504511

Updates made. (Posting down here since it's getting narrow.) If my tools are correct, these people are the only ones that do not yet qualify:

DE_Cryptoman
TeamML
djbtex
Moosiegirl
The Outlaw

Dimebox = 11 (should allow DE_Cryptoman to qualify)
Hondo = 5 (should ? allow TeamML to qualify, they don't have a book mark list)
Bartonville = 8 (should pick up Moosiegirl and The Outlaw)
those two have bookmark lists, but the list doesn't show what city the cache is supposed to be for. Grrrr.
I think djbtex just messed up by getting a cache in Val Verde County but not in the town of Val Verde way far away.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2023 03:26AM by DrPflug. (view changes)

Changes made. DE_Cryptoman and TeamML are good now, but the others are not.

Looking at their finds, looks like Moosiegirl and The Outlaw's closest find to Bartonville is ~8.6 miles away, while their closest find to Alameda is ~16.7 miles away. I could increase to 9 and 17 to include them.

well The Outlaws was < 8 to Bartonville so he's good now for that. If we get Moosiegirl by making it 9, let's do that. I assumed they found the same cache since they are married to each other, but I guess they were each there at different times.
As for Alameda, let's keep it as is. I will discuss the situation with the CO and see what he wants them to do. Make a long drive.... LOL

Rick

Moosiegirl gets Bartonville with a 9 mile radius, just barely. Let me know what the CO says.

will do. One issue, I can't run the checker for Entwined55. That name is not found when you type it in. Any idea why? It's a real user who have posted a find here. same issue trying to use that profile name in Map Compare too, not just this checker.

It's possible that they've opted out of API data sharing entirely, in which case Project-GC wouldn't know about their account.

thanks. 5 more finders appeared via the greasemonkey script who don't qualify:

nwr123 -- fails Mill Creek
gonefishing2 -- fails Baytown
Ladybug Kids -- fails Mill Creek
She & He -- fails Jacksboro, Pflugerville, Longview, Idalou, Angelina, Baytown
rilekyle -- fails Mill Creek

Thus -
City #34 Mill Creek - changed radius to 5 and added a second city named Mill Creek.
City #86 Baytown - changed radius to 4

for She & He
Jacksboro - 5.1 miles
Pflugerville - 3.1 miles
Longview - 5
Idalous - 11
Angelina - 10

That might do it, waiting to hear from the CO if he wants to extend the radius of Alameda to 17 against my advice.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2023 02:55PM by DrPflug. (view changes)

Ah, I guess the system hadn't gotten through all the names yet. Anyways, made the updates, now:

- nwr123 - OK
- gonefishing2 - OK
- Ladybug Kids - OK
- She & He - OK
- rilekyle - OK

Great just about done. I just went to run the checker myself and it says "This checker script is disabled" ??

Sorry, I was working on some updates to the output. Now:

(1) Output of completed towns/cities is in a table.
(2) Incomplete towns/cities is listed at the bottom.
(3) The map doesn't display circles corresponding to cities that have been completed elsewhere; ie. finding a cache in Post Oak (Blanco County) will cause the circles for Post Oak (Delta County, Lamar County, ...) to disappear. I figured that this would be a good way to "de-clutter" the map output.

Hopefully I haven't broken anything. If I have, do let me know -- that said I'm about to head off to a CITO so it'll be a couple hours before I'm able to attend to anything.

Your final format changes are brilliant. It makes the summary of the results perfectly understandable at a glance. I like seeing the red circles on the map. Shows me exactly where I need to go. I only need 19 cities. I am not *really* working on this challenge, but if I happen to be passing that way I might as well find a cache.

Hmmmmm, for some reason, user Indigo Parrish (who happens to be the CO), is showing up just now as not qualified. Why now? some change you made? He found this cache https://coord.info/GC829D which is only .035 miles from the center point for Texarkana. It must be something related to the cache being in Arkansas and not in Texas ? It should count.

Oh shoot, I added a Texas-only filter to try and have it run a little faster. I’ll remove that once I get home.

or change the filter to Texas or Arkansas. Texarkana is the only border town on the list.

Done, added Arkansas to the filter. I also added an additional filter which should speed up the checker quite a bit.

Looks good now. You can mark this resolved.
Could you now make the same formatting results you did here to make this look real nice and do the same to the checker you finished last week - https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC1G0CX/80041

Marking the thread as resolved.

I've applied the same output formatting to the Texas challenge that you adopted. It should be a lot nicer to look at.

Oh no, I missed a city! Even though the cache page description says 90, there are 91 in the list in the description. So I never cross checked our speadsheet against the description.
Added city #91 to the spreadsheet, Sour Lake - 5 miles - 30.1402122 -94.4110239

Also, you can delete the Mill Creek in Ellis County which is city 34, 2nd occurence. it's a river in OSM not a hamlet.

Add 3 more Live Oaks to the 1 in the table. City #23



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2023 02:09PM by DrPflug. (view changes)