Why is project GC showing more caches per region then I found?

Question

According to geocaching.com I found 227 caches in the Netherlands, project GC is showing 230. The regions map is also showing incorrect counts. Regions Utrecht, Flevoland en Gelderland are showing higher counts compared to Geocaching.com. My friend is having the same issues with Flevoland.

Other regions are correct, they are not 'missing' any caches, so it doesn't look like it's because of small changes in the borders. Unless there are overlapping regions somehow?

I checked for bad logs, but I had none. But they could not be the cause for to many caches. How can this be fixed?

Answer 1

Project GC uses polygons to define where a cache is located. Geocaching.com allows the owner to say where the cache is located, which may not actually be its location.

Using the Map Compare function on PGC, I found a couple of caches which would be included in the discrepancies:

GC4KM18: Listed on Geocaching.com as being in Gelderland, but falls within PGC's polygon for Flevoland

GC110BN: Listed on Geocaching.com as being in "Netherlands" (no region specified). I'm guessing there are a couple of others like this which do not appear in your region counts on Geocaching.com and account for the difference in total.

Comments

This makes sence, mostly. I can understand that a cache can be 'in the wrong' region because PCG uses a different methode to geocaching.com. So I understand if GC4KM18 is included in Flevoland, but it seems to also be counted in Gelderland. The same for the others. The totals don't seem to add up.

Answer 2

Have you cached around Baarle-Nassau or Baarle-Hertog?  With all the mess of enclaves and exclaves in those areas, I would not be surprised if either PGC or Geocaching.com or both had it wrong, including overlapping border polygons.