Geocache database
The rapid spread of geocaching and the growing number of geocaches quickly made it necessary to catalog them in a common database and make them conveniently available to users via the Internet. Geocaching databases are also known as listing platforms .
National databases
Geocaching.com
The best known and most extensive database is geocaching.com , which has existed since the beginning in 2000 and contains around 3 million geocaches worldwide (as of April 2017). Its owner, Groundspeak Inc. , grants every paid premium member access to all cache data. Only part of the geocaches are visible to non-paying members.
criticism
The attempt to exclusively protect the geocaching that has arisen in the community is controversial. The best-known example of this is the unsuccessful attempt to register the word "geocache" as a trademark. On the American continent, geocaching.com is used by a large number of geocachers. In the United States, where the majority of geocaching sites are hosted, cache files are trademarked but coordinates are not.
The navicache.com website, launched in March 2001, developed as an alternative . The website has not been maintained since 2011 and the last new cache was published in late 2014. Spam mails are now being sent to the addresses in the database.
Terracaching.com
Another geocache database is the website terracaching.com , which has been in existence since October 2004. Although it has significantly fewer caches listed, it claims that its quality is more important; among other things, the caches are rated by every finder. To become a member, you select two existing members as so-called "sponsors". The search for sponsors takes place automatically after registration. The main task of the sponsors is to check new caches, similar to the function of the reviewer at geocaching.com .
Wherigo.com and Waymarking.com
For special geocaches there are also two further databases from Groundspeak Inc. On the one hand, there is the wherigo.com database, in which all the wherigo caches are listed. The second database for so-called virtual caches, locationless caches and webcam caches is waymarking.com .
OpenCaching.com
After differences with Groundspeak, in December 2010 the navigation device manufacturer Garmin founded another international cache database with opencaching.com . In August 2015 it ceased operations.
Country-specific and regional databases
There are now offers that focus on individual countries and thus represent a counterweight to the Anglicist offer of geocaching.com.
Opencaching
In order to counteract a monopoly of geocaching.com , an open source software and database opencaching.de was developed by a community of German-speaking geocachers and launched in autumn 2005. The goals of the opencaching concept were, in particular, the networking of opencaching databases from individual countries and the possibility of using an interface for application developers of geocaching software, although only the latter was actually implemented.
At the end of October 2006, the 10,000. German cache, although most of the entries are duplicate entries from geocaching.com . Further Opencaching databases were created in 2006 in the Czech Republic and Poland, then in 2009 in Great Britain, Sweden and Norway and in 2010 in the United States and Japan.
Today (as of 2019) Opencaching.de contains almost 27,000 active caches, Opencaching.pl around 41,000. The cache numbers of the other OC websites are negligible.
Geocaching Australia
This is a larger database of geocaches in ocean space. Like opencaching.de, it was created as a non-commercial alternative to geocaching.com.
cistes.net
There is also a large database for the French-speaking area at cistes.net . In September 2007 there were over 29,000 geocaches listed in France, while geocaching.com had only around 3,100 entries in this area at that time.
In November 2009 there were over 58,000 listed caches. There are also cistes in other European countries.
Extreme caching
The database extremcaching.com was created for the German-speaking area at the beginning of 2013 to accommodate caches that were archived by reviewers on geocaching.com or not activated at all. The database contains around 600 caches (as of July 12, 2013). The background to this is the increased requirements that geocaching.com places on a cache before it can be activated and the increased closings of caches in caves, bunkers and lost places.
Problems
There is currently no comprehensive networking of the various geocache databases. Therefore, the problem arises of entering the new geocaches in several of the directories mentioned and maintaining them there, for example when the puzzle or the coordinates are changed. If the cache is entered on several websites, it is also up to the finders to make their log entries on all of these pages.
Web links
- cistes.net - geocaching database for the French-speaking area
- Geocaching Australia - free geocaching database in Oceania
- geocaching.com - the world's largest international geocaching database
- navicache.com - smaller, unkempt geocaching database, mainly North America and Germany
- opencaching.com - international geocaching database from navigation device manufacturer Garmin
- opencaching.de - free geocaching database with a focus on Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Spain
- opencaching network - overview page of the non-commercial Opencaching websites that have emerged from Opencaching.de
- opencaching.pl - free geocaching database with a focus on Poland
- terracaching.com - small, mainly English language database for "high quality" caches that are not listed on the other databases
- waymarking.com
- wherigo.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ Press release of the operator on Twitter, August 12, 2015, accessed on August 18, 2015.
- ↑ cachewiki.de
- ↑ Message on extremcaching.com of March 27, 2013: Extremcaching celebrates the 200th active geocache on the platform .