What if wrong country is on cache page

[+Ma & Pa]

We are going on a cruise to the Caribbean and will be stopping at the island of Saint Martin. The northern section is French and the southern section is Dutch. Saint Martin & Sint Maarten. We would like to get a few caches in the Dutch section. The border is shown on the map but some of the caches in the south show the country to be saint Martin and some show Netherlands Antilles.

 

https://www.geocaching.com/map/default.aspx?lat=18.0471&lng=-63.086417#?ll=18.052649,-63.094142&z=13

 

If the cache hider picked the wrong one, would the system change the country with regard to Statistics?

[Andronicus]

My understanding is that the system assignes countries based on map algorithm. Maybe it needs a tweek...

[+GeoLog81]

Well no, the cacher picks the country. I've seen the event, where the owner has picked the wrong country on the purpose ("adding" another country to the statistics without visiting it - that country requires the VISA).

 

Normally the reviewer should pick up such things, but sometimes it's hard, especially if the coordinates are a bit off (on purpose or not).

[+NYPaddleCacher]

We are going on a cruise to the Caribbean and will be stopping at the island of Saint Martin. The northern section is French and the southern section is Dutch. Saint Martin & Sint Maarten. We would like to get a few caches in the Dutch section. The border is shown on the map but some of the caches in the south show the country to be saint Martin and some show Netherlands Antilles.

 

https://www.geocachi...-63.094142&z=13

 

If the cache hider picked the wrong one, would the system change the country with regard to Statistics?

 

Netherland Antilles was dissolved in 2010. Some of the those caches may have been placed before Sint Maarten existed. I don't know why GS hasn't updated their database but when searching by country, Sint Maarten isn't an option. Nor is Saint Martin or Netherland Antilles.

[+Ma & Pa]

We previously found caches on the French part of the island and St. Martin is shown as one of the countries in our stats. St. Martin is shown as one of the choices when searching by country. I assume the name St. Martin only applies to the French section, and yet some caches in the Dutch section also show up by that name. But as someone said, the hider can put anything he wants for the country.

 

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[+NYPaddleCacher]

We previously found caches on the French part of the island and St. Martin is shown as one of the countries in our stats. St. Martin is shown as one of the choices when searching by country. I assume the name St. Martin only applies to the French section, and yet some caches in the Dutch section also show up by that name. But as someone said, the hider can put anything he wants for the country.

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That's not exactly true. I just went through the first stages of creating a cache listing and the form provides a select list for selecting the country name. St. Martin and Netherland Antilles are both on the list but Sint Maarten is not. The hider can only select from countries which are available in the list. To me, this is a bug. Netherland Antilles was split up into several different countries in 2010. It shouldn't appear on the select list when creating a new listing. Sint Maarten should be added to the select list. Caches which were placed prior to the dissolution of Netherland Antilles in the dutch part should still be listed as Netherland Antilles because that is what it was prior to the dissolution.

 

To confuse matters, the entire island is still called Saint Martin Island. Additionally, Saba is another country that was created as part of the dissolution yet there are caches created prior to 2010 that are listed as Saba.