CUCC Expedition Handbook

Entrance entry page fields

There are a lot of fields on the 'new/edit cave' page and the 'new/edit entrance' page and some of them are a quite mysterious. This page explains what they mean. The same fields appear in each entrance_data/ xml file.

Instructions on how to enter the data for new caves and entrances, and especially how to add images/surveys so that they appear properly, is to be found on the sequence of pages starting here. For entrance data, you will use the online form New Entrance whcih is a link on the cave escription page, e.g. look at the page for cave 1623-172 : 172 and scroll down until you see the link text "New Entrance".

Only two field are essential for Entrances

There are only two essential fields which must be there before the Submit button will work:

See below for explanations.

Names of identifiers and files

Always use lower case in names of caves, despite what you might see in historical data.

So a new cave would be 2023-zz-01 and its entrances would be 2023-zz-01a, 2023-zz-01b and 2023-zz-01c.

This is to prevent confusion between Windows and Linux machines, and unintentional deletion of data.

List of New Entrance/Entrance_data fields

non_public
'False' or 'True'. True if the cave should only be visible to logged-in users. Caves are normally public, so enter 'False' unless you know otherwise.
entrance_description
the description of the entrance itself goes here (the description of the approach to the entrance is further down). HTML freeform field.
explorers
Names or just 'CUCC 1978'. HTML freeform field.
map_description
Not very useful unless it is near a marked point on a map. HTML freeform field.
location_description
Context in the frame of other local features. HTML freeform field.
underground_description
the description of the entrance passage or pitch. HTML freeform field.
photo
Put an <img> tag in here, as for the cave description. See how images are managed for caves, and do the same thing for this entrance. HTML freeform field.
marking
A dropdown: .Paint, Tag, etc.
marking_comment
A text field: what colour paint? Where was the aluminium tag place?? HTML freeform field.
Findability
Dropdown: values are Coordinates, Lost, Refinable, and To Be Confirmed
Findability description
Normally empty, but place for anything else that should be noted, such as info on cave maybe being a duplicate, or lost. HTML freeform field.
Altitude (metres)
In old caves this will have been calculated in UTM coordinates. Enter your GPS value here (WGS84). Yes, altitudes are slightly different. This will be overwritten in due course by an altitude derived from the location and the lidar dataset.
latitude
Decimal degrees of longitude in WGS84 datum. To be entered when entrance is first found so that someone can find it again. Will be overwritten in due course by proper survey data which will be enforced to be consistent with the UTM position.
longitude
Decimal degrees of longitude in WGS84 datum. To be entered when entrance is first found so that someone can find it again. This will be deleted here when a proper tag station or other station is created
tag_station
a survey station id. It has to be in a format similar to this: "1623.p204e" (for the 'e' entrance to cave 1623-204). This is where the aluminium ID tag is bolted at the entrance.
other_station
a survey station id. It has to be in a format similar to this: "1623.p204e" (for the 'e' entrance to cave 1623-204) [to be documented further - use Edit This Page!]
other_description
Continuation of the description is in the 'underground_description' field if you have more to say.
bearings
For locating the entrance by bearings to well-known peaks - archaic.
url
Leave blank. The correct value is computed.
.

Alternative data entry using a file

There are template files for you to fill-in when creating new caves and entrance in the online system. You will need to be on a machine which has keys installed and you will need to know how to use git.

Download them:

These are actually XML files, not HTML files, using special tags which are used by the online system to create the webpages in combination with numerical survey data. Instructions are within each file.

Back to Cave data entry