Talk:Border geohash achievement

How strong to interpret "express purpose" in this context?

I admit that I had forgotten about "express purpose" when I claimed that achievement, but now I wonder whether I should delete it again. I would have gone to Luxembourg even without the hashpoint being there, but that way I postponed other goals and went straight from the border the fastest way to the hashpoint. Would that still count?

I would say you can keep it until the international goehashing rules committee has convened, and I bet before that happens you'll have another transborder geohash with no ulterior motives. You could just put a big asterisk next to it. :-) -Robyn 18:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

A bit of a political question...

So I had that idea of making an expedition to the area of the Palestinian Territories (don't tell my parents though). The Palestinians declared it as an independent country but big parts of it are still under direct Israeli control. Will going there count as a Border Geohash? Same question goes for Golan Heights, claimed by both Israel and Syria. LiNaK (talk) 09:59, 6 March 2013 (EST)

I would definitely say that if an entity has declared itself an independent country, and you cross into its claimed territory, that you have achieved a border hash. Declaring or proxying someone to declare an independent country for the purpose of achieving a border geohash would not count. Some areas are more conducive to border hashing than others. Please do not risk minefields, arrest, or execution to gain this achievement. -Robyn (talk) 21:37, 6 March 2013 (EST)

I sure as hell won't :^) LiNaK (talk) 11:41, 8 March 2013 (EST)

Must it be an international boundary?

I live in the United Kingdom, which is a country (a sovereign, nation state) that is itself made up of, err... countries! (which are not sovereign state in their own right) Although practically speaking, I believe the level of distinction and separateness of the constituent nations of the UK is of a comparable level to that of the United States' many states, the boundaries between our nations are still considered national boundaries (particularly from a legal sense due to jurisdictional differences), but it wouldn't be correct to refer to them as international boundaries (to us in the UK, that generally means a boundary between the UK and another sovereign state such as The Republic of Ireland or France).

Would appreciate some community consensus on this one! Notably, Sourcerer has claimed this achievement for crossing the England-Wales border during 2012-02-13_51_-2, so that appears to be at least one vote in favour of UK boundaries being considered valid for this achievement :) Saxbophone (talk) 00:04, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

If an English person tried to persuade a Welsh person that the border was not national, a small war would be sure to erupt :) We could add levels to the award like parish, county, state, national, continental or whatever as long as it encourages hashers out of the house and promotes interesting expedition reports. In general, for any ambigous rule, go with the most amusing interpretation as this is just a hobby. For example, I might claim the award for meeting a sheepdog (Border Collie) at the hashpoint. --Sourcerer (talk) 07:06, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

I am very grateful to you for making that point, I for one not wanting to trouble our Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish siblings with any suggestion that our internal borders with them do not exist, nor trouble them with any suggestion that they were not national borders. I like the idea of adding different levels or categories to the award like you suggested, I also think it might be good to revise the achievement description text to not exclusively refer to international borders, it is this very particular condition which led to my confusion regarding this in the first place. Thank you for also clarifying that a strict interpretation is not necessary, I just can't help myself sometimes when it comes to attention to detail! Saxbophone (talk) 19:16, 9 July 2018 (UTC)