Help with caves.app

Are my trip notes private?

The Keep notes private option in your account settings page is on by default, and ensures that your trip notes are only visible to you.

While this option is enabled, anyone viewing your trips will simply not see a notes section on the page. If you'd like your trip notes to be visible to anyone who can view a given trip then you can disable this option.

Can I import/export my data?

Bulk import and export functionality is available via the account page.

Trip imports are possible by means of entering your data into a CSV template file which will enable you to add up to 50 trips at once.

All of your trips can be exported to either CSV or JSON formats at any time.

Can you show me what a profile looks like?

Why not have a look at mine?

How do the trip privacy settings work?

Trips have four privacy settings.

The default, Anyone who can view my profile, will inherit the privacy settings from your profile. This is the recommended value as you can control the privacy for all of your trips simply by changing your profile privacy.

The remaining privacy settings for trips are as follows:

• Anyone, even if my profile is private
  • This setting ensures that this trip is always public, regardless of your profile privacy. Anyone will be able to view this trip, including unregistered users, and even if your profile is private. Use this setting with caution.
• Only my friends
  • This setting ensures that your friends will be able to view this trip, even if your profile is not visible to them.
• Only me
  • This setting ensures that nobody will be able to view this trip except you. It will never be available for any other user to view.

How do the user profile privacy settings work?

User profiles have three privacy settings:

• Anyone
  • Anyone, including unregistered users, can view your profile. Your profile picture, name, username, location, caving clubs, biography and trip list will be shown. Any trips which the user does not have permission to view, such as private trips, will be hidden from the trip list.
• Only my friends
  • As above, but only your caves.app friends can view your profile.
• Only me
  • Nobody can view your profile.

How secure is my data?

Your data is stored securely on a server hosted by Hetzner in Germany. Nobody has access to your data except the site administrator. As the owner of the site it is possible for me to view your cave data, however it is absolutely my policy not to read private user data which has been submitted to the site (it would feel a bit like reading someone's diary!).

I will never sell, give away, or use your data for any purpose other than that of displaying information about your caving activity within the privacy parameters you have specified on the site. You are free to export your data to a commonly usable format via the account page at any time.

Trips stored in the database are copied off-site to two different locations every hour to ensure continuity of your data in case of any technical issues. Photos uploaded to caves.app are stored by Amazon Web Services using a service which has built in data redundancy.

If you'd like a copy of all of the data that caves.app holds about you, or you'd like to delete your account and all data associated with it, please email admin@caves.app.

Is caves.app open source?

Yes - the source is available on GitHub. Bug reports and feature requests can be submitted via the GitHub issues page.

If you'd like to help improve caves.app and contribute to the project, you are more than welcome to, just take a look at the README for information on how to get started.

Is there a Discord?

Yes, you can join the caves.app discord. I'm happy to provide support via Discord as an alternative to email.

Is there any charge for using caves.app?

Using this service is completely free. I currently have no plans to charge a fee for the use of this service. If caves.app becomes more popular, it may be necessary to display advertisements or charge for expensive (to host) services such as image uploading.

If any charges are ever introduced, it is my promise to you that I will never lock you out of existing data.

Who runs caves.app?

This website was created by Andrew Northall, a caver from the United Kingdom. It was developed in my spare time and I am not making any money from hosting the website.

I've spent 100s of hours developing this service — which I've thoroughly enjoyed doing. With that said, my time and the server costs are not free, and if you'd like to buy me a coffee it would be greatly appreciated!

Why can't I do ________? Why doesn't ________ work?

If you find something that does not work properly, or have thought of a feature which you believe should be implemented, please email me and let me know. Alternatively, you can submit a bug report or feature request on the caves.app GitHub issues page.

Will my profile or trips appear in search results?

There are two types of search results that your trips could appear in — standard web search engines (such as Google), and the caves.app internal search feature.

This website does not explicitly tell Google, or other search engines, about your profile or trips. With that said, search engines constantly crawl the internet for links, and if a user profile or trip is linked from another website then Google will almost certainly discover it. The only way to prevent Google from indexing your content is to ensure that it cannot see it by setting your profile to be visible to Only friends or Only me. For information on how to do this, see the related items on this page (here and here).

The caves.app internal search feature respects your profile and trip privacy. Whilst your trips will appear in the search feature for other users, they will only appear if they already have the ability to see the trip.

For example, a trip which is only visible to your friends will only appear in search results for your friends. A trip which is visible only to you (using the Only me privacy setting) will only ever appear in search results for you.