Hi Wet_Ground, 

Shoot!! Sorry about this. I definitely agree that we need to make some adjustments to a few things. Here are my thoughts: 

- We have debated making all the fields required for members before they can submit their cache. We have been a bit of a mixed mind about this- will it end up being a deterrent? Will it take longer to complete a cache? In the end, it would make the search features work better, for sure. It's a little tricky using only keywords because everyone's brains work a little differently on the keywords they apply. We always recommend that cache owners try to get in the mind of finders when creating keywords, but this can also be a bit tricky. Which leads me to my next point...

- We have also discussed potentially changing the way that the search works, to search the description rather than only being able to search the keywords. It would essentially be another field that searched the the descriptions. There are upsides and downsides to this, namely- we don't want to slow the site down. This year, as we move forward with thinking about programming changes, we are committed to making things easier and simpler and sustainable for everyone in the future. What I mean by this is that we want to make sure that the changes that we make truly benefit where we want to go as a community. We want to remove obstacles that make it difficult for members to use the site and to go caching. This is definitely one of those things. 

- Yes, I agree that we need to add the keywords to caches without them. We try to do this on a one on one basis as we find them. cash108 continues to work really hard on updating caches photos and descriptions, but we do need to get this completed. 

I appreciate you posting about this and opening up the conversation. I would love to hear what everyone thinks. 

We too have fallen victim to the absence of a keyword when creating a new LC. Cybers can have the same issue..

Our LC1HQ6 was short lived when a well-seasoned terracacher pointed out that it had already been done: LC7N

So into the archived pile it went...

One idea would be to make the keywords section a mandatory field, even if the CO chooses to enter none. At least that drives the CO to the field and I think would prompt the vast majority to add some keywords.

Sponsors should check this also when reviewing for approval. Four eyes (or six) are better than two. 

It's not going to be 100% fool proof due to language differences, spelling and grammar shortcomings, and personal subjectivity, but I think it will certainly help. 😀