DragonsWest

Amen to that When I look at a challenge that requires me to sit cramped in a car all day, burning enough fossil fuel to power a small sun and in turn rewards me with a soggy piece of paper in a nano tube the size of a gnat's genitals in a pointless location I'm glad the tide was turned. Could you be more discriminating? It sounds like you just described about half the caches I've seen in some urban environments - Come To San Francisco, Enjoy the View (when fog allows), Partake of culinary delights, Find the evil nano at the store front (mean search time 55 minutes.) Soggy paper doesn't require a small cache either, I've found many sodden bits in all sizes of cache - rather less than enjoyable, but some people must be born with all thumbs (or reassembled that way by an Igor) and can't master the art of container closing. That's all pretty weak to use as an argument against challenges anyway. One of the finest challenges I was taken on the journey was by far the greater reward. (Truly awful that location based challenges were barred, because that challenge was based upon USGS quadrangles, where are pretty neat and easy to write checkers for.)

I still think the worst things I find in caches are bottle caps and business cards. It's not simply because I think these are junk, but there are people with a firm belief that this is acceptable. If you want to leave something, not necessarily in trade, buy or make your own sig item (wooden nickels are easier than most people think!) Please, put your bottle caps in the trash/recycling and keep your business cards for meeting clients.

They appear to have vast "Grandfathering" powers at the lily pad, perhaps your old finds could remain ? and anyone who desires something new could have the new thing. There hasn't been anything new in the game for a long time, why discourage something which adds to the game? I've long thought forking some current cache lines into more than one would be a good thing. As it is the Unknown is a sort of catch-all: - Challenges - Solve at home puzzles - Teamwork puzzles (yes, there's an attribute, but I'm elaborating here) - Field puzzles (ibid) - Expansions of Multicaches (where some puzzle solving at each stage, as example) - Traveling caches (now dead, but living on in memory) - International/intranational cooperation caches - Anything else not mentioned here which doesn't fit the other main categories Lord knows we still need something virtual as there are exceptionally worthy sites for caches where nothing physical is allowed and putting in a Earthcache, which by roundabout means, references what's so key about the locale (for those who like to dredge up Waymarking, yeah, I've heard of it, but it's a different game.)

Good grief! I hope you are just being funny. I wouldn't stand for that. That's an effective means of driving people away. I seem to remember seeing that when someone who is using the app for the first time goes to log a cache it will present a short video instructional video, this doesn't happen every time, just the first time. Though I may be mis-remembering - I've never used the GS app. I was joking - I hope. Seeing a 30 second ad for basic members before they can log would be possible I'm sure. It's bad enough when I'm away from home and try to log into the site on my phone and it plays one of those confounded layered videos, which effectively throttles my phone. It's not even a lame phone, either. Hate websites that do that.

I still get them. Since most of that mail sits on my service provider's site until I feel bothered enough to download it to the email client I have no clue what much of the content says as the text view doesn't tell me much about email which is loaded with HTML and style sheets.

It might have something to do with the goal of "making better mistakes tomorrow." Of that I have little doubt. Ever since the decision which preceded that statement I've wondered where their hearts really are.

To some degree it is a game of statistics and these are still a statistic. Perhaps of interest to someone, somewhere. I tend to be more LIFO (an accounting term) in my view of cache disposition in regard to my locating acumen/luck.

mo·nop·o·ly noun 1.The exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service. "his likely motive was to protect his regional monopoly on furs" Well, they had a monopoly. There are other hosts, which shall remain nameless, and perhaps something yet may come along which is so odious to the core community they migrate. I look at ebay as an example. They've had the corner on the market of online auctions (everyone went there because everyone was there,) but their rules were enigmatic and inflexible, they introduced business model changes which dissatisfied many sellers as well as buyers. That opened the door for competition and now they appear to be more of a storefront than auction site. So many things are listed at absurd prices for Buy It Now or Make An Offer, I find I forgo them for other sites. I really have to want something to buy it on there now. Their glory days, from a seller and buyer's perspective are firmly in their past. So things do change.

It's the weirdest thing about all these changes, and this is just one example. Normally, I just want the map, so for a while, I ignored that "Filter out finds" link. Then I tried it, and discovered that it's quite a bit more useful than I expected. "Wow!" I thought, "These guys really know what they're doing! I never would have thought a link like that would be so handy." In the last few months, time after time, things that originally puzzled me about geocaching.com, but that I eventually realized were highly logical, are now being eliminated. Examples are in all kinds of different places, from eliminating NMs, to eliminating the cache list snapshot in the news letter, to lists that are confused about what "near you" means. What's really frustrating is that they're so earnest about and focused on modernizing the web site, so when people complain, they think it's just people complaining about change in general. But what I see is that the original website was put together with a real love and understanding of geocaching that went far beyond what a casual geocacher could understand, but now they've turned it over to software developers that don't have that deep understanding. Bringing in the software developers was a good idea -- although I've always been more amused that annoyed by the lovable quirks in the interface that seemed as if it was put together by amateurs -- but if I have to choose between love of the subject and technical brilliance, I think I'd rather have the love. But better would be them working together. I don't think I've seen it articulated as well before. Good observation and assembling it into telling words. I generally have put it down to "keeping up with the Jonses", as in, everyone else is redoing their pages in Lean Style or some other malarky, so we've got to do that, too. I'm certain if I pulled out my old Dilbert books I could find a few references to this kind of thing as ordered by the PHB (or his superior) "CHANGE ALL OF OUR INTERFACES SO OUR CUSTOMERS RIOT! WITH THE PUBLICITY WE GAIN IN THE NEWS OUR PRODUCT WILL BE SEEN BY THE MASSES!" It seems to speak to a degree of daftness, discounted valuation placed upon interfaces familiar to millions of players. I'm not alone in grumbling about it and it seems to me the best advertising is by word of mouth, but what value do they gain by fostering discontent among established players? Are we as likely to introduce new players to a game where the changes are making us unhappy? "You'd really like playing 'Find The Box In The Woods', but the company have made me irritable lately with their new emphasis on interface changes. You may find your tolerance for cutesy severely tested."

Good grief! I hope you are just being funny. I wouldn't stand for that. That's an effective means of driving people away. Agreed. 8 finds since January 2016. Not much has been lost, I think. For me, personally, geocaching has enhanced my life so much, I would be happy to pay much much much more. The apps and premium membership are a bargain, IMO. But only if you use them. And, yes, I think people who provide these services should be paid for their work. "It is all in principle." I have friends who geocache, but they do not post logs on here. They just keep track themselves. Not a requirement to write "TFTC!" as far as I know.

Anecdotally, I've noticed quite a lot of space has opened up around where I live and there are fewer hiders. We've had some come in, I expect with the recent college classes, but most of the caches I've hidden in the past year are hit initially with some frequency and drop right off after that. My two caches, plus one adoption in very heavy tourism area are not being hit very much either. At first I attributed it to the weather, now I'm thinking there is something else to it. Perhaps that Pokemon game is snagging more of the young crowd - I'm sure once they start implementing interface changes which are unpopular and taking things from the game, leaving rules in their place even that will start shedding players. Other than pocket queries, what has been added to the experience in the past ten years? I see so much being taken away and the way the pages are changed to "prettify" them for no apparent reason, I feel less compulsion to get out and find caches these days. I don't see growing the game from a pool of youth anyway, the people I find attracted are more my age and older. But then I've got a new Ham Radio rig and picked up a nice new zoom telefoto for my camera, I've got many other things to do. I was a very keen follower of a couple moving caches, now those have been taken away (oh, sure, there's a reason or two, there's always a reason for taking something fun out of the game.) No more locationless caches, no new virtuals, dulling of challenges, no traveling caches - it's like the Fun is being regulated out of the game with nothing coming in to replace it. I'm sure I won't give a care for the trackables replacing the few surviving moving caches. The trackables I'm still trying to move along aren't fitting in the pill bottles which consist most of the new hides these days. If you want to grow the game you have to find what people like and expand upon it, after all, the only real innovation in the game comes from the players.

Another day, another outrage from the Lily-pad. The web pages go from functional to sucky. Aspects of the game which made it compelling are ebbing away. All this improvement makes the mind reel - which of the upcoming changes will be removing the capstone? Always taking away from the game, leaving a rule or exasperation in the wake. These have to be motivated by some form of business logic I'm unfamiliar with.

Not sure why the block on logging a Needs Maintenance on your own cache, I know someone who keeps track of which caches of his he needs to visit, that little wrench is kinda handy when you can place it yourself - after all, I can't just look at my list of caches and see which have a string of DNFs, can I? Please at least reconsider this one change.

No, why this should be? In many situations why one would log NM or NA the cache is lost / destroyed etc. so could NOT be found. Most instances I log a Needs Maintenance the cache is there, but in poor condition - It's Spring! Spring follows Winter, in Winter we get rains (and boy, did we get rains) so there's a lot of wet, cruddy caches out there which need maintenance, but are still quite present. I'm certain as the snow clears people in northerly climes will find the ice or snow did similar things. In the desert caches made of plastic become brittle and crack, crumble and disintegrate - the contents and partial container may still be present, so there is in effect a Find, but it is very much in need of maintenance.

A further look at trackables - This is pretty, but useless unless I have only a few and want them to repeatedly visit caches. I've got several and I search for the TRACKABLE NUMBER to find which one it is so I can log the drop - I'm not interested in the NAME of the item, I probably don't even know the NAME of the item, it's not usually on any TRACKABLE. The old screen was far better for finding one or two in a long list. Keep the old format and add sort to the tracking number. I do not log by phone and when I'm sitting at my screen after a busy week I don't want STYLE, I want FUNCTION. The user experience is about UTILITY and nothing else.

My first experience with the survey was an immediate Very Negative. I wonder how many more of those they saw, vs how many generally positives or very positives. I was experiencing an elevate blood pressure at the time, so the feedback was likely as honest as I could be. Perhaps they don't like the reviews so chose to turn them off so they could continue on this present path without distraction. Oh, to be a fly on the wall somewhere and see what the feedback amounted to. At some point I should wander over to the "blog" and see what sort of logic resulted in the new interface. I deal with a vendor who has a long track record of thinking they have all the answers and their execution and delivery leave us ripping out wads of our own hair, while they banty about superlatives and throw quotes of notable historical persons about being the change and such. It all has such a familiar feel.

This was one of my immediate concerns. Everything necessary is hidden. Why? What purpose is served by this compact design?

So this new logging page I encountered after a very enjoyable camping trip, hanging out with old friends and having a great hike in a remote and scenic place. I came home in a pretty good mood. Lots of stress burned off from a week of deadlines and gawd-awful javascript bloated federally mandated data entry. Then I tried to enter the measely few finds I had and found myself audibly cussing at the rearrangement and confusing nature of the new interface. Just think, 3 million geocaches out there, millions of cachers already familiar with the present logging interface and it gets a radical facelift. Sometimes, no matter how prettified, a bad idea is still a bad idea. Opting out until it's forced on me, like so many other daft ideas. May have to get one of those apps or use GSAK. The Kindergarten approach to customers is getting very tiring.

What irks me today is coming back from a very enjoyable back country weekend, where I had great hikes, hung out with great people, including the wonderful volunteers and, despite being dog tired, washed the Jeep (mostly clean), unpacked the Jeep, made guacamole, cooked up a perfect quesadilla, made a delicious salad and opened a cold one .. then edited 32 photos and shared them on fb .. then went to log my few finds for the weekend and grew very irritable and uttered many profanities (including casting aspersions on GC developers and those who directed them) as I utterly foobared my first 4 logs, wrong dates, messed up tb sequences, etc. So think about this -- a few million people know the old interface .. it works, it gets things done. Not perfect, but not awful either. Then someone replaces it with a radical redesign. Think this would work for Facebook? I think Facebook users would riot. I felt like rioting, but my neighbors would just think I'm only a bit more weird. Still, the toss the baby with the bathwater revision is idiocy. Tweak what could be improved a bit, but don't rearrange the whole interface to the point of it being completely confusing. It seems like a business decision, but what kind makes customers angry?

The first time I found a blinky (Joanni) I couldn't decide if it was a clever hide or a travesty.

Apparently, as with a number of other changes of late, it worked too well and was removed for something which violates the "K.I.S.S. rule" Seems it's time to stop rolling out changes and go back and right (or revert) some decisions. But what do I know...

I notice I can't read it at all in my email previewer, once I download it I'll have a better idea, but it doesn't seem to like text readers at all. Communications from GC apparently require a crippling degree of prettification*. * Very advanced tech term.

I'm fine with them. A cache is a cache. Might have been a little more special to find at the time of context, but I'll get the spirit to the best of my ability.

Please consider visitors to your great and wonderful land - they may come with a greater familiarity to Imperial or Metric and have a preference for operating in non-local units.

No, the UK uses the metric system, GC says so! It would be nice to be able to change units without exiting an app and then having to go through setup and relaunch and get back to whatever functional use you left off at. Daily I work with an Information System where the developers think everything they do is right - I had to quote the Federal Register to them for how people are assigned racial heritage (used for ensuring equity) I was baffled they couldn't find that info themselves and decided not to count Filipinos at all. I'm getting used to this style of development. I don't like it, but I'm getting used to it.