Zebra

Gee, $20?! I'm feeling a little like a cheapskate! The bank always has a few nice $2 bills and people seem to appreciate those. The new Presidential Gold Coins are nice and they're only $1 each. I've done the $5 gift cards from Subway since you can use them anywhere and there have been a few unactivated geocoins used as FTF's. If I put out something that gives a good challenge, I might drop one of the new $5 bills in the cache this year. One of the things I like to do is assess the difficulty of the cache. A long walk and and a tough find is worth more than a drive-up.

All is fair when it comes to TB's. I've had them moved a mile and stalled out. When they don't move it's fine to grab them up and give them a little bump.

Well, I (for one) am glad that we got all that cleared up!

You need to clear the cache on your browser....

The doohickey wasn't communicating with the whatchamacallit because the thingamajig was discombobulated. Once the doodad was rebooted, everything started working normally. I thought someone said it was the Knooter Valve in the back of the left Helmugdater??

Very well put...

More assumptions? I really can't respond any further to your trolls for fear that I will get myself banned, but you need to read up on the difference between an assumption and an opinion. It's nothing personal AR. It's just that you keep throwing out broad strokes with your brush. You never seem to have any facts. I'm interested in your opinion, but not your assumptions. Is that enough of a distinction for you? You seem to be under the impression that your membership dollars are used for purposes other than GC.com, where do you get your information? Seriously, I'm interested. Zeb...

More assumptions? Fine if you feel that way, express it to Groundspeak. I feel they have the right to spend THEIR MONEY any way they see fit. Zeb...

This is the first thing that we agree on! You're making several assumptions here: How do you know that the servers were 'bogged down'? How do you know that additional funds would have prevented the outage? How do you know that Groundspeak is spending membership dollars on other programs? YES! It's extremely unreasonable! You're just taking potshots without any knowledge of the facts! -- There are many reasons that service failures occur on the net. Your technical evaluation being a 'bogged down' server is just one of the possibilities. A virus, DOS attack, hardware failure or any number of problems could have been to blame. How is it that you know exactly what the problem is even before the problem is cured? -- Additional funds may or may not prevent a similar outage. Again, that's your assumption without any solid knowledge of the facts. Tsk, tsk, tsk.... -- Groundspeak has many income streams, but with your extensive knowledge of the technical problems you move right on to financial mishandling? Please! Groundspeak can make money from licensing of products, services and logos. They have advertising on each on the of pages, these are income producers as well. Membership dollars are just one of those income streams. Stop making so many assumptions, it just makes you seem foolish. Zeb...

I won't argue your frustration and you certainly have the right to 'ask'. It's when members feel they're somehow entitled to answers about how their membership fees are spent that it becomes off base. Listen, out of curiosity I'd like to know the cause of the problem too. But that's Groundspeak's business and they can choose to answer or choose to ignore the question. It's their right as a privately held corporation and I for one understand that. Even more to the point, how they spend the money they earn is entirely their business. If I don't feel that I'm getting my dollars worth, I just won't renew the membership. Dictating how the fees are to be spent by Groundspeak is way out of bounds IMHO. If they use the money to broaden the customer base or add products they feel could sustain their business, that's great. They want to add new network servers, firewalls & search engines to the back room, fine. If they want to spend the money on a company trip to Fiji for some R&R and a little caching on foreign soil that's fine too. It's their business. If you decide to start your own business doing the same darn thing as Groundspeak, that's your business and I'm not going to tell you how to spend the money you earn. (I promise) It's a private business and you are simply one of many customers. This thread started out with some broad strokes from TheAlabamaRambler saying 'Now I may be totally off base here, but it's beginning to bug me that the geocaching.com site still gets bogged down, yet Groundspeak is evidently spending money on Wherigo and Waymarking.com.' My opinion is that he's right in his first assumption, he IS WAY OFF BASE. Zeb...

Some of you should read the 'TERMS OF USE' section on the site. 'FURTHERMORE, Groundspeak GIVES NO WARRANTIES AS TO THE AVAILABILITY OF THE SITE AT ANY PARTICULAR TIME; FUNCTIONALITY; TIMELINESS OF SERVICES; ACCURACY OR CURRENCY OF CONTENT; LACK OF VIRUSES; OR ANY OTHER WARRANTY.' BTW: Groundspeak (owner of Geocaching.com) is a privately held corporation from what I can see. If I chose to utilize their services and even if I pay membership, I don't expect to dictate how they use the associated fees. This isn't a club, it's a service. Zeb...

THE POINT is that your $2.50/month (membership as a Premium Member) doesn't entitle you to detail answers from Groundspeak or it's IT department. Darquer's statement was 'I am shocked that as a premium member who paid for 24/7 premium access I get only a simple response'. In my opinion, $2.50/month isn't enough to warrant a detailed and complicated assessment of the situation. If you think I'm wrong about that, don't renew your membership! Show them you are unhappy with the service by withholding your $2.50/month. That's simple Consumerism 101! If you're unhappy with what YOU SAY is 'years of unstable service', just keep your $2.50/month and move on. Simple! Zeb...

Would you like a more complicated response? Do you think that as an anointed 'Premium Member' (which you spent about $2.50/month to achieve) they owe you their undivided attention when you correspond with them? Well my $2.50/month says that I'd like to see that attention go toward fixing the problem and NOT waste time corresponding with people who are 'shocked' to receive a 'simple response'. Get over it, get over yourself and your own selfish needs and let them do the job. It's not the end of the world and you'll survive. Try to exhibit a little patience and a little dignity. If anything, we should consider that problems like this are rare and commend those responsible for the uptime. Take a breath! Zeb

A few weeks ago I was pretty upset with the new Google Geocaching Maps. Today I'm happy with them, Super Happy in fact. They've come a long way! Thanks! Zebra61

Thank you very, very, very, very much. Please excuse my momentary fits of rage. I have canceled my order for the customized voodoo dolls and matching 5-edged needles. The savings will have to be spent on my blood pressure medication but at least we're on the right track. Thanks.... zebra61

Please Groundspeak! THIS SUBJECT IS IMPORTANT TO MANY OF US! Are you listening to your users? Do you have anything to say about this subject? Are you going to respond? Will you tell us what we can expect in the future? Isn't there someone with authority that can respond to our posts and enter into this discussion? It would be nice to hear from them. Zebra61

I agree, but the 15 mile limit is tough for people out in the boonies like myself. Try this: do a search for caches in the area of Rugby, ND (Zip: 58368) and see what I mean. Now this might seem like an extreme for some of you but it's typical for me. Zebra61

I hope so too Rubicon. Groundspeak & Geocaching.com flubbed on this one. The changes to these maps have effectively ruined caching for me. Using the maps was the quickest and most effective way to chart a course for my weekend. The 15 mile restriction just strangles the usefulness of Google Maps on the site. I've also noticed that searches take longer on the new maps. I'm just disappointed that the usefulness of the maps has been degraded. Certainly this wasn't the original intent, but judging the from comments on this forum the changes aren't being well-received. Hopefully the group at Groundspeak is monitoring and making plans to increase the effectiveness of the Google Map interface. Zebra61

Here's my opinion: 1. I'm a rural user in Northern Minnesota, 15 mile limitation is a joke and just serves to make problems for me. 2. The old maps seemed fast, easier to read and more stable. I've been locked up many times on these new maps. 3. Many users have asked for a preference choice of maps, I echo that request. Allow us to choose our maps. Zebra61