PittCaleb

First let me say I'm an RSS addict. If I can't get it via RSS, I work with site owners to make that possible, so I applaud your effort here. Here's the reason I would say it's a bad idea here. First, GeoCaching is big - tons of users, tons of caches and double tons of logs. I have my RSS reader set to check for new data every hour, that's on the 20 or so feeds I "subscribe" to. RSS is a pull system, not a push method. With "watchlists" the site PUSHES out new log entries to those who want them. I can not even begin to estimate the site traffic it would generate if I did an RSS subscription to each of the 1700 cache finds I have. Every hour, it would pull what, the latest 8,500 logs. And it would do that 24 times a day - over 200,000 log requests daily. Do that for a thousand users... I don't think the gc.com site was set up for this - regardless of the 'worth' of the project or not. There is a ton of cool things we could do if I could get live log data for all caches within 15 miles of my home, but the bandwidth and disk usage for gc.com would be overwhealming when scaled to the population of geeky geocachers. That is the reason I think it's a bad idea, not because of the desire for the data, just the fact that it's pull rather than push-based. That said, if you could work within gc.com and find a way to push this data overnight on a digest-based format, that would be awesome! Cheers, PittCaleb

Rusty from Michigan. Excellent response time and very helpful when your submission needs "a little tweaking." PittCaleb

I have over 800 finds and there's a big donut-shaped hole around my home coordinates. I run 4 PQ's twice a week to get the closest caches to me in all directions. If I could merely get the closest 1000, I would only need to run that 1 query, so I concur with the consensus. I believe it had been proposed before - rather than 5 queries at 500, simply permit up to 2,500 results per day however you would want to receive them. I do have date-based queries set up for Michigan for when we travel cache - takes 12 or 13 queries to get the entire state. With a higher number of returns per query, I could do it in many fewer. And lastly, for caches along a route - I like to get caches within 5 miles of the highway - sometimes the query isn't perfect and if I stop for a meal, I want to be able to get off the road and find some caches. Traveling from Detroit to Kansas City requires entirely too many queries because of the 500 limit. I put more stress on the server building and testing these queries than I would if I could create 1 route and get all results in 1 PQ. Here's an idea - I can run a 500 result query 7 times a week, right? And in the summer, I run my main ones every single day. Why not permit up to, say, 20 PQs to be installed, but each one can only return 3,000 results weekly. If I run a 500 one daily, that's 3,500 results. But if it returns 1,000 - I could only run it 3x a week. If it returned 2,000, only once. Seems good to me... Cheers, PittCaleb

My 2c... I would like to see monthly updated stats, it's a simply database query from a coding point of view, with 2 tables - the first percentile rankings "lifetime" and one that is a rolling window based on all cache finds in the past 12 months. As someone posted, as a relatively new cacher, I can not expect to any time soon achieve 1,000 cache finds. But the person who has 1,000 cache finds has GOT to slow down and his stats in the past year are comparable and attainable to my own. We have a local cacher who is quite active and has over 1,300 cache finds. I'm trying to find all the caches in Ann Arbor and can go out all the time doing so. Now there are very few near me and my wife has commented that I have slowed down now. The reality is that my rate of cache finds has got to slow simply because to get tons of them, I have to now drive a non-trivial distance. I disagree with making a cut of those who have more than say 50 cache finds - simply using a rolling window of the past 12 months will continually show how you are currently caching in relation to all others who have done anything in the same window. And if you don't want to look at the stats, then don't. Cheers, Caleb

Already, we can "watch" a cache or a travel bug, but I would like to "watch" other players. pause... stalker thoughts... pause... Seriously, it would be great to keep up to date on what my friends are up to, or what others in say my local geocaching organization are doing. It would function no differently than the current watch feature in function and notification. Thoughts? addendum: My friend who brought up the stalker thoughts when we were discussing this mentioned that it could be a 2-phase system where I listed people I permitted to watch me, or selected a profile option to one of "permit people to watch me" "don't permit people to watch me" or of course "let these people watch me" It takes just a bit of work, but I can easily do this manually, so it's not like it's not already public information. It would just be easier and neater to get e-mail when your buddy logged a cache find, etc. Interested to see if I'm the only one to desire this. Cheers - Caleb

I love monkeybrad's cache - still LOL "4x4 container under rocks" - rotfl We were recently doing a multi-cache and along the path while searching out the first stage, we passed near an old, classic, stripped and rusted out VW Bug. I said to my newbie caching partners "want to bet the cache is in the bug?" We searched through the bug without success. I was bummed out. Considering going back and planting a cache in the bug, but there are already 2 caches in this pretty small and remote area/park. Congrats on the "outside the box" thinking monkeybrad! Caleb

I like hunting benchmarks that no one else has visited. I think it would be great is all the BMs listed on GC.com have been visited at some point... That said, I am very careful marking them 'destroyed' - I can't just "not find" it and assume it's destroyed - I have to know it was in fact destroyed (i.e. a local water tower was once a BM and it's clearly no longer there. Took photos of the concrete base, left description, marked destroyed at gc.com). NE1555 Below are 2 photos of a BM that was visited by another in Ann Arbor a while ago. i wanted to double check. To me, this BM is *destroyed* although there is a legit witnes post and "survey marker" post. As you can see in both photos, someone literally dug this BM out of the ground - which surprises me in that I thought they would have been deeper. So - is this BM destroyed? Should I contact someone to notify them of this destroyed BM? Caleb

Keep in mind local weather too. I sadly picked up a TB while vacationing in late November and ended up holding it for entirely too long - because when we returned, there was snow on the ground and it never let up till spring. I felt horrible, and the owner sent me a polite note asking what was up and I explained the situation to him. Remember, some people aren't as gung ho as others and when there's a foot of snow on the ground and/or negative wind chills, their caching may hibrinate in the winter... of course, one, such as myself, shouldn't have taken it if I didn't think i could place it in a timely manner, but sometimes mistakes happen. note to all TB's, head south for the winter! Caleb

I am starting a new TB, even posted its bio on-line and stuff and am ready to start it on its journey. Living in Ann Arbor, it would be nice for it to 'start' at The Big House (hey, I'm not FROM A2, just live here, so all you Buckeyes, just stop now). So we went to The Big House and took a photo of us outside with the big M in the background. There is a webcam cache here at the stadium too. BUT it's out of commission, thus no photo of me or of me and the bug in the stadium via the webcam. So I guess my question is two-fold. First, can I log a webcam cache is the webcam no longer functions? You can check the log. I did NOT mark myself as having visited it, posting just a note. So for dead webcam caches, if the purpose is to get you into the place, can you post up your photo and mark it found? Thinking not, but your expert opinions are valued. Second then - say the webcam cache was functioning properly and I did have a photo of the TB at the cache - could I log the TB into and then out of the webcam cache? Second, what if like the big house these days, the webcam isn't working properly, can I log it through the cache, or better not since it didn't technically get he webcam photo as required? Thanks _ Caleb