Hynr
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Posts posted by Hynr
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Anything that is outside the norm is considered abnormal. Most folks don't know what geocaching is about, so it is only natural that they would consider geocaching abnormal, even if you are doing it with your son or by yourself.
Whenever I run into a situation were on-lookers obviously think something is strange, I go and introduce myself to them, show them the GPSr and the map with all the caches marked and explain. My experience is that it always put the person at ease, regardless of whether the person is a police officer or a concerned lady walking a dog.
As for looks folks give you when you are out having fun with your daughter: I can assure you from personal experience that if you don't thicken your skin on this, you will have an even harder time when your daughter is a teenager. I have two beautiful teenage daughters; I refuse to let ignorant looks interfere with my being out in public with them.
I have bumped into quite a few geocachers caching with their daughters. You are definitely not alone.
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Even as it stands right now every cache has a finite life. It is absurd to think that it is forever.
I don't believe that there is a cache in existence today that has stood the test of time. Geocaching has only been around since 2001. I am not ruling out a 3 year lease for caches where that is appropriate. I too know of caches that I would want to have a very long life (years) if the owner is willing.
GSVNoFixedAbode, I would be curious how you see the proposal killing the sport in some areas. It would seem to me that if you have a cache that is in a spectacular place, then reincarnating it after a few years as a new cache in an new hiding place at that site would not hurt the newbie, yet restore interest by those who had found it before. Wouldn't that have a sustaining influence on geocaching?
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I would suggest that a good way to decide on your search radius is to set your GPSr up to show you the accuracy. Walk around the site and note the largest number at any point within about a 20 ft circle of the point where you zero out. Now double that number. The resulting cicle has some fairly high probablility of containing the cache (I would guess something like 90 or 95%). But even then, there is still a small probablility that the cache is outside the circle. And this assumes that the manufacturer is being honest about the accuracy level.
Also remember to be thankful that this accuracy is not very small (e.g. 1 ft) because that would take away the challenge and make the whole thing uninteresting.
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I would like to make a suggestion which, I believe, may reduce the incidence of geocachers losing interest in the hobby.
First a little background. Jeremy mentioned a while ago that if one has over 300 caches, then one is in the extreme minority of geocachers. When that came out I had about that many caches and was surprised in that statistic. Why are 95% of geocachers not sticking around?!? I am now pushing 700 and I can now see the problem. I have done most caches near my home; I have to get in the car and drive a substantial distance everytime I want to go caching. New caches come on line, but not with the regularity with which I would like to go geocaching. I now find myself leaving local caches for later, sort of the way some of the bottles of wine stay in my wine closet until the right time comes. I noticed some threads here in the forums that suggest that losing interest, when there are few new local caches, is common.
My suggestion is aimed at turning caches over and to get existing ones re-hidden at new locations so that veteran goecaches have local caches to hunt: I suggest that each cache, when approved is given a finite length of life. The owner would propose this duration when setting up the cache page at the web site. GC would set policy as to what the length might be but would be as flexible as most owners want to them to be (perhaps minimum of 1 month; and a maximum of 12 months, or 15, or something like that - but not infinity, which is what it is now). At the end of that period, the cache either has to be removed or it has to be extended. The expectation is that most would be removed and rehidden; exceptions would be based on log entries. Owners would be encouraged to service and rehide at different sites, or even in the same area, but at a different location. Guidelines would, of course, need to be established, but the end-effect should be that even in areas dense with caches, new caches will come on-line with some regularity so the locals who have already found all local caches would have a reason to continue to particiapte (and invest through new cache placement and membership fees).
I know this is difficult to understand for folks who have not run out of local caches.
And many of the folks who have lost interest are not here to speak for or against the proposal. I suspect I will be joining them in a few months.
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I noticed a strong majority (everyone) agreeing with establishing a linkage between disabled and new caches. I find that very narrowminded.
I strongly disagree with the notion that when a hider has a disabled cache, that no new caches should be approved for that person until the disabled one is archived or reactiveated. There are several very good reasons:
1. We want as many caches out there as possible and don't need any disincentives for cache placement. The hobby depends on new caches to come on line to avoid losing the clients that have already found most of the local caches.
2. We also absolutely don't want to put any disincentives in place to disabling caches that need service. We all hate hunting for caches that have disappeared where the owner hasn't bothered to disable.
3. This is a hobby for everyone and everyone does it a little differently. Imposing the proposed rule takes away from the enjoyment of some and adds nothing to the enjoyment of others. Imposing anything punitive will cause folks to go away. Can GC afford to have paying folks going away?
The only thing I agree with in this thread is that bad disabled caches should be archived and good disabled caches should be reactiivated as soon as possible.
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I'd love to agree with that BUT...
Either I offended someone or the server is now locking folks out when it gets too crowded. I get "Connection refused when trying to contact geocaching.com". It's been happening for about an hour now.
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Every single individual that I have tried to help get started with PQs can't get the PQs to deliver what they want until they figure out the fact that it's english in some spots and logic theory in others.
Jeremy, to say that no one is complaining is an example of you not listening. Since I have been watching the forums (a few weeks) I have seen several threads started with individuals asking why their PQs aren't generating results. The conclusions (usually by some helpful person rather than you) is always about making it the user's fault for not understanding logic. In each case it has been the flaw that I have pointed out at the start of this thread. I can understand you being defensive. I cannot understand unwillingness to make the site the best it can be.
I apologize for having duplicate groups of radio buttons in my graphic. I was in a hurry this morning and did't get it all proofed. It took me too long to figure out how to get a graphic to show up in the forums, so I ran out of time. (I'll try to fix it now). It was my intent to illustrate how one can uses radiobutton groups to deal with logic so the client/user does not have an opportunity to do things you don't want them to do.
CompuCash - thanks for your kinds words. I do some programming as part of my work; The tool I find most useful for creating form-based computer programs is Delphi - that's what I used, without writing any code, of course.
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In the section of the PQs that are headed That the PQ form is set up poorly. The entire PQ has been formulated as a whole to sound like normal English. So switching to "logic talk" in the middle causes a lot of confusion. When someone says " send me the ones that I have found and the ones I have not found", if they are speaking english then they mean BOTH; if they are talking logic they know to expect to get neither because the sets don't overlap. Since the PQ is supposed to be in English, the form is set up wrong. In fact, proper use of radiobuttons would allow everything to be made much clearer. It seems to me that that section might look something like this (or at least embody the logic):
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I know you guys are just trying to help, but you really don't understand what's going on behind the scenes. And its certainly not your fault either; we don't disclose enough information about the inner workings of the site or supply any statistics you can use to estimate or guess as to what's happening. Suffice it to say we're *way beyond* the basic performance monitoring and tuning Caderoux mentions a couple posts back.
Elias, I really appreciate your comments. And now that we know what is going on (or not) we no longer have to beat up the mystery culprit(s).
I would recommend starting a thread by posting this sort of statement in a pinned item at the top of the web page forum. Leave it there until the problem is identified and resolved. Keep it updated as well as possible within the constaints of what the company is comfortable disclosing. Point out to us what it looks like on our screens when this problem is flaring up and what we should report to you. If you are intererested in suggestions, then focus that discussion by starting a very specific thread. If unsolicited, pointless threads emerge you can politely direct folks to the pinned item. If folks are venting, then just let them do that.
I feel that by keeping us as informed as is possible, we (your clients) will not be as frustrated.
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Everyone of these points has been made several times for the past 4 weeks now.
It generally involves someone suggesting that it is a financial problem.
Then it becomes clear that the current equipment should be able to handle the load.
Then someone suggest the PQs are at fault.
Then it becomes clear that the PQs are on a separate machine.
At some point Jeremy mentions that the bottleneck is in the database.
Then we start looking for ways that the SQL could be faster, added equipment might be useful, etc and explore work-arounds.
I would like to know what action Groundspeak has taken in the past month to resolve the problems. I'm guessing there have been "discussions" and "diagnostics"; what has been concluded and what action is planned.
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I looked at your table and would say that you can easily display the information as a table with far less code. In fact, get rid of the color background stuff and identify the states that are left to be visited with bold (<b> </b>). You also have a bunch of unbalanced </span> tags that you can delete.
Better yet, make two columns, one for states remaining to be visited and one for states where it's been.
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That would be a very nice enhancement.
Even just min and max latitudes and longitudes would be a big step forward.
It's been suggested many times before.
I don't know why it's not in place yet.
I guess not enough folks have independently suggested it yet.
Anyone know what the threshold is before Jeremy takes it from "interesting idea" to "compelling - lets do it"?
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Some polishing might be: for those creating event caches to specify a "radius of interest" for the cache (in miles or km).
At the same time each user would specify a radius of interest for him/herself as The Jester suggested. The suggested item on the "My Account Details" page would list all events where there is some intersection between the two circles. This way the event coordinator has some control over how broadly to advertize and the user has some control as well.
I would really like it if this could be set up right away because I have an event that I would like to publicize to more than just the local folks here in town. The folks in the big city nearby have so many caches closer than my event that most cachers won't notice my event.
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I think it's great that all "Off-Topic" items automatically go where I won't be able to look at them. Thanks. That will be a time-saver for me.
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So why not post in the forum and get others to provide advice. If it is too specific and you are afraid of giving away your secret info, then create the cache to the extent you can and explain your problem in the note to the approver. The approver will work with you as much as s/he has the time to do so.
If it takes you 4 weeks of work, then you have a different problem that is probably not resolved by contacting an approver.
Why should a busy approver spend any time on a theoretical cache that may or may not happen? They are not paid the big bucks (
) to give cache placement advice for caches folks might think about placing.If you absolutely need the local approver and you have placed even one cache before, then you already have all the information you need on your version of the cache page.
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The reasons that have been given for having a posted list of approvers don’t make sense.
If you want to communicate with the person that will approve your next cache, then you create the listing and submit it. You can say anything you want about the cache in the box at the very bottom. If you want to chat with someone about things that are not related to a particular cache, but related to approving stuff, then you do that right here in the forums.
If you want to communicate about a dead cache then you do that by posting a “needs archiving” note.
By the way, Hemlock is a great approver. And WestCoastApprover is also super. The fact that I have a bunch of caches in preparation has nothing whatsoever to do with my saying so.
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I sometimes feel annoyed that I HAVE to write anything at all. When I write TFTC, that is what I mean. If I am not in the mood to say thank you, then all I put is TN SL (took nothing, signed log) or less.
When I hunt down a cache that’s in the middle of a patch of Poison Oak and various others have already pointed it out, then I would like the option of saying nothing. In real life, silence is a potent communication tool; too bad we can’t have that in the logs.
When I am at the receiving end (i.e. I get the message that someone found my caches) I am interested only in whether they had a good experience or whether a service call is in order. Sometimes interesting things are communicated, and I enjoy that. If you come to my cache and say “thank you”, regardless of how brief, you can be sure that I am saying “you’re welcome” at my end.
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But don't you feel that getting the same PQ with almost the entire set of data the same to be a bit of a waste? I just think it would be less wasteful...
Wasteful. Now there is a concept. I have doubled the monthly miles I put on my car since I started geocaching. I cannot imagine that most geocachers are not "wasting" substantical resources geocaching (but that is probably another thread).
As for the PQs being wasteful: They run on a computer which is specifically designed for it and yesterday that machine was able to do all of those scheduled for Sunday and Monday in one day. There is no cacpacity problem. The problem is with transmission. As long as the programmers are not serious about improving efficiency by giving us the tools to better target our queries, why should we?
Looking up a handful of caches at the web site is far more wasteful in terms of the limiting resource: every graphic icon and map uses tens of thousands of bytes. The transmission of a PQ as a zip file does that with a small fraction of bandwidth.
What probably should really happen is to establish an East Coast and European mirror site for the web site.
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I know this may be percieved as a bit of a dummy-spit, but I am quite disappointed in the added functionality I have access to as a "Premium Member".
Just trying to setup a good off-line database so that I can try and start using GSAK and my HandheldPC in my cache searches is not much more pleasant than root canal minus the anesthetic!
Between the posts in this section regarding the limitations of the PQs and the difficulties nearly everyone has with them, and the fact that not a single one of my PQs have run as yet I am starting to get a bit frustrated here!!
I know that this frustration may be due, in part at least, to the fact that I am new to a few of the concepts here and haven't yet tweaked my setup, but having an unreliable base to try and work my configurations to definitely isn't helping.
Considering that one of the main sticking points people speak about is the load PQs place on the servers when they run, I'd rather have the option to just download a dump of all the caches in my country as a GSX file and then perform my own filtering off-line!
// Grrrr!!!!!
Hang in there. I think most folks grousing here would agree that having the off-line database is infinitely better than dealing with the sluggish web site. Despite what you have read, the PQ server is NOT putting a strain on the web page server because they are two different machines. (In fact today the PQ server managed to process all of todays and yesterdays PQs - evidence that it is running at less than half capacity). It got hung up and you should shortly see a bunch of PQs, if you have everything set right inside the PQs. If not, then keep trying.
The whole process has a bit of a learning curve. step 1 is getting the gpx files (PQs); step 2 is getting them into a tool that you can use to manipulate them (GSAK); step 3 is filtering so you get what you want and sending that into your GPSr (and PDA). It took us all a while to get it working 'cause its a bit nerdy and NOT user-friendly. But once it works it is very nice. Just take it step by step. There are many kind folks here who will assist when you get hung up.
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Looks like they are also running the same day; I just got 2. And at the PQ table it shows I have a two more headed my way. Looks like they are all going to come - better late than never. - cool...
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OK, the PQ server got nudged. During the night (3am Pacific time) I finally got the ones I was supposed to get yesterday (although one of them had no results despite usually showing results).
The ones for today have yet to arrive. When will they come?
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...with even a modicum of planning, have never really found the limit of 5x500 a day to be a problem.
I agree when it comes to local stuff.
But try taking a trip that takes you through a few metropolitan areas when all you need is those within 2 miles of the freeway corridor. It takes a few days of 5x500 just to get a handful. By the end, some of the first set have been disabled or archived or moved locations etc.
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You should have gone to the front page. There was a temporarily down message.
Jeremy - we're all family - we use the side door and not the front door. How about posting such message on our MY page as well. - Hynr
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But tell me how to know which caches have been moved to temp inactive or archived so they can come off the list that a person is keeping.
How I filter out the caches that have been archived or inactivated is by using GSAK by doing a quick sort by last update date. I use the same pq each time showing only active caches. Any that don't make it in my pocket query are either archived or inactive... I toggle them manually to archived in GSAK. Takes me a minute or two to manually update.
I find that when I go through this process, and check each cache that I am about to toggle to archived status, that some are active. I know that it makes no sense, but that's what I am getting. BruceS, do you look on-line at the ones you manually toggle and find that they are all truly inactive or archived?
Suggestion To Improve Geocaching As A Hobby
in General geocaching topics
Posted
Wouldn't it also follow that in areas of few caches, there are few geocachers? It would seem to me that if such a small group would embrace the concept of taking an exising cache container and rehiding it every few months then everyone would benefit from that? I would certainly agree that if there is room in the neighborhood, that a new cache might be better than a re-hide. But if I had a pick of a re-hide at a spectacular location or a lamp-post-skirt hide with little relevance, then I would pick the former.I would agree that there is a risk that this could have the opposite effect if the guidelines are not set up with thoughtfulness and sensitivity.