Uilebheist
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Posts
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Posts posted by Uilebheist
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I spoke to one of them at Midwest Geobash and was told that "it was tested on several devices and that it worked".
Did he/she say if it these devices were different makes/models/operating system or all identical to the one they use at GS HQ?
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OK, so let's see:
BAD:
Makes it harder for disabled cachers (this has been pointed out many times)
Change for the sake of change without checking if it affects anybody (yes, they rolled back partially, but why not check first?)
Added advertising and promotional links.
GOOD:
err, somebody help me because I can't see it. Perhaps because I am one of these disabled cachers Groiundspeak is always up in arms against
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I just received the "your premium membership is about to expire" email and guess what? it's in plain text and easy to read.
Obiously there is only one message they want us to see.
(I replied explaining why it won't be renewed - and I would suggest any cacher who is not planning to renew does the same, give them something to do and maybe they won't spend so much time breaking things)
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Don't suppose you'd care to share those few lines?
Yes, but that will have to wait until I'm back home from Mega Scotland.
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Are you really expecting a response?
Me, the last few notifications I am receiving (because I am maintaining some caches for other COs) now get automatically rewritten by a few lines of Perl (using MIME::Parser and little else) on my mail server. So all I receive is something like:
Date: 28 Jul 2014 18:14:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: [MAINT] GCxxxxx (Cache Name) needs maintenance Cacher Name reported that GCxxxxxx (Cache Name) needs maintenance (text of log they put in)
Yep, subject and date headers and two lines of text. No need to receive anything else, and certainly no need to use HTML for that, or to include links to every useless site on the planet. 250 bytes or less too, which is very kind to mobile data allowances. And of course if I decide I want different information it's just a quick edit.
Remember, no matter what they do they can't force you to read your email the way their advertisers would like you to.
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The notification selection criteria are very simplistic: log type, centre and radius are all we get. If this were enhanced to include state and country then you - and no doubt many in a similar position - would be able to make better use of notifications. Perhaps the volume of comments in this and other threads will help Groundspeak see that the notification system is widely used and highly valued, and that it's long overdue for some improvements.
While I wouldn't mind seeing new useful features like this one, past experience with "improvements" by Groundspeak leaves me with a wish they just left things alone rather than change anything for the even worse.
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None of my concerns were remotely addressed. My take is that skool is out for the summer and have underage interns answering questions.
No, you sent a short and to the point email containing just your questions and concerns. You should have sent one containing large inline images and lots of adverts if you wanted them to take it seriously.
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For example:
X-Groundspeak-Notification-Type: Publish
X-Groundspeak-Cache-Type: Unknown cache
X-Groundspeak-Cache-Difficulty: 1
X-Groundspeak-Cache-Name: Fix email notifications for good
X-Groundspeak-Cache-Owner: happy-paying-customer
X-Groundspeak-Favorites: over 9000
+1 for this idea. I could then set my mail server to discard the whole message content and just send me the headers. Hmmm, maybe add the GC code somewhere too.
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I stand corrected... somebody is reading here and they added the log type back to the subject, and after archiving my last cache I had:
Owner Notification: <name> (<gc code>) has a new Archive log from Uilebheist
Still too verbose, as on a small screen and/or a long cache name the log type doesn't appear, and anyway I won't be asking for a reviewer to unarchive anything as it'll only work until the next "bright idea" gets implemented.
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Perhaps I'm on to something here . . .
Is GC central trying to get us to cut back on how many emails they send us?
No other explanation makes sense!
This one doesn't either. Cache owner emails also arrive in the new format, and we can't stop receiving them (even though they are now useless).
Well, there's of course a way to stop, and I just archived my last cache so I don't have to suffer anymore.
Perhaps THIS is what Groundspeak really want us to do.
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And what's with all the people posting who have low forum counts? It seems to outnumber the regulars for once. Just an observation. The website changed, the app changed, so is anyone really surprised to emails changed to the same green/earthy colours?
Looking at the profiles, these "people with low post count are people who get out caching instead of spending all day posting here.
Well, I guess Groundspeak is trying to get us all to stop caching, they have made this obvious, so this low post count may change very soon.
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Turning off notifications doesn't actually solve the problem as the same unusable format also poisons the owner logs etc.
Thankfully I archived all my caches but I still do maintenance for caches owned by other people when they are away. This may have to stop, as it's too much hassle to read all logs to see if one happens to be a "need maintenance" or a DNF (one of the caches I maintain has had 1600 finds in 3 years and another one had 1200 finds in 15 months... I am not going to read all the logs just in case),
Well, I guess GS don't like the idea of people doing maintenance on caches.
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This takes bad to a whole new level.
Sounds like the new Groundspeak motto. "Taking bad to a whole new level"
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Yes, same here.
The new format *removes* information from where it's easy to see it, and b uries it under useless information.
I don't need to be told that "(cache) has a new log!" I already know, that's why it is a notification.
If you must change the format of notification (and there's no reason why) please allow to select the old plain text format, or at least something with no meaningless crud attached.
As somebody has said, we pay you you could at least use the basic courtesy of asking before you make changes for the worse (well, I no longer do pay you, I am not renewing my premium membership as you obviopusly don't want my money)
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So, could anybody post coordinates to one end of this footpath? Just in case I find myself nearby and I feel like seeing what it looks like? And maybe walk up and down 100 times just to make sure I get a good feel for the place?
I promise I won't mention the cache to the landowner, although I may mention (by mistake, of course) that Groundspeak brought the path to my attention (which indirectly they did, by their behaviour).
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Well, I don't think I've ever been on the forums but I had to see what Deceangi had to say...
Meanwhile I wonder what would happen if 500 people wrote to Groundspeak claiming to be landowners and asking for random notices to be put on caches. This thread makes it obvious that you just have to own some land, it doesn't matter if it's the land where the cache is or some other land.
(Note that these people wouldn't have to write anything against the law: they could be worried by all these cachers going past their house and ask whether there could be an alternative, or whatever: the law doesn't say you have to like a RoW, just that you cannot block it).
Do they have enough lackeys to even read the resulting correspondence?
Edited to clarify.
New Notification Format
in Website
Posted
But they did... on all customers at once. It seems this is the only testing they do.