Julie

Just doing my job as an agent of K.A.O.S.

Hmmm... Maybe there is less controversy because anything controversial gets locked. Oh.. say like the Buxley's Waypoint thread... To get your angxt filled Buxley fix, check his news update Enjoy!

I'm gettting the uneasy feeling that TPTB are just stringing Buxley along hoping his data will be so incredibly out of date that we'll all just abandon his site and he'll just fade away. TPTB may be busy, but not too busy to post to the forums, I've seen them! So, what is the deal guys??

Like a bunch of you I'm wondering what is going on with getting Buxley back doing that cache map thang. So I've been checking Buxley's Status Page Unfortunately, as of Tuesday, he still hasn't any word from the Groundspeakians... Oh and I know that these things take time and everyone is busy, but I'm just bursting to know what's gonna happen. *Bouncing Anxiously* It's like watching your favourite TV show and they have this cliffhanger at the end of the season and you don't get to find out who lives and who dies until months and months. And until then its only reruns! (ACK! Oh please, PLEASE don't tell me it will take months and months!! ) Anyway, I wish I had more to report... Don't forget to keep checking Buxley's Status Page and reporting here!

Speaking of clarity... Buxley started his little Waypoint in spring 2001, way before maps were a gleam in Groundspeak's eye. Way before the Corporation or Terms of Use or any of that stuff. And as many pointed out it is a very useful site. He does maps and he does them well. He only needs the barest subset of the data, not even much content at all to create this service. He is in no way a Geocache Hosting Service but more like a portal. He uses data from any and all geocaching web services, puts a little dot on a screen, and shows its name. Then when you click on a dot you go to the HOSTING website and get the rest of the content. In no way does he supplant that original service, but he does enhance it quite considerably. In the years that the Geocaching.com website has been around they haven't been able to match the mapping capabilities at Buxley's and perhaps they shouldn't try. Perhaps Groundspeak should focus on the things they do best. Making forms for submitting, searching and logging caches. They also have a great community hub in their forums. Why are they spending the time and your money to ban others from its use. Why are they trying to reinvent the wheel and provide functionality that isn't needed because it is already out there. Why aren't they trying to get more funds by *Licencing* their data to people who can do great things with it? Just a thought....

I don't think anyone is saying that Groundspeak has to give away their services for free. That being said...lets talk about what their "services" are Bandwidth, hosting of geocaching data and community forums, specialized web page design for entering and showing Geocache content. What they do not provide for the most part is the content. That is what everyone else brings to the table. And unless someone takes that data and makes a rival hosting service, what is the infringement on Groundspeak's business plan? I believe they should be duly compensated for their services and for a while I did pay them for that. I was a charter member and subscribed for a couple of years. But when I realized that instead of working with people from the community to enhance the geocaching experience by letting them use a subset of the data for other data realization schemes, that they was blocking them, and threatening to sue them, I discontinued giving them money. Taking a subset of the data that *we all provided* and realizing the data differently should not be a crime.

Dang, trading in all these caches and we can never get a head!

My 4 year old loves to "Treasure Hunt" with his Mommy. He can even follow the compass pointer and tell me which direction we should be going. Of course the most important thing is the trinkets themselves, so I don't take him to virtual or micro caches because they are "boring" and he isn't up to the puzzles since he can't read yet He also knows that if he wants an item he has to leave something of his own in return, so I let him choose his own trade items (within reason). I think it helps children see what things are worth to them and a sense of fair play when they trade themselves. Good luck and happy hunting!

One question for y'all. Why does everyone seem to be down on fast food toys? Even the people who say they are in it for the kids. My 4 year old makes very considered choices when we find a cache. He knows that for every item he chooses he must give up one of his toys. He is even leaving some of these toys in their original wrapper so he can trade for something his wants more. Now I'm not advocating trading a "Mc Toy" for a pocket knife or equivalent, but a toy for a toy seems fair to me. And that's what kids have to trade, toys.

Well, it wasn't the "Amazing Race", but in the last season of "The Mole", the contestants had to use a GPSr for navigation to a particular site as one of their challenges.

I'm not really a celebrity, but I play one on TV...

I'm not really a celebrity, but I play one on TV...

Why are people jumping on Alan? Because he dares to propose another way to organize and fund the sport we all love? Because he wants more of a voice? Because he is willing to donate his time and energy? I think we should all encourage people who want to do something for the sport. If you don't think the plan is quite right, give some *constructive* criticism and don't just knock the person or try to push them away. Thanks Alan for posting your thoughts and if you decide to proceed further, please don't hesitate to let the rest of us know (comments to the negative nonwithstanding).

quote:Originally posted by Exocet: Additionally, that there is concerns over the accuracy (freshness) of the data. Buxley's maps have had this concern, displaying archived caches as a regular cache. Ahhh... but would "freshness" be a problem if the data was shared or regular updates given to those who had value-add sites like the Brian's Palmable or Buxley's maps? Just a thought...

So Jeremy, how's your application going?

quote:Originally posted by Julie:Go ahead. Give me the whole DB (plus updates), I'll even get my own forum software and I'll run a mirror site. Now I'm not promising that it will be instantly as good as Geocaching.com, because there's been at least a year's worth of work on it, but with the help of a couple of friends, I bet I could get something decent running pretty quickly. quote:Originally posted by Jeremy Irish:Ouch. Man this is like a huge bash fest. I take offense at your claim. I suppose you _could_ copy the design elements and implementation of UI that I worked really hard to get right (and some are). I can trace a drawing someone else drew, but that doesn't make me an artist. And no, I'm not claiming to be an artist so don't throw that in my face either. Jeremy, did you even read my whole post? It was only a little bash not a fest. Really, I never said that I wanted to copy your UI or anything like that. I did give you credit for all your work and said you deserved the recognition (and I have paid my subscription!). My point, which I guess I didn't make very well, is that the content in your site is valuable as well and you don't have a history of sharing it. Having someone challenging others to do something with the same data... Well I just couldn't resist.

quote:Originally posted by Julie:Go ahead. Give me the whole DB (plus updates), I'll even get my own forum software and I'll run a mirror site. Now I'm not promising that it will be instantly as good as Geocaching.com, because there's been at least a year's worth of work on it, but with the help of a couple of friends, I bet I could get something decent running pretty quickly. quote:Originally posted by Jeremy Irish:Ouch. Man this is like a huge bash fest. I take offense at your claim. I suppose you _could_ copy the design elements and implementation of UI that I worked really hard to get right (and some are). I can trace a drawing someone else drew, but that doesn't make me an artist. And no, I'm not claiming to be an artist so don't throw that in my face either. Jeremy, did you even read my whole post? It was only a little bash not a fest. Really, I never said that I wanted to copy your UI or anything like that. I did give you credit for all your work and said you deserved the recognition (and I have paid my subscription!). My point, which I guess I didn't make very well, is that the content in your site is valuable as well and you don't have a history of sharing it. Having someone challenging others to do something with the same data... Well I just couldn't resist.

quote:Originally posted by exConn: Let's hand you the geocaching db and forum software and see if you can build and develop your own site to use it for $30. Go ahead. Give me the whole DB (plus updates), I'll even get my own forum software and I'll run a mirror site. Now I'm not promising that it will be instantly as good as Geocaching.com, because there's been at least a year's worth of work on it, but with the help of a couple of friends, I bet I could get something decent running pretty quickly. And before someone has a coronary, this is half tongue-in-cheek. Yes, Jeremy has done a lot of work on this site and yes, he does deserve the recognition, but part of harrkev's point is valid... The people who place the caches are doing the data entry and hence part of the work for this website. Man, if I had to come up with this much content on my own, it would never happen, but geocaching.com has *thousands* of contributors. I guess my point is that if I didn't have to start from scratch and persuade people to put their caches on my site also, then that's half the battle right there. Which is why I believe your generous offer will never happen and the DB will never be consciously given away, its just too valuable.... So, that's my several cents worth. Take it with as many grains of salt as necessary.

Well, I have posted my cache and logged caches on navicache.com in addition to geocaching.com. I think that encouraging a broad range of sites can only be a good thing for enhancing and promoting the longevity of our sport. 'Many hands make light work'.

quote:Originally posted by ringbone: I find it amusing that almost all of the negative critizism comes from people who still have Geocacher in their name titles. Ummmmmm... Well... Yes, this is true. If someone has questions or issues about subscribing, they probably won't pay first and then ask questions later. Sounds pretty prudent to me...

quote:Originally posted by ringbone: I find it amusing that almost all of the negative critizism comes from people who still have Geocacher in their name titles. Ummmmmm... Well... Yes, this is true. If someone has questions or issues about subscribing, they probably won't pay first and then ask questions later. Sounds pretty prudent to me...

quote:Originally posted by Jeremy Irish: + What would happen if a cache is placed in an inappropriate location and needs to be removed? + What happens if you turn off your machine?+ What happens when someone abandons their cache?+ Who decides when the cache is missing when the owner is no longer reachable? To play the Devil's Advocate: What would happen if a cache is placed by someone you don't like and you think it needs to be removed? What happens if *you* turn off *your* machine? What happens when you abandon the game? Who decides what to do about the game when the owner of the website is unavailable? Who decides what is a reasonable use of the data that we *all* contributed to? I know that sounds harsh. But it's obvious from what is being said in multiple threads on this forum that these are some of the issues that people worry about. Yes, having the data mirrored on other sites would be complicated and would make it harder to keep it "clean". But it would assuage people's fears about having one entity in total control of geocaching. If there was a decentralized pool of data that multiple sites could pull from, then the value add, and the reason to go to (or pay for) one site over another, would be the features for entering, organizing, searching, visualizing and downloading portions of the data. For instance, I like the way the geocaching.com site works for entering and reading logs, but I really like the way the brillig.com site's maps look so, I would be willing to pay for these services. If another site was to have a good way to download points to a PDA, well I bet others would pay for that. And then Geocaching.com wouldn't have to be everything to everyone, just do the things you like and know well. And other sites could play to their strengths as well. Of coursethere will be bad sites and of course there will be bad data, but as we have seen from the postings here, people in this community aren't exactly shy about expressing themselves and bad sites will be tried in the court of public opinion, and if found guilty, will die an ignoble death from apathy. Anyway, I'm just speculating out loud here... Does this make any sense? Does anyone think this way?

quote:Originally posted by Jeremy Irish: + What would happen if a cache is placed in an inappropriate location and needs to be removed? + What happens if you turn off your machine?+ What happens when someone abandons their cache?+ Who decides when the cache is missing when the owner is no longer reachable? To play the Devil's Advocate: What would happen if a cache is placed by someone you don't like and you think it needs to be removed? What happens if *you* turn off *your* machine? What happens when you abandon the game? Who decides what to do about the game when the owner of the website is unavailable? Who decides what is a reasonable use of the data that we *all* contributed to? I know that sounds harsh. But it's obvious from what is being said in multiple threads on this forum that these are some of the issues that people worry about. Yes, having the data mirrored on other sites would be complicated and would make it harder to keep it "clean". But it would assuage people's fears about having one entity in total control of geocaching. If there was a decentralized pool of data that multiple sites could pull from, then the value add, and the reason to go to (or pay for) one site over another, would be the features for entering, organizing, searching, visualizing and downloading portions of the data. For instance, I like the way the geocaching.com site works for entering and reading logs, but I really like the way the brillig.com site's maps look so, I would be willing to pay for these services. If another site was to have a good way to download points to a PDA, well I bet others would pay for that. And then Geocaching.com wouldn't have to be everything to everyone, just do the things you like and know well. And other sites could play to their strengths as well. Of coursethere will be bad sites and of course there will be bad data, but as we have seen from the postings here, people in this community aren't exactly shy about expressing themselves and bad sites will be tried in the court of public opinion, and if found guilty, will die an ignoble death from apathy. Anyway, I'm just speculating out loud here... Does this make any sense? Does anyone think this way?

For the most part, the new forum is pretty cool. Though I do miss the information about the poster (number of posts, etc.) being right beneath their name and not at the bottom of their post. Thanks for a pretty smooth transition...