Jump to content

The Seven G's

+Premium Members
  • Posts

    29
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by The Seven G's

  1. At the risk of sounding like a multi-level marketing/pyramid scheme, it would be very cool (to me) if this could be a way to track my geocaching geneology/pedigree. Who introduced me to caching, whom I have introduced to geocaching--i.e. more than just "introduced", but who became a cacher! So two log types for people finds would be "Initiated me", and "I initiated" I've heard the trem geocaching sire used. i.e. "such and such were our geocaching sires" Of course then it could make more sense to track peple find stats. Furthermore, we'd want a simple way to visualize one's geocaching geneology/pedigree! Joel G. (G2 of The Seven G's)
  2. ditto, I activated 2 through geocoin club. I emailed their customer support and they replied immediately and said it sometimes takes geocaching.com a little while to update the icons, but assured me that it would happen--eventually. I hope so, since I asked him point blank before i bought it if it had a unique icon. -The Seven G's
  3. I get the same as this user. map overlaps cache deatils info. Mine looks just like the image posted. IE 6.o winXPsp2, screen res. 1024x768 -The Seven G's I can't reproduce what you're seeing there.. Does it always look like that or just when you've resized the page? what resolution you're running at?
  4. So I hope this idea has not died, and it continues to be worked on. The ideas on the table have my support as well. My head's just reeling after reading the thread and all the suggestions over the last year+. So many of the ideas sound both plausible and well-designed.] I just caution, however, that we also look into opportunites to abuse the system, and not just assume people would use it responsily showing good taste and sportsmanship. 7 of our caches have been added to someone's "Boycott" bookmark list. We can do nothing to get them off our listing's page and since they were early to "boycott" them, the other "favorites" lists on which our caches also appear don't show up on the main page--you have to click the "More..." link to see that some people actually love our caches. Yes, people have reviewed the Boycott bookmark list as "unhelpful" (since the list owner provides no details), but the fact remains that the front page displays Boycott in bold type. From what I can tell, the proposed system will happily avoid such abuse. But is there something we're not thinking of? Let's just be sure to look at how it might be abusable too. i.e. you don't want to be find your cache in the top 10% of a crappy cache list--especially if it indeed is not crappy. -The Seven G's (edited for readability & a couple spelling errors)
  5. Keenpeople habben auch so wass. I like their simpler approach better than yours, but I like some of the added info that yours has. FGood work however! Groundspeak needs this feature. Too many people are abusing bookmarks lists to rate caches (without providing helpful descriptors). Stats at www.Keenpeople.com -The Seven G's
  6. We've owned 4 Lowrances including iGO (junk). Any Lowarnce GPS above the iFinder Pro is great and in many cases I find even more accurate than other units which we have also cached with on numerous occasions. We also like the larger screen size, but must admit we find some of the geocaching specific features on Garmins attractive. I don't think you can go wrong at all with a H2Oc, although i question the added expense of the Color screen. The Go and Go2 models have such a SLOOOOOOW processor, that make them useless for geocaching!. It's not that we found them innacurate, just that because they updated so slowly, you long pass your target before it told you to turn around and go back--only to overshoot once again...and then again. Frustrating as %^$#$#@! We wanted a 2nd ubnit for the kids, but tit just wasn't worth the US$76 that we paid, and quickly turned around and sold it on ebay! It's probably fine for fishing and hunting, bringing you inexpensively to the general area, but useles for finding a tight spot. We ended up getting an iway 100M instead (largely identical to the H2O). As I recall, the newer units not only have faster processors, but may even have 2 of them. Batteries don't last quite as long, but they have been top-notch units. -The Seven G's
  7. Ok, so I've got a problem that I saw on the forums quite a while back, but for some amazingly jeuvenile reason, two local cachers have put 5 of my caches and others on bookmark lists titled "thumbs down" and "boycott list"! At first I thought "dorks! oh well, their loss" Then they started to get "helpful" ratings, and people were saying "oh thank you for posting this, now I know where not to waste my time" and similar comments. NOW that started to be disappointing! Both are seasoned, respected cachers in the area and people are taking their advice "sight unseen". I didn't recall ever even having seeing them visit the caches they had listed--As I looked deeper and checked, I was right. So, they've PUBLICLY dissed my caches, and have provided little description/criteria for why caches end up in their lists-- "for various reasons" and "personal choice" "and "ethical reasons" I've emailed them, rated their caches as unhelpful--citing that more info would be better about why caches should be "boycotted". They're nice people, but have not responded. I feel like I'm back in grade school, and am upset because SuzieQ is saying bad things about me, telling classmates not to play with me and won't talk to me and tell me why. Didn't we learn there that if we didn't have anything nice to say, to not say anthing at all?! Share your favorites publicly, but leave your "trash" list (If you must post one) for the trully deserving--and a few do exist. I've only seen two positive reviews of their lists, one unsolicited (I was so happy to see someone else thought their lists were inappropriate too) and the other was submitted by a fellow cacher at my request--just to provide some balance in the reviews to those reading the lists. Unfortunately, the reviews are NOT chronologically listed, and you have to scroll down to the bottom to see the negative reviews (in this case, the negative reviews are "positive" for me since they express displeasure at the way the lists were setup...no decriptive reasons for why caches find themselves oin their thumbs down or boycaott list). I love the bookmarking idea, and I guess we have to take the bad with the good, but I hate that their negative and public lists are dissuading people from hitting my caches when the list-owners themselves haven't even visited them. I expect they have criteria, but it appears to be very random (i.e. not all area webcam, puzzle caches or micros are listed...many, but not all) so it's hard to know why these caches are bad--It leaves people with the impression that the caches are inherently bad, or poorly designed and just not worth their time. IMHO (as well as numerous other prior visitors), my cachers are quite fun! Some caches on their "don't-bother-with-these" lists are on my all-time favorites bookmark list--I just don't get it. Judging friom their favorites lists, my only conclusion is that they believe the only "TRUE" geocaches are ones that are out deep in the woods, require a hike and have no puzzle, tricky, offset element at all. I respect their right to an opinion and their own preferences, but they are influencing newbies, travellers and other locals in an unsportsman-like way. Bad taste, but I can do nothing about it to get my caches off their boycott lists. Incidentally, both their "Favorites" bookmarks lists have a descriptive line for EVERY cache on that list as to why the love it so much!, so they are obviously aware of how to enter a unique descriptions for items on their lists. I've put a lot of time into my caches and am bummed that many cachers will now just ignore them out of hand. Sure, it is their loss, but at least half my pleasure in this sport/game comes from reading the logs of those that find my caches, and my hits do seem to have gone down a bit. At a minimum, I wish that bookmark ratings/reviews received equal time...meaning that "helpfulness ratings" of the lists were displayed in the order they were received, and that the icon used to represent the ratings (currently a thumbs up icon) actually displayed or reflected the percentage of positive and negative reviews. Thus if there was a higher percentage of negative ratings, their list would show a thumbs down icon. As it stands, it is always in the "thumbs up" position. -G2
  8. Ok, so I've got a problem that I saw on the forums quite a while back, but for some amazingly jeuvenile reason, two local cachers have put 5 of my caches and others on bookmark lists titled "thumbs down" and "boycott list"! At first I thought "dorks! oh well, their loss" Then they started to get "helpful" ratings, and people were saying "oh thank you for posting this, now I know where not to waste my time" and similar comments. NOW that started to be disappointing! Both are seasoned, respected cachers in the area and people are taking their advice "sight unseen". I didn't recall ever even having seeing them visit the caches they had listed--As I looked deeper and checked, I was right. So, they've PUBLICLY dissed my caches, and have provided little description/criteria for why caches end up in their lists-- "for various reasons" and "personal choice" "and "ethical reasons" I've emailed them, rated their caches as unhelpful--citing that more info would be better about why caches should be "boycotted". They're nice people, but have not responded. I feel like I'm back in grade school, and am upset because SuzieQ is saying bad things about me, telling classmates not to play with me and won't talk to me and tell me why. Didn't we learn there that if we didn't have anything nice to say, to not say anthing at all?! Share your favorites publicly, but leave your "trash" list (If you must post one) for the trully deserving--and a few do exist. I've only seen two positive reviews of their lists, one unsolicited (I was so happy to see someone else thought their lists were inappropriate too) and the other was submitted by a fellow cacher at my request--just to provide some balance in the reviews to those reading the lists. Unfortunately, the reviews are NOT chronologically listed, and you have to scroll down to the bottom to see the negative reviews (in this case, the negative reviews are "positive" for me since they express displeasure at the way the lists were setup...no decriptive reasons for why caches find themselves oin their thumbs down or boycaott list). I love the bookmarking idea, and I guess we have to take the bad with the good, but I hate that their negative and public lists are dissuading people from hitting my caches when the list-owners themselves haven't even visited them. I expect they have criteria, but it appears to be very random (i.e. not all area webcam, puzzle caches or micros are listed...many, but not all) so it's hard to know why these caches are bad--It leaves people with the impression that the caches are inherently bad, or poorly designed and just not worth their time. IMHO (as well as numerous other prior visitors), my cachers are quite fun! Some caches on their "don't-bother-with-these" lists are on my all-time favorites bookmark list--I just don't get it. Judging friom their favorites lists, my only conclusion is that they believe the only "TRUE" geocaches are ones that are out deep in the woods, require a hike and have no puzzle, tricky, offset element at all. I respect their right to an opinion and their own preferences, but they are influencing newbies, travellers and other locals in an unsportsman-like way. Bad taste, but I can do nothing about it to get my caches off their boycott lists. Incidentally, both their "Favorites" bookmarks lists have a descriptive line for EVERY cache on that list as to why the love it so much!, so they are obviously aware of how to enter a unique descriptions for items on their lists. I've put a lot of time into my caches and am bummed that many cachers will now just ignore them out of hand. Sure, it is their loss, but at least half my pleasure in this sport/game comes from reading the logs of those that find my caches, and my hits do seem to have gone down a bit. At a minimum, I wish that bookmark ratings/reviews received equal time...meaning that "helpfulness ratings" of the lists were displayed in the order they were received, and that the icon used to represent the ratings (currently a thumbs up icon) actually displayed or reflected the percentage of positive and negative reviews. Thus if there was a higher percentage of negative ratings, their list would show a thumbs down icon. As it stands, it is always in the "thumbs up" position. -G2
  9. I have tried a number of the suggested work arounds--and YES they are all ugly, complicated work arounds no matter how much one raves about their solution. A "simple" corridor approach would cover 90% of requests. There was once talk about a bird in the hand...vs the bushes. I fear that the inactivity on this issue over the past year+ might be because THE (capital T) optimal solution is being developed at the expense of a lesser, user-friendly, low-hanging fruit option that would have indeed covered 90% of cacher's needs. We still have no bird either in the hand nor in the bushes. The proverbial Feature Creep appears to have struck again--but not because of the many requests in this forum. The feature requests have been simple and minimal if albeit difficult to implement. A couple suggestions about filtering to exits, cache type. All many of us appear to be asking for (and with all due respect to gpsbabel, gsak, mapsend, SandT) is something simple to use vs. nothing. Put Waymarking.com on hold for a month and bang this puppy out! Of course this should all be applicable to Waymarking as well. The interim would of course have been to allow people to search posted route bookmarks that other more tech-savvy cachers had created. At least letting us eat the bread crumbs. The GC.com website is full of well-designed features and functionality! There are also a couple quirky solutions we have lived with. If need be, lets add one more quirky solution for the time being that allows us generate searches or even simply download GPX files based on fixed or pre-determined routes (say interstate?). These could be downloaded as pre-packaged--but regularly, once-daily, updated--PQs. Server load is minimized, but I can quickly, easily indicate the interstate legs I need, and be off w/o even having to run a server querry. With this feature alone, you could head back to the drawing boards having bought yourself another year of development time--and have learned a thong or too about the feature usefulness, demand etc. That's about as technical as I get, but I hope it's technical enough for this thread. I hope the recent silence from TPTB is only due to Santa's elves not wanting to spoil our Christmas surprise! --for premium members of course. anxiously-waiting, tired-of-the-hacks, -JG (G2 of the Seven G's)
  10. Maybe a dumb question, but I'm a premium member, and can't find where my bookmark lists are going, or where the heck to find other peoples bookmarks or lists! What am I missng here. I'd love to be able to seach on great (highly-rated) places to stop in X region, or along X freeway. I'm also assuming that this is what bookmarks are good for. Thx. -The Seven G's
  11. Yes very clear and I agree with you 100% especially for those category subs that pertain to a particular region only. Cheers, Olar I too just want this to be fun. I like the locationless caches. I want my Stats in one place!!! and i want this to be easy, not bogged down in regulations. I'm hoping (as stated) that this only matters for high level categories, and that simply logging a find will never be so problematic. I've logged 1 waypoint already as a test--without having ever been there--I got the ccords online and logged it. This is an idea I don't like- and I hope will not be too easy. Yes I know it's not a category issue, but more of a general Waymarking concern for waypoint managers. -JG
  12. My question with regard to the 2/3 majority for category acceptance is that Waymarking allows "niche" interesting things to be logged. There's a good chance that something I wanna find,look for with my world-wide circle of friends is not of general interst to others--or will everyone OK everything siomply because they'll want/hope for similar treatment when they try propose their own niche category. So much of the discussion falls down when peo-ple don't post examples, so let me try to post one. I submit a proposal for a category "buildings sporting ceramic tile facades" (a unique kind of tile, not just any tile) Now there's a sizeable group of us worldwide that'd love to share our love of this tile process, and its application to building exteriors--but it's not likely to generate broad appeal. Two things can happen at this point: a) People,say "sure, whatever!--let these category pass--I don't get it, but who am I to stop some category (they might stop mine too someday, I's better be nice)--the guy certainly sounds like he knows what he's talking about" and it passes. (lucky me) And this happens to everybody's category proposals, People say "WTHeck?! Thats a stupid category--just put your waypoints in the "interesting buildings category"--end of discussion. (unlucky me) We go away feeling disenfranchised by the whole Waymarking community feeling like no one understands us--and yet those stupid "nudist beaches", or "microbreweries" categories were--of course--approved!--things I would never have voted for. It's just a for instance, but maybe it helps put my concerns in perspective. There are thigs of value that the masses would not care about, or everything gets allowed in because no one want to be the bad, intollerant, closed-minded guy. JG (G2 of The Seven G's)
  13. Places, towns, signs, establishments boasting the The World's largest dinosaur, shoe, milkshakes etc. I believe this something like this exists as a current locationless cache. But I think it could be worthy of its own category--it's certainly a US thing. Or it could get thrown under the oddity things (but where would it go under places?) A variation on the theme of largest could be "best, tallest, smallest, most famous, first, last, etc. " -The Seven G's
  14. I suggest a Category (Maybe a sub under places) of X capital of X i.e. Potato chip capital of the USA or Motorcyle capital of the world) -The Seven G's
  15. Great ideas/suggestions JPettyC. I like it and have no more suggestions at this point as it is hard holding this all in my imagination. I'd caution that even in this "niche" category (what category isn't niche!), people could go bonkers with subcategories. I hope restraint can be used in setting up categories. It would be easy to have everything clumped under Mormon Memorabilia, but would there be icons suggesting whether or not it was a building, a scenic valley, a museum, a temple, a visitor's center, stained glass windows, memorial plaques, busts or statues, headstones, an event (i.e. Nauvoo, Cumorroah, Manti, or other world-wide pagents...or marriage proposal locations where one "popped the question") These comments/musings would apply generally to other categories as well. This is going to be exciting. -The Seven G's
  16. I'd be interested in the following... Sites of (significant) Religious Significance...This is the oldest known buddhist temple in the US" as opposed to "this is where I first attended church" Upon snooping around at waymark.com, I think I located this already. Although a religious place is not necessarily a religiou beuilding, likewise, a sports facility is not always a stadium. Maybe i just need to get more comfortable/adept at using the search functionality. I think I'm liking this...although my current locationless finds are not showing in my stats yet...but I'm sure that's just a beta issue ;-) -The Seven G's
  17. I want my stats all in one place! If we have to change the stats page a bit, that is fine. Use tabs or some other multi-page feature, but keep it all together. I've also got no problem with listing them separately at Waymarking.com. But one place for all is absolutely preferred. Btw, finding a unique, unlogged WWII tank is as much a "find" as any ammo can--and in some ways even better, cuz like a FtF, it's never been found before. No, they're not seprate activites for some of us. The thrill o the hunt is just as real whether we trade something or not. But better tools to map and search found items is needed. I like Blue Quasar's comments, and while we're blue-skying, like Amazon, lets get the user-ratings on these buggers from something equivilent to "Waste of time" to "Must visit" !! -Joel G. (G2 of the Seven G's)
  18. I own an ifinder GO and an Ifinder Pro. As much as i love my PRO, I do NOT recommend the the GO or GO2--despite the price. They are indeed accurate, but SLOOOOOOOOOW as molasses. When caching with that thing, it updates its screen so slowly (slow processor) and probably fewer samplings/readings from the satellites that you end up passing your spot by 50 ft before it tells yoy to turn around. Even once you flip a 180, it takes MANY seconds before it notices you're heading the opposite way. I've used it plenty of times simultaneously with my ifionder Pro, and its slow response time makes it a royal pain for caching--despite the many wonderfukl things it has going for it!!! Lowrance just does not yet care or even acknowledge the geocaching crowd or thier needs. If you need to find your ice fishing hole once, plop down and start fishing, Sure, there's not a better unit. But caching, or trying to find a micro is no fun with that unit. Finally, the buttons often get stuck--we require a pen to turn ours on, and at times to dig out the buttons that get pressed down too far and get stuck! Having said all this, I LOVE having it as my SECOND unit for the kids or friends that come caching with me. I wanted another unit so bad without killing the bank. I couldn't have been happier with the price for our second unit. -JG
  19. I love my ifinder pro for caching! The small navigation arrow superimposed on the Map page is the best geocaching inteface screen on any GPS on the market. I usually enter manually, but mass-enter coords when I'll be in a region for a while--of course via the SD card. I sure wish Lowrance would acknowledge geocachers more directly. There's no mention of geocaching anywhere on their site! They should stop adding music, voice-recorder and color and worry more about handheld software design and consider building in a 3+ MP camera. Wouldn't that be an awesome caching machine. Blow everyone else out of the water!, and finally place Lowrance on the geocachering gps map where it should be. You gotta love the brand new geocaching-friendly garmin models!!! -Joel G.
  20. I too have an ifonder pro. I really like the last suggestion, and will use it from now on., but I often try for more than 1 a session. Thus, maybe i'll label park 1 and park 2 and cache 1 and 2. The man overboard works, but simply hit "enter", scroll down to "entered position", and enter a new waypoint info. You then need to "exit" before it shows you the options to "goto" or "edit name" etc. It usually defaults to "goto". Just note the automatically assigned (3 digit) number if you choose not to give it a name. Another conventioned used by many is to name it the geocaching waypoint name. (i.e. GY2356) or whatever they are. Yes, name entry could be made simpler on the Lowarnces. I've writen them on this. -G2 of "The Seven G's"
  21. Glass can also be put in a small mesh/net bag, stocking or sock, or a small cloth case/tote for sunglasses etc. and hung in a tree, tied around something etc. This protects it a bit more, cushions a fall should it happen, and gives you more options for placing it--hanging, tieing. And, should it crack, someone has something to tote it out with. They look small, light and thick enough that unless they dropped right on a rock, they probably just bounce and be fine. tftheads up on those. -JG
  22. I put my puzzle up with a graphic and html tables for the text. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...e4-87a9b65e2cad This other we did with text, but ktml kept the elements we needed. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...a5-cc937b1c3910 -The Seven G's
  23. This looks like it could spawn a whole new level of geocaching fun. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4607449.stm -Joel G. (The Seven G's)
  24. Yup, don't forget to reconsider the Lowrance iFinder Pro series! Assuming you want ultimate bang for your buck. I spent $170-ish on mine. Don't have any mapping software yet--haven't needed it yet. Having said that. For all the caching we've done (only 25 so far) with a few different models, it doesn't matter what you get. Get something already and start having fun! And if you're really just dinking around. look at the Lowrance's new Go2 model. Crap, you can't beat $80. I enter all my caches by hand anyway. It's kind of a nuisance to download them-especially when it's so easy to enter them in manually from my paper print outs from the web. -G2
  25. Are you seriously making avatars for people...or have I really misread this. I'd love an geocaching-related avatar that reflects our family caching name. we are "The Seven G's" There are 7 of us, and we often all go together! -G2
×
×
  • Create New...