Chris n Maria

As I mentioned here Waymarking as it stands at the moment does not work as a replacement for most of the virtuals that I have visited in that the whole point of them is to surprise the visitor. Categorising them would completly spoil the point of them. In other posts Jeremy has said that such a category would be of interest so here I am formally proposing it. Chris

Actually the new site removes the Wow factor completly.

I won't be moving my virtual over to Waymarking.com. It will be deleted if it has to be. I'm not going to "maintain" anything on Waymarking.com as I have no interest in them (too many caches left). Same here - As I said at the start its a sad day for caching. Chris

Blimey we are still in the top 100 in the UK (63) and we really arn't trying anymore - not like when we was at number 7.

Its something I've been wondering about for a while and I have come up with a few answers: The local yobs raid the poo bins and chuck them everywhere (not very bright the yobs round our way). People leave them for collection - i.e they are doing a circular walk and rather than carry them they leave them to pick up at the end. They do it as a protest against there not being any bins (go figure). They bagged it and discovered there were no bins within 10 feet. They are stupid. All appear to be true at one time or another. As for dogs as caching companions we say YES - big time, we have never found anywhere we have wanted to cache where Boysie can't go (especially as he has a harness with a handle on the back that means you can carry him like a suitecase over styles etc.). He won't jump up you (or even take notice of you) unless you rattle a plastic bag...he thinks thats food. If you want a truly honest relationship..get a dog Chris

I can't help feeling that the milestones should be significant so how about only have congrats threads at: 100 500 1000 2000 Waddayafink? Chris

Yup thanks from here tooo - good to see so many old and new friends. Chris

Its not only a hacking issue, there have been cases of people writing web-scrappers that hit the site so hard they bring the servers down. IIRC The software blocks you if you make an unnatural (automated) number of requests in a short period of time.

I'd be interested to know what TPTB have to say on this. This sort of thing could reduce the load on the PQ server... CHris

The team "topHat" did have a monopoly series in london but got fed up with the caches going missing (I think). Here they are: 4 3 2 1

GHreat stuff - well done all.

^^^^ I was going to say that

Apart from the parks - I never bother with the GPS. Just plot the location on the A-z and follow that. I once got 180meters accuracy by the side of the thames - so that dosn't help you know which side of the river you are aiming for Chris

Yup the wow category is well thought out - nice one. If it was surprise though it would save all that definition of WOW factor

I've been giving some thought to Waymarking and why it seems such a poor replacement for virtual cches and I think I have come up with an answer. When you set up a virt you don't have to tell the finder anything about the cache. So it can be a total surprise... 2 of our virts work like this and they have been well recieved. The whole concept of categories takes any excitement out of the game. So why not have a category of "Surprise" to provide an equivelant to virts? Also it is possible to setup a virtual multi on GC.com and I can see no way for these to fit in to the new site. Am I right or have I missunderstood?

I can...and do... As far as I can see the "virtual problem" was only really a US phenomina. In the UK most of the virtuals I have visited have been much better than the nearby physicals. If waypoint rating is so great and helps us eliminate pointless waypoints - why not just introduce it on GC.com and leave the virts and locationless there?

Since you require a Groundspeak answer, I'll answer. Grandfathering in this case is no longer allowing new (webcam, virtuals) but allowing the existing ones to be listed as long as they are maintained. Ahhh, so it means not backdating the rules. If only someone had said that earlier things would have been a tad clearer.

Personally I have never been a big fan of webcam caches..but, they were all part of the variety of the game. I didn't like them so I didn't do them. Now it seems that the whole concept of cache types is to disappear - the only thing allowed on GC.com will be physicals. It just seems that TPTB want to standardise exactly what a cache is, which to me will take quite a lot of interest out of the game.

Ahh but it is.. If you want to create a virt, locationless, earthcache or webcam cache then you have to use the new site. No option at all to keep things how they were

The problem really is one of TPTB's own making. From the very early days of GC.com they have insisted on listing pretty much anything with no emphasis on quality. I can still place a magnetic micro on a lampost in a dull and uninteresting suburban street - and it would get approved. People complained about this and the problem was seen as "lame virtuals" when actually the problem was lame caches (of any type). The same thing happened with locationless, rather than allow a few interesting ones loads were listed and the moaners started again. Now the moaners have won, anything that is not a "box in the woods" has to go to the other site where it will disappear in a sea of noise (Mcdonalds, Graves over 100yrs..etc). How easy would it be to find my very favourite virt (historic castleton) on the new site?....next to impossible. Yet again on the new site there seems to be a "list anything - no matter how dull" mentality. I, like many others, will not be using the new site. As I have no interest in locationless caches. I do like traditionals, multis,virts,webcams,mysteries,earth caches and all the other variations in between that make the game so interesting. Was it really so difficult to avoid caches you wern't interested in? A sad day indeed Chris

A sad day indeed - I can understand locationless in a seperate space but not virts I recon Webcam caches will be next... Chris

Dictionary.com defines it as: To exempt (one involved in an activity or business) from new regulations. So I am really none the wiser....

[quote Existing maintained virtuals on geocaching.com will be grandfathered on the web site. What does "grandfathered" mean? Are they stayting on the site or going?

Change your geocaching name to "Robin Lovelock" and TPTB will delete your account. - Supurb - I needed a laugh this morning.

As far as I can see getting rid of the 500 limit would reduce the number of PQS dramatically. It takes me 14 queries to download the whole of the UK. If I could download them all with one query this would only need to be run once a month or so combined with a weekly "whats changed" query, the load would be significantly reduced.