B+L

Or selective quoting that lacks context. It was not "they", but one dev and he had more to say:

I'd listen to David Lo Pan, especially if his eyes start glowing.

Something tells me Apache is not part of Groundspeak's web stack, but more importantly, your proposed "Sky King Manoever" has a fatal flaw: Google's limits still apply whether or not a site is charging for access. Charging for access meant obtaining a Maps API for Business license (starting at $10,000 per year), but the new usage limits apply to everyone, free access or not.

Obviously it was not an "upgrade". Thus the quotation marks. I understand the reasons the maps were changed, but the solution they chose was not the only one available. And what solution would suggest that does not involve opening our collective wallets? They promised Charter Members the price of a membership would never exceed at $30.00, but they didn't make that same promise to everyone. They made a decision to switch map providers rather than pay Google's new licensing fees, which probably means their polling about the necessary increase in the price of a premium membership told them that an such increase would be wildly unpopular. You know what else is wildly unpopular? Springing changes of this magnitude on their users without a word of warning. If there was any doubt that the GS fanboys and fangirls will defend every move GS makes, it should be put to rest now. As I said elsewhere, I think the change to open maps will be positive in the longer term. Five or six years ago, I sent some corrections to Google for some nearby trails that show up on every map but the USGS Topo Quads as roads. About a year later Google contacted me and said they were not set up to handle changes of that nature, but they'd file my information away for when they were. The day after GS switched maps, I downloaded the Merkaartor app and made the changes myself. I even corrected the name of a local park while I was at it. Those changes were visible on the GS maps the next day when I looked. Now, I just need to learn how to use the sinkhole tool so I can add a little surprise for my firewood stealing neighbor.

What happened to listening?

I thought - and please correct me if I'm wrong! - that up to this point, access to Google Maps was free, and certainly the opensource maps are free. So where does payment come in, previous to Google's decision to charge? There were previous circumstance in which Google was charging fees for the Maps API, such as requiring a login and charging for access, but I have no idea if Groundspeak was paying them or not and it does not really matter. Free to use is does not mean there are not costs associated with using them. Groundspeak's utility bills are not listed as a premium member benefit, but we are paying those as well.

Because we pay you for the service not google. duh. You do? I didn't know that the google maps were a premium member only perk. They were available to all users whether you paid or not. An overwhelming number of the people participating in this thread, or complaining if you will, are premium members. The rest are pretty happy with their ROI. Yes.. but my point is that the maps are not one of the things premium members are paying for. They are/were a free perk. Yes, but my point is that someone is paying for them and it sure isn't the regular members who are paying nothing at all.

Because we pay you for the service not google. duh. You do? I didn't know that the google maps were a premium member only perk. They were available to all users whether you paid or not. An overwhelming number of the people participating in this thread, or complaining if you will, are premium members. The rest are pretty happy with their ROI.

That attitude was pretty common in the glory days of the tech bubble when people thought nothing of paying a million dollars a year for Oracle licenses. In fact it sounds eerily like some Oracle reps that I've been around. Google reps have a reputation for being politer than that. And there are plenty of stories about them being willing to negotiate terms. There is little point in speculating about the details because we don't have access to the numbers and we can't even make informed guesses. GS even keeps their Quantcast scores locked up, which leads to some interesting speculation, but nothing more. I tend to think that Potato Finder's observation about the Google pricing numbers that actually have been mentioned by GS is very likely to be correct.

Yes, it's generally called PR.

i've read elsewhere that Google was willing to negotiate the price down to $2 CPM in at least one instance, but that is still probably an order of magnitude higher than what many sites are willing or able to pay.

Actually, I don't have such a negative view of Groundspeak. I actually think they do plenty of things right, but communications is not one of them. And you won't find me cheerleading for them, because that's their job.

Not really. We are. Groundspeak's habit of performing self-inflicted turnbuckle smashes goes way back. It's all there in the forum archives for anyone to read, although recent changes have made it more of a search-fu project than it used to be. This will sound harsher than intended, but the fish rots from the head.

I'm sorry, but none of that is a valid excuse for the lack of communication both before and after a change of this magnitude. Groundspeak is not a dysfunctional family gathering, it is a company with very poor corporate communications. They don't even have to do anything about it because they know that this is all sound and fury signifying nothing. No one is going anywhere.

Had Groundspeak put out a statement, in advance, that extremely disruptive change was coming, acknowledged that the transition away from Google maps was going to be painful, but they'd worked very hard to replace the maps with something that could eventually be better than what was previously available, apologize for the inconvenience, and ensure everyone that they were woking diligently to improve the situation, you know, act like they actually care about their customers, there would be less reason to be upset. Instead they just sprung this on everyone with a Happy Valentines like it was no big deal. I personally think this transition could be a great move in the long term. In the short term, it's a PR disaster.

It's mostly philosophical differences. Probably irreconcilable. But more to the point, Groundspeak does not seem to have thought about open source development when they drafted their API license. Where the logic really fails is labeling something that is not public, a public API.

Sno-Parks are separate because they are mandated to be 100% self-funded. Everything else can be covered with a Interagency Pass (federal) and a Discover Pass (state). A NW Forest Pass might be a better choice than the Interagency Pass if you don't need the extra coverage for National Parks, etc.

I have to say you two are are quite the inspiration. Happy Trails.

That is a pretty impressive feat in the current environment. Nice going.

B&L You don't need names to point fingers. This is non-debatable. Uh, TL. Do you mind if I call you TL? Relax, please.

No one mentioned any names, so where is the finger pointing? The situation that Shaddow mentioned to is actually more complicated than how it has been portrayed both here and in the WSGA forums, but there is no reason why it should not be discussed in general terms. How else will people learn about it so they can stop making contributions? Once we learned what was going on, we definitely changed the way we move trackables. It is a fact that a certain person tends to hoard trackables and releases some of them in batches every now and then. If the hoarder gets blamed for every missing trackable in the region, it is no one's fault but their own.

As briansnat has pointed out, geocaching is very simple, both conceptually and in practice. That's why geocaching "innovations" are mostly ploys to do something else, but still call it geocaching. I'm hungry. I think I'll go watch a pizza commercial.

Or twice. There is a CO who archives caches and tells people to keep logging them anyway. He does it to circumvent the proximity guideline.

The tone of these forums would improve dramatically if, instead of shutting down threads, you shut down the people who are violating the forum guidelines. This was a great discussion until some people decided that it had gone on for too long and they started disrupting it. The whole disrupt and report routine works quite well to stifle topics they've grown bored with. If you really want to do something that has an immediate impact, please kill the IBTL thread in Off Topic. And every time someone posts IBTL in a thread, make them go sit in a corner until they promise to be nice.

Considering the circumstances surrounding the cache that started this thread, there is a lot of irony packed into that short little sentence. Besides you? It depends. Mostly on the financial circumstances of the victim's survivors and the quality of their legal counsel. Anyone or anything can be blamed and depending on the venue and a host of other factors, blood can actually get squeezed from a turnip. If someone would fashion a raft out of bundled together strawmen and ride it over Niagara Falls, the resulting levity might counterbalance some of the negativity being expressed in this thread and the related "hidden" threads.