cezanne

No there isn't with the new system or do you mean typing in all the waypoints manually? That could be 30 and more points per cache. I would not call that loading then however. The hiders of such caches have listed them on this site with being aware that downloading the waypoints was available to all cachers (of course except the case of PM-only caches). I wouldn't call a cache with 30 or more waypoints "basic geocaching." A basic member with an app can download 3 geocaches a day. That's over 1000 caches a year. Even if one has to manually enter coordinates, that's a considerable amount of geocaching for free. A cache with 30 or more waypoints is extremely rare. As a software developer it doesn't make sense to me to implement functionality, especially something as sigificant as added an additional membership level to accommodate a very rare exception. The cache with 30 or more waypoints was an example (not too exotic around here - a simple urban sightseeing multi like this one https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC6JKMC_der-grazer-schlossberg has already more). The average cacher will also not enjoy to enter manually 10 waypoints and that's quite common for multi caches around here where the waypoints are almost all virtual points and often are needed for the routing to avoid trespassing and other issues. We do not have a wide landscape. The functionality would be needed anyhow to support older GPS units and it's definitely not a good idea to contribute further to chasing away long time cachers who wish to cache with their old equipment which is still perfectly fine. Some cachers own very nice caches and have maintained them up to now but have slowed down their own caching considerably - any way of demovating them and forcing them into big changes is not a good idea and endagers nice caches. The app does not help that sort of target audience that much - many do not even own smartphones. Moreover, the original statement regarding the freeness was made in response to concerns regarding copyrighting and commercializing something which should belong to the community. From that point of view it is irrelevant how many waypoints a cache has. It's the same sort of decision to offer a cache with 1 waypoint on gc.com than one with 100.

No there isn't with the new system or do you mean typing in all the waypoints manually? That could be 30 and more points per cache. I would not call that loading then however. The hiders of such caches have listed them on this site with being aware that downloading the waypoints was available to all cachers (of course except the case of PM-only caches). I wouldn't call a cache with 30 or more waypoints "basic geocaching." A basic member with an app can download 3 geocaches a day. That's over 1000 caches a year. Even if one has to manually enter coordinates, that's a considerable amount of geocaching for free. A cache with 30 or more waypoints is extremely rare. As a software developer it doesn't make sense to me to implement functionality, especially something as sigificant as added an additional membership level to accommodate a very rare exception. The cache with 30 or more waypoints was an example (not too exotic around here). The average cacher will also not enjoy to enter manually 10 waypoints and that's quite common for multi caches around here where the waypoints are almost all virtual points and often are needed for the routing to avoid trespassing and other issues. We do not have a wide landscape. The functionality would be needed anyhow to support older GPS units and it's definitely not a good idea to contribute further to chasing away long time cachers who wish to cache with their old equipment which is still perfectly fine. Some cachers own very nice caches and have maintained them up to now but have slowed down their own caching considerably - any way of demovating them and forcing them into big changes is not a good idea and endagers nice caches. The app does not help that sort of target audience that much - many do not even own smartphones.

No, the HCx is not a so called Geocaching friendly unit. (ie: It can't parse Geocaching GPX files) Hans It worked with the old send to gps however and there is no technical reason it cannot work with the new method in the same manner. I would assume that for premium members the send2gps sent the full gpx file and units like the HCx just used what they can interpret. The other possible option would be that send2gps sent a reduced gpx file to units like the HCx (the same form of file that was sent for basic members). If the new method does not work for older GPS units, then this is even much more restrictive than by limiting access only to PMs. PMs with modern GPS units have plenty of alternative options anyway and will typically use the alternatives. While from the point of view of Groundspeak's business model I can partially understand why they made the decision to offer the new tool only to PMs, I cannot understand at all why they did not take care of the issue of older Garmin units which would be very easy to deal with.

But why? The "Send to GPS" feature already produces a lite GPX file for non-premium members. It shouldn't be that hard to just integrate that into the "Download GPX" button. This is also what I have thought. I was not provided with reasons neither in other forum threads nor in the mentioned communication with someone from the staff.

Thank you very much for the clarification. It would have helped if the original announcement said that. The message that came across was confusing and even more so as the launch of a new method to transfer data to Garmin GPS units was preannounced for mid to end of April in other threads. That's however true regardless of the member status. So how can basic members provide a feedback that might have any influence on the future development? They cannot comment on something they cannot use and analysing the data usage will no change anything. Or do you mean you will only consider an addition to another place if PMs ask for another place or if the usage of the tool will be excessively large by PMs?

The loc files do not contain the additional waypoints anyhow. I had a lengthy communication (it took time to explain the details to the support person) with someone from the GS support about this some weeks ago and the answer in the end was that GS is not planning to offer such a lite version of gpx files for basic members.

How many waypoints did you enter? I need to admit that I would not enjoy entering say 35 waypoints for a single cache and I also would end up with a mess. I dertainly would not want to key in all the waypoints of this cache (and no, it is not an extreme one) https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC5GK9J_vulkanland-noch-zoll-aufi

At least I have come across quite a number of longer hiking and biking caches in Germany (btw considerably more than in my area) and several other regions of my country. I'd say that in regions which do not have much wilderness multi caches are the one of the verw few ways to offer a longer hike apart from powertrail like cache series which I do not regard as better option. Not really as there as the new Garmin tool would allow usage by basic members too - they would not need to link it to be used for downloading many caches at the same time. Moreover, it is not really about the data transfer (I have many programs available that I can use to send waypoints to my GPS-r). Another solution would be to offer a gpx file with (only) the waypoints on the cache page for basic members. That would not require any sort of data transfer and would also be manufacturer independent.

I guess you would not have enjoyed doing that for caches with many waypoints as many of mine in particular the multi caches I have hidden in recent years knowing that the waypoints can be downloaded. Hints and things do not play a role for me as I could not enter them into my GPS but that's not necessary for me anyway - I prefer to have them on paper anyhow.

No there isn't with the new system or do you mean typing in all the waypoints manually? That could be 30 and more points per cache. I would not call that loading then however. The hiders of such caches have listed them on this site with being aware that downloading the waypoints was available to all cachers (of course except the case of PM-only caches).

That does not sound plausible to me. I believe that from the financial point of view more could be earned by not chasing away cachers that paid the PM-fee for years and stopped doing so by changes in the activity. The pure app crowd will never stay very long. They also should never forget that the most important ingredient of geocaching are still the geocaches hidden and maintained by the cachers out there.

Of course they have! They have the option to become premium members But then they do not stay basic members. Seriously, with all the disadvantages which come along with that - if GS wants to go that way they should at least offer different levels of membership. It's a different type of thing to pay for certain services and to support a company/business for an activuty which should belong to the community. The first is purely a financial thing, the latter is a sort of political statement too. In my area some of the very popular caches are owned by basic members. What will come next? Maybe a new cache hiding page that needs something which is available only to premium members? If the goal is to force almost everyone into premium membership that noone will be able to keep an eye on what is offered to basic members and whether geocaching stays open.

They could have mentioned it, right. They also could have replied to questions raised in the forefront. [...] GS actually did mention it. Open your eyes. That could just as well be understood in reference to "with a click of a button" or that a series of caches can be sent in one step. I would not mind 10 clicks or whatever and I was fine with sending each cache manually for years. The announcement did not make it very explicit that basic members have no option at all.

They could have mentioned it, right. They also could have replied to questions raised in the forefront. It's unfortunate indeed and it does not fit in my eyes to Jeremy's old promise which was not so much a money thing in my eyes but played a much larger role when it came to increase the credibility for the claims that what was done with respect to copyright and similar issues was done with the wellbeing of the community in mind. And the interesting thing is that it seems that the restriction does not come from a new system or a new tool that is available only to PMs. Like the watch list is available to all members it seems conceivable to have created a new list type transfer list - it would have sufficed to make one such list available to basic members. Of course those do not have any right to request anything - it would have been a nice gesture however and it would have be in line with the old promise. I wonder however whether the new president still feels commited to the old promise anyhow. Yes, that would make sense.

Thanks, good to know.

Ist der richtige Typ im setup eingestellt? Wenn Du Batterien benutzt aber zB Akkus voreingestellt sind, dann waere das beobachtete Verhalten nicht so ueberraschend.

No it shouldn't be removed right now as it still works with some browser/OS combinations and is the only method usable by basic members and owners of other GPS units not produced by Garmin.

I guess this tool only downloads the public waypoints, right? send to gps also transferred the hidden waypoints of my owned caches.

I was finally correct (I would have wished to be wrong however). http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=343784 Actually it is even worse than what I guessed would happen as basic members cannot even transfer the waypoints of traditionals via this new method as they cannot use lists.

Oh "wonderful" - that means the method is only usable for Premium members while the old send to gps was usable for all cachers

I agree with you that not one of the methods is better than the other. Personally I prefer however by far virtual stages as *finder* even when the cache is perfectly maintained. Virtual stages can go missing too but they typically distract much less from my main activity which is hiking, walking or biking. That's of course my individual preference. I do not agree at all however with statements (not yours) that multi caches originally were meant to have only physical stages.

Back at the dawn of time for geocaching, there was low participation everywhere. How did geocaching become healthy then, and would those same things make it healthy again in areas with low participation today? I did not say anything about becoming healthy again - the development does not seem to be reversible. The small number of cachers active back then were very attached to the activity and felt quite early the wish to contribute to the activity by hiding and maintaining their own caches and they part of a tightly knit community that tried to work together. Typically these people remained longer geocachers than it happens for cachers who started out during the last years. In addition back then it was rather common in my region to place caches often quite far from where the cachers lived - the level of expectation on how fast the hider needs to react in case of troubles has been much lower. There are many rural area where no cachers live close by. The people living in the mountains typically have other things to care about than hobbies like geocaching. Geocaching profited from cachers living in or close to cities who happened to be willing to travel further to hide caches (I do not mean vacation caches - I mean caches hidden on normal weekend hiking trips as these people still go for but without hiding caches).

I'm having a hard time getting on board calling this rude. Yes, it was a universal reply, so it focuses on things the customer can try that will eliminating many possible causes of various problems. We don't know what Troumad reported, so I don't think we can fairly label the universal response a mistake, let alone a rude one. Read at face value, the response is a polite response by someone that doesn't yet know about this problem. I don't have enough information to even consider this bad tech support. I also would not call it rude as it was meant helpful in my opinion though of course it was not helpful at all. I also would not call it tech support which is part of the problem in my experience. Typically people at HQ answer such mails who have hardly any or no tech knowledge at all. If someone is persistent it could take 5 rounds to explain the person at HQ what it's about just to realize in the end that one did not get anything out of the communication in return because one's own understanding of the matter is superior. They send out a whole lot of universal responses these days regardless of what the cachers are asking and regardless of the level of details and technical expertise offered by the cacher who contacts GS. In my humble opinion GS has too much non technical staff and not enough technical staff. The people who cover the user support are typically friendly but do not understand a lot of the requests sent by people who have a better tech background. I come to the conclusion to rather recommend a cacher to ask fellow cachers for help than the HQ support for all matters where involving HQ is not strictly necessary - what you get from the HQ support is typically frustrating and one can end up with feeling that one is not taken serious.

I do not think that it's a fair comparison to compare an area far from one's home with one's home area. There the decision for many is now to not visit caches at all or to visit caches they do not enjoy that much. The status of geocaching varies vastly with the area. It is certainly not dying in your area and not in mine. However there are areas where almost no new caches get hidden and almost all active cachers have left and the few that join the activity leave relatively soon too. In my experience geocaching does better in areas close to larger cities.

So, is the problem with HQ, or with the community? Probably with both - I'm not into the swag stuff but what HQ without doubt contributed a lot to is the growth of geocaching which made many enter the activity who are very different from those from the early times with all the implied consequences. Back then it also made sense to share some kind of best kept secret locations which has become a bad idea later with the so much enlarged community.