Why Do You Need To Schedule Reoccuring Pq's?

[+Team yGEOh]

This is the basic question that is asked of almost every Member that starts a thread stating that their scheduled PQ's are not running as scheduled. This is especially true for Members that schedule daily reoccuring PQ's.

 

This thread will also allow the TPTB to see why running reoccuring scheduled PQ's is so important to some.

 

I have come to the realization that TPTB do not see a problem with their current PQ prioritization scheme so I no longer schedule reoccuring PQ's. I just run copies of my needed PQ's. I believe that the run history retention of the PQ prioritization scheme is far too long. I think it should be limited to 24 - 48 hours.

 

I used to run a daily PQ because I was on dialup & there are a lot of very active caches in my metropolitan area and it was nice to read the logs of many of them on a daily basis offline using GSAK instead of going to each webpage and tieing up the phone line.

If PQ's had more than 5 logs in them, daily scheduled PQ's might not be needed as much. An option to select how many logs we would like included in the PQ would be nice. Let us choose 0,5,10,15,20,or 25 logs to be included in our PQ. There are some very active caches that are logged more than 5x between PQ's.

 

 

In reality it does not matter what the reasons are for scheduling reoccuring PQ's.

[+StarBrand]

Ok - so help me understand. Pretend I am TPTB (I'm not). Because I just don't get it.

 

In an age where web access is cheap and can be found at dozens of roadside cafe's, there is even a nice WAP interface. Why can't you just access the web site for the latest and greatest data? (I know - no laptop, no wireless, no access etc...)

 

Why isn't 5 logs enough? - always has been for me and everybody I cache with via paperless. Sure once in a while the logs don't give a lot of info but most of the time they do. I keep hearing about offline databases but I fail to understand the facination when all the data can be had via the web site? Seriously, making VERY large GPX files with more and likely redundant logs just doesn't seem necessary.

 

Please - help me understand.

Edited July 20, 2006 by StarBrand

[+Miragee]

I don't schedule my PQs. I use a tabbed browser and keep the PQ list page open all the time. Every few days I'll take a glance at the page and if I feel like it, I'll request a PQ that hasn't run for a while.

 

That PQ always runs within a few minutes and then after opening the file in GSAK, the database is again fairly up-to-date.

 

I don't need each and every log for this very cache-rich area, so having the PQ page handy and requesting one of the many I have in the list when I feel like it works for me.

[robertlipe]

I suspect this discussion will quickly look very much yesterday's version.

 

Oh, and fast web access is NOT cheap for everyone.

[+dino-irl]

Or even available to everyone! You gotta remember that this isn't just a suburban US-based activity

[+dino-irl]

As to the OP:

 

Reason 1: I travel a lot through work and don't always have access to the internet. In order to make caching as easy and enjoyable as possible I like to have an up-to-date offline database of Ireland (with approx 500 caches this is easy to do with 2 daily PQs). If I have an offline database I can easily cache in areas that I'm visiting on short notice.

 

Reason 2: Most of my cache hunts are in rural areas where there is limited access to the internet. If I want to see a hint/spoiler/cache page I want it on my PDA and the only option is an offline database. This also means I'm less likely to spend time hunting for a disabled/archived/missing cache if I have the most recent logs.

 

Reason 3: I'm permitted a total of 25 PQs a week. Why is there such a problem running 10?

 

Reason 4: I can! I have been able to until recently and so far no one has given a good reason why I can't/shouldn't or explained what is being done to allow me to do so again. This is the most frustrating part, being left in the dark!

[+welch]

Ok - so help me understand. Pretend I am TPTB (I'm not). Because I just don't get it.

 

In an age where web access is cheap and can be found at dozens of roadside cafe's, there is even a nice WAP interface. Why can't you just access the web site for the latest and greatest data? (I know - no laptop, no wireless, no access etc...)

 

Why isn't 5 logs enough? - always has been for me and everybody I cache with via paperless. Sure once in a while the logs don't give a lot of info but most of the time they do. I keep hearing about offline databases but I fail to understand the facination when all the data can be had via the web site? Seriously, making VERY large GPX files with more and likely redundant logs just doesn't seem necessary.

 

Please - help me understand.

How about:

Why are you (TPTB) expecting me to do things a certain way? If its possiable, why not give me what I want in whatever flavor I want?

Yea I could do it your way, use 5 logs, get off dial-up, buy a laptop and go to a coffeeshop every single day, etc... But I would much rather you do things my way instead

(What more reason can there be than that?)

[+StarBrand]

....How about:

Why are you (TPTB) expecting me to do things a certain way? If its possiable, why not give me what I want in whatever flavor I want?

Yea I could do it your way, use 5 logs, get off dial-up, buy a laptop and go to a coffeeshop every single day, etc... But I would much rather you do things my way instead

(What more reason can there be than that?)

 

Actually that is just about the way I can boil down most (not all) the arguments I have ever seen about the "need" for "addtional logs"/"number of PQs"/"caches in a pq" etc - sigh....

 

Because it isn't MY way I guess I will never understand. {joke}

 

Anyway - I have always received my Poceket Queries - of course I just run them when I will be going somewhere and not scheduled.

 

Best of luck with this request {seriously}.

[+welch]

....How about:

Why are you (TPTB) expecting me to do things a certain way? If its possiable, why not give me what I want in whatever flavor I want?

Yea I could do it your way, use 5 logs, get off dial-up, buy a laptop and go to a coffeeshop every single day, etc... But I would much rather you do things my way instead

(What more reason can there be than that?)

 

Actually that is just about the way I can boil down most (not all) the arguments I have ever seen about the "need" for "addtional logs"/"number of PQs"/"caches in a pq" etc - sigh....

 

Because it isn't MY way I guess I will never understand. {joke}

 

Anyway - I have always received my Poceket Queries - of course I just run them when I will be going somewhere and not scheduled.

 

Best of luck with this request {seriously}.

Its seriously not a request that everyone do thing 'my way'

But I would be interested in knowing about why things must be done a certain way. People do things differently (well duh, right?), would the system overload and die if all Premium members were given some options on how run their PQ? (some want more logs, some say 5 is fine, some want none, some want more waypoints, some don't, some want micros and MOCs filtered out when it arrives, some will disect the PQ on their own)

[+Fish Below The Ice]

Why isn't 5 logs enough? - always has been for me and everybody I cache with via paperless. Sure once in a while the logs don't give a lot of info but most of the time they do. I keep hearing about offline databases but I fail to understand the facination when all the data can be had via the web site? Seriously, making VERY large GPX files with more and likely redundant logs just doesn't seem necessary.

If I've been searching for a cache for half an hour and am making no progress, I'll get out my Palm and read through the logs to see if anybody dropped a clue that might be useful to me. Maybe the hint is in the 5 most recent logs, maybe it was in a log from two years ago. If I've got lots of logs to read, then I've got a better chance of getting the nudge in the right direction.

 

dave

[+pppingme]

Why isn't 5 logs enough?

 

Please - help me understand.

 

Two good reasons... First is that if some type of maintenance is involved recently, that can easily tie up 5 log entries (two people visit same day and both report needs maint, owner posts note saying they will check, owner posts another note saying they fixed it, etc..) This pretty much leaves no usuable logs (in most cases, its not likely that the maintenance related logs are going to help me or not help me, I dont really care that a log book is wet or that a container is leaking water, I would still attempt the cache).

 

Another reason, some caches are really challenging, so 5 dnf's in a row may actually not be that unusual. If I only had 5 logs to look at, and they were all dnf's, then most people (including me) would assume its missing. I use GSAK and try to get close data to me as much as I can, the logs accumulate in GSAK, then I export all that to my PDA, I export at least 10 logs, sometimes I export all that I have.

 

A good example of this is:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...5a-71a2228b6e91

 

Out of the last 6 logs, 5 were DNF's (the most recent was a find). If I had looked at only 5 logs the day before that most recent find, I would assume that this cache is probably missing. Out of the last 15 attempts, there were only 4 finds, indeed a challenging cache. So yes, having more than 5 logs could be the difference for me between attempting a cache and not attempting it.

[+Cheminer Will]

Reading this thread it seems like not everyone is looking at yesterday's that Robert linked above. Quoted below from Robert's post over there, is just one very succinct reason to have more that 5 logs. As Robert said in another post in that thread "freakishly" he hunted a cache last night that turned out to be unfindable without access to more than 5 logs.

 

Quote: Robert Lipe

This has long been a requested feature - dating back to the first few weeks of PQs, in fact.. I think a LOT of PQs are being ordered up and aggregated offline exactly to get around the five log limit. All it takes is one carload of cachers to destroy the usefulness of logs.

 

June 3 Cacher A Found with Power Train

June 3 Cacher B Found with Power Train

June 3 Cacher C Found with Power Train

June 3 Cacher D Found with Power Train

June 3 Found using Herbert's coords below that are a mere 800 feet from the cache. Thanx, Herbert!

June 1 Herbert: Used fone a friend with placer. Cache page is wrong. Corrected coords...

 

Lots of seekers really do want more than five logs. I found 25 to be a reasonable compromise when I was worried about such things. That's old enough that "herbert's" coords would finally make it to the real page in almost all cases and it captures the interesting part of the history.

 

Sometimes, though, you want to study an area and don't care about logs at all or you don't even care about the 'long term' history. I proposed pulldown of options for "0, 5, 10, and 25" logs, but that never went anywhere. Would most people choose the "supersize" option for everything? Would there be a net reduction because people could order up fewer PQs to capture log history? I really don't know.