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PQ's expiring...


Jonovich

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Arrggh..

 

Just spotted my PQ's now say

 

Here are the Pocket Query search results in the formats you requested.

 

It has been 30 days since you last edited this query. To continue receiving this query next week you will need to reselect the days for it to run. This is an automatic housekeeping rule to speed up Pockey Query generation for everyone.

 

And have been un-checked for a re-run next week. Anyone else spotted this?

 

J

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Arrggh..

 

Just spotted my PQ's now say

 

Here are the Pocket Query search results in the formats you requested.

 

It has been 30 days since you last edited this query. To continue receiving this query next week you will need to reselect the days for it to run. This is an automatic housekeeping rule to speed up Pockey Query generation for everyone.

 

And have been un-checked for a re-run next week. Anyone else spotted this?

 

J

 

Interesting i have just finished editing all our PQ's this week so all of mine are running and no notification.

It's subtly different to last years "run once and turn off approach" which led to a lot of complaints on and off the forums.

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It's subtly different to last years "run once and turn off approach" which led to a lot of complaints on and off the forums.

 

Indeed, I enabled an old query for Oxford that I set last year but had not used since, that arrived within 10 minutes and without the warning. Seems to be as the description, regular queries that have not been touched in 30 days are being dropped from the schedule.

 

J

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I think it's a good idea if it works as it indicates (only PQs that haven't been edited for 30+days). IIRC it was one of the methods recommended on the Website Forum to help avoid clogging of the system and a recurrence of the problems we experienced earlier this year.

 

I wish it could come as a seperate email though as I would have missed this if it hadn't been pointed out here. Also a bit of a pain for anyone using a Macro to import from GM :blink:

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If we pay for them, we are entitled to them, I think Groundspeak need to read international law books before the take commercial decisions.

 

When you sign up to GC.com as a premium member there is nothing to say you can't have regular PQs, therefore, to change the rules is making the contract one sided, this is not an accepted practice, and they are just winding the paying Premium members up. I think we should all make our voices heard :blink:

Edited by Moote
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Has anyone ascertained whether re-checking the box (rather that re-editing them) will give them another 30 days life of just until they run again?

 

I've re-ticked mine and they have remained ticked. So I'll see if I both get them again next Wednesday and if they expire again immediately or are good for another 30 days.

 

J

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3 of our PQ's expired but were easily sorted and are now back in place. I think it's a good idea for Groundspeak to do this from time to time as I bet there are a ton of PQ's running every week which do not need to e.g. the cacher has lost interest and forgot to or not got round to deleting the PQ's.

 

If they just emailed people to ask them to delete ones they did not need I bet they would not get as many PQ's being turned off as they do by this method

 

I have to say though, it would have been nice to have an email off Groundspeak to let us know this was happening and what to do to switch them back on.

 

Edited to add I'm not too happy now I know I need to do this every month :blink:

Edited by The Bolas Heathens
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PQ's don't "expire" but they do stop generating until you go in and edit them. Then you get another 30 days.

 

Hi Chief,

 

Can you confirm I have to edit them or can I just enable them with the tick?

 

Cheers

 

J

Dunno sorry. I was told "edit" so I suggest someone tries just "re-ticking" and see what happens then tells us all. As I run PQ's I'd like to know too :blink:

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Dunno sorry. I was told "edit" so I suggest someone tries just "re-ticking" and see what happens then tells us all. As I run PQ's I'd like to know too :blink:

 

No worries... I've re-ticked mine and they have remained ticked, so looks to be favourable. Will see next week if they remain and indeed if they expire sorry, un-schedule themselves immediately or not.

 

Many thanks!

 

Jon

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Surely the point of a query I have not changed in 30 days is that it does exactly what I want it to do, so why would I want to edit it? What am I meant to usefully edit it to if it already does as I want it to?

Precisely my thoughts on this :( idea.

 

Why do we never get advance notice of this sort of change? I was led to believe that the USA was customer orientated - but this sort of thing seems to disprove that theory :(

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I think it's a good idea for Groundspeak to do this from time to time as I bet there are a ton of PQ's running every week which do not need to e.g. the cacher has lost interest and forgot to or not got round to deleting the PQ's.

 

Good Idea?????

 

I pay for this feature so I should receive the service I request, my contract with GC.com (agreement on payments page) does not tell me that I can't have a regular set of PQs; therefore Grondspeak are working outside EU consumer law, as it is up to the supplier to be explicit at the point of sale.

 

They tell me I can have 35 a week so from now on I will run 35, I don't need them but i pay for them so 35 it will be. Let the GC boys realise that they are seriously P*****g off people here

 

FACT

 

As someone that as been heavily involved in OLAP data processing these PQ should not put a major strain on the GC.com empire, if their technical crew had specified the system for the job, but I have always suspected that it is a shoe string affair.

 

GET YOUR DATA WAREHOUSE IN ORDER Groundspeak

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I pay for this feature so I should receive the service I request, my contract with GC.com (agreement on payments page) does not tell me that I can't have a regular set of PQs; therefore Grondspeak are working outside EU consumer law, as it is up to the supplier to be explicit at the point of sale.

 

I don't think they are stopping you having all your PQ's regularly so I don't think Trading Standards would get too worked up about this one even if the Groundspeak was based in the UK.

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Absolutely. My initial comments were made when I thought this might be a one off exercise. No-one is stopping anyone running regular PQ's, it just requires some manual intervention every so often now.

 

For the record I'm not a bit happy about this now - my initial comments were made when I thought it was just a one-off housekeeping exercise (which I could certainly understand and accept).

 

I don't think they are stopping you having all your PQ's regularly so I don't think Trading Standards would get too worked up about this one even if the Groundspeak was based in the UK.

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AFAIK this is a permanent feature and I understand it has been implemented to ensure that PQ's only run when needed. You will need to "refresh" the schedule page EVERY month to keep them coming.

 

If the legal and technical "experts" have any comments or suggestions I suggest they post them to contact@geocaching.com where they will be dealt with appropriately. I am not supporting nor decrying this change, only trying to help clarify what has happened. I have now reached the full extent of my knowledge so I have nothing more to add.

 

I'm off to re-tick my own PQ's now. :(

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As someone that as been heavily involved in OLAP data processing these PQ should not put a major strain on the GC.com empire, if their technical crew had specified the system for the job, but I have always suspected that it is a shoe string affair.

I suspect the problem is that whereas geocaching has been growing exponentially, Groundspeak's investment in hardware has not followed suit.

GET YOUR DATA WAREHOUSE IN ORDER Groundspeak

Seconded!

 

Groundspeak - we've given you easily enough money to buy a few new servers for the PQ farm; now where are they?!

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They tell me I can have 35 a week so from now on I will run 35, I don't need them but i pay for them so 35 it will be. Let the GC boys realise that they are seriously P*****g off people here

We have always done that :(

 

Yes we did get an email and just like last time it was "hidden" in the text of the PQ email.

I have the please notify me of changes to the website ticked still no separate email

The same complaint was made last year. Looks like they listened.

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Arrggh..

 

Just spotted my PQ's now say

 

Here are the Pocket Query search results in the formats you requested.

 

It has been 30 days since you last edited this query. To continue receiving this query next week you will need to reselect the days for it to run. This is an automatic housekeeping rule to speed up Pockey Query generation for everyone.

 

And have been un-checked for a re-run next week. Anyone else spotted this?

 

J

 

No warnings here, or am I looking in the wrong place.

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No warnings here, or am I looking in the wrong place.

 

Not sure, where are you looking? The message I quoted was taken from the text part of the email that my PQ's come with.

 

J

 

I ran 5 PQs last night and all of thema arrived with out the warning in the text of the email. A couple of them were ones that haven't been run for ages, and a couple were ones that I run reasonably regularly.

 

I have several PQs that are only run when I need to visit certain parts of the country, so don't have them ticked for weekly downloads, I just run them when I'm going to that area, which could be next week or next month, or not for six months !!!

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I ran 5 PQs last night and all of thema arrived with out the warning in the text of the email. A couple of them were ones that haven't been run for ages, and a couple were ones that I run reasonably regularly.

 

I have several PQs that are only run when I need to visit certain parts of the country, so don't have them ticked for weekly downloads, I just run them when I'm going to that area, which could be next week or next month, or not for six months !!!

 

It is only an issue if you have set PQ's that run automatically every week. What occurs is that 30 days after scheduling them to run regularly, if you haven't touched them or adjusted them, they turn themselves off (expire). So from your description, it will not affect your current PQ's as they have not been sat, in a scheduled state, for 30 days or more.

 

J

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So to get this straight (assuming that is that re-ticking works as editing!), every month I have to untick each PQ (and wait whilst the webpage acknowledges each one individually) then do the same exercise to re-tick them?

 

So during this process the page will need to refresh some 60!!! times?!

 

And that won't impact on Groundspeak more adversely than just letting them run ?!

 

I can understand this exercise being run every year, possibly every 6 months, but given only premium subscribers can get PQs, and we sign up for a year, shouldn'tthat be the appropriate filter?

 

Of course if they implemented a "1PQ for the whole of the UK" then they could massively reduce the no of PQs sent out. It could be 1 run, sent out to whoever subscibes to it, done at a low use time for the GC server? Is that technically possible? Would the file be too large? Thoughts? (I know it's been rasied before but it seems to offer a bit of a solution to this issue that GC seem to be having (to those that want all the UK I appreciate)?

 

Where do I complain!?

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Of course if they implemented a "1PQ for the whole of the UK" then they could massively reduce the no of PQs sent out.

 

Will never happen. :(

 

The way GC want you to run PQ's is like this.

Im going out to location x using rout x-y

I run a pq for location x or route x - y

The pq will run immediately because its new.

Load pq go out cache come home

Delete pq.

 

Repeat as necessary.

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I've just asked Jeremy and he confirms it's a change which came in today (along with a number of bug fixes). PQ's don't "expire" but they do stop generating until you go in and edit them. Then you get another 30 days.

 

Surely the point of a query I have not changed in 30 days is that it does exactly what I want it to do, so why would I want to edit it? What am I meant to usefully edit it to if it already does as I want it to?

 

Wouldn't it make more sense if this "expiry" was tied into access to the site? I mean, wouldn't it be better if regular PQs expired if someone hadn't accessed the site for a month, on the grounds that if they hadn't visited then they haven't logged/done a cache, so they don't need regular updates? Just a thought...

 

B.

 

<The deer wonders off to see if there's a thread about this on the website forum...>

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I suspect this will improve the service for people who only have one or two PQs for areas they visit regularly (eg nearest 400 to home), and set up a special one for areas they're going to visit, as they'll only have a couple of clicks every month - compared to the improved server speed which'll come from not running PQs that people have set up, don't need any more, but haven't bothered to disable.

 

It'll inconvenience those who run loads of queries to give them the whole country, but apart from a few exceptions - people who regularly travel at short notice and don't know until the last minutes where they're going, for work for example - I don't really understand why anyone would want that anyway.

 

Setting up surplus pocket queries that you don't really need as a "revenge attack" on Groundspeak, as one person has suggested, is all very well - but it isn't going to bother Groundspeak all that much. Even if everyone who cares enough to want to do it, does it, the removal of not-needed PQs will probably result in a net reduction overall. Even if it does significantly slow the system down, it's going to inconvenience fellow cachers a lot more than it does TPTB.

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What would make most sense is if Groundspeak made a full UK caches GPX download avilable (to premium members), and then all of us who are running our separate sets of PQs to get this information could all download the single source, as and when required. As it is, we all query for pretty much the same stuff as each other and so the effort is being replicated numerous times.

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Setting up surplus pocket queries that you don't really need as a "revenge attack" on Groundspeak, as one person has suggested, is all very well -

 

I dont do it for revenge i do it cause i want the pq's and as they allow you to have 5 per day in return for money i figured it was OK to do so.

 

If they dont want me to have as many pq's available then perhaps they could lower the limit to 4 per day?

 

Or maybe if they used a mirror server somewhere else that would help.

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What would make most sense is if Groundspeak made a full UK caches GPX download avilable (to premium members), and then all of us who are running our separate sets of PQs to get this information could all download the single source, as and when required. As it is, we all query for pretty much the same stuff as each other and so the effort is being replicated numerous times.

 

Definitely, but markandlynn said:

 

Will never happen. :anitongue:

 

So I came up with an alternative suggestion. :D

 

Has anyone mentioned the issue in the Geocaching.com Web Site section of the forums as that's the place TPTB will see it and maybe they may do something about it (well, we can live in hope anyway <_<)?

 

Not that I could see when I wondered over there, but that was a few hours ago...

 

B.

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I suspect this will improve the service for people who only have one or two PQs for areas they visit regularly (eg nearest 400 to home), and set up a special one for areas they're going to visit, as they'll only have a couple of clicks every month - compared to the improved server speed which'll come from not running PQs that people have set up, don't need any more, but haven't bothered to disable.

 

It'll inconvenience those who run loads of queries to give them the whole country, but apart from a few exceptions - people who regularly travel at short notice and don't know until the last minutes where they're going, for work for example - I don't really understand why anyone would want that anyway.

 

I have thought about this comment a lot, and it makes a lot of sense. I am one who downloads the whole of the UK, even though I have a very predictable travel life, and I don't have to go anywhere at short notice. So why am I reluctant to change, and only download in my area, or for planned visits in other parts of the country?

 

I think there are two reasons:

 

i. Are not most geocachers collectors? That is, we collect caches as other collect stamps, etc. I am not trying to trivialise this. Most collectors like to get the complete sets of things - and perhaps downloading the whole of the UK is part of this mentality.

 

ii. I have a regular filter that lets me determine archived caches, and I find it interesting to see why various caches have been archived.

 

However, I take the points made about bandwidth, and may well change my habits.

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I like the idea of linking this to access to the site, although I'd suggest giving people more than 30 days to access the site before cutting off their PQ's - perhaps 60 days.

 

Another approach would be a separate email (not the PQ email, which many who use automated programs like GSAK never see) that offers the option to simply "reply" to the email if you want to continue to receive your ticked PQ's. This would allow gc.com to automatically deactivate the PQ's of people who have lost interest in gc.com without disrupting the PQ's of active, paying members. Perhaps this could be tied to annual notification when your Premium Membership is about to expire.

 

Another option would be to allow people a limited number of "continuous" PQ's (say 10 per week). A check mark could be added to the PQ list page. These 10 would not "expire".

 

Oh right - those would be customer oriented approaches. Sorry for being silly.

Edited by Kai Team
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Hi Bob,

 

You cynic you! Having said that I have to agree. The whole concept of PQs is automated receipt of data, how they can hide this is beyond me!

 

(Congrats on your 1000th post btw B))

 

Thanks. What's beyond me is how you can consistently choose to alienate your paying customers when there are other aproaches to accomplish a legitimate goal. I guess it's the Microsoft business model (worked for them). B)

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They tell me I can have 35 a week so from now on I will run 35, I don't need them but i pay for them so 35 it will be. Let the GC boys realise that they are seriously P*****g off people here

If every Premium Member on GC.com thought this way, no one would EVER get a PQ on time!!

Yes, I suspect that's the reason why gc.com is now managing PQ's with a bulldozer - too many premium members do think that way. I doubt many members look for 500 x 5 x 7 = 17,500 caches per week (yes, I know many people run the same PQ multiple times per week to update logs and cache status).

 

Which brings me to another point - has gc.com stopped to think about why people are running so many PQ's? Part of it is just because they can, but much of it is because of things like:

 

1) PQ's only contain the last 5 logs, leading people to run them more frequently to keep their offline logs up to date and complete, and

2) there's no way to receive just updated caches (i.e. with new logs, TB's or changed status or descriptions) - you have to get them all. In most of my PQ's (which I run once a week), over half the caches have not changed since the last PQ.

 

If the PQ's contained more logs, members could drop from running PQ's 3-4 times a week to just 1-2 times a week - instantly halving server load. And if there was a way to get just the updated caches... well, you see the point.

 

How about considering why people are running so many PQ's and redesigning things to better meet members' needs? Then you could lower the number of PQ's allowed, still meet members' needs, and everyone would be happy! "For every complex problem, there is a simple (and wrong) solution".

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2) there's no way to receive just updated caches (i.e. with new logs, TB's or changed status or descriptions) - you have to get them all. In most of my PQ's (which I run once a week), over half the caches have not changed since the last PQ.

 

What's wrong with the option "Updated in the last 7 days"? Works well for me.

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