PQs maxing out!

[+walkergeoff and wife]

I like to download PQs for the whole country and put them into GSAK, mainly because I know that I have up-to-date (no more than a week old) information about all the caches in the country. This means that if I ever go to a new area I can easily find the cache situation.

 

However, although I can create 40 queries, I can only have a maximum of 5 a day, which gives a maximum of 35 per week, and I am now on number 35 to get the very latest caches, and that is filling up rapidly.

 

It seems a shame that they cannot take account of the increasing numbers of caches being set and raise the PQ allowance, either by increasing the maximum number of records to 500, or increasing the maximum per day to 6 or more. I realise that this will put an increased load on the server.

 

I am wondering what to do. I suppose I could extend the cycle to fortnightly, which would mean disabling and enabling PQs on a regular basis, but with a maximum of 40 PQs anyway, how long would that last?

 

I read on this forum recently that there was some idea of having a site from which PQs could be downloaded directly without the use of email. Is that still a possibility?

 

Any thoughts on this welcome.

Edited March 30, 2007 by walkergeoff

[+Kryten]

The day was always going to come when the UK cache population reached a level at which it was above that of the PQ budget of a single individual. Since this is an arbritary but hopefully ever increasing number of caches, I don't think it's reasonable to ask Groundspeak to continually increase the PQ allocation in order to keep pace with it.

[+sfab]

What I have done is to change the parameter to 'found/updated in the last 7 days' and then extended the date range. It has lots of possible flaws, but I have not had any PQ go over 500 in the last 3 (Quiet?) months but have attempted disabled caches and regard this as unfortunate rather than life threatening. I'm on 14 PQ's for the date range.

[+sssss]

I don't think it's reasonable to ask Groundspeak to continually increase the PQ allocation in order to keep pace with it.

 

actually i would disagree, as 'paying' customers i would expect a continually improving service to the requirements of the customers. There is no real competition to GC.com so we dont actually have much of a position to bargain with. Much like Royal Mail monopoly on small post, no competition but thats another story all together

[+Boneychest & Catsuey]

I'm sure our friends in Ireland don't have a problem getting the whole of their island each week. Those across the pond will never get the whole of the north American with 40 PQs a week. Why should Groundspeak consider UK cachers to be a special case?

 

BC

[+dino-irl]

Although I like to do the same with Ireland and can sympathise there is only supposed to be one database of caches and that's GC.com

 

They have no intention of allowing cachers to use their own offline database as that's outside of their aim for the site.

[Deceangi]

I don't think it's reasonable to ask Groundspeak to continually increase the PQ allocation in order to keep pace with it.

 

actually i would disagree, as 'paying' customers i would expect a continually improving service to the requirements of the customers. There is no real competition to GC.com so we dont actually have much of a position to bargain with. Much like Royal Mail monopoly on small post, no competition but thats another story all together

 

The customers and the provider have different ideas over the use of PQ's. Groundspeak consider PQ's as a way of obtaining up-to-date cache information, and not the creation of "Off Line" databases. And have held this view from the start of providing PQ's, so the chances of the No's of PQ's being increased is slim.

 

As for a site providing all UK caches in a PQ, without the specific permission of Groundspeak, anyone attempting to do so using data obtained from GC would be in breach of the TOU for the site. Even the sharing of PQ's is a breach of the TOU. GU:K who use donated PQ's does so with specific permission from Groundspeak.

[+Alibags]

I still don't see why GC.com do not take the pragmatic approach, make an entire UK PQ downloadable once a day and then we could all zap our multiple PQs and the server would then, no doubt, run like a whippet on speed after that weight was lifted.

[+Kryten]

At the risk of hijacking the thread, can I ask what the people who make them actually do with an cache databse of the entire UK. I know this subject has the capacity to turn into a flame war but this is not my intention. People are perfectly entitled to use their full PQ allocation. I'm just curious.

[Edgemaster]

Personally, I'd get the low detail (cache names and locations) from G:UK, and just use high detail (descriptions, types) PQs for areas I plan to cache in.

[+walkergeoff and wife]

At the risk of hijacking the thread, can I ask what the people who make them actually do with an cache databse of the entire UK. I know this subject has the capacity to turn into a flame war but this is not my intention. People are perfectly entitled to use their full PQ allocation. I'm just curious.

Hi - this is not a flame.

 

I use the entire database, as I said in my original post, because it means that, if I have to go somewhere at short notice, I have the latest on caches in any area I may choose. I agree that most of them I do not use, and would happily simply get the ones for my area, and the areas I regularly visit, if I could be sure of getting an instant download of any new area.

[+CrazyL200]

Slightly off topic, but slightly related.

 

I'm off to Ireland tomorrow and have used the same 3 PQs the lads over there use to get the whole of Ireland. But, I've also tried to run 2 other PQs on the same day (yesterday and today). The 3 Ireland ones ran instantly, the other 2 I'm still waiting for - even yesterdays.

[+dino-irl]

Could be that 2 of the ones you ran yesterday + the 3 from today have exceeded the 5 in 24hrs rule? or it could be a time difference thing?

 

Have they actually run yet?

 

I have received my weekly Friday PQs as usual today

[markandlynn]

At the risk of hijacking the thread, can I ask what the people who make them actually do with an cache databse of the entire UK. I know this subject has the capacity to turn into a flame war but this is not my intention. People are perfectly entitled to use their full PQ allocation. I'm just curious.

 

Plan holidays based on good cache density. Use it when the site is down. Take it on holiday in the laptop.

Plan days out / weekends away.

 

To cut down your PQ's eliminate found by you from your PQ

Eliminate virts and webcams do them once so you have them.

Eliminate the other islands like guernsey, jersey IOM and ireland.

We are still 2 pq's away after that at the cost a second PM account would not hurt the bank balance too much.

I would also consider eliminating the caches we dont enjoy micros, 1/1's etc talking to cachers in the USA its what they do.

[+John Stead]

At the risk of hijacking the thread, can I ask what the people who make them actually do with an cache databse of the entire UK. I know this subject has the capacity to turn into a flame war but this is not my intention. People are perfectly entitled to use their full PQ allocation. I'm just curious.

Hi - this is not a flame.

 

I use the entire database, as I said in my original post, because it means that, if I have to go somewhere at short notice, I have the latest on caches in any area I may choose. I agree that most of them I do not use, and would happily simply get the ones for my area, and the areas I regularly visit, if I could be sure of getting an instant download of any new area.

 

Maybe I am just lucky but I find that if I am going to a new area and set up a PQ to cover that I usually get it back in an hour or so and often in minutes. The same with those I have already set up but not ticked the days required for regular updates. So I am content with regular PQs of new caches within 100 miles or so and daily updates of the nearest 30 miles and update the others over a month or so or when I am travelling further from home. I works for me though I can understand the desire for a full database for anyone who may travel a long distance at short notice.

[+walkergeoff and wife]

 

Maybe I am just lucky but I find that if I am going to a new area and set up a PQ to cover that I usually get it back in an hour or so and often in minutes. The same with those I have already set up but not ticked the days required for regular updates. So I am content with regular PQs of new caches within 100 miles or so and daily updates of the nearest 30 miles and update the others over a month or so or when I am travelling further from home. I works for me though I can understand the desire for a full database for anyone who may travel a long distance at short notice.

That is interesting. Are you saying that those that you set up to run once come almost immediately? In one way, I am not surprised, as when I get it to download my finds, that comes immediately too.

[+dino-irl]

PQs are prioritised with the most recently created running first.

 

So a PQ that runs on a daily basis will come late in the day but a brand new one should come within minutes.

 

I used to run daily PQs and they were getting later and later and eventually not coming on some days. It takes 3 PQs to get all of Ireland so I have 7 copies of each PQ each one set to run on a different day of the week. They come in about the same time every day now

 

If you have a PQ that you like to run regularly but don't need every day you could set it up to delete the day that it runs. If you need it today edit it to run today and it should come through pretty much straight away.

[+Carlos & The Birdie Crew]

There may be a way round the limit, I'll have to check.

 

Cheers Carlos

Edited March 31, 2007 by Carlos & The Birdie Crew

[+dino-irl]

You're running the risk of getting your account deleted.

 

You're in blatant breach of the T&Cs of the site and admitting it on a forum that isn't just public but is also run by the same company!

 

Some cachers admit to having more than one premium account to achieve the same result. That might be a better idea!

[+Carlos & The Birdie Crew]

I was unaware dino-irl. Will look into it.

 

Cheers Carlos

[+dino-irl]

From the License Agreement:

 

• Licensee shall not sell, rent, lease, sublicense, lend, assign, time-share, or transfer, in whole or in part, or provide access to the Data, Related Materials, any updates, or Licensee's rights under this Agreement to any third party whatsoever.

• Licensee shall not remarket, resell, and/or redistribute the Data or any derived portion(s) of the Data in its digital form to any third party whatsoever.

 

My emphasis

[+walkergeoff and wife]

From the License Agreement:

 

• Licensee shall not sell, rent, lease, sublicense, lend, assign, time-share, or transfer, in whole or in part, or provide access to the Data, Related Materials, any updates, or Licensee's rights under this Agreement to any third party whatsoever.

• Licensee shall not remarket, resell, and/or redistribute the Data or any derived portion(s) of the Data in its digital form to any third party whatsoever.

 

My emphasis

Looks pretty definite.

 

This is not (intended to be) a silly question:

 

If I go caching with a fellow geocacher, and I sort out the day's activities using PQs, do I infringe this by passing on to him/her the information about the caches?

[+Mr'D]

Not caching with you again buddy!

 

Don't worry. I have the same PQ's in my PDA... just I can't be assed to turn it on and find 'em.

[+dino-irl]

This is not (intended to be) a silly question:

 

If I go caching with a fellow geocacher, and I sort out the day's activities using PQs, do I infringe this by passing on to him/her the information about the caches?

If he/she is not a premium member then technically you are infringing the agreement IMO but tbh I think it's mainly to stop groups of people sharing PQs from a premium member without paying for membership or to stop websites displaying the information for others to download, once again without paying.

 

I doubt if you would get kicked off the site for such a small misdemeanour, especially if you didn't tell anyone else. However, I was worried about Carlos admitting to a very obvious infringement in public but not appearing to realise what he had done.

[+Carlos & The Birdie Crew]

That's correct dino-irl, I wasn't aware but as PQs can only be run by premium members I didn't think there was anything wrong by suggesting the purely hypothetical scenario that I did

[+dino-irl]

Wrong smiley....you need this one