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Feature Request: View other cacher's TB inventory


dmbfan73

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I'd like to suggest adding the ability for cachers to be able to view another cacher's travel bug inventory on that cacher's public profile. Right now you can only see your TB inventory on your account page, and if you want to see what other TBs another cacher has in his/her possession you have to do a lot of research through the public profile's trackable items tab. Here's my reasoning:

 

Some cachers have been known to horde TBs. They can log them for their profile and them keep them for months/years. They get away with this because the only person who can readily see that the cacher hasn't moved their bug in months is the TB owner. I've been involved in a forum discussion on what to do with other cachers who horde TBs (TB horders) and I believe the consensus is that the only way other cachers will feel pressured to move along TBs in a timely manner would be from peer pressure from their local community. Receiving multiple emails from a guy in a different state/country/continent as the case may be to ask politely that you move along his TB just doesn't carry any weight, whereas the people who geocache locally with the TB horder would see that they were hording the bugs easily and would be able to ask them face to face at the next event to move them along, or perhaps a friendly email from them would carry more weight.

 

I don't think this would be a hard feature to incorporate- the information is already available and displayed the My Account page, it would just be a matter of also displaying it on your public profile.

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If you know of a specific bug that's missing, you can find out who picked it up last (assuming they logged it) from the bug page. Don't know why you would need more than that.

 

If you're just trolling around, looking for people with a lot of bugs in their inventory so you can, uh, bug them about it, I don't like the sound if it. Seems like you're wanting to be some sort of travel bug vigilante.

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ummmm - lots of assumptions going on here.

 

Sounds a lot like a witch hunt to me. Looking up cachers and seeing thier inventory so you can start an emailing campaign to prompt action sounds like a good way to upset many. Just because a cacher has an inventory of bugs - that doesn't tell you too much. They may be serving oversears, have a very sick relative they are caring for, be out sick themselves etc.....

 

Some newer cachers don't always understand the "urgency" to move a TB on. Other cachers sometimes move TBs without logging them - it happens - On several of mine over the years. As Prime pointed out - there is already a way to seek out a particular bug that seems overdue. Use that for your TBs and those of your friends but leave the widespread "prompting" to the TB owners that sent them out.

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Its not that I want to be a TB vigilante, it's that I don't want to become one. I'm hoping that if there are no secrets about how many bugs you have and for how long you've had them, you might do the right thing and move them along.

 

There are many ways to steal geocoins and TBs.... sock puppet accounts, just not logging them, etc. There is no perfect solution to people stealing TBs and Geocoins, if you have a better idea I'd love to hear it.

 

I'm particularly motivated by a particular cacher who's had a geocoin of mine for almost 10 months without moving it, ignoring my emails, etc. When I did the research, turns out he has 28 geocoins of other cachers in his inventory that he's had for many months and years. I've contacted some of the owners, and they've had no luck with this guy either. He attends a lot of event caches, so if the local community saw how many TBs he had in his possession they may be able to politely intervene.

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If you know of a specific bug that's missing, you can find out who picked it up last (assuming they logged it) from the bug page. Don't know why you would need more than that.

 

If you're just trolling around, looking for people with a lot of bugs in their inventory so you can, uh, bug them about it, I don't like the sound if it. Seems like you're wanting to be some sort of travel bug vigilante.

 

It's not that I want to troll around and bust people. I don't have time for that and neither do most people... I hope. But, when someone logs my cache I tend to look at their profile if I have time. Knowing that someone might do the same when I log their cache, I'd want to make sure I didn't keep 28 geocoins for over a year because then the local geocaching community would be justified to start sending me at first polite then nagging emails to move the along.

 

So far everyone that's read this post things I'm conducting a witchhunt, when actually my intent was to provide cachers with a way to be accountable for the TBs they log. People will still steal TBs and geocoins. There is nothing we can do about it, sadly. However, making your inventory public will help you hold yourself accountable to move it along.

 

Of course some people are going to have circumstances where they can't move a TB along. That should be evident on their public profile by seeing that they haven't been logging cachers. However, when someone logs 2500+ caches in the 10 months they've had your geocoin and 27 others, you know that they're just stealing and not a beginner who's having problems moving a bug along.

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Hmm....I'm not sure that public humiliation is the way to go, although I do feel your pain with regard to coin/TB hoarders.

 

I wonder if a nag-screen would be better? If you've got trackables in your inventory for over 3 weeks then you get a pop up when you log on that makes you wait (like on GSAK) a short time to get past it.

 

I'm not sure why accounts aren't suspended when these types of things are reported (yes I know they can always set up a sock-puppet account). I do wish TPTB would do something to address the issue should someone report suspicous behavior on another account.

 

Or maybe they do but I'm just not aware of it.

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ummmm - lots of assumptions going on here.

 

Sounds a lot like a witch hunt to me. Looking up cachers and seeing thier inventory so you can start an emailing campaign to prompt action sounds like a good way to upset many. Just because a cacher has an inventory of bugs - that doesn't tell you too much. They may be serving oversears, have a very sick relative they are caring for, be out sick themselves etc.....

 

Some newer cachers don't always understand the "urgency" to move a TB on. Other cachers sometimes move TBs without logging them - it happens - On several of mine over the years. As Prime pointed out - there is already a way to seek out a particular bug that seems overdue. Use that for your TBs and those of your friends but leave the widespread "prompting" to the TB owners that sent them out.

 

If you were able to see that a new cacher had a large inventory of TBs, you the experienced cacher could offer your assistance to instruct how to move them along tactfully. That's how I learned to move my first TB along! Hopefully, we would all use our discretion not to just seek out people who've held a bug too long just to nag them. I know that circumstances arise where TBs can't be moved on, or mistakes are made and the TB is misplaced... that happens to everyone at one point, including myself.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that when you display your TB inventory publically, it will help keep honest people honest. Dishonest people will continue to steal our TBs and geocoins. Honest people will know that their peers can see their inventory and hopefully that will keep them moving TBs along instead of hording a bunch without good reason.

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Hmm....I'm not sure that public humiliation is the way to go, although I do feel your pain with regard to coin/TB hoarders.

 

I wonder if a nag-screen would be better? If you've got trackables in your inventory for over 3 weeks then you get a pop up when you log on that makes you wait (like on GSAK) a short time to get past it.

 

I'm not sure why accounts aren't suspended when these types of things are reported (yes I know they can always set up a sock-puppet account). I do wish TPTB would do something to address the issue should someone report suspicous behavior on another account.

 

Or maybe they do but I'm just not aware of it.

 

You can report this? where??

 

Nag screen would work well, wouldn't need to come active until 3-6 months after you pick up the TB.

 

As far as accounts being suspended, I'm reminded of XBOX Live where cheaters who hacked the internet gaming system had their account points reduced to zero and were forced to start over, and their account page forever has a note saying why they were busted. In the teen community this is an effect technique, however, most of the geocaching community is adults who know better already and will probaby continue to geocache anyways, but now they're upset so they just muggle caches and steal TBs and geocoins to get back at the world. How horrible would that be?

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You can report this? where??

 

I'd probably start with contacting a moderator in the geocoin/TB section.

 

But there is always contact@Groundspeak.com

 

I'm not sure how long it will take to get a response from there. If you decide to contact them about this issue, will you keep us updated please? :unsure:

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You can report this? where??

 

I'd probably start with contacting a moderator in the geocoin/TB section.

 

But there is always contact@Groundspeak.com

 

I'm not sure how long it will take to get a response from there. If you decide to contact them about this issue, will you keep us updated please? :unsure:

 

Oh, ok. I thought there was an actual webpage form you could fill out to file a complaint or something from your post.

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I knew of one of those, but it was in California.

 

Nag screen? Oh, great! My brother gives me one of his geocoins to keep, and I'll get a nag screen? There are geocoins that say "This coin may be kept..."

I guess I could keep them in my archived cache then. Not as secretive as the unpublished cache, though.

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Nothing you can do about it. Once you release the geocoin, it is no longer yours and at the whim of it's own fate.

 

You can go to a person's profile and see the coins they have found. If you are looking for a particular coin, you can go to that web page to see who picked it up last.

 

With the advent of "Discover it", less coins are moving as it is. Now there is a potential to start getting spammed by other users when I don't move it in a timeframe THEY THINK is appropriate? No thanks.

 

I am one of the offenders. I have had coins for a long period because 1. I hit a string of micros 2. I forgot it at home or in the car 3.Thought I would be going in a direction to help it along it's mission in the near future. Valid reasons all.

 

If the owner is not worried (as you state they can see it), you should not be either. To be so is a vigilante.

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Seeing the inventory of some other cacher will do nothing to show you what bugs/coins that they have. A thief, or someone wanting to hide their activities will just place their acquisitions into some cache that's archived, or unpublished or even their very own events which love to contain bugs forever untracably.

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Okay, how about this for a compromise:

 

When (notice I say "when", not "if"... hope springs eternal...) .. er, let me start again.

 

When the sorting options are eventually fixed in the "Search Trackable Items" pages, allow the sort to be keyed on fields other than current "Name", "Last log", and "Distance": add the "Owner" and "Location" fields to the "Sort by" options.

 

That way you can see with a few mouse clicks (a) all of your bugs that a particular cacher has ever logged, and (b ) all of the bugs that are currently in that cacher's possession (they'll be grouped together under "Location").

 

Since the sorting has to be fixed one of these days anyway, it should be a simple matter to add those two fields to the sort-key options. Two features for the price of one! And nothing new on the cacher's profile page. :lol:

 

edit: Hey, has the sort been fixed already?? I didn't recall seeing an update mentioning that it had been fixed, but I haven't' tried to sort anything in months. I tried it just now with our list of bugs -- and they were all in order! Then I sorted by distance, and they were still all in order!

 

I wonder how I missed that. Well, I guess that the change mentioned above would no longer be a "while you're changing that code anyway" sort of freebie... but still might be a good thing to add.

Edited by the hermit crabs
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Uh-oh, nag screens.

 

Would we get one from GSP/Geocaching.com if we held these?

 

http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=1392211

http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=1392681

http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=1392734

http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=350718

 

:lol:

 

It's not pretty to have our coins/Tbs held by geocachers, but there's no point in going after them. It's part of the game.

 

We always say goodbye to our coins/tb when we set them on loose. It will be most likely the last time we'll see those.

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Okay, how about this for a compromise:

 

When (notice I say "when", not "if"... hope springs eternal...) .. er, let me start again.

 

When the sorting options are eventually fixed in the "Search Trackable Items" pages, allow the sort to be keyed on fields other than current "Name", "Last log", and "Distance": add the "Owner" and "Location" fields to the "Sort by" options.

 

That way you can see with a few mouse clicks (a) all of your bugs that a particular cacher has ever logged, and (b ) all of the bugs that are currently in that cacher's possession (they'll be grouped together under "Location").

 

Since the sorting has to be fixed one of these days anyway, it should be a simple matter to add those two fields to the sort-key options. Two features for the price of one! And nothing new on the cacher's profile page. :lol:

 

edit: Hey, has the sort been fixed already?? I didn't recall seeing an update mentioning that it had been fixed, but I haven't' tried to sort anything in months. I tried it just now with our list of bugs -- and they were all in order! Then I sorted by distance, and they were still all in order!

 

I wonder how I missed that. Well, I guess that the change mentioned above would no longer be a "while you're changing that code anyway" sort of freebie... but still might be a good thing to add.

 

I think your compromise is a good one, considering most people think making your TB inventory public is akin to airing your dirty laundry.

 

I think I made the mistake of trying to make a joke in the title of this thread by saying "so we can see who's hording our TBs..." I forget that nobody on here knows me and you can't tell tone of voice on a web post! I understand that when you release a TB or geocoin out into the wild, it's probably gone forever. No heart burn there. I also understand that people, no matter what features we implement, we steal them or keep them and find a clever way to hide it. I have heart burn about that but I'll live. Like I said earlier, I was just trying to think of a way to keep honest people honest... not start the Spanish Inquisition. Of course there will always be valid reasons, accidents, mistakes, whatever that may preclude you from moving on a TB in a timely manner of your choosing, I think all cachers understand that.

 

Honestly, I really doubt that if you do have a public TB inventory, that random people will email you saying "you need to move along so-and-so's TB, you've held it too long." People don't realistically care enough about other people's TBs to do that unless they have a vested interest in a TB. I think having a public inventory isn't as big a deal as everyone is making it out to be- there will be no witch hunts or vigilantes led by the majority of cachers. There are always a few though that might... probably about the same number of cachers that steal TBs and geocoins.

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Who are you?

I am T-Bug man liberator of wrongfully imprisoned travel bugs and geocoins. Now put it in a cache or taste spam evil doer.

 

Nothing against you dmbfan73, it just when I saw the word vigilantly I couldn't get the NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH BAT MAN outta my head till I wrote that.

 

``` edit 4 bard shpeelin

Edited by Vater_Araignee
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Who are you?

I am T-Bug man liberator of wrongfully imprisoned travel bugs and geocoins. Now put it in a cache or taste spam evil doer.

 

Nothing against you dmbfan73, it just when I saw the word vigilantly I couldn't get the NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH BAT MAN outta my head till I wrote that.

 

``` edit 4 bard shpeelin

 

Did you edit this to count your NAH NAH's?? :anitongue:

 

Like I said before, I'm not out to go after people, I dont' have time for that. I'm just suggesting an easy way for cachers to be more accountable for the TBs and coins they move.

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You know, to add on to this travel bug issue, and totally in line with what HC's said, if there were a button in your profile's <trackables> tab very much like the button in the <geocaches> tab "List of Geocaches found (All Cache Finds) List of items owned (All Cache Hides)"

then one would instantly be able to see ALL the bugs that someone has handled in the past.

 

And it Groundspeak implemented a feature I've requested 3 years ago, one would see which of those bugs you have also handled in the past similar to the checkmark on any search page.

 

Here are some links to my requests for these 'features' and perhaps some answers why Groundspeak does not want to implement them. I've added a few others to bump up an issue that should be addressed. And at least one that TPTB has said would be implemented (still waiting year 1++ and no dice). But mostly I've put many of these here as a fast way for me to find some of my best ideas that apparently nodoby else (programmers at Groundspeak) likes.

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...=117163&hl=

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...=117160&hl=

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...=163948&hl=

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...=166539&hl=

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...=167401&hl=

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...=167395&hl=

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...=178764&hl=

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...=179528&hl=

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...=184785&hl=

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<snip>

Honestly, I really doubt that if you do have a public TB inventory, that random people will email you saying "you need to move along so-and-so's TB, you've held it too long."

<snip>

 

Here in the Phoenix Metro area we DO have one.

 

He will complain that you should have left that Geocoin in a smaller cache.

He will complain that there were too many travelers in the cache.

He will complain that someone took a traveler, but hasn't logged it out.

He will complain that someone dropped a traveler, but didn't log it in.

He will complain that a cache is too exposed, (been fine there for the last six months) and should NEVER have travelers in it.

He will complain if you visit a cache and don't take the traveler he left there.

He will brag that he 'harvested' X number of travelers from urban caches, and left them in remote caches only visited 2-3 times a year.

 

GOD FORBID he should be able to see what people have in their inventories, and how long they have been there!

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Who are you?

I am T-Bug man liberator of wrongfully imprisoned travel bugs and geocoins. Now put it in a cache or taste spam evil doer.

 

Nothing against you dmbfan73, it just when I saw the word vigilantly I couldn't get the NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH BAT MAN outta my head till I wrote that.

 

``` edit 4 bard shpeelin

 

Did you edit this to count your NAH NAH's?? :laughing:

 

Like I said before, I'm not out to go after people, I dont' have time for that. I'm just suggesting an easy way for cachers to be more accountable for the TBs and coins they move.

Nope I spelled couldnst. don't even know how that came out, and now I see I forgot to put an s on it.

Maybe I just moved it, saw it in the wrong place and deleted it? :laughing:

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Why not some kind of "scoring" or karma rating that ticks up the faster you move a tb but keep it more than say a month and it ticks down quite quickly?

 

People who hoarded would fast get a bad score which may encourage them.

Edited by MattBW
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Why not some kind of "scoring" or karma rating that ticks up the faster you move a tb but keep it more than say a month and it ticks down quite quickly?

 

People who hoarded would fast get a bad score which may encourage them.

That would encourage people to get rid of the quickly, instead of correctly. By "correctly", I mean by helping it fulfill its goal. TBs would get stuck in isolated in areas, as people just pick one up and drop it off in the next cache they come to (which is probably the cache it just came from).

Edited by Prime Suspect
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Very good point Prime Suspect, perhaps then it would need to be more carrot than stick? Helping achieve a goal? The owner could award a score, each time perhaps a bug moves west or goes to a new cache, whatever the goal was?

 

It does seem to me from what I have read, many of the hoarders of bugs, seem to see it as some kind of "win" to hold onto them. If they saw it as more of a win to move them on through some kind of points, the problem might reduce. Then again they may just keep them because they are mean heh.

 

Again I'm very new, I find it all intriguing and dont fully understand the intricacies yet, so sorry if Im going over old ground.

Edited by MattBW
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