Why can't we get PQ's on time?

[+pppingme]

One more thing, Does the PQ server know what time zone the request is coming from and could it schedule PQ's accordingly? My last PQ's were generated at 8:33pm and 8:46pm west coast time. What happens to PQ's that techically are generated at say 11:00pm west coast time? If they were requested from somebody on the east coast then they wouldn't arrive until the next day so "today" can be tomorrow for some of us if the PQ's get generated too late.

Everything is west coast time, there is no compensation for time zone. I'm central so my PQ day runs from 2am to 2am. East cost PQ day would be 3am to 3am.

[+pppingme]

Would you be happy if your doctor was 12 hours late? If your paycheck didn't arrive on Thursday but showed up 12 hours into Friday??? etc. etc. etc.

Funny one. I love good comedy.

 

How much do you pay per hour for the services of your doctor? How much do you pay per hour for the services of Groundspeak? Increase the pay to Groundspeak to equal the pay to your doctor, and I would imagine you might see a difference. Heck, for that matter, pay me that rate and I would personally do your PQ's for you manually. Got your check book handy? I take credit cards through paypal too. Just let me know when you are ready for me to get to work.

 

Not even close to being in context. Dr's have extreme educations before they practice. By Jeremy's own admission, this started as a "hobby site" that was initially thrown together in a couple hours.

 

Also, a Dr spends quality one on one time with me. If a "programmer" spends even 80 hours on the site in a month, when you divide that by the estimated 80 thousand premium members, that only amounts to 3.6 seconds a month per user, I think paying $3/month more than compensates the 3.6 seconds of programming time I got out of it. By the way, for those keeping track, that works out to about $3000/hour, WAY MORE THAN ANY DOCTOR I KNOW MAKES.

 

So, to compare the fee paid to here vs the fee paid to a Dr, this site is getting WAY MORE. Your argument doesn't hold water.

 

The only funny thing here is the way people cover up and defend the poor performance of the site.

[+mtn-man]

Would you be happy if your doctor was 12 hours late? If your paycheck didn't arrive on Thursday but showed up 12 hours into Friday??? etc. etc. etc.

Funny one. I love good comedy.

 

How much do you pay per hour for the services of your doctor? How much do you pay per hour for the services of Groundspeak? Increase the pay to Groundspeak to equal the pay to your doctor, and I would imagine you might see a difference. Heck, for that matter, pay me that rate and I would personally do your PQ's for you manually. Got your check book handy? I take credit cards through paypal too. Just let me know when you are ready for me to get to work.

 

As a Moderator are you taking the official stand that Geocaching.com doesn't charge enough for them to provide the service they stated is included in the Premium membership? That if we paid more we could get what was originally promised? As a Moderator do you have to defend TPTB no matter what? As a Moderator shouldn't you communicate in a more professional manner to members of the board who have issues? As a Moderator...will you be banning me now for asking these questions? ( Everybody else, if you don't see me here for awhile you know the answer)

A comparison was made and, as a moderator, I questioned it. You pay doctors hundreds of dollars per hour. You pay Groundspeak 0.34 cents per hour, based on paying $30 per year for their services. I have said that I wish Groundspeak would charge more for those who want more out of the PQ server so those that expect more can pay more to get it. That sounds reasonable to me, as a moderator, as a paying geocacher or even as someone who chooses to use the site for free. You pay for higher levels of service, and I pay less for a PQ every other week or so.

 

As a moderator, I don't have to defend the site no matter what, but I happen to believe they are right on this one. I don't see why I cannot express my opinion on the matter. The PQ server works great for me, and I cache all over the US and many times on a whim. I cannot count the number of times I have checked into a hotel, set up my laptop, pulled a quick PQ based on a nearby cache, had it arrive in minutes, loaded it on my GPS and was out the door minutes later going caching. The PQ server isn't designed for people to create a personal statewide database, so those that do that are clogging up the system, not people like me that pull PQ's to go geocaching with. I don't clog up the system. I may run a PQ every other week at the most.

[AZcachemeister]

The rest of my PQs for today have arrived, so I received 10 PQs today.

 

The OP was complaining that not all of his Friday PQs could run due to the 'overlap' from the Thursday PQs that ran late.

 

Or perhaps I misread that part too, and he really wanted to add PQs for Friday which (if your statements are true) he wouldn't be able to do.

 

In any case, I am getting what I pay for, so I have nothing to complain about.

 

I would advise all to prepare to have all PQs set to not run by the site stewards.

Those of us paying attention can reset them to run, and those not paying attention probably are adding unnecessary load to the PQ machine.

[+mtn-man]

Also, a Dr spends quality one on one time with me.

A doctor does not spend quality time with you. You have got to be kidding me. Does a doctor show up to events and hang out with you like Jeremy and crew? They were just at a geocaching event in Washington DC last week. They were at Geowoodstock the last two years. They were just at an event in Massachusetts several weeks ago. A doctor has doctor's aids come in and do all of the prep work and paper work and then will breeze into you room, spend very little time with you, then tell the doctor's aids to finish things up. I've had surgery where it was a local anesthetic so I was awake, and the doctor also flies into the room after all of the other people do all of the prep work, gets the job done quickly and then flies out and lets the other finish up. After surgery, they pass quickly through recovery, do a quick check to see if you are OK, then move on to the next patient.

[+KJcachers]

Would you be happy if your doctor was 12 hours late? If your paycheck didn't arrive on Thursday but showed up 12 hours into Friday??? etc. etc. etc.

Funny one. I love good comedy.

 

How much do you pay per hour for the services of your doctor? How much do you pay per hour for the services of Groundspeak? Increase the pay to Groundspeak to equal the pay to your doctor, and I would imagine you might see a difference. Heck, for that matter, pay me that rate and I would personally do your PQ's for you manually. Got your check book handy? I take credit cards through paypal too. Just let me know when you are ready for me to get to work.

 

As a Moderator are you taking the official stand that Geocaching.com doesn't charge enough for them to provide the service they stated is included in the Premium membership? That if we paid more we could get what was originally promised? As a Moderator do you have to defend TPTB no matter what? As a Moderator shouldn't you communicate in a more professional manner to members of the board who have issues? As a Moderator...will you be banning me now for asking these questions? ( Everybody else, if you don't see me here for awhile you know the answer)

A comparison was made and, as a moderator, I questioned it. You pay doctors hundreds of dollars per hour. You pay Groundspeak 0.34 cents per hour, based on paying $30 per year for their services. I have said that I wish Groundspeak would charge more for those who want more out of the PQ server so those that expect more can pay more to get it. That sounds reasonable to me, as a moderator, as a paying geocacher or even as someone who chooses to use the site for free. You pay for higher levels of service, and I pay less for a PQ every other week or so.

 

As a moderator, I don't have to defend the site no matter what, but I happen to believe they are right on this one. I don't see why I cannot express my opinion on the matter. The PQ server works great for me, and I cache all over the US and many times on a whim. I cannot count the number of times I have checked into a hotel, set up my laptop, pulled a quick PQ based on a nearby cache, had it arrive in minutes, loaded it on my GPS and was out the door minutes later going caching. The PQ server isn't designed for people to create a personal statewide database, so those that do that are clogging up the system, not people like me that pull PQ's to go geocaching with. I don't clog up the system. I may run a PQ every other week at the most.

 

I will agree with you that the new PQ requests work just fine. I do that myself from time to time. The trouble lies in the scheduled PQ's. If I ask for a PQ to be delivered Friday then 11:46pm East Coast time Friday does me no good. If they started the routine at 12:01am West Coat time it still takes 18 hours and 46 minutes to run my PQ? Also, how many instant PQ requests get processed while the scheduled ones sit on the back burner? They should just fix this or remove the feature entirely. I can live with doing my weekly on the fly PQ even though it's nice to have it just show up in my inbox once a week. Weirdest thing is that this problem just started in the last month or so. There has got to be a reason other than a big jump in scheduled PQ's?

Edited November 16, 2008 by KJcachers

[+mtn-man]

It is weekend cacher PQ's on top of the database builders that jam it up. We have been in the busy summer and fall caching season in the Northern Hemisphere. I would predict that it would ease in December as more people are distracted by the holidays and as snow slows things down. My suggestion would be for those who insist on using the PQ server to build a personal database to do so on off days only, like Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and to only run PQ's once a week for this purpose. This would allow people that use the PQ server for getting a caching PQ for weekend caching to have a better chance to get theirs in a more timely fashion. It isn't going to happen though, so it is what it is.

[+Ed & Julie]

Would you be happy if your doctor was 12 hours late? If your paycheck didn't arrive on Thursday but showed up 12 hours into Friday??? etc. etc. etc.

Funny one. I love good comedy.

 

How much do you pay per hour for the services of your doctor? How much do you pay per hour for the services of Groundspeak? Increase the pay to Groundspeak to equal the pay to your doctor, and I would imagine you might see a difference. Heck, for that matter, pay me that rate and I would personally do your PQ's for you manually. Got your check book handy? I take credit cards through paypal too. Just let me know when you are ready for me to get to work.

 

You know, I have heard you say that so many times...but it's Groundspeak themselves who have placed the price tag on the service. If they cannot meet service expectations, then they should charge less.

[+Damin69]

Also, a Dr spends quality one on one time with me.

A doctor does not spend quality time with you. You have got to be kidding me. Does a doctor show up to events and hang out with you like Jeremy and crew? They were just at a geocaching event in Washington DC last week. They were at Geowoodstock the last two years. They were just at an event in Massachusetts several weeks ago. A doctor has doctor's aids come in and do all of the prep work and paper work and then will breeze into you room, spend very little time with you, then tell the doctor's aids to finish things up. I've had surgery where it was a local anesthetic so I was awake, and the doctor also flies into the room after all of the other people do all of the prep work, gets the job done quickly and then flies out and lets the other finish up. After surgery, they pass quickly through recovery, do a quick check to see if you are OK, then move on to the next patient.

I Think that the price we pay is great. BUT. I would just LIKE what we pay for to Actually work for everyone. I still have yet to receive my PQs I ran at 6:30 this am. I dont mind waiting a bit to get them but when someone else can run a PQ basicly the same time and get it in a less than a MINUTE and I am still waiting 15 hours later. That is by no means good service. And is not what we pay extra to get.

[+KJcachers]

I love what I get for what i pay. If this is truly a server congestion issue I would have no problem paying a bit more to help expand the muscle of the server/servers. Just let us know what the issue is and lets fix it. If this site keeps growing and the hobby keeps getting new people this issue is only going to get worse. Head in the sand is not going to make this one go away.

[+pppingme]

Also, a Dr spends quality one on one time with me.

A doctor does not spend quality time with you. You have got to be kidding me. Does a doctor show up to events and hang out with you like Jeremy and crew? They were just at a geocaching event in Washington DC last week. They were at Geowoodstock the last two years. They were just at an event in Massachusetts several weeks ago. A doctor has doctor's aids come in and do all of the prep work and paper work and then will breeze into you room, spend very little time with you, then tell the doctor's aids to finish things up. I've had surgery where it was a local anesthetic so I was awake, and the doctor also flies into the room after all of the other people do all of the prep work, gets the job done quickly and then flies out and lets the other finish up. After surgery, they pass quickly through recovery, do a quick check to see if you are OK, then move on to the next patient.

I don't have these issues with my Dr, he does spend quality time with me, if yours doesn't, thats not my problem, your the one that brought up the comparision. As far as Jeremy spending time at events, thats PR, not him helping me. In no way does his attendance at an event affect me, except that I know I paid for his attendance. If Jeremy consistently shunned events, more people would loose more respect for him, driving people away. Any company owner has a responsibility to his company of doing good PR if they want their company to succeed. I personally could care less about Jeremy's attendance at an event and it would not affect my decision in a positive way to be at that event. I've also had heart surgery and my Dr was there every single step, from before the first IV went in, communicating with every single person every step of the way, and was the 2nd person I saw when I "recovered", only because he did take a break after a 12 hour surgery.

[+pppingme]

A comparison was made and, as a moderator, I questioned it. You pay doctors hundreds of dollars per hour. You pay Groundspeak 0.34 cents per hour, based on paying $30 per year for their services. I have said that I wish Groundspeak would charge more for those who want more out of the PQ server so those that expect more can pay more to get it.

I'm not even sure how you get 34 cents or whatever, since you didn't explain it, but for the 5 to 10 minutes a month I do actually spend on the site, your WAY OFF. I do nothing online that I don't have to. I write my logs offline, I decide my caches I'm hitting for the day offline, there is very little site interaction from me. Further, an online site should only cost fractions of a penny per month per user to actually run. If it costs more than that, then its not being run correctly. I speak from authority here I run sites much larger than this site and I know what true user costs are.

 

Further, the site is a COLLECTIVE service, not an individual service, to drag your dr example in again, a collective service is going to cost way less than an individual service (like a dr), because there is NO one on one time at all on the site.

 

At $3/month I do think the service is WAY overpriced, why do I pay it? Because there is currently no competition and because I don't want the frustrations of dealing with a website thats constantly having issues, its easier and faster to maintain the data offline (and no, I don't have a database of my whole state, I have a reasonable sized circle I maintain, reasonable being defined as the furthest out I travel on a regular basis).

 

Once a reasonable competition site shows up, ground-speak WILL loose their business, they aren't receptive to problems, they seem more focused on developing sites that no one else uses (Waymarking, Wherigo, etc.). Ground-speak also seems to have this attitude that they own the sport, they don't, they just happen to own the site that is the most popular this week. They may have a few "loyals" stick around, but people are going to move.

 

There are bugs that I reported more than two years ago that still haven't been fixed, a lot of which haven't even been acknowledged.

[+Tequila]

Would you be happy if your doctor was 12 hours late? If your paycheck didn't arrive on Thursday but showed up 12 hours into Friday??? etc. etc. etc.

Funny one. I love good comedy.

 

How much do you pay per hour for the services of your doctor? How much do you pay per hour for the services of Groundspeak? Increase the pay to Groundspeak to equal the pay to your doctor, and I would imagine you might see a difference. Heck, for that matter, pay me that rate and I would personally do your PQ's for you manually. Got your check book handy? I take credit cards through paypal too. Just let me know when you are ready for me to get to work.

 

I pay what Groundspeak asked me to pay. If it is not enough, that is Groundspeak's fault, not mine.

 

They offer a service for a stated price. I pay the price. They should provide the service. They don't. It is as simple as that.

 

If they cannot provide the offered service at the requested price, then they should either change the offering or change the price.

Edited November 16, 2008 by Tequila

[+mtn-man]

I don't have these issues with my Dr, he does spend quality time with me, if yours doesn't, thats not my problem, your the one that brought up the comparision.

Actually, I did not bring up the comparison, I only expanded on it. The original comparison was not about spending quality time with you when they finally get to you, but only about showing up late. Thinking about it, I don't know how many times I have sat in the waiting room waiting for the doctor to show up. Most of the time they don't call you right back when you show up for your appointment, so it really is a very poor comparison. My dad ended up waiting for six hours for carotid artery surgery no less, the whole time with us stuck in the surgical prep room while he had to wear that uncomfortable skull probe cap. After my wife's auto accident, we waited for almost two hours for the doctor to come examine her broken knees. Don't get me started.

 

I'm not even sure how you get 34 cents or whatever, since you didn't explain it, but for the 5 to 10 minutes a month I do actually spend on the site, your WAY OFF. I do nothing online that I don't have to. I write my logs offline, I decide my caches I'm hitting for the day offline, there is very little site interaction from me.

You forgot forum posting. $30 divided by 365 days equals 8.219 cents per day. Divide that by 24 hours and you get 0.342 cents per hour. Just simple math.

 

Further, an online site should only cost fractions of a penny per month per user to actually run. If it costs more than that, then its not being run correctly. I speak from authority here I run sites much larger than this site and I know what true user costs are.

Please, tell us which sites. I am curious what your monthly bandwidth is compared to this site. It is easy to compare, so just let us know which sites those are.

 

 

They offer a service for a stated price. I pay the price. They should provide the service. They don't. It is as simple as that.

Yes, but this service is not designed for you to maintain an offline database. You are abusing the service, at the detriment of thousands of other users. I use the service as it is intended and don't have a problem except occasionally. I know that Fridays are going to be busy (partially due to abusers of the system), so I work around it.

 

If they cannot provide the offered service at the requested price, then they should either change the offering or change the price.

EXACTLY! You get what you want (but you pay accordingly), I get what I want (and pay the same), Groundspeak makes more money (and gets to improve servers more often). I'm loving it, which is why I keep saying it.

 

EDIT: Added the math part.

Edited November 16, 2008 by mtn-man

[+Damin69]

I don't have these issues with my Dr, he does spend quality time with me, if yours doesn't, thats not my problem, your the one that brought up the comparision.

Actually, I did not bring up the comparison, I only expanded on it. The original comparison was not about spending quality time with you when they finally get to you, but only about showing up late. Thinking about it, I don't know how many times I have sat in the waiting room waiting for the doctor to show up. Most of the time they don't call you right back when you show up for your appointment, so it really is a very poor comparison. My dad ended up waiting for six hours for carotid artery surgery no less, the whole time with us stuck in the surgical prep room while he had to wear that uncomfortable skull probe cap. After my wife's auto accident, we waited for almost two hours for the doctor to come examine her broken knees. Don't get me started.

 

I'm not even sure how you get 34 cents or whatever, since you didn't explain it, but for the 5 to 10 minutes a month I do actually spend on the site, your WAY OFF. I do nothing online that I don't have to. I write my logs offline, I decide my caches I'm hitting for the day offline, there is very little site interaction from me.

You forgot forum posting. $30 divided by 365 days equals 8.219 cents per day. Divide that by 24 hours and you get 0.342 cents per hour. Just simple math.

 

Further, an online site should only cost fractions of a penny per month per user to actually run. If it costs more than that, then its not being run correctly. I speak from authority here I run sites much larger than this site and I know what true user costs are.

Please, tell us which sites. I am curious what your monthly bandwidth is compared to this site. It is easy to compare, so just let us know which sites those are.

 

 

They offer a service for a stated price. I pay the price. They should provide the service. They don't. It is as simple as that.

Yes, but this service is not designed for you to maintain an offline database. You are abusing the service, at the detriment of thousands of other users. I use the service as it is intended and don't have a problem except occasionally. I know that Fridays are going to be busy (partially due to abusers of the system), so I work around it.

 

If they cannot provide the offered service at the requested price, then they should either change the offering or change the price.

EXACTLY! You get what you want (but you pay accordingly), I get what I want (and pay the same), Groundspeak makes more money (and gets to improve servers more often). I'm loving it, which is why I keep saying it.

 

EDIT: Added the math part.

There are so many excuses. The fact is that up until a few weeks ago I never had a Problem in receiving my PQ almost instantly. Now I am not receiving them at all. There seems to always be someone to say it is your mail service blocking. Well if I run the same PQ and have it sent to 3 different Email providers and still have yet to receive one on any of them. So something is wrong. Not sure what but Seems something in the server that runs the PQs is not working properly for everyone. Why you keep saying well you only pay xxx so why complain? well like said before we didnt make the price but would it make a difference if we pay more? Would we get better service? Right now it seems my Premium member ship is NO DIFFERENT than a Free membership as the only real advantage to Premium to me has been PQs.

[+mtn-man]

When you go to the main PQ page, does the column at the right ("Last Generated") say they have run?

[CoyoteRed]

They offer a service for a stated price. I pay the price. They should provide the service. They don't. It is as simple as that.

Yes, but this service is not designed for you to maintain an offline database. You are abusing the service, at the detriment of thousands of other users. I use the service as it is intended and don't have a problem except occasionally. I know that Fridays are going to be busy (partially due to abusers of the system), so I work around it.

 

What does the number of caches in an offline database have to do with anything about how fast Groundspeak can get scheduled PQs to us? Who really cares what the PQ system is designed for when we are allotted 5 PQs of 500 caches a day and we don't get them in a timely manner? Abusing the service? How? I'm paying for 5 PQs of 500 caches a day, if I'm getting those how is that abuse? I'm paying for that exact service.

 

The slow service is NOT the fault of those who are simply getting what they paid for. It sounds more like Groundspeak is "over booking" the services they can provide. Groundspeak should be able to provide every single paying member 500 caches by 5 custom PQs every day of the week considering that's what they're collecting money to provide.

 

There have been countless suggestions of improving the service, yet about the only thing we hear back is "tough nuts" from the apologists.

[+Damin69]

When you go to the main PQ page, does the column at the right ("Last Generated") say they have run?

Yes it does show it ran. I also got the preview results. JUST no email with the combined results ZIP file...

[+mtn-man]

There have been countless suggestions of improving the service, yet about the only thing we hear back is "tough nuts" from the apologists.

No, what you hear are the ways to get around those daily PQ's people use to update their offline database. Heaven help those people if they miss a log on a cache. It is as if the world is going to end.

 

Run a new PQ and you get it in minutes. The original intent was not for people to use it in this manner. I've offered a solution to the problem. Feel free to offer one yourself rather than just slamming the site saying how bad of a job they do.

 

When you go to the main PQ page, does the column at the right ("Last Generated") say they have run?

Yes it does show it ran. I also got the preview results. JUST no email with the combined results ZIP file...

That sounds like an email issue. The query ran. I think what people see when they say they have not run is that it never shows as generated.

 

I just clicked the red check mark on my normal "caches near my home" query, one I have not run in a month. It took about five minutes for it to generate. I already have it in my inbox. I made a copy for the heck of it. It ran instantly. It is also in my inbox.

[+Damin69]

 

 

When you go to the main PQ page, does the column at the right ("Last Generated") say they have run?

Yes it does show it ran. I also got the preview results. JUST no email with the combined results ZIP file...

That sounds like an email issue. The query ran. I think what people see when they say they have not run is that it never shows as generated.

 

I just clicked the red check mark on my normal "caches near my home" query, one I have not run in a month. It took about five minutes for it to generate. I already have it in my inbox. I made a copy for the heck of it. It ran instantly. It is also in my inbox.

This is my point exactly. Where is the email problem at. Like said before I have run the same querry 3 times. Just telling it to send to 3 different email providers and never receive the PQ in an email. Every one says it runs shows the preview of the whole PQ. So that tells me there is an email problem on the PQ server end and dont know why. This was all working fine a few weeks ago on my account why did this all start doing this now?

[+Damin69]

Ok figure this one out. Seem as long as I create a completly NEW PQ I receive it. I just created a NEW one from scratch and got it within 2 min. Though running a previous PQ I dont receive it. So I will just have to create completly new PQ to submit

[+StarBrand]

Ok figure this one out. Seem as long as I create a completly NEW PQ I receive it. I just created a NEW one from scratch and got it within 2 min. Though running a previous PQ I dont receive it. So I will just have to create completly new PQ to submit

Makes perfect sense.

 

The priority for running a PQ is based on how long it has been since it was last run. If it ran recently, it gets very low priority. New ones get bumped right into the top of the queue. The theory being that 24 to 72 +/- hour old data is still good enough for a day of caching.

 

What many in this thread are complaining about is that they want to make sure even those run a day ago can still have enough priority (and time) to run again today. Really mostly effects those trying to maintain an offline database.

[+Damin69]

Ok figure this one out. Seem as long as I create a completly NEW PQ I receive it. I just created a NEW one from scratch and got it within 2 min. Though running a previous PQ I dont receive it. So I will just have to create completly new PQ to submit

Makes perfect sense.

 

The priority for running a PQ is based on how long it has been since it was last run. If it ran recently, it gets very low priority. New ones get bumped right into the top of the queue. The theory being that 24 to 72 +/- hour old data is still good enough for a day of caching.

 

What many in this thread are complaining about is that they want to make sure even those run a day ago can still have enough priority (and time) to run again today. Really mostly effects those trying to maintain an offline database.

Ok That is great to hear so why is that NOT written some where? Like we are suppose to know? If someone had said this or had it posted on the PQ page it could have saved me alot of HEADACHES. I have only been on this site a few months. So if this information would have been on the PQ page it would have made a huge difference and I probably would not have even had to post a SINGLE reply to this thread.

[+KoosKoos]

Ok figure this one out. Seem as long as I create a completly NEW PQ I receive it. I just created a NEW one from scratch and got it within 2 min. Though running a previous PQ I dont receive it. So I will just have to create completly new PQ to submit

Makes perfect sense.

 

The priority for running a PQ is based on how long it has been since it was last run. If it ran recently, it gets very low priority. New ones get bumped right into the top of the queue. The theory being that 24 to 72 +/- hour old data is still good enough for a day of caching.

 

What many in this thread are complaining about is that they want to make sure even those run a day ago can still have enough priority (and time) to run again today. Really mostly effects those trying to maintain an offline database.

Ok That is great to hear so why is that NOT written some where? Like we are suppose to know? If someone had said this or had it posted on the PQ page it could have saved me alot of HEADACHES. I have only been on this site a few months. So if this information would have been on the PQ page it would have made a huge difference and I probably would not have even had to post a SINGLE reply to this thread.

 

Like this?

 

How Pocket Queries Work

 

Due to the complexity of Pocket Queries, a dedicated machine processes them in batches throughout the day.

 

The order they run is based on the last time the query ran last. Priority goes to new queries first, and the others run in the order of the oldest generated. So if you have a query run once a week it will arrive on that day much faster than someone who runs the query every day. It is recommended that you stagger your queries. Or even better, create new queries only when you need them.

[+Damin69]

Ok figure this one out. Seem as long as I create a completly NEW PQ I receive it. I just created a NEW one from scratch and got it within 2 min. Though running a previous PQ I dont receive it. So I will just have to create completly new PQ to submit

Makes perfect sense.

 

The priority for running a PQ is based on how long it has been since it was last run. If it ran recently, it gets very low priority. New ones get bumped right into the top of the queue. The theory being that 24 to 72 +/- hour old data is still good enough for a day of caching.

 

What many in this thread are complaining about is that they want to make sure even those run a day ago can still have enough priority (and time) to run again today. Really mostly effects those trying to maintain an offline database.

Ok That is great to hear so why is that NOT written some where? Like we are suppose to know? If someone had said this or had it posted on the PQ page it could have saved me alot of HEADACHES. I have only been on this site a few months. So if this information would have been on the PQ page it would have made a huge difference and I probably would not have even had to post a SINGLE reply to this thread.

 

Like this?

 

How Pocket Queries Work

 

Due to the complexity of Pocket Queries, a dedicated machine processes them in batches throughout the day.

 

The order they run is based on the last time the query ran last. Priority goes to new queries first, and the others run in the order of the oldest generated. So if you have a query run once a week it will arrive on that day much faster than someone who runs the query every day. It is recommended that you stagger your queries. Or even better, create new queries only when you need them.

YES YES YES. Now if this was posted right at the top of the PQ page that would help a lot of people I think. That is very well put and to the point.

[Keystone]

It is posted at the *bottom* of the pocket query page. If it were posted at the top, someone would be in the forums complaining that the boring standard information that "everybody already knows" is blocking quick access to the chart of pocket queries.

[Motorcycle_Mama]

Like this?

 

How Pocket Queries Work

 

Due to the complexity of Pocket Queries, a dedicated machine processes them in batches throughout the day.

 

The order they run is based on the last time the query ran last. Priority goes to new queries first, and the others run in the order of the oldest generated. So if you have a query run once a week it will arrive on that day much faster than someone who runs the query every day. It is recommended that you stagger your queries. Or even better, create new queries only when you need them.

YES YES YES. Now if this was posted right at the top of the PQ page that would help a lot of people I think. That is very well put and to the point.

 

Now THAT'S funny!!!!

[+TotemLake]

It is posted at the *bottom* of the pocket query page. If it were posted at the top, someone would be in the forums complaining that the boring standard information that "everybody already knows" is blocking quick access to the chart of pocket queries.

No matter where you put the bucket, someone is bound to kick it.

[+Damin69]

So sorry that I didnt really see it. BUt man at the top of the Pocket query Page are the BUttons/links to create a querry. Not at the Bottom. so in my book that is pretty easy to over look when no one points it out until after a bunch of posts.

[CoyoteRed]

Run a new PQ and you get it in minutes. The original intent was not for people to use it in this manner. I've offered a solution to the problem. Feel free to offer one yourself rather than just slamming the site saying how bad of a job they do.

I think I've already pointed out that if everyone ran their PQs on demand the site would come to a crawl because everyone would be demanding it in a much smaller chunk of time. The whole reason the PQs are scheduled is so the server can work them at its leisure. The "original intent" was to run on a schedule and not on demand which is pretty much what you're doing. So, who's closer to "abusing the system," those who run PQs on demand to get around scheduling issues and backlogs or those who try to work with the system and work with the scheduling system?

 

BTW, I have offered solutions. I suspect one of which was used previously when I suggested instead of running a sub-query for every set of cache logs that instead they save the results and issue that each time thereafter. Two days later the PQ system was humming along quite nicely. Did they take my suggestion? I have no idea, but it was offered and next thing you know...

 

Not only have I offered suggestions on how to make the system work better, faster, or more efficient, but I've also offered solutions to users that work within the system we do have. Don't act like I the only thing I do is complain. I complain, but also offer solutions. It's not my fault it falls on deaf ears.

[AZcachemeister]

They offer a service for a stated price. I pay the price. They should provide the service. They don't. It is as simple as that.

Yes, but this service is not designed for you to maintain an offline database. You are abusing the service, at the detriment of thousands of other users. I use the service as it is intended and don't have a problem except occasionally. I know that Fridays are going to be busy (partially due to abusers of the system), so I work around it.

 

What does the number of caches in an offline database have to do with anything about how fast Groundspeak can get scheduled PQs to us? Who really cares what the PQ system is designed for when we are allotted 5 PQs of 500 caches a day and we don't get them in a timely manner? Abusing the service? How? I'm paying for 5 PQs of 500 caches a day, if I'm getting those how is that abuse? I'm paying for that exact service.

 

The slow service is NOT the fault of those who are simply getting what they paid for. It sounds more like Groundspeak is "over booking" the services they can provide. Groundspeak should be able to provide every single paying member 500 caches by 5 custom PQs every day of the week considering that's what they're collecting money to provide.

 

There have been countless suggestions of improving the service, yet about the only thing we hear back is "tough nuts" from the apologists.

 

Thank-you CR!

 

What does an airline do when they overbook? Tell the passengers they should have planned their travel for a less busy period?

 

mtn-man, I can only wish for the opportunity to travel to far-off locations and get to do some caching. As it is, I am stuck here in the Phoenix area, and Arizona in general. I am lucky in that I get to cache nearly every day, but I do not get to decide where I am going...my employer has that privilege. If there is a cache in the area where I am working, I may have time to hunt it.

 

I am not necessarily interested in every last log for a cache, unless the last log was an Archive/Disable log.

No point in hunting those caches, is there?

 

I used to be able to do a quick spot-check from the field, before the not-so-recent 'site upgrades' rendered the use of my smartphone to access the site a painful chore, rather than an advantage and a blessing.

Perhaps my smartphone isn't working the way it used to due to too many people using theirs?

 

I did not ask or demand to get five PQs per day...but if they are offered to me and it can make my avoidance of Archived/Disabled caches easier, you can bet I'm going to take full advantage.

 

In conclusion, MISTER mtn-man, I find the fact that you pointed to my post (and ME PERSONALLY) as the cause of the problem under discussion, insulting, disrespectful and a violation of the forum guidelines.

 

I say YOU should give yourself a time-out.

[+Tequila]

Thank you to Coyote Red and AZcachemeister for doing such a superb job of trying to expalin what is wrong with the apologist's logic.

 

And thanks to CR for the so accurate term "apologists".

 

I didn't start this thread to be given a bunch of cumbersome get arounds that required me to manually do things that are better left to automation. I already knew how to get around it.

 

I started the thread in the futile hope that someone from Groundspeak, as opposed to one of the well known apologists, would explain what is going on and what is being done to remedy the situation. I think I knew up front that my effort was futile but at least now I am on record.

 

I tried to explain that Groundspeak defined the offering, Groundspeak set the price. As a customer, I simply accepted the conditions and made the payment. Now I would like Groundspeak to live up to their end of the contract. AND please don't start another "but they are......." discussion from the apologists.

 

The really sad part is that I have thrown in the towel and re-engineered my PQ's to ensure that I can mitigate the weekly disruption by Groundspeak. This means I am running close to twice as many PQ's as I want to and I know that exacerbates the overall situation. But, in the absence of a response from Groundspeak, it is the only thing I can do.

 

I have set it up to ensure I get my 5 PQ's per day that I pay for. How I use them is my business. And one last thanks to the poster who discovered that you can get more than 5 scheduled PQ's in a day. Rather than leaving slots open to be lost to GS, I have scheduled 5 PQ's with overlapping PQ's to alleviate any delays.

 

Thanks to all of the posters who recognized the issue and made positive contributions to the discussion. Hopefully GS will eventually get the message.

Edited November 17, 2008 by Tequila

[+pppingme]

I'm not even sure how you get 34 cents or whatever, since you didn't explain it, but for the 5 to 10 minutes a month I do actually spend on the site, your WAY OFF. I do nothing online that I don't have to. I write my logs offline, I decide my caches I'm hitting for the day offline, there is very little site interaction from me.

You forgot forum posting. $30 divided by 365 days equals 8.219 cents per day. Divide that by 24 hours and you get 0.342 cents per hour. Just simple math.

No one here uses the site 24x7 as you suggest, this post by its self removes any credibility you might have had by making such absurd comparisons.

 

Further, an online site should only cost fractions of a penny per month per user to actually run. If it costs more than that, then its not being run correctly. I speak from authority here I run sites much larger than this site and I know what true user costs are.

Please, tell us which sites. I am curious what your monthly bandwidth is compared to this site. It is easy to compare, so just let us know which sites those are.

I really don't see the relevance or advantage of releasing that info, this isn't a comparison of my site is better than yours (which it is), its a solid fact to state that sites don't cost anywhere near $3/month to run. If you want to know a few facts, I'll tell you these, I have multiple sites that have higher traffic ratings than geocaching.com according to all the major rating/ranking services, all of those same sites with the higher ratings have much more than the 60-80,000 users here, all have higher bandwidth requirements (and to quote jeremy, bandwidth isn't a major cost here anyway, to quote me, we are in an era of the cheapest bandwidth you've ever seen, feel free to search my quote). If your stuck on bandwidth being the major cost you have no idea how a data intensive site works, I do.

 

They offer a service for a stated price. I pay the price. They should provide the service. They don't. It is as simple as that.

Yes, but this service is not designed for you to maintain an offline database. You are abusing the service, at the detriment of thousands of other users. I use the service as it is intended and don't have a problem except occasionally. I know that Fridays are going to be busy (partially due to abusers of the system), so I work around it.

GC promises 5 PQ's per day, how I use them is not an "abuse of the system". If GC can't deliver 5, they shouldn't promise 5, plain and simple. The fact that I pull 5 (and actually I only average 3 most days, 4 a few others, not 5) is clearly within whats promised to me. Loading those to my GPS receiver, my PDA, or printing them out and dancing on them then building a bonfire after the danceisn't relative here, nor an "abuse of the system". The reality here is that GC can't deliver PQ's in a format requested (more than 5 logs, I like 10 when I'm in the field), so I'm forced to accumulate logs.

 

One thing that you continue to gloss over and try to redirect peoples thinking away from is the fact that GC broke something a couple months ago and its been broken since. No one has even acknowledged a problem, people like you just want to scream that others are just "abusing" the system, and you try and distract from the real problem. The fact that something is broke is very clear as evidenced by the surge in complaints about PQ's since the "upgrade".

[Keystone]

I am posting to point out that mtn-man cannot be given a "time out." Global moderators don't have warn meters.

 

You can, however, write to MissJenn and ask her to hurry up and write that eBay listing for selling one used mtn-man. Frog slaves are not fired, they are sold at auction. The address for complaints of this nature is reviewers @ geocaching.com.

 

Oh, and I got all my pocket queries this week... multiple files, every day.

[+pppingme]

Oh, and I got all my pocket queries this week... multiple files, every day.

Hmm.. According to mtn-man, your an abuser.

[+beejay&esskay]

I have considered buying an extra membership so I can set up 35 PQs to run each week without them getting in the way of ad hoc PQs I sometimes want to run.

 

Would Groundspeak want me to do this...or would this be considered "abuse"?

[Keystone]

Oh, and I got all my pocket queries this week... multiple files, every day.

Hmm.. According to mtn-man, your an abuser.

Indeed. Please report me to MissJenn as well. She can then decide whether to auction us off as a package, or in separate lots to see which will fetch a higher sum for the advancement of Signal the Frog's evil plan to achieve world domination through subversive religion masquerading as science.

[+mtn-man]

Run a new PQ and you get it in minutes. The original intent was not for people to use it in this manner. I've offered a solution to the problem. Feel free to offer one yourself rather than just slamming the site saying how bad of a job they do.

I think I've already pointed out that if everyone ran their PQs on demand the site would come to a crawl because everyone would be demanding it in a much smaller chunk of time. The whole reason the PQs are scheduled is so the server can work them at its leisure. The "original intent" was to run on a schedule and not on demand which is pretty much what you're doing. So, who's closer to "abusing the system," those who run PQs on demand to get around scheduling issues and backlogs or those who try to work with the system and work with the scheduling system?

Thanks, but don't twist my words. I said earlier that I just ran my local PQ, which I have not run for over a month. I don't run it daily or weekly. I run it every now and then when I want to see if some new caches have come in my home area. I also run it to clean out found caches so I don't keep reloading them if I have gone out of town and cleaned out my GPS.

 

I run queries on demand as I travel to a new area and stay in a different hotel. When I travel, even though I may travel to the same city, I don't alway stay in the same place. I typically take the same PQ and modify it, but it is faster sometimes to just create a new PQ, run it based on a cache next to the hotel and do a circle from that point. Either that, or I use a cache between my hotel and in between the places I am going to be working. I keep queries for places I go to a lot and stay in the same hotels and run them when I go there. I keep a few sentimental PQs, like CA Wine Country, Moab and Vancouver Island. I have three queries for Atlanta, one for my area, one for the north central and one for the northeast part of the city. I also have one called "GGA Meeting" that I modify and use when I attend a GGA Meeting.

 

If I go somewhere and can cache, I run a query. I use it that day or during the length of my trip. I don't always run 500 caches since I won't find that many. I don't run a new query every day while I am on a trip just in case a cache gets listed while I am staying there. My database is www.geocaching.com.

[+mtn-man]

I'm not even sure how you get 34 cents or whatever, since you didn't explain it, but for the 5 to 10 minutes a month I do actually spend on the site, your WAY OFF. I do nothing online that I don't have to. I write my logs offline, I decide my caches I'm hitting for the day offline, there is very little site interaction from me.

You forgot forum posting. $30 divided by 365 days equals 8.219 cents per day. Divide that by 24 hours and you get 0.342 cents per hour. Just simple math.

No one here uses the site 24x7 as you suggest, this post by its self removes any credibility you might have had by making such absurd comparisons.

You don't use a doctor 24/7 either. The absurd comparison was not made by me, as I have already said. Try to keep up.

 

Further, an online site should only cost fractions of a penny per month per user to actually run. If it costs more than that, then its not being run correctly. I speak from authority here I run sites much larger than this site and I know what true user costs are.

Please, tell us which sites. I am curious what your monthly bandwidth is compared to this site. It is easy to compare, so just let us know which sites those are.

I really don't see the relevance or advantage of releasing that info, <snip>

Yeah, I figured you would not back your statement with facts. Your credibility is shot down a little more. I run three web sites that gets more traffic than any of yours do. Anyone can say that. (I do run our company's web site and personally own 15 URL's.)

 

GC promises 5 PQ's per day, how I use them is not an "abuse of the system". If GC can't deliver 5, they shouldn't promise 5, plain and simple. The fact that I pull 5 (and actually I only average 3 most days, 4 a few others, not 5) is clearly within whats promised to me. Loading those to my GPS receiver, my PDA, or printing them out and dancing on them then building a bonfire after the danceisn't relative here, nor an "abuse of the system". The reality here is that GC can't deliver PQ's in a format requested (more than 5 logs, I like 10 when I'm in the field), so I'm forced to accumulate logs.

I and thousands of others cachers do just fine with five logs. You might get a DNF every now and then. Does your world end? Only a few come here complaining about this issue. Most of the time it seems to be those who run the same PQ every day to build a personal database, as you have now said that you do.

 

One thing that you continue to gloss over and try to redirect peoples thinking away from is the fact that GC broke something a couple months ago and its been broken since. No one has even acknowledged a problem, people like you just want to scream that others are just "abusing" the system, and you try and distract from the real problem. The fact that something is broke is very clear as evidenced by the surge in complaints about PQ's since the "upgrade".

Maybe, and yes I do understand the frustration with the end of the week slowdown. I just think you are contributing to the problem with having to have every single log on every single cache in this manner. Those that build a personal database can easily run a query on an off day and select "Placed during the last week" and you will have your caches. Still, that was not the original intent. It was to be used as I described in the post of mine above this one.

[+pppingme]

I'm not even sure how you get 34 cents or whatever, since you didn't explain it, but for the 5 to 10 minutes a month I do actually spend on the site, your WAY OFF. I do nothing online that I don't have to. I write my logs offline, I decide my caches I'm hitting for the day offline, there is very little site interaction from me.

You forgot forum posting. $30 divided by 365 days equals 8.219 cents per day. Divide that by 24 hours and you get 0.342 cents per hour. Just simple math.

No one here uses the site 24x7 as you suggest, this post by its self removes any credibility you might have had by making such absurd comparisons.

You don't use a doctor 24/7 either. The absurd comparison was not made by me, as I have already said. Try to keep up.

I didn't even say anything about a Dr in my quote, your the one that keeps bringing up a Dr and your the one that gave the bad math claiming that everyone uses the site 24/7. Some isn't keeping up, but its not me.

 

Further' date=' an online site should only cost fractions of a penny per month per user to actually run. If it costs more than that, then its not being run correctly. I speak from authority here I run sites much larger than this site and I know what true user costs are.[/quote']Please, tell us which sites. I am curious what your monthly bandwidth is compared to this site. It is easy to compare, so just let us know which sites those are.

I really don't see the relevance or advantage of releasing that info, <snip>

Yeah, I figured you would not back your statement with facts. Your credibility is shot down a little more. I run three web sites that gets more traffic than any of yours do. Anyone can say that. (I do run our company's web site and

personally own 15 URL's.)

There's a reason I didn't mention my sites here, its simply not appropriate for this forum. If you wish, you can PM me and I might consider telling you something about them, but then again, to quote you, "someone isn't keeping up" (but its not me).

 

 

GC promises 5 PQ's per day, how I use them is not an "abuse of the system". If GC can't deliver 5, they shouldn't promise 5, plain and simple. The fact that I pull 5 (and actually I only average 3 most days, 4 a few others, not 5) is clearly within whats promised to me. Loading those to my GPS receiver, my PDA, or printing them out and dancing on them then building a bonfire after the danceisn't relative here, nor an "abuse of the system". The reality here is that GC can't deliver PQ's in a format requested (more than 5 logs, I like 10 when I'm in the field), so I'm forced to accumulate logs.

I and thousands of others cachers do just fine with five logs. You might get a DNF every now and then. Does your world end? Only a few come here complaining about this issue. Most of the time it seems to be those who run the same PQ every day to build a personal database, as you have now said that you do.

Fully within the TOU. Actually for that matter, you seem to be the only one here that has an issue, yeah yeah, I know, Jeremy has commented on it in the past, but only in the context of stale data, NOT in the context of getting more log data, so be sure you don't twist his words either and over-broadly apply them.

 

 

One thing that you continue to gloss over and try to redirect peoples thinking away from is the fact that GC broke something a couple months ago and its been broken since. No one has even acknowledged a problem, people like you just want to scream that others are just "abusing" the system, and you try and distract from the real problem. The fact that something is broke is very clear as evidenced by the surge in complaints about PQ's since the "upgrade".

Maybe, and yes I do understand the frustration with the end of the week slowdown. I just think you are contributing to the problem with having to have every single log on every single cache in this manner. Those that build a personal database can easily run a query on an off day and select "Placed during the last week" and you will have your caches. Still, that was not the original intent. It was to be used as I described in the post of mine above this one.

And again your still avoiding the real issue here. You or anyone associated with GC have yet to even admit that there was a change a couple months ago that clearly is causing problems, again you just want to point blame somewhere else and hope that no one else but me notices the real problem. The "weekend slowdown" was not an issue before, and would not be an issue now, IF THE ORIGINAL PROBLEM GETS FIXED.

 

You can't even admit there's an issue that started a couple months ago, even though the significant increase in posts related to this clearly documents it.

[+mtn-man]

One thing that you continue to gloss over and try to redirect peoples thinking away from is the fact that GC broke something a couple months ago and its been broken since. No one has even acknowledged a problem, people like you just want to scream that others are just "abusing" the system, and you try and distract from the real problem. The fact that something is broke is very clear as evidenced by the surge in complaints about PQ's since the "upgrade".

Maybe, and yes I do understand the frustration with the end of the week slowdown. I just think you are contributing to the problem with having to have every single log on every single cache in this manner. Those that build a personal database can easily run a query on an off day and select "Placed during the last week" and you will have your caches. Still, that was not the original intent. It was to be used as I described in the post of mine above this one.

And again your still avoiding the real issue here. You or anyone associated with GC have yet to even admit that there was a change a couple months ago that clearly is causing problems, again you just want to point blame somewhere else and hope that no one else but me notices the real problem. The "weekend slowdown" was not an issue before, and would not be an issue now, IF THE ORIGINAL PROBLEM GETS FIXED.

 

You can't even admit there's an issue that started a couple months ago, even though the significant increase in posts related to this clearly documents it.

I said right there that I understand the end of the week slowdown. It is a problem. I didn't ignore it or avoid it. You quoted my "weekend slowdown" words yourself for heaven's sake. I also offered a solution.

 

You know what, I get my PQ's fine. No problem for me, except the occasional problem when the server gets hung up, and they just reboot and I am fine again. I am not going to argue with you any further. I'm sorry, but I personally don't care if your database misses a few logs. I will only respond to those who use the PQ as it was originally intended and have issue and offer them solutions. You are not going to change your mind, so further discussion in pointless.

 

Edited to add that the "weekend slowdown" has indeed been a problem in the past, which is why they tried to upgrade the server a couple of months ago. They are aware of the issue and are trying to fix it. In some ways, it helped. In others, it did not.

Edited November 17, 2008 by mtn-man

[+tozainamboku]

Based on my experience this past week (where I reschedule some weekly PQ that I normally run on Saturday and Sunday to run on Thursday and Friday) I see the following.

 

If you run a PQ that has never run before or has not run for more than 7 days, it will run in a few minutes even on a busy Friday.

 

If you run a PQ that ran 7 days ago, it can take several hours. Each week these PQ will run later and later as new weekly PQs get scheduled by other.

 

If you run a PQ that ran fewer than 7 days ago it can take most/all of the day to run. The queries I ran on Thursday ran about 5:30 PM PST. The queries I had scheduled for Friday still hadn't run at 10:00 PM, so I made copies of these and they ran immediately. The queries I ran on Saturday and Sunday, which were run 9 days before all ran before 12:31 AM.

 

It seems that on busy days the system may not get through all of the PQs in the queue. Those who run the same pocket query every day are likely to not get their PQ on those days.

 

Note that not only those who keep offline databases are affected. If some has a standard PQ for their home area that they run prior to going out caching may find that if it has been a week or less since they last ran, they will have to wait for the PQ. If they attempt to run the same PQ as they ran the day before on a busy day, they may not get their results. They have to know to create a copy of the PQ and submit that to ensure they get a timely response.

 

I suspect that the main problem is not users trying to efficiently schedule PQs to maintain their offline data but simply people requesting more data than they need. My guess is that many people have once or twice a week PQs scheduled so that they will have something in their email in case they decide to go geocaching. If these were run only when really needed they would probably be less of a load on the server. I disagree with CRs statement that "if everyone ran their PQs on demand the site would come to a crawl because everyone would be demanding it in a much smaller chunk of time." If PQs were run on demand they would be spread through out the day and only requested when actually needed. While there will be times (on the weekends mainly) where the queue may get long and on-demand query could take a few hours instead of only minutes but people would learn to avoid getting PQs during these times and that will tend to mitigate these time of peak demand.

[+StarBrand]

...

I suspect that the main problem is not users trying to efficiently schedule PQs to maintain their offline data but simply people requesting more data than they need. My guess is that many people have once or twice a week PQs scheduled so that they will have something in their email in case they decide to go geocaching. If these were run only when really needed they would probably be less of a load on the server.

...

I agree!!

[+mtn-man]

I suspect that the main problem is not users trying to efficiently schedule PQs to maintain their offline data but simply people requesting more data than they need. My guess is that many people have once or twice a week PQs scheduled so that they will have something in their email in case they decide to go geocaching. If these were run only when really needed they would probably be less of a load on the server. I disagree with CRs statement that "if everyone ran their PQs on demand the site would come to a crawl because everyone would be demanding it in a much smaller chunk of time." If PQs were run on demand they would be spread through out the day and only requested when actually needed. While there will be times (on the weekends mainly) where the queue may get long and on-demand query could take a few hours instead of only minutes but people would learn to avoid getting PQs during these times and that will tend to mitigate these time of peak demand.

Indeed, I also agree. Awesome work on your rescheduling experiment. Interesting report and theories.

[+ArcherDragoon]

If a "programmer" spends even 80 hours on the site in a month, when you divide that by the estimated 80 thousand premium members, that only amounts to 3.6 seconds a month per user, I think paying $3/month more than compensates the 3.6 seconds of programming time I got out of it. By the way, for those keeping track, that works out to about $3000/hour, WAY MORE THAN ANY DOCTOR I KNOW MAKES.

For those keeping score...

.

.

.

Assume 40hr weeks and 52 weeks in a year...that amount comes to $6,240,000.00, WAY MORE THAN ANY PROGRAMMER I KNOW MAKES. Oh, wait, that could have been said for the $3000/hour used above...glad we are keeping score...

[+Tequila]

...

I suspect that the main problem is not users trying to efficiently schedule PQs to maintain their offline data but simply people requesting more data than they need. My guess is that many people have once or twice a week PQs scheduled so that they will have something in their email in case they decide to go geocaching. If these were run only when really needed they would probably be less of a load on the server.

...

I agree!!

 

I agree with everything you said except for the word "problem". What you have described is a side effect of THE PROBLEM. The problem is the fact that Groundspeak has sold more PM's than they can successfully deliver on. Since GS sells the product as 5 PQ's per day, they should be provisioned to deliver those 5 PQ's regardless of what data is requested. More precisely, they should be able to accurately predict their peak load and provision for that; which would be something less than 5 PQ's/day per day as the apologists don't seem to avail themselves of the service.

 

How any individual PM uses their PQ's is a red herring in this discussion. This is well proven by the fact that if I chose to manually create/submit 5 new PQ's per day, I will get them. They will contain the EXACT same data as my scheduled PQ's.

 

To CR's earlier post, if everyone who schedules their PQ's did that, then the "side effect" would change but THE PROBLEM would still be there. At the end of the day, someone would not get their PQ. It just won't be me.

[Skippermark]

I suspect that the main problem is not users trying to efficiently schedule PQs to maintain their offline data but simply people requesting more data than they need. My guess is that many people have once or twice a week PQs scheduled so that they will have something in their email in case they decide to go geocaching. If these were run only when really needed they would probably be less of a load on the server.

We run PQs for our state about every 2 weeks, usually on a Monday. As new caches come out during the week, I'll manually download the GPX file for them. When we run our PQ every 2 weeks, they get delivered within a few minutes because the haven't been run in awhile.

 

I don't really care if I have the latest logs for older caches, but I do like having logs for new caches in case there's a problem that people wrote about in them. The way I do it works great. When I run the PQs, I get them quickly. My GSAK is up to date, so I can load caches in an instant and head out anywhere. The only thing that may happen is a cache may get archived. I wouldn't know that until I downloaded the PQ, but not that many caches get archived around here in a 2 week period.

[+DanOCan]

If you run a PQ that has never run before or has not run for more than 7 days, it will run in a few minutes even on a busy Friday.

 

If you run a PQ that ran 7 days ago, it can take several hours. Each week these PQ will run later and later as new weekly PQs get scheduled by other.

 

If you run a PQ that ran fewer than 7 days ago it can take most/all of the day to run.

 

That has been my experience as well.

 

I don't normally schedule any queries to run. After all, if I am not planning on going caching I don't need the data. If I do get a chance to go caching, 99% of the time the data I have from the last time my query ran is sufficient.

 

It IS frustrating when I have a weekend cache run planned, however. I used to be able to set my standard queries to run on the Saturday and they would be sitting in my Inbox when I woke up Saturday morning. Then as things got slower and slower I learned I needed to start scheduling those queries to run on Friday if I planned to use them for Saturday. That seems to be working fine for me for now.

 

As for those saying they aren't getting what is promised, this is an interesting section of the License Agreement:

"No Warranty: The Data are not warranted and Licensee expressly acknowledges that the Data contain some nonconformities, defects, or errors. Groundspeak does not warrant that the Data will meet Licensee's needs or expectations, that the use of the Data will be uninterrupted, or that all nonconformities, defects, or errors can or will be corrected. Groundspeak is not inviting reliance on these data, and Licensee should always verify actual data."

 

So, I'm assuming the agreement applies to the actual content of the data, but I suppose an argument could also be made that it applies to the delivery as well.

 

Regardless, don't brand me as an apologist. I believe that the current delivery time for Pocket Queries is an issue and I believe the workarounds presented are just that -- workarounds -- and not real solutions.

 

I also don't by the argument that people who schedule queries more frequently than me are abusing the system and not using it as it was intended -- after all, the top of the PQ page clearly states:

 

1) Pocket Queries are custom geocache queries you can have emailed to you on a daily or weekly basis.

 

2) Because of the detailed queries, each search can run only once per day. You have up to 5 pocket queries run every 24 hour period.

 

If the ability to run five queries per day is abuse than the information on the webpage should be changed to reflect this. "While each search can be run once per day and you can have up to 5 pocket queries run every 24 hour period, we recommend that you create a new query every time and not schedule anything."

 

So, to summarize:

1) I am very happy with the value I get as a paying member on this site.

2) I am able to workaround the current PQ delivery times.

3) Despite #1 and #2 above, I still believe there is a problem which needs to be addressed.

[+Tequila]

Well said DanoCan.

 

Here is how ludicrous this whole algorithm is:

 

I had four PQ's scheduled to run today. As of 1400 EST, I had not received them. Not a problem.

 

I turned off the schedule for those 4 PQ's, made copies of each PQ AND they ran instantly. In fact the term "instantly" doesn't do justice to the speed. By the time I hit "Alt/Tab" to move to my mail client, they were there.

 

I consumed the exact same amount of resources on the PQ server either way. The only difference is THE CUSTOMER is inconvenienced.

 

So now we need someone to write a Firefox macro that will complete the set of repetitive keystrokes needed to do this and GS can continue to ignore the problem until delivery of instant PQ's bubbles to the service.

Edited November 17, 2008 by Tequila

[+KoosKoos]

Well said DanoCan.

 

Here is how ludicrous this whole algorithm is:

 

I had four PQ's scheduled to run today. As of 1400 EST, I had not received them. Not a problem.

 

I turned off the schedule for those 4 PQ's, made copies of each PQ AND they ran instantly. In fact the term "instantly" doesn't do justice to the speed. By the time I hit "Alt/Tab" to move to my mail client, they were there.

 

I consumed the exact same amount of resources on the PQ server either way. The only difference is THE CUSTOMER is inconvenienced.

 

So now we need someone to write a Firefox macro that will complete the set of repetitive keystrokes needed to do this and GS can continue to ignore the problem until delivery of instant PQ's bubbles to the service.

 

While it usually doesn't affect me, I do agree that this is an ongoing problem with the PQ resources.

 

I wonder how many more scheduled PQs would run on Friday if all of the members stopped using the "workaround" and submitting copies of their existing PQs because they want them to run faster. While I can't come up with the numbers, I'd be shocked if there isn't a snowball affect going on.

 

Cacher A - "hmm, my weekly PQ doesn't run when I need it, make a copy because I want this one NOW."

 

Cacher B - "dang, my weekly PQ was coming fine, but now 5000 people are making copies and getting in line before me, I better copy mine and run it on demand instead"