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Release Notes 1/13/09

OpinioNate

By OpinioNate
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OpinioNate

OpinioNate

Posted
Posted (edited)

Today we updated the site with new ways to purchase Groundspeak Premium Membership gift certificates.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/gift

 

You may give the gift of Premium Membership by:

  • Directly upgrading a current user's membership
  • Having a gift code mailed to a friend
  • Requesting the site email you a gift code to present to your friend at your leisure

View a sample gift certificate

 

Gift Certificates can be used to purchase a new Premium Membership, upgrade a current Basic Membership or extend a current Premium Membership by one year. The cost of a Groundspeak Membership Gift Certificate is $30.00 USD. Paypal and most major credit cards are accepted.

Edited by OpinioNate
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two bison

+two bison

Posted
Posted

Today we updated the site with new ways to purchase Groundspeak Premium Membership gift certificates.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/gift

 

You may give the gift of Premium Membership by:

  • Directly upgrading a current user's membership
  • Having a gift code mailed to a friend
  • Requesting the site email you a gift code to present to your friend at your leisure

View a sample gift certificate

 

Gift Certificates can be used to purchase a new Premium Membership, upgrade a current Basic Membership or extend a current Premium Membership by one year. The cost of a Groundspeak Membership Gift Certificate is $30.00 USD. Paypal and most major credit cards are accepted.

 

Can we opt to have this link removed from our individual Profile page? It adds nothing and is unseemly.

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benh57

+benh57

Posted
Posted

Can we opt to have this link removed from our individual Profile page? It adds nothing and is unseemly.

 

Lol, unseemly.. I don't think it's unseemly, but i don't like the placement. It's right in the center of the content.

 

It's a good thing though. It probably makes Groundspeak more money, which means Raine, Jenn, Nate and Michael and co can continue to eat, which means we get to keep using the site.

 

I would imagine that their revenues are hurting a bit with the downturn in online ads.

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Nozzletime

+Nozzletime

Posted
Posted

I would like to see the link removed.

Times aren't that tough, that I need charity.

 

I almost emailed a friend to tell them how sad it was they put that on their profile page.

Then I checked my page and saw I am begging too.

Well, Groundspeak is begging using my screenname

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ElliPirelli

+ElliPirelli

Posted
Posted

Just found this thread.

 

I've written to contact at GC.com to have this begging link removed from my profil.

This is humiliating! I've just last month renewed my membership, I don't need someone else footing the bill.

I'm well able to pay my own membership, thank you very much.

 

It was in the past possible to gift someone the PM, why do we need this link?

 

I wouldn't even be so upset about it, if it was placed somewhere else.

Like on the side, where the adds are, or underneath contact another player, build a pocket query.

Or at logging in, or on the GC home... So many possibilities, where I would find it, should I need it.

 

But PLEASE not smack dapp in my profil, this looks like begging, which I didn't initiate and certainly can't condone!

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paganfrog

paganfrog

Posted
Posted

i dont want that link on my profile either, if i wanted a premium membership i would have bought it myself. its a useless feature to me. if someone was considering spending money on me i would much prefer they spend it on actual cache related items, like tbs/coins or something useful like a cache kits. not a membership that has no function for me.

please remove this from my profile.

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PJPeters

+PJPeters

Posted
Posted

I'm not a huge fan of the link, but I understand it; I didn't really know about the whole 'gift certificate' program until now. I know you could buy a subscription for another user, but I always thought the process was a bit involved and complicated.

And, if anyone wants to extend my membership, I'm more than happy to let them. :anicute:

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Skippermark

Skippermark

Posted
Posted (edited)

I'm not opposed to the link, though the placement could be better.

 

I don't see it as begging. An anonymous option would be cool.

 

There are local cachers that may be hurting financially, and an anonymous option would give the local caching community a way to donate without anyone knowing and let the person in need continue caching with all the benefits of being a PM.

 

I see it as a way to expand what (for me) caching is about, which is the community, and growing the friendships that are created from it.

 

Edited silly type ohs. :anicute:

Edited by Skippermark
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blackbeard69

+blackbeard69

Posted
Posted

I like the idea of being able to give a Premium Membership as present to someone else, but I do not like the placement of this link at all. This page is my calling card as a geocacher on the server, and this link at this place appears to me as begging.

 

Is it possible to remove it from my profile?

 

I think there are better places for this option, e. g. as an advertisement (and marked as advertisement) on the side of the page.

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Tooeygeotrashed

Tooeygeotrashed

Posted
Posted

What if I don't want that particular account being Premium? I no longer have a choice on how I run my own account?

 

I don't like it one bit.

 

I have added the following text to my profile page:-

 

PLEASE NOTE - I HAVE NO WISH TO UPGRADE MY ACCOUNT, THANK YOU !

 

Also note - look left and see I have Premium Membership - :anicute: no I don't - take a look at my profile it says Member.

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ePeterso2

+ePeterso2

Posted
Posted
What if I don't want that particular account being Premium? I no longer have a choice on how I run my own account?

That's a good point ... I don't know how this feature works, but it would kinda stink if someone was able to make modifications to your membership without your consent.

 

Is there some kind of approval necessary on the part of the targeted user to accept the gift? Kinda like with friend requests, where you have to accept or reject folks as your friends?

 

-eP

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trainlove

+trainlove

Posted
Posted

Also note - look left and see I have Premium Membership - :anicute: no I don't - take a look at my profile it says Member.

You once were as I once was. So forever the 'Group:' will say Premium Member, but look up one line just below your Avatar, if that didn't say Geocacher, then you would be known as a Premium Member, nobody ever gets those 2 things confused, LOL.

 

P.S. OpinioNate. Is there a reason that the upgrade membership page, and the Membership page when one is not logged in does not have Any of the the links that ALL the other geocaching.com pages have on the right hand side?

Getting Started

Hide & Seek a Cache

Find a Benchmark

Trackable Items

My Account

Forums

Shop for Gear

Resources

 

I remember commenting on this last year about 9 months ago. Should have been 'born' in the many updates since I first mentiuoned it.

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L8HNB

+L8HNB

Posted
Posted

In my humble opinion yet another example of poor judgement in both placement and choice of wording. I vote for removal, rewording and placing somewhere else on the site. :anicute:

 

Quite - if it must be anywher why not the front page? (if its not already there - we always skip it!)

 

Please remove it from our profile page. :(;)

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Cache O'Plenty

+Cache O'Plenty

Posted
Posted (edited)

It does serve a useful purpose (from Groundspeak's perspective, mostly) as a reminder but I wonder how often it will actually get used. In any case, it most likely will not be removed.

 

I would prefer that it be placed more efficiently. As of now, it takes up an additional two lines of the screen much like the "See the Forum Posts for this user" also takes two lines. That too is a candidate for a placement change.

 

The first thing anyone sees when accessing a profile page is the initial screen and, as of now, much available space is used up, pushing the user controlled information further down the page. Can we redesign the entire top section into a more efficient format? Please!!! Make it no more than one third of the screen. There is lots of white space between the description column (Member Since: column) and the data column. That could be tightened up. And then rearrange the data into two columns, maybe boxed for clarity.

 

So, lets consolidate the three primary links (Update your profile, extend XXXX membership and View forum posts) to the right, in a box (similar to the function box on the My Account page), under the avatar. Visitors wouldn't see the "Update your profile" link and thus it will look the same to the owner as well as the visitor.

Edited by Cache O'Plenty
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OpinioNate

OpinioNate

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

Thank you for all the feedback, everyone. We have moved the link higher up the profile page and changed the wording so it won't be confused with your personal profile details.

 

Couple answers:

- Gifting a membership can be anonymous if you like

- The absence of sidebar links on the membership pages is intentional

 

We received a lot of requests to create a way for family and friends to upgrade each other's memberships, and this is the result of that. As you know, we are not averse to modifying new features to better suit the community, so please leave your feedback. For now we will see how it goes with this slight modification and perhaps make additional changes in the future. Thanks!

Edited by OpinioNate
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fox-and-the-hound

+fox-and-the-hound

Posted
Posted (edited)

Thank you for all the feedback, everyone. We have moved the link higher up the profile page and changed the wording so it won't be confused with your personal profile details.

 

Couple answers:

- Gifting a membership can be anonymous if you like

- The absence of sidebar links on the membership pages is intentional

 

We received a lot of requests to create a way for family and friends to upgrade each other's memberships, and this is the result of that. As you know, we are not averse to modifying new features to better suit the community, so please leave your feedback. For now we will see how it goes with this slight modification and perhaps make additional changes in the future. Thanks!

 

Much better, but is there a way we can remove the link entirely from a profile? Is there a way we can set our account to not accept a membership upgrade without consent?

Edited by fox-and-the-hound
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sbell111

+sbell111

Posted
Posted (edited)
What if I don't want that particular account being Premium? I no longer have a choice on how I run my own account?

That's a good point ... I don't know how this feature works, but it would kinda stink if someone was able to make modifications to your membership without your consent.

 

Is there some kind of approval necessary on the part of the targeted user to accept the gift? Kinda like with friend requests, where you have to accept or reject folks as your friends?

 

-eP

This hasn't changed. Prior to the addition of this link, someone could have gifted you a membership. There was a recent angsty/funny thread regarding this topic.

Edited by sbell111
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Bear and Ragged

+Bear and Ragged

Posted
Posted

In my humble opinion yet another example of poor judgement in both placement and choice of wording. I vote for removal, rewording and placing somewhere else on the site. :cry:

 

Quite - if it must be anywher why not the front page? (if its not already there - we always skip it!)

 

Please remove it from our profile page. :D:rolleyes:

 

Or on the subscribe/renew page.

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ElliPirelli

+ElliPirelli

Posted
Posted

We received a lot of requests to create a way for family and friends to upgrade each other's memberships, and this is the result of that.

 

Family and friends, who have no account, can't even see my profil, so why place the upgrade on my profil?

Put this link on the getting started page and then even non members are able to see it.

 

I'm sorry, but I'm still not happy with the placement.

This explanation seems to me very far fetched.

 

Why not place such a link where the pocket queries link is?

Everyone can find it there, but it is not so offensive.

 

I feel humiliated, should someone think I might be begging for a renewal of my membership, which I am most certainly not!

I'd like to see this link removed from my profil.

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The Cheeseheads

+The Cheeseheads

Posted
Posted (edited)

How about an option to give people one month gifts at $3 in addition to the full year subscription? I'd like it to be able to afford to give non-members a taste of the premium features, but leave it up to them whether to continue or not. It would also make nice gifts to put into caches at FtF prizes.

 

/Wouldn't use them to buy all the people above subscriptions.

 

//Well, maybe I would.

Edited by The Cheeseheads
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Semper Questio

+Semper Questio

Posted
Posted

I'm not the least bit offended, humiliated, inconvenienced, or bothered by the link placement except for the fact that, as someone stated previously, non-members can't see profiles so therefore cannot use the link.

 

Just this Christmas my non-caching sis-in-law sent me $30 to renew my membership. If she had access to this link just a month or 2 ago, it would made things much easier for her. But even as it is now, she still could not use it.

 

The placement just doesn't make much business sense to me.

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trainlove

+trainlove

Posted
Posted (edited)

except for the fact that, as someone stated previously, non-members can't see profiles so therefore cannot use the link.

You are confusing membership and being logged-in. Nobody that is not logged in can see a profile.

Believe me, we Non-Members can read anyones profiles, as long as we log in.

Edited by trainlove
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paganfrog

paganfrog

Posted
Posted

this new thing shouldnt be shoved on us like that. we should be able to have a choice whether we want this feature showing on our profiles or not. i think its a little bit arrogant to assume that just because we aren't list as a premium member that we want someone to think we do and buy us a p-membership. not all of us want this and prefer to remain a basic member- there could be any number of reasons and its wrong to assume that we havent paid for premiums membership because we cannot afford it. theres other reasons also, like its unnecessary to have the paid accounts. or even quite simply no reason at all, just our prerogative to remain on the basic membership.

 

i want the feature completely removed from my profile and we should be able to tick a box to hide or show it, like we have to for other member choices like to get newsletters.

i dont want it

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two bison

+two bison

Posted
Posted

First, thanks for responding with Lil Devil's adjustment suggestion. However, I'd still prefer that this be a choice, as mention above, that I could opt into or out of (my choice is obvious from the beginning of this thread). We get to choose whether or not to include Location and Occupation if I recall correctly, I did that a long time ago. Why not these things as well.

 

I also like the idea of moving (and shrinking) the Forum posts link up behind the Forum title. The higher on the page the user generated information is the better I like it. I'd even like that to be a choice I could opt out of. The link for that could be, maybe it already is, on the forum pages.

 

While we're at it, how about putting the "Member since" and "Last visit" on the same line or without a blank line between them?

 

As I said, before, the higher on the page the user generated information is the better I like it.

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2oldfarts (the rockhounders)

2oldfarts (the rockhounders)

Posted
Posted

I agree that the link should be optional so I can turn it off.

 

We have been waiting for months to see a fix so we can use the links on the left side of the pages. (No I don't want to change browsers!) The links are covered over by the "Advertisement" layer. We keep waiting for the page to get layer priority over the ad but it seems that putting a link on our profile page is more important than being able to use the site.

 

We are not going to renew our membership when it expires and do NOT want someone giving us one. Will we have the option to turn down such a "Gift"?

 

John

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The Cheeseheads

+The Cheeseheads

Posted
Posted
While I don't care if this is added to my profile or not, I am embarrassed and humiliated beyond belief by the incredibly inconsiderate font used. I demand that it be changed to Century Gothic immediately!

And green so it is eco-friendly.

And use a smaller font size so it take up less pixels in my monitor to save electricity.

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Caching Scout

+Caching Scout

Posted
Posted
While I don't care if this is added to my profile or not, I am embarrassed and humiliated beyond belief by the incredibly inconsiderate font used. I demand that it be changed to Century Gothic immediately!

And green so it is eco-friendly.

And use a smaller font size so it take up less pixels in my monitor to save electricity.

 

We should be allowed to choose the font we want for the link, instead of a remove button, how about a change font button? :cry:

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edscott

+edscott

Posted
Posted

I agree that the link should be optional so I can turn it off.

 

We have been waiting for months to see a fix so we can use the links on the left side of the pages. (No I don't want to change browsers!) The links are covered over by the "Advertisement" layer. We keep waiting for the page to get layer priority over the ad but it seems that putting a link on our profile page is more important than being able to use the site.

 

We are not going to renew our membership when it expires and do NOT want someone giving us one. Will we have the option to turn down such a "Gift"?

 

John

 

This was my first thought as well.. This was the highest priority "fix" on the list? Maybe it was, but if that's the case I'm afraid we are all in trouble.

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NinjaCacher!

+NinjaCacher!

Posted
Posted (edited)

except for the fact that, as someone stated previously, non-members can't see profiles so therefore cannot use the link.

You are confusing membership and being logged-in. Nobody that is not logged in can see a profile.

Believe me, we Non-Members can read anyones profiles, as long as we log in.

 

You are confusing membership with premium membership. You are a member yourself, and you have to be a member of geocaching.com to be logged in (the free membership is enough, you don't need to be a premium member). Non-members have no login and cannot see profile pages - Semper Questio was talking about his (or her) non-caching sis-in-law who is not a member (ie. is not registered) and can't* buy him a gift premium membership.

 

*edit: actually they could by going directly here, but they can't see the profile page, that's what it was about... :cry:

Edited by luzian
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currykev

+currykev

Posted
Posted (edited)

I have now "unticked" the "Inform me of new features and changes to the web site" box on my profile amendment page as it's not used by GC.com to "Inform me of new features and changes to the web site"

I would prefer to have this new feature deleted!, or at least have a choice.

 

PS...at least now the "membership option" is less obtrusive, so I'm thankful for that!

Edited by currykev
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ZSandmann

+ZSandmann

Posted
Posted (edited)

I still don't understand the dust up, the purpose of the feature is to let people gift other cachers memberships or membership renewals. It is not so people can violate your rights to be a non-premium member by forcing membership upon you. The new placement seems appropriate to me. I do think you should be able to decline such a gift if you choose to, (and you may be able to for all I know).

 

On the issue of bugs, I am a web administrator on another site, and it is my experience that the bug fix team and the new features team are usually seperate entities. So I would not assume that just because new features are being added, that current bugs aren't being worked on.

 

Lastly, on browser version issues. There are a plethora of browsers being used right now: IE, FireFox, Chrome, Navigator (Does anyone really use NAvigator anymore??), etc. When designing a site you have to try and make it work for all available users but the truth is it just doesn't always work that way, either by fault on your end or fault in one of the browsers coding. Then on top of that you have to worry about Versions of each of those browsers. Every Web Developer I have ever worked with has told me to always focus on the most current open release version of a browser. The reasons for this are many, and this isn't the right place to discuss the pros and cons.

 

I just think everyone should consider Groundspeak to be working in good faith, don't assume they are trying to screw you over.

Edited by ZSandmann
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