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Size of PQs and offline DBs


bjorges

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The last days GC-problems shows a perfect need for offline DBs and bigger PQs.

 

Althoug several live-services (geocaching live, GCzII, and such) are popping up, the problems shows the need of personal offline DBs.

I know someone who were staying in Thaiand at the moment, on vacation, who tried to check the spoiler picture to find a cache, who had to return back home the day after without any finds, because the site was down. If they had an offline DB, with spoilerpics, they probably would have been able to get a find on their holiday.

 

Please increase the number of caches in PQs so we are able to find caches also when the servers are down.

I see no reason why there should be such small limitation for the PQs.

 

One possibillity could be National or county PQs set up by GC, where premium members could subscribe to theese. The limit to reduce from National to county-PQs could be 25000 caches inside one PQ. The generation of theese PQs could be 03:00 local time (for the Country of course), which would spread out the generation trough the whole day and night, and you would reduce similar PQs from all the national geocachers who wants the exact same information on a daily basis.

 

What say you?

 

Bjorges, lucky to have offline DBs while GC is down :unsure:

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I thought this dead horse discussion was scheduled for Thursdays :unsure:

 

Unfortunately some thought it has arose from the dead around 5am on July 4th. Time to beat on it again. I went caching with information that was, gasp, one week old.

 

Jim

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Some just do NOT get it. CR has spoken intelligently on this subject for weeks, I have repeated it, yet the so called veterans around here cry some alleged company line that I still have not heard. It is not a dead horse, it is a matter of progress and efficiency.

 

Perhaps this is only a dead horse subject in the minds of those who want to look good (as some fan boy) and not cause friction. Without friction we have no energy. Just because some want something better and know there is a way to do it, that yes is different than now, and push for it, does not mean they are not a fan of GS.

 

No personal digs here - just my observations. :unsure:

Edited by Frank Broughton
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I thought this dead horse discussion was scheduled for Thursdays :unsure:

 

Unfortunately some thought it has arose from the dead around 5am on July 4th. Time to beat on it again. I went caching with information that was, gasp, one week old.

 

Jim

 

The whining seems to be confined to this thread.

 

It's unfortunate than rather let Groundspeak work through streamlining there emergency procedures, some will take this isolated event and use it to try and further an agenda that is contrary to what GC is trying to accomplish.

 

All of our offline databases worked quite nicely during the outage although, at least in our case, we weren't able to find everything in our current offline database.

 

Thanks to Jeremy and team for the excellent support and hopefully as you go through the debriefing you will be able to find the tweaks necessary.

Edited by baloo&bd
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Some just do NOT get it. CR has spoken intelligently on this subject for weeks, I have repeated it, yet the so called veterans around here cry some alleged company line that I still have not heard. It is not a dead horse, it is a matter of progress and efficiency.

 

Perhaps this is only a dead horse subject in the minds of those who want to look good (as some fan boy) and not cause friction. Without friction we have no energy. Just because some want something better and know there is a way to do it, that yes is different than now, and push for it, does not mean they are not a fan of GS.

 

No personal digs here - just my observations. :)

 

Couldn't agree more.

 

Unfortunately there are a lot of preservers at this forum, who wants to preserve everything "as it was at origin", and who do not accept that some others might have a different view. Theese persons seems to yell out and kill all debates trying to speak for a improvement. I think this is sad, and not very useful for the debate.

 

Well, I still could wish for increased PQ's or even standardised national PQ's, and I sure will not stop wishing for it either.

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Some just do NOT get it. CR has spoken intelligently on this subject for weeks, I have repeated it, yet the so called veterans around here cry some alleged company line that I still have not heard. It is not a dead horse, it is a matter of progress and efficiency.

 

Perhaps this is only a dead horse subject in the minds of those who want to look good (as some fan boy) and not cause friction. Without friction we have no energy. Just because some want something better and know there is a way to do it, that yes is different than now, and push for it, does not mean they are not a fan of GS.

 

No personal digs here - just my observations. :)

More than one year ago I posted my personal opinion on why Groundspeak limits the size and number of PQs the way they do. (link)

It is based on comments I had see earlier from Jeremy and various other representative from Groundspeak and from a careful reading of the Waypoint License Agreement. After posting this I received a private message from a Groundspeak lackey asking if they could use this elsewhere on the site. If Groundspeak would like I could share that with you. I took it to mean that what I wrote was pretty close to the company line.

 

I will agree that asking for changes to the PQ system is not a dead horse. Groundspeak has made, and continues to make changes to PQ to make them more useful to the premium members. For example they increased the number of saved PQs one could have, they added caching along routes, the provided a new method to make it easier to create caches along routes, they added the My Finds query, they added attribute searches, etc. They have announced that they are going to provide an alternative to email delivery of PQs.

 

Perhaps at some point, Groundspeak may decide that since newer GPS units can support it they will allow PQs with more than 500 geocaches. They may decide that since some urban areas are cache dense that it is reasonable to allow more cache to be downloaded. But Groundspeak has good reasons to limit the number of geocaches you can download from Geocaching.com database. In order to make a case for more caches you would have to show that the current limitations put too big of a constraint on your ability to go geocaching. The overwhelming majority of geocachers are able to get by with the current limited number and size of PQs because they get more than enough caches to keep busy with caches to find. For those who travel a lot and don't know in advance where they are going to be, there are several alternatives that work on one or more mobile devices. Other people are able to get access to some computer when traveling use those to find a few caches. There just hasn't been a strong enough case made for needing more data than you can get currently.

 

There are those who would like more data to do some data mining or perform some sort of statistical analysis on the geocaches in some geographical area. Groundspeak has recognized that people want to keep personal statistics base on their geocaching experience. The My Finds PQ was created for this purpose and Groundspeak has supported several programs and websites that can produce statistics reports from your My Finds PQ. Beyond personal statistics, Groundspeak seems to put up with a few leader board sites, so long as these are not using PQs or screen scraping techinques that interfere with the operation of the site, and with data that anyone can get by running online search queries from time to time. My guess is that Groundspeak isn't concerned that someone use an offline database to collect the information people are already collecting via other means. They probably don't feel that general statistical analysis is a strong enough reason to allow bigger PQs.

 

If clicking on a button that says you agree to the license were really enough to guarantee that people would not use the data in a way that might impact Groundspeak's business then perhaps you could claim that we should have unlimited access to the database once we have agreed to the license. History shows that these licenses are no protection against the people who either don't read what they clicked on or don't believe it applies to them. It is due diligence for any company to protect its intellectual property by means other than just having people click a button on a web page saying they agree to some conditions.

 

Edit: After reading another thread I realize that I am bound to get some flak for referring to the Geocaching.com database as Groundspeak's intellectual property. After all the contents of the cache page are the responsibility of the cache owner and the logs were written by various cachers. There is very little content provide by Groundspeak. What Groundspeak owns is the aggregation of geocache data and the ability to search this data in various ways. I'm no legal expert, so perhaps there is a better term for this than intellectual property.

Edited by tozainamboku
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Some just do NOT get it. CR has spoken intelligently on this subject for weeks, I have repeated it, yet the so called veterans around here cry some alleged company line that I still have not heard. It is not a dead horse, it is a matter of progress and efficiency.

 

Perhaps this is only a dead horse subject in the minds of those who want to look good (as some fan boy) and not cause friction. Without friction we have no energy. Just because some want something better and know there is a way to do it, that yes is different than now, and push for it, does not mean they are not a fan of GS.

 

No personal digs here - just my observations. :)

You and CR seem to miss one very important point. PQs are meant to give you a portion of the data to go out and find some caches. Be that for an hour or a few weeks. The purpose of PQs was never to create an offline database for personal use during an extremely rare outage. PQ options allow you to target caches that you are most likely to go find - not designed to retrieve every single cache in an xx radius - "just in case". Many of the arguments for large or regional PQs are entirely based on maintaining some form of offline database - TPTB simply do not share the view that you need to do that.

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You and CR seem to miss one very important point.

I miss no point. I just think it is wrong. I refuse to accept that a company's line should be "you do it my way and if I fail, tough nuts."

 

Look, I don't geocache to support Groundspeak and geocaching.com. I geocache and use Groundspeak and geocaching.com to support my activities. It really seems that some folks think we exist simply to support Groundspeak and if geocaching.com is not up and running, then we should just go and do something else. That's putting the cart in front of the horse. I think some folks really need to get a more reasonable perspective.

 

Anytime there is a failure between the data and the GPS unit, that can adversely affect one's enjoyment for the weekend. This "rare" event isn't like it's once in a lifetime. It's been going on for years and happens far too often. Folks know they need to prepare for Groundspeak going down. Some grab PQs earlier in the week, other maintain OLDBs. It's those who buy into the party line of pulling PQs for only that which they need, when they need it are the ones getting screwed when the site goes down.

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Some of us just plain old like playing with numbers and statistics as tozainamboku said in part of his well thought out post above.

 

Plus, our geographical region in Western NY is huge, beautiful, and encompasses many counties. I just like being ready to go any direction I want for as many miles as I want. My Nuvi 780 are 60Csx loaded up for just that.

 

Why not at least let us get the kind of data in bulk that the GeoJr gets. Skip the logs. This would allow charting and mapping cache runs offline and not wasting online resources.

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So, I've got to buy yet another electronic gizmo to cache? I don't think I'll by tossing out a $300 GPS and a $300 PDA in favor of the McGPS just so I can have the data I need to cache the way we like to cache. I do a little more than just traditionals for one.

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.....Why not at least let us get the kind of data in bulk that the GeoJr gets. Skip the logs. This would allow charting and mapping cache runs offline and not wasting online resources.

No problem - you just need better tools to accomplish this. Here is a link to get just the tool you want.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/geomate/default.aspx

 

So, tell me: If you are not an U.S. citicen, what use do you have of this electronic gizmo?

The webpage you refer to says "...With approximately 250,000 pre-loaded geocache locations in all 50 U.S. states..." and "...The Update Kit provides access to new U.S. geocache listings..."

 

Don't forget: Geocaching is an world wide activity, not only in the U.S.

 

Your argument doesn't help us much :|

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.....Why not at least let us get the kind of data in bulk that the GeoJr gets. Skip the logs. This would allow charting and mapping cache runs offline and not wasting online resources.

No problem - you just need better tools to accomplish this. Here is a link to get just the tool you want.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/geomate/default.aspx

 

So, tell me: If you are not an U.S. citicen, what use do you have of this electronic gizmo?

The webpage you refer to says "...With approximately 250,000 pre-loaded geocache locations in all 50 U.S. states..." and "...The Update Kit provides access to new U.S. geocache listings..."

 

Don't forget: Geocaching is an world wide activity, not only in the U.S.

 

Your argument doesn't help us much :|

 

About 400.000 of 844.000 geocaches are placed outside U.S. I think its time for Gs crew to realice that it´s time to get global service..

 

I dont know how many times i had to change log´s due to the time settings not linked to home coord´s

"State/Province" is not reality in all countries why?

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The GeomateJr has announced plans to cover other countries. It is, after all, just released.

 

The mechanisms behind the GeomateJr also imply that gc.com might be open to making available large (nationwide) standard PQs.

 

Toz is exactly correct in his description of the gc.com DB as intellectual property. The classic case is telephone directories: no piece of information in a phone book is copyrightable, but the collection is. This of course is a legal position and you can agree or disagree on other grounds.

 

Edward

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I just can't understand why this topic causes so much angst. What's bad is, the angst comes from those that would not be affected in the least. The people who do not want or need larger queries do not have to run these larger queries. This would be a feature set for those who want to use it. Why do some of you get so upset when another person asks for this feature? Why tell someone that they have to "do it your way" or make fun of them with the beating the dead horse statement. This is a legitimate question that should, at the very least, be addressed and answered by GS. As far as i know, it never has, and since it hasn't, it'll be a question that continues to come up from time to time...

 

Myself, i could care less about keeping an offline database. It would just be nice to be able to input a zipcode and run one query that get's all the caches that i'm interested in when i know that i'm heading towards a cache rich area.

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I just can't understand why this topic causes so much angst. What's bad is, the angst comes from those that would not be affected in the least. The people who do not want or need larger queries do not have to run these larger queries. This would be a feature set for those who want to use it. Why do some of you get so upset when another person asks for this feature? Why tell someone that they have to "do it your way" or make fun of them with the beating the dead horse statement. This is a legitimate question that should, at the very least, be addressed and answered by GS. As far as i know, it never has, and since it hasn't, it'll be a question that continues to come up from time to time...

 

Myself, i could care less about keeping an offline database. It would just be nice to be able to input a zipcode and run one query that get's all the caches that i'm interested in when i know that i'm heading towards a cache rich area.

 

This question has been answered on several occasions. We have been told the following.

 

1. TPTB don't want people creating and using offline databases.

2. 2500 caches a day are plenty for planning a day of caching in their opinion.

3. PQ's run more efficiently as 5 of 500 than 1 of 2500

 

Those of us who "defend" the current system are not trying to to beat down the person asking the question, just trying to help them work within the current parameters. Many of the old timers learned to work within the system when there weren't as many tools available to us. I can remember only having 20 queries save able, no queries along a route and no attributes being selectable. When we got good at working under that system the addition of the new things made the use of PQ's extremely configurable.

 

Many of us find 40-50 caches a day on a caching run within the current parameters on a caching day and 5-10 a day during the course of our normal business.

 

Perhaps the angst comes from those who think their new idea is being attacked when in all reality we are trying to tell them that the change they want isn't in all likelihood going to be implemented and ways to work within the system

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As long as they charge accordingly, I am still all for this. Charge per result. Those that keep requesting this can put their money where their mouth is. Groundspeak makes more money to pay for the additional stress on the system.

 

Charge per result. You want 5,000 results in a single day, you pay more. You want 25,000, you pay a lot more. You want to run a 25,000 result query each day, Groundspeak gets lots of money and you get your results.

 

I really wish they would do this. It would kill these topics. My bet is that those that are so outspoken about this would not put up the money to actually do it. My bet is that when faced with actually paying for this, they would use the methods currently available to work within the current Premium Membership features structure.

 

I am happy at 2,500 results per day. I have not been able to find more than 2,500 caches in a day quite yet anyway. :)

 

Make this available and charge per result.

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mtn-man, I just did pay for more. So there haha. I have the means of getting more. More PM accounts. That is not the issue for me.

 

Receiving them when GS wants to send them (only received one of five so far today) is the issue. I am just asking for the opportunity to DL my scheduled PQ if I want it before "the Que" sends it to me. If I dl - it wipe my spot out of the que. That should be rather easy to do for the programmers -no?

 

Yes I mostly get them when I need them, but then days like today come around.

 

Just give me an option.

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It has to be generated before you can download it so your spot in the queue means everything. It's more complicated than just saying "let me click on the link and I'll download the file". The file has to be created, which isn't an instant operation.

 

-Raine

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As long as they charge accordingly, I am still all for this. Charge per result. Those that keep requesting this can put their money where their mouth is. Groundspeak makes more money to pay for the additional stress on the system.

 

Charge per result. You want 5,000 results in a single day, you pay more. You want 25,000, you pay a lot more. You want to run a 25,000 result query each day, Groundspeak gets lots of money and you get your results.

 

I really wish they would do this. It would kill these topics. My bet is that those that are so outspoken about this would not put up the money to actually do it. My bet is that when faced with actually paying for this, they would use the methods currently available to work within the current Premium Membership features structure.

 

I am happy at 2,500 results per day. I have not been able to find more than 2,500 caches in a day quite yet anyway. :)

 

Make this available and charge per result.

 

As you and others have stated, 2500 caches is more than plenty for routine caching. But, there are times that having the ability to load more than 500 would be helpful. What i would like to see is a simple way for getting, say for example,, 1264 caches in a cache rich area, put into my gpsr without having to try and set up parameters using trial and error methods.

 

Your last statements do not apply to me, and i'm pretty sure, no one else that has asked for this feature. I'm sure there are various reasons for wanting this but i really do not believe that anyone wants it so that they can somehow try finding 2500 caches in a day. For me, it would just be nice having them all loaded in case they are needed.

 

For example, i just ran a query over in Houston, zipcode 77019, for 500 caches. Got the results and all 500 are within a less than 10 mile radius. No, i'm not going to try and get all 500 caches, but there is a good chance that i'll end up wanting to find caches out of that 10 mile radius. Of course, i can do the trial and error query submissions thing and eventually get most caches around Houston but why should i have to go through this trouble? One query would give me up to 2500 with no repeats, no headaches, and i'd be in and out of the website in one quick swoop.

 

If it's harder on the system, then set it up to where the feature can only be implemented once a week or something. As far as charging me more money to operate, you're right, I'm not gonna pay it. Imo, plenty is already going in to take care of this.

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It has to be generated before you can download it so your spot in the queue means everything. It's more complicated than just saying "let me click on the link and I'll download the file". The file has to be created, which isn't an instant operation.

 

-Raine

What would be appreciated is a little preview of the direction the new PQ scheme is going to take. All I heard is in the vaguest of terms.

 

Is the primary thrust going to be "just in time" downloads?

 

Will differential functionality be increased or decreased?

 

How are issues like website availability be addressed in the new scheme?

 

Just wondering.

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I am just asking for the opportunity to DL my scheduled PQ if I want it before "the Que" sends it to me. If I dl - it wipe my spot out of the que. That should be rather easy to do for the programmers -no?

 

Yes I mostly get them when I need them, but then days like today come around.

 

Just give me an option.

Sorry, but I was responding to the request in the original post. I am simply posting on topic. I think Raine answered your side question.

 

Please increase the number of caches in PQs so we are able to find caches also when the servers are down.

I see no reason why there should be such small limitation for the PQs.

 

Mudfrog, my idea would still stand. If you want 1,264 caches in one PQ, then you pay a premium for that. I would be all for that. If you really want it, you pay for it.

Edited by mtn-man
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As long as the charges were comparable to current charges (i.e. you want 5,000 per day, pay double what you currently pay), I think you might be surprised how many bite. $30 per year is a steal. By far the best bargain associated with geocaching (OK...GSAK is the absolute best). $60 per year would be a great deal.

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It has to be generated before you can download it so your spot in the queue means everything. It's more complicated than just saying "let me click on the link and I'll download the file". The file has to be created, which isn't an instant operation.

 

-Raine

 

Okay Raine I see that point. I understand that the instant preview of the PQ is not the full PQ. Logs and whatnot must still be assembled. There has to be some system that can be set up to allow instant downloading - no?

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As long as they charge accordingly, I am still all for this. Charge per result. Those that keep requesting this can put their money where their mouth is. Groundspeak makes more money to pay for the additional stress on the system.

 

Charge per result. You want 5,000 results in a single day, you pay more. You want 25,000, you pay a lot more. You want to run a 25,000 result query each day, Groundspeak gets lots of money and you get your results.

 

I really wish they would do this. It would kill these topics. My bet is that those that are so outspoken about this would not put up the money to actually do it. My bet is that when faced with actually paying for this, they would use the methods currently available to work within the current Premium Membership features structure.

 

I am happy at 2,500 results per day. I have not been able to find more than 2,500 caches in a day quite yet anyway. :o

 

Make this available and charge per result.

 

As you and others have stated, 2500 caches is more than plenty for routine caching. But, there are times that having the ability to load more than 500 would be helpful. What i would like to see is a simple way for getting, say for example,, 1264 caches in a cache rich area, put into my gpsr without having to try and set up parameters using trial and error methods.

 

Your last statements do not apply to me, and i'm pretty sure, no one else that has asked for this feature. I'm sure there are various reasons for wanting this but i really do not believe that anyone wants it so that they can somehow try finding 2500 caches in a day. For me, it would just be nice having them all loaded in case they are needed.

 

For example, i just ran a query over in Houston, zipcode 77019, for 500 caches. Got the results and all 500 are within a less than 10 mile radius. No, i'm not going to try and get all 500 caches, but there is a good chance that i'll end up wanting to find caches out of that 10 mile radius. Of course, i can do the trial and error query submissions thing and eventually get most caches around Houston but why should i have to go through this trouble? One query would give me up to 2500 with no repeats, no headaches, and i'd be in and out of the website in one quick swoop.

 

If it's harder on the system, then set it up to where the feature can only be implemented once a week or something. As far as charging me more money to operate, you're right, I'm not gonna pay it. Imo, plenty is already going in to take care of this.

 

Do you really need "every" cache just in case?? Or could you live with just getting the 2/2 Regulars - I'll bet that covers an are far greater than 10 miles and still gives you that instant caching opportunity. No need to download everythng all at once - target your caches. Get the 3/2 micros today and the 2/4 multis tomorrow.

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One of the interesting things about geocaching is that it offers a "different" game to virtually everyone. If you just want to find traditionals, the Ignore feature / PQ selection criteria allows that. Etc. Etc.

 

My point is that the ""I need more PQ's/No you don't" battle is a moot issue. Some people, for whatever reason, feel they need it. For others, they are happy with what they currently get. And the two sides are never going to agree. Why? Because they have different, but valid, caching styles/objectives/preferences.

 

We have a local cacher who maintains an OLDB of all the caches in Ontario, which would require at least 28 different PQ's. He has no intention of finding all the caches. He enjoys reviewing them in GSAK. Not my cup of tea but it works for him.

 

My point is we should agree to disagree and hopefully at some point, GS offers more flexibility to those who feel the could use it. For those who are currently satisfied, additional flexibility would have no impact on you.

 

My personal preference would be more flexiblity around the Ignore feature. I would like to be able to click a series of caches on the search page and instead of "downloading .loc", select "Ignore selected." But that is just me.

Edited by Tequila
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As long as they charge accordingly, I am still all for this. Charge per result. Those that keep requesting this can put their money where their mouth is. Groundspeak makes more money to pay for the additional stress on the system.

 

Charge per result. You want 5,000 results in a single day, you pay more. You want 25,000, you pay a lot more. You want to run a 25,000 result query each day, Groundspeak gets lots of money and you get your results.

 

I really wish they would do this. It would kill these topics. My bet is that those that are so outspoken about this would not put up the money to actually do it. My bet is that when faced with actually paying for this, they would use the methods currently available to work within the current Premium Membership features structure.

 

I am happy at 2,500 results per day. I have not been able to find more than 2,500 caches in a day quite yet anyway. :o

 

Make this available and charge per result.

 

As you and others have stated, 2500 caches is more than plenty for routine caching. But, there are times that having the ability to load more than 500 would be helpful. What i would like to see is a simple way for getting, say for example,, 1264 caches in a cache rich area, put into my gpsr without having to try and set up parameters using trial and error methods.

 

Your last statements do not apply to me, and i'm pretty sure, no one else that has asked for this feature. I'm sure there are various reasons for wanting this but i really do not believe that anyone wants it so that they can somehow try finding 2500 caches in a day. For me, it would just be nice having them all loaded in case they are needed.

 

For example, i just ran a query over in Houston, zipcode 77019, for 500 caches. Got the results and all 500 are within a less than 10 mile radius. No, i'm not going to try and get all 500 caches, but there is a good chance that i'll end up wanting to find caches out of that 10 mile radius. Of course, i can do the trial and error query submissions thing and eventually get most caches around Houston but why should i have to go through this trouble? One query would give me up to 2500 with no repeats, no headaches, and i'd be in and out of the website in one quick swoop.

 

If it's harder on the system, then set it up to where the feature can only be implemented once a week or something. As far as charging me more money to operate, you're right, I'm not gonna pay it. Imo, plenty is already going in to take care of this.

 

Do you really need "every" cache just in case?? Or could you live with just getting the 2/2 Regulars - I'll bet that covers an are far greater than 10 miles and still gives you that instant caching opportunity. No need to download everythng all at once - target your caches. Get the 3/2 micros today and the 2/4 multis tomorrow.

 

I really shouldn't have to explain myself as this shouldn't matter to and shouldn't bother anyone else. But for some reason, it sure seems to bother some so i'll try and give my reasoning for wanting it.

 

When we drive a hundred miles or more one way to cache, then we want to try and be prepared with lots of cache information. For the most part, we know the general location we are headed for and a query of 2 or 3 hundred caches is usually more than enough. Like i said, this is a feature that i wouldn't use very often. However, there have been times when we go to cache rich areas where it would be nice if we could get more than 500 without having to run more than one query.

 

On your advice, we actually do filter most of the time. For instance, 5 terrain caches, because those aren't what we're after that day. Other than that, and i know this is shocking to some, we go for just about every cache that shows to be next closest on our gpsrs to our present location. We don't do alot of preplanning such as mapping out a specific cache route which sometimes results in us moving from the area where we have our query centered on. Also, if we followed your advice, we would no doubt be going back to an area that we had already visited just to get the 2.4 multi that we didn't know about yesterday...

 

And the two sides are never going to agree.

 

This is what i do not understand. Why are there two sides on this? If you don't want to use the feature, then don't. If you do, then use it. Tptb have their reasons and concerns, but why in the world would any geocacher get upset if this came to be? :)

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It has to be generated before you can download it so your spot in the queue means everything. It's more complicated than just saying "let me click on the link and I'll download the file". The file has to be created, which isn't an instant operation.

 

-Raine

 

Okay Raine I see that point. I understand that the instant preview of the PQ is not the full PQ. Logs and whatnot must still be assembled. There has to be some system that can be set up to allow instant downloading - no?

My guess as to what will happen: Once you can get your scheduled PQs via download they will no longer be sent in the email. (The email will just be a link to your results on the website). TPTB will be able to see that many people never download their scheduled PQs. They will announce that if a scheduled PQ is not retrieved more than one week in a row, it will be unscheduled. They might even decide to do away with scheduled PQ all together. In the meantime you will be able to queue a request to run now (like you can with the My Finds PQ). Since they will have eliminated many (if not all) scheduled PQ, the number of PQs in the queue will be small (probably zero most of the time). It will probably rarely take more that a couple of minutes until your results are ready to download. You might be notified by email when the results are ready or you might just need to refresh the results page till they show up. One would hope there would be a status page were you could check that the PQ generator is running and see how many PQs are in the queue so you'd have some idea of how long you have to wait.

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I use an offline database because the last 5 logs sometimes is not enough (especially with the increase in "bug drop" logs) there are only two ways to get more one is by building an OLDB over time the second is to download the GPX from the cache page.

 

I also use an OLDB for other uses like corrected coordinates for mystery caches, adding user notes to describe possible parking locations or alternative footpaths to reach the area.

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As long as they charge accordingly, I am still all for this. Charge per result. Those that keep requesting this can put their money where their mouth is. Groundspeak makes more money to pay for the additional stress on the system.

......

Make this available and charge per result.

 

But of course, I would be happy to pay for functionality that would help me planning my trips the way I want. If a "Preminum Premium membership" at 60$ would give me 15 PQs a day I'd be happy to pay this.

 

At the same time I also would expect others to pay for stuff I don't need, such as Geocaching live for Iphone which I don't need, and never will, since I NEVER am going to get such a lousy phone.

 

Different features could easily get priced, and as a member you could choose wich services you wanted to use. The total yearly cost was a result of your choices :o

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It has to be generated before you can download it so your spot in the queue means everything. It's more complicated than just saying "let me click on the link and I'll download the file". The file has to be created, which isn't an instant operation.

 

-Raine

 

But if I were able to choose the time when this PQ should run, I would have been very happy. Of course the time should be related to my local time, so it was easy, but that should not be a problem. After setting a time for the PQ to run, I would have the PQ within one hour after the start time of the PQ.

I guess this could balance out the PQ generation troughout the 24 hours, since people are active at different times around the world.

At the moment I never know when, or wheter, my PQs are coming.

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It has to be generated before you can download it so your spot in the queue means everything. It's more complicated than just saying "let me click on the link and I'll download the file". The file has to be created, which isn't an instant operation.

 

-Raine

 

But if I were able to choose the time when this PQ should run, I would have been very happy. Of course the time should be related to my local time, so it was easy, but that should not be a problem. After setting a time for the PQ to run, I would have the PQ within one hour after the start time of the PQ.

I guess this could balance out the PQ generation troughout the 24 hours, since people are active at different times around the world.

At the moment I never know when, or wheter, my PQs are coming.

 

I don't think that would be possible, as if everyone wanted their PQs at the same time it would cause problems with stress on the server and would ultimately end up in people being annoyed/creating repeating threads on the forum on the same topic complaining about the poor service they think they are receiving etc. I think, personally, if I have a PQ that runs once a week or whatever then I can live with it arriving when it does (normally 830-930 ish GMT). If I'm setting one up to run straight away sometimes I get it straight away, other times I wait a few hours. If I'm going out immediately and need the info immediately then tough luck, I should have been better prepared!

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They might even decide to do away with scheduled PQ all together. In the meantime you will be able to queue a request to run now (like you can with the My Finds PQ). Since they will have eliminated many (if not all) scheduled PQ, the number of PQs in the queue will be small (probably zero most of the time).

Do you think that priorities would be given to certain PQs like they are now based on when they were last run or never run? That would be stinky if you want to run a PQ and have to go online to tell it to run and then wait for it to actually run, depending on your priority in the queue.

 

If there were no priorities given, and someone wanted to run a PQ they ran yesterday and it would generate within a couple minutes, that would be cool. If not, I'd rather they keep the scheduling and just make it so you get an email saying your PQ is ready to be downloaded and then you go get it when you want.

 

Maybe I'm mixing up half "on demand" and half "the old way" type PQs.

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To every people who don't need more PQs/more caches in PQ/easier way to create PQ and they never use their 40 PQ limit:

 

I will give to you my email and you will generate PQ for me at every time when I will need it. Is that right?

"Need" :(:D

 

Want - I think is the more correct term, I have simply been addressing ways to work within the current system as I find it unlikely that things will change.

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To every people who don't need more PQs/more caches in PQ/easier way to create PQ and they never use their 40 PQ limit:

 

I will give to you my email and you will generate PQ for me at every time when I will need it. Is that right?

"Need" :(:D

 

Want - I think is the more correct term, I have simply been addressing ways to work within the current system as I find it unlikely that things will change.

 

Wow, you mean I was correct in post #17 that you aren't trying to beat down those that want in increase and your actually trying to be helpful?? Who'd a thunk it?

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To every people who don't need more PQs/more caches in PQ/easier way to create PQ and they never use their 40 PQ limit:

 

I will give to you my email and you will generate PQ for me at every time when I will need it. Is that right?

No because I agreed to a license that states (among other things)

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

I suppose you could ask Groundspeak to transfer my unused PQ to you; but in that case I would expect you to pay for part of my membership.

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They have announced that they are going to provide an alternative to email delivery of PQs.

 

Any chance of expanding on this - or perhaps giving a forum link.

 

My guess would be the ability to download the PQ once it has ran. We already have that capability with the iPhone application. Any PQ ran in the last 7 days is available for download to the iPhone.

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