Audit Logs

[+Puppy Dawg]

These days, only a few caches are available to folks who aren't premium members. Those are the ones who aren't placed by premium members. It's all because on premium caches, you can see an audit log of everyone whose looked at the cachepage. Make this available on all caches placed by premium members, and it would be much easier for newbies to join. Also, I wouldn't have to bother making all my caches that are tough puzzles or on long hikes premium. Or is this a little money-making scheme by Groundspeak to have so many caches premium that newbies can't resist going after that premium membership? Then of course it would mean we could show new cachers the ropes. My available to everybody (in a 10-mile radius) is around 20 caches. Most are difficult.

Edited August 6, 2009 by GeoBigDawg

[+Stunod]

These days, only a few caches are available to folks who aren't premium members.

 

I told you a million times not to exaggerate.

[+Crow-T-Robot]

These days, only a few caches are available to folks who aren't premium members. Those are the ones who aren't placed by premium members. It's all because on premium caches, you can see an audit log of everyone whose looked at the cachepage. Make this available on all caches placed by premium members, and it would be much easier for newbies to join. Also, I wouldn't have to bother making all my caches that are tough puzzles or on long hikes premium. Or is this a little money-making scheme by Groundspeak to have so many caches premium that newbies can't resist going after that premium membership? Then of course it would mean we could show new cachers the ropes. My available to everybody (in a 10-mile radius) is around 20 caches. Most are difficult.

 

These days, only a few caches are available to folks who aren't premium members.

 

I told you a million times not to exaggerate.

 

I didn't bother making an actual count, but most caches around my area are not PMO's. Premium caches are the exception to the rule. I'd hate to cache in an area filled with premium caches just because the owners wanted to see who was looking at the cache page.

 

Bruce

[OpinioNate]

These days, only a few caches are available to folks who aren't premium members.

 

This is a ridiculous claim. I looked through the nearest 300 caches to your latest cache find and counted only 24 PMO caches. That's 8% of caches in this sample.

 

Personally, I don't care for the audit log.

 

Or is this a little money-making scheme by Groundspeak to have so many caches premium that newbies can't resist going after that premium membership?

 

Of course PMO caches is a revenue generator. The same can be said for any PM feature; they earn money for Groundspeak. Although the evidence doesn't support your claim that it is only to encourage more basic members to upgrade (any more than all value-added features encourage users to upgrade).

 

You're a Premium Member. Why does it bother you that these caches exist?

[jholly]

These days, only a few caches are available to folks who aren't premium members. Those are the ones who aren't placed by premium members.

 

That statement is so wrong it is laughable. I'm a premium member, I have 29 caches out. The number of PMO caches can be counted with the fingers on one hand and have 5 left over. The vast majority of caches owned by premium members I do are not members only. Get your facts straight.

 

Jim

[+Dgwphotos]

I agree with the others, the majority of caches are not Premium Member Only. That being said, I would like to have the Audit log be available for all cache owned by Premium members.

[+Stunod]

I would like the audit log removed from PMO caches. It is worthless, misleading and all-to-often used for abusive reasons.

[+niraD]

Personally, I paid for a premium membership for the other perks: knowing that I'm supporting the folks running the site, being able to create bookmark lists, and being able to use pocket queries. Being able to access PMO caches just happened to be bundled with the other stuff.

 

And ditto what others have said: PMO caches are still relatively rare around here, they're still relatively rare around your location, and your claim is ridiculous.

[Motorcycle_Mama]

I agree with Stunod. I'd like to see the audit log get removed. It seems like it causes a lot of angst in both directions.

 

And as to the claim in the OP, that's not at all the case around here. Within 100 miles of me, there are only 30 PMO caches. Within that same distance, there are thousands of caches.

[+WascoZooKeeper]

I'm with Stunod on this one. I'm aware of situations in which the audit log information has been used to seriously harass cachers who did nothing more than look at a cache page. And I'm talking about physical threats, not just taunting or name-calling.

[+Puppy Dawg]

Around here, we have high hide count cachers (much higher than me) who make all their caches premium.

[jholly]

Around here, we have high hide count cachers (much higher than me) who make all their caches premium.

 

Did you read post #4?

[+succotash]

Add us to the list of those who don't like the audit feature.

 

If it's going to stay, the fact that it exists should be more widely disclosed and it would also be nice if every method of viewing a cache (e.g. looking at an area using google maps) had an indication which caches were PMO before you clicked on them.

[+Puppy Dawg]

When I go hiking and place caches, I generally make one premium. If I do a lot, maybe two. It's so I can maybe see who's planning to head up here. Evil puzzles as well. I can see who's doing the most work and offer those who have viewed high numbers of times hints. There are others who do the same.

Edited August 7, 2009 by GeoBigDawg

[+Stunod]

When I go hiking and place caches, I generally make one premium. If I do a lot, maybe two. It's so I can maybe see who's planning to head up here. Evil puzzles as well. I can see who's doing the most work and offer those who have viewed high numbers of times hints. There are others who do the same.

 

I can read every word of your cache pages without ever showing up on your audit log. You can't have a clue how much time/effort I have put into your puzzle cache, nor if I am planning to visit your new caches. The audit log is seriously flawed and should be removed IMNSHO

[+Puppy Dawg]

Alright. Remove it or fix it. Either way.

[GOF and Bacall]

Who said it was broken?

 

You really do want to change the face of geocaching don't you?

[+Don_J]

Around here, we have high hide count cachers (much higher than me) who make all their caches premium.

 

Quite interesting. A search of your zip code shows that there is one cacher that makes all of his hides PMO. A second cacher makes about 1/2 of his PMO. The only other trend that I could see was that you, yourself make quite a few PMO. As you go further east, you run into an area that has about six very prolific hiders that very seldom use the feature.

 

As far as the audit log, it was kind of cool the first few times I looked at it, but so was watching my hard drive get de-fragged. It quickly lost it's appeal. I have two PMO caches and I couldn't even guess the last time that I have looked at their audit logs.

[+baloo&bd]

As others have said, it is pretty useless for anything but interesting reading when the cache is first there.

 

It is all too often abused and aside from the fact that you will never see the majority of people looking at your cache since there are several methods where someone does not show up in the log, looking at your cache, even multiple time, means very little. There are many reasons for looking at a cache.

 

My request would be to remove it. To be frank, I would not even mind seeing PMO's disappear. Oops, sorry. I may have just inadvertently hijacked the thread.