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Arse&Hemi

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It was fine before the update. What was removed to make the pages look like that?

I don't know. But I doubt that they will revert the site design because a tiny percentage of cache pages have dirty HTML code causing the page to display incorrectly.

 

Nothing dirty.

 

I have good "clean" HTML on my pages and no issues since the change. I know of a few people who have looked at YOUR code and have said it's got some problems, I looked myself and saw the same problems. You want to complain about GC's "flawed" coding that won't let your flawed coding work the way you want it to??

Sorry, I can't support that. If you had spent the same amount of time and effort cleaning up the code on your pages that you have spent on this thread, you would probably have at least a good start on having your pages render properly.

I agree with mtn-man, t4e, and MickEMT. As stated in posts 45, 66 and 73. I think you will find that the issue with your pages is in the code you provided.

BTW I don't know if you used MS Word to create any of these pages but Word is possibly the worst HTML editor on the planet. It is so bad that applications like dreamweaver have tools like "Clean Up Word HTML" to correct the crappy HTML Word uses.

Word? We don't use word. Our HTML page have problems too.

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It was fine before the update. What was removed to make the pages look like that?

I don't know. But I doubt that they will revert the site design because a tiny percentage of cache pages have dirty HTML code causing the page to display incorrectly.

 

Nothing dirty.

 

I have good "clean" HTML on my pages and no issues since the change. I know of a few people who have looked at YOUR code and have said it's got some problems, I looked myself and saw the same problems. You want to complain about GC's "flawed" coding that won't let your flawed coding work the way you want it to??

Sorry, I can't support that. If you had spent the same amount of time and effort cleaning up the code on your pages that you have spent on this thread, you would probably have at least a good start on having your pages render properly.

I agree with mtn-man, t4e, and MickEMT. As stated in posts 45, 66 and 73. I think you will find that the issue with your pages is in the code you provided.

BTW I don't know if you used MS Word to create any of these pages but Word is possibly the worst HTML editor on the planet. It is so bad that applications like dreamweaver have tools like "Clean Up Word HTML" to correct the crappy HTML Word uses.

Word? We don't use word. Our HTML page have problems too.

These problems only exist on geocaching.com

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It was fine before the update. What was removed to make the pages look like that?

I don't know. But I doubt that they will revert the site design because a tiny percentage of cache pages have dirty HTML code causing the page to display incorrectly.

 

Nothing dirty.

 

I have good "clean" HTML on my pages and no issues since the change. I know of a few people who have looked at YOUR code and have said it's got some problems, I looked myself and saw the same problems. You want to complain about GC's "flawed" coding that won't let your flawed coding work the way you want it to??

Sorry, I can't support that. If you had spent the same amount of time and effort cleaning up the code on your pages that you have spent on this thread, you would probably have at least a good start on having your pages render properly.

I agree with mtn-man, t4e, and MickEMT. As stated in posts 45, 66 and 73. I think you will find that the issue with your pages is in the code you provided.

BTW I don't know if you used MS Word to create any of these pages but Word is possibly the worst HTML editor on the planet. It is so bad that applications like dreamweaver have tools like "Clean Up Word HTML" to correct the crappy HTML Word uses.

Word? We don't use word. Our HTML page have problems too.

These problems only exist on geocaching.com

And probably any site that used the current version of the 3rd party HTML clean-up tool, TidyHTML. If your HTML is hosed, there is a very high likelyhood that your HTML was non-standard and/or obsolete. You say that you did not use MS-Word to create your HTML, so what did you use? Did you hand-code it all? If not, I think that we'd all benefit by knowing what HTML editor you did use.
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I have good "clean" HTML on my pages and no issues since the change. I know of a few people who have looked at YOUR code and have said it's got some problems, I looked myself and saw the same problems. You want to complain about GC's "flawed" coding that won't let your flawed coding work the way you want it to??

Sorry, I can't support that. If you had spent the same amount of time and effort cleaning up the code on your pages that you have spent on this thread, you would probably have at least a good start on having your pages render properly.

 

not to mention the time spent to disable 250 caches and post a log for each

 

Your big protest and the best you could say was "maintenance"? :ph34r:

 

lol i thought "what?" than i looked at their caches :ph34r:

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Word? We don't use word. Our HTML page have problems too.

I looked at a number of your cache pages and the ones that use regular HTML are appearing fine. The ones that I found messed up, including your profile page, have more information in the divitis then the actual information on your pages. I know all that div information was not coded by hand. What did you use to create it?

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To protest the recent changes made to geocaching.com, we are temporarily disabling all our active cache hides (163 total) for one week beginning 01-18-10. If you are unhappy with the changes made to geocaching.com and want your voices heard, disable your cache hides along with us. Together we can perhaps get the point across.

 

Seems like a pretty lame protest in my opinion. Why not archive and remove all your caches and quit playing. THAT would make Groundspeak take notice! :huh:

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My 33 cache hides are Temporary Disabled until I got an answer from Groundspeak or I see changes on the website

 

Now it is starting to affect me directly. With the caches you just disabled added to those by A&H. I onlt have 974,315 caches to find....wait...I can still find and log yours, they're only disabled. Wow, what an impact. Hope it doesn't affect Garmin sales as well.

 

I noticed no talk about ending PM status which would at least have an impact, no mater how insignificant. Instead of coming here to whine and make empty, useless threats, people could spen the time to make their code compliant.

Edited by baloo&bd
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To protest the recent changes made to geocaching.com, we are temporarily disabling all our active cache hides (163 total) for one week beginning 01-18-10. If you are unhappy with the changes made to geocaching.com and want your voices heard, disable your cache hides along with us. Together we can perhaps get the point across.

 

Seems like a pretty lame protest in my opinion. Why not archive and remove all your caches and quit playing. THAT would make Groundspeak take notice! :huh:

 

Then they wouldn't have anything to come in and complain about.

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I hope that those that archived their caches in protest don't want them unarchived. It won't happen.

 

I love the "shoot yourself in the foot to protest guns" analogy by AZcachemeister. Priceless.

 

I am sure that if the security issues with the old site format caused the original poster to end up with a virus somehow, they would be screaming at Groundspeak for not doing something about. I may not like all of the changes, but it isn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things and I appreciate that they took steps to make the site more secure. I've noticed that the odd character formatting is indeed gone and appreciate their efforts to make us all more secure.

I think the Sweidsh guy who archived his caches on geocaching.com and listed them on opencaching.se won't want them unarchived. But how can you be sure that they won't be unarchived if the cache owner wants that?
Archiving a cache with the intention to later unarchive it merely serves to jerk around the reviewers. As such, I can certainly see that they could be somewhat unwilling to reactivate these caches.
I am not so sure that the Swedish reviewers would deny such a request if e.g. Groundspeak apologized for the troubles caused by the latest update and reverted some of the changes.
Groundspeak should apologize for the OP's bad code? Why?
I rather suspect that the "upgrade" is mere subterfuge to instead shake off overly sensitive or cranky cachers to let the other sites deal with them. :)
:huh:
Never stopped them before. gc.com doesn't care much for threats.
Actually I'm afraid you mistype something here. Naturally you mean "Groundspeak doesn't care much for customers". Yes, I can see that. What if suddenly there weren't customers anymore? Would Groundspeak care then? All those 40 lovely persons trying to find a position where they could do the same "nothing" as in GS... hard times for them.
Nice rhetoric.

 

Personally, I don't see this site change angering any substantial amount of geocachers to the point that they move to other sites. In fact, most of the angst appears to be over two issues: whitespace and HTML Tidy. I seriously doubt that the whitespace issue is going to drive very many people away (plus TPTB have stated that they are removing some of it). The HTML Tidy issue also isn't likely to chase off many customers. The reason that I say this is because this has happened at least two times before. Somehow, the company has survived.

You complain that they did not do enough testing. Do you expect them to setup a sandbox environment, replicate the whole database and pay someone to look at every single cache every time they make any visual change? That is going a little far.
I am wondering how far along this route they actually went. They'd have to have some kind of sandbox to make sure the updates don't catastrophically fail. It it possible that neither of the testers looked at ANY sample cache listings or other pages? Unlikely. I'd chalk this whole thing up to better-to-beg-forgiveness-than-ask-permission

 

I too come from an IT service background and I know that a rollout like this on a production system where EVERYONE pays would result in the fecal matter impacting the horizontal air impeller.

 

I seem to remember someone posting that they were part of the test group, so obviously testing did occur. Frankly, I don't think that implementation should have been delayed even if broken cache pages were found, given that the breakage is due to bad coding by the cache owners, not TPTB.
We are the shareholders of the information on this site. We are fools.
What do you mean 'WE'? Edited by sbell111
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You complain that they did not do enough testing. Do you expect them to setup a sandbox environment, replicate the whole database and pay someone to look at every single cache every time they make any visual change? That is going a little far.

 

Check every single cache page? Absolutely not. However HELL YES I would expect them to set up a 'sandbox' environment to insure the absolute minimum of disruption prior to pushing such a major change to a production environment. That's just simple IT basics. I would also expect a public announcement AT LEAST a full week prior to such a push as well as a heads up as to what to expect in visual and functional changes.

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I seem to remember someone posting that they were part of the test group, so obviously testing did occur.

I was part of the test group. I have good HTML on my pages so none of them were affected. I only see a relatively small percentage of people complaining, so the vast majority of people have probably also been unaffected. When the code went to full release, the small percentage of caches with bad HTML popped up with issues. As stated elsewhere, there is no way to check every cache on the site before a release. The solution is to fix your cache page and move on.

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Check every single cache page? Absolutely not. However HELL YES I would expect them to set up a 'sandbox' environment to insure the absolute minimum of disruption prior to pushing such a major change to a production environment. That's just simple IT basics. I would also expect a public announcement AT LEAST a full week prior to such a push as well as a heads up as to what to expect in visual and functional changes.

 

Aside from breaking sloppy coding practices (a non-issue) exactly what "functional" changes impacted your access to data?

 

I have had no disruption to my PQs, albeit one was a little slow coming, accessing the data or the forums. I have had several GM scripts no longer work, however that is not something GS is responsible to make work. EBay, Amazon, MSNBC, etc all have broke GM scripts in the past. They get fixed by authors, we move on.

 

GS fixed issues with the Ignore Lists and Maps, however haven't found something broken. Please give us the list. And also please list ANY website or software rollout that did not experience ANY bugs no matter how much it was tested.

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The testing should have included more than simply 'looking' at some cache pages. If I were rolling out an enormous design update and I knew that 99% of pages on the site contained custom user-generated HTML, viewing a few of those pages would certainly not be sufficient. If I were a tester, I would want to know what the changes were and how those changes would affect custom generated HTML (or as the developer, I would provide that information to the testers). Playing 'ignorance' to the scope of the update doesn't cut it, IMO.

 

As I like to say, the problem isn't so much that they did anything wrong, but rather stupid from a business sense (even if only for the lack of warning), upsetting a number of paying customers. I feel for people who do have oodles of caches to maintain whose content is now broken - even if they use utilize badly formed HTML. It was a dumb, ignorant (unwittingly, perhaps) business move on Groundspeak's part. That's all I'm saying...

Edited by thebruce0
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The testing should have included more than simply 'looking' at some cache pages. If I were rolling out an enormous design update and I knew that 99% of pages on the site contained custom user-generated HTML, viewing a few of those pages would certainly not be sufficient. ...

I could certainly be wrong, but I think that you have the ratio inverted. I bet that the actual percentage of pages with user-generated HTML actually is much closer to 1%.
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The testing should have included more than simply 'looking' at some cache pages.
As a tester, I can tell you for a fact that it did.

 

If I were rolling out an enormous design update and I knew that 99% of pages on the site contained custom user-generated HTML, <snip>
That isn't the case here, it is actually a very low percentage, so what's your point?

 

If I were a tester, I would want to know what the changes were and how those changes would affect custom generated HTML (or as the developer, I would provide that information to the testers). Playing 'ignorance' to the scope of the update doesn't cut it, IMO.
We did, and we found some bugs along the way. Some slipped through. The biggest user complaint is white space and that is being addressed as Nate has said. Bad HTML is bad HTML. If a user generates bad HTML, then they should fix it.
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The testing should have included more than simply 'looking' at some cache pages. If I were rolling out an enormous design update and I knew that 99% of pages on the site contained custom user-generated HTML, viewing a few of those pages would certainly not be sufficient. If I were a tester, I would want to know what the changes were and how those changes would affect custom generated HTML (or as the developer, I would provide that information to the testers). Playing 'ignorance' to the scope of the update doesn't cut it, IMO.

 

As I like to say, the problem isn't so much that they did anything wrong, but rather stupid from a business sense (even if only for the lack of warning), upsetting a number of paying customers. I feel for people who do have oodles of caches to maintain whose content is now broken - even if they use utilize badly formed HTML. It was a dumb, ignorant (unwittingly, perhaps) business move on Groundspeak's part. That's all I'm saying...

 

I totally agree! I am a web developer and I would never just roll stuff out w/o any warning.

Here's my thoughts on why they did it: 1. to kill off all the scraping programs out there that people use. 2. add additional functionality to the site as well as speed.

 

While I agree scraping programs probably do slow the site down, but the lack of listening to users request for API kills me. Isn't it us who create the geocaching experience? After all we all spend money putting geocaches out there, not them. They house the database with the maps and they should be payed to do so. But bullying us around seems like a dumb move. I have been a member since 2001, never paid but technology has changed and I actually started use geocache more because of it. So I have been considering a premium membership but this is not helping their case. Archiving/disabling geocaches won't help the issue. An online petition might. A flat out protest of not using geocaching.com's website for a week might do it, but doubtful people will stop. In the end it's a matter of will's and they already got your money, take a guess who will win this one...NUTS AND BOLTS, WE GOT SCREWED!

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Someone suggested we should address an e-mail and express our discontent with the new design and the lame process which brought it to us. Excuse me? Does anyone really believe those persons would bother reading such e-mails?

We do, and we read the forums too. We really are keen to hear constructive criticism. Please read this post written today for more information about the recent changes.

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That isn't the case here, it is actually a very low percentage, so what's your point?

uh, no, every single cache page has ability to provide custom descriptions - whether selected as HTML or not. On the server end, every page is generated with custom user-designed content. Even if you ignore caches that are not toggled a 'html description', I'm positive it's FAR more than a "very low percentage"

 

We did, and we found some bugs along the way. Some slipped through. The biggest user complaint is white space and that is being addressed as Nate has said. Bad HTML is bad HTML. If a user generates bad HTML, then they should fix it.

The problem here isn't simply correcting bad html, but recognition that any number of users may have supplied bad html, through whatever tools they used to create it, and the site (even HTMLTidy) has been effectively ok with it for years. And so there is a well-grounded and accustomed significant user base with potentially bad html. Thus, any roll out of a major design change MUST recognize that the custom-created cache descriptions for a potentially significant user-base will become botched. If GS rolled it out knowing that, then fine - I still think that was a dumb business decision. But if they didn't think of that, or beta testers said "all's good with me" instead of thinking about the customer base a whole - I would have a major problem with the process, at least as the beta test is limited and focused, and not a general public beta.

 

And by knowing the details of the update, I mean specifically realizing that a global CSS change will affect custom HTML - especially bad html - for any number of user-generated content pages.

There's still no getting past the fact that there was no public, global notice of the change (acknowledging all of the above - user-gen content and the potential effects of the design updates on it) before it happened (and I don't mean a relatively hidden thread somewhere in the forums that a tiny fraction of users frequent let alone use).

 

All that said, I realize what's done is done, and the crew is working hard to rectify the situation as quick as possible. I'm not whining, I'm simply pointing out where a process could have been carried out better in order to satisfy and prepare the paying customer userbase, and assuage any possible anger against Groundspeak.

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But bullying us around seems like a dumb move. I have been a member since 2001, never paid but technology has changed and I actually started use geocache more because of it. So I have been considering a premium membership but this is not helping their case.

 

So, let me make sure I've got this straight. You have been using the site and the interface and the data for 9 years now, which enabled you to enjoy geocaching all that time without paying anyone a single penny, and you think you have the right to demand that they specifically consider your needs and wants before doing anything with their business? Interesting thought process.

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Temporarily disabling your caches do nothing. Moving all your cache listings to another site would be a decent protest, if enough people were to do it.

 

Some say that there are only a few people complaining compared to the number of members out there. This may be true but childishly implies that everyone is aware of the forums and uses them and wold complain if they didn't like the changes.

The reality is that there are likely over a hundred thousand members who dislike the changes but would never step into the forums to complain. Out of the few people I know, personally, who use GC.com, 100% of them stated they hated the new layouts. Keep in mind that this was not a survey. They just asked me "what's up with the geocaching pages" and said they didn't like the new layouts.

 

When you take all of the complaints, and weigh them against all of those who said they are "OK" or "like" the changes, you would come to the conclusion that, though the comments come from a small group of members, they adequately relfect a sample set.

 

The verdict is that the page changes aren't being met with enthusiasm. In fact, the data suggests that members simply don't like the changes.

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Temporarily disabling your caches do nothing. Moving all your cache listings to another site would be a decent protest, if enough people were to do it.

 

Some say that there are only a few people complaining compared to the number of members out there. This may be true but childishly implies that everyone is aware of the forums and uses them and wold complain if they didn't like the changes.

The reality is that there are likely over a hundred thousand members who dislike the changes but would never step into the forums to complain. Out of the few people I know, personally, who use GC.com, 100% of them stated they hated the new layouts. Keep in mind that this was not a survey. They just asked me "what's up with the geocaching pages" and said they didn't like the new layouts.

 

When you take all of the complaints, and weigh them against all of those who said they are "OK" or "like" the changes, you would come to the conclusion that, though the comments come from a small group of members, they adequately relfect a sample set.

 

The verdict is that the page changes aren't being met with enthusiasm. In fact, the data suggests that members simply don't like the changes.

 

Which probably is why Nate said they are going to be rolling those changes back.

Edited by jholly
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To protest the recent changes made to geocaching.com, we are temporarily disabling all our active cache hides (163 total) for one week beginning 01-18-10. If you are unhappy with the changes made to geocaching.com and want your voices heard, disable your cache hides along with us. Together we can perhaps get the point across.

 

A&H,

 

While I commend your effort to bring the issue to GS, I hardly think that disabling or even archiving your placed caches are going to do anything short of punish those of us who seek your hides.

 

Rather than disable you hides, why not simply add a short note to the description or a log that

"The above (or below) corruption in HTML you see is due to Groundspeak's incompetence and failure to thoroughly test the recent site updates/changes/downgrades and is not a reflection on the abilities of the owner of this cache. To help us resolve these issues, please contact Groundspeak (insert Groundspeak's phone number, complaint number etc... here)"

 

Maybe if their phones start to ring off the hook and their email boxes begin to fill, they may get the point. Disabling your caches is not something that they will see let alone make any sort of impact.

Except that note would be a lie as the fault is their own bad code. Very few people have had any problems at all and most users outside the Forums probably have any idea there was an upgrade. Every change has a few bumps to overcome but in the long run things will quiet down and everyone from Groundspeak to cachers will be better off.

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Here's the post Nate made earlier today relating to the changes coming up. This doesn't sound like a rollback to me, more like tweaks:

 

As many of you know, last week we released an important update to Geocaching.com which incorporates many new design changes. While the necessity for the changes may not be readily apparent, these major changes will allow us to be more nimble in the design of the site and make it easier for us to both maintain the site and add new features. Unfortunately, these changes caused some frustration for some of our users, so I would like to address the concerns voiced in these forums and speak to our intention to address them.

 

First, however, an aside: Some of the aversion to the new layout is a result of unintentional display bugs stemming from the way in which different browsers render the site. In these cases we’re actively tracking bug reports in both the forums and the support email queue so they can be resolved wherever possible. It can sometimes be challenging for us to discern whether or not the issues raised are a result of a browser incompatibility or an intentional design decision, so please make sure to include as much information as possible when reporting problems.

 

As a first step we will be pushing a hotfix in the next couple days to reduce the line spacing throughout the site – the purpose of which was, at least in part, to make pages less “busy” for casual visitors – but which has unintentionally sacrificed convenience for our more advanced users. This is a difficult balance to strike; however, we are committed to the task.

 

Following this hotfix we will continue to review other pain points associated with the new design, and make adjustments where appropriate. Even though we may not be able to respond directly to every post, we do read these forums and take all comments about the site seriously. As always, we're committed to improving the usability of the site, so please be patient while we address these issues. My sincere thanks to all of you for your feedback and support! big_smile.gif

 

--Larry

Edited by larryc43230
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Temporarily disabling your caches do nothing. Moving all your cache listings to another site would be a decent protest, if enough people were to do it.

 

Some say that there are only a few people complaining compared to the number of members out there. This may be true but childishly implies that everyone is aware of the forums and uses them and wold complain if they didn't like the changes.

The reality is that there are likely over a hundred thousand members who dislike the changes but would never step into the forums to complain. Out of the few people I know, personally, who use GC.com, 100% of them stated they hated the new layouts. Keep in mind that this was not a survey. They just asked me "what's up with the geocaching pages" and said they didn't like the new layouts.

 

When you take all of the complaints, and weigh them against all of those who said they are "OK" or "like" the changes, you would come to the conclusion that, though the comments come from a small group of members, they adequately relfect a sample set.

 

The verdict is that the page changes aren't being met with enthusiasm. In fact, the data suggests that members simply don't like the changes.

 

Yes, few members use the forums, that said, I know of a number of cachers who don't use the forums because they percieve the forums as a place where a vocal minority "bitch and moan and don't do anything constructive"

Anytime a change is made to a website there will be those who dislike the changes. It could be that they lost some favorite function, they don't like the new layout, they don't like the new color etc, etc, etc,.

From a functional standpoint, I've only seen a couple "bugs", and those are being addressed.

If you put bad coords on your cache page would that be GC's fault? If you placed a cache too close to an existing one and it is denied, is that the fault of TPTB?? No, and I seriously doubt that anyone on the forums would argue that. Yet when someone puts bad HTML coding on their cache page, suddenly it's GC's "fault" that their updated site "breaks" it?? It thought that was funny at first, but now, it's just pathetic.

 

So in protest, people want us to disable our caches, that's kind of funny in some ways. Those that support the idea want to spread the word via the forums, which some of the proponents admit "very few" cachers use. So what's the backup plan to spread the word, smoke signals????

 

As for temporarlily archiving your caches in protest, want to bet your local approver fails to see that as funny? Of course, if, while archived, someone hides a cache in that area, well, too bad, so sad, can't unarchive it, there's a new active cache nearby. What will you do, have ANOTHER protest over TPTB being "unfair"?

 

Not logging in to the site for a week. Gee, less traffic for a week, less expense. Might make some sense if the site was a "pay as you go" where you paid per view. Go ahead, stay off for a week, more bandwidth for the rest of us!

 

Moving your caches to another site, OK, name one that gives you all the features that GC does. Name one where the site works as well as this one.

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Yes, few members use the forums, that said, I know of a number of cachers who don't use the forums because they percieve the forums as a place where a vocal minority "bitch and moan and don't do anything constructive"

Anytime a change is made to a website there will be those who dislike the changes. It could be that they lost some favorite function, they don't like the new layout, they don't like the new color etc, etc, etc,.

From a functional standpoint, I've only seen a couple "bugs", and those are being addressed.

If you put bad coords on your cache page would that be GC's fault? If you placed a cache too close to an existing one and it is denied, is that the fault of TPTB?? No, and I seriously doubt that anyone on the forums would argue that. Yet when someone puts bad HTML coding on their cache page, suddenly it's GC's "fault" that their updated site "breaks" it?? It thought that was funny at first, but now, it's just pathetic.

 

So in protest, people want us to disable our caches, that's kind of funny in some ways. Those that support the idea want to spread the word via the forums, which some of the proponents admit "very few" cachers use. So what's the backup plan to spread the word, smoke signals????

 

As for temporarlily archiving your caches in protest, want to bet your local approver fails to see that as funny? Of course, if, while archived, someone hides a cache in that area, well, too bad, so sad, can't unarchive it, there's a new active cache nearby. What will you do, have ANOTHER protest over TPTB being "unfair"?

 

Not logging in to the site for a week. Gee, less traffic for a week, less expense. Might make some sense if the site was a "pay as you go" where you paid per view. Go ahead, stay off for a week, more bandwidth for the rest of us!

 

Moving your caches to another site, OK, name one that gives you all the features that GC does. Name one where the site works as well as this one.

 

Whether a cacher uses good HTML or bad HTML, the HTML was working. In some cases it was working for years.

To, all of a sudden, make changes that make the "bad" HTML no longer function, without advance warning, is going to be a problem.

 

Groundspeak puts out a newsletter each week. They have EMail addresses for every user of the site. It would not have taken them more than a few minutes to put together an information release to give cache owners advance warning that their pages might have issues.

That is where the "fault" of Groundspeak lies.

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Temporarily disabling your caches do nothing. Moving all your cache listings to another site would be a decent protest, if enough people were to do it.

 

Some say that there are only a few people complaining compared to the number of members out there. This may be true but childishly implies that everyone is aware of the forums and uses them and wold complain if they didn't like the changes.

The reality is that there are likely over a hundred thousand members who dislike the changes but would never step into the forums to complain. Out of the few people I know, personally, who use GC.com, 100% of them stated they hated the new layouts. Keep in mind that this was not a survey. They just asked me "what's up with the geocaching pages" and said they didn't like the new layouts.

 

When you take all of the complaints, and weigh them against all of those who said they are "OK" or "like" the changes, you would come to the conclusion that, though the comments come from a small group of members, they adequately relfect a sample set.

 

The verdict is that the page changes aren't being met with enthusiasm. In fact, the data suggests that members simply don't like the changes.

 

Yes, few members use the forums, that said, I know of a number of cachers who don't use the forums because they percieve the forums as a place where a vocal minority "bitch and moan and don't do anything constructive"

Anytime a change is made to a website there will be those who dislike the changes. It could be that they lost some favorite function, they don't like the new layout, they don't like the new color etc, etc, etc,.

From a functional standpoint, I've only seen a couple "bugs", and those are being addressed.

If you put bad coords on your cache page would that be GC's fault? If you placed a cache too close to an existing one and it is denied, is that the fault of TPTB?? No, and I seriously doubt that anyone on the forums would argue that. Yet when someone puts bad HTML coding on their cache page, suddenly it's GC's "fault" that their updated site "breaks" it?? It thought that was funny at first, but now, it's just pathetic.

 

So in protest, people want us to disable our caches, that's kind of funny in some ways. Those that support the idea want to spread the word via the forums, which some of the proponents admit "very few" cachers use. So what's the backup plan to spread the word, smoke signals????

 

As for temporarlily archiving your caches in protest, want to bet your local approver fails to see that as funny? Of course, if, while archived, someone hides a cache in that area, well, too bad, so sad, can't unarchive it, there's a new active cache nearby. What will you do, have ANOTHER protest over TPTB being "unfair"?

 

Not logging in to the site for a week. Gee, less traffic for a week, less expense. Might make some sense if the site was a "pay as you go" where you paid per view. Go ahead, stay off for a week, more bandwidth for the rest of us!

 

Moving your caches to another site, OK, name one that gives you all the features that GC does. Name one where the site works as well as this one.

 

Leave the whole "the site broke my page" thing out of it. Let's say, for the sake of argument, there was some legitimate reason to protest. "GS is discriminating against me because I drink Tim Horton's coffee instead of their Seattle friends coffee from Starbucks." Does anyone think disabling or archiving a few caches is going to make any difference at all? That is like saying "I am going to chain myself to my toilet" to protest a new sewer tax. You want to protest? Chain yourself to Nate's office door.

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Yes, few members use the forums, that said, I know of a number of cachers who don't use the forums because they percieve the forums as a place where a vocal minority "bitch and moan and don't do anything constructive"

Anytime a change is made to a website there will be those who dislike the changes. It could be that they lost some favorite function, they don't like the new layout, they don't like the new color etc, etc, etc,.

From a functional standpoint, I've only seen a couple "bugs", and those are being addressed.

If you put bad coords on your cache page would that be GC's fault? If you placed a cache too close to an existing one and it is denied, is that the fault of TPTB?? No, and I seriously doubt that anyone on the forums would argue that. Yet when someone puts bad HTML coding on their cache page, suddenly it's GC's "fault" that their updated site "breaks" it?? It thought that was funny at first, but now, it's just pathetic.

 

So in protest, people want us to disable our caches, that's kind of funny in some ways. Those that support the idea want to spread the word via the forums, which some of the proponents admit "very few" cachers use. So what's the backup plan to spread the word, smoke signals????

 

As for temporarlily archiving your caches in protest, want to bet your local approver fails to see that as funny? Of course, if, while archived, someone hides a cache in that area, well, too bad, so sad, can't unarchive it, there's a new active cache nearby. What will you do, have ANOTHER protest over TPTB being "unfair"?

 

Not logging in to the site for a week. Gee, less traffic for a week, less expense. Might make some sense if the site was a "pay as you go" where you paid per view. Go ahead, stay off for a week, more bandwidth for the rest of us!

 

Moving your caches to another site, OK, name one that gives you all the features that GC does. Name one where the site works as well as this one.

 

Whether a cacher uses good HTML or bad HTML, the HTML was working. In some cases it was working for years.

To, all of a sudden, make changes that make the "bad" HTML no longer function, without advance warning, is going to be a problem.

 

Groundspeak puts out a newsletter each week. They have EMail addresses for every user of the site. It would not have taken them more than a few minutes to put together an information release to give cache owners advance warning that their pages might have issues.

That is where the "fault" of Groundspeak lies.

 

That assumes that they knew ahead of time that there was going to be a problem. I doubt that such could be proved one way or the other and still doesn't make the protest any less absurd.

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Whether a cacher uses good HTML or bad HTML, the HTML was working. In some cases it was working for years.

To, all of a sudden, make changes that make the "bad" HTML no longer function, without advance warning, is going to be a problem.

 

Groundspeak puts out a newsletter each week. They have EMail addresses for every user of the site. It would not have taken them more than a few minutes to put together an information release to give cache owners advance warning that their pages might have issues.

That is where the "fault" of Groundspeak lies.

 

That assumes that they knew ahead of time that there was going to be a problem. I doubt that such could be proved one way or the other and still doesn't make the protest any less absurd.

 

No, untrue.

 

ANYtime a site is upgraded there is a risk of problems.

 

My humble opinion is that the persons who implimented the software upgrade were foolish to not announce the potential for problems BEFORE the software release. No programmer is so good that their rollout goes smoothly the first time.

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Whether a cacher uses good HTML or bad HTML, the HTML was working. In some cases it was working for years.

To, all of a sudden, make changes that make the "bad" HTML no longer function, without advance warning, is going to be a problem.

 

Groundspeak puts out a newsletter each week. They have EMail addresses for every user of the site. It would not have taken them more than a few minutes to put together an information release to give cache owners advance warning that their pages might have issues.

That is where the "fault" of Groundspeak lies.

 

That assumes that they knew ahead of time that there was going to be a problem. I doubt that such could be proved one way or the other and still doesn't make the protest any less absurd.

 

No, untrue.

 

Anytime a site is upgraded there is a risk of problems.

 

My humble opinion is that the persons who implemented the software upgrade were foolish to not announce the potential for problems BEFORE the software release. No programmer is so good that their rollout goes smoothly the first time.

 

You also state repeatably that you never mean what you post and nobody should take anything you say seriously, so I guess what you think doesn't matter, by your own admission. :huh:

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Whether a cacher uses good HTML or bad HTML, the HTML was working. In some cases it was working for years.

To, all of a sudden, make changes that make the "bad" HTML no longer function, without advance warning, is going to be a problem.

 

Groundspeak puts out a newsletter each week. They have EMail addresses for every user of the site. It would not have taken them more than a few minutes to put together an information release to give cache owners advance warning that their pages might have issues.

That is where the "fault" of Groundspeak lies.

 

That assumes that they knew ahead of time that there was going to be a problem. I doubt that such could be proved one way or the other and still doesn't make the protest any less absurd.

 

No, untrue.

 

ANYtime a site is upgraded there is a risk of problems.

 

My humble opinion is that the persons who implimented the software upgrade were foolish to not announce the potential for problems BEFORE the software release. No programmer is so good that their rollout goes smoothly the first time.

 

...and still doesn't make the protest any less absurd.

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My humble opinion is that the persons who implimented the software upgrade were foolish to not announce the potential for problems BEFORE the software release. No programmer is so good that their rollout goes smoothly the first time.

I disagree. The site constantly does updates. I only remember two having such a big impact, this being one of the two. I don't even remember the issues on the other one. Most go smoothly with some minor issues and I would bet they figured this one would too.

 

Let's boil it down.

 

The biggest problems now seem to be white space and HTML issues. They said that they are going to address the white space issue. This whole protest topic basically revolves around the HTML issue. The HTML issue is not reversible since it fixes a security leak with HTML Tidy, so you are going to have to adjust. The adjustment isn't that difficult. Are you going to advocate leaving the site open to hackers? Isn't the better solution to just make an adjustment if your cache page has an HTML issue?

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My humble opinion is that the persons who implimented the software upgrade were foolish to not announce the potential for problems BEFORE the software release. No programmer is so good that their rollout goes smoothly the first time.

I disagree. The site constantly does updates. I only remember two having such a big impact, this being one of the two. I don't even remember the issues on the other one. Most go smoothly with some minor issues and I would bet they figured this one would too.

 

Let's boil it down.

 

The biggest problems now seem to be white space and HTML issues. They said that they are going to address the white space issue. This whole protest topic basically revolves around the HTML issue. The HTML issue is not reversible since it fixes a security leak with HTML Tidy, so you are going to have to adjust. The adjustment isn't that difficult. Are you going to advocate leaving the site open to hackers? Isn't the better solution to just make an adjustment if your cache page has an HTML issue?

 

This update was a major update. Small updates, no biggie. This one was a larger one that, from reading, had a lot of thought put into it. But it was still foolish to think that it would go smoothly.

 

Your second paragraph has nothing to do with my comment. I never implied that security fixes shouldn't be implimented. To imply otherwise is stating falsehood.

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I won't comment on the results for geocaching.com

 

Interesting...

 

I took a random cache page URL: Cache Page and ran it through the W3C Markup Validation service.

 

The result?

 

163 Errors, 53 warning(s)

 

Yikes.

 

Try it yourself.

 

ETA: None of the errors was in the user-generated portion of the page. They are all in the Groundspeak code. And yes, they are really errors.

Edited by fizzymagic
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My humble opinion is that the persons who implimented the software upgrade were foolish to not announce the potential for problems BEFORE the software release. No programmer is so good that their rollout goes smoothly the first time.

I disagree. The site constantly does updates. I only remember two having such a big impact, this being one of the two. I don't even remember the issues on the other one. Most go smoothly with some minor issues and I would bet they figured this one would too.

 

Let's boil it down.

 

The biggest problems now seem to be white space and HTML issues. They said that they are going to address the white space issue. This whole protest topic basically revolves around the HTML issue. The HTML issue is not reversible since it fixes a security leak with HTML Tidy, so you are going to have to adjust. The adjustment isn't that difficult. Are you going to advocate leaving the site open to hackers? Isn't the better solution to just make an adjustment if your cache page has an HTML issue?

 

This update was a major update. Small updates, no biggie. This one was a larger one that, from reading, had a lot of thought put into it. But it was still foolish to think that it would go smoothly.

 

Your second paragraph has nothing to do with my comment. I never implied that security fixes shouldn't be implimented. To imply otherwise is stating falsehood.

 

Ohkayyyyyy, so TPTB should take the time to notify everyone and give them time to prepare BEFORE they fix a security issue?? How long would you suggest that they give as notice, a wekk, amonth, hey better yet, 6 months, that way they can tell us the site isn't secure every week, but still make sure that everyone has the time to clean up their bad coding.......

 

You should come to NY and run for public office..........................

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Ohkayyyyyy, so TPTB should take the time to notify everyone and give them time to prepare BEFORE they fix a security issue?? How long would you suggest that they give as notice, a wekk, amonth, hey better yet, 6 months, that way they can tell us the site isn't secure every week, but still make sure that everyone has the time to clean up their bad coding.......

 

You should come to NY and run for public office..........................

 

Yeah, way to misrepresent things.

 

Responses like this deserve about this much response....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

....

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Ohkayyyyyy, so TPTB should take the time to notify everyone and give them time to prepare BEFORE they fix a security issue?? How long would you suggest that they give as notice, a wekk, amonth, hey better yet, 6 months, that way they can tell us the site isn't secure every week, but still make sure that everyone has the time to clean up their bad coding.......

 

You should come to NY and run for public office..........................

 

Yeah, way to misrepresent things.

 

Responses like this deserve about this much response....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

....

 

Nah, too much white space.

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