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I tried to complain to the site but couldn't find where to complain. If I navigate to another page on the site it says I'm not logged in even though it clearly shows me logged in on other pages. I need to find a way to delete the dadgum account to get my email address OFF of the pages.

 

I think if you check the little "remember me" box, it stops logging you off.

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Like people follow rules now as far as permissions go.
The seriousness of all this is still to be determined. So flippant? - nope.
Fine. Sarcastic.
I have always said that geocaching rests on a very slippery slope and is very fragile. When a monopoly runs it - that is a even bigger concern. Attitudes aside, attack mode aside - competition will be good for the game/hobby/ sport/compulsion/"life" for some :P .
So, you think it's a good idea for our fragile "game/hobby/ sport/compulsion/'life'" that is resting on a very slippery slope to have competition in the form of a seemingly no-rules website that has already listed caches that break the 528 ft guideline here? Keep in mind, this guideline isn't just in place to keep people from getting confused about which cache they found, as the OX claims, but also to appease landowners. I know there've been others already sited as examples, but here's 2 more: OXZTY7J, GC1YY4K. 127 feet apart. From the sounds of the hint, the OX cache is hidden in the historic town pound there. WMA2WN
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Bah. They changed the account that used my full email address but said my name has already been used. They assigned me Thrak2010. As for the one using my real name they asked what name to change it to and "if it hasn't already been used" they'll change the account to that name.

 

I said to just delete both accounts. I've been caching under the name Thrak for over 5 years. I'm not thrilled that some other yahoo can now cache under that name. I want nothing to do with it.

 

I'll stick with geocaching.com and screw the other site.

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So, you think it's a good idea for our fragile "game/hobby/ sport/compulsion/'life'" that is resting on a very slippery slope to have competition in the form of a seemingly no-rules website that has already listed caches that break the 528 ft guideline here? Keep in mind, this guideline isn't just in place to keep people from getting confused about which cache they found, as the OX claims, but also to appease landowners. I know there've been others already sited as examples, but here's 2 more: OXZTY7J, GC1YY4K. 127 feet apart. From the sounds of the hint, the OX cache is hidden in the historic town pound there. WMA2WN

 

I do. Groundspeak didn't start out with the "guidelines" that they have today. Far fewer I would imagine. This will be no different for OC. It's pretty much just starting out, after all.

 

Like it or not, not everyone is jumping up and down in happiness with some of the decisions made and not made by Groundspeak. No alternative means less geocachers. An alternative gives them somewhere to go should they decide to do so. Competition is a good thing. Pretty much always.

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...An alternative gives them somewhere to go should they decide to do so. Competition is a good thing. Pretty much always.

Remember HD-DVD vs. BlueRay. Bad. No one would commit to anything until that war was won. What about VHS vs BataMax. Bad, same thing there. Same thing is happening with 3D tv. Until it is all standardised, there will be no mass buy in by the public.

 

However, looks like the API is getting pushed ahead, so that is good. I think we will see some good, and some bad due to the competition.

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So, you think it's a good idea for our fragile "game/hobby/ sport/compulsion/'life'" that is resting on a very slippery slope to have competition in the form of a seemingly no-rules website that has already listed caches that break the 528 ft guideline here? Keep in mind, this guideline isn't just in place to keep people from getting confused about which cache they found, as the OX claims, but also to appease landowners. I know there've been others already sited as examples, but here's 2 more: OXZTY7J, GC1YY4K. 127 feet apart. From the sounds of the hint, the OX cache is hidden in the historic town pound there. WMA2WN

 

I do. Groundspeak didn't start out with the "guidelines" that they have today. Far fewer I would imagine. This will be no different for OC. It's pretty much just starting out, after all.

 

Like it or not, not everyone is jumping up and down in happiness with some of the decisions made and not made by Groundspeak. No alternative means less geocachers. An alternative gives them somewhere to go should they decide to do so. Competition is a good thing. Pretty much always.

 

Yeah, I'm not in love with the new site, but Groundspeak has damaged my loyalty by making some very serious mistakes, particularly in the last year or so. I'd like to see this new site give Groundspeak a bit of competition, if only to get them to smarten up a bit. They really need to clean house, review the guidelines, and take some steps to keep the game moving forward in a positive, sustainable manner. Power trails gone wild, increasingly tyrannical reviewers, and their refusal to address the shortcomings of Wherigo and Waymarking are just the tip of the iceberg.

 

I pay them $30 a year, usually gladly. They didn't earn it this year.

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If you read their terms of use it's pretty clear that they will take action if you submit a cache that doesn't comply with their guidelines.

That would be a good thing, as it might, eventually eliminate a cache that has serious problems. But as we see here, at The Lily Pad, with their crack reviewer team working tirelessly to keep the game going, problem caches still slip through the cracks every so often. I suspect the main reason for this is that the reviewer can only see what's on the cache page, and must infer from that if there are any issues that need to be dealt with. With such a startling handicap as that, it's a wonder that our reviewers do catch most of the problem caches before they ever get published.

 

Over there, that step never happens. While I've never been a reviewer, I would imagine that the easiest guideline to check would be proximity. Apparently, those other guys don't even do that much. All they do is create a rule and hope the masses will follow it, relying on those same masses to report any problems. One merely has to peruse the CCC thread to see a host of caches which violate the guidelines, yet are still being found and logged, if one wishes to see the honor system as applied to peer guideline enforcement.

 

It is my belief that what sets this site above all the others is Groundspeak's volunteer reviewer staff.

 

If Garmin thinks they can mirror the success of this site, without a comparable system, I think they'll fail.

 

I just hope they don't hurt us in the process.

 

I think the guideline that really killed it for me is this one:

"Keep your fellow geocachers safe

 

Don’t hide your caches on cliffs, down abandoned mines, in trenches or anywhere that might put the safety of geocachers in peril."

If The Lily Pad ever came up with such an idiotic rule, most of my caches would be in serious violation.

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If you read their terms of use it's pretty clear that they will take action if you submit a cache that doesn't comply with their guidelines.

That would be a good thing, as it might, eventually eliminate a cache that has serious problems. But as we see here, at The Lily Pad, with their crack reviewer team working tirelessly to keep the game going, problem caches still slip through the cracks every so often. I suspect the main reason for this is that the reviewer can only see what's on the cache page, and must infer from that if there are any issues that need to be dealt with. With such a startling handicap as that, it's a wonder that our reviewers do catch most of the problem caches before they ever get published.

 

Over there, that step never happens. While I've never been a reviewer, I would imagine that the easiest guideline to check would be proximity. Apparently, those other guys don't even do that much. All they do is create a rule and hope the masses will follow it, relying on those same masses to report any problems. One merely has to peruse the CCC thread to see a host of caches which violate the guidelines, yet are still being found and logged, if one wishes to see the honor system as applied to peer guideline enforcement.

 

It is my belief that what sets this site above all the others is Groundspeak's volunteer reviewer staff.

 

If Garmin thinks they can mirror the success of this site, without a comparable system, I think they'll fail.

 

I just hope they don't hurt us in the process.

 

I think the guideline that really killed it for me is this one:

"Keep your fellow geocachers safe

 

Don’t hide your caches on cliffs, down abandoned mines, in trenches or anywhere that might put the safety of geocachers in peril."

If The Lily Pad ever came up with such an idiotic rule, most of my caches would be in serious violation.

 

Man, how funny would it be if someone could get Garmin to add "placing Geocachers nipple deep in a swamp" to that list? :P

 

I'm sure I saw buried somewhere that Garmin does have the .1 mile proximity rule. The OTHER Opencaching site, Opencaching.us (related to the European Opencache family of websites) has a 300 foot proximity rule. Power trail anyone? :ph34r:

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So, you think it's a good idea for our fragile "game/hobby/ sport/compulsion/'life'" that is resting on a very slippery slope to have competition in the form of a seemingly no-rules website that has already listed caches that break the 528 ft guideline here? Keep in mind, this guideline isn't just in place to keep people from getting confused about which cache they found, as the OX claims, but also to appease landowners. I know there've been others already sited as examples, but here's 2 more: OXZTY7J, GC1YY4K. 127 feet apart. From the sounds of the hint, the OX cache is hidden in the historic town pound there. WMA2WN

 

I do. Groundspeak didn't start out with the "guidelines" that they have today. Far fewer I would imagine. This will be no different for OC. It's pretty much just starting out, after all.

 

Like it or not, not everyone is jumping up and down in happiness with some of the decisions made and not made by Groundspeak. No alternative means less geocachers. An alternative gives them somewhere to go should they decide to do so. Competition is a good thing. Pretty much always.

 

Yeah, I'm not in love with the new site, but Groundspeak has damaged my loyalty by making some very serious mistakes, particularly in the last year or so. I'd like to see this new site give Groundspeak a bit of competition, if only to get them to smarten up a bit. They really need to clean house, review the guidelines, and take some steps to keep the game moving forward in a positive, sustainable manner. Power trails gone wild, increasingly tyrannical reviewers, and their refusal to address the shortcomings of Wherigo and Waymarking are just the tip of the iceberg.

 

I pay them $30 a year, usually gladly. They didn't earn it this year.

 

I am willing to give the new site a chance. I have already published 3 OC only caches on there site. I feel no need to double list my other caches. I too think Groundspeak has damaged my loyality and may others just in the last week but that is a different topic but still it has happened. They really do need to clean house but then again why would they. They get this help for free and it gives them the ability to do as they please. Maybe the new site will do well and make them sit back and look at what has happened in the past to straighten thing out. You can only hope. :P

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I am willing to give the new site a chance. I have already published 3 OC only caches on there site. I feel no need to double list my other caches. I too think Groundspeak has damaged my loyality and may others just in the last week but that is a different topic but still it has happened. They really do need to clean house but then again why would they. They get this help for free and it gives them the ability to do as they please. Maybe the new site will do well and make them sit back and look at what has happened in the past to straighten thing out. You can only hope. :P

Or, the lack of cache overview causes a number of "bad idea" caches to be placed leading to a black eye for the geocaching community and damaging our game in the process.

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The closest cache to me is a commercial cache, another non-positive note (at least to me).
Hmmm
The coordinates put that cache in the middle of a parking lot. Now I AM going Hmmmmmmmm.... :P

That link doesn't work for me - it pulls up a blank screen. Other OC waypoints are working fine. I've tried it in multiple browsers. Either they've pulled the listing, whatever it was, or I'm having an odd glitch with just that one cache (totally plausible given the other bugs I've seen reported).

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Or, the lack of cache overview causes a number of "bad idea" caches to be placed leading to a black eye for the geocaching community and damaging our game in the process.

only that this should've already happened with the "other" opencaching and all the other alternative sites.

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I am willing to give the new site a chance. I have already published 3 OC only caches on there site. I feel no need to double list my other caches. I too think Groundspeak has damaged my loyality and may others just in the last week but that is a different topic but still it has happened. They really do need to clean house but then again why would they. They get this help for free and it gives them the ability to do as they please. Maybe the new site will do well and make them sit back and look at what has happened in the past to straighten thing out. You can only hope. :P

Or, the lack of cache overview causes a number of "bad idea" caches to be placed leading to a black eye for the geocaching community and damaging our game in the process.

 

Groundspeak has done a great deal of damage by allowing these ridiculous power trails to pop up everywhere. Groundspeak's don't ask, don't tell approach to permission certainly hasn't helped anything but their corporate interests. With all due respect to the reviewers who are dedicated and hardworking, there are too many reviewers phoning it in. I no longer trust Groundspeak to protect this game's image at all.

 

This new site has many flaws, but it's only been up for a couple of days. What's Groundspeak's excuse?

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The closest cache to me is a commercial cache, another non-positive note (at least to me).

 

Hmmm

The link won't get me anywhere except a blank page this morning. I then tried searching with the OX number and that doesn't seem to be working, either. More and more, this is reminding me of Garmin's premature release of the Colorado. Of course, at least this isn't costing their customers $400 to play with.
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Groundspeak has done a great deal of damage by allowing these ridiculous power trails to pop up everywhere. Groundspeak's don't ask, don't tell approach to permission certainly hasn't helped anything but their corporate interests. With all due respect to the reviewers who are dedicated and hardworking, there are too many reviewers phoning it in. I no longer trust Groundspeak to protect this game's image at all.

 

This new site has many flaws, but it's only been up for a couple of days. What's Groundspeak's excuse?

Is this "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" thinking?

 

There is no review process at 'open'caching.com. On that site people can place as many power trails as they want and in any location. They could run one in front of your house 50' spacing or run it through your neighborhood school properties.

 

You may not like Groundspeak, but they offer FAR MORE protection than 'open'caching.com. You think that Garmin isn't doing this for THEIR corporate interests? You think NO REVIEWERS is better than the existing "phoning it in" reviewers at Groundspeak?

 

You could very well get more of what you hate with the appearance of 'open'caching.com. Just because you don't like Groundspeak, doesn't mean that a worse alternative can't exist.

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It is my belief that what sets this site above all the others is Groundspeak's volunteer reviewer staff.

I think the lack of a review process at OC is a pretty big flaw.

 

But I think OC's genesis is different from that of the two of the more famous (infamous?) competitors (Navicache, Terracaching). Groundspeak has a fantastic volunteer staff. But I don't think it would be hard for OC to enlist a volunteer staff of its own, should they decide they want to do that. I'm guessing that although there are a number of experienced cachers who wouldn't want to be Groundspeak reviewers even if you paid them handsomely, there are probably at least some qualified folks who would be willing to serve in the role who aren't currently. And I'm further guessing that there are also some folks who would be willing to be OC reviewers, if given the opportunity. If OC is listening to the feedback, they may decide that they'll want to do that. I think recruiting a reviewer staff isn't as big a hurdle to overcome than the network effect / advantage that Groundspeak already has.

 

I don't think that the staff would be as good, but I'm not sure that it would have to be. Just as long as it wasn't negligently awful, I think that would go a long way.

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The closest cache to me is a commercial cache, another non-positive note (at least to me).

 

Hmmm

The link won't get me anywhere except a blank page this morning. I then tried searching with the OX number and that doesn't seem to be working, either. More and more, this is reminding me of Garmin's premature release of the Colorado. Of course, at least this isn't costing their customers $400 to play with.

I'm curious if it was actively delisted / retracted, as opposed to simply broken.

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funny, now that i've changed my username (not to what i wanted, but i did anyway) the log button suddenly works.

 

HTML does work in cache descriptions btw, at least basic stuff. what's more annoying is that it's always expecting HTML.

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these ridiculous power trails

It does highlight the fact that alternative sites don't have a monopoly on ill-advised ideas. If GS banned power trails but an alternative site allowed / encouraged them (with congratulatory posts on the official company blog, etc.) I suspect that people would be pretty upset that the new site was putting geocaching at risk for all.

 

Of course, as it is OC doesn't seem to have any controls or review process at all, and that's not good.

 

But it's been less than 48 hours since the site went live beta, so I'll be interested to see how they respond to the first wave of feedback.

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funny, now that i've changed my username (not to what i wanted, but i did anyway) the log button suddenly works.

 

HTML does work in cache descriptions btw, at least basic stuff. what's more annoying is that it's always expecting HTML.

Log button started working sometime yesterday afternoon (for me, at least). I can't find a way to remove my bogus found-it from the bogus cache, though (or to change it to a note).

 

It does allow for very limited HTML, not including images.

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I'm guessing that although there are a number of experienced cachers who wouldn't want to be Groundspeak reviewers even if you paid them handsomely, there are probably at least some qualified folks who would be willing to serve in the role who aren't currently. And I'm further guessing that there are also some folks who would be willing to be OC reviewers, if given the opportunity. If OC is listening to the feedback, they may decide that they'll want to do that. I think recruiting a reviewer staff isn't as big a hurdle to overcome than the network effect / advantage that Groundspeak already has.

i would think that oc.com tries to put the reviewing process also into the hands of the community, which would fit the "open" concept, just like on wikipedia. if you come across a cache that violates their guidelines, you click the report button. if you come across a cache that's just lame, you vote it down. the question is only how well this approach will work in real life.

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I'm playing with OC just to see how it works. I can't see changing, though I may list at both places so both communities can find my caches.

 

Groundspeak earns my membership fee every time I get a PQ, among the other things they provide.

 

We don't yet know what OC will look like down the road, but I for one think Groundspeak is doing a bang-up job, the Reviewers are right on top of things, and I can't imagine a better corporate-client relationship than Groundspeak has with us geocachers.

 

As I mentioned earlier, OC went to public Beta way ahead of time, it simply does not function properly in many areas that should have been identified in development QA. This sends me the message that Garmin isn't serious about the site and makes me wonder if they are not just trying to negotiate something with Groundspeak... an alliance made way more sense for them than a competing site.

 

OC has its work cut out for it.

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Groundspeak earns my membership fee every time I get a PQ, among the other things they provide.

 

We don't yet know what OC will look like down the road, but I for one think Groundspeak is doing a bang-up job, the Reviewers are right on top of things, and I can't imagine a better corporate-client relationship than Groundspeak has with us geocachers.

 

...This sends me the message that Garmin isn't serious about the site and makes me wonder if they are not just trying to negotiate something with Groundspeak... an alliance made way more sense for them than a competing site.

Groundspeak makes their money supporting geocachers. If they fail to do that well, then they will go out of business. They have a strong motivation to keep their members happy.

 

Garmin makes money selling GPS's. There is no direct revenue stream for them from 'open'caching.com. Their motivation is selling GPS's, not supporting geocachers. If 'Open'caching doing a poor job of supporting geocachers that won't significantly hurt Garmin's GPS sales. However, 'open'caching.com is a 'cost' center for Garmin, not a revenue center. If you're familiar with corporate environments you know where this is going.

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i would think that oc.com tries to put the reviewing process also into the hands of the community, which would fit the "open" concept, just like on wikipedia. if you come across a cache that violates their guidelines, you click the report button.

Yeah, I just wonder who you're reporting it *to* and what power there is to delist an illegal cache, etc. Wikipedia is an open community, but there are still varying degrees of authorizations - anonymous users can edit some pages, confirmed users can make more edits, users with administrator access can lock down pages and edit locked pages, and the list goes on. Most of the permissions are granted by the community (via a mechanism I don't completely understand).

 

OC could run with the "open" concept without it being mutually exclusive of the concept of a volunteer reviewer / admin.

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As I mentioned earlier, OC went to public Beta way ahead of time, it simply does not function properly in many areas that should have been identified in development QA. This sends me the message that Garmin isn't serious about the site and makes me wonder if they are not just trying to negotiate something with Groundspeak... an alliance made way more sense for them than a competing site.

on the other hand, the fact that they're using akamai as their content delivery provider tells me that they are indeed quite serious about this project, as i know that akamai services aren't exactly cheap. they put a lot of thought in and while the website isn't quite ready yet, the API is and it will probably be the more important part in the future.

 

an alliance would probably be the move most beneficial for us, the players, but the sudden removal of the Groundspeak logo from their devices and the unnegotiated introduction of the chirp tells me that this is not what they're after.

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Yeah, I just wonder who you're reporting it *to* and what power there is to delist an illegal cache, etc. Wikipedia is an open community, but there are still varying degrees of authorizations - anonymous users can edit some pages, confirmed users can make more edits, users with administrator access can lock down pages and edit locked pages, and the list goes on. Most of the permissions are granted by the community (via a mechanism I don't completely understand).

 

OC could run with the "open" concept without it being mutually exclusive of the concept of a volunteer reviewer / admin.

yes, obviously there are some admins out there, but acting upon caches after they've been reported is quite a different process than reviewing every single one of them before publishing them. on gc.com, the NA log is one of the most powerful tools for the community and thanks to the reviewers it works very well. oc.com could just rely on that mechanism alone and if it does, it will probably recruit additional "moderators" to act upon reports in the future as the site grows.

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Groundspeak earns my membership fee every time I get a PQ, among the other things they provide.

 

We don't yet know what OC will look like down the road, but I for one think Groundspeak is doing a bang-up job, the Reviewers are right on top of things, and I can't imagine a better corporate-client relationship than Groundspeak has with us geocachers.

 

...This sends me the message that Garmin isn't serious about the site and makes me wonder if they are not just trying to negotiate something with Groundspeak... an alliance made way more sense for them than a competing site.

Groundspeak makes their money supporting geocachers. If they fail to do that well, then they will go out of business. They have a strong motivation to keep their members happy.

 

Garmin makes money selling GPS's. There is no direct revenue stream for them from 'open'caching.com. Their motivation is selling GPS's, not supporting geocachers. If 'Open'caching doing a poor job of supporting geocachers that won't significantly hurt Garmin's GPS sales. However, 'open'caching.com is a 'cost' center for Garmin, not a revenue center. If you're familiar with corporate environments you know where this is going.

 

Highlighted in red:

If that is the case, then lets hope they are following this and listening to what is being said. I have been mostly happy with GS, but they have also done some things lately and started in a direction that some don't agree with. I've been looking at the OC site, which needs improvements, but could turn into something. I'm sure GS didn't start with what it has now, it built to it. Just hope they are paying attention.

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yes, obviously there are some admins out there, but acting upon caches after they've been reported is quite a different process than reviewing every single one of them before publishing them. on gc.com, the NA log is one of the most powerful tools for the community and thanks to the reviewers it works very well. oc.com could just rely on that mechanism alone and if it does, it will probably recruit additional "moderators" to act upon reports in the future as the site grows.

I could see that.

 

I wonder who is currently taking the role of moderator / admin / reviewer / whatever. I think at least one cache got delisted today; someone must have made that call.

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Groundspeak has done a great deal of damage by allowing these ridiculous power trails to pop up everywhere. Groundspeak's don't ask, don't tell approach to permission certainly hasn't helped anything but their corporate interests. With all due respect to the reviewers who are dedicated and hardworking, there are too many reviewers phoning it in. I no longer trust Groundspeak to protect this game's image at all.

 

This new site has many flaws, but it's only been up for a couple of days. What's Groundspeak's excuse?

 

Trying to keep thousands of players happy while staying out of the red at the same time?

Yep. People have been asking for them, begging for them. GC decided to allow them since you don't have to do power trails if you don't want to. You just ignore them. Pretty simple frankly.

 

What I find intriguing is the part I made bold and added back in. The new site says you have to have permission, have to do this, have to do that. Clearly, people here have demonstrated that if you place a cache as close as 40 feet from another one, it sails right through. You could list one right in the middle of the White House property and it would sail right through. I could list one right on your house and it would sail right through. Who is the one with the permissions problem here? Who is the one that you cannot trust with protecting the game's image? I think you are wrong here on this one. GC isn't perfect and never will be, nor will I be perfect as a reviewer. At least we do some sort of "review" though, while the other one does nothing but auto-publish. That's a huge problem in my book.

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There is little about 'open'caching that is 'open' other than the name.

 

This is a Garmin website setup with Garmin user accounts that is meant to help facilitate the sale of Garmin GPSr's and their Chirp product. The website is NOT a Wikipeadia for geocaching. They are doing this because it gives them greater control than if they worked through Groundspeak.

 

Calling it 'open' is just newspeak.

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Groundspeak has done a great deal of damage by allowing these ridiculous power trails to pop up everywhere. Groundspeak's don't ask, don't tell approach to permission certainly hasn't helped anything but their corporate interests. With all due respect to the reviewers who are dedicated and hardworking, there are too many reviewers phoning it in. I no longer trust Groundspeak to protect this game's image at all.

 

This new site has many flaws, but it's only been up for a couple of days. What's Groundspeak's excuse?

Is this "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" thinking?

 

There is no review process at 'open'caching.com. On that site people can place as many power trails as they want and in any location. They could run one in front of your house 50' spacing or run it through your neighborhood school properties.

 

You may not like Groundspeak, but they offer FAR MORE protection than 'open'caching.com. You think that Garmin isn't doing this for THEIR corporate interests? You think NO REVIEWERS is better than the existing "phoning it in" reviewers at Groundspeak?

 

You could very well get more of what you hate with the appearance of 'open'caching.com. Just because you don't like Groundspeak, doesn't mean that a worse alternative can't exist.

 

You can place caches in front of peoples house on geocaching.com Opencaching has the same rule as cache placement every 1.0 range. People says on here what keeps them from placing a cache near a geo cache. Well what keeps a goecache getting placed near a opencache? I have seen geocaches place almost on top of a letterbox many times so all the sites can and will have that problem.

 

"Garmin isn't doing this for THEIR corporate interests?" I am sure they are like all places do. but for now it is free and they let you down load from their site on to any brand of GPS. No body starts anthing without wanting to at least break even.

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Yep. People have been asking for them, begging for them. GC decided to allow them since you don't have to do power trails if you don't want to. You just ignore them. Pretty simple frankly.

I mostly agree with your post, but I think at least some of the complaints about power trails are similar to the complaints about buried caches or caches in sensitive areas. They potentially give the sport a black eye with land managers. The Trail of the Gods didn't do us any favors, and reports seem to be that parts of the ET Series are being driven all over, despite the CO's specifically requesting that people not drive those parts. I can't say for sure why - but I strongly suspect that it's to go really, really fast, and perhaps to set a new record. And who knows, maybe even get featured on the official Groundspeak blog.

 

I don't think objections to power trails are handled as simply as "if you don't want to do them ignore them", any more than buried caches should be handled that way.

 

At least we do some sort of "review" though, while the other one does nothing but auto-publish. That's a huge problem in my book.

Yes. If the OC model moving forward truly is auto-publish, that could be a big issue. I am really hoping that isn't the case, but so far I haven't seen any reason to believe otherwise.

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Groundspeak has done a great deal of damage by allowing these ridiculous power trails to pop up everywhere. Groundspeak's don't ask, don't tell approach to permission certainly hasn't helped anything but their corporate interests. With all due respect to the reviewers who are dedicated and hardworking, there are too many reviewers phoning it in. I no longer trust Groundspeak to protect this game's image at all.

 

This new site has many flaws, but it's only been up for a couple of days. What's Groundspeak's excuse?

 

Trying to keep thousands of players happy while staying out of the red at the same time?

Yep. People have been asking for them, begging for them. GC decided to allow them since you don't have to do power trails if you don't want to. You just ignore them. Pretty simple frankly.

 

Just to be clear, I'm not a fan of powertrails and I'll complain about them, the logging methods, etc- but I don't see that as a reason to take my ball and play in somebody else's field. Especially when that field would have just as many, and potentially many, MANY MORE, powertrails than would be allowed through this site.

 

I do not want to see the hobby damaged by a site that tries to implement "hands-off" enforcement as seen on the two letterboxing sites on the scale of geocaching hides.

 

Interestingly enough, this does have some influence on my choice of GPS unit upgrade. Not sure if that was the desired effect Garmin was looking for.

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There is little about 'open'caching that is 'open' other than the name.

 

This is a Garmin website setup with Garmin user accounts that is meant to help facilitate the sale of Garmin GPSr's and their Chirp product. The website is NOT a Wikipeadia for geocaching. They are doing this because it gives them greater control than if they worked through Groundspeak.

 

Calling it 'open' is just newspeak.

actually, the API makes it quite open. all user submitted data is licensed under the creative commons license, which is also quite open. the fact that the service is run by a company doesn't matter as long as they keep doing what their service promises. a lot of other "open" services and websites are run by commercial entities without hurting the service provided.

Edited by dfx
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You can place caches in front of peoples house on geocaching.com

 

Things slip through. Nobody is claiming this system is perfect.

 

Opencaching has the same rule as cache placement every 1.0 range.

 

Enforced by whom...?

 

People says on here what keeps them from placing a cache near a geo cache. Well what keeps a goecache getting placed near a opencache? I have seen geocaches place almost on top of a letterbox many times so all the sites can and will have that problem.

 

You cannot compare the scale of caches to the scale of letterboxes. Big apples to itty-bitty apples.

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actually, the API makes it quite open. all user submitted data is licensed under the creative commons license, which is also quite open. the fact that the service is run by a company doesn't matter as long as they keep doing what their service promises. a lot of other "open" services and websites are run by commercial entities without hurting the service provided.

Illogical or not, I'd be more sympathetic to this argument (a fair one) if they hadn't have tied the user accounts into their Garmin accounts. I also don't see a community aspect (think wiki) to the running of the site.

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There is little about 'open'caching that is 'open' other than the name.

 

This is a Garmin website setup with Garmin user accounts that is meant to help facilitate the sale of Garmin GPSr's and their Chirp product. The website is NOT a Wikipeadia for geocaching. They are doing this because it gives them greater control than if they worked through Groundspeak.

 

Calling it 'open' is just newspeak.

I cache with a Blackberry, and soon with an iPhone. I don't own a Garmin or any Garmin products. I was able to use the OC site just fine, they didn't try to sell me anything, even the fact that it's a Garmin site is barely noticeable (I had to look for it) so it certainly qualifies as open.

 

Broken, and with a strange business model which may not be good for the game perhaps, but it is open!

Edited by TheAlabamaRambler
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You can place caches in front of peoples house on geocaching.com

 

Things slip through. Nobody is claiming this system is perfect.

 

Opencaching has the same rule as cache placement every 1.0 range.

 

Enforced by whom...?

 

People says on here what keeps them from placing a cache near a geo cache. Well what keeps a goecache getting placed near a opencache? I have seen geocaches place almost on top of a letterbox many times so all the sites can and will have that problem.

 

You cannot compare the scale of caches to the scale of letterboxes. Big apples to itty-bitty apples.

 

So the little apple are no good here. Just push the leeterbow out of the way of the cache since they are not as big. :P

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Opencaching has the same rule as cache placement every 1.0 range.

 

You may want to take a look at my 3 new OC listings. Three caches, all at the same coordinates. Nothing and nobody stopped me. I think I'll now go and hide one in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and maybe one in the White House, just for good measure.

Edited by knowschad
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Is this "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" thinking?

 

There is no review process at 'open'caching.com. On that site people can place as many power trails as they want and in any location. They could run one in front of your house 50' spacing or run it through your neighborhood school properties.

 

You may not like Groundspeak, but they offer FAR MORE protection than 'open'caching.com. You think that Garmin isn't doing this for THEIR corporate interests? You think NO REVIEWERS is better than the existing "phoning it in" reviewers at Groundspeak?

 

You could very well get more of what you hate with the appearance of 'open'caching.com. Just because you don't like Groundspeak, doesn't mean that a worse alternative can't exist.

 

This may very well be true, but it remains to be seen. The site has only been up for a couple of days. Geocaching.com didn't always have reviewers, and it didn't always have all the features it has now. These things take time, and at this point it could go in a good direction or a bad direction.

 

The new site obviously has serious flaws. But so does this one. I'm not writing off this site, but I would like to see them work harder to earn the loyalty they've had from me up to this point. As I said earlier, they didn't earn it this year.

 

For me, the best case scenario is that the competition leads Groundspeak to smarten up, kiss and make up with Garmin, and right some of the serious wrongs that have occurred under their watch in the last year. The feedback site is a joke, they've all but abandoned Wherigo and Waymarking, they're betraying partners like the GSA... the list of buffoonery goes on and on.

 

If a little competition is what it takes to get some positive action and accountability out of this site, I'm all for it.

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Opencaching has the same rule as cache placement every 1.0 range.

 

You may want to take a look at my 3 new OC listings. Three caches, all at the same coordinates. Nothing and nobody stopped me. I think I'll now go and hide one in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and maybe one in the White House, just for good measure.

 

So you are one of those type that are trying to make it fail. You know you would get ban from another site for doing that. :ph34r: What are the OC numbers and I can get them fixed. That is what that button is for anyways. :P

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For me, the best case scenario is that the competition leads Groundspeak to smarten up, kiss and make up with Garmin, and right some of the serious wrongs that have occurred under their watch in the last year. The feedback site is a joke, they've all but abandoned Wherigo and Waymarking, they're betraying partners like the GSA... the list of buffoonery goes on and on.

 

If a little competition is what it takes to get some positive action and accountability out of this site, I'm all for it.

I'm definitely in agreement that competition is a good thing. I'd love to see geocaching website totally redesigned (it's a kludge and has numerous non-intuitive elements) and the 'open'caching website may spur that change.

 

My biggest concern is the 'open'caching beta site will end up doing more harm than good with how it is currently operated. Hope not, but there are some real 'bonehead' decisions made by them so far.

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