opencaching.com new mascot...

2.9k · January 25, 2011

I just can't take a site like Opencaching seriously when half their conversations revolve around how bad Groundspeak and their moderators and reviewers are.

The funny thing about their site is that they claim it's peer review, when in essence they have reviewers. Garmin apparently thought it good to give people weighted votes, and some people there have massive weight. Irritate the wrong people and you'll never get a cache published.

January 25, 2011

I just can't take a site like Opencaching seriously when half their conversations revolve around how bad Groundspeak and their moderators and reviewers are.

The funny thing about their site is that they claim it's peer review, when in essence they have reviewers. Garmin apparently thought it good to give people weighted votes, and some people there have massive weight. Irritate the wrong people and you'll never get a cache published.

LOL - half the posts in this thread revolve around how bad Opencaching.com is. Speaking from personal experience, try ticking of a reviewer or moderator on this site and see what happens!

1.7k · January 25, 2011

I gotta admit, I wander over to read the forums on OC whenever I need a mood picker-upper / entertainment. Or when the paranoia meter needs a boost - it goes Miles Per Hour off the scale whenever I open some of the multiple threads.

1.5k · January 25, 2011

I just can't take a site like Opencaching seriously when half their conversations revolve around how bad Groundspeak and their moderators and reviewers are. /snip/

LOL - half the posts in this thread revolve around how bad Opencaching.com is. /snip/

Big difference between "half their conversations" and the one conversation on this board that was dormant for two weeks.

January 25, 2011

I just can't take a site like Opencaching seriously when half their conversations revolve around how bad Groundspeak and their moderators and reviewers are. /snip/

LOL - half the posts in this thread revolve around how bad Opencaching.com is. /snip/

Big difference between "half their conversations" and the one conversation on this board that was dormant for two weeks.

And the significance of that is??? Both sites have posters bashing the other site. None of the posters on either forum can claim any high ground.

2.9k · January 25, 2011

I just can't take a site like Opencaching seriously when half their conversations revolve around how bad Groundspeak and their moderators and reviewers are. /snip/

LOL - half the posts in this thread revolve around how bad Opencaching.com is. /snip/

Big difference between "half their conversations" and the one conversation on this board that was dormant for two weeks.

And the significance of that is??? Both sites have posters bashing the other site. None of the posters on either forum can claim any high ground.

I dunno...one thread out of hundreds vs. almost half...LOL.

1.8k · January 25, 2011

Garmin apparently thought it good to give people weighted votes, and some people there have massive weight.

Oh, that explains it. I thought there was a weird bug, or that some people had figured out how to vote multiple times or something. Like when folks from this site broke the voting for GetSatisfaction. It makes sense now.

38.2k · January 25, 2011

Garmin apparently thought it good to give people weighted votes, and some people there have massive weight.

Oh, that explains it. I thought there was a weird bug, or that some people had figured out how to vote multiple times or something. Like when folks from this site broke the voting for GetSatisfaction. It makes sense now.

They changed it a while ago. It is an odd concept. With every positive vote your voting power seems to increase. With every negative vote your voting power appears to decrease. Not exactly a formula for honest review.

2.9k · January 25, 2011

Garmin apparently thought it good to give people weighted votes, and some people there have massive weight.

Oh, that explains it. I thought there was a weird bug, or that some people had figured out how to vote multiple times or something. Like when folks from this site broke the voting for GetSatisfaction. It makes sense now.

They changed it a while ago. It is an odd concept. With every positive vote your voting power seems to increase. With every negative vote your voting power appears to decrease. Not exactly a formula for honest review.

Not to mention they still haven't addressed the fact that the person reviewing it may not know the ins and outs of the local laws in regards to placing caches. Here, we are blessed with reviewers who do know them and have worked with agencies to advance caching. I find this part of Opencaching the most scary.

1.5k · January 25, 2011

They changed it a while ago. It is an odd concept. With every positive vote your voting power seems to increase. With every negative vote your voting power appears to decrease. Not exactly a formula for honest review.

That seemed so illogical so I just logged in and clicked on 'review'...

It asked me to "Look at these geocaches that were recently hidden near you." The cache they brought up was in South Carolina, I live in Colorado. They then ask me "Is this geocache following the guidelines?". Since I've never placed a cache on their service I have no idea and all the information I have to work on is a map and the one-line description the CO wrote.

I see that one of our own forum members voted for it, which gave it a +24 votes. Also voting was the cache owner themselves who were able to give themselves +25 votes.

I voted for "No" and it deducted 14 points from the total. I then immediately changed my vote and it added 9 votes. So I went to the next cache, to rate it...it was in Illinois. At that point I logged out.

Briansnat, if I hadn't of seen it I wouldn't have believed it.

1.7k · January 25, 2011

They changed it a while ago. It is an odd concept. With every positive vote your voting power seems to increase. With every negative vote your voting power appears to decrease. Not exactly a formula for honest review.

That seemed so illogical so I just logged in and clicked on 'review'...

It asked me to "Look at these geocaches that were recently hidden near you." The cache they brought up was in South Carolina, I live in Colorado. They then ask me "Is this geocache following the guidelines?". Since I've never placed a cache on their service I have no idea and all the information I have to work on is a map and the one-line description the CO wrote.

I see that one of our own forum members voted for it, which gave it a +24 votes. Also voting was the cache owner themselves who were able to give themselves +25 votes.

I voted for "No" and it deducted 14 points from the total. I then immediately changed my vote and it added 9 votes. So I went to the next cache, to rate it...it was in Illinois. At that point I logged out.

Briansnat, if I hadn't of seen it I wouldn't have believed it.

*blink* You have GOT to be kidding me. Seriously - what kind of review policy is that? It sounds like Kirk trying to play fizzbin, or something similar *obligatory nerdy Star Trek reference*

I predict that you will be denounced as a spy on OC, at a speed of 180 Miles Per Hour. But ... wow. :blink:

7k · January 26, 2011

They changed it a while ago. It is an odd concept. With every positive vote your voting power seems to increase. With every negative vote your voting power appears to decrease. Not exactly a formula for honest review.

That's not how it works. The weight of the vote seems to be based on number of finds and/or hides. The number of votes given in the past doesn't apply.

2.9k · January 26, 2011

They changed it a while ago. It is an odd concept. With every positive vote your voting power seems to increase. With every negative vote your voting power appears to decrease. Not exactly a formula for honest review.

That's not how it works. The weight of the vote seems to be based on number of finds and/or hides. The number of votes given in the past doesn't apply.

Regardless of how it is or is not, the system is seriously flawed.

38.2k · January 26, 2011

They changed it a while ago. It is an odd concept. With every positive vote your voting power seems to increase. With every negative vote your voting power appears to decrease. Not exactly a formula for honest review.

That's not how it works. The weight of the vote seems to be based on number of finds and/or hides. The number of votes given in the past doesn't apply.

Try it, you will be surprised.

8k · January 26, 2011

Garmin apparently thought it good to give people weighted votes, and some people there have massive weight.

Oh, that explains it. I thought there was a weird bug, or that some people had figured out how to vote multiple times or something. Like when folks from this site broke the voting for GetSatisfaction. It makes sense now.

They changed it a while ago. It is an odd concept. With every positive vote your voting power seems to increase. With every negative vote your voting power appears to decrease. Not exactly a formula for honest review.

I think the formula is for every cache you vote with the majority your voting power increases and for every one where you vote in the minority it decreases. Still not the greatest algorithm, but if most reviewers are honestly reviewing to the guidelines it should work out.

I've given up on their forums however, not so much because they bash this site but they do so in way that makes it easy to understand why so many got banned here.

1.7k · January 26, 2011

Checked an opencache. Guess what? A local REVIEWER actually searched for an opencache exclusive (Not on geocaching.com) he couldn't find it and called it a fake.

http://www.opencaching.com/#geocache/OXZTY10

38.2k · January 26, 2011

Checked an opencache. Guess what? A local REVIEWER actually searched for an opencache exclusive (Not on geocaching.com) he couldn't find it and called it a fake.

http://www.opencaching.com/#geocache/OXZTY10

Of course he couldn't find it. It is "cleverly concealed". Too bad for him, he missed a "sweet" cache.

2.9k · January 26, 2011

Checked an opencache. Guess what? A local REVIEWER actually searched for an opencache exclusive (Not on geocaching.com) he couldn't find it and called it a fake.

http://www.opencaching.com/#geocache/OXZTY10

Of course he couldn't find it. It is "cleverly concealed". Too bad for him, he missed a "sweet" cache.

Are you saying the cache owner used camo to hide the cache?

Edited January 26, 2011 by Arthur & Trillian

7k · January 26, 2011

Try it, you will be surprised.

I did, many times already. No surprise happened.

2.5k · January 26, 2011

Garmin apparently thought it good to give people weighted votes, and some people there have massive weight.

Oh, that explains it. I thought there was a weird bug, or that some people had figured out how to vote multiple times or something. Like when folks from this site broke the voting for GetSatisfaction. It makes sense now.

They changed it a while ago. It is an odd concept. With every positive vote your voting power seems to increase. With every negative vote your voting power appears to decrease. Not exactly a formula for honest review.

But in the beginning there was not much honest voting going on. Too many sock puppet accounts. It seems to have gotten better on the voting over there now. Just saying. I enjoy both places.

2.5k · January 26, 2011

Checked an opencache. Guess what? A local REVIEWER actually searched for an opencache exclusive (Not on geocaching.com) he couldn't find it and called it a fake.

http://www.opencaching.com/#geocache/OXZTY10

Of course he couldn't find it. It is "cleverly concealed". Too bad for him, he missed a "sweet" cache.

I did hear in the rumor pool over there that they are making up some kind of art work of something of that sort. That should be awsome. [}

38.2k · January 26, 2011

Try it, you will be surprised.

I did, many times already. No surprise happened.

How many negative votes did you give?

6.7k · January 26, 2011

I can't even get signed in over there. I opened an account but it keeps telling me my user name or password are incorrect. I've been through the rest procedures and tried contacting their lackeys. Not worth the hassle. There are plenty of sites that work.

2.5k · January 26, 2011

I can't even get signed in over there. I opened an account but it keeps telling me my user name or password are incorrect. I've been through the rest procedures and tried contacting their lackeys. Not worth the hassle. There are plenty of sites that work.

You must not have emailed them cause they respond back within a day or two on any troubles. They are trying their best to keep up on any bugs that people run into. They even sent me a box of swag just to say thanks. I don't think they are called lackeys either, you must be think of another place. Maybe that is why you never got any help. You had the email mixed up.

1.5k · January 26, 2011

You must not have emailed them cause they respond back within a day or two on any troubles. They are trying their best to keep up on any bugs that people run into. They even sent me a box of swag just to say thanks. I don't think they are called lackeys either, you must be think of another place. Maybe that is why you never got any help. You had the email mixed up.

I contacted them twice regarding issues with their website, I never got a response. I certainly didn't get any 'swag'.

6.7k · January 26, 2011

I can't even get signed in over there. I opened an account but it keeps telling me my user name or password are incorrect. I've been through the rest procedures and tried contacting their lackeys. Not worth the hassle. There are plenty of sites that work.

You must not have emailed them cause they respond back within a day or two on any troubles. They are trying their best to keep up on any bugs that people run into. They even sent me a box of swag just to say thanks. I don't think they are called lackeys either, you must be think of another place. Maybe that is why you never got any help. You had the email mixed up.

:laughing:

"lackeys" is not a Groundspeak copyrighted word. I was merely pointing out that I contacted those who do their daily grunt work and not their CEO. The response was timely but didn't get me any solutions. I figured it just wasn't meant to be and left it at that.

2.5k · January 26, 2011

You must not have emailed them cause they respond back within a day or two on any troubles. They are trying their best to keep up on any bugs that people run into. They even sent me a box of swag just to say thanks. I don't think they are called lackeys either, you must be think of another place. Maybe that is why you never got any help. You had the email mixed up.

I contacted them twice regarding issues with their website, I never got a response. I certainly didn't get any 'swag'.

Ask them nicely and they will send it to you. You will get two hats and two lanyards and 12 vopencaching pins and more stickers than you can count. Pretty sweet deal for free.

5.7k · January 26, 2011

I was one of the first to get a package from them. This was before the hats and pins, but I got a layanard and a bunch of stickers. My son has a account now on the site, I told him who to contact to get a hat. We wear hats, and those look real nice. We have not had any problems with the site, and the review process is improving. It takes a little longer to get a listing approved, but my local Groundspeak reviewer is awsome! I still don't vote on many of the caches unless they are caches that I am sure of. I don't like having to vote against EC's and virtuals but they are not supported on that site yet. I have a bit more weight with my votes, but that is because of the number of hides that I have listed. Some have more weight than me because of the number of finds that they have imported, even though the caches they found are not listed on the site. Sure, the site has flaws in the review process, and I don't see the point of listing finds that are not listed on the site.

7k · January 26, 2011

How many negative votes did you give?

I didn't count.

1.5k · January 26, 2011

Ask them nicely and they will send it to you. You will get two hats and two lanyards and 12 vopencaching pins and more stickers than you can count. Pretty sweet deal for free.

I would have settled for a response to the problems I reported.

2.1k · January 26, 2011

I had a similar problem, I am totally unable to login over there. I can't say how their tech support response time is, because I wasn't interested enough to bother trying to get the problem fixed.

2.5k · January 26, 2011

Ask them nicely and they will send it to you. You will get two hats and two lanyards and 12 vopencaching pins and more stickers than you can count. Pretty sweet deal for free.

I would have settled for a response to the problems I reported.

I just find it hard that they chose only you to not respond to any of your website problems. I have had 3 things that needed fixed and each time they got right back to me within a day or two. The response time seems very good.

2.5k · January 26, 2011

I had a similar problem, I am totally unable to login over there. I can't say how their tech support response time is, because I wasn't interested enough to bother trying to get the problem fixed.

That is too bad that you did not give them a chance to fix whatever problems you was having. One simple email goes a long ways. Takes the same amount of time to post here as it would to send a email.

2.1k · January 26, 2011

I had a similar problem, I am totally unable to login over there. I can't say how their tech support response time is, because I wasn't interested enough to bother trying to get the problem fixed.

That is too bad that you did not give them a chance to fix whatever problems you was having. One simple email goes a long ways. Takes the same amount of time to post here as it would to send a email.

I understand that it would take very little effort to get the problem resolved. The thing is, that being able to use that website, to me, isn't worth even that very little effort.

1.5k · January 26, 2011

I just find it hard that they chose only you to not respond to any of your website problems. I have had 3 things that needed fixed and each time they got right back to me within a day or two. The response time seems very good.

I'm sure I'm not the only one.

3.6k · January 26, 2011

They changed it a while ago. It is an odd concept. With every positive vote your voting power seems to increase. With every negative vote your voting power appears to decrease. Not exactly a formula for honest review.

That's not how it works. The weight of the vote seems to be based on number of finds and/or hides. The number of votes given in the past doesn't apply.

Try it, you will be surprised.

Sorry brainsnat, you are dead wrong. I gave out more negative votes than dfx and I will tell you this, there is no decrease.

1.5k · January 26, 2011

Sorry brainsnat, you are dead wrong. I gave out more negative votes than dfx and I will tell you this, there is no decrease.

Perhaps we can agree that it is a very ODD voting system? After all, an unclear & weighted voting system where n00b's are being asked if caches in another part of the country are valid and the CO can vote for his/her own cache?

1.2k · January 26, 2011

Perhaps we can agree that it is a very ODD voting system? After all, an unclear & weighted voting system where n00b's are being asked if caches in another part of the country world are valid and the CO can vote for his/her own cache?

Fixed it for ya, and agree completely. I just checked what was out for review, and the only ones that came up are in Europe. I'm in Kansas. Being allowed any sort of input on a cache that far away, that I can't even understand or tell is complete/meets the minimum requirements/etc., is just a plan to fail. IMHO

38.2k · January 26, 2011

They changed it a while ago. It is an odd concept. With every positive vote your voting power seems to increase. With every negative vote your voting power appears to decrease. Not exactly a formula for honest review.

That's not how it works. The weight of the vote seems to be based on number of finds and/or hides. The number of votes given in the past doesn't apply.

Try it, you will be surprised.

Sorry brainsnat, you are dead wrong. I gave out more negative votes than dfx and I will tell you this, there is no decrease.

Perhaps they changed it again. Perhaps certain people are "super reviewers" and immune. I know what I saw. I'm not making it up.

10.2k · January 26, 2011

I had a similar problem, I am totally unable to login over there. I can't say how their tech support response time is, because I wasn't interested enough to bother trying to get the problem fixed.

That is too bad that you did not give them a chance to fix whatever problems you was having. One simple email goes a long ways. Takes the same amount of time to post here as it would to send a email.

I understand that it would take very little effort to get the problem resolved. The thing is, that being able to use that website, to me, isn't worth even that very little effort.

Put me down also for not even being able to log into my new Garmin account, and the forums, and not even caring enough to try to get the problem fixed. Add to that the ridicuously buggy "beta" site (I tried for about the first 5 days to log a find for a listed cache, and it finally worked on the 6th day, and left a blank log on the cache page), and their use of the name "Opencaching" which has been in use in Europe since 2005, and most notably in the USA 3 months before Garmin's site went online, and I have no interest whatsoever in Garmincaching. No bag of Garmin swag could change that either.

7k · January 26, 2011

Perhaps we can agree that it is a very ODD voting system? After all, an unclear & weighted voting system where n00b's are being asked if caches in another part of the country are valid and the CO can vote for his/her own cache?

That's the thing: a noob will have a very low weight on his vote. And the CO's "yes" vote gets added in automatically (which makes sense too). It seems to work quite well so far.

1.5k · January 26, 2011

That's the thing: a noob will have a very low weight on his vote. And the CO's "yes" vote gets added in automatically (which makes sense too). It seems to work quite well so far.

This'll sound odd after my comments, but I'm really not interested in bashing them. Fact is I find so many of their decisions to be 'head scratchers' and it appears that they aren't getting traction in the market. (Which, frankly, I consider a good thing.)

2.5k · January 26, 2011

Perhaps we can agree that it is a very ODD voting system? After all, an unclear & weighted voting system where n00b's are being asked if caches in another part of the country world are valid and the CO can vote for his/her own cache?

Fixed it for ya, and agree completely. I just checked what was out for review, and the only ones that came up are in Europe. I'm in Kansas. Being allowed any sort of input on a cache that far away, that I can't even understand or tell is complete/meets the minimum requirements/etc., is just a plan to fail. IMHO

The cool thing about that is if you don't understand the cache, area, or language you just don't vote on the review. I know that is hard idea to figure out. They don't tell you that you have to vote on it. I am sure it is not part of the rules that you have to vote on caches. The reason the system changed anyways was because jokers was going to the site and voting no on everything, even caches that was already listed here by the reviewers. I am sure those caches was ok unless they seen stuff that GS reviewers over looked.

2.5k · January 26, 2011

That's the thing: a noob will have a very low weight on his vote. And the CO's "yes" vote gets added in automatically (which makes sense too). It seems to work quite well so far.

This'll sound odd after my comments, but I'm really not interested in bashing them. Fact is I find so many of their decisions to be 'head scratchers' and it appears that they aren't getting traction in the market. (Which, frankly, I consider a good thing.)

Getting traction in the market? Are they going under? Bet you would not turn away half the money they have.

7k · January 26, 2011

This'll sound odd after my comments, but I'm really not interested in bashing them. Fact is I find so many of their decisions to be 'head scratchers' and it appears that they aren't getting traction in the market. (Which, frankly, I consider a good thing.)

Time will tell. Fact is that gc.com is and will always be the "first player" in the market, which gives it a significant advantage over any competition there may be. This means that they're likely to remain the biggest and most well known site, even if eventually perhaps other sites offer better performance or features. This is not surprising at all and history has plenty of examples of exactly this happening, but on the other hand there's also some examples of the opposite thing happening. Time will tell.

1.5k · January 26, 2011

Getting traction in the market? Are they going under? Bet you would not turn away half the money they have.

I'm referring to OC. From my earlier post:

In most of our state OC is non-issue. In the portion of the metropolitan area where I run pocket queries, there are approx 4500-5000 Geocaching.com caches. In that same area there are 2 OC caches.
In the entire state, there are 17,300 Geocaching.com caches and 140 OC caches (most placed by one cacher). Almost all, if not all, of the OC caches are also listed on Geocaching.com. There have been almost no additions to the OC database in our state in the last few weeks, after the initial flurry.

The point being, OC really hasn't grabbed traction after its initial burst and I doubt it will at this point. But as dfx accurately points out, only time will tell.

2.9k · January 26, 2011

Well, like it or not, I predict OC will go the way of Navicache because they allow cross-posting of caches.

1.5k · January 26, 2011

Well, like it or not, I predict OC will go the way of Navicache because they allow cross-posting of caches.

I don't see how a competing website could survive without cross-posted caches. It would be hard to develop traction otherwise.

To succeed a competing website will have to fill a need or void that Geocaching.com is not filling. OC.com probably got greenlighted at Garmin because it filled an in-house need to grab market share in the geocaching segment of their business.

Their primary advantage, at first, was a pretty UI, an API, a good map, and a fast & simple website. By itself, its not enough without the content.

Meanwhile Geocaching.com isn't standing by. They've significantly increased the spead of the website, they have a new & incredible map in beta, added favorites, and the API is coming shortly. Geocaching.com would still benefit from a major site overhaul, but it's now much faster and it still has the advantage of the nearly 1.3 million geocaches in its database and a lot more developed features.

Biggest issue for OC is that a lot of people took a look at it when it was released and then went back to Geocaching.com. OC is more like the pretty girl without a lot going on upstairs. Through Geocaching.com I'll log more 'finds' this month than OC has in its entire database for my state.

2.9k · January 26, 2011

Well, Terracaching.com has survived with it's own caches and little if any cross-listing, so it can be done. However, with cross-listing on the scale of OC, it will doom the site.

8.3k · January 26, 2011

Well, Terracaching.com has survived with it's own caches and little if any cross-listing, so it can be done. However, with cross-listing on the scale of OC, it will doom the site.

Well if being in ICU is surviving I guess your right. I have to agree the cross listing will not help the site.

opencaching.com new mascot...

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