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OpenCaching.com - now live in UK


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I'm interested to know what happens to Premium member only caches.

If you can import a GPX of your found caches which includes Premium member only caches won't this defeat the object of having it Premium member only and leave more caches open to abuse by those who must not be named!

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I'm interested to know what happens to Premium member only caches.

If you can import a GPX of your found caches which includes Premium member only caches won't this defeat the object of having it Premium member only and leave more caches open to abuse by those who must not be named!

 

Doesn't quite work like that... You can upload your "My founds", but it only uses it for your account. It doesn't create all the caches themselves. They seem to remain on record, but only from your perspective. It does seem odd though that you can upload your myFinds and it registers x number of finds against caches that don't exist on that site.

 

Jon.

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I'm interested to know what happens to Premium member only caches.

If you can import a GPX of your found caches which includes Premium member only caches won't this defeat the object of having it Premium member only and leave more caches open to abuse by those who must not be named!

Not really. When you import your finds, OX stores a note saying that your username(*) found GC12345 and that, when GC12345 is later crosslisted as OX12345, it should associate your log from GC12345 with OX12345. Nothing appears until OX12345 is listed by its owner. In theory, the owner of a PMOC wouldn't list their cache at OX, but I wouldn't bet money that it hasn't already happened. :rolleyes:

 

 

 

(*) This assumes that you managed to get the exact string match of your Geocaching.com username, which in turn requires that /a/ it has 5 or more characters, although there is apparently a workaround for 4 characters, /2/ it has no spaces in it, and /3/ nobody else registered it first. You're right, this will break in many cases. I'm sure Garmin will be delighted to get your feedback on any minor inconvenience which this might cause to about one-third of the community.

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I have been watching opencaching for sometime. Apart from the nearest cache be miles away from me, the vast majority can be found on GC.com so why should i change? GC.com works very well. Opencaching has so many bugs, its busier than a nest of Ants, scurrying about looking for food where nothing exists. In time it may get them all sorted, but how long? I tried uploading one of my caches to see what it looked like, my browser fell over at the first hurdle, and have not tried since. And if you read their forum, its likes a bunch of moaning minnies. You should read their posts about earth caches....

 

Yes, competition is good, but cross logging caches is not competition. I do not think GC.com have anything to worry about here.

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I have been watching opencaching for sometime. Apart from the nearest cache be miles away from me, the vast majority can be found on GC.com so why should i change? GC.com works very well. Opencaching has so many bugs, its busier than a nest of Ants, scurrying about looking for food where nothing exists. In time it may get them all sorted, but how long? I tried uploading one of my caches to see what it looked like, my browser fell over at the first hurdle, and have not tried since. And if you read their forum, its likes a bunch of moaning minnies. You should read their posts about earth caches....

 

Yes, competition is good, but cross logging caches is not competition. I do not think GC.com have anything to worry about here.

 

I agree with the point you're making, but it's worth insisting that this is NOT Opencaching. It's just Garmin caching. This is Opencaching. :mad:

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I created a Wherigo using the beta software some years ago (it was the first Wherigo in Europe). It wasn't perfect software but not too bad, and I had good feedback (it was about 25 stages with several characters to meet, many photos, sounds, items to collect and puzzles to solve). Unfortunately GS rewrote the whole Wherigo system and released it without reference to beta testers like me. I couldn't even convert my very elaborate Wherigo to the new version so gave up on it.

 

The relevant point being, that GS did considerable beta testing on Wherigo.

Have I understood you correctly - they beta tested one version but released a completely different and non beta tested version? Sounds bizarre, but might explain why it was so bad!

 

Rgds, Andy

Edited by Amberel
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I agree with the point you're making, but it's worth insisting that this is NOT Opencaching. It's just Garmin caching. This is Opencaching. :mad:

 

i thought this was opencaching. or was it this? no wait, i think it's this!

 

Those are all opencaching. 'Opencaching' is not a brand name, but a description of the relationship between the software and the user. Garmin's product is not open.

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I agree with the point you're making, but it's worth insisting that this is NOT Opencaching. It's just Garmin caching. This is Opencaching. :mad:

 

i thought this was opencaching. or was it this? no wait, i think it's this!

 

Those are all opencaching. 'Opencaching' is not a brand name, but a description of the relationship between the software and the user. Garmin's product is not open.

 

Firstly, to get it out of the way - I'm not a user of Garmin's Opencaching site, but have no quarrel with it or any other opencaching site. I probably, by default, have an Opencaching.com account as I own a registered garmin GPS - but that's as far as it goes!

 

How is Garmin's site not "open", in opencaching terms?

 

By the only definition I can find online, primarily here, opencaching is...

a term for geocaching that is used mainly by those in Europe. It refers specifically to websites and services that offer a free and open portal for all of those who are interested in the activity, or sport, of geocaching

 

Perhaps I've been looking in the wrong place, but I can't find any part of the Garmin service that isn't available "at no cost" to any cacher.

I also can't find any opencaching site or reference that precludes commercial concerns from setting up open listing sites.

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Perhaps I've been looking in the wrong place, but I can't find any part of the Garmin service that isn't available "at no cost" to any cacher.

I also can't find any opencaching site or reference that precludes commercial concerns from setting up open listing sites.

I agree that what "Open" means is open :lol: to interpretation.

 

One way in which the original OpenCaching sites differ from Garmin's site is that if you wanted to start an OpenCaching site in a country that didn't already have one, the OpenCaching community would likely give you the software and help you to implement it.

 

But for me the biggest difference is that the Garmin site is commercial, the original OpenCaching sites are not. By commercial, I meant that it is run by a company, whos primary responsibility is to its shareholders. Presumably they must think that there is a benefit to their shareholders of running a subscription-free cache listing service. But if in the future it became no longer of benefit to those shareholders, they would be required to charge for the service, or close it down,or whatever else was in the best interest of the shareholders. For any commercial cache listing service, the interests of cachers is of less importance than the interests of the shareholders, and we have to rely on the fact that, for the most part, they coincide.

 

Rgds, Andy

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I just noticed that a beta version of Garmin's Opencaching.com (not to be confused with OpenCaching.org.uk) has gone live in the UK.

 

If this is open source then it might be a good move?

If I were in Groundspeak's shoes, I would be a bit worried about whether they're serious about this site. If they aren't, and it's just been put up by one marketing guy without much support behind him, they have no worries. But if Garmin seriously want to dominate the world of caching web sites, then they probably could, although GS would put up a good fight.

 

This might be of the areas where the first to get in, dominates the field, like Amazon. Or it might be the sort where the second major entrant learns from the mistakes of the first, and takes the market. For now, I'll stay with GS, but Garmin getting into the game is interesting.

 

I had a look. I did a search for London; 1 cache within about 50 miles of the city. I suppose it's early days.

 

Interestingly, that cache involved climbing a big tree; the cache owner said he used two ropes.

This contravenes one of their rules, "Don’t hide your caches on cliffs, down abandoned mines, in trenches or anywhere that might put the safety of geocachers in peril." I think that's a silly rule. I think you should be able to make caches as dangerous as you like. I can decide for myself not to climb that tree. I already have.

Good news Mr Solly, the cache is also a published Geocache [Groundspeak - that is !]

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=a9a05212-13f2-47ca-9f03-313421581535

Having climbed it with Bashfull a couple of monthes ago I can confirm that is dangerous and perililous. Please don't fret however, I would be only too happy to supply the double ropes and help you up .

The most dangerous thing about this cache it would seem is the fact that Mr Farmer is a little angry that a German came over from the Motherland and put this cache up and 'put the wind up' an innocent cacher a couple of weeks ago.

Hey Ho - open cache or not we all had such fun.

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Perhaps I've been looking in the wrong place, but I can't find any part of the Garmin service that isn't available "at no cost" to any cacher.

I also can't find any opencaching site or reference that precludes commercial concerns from setting up open listing sites.

I agree that what "Open" means is open :lol: to interpretation.

 

One way in which the original OpenCaching sites differ from Garmin's site is that if you wanted to start an OpenCaching site in a country that didn't already have one, the OpenCaching community would likely give you the software and help you to implement it.

 

But for me the biggest difference is that the Garmin site is commercial, the original OpenCaching sites are not. By commercial, I meant that it is run by a company, whos primary responsibility is to its shareholders. Presumably they must think that there is a benefit to their shareholders of running a subscription-free cache listing service. But if in the future it became no longer of benefit to those shareholders, they would be required to charge for the service, or close it down,or whatever else was in the best interest of the shareholders. For any commercial cache listing service, the interests of cachers is of less importance than the interests of the shareholders, and we have to rely on the fact that, for the most part, they coincide.

 

Rgds, Andy

 

To be honest - given how IT savvy the operators of the various opencaching sites seem to be - weren't they just incredibly naive and shortsighted in not registering opencaching.com themselves years ago??

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To be honest - given how IT savvy the operators of the various opencaching sites seem to be - weren't they just incredibly naive and shortsighted in not registering opencaching.com themselves years ago??
Maybe they were, but only as a "preventative measure". The .com domains are supposed to be reserved for commercial organisations, though having the amberel.com domain myself I agree that's frequently abused. Thus it is not strictly speaking a suitable domain for the openaching sites.

 

As they are run by private individuals it would be expensive to pre-emptively register every possible opencaching domain variation, but .com is probably an exception that should have been made, especially in hindsight.

 

But maybe they couldn't. The domain was registered in 2003, which pre-dated the OpenCaching sites. We don't know who by, other than that it wasn't Garmin, who only recently aquired it. Or maybe it was Garmin all along but they used a proxy to conceal it.

 

Maybe it was careless of the OpenCaching sites to use the name when there was a potential ticking time bomb there.

 

Rgds, Andy

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To be honest - given how IT savvy the operators of the various opencaching sites seem to be - weren't they just incredibly naive and shortsighted in not registering opencaching.com themselves years ago??

But maybe they couldn't. The domain was registered in 2003, which pre-dated the OpenCaching sites. We don't know who by, other than that it wasn't Garmin, who only recently aquired it. Or maybe it was Garmin all along but they used a proxy to conceal it.

 

Maybe it was careless of the OpenCaching sites to use the name when there was a potential ticking time bomb there.

Opencaching.com existed briefly as an alternative listing site (or, more properly, a project to build such a site) in 2003. There was also Opencaching.nl, which pointed to Opencaching.com. When the founder(s) of Opencaching.com dropped out, the domain was snapped up by one of those companies which buy defunct domains, which I always presumed was on the basis that if person A thinks it's a cool name, maybe person B will too, (although I now realise that the main reason is that they hope that someone like Google or Yahoo will forget to renew and they can be charged a fortune to get back online).

 

Anyhow, I'm told that the Opencaching people though about acquiring Opencaching.com, but /a/ it was expensive, /b/ Opencaching is to some extent about avoiding any commercial connotations, /c/ Opencaching.xx is typically a national thing and .com is international, and /d/ I imagine that the Opencaching community imagined, quite reasonably, that anyone who wanted to buy Opencaching.com would realise that there was a de facto Opencaching brand. Apparently they reckoned without the commitment to communities and social responsibility capacity of a company based in a tax haven. :rolleyes:

 

In a nice bit of irony, some Dutch people dusted off the Opencaching.nl domain name a couple of months with a view to installing the Opencaching.xx code base in the Netherlands. It took them a couple of weeks to realise that their site, still redirected after all these years, was giving a free link to Garmin. :)

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