Cache Approval Woes

September 5, 2003

Once again, having to jump through hoops to get my latest cache approved. This time, I have to explain why my virtual cache shouldn't be a micro cache. Lat time it just took a week, for no apparent reason. Time before it was too close to the train tracks (they had been removed in the 1970s and were now a bike trail).

I, for one, think geocaching.com acts more like microsoft than linux, if you know what I mean. If he is going to keep the data all to himself, make us agree that he owns everything we post (with *two* checkboxes now on every post :-), he should at least buzz off and let us post our caches.

In my opinion, though, this data should be open and people should be able to copy, sort and distribute it however they want. Anyone who thinks this is technically unfeasible isn't paying attention. And then there would be no questions of liability, ownership, etc.

Best of all, then we could get the data in *useful* formats, not just spread across html pages or in proprietary-formatted attachments to email messages (only 500 at a time, please!).

2.3k · September 5, 2003

Last time I checked, no one if forcing you to geocache. If you are as unhappy as you sound to be, perhaps you could consider a less stressful sport??

---------------------------------------------------

Free your mind and the rest will follow

September 5, 2003

I don't think there is anything wrong with expressing my feelings about the parts of geocaching.com that I am unhappy with. "Get lost," is probably the response I should have expected, though.

My frustration lies in the fact that I have had three bad experiences with getting caches posted lately.

And while I am not forced to geocache, I *am* forced to use geocaching.com if I want to geocache (and I do!). Maybe Doc-Dean hasn't noticed, but there is a well-established effort at geocaching.com to try to make sure that if we want to geocache, we have to use this site. The reason for that is probably because someone hopes to profit from it.

My opinion is that this kind of thing is a community and no one should be seeking to profit from it. That's just my opinion.

To put it another way... an alternative here would be for the geocaching database to be open and distributed. That way, people could use it however they wanted, post whatever kinds of caches they wanted, get their caches from multiple sources, with different angles (Traditional-only, educational/historical-only, for kids, good maps, good PDA downloads, etc.), and the technical resource burden would be spread across multiple entities.

But then no one could try to profit from it...

2.3k · September 5, 2003

I disagree with you on several points.

a. I was not telling you to get lost.

b. My opinions are my own and having nothing to do with gc.com.

c. Your frustration with getting caches posted is understandable, but I would imagine after the first 2 times, you would have read the rules more carefully and understand what is the "current" rules for getting approved. I don't agree with them either, but they are what they are.

d. There are other sites that you can post your caches at if you don't want to use gc.com. But then, they have rules too!

e. Someone does profit from gc.com and they absolutely deserve the right to profit from their 3 years of labor. It is at their discretion to charge to use the web site at all! Fortunately, they feel that geocaching should be mostly free. They only charge a small fee to use "premium services" and this money is used to pay for the servers and maitainence of the site so that it can keep running (for free). And if they make a profit on top of it, good for them!! I wish I had thought of it first!

You mention that you believe that this is a community... So what have you contributed to the commmunity or are you just looking to get what you want from it???

quote:
"...an alternative here would be for the geocaching database to be open and distributed."

That's a nice idea and I am not against it, however who is going to run the servers and pay for the bandwidth? I guess whoever is going to run it will probably want to run it the way they see fit and then we are back to having rules again...

If you can set up a site that will do what you propose for free, I will sign up for it!!

---------------------------------------------------

Free your mind and the rest will follow

September 5, 2003

Ah, Doc, you sound so reasonable!

24.7k · September 5, 2003

LooneyTunes:

You got your caches approved and this site has the typical CYA legalese that every site has which of course is generally benificial towards them and not so much towards users. That's SOP and enough said on that.

However the deeper message is that you are looking towards the future of geocaching in general. Awhile back I started a thread on the future of a Non Profit national/international geocaching association.

The thread died a quick death due to lack of interest. (It was not shut down FYI) I really do think that this activity is going to have to head that direction in the long run. 3 Years is not the long run. I get the feeling that you have seen some of they why's.

As bitter of a pill as it might be to swallow all geocaching sites will need to merge under the larger umbrella. There will always be "rogue" geocache sites that buck the future "system" but it's the system that will give the sport true legatimacy. If the 'authority' is non profit and universal like the NSS is everyone will be better off and geocahers themselves will have more direct control over their own hobby.

2.3k · September 5, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by LooneyTunes:
Ah, Doc, you sound so reasonable!

Well, I've been called worse

---------------------------------------------------

Free your mind and the rest will follow

September 5, 2003

I understand what you're saying, Renegade. I guess I'm wondering if it even has to be that organized, in the long run. With database resources becoming very inexpensive, and easy and secure standards for sharing data (Web services, XML, etc.), I wonder why the data needs to be controlled by any one person or organization. With community ratings and collaborative filtering, it is now perfectly feasible to pretty much let anyone post their caches and have the community responsible for labeling and rating them.

This is where I would see the future...

September 5, 2003

Yeah, but I didn't say it out loud ;-)

quote:
Originally posted by Doc-Dean:

quote:
Originally posted by LooneyTunes:
Ah, Doc, you sound so reasonable!

Well, I've been called worse

---------------------------------------------------

Free your mind and the rest will follow http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung/aktion/action-smiley-076.gif

24.7k · September 5, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by LooneyTunes:
I understand what you're saying, Renegade. I guess I'm wondering if it even has to be that organized, in the long run. With database resources becoming very inexpensive, and easy and secure standards for sharing data (Web services, XML, etc.), I wonder why the data needs to be controlled by any one person or organization. With community ratings and collaborative filtering, it is now perfectly feasible to pretty much let anyone post their caches and have the community responsible for labeling and rating them.

This is where I would see the future...

Gnutilla caching? Nobody in control? Just plug into the self replicating network?

September 5, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by LooneyTunes:

My frustration lies in the fact that I have had three bad experiences with getting caches posted lately.

The reason for that is probably because someone hopes to profit from it.

My opinion is that this kind of thing is a community and no one should be seeking to profit from it. That's just my opinion.

To put it another way... an alternative here would be for the geocaching database to be open and distributed. That way, people could use it however they wanted, post whatever kinds of caches they wanted, get their caches from multiple sources, with different angles (Traditional-only, educational/historical-only, for kids, good maps, good PDA downloads, etc.), and the technical resource burden would be spread across multiple entities.

But then no one could try to profit from it...

Looneytunes I know sometimes it's frustrating not to have things go the way you think they should but put yourself in gc.com's positon and you may feel differently. Also I'm not sure why you think no one should be profiting from this. If no one should be profiting from this, then who mandated that someone drain their own pockets to provide all this? I geocache, I enjoy this site, I feel good about paying my share and I have never had a cache denied. That's not to say I won't one day but I can say my relationship with the site has been extrememly positive. As far as rules go. I assure you that those sites without rules will get bit in the ars one day and then they will quickly have rules to live by. Just my opinion.

_________________________________________________________

On the other hand, you have different fingers.

September 5, 2003

Mule,

You cut my quote up kinda funny there, but I stand by what I originally said:

"My opinion is that this kind of thing is a community and no one should be seeking to profit from it. That's just my opinion."

Another poster put it pretty well. They said, basically, that alternative geocaching offerings have very little chance to thrive because geocaching.com has achieved critical mass and other offerings seem irrelevant. Even if they have merit in some respects, they will never have enough caches to survive.

This is the same way Microsoft tries to prevent other web browsers from gaining ground.

My proposal is sound: An open standard and open access to the data WOULD SERVE THE GEOCACHING COMMUNITY BETTER than the current situation.

It would also decrease the demand on gecaching.com's resources.

I *do* think there is something wrong with the current situation: All of us like to geocache, all we need to do it is a GPSR, yet we are all, essentially, required to do it through geocaching.com. I think it would be nice if the people who ran geocaching.com were open to alternatives.

And no, I am not especailly frustrated by not having things the way I want them. That was a mildly patronising statement. I am discussing something important to me. Why do you want to make it sound like I have a problem? Do you not want this discussed? Why does it threaten you? I am just trying to raise questions.

September 5, 2003

JUst a guess here but I bet you a solid linux user? Am I wrong?

I see your lips moving but all I hear is blah blah blah

6.4k · September 5, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by LooneyTunes:
Once again, having to jump through hoops to get my latest cache approved. This time, I have to explain why my virtual cache shouldn't be a micro cache.

How about pasting the cache description for this virtual so we can see why it was denied?

"(Mopar is) good to have around and kick. Like an ugly puppy" - Jeremy

3k · September 6, 2003

So, why couldn't your virtual be a micro?

I just did a micro in the middle of a parking lot yesterday. I also did a multi cache that had a virt as one of the stages. Those were both really nice caches.

I think people miss the point with virts and don't understand that they aren't the only option.

__________________________

Caching without a clue....

September 6, 2003

Great suggestions now why don't you run off and implement them elsewhere rather than simply complaining here.

If you're so passionate about the direction the sport should take then go do something about it, no one's holding you back.

If you just want to use an alternative site, again go for it no one is holding you back.

quote:
Originally posted by LooneyTunes:
Once again, having to jump through hoops to get my latest cache approved. This time, I have to explain why my virtual cache shouldn't be a micro cache. Lat time it just took a week, for no apparent reason. Time before it was too close to the train tracks (they had been removed in the 1970s and were now a bike trail).

I, for one, think geocaching.com acts more like microsoft than linux, if you know what I mean. If he is going to keep the data all to himself, make us agree that he owns everything we post (with *two* checkboxes now on every post :-), he should at least buzz off and let us post our caches.

In my opinion, though, this data should be open and people should be able to copy, sort and distribute it however they want. Anyone who thinks this is technically unfeasible isn't paying attention. And then there would be no questions of liability, ownership, etc.

Best of all, then we could get the data in *useful* formats, not just spread across html pages or in proprietary-formatted attachments to email messages (only 500 at a time, please!).

"Law pain i reviar mistar aen"

1.4k · September 6, 2003

quote:
crashmore wrote:
Great suggestions now why don't you run off and implement them elsewhere rather than simply complaining here.

Aren't you an admin, crashmore? Didn't you, in a post not so long ago say "...you will find that if you treat us with some civility when coresponding with us you're alot more likley to get positive results."

Civility is a two way street and your reply here is not very civil.

quote:
crashmore wrote:
If you're so passionate about the direction the sport should take then go do something about it, no one's holding you back.

He is doing something about it -- he's expressing his complaint to people here.

Perhaps, LooneyTunes' grievances are not well founded, or perhaps they are, but your inflamatory reply and lack of civility does nothing to remedy the situation. It's no wonder that the admins have such a difficult time of it when hostile replies like yours are given by people who represent this site.

*****

September 6, 2003

I don't see it as inflamatory nor was it meant that way. I do however believe that LuneyTunes original posts were both inflamatory and meant that way. So in my opinion your civility quote is a bit off mark, As i stated

"you treat us with some civility when coresponding with us you're alot more likley to get positive results"

I don't see any civility in the early posts in this thread. All I see is more Jeremey and gc.com bashing and frankly it's getting old.

I was simply stating that if they were that unhappy they should go off and do something about it. Complaining to the forums (as has been demonstrated in the past) does not lead to anything constructive or productive.

h

quote:
Originally posted by Jomarac5:

quote:
crashmore wrote:
Great suggestions now why don't you run off and implement them elsewhere rather than simply complaining here.

Aren't you an admin, crashmore? Didn't you, in a post not so long ago say "...you will find that if you treat us with some civility when coresponding with us you're alot more likley to get positive results."

Civility is a two way street and your reply here is not very civil.

quote:
crashmore wrote:
If you're so passionate about the direction the sport should take then go do something about it, no one's holding you back.

He is doing something about it -- he's expressing his complaint to people here.

Perhaps, LooneyTunes' grievances are not well founded, or perhaps they are, but your inflamatory reply and lack of civility does nothing to remedy the situation. It's no wonder that the admins have such a difficult time of it when hostile replies like yours are given by people who represent this site.

*****

"Law pain i reviar mistar aen"

1.4k · September 6, 2003

quote:
crashmore wrote:
I don't see it as inflamatory nor was it meant that way.

Whether you see it that way or intended it to be that way doesn't matter. It was that way. It's a two way street, my friend.

quote:
crashmore wrote:
I don't see any civility in the early posts in this thread.

This may be true, or it may not be. However, as a representative of the site, you should not be responding with posts that basically say "Great suggestions, now go stick it". How would you respond if someone were to answer your questions in that manner?

As he mentioned in his last post above, he just wants to discuss this issue. I don't agree with what he's saying either, but it sounds like he's being civil to me.

*****

1.4k · September 6, 2003

quote:
LooneyTunes wrote:
In my opinion, though, this data should be open and people should be able to copy, sort and distribute it however they want. Anyone who thinks this is technically unfeasible isn't paying attention. And then there would be no questions of liability, ownership, etc.

I just don't see how this could work (and I have been paying attention). Who is going to foot the bill for it? Who is going to regulate how it is used? Who is going to ensure it's accuracy? Who is going to ensure that it is always available? Perhaps you could explain how you see this happening.

*****

5.3k · September 6, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by BrownMule:
Looneytunes I know sometimes it's frustrating not to have things go the way you think they should but put yourself in gc.com's positon and you may feel differently.

Maybe Looney would; maybe not. I am under the impression that you don't know much about the early history of geocaching. Please note the date that LooneyTunes registered at geocaching.com; it was a long time before either of us did. Geocaching.com did not invent geocaching, and would never have gotten started without a great deal of cooperation from the geocaching community at the time. So even though it is a for-profit organization, the perspective that Looney has (that geocaching.com owes something to the community) seems reasonable to me.

Cache Approval Woes

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