+penguins42 Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Remember digg.com? One day they made a whole bunch of changes to their site, most of which were specifically designed to increase interaction between users. The negative reaction was immediate and fierce. Users begged them to reconsider. They didn't. The users revolted and left. Within weeks digg was just a shell of what it once was. Please don't let that happen to geocaching.com. The most controversial issue is clearly challenges. In the feedback section, the admin Jeremy said if you don't like the activity, don't participate. The problem with that is by having a challenge count as a find it cheapens all finds and thus affects all users. Please, for the sake of geocaching.com, put challenges on another site, have them actually be location based, review them, and/or not let them count towards your number of finds. Any of these would be better than the mess that is out there now. Clearly, the loyal user is not happy with this change. Quote Link to comment
Dinoprophet Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 (edited) I'm a loyal user. I'll continue to be whatever happens with these things. I may like them once they're more than a couple hours old. My finds are of exactly the same value as they were 24 hours ago. Edited August 18, 2011 by Dinoprophet Quote Link to comment
+Keelmann And Cici Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Agreed. If I choose not to participate, my numbers are unchanged, and I'm unaffected. I think you're taking this much too seriously. Quote Link to comment
cb82 Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Remember digg.com? One day they made a whole bunch of changes to their site, most of which were specifically designed to increase interaction between users. The negative reaction was immediate and fierce. Users begged them to reconsider. They didn't. The users revolted and left. Within weeks digg was just a shell of what it once was. Please don't let that happen to geocaching.com. The most controversial issue is clearly challenges. In the feedback section, the admin Jeremy said if you don't like the activity, don't participate. The problem with that is by having a challenge count as a find it cheapens all finds and thus affects all users. Please, for the sake of geocaching.com, put challenges on another site, have them actually be location based, review them, and/or not let them count towards your number of finds. Any of these would be better than the mess that is out there now. Clearly, the loyal user is not happy with this change. I agree. The feedback site had a request to remove them and it received over 1100 votes in under an hour before it was removed by Jeremy. It is fairly obvious that user's are not happy with these changes. Quote Link to comment
knowschad Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Remember digg.com? One day they made a whole bunch of changes to their site, most of which were specifically designed to increase interaction between users. The negative reaction was immediate and fierce. Users begged them to reconsider. They didn't. The users revolted and left. Within weeks digg was just a shell of what it once was. Please don't let that happen to geocaching.com. The most controversial issue is clearly challenges. In the feedback section, the admin Jeremy said if you don't like the activity, don't participate. The problem with that is by having a challenge count as a find it cheapens all finds and thus affects all users. Please, for the sake of geocaching.com, put challenges on another site, have them actually be location based, review them, and/or not let them count towards your number of finds. Any of these would be better than the mess that is out there now. Clearly, the loyal user is not happy with this change. I agree. The feedback site had a request to remove them and it received over 1100 votes in under an hour before it was removed by Jeremy. It is fairly obvious that user's are not happy with these changes. Wow! 1100 in less than an hour? I wonder what that number would extrapolate to when you take into account the percentage of members that don't even know the feedback site exists, or know that it exists, but ignore it? Perhaps somebody could create a Challenge that involves voting the challenge up or down to express your like or dislike of the whole Challenge concept. Quote Link to comment
+agentmancuso Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Wow! 1100 in less than an hour? I wonder what that number would extrapolate to when you take into account the percentage of members that don't even know the feedback site exists, or know that it exists, but ignore it? Perhaps somebody could create a Challenge that involves voting the challenge up or down to express your like or dislike of the whole Challenge concept. Try this one: An Even Worse Idea Quote Link to comment
+agentmancuso Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 (edited) Edited August 18, 2011 by agentmancuso Quote Link to comment
tomowens Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 That one didn't last long. Quote Link to comment
+Ecylram Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 It's obvious SOME users don't like the change. Everybody should just take a step back and breah for a moment. This game WILL be tweaked, the bad challenges will disappear and the good one's will rise to the top. It will be some time before this matures. Changes I'd like are having the creators name in the description, ability for the creator to edit the description, and some ability to remove bad logs. Quote Link to comment
+agentmancuso Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 It's obvious SOME users don't like the change. Everybody should just take a step back and breah for a moment. This game WILL be tweaked, the bad challenges will disappear and the good one's will rise to the top. It will be some time before this matures. Changes I'd like are having the creators name in the description, ability for the creator to edit the description, and some ability to remove bad logs. How about the ability to involve a GPSr in some way, other than taking a picture of yourself picking your nose whilst hlding one? Then it might be something vaguely to do with geocaching, rather than a stupid commercial move that completely ignores our opinion? Quote Link to comment
+dphickey Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 I don't get it. What exactly do these challenges have to do with geocaching. There's no hide, you don't need a GPS..... This is just a flash mob site where the people who participate just do the activity whenever and wherever..... Quote Link to comment
knowschad Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 This Challenge has been archived and is no longer available. Quote Link to comment
+JL_HSTRE Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 I think Challenges need to be separate from your geocache Finds like Benchmarks and Trackables are. That will make ALOT of people happy. When they were in development, the concern was very few people would do them if they didn't count as Finds. But now that we see what they are I think even more people are unhappy that they count the same as a geocache. Quote Link to comment
+agentmancuso Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 That one didn't last long. Nope. They're deleting all the Feedback topics wanting Challenges dumped too. Too bad, I've cancelled my Premium Membership renewal. Quote Link to comment
+anewlesmiz Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 This could have been a good idea. Take a picture of yourself "holding up" the Tower of Pisa. Take a picture at Big Ben at the top of the hour (+/- one minute)and make sure the time is visible. Those could work as challenges. This should be about visiting, exploring, traveling and exercising, not kissing an amphibian within the confines of your own home. Quote Link to comment
+tozainamboku Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Wow! 1100 in less than an hour? I wonder what that number would extrapolate to when you take into account the percentage of members that don't even know the feedback site exists, or know that it exists, but ignore it? That's 550% more that the number of users it took to reinstate the Google Earth KML file. Quote Link to comment
cb82 Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Wow! 1100 in less than an hour? I wonder what that number would extrapolate to when you take into account the percentage of members that don't even know the feedback site exists, or know that it exists, but ignore it? That's 550% more that the number of users it took to reinstate the Google Earth KML file. At the rate it was climbing, it would have been the number one request a long time ago. Unfortunately, Jeremy removed it less than an hour after it was created and left a message that more or less said "Too bad, deal with it". Quote Link to comment
+NanCycle Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 This could have been a good idea. Take a picture of yourself "holding up" the Tower of Pisa. Take a picture at Big Ben at the top of the hour (+/- one minute)and make sure the time is visible. Those could work as challenges. This should be about visiting, exploring, traveling and exercising, not kissing an amphibian within the confines of your own home. YES! YES! YES! Quote Link to comment
+agentmancuso Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 At the rate it was climbing, it would have been the number one request a long time ago. Unfortunately, Jeremy removed it less than an hour after it was created and left a message that more or less said "Too bad, deal with it". One way to deal with it would be to cancel your Premium Membership, archive your caches and move them to a different hosting site. I've already done the first, and I'll be doing the second in a couple of days if this arrogant disregard for our views isn't fixed. Quote Link to comment
+Cuddlefish Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Remember digg.com? One day they made a whole bunch of changes to their site, most of which were specifically designed to increase interaction between users. The negative reaction was immediate and fierce. Users begged them to reconsider. They didn't. The users revolted and left. Within weeks digg was just a shell of what it once was. Please don't let that happen to geocaching.com. The most controversial issue is clearly challenges. In the feedback section, the admin Jeremy said if you don't like the activity, don't participate. The problem with that is by having a challenge count as a find it cheapens all finds and thus affects all users. Please, for the sake of geocaching.com, put challenges on another site, have them actually be location based, review them, and/or not let them count towards your number of finds. Any of these would be better than the mess that is out there now. Clearly, the loyal user is not happy with this change. I wrote to Groundspeak and got a standard reply. Basically it said if I don't like it, don't do challenges. That would be fine if a challenge was on par with a geocache. They seem like a completely different idea and for so many of them you don't need coords nor a GPSr. and what is worse, it counts towards your statistics. So there will be people with 1000s of "finds" who basically just took pics of themselves with frogs and dogs or something else. This is a different game and should not be lumped in together. Sad that they are refusing to listen also. Quote Link to comment
+geocat_ Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 I am absolutely sick thinking how this cheapens the "finds" as it has nothing to do with geocaching. I predict that we will see numbers 1000x greater than the greatest power trail numbers by cachers with a mere day or two of "experience" At the VERY least this should be done on another site. If I had my way the real challenge would be to remove every trace of this idea now and forever! Quote Link to comment
+Doctroid Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 One way to deal with it would be to cancel your Premium Membership, archive your caches and move them to a different hosting site. I've already done the first, and I'll be doing the second in a couple of days if this arrogant disregard for our views isn't fixed. Another way would be to overload the system with a gazillion garbage challenges ("Take a picture of your armpit") until TPTB realize what a bad idea this was. Or is that what everyone's already doing? Hard to tell. Quote Link to comment
+Mr. 0 Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 (edited) I really don't think people are going to be leaving in droves because of this. Yes, there is a non-zero number of people who do not like challenges, and wouldn't be sad to see them go away...myself included. But they're easy enough to ignore. Even though I did a couple of them to check things out, and they do show in my total stats on the front page, when I look at my actual profile they're neatly separate. To the best of my knowledge these won't show up when I search for caches either. (Just read in the release notes they're planning to include "highly rated" challenges in the cache search results. Hopefully there will be a way to ignore them) I think the initial rush to be first to post a challenge caused some people to post without really thinking about any kind of quality. Other's then jumped in and started posting "look at me, I'm so funny and sarcastic. If I post this challenge it'll make Groundspeak rue the day they thought of challenges, and rally cachers everywhere behind me" challenges just to be jerks It looks like those are starting to be archived. I'm hoping that it'll get better as people who have sat back get a feel for challenges and actually start posting more worthwhile challenges. For now, I'm going to ignore it. Maybe I'll check it out again in a few months, maybe not. Either way it affects me little. Edited August 18, 2011 by Mr. 0 Quote Link to comment
+briansnat Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 This could have been a good idea. Take a picture of yourself "holding up" the Tower of Pisa. Take a picture at Big Ben at the top of the hour (+/- one minute)and make sure the time is visible. Those could work as challenges. This should be about visiting, exploring, traveling and exercising, not kissing an amphibian within the confines of your own home. I think that was the idea. But the numbers hounds are sure to bastardize anything if they can get a smiley for it. Quote Link to comment
+briansnat Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I am absolutely sick thinking how this cheapens the "finds" as it has nothing to do with geocaching. I'm just curious as to how this "cheapens" the definition of a find more than it's already been cheapened by bogus logs, throw down caches, pocket caches, retirement cards, multiple attendeds at events, multiple finds on caches, et. al. The concept of a find meaning that you actually found a geocache has been dead for many years. I don't understand the indignation. Quote Link to comment
+GeoBlank Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 My 2 cents.... Interesting idea. Great replacement for the locationless cache type. Just please move it to it's own domain name. Waymarking is fine and I am glad it is not too integrated with Geocaching. This is another fun idea for people but it is not Geocaching. I hope to see the backlog of GC.com requests invested in. Challenges are not a replacement for virtuals. On a new request note however.... I see the notion of challenges not tied to a location "world wide" is what they are called... but there is no apparent way to make one that way.... (world wide also leads them away from the notion of being tied to a specific location, therefore not a good fit to a GC.com) Quote Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 Who cares. I am in this for want I want to do. It doesn't matter to me that people get a smiley for something like that. I don't need to be bothered by what other people do/don't do. If people can rack up 900 caches in a day by throwing film canister's along the road then anything should be allowed. Remember the serenity prayer Grant me the strength to change the things I can The serenity to accept those I can't The wisdom to know the difference. Now it is time for margaritas. Quote Link to comment
+sword fern Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 Remember digg.com? One day they made a whole bunch of changes to their site, most of which were specifically designed to increase interaction between users. The negative reaction was immediate and fierce. Users begged them to reconsider. They didn't. The users revolted and left. Within weeks digg was just a shell of what it once was. Please don't let that happen to geocaching.com. The most controversial issue is clearly challenges. In the feedback section, the admin Jeremy said if you don't like the activity, don't participate. The problem with that is by having a challenge count as a find it cheapens all finds and thus affects all users. Please, for the sake of geocaching.com, put challenges on another site, have them actually be location based, review them, and/or not let them count towards your number of finds. Any of these would be better than the mess that is out there now. Clearly, the loyal user is not happy with this change. I agree. The feedback site had a request to remove them and it received over 1100 votes in under an hour before it was removed by Jeremy. It is fairly obvious that user's are not happy with these changes. Wow! 1100 in less than an hour? I wonder what that number would extrapolate to when you take into account the percentage of members that don't even know the feedback site exists, or know that it exists, but ignore it? Perhaps somebody could create a Challenge that involves voting the challenge up or down to express your like or dislike of the whole Challenge concept. There is this challenge near me, and it requires you to shake hands with the local law enforcement officers. One user- not even in the area- drew a stick figure of her and another stick figure of the law. She labeled it and posted it saying she completed the challenge. I was amazed because she has already completed 23 challenges. I bet she didn't even follow the rules. She wants numbers. Quote Link to comment
Dinoprophet Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 My 2 cents.... Interesting idea. Great replacement for the locationless cache type. Just please move it to it's own domain name. Waymarking is fine and I am glad it is not too integrated with Geocaching. This is another fun idea for people but it is not Geocaching. I hope to see the backlog of GC.com requests invested in. Challenges are not a replacement for virtuals. On a new request note however.... I see the notion of challenges not tied to a location "world wide" is what they are called... but there is no apparent way to make one that way.... (world wide also leads them away from the notion of being tied to a specific location, therefore not a good fit to a GC.com) There's not a way yet. Only Groundspeak can make those. And I wish they hadn't rolled any out -- it made everyone think that's what they're supposed to be like. Quote Link to comment
+uxorious Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I am absolutely sick thinking how this cheapens the "finds" as it has nothing to do with geocaching. I'm just curious as to how this "cheapens" the definition of a find more than it's already been cheapened by bogus logs, throw down caches, pocket caches, retirement cards, multiple attendeds at events, multiple finds on caches, et. al. The concept of a find meaning that you actually found a geocache has been dead for many years. I don't understand the indignation. Im glad you put the challanges in with the rest of these. Really the same thing. I understand the indignation to all of these. Quote Link to comment
knowschad Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 Remember digg.com? One day they made a whole bunch of changes to their site, most of which were specifically designed to increase interaction between users. The negative reaction was immediate and fierce. Users begged them to reconsider. They didn't. The users revolted and left. Within weeks digg was just a shell of what it once was. Please don't let that happen to geocaching.com. The most controversial issue is clearly challenges. In the feedback section, the admin Jeremy said if you don't like the activity, don't participate. The problem with that is by having a challenge count as a find it cheapens all finds and thus affects all users. Please, for the sake of geocaching.com, put challenges on another site, have them actually be location based, review them, and/or not let them count towards your number of finds. Any of these would be better than the mess that is out there now. Clearly, the loyal user is not happy with this change. I agree. The feedback site had a request to remove them and it received over 1100 votes in under an hour before it was removed by Jeremy. It is fairly obvious that user's are not happy with these changes. Wow! 1100 in less than an hour? I wonder what that number would extrapolate to when you take into account the percentage of members that don't even know the feedback site exists, or know that it exists, but ignore it? Perhaps somebody could create a Challenge that involves voting the challenge up or down to express your like or dislike of the whole Challenge concept. There is this challenge near me, and it requires you to shake hands with the local law enforcement officers. One user- not even in the area- drew a stick figure of her and another stick figure of the law. She labeled it and posted it saying she completed the challenge. I was amazed because she has already completed 23 challenges. I bet she didn't even follow the rules. She wants numbers. Or perhaps she's trying to make a very good point. Quote Link to comment
knowschad Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I am absolutely sick thinking how this cheapens the "finds" as it has nothing to do with geocaching. I'm just curious as to how this "cheapens" the definition of a find more than it's already been cheapened by bogus logs, throw down caches, pocket caches, retirement cards, multiple attendeds at events, multiple finds on caches, et. al. The concept of a find meaning that you actually found a geocache has been dead for many years. I don't understand the indignation. Of course, those other examples were never officially sanctioned, much less created by Groundspeak. Although the meaning that you actually found a geocache may well have been dead for many years, some feel this is dancing on its grave. Quote Link to comment
+geocat_ Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I am absolutely sick thinking how this cheapens the "finds" as it has nothing to do with geocaching. I'm just curious as to how this "cheapens" the definition of a find more than it's already been cheapened by bogus logs, throw down caches, pocket caches, retirement cards, multiple attendeds at events, multiple finds on caches, et. al. The concept of a find meaning that you actually found a geocache has been dead for many years. I don't understand the indignation. Of course, those other examples were never officially sanctioned, much less created by Groundspeak. Although the meaning that you actually found a geocache may well have been dead for many years, some feel this is dancing on its grave. Truth! Thank you for typing that for me because I am tired from actually going out and finding tupperware hidden in the woods! Quote Link to comment
+Mr. Wilson & a Mt. Goat Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 There are many posts here, and I thought I'd add my own thoughts. Challenges have the potential to be a fun part of geocaching, but at the moment it seems there are some pretty bad ones making it through. I believe they should be more location specific, which is not what I've been seeing so far. Quote Link to comment
Clan Riffster Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I don't understand the indignation. Agreed. When Groundspeak elected to ignore the bit in the guidelines about not hiding a geocache every 600' just because you can, to appease the numbers cachers, any claim that a find count might actually mean something died an ignoble death. But on the bright side, I bet we'll get another branch on Snoogans' Tree Of Angst, and the notion that micros will be the death of geocaching is probably dead as well. Quote Link to comment
+L&J hotwheels Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 We were so looking forward to virtuals coming back. The "real" ones that meant something. This new thing isn't geocaching. Makes no sense whatsoever. Quote Link to comment
Clan Riffster Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 She wants numbers. Meh. To paraphrase the Kum-By-Yah crowd; "She's having fun playing the game her way, dude! Don't be so judgemental, man!" "(Are you gonna finish those nachos, dude?)" Quote Link to comment
+Doctroid Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 (edited) Ehh... I don't think that geocaching will become the next digg any time soon. Most of the people on the forums seem to hate challenges like there is no tomorrow. However, a thing that I have noted is that when somebody hates something they put a greater effort into hating it then a person who likes it puts into praising it. Right now I'm seeing a much, much larger number of people who have embraced challenges but really haven't popped up on the forums yet. Geocaching will just have to ride out a few days of hate just like most sites do when they introduce a major change. The change has to be pretty bad to turn a site into Digg, and honestly, challenges aren't that bad. Well, I think challenges are pretty bad, but mostly I agree that ignoring them is better than getting all bent out of shape about them. But that's not what this thread is about. This thread is about TPTB declining and deleting negative feedback. Are the challenge-haters who are complaining about them a small but vocal minority? Who knows? What we do know is, TPTB are not only rejecting the complaints but purging them within an hour or so of their being posted. That bespeaks an arrogance and contempt for the customers that I find very disturbing. Edited August 19, 2011 by Doctroid Quote Link to comment
+addisonbr Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I'm just curious as to how this "cheapens" the definition of a find more than it's already been cheapened by bogus logs, throw down caches, pocket caches, retirement cards, multiple attendeds at events, multiple finds on caches, et. al. The concept of a find meaning that you actually found a geocache has been dead for many years. I don't understand the indignation. I guess it depends on if you've given up all hope or not. Some have. Some haven't. Quote Link to comment
+addisonbr Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 This thread is about TPTB declining and deleting negative feedback. Are the challenge-haters who are complaining about them a small but vocal minority? Who knows? What we do know is, TPTB are not only rejecting the complaints but purging them within an hour or so of their being posted. This part I find interesting. I'm really surprised that the fastest vote-getting feedback topic in the history of this site (over 1000 votes in an hour!) would not just be curtly declined, but deleted from the feedback site altogether. That's a bit of an eyebrow-archer. Quote Link to comment
+yawppy Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 This could have been a good idea. Take a picture of yourself "holding up" the Tower of Pisa. Take a picture at Big Ben at the top of the hour (+/- one minute)and make sure the time is visible. Those could work as challenges. This should be about visiting, exploring, traveling and exercising, not kissing an amphibian within the confines of your own home. This could have been a good idea. Take a picture of yourself "holding up" the Tower of Pisa. Take a picture at Big Ben at the top of the hour (+/- one minute)and make sure the time is visible. Those could work as challenges. This should be about visiting, exploring, traveling and exercising, not kissing an amphibian within the confines of your own home. YES! YES! YES! I really don't think people are going to be leaving in droves because of this. Yes, there is a non-zero number of people who do not like challenges, and wouldn't be sad to see them go away...myself included. But they're easy enough to ignore. Even though I did a couple of them to check things out, and they do show in my total stats on the front page, when I look at my actual profile they're neatly separate. To the best of my knowledge these won't show up when I search for caches either. (Just read in the release notes they're planning to include "highly rated" challenges in the cache search results. Hopefully there will be a way to ignore them) I think the initial rush to be first to post a challenge caused some people to post without really thinking about any kind of quality. Other's then jumped in and started posting "look at me, I'm so funny and sarcastic. If I post this challenge it'll make Groundspeak rue the day they thought of challenges, and rally cachers everywhere behind me" challenges just to be jerks It looks like those are starting to be archived. I'm hoping that it'll get better as people who have sat back get a feel for challenges and actually start posting more worthwhile challenges. For now, I'm going to ignore it. Maybe I'll check it out again in a few months, maybe not. Either way it affects me little. This could have been a good idea. Take a picture of yourself "holding up" the Tower of Pisa. Take a picture at Big Ben at the top of the hour (+/- one minute)and make sure the time is visible. Those could work as challenges. This should be about visiting, exploring, traveling and exercising, not kissing an amphibian within the confines of your own home. I think that was the idea. But the numbers hounds are sure to bastardize anything if they can get a smiley for it. There are many posts here, and I thought I'd add my own thoughts. Challenges have the potential to be a fun part of geocaching, but at the moment it seems there are some pretty bad ones making it through. I believe they should be more location specific, which is not what I've been seeing so far. Quote Link to comment
+Manville Possum Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 Remember digg.com? One day they made a whole bunch of changes to their site, most of which were specifically designed to increase interaction between users. The negative reaction was immediate and fierce. Users begged them to reconsider. They didn't. The users revolted and left. Within weeks digg was just a shell of what it once was. Please don't let that happen to geocaching.com. The most controversial issue is clearly challenges. In the feedback section, the admin Jeremy said if you don't like the activity, don't participate. The problem with that is by having a challenge count as a find it cheapens all finds and thus affects all users. Please, for the sake of geocaching.com, put challenges on another site, have them actually be location based, review them, and/or not let them count towards your number of finds. Any of these would be better than the mess that is out there now. Clearly, the loyal user is not happy with this change. I agree with Jeremy. My first challange listing is centered around him, or his trade mark photo anyway. Only the numbers cachers seem upset because they don't count as a find. Boo-Hoo, Wyaaaaant! :P Quote Link to comment
knowschad Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 Only the numbers cachers seem upset because they don't count as a find. Boo-Hoo, Wyaaaaant! :P Is that what you're seeing? What forum have you been reading? Quote Link to comment
+popokiiti Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I completed my first challenge, without even knowing I was doing it today. Went to check out challenges, and there was a worldwide one for litter pick up. So, I logged it as that is what I'd done. I may just put out a challenge myself... Quote Link to comment
+Cliff's Notes Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 My problem is I can't find a map showing location challenges. I may not want to see them when I am scoping some tupperware to find but just to look around it would be nice to see if there is a photo challenge that is cool. I am in the Tokyo area and saw two in Tokyo, but there is no indication of any other challenges I wonder how far out from a starting point for a search do they list caches challenges. Does anyone know if there are plans for a browseable map for challenges. Specific location based challenges make it seem like a scavenger hunt. like Park next to a car with a different state plate than yours at "X" monument get both cars and monument in pic. That is kinda quirky and cool. And with the new camera/phones this is a great little sidegame while out caching. Quote Link to comment
knowschad Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 My problem is I can't find a map showing location challenges. I may not want to see them when I am scoping some tupperware to find but just to look around it would be nice to see if there is a photo challenge that is cool. I am in the Tokyo area and saw two in Tokyo, but there is no indication of any other challenges I wonder how far out from a starting point for a search do they list caches challenges. Does anyone know if there are plans for a browseable map for challenges. Specific location based challenges make it seem like a scavenger hunt. like Park next to a car with a different state plate than yours at "X" monument get both cars and monument in pic. That is kinda quirky and cool. And with the new camera/phones this is a great little sidegame while out caching. I'm not a fan, and I'm not a huge believer in promises about future improvements (based on 7 years of experience) but maps and pocket queries have (unfortunately) been promised. Quote Link to comment
+sbell111 Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I am absolutely sick thinking how this cheapens the "finds" as it has nothing to do with geocaching.I'm just curious as to how this "cheapens" the definition of a find more than it's already been cheapened by bogus logs, throw down caches, pocket caches, retirement cards, multiple attendeds at events, multiple finds on caches, et. al. The concept of a find meaning that you actually found a geocache has been dead for many years. I don't understand the indignation. Of course, those other examples were never officially sanctioned, much less created by Groundspeak. Although the meaning that you actually found a geocache may well have been dead for many years, some feel this is dancing on its grave.I guess that you didn't notice the bolded example. You might recall that it was not only sanctioned by TPTB, but actually suggested by TPTB when the 'permanence' guideline was enacted. We were so looking forward to virtuals coming back. The "real" ones that meant something. This new thing isn't geocaching. Makes no sense whatsoever.I simply can't agree with this. A search on challenges near my office turned up three. One requires me to go snap a pic of our state's liberty bell replica. The second requires a visit to a nearby masonic lodge. The third requires that I climb to the top of a nearby observation deck and launch a paper airplane. These three nearby examples clearly are virtual cache-like. Are there plenty of examples of lame challenges? Absolutely. Many of those are being created by malcontents who are not happy with the challenge concept and will likely be culled shortly. Even if the bad ones aren't culled out, I'm not concerned because the 'voting' will help ID the good ones. This part I find interesting. I'm really surprised that the fastest vote-getting feedback topic in the history of this site (over 1000 votes in an hour!) would not just be curtly declined, but deleted from the feedback site altogether. That's a bit of an eyebrow-archer.It turns out that Groundspeak is a privately held company, not a democracy. Go figure. Quote Link to comment
+Mudfrog Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 Gc.com is the number one site right now, no doubt because it has offered, in the past, the best service to it's customers. This challenge thing was made to bring in more site traffic and paying customers. This of course, is fine (i'm ok with capitalism), but now we see that many existing customers are forming various negative opinions about it and Groundspeak doesn't want to hear it. It seems now like customers are getting a "slap in the face" when they try to voice a negative opinion about this. No, this isn't a democracy but there's no doubt that when a company is perceived this way, that it can lead to less customers, lower revenue, and possibly even worse. Quote Link to comment
+sbell111 Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 (edited) Gc.com is the number one site right now, no doubt because it has offered, in the past, the best service to it's customers. This challenge thing was made to bring in more site traffic and paying customers. This of course, is fine (i'm ok with capitalism), but now we see that many existing customers are forming various negative opinions about it and Groundspeak doesn't want to hear it. It seems now like customers are getting a "slap in the face" when they try to voice a negative opinion about this. No, this isn't a democracy but there's no doubt that when a company is perceived this way, that it can lead to less customers, lower revenue, and possibly even worse. You appear to be ignoring the fact that the challenge concept was developed due to customers who were giving feedback that they wanted virts back. I think that its unfair to criticize the company because it took action that its customers wanted and at the same time be upset because it didn't immediately revoke that action because others don't want the new features, even though the game can be played exactly as it was before the features were added. No geocaching functionality was lost or obstructed because challenges were added, after all. Edited August 19, 2011 by sbell111 Quote Link to comment
+redhead3434 Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I think that virtuals should be brought back how they were... same cache page as all other types, same review process. The problem before was that reviewers were having problems with virtuals that were uninteresting. I think that if virtuals were brought back how they were, there would be fewer lame virtuals than all of these lame challenges that are being posted. Quote Link to comment
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