Please don't become another digg.com

[+sbell111]

I think that the same exact things would be listed regardless of whether we call them challenges or virtuals.

[+addisonbr]

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.

Oh, I'm not suggesting they broached any First Amendment rights. I just think it's interesting for a privately held company to introduce a Feedback site and eliminate all evidence of the most popular feedback topic ever to hit your bandwidth.

 

But no I'm not calling my lawyers about it. Just arching one eyebrow, possibly while making a noise like a mildly confused monkey.

[+addisonbr]

...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...

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.

I'm not irritated that they didn't immediately revoke that action. I'm simply curious / confused about the same thing as Mudfrog. I don't understand why even the contrary, non-vulgar, feedback is zapped out of existence as if it never happened.

[+Semper Questio]

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!

 

I don't understand the "cheapens the finds" concept.

 

My find count means something to me because I know what went into them. Others' find counts, except for a few close friends, means absolutely nothing to me and no one's counts affects me or how I play the game in any way whatsoever.

 

If someone wants to rack up a ridiculous number with what I would consider questionable finds, that's a battle between them and their conscience. It really makes no difference to me. This is not a competition. When it comes right down to it this is an individual activity and the individual has decide for themselves by what standards they will participate.

 

As for these challenges, I may or may not do those that require no outdoor activity or location-based quest. I've not decided yet. But no matter which way I decide for myself, just how does that affect anyone else? The answer is simple. It doesn't.

[+sbell111]

...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...

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.

I'm not irritated that they didn't immediately revoke that action. I'm simply curious / confused about the same thing as Mudfrog. I don't understand why even the contrary, non-vulgar, feedback is zapped out of existence as if it never happened.

Isn't this the feedback page that you are referring to? It was denied, not deleted. As far as I know, nothing has been 'zapped out of existence'.

[+addisonbr]

the feedback page that you are referring to? It was denied, not deleted. As far as I know, nothing has been 'zapped out of existence'.

Holy crap, yes!

 

I swear on the future graves of my children that it wasn't there yesterday - I specifically searched for it two or three different ways before agreeing with another poster that it had been zapped. But it's quite clearly there now; I can see it both from your link, and when I search for it.

 

Either it's been reinstated, or I am completely off my rocker (which is *entirely* possible).

[+penguins42]

Okay, so I created this thread when I got home last night, looked at the site and had the 'What have they DONE?' feeling. Then I saw that feedback ideas were summarily declined without seriously considering them. That is a terrible idea, it reeks of arrogance and is reminiscent of digg.

 

However, since then the ridiculous challenges seem to be getting archived pretty quickly. A few hours after the update it was much harder to find challenges in the spirit of "go somewhere, do something" than not. I think many people looked at the "kiss a frog" challenge and said anything goes; the "show us your landmarks" would have been a MUCH better first choice.

 

To their credit, challenges were introduced to be like virtuals, which was requested by the community. However, I think the implementation is really, really, poor. So many people have identified the same issues: no review before issuance, search is too basic, short time frame to edit, deleting obviously fake logs, if you did the challenge before it was posted can you log it?, etc.. These should have been dealt with before it was rolled out to the masses. This is what beta testing is for.

 

So yesterday I was appalled at the concept and in particular what was passing for a challenge, now I'm just disappointed. They've been taking about challenges for months, and this is the best they could come up with? It is looks like they rushed to get it out because there is some big event this weekend or something.

[+penguins42]

I forgot to mention why I think challenges cheapen a find. For me it not about comparing my numbers to someone else's, its about what I understand a find to mean. I know there are things included in the find count where you didn't have to go out and find a physical container. However, much more often than not, it means that you went outside, to a specific place, to do a specific task. Challenges, they way they are now don't even come close to that. There are many challenges that you can (honestly) complete in your home. Being able to complete a challenge from home, even if I chose not to, significantly alters my perception of what a find involves. For me personally, it makes all finds cheaper. Others may not agree, but those are my thoughts.

[+tozainamboku]

I think that the same exact things would be listed regardless of whether we call them challenges or virtuals.

sbell111 probably knows better that me. But the complaints about challenges seem to be the same ones we had about virtuals. They're not really geocaches. The can be armchair logged. They cheapen the meaning of a find. They are showing up in the lamest places. (Of course the last objection resulted in the "Wow" guideline that eventually got the reviewers to complain that virtuals were taking up too much of their time.)

 

Many of the people who are complaining about challenges and want virtuals brought back as they were originally, were not around when virtual were active. They seem not to believe the stories the reviewers tell of the carp they had to deal with reviewing virtuals. Take a good look at what is happening now with challenges because you are seeing the very sort of thing that caused virtuals to go away.

 

Now there are several solutions to carpy lame virtuals and to armchair geocaching. One is to have Groundspeak and reviewers spend an inordinate amount of time reviewing and archiving virtual caches that don't meet somebody's subjective idea of "wow-ness" or dealing with cache owners who are not performing their maintenance duties an allowing armchair log (or conversely are deleting legitimate found logs that they don't like over some minor technicality). The other option is to try a system where the community polices the quality of the virtuals and the logs. Let users flag challenges that don't meet some abstract community idea of what is "wow" and let users flag when some is posting obvious armchair logs. This may or may not work out any better than the methods used for virtual caches in the past.

 

It's an experiment that is meant at seeing if there is a way to extend geocaching to places where you cannot hide a physical cache. There has always been a great demand for such a game. There will always be geocaching purist who feel this is not geocaching. Perhaps Groundspeak is keeping challenges separate from physical geocaches and events as a compromise with those who don't feel they belong in geocaching at all. That makes them easy to ignore.

[sdarken]

 

Nope. They're deleting all the Feedback topics wanting Challenges dumped too. Too bad, I've cancelled my Premium Membership renewal.

 

If this new feature and/or the deletion of feedback topics is enough for you to cancel your premium membership it seems as though you were ready to go anyway. Bye.

 

As for the devaluation of the value of smileys, I dont get that argument at all. Last week I did 22 miles of hiking up a mountain for 2 smileys. On the way home I spent 5 minutes to get two PnGs. Smileys have never been equal. Until people get over the concept of it being a competition they will continue to get themselves worked up into knots over this kind of silly stuff.

 

IMO challenges have potential to be useful and interesting. Lots of the ideas suggested by the community already have the potential to shape challenges into a worthwhile addition to the current range of ways to play the game.

[sdarken]

The other option is to try a system where the community polices the quality of the virtuals and the logs. Let users flag challenges that don't meet some abstract community idea of what is "wow" and let users flag when some is posting obvious armchair logs. This may or may not work out any better than the methods used for virtual caches in the past.

 

Good post Toz. I hope to see community ratings come into play with challenges. I think that will improve the usefulness of them greatly. (Personally I would be happy to see crappy challenges disappear from the site entirely when some kind of threshold is reached. It would be miserable if we end up with thousands of poor challenges that exist for all eternity.)

 

It's an experiment that is meant at seeing if there is a way to extend geocaching to places where you cannot hide a physical cache. There has always been a great demand for such a game.

 

The importance of expecting people to actually visit a location seems important and I really hope people dont use these things to duplicate/replace places where a traditional cache could work just as well. Using challenges to encourage a new experience or to take people to a location where physical caches are not allowed seem like the most valuable uses of these things.

Edited August 19, 2011 by sdarken

[+sbell111]

Nope. They're deleting all the Feedback topics wanting Challenges dumped too. Too bad, I've cancelled my Premium Membership renewal.

If this new feature and/or the deletion of feedback topics is enough for you to cancel your premium membership it seems as though you were ready to go anyway. Bye.

The irony is that no feedback topics have actually been deleted.

[knowschad]

It's an experiment that is meant at seeing if there is a way to extend geocaching to places where you cannot hide a physical cache. There has always been a great demand for such a game.

Wasn't that one of the arguments for getting rid of virtual caches? Parks were using virtuals as a reason to ban physical caches, saying that we can always hide virtuals?

[+TheLoneGrangers]

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!

 

I don't understand the "cheapens the finds" concept.

 

My find count means something to me because I know what went into them. Others' find counts, except for a few close friends, means absolutely nothing to me and no one's counts affects me or how I play the game in any way whatsoever.

 

If someone wants to rack up a ridiculous number with what I would consider questionable finds, that's a battle between them and their conscience. It really makes no difference to me. This is not a competition. When it comes right down to it this is an individual activity and the individual has decide for themselves by what standards they will participate.

 

As for these challenges, I may or may not do those that require no outdoor activity or location-based quest. I've not decided yet. But no matter which way I decide for myself, just how does that affect anyone else? The answer is simple. It doesn't.

 

I couldn't agree more.

[+addisonbr]

Nope. They're deleting all the Feedback topics wanting Challenges dumped too. Too bad, I've cancelled my Premium Membership renewal.

If this new feature and/or the deletion of feedback topics is enough for you to cancel your premium membership it seems as though you were ready to go anyway. Bye.

The irony is that no feedback topics have actually been deleted.

*Possibly*. I still can't figure out if it happened or not.

[+nolechic]

I don't see why geocaching.com chose to create "Challenges" over adding back in "Virtuals". I think they are one in the same, with the exception that Virtuals required a submission, a review and a publish. These "challenges" are taking up a lot of "somebody's" time to keep up with them all, to review and either keep or delete! Even if they keep these "challenges", I think there should be an "opt-in" or "opt-out" option so those cachers who would like to do it, can, but those who want to do the challenges, but not affect their "cache numbers" can also participate.

[+BuckeyeClan]

I don't see why geocaching.com chose to create "Challenges" over adding back in "Virtuals". I think they are one in the same, with the exception that Virtuals required a submission, a review and a publish. These "challenges" are taking up a lot of "somebody's" time to keep up with them all, to review and either keep or delete! Even if they keep these "challenges", I think there should be an "opt-in" or "opt-out" option so those cachers who would like to do it, can, but those who want to do the challenges, but not affect their "cache numbers" can also participate.

 

Read this post by Keystone, who is a forum moderator and a reviewer, for an explanation as to why Virtuals will never be brought back. Also read this post for additional information.

 

Also, if you don't participate, your numbers will not be affected at all. No need for any opt-in or opt-out option; just don't do them!

[+Mudfrog]

...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...

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.

I'm not irritated that they didn't immediately revoke that action. I'm simply curious / confused about the same thing as Mudfrog. I don't understand why even the contrary, non-vulgar, feedback is zapped out of existence as if it never happened.

Isn't this the feedback page that you are referring to? It was denied, not deleted. As far as I know, nothing has been 'zapped out of existence'.

 

Hey Sbell, i can click on your link and go straight to the page. But heck if i can find it when i click the link to access the feedback site and go searching for it. I've hit the "hot" tab and the "new" tab, went back several pages on both, and haven't had any luck. What am i doing wrong?

[+Mudfrog]

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.

 

I never have asked for virtuals to return but it wouldn't bother me in the least if they did. They were part of the game when i started caching back in 2002, and even though they weren't my favorite thing to do, they seemed like they went along with physical caches ok. As far as i know, they all had coordinates listed that you could use to get you to them. These new challenges aren't the same as virtuals and the ones that i've seen have nothing to do with geocaching.

 

Anyways, i clicked on your link and was able to pull up the feedback page regarding this. Of course it's been closed to voting so i never got to add mine. That and the comment made by Jeremy, and i quote,, "It is staying on Geocaching.com. If you don't like the new activity, don't participate", are the reasons i stated my opinion above. Seems to me that gc.com doesn't care about what alot of us think.

[+kunarion]

Hey Sbell, i can click on your link and go straight to the page. But heck if i can find it when i click the link to access the feedback site and go searching for it. I've hit the "hot" tab and the "new" tab, went back several pages on both, and haven't had any luck. What am i doing wrong?

I see a similar thing. If I search "remove challenges" (with or without the quotes), that particular post is the third one down the list. It must be just the way their search engine works.