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Geocaching.com site update Feb 14th, 2012


OpinioNate

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Another thing that should be noted. The production site is run on multiple webservers, database servers, mail servers, etc. All of them fast, high-end, expensive machines. This is to accommodate massive loads.

 

The test site, on the other hand, is a single machine with all functions running on it. As such it cannot handle a huge number of users trying to test at once.

 

Groundspeak is a small company and cannot afford two separate systems with super-high capacity.

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There is one thing that I am very disappointed in that no one has mentioned. That is how Groundspeak handled this mapping issue. Google announced its intent to charge for high-volume usage months ago giving its users time to adjust. Groundspeak slipped a note into a forum a couple of hours before making its change giving its users no time to adjust.

 

Learn to communicate with your users Groundspeak! You will save everyone, yourself included, a lot of headaches. You finally learned to announce outages with that yellow banner. Expand that idea to other things – like this map change.

 

Example (banner): A significant change is forthcoming. See the following forum thread for addition information and discussion (link).

 

Your feedback will help us adjust to the change and our feedback will help you implement a change with an understanding of the user community’s concerns/wishes.

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We do a limited set of beta testing with site volunteers.

Are these "site volunteers" internal testers, or are they from the general population of members? Like I said above, a small set of internal testers can never hope to test the many ways in which people use the site.

 

"Site volunteers," as in reviewers and moderators.

 

EDIT: To clarify, we also have an internal test team of professional software engineers that do formal testing.

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But using the example I had above of the new maps on mobile devices, not a single person has reported it as working. There are numerous topics from people using different mobile devices all reporting the same thing. The odds of it working perfectly for the internal testers, but not working for anyone in the public, is astronomically low. I find it hard to believe that this particular item was tested.

 

Actually, it worked fine on our test site on mobile devices. We are trying to track down what we believe is a config issue on the production servers that is preventing proper functioning there.

 

Being in IT over 30 years, I can safely say that one of the most comments ever heard in development circles is...

 

"Well it worked FINE in TEST!!!!"

 

I've seen it countless times. After what may even be extremely thorough and exhaustive testing shows everything to be perfect and ready for production, all kinds of stuff fails for no apparent reason when it goes live. And as Moun10bike says, it usually ends up being some obscure environmental setting that is different, no matter how benign it may seem. And it invariably is one that you cannot change because for SOME reason it "has to be that way in production" and, usually, for some reason, you cannot make it the same in the test environment. :shocked: Oh, the joys of this business!

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And GC.com is STILL using Google Maps on every single cache listing. Look at the map in the lower right hand corner. Hope Google doesn't notice.

thats not a google hit, thats a stored tile from the GC tile server. if you click either link in that map area you don't get google maps.

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I don't know why this needs repeating. It clearly IS about money. Google is now charging for the usage of their maps and they were not before. The End.

this is where google dropped the ball. if they went ad based instead of pay or get out, they'd make more money.

2M impressions a day would be a lot of money from ads.

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If you want to return the Google map and Google satelite view into your geocaching map...

<snip>

Before going and advertising this in public, do you know where these Google Map hits will be registered against? If they use your own Google Maps API key, then fine. If they will count as hits against Groundspeak, then this should not be used. It will only increase the number of hits that Groundspeak is trying to decrease, and will hasten the demise of the few spots on the site where Google Maps is still used.

I'm sure TPTB have checked out the source and would have deleted the post if it was affecting the site.

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We just updated the MapQuest OSM layer to use the JPG images instead of PNG so the tiles should load faster now.

 

Avg PNG image was 105k vs ~25k for the JPG images.

 

Do a hard refresh of your browser to get the new tiles to load.

I thought thats what png was all about. faster image views over a network :yikes:

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These maps are a joke. Just drop MapQuest, it has no value. The satellite imagery is useless, and that's IF it loads.

 

The Geocaching.com experience used to be quite slick, now it is not. Very, very disappointing.

The best way is to vote with your wallet. even the largest megacorps can be gotten their attention if enough people jump ship.

maybe that ole platinum joke might have some merit. $75/year with google maps as a benefit.

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Old Maps circa 2005...

 

New maps...

 

Hmm, I kind of like the old ones if you ask me... <_<

 

There were no satellite maps in 2005.

there was terraserver back in the 90s. i remember playing with it on win95 :)

i don't remember if there was streetnames and such but the imagery was there.

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Once again, I find myself incredibly disappointed and annoyed by the implementation of a site update that degrades the user experience. I understand there are different varieties of geocachers, with different needs, and that for many users the maps are not vital to their caching, but personally, I use satellite imagery ALL THE TIME. I am often hiking unmarked trails and it would be IRRESPONSIBLE to not use that information to acquaint myself with the area. And, yes, I am aware that I can get that information from other sources, but part of the reason I pay premium membership is to have that accessible in one place, without having to jump through pocket query and GSAK hoops (which doesn't work on a Mac anyway).

My biggest beef, however, is that once again, much of this annoyance could have been forestalled with some basic customer courtesy on the part of Groundspeak. Had they apprised users of the Google Maps situation ahead of time,—even a day or two, people!— invited suggestions and comments on what we valued most in the maps and let us know they were working on possible solutions, rather than summarily instituting a change and telling us to deal with it, much of this dissatisfaction could have been ameliorated. You might say that $30 is not a lot of money, but the amount is irrelevant. Far more important is the amount of time and effort in creating, hiding, and finding and logging caches that we, the users, contribute to the ongoing success, and indeed, the continued existence of geocaching.com. Personally, I have contributed and invested thousands of hours, and provided not inconsiderable other resources to the geocaching experience for others that Groundspeak has not, as have many others I know, and to continually be disrespected by the lack of advance communication or by unwanted feature changes is becoming increasingly tiresome.

So, yes, I too am displeased with the substitute maps, and sincerely hope that a better solution is forthcoming. Soon.

yeah. if it weren't for us[the hiders] there would be nothing to find nor would there be a Groundspeak or website.

does thatCensored site have google maps? i'm pretty the company Censored has deep pockets and can afford the google maps.

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It seems alot of people are upset......You want to make a change....Stop buy Geocoins ......Stop buy trackble dog tags.....Stop buying any geocahing materials all together........How about all the cash they make off the geocaching paraphenalia.....Stop buying it for a while from anywhere....Do you think the Distributors will be happy....I think not....Stop moving TB`s....Stop logging finds.....Stop listing new caches..Stop listing new events.....Stop attending the HQ`s events.....What if all cachers stopped using the site all together....THEN WHAT WOULD THEY DO......WE ARE THIS SITE....WE HIDE THE CACHES....WE MOVE THE TRACKABLES....WE PAY FOR THE SERVICE....WE NEED A VOICE.....

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As OpenStreetMap seems to be more widely known in Europe, and hence more fleshed out and up to date due to volunteer work, I already know the maps and I am fine with them. Now that thousands of Geocaching users have forcibly been informed of the existance of the project, there is the hope and expectation that some of them will contribute to the project as well by GPS tracks and data, being perfectly suited and equipped for this task, improving the OSM map quality even further.

 

However, I couldn't find an official response to these thoughts and concerns of user HansHafen yet, which I'm reposting from another thread here.

 

Hi there,

 

apart from the fact, that OSM in my area misses a lot of details, I still wonder about this fact:

 

Groundspeak whines about Android/Iphone Apps using their data by spidering (like c:geo and others)

 

But they feel no shame to put all the load map-viewing creates on a server of a non-profit organization (OSM) who only rely on donations??????????? :mad::o

 

I am happy to pay my premium-membership, but I EXPECT that Groundspeak then behaves like a fair player. OSM is a great project - if they are using it, then they should pay up. Ok, Google is to expensive? Then donate a reasonable amount each year to OSM, even if its only a half / a third / a quarter of what they'd have to pay for Google.

 

Or, AT LEAST: USE YOUR OWN SERVER!

While the map-data is free, using the servers of OSM is bound to a policy: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_Usage_Policy

Right now it seems as if nobody of the GS-people read and understood what is written there?!

 

So, whatever you do with Google-Maps (IMHO there should be at least an option for premium members!) do not use resources of non-profit organizations in our name, which depend on donations.

But even if you use the data only and run it on your OWN server - it would be fair to support OSM! You'd save millions by kicking out Google, so..........

 

HansHafen

 

Any word out there about this?

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It seems alot of people are upset......You want to make a change....Stop buy Geocoins ......Stop buy trackble dog tags.....Stop buying any geocahing materials all together........How about all the cash they make off the geocaching paraphenalia.....Stop buying it for a while from anywhere....Do you think the Distributors will be happy....I think not....Stop moving TB`s....Stop logging finds.....Stop listing new caches..Stop listing new events.....Stop attending the HQ`s events.....What if all cachers stopped using the site all together....THEN WHAT WOULD THEY DO......WE ARE THIS SITE....WE HIDE THE CACHES....WE MOVE THE TRACKABLES....WE PAY FOR THE SERVICE....WE NEED A VOICE.....

no need for a revolution yet...

but it's time to improve and support open caching structures.

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We do a limited set of beta testing with site volunteers.

Are these "site volunteers" internal testers, or are they from the general population of members? Like I said above, a small set of internal testers can never hope to test the many ways in which people use the site.

 

"Site volunteers," as in reviewers and moderators.

 

EDIT: To clarify, we also have an internal test team of professional software engineers that do formal testing.

 

Okay, so you *do* have a limited set of beta testing. Doesn't the fact that when everyone else is seeing an upgrade and exposing numerous bugs, somethings that flat out just don't work, and maybe most importantly that there have been been quite a few people that appear to be knowledge about about software development methodologies coming away with the impression that you're *not* beta testing, indicate that perhaps "limited set of beta testing" is not enough.

 

In earlier post I suggest not only expanding the amount of beta testing that could be done (perhaps having a few dozen people hammer on the system for about a week) but that a private discussion forum could be used to hash out some of the issues the beta testers are finding. There may be some features being included in an update that might be functional sound, but still might be very controversial. Sure, a feature may pass a robust functional test, but will be something that users will actually want?

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People are making this Google Maps issue far too complicated. A vendor that provides a core service has decided to raise their rates (from $0 to "something more than $0"). The fact is that Groundspeak has profited on that vendor service having been provided for $0 for a number of years. The decision to remove it is 100% motivated by maintaining that profit margin. Make no mistake, this is not "evil Google's" doing; it's Groundspeak's. Statement's by Groundspeak that they had no choice and their "explanation" are pure hogwash.

 

There are 3 legitimate ways of solving this problem (I am treating "remove the service" as an illegitimate option since there is clearly not a viable alternative):

 

1. Pay for it out of existing revenue. This will reduce profits in the short-term, but will maintain the viability of one of the website's core features (which will have the long-term benefit of not driving users elsewhere). It's almost like a capital investment (but not really).

 

2. Pass along the cost to users. I, like many, I would imagine, would gladly pay significantly more on my premium membership to have access to Google Maps.

 

3. Related to #2, reduce user access. If you don't want to (or think it's unfair to) force PMs to subsidize the costs incurred by paying for the required license from Google, you could make it a PMO service. Or, if you're not comfortable raising the rates on all PMs to pay for it, you could make it an "add-on" elective service for PMs who want it.

 

Some combination of all 3 actually makes the most sense. Cash flow and profit would be disrupted significantly at the outset as you'd need to wait for premium memberships to come due before you could raise the rate, but after a year, you'd be in balance with where you want to be.

 

Let's face it. $30 is a steal for a PM as it is, and Groundspeak is too worried about protecting its profit margin here. Everyone's going to need to kick in here, but removing Google Maps altogether and replacing it with a half-baked, half-as-functional, but "free" replacement is a short-sighted and irrational decision.

 

Sure, by the grace of the internet, we haven't had to pay for it yet, but we should've long ago.

 

You get what you pay for.

 

--Matt

Edited by Team Van Dyk
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People are making this Google Maps issue far too complicated. A vendor that provides a core service has decided to raise their rates (from $0 to "something more than $0"). The fact is that Groundspeak has profited on that vendor service having been provided for $0 for a number of years. The decision to remove it is 100% motivated by maintaining that profit margin. Make no mistake, this is not "evil Google's" doing; it's Groundspeak's. Statement's by Groundspeak that they had no choice and their "explanation" are pure hogwash.

 

There are 3 legitimate ways of solving this problem (I am treating "remove the service" as an illegitimate option since there is clearly not a viable alternative):

 

1. Pay for it out of existing revenue. This will reduce profits in the short-term, but will maintain the viability of one of the website's core features (which will have the long-term benefit of not driving users elsewhere). It's almost like a capital investment (but not really).

 

2. Pass along the cost to users. I, like many, I would imagine, would gladly pay significantly more on my premium membership to have access to Google Maps.

 

3. Related to #2, reduce user access. If you don't want to (or think it's unfair to) force PMs to subsidize the costs incurred by paying for the required license from Google, you could make it a PMO service. Or, if you're not comfortable raising the rates on all PMs to pay for it, you could make it an "add-on" elective service for PMs who want it.

 

Some combination of all 3 actually makes the most sense. Cash flow and profit would be disrupted significantly at the outset as you'd need to wait for premium memberships to come due before you could raise the rate, but after a year, you'd be in balance with where you want to be.

 

Let's face it. $30 is a steal for a PM as it is, and Groundspeak is too worried about protecting its profit margin here. Everyone's going to need to kick in here, but removing Google Maps altogether and replacing it with a half-baked, half-as-functional, but "free" replacement is a short-sighted and irrational decision.

 

Sure, by the grace of the internet, we haven't had to pay for it yet, but we should've long ago.

 

You get what you pay for.

 

--Matt

 

+1billion

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Hate it. I couldn't care less about a more detailed OSM Street map when all I use is the satellite view. These new maps are slow and won't refresh correctly. There is no scale on the map, i.e. 1 in = 100 ft. Also, this might just be my imagination, but it doesn't seem to have as close of a zoom either. How much more would a Premium Membership cost if it went towards paying for the Google API?

 

Hate the change ... thanks Google.

 

Agreed completely

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People are making this Google Maps issue far too complicated. A vendor that provides a core service has decided to raise their rates (from $0 to "something more than $0"). The fact is that Groundspeak has profited on that vendor service having been provided for $0 for a number of years. The decision to remove it is 100% motivated by maintaining that profit margin. Make no mistake, this is not "evil Google's" doing; it's Groundspeak's. Statement's by Groundspeak that they had no choice and their "explanation" are pure hogwash.

 

There are 3 legitimate ways of solving this problem (I am treating "remove the service" as an illegitimate option since there is clearly not a viable alternative):

 

1. Pay for it out of existing revenue. This will reduce profits in the short-term, but will maintain the viability of one of the website's core features (which will have the long-term benefit of not driving users elsewhere). It's almost like a capital investment (but not really).

 

2. Pass along the cost to users. I, like many, I would imagine, would gladly pay significantly more on my premium membership to have access to Google Maps.

 

3. Related to #2, reduce user access. If you don't want to (or think it's unfair to) force PMs to subsidize the costs incurred by paying for the required license from Google, you could make it a PMO service. Or, if you're not comfortable raising the rates on all PMs to pay for it, you could make it an "add-on" elective service for PMs who want it.

 

Some combination of all 3 actually makes the most sense. Cash flow and profit would be disrupted significantly at the outset as you'd need to wait for premium memberships to come due before you could raise the rate, but after a year, you'd be in balance with where you want to be.

 

Let's face it. $30 is a steal for a PM as it is, and Groundspeak is too worried about protecting its profit margin here. Everyone's going to need to kick in here, but removing Google Maps altogether and replacing it with a half-baked, half-as-functional, but "free" replacement is a short-sighted and irrational decision.

 

Sure, by the grace of the internet, we haven't had to pay for it yet, but we should've long ago.

 

You get what you pay for.

 

--Matt

 

Logical thinking - to bad GS has never shown an propensity for listening to its users.

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I don't know why this needs repeating. It clearly IS about money. Google is now charging for the usage of their maps and they were not before. The End.

this is where google dropped the ball. if they went ad based instead of pay or get out, they'd make more money.

2M impressions a day would be a lot of money from ads.

Power69 - you are wrong. This is about GS's greed, not google's.

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Okay, I am being patient and trying to adjust to the new maps. I preferred the clean street view to see cache locations and plan my caching trip. If I was heading to the woods, nature areas or parks I would then jump over to the satellite views to check water, terrain, paths, trails. This new map set up offers that view, but takes FOREVER to load, if ever completely an is essentially USELESS! I'm in a city with a strong DSL connection and this feels like the old dial-up days when 26.6 was screaming fast.

 

Please Groundspeak, consider other alternatives. I'd gladly pay a dollar more for my membership to have the functionality of the old Google maps.....even with less detail. And consider this, what good is detail when a cache I just placed for kayak cachers is located on dry ground?

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So this is what I have learned: The maps are VERY slow, there is no scale (how useless), they are not very detailed, there are large grey areas that are "blacked" out, there is no satellite imagery; oh and look, my premium membership expires in 4 months...how timely. Perhaps worst of all, we, the fellowship and membership, were never consulted.

 

Disgruntled? You bet I am. How many dollars have I sunk into this hobby? How much time and energy? I have promoted the hobby 3 times with powerpoint presentations to various organisations. And I have introduced this hobby to at least 30 different people, most of who have become members themselves. Like many of you out there, I have promoted this hobby inside and out and I have to tell you right now that this is outrageous and disappointing.

 

GS needs to be accountable to the users who pay their paycheques. Or we will just pack up and go somewhere else. This would be the perfect time for a budding company to grab the reins wouldn't it?

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If you want to return the Google map and Google satelite view into your geocaching map, install Mozilla Firefox and Grease Monkey add-on. Then download this script and install it. This script adds these two map views into new map (see the map options in upper right corner). Credit goes to Pesulap from Czech Republic.

 

https://rapidshare.com/files/2126139919/116103.user.js

image.png

Is their another source? Greasemonkey says it is corrupt.

 

Worked for me, too a long time for the data to load in FF, but it works good.

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Calm down everyone. Let me remind you that every single cache page has a bunch of links to various mapping websites. You can still get Google Maps. Notice the 3rd link below. That will open the Google Map with just that one cache marked. Then you can switch to aerial maps if you prefer.

 

online-map-links.png

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I say we boycott Geocaching.com, We should all switch to OPENCACHING.com.....and see how they like that....only problrm is they have all the control when it comes to TBS.....NO renewed pm for me....Think I will move on to opencahing and delete all my hides from this site.....lets all get together and boycott Geocaching.com till they bring back are Google maps....

 

Out here in The Real World, that is called "Cutting Off One's Nose to Spite One's Face." One does not change things in any organization from without: only from within. You can destroy something from without (it's called War), and you can facilitate internal change from without (consider Japan in 1946), but you cannot force change from without. It isn't working with Iran or North Korea; it won't work here (and no, I'm not equating Groundspeak with those two countries; I used a rhetorical device to make a point). Effective change is only accomplished by continuing to register complaints and make suggestions, and offering assistance where applicable.

 

That being said, I agree that the mapping situation is ridiculous. Too slow, too awkward, too limited. I suggested raising PM fees by $5 more than three years ago. I suggest a raise of $10 now, to $40 per year; that ought to be more than enough to bring Goggle Maps back. Yes, there will be people who say they cannot afford ten bucks more per year, although I will find that very hard to believe; if you can afford a GPSr and the gas to drive around chasing after little boxes, you can afford the cost of two fast-food meals. The PM fee has been $30 from the start (eight years? I can't remember); I'm sure that many costs have gone up since then. Maybe the sales of all the ancillary stuff has been enough to cover it; if so, that's wonderful. But the fact is that Google Maps has been a VERY VALUABLE asset, and if it needs to be paid for, then let us, the users, pay for it. Give us the option of voting; if more than 50% of those who vote opt to pay an extra ten bucks a year for Google Maps and all the other stuff that we had before, then that's what Groundspeak should do. It's called DEMOCRACY, one of the sweetest words in the English language. Give we, the users, the chance to vote on this.

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I don't know why this needs repeating. It clearly IS about money. Google is now charging for the usage of their maps and they were not before. The End.

this is where google dropped the ball. if they went ad based instead of pay or get out, they'd make more money.

2M impressions a day would be a lot of money from ads.

Power69 - you are wrong. This is about GS's greed, not google's.

Oh, please! I have been as negative in some of my criticisms of GS as anyone over the years, but I can't agree with you at all. If Groundspeak is as greedy as you say, why has the PM fee *NEVER* been raised, despite many calls (including my own) to raise it? There is not one penny that anyone has to pay to use the site; for PM users, the $30 is the only fee you must pay. You don't *have* to buy TBs or geocoins or lanyards or any other stuff that GS and its partners sell. This is not a question of greed at all, IMUnhumbleO. Google wants to charge those who use the service a lot more than those who don't. Why is that wrong? GC doesn't want to pay the extra fee? Why is *that* wrong? Answers: it isn't wrong; both sides are acting rationally, as far as that goes. Where GS has screwed up is in not informing us better why they did what they did, and in not giving us PMs a chance to vote on whether we are willing to pay extra for Google Maps. That's it; that's the whole ball of wax. There is nothing nefarious going on: just poor communication and a lack of foresight, both of which are correctable.

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If you want to return the Google map and Google satelite view into your geocaching map, install Mozilla Firefox and Grease Monkey add-on. Then download this script and install it. This script adds new map views into Geocaching map (see the map options in upper right corner).

 

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/125938

aaa.png

 

ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, FAR-FREAKING OUT BOFFO!!! Firefox is already my normal browser; this installed quickly, it works very nicely, and Google Maps comes out as the default. The only thing missing is the map-scale, and I can deal with that through my Google account. Thank you, mitak! My faith in Humanity is restored :D

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Power69 - you are wrong. This is about GS's greed, not google's.

 

Totally disagree. There is a big difference between running a business and therefore trying to deal with an emerging big cost from one of your previously affordable suppliers vs. "greed" by any definition.

 

I'm not a big fan of the map change either, but it's not that big a deal. The little dynamic maps still show google, meaning I can get to satellite and street view when scoping caches, so the big map change is a minor annoyance at worst (assuming the performance starts recovering toward what it was before).

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This new map is driving me crazy. I've lost the ability to pan the map east, west, north or south...can only zoom in or out. Never had this issue with Google Maps. Appears from some posting of screen shots here I can see that a panning feature is there. Can anyone help me out? I've tried changing my views, zoom levels, etc..on my PC but nothing works.

Edited by Me & AL
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This new map is driving me crazy. I've lost the ability to pan the map east, west, north or south...can only zoom in or out. Never had this issue with Google Maps. Appears from some posting of screen shots here I can see that a panning feature is there. Can anyone help me out? I've tried changing my views, zoom levels, etc..on my PC but nothing works.

What happens when you try? Nothing? I can grab the map and drag it all over the place.

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It seems alot of people are upset......You want to make a change....Stop buy Geocoins ......Stop buy trackble dog tags.....Stop buying any geocahing materials all together........How about all the cash they make off the geocaching paraphenalia.....Stop buying it for a while from anywhere....Do you think the Distributors will be happy....I think not....Stop moving TB`s....Stop logging finds.....Stop listing new caches..Stop listing new events.....Stop attending the HQ`s events.....What if all cachers stopped using the site all together....THEN WHAT WOULD THEY DO......WE ARE THIS SITE....WE HIDE THE CACHES....WE MOVE THE TRACKABLES....WE PAY FOR THE SERVICE....WE NEED A VOICE.....

 

Over a map I do not even use because I have way better options... no thanks. I like the product that GS has presented to us. I even have more than one premium account to help out!

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This is really bad. Not only have the good maps gone (I use satellite a lot), but the Geocaching website no longer works on my iPad. If you click on a cache to look at the details on a map, nothing happens. It all worked before. What do they mean when they say they have made it better for ipad users? It just doesn't function at all now. And when I zoom out on my laptop, it loses all my found caches.

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