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Returning of webcam caches


KRON family

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I like it. I only found one (it is already archived but the webcam is still active) and I don't think there are any active ones currently in the 60km radius around my HC. For as long as you can take a snapshot using a smartphone, they are fun!

(Emphasis added.) This is one reason why webcam caches will likely never return. Another is because they're a maintenance challenge. Unlike replacing a missing container or wet log, when a webcam goes "offline for repairs," the cache owner has no control over the maintenance outcome.

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Well, I think we've now determined that every cacher in the Czech Republic wants them back! :blink:

Did the OP organize Czech cachers so they could all come on here at the same time and support their idea?

 

"Germany wants webcam caches back, too!" - well, one German at least... B)

(Though you might argue that's practically next door.) :D

 

Regards - T.-Y.

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*watches and waits as thread gets locked*

If this topic will be locked, it may means "We are administrators, what players want is absolutely does not matter".

I hope that does not happen.

One wants this, others that. Do you realize that this is the reason why the geocaching.com is without any news, just removes existing things? Because everyone wants to have his way and nobody is willing to accept the opinion of someone else.

Please, think about it.

Thank you.

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... Simply cluttering up this discussion won't accomplish anything.

 

I think it will accomplish at least discussion. Oups, it already did! And that's something to start with.

What are your reasons not to bring webcams back? Are there any?

When I spotted m10biker's "+1" I started to believe :smile:

Okay, let's keep the line:

 

I agree with this idea! :ph34r:

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I like it. I only found one (it is already archived but the webcam is still active) and I don't think there are any active ones currently in the 60km radius around my HC. For as long as you can take a snapshot using a smartphone, they are fun!

(Emphasis added.) This is one reason why webcam caches will likely never return.

I think they meant they can visit the webcam page and save the image using their smartphone, not that they can take a photo of themselves at GZ with their smartphone. At least that's what I think they meant based on a translation of their sole webcam find. Smartphones make webcam caches a lot easier, because you don't have to coordinate with someone else sitting at home on their computer.

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I think they meant they can visit the webcam page and save the image using their smartphone, not that they can take a photo of themselves at GZ with their smartphone. At least that's what I think they meant based on a translation of their sole webcam find. Smartphones make webcam caches a lot easier, because you don't have to coordinate with someone else sitting at home on their computer.

 

I did see one webcam cache where the actual webcam has been down for years, and the cache listing encouraged people to take a photo at GZ and log a find accordingly. Now archived of course.

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*watches and waits as thread gets locked*

If this topic will be locked, it may means "We are administrators, what players want is absolutely does not matter".

The reason this topic may be locked isn't because they don't like your idea, it's because this discussion is being spammed.

 

... Simply cluttering up this discussion won't accomplish anything.

I think it will accomplish at least discussion. Oups, it already did! And that's something to start with.

We could have had a great discussion without 30 "I agree with this idea" posts. Now any discussion will be buried in between all these spam posts.

 

What are your reasons not to bring webcams back? Are there any?

I can think of a couple:

-COs who allow armchair logs or allow logs that don't fulfill the requirements of the cache type.

-As Keystone mentioned above, maintenance issues that are out of the COs hands.

Also, would any submitted webcam cache be published, or would there need to be some criteria or a WOW factor like there was with virtuals to limit them to "interesting" places?

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OK then, to the various people who have bombed this thread wanting webcams back, can you respond to any of the points raised in this thread as to why webcams aren't a good idea?

 

-They're catered for on Waymarking.com

-They're open to abuse from people who log photos and not actual photos.

-The cache owner isn't in control of the webcam and therefore can't maintain the cache completely.

-Many other arguments raised on the hundreds of threads prior to this one.

 

Saying 'because we want them' is all very well, but we want lots of things we can't have for many practical reasons.

Edited by Beach_hut
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Well, I think we've now determined that every cacher in the Czech Republic wants them back! :blink:

Did the OP organize Czech cachers so they could all come on here at the same time and support their idea?

 

And personally distribute to them the translated into English sentence "I agree with this idea"? :ph34r:

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Another is because they're a maintenance challenge. Unlike replacing a missing container or wet log, when a webcam goes "offline for repairs," the cache owner has no control over the maintenance outcome.
How is this different from a traditional cache being inaccessible (and disabled) for construction? Even if the land manager says the construction will take only a couple months and that the hide location itself (and thus, the cache's camouflage) will be unaffected, the CO has no control over the maintenance outcome, and no real assurance that the construction will be completed on schedule, or that the hide location itself will be unaffected.

 

I think part of the reason grandfathered webcam caches are a maintenance issue is the very fact that they are grandfathered. If the CO could archive one webcam cache and list another, then the CO would be more inclined to archive a webcam cache when the webcam went offline indefinitely. Given the grandfathered status, the CO is more likely to go to heroic efforts to keep the webcam cache alive, long after the original webcam is gone.

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I like it. I only found one (it is already archived but the webcam is still active) and I don't think there are any active ones currently in the 60km radius around my HC. For as long as you can take a snapshot using a smartphone, they are fun!

(Emphasis added.) This is one reason why webcam caches will likely never return.

I think they meant they can visit the webcam page and save the image using their smartphone, not that they can take a photo of themselves at GZ with their smartphone.

 

You don't even need a smartphone, I usually do any remaining webcam caches with my antiquated Sony Ericsson from 2005.

 

Regards - T.-Y.

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I think they meant they can visit the webcam page and save the image using their smartphone, not that they can take a photo of themselves at GZ with their smartphone. At least that's what I think they meant based on a translation of their sole webcam find. Smartphones make webcam caches a lot easier, because you don't have to coordinate with someone else sitting at home on their computer.

 

I did see one webcam cache where the actual webcam has been down for years, and the cache listing encouraged people to take a photo at GZ and log a find accordingly. Now archived of course.

I'm not sure if it's the one you're talking about, but 4 Corners in Las Vegas was like this (I know of a couple of others, too). The webcam stopped working sometime in October 2010, but it wasn't until January 2012 that someone finally logged a Needs Archive and the cache was shut down. In the time that the webcam was down, there were nearly 700 logs claiming it as a find, even though none of them actually fulfilled the requirements! It's things like this that demonstrate to TPTB that webcam caches may be more trouble than they're worth.

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I like it. I only found one (it is already archived but the webcam is still active) and I don't think there are any active ones currently in the 60km radius around my HC. For as long as you can take a snapshot using a smartphone, they are fun!

(Emphasis added.) This is one reason why webcam caches will likely never return.

I think they meant they can visit the webcam page and save the image using their smartphone, not that they can take a photo of themselves at GZ with their smartphone. At least that's what I think they meant based on a translation of their sole webcam find. Smartphones make webcam caches a lot easier, because you don't have to coordinate with someone else sitting at home on their computer.

Yes, that's what I had in mind - nice investigation, and thanks for explaining my point. ;)

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... Simply cluttering up this discussion won't accomplish anything.

 

I think it will accomplish at least discussion. Oups, it already did! And that's something to start with.

What are your reasons not to bring webcams back? Are there any?

When I spotted m10biker's "+1" I started to believe :smile:

Okay, let's keep the line:

 

I agree with this idea! :ph34r:

 

I'm thinking you should take another look at what moun10bike was +1'ing. I don't think it was for the return of webcam caches, but I could be wrong.

 

And if the idea to vote for your reviewers posted in another thread ever gets off the ground, the current Czech reviewers better plan to do a lot of campaigning if they want to remain in office. ;)

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Well, I think we've now determined that every cacher in the Czech Republic wants them back! :blink:

Did the OP organize Czech cachers so they could all come on here at the same time and support their idea?

 

And personally distribute to them the translated into English sentence "I agree with this idea"? :ph34r:

This is not an organized effort, as such, although you're correct - the suggested "I agree" translation was there. There's an active discussion going on on the Czech forum with people supporting and opposing the idea. The Czech Geocaching Community is very strong and if everyone discussed here in English, these forums would look a bit different. But there's the language barrier and the fact that they have a nice and working local website to discuss things... so it ends up the community is rarely being heard of in the country of Geocaching HQ. And you cannot expect Groundspeak staff to learn Czech and start monitoring geocaching.cz.

 

I think this simply wouldn't happen if the feedback site was still up. Anyway, I'm glad to see that there's now active discussion about the webcam caches going on here right now, rather than dozens of "I agree" posts. And just to clarify I'm from Slovakia, but from a great distance, it might look just the same. ;)

Edited by osnica
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OK then, to the various people who have bombed this thread wanting webcams back, can you respond to any of the points raised in this thread as to why webcams aren't a good idea?

 

Certainly.

 

-They're catered for on Waymarking.com

 

Another platform (even though it's GS, too): unhandy, and Waymarking is - or has become - an alltogether different game with different rules.

 

-They're open to abuse from people who log photos and not actual photos.

 

They're not, at least not more than ordinary caches, were physical logbooks sometimes get lost or unreadable. Using another photo than the webcam's is obvious and obviously cheating; the log should be removed by the CO (like any other cheat log).

 

-The cache owner isn't in control of the webcam and therefore can't maintain the cache completely.

 

Again, this also applies to most container-based geocaches. A building site can block your multi's station, or a land manager will temporarily restrict access to an area to protect deer during the winter. I've seen both. The CO has to temporarily disable the cache in any case.

 

-Many other arguments raised on the hundreds of threads prior to this one.

 

...as good points as the above?

 

Saying 'because we want them' is all very well, but we want lots of things we can't have for many practical reasons.

 

Saying 'do away with them because I don't like them' is not a good point, either. This is not about 'practical reasons', this is about the rules of a game. Many cachers log the webcams that are left, so obviously there's quite a lot of people who want them as part of the game. If you are not one of those, the way is not to forbid them, but to ignore them.

 

Sadly, this is probably all futile. In past posts I've noticed that TPTB tend to go strangly curt and ideologic on the point of webcam caches. Knowing organizations, the reason is probably just that the boss said "No!"

 

Regards

T.-Y.

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Yea, webcams are also at Waymarking, and traditionals are also at open caching. Sorry, but neither is geocaching!

 

But there's the language barrier and the fact that they have a nice and working local website to discuss things... so it ends up the community is rarely being heard of in the country of Geocaching HQ. And you cannot expect Groundspeak staff to learn Czech and start monitoring geocaching.cz.

+1

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Suggesting ways to get around the problems with Webcam caches would be a far better way of advancing this proposal.

Sorry to actually be serious here, but it occurs to me that I've never heard what the problems with webcam caches are. I've only done a small handful, but they are always entertaining. In fact, the only negative thing I've encountered is that because there can't be any new ones, some of the old ones are "maintained" even though the cameras don't actually work anymore.

 

Did these suffer similar problems to Virtuals? I would think that the relatively limited opportunities for webcam caches would avoid a lot of the issues Virtuals had.

 

Edited to add: Oops. Man, this thread is hot. I hadn't seen all the debate about the problems when I first posted this. The supposed problems seem petty. Yeah, people can abuse them. What else is new? The webcam is (often) not maintained by the CO. So what? The only reason this is a problem today is because people do funny things to try to keep that one last webcam in town going if there's a problem with the camera. If webcams could be created, there wouldn't be a big deal with archiving ones with broken cameras, since they could be unarchived if the camera was fixed.

Edited by dprovan
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This is not an organized effort, as such, although you're correct - the suggested "I agree" translation was there. There's an active discussion going on on the Czech forum with people supporting and opposing the idea. The Czech Geocaching Community is very strong and if everyone discussed here in English, these forums would look a bit different. But there's the language barrier and the fact that they have a nice and working local website to discuss things... so it ends up the community is rarely being heard of in the country of Geocaching HQ. And you cannot expect Groundspeak staff to learn Czech and start monitoring geocaching.cz.

 

In my opinion, one can expect, however, Czech geocachers who use an English speaking geocaching site to use Englih for discussions and not just annoy the regular readers of this forum with copy and paste statements not expressing anything new. They could have had an opinion poll on geocaching.cz and after its end someone could have posted a statement here that x cachers from the Czech republic are in favor of the return of webcam caches. Those who have nothing more to offer than a copy and paste statement should rather stay in their local forum.

 

As the topic is regarded, I do not mind if webcam caches return if they can be filtered out (by everyone, not just PMs) and do not count for the find and hide count. I guess, however, that the interest into them will not be that high in that case. From some distance I have got the impression that there are many Czech cachers who are quite competitive and appreciate high find counts.

Personally, I regard webcam caches as extremely boring - it is the only cache type where I never have encountered any cache which I regarded as interesting.

 

Cezanne

Edited by cezanne
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I did see one webcam cache where the actual webcam has been down for years, and the cache listing encouraged people to take a photo at GZ and log a find accordingly. Now archived of course.

 

Maybe we could ask for reason. If you archived traditional cache, you can hidden new. It is no problem. But if you archieved webcam cache you will never have new. And this could be the reason why owner did everything for not to archive this webcame cache and for her function.

 

And I didnt see any serious reason for cancellation of webcam caches. Every reason I can read can be practically the same aplied for traditional caches.

 

Please bring them back.

 

Sorry for my bad English

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There is some discussion on Geocaching.cz already. My idea: I'd suggest that the GS merges Geocaching.com and Waymarking.com into one site, with the possibility to filter what categories the user wants to see. The statistics could be done separately but the user interface and the web address would be the same. Webcams then could be handled as waymarks if the idea of putting them back as caches is not accepted but they would be logged from the same place as normal caches.

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I agree the responses of the Czech geocachers are annoying, just stating I agree doesn't help this discussion.

 

But I do like webcam caches, we've done them in several countries and I wonder why they were grandfathered.

 

Beach_hut gave some reasons in his/her post, but Teuto-Yachter had very good answers to those remarks (at least to my opinion) in post #71.

 

So are there any other reasons? (except for the reason that some feel a geocache without a container is no geocache, where I can only say: a photo gives me much more fun memories than signing a micro under a lamp post).

 

As long as something needs to be done at the location itself, so no arm chair caches, I don't see any reason why not.

 

But maybe there was a discussion in the past on being recognizable on the photo? (although this is hardly ever the case with webcams ;)) Since photo requirements can't be mandatory for caches anymore, a webcam cache is impossible.

 

So before webcam caches can return, it should be clear why photos can't be made mandatory.

Does anybody know the reason for this decision?

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So are there any other reasons? (except for the reason that some feel a geocache without a container is no geocache, where I can only say: a photo gives me much more fun memories than signing a micro under a lamp post).

 

I do enjoy well-done virtuals and Earthcaches, but I do not think that they should add to the number of found/hidden caches with containers.

This also helps to improve the quality - those playing the numbers game stay away.

 

I do not enjoy webcams, but the reason for being against their re-introduction on gc.com mixed up with caches with containers, is not my personal dislike, but what I've written above.

 

 

Cezanne

Edited by cezanne
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So are there any other reasons? (except for the reason that some feel a geocache without a container is no geocache, where I can only say: a photo gives me much more fun memories than signing a micro under a lamp post).

 

I do enjoy well-done virtuals and Earthcaches, but I do not think that they should add to the number of found/hidden caches with containers.

This also helps to improve the quality - those playing the numbers game stay away.

 

I do not enjoy webcams, but the reason for being against their re-introduction on gc.com mixed up with caches with containers, is not my personal dislike, but what I've written above.

 

 

Cezanne

 

I don't think I understand this completely.

Why shouldn't virtuals, earthcaches and webcams count in the lists of found/hidden caches?

Because if they do count, does who play the numbers game won't stay away from them and this ruins the quality of those caches like it does with the container caches?

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But maybe there was a discussion in the past on being recognizable on the photo? (although this is hardly ever the case with webcams ;)) Since photo requirements can't be mandatory for caches anymore, a webcam cache is impossible.

 

So before webcam caches can return, it should be clear why photos can't be made mandatory.

Does anybody know the reason for this decision?

I have much more to say and share about past history with webcam photo quality requirements, and the problems and hate mail that this caused in the review process. But since it's hard to carry on a conversation amid all the "I agree" posts, I'm checking out of this discussion.

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But maybe there was a discussion in the past on being recognizable on the photo? (although this is hardly ever the case with webcams ;)) Since photo requirements can't be mandatory for caches anymore, a webcam cache is impossible.

 

So before webcam caches can return, it should be clear why photos can't be made mandatory.

Does anybody know the reason for this decision?

I have much more to say and share about past history with webcam photo quality requirements, and the problems and hate mail that this caused in the review process. But since it's hard to carry on a conversation amid all the "I agree" posts, I'm checking out of this discussion.

 

I agree with Keystone.

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