why did they delete my data?

[+Don_J]

you should NOT cache or do challenges for the stats, but for fun experiences,

even if your number of challenges are now gone from the web stats,

no one can take away the fun you had doing them, that is how I think of all the cool places we visited

and took pictures, and did wierd things just to handle a lot og chellenges,

we did 68 in 6-8 contries.

 

Who said anything about stats?

[+OZ2CPU]

I am sorry if my post got a little bit mis understood,

I too am a bit sad they deleted this, since now I cant go back and read all my cool logs

I think I do got backup off all the pictures, but not the logs,

we also wrote some of the logs to share experiances with others, who might go to the same location

and see the same stuff as we did.

heck the WHOLE point of geocaching (and the challenge thing they deleted) is to SHARE experiances)

and maybe trigger others to go there too,

I could have written down all details about the pictures and locations in a little secret black book

and hidden back home for my own eyes only.. maybe that is the point ?

this is what they want me to do now ?

[+tozainamboku]

You all should be happy that Groundspeak isn't owned by Facebook, who would not only have deleted your access to your data, but would have said they could sell it without your permission.

Edited December 18, 2012 by tozainamboku

[+frinklabs]

You all should be happy that Groundspeak isn't owned by Facebook, who would not only have deleted your access to your data, but would have said they could sell it without your permission.

 

They don't have to be Fecebook to do that.

 

Terms Of Use section 6 -- License to Use Submissions contains this:

 

By submitting any Submission to Groundspeak, You grant Groundspeak a

worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, fully-paid royalty-free license and right to use, reproduce, distribute, import, broadcast, transmit, modify and create derivative works of, license, offer to sell, and sell, rent, lease or lend copies of, publicly display and publicly perform that Submission for any purpose and without restriction or obligation to You.

[+ArcherDragoon]

Rock -> Groundspeak <- Hard Place

 

They received grief when they announced them...

They received grief when they made them public...

They received grief when they made them "stats"...

They received grief when they made them "no stats"...

They received grief when they ...

.

.

.

Seems to me...we should have seen it coming...

 

Over and done with...time to move on.

[+cpine]

You all should be happy that Groundspeak isn't owned by Facebook, who would not only have deleted your access to your data, but would have said they could sell it without your permission.

Stand By

Edited December 18, 2012 by cpine

[+DanOCan]

They don't have to be Fecebook to do that.

 

Terms Of Use section 6 -- License to Use Submissions contains this:

 

By submitting any Submission to Groundspeak, You grant Groundspeak a

worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, fully-paid royalty-free license and right to use, reproduce, distribute, import, broadcast, transmit, modify and create derivative works of, license, offer to sell, and sell, rent, lease or lend copies of, publicly display and publicly perform that Submission for any purpose and without restriction or obligation to You.

That's pretty standard boilerplate for a website. If they didn't give themselves that access, they could never store your data on multiple servers or have their web servers respond to a request when someone went to view a photo in the gallery.

 

I feel for Groundspeak. Had they left everything relating to Challenges in place there would be a 10+ page thread bashing them for messing up the site and not cleaning up all the crap relating to Challenges.

 

I don't think it's so much that Groundspeak doesn't listen to or care about their users, it's that the users are going to complain no matter what.

[+briansnat]

I have so many questions in regards to the challenges... they all revolve around why! Why won't they give us an explanation as to what the real reason is they just trashed the whole thing.

Why the hell did they get rid of my stats in regards to the challenges. I did a lot of work to accomplish some of them as in props for the photos etc... The way this has come across is "Screw you your just the customer we do what we do for a reason and you don't need to know why we make decisions". I have emailed the Groundspeak office and just got replies like "Thanks for your input" another time "you know you can post on the forums as they are monitored." I would like a discourse on this freaking issue but I am not getting any response. "The Frog has spoken peasants premium members or not you have no say in any of this" I am especially pissed off about my data being deleted! WHY!???

 

Chris

 

They were up front about the real reasons. Challenges didn't catch on the way they had hoped and their resource were better allocated elsewhere. They should have asked me, I could have told them challenges would fail the moment they took the smiley away. Actually I think I did say that somewhere at the time.

 

As far as removing all traces of the from the site, I can't say for certain, but my guess is that they learned from vituals. I'm sure they wish in retrospect that they had removed all traces of virtuals when they were stopped so they didn't have to listen to the regular "bring back virtuals" demands. When virtuals were discontinued they weren't incredibly popular. Their demise was met with some complaining in the forum, but that died quickly. There was no extended firestorm precisely because they weren't super popular. But over the years virtuals have achieved an almost iconic stature. They probably didn't want that to happen with challenges and have to deal with a constant clamor to bring them back 6 or 7 years down the road.

Edited December 19, 2012 by briansnat

[+ArcherDragoon]

 

.

.

.

 

As far as removing all traces of the from the site, I can't say for certain, but my guess is that they learned from vituals. I'm sure they wish in retrospect that they had removed all traces of virtuals when they were stopped so they didn't have to listen to the regular "bring back virtuals" demands. When virtuals were discontinued they weren't incredibly popular. Their demise was met with some complaining in the forum, but that died quickly. There was no extended firestorm precisely because they weren't super popular. But over the years virtuals have achieved an almost iconic stature. They probably didn't want that to happen with challenges and have to deal with a constant clamor to bring them back 6 or 7 years down the road.

I hadn't thought of it that way...it does make sense.

[+The Jester]

 

.

.

.

 

As far as removing all traces of the from the site, I can't say for certain, but my guess is that they learned from vituals. I'm sure they wish in retrospect that they had removed all traces of virtuals when they were stopped so they didn't have to listen to the regular "bring back virtuals" demands. When virtuals were discontinued they weren't incredibly popular. Their demise was met with some complaining in the forum, but that died quickly. There was no extended firestorm precisely because they weren't super popular. But over the years virtuals have achieved an almost iconic stature. They probably didn't want that to happen with challenges and have to deal with a constant clamor to bring them back 6 or 7 years down the road.

I hadn't thought of it that way...it does make sense.

I'm not sure I agree. The bring-back-virtuals is fueled by the fact that you can still log virtuals. Locationless caches are locked (but in place) and there isn't any bring-them-back fury. If they'd left the challenges in place - without being able to make new ones or log them - it would become a intersting piece of history, and those that liked them could still look at theirs with fond memories.

[+lamoracke]

 

.

.

.

 

As far as removing all traces of the from the site, I can't say for certain, but my guess is that they learned from vituals. I'm sure they wish in retrospect that they had removed all traces of virtuals when they were stopped so they didn't have to listen to the regular "bring back virtuals" demands. When virtuals were discontinued they weren't incredibly popular. Their demise was met with some complaining in the forum, but that died quickly. There was no extended firestorm precisely because they weren't super popular. But over the years virtuals have achieved an almost iconic stature. They probably didn't want that to happen with challenges and have to deal with a constant clamor to bring them back 6 or 7 years down the road.

I hadn't thought of it that way...it does make sense.

I'm not sure I agree. The bring-back-virtuals is fueled by the fact that you can still log virtuals. Locationless caches are locked (but in place) and there isn't any bring-them-back fury. If they'd left the challenges in place - without being able to make new ones or log them - it would become a intersting piece of history, and those that liked them could still look at theirs with fond memories.

 

There is still a crowd that includes me who'd love to log a locationless. I could easily name 50 friends who would love to log them. The worldwide challenges were similar to them to me. I agree with Brian though, the fact that the locationless icon exists and folks have it in their profiles is "part" of the reason I wish I could log a locationless, like the Sphinx or Yellow Jeep or whatnot. That particular reason is gone if you remove all traces of it. Had not thought of it that way.

[+Don_J]

I have so many questions in regards to the challenges... they all revolve around why! Why won't they give us an explanation as to what the real reason is they just trashed the whole thing.

Why the hell did they get rid of my stats in regards to the challenges. I did a lot of work to accomplish some of them as in props for the photos etc... The way this has come across is "Screw you your just the customer we do what we do for a reason and you don't need to know why we make decisions". I have emailed the Groundspeak office and just got replies like "Thanks for your input" another time "you know you can post on the forums as they are monitored." I would like a discourse on this freaking issue but I am not getting any response. "The Frog has spoken peasants premium members or not you have no say in any of this" I am especially pissed off about my data being deleted! WHY!???

 

Chris

 

They were up front about the real reasons. Challenges didn't catch on the way they had hoped and their resource were better allocated elsewhere. They should have asked me, I could have told them challenges would fail the moment they took the smiley away. Actually I think I did say that somewhere at the time.

 

As far as removing all traces of the from the site, I can't say for certain, but my guess is that they learned from vituals. I'm sure they wish in retrospect that they had removed all traces of virtuals when they were stopped so they didn't have to listen to the regular "bring back virtuals" demands. When virtuals were discontinued they weren't incredibly popular. Their demise was met with some complaining in the forum, but that died quickly. There was no extended firestorm precisely because they weren't super popular. But over the years virtuals have achieved an almost iconic stature. They probably didn't want that to happen with challenges and have to deal with a constant clamor to bring them back 6 or 7 years down the road.

 

That constant clamor is primarily by those that joined the site after the virtuals were discontinued. They feel like they have been left out of something and want to be a part of it.

 

If Groundspeak could have figured out a way to have each individual's Challenge info available to only that individual when they were logged on, there would far less controversy. Additionally, people creating accounts five years from now would never see any Challenge stats and decide that they want some too.

[+geodarts]

Without getting into all the reasons why there is a "constant clamor" for virtuals to return, in part it is because existing virtuals are part of this game. The better comparison would be with locationless which were completely locked out. I would have complained if all the locationless data and stats were removed from this site since they were a part of this game for a significant period. But in general, locking them down has not led to a great deal of angst - although I am sure that there are people who would like to have the icon.

 

If the challenge data were left on profiles similar to the way that benchmarks are listed, I am not sure that there would be a corresponding clamor by future users for challenges to return. Except for a brief period, challenges were only a side game and there is not a group of players who would have challenge "finds" as part of their official count. There would be no icon to covet as part of "geocaching."

 

Challenges were introduced as an experiment. They did not attract much interest on this site, so I can understand why Groundspeak concluded that the experiment had failed. I can also understand why people who experimented along with Groundspeak now feel abandoned and would at least like the data to remain. Still, it was a side game -- and like Groundspeak's Mighty Egg Hunt app, they have chosen to remove all traces. So perhaps the lesson is to be wary of innovations that are not a direct part of Groundspeak's core product.

Edited December 20, 2012 by geodarts

[+cpine]

They don't have to be Fecebook to do that.

 

Terms Of Use section 6 -- License to Use Submissions contains this:

 

By submitting any Submission to Groundspeak, You grant Groundspeak a

worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, fully-paid royalty-free license and right to use, reproduce, distribute, import, broadcast, transmit, modify and create derivative works of, license, offer to sell, and sell, rent, lease or lend copies of, publicly display and publicly perform that Submission for any purpose and without restriction or obligation to You.

That's pretty standard boilerplate for a website. If they didn't give themselves that access, they could never store your data on multiple servers or have their web servers respond to a request when someone went to view a photo in the gallery.

 

I feel for Groundspeak. Had they left everything relating to Challenges in place there would be a 10+ page thread bashing them for messing up the site and not cleaning up all the crap relating to Challenges.

 

I don't think it's so much that Groundspeak doesn't listen to or care about their users, it's that the users are going to complain no matter what.

 

The difference is that some of the "complainers" have an actual valid grievance. Only partially smiling... Something was taken from the ones who liked and participated with the challenges... what was for goodness sake, taken away form the other complainers who said something like "I don't like them", "I think they are not about geocaching", etc... and then could have ignored them and moved on... now when someone rejoices I don't get it... compare it to "I didn't like twinkies anyway I am glad they are gone!" ???!!! The idea that Groundspeak got rid of the data because they did not want to have folks asking about them years from now? Man I hope not, because that is very short sighted and really amazingly disregarding of the customer... WOW! Yes I suppose you could say that the "resources were committed to challenges and thus did not get focused on geocaching per say. I sure did not see much evidence of challenges getting a lot of resources dedicated to them. Maybe that was the reasoning from the beginning and why they were set up the way they were. I have heard from others that when the old style virtuals were around that it was a lot of work to review and approve etc... s maybe they were hoping to put something in place that was sudo automated and would require less work or resources to approve or maintain etc... Perhaps they don't have enough folks resources etc to do anything else but geocaching.

Anyhow... I already expressed my opinion previously in this thread and I will move on. Don't expect me to jump on board of the next brilliant idea of theres as I don't feel like I can trust them. The "experiment " was not one to me I was not doing them thinking it would just be dumped in the trash one day.

[+ccurzio]

Something was taken from the ones who liked and participated with the challenges... what was for goodness sake, taken away form the other complainers who said something like "I don't like them", "I think they are not about geocaching", etc... and then could have ignored them and moved on... now when someone rejoices I don't get it... compare it to "I didn't like twinkies anyway I am glad they are gone!" ???!!! The idea that Groundspeak got rid of the data because they did not want to have folks asking about them years from now? Man I hope not, because that is very short sighted and really amazingly disregarding of the customer... WOW! Yes I suppose you could say that the "resources were committed to challenges and thus did not get focused on geocaching per say. I sure did not see much evidence of challenges getting a lot of resources dedicated to them. Maybe that was the reasoning from the beginning and why they were set up the way they were. I have heard from others that when the old style virtuals were around that it was a lot of work to review and approve etc... s maybe they were hoping to put something in place that was sudo automated and would require less work or resources to approve or maintain etc... Perhaps they don't have enough folks resources etc to do anything else but geocaching.

Anyhow... I already expressed my opinion previously in this thread and I will move on. Don't expect me to jump on board of the next brilliant idea of theres as I don't feel like I can trust them. The "experiment " was not one to me I was not doing them thinking it would just be dumped in the trash one day.

 

There's so much wrong here it's not even funny. Not only is it a narrow and uninformed view, it's poorly articulated.

 

Challenges weren't removed because people complained that they didn't like them. Challenges were removed because the ratio of site users to challenge users was massively low on the challenges side. All of the work and effort put into designing the challenges, writing the content for each, programming the code and rearchitecting the databases to accept the new category, and everything else related to it was being done for a small subset of users that wasn't enough to justify the effort. (And yes, just because YOU didn't see evidence of resources dedicated to challenges doesn't mean it didn't happen. Adding something like that to a database architecture of this size and maintaining it is a massive undertaking.)

 

Again, if you don't agree with how this site is being run, nobody is stopping you from leaving. You're completely able to start a parallel challenges website of your own. After all, it's easy to do, right?

 

P.S.: it's not "sudo", it's "pseudo". And it's not "per say", it's "per se" and it should be italicized since it's Latin.

Edited December 21, 2012 by ccurzio

[Clan Riffster]

Challenges weren't removed because people complained that they didn't like them.

Actually, cpine may have been right on the mark.

With other ideas that Groundspeak didn't feel met their vision, they took other, less Draconian steps, such as when they locked down Locationless caches so no one could log any more, or when they removed the option to create more Virtual caches. In both those instances, Groundspeak left the data as a record of our caching history. With Virtuals, Groundspeak still spends some of its time fiddling with them, though I would guess that time is pretty brief. With Locationless caches, Groundspeak's continued energy expenditure is zero.

 

It would cost them nothing to let that data stay.

Yet they erased all traces of it.

Why do you suppose that is?

 

I don't know the mind of the Lily Pad, but it certainly seems possible that their reasoning was at least partially influenced by the huge outcry against them. The old adage of sweeping an unsavory mess under a carpet comes to mind.

P.S.: it's not "sudo", it's "pseudo". And it's not "per say", it's "per se" and it should be italicized since it's Latin.

It's been my experience that when you start critiquing speeling, you've lost whatever argument you wanted to make.

[+tozainamboku]

Challenges were removed because the ratio of site users to challenge users was massively low on the challenges side. All of the work and effort put into designing the challenges, writing the content for each, programming the code and rearchitecting the databases to accept the new category, and everything else related to it was being done for a small subset of users that wasn't enough to justify the effort.

Gosh I hope not. Next they will be archiving puzzles because so few people do them or high terrain caches that get too few visits. Or worse - they might get rid of the Google Earth KML files because too few people regularly use them.

 

While a decision not to invest more into challenges at this time may have been made because the business case for it was no longer there, the basic database setup and code was already done. Premium members could create challenges and any member could accept and complete challenge. What challenges were already done were displayed on the challenges tag in the profile. There was actually more work involved in removing challenges than in just letting them stay.

 

WHile Groundspeak has not fully explained their decisions, the announcement indicates that the challenges did not catch on as they had hoped. Interestingly other ideas (Wherigo and perhaps Waymarking) didn't catch on as they hoped either and they are still around. But when ALR caches were specifically allowed so long as they were listed as mystery type caches, and they actually caught on but in ways different from what they had hoped, they were not just backed out but all existing ALRs other than geocaching challenge types were rendered void.

 

I know that Groundspeak had specific hopes when they started Challenges, because they at the time they shared these with us. I know that for a while they were willing to invest resources to improve on the idea. Somewhere along the way it got to the point where they reviewed the changes they had made, other changes that were suggested, perhaps one they had planned to make, and direction that Challenges appeared to be headed. The made a decision both not to make additional changes to Challenges and to discontinue what was there, but this was because it was not what they had hoped to accomplish, and hopefully unrelated to the numbers of geocachers who participated.

Edited December 22, 2012 by tozainamboku

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

I have so many questions in regards to the challenges... they all revolve around why! Why won't they give us an explanation as to what the real reason is they just trashed the whole thing.

Why the hell did they get rid of my stats in regards to the challenges. I did a lot of work to accomplish some of them as in props for the photos etc... The way this has come across is "Screw you your just the customer we do what we do for a reason and you don't need to know why we make decisions". I have emailed the Groundspeak office and just got replies like "Thanks for your input" another time "you know you can post on the forums as they are monitored." I would like a discourse on this freaking issue but I am not getting any response. "The Frog has spoken peasants premium members or not you have no say in any of this" I am especially pissed off about my data being deleted! WHY!???

 

Chris

 

The real reason that things were trashed is quite simple. If you have something that does function properly you have 2 choices, 1, is fix it yourself or 2, get someone else to fix it for you. Of course there is a third option - If you don't know how to fix it and don't want to get someone else to fix it for you, then you just toss it into the trash and move on. Guess which option they chose?

 

John

[+Don_J]

 

Anyhow... I already expressed my opinion previously in this thread and I will move on. Don't expect me to jump on board of the next brilliant idea of theres as I don't feel like I can trust them. The "experiment " was not one to me I was not doing them thinking it would just be dumped in the trash one day.

 

I think that this right here is a very important point.

 

By deleting the data, what incentive do people have to participate and invest their time in any new project that Groundspeak may roll out? There are those that will never except the fact that Groundspeak discounted the challenges, but I think that there would far more that would accept this if they were allowed to look back and see what their part in it was.

[+Don_J]

I have so many questions in regards to the challenges... they all revolve around why! Why won't they give us an explanation as to what the real reason is they just trashed the whole thing.

Why the hell did they get rid of my stats in regards to the challenges. I did a lot of work to accomplish some of them as in props for the photos etc... The way this has come across is "Screw you your just the customer we do what we do for a reason and you don't need to know why we make decisions". I have emailed the Groundspeak office and just got replies like "Thanks for your input" another time "you know you can post on the forums as they are monitored." I would like a discourse on this freaking issue but I am not getting any response. "The Frog has spoken peasants premium members or not you have no say in any of this" I am especially pissed off about my data being deleted! WHY!???

 

Chris

 

The real reason that things were trashed is quite simple. If you have something that does function properly you have 2 choices, 1, is fix it yourself or 2, get someone else to fix it for you. Of course there is a third option - If you don't know how to fix it and don't want to get someone else to fix it for you, then you just toss it into the trash and move on. Guess which option they chose?

 

John

 

You forgot option 4. Stick it in the shed you can can pull it out and look at it every so often.

[+The_Incredibles_]

 

Anyhow... I already expressed my opinion previously in this thread and I will move on. Don't expect me to jump on board of the next brilliant idea of theres as I don't feel like I can trust them. The "experiment " was not one to me I was not doing them thinking it would just be dumped in the trash one day.

 

I think that this right here is a very important point.

 

By deleting the data, what incentive do people have to participate and invest their time in any new project that Groundspeak may roll out? There are those that will never except the fact that Groundspeak discounted the challenges, but I think that there would far more that would accept this if they were allowed to look back and see what their part in it was.

 

+1 There's another forum I used to frequent. Unfortunately every time a thread gets heated, they simply delete it. Needless to say, they don't get a whole lot of traffic. People don't like to see all their efforts erased.

[cezanne]

The bring-back-virtuals is fueled by the fact that you can still log virtuals. Locationless caches are locked (but in place) and there isn't any bring-them-back fury.

 

This might apply to some cachers who like virtuals, but not for me. There is no virtual near me that I could log (there are just two in the whole country and one of them is mine). I have many ideas for virtuals that can neither be implemented as challenges nor waymarks and which I do not want to implement by hiding a container. I have no interest at all in locationless caches or related activities on other sites as for me the attraction comes from sending someone or being sent myself to specific locations. Locationless caches somehow do not fit at all to my interests. Virtuals of the type I like fit much better to my idea about geocaching than locationless caches, webcams, CITOS and events. They result from a normal cache by leaving out the container at the end and leaving the rest unchanged. As I do not care about containers, there is no essential difference for me between virtuals I like and caches with a container that I like.

 

Cezanne

[AZcachemeister]

 

You forgot option 4. Stick it in the shed you can can pull it out and look at it every so often.

 

Yup. Who knows, someday you might get a brilliant inspiration on how to fix it.

 

So who knows, perhaps the data is still lurking on some hard-drive waiting for the brilliant inspiration to appear?

[+tozainamboku]

 

You forgot option 4. Stick it in the shed you can can pull it out and look at it every so often.

 

Yup. Who knows, someday you might get a brilliant inspiration on how to fix it.

Or you can have a yard sale and sell it to someone who fixes broken things as a hobby or who wants to put it in a museum of bad internet ideas.

[+cpine]

Challenges weren't removed because people complained that they didn't like them.

Actually, cpine may have been right on the mark.

With other ideas that Groundspeak didn't feel met their vision, they took other, less Draconian steps, such as when they locked down Locationless caches so no one could log any more, or when they removed the option to create more Virtual caches. In both those instances, Groundspeak left the data as a record of our caching history. With Virtuals, Groundspeak still spends some of its time fiddling with them, though I would guess that time is pretty brief. With Locationless caches, Groundspeak's continued energy expenditure is zero.

 

It would cost them nothing to let that data stay.

Yet they erased all traces of it.

Why do you suppose that is?

 

I don't know the mind of the Lily Pad, but it certainly seems possible that their reasoning was at least partially influenced by the huge outcry against them. The old adage of sweeping an unsavory mess under a carpet comes to mind.

P.S.: it's not "sudo", it's "pseudo". And it's not "per say", it's "per se" and it should be italicized since it's Latin.

It's been my experience that when you start critiquing speeling, you've lost whatever argument you wanted to make.

 

Thank you!

[+cpine]

Something was taken from the ones who liked and participated with the challenges... what was for goodness sake, taken away form the other complainers who said something like "I don't like them", "I think they are not about geocaching", etc... and then could have ignored them and moved on... now when someone rejoices I don't get it... compare it to "I didn't like twinkies anyway I am glad they are gone!" ???!!! The idea that Groundspeak got rid of the data because they did not want to have folks asking about them years from now? Man I hope not, because that is very short sighted and really amazingly disregarding of the customer... WOW! Yes I suppose you could say that the "resources were committed to challenges and thus did not get focused on geocaching per say. I sure did not see much evidence of challenges getting a lot of resources dedicated to them. Maybe that was the reasoning from the beginning and why they were set up the way they were. I have heard from others that when the old style virtuals were around that it was a lot of work to review and approve etc... s maybe they were hoping to put something in place that was sudo automated and would require less work or resources to approve or maintain etc... Perhaps they don't have enough folks resources etc to do anything else but geocaching.

Anyhow... I already expressed my opinion previously in this thread and I will move on. Don't expect me to jump on board of the next brilliant idea of theres as I don't feel like I can trust them. The "experiment " was not one to me I was not doing them thinking it would just be dumped in the trash one day.

 

There's so much wrong here it's not even funny. Not only is it a narrow and uninformed view, it's poorly articulated.

 

Challenges weren't removed because people complained that they didn't like them. Challenges were removed because the ratio of site users to challenge users was massively low on the challenges side. All of the work and effort put into designing the challenges, writing the content for each, programming the code and rearchitecting the databases to accept the new category, and everything else related to it was being done for a small subset of users that wasn't enough to justify the effort. (And yes, just because YOU didn't see evidence of resources dedicated to challenges doesn't mean it didn't happen. Adding something like that to a database architecture of this size and maintaining it is a massive undertaking.)

 

Again, if you don't agree with how this site is being run, nobody is stopping you from leaving. You're completely able to start a parallel challenges website of your own. After all, it's easy to do, right?

 

P.S.: it's not "sudo", it's "pseudo". And it's not "per say", it's "per se" and it should be italicized since it's Latin.

 

I never said Challenges were removed because people complained. I have no idea where you informed yourself of this being the message I posted? Seems extremely narrow and uninformed.

 

What I meant by not many resources being dedicated to challenges is there were many suggestions for improvements etc and there were no changes made. IE: Make the challenges more controlled by the "Challenge owner" like they are with geocaches. That is just one example, there were many others. In other areas of the geocaching website they have taken interest in improving things and have done so over the years. I never said that it was easy or that I would go and make my own website. I liked the challenges and I did not want them to throw the whole thing away. If that offends you , oh well!

The argument of "that if you don't like the way the site is run you can leave"... while it is true it is a horrible argument, especially to a customer. I don't want to leave. This is largely an argument of "shut-up or leave". Thanks for your input. I would guess using this approach in a customer service role would be discouraged.

As to the corrections you made to my post... thank you so much what in the world would I do without you? My lack of perfect "articulation" is like in a debate you saying to the other person "you are bald" . It is designed to put the opponent on defense. Nice try... I don't care.

Whatever you saw in the post that drove you to be so aggressive, I hope you have a better day.

Chris

 

I am not really concerned much about this thread as no doubt it will be completely deleted form the site in seven days.

Edited December 23, 2012 by cpine

[+Kiwi Nomad]

Challenges IMHO would have been much better over with Waymarking.

There were some very basic issues with them that may have contributed to there slow up take.

I "placed" two.

One was never done, I don't think anyone knew about it.

The other was accepted by a couple of people but as owner I was not notified by e-mail and only found that out be accident.

I completed one challenge. Yes only one there were hardly any placed here and it was the only one within 80km of home.

Not surprised they got rid of them, did get the e-mail and don't really care.

*I* know I completed one. It actually was a challenge for me to complete it and did get me to do something out side my comfort zone.

I have the photo taken by my husband on my G+ profile.

[+simpjkee]

You all should be happy that Groundspeak isn't owned by Facebook, who would not only have deleted your access to your data, but would have said they could sell it without your permission.

 

They don't have to be Fecebook to do that.

 

Terms Of Use section 6 -- License to Use Submissions contains this:

 

By submitting any Submission to Groundspeak, You grant Groundspeak a

worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, fully-paid royalty-free license and right to use, reproduce, distribute, import, broadcast, transmit, modify and create derivative works of, license, offer to sell, and sell, rent, lease or lend copies of, publicly display and publicly perform that Submission for any purpose and without restriction or obligation to You.

 

What do they mean by that? It sounds vague.

[+simpjkee]

I have so many questions in regards to the challenges... they all revolve around why! Why won't they give us an explanation as to what the real reason is they just trashed the whole thing.

Why the hell did they get rid of my stats in regards to the challenges. I did a lot of work to accomplish some of them as in props for the photos etc... The way this has come across is "Screw you your just the customer we do what we do for a reason and you don't need to know why we make decisions". I have emailed the Groundspeak office and just got replies like "Thanks for your input" another time "you know you can post on the forums as they are monitored." I would like a discourse on this freaking issue but I am not getting any response. "The Frog has spoken peasants premium members or not you have no say in any of this" I am especially pissed off about my data being deleted! WHY!???

 

Chris

 

They were up front about the real reasons. Challenges didn't catch on the way they had hoped and their resource were better allocated elsewhere. They should have asked me, I could have told them challenges would fail the moment they took the smiley away. Actually I think I did say that somewhere at the time.

 

As far as removing all traces of the from the site, I can't say for certain, but my guess is that they learned from vituals. I'm sure they wish in retrospect that they had removed all traces of virtuals when they were stopped so they didn't have to listen to the regular "bring back virtuals" demands. When virtuals were discontinued they weren't incredibly popular. Their demise was met with some complaining in the forum, but that died quickly. There was no extended firestorm precisely because they weren't super popular. But over the years virtuals have achieved an almost iconic stature. They probably didn't want that to happen with challenges and have to deal with a constant clamor to bring them back 6 or 7 years down the road.

 

If the reason for the mass deletion is that they didn't catch on like they hoped...How is Waymarking still 'in business'?

[+frinklabs]

You all should be happy that Groundspeak isn't owned by Facebook, who would not only have deleted your access to your data, but would have said they could sell it without your permission.

 

They don't have to be Fecebook to do that.

 

Terms Of Use section 6 -- License to Use Submissions contains this:

 

By submitting any Submission to Groundspeak, You grant Groundspeak a

worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, fully-paid royalty-free license and right to use, reproduce, distribute, import, broadcast, transmit, modify and create derivative works of, license, offer to sell, and sell, rent, lease or lend copies of, publicly display and publicly perform that Submission for any purpose and without restriction or obligation to You.

 

What do they mean by that? It sounds vague.

 

Yes it does, and probably intentionally. It lacks context without a definition of what they consider Submissions. Terms Of Use section 6 -- License to Use Submissions begins with this:

 

All comments, articles, tutorials, screenshots, pictures, graphics, tools, downloads, and all other materials submitted to Groundspeak in connection with the Site or available through the Site (collectively, "Submissions") remain the property and copyright of the original author.

 

I am not a lawyer (but I play one in traffic court for my friends) but I would interpret this to mean that anything you upload is still yours. Despite this, as stated in the previous guidelines quote, they can do whatever they want with the stuff as if you didn't own it, with no compensation to you because you are granting them a license to do so simply by uploading it.

 

This might be to what Instagram changed their privacy policy and why it is causing distress.

[+Tape worm]

My understanding is that a direct email was sent by Groundspeak to every account that had recorded Geocaching Challenge activity. Like the announcement in the forums, these emails were sent a week in advance of the change.

 

Got that but I personally didn't have enough time to grab uploaded pics. Don't understand why that "stat" was wiped off the site but location-less "stats" where allowed to stay when they moved off the site. Oh well... It's groundspeaks site and they can do as they wish.

[+CanadianRockies]

Don't understand why that [Challenge] "stat" was wiped off the site but location-less "stats" where allowed to stay when they moved off the site.

Since locationless finds were included in peoples' find counts, I think there would have been a huge protest if those stats were removed (especially from those who like milestones). Lots of people pay attention to their find counts. Challenge counts...not so much (especially now).

[+Tape worm]

Don't understand why that [Challenge] "stat" was wiped off the site but location-less "stats" where allowed to stay when they moved off the site.

Since locationless finds were included in peoples' find counts, I think there would have been a huge protest if those stats were removed (especially from those who like milestones). Lots of people pay attention to their find counts. Challenge counts...not so much (especially now).

So what if they are included? That doesn't matter. They where locked down, and removed from the site, but the data was allowed to stay. Ie...photos, logs.

 

If they are going to remove things that don't pan out the way they hoped, (Challenges, Location-less, virtuals), leave the data there so we can look it back up if we want to, or to be fair to every one remove all those stats that no longer apply or are achievable on the site.

 

You may not know Earth Caches for a while where not allowed to be made anymore, but when that got worked out to bring them back we had a good 3 months notice it was going to happen.

 

Please do not add words when you quote me, it's bad form even though it was done to clarify what was being talked about!!

[+CanadianRockies]

Don't understand why that [Challenge] "stat" was wiped off the site but location-less "stats" where allowed to stay when they moved off the site.

Since locationless finds were included in peoples' find counts, I think there would have been a huge protest if those stats were removed (especially from those who like milestones). Lots of people pay attention to their find counts. Challenge counts...not so much (especially now).

So what if they are included? That doesn't matter. They where locked down, and removed from the site, but the data was allowed to stay. Ie...photos, logs.

As I explained, it matters because lots of people care about their find counts and quite a few people care about find count milestones. If you removed locationless finds from the find count, then you would upset lots of geocachers and mess with their milestones. Removing geocaching challenge stats didn't upset large numbers of people because fewer geocachers cared about that count. I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm just saying what is.

 

Please do not add words when you quote me, it's bad form even though it was done to clarify what was being talked about!!

It has been my experience that adding word(s) to quotations (and making it obvious) is considered good form when those extra word(s) clarify what is being talked about. It's done regularly in the news media. It's bad form if it misleads rather than clarifies.

[Clan Riffster]

As I explained, it matters because lots of people care about their find counts and quite a few people care about find count milestones.

A lot of people cared about their Challenge find counts...

Unfortunately, Groundspeak doesn't care that we care...

[+Cryptosporidium-623]

As I explained, it matters because lots of people care about their find counts and quite a few people care about find count milestones.

A lot of people cared about their Challenge find counts...

Unfortunately, Groundspeak doesn't care that we care...

 

I don't care about find counts. I care about the time and energy some of us put into trying to create quality challenges just to have them to completely evaporate. They could easily have deprecated the feature, migrated the data off to a slower server and allowed the existing challenges to be played for some amount of time. Lame.

[+releasethedogs]

Rock -> Groundspeak <- Hard Place

 

They received grief when they announced them...

They received grief when they made them public...

They received grief when they made them "stats"...

They received grief when they made them "no stats"...

They received grief when they ...

.

.

.

Seems to me...we should have seen it coming...

 

Over and done with...time to move on.

 

The problem is they don't talk to their users and ask us what we want. Just one day they say ok, we are doing this, deal. Getting rid of challenges was one exception as they did give us lots of time.

[+CanadianRockies]

As I explained, it matters because lots of people care about their find counts and quite a few people care about find count milestones.

A lot of people cared about their Challenge find counts.

Relative to cache find counts, not so much. But I already explained that...twice.

[Clan Riffster]

As I explained, it matters because lots of people care about their find counts and quite a few people care about find count milestones.

A lot of people cared about their Challenge find counts.

Relative to cache find counts, not so much. But I already explained that...twice.

Relative to Challenges created/accepted/completed, very much.

But I already explained that...twice.