+HansHafen Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 Hi there, you can ignore single caches. Nowadays totally worthless feature. You have to load the page of the cache, click ignore and confirm the ignoring. Takes to much effort with these sucking powertrails everywhere. Why is there not a feature which will block out a specific user/owner totally. No new caches, no existing ones - just one click & confirm and this user is out of my view! Why? Well, more and more powertrails and other worthless-to-search caches are popping up. Fine for some statistic-freaks, but I do not want them in my pocketqueries. So what to do, if you got owners who throw these powertrails out, then delete them after 3 months just to throw out the next powertrail. You cannot ignore them as fast as they pop up. And what a sucking job it is to click 150 times the listing, then ignore it, then confirm it...? Just to see that notification mails still pick up ignored caches. Just to do that job again after 3 months for the next powertrail. If you don't.. alone in my homezone my pocketquery is messed up with more than 200 worthless geocaches. Just taking up space in my garmin... PLEASE! Do implement that option, to block out an owner from pocketquerys, mapview and notifications! Greetings HansHafen Link to comment
+taybee Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 Hi there, you can ignore single caches. Nowadays totally worthless feature. You have to load the page of the cache, click ignore and confirm the ignoring. Takes to much effort with these sucking powertrails everywhere. Why is there not a feature which will block out a specific user/owner totally. No new caches, no existing ones - just one click & confirm and this user is out of my view! Why? Well, more and more powertrails and other worthless-to-search caches are popping up. Fine for some statistic-freaks, but I do not want them in my pocketqueries. So what to do, if you got owners who throw these powertrails out, then delete them after 3 months just to throw out the next powertrail. You cannot ignore them as fast as they pop up. And what a sucking job it is to click 150 times the listing, then ignore it, then confirm it...? Just to see that notification mails still pick up ignored caches. Just to do that job again after 3 months for the next powertrail. If you don't.. alone in my homezone my pocketquery is messed up with more than 200 worthless geocaches. Just taking up space in my garmin... PLEASE! Do implement that option, to block out an owner from pocketquerys, mapview and notifications! Greetings HansHafen How i get round this one is I load the pocketquery into GSAK and filter out what i Don't want Then up load to the GSP's Keep on caching Link to comment
+The_Incredibles_ Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 Maybe one day pocket queries will allow you to do this, but for the meantime, get GSAK. Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 Hi there, you can ignore single caches. Nowadays totally worthless feature. You have to load the page of the cache, click ignore and confirm the ignoring. Takes to much effort with these sucking powertrails everywhere. Why is there not a feature which will block out a specific user/owner totally. No new caches, no existing ones - just one click & confirm and this user is out of my view! Why? Well, more and more powertrails and other worthless-to-search caches are popping up. Fine for some statistic-freaks, but I do not want them in my pocketqueries. So what to do, if you got owners who throw these powertrails out, then delete them after 3 months just to throw out the next powertrail. You cannot ignore them as fast as they pop up. And what a sucking job it is to click 150 times the listing, then ignore it, then confirm it...? Just to see that notification mails still pick up ignored caches. Just to do that job again after 3 months for the next powertrail. If you don't.. alone in my homezone my pocketquery is messed up with more than 200 worthless geocaches. Just taking up space in my garmin... PLEASE! Do implement that option, to block out an owner from pocketquerys, mapview and notifications! Greetings HansHafen How i get round this one is I load the pocketquery into GSAK and filter out what i Don't want Then up load to the GSP's Keep on caching That only keeps caches you don't want to find from getting to your GPS. It doesn't solve the problem that those caches take up room in your pocket queries *or* that they generate hundreds of email notifications when the PT is published. Link to comment
+stijnhommes Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 I rarely use pocket queries anymore, I load caches straight from GSAK. If you go to geocaching.com access in the GSAK menu and click "get geocaches", then use the advanced tab, you have the option to exclude certain owners. Link to comment
+cerberus1 Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 This has been requested often enough that it seems it'd be a popular feature. It's possible that Groundspeak hasn't adopted it yet due to the negative aspect of in effect, blocking a user (possibly a paid, premium member), but the ignore function on individual caches (an inanimate object) has been around since we started. - But negativity shouldn't be an issue, as just like the Watchlist, unless you told them, they'd never know they were on it. There's a function that allows you to ignore a user in the forums, yet you can't ignore him when caching? GSAK isn't really a fix and I don't believe the majority of members use it. I no longer do PMOs due to the audit and if I had to click on each PMO hide to ignore it, some hides in the hundreds by one owner, I'd show on hundreds of audits, defeating the idea of why I don't do them in the first place. I'd like to see an "Ignore caches by Owner" feature also. Link to comment
AZcachemeister Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 Yep, this has been brought up before... The answer IS GSAK, but not by putting the caches on the GSAK ignore list. As pointed out, the waypoints will still be taking up valuable space in your PQ that could be a cache you actually DO want to look for. There are actually a few COs in my area whose caches I don't want to hunt, so I created a GSAK filter to show me caches they have hidden. You can have several usernames in there, just separate the names with a semicolon. After loading some PQs into GSAK, I run the filter...now I only see the caches placed by those people on my 'SHORT' list . Then, using the API access, I add those caches to my Ignore List on the website, and then delete them from my GSAK database. Now I can upload caches to my GPS from GSAK without including those caches I don't want to see. Just remember to repeat occasionally and your database will remain clean. Link to comment
+Semper Questio Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 It is terribly sad that we have to jump through hoops to do this using third party products when Groundspeak could add power trails as a cache type or an attribute and give the ability to ignore by user. Both features that have been asked for for years (along with MANY others) and would solve a boatload of issues and reduce a LOT of repetitive PQ runs and API use. But instead they expend development efforts on changing icons; changing, re-changing, and re-re-changing the newsletter; and other largely cosmetic things that have little or no real benefit for the geocaching community. </rant> Link to comment
team tisri Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 It is terribly sad that we have to jump through hoops to do this using third party products when Groundspeak could add power trails as a cache type or an attribute and give the ability to ignore by user. Both features that have been asked for for years (along with MANY others) and would solve a boatload of issues and reduce a LOT of repetitive PQ runs and API use. But instead they expend development efforts on changing icons; changing, re-changing, and re-re-changing the newsletter; and other largely cosmetic things that have little or no real benefit for the geocaching community. </rant> It's a depressingly recurring theme that Groundspeak can find the time to implement the latest twitface integration and mobile platforms so people can log a cache the very nanosecond they find it and like it on all sorts of social media platforms within the next few nanoseconds, but can't find the time to make changes that could benefit so many people. It's a shame that so much functionality has to be done off-site with third party applications. How does it help anyone to have pocket queries choked with power trails of no interest and then have to use third party software to filter them out again - it seems to do nothing other than waste processing power, waste bandwidth and waste disk space. Those who are interested in power trails don't have to use the facilities to switch them off, just like people who like caches at the tops of tall trees don't have to use the attribute filters to remove them. It seems to me every discussion of such filters turns into a discussion over what defines "quality" and what defines "power trail" and the like when it's really a very simple request to say "ignore all caches placed by user X". Whether user X places power trails I dislike, or has a habit for setting caches and not maintaining them, or setting caches that represent physical challenges beyond what I care to attempt is irrelevant, it means I don't need to see them and Groundspeak doesn't need to send them to me along with everything else. Changes that mean I can run one pocket query instead of two or three also save GS processing time and bandwidth sending things out. Link to comment
cezanne Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 But instead they expend development efforts on changing icons; changing, re-changing, and re-re-changing the newsletter; and other largely cosmetic things that have little or no real benefit for the geocaching community. Giving the fact that most lackeys and developpers (and also the owners of Groundspeak) are no cachers at all or go caching rather infrequently, this is not too surprising. Almost all of the nice geocaching tools I'm aware of are written by avid geocachers. Without the existence of products like GSAK Groundspeak would have much less customers. However, GSAK is not helpful for everyone - some are excluded as GSAK is too complex for them, others are excluded to their operating system etc Cezanne Link to comment
cezanne Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 The answer IS GSAK, [stuff deleted] Then, using the API access, ............... GSAK, API Access and Linux do not fit together well. Link to comment
+Semper Questio Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 But instead they expend development efforts on changing icons; changing, re-changing, and re-re-changing the newsletter; and other largely cosmetic things that have little or no real benefit for the geocaching community. Giving the fact that most lackeys and developpers (and also the owners of Groundspeak) are no cachers at all or go caching rather infrequently, this is not too surprising. Almost all of the nice geocaching tools I'm aware of are written by avid geocachers. Without the existence of products like GSAK Groundspeak would have much less customers. However, GSAK is not helpful for everyone - some are excluded as GSAK is too complex for them, others are excluded to their operating system etc Cezanne I'm sure this is true...to a point. But one of the owners/founders and many of the lackeys, especially oldtimers, have been cachers at one degree or another for years. It seems that at some point they could and would speak up on behalf of their customers' needs and desires. I know. wish in one hand..... Link to comment
jholly Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 But instead they expend development efforts on changing icons; changing, re-changing, and re-re-changing the newsletter; and other largely cosmetic things that have little or no real benefit for the geocaching community. Giving the fact that most lackeys and developpers (and also the owners of Groundspeak) are no cachers at all or go caching rather infrequently, this is not too surprising. Almost all of the nice geocaching tools I'm aware of are written by avid geocachers. Without the existence of products like GSAK Groundspeak would have much less customers. However, GSAK is not helpful for everyone - some are excluded as GSAK is too complex for them, others are excluded to their operating system etc Cezanne I'm sure this is true...to a point. But one of the owners/founders and many of the lackeys, especially oldtimers, have been cachers at one degree or another for years. It seems that at some point they could and would speak up on behalf of their customers' needs and desires. I know. wish in one hand..... This also surprises me. Given the ongoing performance problems with the site and API server, the on going problems with the maps and the on going problems with the mailer I am really starting to wonder what they are doing with the development resource. Link to comment
+niraD Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 It is terribly sad that we have to jump through hoops to do this using third party products when Groundspeak could add power trails as a cache type or an attribute and give the ability to ignore by user. Both features that have been asked for for years (along with MANY others) and would solve a boatload of issues and reduce a LOT of repetitive PQ runs and API use.Amen. Link to comment
AZcachemeister Posted May 28, 2013 Share Posted May 28, 2013 The answer IS GSAK, [stuff deleted] Then, using the API access, ............... GSAK, API Access and Linux do not fit together well. Well, I did mean that the current available option to solve the issue is limited to the use of GSAK. Although you could keep a link to the awful cache placer's public page and add the new caches to your ignore list from there. I do suspect the availability of such third-party tools such as GSAK has led the Groundspeak development team to believe they don't need to provide such improvements to the site itself... BECAUSE THERE IS A WORKAROUND Evey where you turn...you need a Greasemonkey script for this, you need to use GSAK for that. I ain't happy about it either, but all we can do is try to help each other...and hope Groundspeak will one day wake up and smell the coffee. Link to comment
+The A-Team Posted May 28, 2013 Share Posted May 28, 2013 ...and hope Groundspeak will one day wake up and smell the coffee. I think that coffee's going to be brewing for a long time... Looking back through the release notes, the last "useful" feature to be implemented was Unicode back in early March. How many years did it take them to finally get around to that one? Link to comment
+Semper Questio Posted May 28, 2013 Share Posted May 28, 2013 ...and hope Groundspeak will one day wake up and smell the coffee. I think that coffee's going to be brewing for a long time... Looking back through the release notes, the last "useful" feature to be implemented was Unicode back in early March. How many years did it take them to finally get around to that one? I think they already missed smelling the coffe burn away and hearing both the carafe shatter and smoke alarm go off. Link to comment
team tisri Posted May 28, 2013 Share Posted May 28, 2013 ...and hope Groundspeak will one day wake up and smell the coffee. I think that coffee's going to be brewing for a long time... Looking back through the release notes, the last "useful" feature to be implemented was Unicode back in early March. How many years did it take them to finally get around to that one? I think they already missed smelling the coffe burn away and hearing both the carafe shatter and smoke alarm go off. I was going to say much the same thing. Perish the thought useful features might be implemented when there's another twitface interface that lets people like the latest wet film pot behind a sign a few nanoseconds faster. Link to comment
+cowcrzy06 Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 I am new to Geocaching. So forgive me for my ignorance but what is GASK? Link to comment
AZcachemeister Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 I am new to Geocaching. So forgive me for my ignorance but what is GASK? GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) is a third-party waypoint management program specifically designed for Geocaching. Link to comment
+L0ne.R Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 It is terribly sad that we have to jump through hoops to do this using third party products when Groundspeak could add power trails as a cache type or an attribute and give the ability to ignore by user. Both features that have been asked for for years (along with MANY others) and would solve a boatload of issues and reduce a LOT of repetitive PQ runs and API use. But instead they expend development efforts on changing icons; changing, re-changing, and re-re-changing the newsletter; and other largely cosmetic things that have little or no real benefit for the geocaching community. </rant> It's a depressingly recurring theme that Groundspeak can find the time to implement the latest twitface integration and mobile platforms so people can log a cache the very nanosecond they find it and like it on all sorts of social media platforms within the next few nanoseconds, but can't find the time to make changes that could benefit so many people. It's a shame that so much functionality has to be done off-site with third party applications. How does it help anyone to have pocket queries choked with power trails of no interest and then have to use third party software to filter them out again - it seems to do nothing other than waste processing power, waste bandwidth and waste disk space. Those who are interested in power trails don't have to use the facilities to switch them off, just like people who like caches at the tops of tall trees don't have to use the attribute filters to remove them. It seems to me every discussion of such filters turns into a discussion over what defines "quality" and what defines "power trail" and the like when it's really a very simple request to say "ignore all caches placed by user X". Whether user X places power trails I dislike, or has a habit for setting caches and not maintaining them, or setting caches that represent physical challenges beyond what I care to attempt is irrelevant, it means I don't need to see them and Groundspeak doesn't need to send them to me along with everything else. Changes that mean I can run one pocket query instead of two or three also save GS processing time and bandwidth sending things out. +1. How hard is it to produce a PT attribute? At least start there. Peer pressure will make sure that people who put out power trails use the attribute. Link to comment
+L0ne.R Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 I am new to Geocaching. So forgive me for my ignorance but what is GASK? GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) is a third-party waypoint management program specifically designed for Geocaching. I tried it a couple of times and gave up pretty quickly. It's not intuitive enough for me, and I'm not tech savvy enough. Link to comment
+L0ne.R Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 (edited) Well, I did mean that the current available option to solve the issue is limited to the use of GSAK. It's possible to use EasyGPS (free) to filter out specific owners. Open up the gpx file in EasyGPS then click the 'Placed By' header to sort alphabetically. Then select and delete the block of caches by a certain CO before downloading the rest of the caches to your GPS. Edited June 5, 2013 by L0ne R Link to comment
team tisri Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 It is terribly sad that we have to jump through hoops to do this using third party products when Groundspeak could add power trails as a cache type or an attribute and give the ability to ignore by user. Both features that have been asked for for years (along with MANY others) and would solve a boatload of issues and reduce a LOT of repetitive PQ runs and API use. But instead they expend development efforts on changing icons; changing, re-changing, and re-re-changing the newsletter; and other largely cosmetic things that have little or no real benefit for the geocaching community. </rant> It's a depressingly recurring theme that Groundspeak can find the time to implement the latest twitface integration and mobile platforms so people can log a cache the very nanosecond they find it and like it on all sorts of social media platforms within the next few nanoseconds, but can't find the time to make changes that could benefit so many people. It's a shame that so much functionality has to be done off-site with third party applications. How does it help anyone to have pocket queries choked with power trails of no interest and then have to use third party software to filter them out again - it seems to do nothing other than waste processing power, waste bandwidth and waste disk space. Those who are interested in power trails don't have to use the facilities to switch them off, just like people who like caches at the tops of tall trees don't have to use the attribute filters to remove them. It seems to me every discussion of such filters turns into a discussion over what defines "quality" and what defines "power trail" and the like when it's really a very simple request to say "ignore all caches placed by user X". Whether user X places power trails I dislike, or has a habit for setting caches and not maintaining them, or setting caches that represent physical challenges beyond what I care to attempt is irrelevant, it means I don't need to see them and Groundspeak doesn't need to send them to me along with everything else. Changes that mean I can run one pocket query instead of two or three also save GS processing time and bandwidth sending things out. +1. How hard is it to produce a PT attribute? At least start there. Peer pressure will make sure that people who put out power trails use the attribute. I wouldn't even worry so much about a PT attribute. There are enough out there that are unlikely to get retro-fitted with a new attribute that it's only going to help going forward and even then there are going to be arguments over whether a particular circuit is a power trail or not. Just let people ignore all the caches set by a particular hider. If someone sets power trails and you don't like power trails you can ignore them all in one stroke. If someone sets dozens of caches and doesn't maintain them you can ignore them all in one stroke. If someone sets the kind of cache you don't happen to like (for me that might mean caches at the tops of tall trees) you can ignore them all in one stroke. Or you can carry on wasting Groundspeak's bandwidth and processing time (which they don't seem to care about after all), download them all anyway, and then filter them out using the third party software we wouldn't need if only Groundspeak could be bothered to implement useful new features. Link to comment
+Don_J Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 It is terribly sad that we have to jump through hoops to do this using third party products when Groundspeak could add power trails as a cache type or an attribute and give the ability to ignore by user. Both features that have been asked for for years (along with MANY others) and would solve a boatload of issues and reduce a LOT of repetitive PQ runs and API use. But instead they expend development efforts on changing icons; changing, re-changing, and re-re-changing the newsletter; and other largely cosmetic things that have little or no real benefit for the geocaching community. </rant> It's a depressingly recurring theme that Groundspeak can find the time to implement the latest twitface integration and mobile platforms so people can log a cache the very nanosecond they find it and like it on all sorts of social media platforms within the next few nanoseconds, but can't find the time to make changes that could benefit so many people. It's a shame that so much functionality has to be done off-site with third party applications. How does it help anyone to have pocket queries choked with power trails of no interest and then have to use third party software to filter them out again - it seems to do nothing other than waste processing power, waste bandwidth and waste disk space. Those who are interested in power trails don't have to use the facilities to switch them off, just like people who like caches at the tops of tall trees don't have to use the attribute filters to remove them. It seems to me every discussion of such filters turns into a discussion over what defines "quality" and what defines "power trail" and the like when it's really a very simple request to say "ignore all caches placed by user X". Whether user X places power trails I dislike, or has a habit for setting caches and not maintaining them, or setting caches that represent physical challenges beyond what I care to attempt is irrelevant, it means I don't need to see them and Groundspeak doesn't need to send them to me along with everything else. Changes that mean I can run one pocket query instead of two or three also save GS processing time and bandwidth sending things out. +1. How hard is it to produce a PT attribute? At least start there. Peer pressure will make sure that people who put out power trails use the attribute. I wouldn't even worry so much about a PT attribute. There are enough out there that are unlikely to get retro-fitted with a new attribute that it's only going to help going forward and even then there are going to be arguments over whether a particular circuit is a power trail or not. This only seems to be an issue on the forum. Everyone else that I talk to seems to know exactly what a power trail is. Link to comment
team tisri Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 This only seems to be an issue on the forum. Everyone else that I talk to seems to know exactly what a power trail is. It does seem like the kind of thing that everybody says they'll know when they see. The issue I'm thinking of is if someone sets a circuit that they don't think of as a power trail but someone else sees 50 caches in a 5.6 mile circle and wants it filtered out because they don't like that kind of loop, while the owner argues it isn't a power trail because it's a really nice walk rather than a film pot every 528.001 feet along a guard rail or some such. Either way I prefer the idea of ignoring caches by owner because it lets you ignore larger numbers of caches for any reason, whether it's because all the owner sets are power trails (however you personally define the term), or because the owner never maintains their caches, or because all they ever place are lame urban micros (however you personally define "lame urban") and so on. If we can exclude power trails it doesn't give us any way of ignoring the caches hidden by someone who never maintains, or who only ever seems to leave magnetic nanos on metal fences 100 yards log with prickly plants growing through them, or whatever else we might want to knock out en masse. Link to comment
AZcachemeister Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 I am new to Geocaching. So forgive me for my ignorance but what is GASK? GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) is a third-party waypoint management program specifically designed for Geocaching. I tried it a couple of times and gave up pretty quickly. It's not intuitive enough for me, and I'm not tech savvy enough. It does have a fairly steep learning curve at the beginning. When it first came out I was using EasyGPS and swore I didn't need anything better. Eventually I did give it a try, and as I explored the functionality, I was quickly drawn in. Now, I suppose I could go geocaching without GSAK, but it would be a hard row to hoe. Well, I did mean that the current available option to solve the issue is limited to the use of GSAK. It's possible to use EasyGPS (free) to filter out specific owners. Open up the gpx file in EasyGPS then click the 'Placed By' header to sort alphabetically. Then select and delete the block of caches by a certain CO before downloading the rest of the caches to your GPS. I'm sure you could chop out a block of caches from a PQ using EasyGPS, but they would be back again the next time you ran the PQ unless you could somehow ignore them, and GSAK provides two ways to do that. Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 As was mentioned earlier in this thread GSAK has a simple way to put all of a particular owners caches on your ignore list. Shoukd take about ten minutes tops to do all for a large radius around you. Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Yeah there is no doubt that the increase in members has lowered the cache quality level but it is still fun and with a little filtering you can spend some time on quality. Link to comment
+niraD Posted April 5, 2015 Share Posted April 5, 2015 Here's another thread reflecting the need for a feature like this: Power Trail Link to comment
Keystone Posted April 6, 2015 Share Posted April 6, 2015 Closing bumped thread. New discussion can be added to the thread linked by niraD. Link to comment
Recommended Posts