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Geocaching's Class Warfare


WMIM

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Pay your $29.99 a year and get all these wonderful benefits, geocaching.com tells the world.

And if you do not, well, you will not be permitted to:

A. See where the Premier Class has hidden their specially selected caches,

B. Get any notifications from www.geocaching.com,

C. Access our many, many other *Premium* Functions, which are available only to those who

pay tribute to the owners of www.geocaching.com

 

I protest. Something like 5,000,000 geocachers pay $30 every year, for a total of around $200,000,000

and Big Brother doesn't even pay a shekel to the Reviewers...?

 

For about twenty years, I have enjoyed myriad benefits of the internet. This is the most offensive class

warfare I have ever seen at any website.

 

Be one of us *Premium Members* or else... You're out in the cold.

 

Hey, look at my find count now, and all of my cyber medals to boot. Woo woo.

Edited by WMIM
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What?? You 5 years old? You know da** well you're not correct in half the stuff you have said. It was explained by others in your locked thread. I have two ideas for what you can do. One-stop being a little baby about it, and go find some caches, or TWO stop being a baby about it and don't find some caches. Either way is fine as long as you just go away from here, and quit trying to cause trouble.

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What?? You 5 years old? .. I have two ideas for what you can do. One-stop being a little baby about it, and go find some caches, or TWO stop being a baby about it and don't find some caches. Either way is fine as long as you just go away from here, and quit trying to cause trouble.

 

Said the *Premium Member*.

 

I'm elated to see you are so *tolerant* and *open-minded* to opinions different from your own, TDM.

How brilliant of you to instantly assess my age. Yes, I am five, and don't I write well for a five-year-old.

 

As to "finding some caches," what seems quite remarkable to me is the generally poor class of these caches. As one fellow told me, "An Altoids box under a booger." Talk about creative, and fun!

 

Click on a cache in your neighborhood, at random. Average number of members who have tagged it as a favorite: zero. Zero is the average value in my county. Hundreds of them. You may as well go find a rock somewhere.

 

I did some very elementary statistics. Big word for a five-year-old, right TDM? The nearest ten caches (that I could see on the map, which excludes *Premium Member Only* caches bien sur) took an average of fifteen years to get one favorite rating. Fifteen years.

 

If your cache has been found over a hundred times, it should have around ten favorite ratings. I saw some with 300 to 500 and none at all.

 

I have no intention of ever going to another cache with zero favorites. In fact, I'm not interested in ever logging another find again. It's a petty game for many of you. One called it "Numbers Whoring."

 

P.S. Your carbon footprint is getting bigger. Much bigger.

Edited by WMIM
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Many times when I observe a tempting bit of post, slowly trolling by, and notice the line attached to it leading to the boat, I can't resist taking a bite at the hook.

 

This time I am going to offer the OP a bit of advice.... see that little red "X" up in the corner??? Good!!! Click that, and your troubles will go away!!

 

You're welcome!!:lol:

 

 

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As much as that sort of attitude is around at times it probably isn't worth paying too much attention to.

 

The truth is that there just ISN'T 5 million premium members, they'd be very lucky to have half a million. As for anything else, I don't believe that a premium cache could possibly be any better than a standard one so your not really missing out there, notifications are probably great if you're into the ftf game but otherwise you're not missing much and same with anything else, if you use it then it's probably worth paying for. Personally there isn't anything I can need from a PQ that I can't get from the map.

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This is the most offensive class

warfare I have ever seen at any website.

Really? I thought the freemium model is pretty common now. Sounds like you are simply not satisfied with the free tier.

 

Prior to the mobile apps, the free membership gave you pretty much the ability to find any cache. Sure the PMO caches were hidden, but the well know back door allowed people to log these if they went caching with a Premium member friend. For most basic members, there was no need for PQs, bookmarks, or even giving favorite points. They just wanted to find caches and were able to do so.

 

I think the frustration is with the mobile apps. Both the free intro app and the paid app are essentially crippled because of API restriction on non-premium members. I think you can download information for only three caches. Well most people, even basic members, are going to want to look for more than three caches when the go out. (When I started, a 3 cache day was a power day). The API limit forces even casual users to pay to play. (Jeremy should remember his promise).

 

I suspect that either the API limits needs to be changed, though I am not sure how many caches per day are reasonable, or that there is a way to pay per cache beyond the first 3, that doesn't amount to forcing someone to subscribe for a year at $30.

Edited by tozainamboku
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Many times when I observe a tempting bit of post, slowly trolling by, and notice the line attached to it leading to the boat, I can't resist taking a bite at the hook.

 

This time I am going to offer the OP a bit of advice.... see that little red "X" up in the corner??? Good!!! Click that, and your troubles will go away!!

 

You're welcome!!:lol:

 

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." - Winston Churchill

 

You quoted Winston Churchill who was famous for being counterculture. He spoke his mind no matter how the majority felt.

Obviously you can neither tolerate my opinions, nor listening to them. Tsk, tsk.

 

Show some courage and sit down and listen.. IF you can...

 

The first cache I hid was instantly lauded by people who had thousands of finds. They gave it rave reviews.

Now the dark side, all from your vaunted *Premium Members*.

 

1. Some of the lied in claiming that they found it and logged the book.

I thought this was an honorable activity. It is not.

 

2. When I called them on their lies, one cursed me, reviled me, called me every imaginable name, and said he never wanted to hear from me or my caches again. I forwarded his foul missive to Big Brother who... did NOTHING.

 

Pretty good start to this wonderful, *friendly* activity.

 

3. There are scads of rules, and the rules have rules. One *Premium Member* chastened me with my second cache, claiming "You can't tell us what to do. You can only give us the location, blah blah blah."

 

Oh really? How about: Bring a pencil. Bring a flashlight. Climb this tree. Use this TOTT. Bring scuba gear, climbing gear, a mirror, etc.

 

4. Oh look, I have XX,000 finds.

 

Isn't that special. I just finished a vacation on the Big Island, then hopped to Honolulu to climb Koko Head. From there I hunted feral hogs in Texas before leaving on a driving tour of the United States. We shipped our car home from Fort Lauderdale and went through the Panama Canal to Los Angeles for fifteen days, stopping in Aruba, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico. That was in the space of about four months. We went to Alaska last year. How many of those cyber medallions do you have on your little geocaching page again?

 

So call me Winston. He was quite able to stand alone, and so am I. Your cliquiness is so high school.

 

"If I were married to you, Nancy, I would drink it." - Winston Churchill, who also said, "My friends are few in number but entirely sufficient."

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Many times when I observe a tempting bit of post, slowly trolling by, and notice the line attached to it leading to the boat, I can't resist taking a bite at the hook.

 

This time I am going to offer the OP a bit of advice.... see that little red "X" up in the corner??? Good!!! Click that, and your troubles will go away!!

 

You're welcome!!:lol:

 

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." - Winston Churchill

 

You quoted Winston Churchill who was famous for being counterculture. He spoke his mind no matter how the majority felt.

Obviously you can neither tolerate my opinions, nor listening to them. Tsk, tsk.

 

Show some courage and sit down and listen.. IF you can...

 

The first cache I hid was instantly lauded by people who had thousands of finds. They gave it rave reviews.

Now the dark side, all from your vaunted *Premium Members*.

 

1. Some of the lied in claiming that they found it and logged the book.

I thought this was an honorable activity. It is not.

 

2. When I called them on their lies, one cursed me, reviled me, called me every imaginable name, and said he never wanted to hear from me or my caches again. I forwarded his foul missive to Big Brother who... did NOTHING.

 

Pretty good start to this wonderful, *friendly* activity.

 

3. There are scads of rules, and the rules have rules. One *Premium Member* chastened me with my second cache, claiming "You can't tell us what to do. You can only give us the location, blah blah blah."

 

Oh really? How about: Bring a pencil. Bring a flashlight. Climb this tree. Use this TOTT. Bring scuba gear, climbing gear, a mirror, etc.

 

4. Oh look, I have XX,000 finds.

 

Isn't that special. I just finished a vacation on the Big Island, then hopped to Honolulu to climb Koko Head. From there I hunted feral hogs in Texas before leaving on a driving tour of the United States. We shipped our car home from Fort Lauderdale and went through the Panama Canal to Los Angeles for fifteen days, stopping in Aruba, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico. That was in the space of about four months. We went to Alaska last year. How many of those cyber medallions do you have on your little geocaching page again?

 

So call me Winston. He was quite able to stand alone, and so am I. Your cliquiness is so high school.

 

"If I were married to you, Nancy, I would drink it." - Winston Churchill, who also said, "My friends are few in number but entirely sufficient."

 

I am showing some courage... you obviously don't recognize it when you see it.

 

I spoke. You seem to have no other purpose here than to complain about some "perceived" injustice you feel has been perpetrated against you. Let me reiterate... if you are so unhappy with this site, this game, this corporation running it.... walk away.

 

Unable to tolerate your opinion??? No.

 

Unwilling to tolerate your opinion?? Absolutely.

 

This is not Dr. Phil, nor Dear Abby. Take your little self absorbed pity party somewhere else and champion a nobler cause. Like....saving the whales, or toppling some dictatorship somewhere. Bitchin about how an online game is played??? Judging from your response, that seems a little beneath you don't you think???

 

Failing all else.... you could always just pony up the 30 bucks.

 

 

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Here is a suggestion to the OP. Vote with your presence. There are several other geocaching listing services on the web. Some are completely free to use. I suggest you take your caching needs there. A simple Google search will find you what you need. Otherwise some simple math will put your complaint into perspective. $39/365 days a year is about $.10 a day. Can't get a phone call for that much these days. Now consider this, for a personal website it costs about $10-$20 a month, about $10-$30 dollars a year for domain registration/renewal multiply that by 10-20 for a business site. Add the cost of licensing a database for online use, coding (or programmers) and system designers to build a back end, web developers and designers to build a usable website..... Oh then there are the lawyers and insurance to keep you from being sued, customer service reps to handle issue/complaintts, accountants to keep track your income and expenses, the list can go on..... I'd say you're getting a steal a $39 a month...

 

 

Just food for thought.

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///

 

This time I am going to offer the OP a bit of advice.... see that little red "X" up in the corner??? Good!!! Click that, and your troubles will go away!!

 

You're welcome!!:lol:

 

///

 

I am showing some courage... you obviously don't recognize it when you see it.

 

I spoke. You seem to have no other purpose here than to complain about some "perceived" injustice you feel has been perpetrated against you. Let me reiterate... if you are so unhappy with this site, this game, this corporation running it.... walk away.]

 

As if that were the only option, walking away? How utterly foolish.

 

Unable to tolerate your opinion??? No.

 

Yes. You and your clique of friends. "Ignore the troll."

Not one with the courage to say, "You know, he has a point. There ARE some things we might all do better."

 

My favorite of all is the rampant cheating. Claiming a find just to bolster the Magic Numbers. Fetid that is.

 

 

This is not Dr. Phil, nor Dear Abby. Take your little self absorbed pity party somewhere else and champion a nobler cause. Like....saving the whales, or toppling some dictatorship somewhere. Bitchin about how an online game is played??? Judging from your response, that seems a little beneath you don't you think???

 

 

First, I'm a five year old. Now it's all so beneath me.

You folks are all over the place, aren't you.

 

Who's next? Come on, step right up.

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///

 

This time I am going to offer the OP a bit of advice.... see that little red "X" up in the corner??? Good!!! Click that, and your troubles will go away!!

 

You're welcome!!:lol:

 

///

 

I am showing some courage... you obviously don't recognize it when you see it.

 

I spoke. You seem to have no other purpose here than to complain about some "perceived" injustice you feel has been perpetrated against you. Let me reiterate... if you are so unhappy with this site, this game, this corporation running it.... walk away.]

 

As if that were the only option, walking away? How utterly foolish.

 

Unable to tolerate your opinion??? No.

 

Yes. You and your clique of friends. "Ignore the troll."

Not one with the courage to say, "You know, he has a point. There ARE some things we might all do better."

 

My favorite of all is the rampant cheating. Claiming a find just to bolster the Magic Numbers. Fetid that is.

 

 

This is not Dr. Phil, nor Dear Abby. Take your little self absorbed pity party somewhere else and champion a nobler cause. Like....saving the whales, or toppling some dictatorship somewhere. Bitchin about how an online game is played??? Judging from your response, that seems a little beneath you don't you think???

 

 

First, I'm a five year old. Now it's all so beneath me.

You folks are all over the place, aren't you.

 

Who's next? Come on, step right up.

Are you really 5 years old? Under the TOU, you can't post here without a parents supervision. Sorry for my comments, I don't want to hurt some childs feelings, but I can't tell how old you are from your posts.

BTW: All of my 100+ geocaches are PMO and I own way too many geocoins that are worth a small fortune. <_<

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What's with the *asterisks*? Just *wondering*...

 

Anyways:

Geocaching.com is a site that doesn't charge money to allow you to cache. However they have to make money somehow , do they not? That's why they have premium memberships. To make money. I, for one, would NOT have bought my PM if it came with no benefits. If normal members would be allowed to create PQ's, and add favorites, and bookmark lists, what would be the appeal to having a PM? There wouldn't be any. So no one would buy one, and the site would slowly go downhill because they can't afford to keep up and running.

 

It's like this. You set up a lemonade stand. You have the best lemonade in town, and everyone wants to have some. So, you get many, many customers and you have to keep buying lemons. A bag of five lemons makes you ten cups of lemonade, and costs $10 Here's the thing though: You've been giving the lemonade away for free. So have you made money? No. If you spend $10 per ten cups, and you get say, twenty customers, you've LOST twenty dollars, instead of making any money. Then you have to close down and everyone's upset.

 

It's like this with Groundspeak. They can't give out PM's for free, or make the PM features available for the basic members. Then how would they make money? (They wouldn't).

 

There's no sense in whining about it here. What can we do. All that will happen is that people will start talking trash about you, and so on. I suggest you leave it be, and complain to other friends who have similar opinions. It doesn't seem like many people are going to listen to you here.

 

Or if you really feel compelled to you can complain to Groundspeak. I don't think it will change much though.

 

Just leave him be guys. The more you aggravate him the happier he'll be. He probably just came here looking to cause a stir.

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At the risk of sounding like a stalker (as I looked up your profile) I would like to say congratulations on hosting an Event. That took time and effort. Well done. It certainly shows that you are (were) interested in making a positive contribution to the hobby.

 

May I respectfully suggest that you could try the 3 month Premium Membership for $9.99. You could then see if the benefits of PM are worth while for you. Personally I like the convenience of Pocket Queries and Caching Along a Route, but understand if others don't think that they would use those features (and the other PM benefits) to pay the yearly fee.

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I can't afford a new car. Why is the car company waging class warefare against me?

 

If Groundspeak wants to charge 100 or 1000 dollars per year, they have that right. It's not a war against you.

 

Finally, supporting this hobby alone is worth the money. What you get for 30 bucks a year is huge.

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I don't know what to make of this anymore. I assumed the OP had a legitimate gripe about the services that basic members get a compared to premium members.

 

It appears instead that the OP has a dispute with some other geocachers who happen to be premium members. He wants to blame premium membership for creating an us-versus-them split among geocachers. Perhaps he feels that premium members (and perhaps Groundspeak, if they have gotten involved in the dispute) are taking sides unfairly.

 

While the other cachers in the dispute might have used their premium membership to argue that they are right and the OP is wrong, I doubt very much that the sides one takes in the dispute are based on whether you are a premium member or not. The sides seems more determined by whether or not you are a different p-word.

 

Clearly both premium and basic members can have opinions on how the game should be played and can disagree on what the guidelines mean when they discuss logging requirements. Those who have been around longer may know some history of the guidelines and that might influence some opinions, but it doesn't make that opinion any more or less correct.

 

Right now my suggestion to the OP is to take the $39.99 he is saving by not getting a premium membership and use it to buy some more comfortable underwear. :ph34r:

Edited by tozainamboku
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Where are all the funny numbers coming from? $40.00??? $39.99??? $29.99??? Is someone trying to convert to something other than US dollars?

 

Last time I checked, Premium Membership was $30.00 per year. Even for us in the foreign country of Canada.

 

$30.00 / 365 days = $0.08 per day

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=318591

 

In twenty years of navigating the internet, I don't recall ever seeing any website which so discriminates against visitors who do not pay tribute to the king as www.geocaching.com

 

Now if their figures are correct, there are approximately 5,000,000 folks who pay $40 per year for Premium membership. This works out to $200,000,000. Nor does it count the money they earn from selling trinkets,containers, memorabilia, etc.

 

How much of this loot do the reviewers get? The goose.

 

If you are a Premium Member, why you get all sorts of spiffs, including the authorization to hide your Premium Caches from the cheapskates of the lower caste, who do not deserve to find them, or even know where they are. Let the lower caste hide a fantastic cache, and spend lots of time planning and executing. If it is within 528 feet of a Premium Member's hidden cache, you lose. Doesn't get published. All that work was for naught.

 

Wow, what fun. Thank you sir. May I have another?

 

Ranting about the saturation guideline disguised as a premium versus basic member issue is old, overdone, yawn-inspiring. I assume the OP thinks his is a unique viewpoint, but in reality it's a dead horse being beaten yet again.

 

*yawn*

 

 

B.

Edited by Pup Patrol
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Who's next? Come on, step right up.

I'll be your huckleberry...

Hopefully, you'll be less than disdainful toward me since I'm not a PM. <_<

 

As if that were the only option, walking away? How utterly foolish.

I don't think they suggested that walking away was the only option. Rather, I suspect they were offering what they felt was one reasonable solution to your angst. I don't think the suggestion, offered as a general solution, is foolish. Certainly not utterly so. If you are participating in a hobby, and you find it so distasteful that you feel the need to rant about it, you have, essentially, three options. First, you could stop participating in the hobby. From my perspective, this would be the simplest, most effective method for removing angst from your life. Your mileage may vary. Second, you could work toward change, focusing your energy in that direction until the hobby becomes what you wish it to be. Given the sheer volume of players who disagree with your rants, I wouldn't hold much hope for this option, but you may wish to try anyway, rather than take my word for it. If you search these forums for keywords like "entitled", "elitist", & "premium", you may find other folks with similar rants. You could study their approach to see what has not worked in the past. Your third option is to rant & rave, which, whilst sometimes therapeutic, typically does little to effect change.

 

You know, he has a point. There ARE some things we might all do better.

I'll grant you that, as my basic phylosophy involves the concept that everything can be improved. If that is your goal, I think it's a noble one. Personally, I don't think your methods in obtaining that goal are very effective. It's the whole honey & vinegar thing. Another hobby I enjoy is kayaking. Like geocaching, it is a hobby which is mostly free, once you obtain the right equipment. There are places where kayaking is not free. Personally, I'm okay with that, but if I were not, my first attempt to change this would not be to hurl insults and hyperbole.

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Who's next? Come on, step right up.

I'll be your huckleberry...

Hopefully, you'll be less than disdainful toward me since I'm not a PM. <_<

Well I'll be... it does say that you are a Premium Member under your avatar here in the forums, but just "member" when I cyber-stalked your profile. I'll bring this up at the next secret Premium Members only meeting, we are always willing to help a Brother out. That's just another one of the Premium Member benefits and why Groundspeak has links for gift memberships. :ph34r:

BTW: Thanks to my PM friends for the 100 hides geocoin from shop Groundspeak that you sent me for Christmas. Being a PM here is great! I love this geocaching site. :D

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What's with the *asterisks*? Just *wondering*...

 

Anyways:

Geocaching.com is a site that doesn't charge money to allow you to cache. However they have to make money somehow , do they not? That's why they have premium memberships. To make money. I, for one, would NOT have bought my PM if it came with no benefits. If normal members would be allowed to create PQ's, and add favorites, and bookmark lists, what would be the appeal to having a PM? There wouldn't be any. So no one would buy one, and the site would slowly go downhill because they can't afford to keep up and running.

 

 

How much is Google.com again? It's FREE.

What's the charge for YouTube? FREE!

As to what is "slowly going downhill," what have you to say for rampant cheating?

How about paying the reviewers... .NOTHING?

"Thanks, saps. Keep up the good work."

Oh yeah, and you know that minimum wage raise thing Barack Obama is yammering about?

We're all over it. We're DOUBLING your wages. Zero times two. ha ha ha ha"

 

Have some of your own cheese, please. I prefer Havarti and Gouda, not that cheap stuff.

 

 

It's like this with Groundspeak. They can't give out PM's for free, or make the PM features available for the basic members. Then how would they make money? (They wouldn't).

 

Your wisdom, Grasshopper, it is much to behold. You must be very wealthy.

 

There's no sense in whining about it here. What can we do. All that will happen is that people will start talking trash about you, and so on. I suggest you leave it be, and complain to other friends who have similar opinions. It doesn't seem like many people are going to listen to you here.

 

Or if you really feel compelled to you can complain to Groundspeak. I don't think it will change much though.

 

Just leave him be guys. The more you aggravate him the happier he'll be. He probably just came here looking to cause a stir.

 

Lad, I opened a post to make a statement. You don't learn a thing if all you read is everyone else agreeing with you.

The hardest lessons always take the longest to learn.

 

"Reasonable men adapt themselves to their environment;

unreasonable men try to adapt their environment to

themselves. Thus all progress is the result of the

efforts of unreasonable men." George Bernard Shaw

Link to comment

Many times when I observe a tempting bit of post, slowly trolling by, and notice the line attached to it leading to the boat, I can't resist taking a bite at the hook.

 

This time I am going to offer the OP a bit of advice.... see that little red "X" up in the corner??? Good!!! Click that, and your troubles will go away!!

 

You're welcome!!:lol:

 

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." - Winston Churchill

 

You quoted Winston Churchill who was famous for being counterculture. He spoke his mind no matter how the majority felt.

Obviously you can neither tolerate my opinions, nor listening to them. Tsk, tsk.

 

Show some courage and sit down and listen.. IF you can...

 

The first cache I hid was instantly lauded by people who had thousands of finds. They gave it rave reviews.

Now the dark side, all from your vaunted *Premium Members*.

 

1. Some of the lied in claiming that they found it and logged the book.

I thought this was an honorable activity. It is not.

 

2. When I called them on their lies, one cursed me, reviled me, called me every imaginable name, and said he never wanted to hear from me or my caches again. I forwarded his foul missive to Big Brother who... did NOTHING.

 

Pretty good start to this wonderful, *friendly* activity.

 

3. There are scads of rules, and the rules have rules. One *Premium Member* chastened me with my second cache, claiming "You can't tell us what to do. You can only give us the location, blah blah blah."

 

Oh really? How about: Bring a pencil. Bring a flashlight. Climb this tree. Use this TOTT. Bring scuba gear, climbing gear, a mirror, etc.

 

4. Oh look, I have XX,000 finds.

 

Isn't that special. I just finished a vacation on the Big Island, then hopped to Honolulu to climb Koko Head. From there I hunted feral hogs in Texas before leaving on a driving tour of the United States. We shipped our car home from Fort Lauderdale and went through the Panama Canal to Los Angeles for fifteen days, stopping in Aruba, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico. That was in the space of about four months. We went to Alaska last year. How many of those cyber medallions do you have on your little geocaching page again?

 

So call me Winston. He was quite able to stand alone, and so am I. Your cliquiness is so high school.

 

"If I were married to you, Nancy, I would drink it." - Winston Churchill, who also said, "My friends are few in number but entirely sufficient."

 

This is quite funny.

 

I like my own version of class warfare. It works like this...

 

If I think the product is worth the price, I buy the product. If I don't think the product is worth the price, I don't buy the product. If I buy the product I don't care what the company does with the money, from the point the product is delivered it's their money.

 

Easy, no?

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Who's next? Come on, step right up.

I'll be your huckleberry...

Hopefully, you'll be less than disdainful toward me since I'm not a PM. <_<

 

As if that were the only option, walking away? How utterly foolish.

I don't think they suggested that walking away was the only option. Rather, I suspect they were offering what they felt was one reasonable solution to your angst.

 

1. You CLAIM you are "not a PM" but the forum claims otherwise, it appears to me.

2. Walking away would appear to be their preferred option. You'll notice the first angry *Premium Member* immediately began hurling insults at me. "Five year old". That is quickly joined by "ranting" and cheesy references. Seems that my observations of a clique hit sore spots all over.

3. I have no angst. I'm simply disappointed in the general conduct of so many people who do this drive and sign little game.

 

/// Second, you could work toward change, focusing your energy in that direction until the hobby becomes what you wish it to be. Given the sheer volume of players who disagree with your rants, I wouldn't hold much hope for this option, but you may wish to try anyway, rather than take my word for it.

 

I'll grant you that, as my basic phylosophy involves the concept that everything can be improved. If that is your goal, I think it's a noble one. Personally, I don't think your methods in obtaining that goal are very effective. It's the whole honey & vinegar thing.

 

I have no interest in catching flies. Who among here does? Moreover, if none of you cheat, then those remarks don't apply to you, do they? If on the other hand many of you are elitists, thinking yourselves far above _____________ (fill in the blank), then....

 

Oh wow! Look at all your finds.

 

Another hobby I enjoy is kayaking. Like geocaching, it is a hobby which is mostly free, once you obtain the right equipment. There are places where kayaking is not free. Personally, I'm okay with that, but if I were not, my first attempt to change this would not be to hurl insults and hyperbole.

 

Did I insult you? Did I call you a "five-year-old"? Did I call your complaints "rants"?

That's all your noble friends have been doing since I first expressed my observations. They stand:

 

1. Premium members cheated on my first cache.

2. Then they insulted me. Cursed me for calling them out when they cheated.

Not ONE of you has addressed such reprehensible conduct. Not ONE of you.

3. I spoke to another fellow and he confirmed that he found Premium Members (gasp!) engaging in widespread cheating.

 

But hey, when you get to a Mega Event, you can show everyone your Cyber Medals.

And won't that be cool.

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I protest. Something like 5,000,000 geocachers pay $40 every year, for a total of around $200,000,000

and Big Brother doesn't even pay a shekel to the Reviewers...?

 

How about paying the reviewers... .NOTHING?

 

Can't wait to see who's hiding behind this name. Keystone? Oreviewer? Prime Reviewer? Palmetto? :ph34r::laughing:

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I got into caching in 2009, right when the economy was really going into the tank. I was hardly the hardest hit, but I was hit. And I economized on a lot of stuff, but this was a $30 well spent. I got a whole lot of entertainment for that kind of money and don't regret it for a moment. Don't like the cost of a few benefits, please don't purchase them.

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Something like 5,000,000 geocachers pay $40 every year, for a total of around $200,000,000

and Big Brother doesn't even pay a shekel to the Reviewers...?

Not all 5 million accounts are premium, but a quick statistical analysis puts the number between 150,000 and 200,000.

 

Even at that, the cost per user is extremely high considering they provide no original content, nor do they pay for content. There is no other website in the world that falls into this category with such a high per user cost.

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$39/365 days a year is about $.10 a day. Can't get a phone call for that much these days.

Nor is GS providing the infrastructure for phone calls, apples to steak comparison. They have a copule computers sitting in a rack in Washington. They don't have lines running everywhere, they don't have infrastructure all over the country or the world. I don't get why people continually compare a simple website to entire phone networks.

 

Now consider this, for a personal website it costs about $10-$20 a month, about $10-$30 dollars a year for domain registration/renewal multiply that by 10-20 for a business site.

If you're paying $10/month for a "personal web site", you're getting ripped, that aside, you divide the numbers by the claimed 5 million users, it comes to pennies. Anytime you scale, the cost per user should get cheaper, if its not, you don't know how to scale.

 

Add the cost of licensing a database for online use

Licensing a database? The "database" comes from the users, and last I checked, they don't pay users for listings, despite the fact that they are making a profit from those listings.

 

coding (or programmers) and system designers to build a back end, web developers and designers to build a usable website

A common complaint seems to be they don't have enough programmers, so apparently they aren't paying too many of them. Bugs go months before being acknowledged and in some cases years before being fixed.

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How much is Google.com again? It's FREE.

What's the charge for YouTube? FREE!

As to what is "slowly going downhill," what have you to say for rampant cheating?

How about paying the reviewers... .NOTHING?

"Thanks, saps. Keep up the good work."

Oh yeah, and you know that minimum wage raise thing Barack Obama is yammering about?

We're all over it. We're DOUBLING your wages. Zero times two. ha ha ha ha"

I really would like to know what your problem is.

 

Is it that Geocaching.com has a two tiered structure? 'Cause YouTube has premium features that you must pay for, as does Google.

 

Is it because Groundspeak uses volunteers to review caches? There have been other threads discussing if this is a good idea or not. I can't tell exactly what problem you have with the volunteers. I might think what a nice thing to be concerned that volunteers aren't being compensated, but you seem to base this on a wild estimate you have of Groundspeak's revenue.

 

You mention rampant cheating. I keep wondering if this is your problem.

 

Like many newbies you correctly discern that you shouldn't log Found logs on caches you haven't found. However you don't understand that long ago Groundspeak made a decision that they weren't going be the commissioner of geocaching and referee disputes over found logs. Instead they gave the cache owners the ability to ensure the quality of posts made to their cache pages.

 

Unfortunately that means every cache owner is free to decide what rules they want to enforce. At one time cache owners could even make up rules - these were called additional logging requirements. When this got out of hand - to the point where some clique of geocachers would only let their friends log finds - Groundspeak was forced to step in and write guidelines for logging of physical caches. Cache owners could not require any more than signing of the physical log.

 

The fact is that most cache owners don't even bother checking physical logs. They accept Found logs on face value. They certainly understand that sometimes a group will sign using some group name to avoid filling up a log book. Many cache owners understand that sometimes a pencil is forgotten or a pen doesn't work. The guidelines certainly allow you to delete a log if someone hasn't signed, but if you delete someone's log who actually found the cache but messed up signing the log for some reason, you can expect them to be upset if their online find is deleted.

 

Now I stopped caching in the OC, mostly because the job I had there ended, but also because there were a number of cliquish groups forming. Most cachers in the OC are pretty nice. They are going to be welcoming of new cachers and help you out. They don't make all their hides PMO. Maybe you ran afoul of some cliquish group. They didn't like you deleting their find or a friend of their's find. Maybe they are even ganging up against you and by posting false finds on your caches. I'd stop blaming premium members for this because that is not what it is about. You are either going to have make peace with the group or learn to ignore them.

 

You're not going to get far with the class warfare argument. It has been debated before and most everyone in the forums accepts that Groundspeak can use a premium membership system to raise revenue as long as they like. Jeremy's promise that there will always be a free basic membership that allows you to find and hide caches remains true (despite the issues I brought up earlier with API limits). I'd suggest you drop it and start a new thread if you feel that newbies are not being welcomed or if you are having trouble with bogus finds on your caches. These are not premium member vs. basic member problems but are more fundamental issues that, though rare, do exist.

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I am not a PM. I haven't seen any reason to do so yet simply because there are so many caches close that I can get. I don't make this a full time job which is obvious since I only have about 40 finds for a little less than a year. I play as my wife and I can. We enjoy it and don't see PM improving it at this point.

 

Would having more caches available to me -- free -- be nice? Yes. But it isn't my game and it isn't my rules. If it becomes my game and my rules I'll change them to suit me. But there will always be people who won't like my rules.

 

I go to a friends house and they play some card games by different rules than I do. We never discussed changing them since it was not a matter of life and death and sure I don't expect other people to change their way of life in their home to suit me. I'm not the center of the universe. But when they come to my house they play by my rules.

 

I'm a ham radio operator. I don't need to pay a fee and join a radio club if I don't want to avail myself of their benefits in order to use my radio. I have a driver's license but I don't have to join AAA and avail myself of their benefits in order to drive. I like to fish but I don't have to pay a fee to join Bassmasters and avail myself of their benefits in order to fish. Just like I can geocache without a PM. But if I want those benefits I need to pay for them if the organization has a pay structure.

 

Get over yourself. A PM is not a civil right. It ain't class warfare -- all you need to do is pay the membership fee. If they say no blacks, Jews, Native Americans and the like can have a PM then you have an argument but that isn't the case. Your problem is you want benefits without paying for them. If you don't like the game find another one. If you want to try and change the rules, try doing so in a less strident manner. You'll get farther.

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How much is Google.com again? It's FREE.

What's the charge for YouTube? FREE!

As to what is "slowly going downhill," what have you to say for rampant cheating?

How about paying the reviewers... .NOTHING?

"Thanks, saps. Keep up the good work."

Oh yeah, and you know that minimum wage raise thing Barack Obama is yammering about?

We're all over it. We're DOUBLING your wages. Zero times two. ha ha ha ha"

 

Have some of your own cheese, please. I prefer Havarti and Gouda, not that cheap stuff.

 

1) I actually do like Gouda. And Havarti. Only in sandwiches though.

 

2)Google is free, yes, and so is Youtube. However, they make money from the people who want to put advertisements up. It doesn't cost money to Google search things, no, but do you think Google lets those websites up for free?

 

3) Groundspeak reviewers are VOLUNTEERS. Some of them ask Groundspeak to be a reviewer, and some of them are asked by Groundspeak. If Groundspeak asked them to be a reviewer they don't need to say yes. They choose to be a reviewer. If your kid (supposing you have one) asked you to proof-read their essay you could say 'yes' or 'no', but if you said yes would you expect pay?

 

4) By rampant cheating I'm going to assume you mean armchair logging. I don't know what else you could mean. I ignore armchair loggers. They're missing out on the funnest part of the game, and that's too bad for them.

 

5) I live in Canada. What Barack does is none of my concern.

 

The hardest lessons always take the longest to learn.

 

Maybe I need to learn something but I'm pretty sure you do as well.

 

And you still haven't explained your thing with *asterisks*. I find it very *weird* that someone uses *asterisks* in the place of *quotation marks*.

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Pay your $39.99 a year and get all these wonderful benefits, geocaching.com tells the world.

And if you do not, well, you will not be permitted to:

A. See where the Premier Class has hidden their specially selected caches,

B. Get any notifications from www.geocaching.com,

C. Access our many, many other *Premium* Functions, which are available only to those who

pay tribute to the owners of www.geocaching.com

 

I protest. Something like 5,000,000 geocachers pay $40 every year, for a total of around $200,000,000

and Big Brother doesn't even pay a shekel to the Reviewers...?

 

For about twenty years, I have enjoyed myriad benefits of the internet. This is the most offensive class

warfare I have ever seen at any website.

 

Be one of us *Premium Members* or else... You're out in the cold.

 

Hey, look at my find count now, and all of my cyber medals to boot. Woo woo.

You posted a thread protesting PM's and the fact that Groundspeak has volunteer reviewers, so how should we respond? :unsure: What do you find offensive about PM's? I have paid my membership for more than a few years and never made any of my hides PMO until recently, due to muggles and cheats logging finds and never visiting the cache.

I don't recall a "Be one of us *Premium Members* or else... You're out in the cold." threads in the forums here. So Premium Members cheated on one of your hides? Does that make us all bad geocachers because we are Premium Members? I don't recall any volunteer reviewers complaining that they are not paid employees of Groundspeak, but I do recall threads asking how to become a volunteer reviewer.

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How much is Google.com again? It's FREE.

What's the charge for YouTube? FREE!

As to what is "slowly going downhill," what have you to say for rampant cheating?

How about paying the reviewers... .NOTHING?

"Thanks, saps. Keep up the good work."

Oh yeah, and you know that minimum wage raise thing Barack Obama is yammering about?

We're all over it. We're DOUBLING your wages. Zero times two. ha ha ha ha"

 

How much does Google pay for the content that allows them to charge for advertising? Nothing

What standards are imposed to assure accuracy on Google content? None

How much does Google charge for you to get a higher ranking? Substantial.

What does YouTube pay its user for providing the content that allows them to attract advertisers? Nothing

What does YouTube charge advertisers? Substantial amounts.

What does Hulu charge for watching TV shows that people already pay their cable provider to see? $8 a month and you still get advertising.

What do you get for artificially inflating (i.e. "cheating") on your find count? Nothing

 

There is no activity/hobby specific site that does not either charge you for additional services or does so through very irritating, frequent ads. If you find one, get what you can out of it quickly because it won't be around much longer.

 

For the record, I disagree with some of the ways GS does things, just not enough to leave. There has never been a valid reason for PM caches, but it does offer some security theater and is what most customers want. Doing away with some types of caches seems counter intuitive, however it seemed to be the right decision.

 

Groundspeak is not without expenses or payrolls, however if it was just Jeremy in a little room by himself with a cold box of pizza coding wildly while he put in the bank the inaccurate large sums of money you claim, who cares? The money that is made is because they offer a product or service that enough of their customers not only purchase, but do so repeatedly. The business model is legal and appears to work quite well for both the users and the business itself.

 

The advice given previously is quite sound. Boycott the service. If enough dissatisfied users do so, GS will be forced to re-examine their practices. Don't hold out too long expecting it though. Other free sites, some with much deeper pockets, have tried to make it work. None has even made a dent.

 

I have continued to renew since 2003 and while I have vocalized my displeasure with certain decisions here in the forums, have not come close to the combative nature you have in this and the other locked thread. Opening this up for discussion, not such a bad idea. Coming out of the gate alienating everyone, including those whom may agree with some of what you think, not so much.

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Did I insult you? Did I call you a "five-year-old"? Did I call your complaints "rants"?

That's all your noble friends have been doing since I first expressed my observations. They stand:

 

1. Premium members cheated on my first cache.

2. Then they insulted me. Cursed me for calling them out when they cheated.

Not ONE of you has addressed such reprehensible conduct. Not ONE of you.

3. I spoke to another fellow and he confirmed that he found Premium Members (gasp!) engaging in widespread cheating.

 

But hey, when you get to a Mega Event, you can show everyone your Cyber Medals.

And won't that be cool.

 

If you would like to contend that there is some sort of correlation between cheating in this game and premium membership, a few found it logs on your cache from geocachers that happen to be premium members is hardly compelling evidence. There have been tons of threads in the forums about "cheating". If you would have taken time to read them before you posted here you'd find that the overwhelming majority of responses object the the idea of cheating. On the other hand, there are also a lot of people that consider geocaching to be nothing more than a hobby and if someone chooses to play the game their own way it has no impact whatsoever on how anyone else plays the game. While your figure of 5 million geocachers (not to mention premium member geocachers) is grossly over-inflated, the number of people playing is large enough that it should be expected that there are going to be some that are going to view the game differently than you do. While I think that most geocachers playing the game honorably, I know that there are some that don't, but more importantly, I know that there isn't anything that I can do about it. As far as the insults and curses go, there isn't anything that readers of these forums an do about that either. You *can* report abusive users to Groundspeak directly (have you done that?) but you're wasting your time if you think anyone else reading the forums can do.

 

I am curious, however, on how you're defining cheating. Looking at a few of your caches I see a several cases where you're not just placing caches for others to find, but are trying to dictate to others how they're supposed to find them. In one case you write "Do a little exploring while you're here, don't just park and grab." It appears that the cache actually has two waypoints, but was published as a traditional (rather than as a multi cache). For another cache, you tell finders to download and play an MP3 file (again, making up your own rules). While you can *suggest* listening to that music clip, you can't make it a requirement. That's a Additional Logging Requirement and is in violation of the guidelines (which apply to both basic and premium members). On a third cache, it appears that some internet searching is required to derive a combination to unlock something. That should have been published as an unknown cache rather than a traditional. What it looks like to me is that rather than adhering the guidelines you're trying to establish you're own rules and conventions and when others (who also happen to be premium members) aren't complying with your wishes you're characterizing them as cheaters.

 

 

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///

 

I have continued to renew since 2003 and while I have vocalized my displeasure with certain decisions here in the forums, have not come close to the combative nature you have in this and the other locked thread. Opening this up for discussion, not such a bad idea. Coming out of the gate alienating everyone, including those whom may agree with some of what you think, not so much.

 

I "whine."

You "vocalize displeasure.

 

I'm "alienating everyone."

Cheating, not so much.

Profaning me, oh well.

Zero average favorite ratings per find, ::: yawn :::.

 

Yep, you're right. All's well here among caching's finest, the *Premiums*. Join them or punch the red X.

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///

 

 

I am curious, however, on how you're defining cheating.

 

One person claimed to have found a cache. When I reviewed the logbook, his name was not signed in it.

Now one fellow with many thousands of finds to his name says "If you logged it as a find, you have to have signed the book."

 

HE says it's cheating. If you disagree, argue with your *Premium* Pals.

 

Seems to me that folks who aren't so preoccupied with numbers and cybermedals don't bother publishing a find when they didn't log the magic paper book.

 

Now that all you *Premium Members* have weighed in with one collective, angry counterrant, you have proven my point.

Conform or get out.

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