Jump to content

Release Notes - July 29, 2014


Recommended Posts

I issued a caution warning in the last release notes thread, and I need to do so again. Do not make your criticism personal to Groundspeak's Lackeys. For every person hired at Geocaching HQ for their artistic or programming skills, there's another one with thousands of cache finds.

 

Focus on what you don't like about feature changes, and on any bugs that you see. Thanks.

Link to comment
For every person hired at Geocaching HQ for their artistic or programming skills, there's another one with thousands of cache finds.

 

I do not think that it is a bad thing to hire someone for their skills. I rather think that it is a bad thing that according to the cited job offer Groundspeaks aims to become

"a trend-setter on the international UI stage".

Edited by cezanne
Link to comment

I'll add my voice to those requesting an option to switch back to plain text emails. There are many reasons for this, including:

 

- data usage

- inability to receive html based messages for some users

- html emails have been triggering spam filtering for some users

- it's simply harder to read on a smart-phone

 

I'm sure there are many others to add to the list.

Link to comment

I think we are missing the obvious. The staff at Groundspeak no longer use their own product. If they did they would take heed to the numerous requests to revert to plain text e-mails. If they actually relied on their degraded product they would understand what they have done to their paying customers. But since they don't maintain 10+ hides or more each, and don't actually hike in the woods anymore, they can't possibly understand the damage. They are now completely out of touch with the hobby the company was originally based upon.

 

I wouldn't assume the Lackeys have a 100% approval, among them and personally, of changes. There's no reason to assume they are dissimilar to the geocaching community at large.

 

Whoever makes these decisions is missing the point. The subject change, which has been reverted in some instances, was a glaringly poor re-arrangement, because most email readers truncate the line after a given number of characters and we didn't need 21 or so characters telling us the obvious. The "Oh snap", also removed, was inappropriate.

 

The assumption that HTML Email is a modern wonder reminds me of the hubris of some early internet pioneers, one of which, while interviewed on CBS news stated, "In a couple of years we'll have replaced you." It took a few more years, apparently as CBS is still around, but I doubt that pioneer's company is - they overlooked the fact content couldn't be delivered over the current technology (low bandwidth copper phone wires). HTML email, as stated in these threads, isn't serving users very well on platforms mobile and non-mobile alike. It's an overreach of the expectations of technology and how people use it.

Link to comment

I issued a caution warning in the last release notes thread, and I need to do so again. Do not make your criticism personal to Groundspeak's Lackeys. For every person hired at Geocaching HQ for their artistic or programming skills, there's another one with thousands of cache finds.

 

Can we please hear from some of the actual geocachers who work for Groundspeak? Are they as frustrated as many of us are about the changes? Do they have any influence over the programmers, or over whoever decides what the programmers should do?

 

Focus on what you don't like about feature changes, and on any bugs that you see. Thanks.

 

Most of this thread has been focused on the loss of the plain text email feature. So far we haven't heard anything that gives us hope that it will come back. We haven't even heard an explanation of why it was taken away. All we've heard from Groundspeak is that they appreciate our feedback but they have no plans to fix the problems that HTML email causes. I find that patronizing, and I suspect I'm not alone. So don't be surprised if a few insults get sent in the other direction. (I haven't actually seen anyone insult the lackeys, but maybe that's because those posts have been deleted.)

Link to comment

Most of this thread has been focused on the loss of the plain text email feature. So far we haven't heard anything that gives us hope that it will come back. We haven't even heard an explanation of why it was taken away. All we've heard from Groundspeak is that they appreciate our feedback but they have no plans to fix the problems that HTML email causes. I find that patronizing, and I suspect I'm not alone. So don't be surprised if a few insults get sent in the other direction. (I haven't actually seen anyone insult the lackeys, but maybe that's because those posts have been deleted.)

You are definitely not alone.

 

Focus on what you don't like about feature changes, and on any bugs that you see. Thanks.

Plain text emails could be read in any email client. HTML only emails can't. I call that a bug.

 

If Groundspeak could focus on providing a response that details what they plan to do to fix the problem that has been created, or the reason why they aren't going to fix it, that would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Link to comment

I think it's time Groundspeak ditched the stupid name 'lackey' as well.

 

The name suggests that they do whatever is asked of them and that is clearly no longer the case.....

 

M

 

I think it is accurate.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lackey

 

In our context, they are doing whatever The Team tells them to, regardless of whether it makes sense or not.

 

I think it's all tongue in cheek. A little self-effacing, but with a gentle sense or humor.

 

I think these days you'll find kids eager to be a minion, if it involves working for a super-villain with all manner of cool tech and toys to play around with, without considering how this super-villain's plans play out from an outside-looking-in perspective.

 

However you roll with being a Lackey or Minion, a certain amount of resistance to the Boss may be tolerated, as showing some initiative. Telling the Boss that the Boss has made a serious miscalculation may be viewed as establishing career turning point, depending on the Boss (some accept a degree of criticism, while others are less forgiving.) Groundspeak has been heralded as a swell place to work.

 

Perhaps these flash points between customers and GS/GC may make them question whether the company is doing right by their customers (present and expected future), but the concept that such a cruel stroke to so many customers, by way of an update (one done with a bit of fanfare) isn't wildly embraced seems to be taken so lightly, causes me to ponder quality of workplace vs. an interest in what they are producing.

Link to comment

I say it again, in case it was missed. Lackeys, please, please, please consider putting a [NEW] tag in the subject line for new cache notifications. All of my filters started working again when you reverted to the other bracketed tags, but I simply can't get the new cache notifications to filter in their current configuration.

Link to comment
Added final touches to the 7 Souvenirs of August landing page. Get ready to be an Achiever!
I just noticed an interesting quirk of my souvenirs page.

 

I often log finds a day or two later, using my field notes. (And sometimes it's more than a day or two.) The dates of the logs have always been right, because the dates in my field notes have always been right. (I guess that's one advantage of living in the same time zone as Groundspeak's HQ.

 

But I noticed that my souvenirs are being awarded on the date I posted the logs, not on the date of the log itself. This isn't a new thing. Last year's 31 Days of August souvenirs are the same way, as are the others on my souvenirs page.

 

But I did think it was interesting that souvenirs preserve the date the log was posted, even when the log itself has some other date, and even when the souvenir is tied to a particular date (the date of the log, not the date the log was posted).

Link to comment

I say it again, in case it was missed. Lackeys, please, please, please consider putting a [NEW] tag in the subject line for new cache notifications. All of my filters started working again when you reverted to the other bracketed tags, but I simply can't get the new cache notifications to filter in their current configuration.

 

I asked for the [NEW] as well. It would make sense for the formatting of the headers to be consistent.

 

Currently, we have:

 

[LOG] Owner: Arson Dawg found T - Alphabet Soup (Traditional Cache)‏

 

[GEO] Notify: Wizard of Ooze archived Racoon Patrol (Archived) (Traditional Cache)‏

 

New Traditional Cache: Upper Anchor Trail (GC5AB3Z), 6.5mi N (10.4km N)‏
Link to comment

[NEW] would help with an eyeball scan.

 

Does nobody at the Frog care about usability?

 

 

I can't figure out which is worse -- that they don't care, or that they don't care that they don't care.

 

They're probably all caught up, for the present, with the Block Party. Hopefully afterwards they'll deign to hear our pitiful squeaks of protest.

Link to comment

Why, when was whole new cache publication email changed, are not included (at least for traditional caches) coordinates?

 

I think the idea here is that you are encouraged to read the cache description, even for a traditional cache, before setting out on the search.

Link to comment
By some spooky coincidence, ebay have just changed the format of their emails. Guess what? They've switched to less wordy, more informative subject lines!!!

 

I just noticed this and was going to post it, but you beat me to it. I can however expand. Sometimes small fish can learn from big fish. Jakob Nielsen often points out that Amazon leads the way in user-friendly interfaces, even though not all of what they do would work for smaller fish.

 

Old eBay subject: New items that match: dutrieux/dutrieu

New eBay subject: 1 NEW (dutrieux, dutrieu)

 

1) The old subject was much longer due to the superfluous words "items that match", and those superfluous words came before the identification of the search, making the emails harder to scan by eye.

 

2) The new subject contains the count of items found, a very useful bit of information.

 

3) The change in the search ID is subtle in this case. The old search ID "dutrieux/dutrieu" was a name I entered -- very similar to the actual search terms (which are "dutrieux OR dutrieu"). This required that I enter a meaningful name even though it was generally duplicate information, and I'm sure this confused a lot of people. eBay probably got a lot of complaints that users had trouble identifying the search emails. The new search ID "(dutrieux, dutrieu)" is simply the search terms (comma meaning OR and parens for grouping).

 

As we all know, Groundspeak reverted the subject line changes. However, some of the discussion here has been on the possibility of improving the subject lines. I think most of us would be willing to change our filters and other methods for a real improvement. But making a real improvement requires a lot of hard design work and usability testing, not someone sitting down and saying "oh snap, I think I'd like this". I've been in IT (formerly DP, same thing, new name) for 45 years, and one thing I learned very early is that the way I like things isn't always (or even usually) the way other people like things. As a professional in the field, it's been my responsibility to provide for others, not for myself.

 

On top of eBay's actually improving the subject lines, guess what -- eBay still offers the option of plain text or HTML email. I just now switched my preference from plain text to HTML so that I can evaluate the quality of the HTML notifications and will report back when I've seen one. For eBay, there's an obvious, very real advantage to HTML email in that it can display photos of items within the email so that users need not go to the eBay page to see the items. (This is mostly useless for my searches, but I still see the value.) Groundspeak has not come up with any added value for their HTML notifications: the information is identical to what would be in the plain text notification. Even the formatting is not significantly changed, except for the major reduction in text/background contrast that makes the emails much harder to read. (The cache owner ID, a useful addition, was added at the same time as the forced change to HTML notifications, but the owner ID is completely independent and could have been added to the old format notifications.)

 

Edward

Edited by paleolith
Link to comment

I think we are missing the obvious. The staff at Groundspeak no longer use their own product. If they did they would take heed to the numerous requests to revert to plain text e-mails. If they actually relied on their degraded product they would understand what they have done to their paying customers. But since they don't maintain 10+ hides or more each, and don't actually hike in the woods anymore, they can't possibly understand the damage. They are now completely out of touch with the hobby the company was originally based upon.

 

This.

Link to comment

For every person hired at Geocaching HQ for their artistic or programming skills, there's another one with thousands of cache finds.

 

Focus on what you don't like about feature changes, and on any bugs that you see. Thanks.

 

Maybe the ones with the thousands of cache finds should be put into positions where they have the final say on changes that affect the usability of the system. It's quite obviously not the case at present. No-one who actually had to use the system and email notifications would ever have approved those changes.

 

What I don't like is the new email notifications, they're un-useable. GS listened and improved (although didn't totally fix) the subject lines, couldn't they have gone all the way and given an opt out option for HTML (or an opt in for plain text if that's easier to code for).

 

Presumably the data comes out of the database in plain text and is then wrapped in the HTML tags before being passed to the mail relay. It can't be too hard to just skip the wrapping part.

Link to comment

Even though I'm afraid no one at GS does care: I'd like the get back a possibility to receive emails and notifcations in text only format (at least as an option). It's frustrating that GS just seems to ignore the comments of us users. It was already the case when the (weekly) notification emails were changed to html format. But this is another topic.

 

Wouldn't it be a good idea to ask users what they might want BEFORE implementing something even without notifying?

 

But it seems more important to organise block parties, mega events and publish hundreds of "film canister caches" than to improve the usability of the geocaching page and notifications. Quantity seems to be more important than quality.

Link to comment

The past two posts, and the quoted post by y2kcompliant, are quite disrespectful to the Geocaching HQ staffers who DO have thousands of finds, and maintain multiple hides. They are our voice in discussions with other Lackeys who are hired for their specialized expertise. As I've said before, don't get personal.

Link to comment

Even though I'm afraid no one at GS does care: I'd like the get back a possibility to receive emails and notifcations in text only format (at least as an option). It's frustrating that GS just seems to ignore the comments of us users. It was already the case when the (weekly) notification emails were changed to html format. But this is another topic.

 

Wouldn't it be a good idea to ask users what they might want BEFORE implementing something even without notifying?

 

But it seems more important to organise block parties, mega events and publish hundreds of "film canister caches" than to improve the usability of the geocaching page and notifications. Quantity seems to be more important than quality.

 

To be fair to GS, the publishing of caches (film canister or otherwise), is done by volunteer reviewers who are not GS employees, just cachers like the rest of us. The reviewers have an area that they're responsible for, which may be a state or just a part of a state, usually close to where they live.

Link to comment

To be fair to GS, the publishing of caches (film canister or otherwise), is done by volunteer reviewers who are not GS employees, just cachers like the rest of us. The reviewers have an area that they're responsible for, which may be a state or just a part of a state, usually close to where they live.

 

Agreed! You're right, that's nothing to do with the programming of the page. I did not separate the tool and the content. Sorry for that!

Link to comment

The past two posts, and the quoted post by y2kcompliant, are quite disrespectful to the Geocaching HQ staffers who DO have thousands of finds, and maintain multiple hides. They are our voice in discussions with other Lackeys who are hired for their specialized expertise. As I've said before, don't get personal.

 

I would imagine the majority of folks at Coca-Cola HQ in Atlanta thought New Coke would be a swell idea too. Until it was pointed out that it wasn't. Those employees were also all bright folks who I assume had previous experience drinking Coke.

Link to comment

The past two posts, and the quoted post by y2kcompliant, are quite disrespectful to the Geocaching HQ staffers who DO have thousands of finds, and maintain multiple hides. They are our voice in discussions with other Lackeys who are hired for their specialized expertise. As I've said before, don't get personal.

 

I would imagine the majority of folks at Coca-Cola HQ in Atlanta thought New Coke would be a swell idea too. Until it was pointed out that it wasn't. Those employees were also all bright folks who I assume had previous experience drinking Coke.

 

But then they quickly fixed their mistake.

Link to comment

The past two posts, and the quoted post by y2kcompliant, are quite disrespectful to the Geocaching HQ staffers who DO have thousands of finds, and maintain multiple hides. They are our voice in discussions with other Lackeys who are hired for their specialized expertise. As I've said before, don't get personal.

 

My posts were not intended as a personal criticism of any individual people. They're directed at a system that values form over functionality, that insists on fixing things that aren't broken yet doesn't fix things that are and which refuses to acknowledge when it gets things wrong. If these staffers with thousands of finds and multiple hides are our voice, then the system needs to actually listen to them and to make their voice louder, so it can be heard over the clamour of the corporates and designers who come up with these misguided ideas.

 

This is a company that has built its empire on the backs of the users of its system who are all volunteers. No-one actually has to hide caches, spend hours each week reviewing and publishing them, or going out to find them.

 

If they feel that they have no say in the game they have built, they'll walk away and then it's game over. We, the hiders and finders are the ones who make it possible for GS to have a business in the first place. No-one begrudges the rights of GS to operate and to make money out of our work, but we don't like being taken for granted and treated like fools who don't even deserve an explanation. All we get is this corporate spin-doctor stuff about it "improving our experience" and that our "concerns will be bubbled up".

 

There are other GPS-based games out there and even alternative caching sites for those who like to find the tupperware.

Link to comment
Maybe the ones with the thousands of cache finds should be put into positions where they have the final say on changes that affect the usability of the system. It's quite obviously not the case at present. No-one who actually had to use the system and email notifications would ever have approved those changes.

I have to disagree on a couple of points.

 

First, having found thousands of caches does not automatically translate into seeing things as a customer does. Being an insider changes the perspective enormously. And finding thousands of caches makes someone very different from the average cacher, who generally has found tens or hundreds (my impression, since AFAIK no stats are public).

 

Second, people vary enormously in their needs and preferences. This is obvious in everyday life, and it's just as true online. Meeting the needs of users requires providing options and flexibility. This is a difficult trade-off, since options also create complexity. It's clear to me that people who actually use the system did approve "those changes", and there are probably many users who think the changes are just fine and so haven't come here to complain.

 

So the problem is not that experts weren't consulted. It's that too small a sample of users was consulted.

 

Edward

Link to comment

Is that it then? Fight over?

 

Groundspeak have won again by standing their ground and ignoring us and we are all powerless to do anything

 

Another storming PR success.....

 

M

It looks that way. People have stopped bothering to voice their concerns, even though the problems haven't been dealt with. I guess we've learned from this that Groundspeak can break some part of the website, and everyone will complain for a week or two before accepting that this is just par for the course.

 

...personally, I wouldn't be satisfied with setting the bar so low, but that's just me...

Link to comment

Is that it then? Fight over?

 

Groundspeak have won again by standing their ground and ignoring us and we are all powerless to do anything

 

Another storming PR success.....

 

M

It looks that way. People have stopped bothering to voice their concerns, even though the problems haven't been dealt with. I guess we've learned from this that Groundspeak can break some part of the website, and everyone will complain for a week or two before accepting that this is just par for the course.

 

...personally, I wouldn't be satisfied with setting the bar so low, but that's just me...

 

Once I was informed that the folks expressing opinions here are only a small fraction of the feedback process I decided to hang it up. I will never be invited to that other "elite" and mysterious feedback group. Bwahaaahaa

Edited by cheech gang
Link to comment

I've hidden a few posts that were unnecessarily harsh in their language and/or in their personal criticism of the Lackey who announced this week's routine code release.

 

There are ways of voicing an objection very strongly, without crossing the line. The remaining posts in the thread provide examples.

 

Thank you to all for keeping our Forum Guidelines in mind when posting. Doing so makes it more likely that Lackeys and Moderators will provide feedback and engage in dialogue.

 

I'm still waiting

Link to comment

Groundspeak is a de-facto monopoly. This is how monopolies behave. They don't have to listen to their customers because they know we won't actually cancel our memberships and move to some other service.

 

Has anyone compiled a list of the things Groundspeak broke, and then simply outlasted the furor? My memory is awful; I can only think of a few:

 

- Tiny forum avatars

- Gray icons

- Search

- Removed plaintext email option

- Bringing out "Challenges" even though they knew the name was used for something completely different, then ignoring the confusion

- Abandoned projects like Benchmarks, Wherigo, Waymarks, etc.

Link to comment

Has anyone compiled a list of the things Groundspeak broke, and then simply outlasted the furor? My memory is awful; I can only think of a few:

 

- Tiny forum avatars

- Gray icons

- Search

- Removed plaintext email option

- Bringing out "Challenges" even though they knew the name was used for something completely different, then ignoring the confusion

- Abandoned projects like Benchmarks, Wherigo, Waymarks, etc.

Those are definitely the most notable ones. I can also think of the function whereby one could upload a GPX file (eg. a PQ customized and filtered in GSAK) to the website, then access it from within the official smartphone app. That was suddenly taken away with no notice nor alternative. I think that move pushed a number of people to use 3rd-party apps instead, because the official app just couldn't do what people needed.

 

As I was just browsing around the site looking for other broken functionality, I noticed a small ray of light. Remember when "Your Recently Viewed Caches" was forced on everyone's profile page, bumping your last 30 days of activity down the page? That was one of the rare times when Groundspeak actually listened to the complaints and later provided the option to show or hide this section. I wish that Groundspeak would come back. I miss them...

Link to comment

Since the introduction of the Feature Request forum, I don't believe that a single requested feature has been implemented. I hope that I'm wrong on that and that someone can correct me.

 

I requested they expand the WAP links from the first character to the entire word -- and they did.

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=285087

 

Sometimes its not so much they respond, but how they respond.

 

When they said Virtuals were coming back we got Challenges, which are now dead, too.

 

You can see in the thread I linked how they respond when you crack wise about the delays.

 

I had done some searches on threads in the Feature Request forum that contained the square-bracket-enclosed statuses in their titles, along with temporal differentiation of time to completion and/or admin interaction, and put it all in a spreadsheet. The information made me sad and (as an IT person myself) slightly embarrassed for them, so I didn't publish it.

Link to comment

Is that it then? Fight over?

 

Groundspeak have won again by standing their ground and ignoring us and we are all powerless to do anything

 

Another storming PR success.....

 

M

It looks that way. People have stopped bothering to voice their concerns, even though the problems haven't been dealt with. I guess we've learned from this that Groundspeak can break some part of the website, and everyone will complain for a week or two before accepting that this is just par for the course.

 

...personally, I wouldn't be satisfied with setting the bar so low, but that's just me...

 

Sadly I think you're both right. Maybe it's time to stop complaining on the forums, and go and complain on their FB page and/or twitter feed, that will hit them right in the PR dept :ph34r:

Link to comment

Is that it then? Fight over?

 

Groundspeak have won again by standing their ground and ignoring us and we are all powerless to do anything

 

Another storming PR success.....

 

M

It looks that way. People have stopped bothering to voice their concerns, even though the problems haven't been dealt with. I guess we've learned from this that Groundspeak can break some part of the website, and everyone will complain for a week or two before accepting that this is just par for the course.

 

...personally, I wouldn't be satisfied with setting the bar so low, but that's just me...

 

Sadly I think you're both right. Maybe it's time to stop complaining on the forums, and go and complain on their FB page and/or twitter feed, that will hit them right in the PR dept :ph34r:

 

GREAT IDEA!! Those who use those products should start now, and those of us who don't use them, might need to start....just to talk about this topic.

Link to comment
I guess we've learned from this that Groundspeak can break some part of the website, and everyone will complain for a week or two before accepting that this is just par for the course.

 

Same as it ever was. I started caching in 2006 and it only took me 3-4 months to become severely disenchanted with the way the company was run. Unfortunately Groundspeak is still a near-monopoly, so even though I list my caches on other platforms I am still relying on gc.com when I want to find some film canisters.

Link to comment
I guess we've learned from this that Groundspeak can break some part of the website, and everyone will complain for a week or two before accepting that this is just par for the course.

 

This email farce sinks to a totally new level though. I mainly view the website through my PC and I can correct all the stupid website enhancements using GreaseMonkey and AdBlockPlus

 

I just came to do my regular deletion of emails and, where I used to be able to filter on [GEO] Notify to select all published cache notification I now have to search for each cache type - a real pain in the proverbial!! :mad:

 

Setting up inbound filters is not appropriate because it just isn't, I don't want to and I shouldn't have to! :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

 

M

Edited by Delta68
Link to comment

It's now been three weeks since Groundspeak switched to HTML only email. In that time, multiple people have asked for the option to receive plain text emails. Groundspeak has ignored these requests. Even providing multipart emails, with a plain text and HTML section, seems to be too much to ask (though cache publication notifications managed to slip a one line plain text section through that appears to be off the table for everything else).

 

Today I let my premium membership lapse. If Groundspeak can't even respond to a problem, I see little point in continuing to pay them. That's why I've let my membership lapse; not because they switched to HTML only email, but because they wouldn't respond to the issue.

 

The loss of one paying customer won't make the slightest difference to them, I know. But hey, on the bright side, I won't be asking for plain text emails any more. Since I'm no longer paying for the service, I'm not going to complain about it. Bye!

Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...