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Release Notes - September 30, 2014


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There is still a link on the profile page to "Search for geocaches near your home location" - click on that then one more click on the "Placed" header and the events pop to the top. Voila!

 

It does not work as well as the link for newest in our province. We love to know what events are going on all over our province and attend when we can. The method you mentioned showed 1 event compared to the 6 that are listed now. At times, the newest in our province has a whole page of events listed. We would never know what was going on.

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Maybe those that make all the changes are just programmers and don't geocache.

They want to make the page pretty but not useful.

The link for newest in our province is one of the most useful links that there is, or was. :(

We are majorly bummed!

Edited by Team BikeFast
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I'll add my voice to the masses who want the "Search newest in (province)" link back. I used it constantly. I get notifications about new caches, and I want to plug in my GPS and quickly download them to go find them - easiest way to get a list of new caches in your area. I also used it for finding event information quickly. ("Wait, what time does that start again? Let's check the event page.")

Using the "Hide & Seek a Cache" link is cumbersome if you don't live in the US (which is a different frustrating point) and I don't want a whole bunch of different geocaching bookmarks cluttering my browser - until now I've had one, which had all the links I ever needed right on the one page.

If some cachers don't put in their home province/state, or don't even know how to spell their own province/state, that's their concern. Many of us did put it in correctly and used that feature. Please bring it back.

Edited by Wagonmaker
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There is still a link on the profile page to "Search for geocaches near your home location" - click on that then one more click on the "Placed" header and the events pop to the top. Voila!

 

It does not work as well as the link for newest in our province. We love to know what events are going on all over our province and attend when we can. The method you mentioned showed 1 event compared to the 6 that are listed now. At times, the newest in our province has a whole page of events listed. We would never know what was going on.

 

Exactly. You don't see the events that way.

 

Sorry folks, we can beg and complain all we want. However, Mr. Irish and his people are going to do what they feel is best for us, not what we want. They have never been a company that listens to its customers. I've been with them since 2003 and it's just not going to happen.

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Mr. Irish and his people are going to do what they feel is best for us, not what we want.

 

I don't believe that.

 

They are going to do what they feel is best for them.

 

I have said it before and I'll say it again: I can't figure out which is worse -- that they don't care, or that they don't care that they don't care.

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I am very disheartened by the lack of acknowledgement, or interest, by Groundspeak in what cachers want. Instead , they have told us what we wanted, packaged it around some phrasing of "improvements", and now we just have to smile and drink the Kool-aid. I thought my premium membership payment was worth something but with each change made I am seeing less and less value in it.

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I am very disheartened by overwhelming lack of respect and thankfulness for what Groundspeak does do, usually after any site update, hurling elephants of them "not caring" about their customers and community, as if they're our enemy and somehow trying to squeeze us for every penny just so they can make a buck.

C'mon.

(I'm not speaking to any individual here, just the general attitude after updates are made0

There's a difference between being constructively critical about how they do things, even continually raising known issues, and blatantly insulting or ignoring the good and solid work that people do to keep this pastime alive and active for us, mis-characterizing and mislabeling those same people as effectively malicious, careless, corporate money-hogs.

:sad:

And keep in mind that there is an enormous community of non-forumgoers who a] don't know a thing about what goes on here or behind the scenes, b] don't care a thing about what goes on here or behind the scenes, c] greatly enjoy the geocaching hobby unaffected by the changes that get everyone here all hot and bothered.

 

Try to stay on topic please.

Problems with the site and updates? Report them. (heaven knows there are always at least a few)

Suggestions? Old, endlessly repeated requests? Keep stating them, find ways to demonstrate more and more why they're worth implementing. (wow at how many there still are!)

Problems with The Man? Write a blog :P

 

*sigh*

 

/done rant

Edited by thebruce0
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Add another 2 to the number of people who used this link regularly. While the suggested work-around does work it is very cumbersome. The idea of bookmarking the page only works if you have a browser that can synch bookmarks between the various devices that you use. If you want to upgrade functionality ask users what they want, don't just impose the removal of a function because you can fulfil it in another x clicks/scrolls.

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I miss this link, too. I often used "List newest in Bavaria". As there are no german provinces in the advanced search page, this is no workaround for me and the "Nearest" search also doesn't return what I'm looking for, as I also want to know, what is new in other parts of bavaria, not only the nearest to my home location.

So I also contribute to the petition "bring the "Newest in ..." back".

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I miss this link, too. I often used "List newest in Bavaria". As there are no german provinces in the advanced search page,

 

There is, but it requires more work than before. Enter country/state, then Germany for country and Bayern for the state.

You can also bookmark the resulting link e.g. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?state_id=136&ex=0&cFilter=9a79e6ce-3344-409c-bbe9-496530baf758&children=n as workaround, but still I preferred the old way.

 

Cezanne

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There's a difference between being constructively critical about how they do things, even continually raising known issues, and blatantly insulting or ignoring the good and solid work that people do to keep this pastime alive and active for us, mis-characterizing and mislabeling those same people as effectively malicious, careless, corporate money-hogs.

 

Sometimes the reactions might be too harsh and not brought up with an appropriate tone. I do understand that the ressources of Groundspeak are limited and that when implementing new features mistakes can happen.

Note however that all the reactions with respect to the most recent release deal with the removal of the "Newest search". This removal has neither been the result of the intent to improve things (the argument that they might change the profile page at some later time is not a very good argument) nor a consequence of too much burden on the servers.

 

Of course the cachers who come to the forum are a minority group. I still think that in the case of the removal of the "newest search" there are much more cachers out there who are affected negatively by the removal than affected positively. It would help a lot if Groundspeak commented on how and where feedback should be sent such that it is taken into account seriously when making decisions. Groundspeak is a company - they certainly can decide whatever they want. They should understand however that it does not improve their credibility if they argue that they removed the "newest search" link in their attempt to improve the profile pages based on the many negative comments they received. There exist certainly other channels for feedback than this forum (where I cannot recall that ever someone complained about being confused by the address information and the newest link), but it might be good to know for those who desperately miss the "newest link" where they should adress their feedback to. It is quite conceivable for me that the number of those who profit from the newest link outnumbers by far the number of those who profit from its removal (and the removal of the possibility to provide one's country and/or state to the site - it never has been a mandatory field). Those affected who come to the forum might then decide to send their feedback also in another manner and then the result would be much fairer and people would much more easily understand if some decisions are taken where Groundspeak argues that they have been taken based on community input.

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Complaints and concerns will not be removed, but antagonistic and rude comments that are off topic - such as those that have nothing to do with the release being discussed - will be. There are separate, dedicated threads available for discussion of various features unrelated to the current release.

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Complaints and concerns will not be removed, but antagonistic and rude comments that are off topic - such as those that have nothing to do with the release being discussed - will be.

 

I do not have any concerns with regard to the deletion or modification of posts containing such complaints and concerns. I (and also others) wonder however whether the forums are still the best place to have the feedback heard or whether there are other channels that play a larger role for Groundspeak and should be used instead or in addition.

 

As it has been mentioned in this thread by a Groundspeak employee that the profile will be restructured to a huge number of complaints I think it is on-topic in this thread to wonder which feedback channels are used in that case as no such complaints can be found in the Groundspeak forum.

 

Does Groundspeak prefer to receive individual e-mails, feedback on Facebook or other social media sites or even something else?

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There is, but it requires more work than before. Enter country/state, then Germany for country and Bayern for the state.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. I had a bookmark for the search, but I never realized, that there is a second page for the selection of the german states, as it seemed not useful to me to look for the new caches for all over Germany. So I never tried this search.

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There is still a link on the profile page to "Search for geocaches near your home location" - click on that then one more click on the "Placed" header and the events pop to the top. Voila!

It does not work as well as the link for newest in our province. We love to know what events are going on all over our province and attend when we can. The method you mentioned showed 1 event compared to the 6 that are listed now. At times, the newest in our province has a whole page of events listed. We would never know what was going on.

Living in Calgary, we have a few events a month usually. I also like to check out events going on in Red Deer and Edmonton (150 & ~300 km north), Lethbridge (160 km south) and Medicine Hat (160 km SE). While the above suggested method works to a degree, it is still not as fully functional as the old way.

 

I also used it for finding event information quickly. ("Wait, what time does that start again? Let's check the event page.")

 

Please bring it back.

+1

 

That's exactly how I found out it was gone. An hour ago I was checking to see what time tonight's event starts and then I got caught up in this thread.

 

That link is missed, please consider its return.

 

Now off to the event I go...

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I am extremely annoyed about how the things goes recently on this website... There is no sense in all your "releases"! Sometimes I'm just thinking that you really want to laugh in our faces!

 

People are asking for some releases (better statistics, country souvenirs just to mention some!) and you really don't care about. Instead, you are coming with some other unwanted releases, most of them minor changes.

 

Ok, but with this recent "release" you really made me angry! What's the point to remove something that no one complained about?!? I never heard someone to blame that link button. Maybe many of them didn't use it. So what?!? Why to remove it? I used it daily to see what's new in my country, so I have seen immediately that is missing. Anyway, I thought that is a minor bug and it will appear soon. Then I saw this thread and I thought "there is no point to post there, there are enough complains, they will solve it soon". Then I see that you posted that the button will be back. How long can take you to undo something?!? Is really disrespectful to your customers!

 

I am extremely angry about all this story... But not only because of that button. About your attitude. It looks like you want to destroy this website not to improve. Just listen to what people wants and respect their wishes! Just remember about Challenges! People asked for having Virtual and Webcam Cache back and instead of this you created Challenges...

 

If you are unable to come with good & useful releases, then just let the things the way are now!

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Now the very basic "List newest in xxx" is gone??????????

 

The functionality is still available on the site: simply go to the advanced search page, select "By Country/State", and then select the country and state of interest to you. You can bookmark the results to have easy access to the same search.

 

As has been mentioned, we are completely overhauling the user profile and this work will be done in a sprint or two. At that time, users will not have mailing address settings listed in their profile anymore, so the link as it existed on the page would become less and less relevant.

 

So how much more do you plan on taking away? It is frustrating having things you used for years removed, seemingly with out any consideration of the user. And mostly as an unpleasant surprise. You guys have no concept of customer service. The multiclick exercise certainly is not a good solution to replace a single click solution.

 

This whole release is a load of BS! Why do you folks insist on making changes just for the sake of change? Someone would think this was a Navy-run operation with that going on.

 

Howzabout paying attention to what your customers want, and use that info for change making?

 

Everytime this sort of thing happens, we (the users) wind up getting $(%*)#d. :blink:

 

3,4,5 clicks replacing 1. Yeah, that's a good idea! :mad:

 

Sheesh!!

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I'm coming back into the thread because I'm still very annoyed at this. I wanted to find out what new events were happening here in Manitoba. So going through the Advanced search that was promoted, I counted the actual screen contacts I made on my smartphone. 16!!!!!! (including the country scroll list and a couple of pinch and zooms)

 

That was 16 times I had to touch my phone to get information that originally took two taps. How is this an improvement?

 

Now, let's try the distance from N routine... from my house to Churchill Manitoba (where we have had events that people want to know about) is a distance of 1700 km (1000 miles)! Now, if I also wanted to know about caches from here to Oklahoma, Chicago, Wyoming, Colorado, Alberta, Northern Ontario... then okay... I'd ask for that.

 

I've given it a couple of weeks and the benefit of doubt, but this change really doesn't work. It has added layers of complexity rather than simplicity.

 

16 screen touches!

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I live in the corner of a state (Pennsylvania). I can be at a new cache or event in West Virginia or Ohio within 45 minutes, or in Maryland within 90 minutes, or in western New York within two hours. As such, I had little use for a list of the newest caches in Pennsylvania since at least half of the events are in Harrisburg, Philadelphia, York, Lancaster, Scranton, etc. -- a half day's drive. For me it's always been more useful to click on the link in that same "search options" box to "Search for Geocaches Near Your Home Location." If I'm wanting to hunt for a cache I will click on the "Filter Out Finds" version of the link. If I'm looking for upcoming events I would sort the results by clicking on the "Placed" column so that the events bubble up to the top of the list.

 

I recognize that sorting on columns is a premium member feature, but this method ought to work for those of you who are premium members. It's two mouseclicks from your profile page instead of one.

 

I'm in the "bring it back" camp.

 

I'm a Kiwi who lives at the bottom of North Island, NZ. For me the "search newest" gave me North Island caches. I have no use for for other "States" as the only way to get to South Island caches is a ferry trip or flying. They may be physically closer (or even further north) than some new North Island caches but are not readily obtainable.

 

What was once a one-click step is now five clicks, (discounting all the scrolling to get to my nation).

 

If you want to clear up that area of the profile page. Get rid of the "Nearest benchmark" as it doesn't work for NZ survey markers, and (I suspect) anywhere other than the US?

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