New Powertrail cache type

October 2, 2016

Could this be created? With the 1000 cache PQ limit, some areas with power trails will eat up a lot of that.I'm not interested in most power trails, so i have to run several PQs to get all the caches i want in some areas.

5.7k · October 2, 2016

I would like to see an ignore caches by user feature to cull out the powertrails. I'm not interested in PT's and they waste too much data on PQ's.

6k · October 2, 2016

While I haven't used it to add PTs to my ignore list I have used GSAK to add all caches by a particular owner to it.

October 3, 2016

Lots of Power Trail CO's use a certain attribute so you can load just the PT caches. Like a scuba attribute in the desert. You can use that same attribute to ignore caches on your PQs.

1.3k · October 3, 2016

They're working on it:

4.1k · October 3, 2016

I am not sure how hard its being worked on. A Repetitive Trail attribute seems to be requested fairly regularly. It's effectiveness, of course, would depend on whether it was required, but in many areas the containers are already out there. Unless there was an easy way to retroactively apply the attribute, it might not change that much. The ability to filter out users might be more effective than an attribute. So far I have been able to avoid loading repetitive trails into my gpsr and caching app, or putting them on my ignore list, but that is mostly because I am very selective or rely upon excluding attributes that are used in certain trails.

Edited October 3, 2016 by geodarts

5.7k · October 3, 2016

They're working on it:

SUBMITTED (24998) - [FEATURE] add "Part of a powertrail" to cache attributes

Attribute: Power Trail

'Power Trail' cache attribute

Power Trail Attribute - Please!

New Attribute - PWT

Suggestion for an attribute.

It's been requested often here in the forums, but that don't mean that the company is working on it. Ignoring the request is more like it.

14k · October 3, 2016

Lots of Power Trail CO's use a certain attribute so you can load just the PT caches. Like a scuba attribute in the desert. You can use that same attribute to ignore caches on your PQs.

If we could use attributes when creating notifications it would allow us to stop hundreds or thousands of email notifications on caches we never intend on finding. PT CO's that use attributes such as a scuba attribute in the desert are just misusing attributes.

1.3k · October 3, 2016

It's been requested often here in the forums, but that don't mean that the company is working on it.

They must be working on it -- why else would they change the subject line of a request to include SUBMITTED and include what I presume is a helpdesk-like ticket number? (24998)

Eventually the subject line should be changed to COMPLETED and there will be much rejoicing.

5.7k · October 3, 2016

It's been requested often here in the forums, but that don't mean that the company is working on it.

They must be working on it -- why else would they change the subject line of a request to include SUBMITTED and include what I presume is a helpdesk-like ticket number? (24998)

All true, but that thread was posted 07 December 2011. Look at their phone app, it's their bread and butter and it has been ages in the making and still is not a finished product.

15.3k · October 3, 2016

A new type (as mentioned in this thread's subject line) would make sense if there was something substantially different about them, something that made them work in a manner clearly different from traditional caches. But when I suggested something like this a few years ago, the fans of these caches seemed to want to keep them as traditionals.

1.3k · October 3, 2016

it has been ages in the making and still is not a finished product

Tru dat, but it isn't a fair comparison, project-scope-wise.

Besides, as we have seen, if they were going to explicitly NOT implement the feature, its subject line would have been prefaced with DECLINED

EDIT: typo

Edited October 3, 2016 by frinklabs

7.8k · October 3, 2016

It's been requested often here in the forums, but that don't mean that the company is working on it.

They must be working on it -- why else would they change the subject line of a request to include SUBMITTED and include what I presume is a helpdesk-like ticket number? (24998)

"SUBMITTED" just indicates that they've acknowledged the request and entered it into their tracking system, where it could potentially sit until the end of time. It doesn't mean the request is actively being worked on. If a request was actively being worked on, I would expect the title to be updated to something like "IN PROGRESS" or similar. Of course, that won't happen either. They stopped tagging the thread titles long ago, likely because that could be considered "responding" and...

... Since responding seems to lead to unrealistic expectations, we have cut back on doing so.

In short, a more accurate way to introduce your list of links would have been, "This has been requested before." Saying it's being worked on is inaccurate and gives false hope.

10.1k · October 3, 2016

And who would decide that a series is a Power Trail? The CO, or the Reviewer?

The GeoArt that I've done, I do not consider to be Power Trails. I certainly did not consider mine a Power Trail! Yet some cachers considered it such. About a five mile walk/bike ride along the Hudson River. Very beautiful (if you like views of New York City.) But some cachers considered it a Power Trail, and moved the containers. The MKH was traded for the nano, which was traded for the magnetic bolt. I have no idea where that ended up! Probably traded it for a bison tube! But each container was specific to the location. An MKH does not work on that bench! That's why it was a nano!

Albeit, many forum users here would not seem to enjoy this series. But many cachers did.

15.3k · October 3, 2016

And who would decide that a series is a Power Trail? The CO, or the Reviewer?

IMHO, it should be completely up to the CO, as with most other attributes.

The GeoArt that I've done, I do not consider to be Power Trails. I certainly did not consider mine a Power Trail! Yet some cachers considered it such. About a five mile walk/bike ride along the Hudson River. Very beautiful (if you like views of New York City.) But some cachers considered it a Power Trail, and moved the containers.

This is part of the problem with the current approach of allowing the three cache monte, without actually recognizing it as an official part of the game. The cache owners who allow it can't come out and say that they approve of the three cache monte on their caches. So seekers are left to assume, and we all know what happens when you assume...

Personally, I'd rather see the three cache monte abolished, but if that isn't going to happen, then we need a clear indication of where it is allowed. Expecting cache owners to specify where it is not allowed is backwards. The default behavior should be to "return the geocache to its original location".

1.3k · October 4, 2016

It's been requested often here in the forums, but that don't mean that the company is working on it.

They must be working on it -- why else would they change the subject line of a request to include SUBMITTED and include what I presume is a helpdesk-like ticket number? (24998)

"SUBMITTED" just indicates that they've acknowledged the request and entered it into their tracking system, where it could potentially sit until the end of time. It doesn't mean the request is actively being worked on. If a request was actively being worked on, I would expect the title to be updated to something like "IN PROGRESS" or similar. Of course, that won't happen either. They stopped tagging the thread titles long ago, likely because that could be considered "responding" and...

... Since responding seems to lead to unrealistic expectations, we have cut back on doing so.

In short, a more accurate way to introduce your list of links would have been, "This has been requested before." Saying it's being worked on is inaccurate and gives false hope.

False hope is better than none at all.

Until they come back and explicitly say that they are NOT working on a feature, I have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Here's an example of a request that appears to be working its way through their system, based on the alteration of forum topic subject lines:

SUBMITTED (32023) - [FEATURE] Allow user-corrected co-ordinates on ALL caches

STARTED (32023) - [FEATURE] Update Traditional Coordinates

Interesting (to me) that they'd use two different topics to show progress on the same ticket number.

Meanwhile,

... Since responding seems to lead to unrealistic expectations, we have cut back on doing so.

I think it is fair to say that I have unrealistic expectations regardless of whether they respond or not.

October 5, 2016

False hope is better than none at all.

Until they come back and explicitly say that they are NOT working on a feature, I have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

When does false hope turn into none at all? It's been nearly 5 years! I imagine a team of professionals could hammer this idea out in a couple days. Okay, maybe it's more work than I imagine, but it's not like they're reinventing the wheel or anything. It's just an attribute, but it would be a major help both to those looking for powertrails and those looking to avoid powertrails.

Here's an example of a request that appears to be working its way through their system, based on the alteration of forum topic subject lines:

SUBMITTED (32023) - [FEATURE] Allow user-corrected co-ordinates on ALL caches

STARTED (32023) - [FEATURE] Update Traditional Coordinates

Ditto. It's been 5 years. I would think the framework for this would already be in place from mystery caches, and the implementation would be straight-forward.

I don't think anyone would argue that either of these requests are "unrealistic". In fact, they seem rather logical and would be helpful to many.

3.8k · October 5, 2016

False hope is better than none at all.

Exactly. I learned that from BSG. Everybody should know that.

7.5k · October 5, 2016

And who would decide that a series is a Power Trail? The CO, or the Reviewer?

The CO, of course.

New Powertrail cache type

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