Moving caches gone:

[+coachstahly]

 

You mean like the TOU says they can do? Like most any contract-providing entity includes in their agreement?

 

"...without notice...without limitation...without liability..."

 

G. Changes to Our Services. Groundspeak may change, suspend, or discontinue any portion of our services at any time, including but not limited to: any feature, database, application, or content. Groundspeak may also impose limits on certain features offered through our services with or without notice. Our services include software that may update automatically on your device once a new version or feature is available. We are under no obligation to provide maintenance support or upgrades for any of our software except where required by applicable law.

There's a reason contracts include that wording. It's also practical for specific and timely decision-making when your customer/client/community is one globulous world-wide cloud of everyone and no one.

 

Any way you look at it, that's bad PR and erodes the trust of the customers with regard to what the company says from now on.

On its own, this much is true.

HOW an entity decides to carry out decisions may or may not affect the public reputation. But THAT they did is certainly not of issue, and they have every right to.

I get that. That's NOT my point. ANY company can choose to operate however they'd like based on their mission statement and other pertinent documents, but with a paying customer base that funds their profits, they'd be better off making sure that they attempt to keep their customers informed whenever something like this might occur, especially if they've recently come out with a statement that runs counter to what they said they'd do. Any way you look at it, they screwed the pooch on this one, from a perception standpoint. For me, it's not why they did it, but how they went about it, particularly with regard to the 2 caches in question. If they had posted something along the lines, "It's come to our attention that ...... will have a detrimental effect ..... and might lead to cache archival ....... in order to make things run smoother.", you'd still have people upset, but at least they would have addressed it head on and gotten ahead of the situation rather than the PR nuisance they've created.

 

With no realistic competition, there isn't going to be much of a financial hit so it really doesn't matter. I'm also not implying that they were being dishonest or disingenuous at all with their approach (at least I hope that's the case). It just comes off as a lack of awareness about possible ramifications and causes me to wonder if they think about these types of things at all, considering the app issues, the new dashboard issues, and the new logging issues that have all arisen in the recent past. Are they thinking about long term consequences of short term actions because most of the improvements they're making aren't what their customers are asking for.

 

Either way, what they did in this situation isn't going to affect my caching or my decision to continue paying my yearly membership. It will take something more than that to quell my interest in something I still enjoy.

[+brendan714]

 

You mean like the TOU says they can do? Like most any contract-providing entity includes in their agreement?

 

"...without notice...without limitation...without liability..."

 

G. Changes to Our Services. Groundspeak may change, suspend, or discontinue any portion of our services at any time, including but not limited to: any feature, database, application, or content. Groundspeak may also impose limits on certain features offered through our services with or without notice. Our services include software that may update automatically on your device once a new version or feature is available. We are under no obligation to provide maintenance support or upgrades for any of our software except where required by applicable law.

There's a reason contracts include that wording. It's also practical for specific and timely decision-making when your customer/client/community is one globulous world-wide cloud of everyone and no one.

 

Any way you look at it, that's bad PR and erodes the trust of the customers with regard to what the company says from now on.

On its own, this much is true.

HOW an entity decides to carry out decisions may or may not affect the public reputation. But THAT they did is certainly not of issue, and they have every right to.

I get that. That's NOT my point. ANY company can choose to operate however they'd like based on their mission statement and other pertinent documents, but with a paying customer base that funds their profits, they'd be better off making sure that they attempt to keep their customers informed whenever something like this might occur, especially if they've recently come out with a statement that runs counter to what they said they'd do. Any way you look at it, they screwed the pooch on this one, from a perception standpoint. For me, it's not why they did it, but how they went about it, particularly with regard to the 2 caches in question. If they had posted something along the lines, "It's come to our attention that ...... will have a detrimental effect ..... and might lead to cache archival ....... in order to make things run smoother.", you'd still have people upset, but at least they would have addressed it head on and gotten ahead of the situation rather than the PR nuisance they've created.

 

With no realistic competition, there isn't going to be much of a financial hit so it really doesn't matter. I'm also not implying that they were being dishonest or disingenuous at all with their approach (at least I hope that's the case). It just comes off as a lack of awareness about possible ramifications and causes me to wonder if they think about these types of things at all, considering the app issues, the new dashboard issues, and the new logging issues that have all arisen in the recent past. Are they thinking about long term consequences of short term actions because most of the improvements they're making aren't what their customers are asking for.

 

Either way, what they did in this situation isn't going to affect my caching or my decision to continue paying my yearly membership. It will take something more than that to quell my interest in something I still enjoy.

Exactly. It just starts to feel like nobody cares.

 

These caches played a big role in the enjoyment of geocaching for many people. With them gone and no alternatives given, it's just a void in our hobby that we have to deal with now.

 

Imagine the only grocery store in town suddenly removes the dairy section without warning. Sure, life goes on, people still shop at the store, but you sure miss that cold glass of milk in the morning.

[+niraD]

Imagine the only grocery store in town suddenly removes the dairy section without warning. Sure, life goes on, people still shop at the store, but you sure miss that cold glass of milk in the morning.

This analogy may actually get to the heart of it.

 

Some see these grandfathered caches as the dairy section. But I get the impression that others (including the developers at Groundspeak) see it more as the weird little section that used to stock motor oil and wiper blades. It wasn't really something you'd expect in a grocery store, it didn't generate much traffic, and there's an auto parts store right next door that handles stuff like that much more effectively.

[+J Grouchy]

Imagine the only grocery store in town suddenly removes the dairy section without warning. Sure, life goes on, people still shop at the store, but you sure miss that cold glass of milk in the morning.

This analogy may actually get to the heart of it.

 

Some see these grandfathered caches as the dairy section. But I get the impression that others (including the developers at Groundspeak) see it more as the weird little section that used to stock motor oil and wiper blades. It wasn't really something you'd expect in a grocery store, it didn't generate much traffic, and there's an auto parts store right next door that handles stuff like that much more effectively.

 

Yeah...seems better suited to the 'WayMarket' than the 'GeoCash & Go'

[+Manville Possum]

With them gone and no alternatives given, it's just a void in our hobby that we have to deal with now.

 

From what I'm reading here in the forums, these brass caps are no different than Benchmarking and Waymarking.

[+brendan714]

Imagine the only grocery store in town suddenly removes the dairy section without warning. Sure, life goes on, people still shop at the store, but you sure miss that cold glass of milk in the morning.

This analogy may actually get to the heart of it.

 

Some see these grandfathered caches as the dairy section. But I get the impression that others (including the developers at Groundspeak) see it more as the weird little section that used to stock motor oil and wiper blades. It wasn't really something you'd expect in a grocery store, it didn't generate much traffic, and there's an auto parts store right next door that handles stuff like that much more effectively.

Yeah...seems better suited to the 'WayMarket' than the 'GeoCash & Go'

But why not have everything there in one place if at least some people use it? It's not like it takes up much space or stinks up the store that much. And if you don't like it or don't use it, don't go to that corner of the store.

 

It doesn't bother me in the least that some people eat and enjoy pickles even though I can never see myself using them. But I'm certainly not about to go to the management team and complain that there are pickles in the store. I know some people really enjoy them, and I can understand why they'd be upset if they suddenly disappeared from the shelves and customers had to go elsewhere just to get them.

[+brendan714]

With them gone and no alternatives given, it's just a void in our hobby that we have to deal with now.

 

From what I'm reading here in the forums, these brass caps are no different than Benchmarking and Waymarking.

You'd be correct!

Except that Benchmarking doesn't work in any country but the US, and the Waymarking site is an absolute disaster to navigate. Not to mention the Waymarking site is as dead as a sack of bricks.

 

The brass cap and YOSM pages had nice homes where they were, in my opinion.

[+niraD]

Some see these grandfathered caches as the dairy section. But I get the impression that others (including the developers at Groundspeak) see it more as the weird little section that used to stock motor oil and wiper blades. It wasn't really something you'd expect in a grocery store, it didn't generate much traffic, and there's an auto parts store right next door that handles stuff like that much more effectively.

Yeah...seems better suited to the 'WayMarket' than the 'GeoCash & Go'

But why not have everything there in one place if at least some people use it? It's not like it takes up much space or stinks up the store that much.

Well, in this case, it sounds like Groundspeak was rewriting ancient sections of the code running their web site, and re-implementing the exceptions that supported traveling caches (and any other caches that allowed the CO to update the coordinates by more than 528ft/161m) was more difficult than they thought these exceptions justified.

 

Back to the analogy, it's like the grocery store buying a new point-of-sale system (the system that supports all their checkstands). And they discovered that if they want to sell auto parts, then they'll need an extra module that handles the taxes, regulations, and other overhead associated with selling auto parts, in addition to the different ordering systems used by auto parts wholesalers. Given how small a share of their business the auto parts shelf is, they might decided to simplify the new system and just stop selling auto parts in their grocery store.

[+Manville Possum]

With them gone and no alternatives given, it's just a void in our hobby that we have to deal with now.

 

From what I'm reading here in the forums, these brass caps are no different than Benchmarking and Waymarking.

You'd be correct!

Except that Benchmarking doesn't work in any country but the US, and the Waymarking site is an absolute disaster to navigate. Not to mention the Waymarking site is as dead as a sack of bricks.

 

The brass cap and YOSM pages had nice homes where they were, in my opinion.

 

Well, there is your alternative. Learn to navigate the site that many of us enjoy. Benchmarking is US only, but hunting survey markers is not a US only thing.

[+brendan714]

Some see these grandfathered caches as the dairy section. But I get the impression that others (including the developers at Groundspeak) see it more as the weird little section that used to stock motor oil and wiper blades. It wasn't really something you'd expect in a grocery store, it didn't generate much traffic, and there's an auto parts store right next door that handles stuff like that much more effectively.

Yeah...seems better suited to the 'WayMarket' than the 'GeoCash & Go'

But why not have everything there in one place if at least some people use it? It's not like it takes up much space or stinks up the store that much.

Well, in this case, it sounds like Groundspeak was rewriting ancient sections of the code running their web site, and re-implementing the exceptions that supported traveling caches (and any other caches that allowed the CO to update the coordinates by more than 528ft/161m) was more difficult than they thought these exceptions justified.

No, the truth as posted by a Lackey is that they thought it was a locationless cache (which it wasn't), and that's why it was booted.

 

With them gone and no alternatives given, it's just a void in our hobby that we have to deal with now.

From what I'm reading here in the forums, these brass caps are no different than Benchmarking and Waymarking.

You'd be correct!

Except that Benchmarking doesn't work in any country but the US, and the Waymarking site is an absolute disaster to navigate. Not to mention the Waymarking site is as dead as a sack of bricks.

The brass cap and YOSM pages had nice homes where they were, in my opinion.

Well, there is your alternative. Learn to navigate the site that many of us enjoy. Benchmarking is US only, but hunting survey markers is not a US only thing.

Perhaps it's more popular elsewhere, but I just pulled up a random Waymark in one of the most popular tourist destinations in Canada.

Posted in 2011, 3 total visits and 4 total page views. Hmm, only 3 visits in 6 years?

Meanwhile the nearby virtual has nearly 3,000 visits total and over 40 visits this year alone (and it's not even tourist season yet).

In my opinion there's no point investing the time to make the Waymarks when almost nobody will visit them or even view the page!

 

EDIT: There's clearly a market for survey-marker hunting in my hometown (just look at the number of finds on the brass cap page!), but the Waymarking site obviously isn't the place for it to become popular (for whatever reason).

Edited May 30, 2017 by brendan714

[+niraD]

Well, in this case, it sounds like Groundspeak was rewriting ancient sections of the code running their web site, and re-implementing the exceptions that supported traveling caches (and any other caches that allowed the CO to update the coordinates by more than 528ft/161m) was more difficult than they thought these exceptions justified.

No, the truth as posted by a Lackey is that they thought it was a locationless cache (which it wasn't), and that's why it was booted.

I don't want to get into the "was not, was too" debate over whether or not it was a locationless cache. But my understanding is that the CO regularly updated the coordinates by more than 528ft/161m, which put it squarely into the same list of exceptions that the traveling caches fell into. Was that not the case?

[+Manville Possum]

Some see these grandfathered caches as the dairy section. But I get the impression that others (including the developers at Groundspeak) see it more as the weird little section that used to stock motor oil and wiper blades. It wasn't really something you'd expect in a grocery store, it didn't generate much traffic, and there's an auto parts store right next door that handles stuff like that much more effectively.

Yeah...seems better suited to the 'WayMarket' than the 'GeoCash & Go'

But why not have everything there in one place if at least some people use it? It's not like it takes up much space or stinks up the store that much.

Well, in this case, it sounds like Groundspeak was rewriting ancient sections of the code running their web site, and re-implementing the exceptions that supported traveling caches (and any other caches that allowed the CO to update the coordinates by more than 528ft/161m) was more difficult than they thought these exceptions justified.

No, the truth as posted by a Lackey is that they thought it was a locationless cache (which it wasn't), and that's why it was booted.

 

With them gone and no alternatives given, it's just a void in our hobby that we have to deal with now.

From what I'm reading here in the forums, these brass caps are no different than Benchmarking and Waymarking.

You'd be correct!

Except that Benchmarking doesn't work in any country but the US, and the Waymarking site is an absolute disaster to navigate. Not to mention the Waymarking site is as dead as a sack of bricks.

The brass cap and YOSM pages had nice homes where they were, in my opinion.

Well, there is your alternative. Learn to navigate the site that many of us enjoy. Benchmarking is US only, but hunting survey markers is not a US only thing.

Perhaps it's more popular elsewhere, but I just pulled up a random Waymark in one of the most popular tourist destinations in Canada.

Posted in 2011, 3 total visits and 4 total page views. Hmm, only 3 visits in 6 years?

Meanwhile the nearby virtual has nearly 3,000 visits total and over 40 visits this year alone (and it's not even tourist season yet).

In my opinion there's no point investing the time to make the Waymarks when almost nobody will visit them or even view the page!

 

EDIT: There's clearly a market for survey-marker hunting in my hometown (just look at the number of finds on the brass cap page!), but the Waymarking site obviously isn't the place for it to become popular (for whatever reason).

 

Wow. My waymarks seem to never get any visits, but that don't stop me from listing new ones. I enjoy going out and finding these old benchmarks and survey markers that I can find data for, and I list them as Waymarks.

[+thebruce0]

You mean like the TOU says they can do? Like most any contract-providing entity includes in their agreement?

 

"...without notice...without limitation...without liability..."

 

G. Changes to Our Services. Groundspeak may change, suspend, or discontinue any portion of our services at any time, including but not limited to: any feature, database, application, or content. Groundspeak may also impose limits on certain features offered through our services with or without notice. Our services include software that may update automatically on your device once a new version or feature is available. We are under no obligation to provide maintenance support or upgrades for any of our software except where required by applicable law.

There's a reason contracts include that wording. It's also practical for specific and timely decision-making when your customer/client/community is one globulous world-wide cloud of everyone and no one.

 

Any way you look at it, that's bad PR and erodes the trust of the customers with regard to what the company says from now on.

On its own, this much is true.

HOW an entity decides to carry out decisions may or may not affect the public reputation. But THAT they did is certainly not of issue, and they have every right to.

I get that. That's NOT my point. ANY company can choose to operate however they'd like based on their mission statement and other pertinent documents, but with a paying customer base that funds their profits, they'd be better off making sure that they attempt to keep their customers informed whenever something like this might occur, especially if they've recently come out with a statement that runs counter to what they said they'd do.

Sure, I pointed out as much as well. The problem here is that many of us have no problem with their decision, so it's not some big sweeping error on their part where they're shooting themselves in the foot. There are always complainers. It always seems like a bigger mistake on their part when we happen to be on the side of the complainers, but almost no decision they make is ever hurting the majority of the community, and so there will always be the defense that their ultimate direction is generally positive. That doesn't mean they couldn't do things differently, but in many of these cases the decisions are necessary or a long time in coming, and for the general betterment of their website and user community.

 

Any way you look at it, they screwed the pooch on this one, from a perception standpoint.

Unlikely. Remember a vast majority of users are generally apathetic. We get a taste of how much a change is accepted by the amount of negativity in the forum, but again I'd wager it's a very, very small fragment of the community at large. That doesn't mean criticism is not worth listening to - far from it. But screwed the pooch? Can't see that one on this decision. But they could have gone easier on the pooch with a bit of a smoother process.

 

For me, it's not why they did it, but how they went about it, particularly with regard to the 2 caches in question. If they had posted something along the lines, "It's come to our attention that ...... will have a detrimental effect ..... and might lead to cache archival ....... in order to make things run smoother.", you'd still have people upset, but at least they would have addressed it head on and gotten ahead of the situation rather than the PR nuisance they've created.

But they can't foresee the future. What they said when they said it was true. What they did when they did it was true. Mistake or miscommunication along the line somewhere? Perhaps, at best. But that's as far as it gets.

 

I'm also not implying that they were being dishonest or disingenuous at all with their approach (at least I hope that's the case). It just comes off as a lack of awareness about possible ramifications and causes me to wonder if they think about these types of things at all, considering the app issues, the new dashboard issues, and the new logging issues that have all arisen in the recent past. Are they thinking about long term consequences of short term actions because most of the improvements they're making aren't what their customers are asking for.

They ain't perfect, that much we can agree on

 

Back to the analogy, it's like the grocery store buying a new point-of-sale system (the system that supports all their checkstands). And they discovered that if they want to sell auto parts, then they'll need an extra module that handles the taxes, regulations, and other overhead associated with selling auto parts, in addition to the different ordering systems used by auto parts wholesalers. Given how small a share of their business the auto parts shelf is, they might decided to simplify the new system and just stop selling auto parts in their grocery store.

That's a good one.

[+Gill & Tony]

There's an old song which sums up the way Groundspeak have mishandled this

 

'Taint what you do (it's the way that you do it)

 

Archiving the caches and locking them without notice shortly after stating that they would not archive them is just plain wrong. I can see why the caches had to be archived (I've replaced a lot of old spaghetti code in my time) but the way that they did it - completely lacking in common courtesy.

[+redsox_mark]

I don't want to get into the "was not, was too" debate over whether or not it was a locationless cache. But my understanding is that the CO regularly updated the coordinates by more than 528ft/161m, which put it squarely into the same list of exceptions that the traveling caches fell into. Was that not the case?

 

The debate about "locationless" or not is relevant to why it really was archived. The post by CathyH says that they consider it locationless and therefore it was a mistake to allow it, it should have gone in 2005. I.e. Groundspeak thinks in principle it should go, so no point discussing how it could continue to work.

 

But, to answer your question - the way the YOSM worked, the CO would regularly update the coordinates each time they added a new "trig point" to the list. That was a way of featuring the new addition. But at any point in time cachers could log ANY of the trig points. There was no real need to change the coordinates. It could have continued without this. They could still update the cache page to feature the new "trig point", but leave the posted coordinates in one place.

 

But if it is seen as "locationless", this argument is moot.

[+coachstahly]

 

Sure, I pointed out as much as well. The problem here is that many of us have no problem with their decision, so it's not some big sweeping error on their part where they're shooting themselves in the foot. There are always complainers. It always seems like a bigger mistake on their part when we happen to be on the side of the complainers, but almost no decision they make is ever hurting the majority of the community, and so there will always be the defense that their ultimate direction is generally positive. That doesn't mean they couldn't do things differently, but in many of these cases the decisions are necessary or a long time in coming, and for the general betterment of their website and user community.

So now it's OK as long as it doesn't hurt the majority of the community? If that's the case, they might as well move onto all the other non-tradtiional caches as getting rid of those certainly won't affect the majority of cachers. I know it's hyperbole but just because it only affects the minority isn't a good argument for doing this. I'd wager a good amount of money that challenges were/are a minority segment within the community yet those have been so severely restricted with regard to creativity that there most likely won't be any new ones that really challenge me to do something outside my comfort level. What if they were to get rid of benchmarks? Waymarks? Wherigos? Just because they're gone and don't affect that many people isn't a good reason to remove something like this. Would you consider this a "positive" move? I know the code is probably outdated by software standards, but I didn't see a huge clamor for an updated website among the users of the site, just some requests for new icons, improved filtering functionality, and lots of minor bug fixes. So the site gets better (debatable in my opinion) yet the game loses a small portion of what I thought made it interesting. So many people complain about LPCs and guardrail caches but a small amount of caches that are just different enough from the mass of crappy hides we apparently have are removed from play. I understand the reasons behind it as well as the fact that this is a positive move for Groundspeak as it pertains to operations but I fail to see how this is a positive move for the community that uses this site.

 

Unlikely. Remember a vast majority of users are generally apathetic. We get a taste of how much a change is accepted by the amount of negativity in the forum, but again I'd wager it's a very, very small fragment of the community at large. That doesn't mean criticism is not worth listening to - far from it. But screwed the pooch? Can't see that one on this decision. But they could have gone easier on the pooch with a bit of a smoother process.

Maybe not for the majority of those who play but for those in the UK who loved that cache, those in Canada who enjoyed their markers and those around the world who enjoyed finding these now archived caches, they screwed the pooch from a perception standpoint. I'd wager for those challenge lovers, if they had been removed from the game, they would have screwed the pooch there as well. Just because they didn't affect the majority of cachers doesn't mean that things are warm and fuzzy for everyone. Again, the mentality that since this only affects a small segment of the community, it's still OK, doesn't really resonate as a positive move for geocachers. I know Groundspeak can't make everyone happy. It's never going to happen but their base isn't going to be sustainable if they keep doing things that negatively affect only a minority. I'm not sure appeasing the cachers who like park and grabs is good for the game in the long run, since they are certainly the silent majority that make up the customer base.

 

 

But they can't foresee the future. What they said when they said it was true. What they did when they did it was true. Mistake or miscommunication along the line somewhere? Perhaps, at best. But that's as far as it gets.

Programmers can't realize that updating old code will throw a wrench into things with regard to a small group of caches that are directly affected by the new code? They knew going in that these caches were already problematic and required some extra work by the programmers on the old system. Surely someone said to the higher ups that there were going to be issues with these caches because they're not going to be compatible with the new stuff. I'm not even talking about months in advance. I would have been less inclined to be upset if they only knew a week out from implementation and alerted the community to the possible ramifications this would have. I would also venture to guess that the decision to update the code for the site wasn't a spur of the moment decision, seeing as how that's a rather major project. There were sure to be some issues with caches that were already problematic to begin with.

[+thebruce0]

So now it's OK as long as it doesn't hurt the majority of the community?

From a business standpoint, quite likely.

From a perception standpoint, entirely depends on who you ask and what the situation is.

 

I know it's hyperbole but just because it only affects the minority isn't a good argument for doing this.

Then there's never a good argument for doing anything. A line has to be drawn somewhere. Is it better to hurt the majority? Is it better to hurt the business?

There may always be better ways to enact change, but it will never be perfect.

 

Maybe not for the majority of those who play but for those in the UK who loved that cache, those in Canada who enjoyed their markers and those around the world who enjoyed finding these now archived caches, they screwed the pooch from a perception standpoint.

Like I said, every decision, every change, will affect someone negatively. Should they never make a change just because a minority will be hurt? At what point is the 'minority' significant enough not make the change? It's entirely arbitrary. What if I'm in the minority that is 5 people shorter than the threshold? How is that fair to me? Nope, one can't put a finger on number of people to determine whether a change is right or wrong. But certainly it's less harmful to the general state of the community when not-a-majority of them are negatively affected. Other factors then need to be considered. Guaranteed GS does this. Is their process for handling it the best? Not necessarily. But again, that they moved forward isn't the problem.

 

The reasoning for the archival was legitimate. It would be fallacious to argue that nothing should have changed. But, how they communicated could have been been better. EVEN SO, they are perfectly within their rights per the TOU to have carried out the actions the way they did. You could complain about perception and how you feel about the process they took, but you can't provide a legitimate reason why they should not have done what they did, or even that they did it wrongly (at worst, it's an incentive to always read any TOU and imagine the worst case scenario, then be prepared for it). How the process affects the community overall will only come to light in time. And I'd wager (along with many here) that the negative impact worldwide will be negligible. Despite the unfortunate and intense (even legitimate) frustration of the relative few.

 

Programmers can't realize that updating old code will throw a wrench into things with regard to a small group of caches that are directly affected by the new code?

Oh I'm sure they realized what they would be limiting, and I'm sure it didn't come without discussion before moving forward. The scope of the affected community may not have been fully considered, but given the scale of the database and the hobby worldwide, it would never have been significant enough compared to the reportedly major overhaul they were doing to the system. It was a bullet they were prepared to bite.

 

They knew going in that these caches were already problematic and required some extra work by the programmers on the old system. Surely someone said to the higher ups that there were going to be issues with these caches because they're not going to be compatible with the new stuff. I'm not even talking about months in advance. I would have been less inclined to be upset if they only knew a week out from implementation and alerted the community to the possible ramifications this would have. I would also venture to guess that the decision to update the code for the site wasn't a spur of the moment decision, seeing as how that's a rather major project. There were sure to be some issues with caches that were already problematic to begin with.

Indeed. But they weren't in error to archive them. And the scope of the effect is really really not as significant in the grand scheme as it may appear to those affected. Whether it's moving caches, or challenges. Yes, if they killed off challenges, I would be upset. I'd likely be pretty vocal about the loss, probably advocate for some adjustment to the concept for their return, or find a way to mimick similar experiences with what's left over. I wouldn't be crying the downfall of geocaching, I wouldn't be claiming GS had no right, I wouldn't be claiming I had any rights infringed or was somehow objectively hurt by the change. Challenges are pretty significant, but they are also as far as I know still a fairly minor segment of the overall geocaching pastime.

 

If the website went down, or some universal UI change made things more difficult, more frustrating, less functional for ALL users worldwide, then I may have grounds to offer such sentiment and criticism (and I typically do chime in, see many update threads). But a change to a single element of the pastime? Let alone a few caches? Nope. As much as you or I might dislike the change, nope.

Edited May 31, 2017 by thebruce0

[+redsox_mark]

 

The reasoning for the archival was legitimate. It would be fallacious to argue that nothing should have changed.

 

For the true travelling caches, yes. Groundspeak had reasons to stop exceptions for "update coordinates", and without that they don't make sense.

 

But not for YOSM. It could have been left as is. No multiple found it logs (but notes could be added). No special "update coordinates" allowed. The "no multiple found it" logs was addressed by the CO, the YOSM tools made to work with notes. I'm not the YOSM CO, but if he was told he can no longer update coordinates, I think he'd be OK with that too. The CO tried to adapt to the changes, then without notice the cache was archived. The only reason I see for YOSM being archived is the argument that it should have been archived 12 years ago because Groundspeak considers it "locationless". (And that point is arguable). Why is it fallacious to argue "let it continue"?

 

It is moot to argue, that I agree, as it won't change anything. But it is valid to argue this didn't need to happen.

[+thebruce0]

For the true travelling caches, yes. Groundspeak had reasons to stop exceptions for "update coordinates", and without that they don't make sense.

 

But not for YOSM. It could have been left as is. No multiple found it logs (but notes could be added). No special "update coordinates" allowed. The "no multiple found it" logs was addressed by the CO, the YOSM tools made to work with notes. I'm not the YOSM CO, but if he was told he can no longer update coordinates, I think he'd be OK with that too. The CO tried to adapt to the changes, then without notice the cache was archived. The only reason I see for YOSM being archived is the argument that it should have been archived 12 years ago because Groundspeak considers it "locationless". (And that point is arguable). Why is it fallacious to argue "let it continue"?

 

It is moot to argue, that I agree, as it won't change anything. But it is valid to argue this didn't need to happen.

 

You're right, the only reasons for the archival would be because of the growing arguing surrounding the cache status, and because its concept was always more geared towards a Locationless.

And you know what? That's enough of a legitimate, and allowable reason for them to do what they did - because the TOU, which we all agree to, allows for it.

Again, they could have executed the process better, but as I said above, it's "fallacious to argue that nothing should have changed". If they broke the TOU, then there's an argument that they overstepped.

 

If there was no excessive arguing around the cache, it likely wouldn't have drawn the eye of TPTB and pushed the decision over the edge. The concept is better served at Waypointing (despite the website being less desireable and usable). Otherwise, it likely could have survived as a non-moving Virtual that's findable only once but noteable multiple times. But people didn't like that enough, caused too much of a ruckus, and so HQ felt it wasn't worth the time or effort to deal with moving forward. Gone. And they were perfectly within their rights to do so, even if it could have gone smoother (I don't think anyone's arguing it couldn't have been handled better).

[+redsox_mark]

You're right, the only reasons for the archival would be because of the growing arguing surrounding the cache status, and because its concept was always more geared towards a Locationless.

And you know what? That's enough of a legitimate, and allowable reason for them to do what they did - because the TOU, which we all agree to, allows for it.

Again, they could have executed the process better, but as I said above, it's "fallacious to argue that nothing should have changed". If they broke the TOU, then there's an argument that they overstepped.

 

If there was no excessive arguing around the cache, it likely wouldn't have drawn the eye of TPTB and pushed the decision over the edge. The concept is better served at Waypointing (despite the website being less desireable and usable). Otherwise, it likely could have survived as a non-moving Virtual that's findable only once but noteable multiple times. But people didn't like that enough, caused too much of a ruckus, and so HQ felt it wasn't worth the time or effort to deal with moving forward. Gone. And they were perfectly within their rights to do so, even if it could have gone smoother (I don't think anyone's arguing it couldn't have been handled better).

 

Ok. For the first part, I misunderstood what you meant by "fallacious to argue that nothing should have changed". I agree there is no argument that Groundspeak has the right to do as they please. I argue they could have made a different decision (to leave YOSM and Brass Cap), which would cost them nothing in development or support cost, and keep (a minority) of cachers happy.

 

For the second point; Groundspeak will never admit that, but as I said before I think that it is likely that all the well intentioned community response to the initial logging changes and YOSM was what killed it in the end.

[+lodgebarn]

You're right, the only reasons for the archival would be because of the growing arguing surrounding the cache status, and because its concept was always more geared towards a Locationless.

And you know what? That's enough of a legitimate, and allowable reason for them to do what they did - because the TOU, which we all agree to, allows for it.

Again, they could have executed the process better, but as I said above, it's "fallacious to argue that nothing should have changed". If they broke the TOU, then there's an argument that they overstepped.

 

If there was no excessive arguing around the cache, it likely wouldn't have drawn the eye of TPTB and pushed the decision over the edge. The concept is better served at Waypointing (despite the website being less desireable and usable). Otherwise, it likely could have survived as a non-moving Virtual that's findable only once but noteable multiple times. But people didn't like that enough, caused too much of a ruckus, and so HQ felt it wasn't worth the time or effort to deal with moving forward. Gone. And they were perfectly within their rights to do so, even if it could have gone smoother (I don't think anyone's arguing it couldn't have been handled better).

 

Ok. For the first part, I misunderstood what you meant by "fallacious to argue that nothing should have changed". I agree there is no argument that Groundspeak has the right to do as they please. I argue they could have made a different decision (to leave YOSM and Brass Cap), which would cost them nothing in development or support cost, and keep (a minority) of cachers happy.

 

For the second point; Groundspeak will never admit that, but as I said before I think that it is likely that all the well intentioned community response to the initial logging changes and YOSM was what killed it in the end.

To say in writing it will stay and then remove it is just the pits no matter what the reason. They should be in government.

[+thebruce0]

Just to be clear, the fact that a statement was "in writing" doesn't mean they were in any way bound by it (I think everyone agrees) especially since it was not a 'promise'. The process therefore towards the archival, itself, may be what is the pits, depends on who you talk to. It could have gone smoother. But at the same time, there are people who would not have been satisfied regardless of how it happened, and would only be happy if they had remained untouched. They would criticize the act, not the process, no matter how smoothly HQ did it. Those are likely the same ones who actually contributed to the archivals, the ones who raised so much ire at the situation that caused them to throw in the hat.

IMO, it's fine to be upset how it came to pass, but that it came to pass is entirely legitimate, as much as it may suck for those affected.

[+lodgebarn]

Just to be clear, the fact that a statement was "in writing" doesn't mean they were in any way bound by it (I think everyone agrees) especially since it was not a 'promise'. The process therefore towards the archival, itself, may be what is the pits, depends on who you talk to. It could have gone smoother. But at the same time, there are people who would not have been satisfied regardless of how it happened, and would only be happy if they had remained untouched. They would criticize the act, not the process, no matter how smoothly HQ did it. Those are likely the same ones who actually contributed to the archivals, the ones who raised so much ire at the situation that caused them to throw in the hat.

IMO, it's fine to be upset how it came to pass, but that it came to pass is entirely legitimate, as much as it may suck for those affected.

I concur with much of what you say apart from the part about showing that you care contributed to the final axe. That would be very sad and a poor reflection on how the site is run. I do worry about what will be tidied up next.

[+redsox_mark]

I concur with much of what you say apart from the part about showing that you care contributed to the final axe. That would be very sad and a poor reflection on how the site is run. I do worry about what will be tidied up next.

 

It seems to be a combination of things. But specifically for YOSM (and Brass Caps), from their responses, Groundspeak didn't realise these were "locationless" (in their view) until the caches were called into the spotlight. So yes, it seems that the "care" about this cache likely hurt it.

 

It was also on a list with the moving caches of caches which had an exception to the 0.1 mile coordinate change rule. For good technical reason,s Groundspeak didn't want to continue with those exceptions. So they archived all the "moving" caches.

 

The fact that YOSM doesn't NEED to move (coordinate change) was never discussed as the cache was archived without notice.

 

So, YOSM seems to have been archived because:

 

1. It is considered locationless (though really isn't in my view)

2. It is considered moving (though doesn't need to be, in my view).

 

All YOSM needs to continue is a cache page where cachers are allowed to write notes in a specific format.

[+thebruce0]

YOSM seems to have been archived because:

 

1. It is considered locationless

2. It is considered moving

 

All YOSM needs to continue is a cache page where cachers are allowed to write notes in a specific format.

 

In theory, any legitimate cache can be made into a new YOSM-style cache. Just make sure that the primary cache listing is what it should be, and let people optionally post notes as often as they like for other locations.

 

If the CO can find some geologically-related topic for YOSM, they could even publish it as an earthcache and never have to worry about physical cache maintenance. A new 'virtual', which offers a legitimate Earthcache to find, with additional optional side tasks of posting a note for YOSMs. Boom.

[+redsox_mark]

 

In theory, any legitimate cache can be made into a new YOSM-style cache. Just make sure that the primary cache listing is what it should be, and let people optionally post notes as often as they like for other locations.

 

 

Yes. Perhaps that will happen.....