Jump to content

Release Notes (Website: Log upvotes) - March 15, 2021


Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, sernikk said:

 

Why so? Seems like a cool feature to me and I'm glad this finally went live

Waste of space and more scrolling required for minimal, if any, information gain. I can decide for myself if it was useful information or worth reading without depending on the whims of others.

  • Upvote 7
  • Funny 1
  • Love 1
Link to comment
1 hour ago, Geocaching HQ said:

This feature was already live in Canada and Norway to receive feedback before releasing it to a wider audience.

What kind of feedback did you receive, then? I just tried opening 5 random caches in Canada (from Viajero Perdido's most recents finds), and either none of them had any votes cast on the logs, or the sorting function is broken.

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment

My most recent finds were very new caches, less likely to have accumulated any upvotes yet.

 

Here's one with some upvotes, "sort by" and you can see them.  Interestingly, even though it's a locally famous cache that's likely to attract more real stories, the upvoted ones are only a small percentage of the total.  That's been my experience in general.

 

Edited by Viajero Perdido
Splling, add observation
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment

I don't Know if it will be a good feature, time will tell...

If i read correctly this is not available on write note log type?

So if I visit a cache again after I found it and write something. This can not be upvoted. Strange. Or on a puzzle cache write notes about people that solved the puzzle but have not logged it yet...

Edited by simon_cornelus
Typo
  • Upvote 2
Link to comment

Yeah happy days yet more vertical space taken on the screen with useless info thus preventing the reading of useful log data. Put this on a par with those logs saying thanks in 100 languages. Not for me and please please give me an opt out.

 

Secondly if it is really necessary for this feature to exist then just use a couple of small icons on the top line. No repeated text is really required here. At the least I would then be able to see more logs.

Edited by lodgebarn
  • Upvote 3
  • Love 1
Link to comment
2 hours ago, Geocaching HQ said:

You can now vote for logs which you feel include story worthy moments, an inspiring tale about the journey to the cache, or helpful tips.

Log upvotes.jpg

 

 

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm struggling to see anything in this example that might be Helpful to future searchers or might be the makings of a Great Story, like what adventures or encounters did they have in their journey along the way or what did they see apart from the sunshine? What is this example meant to convey?

  • Upvote 2
  • Funny 3
  • Helpful 1
Link to comment
On 3/15/2021 at 7:16 PM, two bison said:

Will there be a way to opt out of having this appear on each and every log I might want to read? 

Seems unlikely, so I added a rule to my content blocker

www.geocaching.com##td > .LogDisplayRight.FloatLeft > .upvotes

 

EDIT (April 2, 2021): The rule above no longer works, this does:

www.geocaching.com##td > .LogDisplayRight.FloatLeft > .log-cta > .upvotes
Edited by koeniglich
  • Upvote 5
  • Funny 1
  • Helpful 2
Link to comment

Thankfully this is not a feature that negatively impacts people on the base level, but is only a value add when used. I'll second the request that it not be made a statistic. Ever. But when it's used, as I've seen so far, it is very helpful. Might it get abused? Perhaps. But without stats the only reason to abuse it would be to antagonize people (as opposed to personal gain), so I'm not expecting to see any significant misuse. In this case, I think the signal will far outweigh the noise - and the benefit is that the signals (rating-relevant logs) will be lifting out of the noise (potentially hundreds of generic logs).

 

As posted above, if you don't want to see it then a custom filter can be added to a browser to hide the widget. And I've never been one to favour any new amount of whitespace, but honestly the single line added to a log entry hasn't bothered me in the slightest; not when any log could itself take up way more lines :)

 

IMO, we in Canada and Norway got used to the feature. Everyone else now will too ;)

Edited by thebruce0
  • Upvote 7
  • Funny 1
Link to comment
3 hours ago, Lynx Humble said:

Useless feature that I never use.

 

I agree. I've used it but I don't find it that useful. I don't recall anyone who has the feature say they thought it added function to the website and was a good tool for finders.

 

But shrug, whatever.  Except that I have the same misgivings as baer2006:

 

"If I can ask for one thing: Please do not make this a public stat (like saying somewhere on your profile "Your logs got x "Great Story" and y "Helpful" votes). This would be an instant kill of the feature. And neither make it available via API, otherwise project-gc would exploit it."

  • Upvote 1
  • Helpful 1
Link to comment
11 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

I don't recall anyone who has the feature say they thought it added function to the website and was a good tool for finders.

Check the 3rd comment above yours. =P

 

That said, I'll add to my comment:

3 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

Will Groundspeak be sending me a notification if the log I voted on is edited? 

 

This is a valid concern I hadn't thought of before.  I guess currently the benefit is that the vote you previously gave isn't publicly attributed to you, so the only negative is in the extremely off chance that you voted a good log and the writer decided to make it a bad one, or remove whatever it was you felt made it worth the vote. Slim chances of that I'd say, but it is a side effect worth bringing up I think.

 

Also the fact that there's no current way to list all the past logs that you've cast a vote on. That, at least, would give us an option to review past votes to see if they're still valid after possible editing...

 

  • Funny 1
Link to comment
On 3/16/2021 at 8:16 AM, two bison said:

Will there be a way to opt out of having this appear on each and every log I might want to read? 

 

If you use the project-gc integration script, I've added a feature request to provide a toggle (similar to the other integration options).

If you use a plugin for your own custom CSS (e.g. Stylebot), you could add this rule:

div.upvotes{display:none !important}

Or use the uBlock origin content block snippet provided by @koeniglich above

 

Edit: I've contributed to the project-gc integration script and the changes have been released.

Edited by bruzie
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
4 hours ago, dadoskawina said:

Why not downvoting? Logs like in the example below (creaed solely for project-gc "the author" badge) deserved to be at the very end, never showing up to the reader...

 

As I completely agree with you that such logs should be stigmatized, I also understand the reason for downvotes not being a feature - and I hope it will stay so. For me that is nearly the same case as here in the forums where you can only react with laughter, shock or give an upvote.

 

If someone missed the FAQ link, here is the official reasoning:

"Why aren’t there downvotes?
At Geocaching HQ we want to encourage the sharing of fun, helpful, and inspiring logs. Downvoting logs can discourage the writing of logs all together. By introducing upvotes, logs whose authors shared their caching experience will have the opportunity to rise to the top when sorted, while logs that leave something to be desired will filter down."

 

  • Upvote 2
  • Surprised 1
  • Helpful 1
Link to comment

I love it. 

But i have a Feature Request: Inform the log writer of an upvote! 

The very first line of HQs blog/FAQ is;

"At Geocaching HQ we want to encourage the sharing of fun, helpful, and inspiring logs"

 

I'd say there's not much incentive to write a 'fun helpful or inspiring' log if the log writer never receives feedback. 

I am looking forward to this nonetheless. 

  • Upvote 9
  • Funny 1
  • Surprised 1
Link to comment

Why the buttons are not available in the Log page?
In the cache page with list of logs the buttons are available, but if I press the "view log" and go to the log page I don't have these buttons available. It make sense to open the log to read it in more detail, but then no option to vote there...

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment

"Be cautious of highlighting spoilers though, as cache owners may delete those logs."

 

I'm not sure how to read this statement. Should we not highlight those logs so that the spoilers remain on the geocache page? Or should we highlight them to remind the cache owner that there are spoiler logs?

  • Upvote 3
  • Funny 1
Link to comment

@onepooja is there a way to make this neater?  When I scroll through the logs there's this constant "Great story Helpful" "Great story helpful" "Great story helpful" which is repetitive and unnecessary.  Perhaps do something like is done on the forum page where there's an unobtrusive upvote arrow on the bottom right and some icons that represent the upvotes.  That's a lot neater than what's on the log pages right now.

 

Please consider this.

  • Surprised 1
  • Love 1
Link to comment

I see these options on my caches now.

I think this is terrible, for the reasons I laid out in this thread: 

 

 

 

 

Please read more than just the one posted message.

The implementation doesn't take into account human nature, and disenfranchises & disincentifies finders who don't want to compete in their log entries. 

 

In my opinion, this will be quietly harmful to the hobby. Not for the people who want to vote on, or put a rating on, or 'Like' every aspect of their lives, but for the majority of people who don't, and won't complain about it. They'll just stop writing anything but "TFTC" or single-dot logs.

 

How short-sighted.

 

 

  • Upvote 6
Link to comment

Continuing,  I notice that it's been implemented WITH the ability to sort.

So, many people, including the majority of new players I think, will immediately click "ORDER BY BEST STORY or HELPFUL" as they view every cache, and everything I was worried about is in place.
 

In that old thread I quoted above, we finally discussed that NOT having a 'sort' might be OK so that people could see what others have thought of logs as they scroll through them, but that won't be true with a SORT option, and it's only a very small step to a 'DEFAULT' sort option after a short while of people asking for it.

 

Respectfully, will someone from GS read this and respond to these points, please?

  • Upvote 1
  • Funny 1
Link to comment

From my experience I think there's a good chance the feature won't be used. I know I never remember to use the  sort feature while I'm in the field.  I only use it occassionally at the computer if I stumble upon a good log entry, or someone leaves a good log entry on one of my caches. 

 

If they don't turn this into another stat, I think it will be a tool that a few use, but generally it will be ignored. 

Link to comment
29 minutes ago, TeamRabbitRun said:

They'll just stop writing anything but "TFTC" or single-dot logs.

-You think there could possibly be MORE "TFTCs" (&/or copied and pasted logs?!) I certainly hope not. But then again I spent my first year writing logs i thought no one would read. And had no idea how often people would search logs for clues. (I know more now so I write more now.)

 

 

10 minutes ago, TeamRabbitRun said:

Continuing,  I notice that it's been implemented WITH the ability to sort.

So, many people, including the majority of new players I think, will immediately click "ORDER BY BEST STORY or HELPFUL" as they view every cache, and everything I was worried about is in place.

-I think the majority of players (new and old) are mostly interested in the most recent logs. Then if they are useless (TFTCs or copy/paste) they might sort by 'Helpful.'  Which i think is.......helpful. (ha?) But maybe we're talking about two different things here, cachers in the field who need help finding the cache VS cachers sitting at a desk reading logs in their spare time....? Either way i agree with your 2018 post about how much time/energy you put into a log just to never see it again. 

 

 

2 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

From my experience I think there's a good chance the feature won't be used. I know I never remember to use the  sort feature while I'm in the field.  I only use it occassionally at the computer if I stumble upon a good log entry, or someone leaves a good log entry on one of my caches. 

 

If they don't turn this into another stat, I think it will be a tool that a few use, but generally it will be ignored. 

- I think i can agree to this. lol But then again i catch myself looking at cachers 'log similarity' & 'average log length' often enough so i could see this being quantified.  

 

 

Overall I think i'm going to like this. Cache Owners get rewarded with favorite points. Why not try to reward a log writer? Although my initial Request still stands, why not notify the log writer? (How else will they know their log was appreciated?)

  • Upvote 4
  • Surprised 1
Link to comment
3 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

There is no limit to how many logs you upvote but you can only upvote a single log once. If you click the button again, it will remove your vote.

 

But what if that Helpful log was also a Great Story?

  • Funny 2
Link to comment

As for the sorting method selector - how about to save one click (for us users) and resources (for you, HQ)?

 

image.png.d6434b2e8f4458ac3f08d99e07099e56.png


ad 1) change the sorting dropdown into radio button (or another one-click solution).
ad 2) the number in parentheses could indicate how many logs have been upvoted (if any) and users wouldn't have to blindly try everything to find out which would help to save CPU time of the servers and bandwidth as well.

 

Edited by Pontiac_CZ
  • Upvote 6
Link to comment
On 3/16/2021 at 5:26 PM, 2RottenPears said:

I love it. 

But i have a Feature Request: Inform the log writer of an upvote! 

The very first line of HQs blog/FAQ is;

"At Geocaching HQ we want to encourage the sharing of fun, helpful, and inspiring logs"

 

I'd say there's not much incentive to write a 'fun helpful or inspiring' log if the log writer never receives feedback. 

I am looking forward to this nonetheless. 

Yeah, I was also wondering about this . apparently someone marked one of my logs as a "great story". So I went looking where you can see this. Well, I didn't find it. 

No email, no message, nothing in statistics. So what on earth would be the point of this. 

Seriously if you don't even know that someone marked your log, how can this then help to get better logs. 

 

If there was some mentioning in statistics that you got this or that upvotes, that would be nice. BUT ONLY if there also would be a downvote function with statistics. I would really, really LOVE to downvote al those stupid "TFTC", "Found it" or worse "logged with Garmin live geocaching "  logs. Perhaps when receiving a message telling you that again someone marked your log as useless trash would inspire to write a decent log.

  • Upvote 5
  • Funny 1
  • Surprised 2
Link to comment
28 minutes ago, Blazez said:

Yeah, I was also wondering about this . apparently someone marked one of my logs as a "great story". So I went looking where you can see this. Well, I didn't find it. 

No email, no message, nothing in statistics. So what on earth would be the point of this. 

Seriously if you don't even know that someone marked your log, how can this then help to get better logs. 

 

If there was some mentioning in statistics that you got this or that upvotes, that would be nice. BUT ONLY if there also would be a downvote function with statistics. I would really, really LOVE to downvote al those stupid "TFTC", "Found it" or worse "logged with Garmin live geocaching "  logs. Perhaps when receiving a message telling you that again someone marked your log as useless trash would inspire to write a decent log.

I vote no. This is a terrible idea. Surely you can imagine how this can be abused. 

 

Just because someone voted your log as useless trash in no way means it is not a decent log. 

  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...