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How do I send a message to multiple friends?


Ed_S

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42 minutes ago, Ed_S said:

Well that's annoying. Why have a list of geo-friends if you can't contact more than one of them at a time? (rhetorical question). 

 

IIRC, it's so some spammer doesn't create a "list of friends", and sends thousands of carp to members at once.

 - I like spam.  When I can stab it with a fork...

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1 hour ago, Ed_S said:

Why have a list of geo-friends

 

 

Friends were invented before the message center. They have nothing to do with communication features. You can send messages whether they are your friends or not. Friends are visible on the leaderboard and you can easily find out if any of the friends have loggend something on a cache you are interested in. I suggest you to use e-mail or social networks when posting something to multiple recipients.

Edited by arisoft
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Yes, I know I can communicate with my friends via many different forms of communication. I simply wondered why it was possible to send a message to one geo-friend, but not two (or more). One can't even add a second recipient to a discussion between two individuals. For example: "Hey, let's go caching this weekend!" "Great - and so-and-so wants to go, too. I'll include so-and-so in this message so we can all be on the same page."  Nope - can't do it. You have to stop your discussion and start it again on a different medium. 

 

I find that puzzling in its lack of utility, given the technology we have available today. At least I now know why it's like that. 

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4 hours ago, Ed_S said:

Yes, I know I can communicate with my friends via many different forms of communication. I simply wondered why it was possible to send a message to one geo-friend, but not two (or more). One can't even add a second recipient to a discussion between two individuals. For example: "Hey, let's go caching this weekend!" "Great - and so-and-so wants to go, too. I'll include so-and-so in this message so we can all be on the same page."  Nope - can't do it. You have to stop your discussion and start it again on a different medium. 

 

I find that puzzling in its lack of utility, given the technology we have available today. At least I now know why it's like that. 

 

Because that's not the purpose of the Message Center.

Want to have a social time? Go to social media.

Want to contact a Cache Owner about their cache? Use the Message Center.

 

If you start allowing group chats, then the server people at GS are suddenly in a different business. Most likely, the Message Center would have to become a Premium Service with an additional charge to pay for it.

 

Then there's the angst involved in that kind of utility. Don't need it; don't want it.

We need to keep advocating AGAINST the constant push toward this becoming Facebook.

Upvoting, downvoting, virtual downvoting, exclusionary filtering: all recent "Why Don't We" topics in the forums. Not always successfully argued against, to the detriment of the hobby's website and app focus.

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On 8/26/2021 at 1:09 PM, TeamRabbitRun said:

 

Because that's not the purpose of the Message Center.

Want to have a social time? Go to social media.

Want to contact a Cache Owner about their cache? Use the Message Center.

 

It's a Message Center - its ostensible purpose is to send and receive messages. Not to "have a social time" or even to "have a group chat." If I want to send a message to one cacher, it's all good. If I want to attach a second recipient, oh HECK no!!  As I've repeatedly said, I find that odd.

 

On 8/26/2021 at 1:09 PM, TeamRabbitRun said:

 

If you start allowing group chats, then the server people at GS are suddenly in a different business. Most likely, the Message Center would have to become a Premium Service with an additional charge to pay for it.

 

I highly doubt there are "server people" at GS. More likely, an IT person sets things up and they run on their own.

 

On 8/26/2021 at 1:09 PM, TeamRabbitRun said:

 

Then there's the angst involved in that kind of utility. Don't need it; don't want it.

We need to keep advocating AGAINST the constant push toward this becoming Facebook.

Upvoting, downvoting, virtual downvoting, exclusionary filtering: all recent "Why Don't We" topics in the forums. Not always successfully argued against, to the detriment of the hobby's website and app focus.

 

Ah, now we come to the crux of the situation - you're against change that you don't like. I respect your opinion, but it's just an opinion, and it's just yours.

 

Here's mine:  these forums aren't in any danger of becoming anything like Facebook or any of the other social media. Upvoting and all the rest? If you don't like it, don't do it. I rarely engage in any of that myself - I just don't care about how many "likes" I or anyone got. Since we have to see them, I would like to see who gave the "like" and so on, because I'm curious to see who agrees with me. But it's not even enough of an issue for me to bring it up for discussion anywhere.

 

"Why don't we ...?" topics are how improvements are made, and how people who are perhaps getting fed up with things being retained as cachers. Besides, the time to prevent changes for the sake of change is long gone. Again, my opinion - when they started allowing micros in the woods, in places where you could hide a much larger cache, wouldn't be the annoyance they are if we didn't allow changes. That happened back in the early days, although I remember when hiders were asked why they were putting a micro out there in the woods. And caching used to be about hiking to a specific location, to see something. It wasn't about hiding a magnetic hide-a-key beside a garbage dumpster or sticking a micro under a light post skirt in the middle of a parking lot. The "change genie" is long out of the bottle, and there's no putting it back. Either accept that change in inevitable, or be miserable.

 

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6 hours ago, Ed_S said:

If I want to send a message to one cacher, it's all good. If I want to attach a second recipient, oh HECK no!!

If you want to have a second conversation with that cache (e.g., about a different topic), then oh HECK no!!

 

And so on. I find the email works so well for conversations with geocachers that I see no need to use the Message Center with all it's limitations.

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7 hours ago, Ed_S said:

It's a Message Center - its ostensible purpose is to send and receive messages. Not to "have a social time" or even to "have a group chat." If I want to send a message to one cacher, it's all good. If I want to attach a second recipient, oh HECK no!!  As I've repeatedly said, I find that odd.

 

So how would you see that working? Message Centre groups messages by sender, like this:

 

image.png.ff9aa781086e457f4b57e6c4c9074970.png

 

So suppose you send a message to half a dozen mates. They each reply, but all their replies go into different threads. After few back and forths the whole thing becomes unmanageable, with no-one able to follow the conversation.

 

Or are you suggesting a complete redesign of MC? Please no, its buggy enough as it is without any more wholesale tinkering.

Edited by barefootjeff
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On 8/28/2021 at 12:30 PM, Ed_S said:

 

It's a Message Center - its ostensible purpose is to send and receive messages. Not to "have a social time" or even to "have a group chat." If I want to send a message to one cacher, it's all good. If I want to attach a second recipient, oh HECK no!!  As I've repeatedly said, I find that odd.

 

 

I highly doubt there are "server people" at GS. More likely, an IT person sets things up and they run on their own.

 

 

Ah, now we come to the crux of the situation - you're against change that you don't like. I respect your opinion, but it's just an opinion, and it's just yours.

 

Here's mine:  these forums aren't in any danger of becoming anything like Facebook or any of the other social media. Upvoting and all the rest? If you don't like it, don't do it. I rarely engage in any of that myself - I just don't care about how many "likes" I or anyone got. Since we have to see them, I would like to see who gave the "like" and so on, because I'm curious to see who agrees with me. But it's not even enough of an issue for me to bring it up for discussion anywhere.

 

"Why don't we ...?" topics are how improvements are made, and how people who are perhaps getting fed up with things being retained as cachers. Besides, the time to prevent changes for the sake of change is long gone. Again, my opinion - when they started allowing micros in the woods, in places where you could hide a much larger cache, wouldn't be the annoyance they are if we didn't allow changes. That happened back in the early days, although I remember when hiders were asked why they were putting a micro out there in the woods. And caching used to be about hiking to a specific location, to see something. It wasn't about hiding a magnetic hide-a-key beside a garbage dumpster or sticking a micro under a light post skirt in the middle of a parking lot. The "change genie" is long out of the bottle, and there's no putting it back. Either accept that change in inevitable, or be miserable.

 

 

Wow - So much aggression!

 

Ed, I fear you've taken my very narrowly targeted opinions and interpreted them very broadly. And, you're wrong in your assumptions of "what I'm against". That specific topic I've written about before, with pretty well defined reasoning.  (Is it 'Ed', btw? Mine's Bill.)

 

As for your last "Why Don't We" paragraph: also based on a misunderstanding of what I wrote. It isn't 'change' that I'm against, it's the trend to make all technology look like all other technology with no regard to the effect it has in a specific instance. I don't care if a change makes things easier or more comfortable or more familiar; rather I'm concerned with whether or not it's in line with the best interests of the hobby. And that's "As I See It", as you rightly pointed out.

 

I've long held the opinion that the online side of geocaching should take a back seat to the 'field' side of the hobby, and I'm losing that argument. You can now have a very prolific caching career without ever sitting in front of a computer, picking up a GPSr, a map or even turning on Location Services on your phone. All you have to do is look at the pretty picture, and you can see exactly which lamp post skirt you need to lift. Scandalous!

 

The other side of that, which you sort-of ranted against (with my agreement), is the change in hiding habits, but that's just people. 

 

Players are now being encouraged to disregard cache writeups and to display Hints as soon as they open a cache in the app. Describing specific maintenance issues is discouraged in favor of blindly posting ONLY a "Something wrong here" log because apparently it was too confusing or too much work to both claim a find AND tell a CO that their Altoids tin is full of water.

 

There are PLENTY of things that GS has gotten right, and I'm appreciative of the VAST majority of how they've engineered the hobby as played through their website, but do I expect the 'online' side to continue the march toward social media-ness? 

 

Sure.

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On 8/29/2021 at 4:12 PM, TeamRabbitRun said:

 

Wow - So much aggression!

 

If one is looking for something specific, like aggression, one can find it anywhere. In this case, I initially interpreted your reply to my post as snarky, and was going to reply in kind, until I decided to sit on it a bit. I'm still not sure if your post was sarcastic or something else negative, but in the end I replied without the vitriol I could have used.

 

On 8/29/2021 at 4:12 PM, TeamRabbitRun said:

 

Ed, I fear you've taken my very narrowly targeted opinions and interpreted them very broadly. And, you're wrong in your assumptions of "what I'm against". That specific topic I've written about before, with pretty well defined reasoning

 

Not sure how to reply to that without sounding "aggressive" to someone who's all primed to spot aggression everywhere. How do I say "Excuse me for not researching everything you've written for hints on how to interpret your current posts" without sounding aggressive? But wait - you're in Noo Yawk. Isn't everyone aggressive-sounding there? And in Joisey, too? 

 

On 8/29/2021 at 4:12 PM, TeamRabbitRun said:

(Is it 'Ed', btw? Mine's Bill.)

 

Wow, that's some tiny print! Yes, I'm Ed. I started doing this when you could still get your name as your cache handle.

 

I used to be a lot closer to you - we moved here to Texas last Fall, coming from Youngstown Ohio.

 

On 8/29/2021 at 4:12 PM, TeamRabbitRun said:

As for your last "Why Don't We" paragraph: also based on a misunderstanding of what I wrote. It isn't 'change' that I'm against, it's the trend to make all technology look like all other technology with no regard to the effect it has in a specific instance. I don't care if a change makes things easier or more comfortable or more familiar; rather I'm concerned with whether or not it's in line with the best interests of the hobby. And that's "As I See It", as you rightly pointed out.

 

I've long held the opinion that the online side of geocaching should take a back seat to the 'field' side of the hobby, and I'm losing that argument.

 

I see it happening, too, and I don't like it. Children who were still in diapers when I started caching are now dictating policy and telling me how caching works. (that's only a little bit hyperbolic) Geocaching started out to be about the experience of seeking and finding the cache. I'm not a Luddite, but I like change that results in progress, not change for the sake of change, or change to allow the dilution of the hobby (how's that for a term?).

 

On 8/29/2021 at 4:12 PM, TeamRabbitRun said:

You can now have a very prolific caching career without ever sitting in front of a computer, picking up a GPSr, a map or even turning on Location Services on your phone. All you have to do is look at the pretty picture, and you can see exactly which lamp post skirt you need to lift. Scandalous!

 

Lamp posts in a parking lot, you know what you're going to get. Well, maybe you don't know about the wasp nest or whatever, but you'll find out about them soon enough. Micros in the woods, now. . . .  I frequently say Any putz can hide a micro, or even a nano in the woods that's hard to find. You want to impress me? Hide an ammo can that's tough to find.

 

On 8/29/2021 at 4:12 PM, TeamRabbitRun said:

 

The other side of that, which you sort-of ranted against (with my agreement), is the change in hiding habits, but that's just people. 

 

Players are now being encouraged to disregard cache writeups and to display Hints as soon as they open a cache in the app.

 

Really? It's been a while since I've hidden any, and now that we're settled here in Texas, I'm thinking about what I can put where. I might not conform to their wishes - I'm just not much for doing things I don't see the sense in doing.

 

On 8/29/2021 at 4:12 PM, TeamRabbitRun said:

Describing specific maintenance issues is discouraged in favor of blindly posting ONLY a "Something wrong here" log because apparently it was too confusing or too much work to both claim a find AND tell a CO that their Altoids tin is full of water.

 

I always thought that they discouraged that because it's hard to tell the CO his Altoids tin is full of water without telling other cachers they're looking for an Altoids tin. Of course, I've been known to email the CO directly (assuming they're still active) and tell them exactly what I found, where I found it, and so on. That way they know, but the other cachers still don't get any extra clues. Oh, but emailing the reviewer who enabled the cache in the first place to let them know the cache is compromised and the owner last logged in in 2005 is remarkably ineffective. At least around here, reviewers ONLY react to Needs Archived posts. Anything less, they ignore.

 

On 8/29/2021 at 4:12 PM, TeamRabbitRun said:

There are PLENTY of things that GS has gotten right, and I'm appreciative of the VAST majority of how they've engineered the hobby as played through their website, but do I expect the 'online' side to continue the march toward social media-ness? 

 

Sure.

As long as possible, I'll cache my way, and write things up my way. If the day comes when I can't do it the way I want to do it, I'll just stop. No harm, no foul, fun while it lasted.

 

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On 8/28/2021 at 5:35 PM, niraD said:

If you want to have a second conversation with that cache (e.g., about a different topic), then oh HECK no!!

 

And so on. I find the email works so well for conversations with geocachers that I see no need to use the Message Center with all it's limitations.

 

Here's one limitation - you want to contact a couple of cachers you met at a meet-and-greet to see if you all want to plan a caching trip. But you don't have their emails, because most people don't walk up to someone and say "Hi, I cache as XX but my real name is ZZZ and my email is aaa@bbb.ccc - what's yours?"

 

Now I know you're going to jump on that, because I used the example of new acquaintances, who would logically not be on your Friends List. But you can't include multiple recipients sending any messaging that goes through GC. 

 

 

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On 8/28/2021 at 6:53 PM, barefootjeff said:

 

 

Or are you suggesting a complete redesign of MC? Please no, its buggy enough as it is without any more wholesale tinkering.

If it's that buggy to begin with, maybe it needs to be scrapped and re-thought.

 

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7 hours ago, Ed_S said:

Now I know you're going to jump on that, because I used the example of new acquaintances, who would logically not be on your Friends List. But you can't include multiple recipients sending any messaging that goes through GC. 

I look up their profiles on geocaching.com and send them individual email. Then I wait until they reply with their email address before I send email to multiple recipients.

 

Or, if they all let geocaching.com show their email addresses on their profiles, then I can skip all that and just send email to multiple recipients.

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21 hours ago, Ed_S said:

If it's that buggy to begin with, maybe it needs to be scrapped and re-thought.

 

I'd vote for scrapped, thanks...   Always wondered why this hobby would even want to get involved  as a messaging service.    :)

IIRC, this was created because many new phone users wouldn't enter the site to leave their email address and couldn't be contacted.

I don't know one person that doesn't have an email address, and it seems (to me) to be a lot simpler just to be required to have a working email to be a member. 

When we tried contact (anyone remember the "Intro" app?), those same people didn't respond to the message center either...  

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I think an update to the message center to be able to message multiple people at once is a great idea.  I've set up geo-teams for certain geo-adventures or coordinating with GIFF projects and using x number of messages to coordinate can be rough.

 

As a comparison to texting on my cell phone:

I have some single person text threads and some group text threads.  If I need to message just my wife then I just text her.  If I want to message my wife and kids I use that group thread.  It's very useful to be able to do that. 

 

I agree that the message center is meant to be a center for messaging, and messaging multiple geocachers has its uses. 

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