Link to view caches found by someone is broken

[ycjapan]

Hi,

 

I visited the profile of someone, clicked "Geocaches", then I try to click "Traditional Geocache" or the number "36" to view the list of their found caches (see below).

But the link doesn't work anymore ?? (using latest Chrome)

Is it a problem with the site?

 

Regards

Geocaches Found

Name	Count
Total Found	36
Traditional Geocache	36

 

 

[RuideAlmeida]

3 minutes ago, ycjapan said:

Is it a problem with the site?

 

Normal to me... 

[ycjapan]

Hmm maybe because you are a moderator?

Tried also with Firefox, the caches found by someone else are not clickable anymore... (tried to click on almost any text around!)

 

IIRC 

Traditional Geocache

36

was clickable not long ago.

 

Edited September 5, 2021 by ycjapan

[+Max and 99]

5 minutes ago, ycjapan said:

Hmm maybe because you are a moderator?

Tried also with Firefox, the caches found by someone else are not clickable anymore... (tried to click on almost any text around!)

 

IIRC 

Traditional Geocache

36

was clickable not long ago.

 

I'm using Chrome and when I click on traditional I get results. 

[+NanCycle]

3 hours ago, ycjapan said:

Hi,

 

I visited the profile of someone, clicked "Geocaches", then I try to click "Traditional Geocache" or the number "36" to view the list of their found caches (see below).

But the link doesn't work anymore ?? (using latest Chrome)

Is it a problem with the site?

 

Regards

Geocaches Found

Name	Count
Total Found	36
Traditional Geocache	36

 

 

I have no problem with seeing yours.  Safari on iPad

[+TriciaG]

Works for me on Firefox. Perhaps check your ad block and/or privacy type settings?

[+2Abendsegler]

This feature is no longer available for basic members with this Release Notes ...

 

[+Max and 99]

17 minutes ago, 2Abendsegler said:

This feature is no longer available for basic members with this Release Notes ...

You're right! I forgot all about that change. 

[+TriciaG]

2 hours ago, 2Abendsegler said:

This feature is no longer available for basic members with this Release Notes ...

 

Good catch!

[+Hynz]

17 hours ago, ycjapan said:

Is it a problem with the site?

As already mentioned it is unfortunately not a problem with the site but an intentional cutback for basic members.

So the actual problem is that Groundspeak considers this just as an unimportant convenience and not as an essential source of information.

 

Currently you can still use this link but there is no doubt it will go away sooner or later 

https://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx

Edited September 6, 2021 by Hynz

[ycjapan]

3 hours ago, Hynz said:

Currently you can still use this link but there is no doubt it will go away sooner or later 

On the one hand paying members feel more the part of a private community, having privileged access to a growing number of services (becoming more and more restricted to regular members).

 

On the other hand, "basic members" (they used to be "members", btw the term "basic" targeting a person is rather rude, "basic membership" is better), from the long term regular members panel, feel more and more rejected (some say duped) by this never ending and even growing fee-hunting policy.

 

A donation model, like Wikipedia, would be understandable, because the content, after all, is made by members.

Doing pretty simple statistics (with a Perl script that analyzes the members profiles from caches logs, sampled from around the world, at different times), the percentage of paying members was amazingly high (did that a few years ago, I'd have to fix the code to cope with the new version of the site and give proper & current figures),

 

That multiplied by the yearly fee (removing members who are paying members for 1-month (or less)), results in a very successful business.

(in comparison, such a site hosting cost is negligible and human cost for code and system maintenance, that I don't know precisely, but being in this IT field myself can give a rough guess given the site changes, are not significant enough to justify such a free).

 

Personally, I admire people who manage to build a solid and very profitable enterprise.

 

It's just that over the years, it seems the company has always been targeting profit while the vital content comes from its members.

 

GC is still usable even for a regular member, but today I feel disappointed that such an essential link to visit another member found-caches became a paying-only feature.

Having a couple caches alive, it seems to me important to be able to see what a other caches a "finder" has found.

 

 

[+thebruce0]

15 hours ago, ycjapan said:

A donation model, like Wikipedia, would be understandable, because the content, after all, is made by members.

 

Actually, geocaching as a hobby can exist without geocaching.com. This is just a listing service. And there are plenty of "listing" services that may charge for the privilege of listing whatever it is they list on their service, because of additional features they provide to make it more worthwhile to list on their service. Consider this site no different.

Actually, it is because the hobby isn't impacted fundamentally by any paid membership perks. One can be a 'basic member' (or would you prefer 'user with non-premium functionality'?) and still fully participate in the hobby of geocaching. Additionally, the cost of a paid membership is around one restaurant dinner per year. 

 

Content may be populated by members, as a listing service, but non-paying users should probably be happy that paid content isn't completely restricted to paying members only; there's probably more reasonable argument for HQ to enact that policy in fairness to paying members. But they still choose to make the standard use of this listing website free for all, so that geocaching as a hobby doesn't have a paywall to participation...