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Release Notes (Website: Benchmarking retirement) - October 17, 2022


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As a reminder:

 

1.  Posts that use foul language or which resort to namecalling and insults will be hidden from view.  Criticize the business decision, rather than personally attacking the individuals who are communicating about it here on behalf of HQ.

 

2.  Keep the discussion on-topic to the Release Notes.  Off-topic posts may be hidden from view.  There are active threads in several other forum sections for tangential discussions.

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13 hours ago, streudelz1222 said:

I believe you're talking about submissions on the NGS site.  I was referring to logs from geocaching being fed back into the database.  Below is an example where the geocaching log has pictures but that same log on the NGS site does not.

 

There is no process by which logs posted on Geocaching are "fed back" to the NGS. Rather, that user posted their log on both sites. Their photos are in fact available on the NGS listing:

 

Photos.png

That link leads to https://geodesy.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/get_image.prl?PROCESSING=list&PID=KY2911, where you can see their photos.
You can indicate that you found the benchmark while geocaching, as this user did, by selecting these options on the recovery form:

 

Agency.png

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8 hours ago, Moun10Bike said:

 

There is no process by which logs posted on Geocaching are "fed back" to the NGS. Rather, that user posted their log on both sites. Their photos are in fact available on the NGS listing:

 

Photos.png

That link leads to https://geodesy.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/get_image.prl?PROCESSING=list&PID=KY2911, where you can see their photos.
You can indicate that you found the benchmark while geocaching, as this user did, by selecting these options on the recovery form:

 

Agency.png

Thank you; that is good to know.  But unfortunately that means that if a geocacher didn't log it on NGS that information may be gone forever in a couple weeks.

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7 hours ago, elrojo14 said:

I just realized the biggest part I am going to miss about benchmarking here, the Mark Destroyed. I have spent way more time researching and posting about destroyed marks than found marks. I thoroughly enjoy doing it too. How am I going to log a destroyed mark on Waymarking? I guess I might have to become a NGS reviewer. 


As a benchmark hunter who is One of THOSE kinds of hunters, I also rain on a lot of Found it! Cachers who did not find a benchmark because it’s gone. The infamous “Note to All “Finders” log happens A LOT from us.
 

That having been said: we have also Found marked others had marked destroyed - usually benchmarks set in footings of municipal tanks where the tank is gone but the footings remain. we always report those to the NGS.

 

We also delight in finding benchmarks that the US Power Squadron couldn’t find - a USGS pipe cap at the McLennan county courthouse comes to mind, as does a chiseled square on the highway bridge over the Nolan River in Johnson County. 😇

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To echo the sentiments stated by many others in this thread, the decision to remove benchmarking from the GC website comes as a major disappointment to me. I have put a great deal of time into researching and finding benchmarks across various parts of the country, and have uploaded numerous pictures and descriptions of both commonly visited and previously unrecovered benchmarks to the geocaching website. The fact that all of this documentation will soon be deleted is nothing short of disturbing. I have stories and experiences from many of my benchmarking trips that rival or surpass those of my geocaching ventures; it is a shame that those snapshots of my and others' time spent participating in this aspect of "the geocaching experience" will be removed forever. Perhaps the greatest insult is that this constitutes the removal of the pictures and benchmark descriptions that make up what is likely the most "modern"/up-to-date database of U.S. survey marker documentation in existence.

 

Per Ernmark and bluesnote's suggestions above, I would greatly appreciate the "deletion time" of benchmarking from GC be pushed back (12/31 seems like a reasonable date to me as well). At the very least, it'd be nice to have a hard deadline instead of "sometime after November 1, 2022 and before the end of the year." Between work and the pace of life outside of geocaching, I find it difficult to believe that I'll be able to save all of my pictures and copy my log texts before a potential November 1st deadline (and I'm probably on the shorter side of total benchmark logs with a little shy of 300 total - for those with thousands of logs, the specificity of the deadline becomes all the more important). 

 

I fully intend to move what I can over to Waymarking, but again, I am not confident that I'll be able to bring over everything I'd like to in the next 10 days. I'll jump on what Benchmark Blasterz said above - if you're a benchmark hunter, please bring your experiences, pictures, and knowledge over to Waymarking. I've been pretty part-time on the Waymarking side of things for over 13 years now since my first Waymark post, only posting or visiting every here and there when I felt inspired to. This decision by HQ may well be what pulls me into being a full-time Waymarker and part-time geocacher as opposed to it being the other way around.

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On 10/17/2022 at 11:50 AM, Geocaching HQ said:

... However, benchmarks are only available in the United States, and were added to the website when geocaches were less available. Today, they are not in line with the global game geocaching has become. In addition, because benchmarks are not owned by community members, “maintenance” is not possible like with geocaches. Many benchmark listings refer to marks that were removed or destroyed long ago, which makes for an uneven game experience. Therefore, we have decided to retire them from Geocaching.com.

 

When I read the original post it does not say why this is capability is removed. I dances around stuff.

 

The clarification offered by @Bl4ckH4wkGER likely provides a more accurate reason for removing or adjusting the benchmarking asset. It appears to be associated with webpage coding which has become obsolete and needs to be rebuilt. Plenty of companies go through an effort of rebuilding legacy tools that were first developed in the early 2000's, to current programming standards.

 

I recommend HQ updates the original post to include some of the information provided by @Bl4ckH4wkGER. Good communication builds understanding and trust.

Thank You.

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One would think that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Forest Service, the Corps of Engineers, cities, and states, and local authorities might be very concerned about this uncalled for behavior with the loss of such an important resource recording national assets and pursue retribution for the intentional destruction of public records which would also have a potential of destroying some 740,000 benchmarks at a rate of $250 each in the way of a fine or imprisonment for disturbing these historical monuments which could amount to quite a sum if there happened to be some sort of consultation with those that practice in such legal matters.

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I'm disappointed.  I always considered bench marking to be part of the geocaching experience:  discover and explore the outdoors.  Eliminating it certainly doesn't align with their mantra. 

 

I wish Groundspeak could find a way to keep it the geocaching website.  I suppose if there is no other option and it absolutely must go, couldn't we get more notice than this?

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Seems it would cost GC more to remove benchmarks than to keep them. What's the business case for removing them? If there's one thing that really annoys geocachers, it's features that get removed (like locationless caches, which eventually came back; virtual caches, which came back; and challenge caches, which disappeared completely screwing up everyone's stats).

Edited by Grunriese
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This is truly unfortunate.   Why the short fuze?   I have found over a hundred benchmarks and continued to find them on occasion.    What is next are you just going to deep six webcams just because you can?   Waymarking is in no way equal to benchmarking.

 

Be honest  tell us who is driving this assault against benchmarking.  Please post a name so we have a target.   

 

 

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26 minutes ago, GB's said:

Please post a name so we have a target.

 

Groundspeak, Inc., aka. Geocaching HQ.

 

20 hours ago, Grunriese said:

What's the business case for removing them?

 

Uh, money. I almost guarantee that the income from Premium Members who benchmark is nowhere near enough to pay for servers, hosting space, and salar(ies) of the staff who keep an eye on the systems.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am equally as upset about Benchmarking disappearing from the site. However, I have to be sympathetic to HQ's interests here: I would not want to have to be responsible for maintaining the (spaghetti, insecure, outdated) code powering the Bechmarking site.

Edited by Hügh
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I am disappointed that you are eliminating benchmarking, and I am really disappointed that you didn't announce this to the general geocaching community.  I had to hear about it from a friend, otherwise I wouldn't have known that it was going to happen until it didn't work anymore. 

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2 hours ago, steam844 said:

I am disappointed that you are eliminating benchmarking, and I am really disappointed that you didn't announce this to the general geocaching community.  I had to hear about it from a friend, otherwise I wouldn't have known that it was going to happen until it didn't work anymore. 

For the record, this forum (Geocaching HQ communications) is where "Announcements and product release notes from Geocaching HQ" are posted. This thread is the advance notice of the change.

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16 hours ago, Hügh said:

Don't get me wrong, I am equally as upset about Benchmarking disappearing from the site. However, I have to be sympathetic to HQ's interests here: I would not want to have to be responsible for maintaining the (spaghetti, insecure, outdated) code powering the Bechmarking site.

 

Yep... My biggest was probably simplest than most, when "Newest" was removed from our "old" profile dashboard.   See what I did there...?

Then losing Windows phone, the easiest OS to use... removed because enough people had cooled to the idea of PM to play on other OS'.

Ticked me off a while, one even kept me from PM for some time, but after calming down, realized it was a stay-in-business move. 

Basic members can still play for free...

 

 

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17 hours ago, steam844 said:

I am really disappointed that you didn't announce this to the general geocaching community.

 

It hasn't happened yet - and this IS the general announcement.

 

From the first post in this topic:

 

Quote

Sometime after November 1, 2022 and before the end of the year, we will remove Benchmarking from the Geocaching.com website. (An exact date will be provided when it is known.)

 

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8 hours ago, Stachey Pete said:

Can we at least get a day or two notice of the shutdown of logging. Benchmarking was never added to the app so logging in the field is not easy. I would not want to spend my day trying to find a precious few more benchmarks only to not be able to log them when I get home.

The announcement gave 2+ weeks warning, saying it will be "Sometime after November 1, 2022 and before the end of the year"  

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This is disappointing.  I would prefer that benchmarks stay on the geocaching site.

 

I don’t understand why HQ didn’t send out a survey to the geocaching community asking how people felt about bench marking before moving forward with the intent of retiring it.  They didn’t have an issue asking feedback on souvenirs, the Ape Cache (after it was found), and challenge cache guidelines.  A lot of positive changes resulted after HQ gathered feedback from those surveys.

Edited by MRC1925T
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14 hours ago, BlueRajah said:

The announcement gave 2+ weeks warning, saying it will be "Sometime after November 1, 2022 and before the end of the year"  

That means that there will be an abrupt shutdown sometime within the two months. I would like to know as we approach the date as I do not plan to shut down my benchmark hunting and logging until the very end.

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53 minutes ago, Stachey Pete said:

That means that there will be an abrupt shutdown sometime within the two months. I would like to know as we approach the date as I do not plan to shut down my benchmark hunting and logging until the very end.

 

This has been addressed:

 

17 hours ago, hzoi said:

From the first post in this topic:

 

Quote

Sometime after November 1, 2022 and before the end of the year, we will remove Benchmarking from the Geocaching.com website. (An exact date will be provided when it is known.)

 

 

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1 hour ago, Hügh said:

This has been addressed:

The quote you quote being quoted doesn't actually say that the exact date, when known and provided, won't be in the abrupt future. One can't really blame Stachey Pete for noticing that the statement is *not* "An exact date will be provided WITH AT LEAST N WEEKS NOTICE."

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12 hours ago, MRC1925T said:

I don’t understand why HQ didn’t send out a survey to the geocaching community asking how people felt about bench marking before moving forward with the intent of retiring it. 

Their decision to eliminate benchmarks is well grounded, and a survey only would have told them something they already knew: people *say* benchmarks are important, but the numbers show that they aren't really. I'm disappointed in the decision, but whether you call it a business decision or moving forward, it's eminently justifiable. My argument would be that benchmarks are already so far in a corner, this is kinda like demolishing a historic cabin out back because you want to remodel your mansion, but their claim is that there's a connection we just don't understand, so we can't really argue with that.

 

12 hours ago, MRC1925T said:

They didn’t have an issue asking feedback on souvenirs, the Ape Cache (after it was found), and challenge cache guidelines.  A lot of positive changes resulted after HQ gathered feedback from those surveys.

To be honest, those surveys struck me as fundamentally dishonest. The surveys were slanted to get the answers they wanted, and then they implemented what they wanted to implement regardless of the survey results. I much prefer this approach of just making the decision, plainly explaining it, and acknowledging that it will be unpopular without pretending it's up for discussion. That doesn't make me like the decision any better, but I appreciate the approach.

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1 hour ago, dprovan said:

The quote you quote being quoted doesn't actually say that the exact date, when known and provided, won't be in the abrupt future.

 

Considering the kickback in this forum, including posts from a significant number of infrequent Forum users (including Stachey Pete themselves), I trust that Geocaching HQ will not act maliciously. Remember, the staff making decisions are human. They absolutely recognize that people are are upset. They will announce a date with reasonable warning.

Edited by Hügh
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5 hours ago, tbbiker said:

 I believe part of the justification for getting rid of them was not many people actually searched for them. 

That much is true.  However, the major part of the decision was the cost of maintaining or updating the software needed to continue providing benchmarks.  Were benchmarks being found by  a vast majority of American members the decision may have been different.  But they weren't and it isn't.

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I have to agree with GanonsSpirit and tbbiker.  HQ didn't make it user friendly and they didn't promote it.  They have no issues promoting souvenirs, trackables, etc.  However, when it came to bench marks, that part of the system is hard to find, awkward to use, you can't filter for them like geocaches, and it doesn't populate on the geocaching map.  If they linked it in like Adventure Labs, there would be more users.

 

On 10/23/2022 at 3:35 PM, GanonsSpirit said:

Groundspeak: *Does nothing to promote benchmarking and makes it difficult to find the feature*
Groundspeak: "Hardly anyone uses it so we're getting rid of it."

 

9 hours ago, tbbiker said:

more people would have found benchmarks if Groundspeak actually pushed them and didn't just have a small hyperlink to follow that most people didn't know about

 

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On 10/27/2022 at 9:11 AM, Hügh said:

Considering the kickback in this forum, including posts from a significant number of infrequent Forum users (including Stachey Pete themselves), I trust that Geocaching HQ will not act maliciously. Remember, the staff making decisions are human. They absolutely recognize that people are are upset. They will announce a date with reasonable warning.

I'm glad you think so, but the fact remains that the OP makes no such promise. If that's just an oversight, it isn't hard for HQ to put Stachey Pete's concerns to rest by telling him how much warning he'll get.

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This is sad news.

The only reason I hadn't participated in the benchmarking feature is that I live in another country however I log benchmarks in my country on another website and find the hobby very enjoyable. There is something special about confirming something historical is/isn't there that could have been placed many decades ago, an experience that can't be provided by finding 35 micros in order to get a pointless souvenir every 2 months.

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