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

[Keystone]

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.

[+elrojo14]

22 hours ago, Bl4ckH4wkGER said:

 

I’ll respond to this comment representative for the various comments of “just leave it as is, it shouldn’t be that hard”.

 

I understand that the work and cost needed with maintaining a website and keeping it up and running may not be clear for everyone, so let me give a more tangible examples:

 

Imagine you live on a couple acres of land with a nice 3000 square feet house. It’s pretty old but looks in decent shape. However, it’d really be time for a remodel because the electrical and plumbing are still from when the house was built 70+ years ago. You had three kids and plenty of space and bedrooms to raise them. All your kids have long moved out and so it’s only you and your partner left in the big house on the big property.

 

Even though there are now only 2 people living in the house instead of 5 people, you still have to:

• Pay the same property tax, maybe even more because it goes up every year
• Pay the exterminator to keep things pest free
• Clean the gutters
• Maintain the yard
• Keep things heated and dry so there’s no moisture damage
• Make updates required by law because hypothetically all houses must have solar now
• Etc etc etc

You can’t just say that you’re not gonna fix the leaky roof because it’s over Billy’s room and Billy moved out so it’s fine. If you do that, you actively risk larger damage to your assets and other parts of the house. Same with not doing the necessary updates to your electrical and plumbing. All it takes is one busted pipe and you're looking at a couple grand in damages.

 

Overall the cost to stay where you are far outweighs the benefit of the large house now that the kids have moved out and their families only all come over all at once for birthdays and holidays.

 

Now, many of you will probably say “well, I’d just downsize and move somewhere else”. Bingo, that’s exactly what Geocaching is doing with benchmarking. We’re moving out into a smaller and more modern house with fewer bedrooms.

 

We understand that selling the house you built and raised your family in can be hard and is an emotional moment, one where you don’t want to hear the numbers. That said, sometimes these tough choices are necessary to make sure that the whole family will be fine years down the road because if you don’t, the debt accrued by staying where you are is just gonna weigh down everyone.

 

I hope you get the picture. 

I like this analogy. The only thing I would add is you decide to bulldoze the house with so little warning that Billy cannot get out of the house and loses all of his possessions. So you tell Billy sorry about your bad luck, but the progress of your house due to your failure to plan was more important than Billy's possessions. And by the way Billy, keep paying your Premium Rent to us after we destroyed all of your possessions. Thanks for your understanding Billy and by the way the new renters are here and they enjoy the open sewer ALs that are stinking up the property so go enjoy that with them now that your stuff is all gone. It will make you feel better. And also Billy, do not forget if you scrape any of your possessions from the house, you violate the TOS and you will be thrown off the property. Go along now Billy. 

 

  

1 hour ago, Keystone said:

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.

Thank you Keystone. Do you have any links where the best discussions are happening? 

Edited October 21, 2022 by elrojo14

[Keystone]

The Benchmarking forum and the Waymarking forum are the best places to have side discussions about ways to move forward for benchmarking enthusiasts.

[foxtrot_xray]

22 hours ago, Moun10Bike said:

 

That is not correct. The NGS site allows photo upload, including a helpful categorization method:

 

Keep in mind -

The NGS has specific requirements on uploading photos. Stricter than GC here.

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

I have one last thing to say...

Finds = 1211 result(s), Didn't Finds = 184 result(s), Mark destroyed = 43 result(s), All logs = 1465 result(s), = a work of love and fun of the hunt.

Was it all worth it? Yes~ And that my friends and that is what GC is taking away from people who might have enjoyed this sport as much as the 2oldfarts did. 

 

May you all one day realize the heartache that you have caused to what you think of as a small group of people... Where I thought this site was made to make all of GC people happy in the hunt of many things. 

 

So I will go my way now and may God bless you all and bring happiness to your souls. That is what I was taught, to bless those that have done you wrong and to understand that they know not what they do that harms so many in so many ways. 

 

Sincerely, Shirley Bloomfield

 

PS: You may now alter my post as you wish.

[Moun10Bike]

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:

 

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:

 

[+streudelz1222]

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:

 

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:

 

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.

[+Ernmark]

I’m the leader of the US Benchmarks Category over at Waymarking.com – I found this out today & am as surprised as everyone else. What disappoints me is the lack of notice - assuming the deletion will be close to November 1^st. I have 3375 logs and possibly close to 10,000 pictures I chose to upload (encouraged by GC) to support my logs. If these pages, logs, ‘player’ photos are to go away – I certainly would appreciate having a longer time (say until 12/31) to save the content of my favorite logs and photos somewhere else – perhaps even in the US Benchmark category on Waymarking.com.

Speaking to the comment “Many benchmark listings refer to marks that were removed or destroyed long ago” - of my own 3375 logs, 227 were considered destroyed …6.7% (in a not overly rural area) - I’m not sure that moved/destroyed is a valid argument for cessation of the benchmarking category.

The main Benchmark Hunting page states “Overall, 166401 benchmarks have been recovered in 233505 logs. There are 736425 total benchmarks in the database” – this means less than 23% of the Geocaching Benchmark Database have been found so in the 20 years it has existed – there are many more left out there.

 

Given that “you can’t fight City Hall and this is a cold hard business decision, I would suggest that GC ‘grandfather’ the existing logs/photos allowing access by their owners OR porting over to Waymarking in some fashion, OR allowing a reasonable amount of time for those of us who put 100s of hours in creating logs to save our data elsewhere.

 

Many of us Benchmarkers are Charter or longtime Premium Members – supporting Groundspeak while doing little or no caching – I think giving us direct and adequate notice is deserved.

I would also hope that there would be a few KB of server space kept for all of the Benchmarking forum threads – a lot of good information and stories reside in there.

 

-E

[+The Snowdog]

On 10/18/2022 at 9:50 AM, chaosmanor said:

My biggest complaint about this has to do with the plain, true fact that Geocachers have become a very valuable partner of the NGS, as thousands of solid Recoveries have been filed. I've done over 100 of them, and I know one person who has done nearly 500. By eliminating the file, even as old as it is, the NGS will lose an active documentary asset. I would respectfully request that GC-HQ rethink this decision; keeping Benchmarking on the site would be a "good citizen" thing.

 

And that is the real tragedy. Geocaching is a game, and a fun one, and I enjoy playing it. But the benchmarking component is so much more. Finding and logging these old marks could be considered a form of public service, and those photos have actual historical value. I still find it hard to believe that Groundspeak is going to dump twenty years of irreplicable benchmark recovery data, provided by paying users, with only a month's notice.

[+bluesnote]

1 hour ago, Ernmark said:

I’m the leader of the US Benchmarks Category over at Waymarking.com – I found this out today & am as surprised as everyone else. What disappoints me is the lack of notice - assuming the deletion will be close to November 1^st. I have 3375 logs and possibly close to 10,000 pictures I chose to upload (encouraged by GC) to support my logs. If these pages, logs, ‘player’ photos are to go away – I certainly would appreciate having a longer time (say until 12/31) to save the content of my favorite logs and photos somewhere else – perhaps even in the US Benchmark category on Waymarking.com.

Speaking to the comment “Many benchmark listings refer to marks that were removed or destroyed long ago” - of my own 3375 logs, 227 were considered destroyed …6.7% (in a not overly rural area) - I’m not sure that moved/destroyed is a valid argument for cessation of the benchmarking category.

The main Benchmark Hunting page states “Overall, 166401 benchmarks have been recovered in 233505 logs. There are 736425 total benchmarks in the database” – this means less than 23% of the Geocaching Benchmark Database have been found so in the 20 years it has existed – there are many more left out there.

 

Given that “you can’t fight City Hall and this is a cold hard business decision, I would suggest that GC ‘grandfather’ the existing logs/photos allowing access by their owners OR porting over to Waymarking in some fashion, OR allowing a reasonable amount of time for those of us who put 100s of hours in creating logs to save our data elsewhere.

 

Many of us Benchmarkers are Charter or longtime Premium Members – supporting Groundspeak while doing little or no caching – I think giving us direct and adequate notice is deserved.

I would also hope that there would be a few KB of server space kept for all of the Benchmarking forum threads – a lot of good information and stories reside in there.

 

-E

As an avid waymarker (I have created more waymarks than I have found geocaches), I completely agree with Ernmark. Two weeks notice is not enough time to save all of our logs/photos. Three months (i.e. 12/31) would have been a reasonable amount of time. I'm currently in grad school and have no time in the next two weeks to recover my photos/logs on my over 300 benchmarks logged. It's also midterm week for me so I'm quite busy studying on top of doing research. I am positive all my years hard work creating logs, finding, and documenting benchmarks, will unfortunately go to waste.

 

At least allow people who have photos to submit their findings over to Waymarking. Heck, HQ should try and encourage it! Bring more people over to the Waymarking site. We have over 1 million waymarks which took about 15 years to achieve. Who knows, maybe we will hit 2 million in 5 years because HQ helped promote geocachers to create waymarks. If, for some reason, HQ does encourage or incentives it (i.e. maybe a new benchmark souvenir on their geocaching profile) it would help to document and move everything over to Waymarking where data (photos, logs, coordinates, etc.) will be saved.

 

A few years back, I created (and currently run) the Latin American Benchmarks category. There are several other benchmark categories that encompass most of the entire world. Those living outside the US have their own benchmark categories to which they can submit their own listings. Give people a reward to create a benchmark waymark (like a souvenir). Souvenirs get people to go caching for "virtual games", why not do the same with benchmarks? I think that would help encourage people to both visit and become familiar with the existing Waymarking site and to build hype about benchmarks. Who knows? Maybe the geocaching benchmark site will see a huge increase in active users during its last two weeks of existence. Its a win-win.

[+elrojo14]

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. 

 

I do know one thing, destroying the database seems to be everyone's number one complaint. Countless hours of research and logs about to be dumped without an easy way for us to save them. If HQ cared about us, they would find a way for us to easily preserve that data and those images. People should be upset about this and HQ should not just say "sorry". 

[+Benchmark Blasterz]

I am absolutely sick about this.  Benchmarking got us into Geocaching, and into Waymarking as well.  My husband is a civil engineer, and in the years when we had little bitties who were not reliably on the potty, we could not do a whole lot of geocaching because he preferred interesting caches you had to hike way out in the woods for. 

 

Little bitties do not travel light, do not deal with mosquitoes well, do not enjoy being hot and sticky, do not understand why they can't have everything in the cache, do not keep the things we did let them have from the cache out of their mouths etc.

 

So for us, benchmark hunting  was something that we could do in the city, and that little bitties could manage and have fun doing, because finding a benchmark cemented on the courthouse that you can't take with you eliminates ALL the frustration from leaving behind the moldy toys in an ammo can.

 

My avatar is of the very first benchmark we found: CS1784 M 246 Reset. It's attached to the old Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad depot subway that was filled in 50 years ago, but its purpose and history is preserved on the data sheet that we found ourselves using the NGS website. That started us on a super fun exploration hobby that has not waned over time. https://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=CS1784

 

I am deeply disappointed that HQ is going to do away with all the logs posted by benchmark hunters -- all the photos and all the stories of the finds. I remember finding a benchmark on the top of a hill on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in March. The benchmark was under heavy iron cover and we flipped it over, the smallest black widow I've ever seen came flying over with it. I, of course, had a cow. That is been a funny family story for 15 years now.  https://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=HW3334

 

On another trip I talked my way onto a secure chemical facility (with an escort) to look for Mason-Dixon stones, all of them NGS benchmarks.  https://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=JU3851

 

But I think what hurts the most is that geocaching HQ seems to not understand the value of all the work that benchmark hunters have done on this database since 2005. As one of the few benchmarkers who actually reports the finds to the NGS,  Deb Brown mentioned that the NGS frequently uses geocacher reports and geocaching's BM database for pictures of marks and other information, since many of these marks were monumented in the 1930s  and had not been seen for the next 70+ years.

 

I'll always have my memories, but geocaching is losing so much knowledge about our world with this decision. I hope at least the benchmarking forum will remain. There is so much amazing wisdom there from wonderful benchmark hunters who have sadly passed on. You can't recapture that once a Groundspeak lackey hits DELETE.

 

Until then -- I invite all benchmark hunters to come see us over at Waymarking.com. It's a different game, but if you like finding benchmarks you can put all your finds in our US benchmark category. We also have categories for different countries benchmarks and a worldwide benchmarks category catch everything else. So we're ready for you, and we welcome you.

 

Ernmark, I love you man - but I am not going to hit you with 5000 new waymarks of all my finds since 2005.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Benchmark Blasterz

[+Benchmark Blasterz]

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. 😇

[+Tom.dog]

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.

[+The Snowdog]

1 hour ago, Tom.dog said:

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.

 

 

This deserves to be repeated over and over again.

 

And what's almost funny about this is that Groundspeak threw the NGS database up in, what, 2001, to give us something to do while actual geocaching got rolling, and this spur-of-the-moment throw-it-out-there move has produced what is arguably the most valuable asset on the site.

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by The Snowdog

[+BubbaJuice]

If you guys want to try and preserve some of your favorite pages, use the internet archive: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wayback-machine/fpnmgdkabkmnadcjpehmlllkndpkmiak (Chrome extension) Make sure to check the "Outlinks" checkbox so photos are saved. You can only be saving ~2 pages at a time.

 

[+thebruce0]

Ironically, the wayback machine is a form of scraping But I guess they can't be banned. I should stop talking or HQ might find/use a way to block WBM from spidering the benchmarking section

[+The Flying Dutchmen]

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.

[+NW_history_buff]

Absolutely pathetic. 

[+the Druids]

This decision to remove benchmarking is a major disappointment to the Druids and obviously, many others. In my opinion, those that benchmark with some frequency are among the most dedicated geocachers. I think the reason there is a relatively low percentage of geocachers that actively pursue benchmarking is the special effort involved. Basically, as any benchmarker knows, the coordinates given for benchmarks (other than landmarks) are very inaccurate. This requires studying the Documented History in detail then using GoogleEarth and Street View to come up with accurate coordinates. And then posting these coordinates in your find logs so that everyone doesn't have to make this major effort for each benchmark. The Druids joined geocaching in 2005 but only started active benchmarking in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. And as noted elsewhere, there are several puzzle caches and challenges that are benchmarking related which closely ties benchmarking and geocaching together. Assuming Groundspeak doesn't change their mind about this, the Druids (and others that I have spoken or written to) would hope to complete challenges such as the Jack Rabbit Trail challenge to find 500 benchmarks so hopefully the cutoff date when benchmarking can no longer be undertaken associated with geocaching is out there a ways and not suddenly imposed on benchmarking geocachers. Like others, the Druids sincerely hope and believe that benchmarking should continue on indefinitely in the future and not be shut down as is currently planned.

[+sialis]

Groundspeak says that a very low percentage of cachers hunt for benchmarks.  I surmise that a large part of that has to do with the fact that Groundspeak went to great lengths to hide anything benchmark related on the site a few years ago. That means many cachers probably don't even know about this aspect of the game.

[+The_Sleuth]

One gets a sense that there has to be a better way. Where was the community outreach to figure out a solution? Why is pulling the plug the only way forward? Has there been any communication with NGS? It is incredibly unfortunate that 20 years of historical archives that took thousands of hours of volunteer effort will be disintegrated on a matter of a few weeks notice. Only a decision a company would make, not a sensible individual.

[+edexter]

Having found over 1800 Benchmarks which I've logged on this site and many others not listed in the partial database that this site maintained, I'm pretty disappointed in the decision to delete it all as a cost savings measure.  Even silly P&G's found by one person and then archived aren't scrubbed away.  Clearly if only a small percentage of folks hunt benchmarks and their finds constitute a tiny percentage of current logs, the cost of maintaining the files in the archives is not significant when compared to the overall cost of the site.  You really can't argue that it is both "too costly to maintain" and "only used by a tiny fraction of players".  Spend a few bucks and maintain the archives of logs to date at least.

edexter

[+GanonsSpirit]

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."

[+w01f]

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.

[+OCamera]

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?

[+Grunriese]

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 October 25, 2022 by Grunriese

[+GB's]

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.   

 

 

[+Hügh]

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 October 25, 2022 by Hügh

[+steam844]

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. 

[+niraD]

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.

[+Stachey Pete]

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.

[+cerberus1]

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...

 

 

[+hzoi]

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.)

 

[BlueRajah]

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"  

[MRC1925T]

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 October 27, 2022 by MRC1925T

[+Stachey Pete]

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.

[+Hügh]

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.)

 

 

[+dprovan]

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."

[+dprovan]

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.

[+Hügh]

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 October 27, 2022 by Hügh

[+yellow1961]

I am upset by the decision by Geocaching.com to remove Benchmarking from their website.  I have just learned about the note posted on the forum on October 17th.  That is much too close to the proposed change that they plan to put into effect sometime between November 1st and the end of 2022.  It seems that the idea is being slid in without letting the general membership know about this idea.  Why wasn't it posted on one of the monthly official blogs for all to see?

The reasons for removing it seem pretty thin.  Geocaching.com offers to keep Waymarking.com yet they, too, fall under the category of not being owned by community members that can be maintained.  -  Sure, I have had a few DNFs on destroyed Benchmarks.  But, I've gotten a few FTFs on them placed in the 1940s.  The premise that they can't be maintained should also apply to Adventure Labs, earth caches, and virtuals. There are a lot of those popping up every day.  Also, any cache (physical or virtual) cannot be maintained when the CO becomes in-active.  That happens a lot.

All geocaches have a limited audience. Depending on the ability for people to travel make some caches unavailable to a lot of people.  There is only one APE event and only one HQ (Block party) event available.  Yet, they have their own icon on the stats page.  Without someone 'policing attendance' there is no way to ensure accuracy or validity for those who may never be able to attend these activities in person.   

Restricting COs that have challenge caches requiring finding and logging benchmarks seems unfair.  Where do you draw the line?  Challenges for particular states, countries, continents, or provinces are limiting to those who can't travel to those places.  Challenges that require special equipment (like boats or climbing gear) restrict some people from finding caches.  Mysteries with a 5 star rating are out of some peoples reach.  The nuances of this change may seem small but it may lead to something more complex.

Thus, if I have a vote on this matter.  I would like to see Benchmarking remain on the Geocaching.com website as a fun and educational aspect of the game.

[+Gill & Tony]

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.

[+OCamera]

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

 

[+dprovan]

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.

[+Winos_Seattle]

KEEP THE BENCHMARKS!

 

My wife and I have been geocaching since June of 2014. Our first cache was hidden under a ledge with a benchmark on top overlooking the Grand Coulee dam. "A Kings View". Before geocaching, I had not heard of geocaching. However, I was a benchmark hunter. I've got about 125 official geocaching benchmark finds and approximately 4 benchmark challenge finds. In Waymarking, I'm also within that spectrum. I vote a STRONG NO to archiving and getting rid of these historical and location driven markers. It's always a cherry on top when finding a cache and spotting a marker. Especially when you have to dig it out a little from the overgrowth of time.

 

Winos_Seattle/Mrs. Winos/Half_Pint 

Issaquah, Wa., USA

[+vw_k]

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.

[ArtMan]

I joined geocaching.com in 2002, and I quickly became disillusioned with the Happy Meal toys that seemed to be a hallmark of geocache filler. Then, I discovered benchmarks. 

 

The lore often repeated in the benchmarking forum is that in early days, before many caches had been hidden, the benchmark database (then purchased from the National Geodetic Survey on CD-ROM!) was used to give members something to look for — and, of course, attract new members. But geocaching took off, thanks to articles in the media about this new, high-tech treasure hunt, and benchmarking fell by the wayside. Year after year there were no updates to the benchmark data.

 

Highway construction wipes out a cluster of benchmarks; it's noted on the official downloadable NGS datasheets, but the casual user on geocaching.com would have no idea of the update unless a benchmarker logged the change on geocaching.com. There was no obvious clue that the official-looking document hadn't been updated since George W. Bush was inaugurated.  After a while, a website redesign made it challenging to even find benchmarks on geocaching.com, and benchmark finds were not tallied with geocache finds. As others in this thread have suggested, given the "benign neglect," it's no surprise that most members focused on geocaching. leaving benchmarks an unloved orphan in the world of geocaching.

 

It's useful to remember that the two activities are fundamentally different, appealing to different if overlapping fans. With a geocache, the idea is to FIND THE GEOCACHE. For benchmarks, the goal is to DOCUMENT THE BENCHMARK'S STATUS — found, damaged, or destroyed. Another difference. Geocaches are hidden to make finding them a challenge. Benchmarks are designed to be found, but the passage of time often makes finding them a challenge. Benchmarks come with built-in history. The description may tell you, for instance,  that a small town museum with a disk cemented into the brickwork used to be the town post office. Or that a door at a Deep South railroad station used to lead to the "colored" waiting room.

 

It's not the end of the world if GCHQ hits the delete-all key on 20+ years of data that doesn't exist elsewhere. But it would be a shame.

 

Many members include in their logs helpful warnings about safety (say, along railroad rights-of-way) or where to park, or maybe a good BBQ joint around the corner. NGS logs, or "recovery reports," are dry, formula, just-the-facts prose, with most of the life drained out of it. Geocaching.com/mark has a lot of life in it. 

 

May I humbly suggest that before more than a quarter-million logs are scrubbed, that the clever folks at GCHQ devote some marketing mojo to promote benchmarking. I'm no expert, but a good starting point would be downloading up-to-date data from NGS and featuring benchmarks (and their built-in authenticity and coolness) on the home page.

 

Over the years I logged more than 2300 benchmarks in states from New England to New Mexico, and even a few in Puerto Rico. In the process I learned a lot and had great fun doing it. And all without getting arrested, though I was questioned once in Northern Virginia by a CIA cop.

 

I hope there is a happy ending to this story.

 

"Artman"

a/k/a Art Chimes, retired radio journalist, proud benchmarker

[+GeoBama123]

I really don't have anything new to add to this discussion but I have thoroughly enjoyed searching for the over 400 benchmarks I have found since the pandemic started. It seemed like such a safe and interesting hobby. I never dreamed that it would be stripped away and all my work disappear. I have never used Waymarking but I guess I can take a look. I'm sure I can't transfer my information by November 1st.

 

I have many benchmarks that I was planning to find on a lengthy trip in December but now I don't know if the data will disappear before I get there.

 

In the meantime, I have added this to all the benchmarks I have found this last week:

 

"I am very disappointed that Geocaching.com will no longer support benchmarking because not enough people do it. I love it and will be very sad to see it gone. All of these logs and pictures and coordinates that were added to these pages by geocachers who love this aspect of the game are about to be dumped in the trash heap forever. I realize that no one is going to see this complaint but I'm making it anyway."

[Nylimb]

After many hours of tedious work, I managed to save all of my benchmark logs and pictures. But I only had 289 logs and about 700 pictures. I feel sorry for the people who have hundreds or thousands more than that, who haven't had time to save them before November 1, or who felt that it wasn't worth the effort.

 

And then there are all the people who don't follow the forums, who may not even realize that their logs and pictures are going to disappear. This decision should at least have been announced in an email to everyone who ever logged a benchmark.