+t. shuffle Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 It's funny to pay every month to support a site that clearly has no regard for it's members. It's funny to pay every month to support a site that is clearly afraid of any criticism; afraid enough to stifle it and nip it in the bud whenever it pops up. It's funny to pay every month to support a site that clearly wants no competition, and, sadly, has none. Link to comment
Jomarac5 Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 lol Can you say "Kamikaze"? ***** Link to comment
Keystone Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Gosh, I ought to delete this thread. Otherwise it just wouldn't be funny anymore. Link to comment
+JMBella Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 It's funny to pay every month to support a site that clearly has no regard for it's members. It's funny to pay every month to support a site that is clearly afraid of any criticism; afraid enough to stifle it and nip it in the bud whenever it pops up. It's funny to pay every month to support a site that clearly wants no competition, and, sadly, has none. What's that have to do with the price of tea in China? The site works great when I use it for Geocaching purposes. Link to comment
Jomarac5 Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 (edited) Wheeee.... ***** Geo 94TY Edit: added comment Edited December 9, 2003 by Jomarac5 Link to comment
+LaPaglia Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 (edited) It's funny to pay every month to support a site that clearly has no regard for it's members. It's funny to pay every month to support a site that is clearly afraid of any criticism; afraid enough to stifle it and nip it in the bud whenever it pops up. It's funny to pay every month to support a site that clearly wants no competition, and, sadly, has none. Whats really funny, is that you still pay each month. If you don't like it no one is forcing you to pay. Seems that your other thread was closed and you just want to cry or whine about it. Now thats funny! Edited December 9, 2003 by Lapaglia Link to comment
+LaPaglia Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Wheeee.... ***** Geo 94TY Edit: added comment Now whats REALLY funny is that I agree with the that post Jomarac5 Link to comment
Jomarac5 Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Lapaglia wrote:Seems that your other thread was closed and you just want to cry or shine about it. That's not very nice. ***** Geo 115 Link to comment
+Criminal Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Wheeee.... ***** Geo 94TY Edit: added comment Now whats REALLY funny is that I agree with the that post Jomarac5 Lapaglia? Link to comment
+CYBret Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 I didn't go geocaching today However, I did get out and do the final scouting for a multi I'm hiding. I went ahead and placed the first 4 stops just so I could see how the containers worked in the wild! Some of them..well..they were pretty wild! It was great! A whole afternoon of getting outside and working on a cache! I don't know about those of you in warmer climates, but here in Illinois it was great just to be able to get outside! Thanks to everyone who made that possible! Bret Link to comment
+Team GPSaxophone Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Any guesses as to who's sock puppet T. Shuffle is? Link to comment
+Sparky-Watts Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 I'll take credit for that, CY....I sent that nice weather up your way from Kansas. But dang if I didn't screw up, 'cos now we're looking at freezing rain changing to sleet changing to snow by about 3am...up to 6 inches by tomorrow night. But, hey, today was nice (around 55 degrees) so I got the chains and snow blade put on the lawn tractor! Come on, Old Man Winter, BRING IT ON!!!!!!!!! Link to comment
+JMBella Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 A year old sock puppet that's a premium member? Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 You can criticize GC.com all you want. It's all in how you do it. Link to comment
Jomarac5 Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 RK wrote:You can criticize GC.com all you want. It's all in how you do it. Please pass the honey. ***** Geo 25 29 Link to comment
+Team GPSaxophone Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 A year old sock puppet that's a premium member? Maybe a first-class lurker, then? Link to comment
TahoeJoe Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 After work today my friend and I had a great time caching. I've enjoyed using this site so much that I sent in my 30 dollars last week to become a premium member. While I might not agree with everything (that’s life) overall I'm very pleased with this site and the entertainment and exercise it provides for me. Link to comment
+9Key Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Most people that just use this web site to log their caches like it, IMO. The trouble starts when you get too wrapped up in the politics of these forums....cr. Link to comment
ju66l3r Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 I may be pickier than those you know. I have a number of things I think the cache listings beyond this forum should include or allow for which are either "in development" or "not the direction we're heading in" (ironic, since this is about GPS, no?). At every suggestion, including my volunteering to code the program myself, I have been denied and some of them have some real merit, such as directional searching and route proximity. Others include some we've definitely heard from before, such as the return of virtual and locationless as well as a voting system for a popularity star system similar to the terrain. Even still is the inclusion of attributes like those added in by other website's efforts (but not seamlessly added to the page for searching across attributes). As a bioinformatician, I'm well familiar with deep data mining and hidden trends. It would be interesting to root around in the statistics of geocaching if only even for trivia, but the data is not available in any sort of usable format. All of these things would be just as pertinent with or without these forums and the fact that they are either back-burnered, "in production" but completely unannounced (aka no "What's New" page or "Sneak Peek" or "Production Pipeline"), or simply denied by GS is very annoying (at best) or disappointing (at worst). But I use Windows now at home (instead of Mac)...so I'm learning how to bend..... Link to comment
+Sparky-Watts Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Most people that just use this web site to log their caches like it, IMO. The trouble starts when you get too wrapped up in the politics of these forums....cr. Ya know, this is perhaps the one post that really struck home with me. In a way, I wish I'd never gotten involved in the forums, because I am a very opinionated person, and when I read some of the drivel here, it got me fired up. I spent 3 full days glued to the computer screen reading posts, and missed out on 3 full days of caching. Now it's snowing, and who knows when I'll get that chance again. C'est lavie, or what ever the French say. Link to comment
+Mopar Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 What to hear a REALLY funny joke? Some people actually COMPLAIN about spending $30 a year to support a website that costs thousands of dollars a month to keep up and running. Some people actually COMPLAIN about spending $30 a year for the convenience of getting megabytes of data emailed to them every day in a format they can easily manipulate, rather then have to manually read and print webpages. Some people actually COMPLAIN about spending $30 a year to support the website that best facilitates hours of enjoyment for themselves and their familes every week. Man, there's some pretty funny people in these forums lately. Link to comment
+Johnnie Stalkers Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 I don't think I have noticed anyone complaining about the amount of money. The issue as I see is that alot of people foolishly believe that because they pay for something they should be considered / treated like customers by TPTB. Just because I give someone money doesn't give me the right to have any say in the product or level of service I receive. Right? RIGHT???? Link to comment
+OzGuff Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 It's funny to pay every month....[snip] It's funny to pay every month....[snip] It's funny to pay every month....[snip] If you paid annually rather than monthly you would save money--this would allow you spending money to go out and enjoy yourself! Link to comment
+Johnnie Stalkers Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 I'm afraid to pay annually. Link to comment
+Mopar Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 I don't think I have noticed anyone complaining about the amount of money. The issue as I see is that alot of people foolishly believe that because they pay for something they should be considered / treated like customers by TPTB. Just because I give someone money doesn't give me the right to have any say in the product or level of service I receive. Right? RIGHT???? RIGHT! Just like I a few minutes ago, when I went to the supermarket. The didn't carry something I wanted. We spent $105 there this trip anyway. Does that give me any say in what products they should stock? Does that give me a right to choose who I want working the checkout, or how many lanes are open? RIGHT? I like the car dealership down the street. In general, they are friendly, and have good service. But they are a Ford dealer, and of course a guy named Mopar wants to buy a Dodge. Surely the fact that I want to spend 10's of thousands of dollars there gives me the right to dictate what make of car they carry, RIGHT? I read the local newspaper every day. Sometimes I just don't agree with the slant they seem to put on the news. Surely my 50 cents a day should force them to cater to MY desires, RIGHT? I visit a FREE website every day. It cost me nothing to post in their forums, yet they shell out hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a month so I'm able to do it. I tell all my friends about it, and occasionally I buy a T shirt with the URL on it. I think they might make $1-2 profit on the shirt. Surely that gives me the right to demand they let me talk about whatever *I* want, RIGHT? RIGHT? Link to comment
+geospotter Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Sorry, t.shuffle, $3 doesn't buy you a seat on their Board of Directors. For that, you'll have to cough up a lot more. Link to comment
+JMBella Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Sorry, t.shuffle, $3 doesn't buy you a seat on their Board of Directors. For that, you'll have to cough up a lot more. It dosen't? Link to comment
Jomarac5 Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Mopar wrote:Just like I a few minutes ago, when I went to the supermarket. The didn't carry something I wanted. We spent $105 there this trip anyway. Does that give me any say in what products they should stock? Does that give me a right to choose who I want working the checkout, or how many lanes are open? RIGHT? I don't know where you get your groceries, but where I get mine, if I ask for a particular product and the manager is able to get it through his suppliers, he will bring it in for me (it's a big store, but they know about customer service). If there is a problem with a person at the checkout having a bad attitude, I'm sure that it wouldn't take more than a few complaints about the person before something positive was done to correct the situation. If there are not enough cashiers to deal with all the customers, the good manager will open additional cashiers to accomodate and please the customer. That's just good business because the store manager understands his customers and wishes to make the experience of being a customer in his store, a good one. You should try shopping for groceries where I shop -- they're great at keeping their customers happy. Is it the right of the customer to complain if they are not happy? Absolutely is is. You asked if it's RIGHT? Yes, it is. ***** Geo 96N 104 Link to comment
cachewidow Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Just like I a few minutes ago, when I went to the supermarket. The didn't carry something I wanted. We spent $105 there this trip anyway. Does that give me any say in what products they should stock? Does that give me a right to choose who I want working the checkout, or how many lanes are open? RIGHT? Right. When you work in retail, you certainly pay attention to what your customers are requesting, and if it works in your store and you can price it competitively, you get it on the shelf ASAP. Its called customer service. If there is such a long line the manager has to operate a checkout, you bet they will be on the floor doing what they can to keep the customers satisfied. Any operation that says 'this is what we have, take it or leave it' doesn't stay in business long (unless they're the only business in town). Sooner or later someone else will pay attention. Link to comment
+parkrrrr Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 When you work in retail, you certainly pay attention to what your customers are requesting, and if it works in your store and you can price it competitively, you get it on the shelf ASAP. I noted two things in what you said that bear repeating: customers and if it works in your store. As near as I can tell, most of the hubbub in these here forums is stirred up by a mere handful of complainers who take pride in their ability to disrupt the place and are primarily agitating for more freedom to do exactly that. If your friendly store manager is basing his purchasing decisions on what the local juvenile delinquents are writing on the walls of his bathroom, perhaps he should reconsider where he gets his advice. And if he starts stocking Sharpies and spray paint because of that advice, he should reconsider where he gets his paycheck. Link to comment
+Sparky-Watts Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Two posts to reply to here: First of all, J5, excellent reply. That's pretty much hitting the nail on the head! parkrrrrrrrrrr (sorry, got a lazy finger), your reply is also pretty darn good, when taken in context with the post you were replying to. Again, that nail just keeps getting driven deeper into the board! Link to comment
+the england's Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 (edited) Down here we just go cache! Simple idea I know, but it works. Maybe we are just too laid back? Edited December 9, 2003 by embi Link to comment
+Scoobie10 Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 It's funny to pay every month to support a site that clearly has no regard for it's members. It's funny to pay every month to support a site that is clearly afraid of any criticism; afraid enough to stifle it and nip it in the bud whenever it pops up. It's funny to pay every month to support a site that clearly wants no competition, and, sadly, has none. I guess the only thing I could suggest here is for you to stop paying. You're not happy with what you have purchased and what you have received so you should try something else. I sell ice cream for a living. If I had 150,000 customers and 100 of them were upset because I didn't sell yogurt, I would remind them that I have these items for sale and not the items they're looking for. Maybe as I grow my business I might add yogurt in the future but as for now it's just ice cream. If they really got mad and started a forum where they would bash me all day long I would suggest they go open up a yogurt shop down the street. Now, if I had 150,000 customers and 25,000 of them wanted yogurt, that would be something I would look into. The thing about the origional 100 dissatisfied customers is this: Most of them are fine with waiting for yogurt, it's just about 10 or so people with very loud voices that are cousing my other patrons grief. Finally, if there is no way for me to provided the customer satisfaction they require, they should not buy my ice cream and not come back until I sell yogurt. Link to comment
+mtn-man Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Down here we just go cache! Simple idea I know, but it works. That's what I'm doing now myself. I don't post here much anymore. Why bother. I would prefer to find caches. Sunday I was doing my 550th cache and finding a cache in the 26th and 27th states of the 50 in the USA. It is all about my personal goals (see my profile page if you have a question about that). As I sat on the dunes in MI near the shore of Lake Michigan I never ever once thought about the forums or the politics, but only about the cache someone placed to get me to this great place I was in. Well, that and did I have enough time to get the other cache that was across the dunes on the other hill (and yes I got it). Wouldn't you rather be where I was when I took that photo rather than reading this on your computer screen? I read these forums because I am a moderator. I don't post much anymore because it is always the same thing from the same people -- just like this topic. I've read it before. Of course, feel free to continue to post to these free forums. I'll be lurking, but I'll be finding caches. Link to comment
+rusty_tlc Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Very nice! I can't wait for friday to get back out caching. So mtn-man where on the lake was this cache? I was in Michigan City once and went to the shore. Looks like there would be a lot of great places for a cache. While I was looking at the picture I got to thinking about the "Smith River Beach" cache in N. Cal. We did that one with my 73 old mother. She dosen't have a gps but loves the hunt, especialy when my sis and her kids are along. They started geocaching this summer. We took them to find "Royal Flush" while we were all camping together. My brother-in-law bought a Sportrak the next week. Turned out to be a great summer, we spent more time as an extended family than we have in years. I'm thinking about caching my brother-in-laws present and just giving him a card with the coord.'s Now that would be funny! Link to comment
ju66l3r Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 I guess the only thing I could suggest here is for you to stop paying. You're not happy with what you have purchased and what you have received so you should try something else. I sell ice cream for a living. If I had 150,000 customers and 100 of them were upset because I didn't sell yogurt, I would remind them that I have these items for sale and not the items they're looking for. Maybe as I grow my business I might add yogurt in the future but as for now it's just ice cream. If they really got mad and started a forum where they would bash me all day long I would suggest they go open up a yogurt shop down the street. Now, if I had 150,000 customers and 25,000 of them wanted yogurt, that would be something I would look into. Sorry, but to *everyone* who has come up with a store analogy and everything else under the sun to say "go somewhere else if you're not happy", my response is "Get Real." Go where? Go make my own with what? Stop paying to what end? There is a serious flaw in all of these arguments and that is that there are over 76,000 caches in 190 countries listed on this service. No more than maybe 1000 (and that's being generous, I think) are available outside of this website and of those 1000, probably no more than 100 are publicly available (IOW, not also covered under some other entity's terms of use). GC.com is a monopoly. Monopolies are not always evil, ugly, break-out-the-Sherman-Act, entities. But by all accounts, GC.com has monopoly control over the caching data available. I don't begrudge them that, they built it up fair and square, but it would seem that the community might benefit more from having this data readily available to other listing services. Only then would the argument of "stop spending money here and go somewhere else" be valid. In the meantime, if I require PQ-access, or some other member-only benefit, my dollar would have to go to GC.com...and yet I could be entirely dissatisfied with 85% of the rest of what the money goes towards. While complaining that you are unhappy about where you are spending your money, or the service provided, even if it is free in my case, may see pointless...it's actually more pointless to suggest that the complainer take their business elsewhere, since there is nowhere else to viably go except out of geocaching completely. Of course, an on-site, off-topic forum would give the moderators a place to push YAC (yet another complaint) threads when they arise so that the believers could read only "Geocaching Topics" here in this forum room......but there I go wanting an improvement again...(aka "...and around we go!") Link to comment
+mtn-man Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Very nice! I can't wait for friday to get back out caching. So mtn-man where on the lake was this cache? I was in Michigan City once and went to the shore. Looks like there would be a lot of great places for a cache. Wow, Michigan City is only about 20 miles southwest of that cache. Map of the Cache Location Zoom out one level and you can see Michigan City. There is another set of dunes just west of Michigan City as well. I was almost the only one there Sunday so it was great. There were very few footprints in the dunes since it is winter which made for great photos. Some of the steep dunes on the north sides of the hills were frozen so it was like walking on sandy boards. What more fun could you ask for. Link to comment
+rusty_tlc Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 I think we ate at a really good resturant in the area near that cache. I didn't cache at the time, can't wait to go back to the midwest with my GPS. There are a lot of caches out there. I have this mental image of wondering around the corn fields with my GPS in hand. Link to comment
Pantalaimon Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 What more fun could you ask for. [sic] I KNOW! I KNOW! An on-topic reply. Link to comment
+Mopar Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Sorry, but to *everyone* who has come up with a store analogy and everything else under the sun to say "go somewhere else if you're not happy", my response is "Get Real." Go where? Go make my own with what? Stop paying to what end? There is a serious flaw in all of these arguments and that is that there are over 76,000 caches in 190 countries listed on this service. No more than maybe 1000 (and that's being generous, I think) are available outside of this website and of those 1000, probably no more than 100 are publicly available (IOW, not also covered under some other entity's terms of use). GC.com is a monopoly. Monopolies are not always evil, ugly, break-out-the-Sherman-Act, entities. But by all accounts, GC.com has monopoly control over the caching data available. I don't begrudge them that, they built it up fair and square, but it would seem that the community might benefit more from having this data readily available to other listing services. Only then would the argument of "stop spending money here and go somewhere else" be valid. In the meantime, if I require PQ-access, or some other member-only benefit, my dollar would have to go to GC.com...and yet I could be entirely dissatisfied with 85% of the rest of what the money goes towards. While complaining that you are unhappy about where you are spending your money, or the service provided, even if it is free in my case, may see pointless...it's actually more pointless to suggest that the complainer take their business elsewhere, since there is nowhere else to viably go except out of geocaching completely. Of course, an on-site, off-topic forum would give the moderators a place to push YAC (yet another complaint) threads when they arise so that the believers could read only "Geocaching Topics" here in this forum room......but there I go wanting an improvement again...(aka "...and around we go!") No, there is not a flaw in our arguments, it's in the complaints. If the hiders of those 76,000 caches in 180 countries were as dissatisfied with GC.com as the 1000 caches in 18 countries listed on other sites (and I bet 990 of THOSE caches are listed here as well), the other sites would have the data you want. There is no monopoply. All the caches here are posted by choice. The cache hiders own the cache, and are perfectly free and within the TOS of gc.com to cross-post their caches to other sites, yet they choose not to. The reason why the other sites don't have the data you desire, is 99.99% of geocachers are perfectly happy with this site, and have no desire to go elsewhere. If things were as bad as the vocal 00.01% would have us believe, those other sitew would have hundreds of thousands of caches listed. Those other sites would also have the same problems. Say what you want, but almost a year ago TPTB posted that the web server gets over 30 million pageviews a month, and another mil or 2 for the forums. Trust me, no matter what they say, if those other sites had to contend with millions of hits a day, instead on hundreds, and thousands of forum posts a week, not 10's, things would be MUCH different there too. Link to comment
+rusty_tlc Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 I thought me wondering around in a corn field with my GPS was topical. You see I'm looking for a geocache, but it's in this really tall corn, ........hey did I mention that? Well now I can see why you missed the humor. How about this. Two geocachers are out in the desert looking for a cache. One sits down for a rest and gets bit on the butt by a rattlesnake. His partner breaks out his first aid book and reads the section on snake bite. "Make two incisions over the fang holes and suck out the venom." The snake bite victum is getting worried and ask "What does it say, what does it say?" His partner says "It says your gonna die." Link to comment
+pnew Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 (edited) Most people that just use this web site to log their caches like it, IMO. The trouble starts when you get too wrapped up in the politics of these forums....cr. agreed 102% T Shuffle I don't agree with you and chances are many others don't either. You stated your opinions of geocaching.com rather sarcastically. It wasn't funny. Edited December 9, 2003 by pnew Link to comment
+mtn-man Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Actually, I considered the "on-topic" aspect of my reply. I think my reply was on topic because I am giving you an alternative to sitting in front of your computer -- actually going geocaching. You would be surprised how much more fun it is. Juggler, if this is a listing service, and if you can freely list your cache or not, then can this be a monopoly? Maybe the case is that this site is doing things right and the other sites are not doing it right since people don't care to list their caches there. Your estimated statistics are interesting. I have no idea how many caches are on the other site, but I know there are only a handfull near me. I looked at that site early on and found it difficult to use. Maybe time would be better spent complaining to the other site about how they seem to not be attracting very many users and get them to improve things, but that is totally up to you. Link to comment
+yumitori Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 While complaining that you are unhappy about where you are spending your money, or the service provided, even if it is free in my case, may see pointless...it's actually more pointless to suggest that the complainer take their business elsewhere, since there is nowhere else to viably go except out of geocaching completely. Nonsense. This sort of argument is what keeps other sites from springing up. 'This is a really, really big site, and it would be too hard to catch up, so it's not worth trying.' Keep saying that, and it will remain true. What I find especially amusing about all the 'TPTB never listen!! They are ignoring their customers and their business model sucks!!' comments is that there's been change after change that have addressed various requests. Jeremy and company are regularly adding value to the website. Yet as soon as one request is meet, someone pops up with a new one then whine incessantly if it isn't implemented immediately and without question. Of course, an on-site, off-topic forum would give the moderators a place to push YAC (yet another complaint) threads when they arise so that the believers could read only "Geocaching Topics" here in this forum room......but there I go wanting an improvement again...(aka "...and around we go!") Or it would simply give the childish some place where they would feel free to really be jerks. Complaints (and kudos) can go to contact@geocaching.com. There's already an off-topic area; it's called the rest of the Internet. Link to comment
+rusty_tlc Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 I was out geocaching with a friend and when we got back to camp he said he couldn't find his GPS and must have left it at the last cache. So he and his wife head back to find his GPS while we watch the kids. Well they are gone for a long time and we start joking about what could be taking so long. When they get back, sure enough they had gone out and found another cache. One we had skipped because it was to hard for the little guys. Ever since then I always ask him before we leave a cache "Got your GPS?". Link to comment
+leatherman Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 This thread deserves to be hijacked. Link to comment
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