MnGCA

Moe the Sleaze · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 5:47 am Post subject:

It looks like Dan Miller's stats site is down for good unless someone steps forward to take it over.
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"Hi, I'm Moe, or as the women know me - Hey! You in the bushes."
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King Boreas · Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2003 6:53 pm Post subject: more changes

you can't edit archived caches

when mine are archived, I change the title and add a number, signifying when it was placed. I have four never approved/archived caches that I use for editing: put together a cache page, then copy it when I'm ready to post. Can't do either now

potential problem:

I don't know what the "approved distance" is, but if you change the coordinates "too far" you'll get an error message. We may not be able to comply with the Parks idea of moving the cache.

Cache type:

You can't change it after it's approved
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arrive...raise heck...leave (SCSA)

15Tango · Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2003 3:32 am Post subject:

I saw something related about changing coordinates on already submitted cache pages in the gc.com forum, and an email to the approver listed on the bottom of the cache page settled the problem. I'm sure mtn-man will be reasonable with us changing coordinates--since he is also an mngca member, I'm sure he knows about us having to move caches in Ramsey Co. Parks and Three Rivers Parks in order to comply with their geocahing policies.
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There comes a time in every young boy's life when he gets an irresistible urge to seek buried treasure.--Mark Twain

mtn-man · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2003 12:42 am Post subject: Clarifications

King, I understand your problem. I can help you. If you will email me the test cache links I can unarchive them, unapprove them and then disable them. Once they are unarchived, unapproved and disabled they will not show up on the queue and you can then change everything on that page. As long as you don't enable the cache it will not show up on the queue or on the site. That will give you your test caches back.

You can no longer modify an archived cache page. That is true. If you want some titles changed I will be happy to do that for you too.

15Tango is right too. If you need to move the coordinates I can do that for you as well. The problem of posting a cache for approval and then changing the coordinates after approval to get it listed in a banned area has been growing. The bad habits of a few cachers has made it harder on other cachers. Once again, I would be more than happy to help with any changes in coordinates. It also helps us make sure a cache is not moved accidentally near railroad tracks or into a banned park, etc. Sometimes it is just an honest mistake. As long as the coordinate changes are moves to approved areas then it is no problem to do.

FYI... the approval distance is 528 feet or 0.10 miles from another cache.

If there are any other questions feel free to ask. I will be more than happy to help in any way I can. You can always send me an email through my profile page:

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/default.aspx?A=3512
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mtn-man... (formerly) Keeping an eye on the King!

Centris

AAakkkk! Now you have to go to a separate page to edit or delete a log, what once took one little click, now takes 3 steps on another page. This will make multiple bug drops very time consuming.

I am not a computer geek, but could somebody please tell me why everything is going to multiple pages and multiple steps?? Is this some advanced computer language that needs this?

drat19 · Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2003 8:22 am Post subject: Muiltiple pages for a log

Nola...
I agree it's a little more cumbersome to enter logs now. I read a note jeremy posted in one of the forums today that the thinking behind it is that now you can send someone a direct URL of a log entry, instead of having to have folks page thru to find a log. He said he also added a related enhancement where the 100K photo attachment limitation is now gone...all images will be resized to 600 pixels wide.

Dunno if this is all good or bad, but just passing along the info I've seen...

-Dave R., MN guest cacher in town from Biloxi, MS

Kitch · Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2003 1:58 pm Post subject:

I'm not positive but I honestly think I dropped all those bugs today and not yesterday!!! Maybe I goofed but I doubt it!!!

Just to make this clear....you know the ones on the Minnesota page....

Minnesota page.

Centris · Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2003 6:09 pm Post subject:

Hmmmm..... just now printing out some caches for my "go" folder and noticed this change on the caches page...

For online maps...
Microsoft MapPoint (BEST)
Geocaching.com Maps (shows caches)
MapQuest Maps
Topo Zone - topographical maps
Microsoft Terra Server - aerial photos

Microsoft now has BEST maps and is now featured in bold print??? MapQuest moved down to #3?? What happened? Confused

TimbreWlf · Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2003 6:23 pm Post subject:

I don't remember if MapBlast was at the top of the list, bold, (best) or otherwise. But when Microsoft bought out MapBlast, the link just disappeared from the cache page. GC must have struck a deal to get the MS version online. If I recall, there was even a blank space where the old Mapblast link was.
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Centris · Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 6:00 am Post subject:

Mapquest has been on the top of the map list with BEST designation for as long as I have been geocaching (16 months)....... I figured they struck some sort of $$$ deal, now that MSN has BEST and bold designation? This change happened sometime between Thursday and Sunday.
I'm sure it means something to the map provider to have all those geocaching hits seeing the ads.

I'm still going to be using Mapquest since I am used to it and it works out fine for me...... OK Moe -- what kind of phobia do I have now??

Moe the Sleaze · Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 6:27 am Post subject:

rickrich · Geocacher Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 673

Jeremy really missed the boat with maps. All the time/money they spent on them and they really are a joke. Completely useless in a metro area since they always display all caches regardless of the type or your found/notfound status.

He should have whipped up a Java applet that would let you pan and zoom, and had the Java applet place the cache markers on the map. Then the load would be off his server and the maps would be useful.

Sigh. He just doesn't get it.

Kitch · Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 4:55 pm Post subject:

at a risk of making the wrong person upset I want to post this link....just another view.....
http://www.keenpeople.com/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=32&Itemid=2

Many geocachers have been voicing their discontent with geocaching.com and it's politics. Issues range from the removal of virtual caches to the issue of who really owns the geocache data. More and more cachers are speaking out about the geocaching.com politics and it's owner Jeremy Irish.

Geocachers have spent thousands of dollars supporting geocaching.com in the way of contributions, subscriptions and the purchase of "Geo-wear". It's grown from a small website to a incorporated business. The time has come that it's customers have been requesting new features and the response from geocaching.com has been less than friendly. Many people myself included have attempted to contact geocaching.com about the licensing of the data for use in stats. One official response from Geocaching.com was "The game was never intended to have scoring". That's a rather bold statement considering that the game was neither developed by geocaching.com nor officially run by geocaching.com. Geocachers supply the data to the site by which they participate in self policing and politics. A geocache site could be run or controlled by anyone. Other sites such as Navicache prove that theory.

The geocaching.com opinion of how the site is run seems to be the heart of the debate. Prior to the removal of "Dan's stat site", geocaching.com implemented policy to remove virtual caches. This was met with a less than warm welcome to many cachers. Geocaching.com has also implemented new software to protect the data stored on geocaching.com from screen scrapes and automated "bots" to access their data. Pocket queries are now bound by a more stringent license agreement making it nearly impossible for anyone to utilize the data for anything other than their own use.

Many users have spoken out about this. Actions have included emails to the admins some users have pulled caches from the site while others have switched to other sites already. All the time geocaching.com has been silent in this. Keenpeople.com has recently set up a poll for users to vote as well as discuss in the forums. We want to know what you feel about this and how you think the geocaching world should proceed. Who owns the data? Is this game geocaching.coms? Do the users really make or break the game? The future is unclear.

Here's what you can do.

1. Email contact@geocaching.com and let them know how you feel about the issues.
2. Not as bold or want to know more? Discuss it in our online forum.
3. Simply vote on our site. It let's us know how many people care about these issues.

Keenpeople.com will continue to work with Geocaching.com to obtain information and support the users of the geocaching community. Keenpeople.com continues to be an open forum for geocachers, outdoor enthusiasts and friends.

s4xton · Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 3:38 am Post subject:

I keep dreaming about this... have for many months:

Someone, somewhere down the line (with excellent PHP and MySQL skills for sure. *g*) will create a caching site that will perform much better than geocaching.com. That someone will create a system that's solid and OPEN, but will have the data centralized. Other parties will have access to the raw data for whatever they want: Stats, listing of caches, mapping, etc.

When this is created, in the long run it would cost significantly less than Groundspeak has to pay for geocaching.com... mostly because of bandwidth, server equiptment and software licensing. People all over the world will be able to list the same caches, using the same data on a site they want and in the language they want... as simple or as complicated as they want... In the end, the load would be distributed. For instance, mngca.org in that case could list all the Minnesota caches, if it was in mngca.com's interest. All the other geocaching sites would have access to all the caches as well - as all the data would be centralized. The trick is to create a system that manages authentication across all of this and guidelines to make sure all the data is consistent.

Not to ride on the open source movement, but everyone would also benifit from site improvments on individual sites... new features could be voted upon by other site administrators and users rather than decided by one person and his monetary interests.

If there was a system like this, I'd be flopping down my donation right now... no need for a stupid cartoony frog t-shirt. =)

This would go back to the ORIGINAL foundations of geocaching.com, where all the data was open... before Jeremy Irish decided to "own" everyone's caches.

If something like this was created, there is no real way for geocaching.com to stop it. If the system was quality, and a lot of the disgruntled die-hard cache-coding folks (there's a lot out there) jumped on board, and most importantly, the right PR campaign was implimented, it would change the life of geocaching forever.

Just my blabber.... I thought it was a good time to share that thought...

-Aaron

Moe the Sleaze · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 6:55 am Post subject: Totals are back!

gc.com has finally re-instated the find totals. They are on the statistics tab of the user profile.
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"Hi, I'm Moe, or as the women know me - Hey! You in the bushes."
-Moe, The Simpsons