A Geocaching listing site for the UK

[Birdman-of-liskatraz]

I'm not sure - but it has to be worth some discussion. What do people think?

[Mr'D]

The way things are going it could happen. A UK version of Navicache?

Jon

[minstrelcat]

There was an attempt at this years ago, when similar problems blew up. It seems to have died a death though.

The Philimore Clan says the site was http://geocaching.org.uk/ but it is now dead.

Lisa

[Matrix]

Could be worth a try !

I wonder if we can persuade Lactodorum and Eckington to be reviewers :ph34r:

[Matrix]

Just a question does anybody know who Nigel Knapton from York is ?



Because he is the owner of http://www.geocaching.co.uk which forwards to https://www.geocaching.com :ph34r:

[The Phillimore Clan]

The name certainly rings a bell, it's stuck up in the rapidly aging grey matter at the moment though.

[minstrelcat]

http://www.rsgb-region-4.org.uk/team.php?team_id=36

Probably doesn't help much though! :D

[The Royles]

Try http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/371

[Bill D (wwh)]

Well, minstrelcat's link is to a regional manager for the Radio Society of Great Britain, and many cachers are ham radio enthusiasts...

[Matrix]

Originally posted by minstrelcat+Apr 24 2008, 08:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (minstrelcat &#064; Apr 24 2008, 08:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> http://www.rsgb-region-4.org.uk/team.php?team_id=36

Probably doesn&#39;t help much though&#33; :D [/b]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bill D (wwh)@Apr 24 2008, 08:41 PM
Well, minstrelcat&#39;s link is to a regional manager for the Radio Society of Great Britain, and many cachers are ham radio enthusiasts...[/quote]

As am I and that is the same guy :applause:

He also has http://www.triode.org.uk/ registered in his name :ph34r:

[moote01]

Well the way things are going on GC.com and the attitude of the Groundspeak Inc, I&#39;m happy to put time and effort into an alternative.

Moote

[Birdman-of-liskatraz]

Is a Radio Ham too... G7BIM

and a little birdie whispered the appropriate email address.. so I&#39;ve asked if the domain could be made available.


Steve

[Matrix]

Originally posted by Birdman&#045;of&#045;liskatraz@Apr 24 2008, 09:05 PM
Is a Radio Ham too... G7BIM

and a little birdie whispered the appropriate email address.. so I&#39;ve asked if the domain could be made available.


Steve
According to the link he is Nigel Knapton G1JKE Deputy Regional Manager for North Yorkshire.

not G7BIM :blink:

[Birdman-of-liskatraz]

Originally posted by matrix+Apr 24 2008, 09:09 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (matrix @ Apr 24 2008, 09:09 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Birdman&#045;of&#045;liskatraz@Apr 24 2008, 09:05 PM
Is a Radio Ham too... G7BIM

and a little birdie whispered the appropriate email address.. so I&#39;ve asked if the domain could be made available.


Steve
According to the link he is Nigel Knapton G1JKE Deputy Regional Manager for North Yorkshire.

not G7BIM :blink: [/b][/quote]
No - Me - The Birdman of Liskatraz is G7BIM....

[Matrix]

Originally posted by Birdman&#045;of&#045;liskatraz@Apr 24 2008, 09:10 PM
No - Me - The Birdman of Liskatraz is G7BIM....
DOH http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k168/matrix_offroad/Smillies/pat.gif

Apologies de Mike GW7ODP

[Birdman-of-liskatraz]

Something just crossed my mind... in a previous life, I worked for The Scout Association at National level..

Each Country ran it&#39;s own affairs, but still stuck to the same basic fundamental principles... and all belonged to the World Organisation of the Scout Movement based in Geneva.

Maybe Geocaching has reached a stage where larger Countries need to be given some autonomy in running their own affairs yet still belonging within some International Geocaching Framework.


Just a thought.

[Lactodorum]

Originally posted by matrix@Apr 24 2008, 08:26 PM
Just a question does anybody know who Nigel Knapton from York is ?



Because he is the owner of http://www.geocaching.co.uk which forwards to https://www.geocaching.com :ph34r:
No, but I know who owns www.geocache.co.uk ;)

[Lactodorum]

Originally posted by Birdman&#045;of&#045;liskatraz@Apr 24 2008, 09:26 PM
Something just crossed my mind... in a previous life, I worked for The Scout Association at National level..

Each Country ran it&#39;s own affairs, but still stuck to the same basic fundamental principles... and all belonged to the World Organisation of the Scout Movement based in Geneva.

Maybe Geocaching has reached a stage where larger Countries need to be given some autonomy in running their own affairs yet still belonging within some International Geocaching Framework.


Just a thought.
Funny you should say that. Why didn&#39;t I suggest that to TPTB? Oh yes, I did :(

[Birdman-of-liskatraz]

I&#39;ll shut up now I think....

[pklong]

Count me in too if we are considering an alternative listing site. A little competition is never a bad thing.

Philip

[Matrix]

Originally posted by Lactodorum+Apr 24 2008, 10:08 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Lactodorum @ Apr 24 2008, 10:08 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-matrix@Apr 24 2008, 08:26 PM
Just a question does anybody know who Nigel Knapton from York is ?



Because he is the owner of http://www.geocaching.co.uk which forwards to https://www.geocaching.com :ph34r:
No, but I know who owns www.geocache.co.uk ;) [/b][/quote]
So you do :ph34r:

[thekennelat79]

Are we talking about an alternative site, or a replacement one?

If it&#39;s the latter then what would happen to all the present cache listings currently hosted by GC.com?
Who owns the listing (not the cache)? Is it GC or the cache setter, and are there any copyright issues?
Presumably UK cache owners have to re-enter all their cache info on the new site since GC would be reluctant to "release" the present data.

Just thoughts and musings on my part.

[lost it]

I would say that whilst you have control of the text on the page you can consider it yours, theres nothing stopping you changing a cache page to near blank

[Geotrotter]

Originally posted by thekennelat79@Apr 24 2008, 10:20 PM
Are we talking about an alternative site, or a replacement one?

If it&#39;s the latter then what would happen to all the present cache listings currently hosted by GC.com?
Who owns the listing (not the cache)? Is it GC or the cache setter, and are there any copyright issues?
Presumably UK cache owners have to re-enter all their cache info on the new site since GC would be reluctant to "release" the present data.

Just thoughts and musings on my part.
There would also be the issue of the total finds. Would everybody&#39;s finds be reset to zero? Would it be nn finds with Geocaching.com and nn finds with the uk site? Would they be able to transfer their finds over?

Why set up a completely new site, would it not be easier to just switch over to Navicache? After all, they&#39;re competition/alternative that is already there.


Just my two penneth

[scottpa100]

Originally posted by Geotrotter@Apr 24 2008, 11:11 PM
Why set up a completely new site, would it not be easier to just switch over to Navicache?
I appreciate where you&#39;re coming from but we complain about the maps on geocaching.com.... have you seen Navicache? Its just old and clunky. And 3 caches within 50 miles...&#33;

(My first post on GAGB&#33;)

[dannable]

Nigel goes under the cahing name of chipmunk, and he lives Easingwold (Nth Yorkshire) way. Not that that&#39;s relevant.

I&#39;m sure that there several cachers who can develop web sites - Jamie (Jaz666) springs to mind as one.

It&#39;s late and my eyes are tired so I might have missed it, but how would an independent listings site deal with trackables?

[amberel]

Originally posted by Birdman&#045;of&#045;liskatraz@Apr 24 2008, 07:28 PM
I&#39;m not sure - but it has to be worth some discussion. What do people think?
I think it&#39;s certainly worth discussion. But along with the things we might gain we shouldn&#39;t forget what we would lose.

Groundspeak have a good system, and having most of the world covered by one database has to be an advantage. For people who have been caching for a long time, Groundspeak hold a lot of history. And consider that whatever we end up doing, it&#39;s always likely that many of us will disagree with certain aspects of that too - no way is everyone going to agree on every detail.

The reasons for finding an alternative are that Groundspeak do at times appear to be somewhat autocratic, officious, inflexible, unresponsive and secretive. And I feel there is a good chance they will have difficulty in filling the vacant reviewer posts. I would grate on me to implement policies with which I disagree even if I was paid employee; I couldn&#39;t see me doing it as an unpaid volunteer. And if I had to do it without being free to express my disagreement with the policies I was implementing I would find it intolerable.

The Aussie model looks quite good, but we appear to have two extremes - increasingly rigid control by Groundspeak or complete anarchy in Australia :) . Total freedom is not always a good thing.

I&#39;m keeping an open mind for the time being, but I&#39;m certainly keeping an eye on the situation.

Rgds, Andy

[Geotrotter]

Originally posted by scottpa100+Apr 24 2008, 11:22 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (scottpa100 &#064; Apr 24 2008, 11:22 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-Geotrotter@Apr 24 2008, 11:11 PM
Why set up a completely new site, would it not be easier to just switch over to Navicache?
I appreciate where you&#39;re coming from but we complain about the maps on geocaching.com.... have you seen Navicache? Its just old and clunky. And 3 caches within 50 miles...&#33;

(My first post on GAGB&#33;)[/b][/quote]
I agree with your comments re the quality of the site but would they not have an incentive to improve it if there were suddenly loads of caches being added?

There might be only 3 in 50 mile at the moment but that&#39;s only because Lollybob and M0sgb don&#39;t go on there yet. :rolleyes: :D :lol:

[Lactodorum]

Originally posted by amberel@Apr 24 2008, 11:44 PM
Groundspeak have a good system, and having most of the world covered by one database has to be an advantage. For people who have been caching for a long time, Groundspeak hold a lot of history. And consider that whatever we end up doing, it&#39;s always likely that many of us will disagree with certain aspects of that too - no way is everyone going to agree on every detail.

The reasons for finding an alternative are that Groundspeak do at times appear to be somewhat autocratic, officious, inflexible, unresponsive and secretive. And I feel there is a good chance they will have difficulty in filling the vacant reviewer posts. I would grate on me to implement policies with which I disagree even if I was paid employee; I couldn&#39;t see me doing it as an unpaid volunteer. And if I had to do it without being free to express my disagreement with the policies I was implementing I would find it intolerable.
As the person who finds himself swept up in the middle of this storm (in a teacup?&#33;) permit me to add my two penn&#39;orth. The comments about how Groundspeak operates is quite perceptive and is why we&#39;re in this position now. Equally valid is your comment about the quality of the site itself and the value of its database. With the best will in the world I can&#39;t see anyone coming up with anything comparable locally, at least not in the near future.

My personal preference would be to concentrate our efforts to trying to change what we see is wrong with the way Groundspeak operates. I have seen mention of the worldwide scouting organisation with an overarching set of general principles but with regional bodies responsible for developing and operating locally relevant guidelines. To my mind this is what Groundspeak ought to be working towards and if it had shown a willingness to consider this sort of thing I would never have left.

Although there are some very insular and self important people involved I believe that given persistence and logic they can be persuaded to change. This needs to be done in a cool and calm way and without resorting to some of the xenophobic insults that I&#39;ve seen over in the GC forums.

We&#39;ll see

[lost it]

wise words as ever, but the Americans will fall into line and groundspeak will bury its head in the sand

if another listing site was to transpire (is that the right word foir this time in the morning) I think it would be best set up under a charitable status so that no one owns it and is solely responsible for how it runs - a committee would have to be set up

granted the database would not be as good but if the work was put into it over time it could be comparable

[Brenin Tegeingl]

As the person who kick started the failed attempt to get a UK based listing site. I&#39;ll clear up a few points

The domain name we used was allowed to by the registered owner, who retained ownership at all times. Hence the confusion now.

As only one person [not me] was involved in the coding side of it and this person had a change in personal circumstances. That side of things stalled.

Despite my best efforts to draw in the UK Community, the majority were not interested or sat on the fence. The project eventually stalled due to there being about 3 or 4 persons including me genuinely interested in it progressing.

As Peter has stated the best way forward is to try to persuade Groundspeak to Regionalise the site to take account of the cultural differences.

I&#39;m aware that several are working on the start of making a approach to Groundspeak over this. Information will be coming in the immediate future over this.

Deci

[T.R.a.M.P.]

I haven&#39;t posted in any of the current debate but forgive me if I am missing something... :wacko:
The main problem seems to be with the Merkins&#39; heavy handed attitude, closing threads in their forums. Moving our discussions over here seems to fix that problem.
Is there really any problem with actually getting caches approved and using their database? If not, do we need to set up our own other than for the satisfaction of having nothing to do with them? :unsure:

[markandlynn]

Ive said for years that we should redirect posters on the GC forum to another one outside of GC control.

This will pass and most people will fall back to the GC forum unless people keep on redirecting them elsewhere.

For indepence sake i used to advocate GUK as it was also self moderated.

As for alternative listing sites there is

http://cacheopedia.com/wiki/Geocaching_Web...Caching_Network (http://cacheopedia.com/wiki/Geocaching_Websites#OpenCaching_Network)

and of most interest

http://devel.opencaching.de/index.php?locale=EN

[ivanidea]

If only a small number of UK cachers frequent the GC.com forum, then I don&#39;t see how you can persuade most of the cachers to visit another site.

At the moment, I think the cache listings should stay on GC.com, but use external forums, such as this one, for contraversial discussions. This way, we get to keep our stats, GC.com maintains the site (at their expense), and we can say what we want (within reason) here.

Any links for further information from the cache/event page could be directed to a posting here, where the details of events and their &#39;commercial&#39; locations can be freely made.

Ivan

[[MF]taz]

Has anyone looked at www.terracaching.com they have a different approch to reviewing cache listings, they let the community do it.

As far as I can tell each member is sponsered by someone, when they place a cache their sponsers review it and its published.

They use a weird ranking system that gives you points depending on how highly ranked yor hides are I think your sponsers benifit from your points.

It sounds self sustainable, unfortunatly not many caches in the UK... but perhaps that may be a good thing as we can start afresh.

Or for those who are seriously considering setting up a competitive site to GC.com then they would be best to look at all of the competition.

PS. My first post on here, but I already recognise quite a few of you ;)

[pklong]

I have looked at the alternatives. Navicaching looks like it was designed in about 1999 and not updated since, Terracaching has a clear as mud design. There is no reason we couldn&#39;t do much better. Opencaching looks the best of the bunch, but needs translating.

So there is plenty of scope for improvement.

Philip

[pray4mojo]

Originally posted by ivanidea@Apr 25 2008, 11:28 AM
At the moment, I think the cache listings should stay on GC.com, but use external forums, such as this one, for contraversial discussions. This way, we get to keep our stats, GC.com maintains the site (at their expense), and we can say what we want (within reason) here.

I don&#39;t do a lot of posting in the current forum but have been reading what everyone has to say (with different amounts of agreement.) I think in the short term what "ivanidea" has to say would be the easiest to carry out. Sure some (many) aren&#39;t happy with gs or gc.com but with put up with it this long ;) .

With a separate UK wide forum to discuss things, away from GS prying eyes we have only our self to blame if things get out of hand. Also the problems involving "overly" commercial event cache listings, is there nothing to stop us linking from the cache page to a thread in the new forum with all the event discussion on?? (if there is a problem why not put the link in your profile and refer people attending your event to your profile)

And when the new forum is up and running we can discuss if we need or how to go about making a new listing sites there. But use gc.com in the mean time (I still have alot of my subsciption to use up yet.)

The new forum could be here or as some people don&#39;t agree with the GAGB idea and I&#39;m not sure if the people that run this site would want it to be used like that or not(do you??) it could be elsewhere.

I don&#39;t have much (any) experience with holding events so I don&#39;t know if this would work, or much idea of the work/cost of setting up websites/forums but this is just my opinion on the matter. If no one agrees (and i get yelled at ;) ) that is fine, least I feel I can freely express my views on here :D .

Ben

[studlyone]

There are a number of issues with setting up a Uk listing site as I see it:

1. Cost - servers that can cope with a query heavy php/mysl site don&#39;t come free so the project would need to fund itself or have a benevolent sponsor.
2. Developement - There is a wealth of programming design talent around who are involved in geocaching but it usually takes either a team of dedicated individuals to set up and run a site like that or you need to pay someone to do the programming/design work for you before taking on the running of it as volunteers.
3. Advertising - Geocaching.com is definitely the daddy of cache listing sites and you would have to go head to head in the search engines to try to get the new site as much exposure as possible - this can be a double edged weapon though if the new site doen&#39;t have many caches listed.

None of the above is unsurmountable but the question I ask myself is why go to the bother as the geocaching.com listing pages provide everything we need - for free, with only a few contentious problems.

I think our efforts would be better placed either focussing on a UK forum (to vent in) and lobbying to get more regional devolution within geocaching.com organisation. I think that eventually they will realise that it is good for the pastime and therefore good for their bottom line at the end of the day.

Jusy my ten peneth.

[markandlynn]

As long as people dont do members only caches the pay to play element would be removed.

GC does a good listing service.

Im sure given time we can circumvent the listing rules. Editing cache pages after publication, posting notes long hints, the user web page can be used to link off site.
Bookmark lists.

[pklong]

Originally posted by markandlynn@Apr 25 2008, 03:19 PM
As long as people dont do members only caches the pay to play element would be removed.

GC does a good listing service.

Im sure given time we can circumvent the listing rules. Editing cache pages after publication, posting notes long hints, the user web page can be used to link off site.
Bookmark lists.
Sounds like a recipe for getting yourself banned to me.

[markandlynn]

Originally posted by pklong+Apr 25 2008, 03:34 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (pklong &#064; Apr 25 2008, 03:34 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-markandlynn@Apr 25 2008, 03:19 PM
As long as people dont do members only caches the pay to play element would be removed.

GC does a good listing service.

Im sure given time we can circumvent the listing rules. Editing cache pages after publication, posting notes long hints, the user web page can be used to link off site.
Bookmark lists.
Sounds like a recipe for getting yourself banned to me.[/b][/quote]
i can post a note on an event page saying theres a great pub near the event
or the entire page is a hyperlink to a forum thread
The cache page could be (follow link) the title could be (follow link) im not even trying hard yet.

People are creative
images on cache pages,
background images,
the guidelines do not apply to the logs on a cache page as those are the responsibility of the cache owner to police.
Travel bugs can be named and renamed
the listing can say follow the travel bug for more details.
bookmark list descriptions
pictures of the location for the event ie the pub car park uploaded to the cache page.
suggestions for food you will bring with you on the day like scampi and chips, steak and chips let me know what you want me to bring along on the day.


Lots of ways :cheers:

but really speaking i should not have to do this

[ghost cat]

Before starting a new site it is necessary not only to establish exactly what your are going to do but more importantly WHY you are doing it. Currently I see two possibilities:

1) A full replacement for geocaching.com in the UK.

The only reason to do this is to kick Groundspeak were it hurts. Which although satisfying is self defeating. Also as other people have already mentioned, this is a major undertaking, which I believe would fail.

2) An auxiliary site for listing caches or adding details that Groundspeak won&#39;t allow.

This will allow the UK some autonomy in cache placement[1] and listing content; without throwing the baby away with the bath water. This is probably achievable as the new site will only need to handle a relatively small number of caches.

[1] I strongly suggest that catch placements adhere to the guildlines that the UK mods have been using up to now.

[molfrew-mosstoad]

For what its worth I think a Uk listing site would take quite a bit to get up and running, especially as the groundspeak database does a good job.

However if many of the forum users could be persuaded to post and promote on this website (if GAGB are happy with that) instead of the main GC one we could strike a happy medium. Maybe with things being a little more relaxed here it would work well. :rolleyes:

[The Wombles]

Originally posted by pray4mojo@Apr 25 2008, 02:03 PM

The new forum could be here or as some people don&#39;t agree with the GAGB idea and I&#39;m not sure if the people that run this site would want it to be used like that or not(do you??) it could be elsewhere.



GAGB is happy to host these discussions and UK forums in the future. Whilst the usual rules of mutual respect apply, we are happy to see promotion of Charitable activities and events in pubs :cheers:

[Geotrotter]

Rather than attempt to set up a new site, would it not be possible for GAGB (and maybe Geocaching UK) to discuss a deal with GS where:

i. The official UK forum becomes this one.
ii. All caches are still stored in the GS database as now, but the UK becomes self governing and all rules in the UK become the responsibility of GAGB (a committee voted for by forum members). GS would then be little more than a hosting site for UK cache database and would not be held legally responsible for any of the contents.
iii. The UK could include England, N. Ireland, Scotland & Wales, with the option being given to the Isle of Man to decide whom they wish to be governed by.

We would then keep the well maintained GS database but not be answerable to the USA for caching rules. We may even be able to talk our great moderators Lacto & Ekki to return to doing what they&#39;ve done brilliantly for years.

[nobbynobbs]

To have a UK listing site is an idea that should be considered but only as a last resort. Anyone who has the experience, time and wherewithall to accomplish it feel free to think about how we could proceed but in the first instance it would be better if we could get the groundspeak people to see our point of view and allow a level of self control for the UK.

[Birdman-of-liskatraz]

I know it&#39;s been mentioned before but it&#39;s really worth reading the Australian forums at: Australian forums (http://forum.geocaching.com.au/index.php)

and see the discussions that theyv&#39;e been having..

[[MF]taz]

Just had thought (don&#39;t worry it didnt hurt)

What are the possibility of having an forum with an external discussion thread for every (required) cache/event listing that the owner can link to or can be found by using the GCXXX (or TCXXX) number??

What I was thinking that the extrernal site has a page that will either go to the topic or state that a topic does not exist would you like to create page.

www.cachechat.com/viewtopic=GCXXXXX

(looked at cachechat.com and its a redirect to a search page so someone already owns just used that as an idea)

giving the owner and other cachers the chance to discuss that specific cache outside of the use of normal logs, and have somewhere fixed they can add extra detail.

This could be put up for UK users but it could be worldwide.

I know this brings up other questions such as hosting and who would moderate and to what guidlines etc... but I still, it may be something someone else may be able to run with.

Lee

[fraggle69]

ahh, so this is where the revolution is at&#33;

[Teasel]

With a bit of forethought, the basic CRUD functionality for caches, logs, photos etc should be relatively easy to put in place. I don&#39;t think that previous efforts fizzled due to the magnitude of the coding work involved. With a decent graphic designer on board, something 10x better than Navicache.com, and 100x more scalable than G:UK should be easily achievable on a single multi-core server.

As I see it, the three problems are going to be funding, momentum and politics. A stable server for enough traffic to achieve critical mass will probably cost in the region of £2000 per year. That money, or donated server space, is going to have to come from somewhere.

From my experience with G:UK I know that, while it&#39;s easy to motivate yourself to code up a new site, maintaining the code when things go wrong is less rewarding. The guys at Groundspeak have the advantage that they&#39;re primarily motivated by &#036;&#036;&#036; and the determination that, this time next year, they&#39;ll be miwwionaires (if they&#39;re not already). A non-profit site may have greater staff retention problems.

The political problems may be minimised by a local, friendlier administration, but they won&#39;t go away. I doubt there&#39;s an Englishman alive who&#39;d consider pub names in cache descriptions to be unacceptably commercial, but what if the cache were owned by the landlord? As the rules change, do we grandfather, or remove? I doubt we&#39;d have any complaints about a Children in Need event, but what about a LIFE anti-abortion event? Should we allow caches in caves? What about dry stone walls? Inside Alton Towers? Bletchley Park? McDonalds? Stonehenge? A cacher&#39;s front garden in Avebury? Scout groups? Church groups? Scientologists? Aaaargh&#33;&#33;&#33; At least with the semi-benevolent dictatorship which is Groundspeak, there&#39;s a nice brick wall you can bang your head against, and a black hole to fire emails into, never to be seen again; until you get bored and find something more productive to do. With a friendlier approach to geocaching, we&#39;d need to find a way of resolving disputes, or we&#39;ll end up putting the moderators under even more pressure than they are now, which would be somewhat ironic&#33;

I heard somewhere that in genetics, any mutation which infiltrates less than 10% of the population is doomed to die out. So, if 10% of the UK cachers would switch to the new listings site, then I&#39;d say let&#39;s go for it&#33; Otherwise, we&#39;re doomed before we start.

[nobbynobbs]

The only point I would say against that teasel is that we had three great guys who were doing exactly that and there wasn&#39;t any major problems or dissention about their decisions.
We didn&#39;t have a free for all on the forums or heavy moderation to stop it.

We just seemed to be a typical group of british people who like gentle guidance and accept that there are limits.

And personally I&#39;d just like to go back to that.

[Rambling Meanderers]

No, I don&#39;t think that we should be looking at a separate listing site for the UK (at least for the moment&#33;) The one we have works pretty well most of the time and although I don&#39;t have much knowledge about such things I&#39;d imagine that it would be a huge amount of work to try and replicate the functionality.

And even then we&#39;d lose the "global community" feel which there is to geocaching, which is one of the attractions. Not that I&#39;ve ever cached outside the UK, but explaining to dubious family members that what we do is relatively normal is a lot easier when Google Earth allows us to demonstrate that there are similarly minded people all over the world&#33; :cool:

For the forums point, I think people may naturally come over to these forums rather than the *other place* anyway. We have (first posting for us&#33;&#33;) and it sounds like other are doing so as well. Maybe the question is why we didn&#39;t earlier? Well, to me (and no offence to anyone here) GAGB always seemed rather formal. Obsessed with landowner agreements and permissions. :o That&#39;s the impression given on the other site and the GAGB home page, at least to us. Very pleased to see that actually it&#39;s not like that at all&#33; Although there is a healthy obsession with pubs :D :beer: :cheers: :D

On the pub point, Nobbynobbs put it well in his email, but from the sounds of it we&#39;re not going to get anywhere with this one, and the decision of TPTB seems to be pretty final. I&#39;m sure our (previous) reviewers have already had the argument and if they failed then we&#39;re unlikely to be successful.

Is the solution to the pub point to have a downloadable .gpx file which contains details of cacher friendly pubs? Could be maintained by someone here, maybe with a forum dedicated to suggestions? There would be some work involved, but a lot less than the alternatives.

[dodgydaved]

Originally posted by Rambling Meanderers@Apr 30 2008, 06:27 PM

On the pub point, Nobbynobbs put it well in his email, but from the sounds of it we&#39;re not going to get anywhere with this one, and the decision of TPTB seems to be pretty final. I&#39;m sure our (previous) reviewers have already had the argument and if they failed then we&#39;re unlikely to be successful.


With great sadness and reluctance I think you are absolutely correct - the current thinking in GSP management appears to be what I have called (rightly or wrongly) fundamentalism.

Innovation and individualism stifled to ensure a blandness across the game/sport/pastime.

:( :( :(

[ghost cat]

Harping back to my love of conspiracy theories, could Groundspeak&#39;s plan be as follows:

1. Ban all mention of pubs and restaurants in gc.com

2. Allow said pubs and restaurants in waymarking.com

3. Allow links from cache descriptions to waymarks

4. Cachers create new waymarks, which they then link to from their cache pages

5 Profit

Seriously GS has put a lot of effort into their waymarking site despite indifference and actual hostility from geocachers. Therefore, they have plans for waymarks that are not yet obvious. So, the recent "get tough" policy could be either the next stage of the waymarking master plan or an attempt to bolster a flagging idea.

Just my 2 (euro) cents worth.

[keehotee]

Originally posted by ghost cat@May 1 2008, 08:50 AM
Harping back to my love of conspiracy theories, could Groundspeak&#39;s plan be as follows:

1. Ban all mention of pubs and restaurants in gc.com

2. Allow said pubs and restaurants in waymarking.com

3. Allow links from cache descriptions to waymarks

4. Cachers create new waymarks, which they then link to from their cache pages

5 Profit

Seriously GS has put a lot of effort into their waymarking site despite indifference and actual hostility from geocachers. Therefore, they have plans for waymarks that are not yet obvious. So, the recent "get tough" policy could be either the next stage of the waymarking master plan or an attempt to bolster a flagging idea.

Just my 2 (euro) cents worth.
Sorry - I&#39;m missing something here - how do GC generate a profit from having links to waypoints?
I haven&#39;t actually visited the waypoint side of GC yet ... is it pay-per-view???

[sTeamTraen]

Originally posted by keehotee@May 1 2008, 01:55 PM
Sorry - I&#39;m missing something here - how do GC generate a profit from having links to waypoints?
I haven&#39;t actually visited the waypoint side of GC yet ... is it pay-per-view???
Even if every pub in the UK which is currently referenced from a cache listing became a waymark, it wouldn&#39;t make for much extra traffic.

Also, last time I checked there were no Google or even Groundspeak ads on waymarking.com, so non-premium members wouldn&#39;t generate any extra revenue and premium members of gc.com are premium members at waymarking.com too.

You could argue that more people clicking on waymarking.com might make Waymarking grow by further word of mouth, but it&#39;s a bit of a stretch as a world domination plan.

PS: It&#39;s "waymark", not "waypoint", but then I can&#39;t type the word "cash" correctly anymore :lol:

[ghost cat]

I can&#39;t see how GS can make money from waymarking either. Maybe that&#39;s why I&#39;m not a dotcom millionaire ;)

What prompted my comment is the way GS have been pushing waymarking despite a total indifference from the majority of cachers. GS obviously have plans for waymarking. Been a business they would not throw money at it, if they did not expect a good return.

Anyway, I did say it was a conspiracy theory.

[sTeamTraen]

People criticise Groundspeak for spending money on site features that they personally don&#39;t use, but I think this reflects how close a relationship a lot of people think they have with the company. If you travel on a Virgin train and it&#39;s a bit late, you probably don&#39;t get to thinking that it would be ten minutes earlier if Richard Branson got out of the cola or radio businesses.

I too sometimes wonder why Jeremy, Brian, and Elias would choose to spend as much real cash (not start-up funny money from vulture capitalists) on R&D when they could probably be buying some very nice cars. Apparently they really do believe in the long-term future of the business.

[moote01]

Originally posted by sTeamTraen@May 2 2008, 08:37 AM
People criticise Groundspeak for spending money on site features that they personally don&#39;t use, but I think this reflects how close a relationship a lot of people think they have with the company. If you travel on a Virgin train and it&#39;s a bit late, you probably don&#39;t get to thinking that it would be ten minutes earlier if Richard Branson got out of the cola or radio businesses.
I just don&#39;t get this remark, it has more than confused me. For a start a Virgin Train has to rely on many other backbone suppliers such as Network Rail etc, so not all their delays are due to their business.

But previously reading some of the Geocaching Site generated errors they were caused by mainly 2 things; either Server capacity, or very poor SQL, so the investing in Waymarking etc. whilst their main Bread and Butter was keeling over was a very poor judgment&#33;

My point here is yes you are correct about the Virgin, but the Groundspeak analogy was far from being comparable; One being a multi-billion £ business with a structured investment plan, the other being a small US business that will and always will find it hard to make ends meet.

Groundspeak is a small business and instead of trying to diversify they should work on getting their core strategies and technologies working well.

There is one business though, which they might want to look at as a good model for International understanding of their customer base, that is HSBC.

[markandlynn]

Waymarking is quite popular if you actually go and look at some of the figures.

The waymarking site is a large part of the total sites development if you actually go and look its probably very close to V2 of the geocaching website, i believe its been used as GC test bed for V2 features for quite a while now.

I did not like it when it first came out but having had a new look im pretty sure its close to what we will soon see.

NB i am a leader of a waymark group have logged two and know that many m,any UK ones are now listed just because forum regulars vilify it does not mean it is unpopular in the UK.

The GC server problems were caused by a bug in the code


Fortunately our latest release on Tuesday fixed the Most Painful Bug in the History of Time. As it turns out the nifty little code we use that transforms UBB code into HTML was using Regular Expressions - and that the libraries for Regular Expressions had changed, I would say drastically, between 1.1 and 2.0. Since we use them all over the site we were taking an additional hit every time it was called.

Joe, our newest developer and currently the lead developer on the current version of the site, was finally able to determine this after some extensive debugging work with Microsoft. The Tuesday release implemented these changes and now each web machine is now running at under 20% CPU with the same amount of connections that put it at 100% on Monday.

Links
https://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=179332

https://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...&hl=biggest+bug (https://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=179605&hl=biggest+bug)

[moote01]

Originally posted by markandlynn@May 2 2008, 01:49 PM
Waymarking is quite popular if you actually go and look at some of the figures.

The waymarking site is a large part of the total sites development if you actually go and look its probably very close to V2 of the geocaching website, i believe its been used as GC test bed for V2 features for quite a while now.

I did not like it when it first came out but having had a new look im pretty sure its close to what we will soon see.

NB i am a leader of a waymark group have logged two and know that many m,any UK ones are now listed just because forum regulars vilify it does not mean it is unpopular in the UK.

The GC server problems were caused by a bug in the code


Fortunately our latest release on Tuesday fixed the Most Painful Bug in the History of Time. As it turns out the nifty little code we use that transforms UBB code into HTML was using Regular Expressions - and that the libraries for Regular Expressions had changed, I would say drastically, between 1.1 and 2.0. Since we use them all over the site we were taking an additional hit every time it was called.

Joe, our newest developer and currently the lead developer on the current version of the site, was finally able to determine this after some extensive debugging work with Microsoft. The Tuesday release implemented these changes and now each web machine is now running at under 20% CPU with the same amount of connections that put it at 100% on Monday.

Links
https://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=179332

https://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...&hl=biggest+bug (https://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=179605&hl=biggest+bug)
Waymarking popular? When? Most Cachers I have spoken to have never considered it, a few have done one or two but basically don&#39;t have the time to commit to it. There i on exception to this, I know of one who Trig points totally by Waymarking.com.

But this is not a forum for arguing the pros or cons of Waymarking, the site though is clumsy and unintuitive, and hard to feel yourself around, that is not the case with Geocaching.com. If it is the V2 test bed then God help us all as it is unappealing, poor ergonomics, basically I have seen home user site that look and operate better at the base level of point click and find.

What really does get me about the whole Waymarking thing is the total lack of integration with Geocaching.com, what they gave us for removing what were many favorite caches (Virtual, Locationless and Webcam) Was a separate hobby for others to follow, rather than utilise intelligence and link the sites and the sites databases to form one entity, linking databases being a very easy thing if the original databases are written well.

As for you quote about their new Developer, well I can tell you this, over 2 years back I sent Jeremy Irish an email pointing out that a flaw in their SQL Stored Procedures was the likely cause of the problems that they were having. His reply was rude at best, and made me feel at that time that Groundspeak was a brick wall when it came to communication. Having written commercial MS SQL databases, I thought I had been given a swift kick it the tender areas.

So if V2 is what we see on Waymarking.com, then the quicker we part the better

[markandlynn]

As for you quote about their new Developer, well I can tell you this, over 2 years back I sent Jeremy Irish an email pointing out that a flaw in their SQL Stored Procedures was the likely cause of the problems that they were having. His reply was rude at best, and made me feel at that time that Groundspeak was a brick wall when it came to communication. Having written commercial MS SQL databases, I thought I had been given a swift kick it the tender areas.



Not a surprise given his attitude to his database of OUR caches, did you ever read the slashdot article on groundspeak its not very complimantary


How many UK reviewers have resigned / left due to GC actions and attitude its certainly more than this two ??

[pklong]

Slashdork only exists to argue about not very much though.

[moote01]

Originally posted by pklong@May 2 2008, 04:38 PM
Slashdork only exists to argue about not very much though.
Ah&#33; so it&#39;s an alternative to Groundspeak forums :D