GUK - has it finally bitten the dust ??????

[markandlynn]

I cant even get the front page anymore.

Is everyone else seeing the same ?

I thought about it during the power outage at GC last week and how it had a facility to allow you to see basic details if GC was down.

The advanced search facilities.

The ratings for when you went on holiday.

The handicaching ratings links.

The stats.

Funkybro you expressed a desire to create applications GUK used to do all this and more and was very widely used by UK cachers.

[Bill D (wwh)]

I make no promises, but this is something that GAGB's committee has discussed and has considered providing a replacement for. I can't really say any more than that at the moment.

And before anyone comments, despite our "open" committee forum, yes, we discuss some things in secret out of necessity.

[Gushoneybun]

I can not see it anymore either

[JeremyR]

I get the impression that the very rapid growth of geocaching in the UK since it's been down probably makes it unlikely that G:UK could operate in the way it did any more. When it opened, the technicalities of mirroring some of GC.com's data weren't too much of challenge but today? It would be almost impossibly complicated to gather and update the data on all active UK caches.

You would need at the very minimum, 94 PQs to capture the 46619 active caches and that's assuming you could capture the full 500 in each PQ (probably couldn't). Further, a new one would be required every 1-2 weeks at the current growth rate (and the rate is also growing). So there would need to be either PQ 'donors' (which I think is how G:UK used to operate?) or ever-deepening pockets to pay for them all.

Clearly a 'new G:UK' would need some considerable assistance from GSP either in the form of permission to use donated PQs (since their TOS don't allow it) or a direct data feed/API which they do have (Garmin, Trimble, etc) but they charge a lot for access to. GSP don't exactly have a reputation for working with people who mirror their data, though

[Brenin Tegeingl]

I get the impression that the very rapid growth of geocaching in the UK since it's been down probably makes it unlikely that G:UK could operate in the way it did any more. When it opened, the technicalities of mirroring some of GC.com's data weren't too much of challenge but today? It would be almost impossibly complicated to gather and update the data on all active UK caches.

You would need at the very minimum, 94 PQs to capture the 46619 active caches and that's assuming you could capture the full 500 in each PQ (probably couldn't). Further, a new one would be required every 1-2 weeks at the current growth rate (and the rate is also growing). So there would need to be either PQ 'donors' (which I think is how G:UK used to operate?) or ever-deepening pockets to pay for them all.

Clearly a 'new G:UK' would need some considerable assistance from GSP either in the form of permission to use donated PQs (since their TOS don't allow it) or a direct data feed/API which they do have (Garmin, Trimble, etc) but they charge a lot for access to. GSP don't exactly have a reputation for working with people who mirror their data, though

G:UK did in fact operate with the full permission of Groundspeak, and if GAGB can put something similar together. I'm prepared to support it by contacting Groundspeak with the request. Groundspeak are prepared to work with Local Geocaching Organisations, within certain frameworks.

Deci

[GAZ]

I remember one good feature on G:uk that wasn't on GC.com......you could search for caches nearest to you incuding archived ones......made for good reading, did that......you could see how many caches that had been placed without you realising!

[JeremyR]

G:UK did in fact operate with the full permission of Groundspeak

Oh I know that, such a high profile site operating without Groundspeak's permission wouldn't have lasted long. However, I suspect their attitude to such things may have changed a little bit in the last 18 months or so...