The latest announcements for updates and changes to the Geocaching.com web site. http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:16:57 +0000 30 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=308067 On Tuesday, March 5th at 8pm PST (GMT -8) Geocaching.com and the Geocaching Live API will be offline for approximately 5 hours while we perform a required database conversion.

This work will enable us to support all Unicode characters in geocache and Trackable logs. We expect this enhancement will be appreciated by international users accustomed to writing in their own previously unsupported languages, such as Japanese, Greek, and Russian among many others. Both the website and API will benefit from these changes.

Current status of the outage can be monitored at http://status.geocaching.com/.

We regret any inconvenience this may cause to our partners and customers. If you have any questions please feel free to let us know.]]> Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:16:57 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=308067 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=304869
Occasionally, during this process, we are faced with the reality that certain ideas don’t catch on as we had hoped. In these situations we owe it to ourselves and to you to make tough decisions about the future of every project and the resources to be applied to each. Sometimes, as a result, cool features must become casualties.

In this spirit, we have decided to retire Geocaching Challenges.

This means that, effective today, we have disabled the ability to create new Challenges. We have also removed the Challenges application from all mobile application stores. In approximately 7 days, we will be removing all traces of the Challenges functionality and related content from Geocaching.com.

On an office wall here at HQ is a sign that reads, “Let’s make better mistakes tomorrow.” By accepting that we will sometimes get it wrong, we can allow ourselves to learn from and imagine new opportunities in the world of Geocaching. Our hope is we can take the lessons from Challenges and create better tools to guide you on your next adventure.]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 22:46:21 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=304869 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=303698
This outage will begin at 18:00 PST next Tuesday, November 6th, and is expected to last around 4 hours--although we won't know exact times until we are able to install and test the new hardware. During this outage, there will be no access to Groundspeak services including the Geocaching.com website, the Geocaching Live API, and all other Groundspeak web properties.

Our goal for this maintenance window will be to make some improvements to the storage capabilities of one of our servers.

The status of this outage will be updated at http://status.geocaching.com/]]> Fri, 02 Nov 2012 18:58:25 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=303698 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=300568 We identified an error while generating Pocket Queries. The issue has been resolved, and PQs can now be generated again - error free. Wed, 22 Aug 2012 05:02:58 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=300568 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=300494
We hope you had a brilliant time geocaching this past weekend, and particularly on August 18th, International Geocaching Day. We realize that some users have yet to be awarded their souvenir for that day, and we apologize. We will be updating all currently-affected profile through our database by Wednesday a.m., Seattle time.

If your account is not updated correctly, please email contact@groundspeak.com after that time.]]> Mon, 20 Aug 2012 23:35:23 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=300494 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=299334
We have identified the root issue, and deployed a temporary fix. The outbound mail servers are now catching up, and we hope all delayed outbound mail will be sent and everything will be back to normal in the next few hours.

Thank you all for your patience while repair this issue.

-Ken]]> Mon, 30 Jul 2012 06:07:59 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=299334 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=296079 After today’s release we experienced some unexpected issues and as a result, we have rolled back this release. We are working to correct these issues to ensure the quality of your experience. We will provide more information as it becomes available. Tue, 22 May 2012 19:37:32 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=296079 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=296006
-Ken]]> Mon, 21 May 2012 14:56:40 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=296006 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=295784
We sincerely thank you for your patience.

-Ken]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 20:01:41 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=295784 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=295735
As you likely know we have a team of highly-experienced and dedicated volunteer reviewers who review each cache page that is submitted to Geocaching.com, to ensure that it meets guidelines and is publishable on our site.

The local reviewer typically begins the review process within 3 days of when a new listing is enabled by the cache owner. In the high season, which begins in (northern) Spring and extends through to the end of Summer, this expectation can be more difficult to meet. Understandably, when the weather is finer, the volume of caches submitted to the reviewer team increases significantly.

For this reason, during the high season we will be extending the time to begin the review process to seven days. We will hope to get to each listing before the 7-day time-frame, but we thank you for your patience in advance.]]> Wed, 16 May 2012 23:10:12 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=295735 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=295734
Sincerely,

Your Lackey Ken]]> Wed, 16 May 2012 22:54:33 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=295734 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=295372 Some users are getting a "Password incorrect" error message when attempting to log in. Our Engineers are working to identify the cause of this issue.

If occurs/has occurred, here is some important information for you:

• The bug is being misidentified by our system. It is not a password error. Please do not update your password.
• Please try logging in at another time. If possible, use the cached password stored by your browser, rather than typing the password manually.
• If you have already linked your account to log in through Facebook, please do so, as this log-in process seems to be working.

We will update this thread and our site status page when we have resolved the issue.]]> Wed, 09 May 2012 19:00:32 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=295372 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=294761
This afternoon PST some users experienced 500-series server errors when trying to use a number of features of Geocaching.com. The IT team is working to resolve that issue for you, and we aim to have the issue corrected shortly.]]> Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:21:17 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=294761 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=294568 We are launching a new cache listing submission wizard today!

The new tool is accessible to all cache owners from a link on the "Report a New Cache" page, or you can go directly there from this link: "Submit a New Cache Listing."

This is a 6-step guided tool, designed to make it easier and more intuitive for cache listing creation. We are very excited to bring you this new tool, and we would like to thank the volunteer reviewers who provided great feedback and input during the development.

Some important information:

• Attaching and editing images will need to be completed after a cache page is created.
• Editing a completed cache page – published or unpublished – will revert to the old form until we bring you version 2.
• At the end of the new process, you will have the option to save your work and come back to it OR preview it and then submit the cache listing.
• The development process included months of testing with the volunteer reviewer team, to whom we are grateful for their input and feedback.

]]> Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:15:39 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=294568 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=294567 Cache Placement Guidelines/Requirements, which are posted in our Knowledge Books.

All subsequently-submitted caches will be subject to these new guidelines. Caches placed prior to the update will be grandfathered into the game, and were subject to the guidelines current at the time of publication.

The outline of the guidelines hosted on Geocaching.com will be updated in the coming weeks. Cache owners should check the extended guidelines before commencing with new cache listing submissions.]]> Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:41:48 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=294567 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=293966 contact@geocaching.com. We apologize for the inconvenience.

]]> Fri, 13 Apr 2012 21:59:32 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=293966 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=290494 Waymarking forums back here.

The Read-Only archives will re-direct to the previous Waymarking forums, so all that content can still be accessed.]]> Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:32:43 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=290494 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=290409 We are the .35%

A few months ago, Google announced a change to its Maps API licensing structure that requires third-party websites with over 25,000 map loads per day to pay for use of the API. (Visit Google for more details on their pricing structure.) According to Google the new limits should affect only around .35% of maps consumers. Geocaching.com averages well over 2,000,000 hits to Google per day, placing us firmly within that small percentage of affected consumers.

After discussing available options, we made the difficult decision to reduce our reliance on Google Maps and take steps to better integrate Leaflet and OpenStreetMap. This decision was based, in large part, on our ability to bear the very significant cost of licensing Google maps given our high rate of consumption. It was also based on the advantage we gain in many ways using new tools that allow us to grow our technology and the service we provide.



OpenStreetMap Benefits (Enter the Rainbows and Unicorns)

Creative Commons, Community Driven, Constantly Updated

OpenStreetMap is freely and publicly editable in a similar way as Wikipedia. Anyone can change or add to the maps and thousands of people worldwide contribute on a regular basis. As a result, the maps are constantly improving, and as a community we can grow the map database while we geocache.

What happens when a large number of passionate people pull in the same direction? Well, geocaching, for one. Our passionate community grew this hobby from one geocache to more than 1.6 million.

OSM Maps are Good

While OpenStreetMap is known widely in Europe, much of the rest of the world is unfamiliar with the mapping software. OSM maps accurately represent location, not only at the street level but also at the level of buildings and infrastructure. Even walking paths in many parks are included. Here is one comparison showing the level of detail provided.

Google Map of Discovery Park:



OpenStreetMap of Discovery Park:


*Note the dotted-line trails depicted in the OpenStreetMap example. These are hiking trails contributed by Open Street Maps users and are refined on a continuous basis.


New features

Leaflet, the lightweight JavaScript library for tile-based interactive maps, is replacing our current Google implementation. It provides us with more flexibility to offer features that previously had not been possible. Including:

• Support for tablets like the iPad and other mobile devices
• Display of only the caches in a Pocket Query instead of all caches at once
• Faster tooltips, at any zoom level

We also intend to build out our own tile server in the future which will speed up the loading of map tiles enormously.



Moving Forward

We remain committed to providing great mapping resources to our customers and believe that both the global geocaching community and our website benefit from this change. With ongoing innovation and new technologies being developed every day, geocaching will continue to evolve.

We have certainly come along way. Here is a glimpse of our old maps (circa 2005):


Oh, the horror!



You can check out the new maps here.]]> Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:03:10 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=290409 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=290401
The additional explanations for guidelines #1 and #2 have been updated, here.]]> Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:15:33 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=290401 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=289874 Hello everyone,

We have updated our forums usage guidelines. Please familiarize yourself with the updated version.

Forum Guidelines.]]> Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:19:08 +0000 http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=289874