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What is the blue heart next to list of logs?


noncentric

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Does anyone know the significance of the blue heart that appears next to both cache and trackable logs? The first column shows a smiley/frowney/wrench/envelope/etc, depending on what type of log it is. The second column shows a blue heart, for every log entry.

 

I tried hovering over it, but no pop-up info appeared. The hearts don't seem to be clickable. I'm just noticing it now, so I'm not 100% sure when it started, but I'm pretty sure they weren't there yesterday.

 

Cache logs: https://www.geocaching.com/my/logs.aspx?s=1

TB logs: https://www.geocaching.com/my/logs.aspx?s=2

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We made some changes to unify mobile and website icons. Those blue hearts replace the blue ribbons to indicate Favorites. They shouldn't show up for every cache and trackable log, though. I'll follow up on that.

 

They appear on every list of caches, events and trackables.

 

Hearts? Good grief. That's just plain annoying now. A ribbon was fine, much more appropriate. Hearts seem awfully childish.

 

B.

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Why would trackable logs have a favorites icon?

 

They wouldn't. That's why someone brought it up, and someone else is looking into it.

Actually, Moun10Bike stated that the blue hearts shouldn't be showing up for "every cache and trackable log". He didn't specifically say that having the column for blue hearts on the trackable log pages was the issue that he'd follow up on. I guess each person can read things their own way.

 

The pages with Trackable logs have an additional column (2nd column) where the blue heart would presumably go. Since TB logs cannot have favorites, then it will be interesting to see if that column is completely removed or if it's simply left blank for every TB log entry.

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We made some changes to unify mobile and website icons. Those blue hearts replace the blue ribbons to indicate Favorites. They shouldn't show up for every cache and trackable log, though. I'll follow up on that.

 

They appear on every list of caches, events and trackables.

 

Hearts? Good grief. That's just plain annoying now. A ribbon was fine, much more appropriate. Hearts seem awfully childish.

 

B.

Personally, I liked the blue ribbons as well.

 

Blue hearts are associated with campaigns to stop human trafficking. A very worthy campaign.

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Why would trackable logs have a favorites icon?

 

They wouldn't. That's why someone brought it up, and someone else is looking into it.

Actually, Moun10Bike stated that the blue hearts shouldn't be showing up for "every cache and trackable log". He didn't specifically say that having the column for blue hearts on the trackable log pages was the issue that he'd follow up on. I guess each person can read things their own way.

 

The pages with Trackable logs have an additional column (2nd column) where the blue heart would presumably go. Since TB logs cannot have favorites, then it will be interesting to see if that column is completely removed or if it's simply left blank for every TB log entry.

 

Yes and that is indeed what I asked. Moun10Bike didn't say they weren't supposed to be showing up at all for trackables, because well there is not currently a way to "favorite" a trackable. I, too, am confused about this and my comment was essentially agreeing with noncentric. No need to be a jerk about it.

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We made some changes to unify mobile and website icons. Those blue hearts replace the blue ribbons to indicate Favorites. They shouldn't show up for every cache and trackable log, though. I'll follow up on that.

this page still shows the old ribbon icon at the top and a blue square in front of the caches: https://www.geocaching.com/my/owned.aspx

and so does this one: https://www.geocaching.com/my/recentlyviewedcaches.aspx

Edited by PnavE_81
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Now you did the same stupid heart-thing like twitter or crazy facebook. For me a heart will never be the way to show an owner I like his/her cache an show respekt for his/her work. In this way I will never again use this funktion in future. For me it's an absolute wronge decision you changed ribbon into a heart. But who is interested in users opinion...

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Now you did the same stupid heart-thing like twitter or crazy facebook. For me a heart will never be the way to show an owner I like his/her cache an show respekt for his/her work. In this way I will never again use this funktion in future. For me it's an absolute wronge decision you changed ribbon into a heart. But who is interested in users opinion...

You've just earned an old fashioned blue ribbon for your post. In this case I'd guess that a wide enough premium members' collective refusal to use the hearts could do the trick.

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Now you did the same stupid heart-thing like twitter or crazy facebook. For me a heart will never be the way to show an owner I like his/her cache an show respekt for his/her work. In this way I will never again use this funktion in future. For me it's an absolute wronge decision you changed ribbon into a heart. But who is interested in users opinion...

 

Why so much hate over an icon? They could have changed it to a purple elephant and it would still mean the same thing. Its only a digital image. What it means hasn't changed.

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Now you did the same stupid heart-thing like twitter or crazy facebook. For me a heart will never be the way to show an owner I like his/her cache an show respekt for his/her work. In this way I will never again use this funktion in future. For me it's an absolute wronge decision you changed ribbon into a heart. But who is interested in users opinion...

You've just earned an old fashioned blue ribbon for your post. In this case I'd guess that a wide enough premium members' collective refusal to use the hearts could do the trick.

Thanks! I made a public bookmarklist for those who are worth a blue favorite ribbon.

Edited by KircheHeide
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Now you did the same stupid heart-thing like twitter or crazy facebook. For me a heart will never be the way to show an owner I like his/her cache an show respekt for his/her work. In this way I will never again use this funktion in future. For me it's an absolute wronge decision you changed ribbon into a heart. But who is interested in users opinion...

 

Why so much hate over an icon? They could have changed it to a purple elephant and it would still mean the same thing. Its only a digital image. What it means hasn't changed.

But why even bother changing it in the first place? Just another change that is needless, doesn't fit well, and that no one asked for.

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Why so much hate over an icon? They could have changed it to a purple elephant and it would still mean the same thing. Its only a digital image. What it means hasn't changed.

Symbology is important because the symbol provides the meaning and context not the other way around. The fact that "a purple elephant" represents "favourite" to the same degree "a blue heart" does is irrelevant if neither represents "favourite" to the observer. (I would assume most wouldn't appreciate a swastika or a KKK symbol to represent "favourites").

 

At the end of the day for most people "Favourite" does not equate to love (as symbolised by a blue heart). The erosion of symbolic power and the quantification/commercialization of friendships are part of the issue, mainly brought about through social media platforms. "Your my favourite Mom", does not ring quite as powerful as "I love you, Mom" and the difference is intuitively obvious.

 

But why even bother changing it in the first place? Just another change that is needless, doesn't fit well, and that no one asked for.

True, how that ever got past the staff (brainstorming) meeting stage and got assigned scant resources is beyond me...
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Why so much hate over an icon? They could have changed it to a purple elephant and it would still mean the same thing. Its only a digital image. What it means hasn't changed.

I'm not sure it's hate, but it seems reasonable to expect the icon to reflect its meaning. A blue heart does, in fact, mean as little about the meaning as a purple elephant, so you have a point there. A blue ribbon, on the other hand, conveyed the meaning in a simple and obvious way, so naturally people are complaining that it was changed. Remember, the thread didn't start because someone didn't like the new icon: it started because someone didn't know what the new icon meant.

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A blue heart? Seriously?

 

I'm sure that makes sense to someone, but that doesn't say "Favorites" to me. Pretty much the opposite, in fact.

 

Oh, well. I'm sure I'll get used to it after a while...

 

Especially since some people award FP to caches that are devious and hard rather than finds that are people's favorite to find. So while the blue heart may symbolise a certain portion of people who love the cache, not everybody awards favorite points to all their favorite caches and save them for challenging, devious hides. Not saying it's right or wrong, but no person takes "favorite" points as literally as other people do.

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Especially since some people award FP to caches that are devious and hard rather than finds that are people's favorite to find. So while the blue heart may symbolise a certain portion of people who love the cache, not everybody awards favorite points to all their favorite caches and save them for challenging, devious hides. Not saying it's right or wrong, but no person takes "favorite" points as literally as other people do.
You seem to be saying that those of us who award FP to devious/challenging caches do not consider those our "favorites to find", or that we don't "love" those caches, or that they aren't actually our "favorite caches".

 

If so, then I'm curious about how you came to that conclusion, because it contradicts my own experience.

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Especially since some people award FP to caches that are devious and hard rather than finds that are people's favorite to find. So while the blue heart may symbolise a certain portion of people who love the cache, not everybody awards favorite points to all their favorite caches and save them for challenging, devious hides. Not saying it's right or wrong, but no person takes "favorite" points as literally as other people do.
You seem to be saying that those of us who award FP to devious/challenging caches do not consider those our "favorites to find", or that we don't "love" those caches, or that they aren't actually our "favorite caches".

 

If so, then I'm curious about how you came to that conclusion, because it contradicts my own experience.

 

If you love finding caches that are devious and take your multiple trips to the location(s) instead of caches that are almost easy to find and family-fun friendly then that is your preference. But not everybody has those views, that's what I'm trying to say. So I agree that the ribbon symbol should've been kept. Another person might give FPs because the ratings and cache-type affiliated with the listing are 100% accurate and they "favorite" that. Not everybody has the same definition of "favorite"

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I have to agree with a number of other posters. This is a change that is counter-intuitive, and not needed. Why not unify the app to the website?

 

A heart, rather than a ribbon. A symbol of affection, versus a symbol of an award. I don't 'love' caches, but I might reward a cache that, for whatever reason, I think deserves it.

 

And its blue? Blue is used for two things on GC.com. Mystery caches, and DNF.

 

So, combining all of this together...

 

It's a mystery to me why I would want to love a cache that I couldn't find.

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I have to agree with a number of other posters. This is a change that is counter-intuitive, and not needed. Why not unify the app to the website?

 

A heart, rather than a ribbon. A symbol of affection, versus a symbol of an award. I don't 'love' caches, but I might reward a cache that, for whatever reason, I think deserves it.

 

And its blue? Blue is used for two things on GC.com. Mystery caches, and DNF.

 

So, combining all of this together...

 

It's a mystery to me why I would want to love a cache that I couldn't find.

 

I have to agree, I do not "love" caches I couldn't find but sometimes other people do and think that those caches deserve a Favorite Point once it is found.

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If this change was made to unify mobile and website icons, why is the icon in the app green? :)

 

This is not a big issue, no. But I think the correct way to unify the icon, is to use the ribbon in the app.

When people leave favorite points, they often say that they give the cache a "blue ribbon", or "blå sløyfe" as we say in Norway. I see that more often than I see people saying the give out favorite points.

 

I don't expect them to go back and change all their logs to say "I gave this cache a blue heart" (or "I gave this cache a green heart" if they used the app). I think this only leads to more inconsistency.

Edited by thomfre
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If this change was made to unify mobile and website icons, why is the icon in the app green? :)

 

This is not a big issue, no. But I think the correct way to unify the icon, is to use the ribbon in the app.

When people leave favorite points, they often say that they give the cache a "blue ribbon", or "blå sløyfe" as we say in Norway. I see that more often than I see people saying the give out favorite points.

 

I don't expect them to go back and change all their logs to say "I gave this cache a blue heart" (or "I gave this cache a green heart" if they used the app). I think this only leads to more inconsistency.

A green heart? Seriously? That doesn't say "Favorite" to me either.

 

But as a larger issue, please pick one vocabulary and stick with it. Having the app use one set of icons and terms while having the web site use a different set of icons and terms is confusing.

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If this change was made to unify mobile and website icons, why is the icon in the app green? :)

 

This is not a big issue, no. But I think the correct way to unify the icon, is to use the ribbon in the app.

When people leave favorite points, they often say that they give the cache a "blue ribbon", or "blå sløyfe" as we say in Norway. I see that more often than I see people saying the give out favorite points.

 

I don't expect them to go back and change all their logs to say "I gave this cache a blue heart" (or "I gave this cache a green heart" if they used the app). I think this only leads to more inconsistency.

A green heart? Seriously? That doesn't say "Favorite" to me either.

 

But as a larger issue, please pick one vocabulary and stick with it. Having the app use one set of icons and terms while having the web site use a different set of icons and terms is confusing.

 

The app also still says x-small, small, medium and large for sizes. And the website is micro, small, regular and large. Not very consistent

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We made some changes to unify mobile and website icons. Those blue hearts replace the blue ribbons to indicate Favorites.

 

But why didn't you use the favourite icon of the website on the app? I have never encountered a log of someone mentioning awarding a blue heart to a cache but I encountered hundreds of logs where someone

mentions having awarded a blue ribbon (or equivalents in other languages). All these statements in these logs are now meaningless and confusing in addition to the fact that hardly anyone will understand a blue heart as a symbol for a favourite without any prior explanation.

 

Couldn't you consider to make the change in the other direction?

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The app also still says x-small, small, medium and large for sizes. And the website is micro, small, regular and large. Not very consistent

I just hope they don't change it on the website. Almost all 3rd party sites, tools and devices use micro, small, regular, large. I don't understand why the app can't be made to match the website...

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The app also still says x-small, small, medium and large for sizes. And the website is micro, small, regular and large. Not very consistent

I just hope they don't change it on the website. Almost all 3rd party sites, tools and devices use micro, small, regular, large. I don't understand why the app can't be made to match the website...

I can't imagine why the app didn't match the website to begin with.

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The app also still says x-small, small, medium and large for sizes. And the website is micro, small, regular and large. Not very consistent

I just hope they don't change it on the website. Almost all 3rd party sites, tools and devices use micro, small, regular, large. I don't understand why the app can't be made to match the website...

I can't imagine why the app didn't match the website to begin with.

No idea. But I'm thinking that they thought it was easier to understand with x-small, small, medium and large

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The app also still says x-small, small, medium and large for sizes. And the website is micro, small, regular and large. Not very consistent

I just hope they don't change it on the website. Almost all 3rd party sites, tools and devices use micro, small, regular, large. I don't understand why the app can't be made to match the website...

I can't imagine why the app didn't match the website to begin with.

No idea. But I'm thinking that they thought it was easier to understand with x-small, small, medium and large

 

I'd guess that the team working on the app have not read the guidelines for the website?

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I agree that the blue ribbon is so much more a symbol of award than this lonely blue heart! As a matter of fact, I think the heart rather ugly as an icon, the ribbon has more class.

 

+1

 

Hans

+1

+1

 

It again (last thing was that old logs get interpreted as Markdown) breaks backward compatibility. Thinks like German "Ich habe eine Schleife um den Cache gebunden" in Logs are meaningless now (cezanne already pointed that out) and the same is for these nice blue laser engraved acrylic thingies - GeoTokens? - that some Cacher left in caches to honor them.

 

Groundspeak acts like many other software developer - Microsoft in the first place, with their useless changes in the UI - do: Instead of fixing long existing errors and implementing useful new features, they just make random cosmetic changes. But if it ever happens that something really new appears, it never gets finished, most errors will never be fixed and maybe they just dump it after a while (Wherigo, Message Center, Feedback-Forum, Challenges, ...).

 

There is no reason as a de facto monopolist to do something different - I abandoned hope that something will get better; we have to live with it.

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Please add me to the list of people who:

 

1. Think the blue heart is pathetic and want the ribbon back

 

2. Think it is awful that Groundspeak are wasting resources making random changes that nobody wants instead of implementing some of the dozens of changes that paying customers have actually asked for.

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2. Wonder how many of those complaining would also complain if the change had been the other way round

 

I probably would have. This is another change that is affecting log history, and that would be just as bad if it was the other way around.

 

Instead of making it more unified, and easier for beginners, this just adds to the already long lists of things needing explanation. "What is that blue ribbon people talk about? Why did they award that instead of the green heart?"

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1. Couldn't care less what the symbol is

So you'd be OK with it being a stop sign?

 

2. Wonder how many of those complaining would also complain if the change had been the other way round

I think you think that's an insult, but objecting to change for no good reason is a legitimate complaint. But here, I think the case for the blue ribbon and against the blue heart is pretty good, so the objection is both that the change is to a symbol that's not as effective and that it's a change for no purpose, no merely one or the other.

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2. Wonder how many of those complaining would also complain if the change had been the other way round

What would be "the other way round"?

 

Favorite points could not be awarded via the app, which is the only place the heart represented favorites, so it's unlikely that anyone has said in their logs "giving this cache a blue heart for being such an awesome cache".

 

As has been noted by others in this thread, cachers have included statements in their logs for many years about giving a cache a "blue ribbon" when they award favorite points. So the change away from the blue ribbon has more of an effect then "the other way round".

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2. Wonder how many of those complaining would also complain if the change had been the other way round

I think you think that's an insult, but objecting to change for no good reason is a legitimate complaint. But here, I think the case for the blue ribbon and against the blue heart is pretty good, so the objection is both that the change is to a symbol that's not as effective and that it's a change for no purpose, no merely one or the other.

 

It's not an insult, just an observation that some people will complain about any change. If the symbol had previously been a heart, and suddenly become a ribbon, the same people would complain.

 

Personally I think a heart is no more or less indicative than a ribbon.

Edited by Optimist on the run
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