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Updates coming to Profile and Dashboard


hzoi

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I will say that one of my friends said something that made me think. Not all Changes are bad. But I think Groundspeak is being annoying about these recent changes 😄. Why is this news feed important? Do we really need to make geocaching more about media than it should be? I don't know I just don't know...

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I wouldn't call this unsolicited at all. Slow in coming, maybe.

 

Each and every forum thread calling for better layout on the profile/dashboard, enhanced "Friends" functionality, and any and all similar content covered by the scope of the upcoming changes is hereby incorporated by reference into this post as if fully set forth herein.

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I just hope that, before it is wheeled out, that an effort to get it fully functional is made. Unlike the new logging experience, and the new lists page, which, last time I looked (less than a week ago), still hasn't got a create list option....

 

Poor old Mr Email.....

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I wouldn't call this unsolicited at all. Slow in coming, maybe.

 

Each and every forum thread calling for better layout on the profile/dashboard, enhanced "Friends" functionality, and any and all similar content covered by the scope of the upcoming changes is hereby incorporated by reference into this post as if fully set forth herein.

Nicely done! I see what you did there. ph34r.gif

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I've been looking at the proposed changes.

 

Public Profile: I don't have any major issues with the proposed layout changes here, but I do object to the loss of "Send Email" functionality.

-- Avatar image is big enough to see - Great!

-- Adds DNF and Hide counts to profile view - Great!

-- Trackables count would be clearer if it said "trackables logged" - otherwise it's unclear whether it's trackables owned or in inventory.

-- Location - I hope this can still be customized, rather than a specific city. If it can't be customized, then would prefer the option to hide it (keep it private).

-- Custom profile info being moved to its own "About" tab is okay with me. Some cachers have custom stuff that takes a while to load, so having that not be the default on their profile is nice.

 

Dashboard: It does look more organized.

-- Recently Viewed Caches - Would like to have the GC Code included in the display for each cache, perhaps on the same line as faves/distance, to the left of the fave count.

-- Benchmarks link going away is unfortunate. Benchmarks are already difficult to get to, so I hope removing the link in the Dashboard doesn't mean the functionality to find/log benchmarks is going away completely.

Edited by noncentric
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I just hope that, before it is wheeled out, that an effort to get it fully functional is made.

We'll be doing things with this project a bit differently than other projects. This specific project is being released in iterations- intentionally not fully functional from the start. The reason for this is that we want to release small chunks, test to see how they do, listen to feedback, and make more changes. We plan on releasing and adding to these pages all summer long. They will be 'opt in' for now, so if they aren't your cup of tea yet you can completely ignore them.

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I just hope that, before it is wheeled out, that an effort to get it fully functional is made.

We'll be doing things with this project a bit differently than other projects. This specific project is being released in iterations- intentionally not fully functional from the start. The reason for this is that we want to release small chunks, test to see how they do, listen to feedback, and make more changes. We plan on releasing and adding to these pages all summer long. They will be 'opt in' for now, so if they aren't your cup of tea yet you can completely ignore them.

That's good to hear. It'll be interesting to see whether things go more smoothly with this method. I expect they will.

 

Personally, going off of what we can see in the screenshots, I like it in general. The old dashboard has always been pretty haphazard, so the new version should make things easier to find. I didn't even notice until noncentric mentioned it, but the addition of a DNF count to the public profile page is a nice addition. I'll be sad to see the custom public profile content be relegated to a sub-section, though, and the loss of email will take a lot of adjustment for lots of people.

 

I have a couple of questions about the new dashboard:

  • Will we have an option to disable the "Recently viewed" section entirely? This is something a lot of people asked for when that was first rolled out, and this would be a good opportunity to add that option. I never use it, so it just takes up space that could be used for the recent log section (or the new "news feed").
  • Will there be an option to have the "news feed" act like it does now? That is, can we have it not show our friends' activity? Or, even better, can we customize which friends' activity is shown? I may want certain friends to show up there, but not all.

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Good questions. Thanks!

 

Will we have an option to disable the "Recently viewed" section entirely? This is something a lot of people asked for when that was first rolled out, and this would be a good opportunity to add that option. I never use it, so it just takes up space that could be used for the recent log section (or the new "news feed").

Great feedback. We hadn't thought about that option at this point in the game. We are building the page with other future functionality that would be collapsable or shown/not shown based on settings preferences, so we could definitely consider making the "Recently viewed" section behave that way in the future too. That wouldn't be available in the first few iterations though.

 

Will there be an option to have the "news feed" act like it does now? That is, can we have it not show our friends' activity? Or, even better, can we customize which friends' activity is shown? I may want certain friends to show up there, but not all.

We originally had this in the specs for the first release, but knew it was a bigger task. We really wanted to get this page in the hands of the community to start playing with it, so we decided to release without it (as it is purely opt in at this point) and that if we heard the need for an option to exclude friends' activity we would consider it as an option for one of the next few releases.

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Making the email option go away is a mistake. We have a lot of inactive COs. They don't log in and see their messages and will no doubt not log in to configure their messages to be forwarded to their emails. So, "messaging" sent to an inactive CO / cacher will never be seen. The only way I've reached some COs and catchers was the email option. Their email address on the site is normally one that they check, even if they don't log into the GC website. I've contacted COs that have been inactive for years using he email option. Bad move - getting rid of that...

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Making the email option go away is a mistake. We have a lot of inactive COs. They don't log in and see their messages and will no doubt not log in to configure their messages to be forwarded to their emails. So, "messaging" sent to an inactive CO / cacher will never be seen. The only way I've reached some COs and catchers was the email option. Their email address on the site is normally one that they check, even if they don't log into the GC website. I've contacted COs that have been inactive for years using he email option. Bad move - getting rid of that...

 

+1

The messaging app sends an email of the message in any case, why not have the email option remain?? Email is a bit on the outer in terms of style, but is still very useful....

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Will we have an option to disable the "Recently viewed" section entirely? This is something a lot of people asked for when that was first rolled out, and this would be a good opportunity to add that option. I never use it, so it just takes up space that could be used for the recent log section (or the new "news feed").

Great feedback. We hadn't thought about that option at this point in the game. We are building the page with other future functionality that would be collapsable or shown/not shown based on settings preferences, so we could definitely consider making the "Recently viewed" section behave that way in the future too. That wouldn't be available in the first few iterations though.

I'd be fine with a collapsible section that's sticky rather than having a separate setting. That would make it more user-friendly. Thanks for considering it.

 

Will there be an option to have the "news feed" act like it does now? That is, can we have it not show our friends' activity? Or, even better, can we customize which friends' activity is shown? I may want certain friends to show up there, but not all.

We originally had this in the specs for the first release, but knew it was a bigger task. We really wanted to get this page in the hands of the community to start playing with it, so we decided to release without it (as it is purely opt in at this point) and that if we heard the need for an option to exclude friends' activity we would consider it as an option for one of the next few releases.

Fair enough. I'm pretty sure this is something people will want, though, so it would probably be a good idea to factor this into the future plans. If the only way to remove certain friends from the feed would be to remove them as a friend, that probably wouldn't go over well. :laughing:

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In the Dashboard, under Recently Viewed, I see you've put Terrain before Difficulty. Is there a reason for that?

 

Everybody I know refers to "D/T" grids, and when somebody mentions, say, a "1.5 3.5" cache, it's known that the first number is difficulty, the second terrain.

 

Could you please either reverse the order, or point out to unobservant me that there has been (or will be) a site-wide change to T/D order?

 

Thanks. Otherwise, first impressions look good.

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We have a lot of inactive COs. They don't log in and see their messages and will no doubt not log in to configure their messages to be forwarded to their emails. So, "messaging" sent to an inactive CO / cacher will never be seen.

I'm 99% sure that the default setting is for messages to get emailed to the primary email address. The CO would have had to go in and turn that off in order to miss the messages.

 

In reality, though, an inactive CO is just that: inactive. It doesn't matter how you try to contact them.

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In the Dashboard, under Recently Viewed, I see you've put Terrain before Difficulty. Is there a reason for that?

 

Everybody I know refers to "D/T" grids, and when somebody mentions, say, a "1.5 3.5" cache, it's known that the first number is difficulty, the second terrain.

 

Could you please either reverse the order, or point out to unobservant me that there has been (or will be) a site-wide change to T/D order?

 

Thanks. Otherwise, first impressions look good.

 

Totally makes sense. I'll bring your point up with our designer. Thanks!

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I'm curious about the mixed languages in the screenshot of the news feed. For example, Prying Pandora's find says "Hast" and Sphinx123's archive says "Archiveermogelijkheden", whereas SparkleDonkey's DNF says "Did not find" and Frozenmacncheese's note says "Wrote a note". Is this unintentional, or will the text be modified for each log using i18n?

 

I know we're asking lots of questions without actually getting to play with it yet. We're cachers who have an eye for the fine details! :laughing:

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We have a lot of inactive COs. They don't log in and see their messages and will no doubt not log in to configure their messages to be forwarded to their emails. So, "messaging" sent to an inactive CO / cacher will never be seen.

I'm 99% sure that the default setting is for messages to get emailed to the primary email address. The CO would have had to go in and turn that off in order to miss the messages.

 

In reality, though, an inactive CO is just that: inactive. It doesn't matter how you try to contact them.

 

In a couple of instances I've been able to reach the CO via the email after no response from the message route. True - the second contact (email after the message) could have resulted in a response just to shut me up , but the email option worked for me.

 

And I think I read that the default was message and that caches could select mail as an option.

 

And - I rarely notice that little yellow circle indicating I have a message - while I almost always read the emails quickly.

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I'm curious about the mixed languages in the screenshot of the news feed. For example, Prying Pandora's find says "Hast" and Sphinx123's archive says "Archiveermogelijkheden", whereas SparkleDonkey's DNF says "Did not find" and Frozenmacncheese's note says "Wrote a note". Is this unintentional, or will the text be modified for each log using i18n?

 

I know we're asking lots of questions without actually getting to play with it yet. We're cachers who have an eye for the fine details! :laughing:

Good eye and good question! When we create a design for a page we have to think about what it would look like when the text has been localized for other languages. So what you are seeing here is our designer, Emmi, making sure that the design is being thoughtful of languages that translate to longer words than English. Is the text wrapping appropriately? Is the text we have chosen going to translate well? While you probably won't see the translated text in your Dashboard, we have to make sure the experience is in order for those who will. Does that answer your question?

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Just eyeballing it, the top area with the banner image and profile image pushes the relevant information pretty far down the page. I'd prefer the relevant content be as high up as possible and the lifestyle imagery be ditched/minimized.

Thanks for the feedback. We've heard a cry for larger images in the past. With that feedback in mind, we designed it with the balance of making the images larger, but bringing the most used links to the top of the page. We'll be paying attention to feedback like this and watching how folks use the page when we move forward with future changes.

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Hi everyone! I thought I'd jump in and say hello. As Jayme mentioned our team is going to be approaching things differently this summer. We could go heads down for the next 6 months and build 20 new features and widgets, but then the community will have very little say in the process. So instead, you are going to be hearing from us a lot about what is happening and hopefully we'll be hearing from you too. The process is going to be fluid and we will be delivering many small updates throughout the summer. We have a good idea of the direction we are heading with this project, but we are intentionally building in flexibility so that we can factor in changes from the community.

 

I am very excited and I have a lot of very high hopes for this summer and the new features that will be coming throughout. With that said I would ask that you please bear with us as we improve our own processes in order to respond more quickly to your feedback. I can't promise that every request will make it in or that everyone is going to love everything, but I hope that everyone can find something that they love and that brings value to their own experience.

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Just eyeballing it, the top area with the banner image and profile image pushes the relevant information pretty far down the page. I'd prefer the relevant content be as high up as possible and the lifestyle imagery be ditched/minimized.

Good point. I agree.

Currently, I can see all of the standard content (excludes the custom profile info) on the "Profile" tab without having to scroll down the page. Same with the "Geocaches" tab. No scrolling required to see that info.

 

From the screenshots in the blog links, it looks like we'll have to scroll to even see what tab we've selected. Maybe that will be resolved when the opt out banner goes away eventually, but I think it's important to consider how much scrolling users will have to do. If they have to scroll just to see what tab they're on, then no bueno.

 

The mountain/sky image is nice, but I'd wager that most users would prefer it use less screen real estate if that means they don't have to scroll so much.

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Sigh.

 

The loss of email will mean that the message center will be one even more cluttered - it is not something that I willingly use.

 

The relegation of the main profile information to the "about" tab is sad. I realize that very few people read my personal profile, but the "about"' information and the picture gallery are probably the only two things that I actually want people to read. If I could eliminate the other tabs, I would.

 

The one thing I always miss on the dashboard is a direct link to the gallery. That still is not there.

 

If there is a friends news feed on the dashboard I will probably end up defriending everyone. I hope no one takes it personally,

 

Sigh.

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Making the email option go away is a mistake. We have a lot of inactive COs. They don't log in and see their messages and will no doubt not log in to configure their messages to be forwarded to their emails. So, "messaging" sent to an inactive CO / cacher will never be seen. The only way I've reached some COs and catchers was the email option. Their email address on the site is normally one that they check, even if they don't log into the GC website. I've contacted COs that have been inactive for years using he email option. Bad move - getting rid of that...

 

I have deliberately blocked that message centre thing from forwarding anything to me because the only messages I was getting from it were very low quality. I look at it once a month or something to check Earthcache answers and ignore all other correspondence sent that way.

 

Relying on the email system was my way of ensuring that I would only receive legitimate, important correspondence from fellow geocachers.

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How can you consider eliminating the email option when the message center does not work?

 

I mean, besides the months-old bug that freezes the entire browser because of badly-formed javascript, the message center has been flaky and unreliable. Is there some value being added by eliminating email? Nope.

 

Why on Earth won't Groundspeak work on their core functionality rather than on bug-ridden, poorly designed frills? And why won't they fix the bugs that they already have before making wholesale changes to the interface?

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How can you consider eliminating the email option when the message center does not work?

 

I mean, besides the months-old bug that freezes the entire browser because of badly-formed javascript, the message center has been flaky and unreliable. Is there some value being added by eliminating email? Nope.

 

Why on Earth won't Groundspeak work on their core functionality rather than on bug-ridden, poorly designed frills? And why won't they fix the bugs that they already have before making wholesale changes to the interface?

Message does work. I've been sending and receiving via MC since it started and everything works fine. Nothing has frozen and don't know what "flaky" refers to. As far as I can see there's nothing to fix.

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Hi everyone! I thought I'd jump in and say hello. As Jayme mentioned our team is going to be approaching things differently this summer. We could go heads down for the next 6 months and build 20 new features and widgets, but then the community will have very little say in the process. So instead, you are going to be hearing from us a lot about what is happening and hopefully we'll be hearing from you too. The process is going to be fluid and we will be delivering many small updates throughout the summer. We have a good idea of the direction we are heading with this project, but we are intentionally building in flexibility so that we can factor in changes from the community.

 

I am very excited and I have a lot of very high hopes for this summer and the new features that will be coming throughout. With that said I would ask that you please bear with us as we improve our own processes in order to respond more quickly to your feedback. I can't promise that every request will make it in or that everyone is going to love everything, but I hope that everyone can find something that they love and that brings value to their own experience.

I've noticed that you've done a lot differently already. You told us about this change in the last newsletter (perfect, that's the kind of news that you should give us!) And we got to see more details in the blog, before any change is actually happening. I also really appreciate that you participate in this thread, and answers questions. I hope this is the new way, and that you continue to notify us about changes ahead of time, provide answers in the forum and listen to our feedback (which it looks like you do).

 

Huge thumbs up for making this opt in, and listening to feedback!

 

I understand that you get a lot of feedback, and that it's (almost) impossible to please everyone. And I accept that I won't always agree with you on your decisions. That's a lot easier to accept when you actually keep us informed, and tell us the reasons for doing changes. Like you're doing now. Thanks! :)

 

With that said, I really hope you can consider keeping the send email. I don't understand that a simple form can be that much to maintain :) And it is used, a lot. Some old earthcache and virtual cache owners only accept answers through email. I would hate to see them archive their caches. And the reviewers also only accept email. Will you be adding the message center to reviewer profiles, or will it be impossible to contact reviewers after this change?

 

When I go to someones profile, the information I'm looking for is usually Bio/about, caches owned/found and statistics. In that order. And when someone view my profile, it's the information in the about tab that I want them to see first. Could you please consider keeping the about tab as default, or maybe allow me to select which tab is default on my profile? Or you could make it default for all profiles that have content in it, that would be the best.

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How can you consider eliminating the email option when the message center does not work?

 

I mean, besides the months-old bug that freezes the entire browser because of badly-formed javascript, the message center has been flaky and unreliable. Is there some value being added by eliminating email? Nope.

 

Why on Earth won't Groundspeak work on their core functionality rather than on bug-ridden, poorly designed frills? And why won't they fix the bugs that they already have before making wholesale changes to the interface?

Message does work. I've been sending and receiving via MC since it started and everything works fine. Nothing has frozen and don't know what "flaky" refers to. As far as I can see there's nothing to fix.

Do you use Firefox? The message center causes the browser to freeze when users have the geocache map or a cache page open for too long. It kept happening to me, so I eventually resorted to installing a browser extension that arisoft created. Apparently, he identified the script issue and created a Firefox extension that blocked it and that has resolved the freezing issue for cachers that installed the extension. Forum Topic Here

 

Do you send messages from your phone app, or just from the website? I have personally had problems getting messages to actually send when I send messages via the Android app. I will write the message and send, but then no message to that cacher shows up in my message center. I have to go into the web browser on my phone, or on the website, to re-write the message and send it via MC.

 

Just because you haven't had a problem with the MC doesn't mean that it is "does work". It may work for you, but that doesn't mean it's bug-free and/or reliable.

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Just eyeballing it, the top area with the banner image and profile image pushes the relevant information pretty far down the page. I'd prefer the relevant content be as high up as possible and the lifestyle imagery be ditched/minimized.

Thanks for the feedback. We've heard a cry for larger images in the past. With that feedback in mind, we designed it with the balance of making the images larger, but bringing the most used links to the top of the page. We'll be paying attention to feedback like this and watching how folks use the page when we move forward with future changes.

Personally, I like the larger avatar image. It's the banner image that seems to be too large. I think the same comment was made about the 'new search' page back when it was still "new". So much of that page is just the mountain/sky banner with a small search box & filter button that we have to scroll to see the canned search options below the fold. Hopefully, that above/below the fold issue can be resolved with this 'new dashboard' page.

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Just eyeballing it, the top area with the banner image and profile image pushes the relevant information pretty far down the page. I'd prefer the relevant content be as high up as possible and the lifestyle imagery be ditched/minimized.

Thanks for the feedback. We've heard a cry for larger images in the past. With that feedback in mind, we designed it with the balance of making the images larger, but bringing the most used links to the top of the page. We'll be paying attention to feedback like this and watching how folks use the page when we move forward with future changes.

I like the larger image. Will we be able to change the header image on our own profile?

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How can you consider eliminating the email option when the message center does not work?

 

I mean, besides the months-old bug that freezes the entire browser because of badly-formed javascript, the message center has been flaky and unreliable. Is there some value being added by eliminating email? Nope.

 

Why on Earth won't Groundspeak work on their core functionality rather than on bug-ridden, poorly designed frills? And why won't they fix the bugs that they already have before making wholesale changes to the interface?

Message does work. I've been sending and receiving via MC since it started and everything works fine. Nothing has frozen and don't know what "flaky" refers to. As far as I can see there's nothing to fix.

For me it mostly works but notifications have been quite flaky. There is one GIANT difference between email and MC. Email allows me to filter messages and delete them. MC goes on forever and expands to fill the available space. I wish to be able to delete old rubbish else I just have shed loads of clutter. I agree that email gradually will be superseded by messaging but very shortsighted just to get rid of it right now.

Edited by lodgebarn
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Please keep the E-Mail function going. There are members that refused to accept / answer any messages sent through the Message Center. This will be a problem when trying to send answers to Earthcaches. It may go so far that owners of Earthcaches will delete logs.

I doubt deletion is really an option. A visit can't be purged that easily.

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I've noticed that you've done a lot differently already. You told us about this change in the last newsletter (perfect, that's the kind of news that you should give us!) And we got to see more details in the blog, before any change is actually happening. I also really appreciate that you participate in this thread, and answers questions. I hope this is the new way, and that you continue to notify us about changes ahead of time, provide answers in the forum and listen to our feedback (which it looks like you do).

 

Huge thumbs up for making this opt in, and listening to feedback!

 

 

Well said, and +1.

 

 

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How can you consider eliminating the email option when the message center does not work?

 

I mean, besides the months-old bug that freezes the entire browser because of badly-formed javascript, the message center has been flaky and unreliable. Is there some value being added by eliminating email? Nope.

 

Why on Earth won't Groundspeak work on their core functionality rather than on bug-ridden, poorly designed frills? And why won't they fix the bugs that they already have before making wholesale changes to the interface?

 

I've had a lot of browser freezes with the message centre (MacOS, Safari), occasionally I've had to use the phone in order to send a message....

 

 

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while I applaud the abandoning of email through the site, I also think it's a mistake to take out that method of contact. Couldn't you just keep the email link, but force it to open through the default email client instead of directing them to the on-site form? I don't think anyone would really care about losing that part of it.

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while I applaud the abandoning of email through the site, I also think it's a mistake to take out that method of contact. Couldn't you just keep the email link, but force it to open through the default email client instead of directing them to the on-site form? I don't think anyone would really care about losing that part of it.

This would not preserve anonymity which the geocache email does for those that wish it. My second problem with that approach is my default email client is not my caching email. As long as the user email is still visible for those that allow it we can still probably send direct emails anyway. Until we see the real form this is speculation.

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Just eyeballing it, the top area with the banner image and profile image pushes the relevant information pretty far down the page. I'd prefer the relevant content be as high up as possible and the lifestyle imagery be ditched/minimized.

Good point. I agree.

Currently, I can see all of the standard content (excludes the custom profile info) on the "Profile" tab without having to scroll down the page. Same with the "Geocaches" tab. No scrolling required to see that info.

 

From the screenshots in the blog links, it looks like we'll have to scroll to even see what tab we've selected. Maybe that will be resolved when the opt out banner goes away eventually, but I think it's important to consider how much scrolling users will have to do. If they have to scroll just to see what tab they're on, then no bueno.

 

The mountain/sky image is nice, but I'd wager that most users would prefer it use less screen real estate if that means they don't have to scroll so much.

 

Agree... just my opinion, but I don't think that we use the profile page to look at a pretty header. We're looking for information, and if having to scroll past a non helpful picture, it's a waste...

 

As detective Friday used to say - just the facts.... no need for the pretty additional stuff...

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Please keep the E-Mail function going. There are members that refused to accept / answer any messages sent through the Message Center. This will be a problem when trying to send answers to Earthcaches. It may go so far that owners of Earthcaches will delete logs.

I doubt deletion is really an option. A visit can't be purged that easily.

 

A cache owner cannot dictate this.

 

If a cache owner deletes logs for not using email instead of the message center, they will get restored by HQ if a cacher complains. I prefer email as a communication vehicle, but would never consider deleting logs if answers to my earthcaches were sent via the MC.

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while I applaud the abandoning of email through the site, I also think it's a mistake to take out that method of contact. Couldn't you just keep the email link, but force it to open through the default email client instead of directing them to the on-site form? I don't think anyone would really care about losing that part of it.

This would not preserve anonymity which the geocache email does for those that wish it. My second problem with that approach is my default email client is not my caching email. As long as the user email is still visible for those that allow it we can still probably send direct emails anyway. Until we see the real form this is speculation.

 

+1 ... I don't want my email address visible in my profile.

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Please keep the E-Mail function going. There are members that refused to accept / answer any messages sent through the Message Center. This will be a problem when trying to send answers to Earthcaches. It may go so far that owners of Earthcaches will delete logs.

 

Earthcache owners are required to accept responses sent through the message centre. This is the only reason I look at it at all.

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while I applaud the abandoning of email through the site, I also think it's a mistake to take out that method of contact. Couldn't you just keep the email link, but force it to open through the default email client instead of directing them to the on-site form? I don't think anyone would really care about losing that part of it.

This would not preserve anonymity which the geocache email does for those that wish it. My second problem with that approach is my default email client is not my caching email. As long as the user email is still visible for those that allow it we can still probably send direct emails anyway. Until we see the real form this is speculation.

 

+1 ... I don't want my email address visible in my profile.

 

Then don't put it out there and use the message center. I mean...it's pretty simple.

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while I applaud the abandoning of email through the site, I also think it's a mistake to take out that method of contact. Couldn't you just keep the email link, but force it to open through the default email client instead of directing them to the on-site form? I don't think anyone would really care about losing that part of it.

 

I'd actually prefer that it open my email client (in a new window...)

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How can you consider eliminating the email option when the message center does not work?

 

I mean, besides the months-old bug that freezes the entire browser because of badly-formed javascript, the message center has been flaky and unreliable. Is there some value being added by eliminating email? Nope.

 

Why on Earth won't Groundspeak work on their core functionality rather than on bug-ridden, poorly designed frills? And why won't they fix the bugs that they already have before making wholesale changes to the interface?

 

+1 for that .

The majority of these profile changes are simply cosmetic and therefore I really don't care about them because they will have no effect on my cache finding. If rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic seems like a good use of your time, at least it is relatively harmless ...

 

However, the message centre is only convenient for very short messages, losing the e-mail link for actual serious correspondance, in a decent sized box with the facility for the recipient to save or delete and file such messages as the recipient chooses, is a very bad idea.

 

As a confirmed e-mail address is part of the sign up, and logs are e-mailed to C.O.s and watchers of caches, e-mails are still going to be intergral to the system, so please keep the e-mail to link.

 

(I just paused and imagined what would result if COs got logs via the message centre: initially I thought it would be ludicrous and quite funny, especially for power trails ... then I reconsidered when it struck me that it would work fine for those horrible logs which just say "." , ":)" or "ty" , and I stopped laughing .)

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I don't have an issue with it from what I've seen.

 

I was surprised by the comment "We learned through data that only 2.4% of active geocachers have anything entered in their custom profile information tab". I find that for active geocachers, in my experience, the vast majority have something there. But I don't know what percentage of geocaching accounts are what I would call "active".

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I was surprised by the comment "We learned through data that only 2.4% of active geocachers have anything entered in their custom profile information tab". I find that for active geocachers, in my experience, the vast majority have something there. But I don't know what percentage of geocaching accounts are what I would call "active".

This is a bit off topic, but illustrates very well why the minority shouldn't be ignored: what if car manufacturers started to move the seat belts and the turn signals to the trunk, since only about 2.4% use them anyway... :laughing:

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+1 for that .

The majority of these profile changes are simply cosmetic and therefore I really don't care about them because they will have no effect on my cache finding. If rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic seems like a good use of your time, at least it is relatively harmless ...

 

True - and a great analogy!

 

However, the message centre is only convenient for very short messages, losing the e-mail link for actual serious correspondance, in a decent sized box with the facility for the recipient to save or delete and file such messages as the recipient chooses, is a very bad idea.

 

True again - I have a caching email account and I can save / file / filter... so much better than having to play with MC...

As a confirmed e-mail address is part of the sign up, and logs are e-mailed to C.O.s and watchers of caches, e-mails are still going to be intergral to the system, so please keep the e-mail to link.

 

true again - but alas... that makes sense!

 

(I just paused and imagined what would result if COs got logs via the message centre: initially I thought it would be ludicrous and quite funny, especially for power trails ... then I reconsidered when it struck me that it would work fine for those horrible logs which just say "." , ":)" or "ty" , and I stopped laughing .)

 

I don't care for the MC user interface. But I admit that I can only remember using it on the iPad and phone. Maybe it'd be easier to navigate if I took the laptop out of cold storage...

 

But if I had to depend on using the MC for comms with other users (and unless the recipient chose to, I'd have to), I'd do a lot less communications with other cachers...

 

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