Stop asking me to buy a membership

Question

Major BUG, stop asking me to buy a membership or disable my add block or authenticate, I don't want to do either of them for the couple of times I log in per year. I don't care for the stats you provide, not since you completely ignored my multiple requests for a useful stat instead of all the useless noise taking up valuable bandwidth.

Unfortunately for you, since Groundspeak has designated you as the required puzzle checker, i.e. FREE, you CAN'T stop me from using the site, so STOP spamming me with all your grievances or I will write to Groundspeak.

Answer 1

Just to add some facts.

We have three new systems "attacking" free members.

1. An "alert" on the top, asking to upgrade. This is fairly discrete and hopefully won't bother anyone too much. It's not the goal here.
   This is only shown to those with more than 100 page views.
2. An Anti Ad-block system. We only find this fair. If you use the site for free, at least let us serve our ads.
   This has a 10% to get loaded, or 20% for those with more than 1000 page views, a requirement you fulfill.
   It's not impossible that we increase these chances in the future. We do not see any reason to serve free web to any frequent visitor who uses an Ad-blocker.
3. A nagware screen. For free users who uses the site a lot, there is a small chance to be caught by a nagware screen. You can't get away from it until it expires, which takes 30 seconds.
   To get the Nagware screen you have to have used the site a certain amount today, the last 7 days and all-time. If you get this screen, you should consider yourself a frequent user.

Regarding Authenticate. If you do not wish to authenticate, you can not run our Challenge Checkers. Not only do we wish to know which users runs them, it's also required that you authenticate to get access to the data from Geocaching.com. This is a requirement from Groundspeak.

You are free to forward your complaints to Groundspeak. We are hosting the Challenge checkers for free (actually we pay Groundspeak a lot for having access to their data). We have of course had discussions before, and we would welcome them again if they have any feedback. For example they have approved that free users of Project-GC can only run 10 Challenge checkers per day.

If you have a very good idea for statistics, you could present it here in QA so that we can see what the feedback will be. Since you don't say what your idea is, I can't comment on why it has been ignored. It could be that we find it being a bad idea, it could be that it's too hard to implement, or it can actually be on the TODO-list. Maybe it even already exists nowadays?

PS! We are not trying to stop anyone from using the site. We are trying to keep the site alive.

Comments

how long has project.gc been around, 3 years, and I used 1000 page views? take it into context, 950 of those where when the site came out, the rest is in the last 2 years, if you want to nag people do it based on frequency of visits in last 30 days or something more logical, not all time.
I am aware the authorization is required by GC, but its annoying because makes me do all the time, why doesn't it remember like GSAK does, you gave it permission once and that's it.
the "attacking" system may work on a few, but for most will make them look somewhere else, more so since GSAK is becoming freeware.
The stat I asked for is not hard to do, it still exists on the long time running free stat generator MyGeocachingProfile.com, from a PQ as a grid, the same as fizzy, but since you access my profile anyway its easy to do, you're doing all the TOP FTF, not even a GC sanctioned stat how can jasmer be hard? The discussion dragged on for months, with the conclusion that there is already a stat that shows most old caches found, well, that is not the same as jasmer, and I don't even see it anymore.
I am not a stat fanatic, I haven't run my stats since 2017, the Jasmer was the only one I was interested in.

Answer 2

I like to think of a website as being like someone's home. The owner loves it, takes care of it, and they set the standards for their home. If you wish to come into someone's home, you either respect their house 'rules', or don't visit. You wouldn't go into someone's home, expect to use their pool for free and demand they change their rules/expectations to suit you. Same goes for a website.

Answer 3

Hello t4e,

there's a very simple solution for your problem. This solution can even be found at Groundspeak on their site, because you don't seem to like Projekt-GC very much.

Just ignore any challenge and you have a good day

Have a nice Day

Comments

did not ask your opinion, but thanks for the useless answer

Answer 4

Hello t4e.

This is not a bug. Website was running for years for many users for free, but its operation and the work invested into the PGC development, translation, support and all of these is not free for the people who keep the site going and always improving.

If you use the website couple of times a year, the easiest think you can do is really to disable adblock here to contribute at least something from the advertisement. The appeal is mostly for many users who are using the site more frequently, have the statistics here and much more.

The only one who is spamming here is you with your unneeded uppercase messages and unsolicited accusations.

Remember that PGC is not only about challenge checkers and profile stats. There is much more it can do, especially for paying members as you can read on the membership page:

https://project-gc.com/Home/Membership

Comments

my message is not upper case, two words for emphasis doesn't make it all uppercase. I have no need for any stats, expressing a concern its not spam, unfortunately is the tone of your reply that seems to be the norm for most of the staff i interacted with that stops me from being a paying member, i believe in support but not with the attitude i encountered. I've been a premium gc member even before i found my first cache, ponder in that.

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There are other means of expressing emphasis than uppercase. You have a whole toolbar with these when you write your question. The uppercase is considered aggressive on the internet, if you did not notice over the years. And that is exactly how your message is toned from the start to the end (including your imaginary bug, false threatening with writing groundspeak and more).
I am not a staff here. I am just a user who likes PGC as most of the other people here. If you do not like it, constructive critique is always welcomed, but that was not an good example you started with.

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I use the site frequently.  I pay for premium membership and have made an additional donation.  I find the site very useful.  However, I've also experienced some moderators being condescending, rude and unapologetic.  It's like having bad kids.  You still love them.

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get your facts straight, a whole message in caps is considered yelling, I am fully aware of that, if you were reading more you would know.
the fact that you are not a staff member but rather a moderator makes your tone even more condescending and irrelevant, apparently you're not even aware how a moderator should behave