map compare paying member compare to non-paying member

Question

As a paying member the map compare feature is great. I'm currently looking to plan various night caching trips and noted that my friend who is a non-paying member's stats aren't updated. Now of course I knew that as a non-paying member his stats are only updated once a week.

My question is: Is there a specific day of the week and time (including timezone or expressed as UTC) of day that the non-paying member's stats are updated. I appreciate that a routine that runs to update stats may take a good few hours to run thus you cannot be specific about the time but a rough estimate would be of great help.

The point being is that I would be better able to determine where to go if I check the stats just after they are updated. I can (and do) use my friend's stats page on geocaching.com to check any they have done recently and often just ask as well (I know that actually asking someone vs using a computer tool is so last century). However it is a lot easier to plan things and create GPX files using a computer than having to manually adjust.

Comments

Just to clarify - by "night caching trips" I mean doing a series of regular caches whilst it is dark because we work during the day and the sun sets early, rather than caches with a night attribute.

Answer 1

As fare as i am aware the there is no difference how fast pgc acquire new logs for non-paying and for paying members.

All information on PGC is live date except the profile stats and top DT loop. Map compare uses all data that pgc haves.
The only place on PGC where it matters for you as a paying member if the nic you look at is in the  profile state. But if they use pgc they will be missing som functionality.

If I am not mistaken a user will be put in the queue for update of the the profile stats 24 hours/7 day after the last update and i think check is done once every hour. So the time will be different pm each update. The update for differnt users will be spread out over the whole day/week to even out the system load.

If you plan a trip you can add all potential cacher to the vgps and build a GPX. There is refresh cache options there and you can trigger update of caches with data older then one day. I have nog idea if the number of logs option is relevant. Ofcource remember the build limits for the GPX

Comments

I ask because I noted that after a night out with friends, the caches show as completed by myself but not by my friend so I'd put this down to his non-member status only being updated weekly.

Your answer makes perfect sense, however now I'm wondering if perhpas he's missed logging a couple of caches we did as the couple I just checked he hasn't logged but we definitely did.

I'll ask and update this as the correct answer should he get back to me and says oops he forgot to log them, and then the map shows correct when I check after he's logged and the overnight update has happened.

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An nice way to check from missed loggs is to add a log date filter to map compare. Use the date you logged caches together and  show only "one found" and "bouth find" and you will se if you logged the same caches.

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I concur with what Target is saying, his understanding is correct. Data comes in with some lag, in a fairly random order, in more or less the same pace for everyone. However, there is a chance at regular PGC users (regardless of membership) data falls in quicker.

The update of profile stats is just the rendering that isn't done as often for non paying members. The data in our system is more up to date than so (except exactly when the profile stats renders).

Then there are a very few other things which are calculated on a daily basis, like DT loops, streaks, where people live and such more complex data.

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Yup he hasn't got round to logging some of them yet!!

Many thanks for the explanation and extra thanks for the date filter tip. Very useful. Exactly the sort of tip that should feature in a did you know you can... Section of a newsletter/FAQ.