The following list of Frequently Asked Questions was originally assembled by kwzh, a Champion Poster and Million Point+ user of GasBuddy, a network of Web sites that help consumers find low gasoline prices.
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Please note that I am not kwzh, and did not write most of this information. This document is a cooperative effort of many people, but comments about the questions and answers should still be directed to kwzh, not to me. Comments about the Web page design, however, should be directed to me, since kwzh had nothing to do with that.
Questions are shown in bold green type. Click on the question text to show or hide the answer to it. The numbering order is strange, because many questions were added after the numbers were originally assigned. Many people refer to these FAQs by number in past postings, so changing the numbers at this point is not an option.
The first version of this document was created as follows: The unanswered questions were copied from a topic entitled "FAQ list" that kwzh started with a Message Posted: 4/26/2004 6:05:26 AM (category=1237&topic=51555). The answers were found by browsing and/or actively searching the forums for Messages by kwzh. I systematically scanned topics from 8/15/2005 12:01 AM through 9/30/2005 11:59 PM before concluding that scanning further would be pointless, since older topics were likely to contain outdated answers. I also limited myself to checking the shorter topics, because scanning a topic with hundreds of messages for a single one by kwzh, one which may or may not be viewable and may or may not contain an FAQ response, seemed a waste of time.
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That isn't a question; it's a punctuation mark. If you're just trying to practice posting, please do that in the "Just For Fun" category. If you're puzzled about something in the topic where you posted this, then make sure you've read the rest of the topic first, and if you're still confused, then ask a specific question. Don't make everyone guess what your problem is.
Copied from a Message Posted: 8/10/2005 10:51:28 PM (category=1055&topic=134171).
Why are there two listings for the same station?
The site attempts to recognize when two entries are actually for the same station, in which case the older one is deleted and the newer is retained, but the test is imperfect and sometimes duplicates will happen. Feel free to delete the older entry yourself — see FAQ #2. Also, if the station brand and area were exactly the same in the two entries, and the addresses were so similar that they should have been caught by the automaton, then you might want to report the failure.
Copied from a Message Posted: 7/16/2005 10:29:14 PM (category=1055&topic=130013).
How can I correct or delete a price listing?
First, you should understand that, due to some unfortunate incidents with site vandals, the price editing features will be disabled for you if you're not a "senior member" (which is easier to become than it sounds; see FAQ #52). In that case, all you can do is repost the entry with the needed corrections and let the system, the admins, or the other members take care of removing the bad entry for you. If it really disturbs you, you can post a message in your local forum category or e-mail the admins asking that it be removed, and if you're upset about receiving undeserved points, you can re-establish karmic balance by posting more than five prices some day in the future.
Those who are "senior members" can edit an existing entry by clicking on the price for the listing in question. This will bring up a screen similar to the "Report A Price" section of the Home Page, but with the information from the entry you clicked (except for the price) already filled in. You can enter an updated price, and optionally correct the address listed, but you can't change the station name or area. If they're wrong, you'll have to delete the entry entirely and repost it.
To delete a listing, click on the price as above, but when the window comes up to enter a new price, enter 0 as the price, then press Enter or click the "Submit" button. This will remove that posting completely.
If you would really like to help when deleting posts, add a brief comment to the address field about why the posting is being removed, such as "dup", "wrong site", or "wrong station". No one will get to see it except the admins, but if a member complains to them that their posts are being removed, when they look into it, they won't have to contact you and ask why you are removing their posts; they can just tell the person the reason right away.
Originally copied from a Message Posted: 8/27/2005 11:38:40 PM (category=1237&topic=139627). Updated based on Messages Posted: 10/31/2005 8:52:42 AM (category=1055&topic=162133) by TB, 11/9/2005 11:14:56 PM (category=1055&topic=164678) by kwzh, and 3/14/2006 8:14:12 AM by GM (category=1055&topic=189365), among others.
Should we use the postal address, or the nearest intersection?
The official preference is to list a pair of cross streets ("Elm & 1st"). Some people use a postal address plus the cross street, as in "123 Elm & 1st"; this is okay too.
Although there are many combinations that are all valid addresses, there may be more specific preferences in your individual area. Adhering to those preferences will help reduce duplicate entries. Please check your local category in the Message Forums for discussion on this topic.
Copied from a Message Posted: 8/15/2005 11:41:12 PM (category=1237&topic=135880). Updated based on a Message Posted: 10/20/2005 1:40:51 PM by SilentP (category=1237&topic=51555).
Why doesn't GasBuddy use a database of all gas stations, to prevent errors?
There is currently an effort being made to collect information for a Master Station List, but the admins don't consider it ready to be used yet. Another Web site (which we don't like to name) does this, and seems to have largely died out, apparently because the members couldn't get corrections made to the database. So, when GasBuddy eventually makes use of this list of stations, we'll want to make sure that we don't repeat the mistakes of that other site. There are many discussions on this idea in the message forums — so many that there's a "sticky" topic at the top of the "Talk back to us!" category just to keep track of them all!
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/3/2005 11:56:43 PM (category=1237&topic=142950). Updated to reflect existence of GasBuddy's Master Station List.
I don't use regular. What about listing premium and mid-grade gas, E85 Ethanol, etc.?
The admins are aware that there's quite a bit of interest in supporting multiple fuel types. The 2.0 release has already shifted the internal model from "single fuel type" (regular gasoline) to "multiple fuel types" (both gasoline and diesel), which was the hard part; at this point, increasing the number of fuel types from two to three should be relatively straightforward. Nothing has been promised, but it seems likely that this will be available in a future release.
In the original version of the software, before support for diesel was added, many communities were using the message forum to exchange this information. The same could be done now for other types of fuel. Go to your local forum (the top one in the list of categories on the main forum page) and see if you can find an existing topic for posting these. If not, perhaps you could start one.
However, it should also be noted that almost all cars, when properly tuned, run perfectly well on regular gas with no loss of mileage. This includes cars where the "recommended" fuel is premium. The Edmunds car buying guide, Consumer Reports magazine, and USA Today have all published articles supporting the use of regular. You might want to consider whether you could avoid the whole issue of premium by just getting your car retuned.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/30/2005 3:23:49 AM (category=1237&topic=153658). Updated in response to a Message Posted: 11/19/2005 12:08:40 PM (category=1055&topic=166834) by bytebug, based on a subsequent private e-mail from kwzh received on 11/21/2005.
That is for you, the member, to do. There's no automatic update from some magic database of gasoline prices — the only way that a new price gets entered is if some user takes the time to key it in. This site only works because members like you are prepared to be information providers as well as consumers.
Copied from a Message Posted: 7/3/2005 4:00:00 PM (category=1055&topic=127513).
Yesterday the price list covered just the last 72 hours; today it's 84. Why?
There are two reasons that you might have seen such a change. Firstly (and most likely), one of your two sightings might have been on a weekday while the other was on a weekend, when the duration is automatically extended an extra 12 hours to compensate for the lower traffic. Secondly, the duration for each site is tuned according to how much coverage that site gets (a busy metro area may have a 24 hour limit, while one that has fewer members posting prices might have a 96 hour limit) — so if you saw the number change, with both sightings for the same site and neither during a weekend, then it's conceivable that it's because the admins have just updated it to match the reality of that site's coverage.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/12/2005 12:01:50 AM (category=1237&topic=142992).
How do I search the price listings by time instead of price?
The current release doesn't let you sort by time, but it does let you select using a cutoff age. Just go to the "Search for Gas Prices" section and select an appropriate number from the "Prices in the last __ hours" menu.
It's also possible to use a value that isn't in the menu — for example, some people like to limit their search to just the last 2 hours; this can be done by first doing an 8-hour search, and then manually editing the browser's URL field, changing "tme_limit=8" to "tme_limit=2". Then when you press Enter, you'll get a new search with a 2-hour limit.
In any case, if the search is one that you expect to be using in the future, you could either save it to your GasBuddy account as a favorite search, or bookmark the URL in your browser.
Copied from a Message Posted: 8/19/2005 3:10:34 AM (category=1237&topic=137019).
How do I search the price listings by distance instead of price?
You can't — the system treats addresses as uninterpreted strings, and has no way to calculate distances. (This is one of the problems the Master Station List will help to solve; see FAQ #4.) However, if you know which areas are within your distance range, you can use the "Search for Gas Prices" section to search just those areas. (To select more than one, use the Ctrl key as you click them.)
Copied from a private e-mail from kwzh received on 10/13/2005.
I spotted a price two hours ago but just got to the computer now; can I back-date my sighting?
No, but this has been suggested many, many times, so you can rest assured that the admins are aware of the idea. (No promises have been made about whether it'll be part of the next release.) For now, you'll have to make a judgment call: if the price is still pretty recent (and nobody else has already posted it since your own sighting), then go ahead and post it; but if it's old enough that it can't really be trusted to be current, then just skip it.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/30/2005 3:11:00 AM (category=1237&topic=153416).
Should I be logging high prices or low prices?
It's best if you could report all the prices that you encounter, regardless of whether they're higher, lower, or on par with their competitors, because GasBuddy uses the posted prices to calculate averages, and makes those figures available to the press. If everyone only posted low prices, those calculations would make gas prices in your region look better than they really are.
Low prices are useful for determining where to buy, of course, but high prices might be useful for determining which stations to avoid, or just to provide a good estimate of the price range. If you really have to make a choice, then try to report on a station that nobody else in your neighborhood is covering.
Originally copied from a Message Posted: 5/28/2004 4:15:28 AM (category=1237&topic=58006), but in that Message, kwzh asked for feedback on the answer. Updated based on a Message Posted: 11/19/2005 12:23:01 PM (category=1055&topic=162420) by ScroogeMcPump.
If the actual price is $2.279, should I log that as 2.27 or 2.28?
Since virtually all US gas prices end with 9, that digit is automatically assumed in all US GasBuddy price entries. Just type the 2.27 part.
Copied from a Message Posted: 5/23/2005 10:01:43 PM (category=1055&topic=120681).
Post the price that's available to the general public ($2.279 in this example). If you want to mention a discount policy, you can add that to the address field in parentheses, as in "Elm St & 1st Ave (-3c with member card)" or "Elm St & 1st Ave (incl 3c Thu discount)". If the station doesn't sell to the general public at all, then it's okay to post its members-only price, but it's still appropriate to add "(members only)" to the address field.
If the discount is for paying in cash, then that counts as "available to the general public", but then you should use the parenthetical comment to note that there's a fee for using debit or credit cards: "Elm St & 1st Ave (+3c for non-cash)", for example. (Also note that "+" will get changed to " & " if it's not in parentheses.)
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/18/2005 10:59:45 PM (category=1055&topic=149407). Updated based on a Message Posted: 11/22/2005 7:24:40 AM (category=1237&topic=167450) by ScroogeMcPump.
Some other member is listing wrong information! What can I do about it?
There are at least three ways to proceed:
You can try to contact the other person through the forums. One way to do this is to add a reply to an appropriate topic in your local forum category (or to create a new topic there if an appropriate one doesn't already exist) in which you politely ask the other person if they could discuss what is being listed, how, and why. By itself, this has a limited chance of success, because the other person may not read the local category, or any of the forums at all.
You can increase your chances by posting a second message, with a link to the first message, in some other topic that he or she is known to read. On the main forum page, there is a box labeled "Search for author". Type in the member name of the person you're trying to reach, click "Messages by this author", and then click the Search button. This will give you a list of topics that the person has posted to in the past.
If there are none, you're out of luck; try the next method. Otherwise, choose a topic from the list that the person has posted to recently and which doesn't have a lot of replies, and try to also choose one that's somewhat relevant. (This may be impossible; just get as close as you can.) Post a short reply to the chosen topic saying that you are trying to contact this member and asking for a reply in the other topic. (Avoid pleading your case directly in this topic, because others reading it may not appreciate it.)
If you can't find evidence of forum activity, or get no reply from your messages, try using the "Contact Us" link to send a note to the site administrators, asking them to invite the member to reply to your original forum message.
And, if all else fails, you may have to either correct the wrong information yourself (see FAQ #2), or ignore it.
Loosely based on a Message Posted: 10/20/2005 2:01:55 PM by SilentP (category=1237&topic=51555).
You don't seem to be covering my city! Why not?
There are several possible reasons for this.
It could be that you're looking on the wrong site — for example, MinnesotaGasPrices.com covers only those parts of the state that are not covered by a more explicit metro area such as TwinCitiesGasPrices.com. So if your city isn't mentioned in the "Area" drop-down menu, Check the "Looking for prices ...?" section at the top left of the main page, to see if your city is actually on a different site. (If it's not listed on any of the sites associated with your state or province, then you might want to post messages in the local forum categories for those sites, asking if there's a reason for this; if there isn't one, then it's appropriate to let the admins know.)
If you're sure you're on the right site, it's possible that there are prices for your area, but they're not among the 15 lowest or highest, which are the only prices that are shown in the default listing. In the "Search For Gas Prices" section, if you explicitly specify one or more areas (and/or stations), then you can see all of the matching stations (up to 100).
If there really aren't any current prices for your area, then it may be simply that nobody's been spotting them yet — in which case, we need your help! Take a little time to learn the proper format for gas station addresses, then start recording the price for each gas station that you spot. And read your local category in the Message Forums regularly to see if any of the more senior members have corrections to offer.
Copied from a Message Posted: 8/9/2005 12:50:35 AM (category=1237&topic=133813). Updated in response to a Message Posted: 11/20/2005 1:05:26 AM (category=1237&topic=166974).
Just go to the other locale's XXXgasprices.com site, and log in with the same user ID and password. You can use any of the sites in the same way as your "standard" one. If you're not sure of the correct name for the other site, you can start by going to www.gasbuddy.com and clicking on the map.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/21/2005 2:44:56 AM (category=1237&topic=150138).
When I visit my GasBuddy page, I see more prices than I care about. How can I limit the view?
On the left side of the main page, near the top, is a section called "Search for Gas Prices". You can choose to view only your favorite brand(s) of station, or only those in certain area(s), or only those that have had a price sighting within a certain number of hours, or any combination of these. (To select more than one station or area, use the Ctrl key as you click them.)
Copied from a private e-mail from kwzh received on 10/13/2005.
I posted a price, and then later on someone else posted over it!
That's the way it's supposed to work. If the price has changed, then your old listing contains wrong information (through no fault of your own), so of course it's inappropriate for it to remain on display. And even if the price hasn't changed, the new listing tells people of a more recent sighting, which is useful information. Don't be upset about your name disappearing from the price board — this isn't a popularity contest. And if you happen to go out and spot the same station again, you should likewise feel free to overwrite the other person's listing.
This is not a zero-sum game. The other GasBuddy members are your partners, not your opponents.
Copied from a Message Posted: 5/10/2005 10:29:28 PM (category=1055&topic=118459).
I posted a price earlier, but now it's gone!
There are at least seven explanations for this general situation.
Maybe it's not actually gone. The default display shows only the top 15 and bottom 15 prices, so anything in the middle zone will be hidden. (You can test this by doing a search for the specific area or station brand.) Also, the price display shows only regular gasoline or diesel; if you posted some of each, you can't see both at once.
Maybe it expired naturally. Prices are only kept on the board for a certain number of hours (the exact number depending on your location, and also depending on whether you're looking on a weekday or on the weekend).
Maybe it's been superseded by a newer posting. Usually in this case you'd see the posting that replaced yours, but not always; for example, a station that has more than one plausible value for "Area" or "Station" or "Address" might have been reposted differently, and then your older posting was deleted. In this case you might simply fail to recognize it with the new data, or it might not even be on the display at all if you're doing a station- or area-specific search that doesn't match the new value.
Maybe the software deleted it automatically because the info was considered untrustworthy according to the current heuristics. These heuristics are especially tight for "Visitor" posts, and still somewhat snug for those who've been members for less than a week. We're all sorry that it has to be done that way, but there have been problems with vandals, and this seems like the best solution.
Maybe it was manually deleted because your entry had some problem that you're not aware of. Read your local forum (you'll find it on the main forum page, at the top of the list of categories) to see if anybody has given a reason for the deletion. If not, consider posting the question there, and see if anybody admits to it.
Maybe it was accidentally deleted. People have been known to do this by mistake, and not realize it until it's too late. In this case the person responsible might not bother to mention it in their local forum category unless asked, but it's likely to be a once-only problem in any case.
Maybe it was maliciously deleted. This tends to be the first thing that people think of, but it should be the last one to be considered. If you've been a member for more than a week, and the price you're posting isn't substantially lower or higher than the other stations in the area, and it's happened several times, and you've asked in your local forum and haven't gotten resolution — then it might be time to alert the admins to a potential vandal. Collect all the data you have (date/time of original posting, and a time window during which it must have been deleted). Speculation should be clearly labeled as such. The admins can check the server logs to find out who really did it.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/25/2005 11:51:41 PM (category=1237&topic=152280).
What's it mean to be a "senior member"? How do I become one?
"Seniority" on GasBuddy is not determined by how much you use the site, or how long you've been a member, but rather by how much you've contributed, particularly in terms of sharing the gas prices you spot with others. Your level of participation is measured by awarding points for certain activities. (See the FAQ section starting at #19 for more information on the point system.)
You will become a "senior member", and have full access to all the site features, once you have earned 10,000 points or more. This is very easy to do; if you take full advantage of the available points-earning opportunities, it can be accomplished in less than two weeks. But until then, a few activities that tend to attract hit-and-run mischief-makers will unfortunately be off limits to you. In particular, you won't be able to edit or delete price postings, and you won't be able to access the Master Station List.
Based (in part) on Messages Posted: 2/9/2006 4:11:07 PM (category=1237&topic=183890) by egnralnc and 6/9/2006 12:03:35 PM (category=1055&topic=204849) by GM.
Is it okay to post prices based on second hand information?
It depends on what you mean by "second hand". If a friend or family member tells you what they saw, or if you call a station to ask (and they actually give you an answer — see FAQ #42), that's okay, but if you're looking at other Web sites, particularly company-owned ones, their prices tend not to be as timely as the observations of your fellow GasBuddys, so we would prefer that you not copy those.
Worse yet would be to see prices change at one or two stations, and then post assumptions based on that for others in the area or in the same chain. Price changes tend not to occur everywhere at the same time, and where and when they change first is based more than anything else on luck of the draw — that is, whose underground tanks happen to be emptier when the price change hits. One goal of GasBuddy is to show people who's the first to lower prices or the last to raise them in your region, and this would defeat that goal.
Based on a Message Posted: 7/10/2006 9:48:25 PM (category=1055&topic=213236) by Tacan, and the responses to it.
Why do US gas prices have that 9/10 cent added on?
The short answer is that it's a marketing ploy, just like any other price that ends in 9. Google Answers has a more detailed discussion of this.
Note that this fractional-cent scheme does not "cheat" you as a customer, unless for some reason you always buy exactly one gallon of gas. When you choose to fill up, the amount of room in your tank is effectively random, and you're going to get the same rounding effect no matter how many digits of precision are in the price. If you want to avoid rounding, just pump to a price of your choosing instead of a volume. (Many people already do this anyway.)
Copied from a Message Posted: 5/23/2005 10:01:43 PM (category=1055&topic=120681).
Do prices change based on the day of the week? Why?
This isn't universal; you should check the "Pump Price Graph" section to see whether your area has obvious spikes at 7-day or 14-day intervals. (Note the contrast between the Twin Cities and Austin, for example.) It seems that this behavior is highly correlated with a certain retailer having market dominance, and when that retailer changes its prices according to this pattern (presumably because more people fill up just before a weekend than just after it), the other stations do so as well.
As a savvy GasBuddy member, you can make this work to your advantage. If the chart shows that prices in your area tend to reach a minimum on Tuesday and a maximum on Thursday, then just set aside time to fill up on Tuesday!
Copied from a Message Posted: 3/26/2005 11:45:38 PM (category=1055&topic=106396).
Why are prices so high? Whose fault is it?
The components which go into the price of a gallon (or liter) of gas are many and complex.
First, the basic economic laws of supply and demand play a large part. For several months after 9/11, auto gas hit very low prices. Since air travel was dramatically reduced for months afterward, refiners produced less jet fuel, which freed them to use more of their oil supplies and production capacity to make gasoline. Supplies of gas went up, and so the price of that gas went down.
As an example of the opposite effect, Hurricane Katrina severely disrupted both the pumping of crude oil from wells in the Gulf of Mexico and operations at the Southern US refineries that would normally make that oil into gasoline and other products. Supply went down, so prices for the supply that was available went up — sharply.
Gasoline production requires a massive, complex, and expensive infrastructure to take the raw oil from the ground, ship it to the refineries, process it to create gasoline, transport the finished product to filling stations, and pump it from the underground tanks there into your vehicle. Those involved in this supply chain wouldn't be doing these things if they weren't able to make money doing them, so at each step in the process, a fee called profit is added, to make each of these activities worthwhile to those performing them.
Profit in itself isn't bad, but if those in the supply chain appear to be taking more than their fair share, it can arouse the ire of end consumers, and, in some cases, legislators, who may step in and regulate the amount of profit one can take. Governments also impose taxes on gasoline, usually to cover the costs of running street lights and traffic signals, and building and repairing roads. These tax rates can vary significantly from place to place, affecting the final price you pay.
In addition, some factors, such as the production levels that OPEC sets for crude oil, are outside the control of any single corporation or government. The political climate within a foreign country could also be a factor, if war or terrorist actions in an oil-producing region threaten the reliability of that production.
Gasoline pricing is a delicate balancing act between the forces of supply and demand, the costs of production, the desire for profit, and the unpredictable. Oil companies have, by and large, become very good at managing all these factors, developing very sophisticated pricing models which allow them to maximize their profits without being seen as too greedy, while still covering their costs.
One way they do this is by charging different prices in different areas, which is the main reason for GasBuddy's existence! The one thing you can do as an individual to keep gas prices low is to use GasBuddy to seek out the lowest price stations near you and to patronize those stations.
Based on contributions from Jim Kelley and VegasGuy forwarded in a private e-mail from kwzh received on 11/23/2005.
Is it true that there are places where self-serve is illegal? Why?
Yes, there are two U.S. states, New Jersey and Oregon, where there are no self-service stations. There are several theories as to why:
It may be that it was intended to create jobs, although it's not a job that many people would be eager to perform on a daily basis.
It may be that it was considered a safety issue, in that only "trained operators" should handle the pumps, although it's doubtful that much formal training is given to these employees.
It may be that these states were simply slow to respond to the price pressures that made self service commonplace, and now people who've lived their whole lives without ever operating a gas pump are disinclined to let the law be repealed.
Copied from a private e-mail from kwzh received on 10/13/2005. Rewritten based on e-mail correspondence with kwzh on 11/23/2005.
Is it true that gas stations aren't allowed to quote prices over the phone?
Some people have claimed that there's a law against it (or that the person who answered the phone at the gas station said there was a law against it). More likely, it's just that gas station or chain's private policy not to waste time and money by answering price questions from non-customers (who could in fact be competitors).
Originally copied from a Message Posted: 8/12/2005 11:01:57 PM (category=1237&topic=134847). Updated based on Messages Posted: 10/17/2005 12:23:27 AM by betybuup and 10/17/2005 1:39:10 AM by kwzh (category=1237&topic=51555).
I heard about a gas boycott — should I participate in that?
There are three kinds of "boycott" commonly proposed:
Pick a day and don't buy gas on that day.
Pick a company and don't buy gas from that company.
Do something to cut down on gas usage (walk, bike, take the bus, car pool; drive at a more efficient speed; combine several short trips into one).
Regardless of how many people you can get to participate (even 100% participation), options (a) and (b) don't do any good at all. But they don't do any harm either, so if you feel like you're "making a statement", knock yourself out. Some people think that option (c) won't work either, but this is less clear, and in any case it reduces your personal gas bill for immediate short-term gain.
The urban-legend clearinghouse www.snopes.com (a useful resource to check whenever you receive any letter that urges you to "share it with all your friends") discusses the futility of both day-based and brand-based boycotts.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/10/2005 12:11:01 AM (category=1237&topic=146045).
What are these points good for?
Bragging rights (manifested by the point count and the car icon next to your member name in the forum), and raffle tickets. For more information on the raffle, look for "Prize Give-Away" on the main page of your GasBuddy site.
In addition, a few actions are only possible when one has "senior member" status, which is determined by point level. See FAQ #52.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/21/2005 11:14:34 PM (category=1055&topic=150487). Updated based on Messages Posted: 2/9/2006 4:11:07 PM (category=1237&topic=183890) by egnralnc and 6/9/2006 12:03:35 PM (category=1055&topic=204849) by GM.
There are several possibilities.
It may be that the action that earns points isn't what you did. In several cases, there are links on GasBuddy that are similar to those that earn points, but aren't.
The news links that earn points are under the heading "Recent News" on the left side of the Home Page. The links labeled "What's New" and "In the News" at the top of the page do not earn points.
The polls that earn points are under the heading "This Week's Opinion Poll" on the left side of the Home Page. The link labeled "Member polls" that occasionally appears at the top of the page does not earn points.
The option to tell a friend that earns points is under the heading "Tell a friend about our site!" on the left side of the Home Page. Simply sending an e-mail message on your own does not inform GasBuddy that you've done so, and so does not earn points for you, even if your friend later signs up.
Or, it may be that you weren't logged in at the time. It is possible to post prices, read news items, and use the Tell-a-Friend feature without logging in, in which case no one gets credited with points. Also, it's possible that you got redirected to another GasBuddy site on which you aren't logged in (perhaps by clicking on a link in a Forum message), or that you logged in without checking "Remember My ID and Password", and then went too long without doing anything on GasBuddy and the system logged you out. You should refresh the page and check for the words "Logged in:" and your member name at the very top before doing something to earn points.
Or, it may be that you earned the points, but the total you're looking at isn't current. In particular, news items open in a new window, but the GasBuddy window is not updated to reflect the points earned by this, so when you close the news window, you will see the old total until you refresh the page or do something else on GasBuddy.
Or, it may be that you've exceeded the point limits. To prevent abuse, there are limits on how many points members can earn in a given time period. Answering a poll will only earn you points the first time you do so each week. Other points-earning activities will only earn you points the first five times you do each of them each day. The Tell-a-Friend feature will only earn points fifteen times total for each person's account, and is also limited to the first five times you use it each day.
Or, it could be a problem with the GasBuddy site itself. Even when you do everything right, sometimes the site really does glitch.
Based on an outline from a Message Posted: 10/13/2005 12:23:32 AM (category=1237&topic=51555).
What are all the different ways of earning points?
Click on "My Points Statistics" at the top of any GasBuddy page to see what points you've already earned, and also a list of the ways to earn points. (Note: the long-term total is 975 points per day, plus 100 per week for answering the poll.)
Copied from a Message Posted: 5/29/2005 12:20:28 AM (category=1055&topic=121555).
Why can't we have more chances to earn points?
Most of the suggestions for earning more points also create the potential for abuse, which we're trying to avoid. We do welcome you to post any gas prices you've spotted, even if you've already got your "daily five" — not for earning points, but simply because it's helpful to your neighbors.
The points system is not designed to reward sheer volume of posting, but rather to encourage consistent and repeated reporting of prices over longer periods of time. Also, any significant change is going to be advantageous to some of the members and disadvantageous to the rest — and since the latter group is more likely to have strong feelings about the outcome, it's probably best not to make any changes unless there's a clear deficiency with the status quo.
And, if your goal is to "catch up" with the members in the lead, increasing the number of points available is not going to help! The people who are already maxing out would probably be able to do so under the new rules, too, and they'll stay at least as far in front.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/19/2005 11:25:52 PM (category=1237&topic=149781). Updated based on Messages Posted: 10/25/2005 6:13:14 AM by Snowman42 (category=1237&topic=157798), 11/2/2005 1:27:27 AM by kwzh (category=1237&topic=162781), and 11/13/2005 11:19:16 PM by kwzh (category=1237&topic=110305).
Why can't we have more ways to spend points?
Trading in points for objects of actual value (either directly or via a raffle) depends on someone contributing those objects first. If you know of some company that might consider donating their product in exchange for being mentioned on the site, please feel free to contact them!
Copied from a private e-mail from kwzh received on 10/13/2005.
If I spend my points, does my point total go down?
No, your point total (and all associated information, such as your membership rank and icon) will stay the same. The only thing that decreases is your "point balance" (the number of points earned but unspent), which is not visible to anybody but yourself.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/26/2005 11:05:07 PM (category=1055&topic=127740).
Why do some people on the 30-day scoreboard have more points than should be possible?
Ignoring the limited points (initial signup and Tell-A-Friend), a member can earn 975 points per day, plus 100 more per week for the poll, which would seem to put a limit of either 29,650 or 29,750 (depending on which day of the week you look) for the 30-day limit. And in fact you may note that there are quite a few people with that "ideal" score. But since "30 days" is computed relative to the time you're looking at the scoreboard, while the daily limits are measured from midnight to midnight, some of the members will show up on the board above or below that limit. These people are still earning points at the expected rate, in the long run; they spend just as much time above the ideal score as they do below it.
As a simplified example, consider a fictitious system that lets you earn just one point per day, and has a scoreboard for points earned in the last 24 hours. Someone who earned their Wednesday point at 1pm and their Thursday point at 11am will have a 24-hour score of 2 instead of 1 for two hours on Thursday; and someone who earned their Wednesday point at 11am and their Thursday point at 1pm will have a 24-hour score of 0 during that same window.
Copied from a private e-mail from kwzh received on 10/13/2005. Intended to rewrite using comments from bytebug (category=1055&topic=166960), but that topic has been deleted. Perhaps it'd help to add a graphic or table to illustrate.
What's the status of the last raffle?
For past raffles, see the "What's New" button at the top of the page. For a raffle that's in progress or recently closed, watch the "Prize Give-Away" area on the left side of the main page. The winners are never announced until after they've been contacted and arrangements made for the awarding of the prize, and this always takes longer than people expect. Continuously posting messages on the subject will not speed things up any, and it's also not very efficient to have all of the thousands of non-winners post a message that they don't think they won.
Copied from a Message Posted: 5/13/2005 5:02:40 AM (category=1055&topic=118888).
How do I enter a cent sign or other symbol in the message forum?
Although some system configurations will have keyboard combinations that will allow you to enter a literal 8-bit character directly, it won't work on all platforms. But that really never was a good way to enter characters anyway, even though it usually happens to work — there have been (and might be again) conditions such that those characters would look okay in the input field, but would display incorrectly after being posted.
To display the "¢" symbol in any Web page, whether as part of the GasBuddy message forum, or on one of your own design, you should use the entity notation ¢ (and don't forget that trailing semicolon — sometimes it works even if you omit it, but not always). If you want to talk about eating jalapeños in Québec, you should type the words as jalapeños and Québec. And if you want to tell people how you're doing it, you should use & in those instances where you want a literal "&".
You can also enter them using their decimal or hexadecimal numeric codes, such as × or × instead of × for "×", but the symbolic versions are easier to remember, when they exist.
The Web Design Group is one of many places to find reference lists of symbolic and numeric character entities. However, not all of them work in all browsers, and those that do will only work for GasBuddy in forum messages, not in price postings. This is because the price lists have their own interpretation of what the "&" character means. To use a cent sign there, you would have to resort to direct entry, or just substitute a lowercase letter "c".
If you must know how to get "¢" out of your keyboard:
On a Windows machine, hold down the Alt key, use the numeric keypad to type 0162, and then release the Alt key. Key combinations for other symbols can be found with the Character Map accessory.
On a MacOS machine, hold down the Option key and press the (regular) number 4 key. Key combinations for other symbols can be found with the Key Caps utility.
Based on a private e-mail from kwzh received on 10/13/2005.
How do I search the forum to see if something is already being discussed?
Except for the "Search For Author" form (which searches across all forum categories for all messages contributed to by, or originated by, the single selected member), the current version of the forum software doesn't have any built-in search features. A more powerful search feature might be considered for a future release. But in the meantime, there are still ways to simplify the task with existing tools.
Suppose you want to find a topic about "gas prices". First, go to the forum category that you want to search, perhaps "General" in this example, to see the 50 most recent topics. Click on the URL text box, go to the end of the string, add the text &page_size=500 and press Enter; this will load a new page that shows more topics at once. Go to the top of the page and click on some harmless text, like the "Logged in" line, just to make sure your current position isn't confused. Now use the browser's Find-In-Page function (this seems to be on Ctrl-F in all major browsers), type the text gas prices, and press Enter (or click the appropriate button). You can then open that link in another window (or tab), while you continue to search for more hits on the same page.
It's not as pretty as a having all the matches (and only the matches) displayed at once, but it does get the job done.
Alternatively, you can try using a search engine like Google; this allows you to search by content rather than just subject lines. (Content search is not likely to be implemented within GasBuddy itself, because it would be too heavy a load on the servers.) However, past experience has indicated that Google coverage of the GasBuddy forum is not complete. The reasons for this are not currently understood.
You may be able to make Google work better with the GasBuddy forums by adding the search term intitle:"Gas Prices" to your query. One problem with search engines is that they treat GasBuddy as 170+ separate Web sites — not as 170+ localized variants of the same site. However, the phrase "Gas Prices" appears in the title of every page on every GasBuddy site, allowing you to restrict a Google search to GasBuddy's sites (mostly), without unnecessarily restricting it to any particular GasBuddy site. (I found this out in the process of assembling this FAQ.)
But, be warned: If you follow a link to a GasBuddy site you don't normally use, GasBuddy will not recognize you as being logged in, even if you're already logged in to your normal site. To work around this, either copy the link and edit it to point to your own GasBuddy site, or just log in again on the other site.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/30/2005 3:23:49 AM (category=1237&topic=153658).
Aren't some of these topics posted to the wrong category?
Yes, but this is a big forum with few moderators, and frankly there are almost always more important things to deal with. If the topic is already a day old, then don't respond to it at all; perhaps it's already been abandoned. If it has a recent reply that already mentions the misclassification, then once again it doesn't need another follow-up. If you happen to be the first to spot it, you could go ahead and post a polite response that suggests a better category, but don't respond to the original topic. (If you're incapable of phrasing it politely, or if you can't post without commenting on the content, then it's better to not respond at all.)
Copied from a Message Posted: 1/24/2005 2:03:10 AM (category=1055&topic=98459).
Someone's posting bad messages! How can we stop it?
If it's bad enough, you can contact the moderators and ask them to take action (ideally through the "Report Abuse" link that appears next to the message). But for mild annoyances, it's usually better to just ignore the person — either in the traditional sense of refusing to react, or by using the "Ignore" link next to the offending message, in which case all messages from that member will stop being displayed to you.
Some people ("trolls") like to post messages specifically to cause people to react with extreme emotions.
The only way to deal with trolls is to limit your reaction to reminding others not to respond to trolls.
Copied from a Message Posted: 10/29/2004 11:33:34 PM (category=1055&topic=86807). Updated in response to a private e-mail from ratledge received on 11/22/2005, based on a subsequent private e-mail from kwzh received on 11/23/2005.
I made a mistake! How can I delete or edit it?
The current version of the software allows you to edit a message you've posted, if you make your changes within five minutes of the original posting. There's currently no way to delete a message, but you can edit the content down to essentially nothing, for almost the same effect. You could also use the "Report Abuse" link, select "Remove message" as the recommend action, and use the "Comments" box to explain that you made a mistake and want to delete it. (It may seem counterintuitive to be reporting yourself for "abuse", but don't worry — it won't be a stain on your permanent record.)
Original (outdated) answer in a Message Posted: 10/29/2004 11:33:34 PM (category=1237&topic=92286). Updated based on a private e-mail from kwzh received on 7/9/2006.
The "Just For Fun" category is just noise! Why does it exist?
Before that category existed, much of the same content (or non-content) was posted to other categories, such as "General". This diminished the value of those other categories, and so it was decided to create a separate area for the "fluff" in order to minimize the contamination of the more serious areas of the forum. Many people dislike the "Just For Fun" area, but nobody is forced to go there.
Copied from a Message Posted: 3/25/2005 10:25:46 PM (category=1055&topic=108593).
There's a lot of junk in the forum! Why don't you delete it?
If it's actually disruptive to the membership at large, then the admins will often lock the topic to prevent new contributions. (And then that topic will eventually fall out of view from the chronological list, as newer discussions appear above it, so there's no significant additional benefit to deleting it.) As for the noise in the "Just For Fun" category, there's not much point in trying to control it — it's better to let it run free in that area than to take action that might cause those people to start posting it in categories where it would be less welcome.
Copied from a Message Posted: 3/25/2005 10:25:46 PM (category=1055&topic=108593).
I'm new here! Could everyone say "hi" to me?
Yes, we're happy that you've joined GasBuddy, but if you feel a need to post a greeting (or just practice posting a message), please do it in the "Just For Fun" category, or in your local category (which is at the top of the list of categories).
Copied from a Message Posted: 11/30/2004 12:24:25 AM (category=1055&topic=91517).
We already tried this — two times. Nobody used them.
One chat room was set up (by kwzh) on Undernet IRC, heavily advertised in the forums, staffed at least twelve hours a day, and at times 24/7 for week-long stretches, yet absolutely nobody from GasBuddy showed up. There were one or two drive-by visits from non-members, but they didn't even stay long enough to ask what it was about.
The second chat area was an irregularly scheduled Yahoo Groups event, but that group also hasn't gotten any traffic in a long time.
Perhaps it would be different if the chat room were integrated into the GasBuddy site, but based on this evidence, the effort required to do this doesn't seem to be worth it.
Updated based on the original (outdated) answer in a Message Posted: 10/8/2004 4:16:03 AM (category=1237&topic=80259), and the acknowledgement of its age in a Message Posted: 4/27/2005 1:06:02 AM (category=1237&topic=115070).
My forum postings show me as being from the wrong place! How can I make it show my actual city?
First, let's clarify what that field is for. It's intended to reflect your "home" GasBuddy site, not your residence address. So someone who lives in Cupertino, CA, which is considered part of the San Jose metro area, would normally be registered at the San Jose site — and it's intentional that the forum postings show San Jose in that case.
If you really did register at a site that's not the right one for you — maybe you signed up before realizing there was a better one, or maybe you've moved since registering — then you'll have to mail a request to the admins; there's no automated way to make the change. While you're waiting for that request to be handled, just log in at the other GasBuddy site — your user ID and password will work the same on them all.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/16/2005 3:21:35 PM (category=1055&topic=148156).
How do I post a link in the message forum?
A link has two components: the description, which is the text you want to appear highlighted in your message, and the URL, which is where you want to send someone who clicks on it. First, type your message into the input box as normal, up to the point where you want to provide a link. Then click on "Insert Link" next to the text area. A dialog box will appear. Type (or paste) the URL into the dialog's input field — make sure you don't end up with two copies of the http:// prefix! — then click "OK". You'll get a second dialog box. Type in the description and click "OK". Now you're back to your regular message input, but some magic text has been added that encodes the link information. Type the rest of your message as normal.
(Tip: If you're linking to something within the GasBuddy system itself, such as a forum message, then delete the prefix http://www.XXXgasprices.com/ from the beginning of your URL. That way, anyone who clicks on it will get the link through their own GasBuddy host instead of yours.)
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/21/2005 2:43:05 AM (category=1237&topic=150111).
Can I get my signature automatically added to all my messages?
No. And please don't add a signature manually, either. Your identifying information is already displayed off to the side of each message you post, and adding anything unrelated to your actual topic of discussion is just distracting to the readers.
Copied from a private e-mail from kwzh received on 10/13/2005.
Is there a spell check feature in the message forum?
Yes, but the current version has more than its share of problems. You might be better off if you compose your message in the text editor of your choice, spell check it there, and then paste the final text to the input box of the GasBuddy forum.
If you do use the built-in checker, you can avoid one of those problems (inappropRIate capitALizatiON) by training yourself to never exit the spell check mode by clicking the buttons underneath it. Instead, mentally note which words, if any, are misspelled (there will often be several false positives, especially in words that contain apostrophes), then use your browser's "Back" button to return to the state you were in before the spell check. Make any corrections needed, and then hit "Post Message" from the normal reply screen instead of from the spell checker screen.
Copied from a private e-mail from kwzh received on 10/13/2005. Updated in response to a Message Posted: 7/8/2006 10:31:18 AM (category=1237&topic=188811) by SUVaholic, based on a subsequent private e-mail from kwzh received on 7/9/2006.
I posted a question/suggestion/complaint, and haven't gotten a response from the moderators.
The entire network of GasBuddy sites is maintained by two people working in their spare time, assisted by a small number of lesser moderators; and there's a lot of input to wade through. Also note that for many of the messages, the suggestion or request might be noted and either discarded, or acted on, or filed for future reference, but it wouldn't be an effective use of the admins' time to write personal responses to them all.
They do monitor the forum messages and other user activities, and will step in if someone gives out obviously false information, abuses the site, or harrasses other members, but for the most part they leave it to the members to settle disputes among themselves and reply to questions from others.
Also, this situation is one reason for the existence of this FAQ. Even though it's unofficial, the answers here are mostly taken from what the admins have previously said in the forum. Actually, this FAQ's "Q"s aren't all "FA", but they've been asked often enough that collecting them into a single document is an efficient way to educate members without repeatedly consuming moderator time.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/11/2005 7:09:09 PM (category=1237&topic=146470). Updated based on a Messages Posted: 2/19/2006 8:31:03 PM by ScroogeMcPump and 2/19/2006 10:49:59 PM by kwzh (both category=1055&topic=185412).
How can I get in touch with another member?
It would be nice to have a feature that makes it possible to flag down a member who can't be reached by the forums (e.g., someone who only posts prices, but is doing them wrongly). In order to be useful, this would have to be enabled even for recipients who don't know about its existence — i.e., it can't be opt-in — and hence it would have to be very carefully controlled in order to prevent abuse. A few ideas have been bounced around in brainstorming sessions in the forum, but it's not likely to get implemented soon.
In the meantime, to communicate privately with someone who does use the forum, it's sufficient for one of you to post a disposable email address. Once you've established first contact and agreed on how to reach each other, you can retire the address that you posted.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/10/2005 12:14:59 AM (category=1237&topic=145640).
There's something I'm sure is on the site somewhere but I can't find it!
There's a lot of information on the main page; it's quite possible that what you're looking for is right there, but your eyes are skimming past it. To check for this, go to the top of the page and click on some harmless text, like the "Logged in" line, just to make sure your current position isn't confused. Now use the browser's Find-In-Page function — this seems to be on Ctrl-F in all major browsers — and type a keyword that's likely to occur in what you're looking for ("Prize", "Friend", "Graph", "Chart", "Poll", "News", etc.) The browser will scroll the page to where that keyword appears, and highlight it.
However, there are also things that aren't directly accessible from the GasBuddy main page. The Unofficial GasBuddy Site Map contains links to every known page in the GasBuddy system that can be directly linked to, but because of this it can be even more intimidating. You might also want to search this page using your browser as above.
To find something on a different page, you might try using Google, and specify not only a keyword to search for, but also the modifier site:www.XXXgasprices.com (replace XXX as appropriate) to limit the search to GasBuddy. Note that in addition to "real" hits from the official GasBuddy pages, this may or may not find hits within the message forums, depending on whether the forums are visible to search engines. (Past experience is that sometimes they're visible and sometimes not, and it's not entirely clear which is the intended behavior.) For more information on searching the forums, see FAQ #28.
Copied from a Message Posted: 9/28/2005 10:32:34 PM (category=1055&topic=153296). One word added in response to a Message Posted: 11/18/2005 11:09:20 AM (category=1237&topic=51555) by TypeS.
I hate these pop-up ads! Why do you have them?
The GasBuddy Web site does not use pop-up ads. (GeoCities, where this FAQ is located, does use pop-under ad windows.) If you are seeing pop-ups while using GasBuddy, you are getting them from somewhere else. The most likely source is spyware or adware that has found its way onto your computer — probably without your knowledge. These are programs which run in the background, monitoring your computer usage, and serving up ads at what they consider appropriate times.
There are programs out there that remove spyware and adware, such as Spybot Search & Destroy, Ad-Aware, and Pest Patrol. You may want to try one or more of these programs.
Also, GasBuddy has no control over the content of outside links (such as the daily news items), so it's possible that you could get a pop-up while visiting one of those pages.
Copied from a Message Posted: 8/8/2005 5:24:20 AM (category=1237&topic=133551).
Why do Recent News links sometimes lead to a registration page? What can I do when this happens?
GasBuddy has no control over these outside links, so it's possible that the page was moved after the link to it was posted. Some news sites will only make their newest content available for a few hours before moving it to an archive section which requires registration.
It's also possible that the link came from a search engine which found it using its own credentials for the site, and which didn't indicate that a sign in was required. If this is the case, it may be possible to see the article by copying the headline into your favorite search engine, and looking at their cached results.
Another way to read the article without registering is to use BugMeNot, a service where similarly frustrated Web users share sign in information for sites like these. The BugMeNot FAQ page includes links to extensions for Internet Explorer and Firefox to automate the process of looking up these shared credentials.
And if it's the points that concern you, you'll still earn them so long as it takes you off of GasBuddy, even if you don't read or register at the page it takes you to.
Loosely based on a Message Posted: 11/20/2005 11:51:01 PM (category=1055&topic=167017).