TopShelfRob

Oh, duh, I see what you mean now. Basically a previous find couldn't qualilfy because it wasn't found in a weekend with finds of other types.

Gotcha. OK I was under the impression that rules for a challenge cache could not require someone to find caches in particular weekends of a month - that they had to allow all past finds, regardless.

But I thought any cache like that -- requiring you not to count already found caches (by requiring you to find them in a weekend) - wouldn't be publishable? You could try to choose to find them all in a weekend, and yes it would be harder if you had already found all the closest ones of that type. But they couldn't require you to not count ones you had already found by requiring them to specifically be found in a weekend? Or is it only that they can't require them to only be found in a specific weekend, but requiring an accomplishment within a length of time (e.g. for instance during "a weekend") is okay? Gosh, this is confusing.

Couldn't they choose to not count previously found caches? Yes, they could, but that's completely beside the point. The point is that someone with fewer finds doesn't have to resist that temptation. That's not beside the point at all. If you're telling me it's not fun for them because they've already qualified for everything, they have the luxury of choosing to challenge themselves further. They can choose to make it less boring. People who haven't qualified don't have the luxury of choosing not to meet the qualifications, not if they want to log it within the rules. They can't choose to make it less out of reach for them. Or do you want to give challenge cache owners the option of disqualifying cachers who have met the requirements too well?

In fact, they enjoy meeting goals so much, that instead of just going "somewhere specific and finding what the CO has hidden there" they instead go a whole bunch of other places first to qualify! (Calm down, I'm just kidding!)

Is this 710 still for sale at that price?

See the sanctimony? If not, maybe that's the problem. Ha, topshelfrob, you've been challenged by fizzy. Are you gonna man up and conquer this fizzy challenge or hang you head in shame? The sanctimony comment was not in reply to a quote of mine. (Or was it at my general sanctimony elsewhere in the thread?)

This, along with some previous comments, touch on the recent rule change that disallowed date restrictions. As I mentioned a while back, I prefered to distinguish between two *ahem* 'breeds' of challenge caches - the challenge and the achievement. An achievement would be one without a date restriction - as long as you've done it at any point in your caching career, you qualify. The challenge is the one actively set out for people - every cacher - to accomplish from that point on. You may have qualified before, but now you have to qualify again. These entice more of a competitive style caching, but competition is still not fundamental to it. The inherent problem with both types of 'challenge' is: * without a date restriction, the challenge favours the veteran - they probably already qualify; the newbie has to do a lot more work * with a date restriction, the challenge qualifies the newbie - MANY more potential qualifying caches nearby not already found; the veteran has to do a lot more work/traveling Groundspeak opted to go with no date restriction, and essentially for the challenges to become career achievements. It puts everyone on the same ground, reduces quarrels and conflicts, dissuades competitive caching, and is generally more positive for everyone (unless people choose not to be positive about it =P). And, as you said, if someone wants to make challenge more interesting since they've already qualified, they have the option to set a personal goal and re-qualify, with caches they haven't yet found. So really having no date restriction keeps the geocaching pastime still primarily self-focused, goal-oriented, instead of outward, competitive, bragging. Each person can still cache their own way, lots of flexibility and choice, especially with challenge caches. I originally hoped they would reverse the decision about date restrictions, or provide an alternate means to allow actual 'challenges' as opposed to achievements, but I fully understand the decision they made. As a CO if I want to put out a new active challenge, I can still publish a cache that requires the same qualifications, I just can't deny finds for people who've already qualified; merely encourage people to set their own goals to achieve it again after the publish date. Ultimately, More choice = more freedom and variety for everyone. Less choice = more frustration, conflicts, and arguments over 'entitlement'. And Groundspeak can still decide if too much choice/freedom is hurting their game, and enact new guidelines to further shape it. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean that the challenge CO could require you to only count new qualifying caches -- I meant that couldn't a particularly over-qualified cacher choose to do so of his own accord, if he already qualified for pratically every challenge to the point the challenge caches were boring to him. Sure he'd already qualify to log it, but he could choose to only count new finds. But to what you are talking about, I saw a thread about a challenge cache in Texas I believe it was, where a challenge cache had become a tradition each year there was a new challenge that required finders to only count new caches, and after being approved every year, was disallowed because of the no date restrictions. There was allegedly great uproar in the community over this as that was a "great tradition" there, and they pointed out she could merely encourage them to only count new finds (and most people would probably play by those rules), however she'd not be able to enforce that they must. She chose to archive it. Well, then it seems the only fair thing for Groundspeak to have done would have been to allow both types. If "without" favours the veterans, and "with" favors the newbies, then why not make them optional? Challenges that included them and challenges without them would then both exist, and then it wouldn't be as biased toward either side.

Well maybe the names Jasmer and Fizzy were the result of a challenge, but the idea of "a cache planted every month since GC started" and "a cache for every D/T combo" seem like pretty obvious accomplishments to me. Take DeLorme challenges vs. county challenges -- finding a cache in each county seems to me like an accomplishment, but finding one on every map page just seems arbitrary to me. But I realize that's just my opinion. Couldn't they choose to not count previously found caches? I mean if they wanted to, they could choose re-qualify for a new challenge by finding different caches. In fact people that have so many finds that challenge caches would tend to be boring because they already qualify for them all or most all, couldn't they choose to only "use" a particular cache towards a challenge once?

Well I've been looking around at a lot of the challenge caches, and my opinion has somewhat changed. If you look at it like all aspects of the challenge cache itself is all part of the "challenge cache experience" then, yes, to remove anything from it is going to change it. I was looking at it more like they were merely about only rewarding the achievement, (or maybe my perception was that that's what they should be) i.e. being able to reward a smiley for completing your Jasmer grid, etc. That the container aspect of it was added only because in order to publish a challenge, they had to have a location aspect, even if they didn't seem to want one. As if they tacking on a not-well thought out tupperware just to reward those who had completed the challenge. If you look at them like that, then it's easy to see that they could be accused of taking up a spot that a traditional cache that would be open to all could be at. But when you look at all these (as I called them) "manufactured challenges" -- find 15 caches with flowers in them, etc. then obviously it is about the whole challenge cache -- finding the qualifying caches, and finding the challenege cache itself. So I can withdraw my objection to them on those grounds -- appreciating the concept of challenge caches as a whole, as opposed to them just being a necessary location aspect of rewarding an accomplishment. And I never said that it was one particular challenge cache that I was sore at not being able to log. It was more of just at the overall notion that there could very well perfectly good caches out there that, since I don't "cache for the numbers", I'll not be able to log, at least not anytime soon. And don't tell me that it's the same as a puzzle cache or a high difficulty cache. With either of those types, if you can hold the cache in your hands, you can log it. Even if you somehow cheat the CO's intended manner of solving or getting to, the CO can't do anything about it - if you signed it, your log can stand, unlike with these. I still have concerns: 1.) That challenge caches do tend to be biased toward people who find a lot of caches. 2.) In theory "too many" challenge caches in one location very well could block newbies and others with low numbers from being able to find a cache to seek. But I can live with those, I guess.

Thanks! There are a couple of full Jasmer bookmark lists, and both of them specifically state that they do not include mini Jasmers, or alterations that attempt to make it harder than the standard Jasmer (who would want to do that?). That's about the best you're going to do for mini Jasmers. And by the way, the hyphen doesn't matter, mine in New York still come up, and there is no hyphen. Gee, actually there aren't too many mini Jasmers. Some in Ontario, New York, Pennsylvania, Alberta and Arizona. I might have missed a few, but less common than I thought. After looking through these searches, it seems that mini (or mini-) Jasmers (or Jasmer lite) generally refer to a variation of the full Jasmers that are less than from "every" month, but still based on months. (i.e. instead of every month since 2000, it might be 100 months, or 5 years worth of months, from all 12 months in a given year, pyramid Jasmer, etc.) I guess an inherent part of the term "Jasmer" is the monthly thing. I think one cache from every year might be a different animal.

Here's a mini-Jasmer challenge in SC that's a little harder than the one you envisioned but still very doable. And here's a bookmarks list that shows you many other SC challenges. Thanks!

Leave the forum for four hours and you miss everything.

I can see that without challenge caches you would lose "find 15 caches with a type of flower in the name" type of challenge caches. But those don't really stand on their own as an achievement, anyway, do they? That's kind of a manufactured achievement that wouldn't really be something to celebrate without the challenge cache. I'm talking about true achievements, like the Jasmer challenge, or finding a cache in all 50 states, or finding a cache in every country in your state -- those achievements stand on their own as something to be proud of. I don't get the point of the DeLorme challenges, to me it seems that lines on map pages are awful arbitrary. I could see how the argument changes if you look at the difference between "awards that are truly accomplishments" and made-up "manufactured requirements". Even though there is probably a lot of grey area in-between the two. I'm not going to put on my profile page that I "found caches with 20 varieties of birds in the title" - but I would put that I found a cache in all 50 states. I'd be proud of completing the Jasmer grid on it's own merit, but I'm probably not going to seek "caches with the names of the 44 presidents in the title" without a challenge cache encouraging it. On the whole does that make them a good or a bad thing? I guess I'm unsure now. I'd still feel better if anyone that could physically find them could log them as a traditional. Either that or to be fair, also prevent cheaters from logging puzzle caches, although - I know - how would you enforce that?

If you know the challenge, and you have a list of challenge caches, do a text search for a keyword like Jasmer. More than likely the cache name will be a good description of the challenge. Yes, this is, currently, part of the challenge caching experience. If you don't like it, you don't have go through all that. If you want to log specific challenge caches, then yep, gotta do to the legwork to find them. I have a spreadsheet tracking my progress on some challenges. I have GSAK with a database of challenge caches. I have bookmark lists with challenges in progress, or qualified and not found, or vice versa. I do this because I enjoy it. It's goal-oriented. It encourages directed caching when on the road. I have qualifier caches highlighted and desireable challenge caches highlighted. It's all part of the experience, and fun (ymmv). But on the whole, finding a challenge cache and then setting out to conquer it (or seeing if you already do) is more typical than completing an achievement first and then trying to find a challenge cache that happens to fit it?

As I said - you're advocating the removal of the Challenge Cache concept itself by alter core concepts - there's no middle ground. Remove the physical location - no longer a Challenge Cache; back to Geocaching Challenges. Remove the qualification 'exclusivity' / allow Find Log without qualification - no longer a Challenge Cache; just a Traditional Cache. Should challenge caches be changed? Or should challenge caches be removed? Well call it what you want, I wasn't asking for their removal, just to add a 'Challenge Completed' log to the 'Found Log' option. As you demonstrated, the work involved to do that might be prohibitive and not really feasible. I'm just putting forth ideas, how they would be implemented would be for greater minds than me to figure out. But from the beginning, I've never sought to have them completely removed. "Remove the qualification 'exclusivity' / allow Find Log without qualification - no longer a Challenge Cache; just a Traditional Cache." The accomplishment would still exist. You could have a traditional that celebrates it. If, as you say, that would ruin the challenge cache concept for everyone, then you really have to ask was it the accomplishment itself that you are celebrating, or the finding of the cache? If it is both, well you would still have both. Again the only thing different is others can log it. I know you don't agree with that.

Here is a bookmark list for challenges in the state of Florida. I did see most of your finds were in Florida so I made the assumption you were there. http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=ebb5cb4c-3097-4e42-b476-4544e1c24b8e Often times if you can find one challenge in the state, someone will have made a bookmark list showing all the others or many others. For instance, I maintain a bookmark list for Challenge Caches in the state of Washington. You have over 300 challenge caches, that is more than my state. Here are some interesting challenges in Florida that I found that could consider... http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC4XF2K_florida-top-10-challenge?guid=de06e3d5-342e-4a83-9b93-862d9512d99d Find 10 of the top 20 favorited caches in the state. Or here is another one, find 5 caches in each of Florida's 10 State Parks http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC4VM7X_florida-state-park-challenge?guid=3696a970-4c02-4fd9-a4a8-c94153ff7c5d Ah I see, actually I live in South Carolina now, but I get the idea. Thank you! So it's basically search one-by-one. And finding a challenge cache to fit a particular achievement is virtually impossible.

Apparently. Because if it wasn't, you wouldn't care about logging your physical finds online. Apparently. Because if it wasn't, you wouldn't care about letting non-qualifiers get one. ...because them's the rules. That is by definition what the challenge cache is about. You can't take the "qualification" aspect away and still have challenge caches. That's regardless of the smiley. Isn't that what we're debating... the desirbility of a potential change to the rules?

But it's not just me. Let's say 8% of the geocaching population qualifies for a particular challenge. How is it better for the game that 92% of the people can't log a cache that they physically can find? So would I "ruin" challenge caches for those that like them (arguable since they could still attain those same achievements, even without a cache to "motivate" them) in order to make the game better (by removing the exclusivity from a whole lot of challenge caches) for a larger number of people? I don't know... Which would be better for the majority of those in this thread? Which would be better for those that like challenge caches? Which would be better for those that dislike challenge caches? Which would be better for those who are neutral on challenge caches? Which would be better for Groundspeak? Or, which would be better for the game overall? Hmmm, I don't know. Honestly that's all it comes down to for me. If you can convince me it's better for the game overall and not something that benefits the few at the expense of the many, I'll drop my anti-elitist objection to them.

And you guys never answered my other question... in trying to understand the appeal of the challenge cache I posited a situation. Say this weekend I go to Georgia and get the Lake Lanier cache (placed August 2000), and then I pick up a 2001 cache, and a 2013 cache. Then I will have found a cache placed in every year from 2000-2014. But for the life of me I can't figure out how to search for if there is an existing cache to fit that accomplishment, and even if there is how far I would have to drive to find it. I'm trying to give a challenge cache a try, but they don't even really seem to be searchable other than if you happen to search for keyword "challenge" and that is far too broad.

Apparently. Because if it wasn't, you wouldn't care about logging your physical finds online. Apparently. Because if it wasn't, you wouldn't care about letting non-qualifiers get one.

The only thing it kills is the exclusivity the qualifers have over non-qualifiers That is indeed the challenge cache concept entirely. From your perspective. Rather, the "challenge" in "challenge cache" becomes pointless (for that implementation), or redundant (because it's already in play via custom public profiles). It then is a traditional. The whole point of the Challenge Cache is precisely this "challenge", which Traditional caches do not have. What you want is the removal of "Challenge Caches" in its concept. There isn't a middle ground based on what's been described. The fact that the ALR necessarily means that some can't log it is the definition of the concept; and exactly why there is the guideline for 'reasonable', for accessibility. If the local reviewer feels that the challenge is unattainable by what they believe to be a reasonable portion of cachers, then it won't be published. There are guidelines specifically to attempt to ensure that challenge caches are not fundamentally restrictive. A challenge across the globe that you would find unattainable here, doesn't mean it's unattainable there. But it's there. So what does that matter? Does that make cachers over there "better"? Of course not. Does that make them "privileged"? Lucky, perhaps, to live in a place where the variety of geocaching affords the opportunity to accomplish that achievement. I have no right to complain that a 'lesser' challenge I want to publish here was deemed unreasonable here while a 'harder' challenge was published there because it was deemed reasonable there. These are all subjective judgement calls from the regional reviewers. They have that right. The Challenge Cache concept, fundamentally, enhances the variety of geocaching experiences. Their difficulties and requirements may vary from region to region. They require going out and geocaching to qualify. They may encourage people to try new things, they are completely ignorable. They are only restrictive if approaching from the perspective that all physical caches should be loggable online. That is not objective. That is a player desire, which doesn't trump game rules. You don't have to follow the game rules if you don't want to play it online. Well, I guess we both agree on our respective positions: I see the exclusivity as a bad thing that only prevents non-qualifiers from logging online what is essentially a traditional cache with an invisible artifical barrier. You see that exclusivity as a good thing that makes challenge caches what they are. I guess Groundspeak feels the way things are is what is best for the game, and best for the most amount of people. Certainly more people in this thread agree than disagree.

The only thing it kills is the exclusivity the qualifers have over non-qualifiers. Everything else about the experience would be exactly the same. Seriously, the only thing different a challenge cache would have over this is that "some other people aren't allowed to log it". How is that factually not correct?

There wouldn't need to be 1,000 locationless Jasmer Challenges. There'd only need to be one. They are locationless. What are they going to say "Mark's Jasmer Challenge" "Sally's Jasmer Challenge" "David's Jasmer Challenge" Why wouldn't one be enough? They wouldn't need to approve any others unless they were substantially different achievements. But why would you even need to log anything? You completed the grid. That's the achievement! Hooray! Put it on your profile. Unless you need the smiley for it to be a goal. For me, filling the grid would be the achievement. You could put out 1,000 traditionals that honor such an achievement, that everyone could find. Why should completing the Jasmer grid qualify you for a possibly endless amount of challenge caches that non-qualifiers can't log. How many smileys should completing the Jasmer grid be worth? Well I don't see much difference between "proud to log it" and "happy to log it". But, then I don't see 'competitive' as a necessarily a bad thing. Heck, I like a little bit of competition now and then. I get the impression some people want to stamp every little bit of 'competition' out of Geocaching. FTFs aren't official. Everybody in a group logs a cache, when only one person found it. If I go out with 2 other people, and we seek to find caches, we compete to see who finds the most caches. Only the finder logs a find, others a note. Most people, I gather, would rather be non-competitive, and everybody in the group logs it. To me that's like little league baseball without keeping score because we don't want the kids on the losing team to feel bad. That statement right there should make challenge caches unnecessary. That's all I need to celebrate an achievement. I don't need to go out and find a cache to celebrate an achievement I'm already proud of. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- It seems to all come down to the smiley. If you can put a badge on your profile for completing the Jasmer grid, the smiley for the cache seems entirely superfluous to me, other than it is something separate to do that you can only do after you complete the requirements. And why that should require that non-qualifiers cannot log such is beyond me. You could celebrate an achievement with an "achievement cache" that would be a traditional that everyone could log and do the same thing. Only if you have completed the achievement can you say you've completed the achievement. You're still "just" getting the smiley for finding the cache, not for completing the achievement.

Thank you. Now how would one go about searching for such a challenge cache?