Keystone

It’s locked now.

The above post was originally a separate thread. I merged it into this existing discussion.

The two posts above were originally posted in a separate thread. I merged them into this existing discussion.

I merged the above post into this existing thread. It was originally posted as a separate topic. I also removed an off-topic post. Separate bugs should be reported in separate threads.

I can still see your Geocaching ID number when I hover over your username so that the details pop up, and then I hover on your username again in the popup. Your number is 544466.

If you had created a cache page, I'm sure your Reviewer would have followed procedure for reserving those coordinates. Saying that your Reviewer "didn't allow me to hold a spot" is misleading. Emails don't hold spots - draft cache pages hold spots. With the process having been explained, let's get this thread back on topic to the OP's suggestion.

@chase99g, I checked all ten of the cache pages your account has created, and I don't see any timed publication requests or "works in progress" that were denied for that reason. There is an established process for "reserving a spot." See the post by @arisoft just above. There is also an established process that Reviewers follow for "timed publication" requests. Our instructions on these subjects run for many paragraphs. Back on topic to the OP, the only thing "new" about the request is the ability to specify the future publication date in the "date placed" field at the time of submission. Note that the CO can edit the "date placed" field once the cache is published, to match the publication date if desired.

I'm speculating that this may have been a user error during a testing process. Another way to raise your concerns would be to write to Geocaching HQ's community team via the Help Center and ask them for an explanation.

You can easily fix this on Project-GC by reading and following the instructions at the bottom of the Challenge Caches tab: "All noted challenges which aren't logged, locked or owned are listed. For exclusion they can be tagged in the logs with [NOT-SIGNED]."

Each year, Signal the Frog gives the Moderating Team a Christmas gift. We're allowed to choose one forum thread to close because the site volunteers are being criticized unfairly. For 2023, I've chosen this one! Thanks, Signal, and Merry Christmas to you and all good geocachers around the world.

I moved this thread from the general Geocaching topics forum.

Repeating one of my prior posts: This is close to a direct quote from written guidance provided by HQ to Community Volunteer Reviewers, and is consistent with the public-facing guidance.

Accusations of cultural insensitivity or worse are a very serious matter, so I did some further investigation by studying all event caches that have ever been submitted in India, whether or not they were published. I closely examined the reasons stated by the Reviewer for any event cache that was not published. Here is what I found: Since 2000, there have been 188 event cache pages created with India selected as the event location. Four event cache submissions, all from vacationing/traveling geocachers, are currently pending initial review for event dates in 2024. One event was denied because it was submitted on less than the required 14 days' advance notice. The Reviewer's note dealt solely with that guideline issue. Four events submitted by vacationing geocachers were denied because they were located inside an airport. The Reviewer's note dealt solely with the guideline requiring that events be open for anyone to attend. One event, submitted by a local geocacher, was sent back for revisions because it was described as more of an organized cache hunt instead of a social gathering. The host chose to self-archive their event instead of making the necessary edits. The Reviewer's note dealt solely with the "organized cache hunt" guideline issue. A number of events were self-archived by the geocacher who created the cache page, without ever submitting for review or interacting with the Reviewer. Some published events were canceled by the host for reasons such as changes in travel plans or the lack of "will attend" logs, with no evidence that Reviewer comments led to the decision to cancel. Approximately 50 events, all submitted by vacationing/traveling geocachers, were archived by a Reviewer using a "form letter" note reading substantially as follows: "Thank you for your submission. We have seen an increased number of events submitted by players during holiday trips and many of them are not attended by anyone other than the event host and their traveling companions. This is especially true for events in remote locations and does not fulfill the social aspect of a geocaching event. To that end, we are trying to reduce the number of these types of events. There is no local player community in this location and recent events in this location have not been attended by anyone other than the event host. It is unlikely that anyone will attend this event except you and your travel companions. I am declining to publish this event listing for those reasons. Thank you." I see nothing culturally insensitive in this form note, either. All of the other event cache submissions were published. The vast majority of these were attended by just the visiting organizer and no more than a handful of other visiting tourists, which led to the approach described just above, which Reviewers began using in 2018 at the direction of Geocaching HQ. Based on my study of every event cache page for India, I did not uncover any examples where the Reviewer went beyond using our standard form notes, and added comments about Indian people or culture. I must ask you, therefore, to point me to specific examples of the behavior which you allege to have occurred. You can provide the GC Codes if you don't want to provide the geocaching account names of the Indian geocachers you spoke with. Reviewers are able to see unpublished cache pages. I look forward to your prompt reply with supporting facts.

Congratulations for using your very first forum post to criticize the competence and intelligence of Community Volunteer Reviewers such as Crow T Robot, who has volunteered their time for more than 20 years. In a given month, Crow T Robot probably handles more "long distance cache placements," such as GCAEVWQ, than most Reviewers see in a full year. It's their specialty, and Crow T Robot is very good at it. The note on GCAEVWQ will test the legitimacy of the long-distance maintenance plan offered by the CO prior to publication. If more caches are hidden by local geocachers, then eventually there will be sufficient volume to justify bringing on a local Reviewer. Meanwhile, someone has to handle the occasional submissions from these low-volume countries. The problem isn't the lack of local reviewers, it's the lack of cache placements.

@cubbyhart007, I'm seeing 120 trackables moved/discovered, and one owned trackable, on the trackables tab of your profile page. This includes a travel bug that you logged a few weeks ago. What are you seeing?

I'm closing this duplicate thread.

What about this statement is unclear and needs to be clarified? It's within a few words of being a direct quote of the written guidance provided by HQ to the Community Volunteer Reviewers, building out detail from the public guidance (Adventures "Do not involve placing a physical object or container...")

From and after February 10, 2022, answers to Adventure Location questions are not to be placed in physical geocaches. I'm guessing you found a cache/adventure design set up prior to that date. These have legacy status.

The Adventure Lab guidelines say to make sure all locations "Do not involve placing a physical object or container for the Adventure." Would there be a way to complete the Adventure without having to create a geocaching account and find the five geocaches?

See this Help Center article. If those steps don't work, write to Geocaching HQ via the Help Center. Select category 02, "Payments/cancellations" as the reason for your inquiry, so that it routes to the correct support team.

Follow the links in the posts you're responding to. For example, kunarion linked to a stamp that's sold through Amazon.

Once again, I've shared all the information I know. HQ said on Friday they were aware of the bug. I doubt people worked over the weekend to fix it. Future updates will need to come from HQ staff and you'd most likely see them either in the current Release Notes thread about the new logging flow, or in this thread in the Geocaching.com Website bug reporting and feature suggestion forum.

See this related thread in the "How do I?" forum section, especially my posts where I confirmed that Geocaching HQ is aware of this, and characterizes it as a bug.

I've moved this thread from the General Geocaching Topics forum. As a reminder, in this promotion the recipients of the trackables were asked to place them in geocaches. The trackables could be activated and owned by the recipients.

I merged the above post into this existing thread.