ChileHead

That must have been right after I posted in the CC thread that one year had passed. That's it. After your post an emergency meeting at Groundspeak was called. "'on4bam' posted they need a status, stat!" So the founders and all free lackeys had a pow-wow so they could quickly put together a rushed statement in the hopes of satisfying on4bam. Status was given after a year, I think that's fair. And no, you can't compare GS to Apple. GS doesn't have the resources to make date commitments to an ill defined product.

13 months is not "rushing" It's once again lack of communication. BTW, should "half baked" not be (tm by GS)? (MC comes to mind) Lack of communication? Did you forget who started this thread right at the 1 year mark to give an update? Rock Chalk said they were finishing up and had a few more weeks. If it's another few weeks to get it right, then it's right to do so. I don't expect to get daily updates as part of their scrum stand-up. How often does Apple give updates on their product development during development?

I have the 600 and a PN40. I like the interface better on the Delorme better, but that's a personnel preference. I did like the multiple file support, but like the unlimited geocache support on the Garmin better. Try both, buy on price and usability preference. I wouldn't worry about support, as you will be unlikely to need it on either.

My dog has been to hundreds and hundreds of caches. So far he has sniffed out one. He just wants to walk.

If it increases the social aspect of geocaching, sure. Hopefully the event is more than just finding caches, but sometimes that's what it becomes. Most of the geomobs are released around events. The first one (mine) was found on the day of the event and then not again for many many months.

That sounds like a misunderstanding of something that was said. Not being privy to anything said or posted, I'm speculating. But most people don't randomly start getting angry. Situations like this usually calls for just ignoring that person's caches so it doesn't escalate into a bigger problem.

I also use both. Phone for casual caching, GPS for all day outings because of accuracy, battery, durability.

I often don't have a pen, either I lose it, forget it, or didn't plan on going caching and did. So I've added one of these to my keychain: http://amzn.com/B007IOHPKY It's small, I always have my keys, and it's packaged in a container you could use as a geocache!

A yellow fruit? That's the only way I've seen it.

Help to your friend hide it, but list it in their name.

I'd recommend downloading an app that will let you average a waypoint. This will take a few dozen readings and get a much more accurate reading than a single snapshot from what the phone is showing. I don't have a recommendation on an app since I use my handheld GPS, but I'm sure there are a ton in the app store. Generally you would, with the app (or a handheld): mark a waypoint, select the averaging function, leave it in place for a minute or so to take readings, save it.

Junk - no. But it shouldn't be the only way of verifying a challenge. If a challenge cache owner wants to provide a project-gc checker and a GSAK checker, and accepts both, fine. But logging a cache shouldn't require a windows download of a commercial application (last I checked it was nagware).

Don't see how this is relevant that is like saying you can't have QR codes because I don't have a smart phone or you can't have Chirps because not everyone can find them. I can't find caches up a tree because I can't climb them should they all be banned? In any case I believe you can run GSAK on a MAC with a windows emulator. Monopolies are very bad and I think proven not to work. Variety seems a good idea to me so why not allow GSAK which makes some checking easier. I suggest The fundamental issue here is that not everyone has to be able to find every cache which seems to be forgotten quite often. Desktop software is dead, or dying, for many people. I believe the average new user uses only mobile apps, probably never opened geocaching.com on their computer or even know there is a site, and likely use a phone or tablet for 90% of their internet. Using a desktop application for verification is antiquated. There should be nothing it can do that an online checker can't do now or in the future.

As a reviewer, I'd want to see the Skipper's contact information so that permission can be confirmed. As a cache owner, I'd want to share the Professor's contact information so that interested readers can go to him for guidance on the history, geology and weather conditions on the island. As a player, I'd want to see Ginger's contact information. As a consumer of pies, I'd want to make sure Mary Ann has enough baking supplies. As a player, I prefer Mary Ann anyway to Ginger.

It's a judgement call on the part of the cache owner. I'm not going to quibble about whether it should be a T2 or T3. While I'll often think a T5 in this sort of situation requires a high tree climb, I'll still go "waste" my time looking for the cache and doing the hike, even though I usually won't climb higher than 20-30 feet, tops. In these cases I usually still had fun walking to the cache, getting exercise, and if caching with friends, watching them dare death. As a cache owner, I like to rate my caches how I want them rated, not how others think they should be rated. Most of my paddle caches are not rated a T5 even though people have complained to me about it. Some are accessible during the winter when water is frozen, or when the Erie canal is drained. In the birdhouse/tree case, perhaps the cache owner expects people top prop up an old stump from nearby making access easy. No tree climbing or ladder necessary.

That almost certainly wouldn't have been published prior to the moratorium. It has been published. I stand corrected. We have lonely challenges around here, but not out to a year. The pool of available caches meeting this varies by region, so there is some discretion reviewers have for what makes sense based on the set of available caches in their region. In the new world of cache checkers, even if the checker had access to all user logs, there is no way to tell who was actually first on a given day. For the extremely lonely 1 year challenge, there might be a group of cachers salivating to get to the cache on day 366. So 10 cachers go, all find the cache on various hours of the day. They all log online randomly. A checker - or human - has no way of telling who was actually first at the cache that day. The checker would need to allow all cachers on the same day to claim the cache as qualified.

That almost certainly wouldn't have been published prior to the moratorium.

Requiring a checker will be the first barrier to having challenges submitted like: - find 20 caches with a child - find 10 caches with your dog - find 1000 caches that are part of geoart - find 200 caches in cemeteries - find 10 library caches - find 50 caches between 6am and noon Since it would take a reviewer 10 seconds to identify this problem, and 10 more seconds to send his stock answer, there'd have to be a lot of these submitted for it to be a big part of the burden problem. That is rarely how it goes. It starts that way, and then turns into a lot of email back and forth. Often followed by appeals.

What did I say that made you think I didn't understand that? I'm sure I read the following incorrectly then: Has project-gc checker doesn't mean it's OK (because of the other TBD guidelines), but I think you meant "one" as "one of the requirements" not "the one requirement"

I don't think order is important here. When you come up with a challenge concept, you now need to think about if a checker can be written for it. If not, then you don't bother writing up the challenge cache, and you don't submit it, so therefore there is reduced reviewer load.

Requiring a checker will be the first barrier to having challenges submitted like: - find 20 caches with a child - find 10 caches with your dog - find 1000 caches that are part of geoart - find 200 caches in cemeteries - find 10 library caches - find 50 caches between 6am and noon Before a challenge can be submitted, the CO needs to create a checker, which forces them to think "How can I verify this?" This part is no different than before the moratorium ... they always had to be verifiable, but the cache owner wouldn't necessarily think through the entire process of how it would be verified. Now they have to look at their requirements, what is accessible from within the framework that project-gc (or others in the future) provide. This will remove the first set of interactions with the reviewer - by the time they submit, they have already worked through whether it's verifiable and how to verify, now they just have to make sure it meets whatever the other requirements are.

Because a checker requirement has been disclosed, that's all that folks have to talk about. I understand that. But the new challenge cache guidelines aren't going to be, "has project-gc checker = OK". They'll be some modifications of the existing guidelines, PLUS, must have checker. Review will be as ever, starts with physical cache meets physical requirements, challenge requirements meets challenge cache guidelines, and lastly, has checker. I'm not sure why you're telling me this. As I understand it -- which is consistent with what you're saying -- "has project-gc checker = OK" will be one hard requirement. Isn't that true? That's all I'm talking about. So when reaching that last step, instead of the reviewer rejecting the cache for some specific reason, he rejects it because it has no checker, and the CO has to go to project-gc for advice. I'm just suggesting another approach that produces the same results is to reject a checkerless challenge cache for a valid reason and sends the CO to the GS forums for advice. Whenever insiders describe the problem with reviewing challenge caches, it seems to be that the reviewers feel required to give the advice themselves. Yes, I do dread that other restrictions will be added that I don't like, but I don't see how what I said could become invalid when they're published. Perhaps you could be more specific. Negative accomplishments were previously not permitted. I assume this will continue to be true. So while you could write a checker saying "go 90 days without finding a cache", that fails other challenge guidelines.

They obviously spell Chili wrong. Should be Chile.

In addition to what you mentioned this also assumes quite flat terrain and areas where the route is almost like the crow flies which is pretty unrealistic in my area and in the mountains in general. This sort of checker would not be even be able to recognize round trip caches that cover a route of 180km (header coordinates, parking coordinates and even final coordinates, though hidden anyway, are close to each other.) No, a checker couldn't recognize this. But neither could a challenge cache owner. It's subjective, very subjective. I usually skip parking lot caches and road side caches, but if I happen to be taking a long walk with the dog I might grab them, mostly so I can say I walked 5 miles for the park and grab. Could I use that for a challenge that required a hike of a certain length?

If that is reasonable for reviewers to do, then let's add in others: - Spell check: Lots of cash pages have terribal speling errors. Reviewers shuld refuse to publish until they are fixed. - Push back on misleading hints like "Within 20 feet of a big tree". How big is big? This should say "Within 20 feet of a tree that was over 50ft tall as of the placement date" - Inappropriate use of punctuation & grammar: Not using ' in contractions, redundant use of "!" at the end of sentences, all caps, run on sentences, that sort of thing. - Unproven scientific and historical facts: Often caches pages go on and on and yadda yadda yadda you finally get to the part of the description that matters to a cacher. Any statements made in a cache listing, scientific or historical or other, should be backed by multiple references proving that they are well accepted by the appropriate establishment. Should this not be feasible, cache owners should write a short thesis backing their point of view and submit it with their cache listing. Sarcasm aside, the important thing are the coordinates. People use that to find caches. If I say my cache is "just" north of the town of Fairport, I don't think it will cause anybody confusion if it's actually just a tad NNE of Fairport, which is a village not a town.