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ChileHead

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Everything posted by ChileHead

  1. I assume the only way this could be valid is if the cache had posted parking coordinates, so that you could use the difference in parking & location to determine if it is > 20km. There's an attribute for > 10km, but not one for a larger number. Of course it gets complex if the posted coords were 1km from the first (public) waypoint of a 20km multi, as now a checker cannot be written.
  2. I find it funny how many posts here talk about word challenges, as they are mostly pretty mundane. Their checkers should be pretty easy to write and maintain, but requires effort on the CO to come up with the initial set of acceptable words. I haven't used lua, but am proficient in dozens of other langues (my background is compiler & language design), so I expect that a language like lua should be able to easily check if a cache title contains one word in a list. I'd be more interested in seeing what sorts of challenges that currently exist can't have checkers written for them, and what would have to change either on the GC side or on the project-gc side to make the viable.
  3. I saw a challenge checker that seemed to do that. It had a a list of qualifying caches (not that every cache in the list had to be found) I always believed a challenge cache could not require finding a specific list of caches - but this suggests I was misinformed! They can't. You can write a challenge checker for it, and a reviewer may have erroneously published such a challenge, but they were not allowed in the previous rules. I assume this won't change with the new rules.
  4. For most challenges put out by decent cache owners, you are right - probably rarely a dispute. There are challenge cache owners whose sole purpose with their cache is to dispute finds and nit pick. I can't say how many of these there are as I don't see what appeals sees, but I know it happens. I'd rather see requirement very clearly defined in code to remove all doubt, and to remove the controlling cache owners. And speaking as a developer, I believe everybody should be beholden to us. All bow down to the mighty code jockeys. We don't get the chicks you know, so give us something.
  5. What's an animal? Just a mammal, or any of the tens of thousands of insects? Who decides? What language? Can I use qen/pas/gos/pas/pes/hund/hond/koira/chien/can/kutya/hundur/cane/etc ... as they are all dog in other languages? Forcing the use of a checker removes all doubts.
  6. Your doubts are becoming tiresome. The announcement from day one of the moratorium were pretty clear about the time reviewers spent, appeals spent, and the angst caused by cachers and cache owners. I think you mean reviewers, not moderators. Yes, the interpretations are part of the problem. The challenge cache checker removes most/all(?) the interpretations. You should be happy for that if that bothered you. And that's why you aren't a moderator or reviewer.
  7. Posts like this disincent me from responding to questions in the forums. What I'll do here is not respond further to you, but to continue responding to others. Is there a like button in these forums?
  8. I'd support raising the rates in this way: Charge $5 (or whatever) for each challenge cache submitted, regardless of whether it was published or not. Don't raise rates so the players who are not interested in challenges have to pay more. They did. It's been figured out, and the final details are being worked. The first announcement here makes it clear they are coming back very very soon. If they weren't coming back, the announcement would have been quite a bit shorter.
  9. Why would you care? If somebody bothers you to add an attribute or something, feel free to ignore them. I can't imagine the number of people emailing cache owners to add something to their cache page will be significant.
  10. The more ridiculous a challenge, the more likely somebody is going to come up with a cache that fulfills somebody's need for some obscure combination of cache-name/attribute/diff/terrain/whatever. A challenge's primary purpose should be to set a goal that a cacher aspires to meet, not to provide power for an over controlling cache owner to yield over another.
  11. I think that for future challenge caches the requirements have to be specified exactly - e.g. 15 caches with the flashlight attribute or with the flashlight attribute and some other set of additional attributes etc. The drawback of this is approach certainly that it allows for much less flexibility and the fact that the set of attributes is somehow quite arbitrary and for many aspects no attributes exist is a further inconvenience. So far for example people argued that the >10km attribute suffices as it is enough for filtering out caches and that further information can be provided in the description. The argument does not any longer hold when it comes to automatic challenge checkers. That will make the review process much easier and demonstrable, and will make proving to the cache owner that you completed it much easier. The example of night caches ... how else can you determine it's really a night cache other than by an attribute? How does the CO decide it qualifies? The attribute makes it a lot clearer.
  12. OK, now that one is a good example of a cache where I'd wish there was a Geochecker. It's listed as a low difficulty, yet I have no clue how to "solve" it. My first step is to try the coords I have available to be sure they are not in fact GZ. Nope, there's no Geochecker. Now I'm stuck. If I'm super-excited about having the answer, I'll contact some sources (CO, whatever). If I guess the bridge in the photo is not off-limits*, I may poke around there when I'm in the area. Otherwise, to the bottom of the pile it goes. *I'm very bad at guessing whether a place is off-limits. Most around here probably understand how my puzzles reveal themselves, usually more on the tech side. Click the image and "explore"
  13. I concede checkers sometimes aren't needed, but I find them convenient to confirm I've copied the coordinates from wherever they were displayed into text. Instead of just typing the answer into my database, I can copy what the checker echoed, thus ensuring there were no mistakes. A checker can also alert me that I've followed a red herring, imagined or designed, that led me to a plausible answer that, nevertheless, wasn't actually the puzzle's solution. I've also noticed some COs will provide the checker just to avoid telegraphing that the answer will come in a form that doesn't need confirmation. Here's an easy one to solve: http://coord.info/GC5BXMY How would a coordinate checker possibly help, when the coords are clear when you find it?
  14. Many of my puzzles are the type that when solved, the solution tells you the coordinates. A coordinate checker would be worthless.
  15. Did you sign it? If not, I'd say no. That is a basic rule of geocaching, that your name has to be in the logbook. I have spotted caches from the ground that are high up that I don't claim because my name isn't in the book. However, I have claimed finds on caches where a monkey friend retrieves the logbook and I sign in before the logbook is returned (which is lame I admit.)
  16. I have no idea what the concern is with the cache. What bothers you?
  17. Agreed 100% Hans Yes please! I don't see myself using it at all without that option, as the next step would be to make a PQ.
  18. I've put out a lot of caches, with a variety of D/T ratings. It used to be that there was a considerable investment of time and money to start geocaching. You had to find out about it, decide if you wanted to invest $200 or more into a hand held GPS, figure out the technological bits about loading GPSs into the device, etc ... Placing caches was done for other people who had the time and money to get into this hobby. There were almost no people of the sort "I think I'll try geocaching this afternoon". The barrier to entry was too high. Smart phones have made this a thing of the past. This is a good thing. It's also a bad thing, as too many people who haven't bothered to read what geocaching is about will find a cache and not replace it, not replace it properly, take a TB and not know what to do with it, or will just find a few caches near their house and trash them. I, as a cache owner, appreciate having different tools at my disposal that I can use to limit who can see my cache. I try to avoid making caches PMO in general. I will if, as happens every couple years, a cache thief blows through the area. Most times we believe it's a young kid who discovered the geocaching app and just wants to be a jerk. Besides making caches PMO, I have the option of bumping up my D/T when appropriate, or only hiding caches that are a bit harder, so that my caches don't become training grounds for new cachers. I think it's a good thing to limit what caches can be seen through the app based on membership level. Other options could be time based as well. Open up higher D/T after they have been members more than {TBD} weeks or months, or after they have found more than {TBD} caches. This lets the newbie cachers find the easy caches near their home to get started, and once they have become more committed via time & effort, more caches open up.
  19. To save space (and time), the group that I sometimes cache with after breakfast at Durfs usually signs in "Durfs 9" (or however many people we have.) So far nobody has given us any problem for doing so. If the cache page requested individual log entries, changes are we wouldn't have read that anyway, depending on the cache type. So iffy on whether I'd bother honoring their request.
  20. Is there a way of making lists available for offline use, like you can in the old app? Maybe I'm overlooking where this is?
  21. I set my time zone to London, looked at your profile, and now it shows it as 3/01. I bet you have your time zone set incorrectly.
  22. Go here: https://www.geocaching.com/account/settings/preferences What do you see for your Time Zone? I wonder if you have it set to England, or something like that, that is ahead, and all the date/time is being formatted for your preferred time zone.
  23. Serious question - why does it matter? I can see wanting the souvenir, but how is the date relevant at all? I'm also seeing 2/29 as your date.
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