CheekyBrit

Changes to caches are totally reasonable to reflect an updated status. I had to change a rare DT to a less special one and could easily contact all the finders. The majority of them drove a long way to find that DT so I archived it and republished under the new DT for the new spot. That wasn't bad with less than 50 finders. But you get an oldie that has hundreds or even thousands of finds and there is no way you can pull that off. And just archiving and republishing is a hard decision for oldies. I don't have an answer either way for that scenario, just helping to muddy the water playing devil's advocate both sides. Sorry.

Thanks for the update. I await their response through you with baited breath. This is exciting.

At a discount store near me that sells old nonsense other stores couldn't sell, there was a bunch of stamps with a large blank area. It was like an outline stamp. I cut off the parts I didn't want and used the blank part of the stamps. Quick crude carving with a dremmel and I was in business for 50 cent a stamp. I wonder if there is something like that near you, possibly in thrift stores.

I am sat over here naively thinking Adventure Lab Caches are mostly immune to cheating (at least couch logging) since they have geo fencing. I guess you could give someone your phone for them to take on a geo-trip. Or maybe have someone log into your account on their phone as they go through an area. Am I missing something, like do people somehow overcome the geofencing?! I'll confess, on a Seattle road trip we pinged a lab cache stage as we drove past and it was multiple choice. We got it even though we didn't quite visit the spot as the CO intended. But I'm guessing peter-tvm is talking about logging it without leaving the couch and using answers online.

WOOOHOOOO!!!!! That did it. You can see the gif working again on my caches: https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC9H5DD and https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC9H56R So here is the full line of HTML using RaynPengi's awesome new solution. <p><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1CrDMo-nCDMkSytBM26-WVd0w2lQiQfS3&sz=s4000" /></p> I tried changing out the size of s4000 to different values and it didn't seem to make a difference. Stick to &sz=s4000 That technique doesn't work for transparent PNGs. Perhaps with some tweaking it will. People can still download the image as a white background JPEG and use something like Paint to turn it transparent on their home computer. That technique is not very friendly for cell phone users.

Curious when the next Giga event could be???? I'm excited to see the next giga cache come back. As far as I can tell, we've only had 11 giga events. GC4K089 Project MUNICH2014 - Mia san Giga! GC50FTF Mainz Gutenberg 2015 GC55555 Project Glück Auf 2016 GC56APX Project GeoXantike GC5AX15 GeoWoodstock 2018 GC6GB1B GREAT MORAVIA 2017 GC77777 Project Hamburg - Im Wandel der Zeit GC7G1GA Project Glück Auf 2022 GC7QQQQ Berlin - Hauptstadt der Spione GC7WWWW 20 Years of Geocaching Prague 2020 – Edition 2022 GC86VDF GeoWoodstock XVIII - GWXVIII - the last one back in August 13th 2022. We have 44 mega events coming up on the calendar, each with the chance to become a giga event if they can reach at least 3000 'will attend' logs by at least four weeks in advance. Here are the closest: 1) GCA6GW6 GeoWoodstock XX has 1676 'will attend' logs so far. 1324 needed in 91 days: 14.5 more per day. 2) GCACN96 5 Jahre Unser schönes Niedersachsen has 1068 'will attend' logs so far. 1932 needed in 119 days: 16.2 more per day. 3) GCAB00K Lesen - Leihen - Loggen has 1007 'will attend' logs so far. 1993 needed in 168 days: 17.8 more per day. GeoWoodstock XX has the best chance of going giga, though it needs 14.5 more 'will attend' notes per day. That's a bit steep. There's an attached chart of their progress thus far (there's only a few data points; I was feeling lazy, sorry). Things will need to pick up a bit, but it is still totally possible. So if you want to go to a giga event, or at least have them come back, your best bet is to add a 'will attend' note to GCA6GW6 GeoWoodstock XX in Flagstaff Arizona, USA May 25th 2024, get your friends to do the same, then all come on down for an awesome time.

Like me! I just changed careers so I can travel, specifically for geocaching.

You would probably indeed have to archive it. There are not many spots where you can get that terrain rating.

That was how I did it, but now we need a whole new approach.

Among MANY other things, I'm striving to not just complete a bingo, but get a blackout for GC3D5E - the ironman bingo challenge. Also to be so involved with this awesome community forum that mine is the only icon, just like EGO from guardians of the galaxy 2.

I've had similar experiences with friend's Garmins. Phones are convenient in your pocket already with the info available on the app without having to input it, but Garmins and other dedicated devices have an edge. I notice it most when I'm way out in the mountains out of signal and only the pre-downloaded maps on either phone or Garmin are available.

I am so jealous. I need to change careers.

You could have the coordinates correct but it is still far away in the Z axis - up the tree where the blinking light is... Another option is to have earlier stages/waypoints that need accurate GPS, like the parking area with coordinates in a container to head you toward the light viewing spot. Better yet, an earlier stage could have padlock combination answers.

Oh, you'll love this. My wife and I did a geo-art themed off of mint tins since they were the first few she found and she thought ALL geocaches were mint tins at first. (I can feel your dread, reading that). We opted to use waterproof 50ml centrifuge containers for the series. It breaks the theme but I told her pretty much what this thread concluded.

There are so many directions they could go with this, I'm excited to see what pops up in 2024. Something like this: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/47926 would be crazy, but i'm sure they'll have new stats that weren't in last year. I'm guessing more on the badge gen progress - eg: you went from 1 multi fizzy loop to 2 multi fizzy loops....

Yeah, there were a lot of surprises. This stat break down was amazing.

We hopefully shouldn't expect retaliation, but I'm sure they could picture it as a possibility. For the small effort of making a new account from scratch for anonymity weighed against the low chance, high unpleasant risk of possible retaliation, I'm guessing it must have been worth it to err toward caution. But I agree with you, we shouldn't expect retaliation for trying to keep things within guidelines and do the right thing. The webcam that archived near me due to selfies whilst under maintenance was sad, but it was against the rules. No whistle blower - HQ caught it on their own, and I wish they hadn't archived it, but I understand why. Different situation but parallel.

There are situations where I totally agree with you, probably most situations. Archiving just for a few people sounds similar to a super mild form of nepotism - tailoring it for a lucky or outspoken few. At the same time, I can picture some worthwhile exceptions. Some of the intricate puzzles and/or mountainous geocaches in my area that are high rare DTs and types only get found by a small crowd of nutters and stat freaks like me. When we're looking at finds only from that small amount of the community (less than 10 people), especially when they drive from different states to find that DT, I personally feel like it is worth the discussion with them. I'm thinking of ones like GC9H56R - a 4.5/5 slot canyon hide that requires rappelling entry and rope ascending exit - 5 finders in 2 years, 2 from out of state for this DT. If that slot canyon cave roof became unusable due to a rock collapse or something, the rating of the replacement container would be off for sure.

This happened with one of mine but in a different way - the conditions didn't change, I was just stoopid with two o's. I accidentally flipped the difficulty and terrain rating when I published it. There were some people that drove hundreds of miles for that DT rating to be a part of their trip. When I noticed, I knew I had to do one of the suggestions in this thread - change it or archive and republish with the new DT. It certainly couldn't stay a terrain 4 when it's a 1.5. In my case it wasn't an oldie, so it was easy to archive without pain. I contacted the various people that had found my cache to let them know my intent to archive and republish under the proper DT and they appreciated the heads up, especially since some of them would have been unqualified for already found challenges they had used my cache for. GCA7AKX is live again and my local reviewer supported the decision. Great discussion, everyone. It's good to hear other people's inputs. And thank you for keeping it civil - it's no fun when it gets heated.

This is across all approved 3rd party image hosting techniques for transparent PNGs and GIFs. I noticed it worked on Wednesday but not on Friday. Sad days. I tried adjusting things and nothing I have tried works yet. The images definitely work on the google drive end so it is certainly the HQ code adjustment Freddo mentioned.

Hügh, that is fantastic! That checker for https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC6JWV8/20958 works a treat. And I'm pretty sure that was the one I was looking at all that time ago. Thank you

Somewhere out there in the vast project-gc universe are two amazing checkers that I once used and have since lost. One was a challenge checker that will show you the DT grid of your finds in the single county you are closest to completing. The other was a checker to see if you have a 1 year streak using only physical geocaches (not events, virtuals, labs, or earth caches). I used both some time last year but cannot find them anywhere now. To make it harder, I was at a hotel computer so I don't have the history :(. They're not listed in https://project-gc.com/w/Tools_in_the_checker_system and I can't seem to find them anywhere by any searching method I know other than this. Does anyone know where to find them? Cheers, CheekyBrit

I am lucky enough to be hosting a Geocaching International Film Festival event (GIFF) tomorrow. I was told the showreel would be emailed to me before the event and I haven't seen it yet. I'm getting a bit nervous I'll have nothing to show when it starts. Has anyone else received their showreel for events they are hosting yet? Cheers, CheekyBrit

OOOOH I like that. The critical mass of hides I guess is the real essence of the thought experiment. I have definitely been trying to build my local area into something that would be more 'on the radar' of other geocachers, building geo-art, different types, wireless beacons, gadget caches, challenges and all that jazz.

Thought experiment: This is probably against the rules but my guess is it has happened a time or two. Picture a small town with no geocaches in it and a tiny population. Say a place like Seipäjärvi, 99520, Finland for example. Imagine one of the townsfolk discovered geocaching on a trip to the nearby city and got hooked, but there are zero geocaches within 5 miles of them. They could hide some and hope people find them. They could try and get some family and friends into the game and they could each hide some. BUT, imagine they decided to pull a 'castaway' move and create a bunch of fake accounts (sock puppet accounts?) for people that don't exist, like Wilson the volleyball in the movie 'Castaway'. Then they could have a bunch of geocaches created by themselves and their fake accounts and have them all find each others. It would look like a thriving town with a healthy geocaching community. Nobody would know unless there was an event and another real person showed up and just saw one lonely person in a room. I'm pretty sure something like that is against the rules. I know there are a few exceptions justifying multiple accounts or sock puppet accounts, like reviewers who are anonymous but also play the game, but ignore that for the thought experiment. I can also totally see someone doing that. I'll wager something like that has happened somewhere on the planet, even just to kickstart the geocaching in an area. What do you think?