KBLAST

One of the main reasons I chose the title of this thread was to prevent the conversation from turning into the same thread as the one already dedicated to battling for/against challenges and fixing challenges. Of course, if you think the greater problem really IS challenges, and your fix will solve the problem, I guess this is still on topic.

So the REAL solution would be for apathetic COs to step up and quit letting people "slide by" just because they don't want to deal with the backlash or are too lazy/don't care? That would require all COs to be on the same page about their responsibilities. I guess I'd be surprised to see someone chime in and say, "Screw you! We apathetic COs are united in our... um... apathy! We'll play it however we want!" So the chances of some of the folks who ARE part of the problem reading is pretty slim. Is there a way to deal with THIS problem (other than the aforementioned wait until it falls into disrepair and let it get archived)? De reason discussions are fierce are mostly because people CARE about their hobby. There would be no discussion if no one cared, they would just let it go. I love people fighting and caring about the hobby fiercely. I've fought from time to time, myself. I just hate when we (yes, including me) fall into hateful diatribes instead of constructive discussions. This post doesn't seem to have fallen into that. I like it that way.

I think you're probably right, Narcissa, but there are some things that made me want to at least have the discussion. The game is evolving and I see a lot of new players in our large city being confused. Maybe that's part of my interest - I see it all over the greater Columbus Ohio area where we see dozens of new players each week. Everyone who knows me will tell you that I spend WAY too much time trying to make people happy, and when I see people getting upset, I go out of my way to help. Call it a flaw, I'm OK with that. I just want to see new players enjoy the game and fewer older players ticked off because the rules change or things are taken away because of conflicts. It hurts my heart when I see the obviously strong feelings going back and forth about challenges - "GET RID OF THEM ALL OR I QUIT!", "IF YOU GET RID OF CHALLENGES I QUIT!" - and other things - "LET ME LOG THIS FIND OR I QUIT!" "DELETE THEIR LOG OR I QUIT!" I just want to help bring out ideas that may not have been considered before to help make this game better. BTW - on a side note - I've been pleasantly surprised by the intelligent discussion happening in this thread as opposed to some others I've seen.

But, do we need to dumb down caches (mysteries, challenges, multis) in order for those who are not able or just won't understand way you "solve" a cache. It seems that people (the few on this forum, not the majority that doesn't read/post here) have a problem with challenges that are "to complex" or "to hard". If you do away with challenges for that reason, then what about D5 mysteries? What about multi stage caches with 20+ waypoints and hard to find tags and fieldpuzzles in hard to crack codes (enigma, DNA, Pig latin...). The argument "to difficult" should never be used. I don't understand the rules of cricket but won't walk onto a field, throw a ball and claim a point/win because I can't be bothered to learn the rules. Maybe Groundspeak should create "Geocaching 2.0" and allow for things like challenges in it. The hobby will attract more and more people, probably exponentially. These people will all start with the simple concept of "finding a cache". When you think you need to "educate" all the players, it's because the "rules" are becoming too complex. cron, I really like this idea. It'd be a major change in Groundspeak's philosophy, but may solve a LOT of the issues I see over and over. What if there were a "basic version" of geocaching, one that is purely traditionals, or some simple puzzles - what if there were a way to at some point "unlock" the higher complexities of the game instead of just throwing everyone into the same pool and saying, "have fun!" I think Groundspeak tried to do that in a few different ways - premium membership caches, the "beginner cache" attribute, and some other things, but I think that making a stronger divider might help resolve a lot of the conflict we see every day. The biggest problem I see would be those casual cachers who just want to go out and find good hides. NOTHING is wrong with those people, they just don't want to get into complexities, and they have a legitimate complaint that the more difficult caches would be taking up premium caching space and taking away from their fun. "What do you mean I can't place a cache here - I don't SEE anything within 528 feet! Oh - ANOTHER one of those stupid (insert nifty new name here) caches!" I think this also was attempted with some other spin-off geocaching sites, but it never got the traction because of the organization and QC Groundspeak brought to the game. That and the sheer numbers of geocaches. Now I'm just rambling. Would love to hear other thoughts on this.

If this game has hard and fast rules then let's start calling them RULES instead of Guidelines, at least for the parts not open for debate or discretion! I think that might be part of Groundspeak's challenge, as well... with games like Scrabble and Settlers of Catan it's a lot easier to make hard and fast rules. In an ever evolving game like this one, there are some rules you DON'T want to make because it would hinder the creativity of the CO's and prevent excellent geocaches being published. Here comes my third game reference in this thread - I think there are some parts of geocaching that remind me of Dungeons and Dragons (NERDS OF THE WORLD UNITE!!!) There ARE some hard and fast rules in D&D, but then players are allowed to make decisions that are outside of the box to make things interesting - and that's part of why every game I've been in has evolved as the game moved along. There is a person in charge, however, who decides if the decisions made by the players is within the SPIRIT/BOUNDS of the game. I see the reviewers as this person, this dungeon master. Funny, we get into arguments over decisions the dungeon master makes, as well, and every dungeon master is a little bit different. If this is the case, then maybe we need to stop complaining so much and creating such headaches and recognize it's not about the rules, it's about the spirit of the game. But that would mean we are wrong and the reviewer is right, which a lot of us can't handle. And getting back to one of the other issues - we're bringing tons of newbies in to play who know NOTHING about the game, and then expect them to understand this concept. Again - there needs to be a better way to help get this across, but no newbie in D&D is going to read the entire version 4.5 rulebook, they're going to get some help and learn from others. I can't even IMAGINE someone downloading an app and jumping into a Dungeons and Dragons game with seasoned players and no one to guide them - it'd be overwhelming!!! I guess it seems like that's a large part of the problem I see around here, and I'm not sure what can be done to make it better.

I 100% agree with everything in here. If you agree with this, as well, the question becomes, "whose house are we playing at, Groundspeak?" If it's on a cache by cache basis (whoever the CO is will determine the "house rules") then it's no wonder we have issues with new players, and this should be expected. But we shouldn't get mad when one CO plays the game this way when another one plays it this way. Would that remove any need for ANY rules arbitration? I think the reason there are arbitrations currently is because Groundspeak believes this is a game with hard and fast rules. But it's hard to get through them all without either A) someone guiding you or B ) a willingness by the player to seek out the rules pertinent to the portion of the game you are playing. I wish there were a good "quickstart" guide or something for geocaching, but that'd be like trying to throw all the rules of something like "Settlers of Catan" into a paragraph. On second thought, chances are there would be a number of players who wouldn't even read the paragraph if it WERE available.

Since we don't (really) know, I'd say that's my guess too. - Though it's always a blame game when so many's involved, with quite a few already saying "just ignore 'em", as if they know what the issue is. I couldn't find that statement from Groundspeak though (Reviewer workload) and would sure like to know where I can find that. Thanks. I found AustinMN's first post in this thread to be quite accurate and helpful. See the moratorium announcement about how challenge caches constitute a disproportionate percentage of appeals volume. Most of the harder appeals work is on the new cache submission side and not on the deleted find side. Bear in mind that the challenge cache typically doesn't reach the appeals desk at Geocaching HQ until after several rounds of discussion with the local reviewer. As a group, the reviewers were finding that challenges represented a disproportionate percentage of "hard reviews." This is true regardless of whether an individual reviewer "likes" or "hates" challenge caches as a player. I don't like five-star math puzzles, but they tend not to be very difficult for me to review, so there is no problem I've needed to escalate. Thank you Keystone! I know I, like a number of others, saw another recent challenge cache topic and thought that was the "straw that broke the camel's back." From what you're saying, the lack of education for players wanting to find a cache is not the greater issue, but more the lack of education for people wanting to place challenges and, to a lesser extent, the subjectivity involved with approving those challenges. Then in that case, maybe my entire title is a bit of a misnomer. I'm more concerned in this topic with how to prevent watering down the game while still allowing it to be fun for both the seasoned competitors and the casual players.

NiraD you very eloquently and succintly summed up EXACTLY why I created this topic. Thank you very much! Now if we can just find some answers.

I'd think after (maybe) most of a year, and the pages from User Insights, "rules" aren't gonna need much clarifyin'. I REALLY hope you're right, cerberus, I guess I'm concerned that this is a slippery slope... will multis be the next to go because new players don't understand the rules and sign the paper in the first container, therefore causing too much of a backlog on reviewers? It seems like 95% (yes, I'm making that number up) of the arguments I'm involved with are over "how to play the game" issues. And I see, "Let everyone play however they want" thrown all over, and "but you're not playing by the rules!" from the other side. Meanwhile, newbies come along and don't read ALL of the rules before playing - they just go and get. Are we as cache owners supposed to manage the game by the rules (since they won't need much clarifyin') or are those just guidelines and let the newbies do whatever they want? I always thought this was a rules-based game, but the arguments I'm seeing make me wonder what this is, REALLY.

Sure could. That to me is a changing of the rules. In my Scrabble example, we're partway through the tournament and suddenly everyone can play Spanish words. My point of this post is not to solve the challenge cache problem, it's to hopefully help with clarifying rules and intent once challenges have been updated.

I TOTALLY agree. But I believe that even if challenges are eliminated, reviewer workload will become a problem AGAIN, just with something else, because of the bigger issue (in my mind). It seems like we got rid of locationless caches, then virtuals became the problem. We got rid of virtuals, challenges became the problem. And in all of these scenarios, it seems like what was a good idea at one point became abused either due to human nature, or difficult to articulate rules/guidelines, or both.

This topic is twofold - I'm going to discuss what I think the REAL problem is and see if others agree, and if you agree, what solution is there that Groundspeak/we as a community could implement? I'm going to start with a recent exchange with a brand new cacher that I had: I have a Quickerington Challenge (http://coord.info/GC2RKXP) and my Ohnocarwashingtexasodakio multicache (http://coord.info/GC2RM0P) logged recently by a newbie with 12 finds (he didn't complete the challenge requirements and only found the first stage of the multi). I wrote the newbie and politely explained the rules for multis and challenges and invited him to come to some local events, and asked him to change his "found it" to a note. He wrote back saying, "Sorry, I'll change it ASAP." Three days later, no change, so I deleted his logs. He almost immediately relogged them. I deleted them again. He relogged them again. I wrote him again and said, "Please stop logging these two caches, you haven't completed them." He responded, "Last I checked geocaching is free to play and I can do what I want. I'm logging them as found so I know which ones I've found and which I haven't." I wrote him back to tell him he didn't find the multi, NOR did he complete the challenge. I deleted his logs again. Nothing since that, but this is why I feel bad for newbies - it's his fault for being a bit of a jerk, but on the flip side, he had no one teach him the rules... he's just playing by his own. This is merely an example of problems I've run into with Earthcaches, puzzles, and even traditionals. Here is what I believe is the greater problem: THERE IS NOT A GOOD WAY TO TEACH THE RECENT INFLUX OF NEWBIES ALL OF THE CORRECT RULES, AND SOME OF THE RULES ARE NOT CLEAR. Stick with me for a moment. Let's say we set up an worldwide Scrabble tournament. Everyone is allowed to play, they just have to download the app. They get the general rules, so they jump in. One player plays Kmart, and the game lets it happen, then there's an appeal, the people enforcing the rules have to get involved, and eventually it is deleted. But on another game, guess what? Kmart was played again. A bunch of old time Scrabble players who know the REAL RULES complain that the new players shouldn't be allowed to play Kmart, the new players talk about how it's a word in their house, there's a lot of fights. Meanwhile, in Mexico, "perdedor" is played. No one explained what language this tournament is in! So I guess my example above also brings up another issue - is this just a hobby or a game? If the Scrabble tournament is a hobby, then people can play whatever they want and it doesn't matter! I love Scrabble, and would NEVER play in such a tournament. So what is geocaching? Is it a hobby with a few game-like attributes thrown in? Should those game-like attributes allow players to play however they want and forget the "rules" or "guidelines" of the game because they're just suggestions? I guess I feel like this challenge moratorium is a microcosm of some bigger questions Groundspeak needs to answer. And maybe that's why they're asking for our input - to find out what kind of game/hobby we really want this to be? OK - enough of my ramblings - DISCUSS.

Hooray for mileage! I actually think Keystone is correct and Bear and Ragged are correct. It's been so long since I've messed with travel bugs that I'd forgotten that "dipping" did not create an email. I went back and the last time one was "picked up" or "dropped off" was in 2013. Now I feel dumb. And annoyed that people are wandering around with my trackables for 2 years without dropping them or anything! Oh well. Thanks all!

I thought all of my trackables were just lost or sitting for a long time. Today I decided to go look at my trackables for the first time in probably over a year, and some of them have moved and been picked up, etc. fairly recently. I haven't received any emails for ANY of my own coin/trackable activity. I checked my spam folder to make sure it wasn't getting stuck there, and there is nothing relating to trackables in my spam for the day the most recent trackable was logged (August 29th). Has this ever happened to anyone else? Any suggestions on how to get the emails again?

Part of my enjoyment of geocaching is challenging myself from time to time to something new and different. I also enjoy challenging others. So when the 31 days of caching came out last year, I upped the ante. 31 days in a row was easy for me, so I added a personal stipulation to match the images on the cache dates. Doing the 6 things for this year is VERY easy, but a race? That could be a fun challenge! So here I am, trying to make the rules and lay the groundwork for what I hope will be fun for many in our area. I'm even considering grabbing the 7 tags to give to the winner! I think I've decided to give a very arbitrary starting time like sunrise on August 1st to try to keep folks from going after earthcaches and such that they shouldn't be getting until after dark, anyway. I'm still thinking about it. Maybe I'll do a breakfast event that Friday morning to "wrap up" the challenge and get them the last souvenir. Just brainstorming.

Last year's August icons was made more fun for me by challenging myself to find caches directly related to the Souvenir pictures for each day. I had a great time doing it, but this year the challenge is a little different. I'm interested in getting some other folks in my area involved in a challenge for this year's August souvenirs. I'd like to make a "First to achieve" contest LOCALLY. This is like the FTF race - nothing official, just for fun. The goal would be to challenge folks to be first to legitimately earn the achievement souvenir - in other words, don't do 6 caches the week before and log them all like you did them on August 1st. So - the question I have is - when will the icons be OFFICIALLY available? Will it be midnight of the local time zone, midnight GMT, midnight Pacific Time, or what? I want to set up the parameters for the race so people know when they can officially start.

When I saw this streak I decided it wasn't hard enough for me. I've done 365, I wanted something memorable. So I looked at the geocaching calendar Groundspeak made and decided to get a cache that corresponded with every one of the dates. Little did I know that the souvenirs matched the days of the month!!! Worked out great! Here we are on the 27th and I got a cache called "Fish Luck" where you get a fish sticker when you find it. I'll be posting a blog at some point when I get all of my pictures together (and, since we're almost done with the streak anyway, I may as well wait until it's finished!) Some pictures were harder than others (I lucked out on the hot air balloon one) and some were easy (light pole, anyone?) At any rate, it's been a LOT of fun for me and I'm grateful for the fun challenge!!!

I am very lucky to live in Central Ohio where we have a WIDE variety of caches - some very intense and challenging caches, and some light posts and guardrails. I tend to hide the challenging ones because it's what I love. There are others who hide the zip ties and LPCs and guardrails. I find them all. For me, I tend to use challenge caches to keep the less interesting ones more interesting for me. Just the other day I ran a little series of easy caches in the area because I had to find exactly 42 caches in one day to complete a challenge based on the TV series "Lost". Anyway, if you ARE looking for the challenging caches, they ARE out there, and I've found them all over the country. Keep your eyes open and rank the caches by terrain... that's how I find a lot of great challenging caches. Also, make sure you check out the multi's and puzzles - you never know what you'll find with those. I've done a number of field puzzles that ended up being amazing adventures. I'm not sure if you were just posting to vent and you'll never be back, or if you were really looking for kindred souls. I'd love to give you some examples of great challenges I've done if you're interested. I've just never been in Texas, so I can't help you there.

I was going after a FTF in the area and got there only to find out I had been beaten out by someone else. I put in the log that I couldn't read the name. The FTF posted his note pointing out that he knew me from a LONG time ago. Turned out he was the twin brother of one of my best friends in HS (that was 20 years ago)! We've since become friends, and on top of all of that, he's the head of parks and rec in one of the towns I place caches! It's been great all the way around.

There were three different people with iPhones saying the same thing. One of them called me while they were doing it and described where they were, which is clearly inside the zone. I made fairly large zones when I put it together. They are also describing the screen that pops up when they enter the zone. I double checked with them to make sure they didn't enter the zone, then move out of it. I've never had anyone other than iPhone users have trouble with that aspect. I will be going out with at least one of the teams a week and a half from now to run it with them and see if it's something we can trouble shoot. I posted here mostly to see if anyone else has heard of this kind of issue with the iPhone app. I wrote the first 2 off as possible user error, but when a third said the same thing, I grew suspicious.

Hey there! I have now had 3 people complain about the iphone app and the Wherigo I created. In my Wherigo, there is an item you attain (bugspray) and a zone you use it in. If you try to use the bugspray outside of the zone, it gives you an error message. Inside the correct zone, it allows you to go on to the next portion of the Wherigo. The 3 people have tried using the bugspray in the zone, and it gives them the error message. This appears to ONLY happen with people using the iPhone app. Here is the cache page if you are interested. Is there anything I can do to help my poor iPhone friends?

I did not mean to hurt anyone with my post here. I was legitimately concerned with what knowschad pointed out is apparently perfectly acceptable. I think it's too bad that it is, but it doesn't matter what I think, it matters what the community thinks. That being said, I'd rather not leave a topic open that I began that adds to the hard feelings and that could continue causing problems. Could a mod please lock this one down? Thanks.

Knowschad - thanks for your input. I agree, she does have reason for saying them. She stated her problems with our antics on the event cache page. She did have some things occur. We purposely did NOT respond to her on the event page because we didn't want an amazing event to turn into a "forum thread". I was going to leave it alone and leave her to be unhappy, but then she took her anger out in what I deem to be an inappropriate place. I have NO PROBLEM with her believing what we did was wrong. She is entitled to her opinion. My question on this forum is (and I'm sorry if this was not made clear in the OP): should someone be allowed to smear a candidate for Geocacher of the Month and the post left there for an international community to see? Is that the purpose of Geocacher of the Month? If it is, I hope no one I know ever gets nominated, because I don't want my "dirty laundry" brought out for the world to see. And my OTHER question is, is there anything I should do? Since posting earlier I discovered that someone had posted a reply (again - should that even be the place to post something like that?) and also found the email to write to Groundspeak geocacher of the month. I wrote them and am awaiting their reply. This is something I have never seen happen in the voting for "Geocacher of the Month". I didn't find it appropriate and was offended by it. I'd like to think I would be EQUALLY offended if lulusoy or anyone else had this kind of thing done to them, but I can't say that honestly, because it was my friend who was attacked. I brought it to the forums to see how the unaffected would feel about this kind of slander, and apparently it is OK with everyone else. I get it. I don't see how this is in any way childish, but maybe that's because I'm the one who did it.

Apparently I brought up a topic that either no one really cares about or I blew out of proportion or whatever. I still believe that it was wrong, not just tacky, to post a negative and vindictive comment like that, but I understand that the geocaching community at large doesn't think it's a big deal. Thanks for your input.

Btw - just so we're all clear - I did not post the response. That was someone else.