Team Pixie

That's not what I meant, although I can see how you could have interpreted it that way. No, I was just amused that we talked so much about category challenges while none of us had any clue the actual restriction would be even more severe than just categories. There's really no way forbidding challenges based on cache name could be aimed at making it simpler or better defined since as long as the lists are fixed, they're already simple and clear cut. The only possible reason for the name restriction is to satisfy those that blame challenge caches for bad caches they've seen planted. An individual cache listing could be very simple and clear cut, but that should also be the case for the criterium the reviewers use. I don't want to start another pointless discussion, but can imagine some issues when reviewing fixed lists. How long would a fixed list be allowed to be? A threshold could be added to the guidelines (let's say 25 ), but whatever the chosen number might be some hiders would complain that that number is too low. Is the list complete, and why are certain items included (or not) in the list? P.ex. a cache that challenges to find cache names starting with 20 different letters of the alphabet that are included in a fixed list, with the letter T being the only one that's not included (because the CO doesn't like tea). However it may be, interpreting customers' wishes and dislikes and satisfying them will have been among the reasons for the decisions that were made.

I think it shows very well why these challenges are forbidden now. It's fine to have a good discussion in the forums, but when cache hiders and finders are having the same discussion it leads to appeals. And it's far easier to ban them all than to start a whole new discussion about where to draw the line... I guess you didn't read the other conversation. Checkers are easy -- trivial, really, from what I could tell -- for a challenge requiring a finite set of words found in the cache title. That was explained in detail in the thread. Yet this class of challenge is now forbidden even though agreement between hiders and finders would be hard to mess up even without a checker. The subclass of "category" challenge -- where the list of words isn't fixed but merely identified by a category -- aren't possible for a checker (although various alternatives were suggested). The assumption in that thread was that only category challenges would be forbidden since it's impossible to write a checker, but what we find now is that the entire class is forbidden, so all the discussion about how to check an almost-category challenge turns out to be pointless. Since the vast majority of challenges that come to my mind involve information in the cache title or CO name, I'm not sure what's left. Just brute force challenges like "N multicaches of terrain rating T or higher", I guess, and calendar fillers. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not seeing much room for innovation. What I find annoying about this is that forbidding these challenges has no bearing at all on any of the stated problems, it just "fixes" something else that some people complained about even though it wasn't actually a problem. I actually did read and understood large parts of the other thread, although I skipped some contributions when I got the impression that the same arguments were repeated over and over. I agree that the problems concerning category challenges were prominent in that discussion and that banning the entire class for this reason only would be overkill, but my believe is that the decision was well considered and it was a priority to keep the criteria as simple and well-defined as possible to avoid future discussions. Unfortunately, this indeed also means that some appealing challenges won't be possible anymore...

One difference I see is that the challenge cache could be a terrain 1, with a logging requirement corresponding to an extreme terrain 5. In this case a lot of geocachers are able to find the container, but only a few would ever be able to claim it as a find. I think it shows very well why these challenges are forbidden now. It's fine to have a good discussion in the forums, but when cache hiders and finders are having the same discussion it leads to appeals. And it's far easier to ban them all than to start a whole new discussion about where to draw the line...

New versions of what? These Release Notes are about the Search tool, but people have taken the thread off topic into talking about the app. So I'm not sure whether you're asking about Search or the app. Versions of (or release notes about) anything, I guess. This thread is about the releases on March 31, but the subforum - in which we are not allowed to start new topics - is about releases. That makes the most recent thread inviting to discuss what was not (yet) released. People start to notice that NOTHING was released in the last few weeks...

The original The Jasmer Challenge (Northern California Edition) was placed on 2008-12-19. So I think the question becomes more meaningful when only taking into account the completed challenges starting from that date. According to his log on 'The Oregon Jasmer ( Are You Up For The Challenge)', RogueAirPirate completed the challenge in about 7 months (member since 2012-10-09, challenge completed 2013-05-16). Anyone faster?

In fact, almost everything you can do with this 'Advanced' Search can be done using pocket queries. New look, little more functionality (+ limited in distance). I was hoping to list my DNFs with this new feature, but guess I'll have to keep using a bookmark list. Only Groundspeak knows how many geocachers have a bookmark list called 'DNF'...

Dat is niet OK volgens de richtlijnen. Los daarvan heb je ook weinig controle over wat er gebeurt met de USB-stick: cachers (of toevallige vinders) kunnen gegevens uit het logbestand verwijderen, virussen en andere ongewenste inhoud opslaan, ... Er bestaat wel op z'n minst één andere site die specifiek rond deze manier van verstoppen gaat. Groundspeak ziet niet graag externe links op het forum, maar met wat googelen op geocaching en usb kan je ze zelf ook snel terugvinden (als dat al niet het geval was).

When I try to search for the caches in Belgium that have not been found in the last years (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?country_id=4&as=1&sortdir=asc&sort=lastfound), often the date of the first log is listed instead of the date of the most recent log...

There have been a lot of topics on this question, also on the Belgian geocaching forum (www.geocaching.be). Often the conclusion is that more experience generally helps to place a 'better' cache, but that from time to time some real gems by new cachers are published. It's the maintenance that seems to be the hardest part for some cachers, especially those who don't keep geocaching after a while... Hope to see you at the event!

As already stated, this event was originally scheduled for May. The reason for changing the date is a national youth cycling championship which causes the village to become almost unreachable on the original date - the cycling union announced their date in March. In fact, the event is organized by a group of 6 local, experienced cachers, together with a local association which has a lot of experience organizing family events. All of the geocachers have already placed some caches with a lot of favorite points. I'm confident that it will become an excellent event with some great (multi) caches. At least 80 cachers are looking forward to it. Meanwhile, due to media attention, the Belgian community has seen a lot of newbies placing some 'throw-away micros' in the last year (often without doing maintenance afterwards). I really don't mean to be rude, but wouldn't it be better to find some more caches first, and if possible to attend the event?

I hope this includes an improved, personalized distance filter. If so, thanks! Nice, but I'll stick to my own pictures. I'm sure this will be faster, but can you make the old keyword search available as an extra parameter in the pocket queries? It certainly could be an extra reason to become or stay a premium member...

319 this week. I don't even look at the list anymore... it's easier to do a search on the site!

This is very true in our area - a comparison ..... This is the OSM map of a bunch of caches near here .... Not very helpful when trying to figure out how to access them. I have to agree that OSM doesn't look as useful in your area as it does in mine (Belgium). However, about 18 months ago I also thought OSM was useless and without a future, but when I checked again last January I was amazed by the way it had improved! All it takes is a small group of volunteers (why not geocachers? ) who use the tracks on their GPS's to make this possible. Thanks to Groundspeak for their work and making it able to have the choice!

Or can we just choose to see OSM by default? I'm starting to like those...