CanadianRockies

I doubt they changed anything. Guessing it's just another case of not being consistent with their own guidelines. It also isn't very consistent with Groundspeak's commitment to keeping their members' home coordinates "totally private." Totally private...unless you want to claim certain challenge caches.

Groundspeak recently published a challenge cache, entitled "Challenge: Far away" (GC6V1QW), which requires (according to Google Translate) you to "have found a cache of more than 10,101 km from home." The Help Center states: "The challenge checker must verify that a player does or does not qualify to log a challenge cache as found." But the challenge checker for the above challenge notes that it: "Only works for cache[r]s that have logged in on project-gc.com and have set homecoordinates. Else the checker will result in 'Failed to execute script' error." Did this challenge manage to slip through the reviewing cracks? Or has Groundspeak decided to change its challenge guidelines?

The important question here isn't what others (few or many) might think of you but rather what you will think of yourself. As John Wooden so aptly put it, “The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching.” If the +1 is so important to you that you'll do just about anything to log another find, then go ahead and log whatever caches you can conceivably rationalize to yourself. If looking in the mirror is important to you, then consider how your actions will cause you to think about yourself.

There are plenty of actions that don't violate geocaching rules but are still frowned upon: leaving a cache exposed instead of re-hiding it, taking swag without leaving something at least as valuable, finding a cache when a bunch of muggles are staring at you, hiding a cache that looks like a pipe bomb, etc. Certain norms have developed to supplement the rules. From the Help Center:

The problem is that Groundspeak sometimes likes to put into the guidelines their own definition of "too hard" in ways that don't really match the "attainable by a reasonable number of [local] cachers" definition. Asking cachers to find a cache on a Leap Day is "too hard," even if hundreds of people in your region have done so. Asking cachers to find a 366-day streak (of any cache type) is "too hard," even if dozens of people in your region have done so. Asking cachers to find a 7-day streak of Unknown caches is "too hard," even if many people in your region have done so. Asking cachers to find two caches per day (of any cache type) for seven consecutive days is "too hard," even if plenty of people in your region have done so.

Evidently, new 360° Challenge caches are allowed, despite the guideline alterations that would appear to prohibit them. For example, see this one.

Had an idea for a local version of the Delorme challenges you have over there, does the above mean that this type of challenge is out? Correct. No new Delorme challenges. Regretfully.

Depends. Using terms like "county" can get very confusing when looking at geographic locations internationality. A good way to look at these how Geonames describes geographic locations. I'm not so sure that GeoNames is a good source, at least in Canada. See below. GeoNames lists 13 Canadian first-order administrative divisions, which are provinces (10) and territories (3). They aren't synonymous. While GeoNames only lists a single Alberta second-order administrative division, pretty much everybody else would agree that there are far more than one. Alberta has ten types of incorporated local governments: cities (17), towns (108), villages (93), summer villages (51), specialized municipalities (5), counties/municipal districts (they're synonymous)(64), improvement districts (8), special areas (3), First Nation reserves (137), and Métis settlements (8). The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo is one of Alberta's five "specialized municipalities." As far as I know, its administrative powers and responsibilities are basically no different than those of any other specialized municipality. More generally, I don't know why GeoNames would include just Wood Buffalo as a second-order administrative division and ignore Alberta's other 493 incorporated local jurisdictions. It should be noted that one also could reasonably categorize such jurisdictions as Canada's First Nation reserves more properly as first-order administrative divisions.

From the guidelines:

In some areas, the official standards might be way out-of-sync with current practice, but in other areas...not so much.

The last time I looked there were only 3 mystery caches with challenge in the title within 50 miles. I don't normally do a PQ with a radius of 100 miles but this isn't about me. My point still stands. It's easy for someone that wants to do challenge caches to proclaim that it's simple to ignore them because they aren't the ones that have to do anything. And there are many places where the number of difficult puzzle caches far exceeds the number the difficult challenge caches, so my point still stands. Perhaps, one day, Groundspeak will break out challenges and puzzles from the Unknown cache type and everyone more people will be happy.

That's been my experience as well, both in my home area and places I've visited. Certainly "most" small and regular caches I've found aren't improperly sized, which appears to be the situation for the OP.

I actually don't think it would be that hard to be uniform. I suspect if we reset the sizes to reflect the range of cache sizes people currently hide instead of what people hid back in 2001, most people would follow the standard. I have my doubts. I think one of the reasons why people tend to inflate their cache sizes is because they want to attract more finders. Finders tend to prefer smalls over micros, regulars over smalls, and larges over regulars. If Groundspeak slashed the definition of micros to be those containers with a volume <= 50 ml, then certain people with 35mm film canisters (about 30 ml in volume) will start rating their caches as small (to attract families with children looking for small swag or geocachers with trackables).

Just curious. What in the stats can be 100% objectively accurate and meaningful? Geographic jurisdiction? ... Cache type? The short answer is: none. Even a "find" isn't 100% objectively accurate. Are challenge cache owners expected to visit every cache that is claimed as a "find" and verify that the geocacher's name is on the log book? And if it is, how do the challenge cache owners know it wasn't the geocacher's friend who wrote that name while the geocacher was at home sitting in their arm chair? Under a "100% objectively accurate standard," all challenges are "meaningless."

Some of us actually enjoy challenging challenges. If I consider a particular challenge to be impossible for me, then I can simply add it to my Ignore List. Not a big deal. For someone with 15K finds, or in the case of the OP, over 70K finds there are probably a lot of challenges for which one qualifies without finding another cache, thus there is little need for adding (which can only done one cache at a time) to an ignore list. I can safely say there are plenty of challenge caches on my Ignore List (even with 15K+ finds under my belt). Numbers aren't the only thing when it comes to challenges caches, especially the more difficult ones. There currently are 42 mystery caches with the word "challenge" in their titles within 100 miles of Ithaca, New York. And that includes fairly easy challenges, like finding 50 caches. I'm sorry, but ignoring those caches just doesn't seem like a huge burden to me. Certainly not when compared to any Ithaca geocachers who aren't interested in the 1,256 non-challenge mystery caches (or the 650 multi-caches) within 100 miles of the city.

Based on your reasoning, one reason why a park event should be something more than a D1 would be if it was a "pot luck" event. There can be some mental preparation involved in going to the grocery store, cooking a dish, and figuring out how to get it to the event while it's still warm.

You are correct. According to the guidelines (III.2.4.): ETA: An interesting difficulty rating question is whether you can create an event cache with final coordinates that are part of a puzzle that needed to be solved? Our reviewer said, "No."

The (main) official reason for the challenge cache moratorium was that proposed challenges were creating too many Groundspeak appeals. For several years before the moratorium, there were guidelines that placed restrictions on how hard ("attainable by a reasonable number of [local] cachers") and crazy ("simple, and easy to explain, follow and document") challenges could be. Of course, there were the occasional hard/crazy challenges that slipped through. Volunteer reviewers are humans and thus can interpret guidelines differently and (oh, my!) even make mistakes. It's those exceptions you're more likely to hear about rather than the many more reasonable challenge caches that were published. Some of us actually enjoy challenging challenges. If I consider a particular challenge to be impossible for me, then I can simply add it to my Ignore List. Not a big deal.

When geocaching becomes a highly organized sport, maybe we can expect stricter adherence to specified standards. While I agree that more uniformity would be nice regarding cache sizes, it's not something I really expect to see.

You should re-read those guidelines. They prohibit the "Find Date" from being used as part of challenge requirements, but they do not have any such restrictions on the use of "Placement Date." You cannot create a challenge that says, "Only those caches found after Jan. 1, 2013, qualify." You still can create a challenge that says, "Only those caches published before Jan. 1, 2013, qualify." EDA: Think Jasmer Challenge.

Based on your Note log on your listing page, it appears your statement should read: ...IT IS NOT ALLOWED... ETA: It's probably too late now, but it would have been better to mention the motor vehicle prohibition in the body of your listing page descriptions rather than in logs, since the logs will likely be read by very few people.

I'll generally give people a week to log their TBs, just in case they are on vacation and it's inconvenient to write logs. If I'm in a hurry, then I might check the recent geocaching history of the person who still "holds" the TB. If they have logged any geocaches since I have picked up the TB, then I'll email them a reminder to log the TB. If they don't respond within a day, then I'll go ahead and log the TB myself. One of the TB logging options is to "grab" it from the person who currently "holds" the TB. When I do this, I also will make sure the TB "visits" the cache where I found it before I "drop" it in a new cache. By "visiting" the earlier cache, the history of the TB's travels is more accurately recorded.

Lab caches count in some statistics but do not count in other statistics. Currently, they do not count in your Container Types I've Found, Difficulty and Terrain of Caches I've Found, My Home Location Distances, and Maps statistics.

Actually, Groundspeak generally prohibits the use of Lab caches in Challenge cache requirements. Groundspeak has given cache owners the option to use Lab caches in only three cases: challenges involving Total Finds, Longest Streaks, and the Finds for Each Day of the Year grid. Milestones are not among these exemptions, but Groundspeak might opt to add such an exception in the future.

I think most people would find adding paper to supplement a full log is just fine. It's best if you can add paper rather than remove an old log and replace it with a new log, since the owner might want to check the old log to verify that the online "Found it" logs correctly match up with a corresponding signature on the physical log (or simply like to hang on to old logs). Sometimes, however, there isn't enough room in many micro containers to add a new log without removing the old one. When I do that, I always send a note to the cache owner asking if they want me to mail them the old log or attach an email photo of the old log (assuming the old log isn't an utter, soggy mess). So far, no one has asked for the old log. A few geocachers might object to adding a new log on the basis that such maintenance chores are best left to the cache owners, and if the owners aren't willing to do so in a timely fashion, then their caches should be archived. Thus, adding a new log is just enabling bad ownership. But I think this group is a rather small minority.