CanadianRockies

Yes, pre-moratorium, some challenge caches were very difficult, some were moderately difficult, some were moderately easy, and some were very easy. Just like some traditional caches are very difficult, moderately difficult, moderately easy, and very easy. One of the things I really like about geocaching is that it has different things that appeal to different people...or even to the same person at different times. I've placed a very difficult challenge cache. Not because I wanted to exclude as many geocachers as possible but because I hoped it might inspire others to also enjoy traveling across the wonderful province of Alberta. It seems to be having that effect. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons why people place very difficult challenges, but I doubt that the main reason is to exclude finders. It might appear that way to some, just as a traditional cache placed on top of a very high mountain might appear to some that its purpose is to exclude finders. And there are 42 Swedish geocachers who have found caches on at least 1,000 consecutive days. That's 42 more people than have found this Swedish mystery cache. That's 41 more people than have found this Swedish SCUBA cache. That's 39 more people than have found this Swedish multi-cache. But Groundspeak doesn't bother to impose difficulty guidelines on any of these kinds of caches. Indeed, as you noted, Groundspeak often celebrates these extremely difficult non-challenge caches.

hm. It may be that "reasonably appealing and attainable" is a latter requirement. If a hard challenge rule is that Feb 29th cannot be required for a find date, then even if 50% of local cachers pre-qualify, they'd deny it. That, at least, is the logic I'm seeing behind them now disabling that challenge. Perhaps the local reviewer felt it was reasonable first and published it because it's perfectly reasonable there. ...but I think it's pretty clear that these challenge threads are being watched, and there might be higher level individual/team taking action if something is brought to their attention. Like a supreme court ruling =P *sigh* Yes, that's what I suspect is happening as well. As I noted in Post #232, "Groundspeak appears to believe that certain kinds of challenges should be even easier than the "reasonably attainable" standard." The Leap Day challenges probably is one of these kinds of challenges, even if Groundspeak hasn't made it explicit in their publicly-viewable challenge cache guidelines.

Looking at the Top Finders list for Norway on Project-GC it lists that top 10000 finders (#10000 has 79 finds, so there is more than that). The top 19 finders would represent .19% of the total number of cachers in Norway. It seems to me that there is a pretty broad range between a challenge attainable by .19% of all cachers in the country and instant gratification for all. To me, "reasonably attainable" would mean that a much larger percentage than 2% of the cachers in the area will be able to find it, and instant gratification would man a qualifying percentage close to 100%. I only looked at Norway's top 20 most prolific finders and saw that the first 19 of them already had completely filled in their 366-day calendars for finds. If someone wants to look at Norway's top 10,000 finders, I'm sure they would find many more examples of completely filled calendars. You might feel that for a challenge cache to be attainable by a "reasonable" number of geocachers it should be findable by far more than 2% of the local geocachers, but Groundspeak reviewers seem to have opinions that differ from yours. In Florida, reviewers apparently set "reasonable" to mean that at least 10 of that state's geocachers (9,435 have 79+ finds) have pre-qualified. That's less than 0.11 percent of that state's geocachers. Similarly, Ontario reviewers expect at least 10 of that province's geocachers (9,163 have 79+ finds) to have pre-qualified. That's also less than 0.11 percent of that province's geocachers. I stopped counting after seeing that at least 19 of Norway's geocachers have pre-qualified because I was pretty sure that number would meet any "attainable by a reasonable number of [local] geocachers" standard that the local reviewers were likely to impose. As for my "instant gratification" comment, I didn't mean to suggest that Groundspeak now expects nearly all geocachers to be able to complete all challenges. My comment was in reference to views of many people in today's world that if a goal isn't "instantly" achievable, then it isn't worth pursuing. I fear that's a path Groundspeak might be walking: Requiring a Finds Calendar to be completely filled for 366 days might delay a geocacher's gratification for up to four years, so let's ban those kinds of challenges, even if they're attainable by a reasonable number of geocachers. Some geocachers don't enjoy streak challenges that last longer than 365 days, so let's ban those kinds of challenges, even if they're attainable by a reasonable number of geocachers. Some geocachers don't want to deal with the stress of finding 10 caches in a single day, so let's ban time-limited challenges, even if they're attainable by a reasonable number of geocachers. Some geocachers don't want the hassle of remembering which letters they're missing in "alphabetical" challenges, so let's ban challenges that use cache titles, even if they're attainable by a reasonable number of geocachers. As you noted in another thread:

If it were by date placed, I could see it being published. But it's by date found, and we've seen denials on that even if it's not a streak. The cache doesn't explicitly state Feb29 is required, though the image indicates it. Hopefully they have loosened on the 2/29 thing. It was just disabled because of the 2/29 thing. Norway's 19 geocachers with the most finds all have found caches on 366 days of the year, so it seems pretty clear that the "Fill the Finds Calendar" challenge was attainable by a reasonable number of local geocachers. But Groundspeak appears to believe that certain kinds of challenges should be even easier than the "reasonably attainable" standard. In this instant gratification world, we shouldn't force people to wait up to four years to successfully complete a challenge. That would be too...well...challenging.

A new "Fill the Finds Calendar" challenge cache was published, and it appears to require geocachers to find two caches on Leap Days. Perhaps Groundspeak has relaxed its hidden guideline that prohibited challenges from finding caches on Leap Day.

Or it might be appealing but they are busy doing other things. Or it might be appealing to several people, but you just don't have any idea who they are. Or it might be appealing if there was a known reward but less appealing if the reward is hypothetical. Or it might be appealing once people read the logs of those who have completed it before them. Or it might be appealing but the cache owner doesn't want to go to the bother of organizing a bunch of pre-qualifiers. There are lots of reasons why cool, new challenge ideas might never see the light of day under the pre-qualification regime.

*interest* does not appear to have any bearing on the issue of "attainable". The precise wording is: "A challenge cache needs to appeal to and be attainable by a reasonable number of cachers." (Emphasis added.) That's why I'm glad I live in an area where we don't have to have a specific number of people pre-qualify for our proposed challenge caches. I seriously doubt that an 81-day Fizzy streak challenge would be completed accidentally, even by big-number local geocachers. And I doubt I could persuade many local geocachers to make the considerable effort needed to pre-qualify for this challenge simply in hopes that enough others also will pre-qualify. But having an existing challenge cache can act as a seed that grows interest in challenging challenges. Back in 2011, I created a very difficult challenge to find caches in all of Alberta's counties. Since then, only three people have completed it. I'd be surprised if any of those three would have agreed to pre-qualify for this challenge. But as word spreads about how satisfying this challenge is to complete, more and more people have told me that they are working towards finishing it. It's these kinds of difficult but satisfying challenges that have been wiped out in many areas by the adoption of pre-qualification policies.

Save the current guidelines, last update June 29 and hurry up before it will be "Specifying cache type(s), DT, size and everything else you might think of or find count (above one per day) required during a streak. (new 2016)" If you are fast enough you might get away like the still active new 2016 30 day Unknown cache streak including all of D1-D5, at least for the D. I already have a pre-moratorium challenge cache that is similar to this one (and a terrain-ratings streak challenge as well). But I'm considering creating an 81-day streak challenge that requires filling in the entire Fizzy matrix. First, though, I'd have to complete that challenge myself. Second, I'd have to convince our reviewer that enough local geocachers also would be interested in and capable of completing such a challenge. (Fortunately, our reviewer doesn't require that a certain number of local geocachers pre-qualify.) Then there's the whole issue of whether Groundspeak would consider my idea a "loophole" challenge.

Groundspeak seems intent on keeping streak challenges as vanilla as possible: no longer than 365 days, no more than one find per day, and no restrictions on cache types. I wonder if Groundspeak would publish the following challenge or if it would cause yet another "loophole" to be closed: Challenge: Find at least one cache per day for nine consecutive days, where a different difficulty rating is represented on each of those nine days. For example: Aug. 1 - D2.0 Aug. 2 - D1.5 Aug. 3 - D3.5 Aug. 4 - D1.0 Aug. 5 - D5.0 Aug. 6 - D4.5 Aug. 7 - D3.0 Aug. 8 - D2.5 Aug. 9 - D4.0

You got further than I expected. At least the Bi-Polar Challenge seems acceptable in theory. It failed the reasonably attainable guideline but appears to have gotten around the user-defined polygon guideline.

From another thread: I think the challenge cache guidelines definitely are pushing in the direction of easier challenges. A few years ago, the brakes were applied with the adoption of a guideline that all challenges must be attainable by a reasonable number of geocachers. The most recent guideline changes state that even that isn't easy enough in certain cases. Even if a reasonable number of geocachers could attain a streak longer than a year, Groundspeak deemed that challenging geocachers to do this is too hard. Streak challenges are now capped at 365 days...and one find per day...with no restrictions on the types of caches. Is finding 10 caches in a single week too much of a strain? It's not a problem any longer. Challenge caches can no longer be time limited. Even if a reasonable number of geocachers have completely filled their "Finds for Each Day of the Year" calendars, Groundspeak seems to believe that requiring a find for Feb. 29 is too hard since some geocachers might need up to four years to qualify for such a challenge. There appears to be a new hidden guideline that forbids challenge caches from requiring a find on a Leap Day. Don't want to solve a puzzle to determine a challenge cache's final coordinates? Let's require all challenge caches to be at their posted coordinates (or as a visible additional waypoint). Even if lots of geocachers already have found 10 percent of the virtual caches in your state/province/region, don't even think about creating a new challenge cache that has such a requirement. Some people don't want to make the effort needed to verify that they have completed a challenge cache. All new challenge caches must be accompanied by an automated challenge checker, so you can simply click your mouse to determine if you qualify. Even with those easy checkers, is it still too much bookkeeping for you to remember which letters you need in order to find cache titles that begin with every letter of the alphabet? Let's get rid of any challenge caches that are based on cache titles (or cache owners, GC Codes, publishing Reviewers, or listing text).

I can't really talk about the criteria without giving away the solution bit it looked pretty fixed to me. The criteria is fixed, but the number of caches meeting that criteria could change in the next few days, especially if several geocachers try to "game" the system.

Why? You might not want to find an Antarctica cache, but a reasonable number of other geocachers already might have enjoyed doing this or might enjoy setting such a goal. Why deprive them of this potential source of happiness? I suspect this kind of attitude had a big effect on the challenge cache guideline changes. Some people complained about spelling challenges, so Groundspeak eliminated them. Others complained about the effort they expended to prove they had met certain challenges, so Groundspeak now requires challenge checkers. Streaking geocachers complained about long streak challenges, so Groundspeak imposed a 365-day limit on them. Nobody is holding a gun to the head of any of these folks. Nobody is forcing them to complete challenges they don't enjoy. There are plenty of challenge caches that I simply choose to ignore. No big deal.

No, it isn't the closest cache to a confluence point; the posted coordinates for each found cache must be a degree confluence point (e.g., N51 00.000 W113 00.000). Technically, these "points" are actually small polygons, since Groundspeak's posted coordinates are only accurate to a thousandth of of minute. Thus the above cache actually could be hidden anywhere in the "rectangle" delimited by N51 00.0005 W113 00.0005 and N50 59.9995 W112 59.9995.

Ironic that a game based on latitude and longitude forbids using them. I hesitate to mention this (since it potentially might lead to archival), but at least one reviewer is allowing confluence points to be used in challenge caches. A degree confluence point is the intersection of an integer latitude and an integer longitude (i.e., the minutes portion of both are 00.000'). The challenge requires geocachers to find five caches located at degree confluence points. The five caches must be spread across at least three countries.

I've found a total of 24 lab caches in three different sets, and all of them have been very, very plain. With so much latitude given to the creation of lab caches, I had hoped that these special kinds of caches would be, well, special. Instead, they've all been: (1) go to a location, (2) find a word, and (3) enter that keyword on the website.

On the positive side, I think you probably have come up with a solution to your problem. Create a challenge cache that requires geocachers to find four California caches. One cache must be in Lake, Lassen, OR Los Angeles counties. Three caches must be in Orange, Ventura, AND El Dorado counties. I think that's simple enough to pass the "easy to explain, follow and document" guideline. You could name your cache as "The LOVE Challenge" or something like that. Of course, doing so risks the possibility that Groundspeak might realize this is a loophole challenge, which might encourage similar but more complicated word-spelling caches. To minimize the number of subjective decisions reviewers have to make, Groundspeak might shut down any kind of spelling challenge, regardless of whether they technically meet the guidelines.

During a 5 June 2016 Podcacher interview (starting at about 21:15), Rock Chalk indicated that Groundspeak wants to create some sort of badge-type (maybe) achievement recognition system. (He hopes it comes sooner rather than later, but it's not imminent.) Rock Chalk also believes that once geocaching.com does a better job of recognizing achievements, then perhaps challenges wouldn't be as necessary as they are now. I suspect new challenge caches eventually will be replaced by an automated achievement system (probably similar to Project-GC's badge system). Most likely, that's a major reason for requiring all new challenge caches to be supported by an automated challenge checker. Once a broad-ranging achievement system is operational, it likely will duplicate (from Groundspeak's perspective) many of the post-moratorium challenge caches. So, why would Groundspeak want to continue with the hassles of reviewing and responding to appeals caused by new challenge caches? At this point, I'm just hoping all existing challenge caches won't get archived.

Were they along a power trail? If so, then ***yawn***. ETA: It looks like they did the "Oh I wish I was in Dixie" power trail, which has nearly 1,000 caches and is near several other big power trails. It's not unusual to find 500+ caches in a single day if the power trail is set up to accommodate that kind of caching.

Neither would I, but the answer might be interesting anyhow to understand what the rules actually are. The latest Cache-A-Maniacs podcast feature Rock Chalk who works at HQ and had a fair bit to do with the challenge guideline changes (at least it sounds that way). His comments on various restrictions and what is allowed and not was informative. Too bad the BiPolar didn't make it to the question list. This page has a link to the MP3 of the show. And Rock Chalk did indicate that the 360-degree challenges are no longer acceptable because they involve user-defined polygons.

Actually, we don't know that. What we know is that the percentage of Google searches that include the term "geocaching" has gone down over the last 6 years. If the number of Google searches has increased over the last 6 years (which seems likely), then it's possible that the number of Google searches for "geocaching" has stayed constant or even increased. If I'm understanding correctly, you're saying that Google Trends reflects the percentage of X term compared to total Google searches? Instead of the actual numerical value? If that's the case, Google Trends is entirely misleading. I'm interested to know where/how you discovered this. Google Trends' Help pages

Actually, we don't know that. What we know is that the percentage of Google searches that include the term "geocaching" has gone down over the last 6 years. If the number of Google searches has increased over the last 6 years (which seems likely), then it's possible that the number of Google searches for "geocaching" has stayed constant or even increased.

pgc has access to the home coordinates entered at gc.com. Of course not the real ones. I know their challenge checkers don't have access to home coordinates. I just assumed PGC in general didn't either. pgc shows your home coordinates to you for your statistics if you are logged in like geocaching.com shows them to you. Others see: Nearest cache found: - Furthest cache found: - So, Groundspeak won't display your nearest/farthest caches from home (presumably because of privacy concerns), but they will share your home coordinates with third parties and allow them to display your nearest/farthest caches from home. That seems rather odd.

pgc has access to the home coordinates entered at gc.com. Of course not the real ones. I know their challenge checkers don't have access to home coordinates. I just assumed PGC in general didn't either. Yes, they use different methods than the entered home coordinates to assign cachers to areas. Why would they use something else to determine a cacher's home area?

Strange, especially for a challenge that involves traveling veeeery far. No one is obliged to share their home location, it is for good reason not allowed to have challenges based on home coordinates. I don't believe Groundspeak partners, like Project-GC, actually have access to a geocacher's home coordinates. But they do assign geocachers to specific countries and states/provinces/regions. I think they do this based on where a geocacher has registered the most finds. There's one prolific geocacher who moved to Alberta relatively recently, but Project-GC still assigns him to his former country/state. I always make sure to include him in my data when I try to determine how many Alberta-based geocachers have pre-qualified or nearly pre-qualified for my challenge caches.