CanadianRockies

You can expend a small amount of effort to create a bare-bones cache page, which will get you a GC Code for that page. The challenge checker will need that GC Code. If everything else goes well, then you can fill in the cache page with all the other information before submitting it to your reviewer. I would suggest that you request a high-bar challenge checker -- say, with 13 caches required. Most challenge checkers generate output that indicates how close people are if they haven't yet completed the requirement. For Jane Doe geocacher, as an example, it might indicate she's found only 10 qualifying caches. Run a bunch of likely candidates through the checker and keep track of how many qualify with 13 caches, how many come close with 12 caches, 11 caches, etc. I'd also ask one of your local reviewers how many geocachers must have pre-qualified (or come close to pre-qualifying) for the reviewer to consider your challenge "attainable by a reasonable number of geocachers." Once you have that information, you should know the highest bar that would be accepted for publication. If that bar is lower than 13 (i.e., the number you set for your challenge checker), then you can ask someone to change the challenge checker to match the maximum acceptable bar (or lower than that bar, if you prefer).

I think you make a good point here. Before the moratorium it seemed like there were a lot of challenges that seemed to be more about creating the most complex, convoluted change that as few as possible could complete rather than creating an experience that could be enjoyed by a large number of geocachers. Even before the moratorium, a guideline stated: "The requirements for meeting the challenge should be succinct and easy to explain, follow, and document." And another guideline stated: "A challenge cache needs to appeal to, and be attainable by, a reasonable number of geocachers." While a particular challenge can appear to be almost unattainable from an individual's perspective, it might seem attainable by a reasonable number of geocachers when you look at it from a region's worth of geocachers. Of course, we can expect some exceptions to slip through and get published, because reviewers have different views about what is "reasonable" or "succinct." Reviewers also are human and thus are capable of making mistakes. As for the question of whether all caches should be enjoyed by a "large number" of geocachers, I hope Groundspeak never adopts that philosophy. Not many geocachers can climb Mt. Everest, scuba dive below 100 feet, or boat to remote islands. But I'm glad such caches exist for the small number who enjoy such adventures. And I'm glad there are challenge caches that encourage geocachers to attain difficult goals, even if few ever will.

It seems like in dubious cases, the Florida reviewer is asking for a list of 10 cachers in the state who qualify for the proposed challenge. The burden of proof is on the requester. In Alberta, I was able to publish a challenge cache for which I was the only Alberta geocacher who already had completed it. But enough other Alberta geocachers were fairly close to completing it that my reviewer judged it to be attainable by a reasonable number of geocachers. (Note that the guideline states that the challenge must be "attainable" by a reasonable number of geocachers -- not "attained.") There will be inconsistent reviews across different regions.

This is strictly my opinion, not guidance we've received or anything of the sort. I see the same problem as always. At 4 letters, it is probably reasonable; that is, until we start getting $,#,!,+ and F,#,@,^ as the words to create. Then someone else thinks EASY is too easy and we get floccinaucinihilipilification and we have to judge the merits and availability of every letter in the alphabet in relation to where the challenge is located. When we have to judge, it becomes like a WOW factor and will lead to inconsistent reviews which makes for many appeals, unhappy reviewers and challenge owners, especially when random area A is okay with a 7 letter word and random area B is not okay with a 6 letter word. The other issue is that we'd inevitably run into: -Spell "your username", "Challenge Owner's Username", name of "my favorite sport team", etc -Start and end letters, third letter, or some other letter combo(s) -Can use county and country, or state and country, or county, state and country (fourth letter of country ONLY) -Is the "name of country": Germany or Deutschland? -Is the "name of city": Mumbai or Bombay? Again, my opinion, is that this is a can of worms I'd prefer not to see opened. But reviewers already are making these kinds of "reasonably attainable" decisions: Have enough local geocachers already attained (or are fairly close to attaining) a Fizzy challenge using only Traditional type caches? Have enough local geocachers already attained (or are fairly close to attaining) a 50 Souvenirs challenge? Have enough local geocachers already attained (or are fairly close to attaining) a Double Jasmer challenge? It's certainly possible that one review area can support a Double Jasmer challenge but another review area cannot "and will lead to inconsistent reviews which makes for many appeals, unhappy reviewers and challenge owners." Of course, one way to avoid this kind of subjective decision making (and inconsistent reviews) is to get rid of the "reasonably attainable" guideline.

Virtuals have ALRs, so GS could investigate whether any of the ALRs were attempted. They can do this even without an active CO by simply checking to see if the person claiming the finds sent mail to the CO or posted the required picture or whatever. If the finds are legit, then there will be evidence of ALRs, and everyone is happy. GS might perhaps send e-mail to suggest the person set the dates right, but that's about it. On the other hand, if after checking a few of the finds and discovering no attempts to satisfy ALRs, GS could take action against the person claiming the finds. They could ask for an explanation or simply delete the finds or even block the account altogether. Likely that would be the end of the story because the person claiming the finds would realize the jig is up and drop it. It would only be in the unlikely case where they actually stand up and object to GS's actions that the situation gets sticky, and GS can decide at that time whether they can make a solid case or just want to back down. If this was just one or two finds, then of course it would be left up to the CO, but when it appears to be a case of systematic cheating, it's logical for GS to step up and investigate, and they do. If Groundspeak found that an owner of a virtual cache is not actively confirming that the virtual's ALR is being completed, then Groundspeak also is likely to warn the cache owner to start verifying this or face the possible archival of that virtual cache...which might not be a terrible side effect.

Interesting that you should make that suggestion. I thought that if GS allowed challenges based on *city* names that spelling out a work using the first names of cities might be kind of interesting. I could spell out lots of words using the first letter of countries in which I've found a cache but for those that are constrained by how far they can travel a similar challenge cache based on city names might be fun to do and achievable by a lot more geocachers. The difficulty level of a challenge has always been up to the CO. Actually an upper limit of difficulty has been left to reviewers' discretion for several years now. Challenges have had to appeal to and be attainable by a reasonable number of [local] geocachers.

There was a similar challenge published recently, World Scrabble Challenge, but the owner made the spelling part optional. I cannot connect to Project-GC at the moment, but I seem to remember a discussion there that indicated that the reviewer forced the spelling part to be optional. While it didn't technically violate the guidelines, Groundspeak apparently doesn't like word challenges in general. Maybe you'll have better luck with your reviewer, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Interesting. It looks like they've redesigned that list and are now adding future souvenirs, even if they haven't been publicly announced yet. Did you notice that they don't have anything in 2016 for a summer marketing promotion (e.g. Road Trip, 7 Souvenirs of August, etc.)? Considering the fact that they've listed other future, unannounced souvenirs, I have to assume this means there won't be one this year. Or it could mean Groundspeak hasn't figured out what this year's promotion will be yet. Or maybe they want it to be a surprise.

Among certain geocachers, there seems to be an attitude of "I must find every cache in my area." Groundspeak could embrace the wonderful diversity that geocaching offers and try to educate folks that not every geocache will appeal to and be attainable within a year by every geocacher.

Item 10 of the challenge cache guidelines indicates that challenges are not acceptable if they use "These listing elements: cache titles, cache owner names, GC Codes, publishing Reviewer or listing text." Yet there's a recently published challenge in New Zealand (GC6JP5P) that requires geocachers to find 9 D5 Mystery caches with all nine terrain ratings (1-5). But none of these Mystery caches can be challenge caches. The Project-GC challenge checker will reject any caches whose title includes the word "Challenge" or "BGSc" (there's a set of four "BGSc" [bachelor of Geocaching Science] challenges in New Zealand that don't have the word "challenge" in their titles). I guess the reviewer decided challenge caches cannot require cache titles INCLUDE particular words but it's okay to EXCLUDE certain words. It will be interesting to see whether the challenge cache owner will override the Project-GC challenge checker and allow geocachers to claim finds for puzzle caches that aren't challenge caches but do include the word "challenge" in their titles (e.g., GC1EBMX). And what will the challenge cache owner do about the many other challenge caches that don't have the word "challenge" in their titles (e.g., GC2K1CD)?

Perhaps it's simply a miscommunication between the CO and the reviewer, but there's a challenge cache in the United Kingdom (GC6M9BN) where the owner claims they're not allowed to require geocachers to completely fill in their "Finds for Each Day of the Year" calendars (Feb. 29 must be allowed to remain empty). I understand that streak challenges are limited to 365 days, but this is the first I've heard about limiting the Finds calendar to 365 days. Interestingly, that same challenge is allowed to require geocachers to completely fill in their "Finds by Hidden Date" calendars (including Feb. 29).

Meanwhile, the four geocachers finished their trip last Saturday.

I did that once, and I'd love to do it again...as long as I could spend more than 5 minutes in each of the parks I visited.

From their blog for today: I guess some people might view this kind of journey as an adventure. For me, it wouldn't be a very exciting or interesting way to see the country.

From a Help Center article:

I don't remember ever finding food stuffs in National Park caches, but I have found scented soaps and a small bottle of alcohol (both of which, I removed).

Can anyone tell me why Groundspeak's new Challenge cache guidelines allow one person to create a "find at least one cache per day for 30 days" streak challenge but don't allow a second person to create a "find at least 10 caches during any 30-day stretch" time-limited challenge? If it's any help, here's what Groundspeak's blog had to say:

Indeed. Circles, as I said. Because it's all arguing hypotheticals with no basis in actual current examples. I initially brought up the issue of not-yet-qualified challenges, so I wasn't denying the existence of those. Actually, I believe I initially brought up the issue of not-yet-qualified challenges, when I mentioned our "Month-streak of Unknowns" challenge way back in Post #23: "That's why I was able to get our 'A Month of Unknowns Challenge' published even though probably nobody in the area (other than us) had found a month's worth of consecutive Unknowns before this challenge appeared." ---------- You've recently changed your position on this issue. But, in the past, you've certainly given readers of this thread plenty of reason to assume that Ontario reviewers will judge "attainable by a reasonable number of cachers" by requiring a list of pre-qualifiers. See the following three examples: ---------- I'm all for throwing out our "reviewers should"s and "I want to see"s in regards to how reviewers employ the guidelines. But I haven't really seen evidence that the system is broken, only that some reviewers' judgements themselves are considered unreasonable - such as, region-by-border instead of proximity, or 10 explicit pre-qualifiers in all contexts. The problem in those cases is not that reviewers can make judgements, but by what standards they decide what is reasonable for a region. Subjectivity can be a problem because it creates situations where reviewers' opinions can differ with Challenge cache submitters' opinions. That can result in time-consuming back-and-forth email exchanges between those reviewers and submitters. If the problem isn't settled at that level, then submitters might appeal reviewer decisions to Groundspeak. According to Groundspeak HQ: "Challenge caches can also be very difficult to publish due to the large amount of subjectivity involved relative to other geocaches. While they account for only ~1% of all geocache submissions, challenge caches comprise the bulk of appeals made to Geocaching HQ." If you eliminate those subjective guidelines whose costs exceed their benefits, then you eliminate these kinds of burdens/problems.

Probably a bad example to use, but based on the new challenge rules regarding time limits, that Wherigo challenge wouldn't be allowed anyway, since 10 days is a hard time limit. An idea I had for a challenge cache, a 7x7 (7 different cache types from 7 different GC code time periods in a single day, i.e. GC..., GC1..., GC2....) would also not be allowed, as it is based on a time limit and GC codes, both of which are no longer allowed for challenges. The essential difference is that Keystone's Wherigo example is a "streak" challenge, which is acceptable under the new guidelines: "Maintaining a finds streak, at least one find per day, up to 365 days". Not acceptable: "Time-limited caching: as in some number of finds per day, week, month, or year. Example, Busy Day, 50 finds in a day, 500 finds in a month, etc."

Yes. This is a useful control to limit "look what I did" challenge caches and "elite club members only" challenge caches. Depending on the challenge, I would consider people who were close to completing the challenge as well as those who already qualify. Now that's what I'm talking about. If reviewers are going to be burdened with the subjective "reasonable number of cachers" guideline, then they should use that subjectivity in helpful ways. If the 15,000+ cacher in my above example had 72,488 finds, then the reviewer should use their good judgement to determine what an enjoyable goal might be for those cachers with fewer than 15,000 finds. Maybe a nice goal would be 15,000, but I also could see reasons to lean towards 16,000 or 17,000 or even 20,000. It probably shouldn't be 70,000. And it probably shouldn't be capped at 14,000 (which a magical number of pre-qualifiers might dictate). Use good judgment, based on geocaching experience. A reasonable reviewer might simply accept whatever goal the challenge cache owner opted for, as long as it was no higher than, say, 20,000. But if the owner submitted a goal higher than 20,000, then a reasonable reviewer might want to exercise some good judgment and nudge them towards a lower figure. Although subjectivity can be a big burden and create major problems, it also has some minor advantages. Reviewers should make the best out of a bad situation and use those advantages.

That challenge isn't a good example because it was published long ago and now has many qualifiers. Because of regional differences, we need practical, current examples, and actual results. We can theorize endlessly about possibilities, but there's no basis by which to judge what will happen until or unless it actually happens. Theoretical subjective judgements are not evidence that the system itself is broken. Find the breaks. Then present it as evidence. CR's challenge is an example of a challenge that requires forethought, so it doesn't matter when it was published. It's an example of a challenge where "cachers in the region may not have qualified for it yet because they hadn't thought to actually do it". That's why it had few qualifiers when it was published, but now it has several qualifiers. It's being used as an example of that type of 'forethought' challenge. It has nothing to do with CC guidelines. This is going to go around in tapping circles, so I'm done here. Yes, our "A Month of Unknowns Challenge" is a good example of the kind of challenge that requires forethought. I'm fairly sure no other local geocacher had pre-qualified for this challenge. (Such a creature might exist out there in the wilds but hasn't gotten around to finding this challenge yet.) I'm positive that none of the 22 current finders had pre-qualified (as their logs will attest). And, yes, I think it's unwise for reviewers to apply some magical number of pre-qualifiers to both "forethought" challenges and "numbers" challenges, because doing so makes it much harder for some good "forethought" challenges to run the gauntlet and get published. In all likelihood, fewer of these good "forethought" challenges will get published, and I believe the geocaching community loses in such a situation. Apply some good common sense when judging whether a "forethought" challenge is "attainable to a reasonable number of cachers," and the geocaching community wins. Even better, in my view, would be for reviewers to apply good common sense to both "forethought" and "numbers" challenges. Suppose a local area had one geocacher with 15,000+ total finds, 10 geocachers with numbers in the 14,000s, 15 geocachers with numbers in the 13,000s, etc. Would it really be so terrible if a reviewer published a "Find 15,000" numbers-type challenge? I prefer challenges (even numbers challenges) where I can strive to achieve a goal rather than looking at the goal in the rear-view mirror and simply checking off yet another smiley. By applying common sense and publishing a 15,000-finds challenge (which only the owner has qualified for) rather than rotely publishing a 14,000-finds challenge (which 10 other geocachers already have achieved), the reviewer is giving 10 more geocachers something to strive for. I'd like to see the "reasonable number of cachers" guideline eliminated. But if Groundspeak is going to impose that subjective guideline on its reviewers, then I think reviewers should try to make the best of a bad situation. Use good judgment to publish challenges that make geocaching even more fun for even more people. I believe that attempting to magically convert the subjective "reasonable number of cachers" guideline into something more objective (by replacing good judgment with pre-qualifiers) is destined to make a bad situation even worse.

The question is whether it's reasonable to ask people you don't know to pre-qualify for a challenge cache that may never exist. Since it isn't, then it's unreasonable to force someone to do that. And the Challenge cache you're asking people to find might not be so easy. The "Month-streak of Unknowns" is not an easy challenge (although it obviously can be attained by a reasonable number of determined cachers). If I had needed to get even three people to pre-qualify, then I'm not sure I ever would have created that challenge. I generally feel uncomfortable imposing on people, and many geocachers don't particularly like solving puzzles or doing a 30-day streak. The "Month-streak of Unknowns" is a great challenge for those who enjoy that kind of thing; not so wonderful for those who don't.