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thebruce0

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Everything posted by thebruce0

  1. Pretty common practice, for multiple reasons. Technically there's no requirement that a person identify their team name in the online log or who else was in it, however that is a very helpful tool to weed out piggybackers who may claim the find and group but weren't actually there. Really it just means that if the CO were to verify that every person who logs it was with the group, at least one person would verify that person's 'attendance', which then becomes the 'proof' hq would accept to allow the log to stand were it to head to appeals. We have a big group monthly caching event, usually 20-30 people, and the find logs fort hat day are 95% copy/paste on all the caches on 'the list'. It irks many. And there may often be mistakes as someone bulk logs a cache found that may not have been found, or was skipped, or just not on the list yet nearby. Sometimes a person just wanting a specific cache find for a challenge statistic might piggyback claim a find they didn't even at least go to, claiming the find under the group name. There's no way for a CO to verify that find, annoyingly, if someone else in the group were to say "yep they were with us", because the 'group signature' covers all that. Ultimately it comes down to the spirit of the game. If the CO truly doubts a find log, they can delete it and take it to appeals if necessary to hash it out. But it is allowed practice to claim a find under a group name that isn't itself a registered account. (otherwise you need to address acronyms, short forms, illegible names, etc)
  2. As much as "if you don't like it you can just ignore it" is true, there is something to be said about the impression of the geocaching activity when connected into the game is a virtual code-entering game that fills maps with icons that have nothing to do with "find something at these gps coordinates"; you know, the language of location. Inundation of 'geoarts' like this in the AL playground is associating geocaching with "the language of smiley counts". I have nothing against ALs, but man, it's really a side-game that can piggy back on 'geocaching' and this kind of numbers-labbing is just getting out of hand. YMMV. ETA: ...in the context of geocaching. I think it's great if people can enjoy it. But it's getting a little crowded in here...
  3. PQs really were the way to go before the API and higher data limits. Quite often I'd download a full collection of PQs generated for all active geocaches within all of Ontario. If you spread the date range by month/year until it hits 1000, since placed dates never(*) change, you only need to update the latest PQ for the current date until it hits 1000. If you have enough space, you can always have all the caches in your home region. The only extra trick is occasionally filtering for caches (you have downloaded already) that weren't updated (not included in any PQ) and manually update those as they were the ones most likely archived. Anyway, just a surefire trick to keep an offline record of all the caches in a region. Update it weekly and you may only miss up to 1 week old caches. Not shabby unless you care much about FTFs.
  4. Amazon has great options as well; that's where I got mine. So common branding doesn't matter too much, just strength and length
  5. Ah, makes now that it looks like kai "+1"'d their own comment I would also echo that having a separate list for that awkward limbo-state of owned caches that you yourself added an OAR log to. If the response to a NM is that the owner either visits and fixes, or disables, then really the followup to knowing that a cache needs checking on would be to visit it or disable it. If you aim to visit it in the future sometime, put it on your calendar. If you know it's missing, disable it. If you know by someone's note that the container needs a fix but they didn't post an OAR, then you could 1] post a note explaining you'll be visiting soon/when, 2] disable saying that it's still there to be found but will be fixed soon, 3] send a message to the note poster asking them to add an OAR (this would be closest to intended workflow), 4] get a friend to post an OAR if you really need it flagged but you don't want to address it yet. The question really is how do you want to address the request for maintenance? The OAR is intended to alert the owner that attention is requested; if you want to post the OAR, then you already know this, and should be responding. But, one could say that if the person didn't think it important enough to alert the owner, then you really don't need to post it yourself. It's really is a pretty exceptional case if you think your own cache deserves an owner notification for an issue the person didn't feel it did, or you feel the public should be alerted, kind of, to a potential problem you don't want to yet be seen as addressing which the note-poster didn't feel wasn't significant enough to be noticed by an alert. *shrug* On one hand letting owners post an OAR to their own cache is a very quick fix. OTOH, proper understanding of the system already in place means nothing really needs to be done, just learning the right process. Dunno, I could go either way
  6. In most if not all places ordered by gc.com, logs should be sorted by date (not including time) and then LogID - that is, the order in which they were saved that day. And logs without a time are shown as 'earlier' (like, per 12am) than logs with a time. To my knowledge, logs should be sorted (each ascending): Year->Month->Date->HasTime(No first)->LogID. Not sure if that's still the format or if I'm off on it... But, if one list is showing logs in a different order than another, both on gc.com, that's odd.
  7. It may not be used much, but if it is used and its relevance when used outweighs its misuse, then there's no harm in it being there. Don't need to use if you don't want to. I often see a vote or two here and there, and most often they are used properly. So it really depends on whether the geocacher landscape around that cache has anyone who just wants to ruffle feathers by intentionally misusing the feature. Otherwise, it's a net positive, so may as well let it be rather than complaining to have it removed
  8. True, I forgot that I did try that in the early days, but the content of the txt received was just not optimal, and no way of customizing it. Now, the push notifications at least provide a whole lot more detail and you can just open the full email by swiping on it. Emailing to txt may work, but it may not be pleasant
  9. If you set up a gmail account for email notifications, then you can use the gmail app for immediate push notifications. GC send emails immediately, so the push notifications from gmail are effectively your text message. The official app doesn't do push notifications unfortunately (yet?), and gmail's the only one so far I've found that will push alerts on incoming emails. Before that I'd patched together a custom script that checks for emails every 30 seconds or so and used another service that sends text messages. Very clunky, not worth the effort. Gmail has the function and it works wonderfully
  10. That makes sense. The souvenir system is firstly built into geocaching.com with geocache log activity. They may not have piped in the AL completions to the award triggering algorithm, but rather just check for sufficient logs/completes whenever the check is triggered on gc log activity.
  11. Photo image rotations can be finnicky. There's the hard data for the image pixels and there's the EXIF data stating the rotation of the phone that it decided to store with the photo meta data. Even then there's no guarantee the image captured was correctly captured. The function could strip the EXIF tag and keep the data as is, or it could update the EXIF tag to what it infers from the aspect ratio, or it could rotate the image data to what it thinks matches the EXIF data. It's quite possible that in some cases the data and the exif could be wrong, in which case if the rotate function assumes one is correct, it may never produce the right result (eg, sometimes the phone doesn't sense the device orientation correctly and stores it wrong in a photo) Ultimately, the best rotate function I think for display on a web page (as opposed to camera archival) is to strip the EXIF rotation tag, and let the user visually decide which orientation the image data should be. Don't know if that's what the function on GC does. Just thought I'd weigh in
  12. The irony. Exactly. I don't think there's anything more that can be said. Cheers.
  13. Aaaaand update! https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2024/02/celebrate-25-years-of-geocaching-at-community-celebration-events
  14. Umm.. that's an "everyone gets a trophy" mentality. There is plenty I, for one, cannot receive since I've not been around since day 1. May as well allow anyone to become a charter member, eh? I mean, how unfair is it that they limited that label to only pre-2003 geocachers? Selfish? Don't be ridiculous. I'll point again to the fact that that the icon was already exclusive and unattainable. They opened it to more people with no limitation to where it can be attained, per "worldwide". I think it's "selfish" to demand that something that's by definition a limited thing be equitably attainable by anyone and everyone everywhere; or at least by a standard that brings you into the fold. And no, there is no guarantee that I will attain the icon, myself. I have zero plans at the moment, and if I do travel for it, it will be at great cost, in relation to my personal capabilities at the moment. It's a value judgment I need to make, whether I want to spend the money and time to make the trek to whichever event I think is worth it. That may mean no event. That may play out as dedicated effort to help make a local event into one. 100% absofrickinlutely Yes I would. No change. I would be jealous of those who could make it, if I judged that it was not within my means to attend. I would not demand that HQ somehow change the definition so that I could attend within my own arbitrary threshold of feasibility. If I do that, then I should support making it so that Joe Blow out in the boonies could host the same event himself, with no attendees, and still earn the same 'reward'. Ridiculous. Thanks for telling me what I comprehend, but you are wrong. No one is denying anyone the chance to join a 25 year celebration. I point back to my and other earlier posts. Megas, which can be held worldwide, and are merely an icon, are one method of celebrating 25 years, which anyone can attend, if it's within their threshold of ability (whether it's driving 100km or flying 5000 or planning and hosting). You know what happens to an event when it flips from a mega icon to a block party icon? Nothing. It's still the same event. But now there's a different icon. If anything changes, it's because the organizers are so pumped that they may make their own event bigger and better. You're so adamant that HQ is being unfair, and anyone who agrees with them is being selfish; all this for an icon? I guess they should just open up Virtual caches for everyone freely again. Open up webcam caches so people can log them from timbucktoo without having to travel and visit them. Hey may as well just let anyone log caches from the couch because it can be too costly for someone with 10 caches within 100km to get to that rare Virtual and get the icon. But that guy with 5 caches in 500km is worse off - he should get it too. I mean, if a handful of people 5000 miles from a mega event should be able to earn the Block Party icon on the basis of the fact that it may not be feasible to travel to get to the closest one and that's not fair... You are opening a can of worms with this line of argumentation. Yup. And with every iteration they are honing the 'selection' process, and it is never based on geographical region, outside of how the community itself is. But even so, unless they open it up to everyone on the planet, someone will always be 'left out', and that's "not fair". Apparently. I was interested in the possible solution idea (yay!), until the limitation per grid tile. That is something that won't happen; and, it'd be "unfair" to someone who thinks they could run a better event than that other guy who got the right to the event in their tile merely because they claimed it first. That's a geographical limitation that does not exist currently. A region currently could have multiple megas that become BP. How is that "fair"? Because the community determined that, not HQ. Oh stop it, no one's being excluded. Yep, what an awesome hobby that it even exists in some of these extremely remote areas, whether thanks to tourists or curious local individuals who found it online and decided to begin a local 'community'. I absolutely agree that it's nice when HQ recognizes and benefits people who help keep the game alive. And I'd greatly encourage them to continue to find more ways do so. I do not agree that making Block Parties available to any event worldwide is the answer. They brought back Seattle. And man, I really had to plan for a costly trip across the continent in order to finally visit that cache. And AFTER I'd already visited the 'replacement' non-official ape cache without the icon. So I had to visit it twice! They should have just given me the icon for visiting the location and container the first time so I didn't have to waste all that time and money on another trip. Come to think of it, they should let someone closer to me be able to place a cache (or me!) and make it an APE cache, to celebrate that series, other people can earn the icon who can't reasonably make the trip. I mean, re-opening Seattle wasn't enough since before that it would have been totally unfair to have had to make the trip to Brazil just to get that icon. It's not fair that someone who can't travel to Brazil, and not even Seattle, can't log a find and earn the APE cache icon. Come on HQ, don't you love us and appreciate us? Then no one in Asia will be earning any Mega event icon any time soon either. Why not complain about that? Rather, how awesome would it be to attend "the first Asian mega event" once the community makes it happen? Heck if I could attend it I might even do that - which would mean prioritizing the idea, planning and saving for it, if it's even possible. Just as anyone would need to do for any desire to travel anywhere. Even to the local cornerstore. Best suggestion to come out of this: How about a new and different series like the APE caches. I would be 100% for that.
  15. Until it's fixed, you could try forcing the mobile browser to request the desktop version of the website if it's available. It may help.
  16. So... that makes it sound like ANY external website requires a privacy policy and a disclosure agreement in order to be used on a cache page. That seems excessive. And way out of reach, as many websites used for puzzle caches are just websites with content. Now mob cache functionality is more than just a website that provides content, it's functional and makes use of user data. But "any site or app" is way more far reaching than user-functional websites... I hope that's what they were referring to, not just "any site". I know plenty of web-based puzzles set up on personal websites that don't have any form of policy let alone intentionally adhering to any international privacy laws. Has the approval process for any and all external website links been changed?
  17. We can't control what other geocachers do. Not everyone 'likes' to post NM/OAR. They are good to post if you feel the owner should tend to the cache. It's more annoying when no one posts one on a cache that clearly needs one, leading to a sub-par geocache find. So, yep, good that you added the maintenance log if you deemed it necessary.
  18. I log for the day I found the cache. Yes, this is the correct practice, even if you log the cache [post the log] many days later. That's where occasionally there's confusion - 'log date' sometimes is used to refer to the date on the log, and the date the log is saved to the listing. Date on the online log ~ should be date the cache was found Date the online log is saved to the listing ~ not required to be done on the same date it was found.
  19. Phones or GPSrs, everyone I know who doesn't log right away has something - a draft or a flag on the device - that they set when they find it. Offline. Chance they'll log them all when they get home? 50/50 at best. I regularly hold drafts for a few days these days unless I feel the urge to post them or have an imminent immediate reason to (like ftf logs). I don't know anyone who tries to mentally "remember" which cache they found, let alone that and forget the date they found it. Side note: I feel like sometimes there's a bit of cross-talk about the term 'date you found it'. Sometimes I see questions about whether you should 'log the cache the date you found it'. Some people interpret that as referring to the value of the date field on the log, and some interpret it as when you physically post the find log to the listing. I think the vast majority of cachers make sure the Date of the Found It is accurate the date it was found, even if they post the log on a different date. But I think there are some who do have a personal ethic of posting their Finds on the same date they actually found the cache (thus the Date Found value is implied accurate). But there is no rule/guideline saying that the Found It log must be posted on the same date as the log was signed nor the same date in the Date Found value; but it is good practice to date the Found It for the date it was actually signed, regardless of when you post the log to the listing.
  20. Yeah.... no. Not so much a security feature as a sufficiently annoying requirement that would become a game-killer. Won't happen.
  21. "Don't overthink it" I think is paramount. FTF is too vague. Everyone has different ideas and personal etiquette. Just define what you're "first" off. Someone who signed the log first might claim "first to sign". Someone who posted the log first might claim "first to log" if they were with other friends (happens in events a lot :P). You could claim ftf by "first to solve the puzzle AND sign the sheet" if the solution was determined by a loophole, eg. Or "first to find after publish" (against beta-tester ftfs). And so "first to sign AND qualify" is a perfectly legitimately FTF claim, IMO, even if someone else logs later saying they were first to sign the log sheet. There's no conflict - they were first to sign the log sheet, go on them. You were first to qualify as well. Good on you. Who has rights to the "FTF" reward? There is no reward. This is why I use a trackable now for a more accurate distance-traveled. Much easier to make adjustments to be more accurate, and can include visits to non-find geocaches as well, and owner visits. IMO there are 3 possible dates to log the find on for challenges, and I go with the latest date of the three, while the first is the 'cleanest' find. 1. Date the log was signed (permitted if already qualified) 2. Date qualified (if the log was signed before qualification) 3. Date qualification was determined (exception case, least preferable - eg, signed years ago, forgot, re-checked today and now qualify, but no idea when; so log it today, as that's more preferable than 'years ago') But per the OP, yeah, just clarify what you're "claiming" first of. Then there's no determinable conflict or doubt.
  22. Another way you can put it, if you "find" something that someone else moved, which used to be how you hid it, then you didn't find your cache, you found whatever it is that the other person did to your cache, so it's still technically not a 'new' find on your cache. Still an owner maintenance if you fix it back to your cache.
  23. Unfortunate for the web-based AR implementation, as that doesn't require any downloads. But it may just be the compatibility and accessibility isn't quite there yet. It may also have to do with making use of GPS in the web app, similar to the question of 'mob' caches making use of gps safely and privately. Who knows. But I definitely hope that HQ will in time allow web-based AR functionality. That's the way mobile devices are going, really
  24. You can also design window decals to place on the outside of tinted windows. They'll last for some time but may eventually begin to peel or crack. Simple to replace anyway. Plenty of printers stores out there can create window decals.
  25. As I've said, the system is in place to allow the cache owner to decide if that log is legitimate. And yes, there are people who reportedly take advantage of the 'group caching' loophole. And it's frustrating and infuriating - but not "cheating", and most often people have just now decided to shrug it off because nothing can be done and it's not worth the effort. As I always say, as long as the cache was found that day, it no longer causes me angst if 30 people log it found when 1 person did and the rest just 'claimed' it under the group caching name. It's annoying, but it's not cheating. I choose to encourage better etiquette, because as mentioned before, those other 29 are "only cheating themselves" (while also annoying any cache owners who crafted a geocache experience that was skirted merely so they could earn a +1 smiley, and they can't do anything about it if the owner can't "prove" those 29 finders weren't also present). And no, a code word won't help, because that 1 person would just tell everyone the code word. Same problem. But even less agency on the owner's part.
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