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thebruce0

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Posts posted by thebruce0

  1. Think of the number next to the smiles as "Smilies", not physical geocache 'finds' as implied by, well, "finds". The smiley count consists of multiple things, as Hugh mentions above.  I stopped calling them finds some time back because of this confusion...

    • Upvote 2
    • Funny 1
  2. 1 hour ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

    I have two virtual caches that require a photo at GZ.  I do everything I can to help the cacher if they log without a photo, including sending them a link to the log, coaching them through uploading a photo, etc.  My caches say that I'll delete a log if no photo after 24 hours but I usually wait a week or so and give the cacher every chance I can.  Ultimately I just delete the log if they don't communicate back to me.  I work to be very communicative with each cacher, even asking one cacher to change a "found it" to a "write note" because they arrived when the park was closed and never made it to GZ, which they did very understandingly.

    Exactly my process as well. And I go by 1 week, then mark it on my calendar when to come back and deal with the log if necessary :)

    • Upvote 2
  3. On 9/24/2023 at 1:19 AM, Team Canary said:

    Will you respond to the other thread?

     

    18 hours ago, Keystone said:

    If there are forum moderation issues that members of the volunteer moderator team may have overlooked...

     

    10 hours ago, Team Canary said:

    But, there is no problem with moderation...

     

    Therefore keystone, a moderator, shouldn't be expected to respond to the other thread.

    • Upvote 1
  4. 1 hour ago, JL_HSTRE said:

    Compelling narratives rarely ever happened. Locking people into doing an AL in a specific order usually caused more headaches than it was worth.

    It takes creativity and an understanding of what compels a person to desire doing things in order, beat to beat. Compelling narratives aren't bad, it's if they're badly implemented.
    From what I've seen, people are more upset about badly implemented linear ALs than they are about 'narrative' style ALs; they seem to be more forgiving about so-so linear ALs, and just don't want to unnecessarily/needlessly feel like they had to do something linearly.

     

    eta: Another way to put it - those more likely to complain about linear ALs on principle tend to be the ones who just want to sign the log and not do caches, like multis, the way the owner intended (which requires more work).

    (emphasis intended)

  5. That could be hard to nail down unless you define "Challenge Cache". There were ALRs long before 'challenge caches' were a thing. Could be quite a task to locate the first cache that was published that required a finder to do something before signing the log... but interested in finding out if that's solved :P

    • Upvote 2
  6. Seems like it's intended to be locations within the radius of the AL locations directly.

     

    My curiosity: It seems to include locations from ALs posted from a farther distance than the AL being viewed, which is good. Cachly only shows locations of other ALs IF the posted AL location is loaded in the current search.

     

    For eg: AL with 5 locations spread 500km apart, and posted at one end. Cachly wouldn't display the other 4 locations until the current search includes the posted location at the far end. Can anyone confirm that this update to the official app will actually show the other locations of that AL if a nearby AL to one of them is being targeted, even if it's 500km from its posted location? If so, that is a very good feature to help not miss any (non-sequential) unrelated AL locations.

  7. Most data storage keeps the Y, M, and D values accurate (thus sort properly wherever displayed); it's not good to store date fields as static text/values.  It's really just the visual representation of date data that can be confusing across country borders. But that's why the visual naming convention is so important when it's not a matter of a system that displays it in localized date format (such as file names that are static).  It's almost always the D/M values when both are <=12 that confuse people if the year is not displayed first.

    blargh.

  8. On 9/8/2023 at 6:56 PM, Max and 99 said:

    Screenshot_20230908-175531.png

     

    One design idea to make these light-grey-on-white preview text boxes better:

    Just make a text block above the entry block! Solid black text that shows above where you enter the log text. It can be hidden if desired after a certain threshold. Visual design. I know I rarely every read more than a word or 2 of input-box preview text if I'm about to type over it.

    Survey: How many novice users have actually read the "Describe the..." preview text on that input box? :(

  9. As an anecdote, you can find social media posts from newbies who are excited to find say their 5th geocache, just the one, and at most 1 per day - most.  I drive home and could stop for 5 roadsides within 30 minutes with tiny detours to my regular route. There's no question that experienced geocachers will pick'em up at a rate new cachers will find (yes) impossible. They haven't got there yet, don't know how it could be done (let alone the debates about 'most caches in a day' hitting that 1000 threshold). So I do agree that it's unreasonable to expect that even the average cacher would find the Hard requirements (at least most of them) actually easy.

     

    I've advocated in the past for a "harder" Hard, and I think that's been happening. But I definitely do not expect something like 40 finds in a week or less to be a standard for 'hard', as for most of the worldwide community that would be more like 'insane'. :P

     

    ETA: Maybe there should be an 'insane' souvenir :laughing: although that might hit some political correctness triggers

    • Upvote 1
  10. Okay remember they're working with average worldwide stats, which they know and we don't. If they pick a hard that is actually hard for the 1%, it would be extremely inaccessible. Any challenge they pick will lead to the top tier shouting "boring!" - live with it; we need to live with it. It's a worldwide hobby, and the vaaaaaast majority are nowhere near the level of activity we may profess. We are guaranteed to get "boring" challenges when they are presented to and intended to be accessible to the worldwide community.

     

    That's why we have Challenge Caches. And even then, here, Ontario is getting a 'cream of the crop' effect with new challenge cache revisions periodically published that are catering to the handful of the same top crop cachers who are always traveling and caching daily with insane statistics, creating these CCs that are many multiple years away from even the average cacher in Ontario - but 10 people in Ontario qualify so it's good go to.  Usually it's 10 from among the same 30ish cachers in the entire province (at least who legitimately find their caches rather than mass group caching 95% of the time).  Now imagine that effect for the world.

     

    The other way to look at it is to instill your own challenge on top of the presented challenge - they propose a theme, and points rewarded for caches that aren't technically part of the theme (favs and any cache type finds?) - so MAKE it a challenge and score for yourself, only for the relevant finds. Ignore the souvenir scoring, don't reduce your caching habits to avoid points for non-relevant finds, and just score yourself, earn the souvenir the "pure" way, even if you technically earned it on day 1. Or only count caches that are thematically related. If Hard is too easy, then make it hard. Or just accept the souvenir because you're that good of a geocacher, relative to the worldwide community.

    *shrug*

    • Upvote 7
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