Team Microdot

Yeah - I emailed him this morning within a few minutes of making the changes. He got back to me shortly after work to confirm that I could go ahead and enable it again - https://coord.info/GC5WEPT What I've learned from this experience is that working hard to comply with the guidelines does not smooth sailing guarantee. The guidelines say: but the truth of the matter is that any part of any cache inside a business contravenes the guidelines and will be disallowed - even if, as in this case, there's absolutely no need to enter the business ( a point the reviewer continues to contest).

Starting to wonder now if I'm just supposed to re-enable it or wait for further communication from the mother ship...

The reviewer unarchived the EarthCache this morning. I've made the required changes and left it disabled for now. Heading in the right direction at last ?

Or Alfred Hawthorne Hill, to give him his proper name!

I'm fully prepared here, based on the current vibe, for the unarchival of the cache being the only concession I'll receive. At the moment it's just a waiting game.

It looks like nothing much has changed since Queen released their video "I want to Break Free". They were dropped like a hot potato in the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Mc-NYPHaQ Again - it's important to remember that the complaint originated inside the UK.

What a very strange attitude to have! My 'attitude' as you put it has been one of open, honest communication and a wish to engage in mutually respectful adult dialogue from the outset. We're all grown-ups here aren't we?

The reason the task is being forbidden differs depending on who you ask - which has puzzled me from the outset and things still aren't any clearer on that score. For Groundspeak the reason seems to be somewhere between 'not family friendly' and 'will make finders concerned about being labeled...(something unpleasant)' For the reviewer it was originally 'needs the cacher to enter a shop for task 8' but that's now become 'is inside a business'. For the complainant? Who knows? If the four of us could have sat down around a table I reckon there'd be a significant reduction in confusion and the whole thing would have been done and dusted in five minutes flat. As it is the safest option seems to be to remove that location and that logging task completely for the sake of peace and harmony.

Lots. Enough to put together several additional EarthCaches but far more difficult to deliver in an effective and compelling way with one key reason being navigation. In order to comply with commercial guidelines none of the locations require a person to enter - and none of them are described by their commercial name. Most of the units are numbered so it's not too difficult to steer someone towards locations which have a unit number / floor number / LHS/RHS combination. And the majority of the EarthCache is based underneath the prominent main glass dome - which is at the published coordinates. These are the sorts of reasons why I spent months working everything out in my head before first approaching the reviewer re the commercial aspect and then approaching the property owner for permission. Ergo why the location that's the subject of complaint has been a feature since the Earthcache was published two years ago - it has a clearly visible unit number above the huge open entrance. Having re-read the reviewer's email though it seems that the floor being INSIDE a commercial premises is an issue whereas the position in the official guidelines is: On that basis my Earthcache already complies with the guidelines. I could always make it very clear on the cache page that there is no need to go inside a business or interact with employees or purchase a product or service?

Something just occurred to me. In fact it occured to me previously but I'd forgotten about it and I've just been reminded of it... Is requiring the operative word here? Earthcaches can have optional tasks. The most common optional task is to invite loggers to upload a photograph of themselves at the cache location to prove they visited. So could this task be an optional task perhaps? That way, those that aren't offended by a shop selling undergarments could go and see the fantastic floor and those that aren't happy about it still get their smiley for completing the other logging tasks? Because even if I remove this logging task - the shop and the possibility of walking past it aren't going away at all. Just a thought.

I don't think it's fair to suggest that the issue(s) taken with this cache originate from the USA. Statistically the 'complainant' is from the UK - although I can't say for sure as they've not contacted me or, to the best of my knowledge, logged a find (although it's not impossible that they have claimed a smiley and THEN complained - but I highly doubt it). The UK reviewer who published it two years ago is the same reviewer who disabled it for the non-existent commercial guideline issue and who Groundspeak have now handed the issue back to. I now have to explain how I'm going to make the cache compliant so I've explained how it's very simple and I'll just remove all references to the underwear shop so that the EC can be unarchived - although the reviewer will have to unarchive it in the first place so that I can remove those references. It should take me about two minutes to complete the process.

In such circumstances I recommend https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

The edit - once I can make it - will take a few minutes. I'm just going to pull all reference to the underwear store. It means losing a logging task and not showing people a rare and fantastic looking rock but my options are limited.

Would this leave existing logs intact?

That sounds like an awful lot of unnecessary messing around for the sake of deleting a couple of sentences and removing one logging task. I personally am not concerned about watchers seeing logs - I see no reason to sweep anything under the carpet here.

You can't post reviewer notes on an archived cache. I also write my cache pages in HTML so I want to make sure that: a) I have an archive copy of the original HTML b) I don't screw up the page by porting the HTML back and forth between different pieces of software. There's no point sending anything further information to appeals as they've passed this case back to the local geoaware to action.

So late yesterday I was invited by Groundspeak to make edits to the cache page that would allow it to be considered for unarchival. Unfortunately I can't edit it right now because the fact it's archived also means no edits can be made.

I'll send answers first, then post my log, so when my log says "answers submitted" - that is indeed the case. If my husband and I are caching together, he'll wait till I've emailed our answers before posting his log as well. It's the way I thought it was supposed to be done! Now and then a CO will acknowledge my answers; none have ever deleted a log because we got it "wrong", and most times I hear nothing, so I assume all is well. This is exactly what I do too - it's simple, logical and respects the CO's time.

Anyone would think this was a matter of life and death! The owner has sent this thing out in the world to see what happens to it - knowing that absolutely anything could happen to it. Someone offers to make sure that the trackable number can continue to be read and is made to feel that he's getting involved in some sort of religious practice! It's a bit of metal with a number on it - not a precious family heirloom or religious or historically significant artifact. Give the guy a break.

Thanks - me too ?

Hopefully I'll hear back soon

Thanks for taking the time to share that information. It does sound like a well thought-out, quality controlled system of processes ? And it's nice to see that as a reviewer you see the appeal process as an opportunity and hopefully the same goes for all reviewers ? It does though pain me slightly that this mechanism leaves a void, an absence of exchanged views between those parties most invested in the final outcome. ETA - I would though just like to point out that, in this instance, the reviewer and I did not disagree. It seems that someone made a complaint and incorrectly claimed that this cache contravened commercial guidelines - which it never did. Any disagreement at this point therefore was with the complainant. The reviewer was merely conveying the complaint - although obviously the reviewer was the one to temp disable the cache to allow me time to address the complaint. I addressed the complaint by confirming that there was no need to enter the store in question and thus the cache complied with the guidelines. This confirmation was made on the cache page via the enable log. At this point I took the complaint to have been dealt with. I wasn't expecting then the cache to be summarily archived on the basis of a different issue entirely - with no opportunity for dialogue which is what strikes me as odd about the whole process. This is also an example of why I feel the interested parties NOT discussing the issue at hand is less than ideal. At this stage in the process the whole situation feels a lot like a game of Chinese Whispers and I don't think that's the most effective and efficient way to resolve issues with the minimum of fuss in a way that leaves everyone feeling a sense of agreement and acceptance.

I would hope so too but said Lackey made it clear that my only option was to take it to appeals, which saddens me a little as ending up at appeals feels like something of a failure to me. In this case though both the reviewer and the Lackey made it quite clear that they had no intention of discussing further - not that there was any discussion at all between me re-enabling on the basis that there was no grounds for the alleged commercial guideline infringement and the archival for the alleged 'not family friendly'. ?

True - I thought I'd submitted the appeal on the same day the thread started - but it was the day after. I've now reset my body clock by sitting in front of a very bright light for several minutes ?

Let's see - your OP was at 12:52pm (PST) on Friday. So, half-a-day on Friday, or a full day if your OP was hours before you emailed HQ. Then there was a 3-day weekend, since Monday was a national holiday in the US. Then there was Tuesday and Wednesday, so two days. That means - 2.5-3.0 business days. Not even a full 5-day workweek, much less a "full week in". Which is why I wrote a full week in and not a full working week in. There was no real need to edit from 2.5 business days to 2.5-3.0 business days - I wasn't about to contest that ?