[Use of "muggle" in geocaching]

13 hours ago, MartyBartfast said:

Muggle has been used going way back to the 1920/30's so pre-dates Harry Potter by a long way, though maybe not Dumbledore

"Muggle" meaning what? I quickly tried to look this up, and it's not clear to me how far "muggle" goes back meaning "uninitiated". The earlier references seem to be the same word but used for something else like pot smoking.

 

At any rate, no American had ever heard the term, regardless of how far it goes back in Britain. While I don't really know who first used it for geocaching or why, I'd be *very* surprised if they didn't get the idea from the Harry Potter concept of muggles being those unaware of the world of magic. Personally, I'd go so far as the claim that Rowling reinvented the word to mean something different than it meant before she used it. Specifically, the existing term -- as I've been able to track it down -- meant someone not in the know but not someone *unaware* of "the know" altogether. (And that's assuming she was consciously using an existing term rather than inventing her own term, and I'd want to hear what she says about that.)

[Puzzle cache help from CO]

4 hours ago, MNTA said:

What is someone to do when the CO is no longer available to respond to questions and provide hint? Should a NM/NA be filed despite some individuals still solving and finding the cache?

I agree with ChriBli: *you* not being able to solve a puzzle is definitely *not* a reason it needs maintenance, regardless of whether the CO is answering your pleas for help.

2 hours ago, baer2006 said:

In this case, I log an NM, asking the CO to fix the puzzle. If nothing happens, an NA follows. IMHO it doesn't make sense to keep unsolvable mystery caches alive.

Logging an NM is OK if the puzzle it not solvable. The example I'm thinking of it that an imagine required to solve the puzzle is no longer available. On the other hand, I'd post the NM but leave it to someone else -- hopefully someone that *has* solved it -- to declare it needs to be archived. Otherwise I'll assume there are people still able to find it, and pay no attention to it while they get around to it.

[Top 10 Cache Owner Resolutions in 2022]

On 1/22/2022 at 12:11 PM, barefootjeff said:

I always pay my new caches a few quick-fire visits in the first couple of months after publication, just to make sure everything's standing up okay in the field.

I normally wait a couple months before publishing my geocache after checking to make sure it's still there and the hide still works. But that's not because I'm such a good CO, it's just because I'm a big procrastinator, so it takes me that long to submit the cache.

[Trackables Last Longer in Europe than in the US]

19 hours ago, shellbadger said:

This is why I and others have remarked that if a trackable survives long enough, no matter the origin, the trackable will pass through northern Europe, and more specifically, Germany.

"Pass through"? In my experience, if a trackable survives long enough to reach Europe, it will stay there, not pass through. This strikes me as the conclusion your data supports, too.

[Top 10 Cache Owner Resolutions in 2022]

18 hours ago, Rock Chalk said:

Three certainties in life:

1. Death
2. Taxes
3. Forum regulars mocking (and/or ascribing sinister intentions to) well-meaning suggestions of a light-hearted blog post without offering any well-meaning suggestions of their own

I think you're overreacting to a little light-hearted ribbing.

 

To avoid being accused of not offering any well-meaning suggestions:

 

I'd eliminate 2 and replace it with "Use containers that won't fail every 2 months. Hide your caches where they won't be muggled every 2 months."

 

And I'd reword 3 to something more along the lines of "Watch for and appreciate reports of problems and use them to keep your cache in good working order."

 

I'd also add another bullet: "When faced with criticism, focus on whether the point is valid without being distracted when it's expressed poorly."

[An Easy Challenge ?]

On 1/16/2022 at 10:29 AM, arisoft said:

Not as reasonable as one may think. Our local reviewers made clear that it is not allowed to change virtual challenge requirements because new virtuals were published. Cache owners tried afterwards limit the publish date before 2017 but reviewers didn't allow this change.

I don't suppose the challenge was to find a certain number of virtuals? I'd consider that a different kind of change.

[Is It OK to Immediately Disable an Approved New Cache to Set Up Hardware then enable.]

15 hours ago, SeekTheCache said:

That doesn't really work.

Originally, I buit and placed two caches on those fields. When I submitted them, I was told they could not be published because they were strapped to a species of tree that is protected, which I didn't know at the time.

I don't understand how your original question, about placing a temporary container, would have avoided this.

 

I think the solution to your problem is to go to the reviewer and ask for help instead of depending on the normal mechanisms. I assume your reviewer would be willing to work with you to avoid the problems you're describing. Certainly whatever made him realize the problem with the tree species after you officially published the cache could have been sorted out by going over the same information with him during the coordinate checks. The standard procedures aren't designed to handle anything as complicate as you're talking about, but my impression is that reviewers are open to handling special cases outside the box.

[Puzzle cache help from CO]

9 hours ago, Jones_cubed said:

Puzzle cache CO's - 

How do you feel about people messaging you for hints/help with solving a puzzle?

I take it as part of being a puzzle CO.

[TBs & GCs: What's the deal?]

I love finding and moving TBs, especially coins, but there's no denying they've all but vanished from the scene. (Well, except the ones that made it to Germany where they seem well cared for even though they never leave the country once there. )

 

On 1/13/2022 at 8:06 AM, kunarion said:

But that's part of the fun , placing a TB or Geocoin to see how far it goes.  Just be sure you don't mind if disappears.

I agree that if you release one, definitely be ready for it to disappear and consider that part of the fun. I encourage people that want to to put them out there because I like to see them and travel with them. But I have to be honest and admit that I've lost interest in having my own. I still have a couple tags around here that I never got around to releasing.

[An Easy Challenge ?]

39 minutes ago, rustynails. said:

Interesting, I didn't catch that one. They may have changed requirements without the reviewers knowledge? I don't think changing requirements after publication is allowed. That and D/ T needs to be looked into.

Well, isn't the 2017 simply excluding modern virtuals because new virtuals make it an ever expanding problem? I think that's a perfectly reasonable reaction to a major change in the game that makes the challenge significantly different than it was originally.

 

The D/T rating obviously reflects only the physical find itself. Personally, I prefer the rating to reflect the challenge, but many Challenge COs disagree with me, so I'll leave it up to them.

 

I'm more intrigued by the fact that no one's completed the challenge than the fact that the challenge exists. I'm guessing there are a significant number of very challenging virtuals in Utah. It also looks like the location of the final is somewhat out of the way, perhaps leaving it overlooked by the kind of people that would climb every mountain in Utah in order to complete a challenge. But who knows?

[[Feature Request] Map Coordinates Toggle View]

On 1/8/2022 at 2:48 AM, arisoft said:

From a user perspective this feature is not wanted. There was a short period of time when users could actually select which way solved coordinates was displayed. I used this option very much. Then this feature was removed streamlined. I think that this is a strong indication against the feature. It is not wanted for some reason.

I don't remember that period when you could choose. I only remember people immediately asking for the feature as soon as people noticed the cache snap back. How long was there a way to choose? And why would GS put up with the complaints if they already had the code to provide user control?

 

I agree someone doesn't want it, but it's clear from the regular complaints that many users do want it. Why would a user object to being able to choose the behavior they'd prefer?

[Ad labs feature request... remove 'sequential order' as an option]

On 12/31/2021 at 9:38 PM, VeganHiker said:

I would like all ALs to be non-sequential as well.  I attempted to begin an AL last week and found a car that was up on cinder blocks with its tires/license plate stolen  I did not feel safe parking in this lot so I did not start the AL.  If they were non-sequential I could have moved on to the other four stages.  Hopefully, they would have been safer to go after!

I'd just look at it as a multi. Hopefully you wouldn't say multis shouldn't be allowed to be sequential because a car might happen to be dumped at the starting location.

 

1 hour ago, Mausebiber said:

Why didn't you just park in a different location near by?

I can't answer for VeganHiker, but I can imagine that seeing a dumped car would make one not want to be in that neighborhood at all, whether it was for parking or not. I.e., not so much "I don't want to park here" as "I'm driving away and never ever coming back." Personally, I probably would hardly have noticed the car and wouldn't have drawn a conclusion from it about the area, but I understand people that are more sensitive to such things.

[Can 2 geocachers share a cache?]

Just to restate what has already been said: officially, each cache is owned by a single account. How the two of you manage the cache behind the scenes is up to you. The system won't automatically help you, but you don't need the help, do you?

 

The only tricky thing is what Bear and Ragged mentioned: the "placed by field" is under your control, so you can override the default to list both accounts there even though the system will still link the text you set it to back to that one owning account.

[Reset Cache Count]

My advice is to embrace your history. I have to ask myself why you don't want to keep it. Only a handful of the caches you found all those years ago are still around to be found again, so nature has already cleared the board for you. If there are caches you want to revisit, by all means do so and log them again with a Note. Hearing that you liked the cache enough to come back again all these years later will mean so much more to the CO than a random Find, anyway.

 

[Experience doing AL with no data signal for 4 labs in a row]

On 12/19/2021 at 2:23 PM, rragan said:

We saw some bugs off and on in the app. First it would declare a Lab completed even though it wasn't. Youi could tap an uncompleted location sometimes on the map and get to them but other times the tap did nothing but you could go to the list of all locations and resume that way.

I've gotten used to a lab being marked completed when it's not. I've found that my workaround is always effective, so I've started making a habit of it. It might work for you.

 

It goes like this:

 

1. On the map, tap the uncompleted stage to turn it on (i.e., solid). Except for the change in the circle on the map, nothing happens. But...
2. Tap somewhere else on the map to deselect the stage, making the circle the faded color again. Now...
3. Tap on the stage again and -- presto! -- this time it comes up correctly.

Your story also confirms my theory (which, by the way, I developed doing some of those same CA-1 adventures) which is that the uncompleted adventures marked completed are caused by doing the adventures off line like that. One of my theories is that it also involves switching between adventures (while on-line, of course). I've done that several times along the CA coast, so I'm guessing you ended up doing that, too.

 

I had a lot of trouble with those CA-1 adventures on my Verizon phone, and it was really starting to annoy me, especially when it wouldn't work even when there was no good reason it shouldn't, including some times it worked in one place, but then wouldn't work when I went back to the same place. Then we started doing the adventures using a different phone with a different service and it was *so* much more reliable. I can't tell you the other service, but Verizon definitely caused some problems.

[Are reviewers no longer acting on NA logs?]

4 hours ago, Ragnemalm said:

It was indeed from a reviewer. It was well documented that the cache was in a bad shape and that the CO did not respond to multiple attempts and was inactive since a long time. I was told that it was not OK, it should be NM. The cache was archived about three months later (not 4-6 weeks).

 

So the rule that the reviewer gave me was only to log NM in such a case. IMHO, NA is a strong recommendation for archiving, not just reporting of violations, but that was not the case.

Any chance the reviewer was saying you should post an NM first instead of going straight to posting an NA? That's what it sounds like. I don't know what the "multiple attempts" were that the CO didn't respond to, but if they weren't NMs, then it would be appropriate to post an NM. The cache sounds bad enough that an NA without bothering with an NM might be reasonable, so I'm not saying I think a bare NA would be entirely wrong, it just strikes me that the reviewer might have been questioning it because typically an NM is posted first in order to give the CO a chance to react before calling in the reviewer to archive it.

[Activity logs are now called "Reviews"]

6 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I'm pretty sure the thing I optionally wrote after finishing an AL used to be called an Activity Log, but now in the app and Help Centre it's referred to everywhere as a Review. To me there's a subtle difference, with an Activity Log implying it's simply an account of my experience whereas a Review implies it's meant to be a recommendation for other people like restaurant or holiday destination reviews.

Well, first of all, I don't think there's anything subtle about the difference. A log is completely different than a review. I've always thought it was a bad idea to call it a review and never really understood why someone thought that was a good idea.

 

But to your point, it's been called a review for a while now. I don't know how long, but it's long enough that I've started to doubt it was ever really called anything else. Since it's always been a log, in my opinion, and always should have been a log, I started to believe that I just never noticed that, against all logic, it wasn't called a log from the beginning. From what you're saying, I was wrong about that, but that makes it even more curious since why would they start calling it a review when everyone was obviously using it as a log?

[Release Notes (Adventure Lab® App: Time to complete Adventures) - November 19, 2021]

17 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

It blows my mind there are ALs that take 2+ hours to complete.

I know what you mean! I'm always amazed at how many different interesting ways people can do things. I love home many different approaches people have found to creating Adventure Labs!

[Ad labs feature request... remove 'sequential order' as an option]

On 12/11/2021 at 5:15 PM, barefootjeff said:

No, because the weather isn't something I designed into the AL or bonus, but the sequential/non-sequential setting is and he made it pretty clear he found my choice of that annoying.

OK. It's up to you if you want to view it as a negative. When someone admits that, even though he found your choice annoying, he would have also found the other possible choice equally annoying, I can't see it as a comment on your design choice. I would take it as a comment on his own foibles, something you're no more responsible for than the weather.

[The same tracking code for several coins?]

In my opinion, it's wrong, but -- from my point of view -- it's one of those wrong things I'd tend to just ignore rather than object to since it doesn't really affect me. If I saw one of the coins, I'd likely just pocket it since I wouldn't want to get involved and I know the copy I found won't be missed.

 

I don't know what the official position is, but several years ago I ran into a slip of paper that was one of many duplicate "TBs". I don't remember how many. My memory says "thousands" except that seems too many to get into circulation.

 

When I found it, I thought it was an interesting thing to try, but when I went to log it, it was locked. What I heard was that it wasn't just that GS took a dim view of the idea: apparently something about it really clogged up the system. I suspect that cerberus1 is correct about GS not bothering with it unless it's an issue, but I also know of one example where it was an issue and they did step in.

 

So my reaction to the coins you're talking about is that it's been tried, and it's not really as interesting as it seems.

[Ad labs feature request... remove 'sequential order' as an option]

16 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Well he said he's annoyed that it's not sequential and he had to travel all the way from where he finished to where the bonus is, so yes, I take that as a complaint. Not sure what I can do about it, though, as the bonus can't be close to every location.

But he also said he would be annoyed if it *were* sequential, so I took it more as a comment about himself than a complaint about the adventure. You can consider it negative if you really want to, but when he comes out and admits he'd be just as annoyed no matter which way you did it, I have a hard time thinking he didn't enjoy the cache. Would you call it a complaint if someone posted "I get really annoyed when it takes me 20 minutes to find the cache and then it turns out it was obvious"?

 

Even if it really was a complaint, I'd still take it to be an attempt at humor since he's complaining even though there's nothing you could have done that wouldn't have annoyed him.

 

15 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Except the weather, which I'm surprised he didn't mention as it's been prettty horrible all week.

If he'd mentioned the bad weather, would you have thought he was complaining about the adventure?

[Paid geocache creator commission]

1 hour ago, Unit473L said:

I think CheekyBrit could elaborate on what they mean by "have them built under their own name".

Does it really matter? Are there different ethical considerations for any of those three (or four including barefootjeff's suggestion)?

 

As far as I can see, how they actually accomplish the end isn't important. I don't see how we could detect that money changed hands, and I don't understand why we would care, either.

[Paid geocache creator commission]

On 12/8/2021 at 6:20 AM, TriciaG said:

On 12/7/2021 at 5:22 PM, dprovan said:

Nothing about the hypothetical implies anything different about how the cache is submitted and owned.

Doesn't it? See this:

On 12/6/2021 at 6:31 PM, CheekyBrit said:

Picking the spot, building and hiding the container, getting permission, designing the cache page, ongoing maintenance possibly, all of it.

"All of it" is ambiguous and could imply submission as well, especially if the cache page that was designed is complicated. And "ongoing maintenance" may imply maintenance of the cache page as well (removing the NM log with an OM log, updating the description/coordinates, etc.)

As I said, none of that implies a change in how the cache is submitted and owned. You're describing the case where the person who is paid to create the cache also submits the cache. I don't think that's what the OP had in mind -- I took it more as the money bags wanted to be the CO -- but even if the creator submits the cache, that still doesn't change how the cache is submitted and owned,  it just means the money bags pays the creator to put up a cache which the creator then owns, not the money bags (at least not in the geocaching.com sense).

 

On 12/8/2021 at 6:20 AM, TriciaG said:

But I don't want to argue about this. Your thought process and mine are obviously different. If you thought my comments were inane, that's fine.

I don't know where this came from. If you see something in the OP that suggests geocaching.com's existing practices would change, I'd like to hear your thoughts. I don't see it, so I think existing practices answer your questions.

[Bug? Certitude verification seems to be pointing to a different website - Hacked?]

10 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

The Certitude link in that cache goes to " certitude.comxa.com " which is different to most others I've seen that go to "www.certitudes.org".

Right. The comxa.com is the old name. I run into this regularly on older puzzle caches. Just replace the host name with "www.certitudes.org" and  you'll get to the correct page. Naturally you should point out the problem to the CO, but you don't need him to fix it.

[Ad labs feature request... remove 'sequential order' as an option]

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

You can never please everyone. I just got this log on my bonus cache complaining about the AL not being sequential:

Is that a complaint?