Rikitan
-
Posts
372 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Rikitan
-
-
2 hours ago, colleda said:
How keen would they, the COs, be to set new PTs if GS introduced a placement fee of, say, $1 per cache for numbers over 100 per user account? A little extra revenue wouldn't go astray would it?
And if you knew that guy better, you'd charge him $23.900 retrospectively
-
.png)
1
-
-
Quote
Cache owners who do not maintain their existing caches in a timely manner may temporarily or permanently lose the right to list new caches on Geocaching.com.
^^^ This ^^^ is written in current Guidelines.
My interpretation: If someone submits new PT for review, it is natural that reviewer checks his maintenance history.
- How many caches that account owns?
- Does he own & maintain some trails already?
- Are they maintained as per expectations?
If answers are ~ many / yes / no, not really - I believe that reviewer should have concerns & consult next steps with HQ, possibly with ultimate decision not to publish new powertrail.
Or publish it later - only after existing caches will be properly maintained during certain period of time.
Under these conditions:
- There will be less poorly maintained powertrails.
- Well-maintained powertrails will continue to live & spread fun for us.
- Very unlikely there'll be someone with 24K hides with no maintenance.
Bottom line - Guidelines are there and they are good enough. We just need to follow them properly.
-
6
-
14 hours ago, coachstahly said:
Reviewers are supposed to be impartial "judges" of caches, not arbiters of providing "better" caching experiences for players. Their focus should be on the caches, not the ones finding (or not finding) the caches. Whether or not the player has a good experience shouldn't be the concern of a reviewer, which is what you claimed. By doing their job (which is not to help a player have a better experience but to determine the health of the cache), they can influence the possible outcome of a positive experience, but that shouldn't be their overarching objective. It should be to make sure that the cache falls within the guidelines as it currently stands. The determination of whether or not a cacher might have a good experience isn't something they should take into account when reviewing a cache.
If you're going to claim that they should help make experiences better, then you're opening the door for reviewers to make a claim about the subjective value of a cache - LPCs usually not a really good experience (they do have their place), a gadget cache being a good experience, a guardrail cache being a not so good experience, an ammo can in the woods involving a mile hike being a good experience, etc..... That's a Pandora's box I don't believe anyone wants to open and I hope that's not what you mean. Just because a cache is in good shape, maintenance-wise, doesn't mean that the experience they have will necessarily be a good one. A small bison tube in pristine shape, hanging in the middle of the woods might be a good experience for one cacher, but for someone like LOne.R, it's not going to be because it probably could have been a small or regular.
Absolutely, I agree, very well presented.
I'm not claiming the opposite
Maybe it sounds like that when someone pick one sentence and quote it without all the context before & after.
Focus on cache & its health, that's it.
-
19 hours ago, coachstahly said:
You go away for a week and nothing changes.
Per @Rikitan - "
Volunteering to ease the pressure from both sides, trying to:
- Help players to have better experience of finding geocaches - instead of piling DNFs up, instead of droping pill bottles everywhere.
Since when did reviewers become involved in helping players have better experiences? I thought their job was to address individual caches, not ensure that players have better experiences. One of the side benefits can be that there are less "offending" caches out there but that's a by-product of their job, not the actual job. When did they become concerned about DNFs and throwdowns, as it pertains to cachers having a better experience? Why is that their concern? Aren't they supposed to be focusing on the cache itself, rather than the possibility that someone might have a bad experience because it's not there or that it's a throwdown? Even if the throwdown is a better container than the original cache that was there (not that I'm condoning throwdowns)? Reviewers used to deal with caches that had known issues, either with NM/NA logs and/or private communications with other cachers. Now they're being asked to deal with caches that may or may not have any issues, but appear to be on the verge. Why? So they can ensure that players have better experiences. Is that part of their job description now?
Away for a day and I see you've already find the answers above.
-
I feel the same - I wish LBH to be more special than just minimalistic design of Trad + stamp.
More special in my understanding =
- letterbox-style clues to be involved somewhere in the hunt
- logbook large enough for stamps
It's only my preference. I would support additional restriction, but I don't think it's realistic expectation.
-
2
-
-
.png)
1
-
-
Hard to pick one, visited so many nice places.
Maybe .. hunt for T5 clues in obsolete heating plant (GC2TEPX), with friends. It took us whole day till smiley.
Complex of buildings does not exist anymore.
-
25 minutes ago, baer2006 said:
Yeah, the documentation has some gaps in my view (or I just DNF'd the info
). After playing around a bit with the Builder, I had come up with a few questions which I e-mailed to the given help address. No answer received so far (not that this is a problem), but maybe you can give me a hint on one very basic question. A "wrong" answer would immediately kill the location(s) I have in mind, so I'm kinda curious:
At one point, it says "Adventure Labs can be ... indoors", and on the other hand you have location validation to enter the find code. But you usually don't have a GPS signal indoors, so how is this supposed to work? Place the location coordinates into the front yard, and asking the cachers to come back here when they found out the answer indoors?
Good question and for sure you'll get more precise answer back.
My guess - general location is good enough, the "circle" where app allows playing & logging is large enough.
-
4 hours ago, arisoft said:
These are temporary caches so experience with long-life caches is not required
Why temporary? True, everything is temporary, but Lab Adventures are just as temporary as any other geocaches. Only minimum duration is limited, not maximum.
QuoteThese Adventures will remain active for at least six months, or potentially longer, for the community to enjoy.
-
I agree with you, it is helpful (imho also important) to consider all the circumstances you outlined.
- diff / terrain
- experience of players who logged DNFs
- were they in one group, or one after each other?
- cache saturation in area - is there competition for free places, or not at all?
- climate / weather conditions
- CO situation, may be ill or travelling
And many more.
-
2 hours ago, dprovan said:
Yes, some people will always complain when something doesn't go their way. It's our job to look at their complaints and ask whether they're reasonable. I have yet to see any evidence that the complaints about bad caches are reasonable. In every case I've seen, the complaints were always about what is reasonable expect from day-to-day stuff happening.
And, no, I never heard any CO complain about how much maintenance was required until a few years ago when people started demanding more maintenance than was warranted for keeping their caches in good working order.
I acknowledge "reasonability of complaints" and "good working order" are very relative terms.
There's no mechanism, no reviewer who can satisfy all the people, we all are different.
Let me help to express myself by classic histogram with normal distribution.
-
1
-
2
-
-
Well, it felt like meeting travelling logbook, usually from event to event with someone. I can imagine there existed more thrilling concepts, when travelling cache was really hidden somewhere, then found and hidden somewhere else. But this kind of fun was more and more gone and caches travelled like trackables really, messing the stats for everyone.
Funny story:
One example ended up near Prešov, Slovakia, when time was up and HQ archived all of them. Suddenly it became the top of several rankings in our country. First (oldest) cache in the country. Top logged cache in the country. Top FP in the country. Etc. Bizarre!
Reviewer was forced to unlock it, unarchive it, quickly move coords back to US (original place), archive and lock it again. But that's not over, as this cache is helping many local players to meet couple of distance-based challenges, while they never had to leave the country.
Result - more mess than fun with these caches. Glad they are gone.
If you'll come to argue that stats are not everything - yes, you are right
-
1
-
-
This kind of discussion will always be around, there's no best solution, which would satisfy everyone.
It will only be around more often, as the game age - and more and more owners are leaving.
- Players will always be complaining about lost caches, bad shape, unmaintained, abandoned.
- And CO's will always be unhappy how much maintainence is required, how often. For many of us, Geocaching is only 3rd, 4th, x-th hobby, understandably so! Behind work, behind family, that's okay.
HQ? They are only doing their best to find right balance in between.
Reviewers? Volunteering to ease the pressure from both sides, trying to:
- Help players to have better experience of finding geocaches - instead of piling DNFs up, instead of droping pill bottles everywhere.
- Understand the owners - not to push too much, too quickly, to keep them in the game & motivated. Because owners are ones who create the game.
Clearly, these goals are going against each other.
There is human decision in between. It's not easy, not pleasant, it's not the best activity you can imagine for long evenings guys.
Let's help reviewers by simple responsiveness, at least. When asked to reply, just reply. It helps to avoid conflicts.
And if someone's out of the game, not replying?
So what? Archived cache is not the end of the world. Go out and hide new one instead.
And when I'm busy, because of other priorities? Of course there are more important than game!
Again, I have options. I can adopt troubled cache to friend and after some time take it back.
Or I can get rid of such cache, archive it by myself .. and hide new one once I'll have more time again.
I have respect to all the finders, I'm glad they took their time to look for my cache. I want them to be successful and to find it in a good shape. If I'm not able to maintain it, I'll take it off. In happened many times and it often gave me freedom to realize new ideas.
-
2
-
2
-
.png)
3
-
17 minutes ago, The Jester said:
I'm glad you work that way, but not all reviewers do so. I was traveling last year and repeatedly posted I'd take care of the cache when we were back home. After getting home, collecting supplies needed, I found out the cache had been archived before we arrived home. It didn't leave a good taste in my mouth...
This one? GC31B9
Well, according to logs, your multi had unresponded issues since 2017 - that could take part in reviewer's decision too.
In addition, he has explained to you, that he can't hold so many physical locations for so long.
Fair enough?
-
3
-
-
-
1 minute ago, igator210 said:
I hadn't thought about it before, but yes, Groundspeak should call this Adventure Cache and retain the "Lab" part for further experimentation.
Maybe Adventure Cache is kept in the locker until future integration, once Adventure Labs will (?) turn to be successful.
-
-
11 hours ago, Bryan said:
At the same time, we realize that moving to a mobile only strategy for Adventure Lab (Lab Caches) does make it harder (or impossible) for people to play if they don't have a smartphone. Unfortunately, this is a choice we are making because we believe that accessing the value of potential features unlocked by smartphone technology is critical for enhancing the platform and realizing more of its potential for interactive geocaching gameplay and associated storytelling.
Thanks Bryan. I belong to players, who are thankful for this decision to unlock exciting features that only smartphones can bring into the game.
-
1
-
1
-
-
6 minutes ago, GO Geiger said:
So, to clarify, is this for ALL Lab caches from now on (like at every Mega event)? Or is it only for those that form a series, like the Seattle ones near the Space Needle?
Don't have a smartphone, have never needed one to function, not going to get one just for Lab caches.
(Our idea of caching, for whatever type of cache we're looking for, is "load up the GPS, get outside, get away from constant interruptions" - giving the telemarketers an avenue for contacting us while we're outside enjoying the fresh air doesn't fly with me. Might sound old-fashioned, but my very nice flip phone spends 95% of its life turned off sitting in my car.)
Yes, ALL Lab caches.
Come on and upgrade your cellphone. Like almost everything in life, Geocaching have to keep pace with technology, to evolve, and to survive. Otherwise it will be overtaken by more progressive outdoor game(s). I'm traditional GPSr user for nearly 14 years, but I embrace the change - let's allow this small segment of the game progress a bit.
If you don't want to have smartphone at all, you can still have friends who does. They can let you log on their devide to log the adventures.-
3
-
-
9 hours ago, Crow-T-Robot said:
I would assume the Studio version would be more detailed and allow for more creation options, but how limited is the app version?
This is very good question. Frankly, I will give it a try to re-create my content using app version, but expecting serious limitations.
I tried to create Auras directly in the App before I "discovered" Studio, but it appeared to me like instant fun - snap the trigger, add overlay from catalogue. No settings, no multiple overlays, no palette of actions, timers and other functions I used in Studio. But I'll to migrate it somehow, let's see.
Anyway, hopeful new Studio will come soon and will remain free. Otherwise, Reveal is gone for us.
Ref, official info & FAQ: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSekxkMPzopG4S0hzM7Tfebj1zgVsP4QK2bgiZQQSQSkmh29Sw/viewform
-
8 hours ago, BlueEagle23 said:
As I finished up my creations this evening, I noticed a message at the top of the page saying that Reveal Studio will retire on April 2nd (I guess not to be taken as an April Fool's joke.) On July 1st, all content created with Reveal Studio will no longer be available. However, content created using the HP Reveal app will continue to be available.
Yes, this is unfortunate for all HP Reveal caches, built in Studio (including two my caches) - if these HP plans will happen, Auras will not work after July 1st.
Then I see only two options:
- re-create the experience /auras on different platform (new, future upgrade of HP Reveal Studio, which is not introduced yet / or using another approved app, if there is any)
-
or archive our AR caches
-
3 hours ago, barefootjeff said:
I disagree with defaults on any of these logs too. For the sake of saving one or two mouse clicks, the defaults create errors that would not have otherwise occurred. My caches don't get many finds but since the change to the logging page I've already had to question two Found It logs where the text made it clear it was meant to be a DNF, and yes, on both occasions the logger agreed it was meant to be a DNF and changed it. I'm sure a fair percentage of the derided Found It = Didn't Find It logs were due to uninententional errors caused by this default log type.
Yes, as CO, I experience this as well. That's why I used formulation:
QuoteWhen logging other caches, not owned - I'm okay with Found it log being Default.
I would also be OK if there would be no Default log, when logging physical cache of different owner. I don't mind 2 more clicks, personally.
----
However, when logging future and past events - there's little reason to cancel Default log (Will Attend, Attended) - they are far the most prevalent and should stay - to save millions of clicks by all users worldwide.
-
12 hours ago, J Grouchy said:
How about this? Don't have a default log type at all. Force the user to select a log type before it can be sent.
I agree - when logging OWNED caches - owner's intentions are quite variable:
- I may want to inform the world, that I've completed maintenance - yes.
- But I just may want to post simple note about anything related with my cache - not completed maintenance.
- Often, sadly, I need to post Disable listing log.
- Less often, Update Coordinates, sometimes Enable and when the time comes - Archive.
Saying that - OM log is not so dominant and therefore it's wrong to make it Default. There should be no Default, because none of these is clearly most prevalent.
From couriosity and to demonstrate my statements - I checked my own total counts of these logs, posted in last 14 years:
- Owner Maintenance: 964 times
- Write Note: 2136 times (includes Notes on other caches, not only mine - can't split them)
- Temporarily Disable Listing: 346 times
- Enable listing: 322 times
- Update Coordinates: 57 times
- Archive: 55 times
Here's a link where anyone can check his own logs and their counts: https://www.geocaching.com/my/logs.aspx?s=1&lt=46
----------------------------
When logging other caches, not owned - I'm okay with Found it log being Default. It's clearly most usual. Around 80% in my case, perhaps higher for average player.
When logging future events, Will Attend should stay Default.
When logging past events, Attended should stay Default.
When logging Webcams, Webcam photo taken should stay Default.
-
1
-
5 minutes ago, thomfre said:
Neither the guidelines, nor the help center, say anything about cache owner having to regularly check their log books. It doesn't say so at all.
Regular visits and general cache maintenance is something else, I'm not disagreeing on that.
People write ugly. Rain and moisture can mage signatures unreadable. People write on top of others. It's impossible to verify all finds. And I guess that's why HQ haven't included a physical log check in the current version of the guidelines and the help center.
I take it. Similar debate is everywhere around, we don't need to continue. It's not realistic expectation to check all the finds, it is not even needed.
Once there is suspicion, and I don't see the match between physical logbook and online logbook - it's responsible to email log owner and ask what happened.
After that I MAY delete false log.
.png)
Maybe it sounds like that when someone pick one sentence and quote it without all the context before & after. 
.png)
). After playing around a bit with the Builder, I had come up with a few questions which I e-mailed to the given help address. No answer received so far (not that this is a problem), but maybe you can give me a hint on one very basic question. A "wrong" answer would immediately kill the location(s) I have in mind, so I'm kinda curious:
.png)
Challenge caches
in General geocaching topics
Posted
I think you are right, but I'm not sure about it.
It would be ALR, but ALR help center page mentions that old Challenge caches may have ALR's - they are exception.
But this kind of ALR, limiting timing of FI log? Not sure about it. Good question, curious to see other responses.