AnnaMoritz

A new icon would affect mostly people that are interested in and already working on challenges, if existing geocaches also change their Icon. Others won't mind. Every challenge that aks for anything related to Unknown caches might be affected. People who fullfilled the critera before might end not qualifying any more. Easy if you now miss an D5/T4 Unknown geocache, there might be one out there you can visit instead. But qualifications for strike challenges based on Unknowns (there are al lot of older challenges out there where people work hard on) might be ruined forever, you can't go now back in time and find another Unknown for a day in 2016. Also qualification for certain (older) 'fill your calendar with cache type'(s)' challenges might be affected. With bad luck you have to start again from the beginning and wait another year if the geocache you visited yesterday now isn't an Unknown any more, but something else. A way to avoid these problems would be to require existing challenges that had some Unknown cache criteria (not the old ones where you could exclude Challenge caches despite being labelled as Unknowns) to accept also Challenge Caches that originally were Unknowns before and visited before the date when the icon was changed. That would require all affected listings and challenge checker scripts to be rewritten.

At least for my country I have no indication that DNFs kicked out possible candidates for RVs, but maybe the otherwise eligible candidates around here aren't too affected by DNFs. Around here the only thing (for the bystander) that seems to have kicked you out from being eligible as RV owner despite very high overall cache quality for all remaining other caches and no unanswered NM etc. was owning a longer unfound (here CHS can play a role) cache with 0 Favs / 0 finds ('overall cache quality' can play a role). So it seems that the worst impact for otherwise perfect looking owners (no unanswered NA, NM, no DNF series, very high percentages of favorite points) here was one (or two) caches that were not fund for a longer time. Not knowing the algorithms there are various thinkable ways for the same result, both via CHS and via 'overall quality': A cache without finds by Premium Members (and without finds by non-Premium Members) also has no favorite points at all and might also be unfound for longer time, without any DNFs or anything else. thinkable step A: if you own a cache with 0 favorite points - no matter how old the cache is - end of quality algorithm - you are out thinkable step B: if you own a cache with 0 favorite points - if the cache is 'fresh' enough - proceed with another step thinkable step C: Any cache with 0 favorite points is taken into consideration as having a favorite percentage of 0 / x = 0% (for caches not found by any PM x = 0 and x > 0 for caches already found by PM) and proceed with next step. thinkable step D: Any cache unfound for a longer timespan (maybe depending on D/T) lowers the CHS under the level that allows you to be eligible for a virtual reward. If C (or something else that keeps you in play), then it seems (for the bystander) that D (or something else that leads to the same result) is also necessary. This example might be a rare case, but these cachers certainly would have improved their outcome by promoting/allowing a found it 'in time'. Disabling your cache for a year and cachers keep finding your cache without DNFs obviously still let you be eligible, CHS doesn't mention 'time disabled' as criterion. Having your cache disabled for some time, also with NM obviously still let some stay being eligible too. For the majority of caches the D/T DNF 'longer unfound' presets for CHS might be appropriate, but for caches that are remote or outlying for some reason (not necessarily 'locally') a parameter 'expected visitor frequency' and even 'expected time to FTF' would be very helpful if to be included for weighing 'longer unfound'. There are places that are not remote at all and without any restrictions, but are visited nevertheless only from April/May to September, for others the season is mid-July to end of September, but only if the weather is good enough, for others every three years someone might try the cache despite the cache being only 2/3 because this valley isn't a hot spot and has no other caches etc. On the other hand some caches seem to be allowed to vegetate too long, like several months full of DNFs, NM, disable, NA, NA and nothing else happening in the heart of a city.

If the cacher is a volunteer then the Virtual Reward was given for being a volunteer. If the cacher was chosen by the algorithm: see Keystones post from August 30 in this thread https://forums.geocaching.com/GC/index.php?/topic/345758-criteria-for-being-a-new-virtual-co/&page=2#comment-567633 or https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2017/08/virtual-rewards/ and scroll down to August 30, 2017 Update: "For this promotion, the algorithm included many factors but it heavily favored cache quality over quantity. Among these factors were percentage of Favorite points on active caches (not the total number of Favorite points) and current geocache Health Score."

The funny (some see it as sad) side of the selection is that quite a few say 'I really don't know what to do with a virtual' as they concentrate on handcrafted special containers, others say 'in fact I stopped hiding caches years ago' or 'I don't want to deal with the way people log virtuals'. But others are enthusiastic and have big plans. I personally think that bringing some of the virtuals given to countries with a lot of virtuals to countries that don't have virtuals yet would be fine, Reading the whole first post of this announcement once more I think what lets the result of the algorithm look like having a random component is announced and intentionally done like this making 'overall cache quality' one of the main components, 'overall' being the word that get's overlooked or underestimated and that leads to disbelief or miscontent of certain players. A very simplified and exaggerated example with small numbers: a country rewards its 3 best participants at Olympic games. Athlete A started in 10 competitions and won 4 gold medals, 1 silver and 5 bronze. Athlete B started in 3 competitions and won 3 gold medals. Athlete C started in 3 competitions and won 3 silver medals. Ahtlete D started in 1 competition and won 1 silver medal. Athlete E started in 5 competitions an won 1 silver medal. All other participants didn't make it into the medal ranks. Most would expect the order A B C D+E and rewards go to A, B and C and most are likely to accept the statement 'we rewarded our three best participants'. BUT if the best 3 participants are chosen according to their 'overall performance' the result is different. 'Overall performance' for example has this very simple algorithm: gold is 3 points, silver is 2 points, bronze is 1 point, other rankings 0 points, the average of your points count. Athlete A has (4*3+1*2+5*1)/10=1.9, athlete B scores 3*3/3=3, athlete C has 3*2/3=2, athlete D 1*2/1=2, athlete E 1*2/5=0.2 The resulting order is B C+D A E, rewards go to B, C, D You are surprised that the athlete with most gold medals didn't get a reward? That is because 1 silver in 1 competition is a 'better overall performance' according to that algorithm than 4 gold, 1 silver and 5 bronze in 10 competitions. While I'm convinced that 'we are rewarding three of our medal winners' is accepted widely this case, I don't believe there will be overwhelming consent for 'we rewarded our three best participants'. And I would suspect the same applies to 'we rewarded the top 1% hiders'. Maybe it is really a cultural thing, but for thinking systems where the way of wording implies a lot there seems to be a significant gap between what people expected to mean 'we choose the top 1%, might have missed a few' and what they saw looking at the results. The algorithm did what is was meant to do, rank by overall cache quality and cache health. Like it or not. Also by an algorithm that might be perceived as fairer the current selection should be among the top 5-6%, which is a good choice anyway.

Around here no Virtual Reward has popped up yet, but looking at the data of so far known Virtual Reward yes/no candidates it seems very likely to me that (Short version) Aside from the geocachers that complain because they have SO MANY caches and don't get a reward or they have caches with SO MANY favorite points overlooking that only every fifteenth geocacher gave a favorite point or other whatever reasons you can point out that the quality aspect is given favor does Groundspeak really think you are a better hider if your three geocaches are top than a hider that has 50 absolute top hides and also has 50 other geocaches that are clearly above average? Discouraging such dedicated long time hiders by telling them (not really, but implicit) 'less is more, you'd better have archived 10 of the geocaches that only have 20% to get the reward' seems, well, quite unrewarding for the overall game. (Full version) Assuming all other conditions (for example that you proved you are a longer committed player that takes care of your geocaches, you own a certain number of caches etc.) are met likewise by the candidates one quality part of the algorithm (I clearly don't say it it made this way, because there are many thinkable ways to get the same result in the in end) results in yes for a Virtual if your overall favorite point ratio is at least one third (edit to add: roughly estimated empirically for my country, for other countries there might be another cut-off). That seems fine at first glance, because it massively favors quality over quantity. Let's look closer. The highest number of active owned geocaches known to to me up to now for a reward winner in my sample is a little below 50 geocaches. That player has a overall favorite point percentage above 50%. Clearly an abolute Top 1% Hider. Most winners tend to own a moderate number of geocaches. Fine. Around here you could get a Reward even for three active geocaches and 36% Fav. That's still also fine. But some are wondering how can it be that other perceived Top 1 % Hiders that own 50+ top geocaches are left out. Why are they left out? Maybe a by-effect from a consideration how to rank quality over quantity? Powertrails lead to a high number of favorite points on certain geocaches of the trail, usually people give one for every ten geocaches. If GS doesn't want to reward a geocacher that has 500 geocaches in a few series and for the 50 'bonus' geocaches a favorite point percentage of 60% and therefore try to exclude them by the algorithm - very fine. Looking at the data it would seem that that requiring an overall favorite point percentage of 20% (also out of other considerations) is far enough to weed out the 'numbers only' and proceed with the rest, maybe a lower threshold would be enough. Already before but definitely after such a step you would think owning (fictive example) the best 50 geocaches of a country automatically makes you a winner. Why isn't that the case? Because (again fictive example) your 50 best geocaches have an overall favorite point percentage of 45%. If that were all of your hides, you are a winner, BUT you also contributed to the game with another 50 geocaches that could accumulate an overall favorite point percentage of 20%, which is also solid quality. That is minimally too low for the overall threshold and another geocacher that might contribute to the game with 3 or 10 geocaches is prioritized. Again, I'm not saying that the decision is made (among other aspects) by this criterion for quality, I absolutely don't know how it is done, a lot of ways may lead to the same results, but until now all of the few candidates I know for yes (maybe 15% of the predicted number of my country) fit into that pattern. Aside from the geocachers that complain because they have SO MANY caches and don't get a reward or they have caches with SO MANY favorite points overlooking that only every fifteenth geocacher gave a favorite point or other whatever reasons you can point out that the quality aspect is given favor does Groundspeak really think you are a better hider if your three geocaches are top than a hider that has 50 absolute top hides and also has 50 other geocaches that are clearly above average? Discouraging such dedicated long time hiders by telling them (not really, but implicit) 'less is more, you'd better have archived 10 of the geocaches that only have 20% to get the reward' seems, well, quite unrewarding for the overall game.

This still seems to be the case for all the Austrians I know they got a Virtual. But there also exist some accounts with zero finds that own highly acclaimed geocaches in Austria. In Germany someone already mentioned they got a Virtual for their group account that has no finds, but has high percentage of favorite points. An algorithm - in contrast to the geocaching community- and in a few cases even the community - isn't very likely to know whether another player and which player(s) is/are behind an account with zero finds, so there has to be another way to determine what counts for being an "active cacher" (according to the announcement) than also finding geocaches, maybe geocache maintenance activity,lifetime of a geocache are are suffiicient factors anyhow, who knows ...

Den Trend zur Optimierung irgendwelcher Metaziele (Statistiken, Wettbewerb unter Cachern) gibt es doch schon länger bei bestimmten Gruppen, mache setzen da mehr auf Quantität, andere mehr auf Qualität. Was aber im Fall der Virtual Rewards zur Klassifzierung als Top 1% sehr hilfreich gewesen ist/wäre und dabei das Spiel nicht beeinträchtigt, wenn jemand wissentlich/unwissentlich darauf hingearbeitet hat: z.B. ein möglichst hoher Prozentsatz an Favoritenpunkten, erreicht durch besondere Idee/Ausführung/Örtlichkeit oder sonstig überdurchschnittliches Cache-Feature z.B. eine makellos reine Weste, was Cachewartung angeht z.B. eine gewisse Ausdauer beim Erhalten der bestehenden Caches, nicht jedes (zweite) Jahr alles archivieren und dann wieder was neues rausbringen. --- Angesichts der Reaktionen hätte ich mir das an Groundspeaks Stelle wohl lieber sehr gründlich überlegt, ob Reward für die Top 1% ein guter Titel ist. Und zwar nicht nur deswegen, weil es gar nicht wenige sehr kompetitiv denkende und agierende Owner gibt, die dann unzufrieden sind, wenn sie leer ausgehen und dabei denken, sie hätten aber mehr Anrecht auf eine Belohnung als wer anderer, wenn es (angenommen) in Wirklichkeit darum geht, die Virtuals möglichst sinnvoll in der Geocachinglandschaft unterzubringen. Da kann auch die Kriterien kurz allgemein ansprechen und den nötigen Cut-Off Score erwähnen und die Tatsache, dass wieder ausreichend Virtuals zur Verfügung stehen, die Unzufriedenheit dieser Gruppe nicht beseitigen, weil ihnen die Erklärung nicht deutlich genug ist. Keine Ahnung, ob das ein genialer Schachzug war, Diskussionen erzeugt es jedenfalls auch, wenn Virtuals als "Belohnung" für unterschiedliche Dinge eingesetzt werden, einerseits für Cachequalität, also die die Top 1% und andererseits für freiwilliges Engagement, also Volunteers wie Reviewer, Übersetzer, Foren-Moderatoren, etc. (die vermutlich knapp nicht dreistellige Zahl derer, die die Challenge-Checker-Scripts geschrieben haben oder laufend neue erstellen, die dann getaggt werden können und die für neue Challenges zwingend erforderlich sind, sind da denke ich nicht betroffen, da an project-gc "ausgelagert"). --- Man hätte ja möglicherweise auch entlang dieser Argumentationslinie vorgehen können, damit noch ungeteiltere Freude an den neuen Virtuals auf allen Seiten vorliegt: OK Leute, ihr wolltet unbedingt Nachschub an Virtuals. Wir wollen aber nicht wieder das Chaos, dass sie früher mit sich gebracht haben. Wir haben uns entschlossen, noch ein einziges Mal im nächsten Jahr zusätzliche 4000 neue Virtuals zu erlauben. Da das die letzte Chance für Virtuals sein wird, werden wir versuchen, die möglichst so unter die Leute zu bringen, dass sichergestellt ist, dass die Caches dann auch lang erhalten bleiben. Die Caches sollen auch sinnvoll und interessant für die Finder sein. Wichtig ist uns auch, dass die Owner ziemlich sicher noch lange dem Geocaching erhalten bleiben, voraussichtlich ihren Cache immer gut warten werden und auf jeden Fall, dass die Owner neben ihren weiteren Caches noch genug freie Kapazität haben, darauf zu achten, dass keine Fake-Loggerei einreißt, was bei den alten Virtuals teils ein großes Problem war. Daher hat sich unser Think-Tank einen Algorithmus ausgedacht, der die besten Kandidaten unter den Cachern für diese Aufgabe ermitteln soll. Erfreulicherweise scheinen viel mehr Owner hervorragend geeignet für diese Aufgabe als wir Virtuals herausgeben können. Unter all diesen den aktiven Ownern, die ihre guten Caches vorbildlich warten und länger erhalten, müssen wir eine Auswahl treffen und so kommen jetzt die zum Zug, (zum Beispiel, hier die passende Argumentation einsetzen) denen es gelungen ist, in ihrem Land den größten Prozentsatz an Findern so vom Cache zu überzeugen, dass dem Cache auch ein Favoritenpunkt verliehen wurde. Also eine Art Belohnung für die Top 1% dieser Reihung. Und als Dankeschön an unsere Volunteers erhalten diese auch die Möglichkeit (Reviewer unter ihrem Playeraccount -falls das zutreffend ist), einen Virtual zu erstellen,

This is not true everywhere that you solve a puzzle, go to the coordiantes, finished. There are areas where Unknown caches may have up to many stages like multi-caches, especially some of the very famous, adventurous and elaborate ones around here have stages. But they can't be labeled as multi as there are big and difficult puzzle parts in the beginning to find out where to start and puzzles at/after each stage. Nevertheless, the very final has to be within 2 miles from the header, whether you like it or not, if you can't label the cache as another cache type (some try multi-cache, lettbox hybrid or Wherigo).

Probably the big majority of Unknowns doesn't have any further stages than the final and the rule ist made for this case. And for the other cases there are no more exeptions. So I would think it isn't allowed also for multi-stage Unknowns just because it was decided like this.

Von den ersten neuen Virtuals war vermutlich wohl ein etwas größerer Teil von Volunteers erstellt, z.B. Reviewern, von deren Player-Accounts. Was man so hört, wussten die es einige Zeit vorher, also werden das eher nicht Schnellschüsse sein bei denen, die schon vorab Zeit hatten, sich was zu überlegen. Bei der Prognose von project-gc würde ich vermuten, dass dem einfach die Ankündigung von Groundspeak mit den Top-1%-Hidern zugrunde liegt. Also 1% der Anzahl der (noch) aktiven Owner pro Land.

No, not all of them. And I personally don't think that's a criterion. But in my country premium percentage is very very high for (longtime) quite active players anyway, so I would expect a big majority of owners of new virtual geocaches here to be PM.

What's wrong with owning and maintaining three geocaches over years, one over 50% favorite points and reacting to DNFs when there are no finds after the DNF in a certain time? To me the algorithm itself doesn't seem too bad. It doesn't favor quantity over quality. It tries to find potential owners that already proved they do take care of their geocaches for a longer period of time - and other geocachers like their hides. Of course there are lots of other owners that also have great geocaches and even geocachers currently not owning active geocaches can be the perfect match for owning a special virtual geocache.. Not saying at all this is the criteria - but looking for the common denominator for the few geocachers -not reviewers or other volunteers- I have already heard they got a new virtual geocache in my country, maybe 10-13% of the expected number for my country - it seems to me that all of them own (in this small sample: a moderate number of) well received active geocaches placed years ago (in this small sample at least three years, some for much longer, some also adopted), no active geocache has unanswered maintenance issues, all owners (of this sample) have at least one geocache with more than 56% favorite points (the number of owners that own such geocaches is many times greater than the number of virtual geocaches that are given to my country, so it could be only one of the reasons) and (in this sample) the account is their main player account and they still participate in the game also in finding geocaches.

That's not an error. For Unknown at some point it was decided to restrict the distance header to final. Multi-caches can be of any length, short or long. Think of München-Venedig or Graz-Monaco or the way to Santiago.

Is it more likely for male geocachers to have more than 5000 finds? I would start with: How likely is it that someone with more than 5000 finds in a given area is a male geocacher? For this question the answer is simple (for my city), it is M:F 3.6:1. Does that mean that male geocachers are more likely to have more than 5000 finds? The answer obviously depends on the percentage of male/female geocachers in the area. This isn't easy to determine, you might know 50, 100, 150 or even 200 or more geocachers, but there are many more. Some never attend events and female geocachers here are more likely to have nothing descriptive in their profiles and no pictures showing more than part of a hand holding a GPS, but some men are also prefer to keep a low profile. Not only a few women use masculine forms instead of using feminine ones when referring to themselves in logs (and argue this isn't only the masculine but also the generic form in my language). With some effort you could use gender markers in pronouns and other words in logs of other geocachers referring to unknown geocachers to determine the gender. You could count attendees of different events and now maybe find a avergage ratio let's say of M:F 1.5:1 or 2:1 (almost 1:1 for a 2 girls just married event), but then there are M+F teams and many don't attend events at all. You could count active writing members of local geocaching forums - that definitely isn't representative here, that would be M:F >4:1. My impression is that now there are still more male geocachers than female geocachers in my area, I would think not more than M:F 2.6:1 and not less than M:F 1.4:1 for active geocachers. So if it is M:F 3.6:1 for more than 5000 finds and taking even the upper bound of M:F 2.6:1 then male geocachers are definitively far more likely to have more than 5000 finds than female geocachers around here. For puzzle percentage I don't see such a difference for my area. For the small 25%+ subgroup of the top 150 (494+ Unknowns) here it is M:F 1.33:1, similar to the lower boundary M:F 1.4:1 for active geocachers here. For all geocachers, not only the more active participants it might be quite different. And for other regions too.

Interesting question. To me puzzle affinity has at least two quantitative parts (besides gender): percentage and absolute numbers. Some are avid puzzlers but are also fanatic geocachers that have to do all the stuff that is there, no matter what cache type. Others prefer to visit (or at least log online) mostly Unknown caches (or another preferred cache type or FTF only ...). People new to geocaching often start with traditionals until they figure out that there is also something else. Others visit at least one cache per day and thus 'have to' visit all available caches. Nowadays more female geocachers are visible, not only as part of a team, but there are still more male geocachers and to me they seem to be more into numbers and competition of any kind. Around here there are plenty of puzzles to choose from, from easy to extremely difficult, so finding puzzles is not restricted by lacking puzzles. For geocachers from my city I looked up the top 150 finders of Unkown caches, that is more than 493 Unknown(puzzle) finds at the moment, 6166 being the highest number, if I remember correctly >80% are also in top 150 all cache types, <20% are finders not in top 150 all cache types, with less than 3568 finds total (data project-gc). For most of them I'm quite sure about their gender (from having seen them in person or from logs) and whether a user name stands for a team or not, for the rest I tried to look it up, Not surprisingly males are the biggest group, 87 of 150, female 36 and teams 26, for one I don't know. I'm not sure about the general portions of male/female/(mixed) teams for all geocachers around here, but 2/3 males and teams with males doesn't seem underestimated to me, so maybe the first 150 are quite representative. For 12 (14 % of 87) males and 9 (25 % of 36) females more than 25 % of the finds for a cacher were Unknown(puzzle) caches. Both max # Unknowns and % Unknowns are males, followed both by females. There are male and female puzzle freaks around here. Here more males than females seem to be enthusiastic about the most difficult technical puzzles, but IT is also the field most of them are well-trained and working in which gives an advantage. Personally I think it depends more on personal background, interests and sometimes education than on gender whether one is doing/could do/wants to do more or less puzzles of a certain kind and difficulty. That might differ considerably elsewhere where people have to follow stricter norms on gender roles which stuff (IT, nature science, technology...) and which education and interests are more suitable for boys than for girls.

At https://www.geocaching.com/track/map_gm.aspx?ID=7106261 you see a map and below the map all caches and visit date where you took this trackable to are listed. Are you looking for something like this list?

5.13. Submit an appeal ist für Uneinigkeit beim Reviewprozess da. Im Geocaching HQ sehen sie die ganze Geschichte, wann was genau war und die Details zum genannten vorigen Cache, der zurückgezogen wurde, warum, dort gelöschte und für uns "Normalcacher" nicht mehr sichtbare Logs wie NA und retraced und die sonstigen gelöschten Logs. Und Geocaching HQ weiß im Gegensatz zu den Cachern, ob und welches Final in der Datenbank eingetragen ist/war oder nicht. Selbst wenn es beim neuen Cache ein Versehen wäre, die Koordinaten sind trotzdem weg, der andere Cache ist jetzt mehr als drei Monate online. Da nützt ein Veröffentlichen der Reviewer Notes hier im Forum wenig. Zu Koordinatencheck und Koordinatenreservierung allgemein bei GC: Koordinatencheck. Wie lange eine Reservierung von Koordinaten über längere Zeit ohne genaue Angaben, was man vorhat, wohl vorgesehen ist? Nach (derzeit, früher mit Pech auch schon mal deutlich weniger) einem Jahr können unveröffentlichte Caches jedenfalls automatisch archiviert werden. Ist aber wohl nicht genau geregelt, wie dieses "Extra-Service" Koordinatencheck handzuhaben ist, als Check für "jetzt" oder als Reservierung für eine wie auch immer definierte Zeitspanne (ein paar Tage, wenn sonst keine Informationen vorliegen, je nach Argument auch Monate etc). In Österreich: Artikel österreichischer Reviewer Tafari. In einem ö. Forum schrieb Tafari allerdings 2013: "Deswegen gibt es zumindest bei mir KEINE Reservierungen von Örtlichkeiten. Wann immer ich einen Koordinatencheck durchführe, teile ich dem Owner mit, dass die Koordinanten derzeit in Ordnung sind und dass das nicht bedeutet, dass das für immer so bleiben muss. Es ist also auch mit einem Koordinatencheck mitunter Eile geboten ...". Um begehrte, durch absehbare Archivierung nach NA bald freiwerdende Innenstadtplätze in Wien "bewerben" sich auch schon mal drei Cacher gleichzeitig. Wer soll den Platz bekommen? Der, der NA gepostet hat, womöglich gar nachdem der bisherige Cache immer wieder "ganz zufällig" verschwindet? Der mit der besten Cache-Idee? Der, der eine Sekunde nach dem Archivierungslog submit drückt, weil genau dann die Koordinaten frei sind und kein anderer zuvor "gültig" eingereicht haben kann? Hier habe ich auch schon sowas wie "wir dachten, den Platz mit einem Listing selbst vorreserviert zu haben" bei einem Cache gelesen. Da war die Reservierungsfrist, wie lange auch immer die wäre, offensichtlich abgelaufen.

I believe it's showing the most favorited caches in the whole world. And most of them just happen to be around HQ. No, there are at least 9 caches in Germany with more then 3600 Fav-points (e.g. Lego - einer ist zuviel http://coord.info/GC13Y2Y currently with 8372). To search for most favorited in world this search brings up the right caches (Lego on top): https://www.geocaching.com/play/search?ot=1&sort=FavoritePoint&asc=False

Most favorited: Please remove &g=48 from https://www.geocaching.com/play/search?origin=home&radius=30mi&ot=1&g=48&sort=FavoritePoint&asc=False to really show most favorited caches within 30 miles from home coordinates as g=48 restricts the search to 'In Washington, United States'.

Some time ago a group claimed that all of them have visited a lot of (very time-consuming, if done correctly) non-traditional geocaches and signed as 'Team xxx' in a timespan that doesn't even allow visiting all finals according to local geocachers. In other cases only a few of a so called team were met by other geocachers later claiming all of them had been there. One owner of difficult puzzle caches deleted their online logs, but they could log online again, backed by this email from Groundspeak, which is mentioned also in one of the logs. 'Hello! Thank you for contacting Geocaching HQ about this. Geocachers who go geocaching together in groups area allowed to log under one name, rather than writing all of the usernames of the players who visited a geocache. For example, players Bob, Nancy, and Sally could all log under the name "Team Geocaching" in the physical logbook, but would still be allowed to individually log the find on Geocaching.com.' If you claim to have visited a multi-cache that has 20 stages spread over 30 miles no one can tell me you have to save time by not writing 5 or 10 usernames when signing the logbook. Especially in logbooks that have enough space for the next five years. But it is allowed to sign with any team name and for every cacher of the team that actually was at the geocache to log online using the individual username for online logging if you want to. Otherwise the allowed changing of usernames (only name changes, same account) wouldn't make any sense too if you 'loose' your finds because your new name isn't in the logbooks. For teamsplit logs done correctly (where the geocacher leaving the team also was at the cache, the former team name is mentioned and the log has the same date as the log of the former team) also shouldn't be deleted following these arguments. Teamsplit logs not mentioning the former team name, combined with arbitrary online log dates seem 'deletable' to me, nothing corresponding in the real logbook.

The folder where WherYouGo looks for the cartriges can be chosen in settings for new version of WhereYouGo. Default is something like /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/menion.android.whereyougo/files/ In earlier versions of WhereYouGo it was something like /storage/emulated/0/whereyougo Cartriges have to be copied/moved to the folder where WhereYouGo looks for them if you couldn't download the file directly to the right folder. Some reported download problems with the built-in android webbrowser. In this case maybe use another browser.

The ~ 43 new challenges (out of maybe 750-850 total) up to 200 miles from your last hidden cache fall in categories where challenge checkers have been available for a while. Looking for them doesn't seem too difficult to me at all. New search, starting point (GCCode, home coordinates etc.), '200 miles', Type Unknown (no need to look at Events or other cache types than Unknown), Geocache Name contains 'challenge', sort by placed date, newest up. Plus there is a map (for members) at project-gc, where you can select country, state and 'only challenge caches with checker', 'exclude disabled', 'exclude archived', 'exclude not fulfilled' and the map shows the result for your username. Example: By the way the criteria for new challenges in that region don't seem to be of much variety if you can reduce it to x finds (of cache type y) x finds for y cache types x finds (of cache type y) in given county/state/country x finds (of cache type y) in z counties/states/countries (z depending on 'weight' of state) x finds with attribute y favorites: x caches with at least y favorites favorites: finds with least sum x favorites points height: x finds over height y calendar: fill it with finds (of cachetype x) calendar: fill x (contiguous) days with finds (of cachetype x) calendar: x finds on weekday y streak: x days Jasmer: x% of all placed months D/T grid filled + bingo style 9 cache types in row/colums/diagonal To me it seems only for 'finds in x contiguous counties' the checker seems not to be very 'old' and only USA and Canada are 'ready' without further input.

Challenges - did they pass the test? For certain groups of geocachers certainly not. Otherwise it wouldn't happen that someone openly calls one of the challenges "racists' cache" in a log around here. 'Racist' because the owner is perceived as unduly excluding geocachers and doing evil in not wanting geocachers log their challenge cache as found online if not having completed the challenge requirements. Good for Groundspeak as the rule-makers for challenges, who made them geocaches with ALRs, that only the owners are addressed like this. I wonder if there could be challenges that help preventing such troubles by having an OR requirement like, let's say 'fill your calendar with finds of Unknown Caches OR please log the cache online without fulfilling the requirements if you need/want to, but don't ruin the fun of others', the second implemented in the challenge checker as 'have one find' or as a defined and expandable list of geocachers that are known to be/declared themselves as opposed to challenges.

Where will the link to the last 15 logs with full text go? https://www.geocaching.com/my/geocaches.aspx Or is meant to die? I only see https://www.geocaching.com/my/logs.aspx?s=1 I often looked at the last 15 logs as there is no log preview any more when logging in that confined box, so this was a good and above all very quick loading simple place to see at one glance whether my last logs are like intended and the story in right order, without having to visit each cache page separately. Recent logs shows me one single day. And for logs of my friends not the date the logs are for. Only one of my recent logs is visible as only one day is shown. Please have MY recent logs on another place and not mixed with the logs of my friends and let me choose whether I want to see their logs for every friend separate if they don't decide to hide their logs anyway. And make it collapsible, please, but don't let me scroll for every single line to be added like currently at the pocketquery page where some lines need up to a second when everything else is fast. Can the the cache type icon be shown instead or at least in addition to the yellow smiley? And if so much space is already wasted due to the profile pics and the white, why not add infomation to these entries like D/T? On my mobile, nothing loads for Recently Viewed and Recent Logs, only a spinning circle for minutes. At least if I click on Recently viewed on the left side, it takes me to a perfectly formatted page, hope that stays. To my taste much valuable space is wasted, on mobile even more with that large header and too much useful information and links removed. Seeing the grey popup in the favorte point section: A lot of people have no explanation why (no found it on own caches, no cache logged twice as found, no lapse in premium membership) the next favorite point isn't awared when one would expect it. For example with 3680 unique found it I would think that 1 (one favorite point for being PM when favorite points were introduced) + 3680/10 equals 369. The popup tells me that I have 367 favorite points in total and need 8 more finds for the next favorite point. Not that I need them, but what is the algorithm/logic behind this? Is the explanation "Only your first Found it log to a cache that you don't own is considered in your Favorite Point total." to be taken literally, e.g. when two two identical found it logs were sent due to bad connection or whatever and you delete the first, 1/10 Favorite point is gone? Or if you delete a Found it for some reason (wrong GCcode, false order) is that 1/10 Favorite point gone forever because when logging that cache later, the found it isn't considered to be the first? Does it mean, no 1/10 Favorite Point if someone changes a note to a Found it? Or is it meant like explained elsewhere "One Favorite point just for being a Premium Member. One Favorite point for every 10 caches they find.(Duplicate finds and finds on your owned caches are also not included.)" at the knowledge base?

An attribute would make it possible to filter for challenges. In PQs alrwady now and in the new search it maybe wouldn't make too much difference implementing 'challenge' as cachetype or as attribute. Search filter attributes is overdue anyway. A forced change of the cachetype of existing challenge caches after publish seems unfair to me, both to owners and previous finders. No one can now go back in time two years to find another Unknown Cache for that day when the only Unknown Cache (fitting the requirement Unknown Cache) of that day was a challenge that now gets relabeled to another cachtype. Or make all related challenges and statistics that accepted 'all Unknowns' before to accept 'Unknowns and previous Unknowns now relabeled as Challenges' instead after forced relabeling of challenges. Or make the new cachetype compulsory only for new challenges and let existing challenges grandfathered as cachetype Unknown.