Traditional Bill

Just curious..... How have challenge caches fforced you to the sidelines? Are you unable to go out and find and log Traditional caches just like you used to? Also, I'm wondering how challenge caches have forced anybody to archive a cache. I've never seen an example of that. Could you elaborate a bit?

(replying to all of above) But that's the impression you all are giving me. That my opinion isn't worth a crap now that you all know I've only found 65 caches. Since many people are causal cachers, shouldn't their perspective (my perspective) be valid? You all - the ones who feel strongly about defending the "only qualifiers should be able to log challenges" stance, are a self-selected segment of the geocaching population: Those who both visit the forum and who have strong feelings about challenge caches, are therby going to have a different perspective than the rank and file geocachers who don't qualify for most challenges. To me (and this is just my opinion) the challenge cache system would indeed be better if it was a reward for those who qualified, while also being a cache for all. As is it now, it is a reward only for those who qualify, and something to be ignored for everyone else. Just that basic argument right there - why is that better for the game and not an exclusionary idea that is bad for the game? And again, I'm not saying get rid of challenge caches - look back at my proposal, it seemed like a decent idea until you looked at my stats. I'm just trying to make them better. My proposal again: Now that you know I'm just some newbie (who's been caching seven years) with only 65 logged finds, it's obviously a stupider idea than it was before anyone knew my stats. So do you feel the same about "equipment" only caches? For every tree climb that I put out, should I put a cache at the base of the tree for those who don't want to climb? What about multis? Should the first stage of every multi include a log sheet for those who don't feel like finding 4 containers for 1 smiley? And puzzles? Should there be a container at the posted coordinates for those that don't feel like solving the puzzle? Do you see my point? All I'm saying is that challenges aren't for everybody. If you'd rather not put the work into qualifying, than simply use the "ignore" feature. It's not hard. If I wanted to hide a traditional cache, I'll list it as a traditional. The same should go for you. If you don't want to be bothered with other aspects of the game, than you should stick to what you like about the game instead of proposing that everybody should be able to log challenges as traditionals.

The Founders That Care? The Flippant Twits of Canada? Ten Fish Thrashing Chaotically? sorry =P I particularly like "Ten Fish Thrashing Chaotically". Fixed it, btw.

That's my exact point... That would no longer need to be a guideline, if challenge caches could at the same time also be logged by everyone as a traditional. But you're right, finding 100,000 caches isn't something worth celebrating. I prefer the guidelines that are in place, actually. I'd rather not see a contrived challenge of this nature, whether it be optionally loggable as a traditional or not.

This is certainly the impression that I'm getting from your idea.

That would be a pretty contrived challenge, first off. Secondly, it would not adhere to the guidelines. Here's a quote specifically from the challenge guidelines - A challenge geocache needs to appeal to, and be attainable by, a reasonable number of geocachers. If I wanted to place a cache "everyone" could log, I'd place a traditional with an "optional" logging goal. I think that's pretty dumb, so instead I place a challenge cache that's only attainable by those who qualify. I like it that way. I hope that TPTB don't ever change that.

I like change. I welcome it for the most part. But for there to be a solution to a problem, doesn't there need to be a problem first? I don't see the issue with challenges. In fact, I don't place challenge caches for the entire community to come and find. I place them for those that wish to complete a challenge before finding a cache. Those who need a little something more to work towards other than "go to the posted coordinates and look for the cache". A lot of cachers have an obsession with "clearing their radius". I honestly don't take that into consideration when placing a challenge cache, a tree climb, a paddle to or a difficult puzzle. I've come to terms with the fact that I'll never find every cache in my area and it doesn't bother me, not even a little bit. You just can't find every one, that's the game. That being said, I disagree. I wouldn't want cachers logging my challenge caches as found unless they qualify for the challenge. That's the whole point of the cache being there, in my opinion.

I see your reasoning on why you think that might be a good idea, however what about challenges that are released that most of the community already qualifies for? I see a new challenge get published, check my stats and then just log a find from my couch? Personally, I like the satisfaction of signing a log and finding a cache when I've completed a challenge. I will say that it bothers me to find a difficult challenge cache hidden in a less than desirable fashion (parking lot micro), but it's all part of the game these days. It's up to the CO to put out a challenge with a cache worth finding after qualifying. I do agree though that challenges should be separated from other caches whether that be with an icon or an attribute.

There was a challenge published in my area last year that required 50 challenge caches. Yes, the local community responded by placing more challenges. A lot of the challenges that were published though were tons of fun and I had a great time with em. Yeah, there were some lame challenges, but you've got to take the good with the bad. There's also a challenge in the area that requires you to "build a monster" with the titles of caches, having you find caches with different body parts in the title. Challenges like that are fun for me. I'd hate to see them go.

Unless somebody else was doing that too, there was at least one of those film canisters floating around as of last year. I found one in a cache somewhere in central Jersey. It went to good use, as the area nearby the cache I found it in needed some cleaning up. As for the thread topic - Maybe you should try to organize a monthly CITO event with your city's cooperation.

+1 to this. Powertrails are the pinnacle of lame.

^^^This^^^ If you can't find a way to get the cam to work before you visit GZ, it's much easier to not log a "webcam photo taken" log with your cheesy selfie. Just because the CO puts on the page to log the cache as a virtual, doesn't make it right and just because everyone else is doing it doesn't make it right either. In fact, it negatively promotes others to do it too. It's as bad as searching for a cache, not finding it or signing the log and claiming your smiley anyway. It makes other less experienced cachers think that it's okay. Not long ago, I was in the Lexington, KY area and my friends and I were attempting to find 10 icons in one day. I put the webcam in Lexington on the list because it was active and had many recent "webcam photo taken" logs. The night before we went, I checked it out to see if I could access the cam from my phone, or if I'd need help from afar to snap our photo. Well, much to my dismay, all of the recent "webcam photo taken" logs were littered with cheesy "selfies" and no webcam photos for months. So, needless to say, that day ended with 9 icons instead. Now if I had searched my PQ for that webcam and saw many recent dnfs instead of "webcam photo taken" logs, our entire route and plan would've been much, much different. Pretty irritating for us, but my fault for not investigating the logs further before planning!

Thank you Keystone. I appreciate the detailed explanation. I didn't think my reviewer was wrong at any point,nor do I hold any disdain towards him. I just didn't know if there was something I was missing and now I realize that there was. Thanks again for the clarification.

Groundspeak exempts certain websites from their commercial content guidelines (e.g., YouTube, some puzzle verification sites, Wikipedia). According to one forum regular, 99.98461% of cache owners understand exactly which are exempt, so there's no need for further explanations. Welcome to the 0.01539% club! If that's the case then I feel pretty stupid being a CO with over 100 hides. Is there a list somewhere of approved commercial content that I'm missing?

So let's say nobody is a member of either site. That person has to watch an ad regardless. The fact that members can skip ads should be beside the point since we're under the assumption that whoever is viewing the page is neither a member of YouTube or sploder (the flash site I used). On another note, I wasn't aware that Groundspeak was affiliated with YouTube in any way shape or form. I've never seen a commercial on geocaching.com, however the last YouTube video I watched (which was to figure out the coordinates of a cache listed on gc.com) I had to first watch a thirty second ad/commercial for a popular automobile maker before I could access the information I needed to solve the puzzle. How is that not commercial? Having to watch a commercial after clicking a link on a cache page that brings you to what you need to solve the puzzle is much different than walking past a billboard. Also.... I thought I made it pretty clear that I agree with my local reviewer. I agree that you shouldn't have to watch a commercial not affiliated with geocaching before getting the information you need to solve a puzzle. I have no reason to appeal the decision to deny my cache. The commercial content on sploder.com isn't much different from that of YouTube is what I'm getting at. My question was that why is this commercial content Okay to have to watch to get to a puzzle solution, but this other commercial content is not allowed? I'd like to clarify that I'm not referring to a banner ad on geocaching.com or anything like that. I mean the caches I'm referring to require watching YouTube videos to get the coordinates. That means you'll be required to watch an ad at some point.

Good idea, but I can almost guarantee that there would still be cachers that need it so bad they would still log it as webcam photo taken.

I've done quite a few puzzle caches that have been published within the past couple of years that required me to watch a YouTube video created by the CO to figure out the coordinates. Now as we all know, YouTube is a free service, however sometimes before watching a video you're required to sit through an annoying advertisement. Now I'm just wondering, would you consider a cache that requires you to watch a YouTube video a violation of the guidelines? My personal opinion would be yes, that's got to be a guideline violation considering there's occasional advertisements. This would fall under "commercial content". But if that's the case then how could they have been published? Now the reason I pose this question is because I recently created a flash game specifically for a puzzle cache. After working on it for some time, and submitting the cache, it came to my knowledge that when accessing the game, the site I used will sometimes make you watch an advertisement similar to that of a YouTube video. I'm a contributing member to the site, and didn't realize that if I'm signed in, I don't see those advertisements. Others who would visit without signing in would have a short splash screen before the game would start. I completely respect the reviewer's decision to deny my cache, as the advertisement before playing is something I would consider a guidelines violation. There is no doubt in my mind that he did the right thing to not publish my cache as it is. What I don't understand is how so many "YouTube" video puzzles have been published with the same sort of advertisements in the recent past. I'm familiar with the "just because it was published before" concept, but the YouTube puzzles in question were published under the current "commercial content" guidelines. Not to mention that I've seen another published as recent as last month. Is this something that's being overlooked in the review process, or am I missing something entirely? I'm not here to complain about my cache being denied, I'm totally okay with that and will adjust it to conform with the guidelines. However, I would like to further my understanding of the guidelines. Especially the "commercial content" guideline. I'd like to hear some other opinions and possibly an explanation as to why one would be permissible and the other is not.

Plus, you've received credit for doing a 2/3.5, which was actually a 1/1.5. Personally, I think the D/T on challenges should reflect the hide, not an accumulation of all of the qualifying caches. If that was a 11 stage multi in several states, the D/T would be higher than 2/3.5 anyhow. I do agree that the difficulty and terrain rating should reflect the actual difficulty and terrain rating of the cache, although I do believe the difficulty rating should at least reflect some aspect of how difficult the challenge is. That's my opinion though. I do feel cheated on that letterbox challenge. What's even worse is the same CO has a "test of terrain and difficulty" challenge where you need to find a 1/1,1.5/1.5,2/2.....etc.... All the way through 5/5 in one day. Imagine how cheated I felt when I found the film canister with the wet log at the base of a stop sign.

Wow, and it's a letterbox challenge and it's not even a letterbox. Sad. I had a bit of an irk with a cemetery challenge - which I qualify for but decided to put on my ignore list - because it's a park n grab roadside cache no where near a cemetery. Why applaud a certain cache style then plant something that doesn't match the theme? I couldn't agree more. I had been eying up the challenge for quite some time and worked hard at qualifying. I never bothered to check the map on where it was, but it was listed as 3.5 terrain so I just assumed it would be a halfway decent hike. Boy was I wrong.

I'm in the mood to complain this morning, so I figured this was the thread to do it in What irks me is caches like this - GC4CAZV. A difficult challenge (for me at least) to qualify for only to bring you to a street sign on a busy road with a bison tube wedged up in it. If you're going to put out a tough challenge, at least make the final hide worth my while.

Yes, a reviewer "rightfully" can archive this. It was not published as a virtual cache, ie, take a picture here, it was published as take WEBCAM photo here. The proper log when a webcam is down is a DNF. The correct cache owner response when a webcam is down is to Temporarily Disable the listing. Most reviewers will cut webcams a huge amount of slack, giving cache owners a lot of time to try to find a working webcam. But conversion to a virtual, "If the webcam is down as it usually is, just post a selfie" is NOT an option. Thanks Palmetto, I was very curious about that. Glad to know. Hopefully the webcam in question in this thread will be archived soon.

As far as I know, that's not a feature on GC at all. In fact, if it was, I'd be a little creeped out.

I really wish I could say "Oh yeah, haven't you heard of yaddayaddageocheck.yadda?!" Unfortunately though, as much to my knowledge, there's no geochecker optimized for mobile viewing just yet. With the evolution of smart phone caching though, I can only imagine that there will be an app or mobile site developed in the future. On the upside, if you use certitude, there's only one box to enter the full coordinates in as opposed to multiple boxes for n/w. Also, if you sign in with geocaching live and give certitude permissions, once you get a green light, it has the option to copy your solution directly to your "secret box/personal note". I hope that's of at least some use to you!

I wonder if a reviewer can rightfully archive something like this? If so, post a NA log. The local reviewer will get it even if the CO deletes it. I think it's a complete joke when I see a webcam that's down and folks logging that they've taken a webcam photo when it's really just a self shot. The log type is "webcam photo taken", not "selfie posted at GZ". I once passed up a 10 icon day because a webcam in Lexington KY no longer works. Didn't bother me one bit.

I think that putting the focus on "one another find" and thus numbers is the worst example that could be provided to beginners. ^^^^ This ^^^^ Trust me, I don't condone the default log, nor to I think this one is any better than the next. I do, however, believe that for the time being, it's not going to change and there's going to be a default intro app log whether we like it or not.