res2100

CanadianRockies, all the things you list are things that can/need to be improved on with challenges and I hope that Groundspeak does follow through with their plans and beyond to improve the system. I've created 33 challenges so far and completed 9 (all worldwide). I hope to create more, but I've stopped in the past week and hope to continue again once there's some new functionallity and interest in the community.

They do have stats clearly displayed in your profile, but seperately from your cache finds. The backlash against Challenges counting the same as cache finds was massive. Right now Challenges count the same as benchmarks...just an * on your stats. Challenges have never counted as a find. They've never been included in the stats bar. At one point they were included under a total called finds and challenges completed and because some people were vocal, Groundspeak changed this to not include challenges. I bet there are more people out there like myself that want challenges to count in the same way a virtual or locationless did and even more people that could care less either way. I think Groundspeak needs to take action in some way to educate it's members about challenges...I was out with a bunch of cachers recently and I commented that there was a challenge that we walked past and they didn't really know what was involved with the whole challenge concept.

Fixed it for you. No need to fix something that was already accurate. I have created challenges that are the same as a virtual that was in the same spot and gives the visitor the same experience. Only difference is that you don't get a geo smilie, but a challenge completion tick instead that doesn't count in your overall finds.

I like the new Challenges, as they have gotten me out of the house when I otherwise would have just stayed indoors. However a lot can be and should be done to improve the user experience, and soon, otherwise people will lose interest as they seem to be. Here are some things I hope Groundspeak listens to: --The learning curve. There are still way too many people trying to create challenges that are not appropriate such particullarly non-location specific challenges. And way too many people log these challenges. --For challenges to succeed, they need to count in your stats. Challenges are no different than Virtual and Locationless caches of the past and hence should be treated the same. If Virtuals and Locationless caches count as smilies, then so should Challenges, otherwise most people won't bother as people do want their smilies. Some people might not want them to count, but then they don't have to do the challenges. --Groundspeak needs to create more worldwide challenges. It says they will create a new one each day, but it seems like it's around once per week and not once per day. --Stop the couch potato logging. Couch potato logging of caches has not been allowed in years and this should apply to challenges too. There are so many challenge location that I have been to in the past, before the challenges existed, that I easily qualify for, but I know it's wrong to log them as the challenge did not exist when I was at those locations. --Ownership. There needs to be some form of ownership, notification of logs to the owner, watchlist and so on. Once of my challenges wasn't clear and needs updating since the 5 people who marked it as completed did it as a locationless challenge and hence did not qualify for these. Unfortunately I can't do anything about it. When looking at my stats, it should also show how many challenges I created, just like it shows how many challenges I completed...these links should also be clickable so people can see what someone has found and owns. --Maps/finding challenges/loading GPS. All this needs to implemented. When I am out caching I should be able to just as easily find closest challenges and be able to look up the information on my GPS, just as I do with caches. I realize some of the above are planned and it's still the very early stages, however its coming up on 2 months since the enw challenges were introduced and I think we need to see more done before the user base loses interest. If people lose interest it will be much harder to get them interested again. It would also be nice if there was a place where people can ask questions to Groundspeak about challenges and they read and reply. I know I have a number of questions about what makes a valid challenge. Hopefully someone is listening, as I defintiely would like challenges to continue and to succeed.

Once you make it, it is no longer yours. Edit: I should have kept reading sorry for repeating what a few above have already said. I flagged my own challenge and when I checked a few minutes later it was archived.

I created a challenge last week and I would like to archive it...is there a way to archive my own challenge? I'm just not seeing it.

I was wondering too, but I see it's back now. I wonder if too many people flagged it and it automatically got archived. I completed it with my family 2 days ago and it was fun to do and it got me out of the house.

OK, I'm still not seeing what you say is there. I did find this by Jeremy in the "The Eurka Moment" blog: "What are the guidelines for issuing a challenge? Unlike caches, there aren’t any official guidelines" Maybe you could point out what you think people are missing on guidlines and rules. I looked in the Knowledge books and FAQ. Not much there. Click on the create a challenge button and some more guidelines will pop up. I think the FAQ says it all very well too. The biggest mistake people are making is that they are trying to make play anywhere caches as a location-specific and that is not right...and unfortunately people are accepting and completing these invalid challenges. I think the FAQ is pretty clear on what location specific challenges are, but people don't seem to read it.

There are timeframes...ie xx days ago...similar to what they did with cache logs with the latest update. Maybe they will change this to actual date. It is not Waymarking or benchmarking...it is a part of geocaching, perhaps an extension of geocaching as we know it. If you suggest that challenges may not be geocaching, then virtuals, web cam, locationless and earthcaches may not geocaching either, but they all count and geocachers take part. I do see guidelines...in the FAQ, when you create a new one, in the knowledge base...you just need to look. Unfortunately many people don't read them in detail and hence either purposely or accidently create bogus or invalid challenges. For those that don't want to take part, then it doesn't affect them at all and they can continue to enjoy geocaching the way they always have.

Well said and very accurate!

Very good idea! Bad idea...this is geocaching and not Waymarking. Challenges are part of geocaching. Waymarking has failed. Even Jeremy has expressed his disappointment at Waymarking's failure. Plus you can't enforce it once the challenge is accepted so why not just create something fun instead of making people jump through hoops.

Atleast if you create them as a challenge they will probably have more people visiting the locations than you had on the Waymarking website.

Yes they should count in your found total. If old Virtuals and Locationless caches and webcam and earthcaches count, then so should Challenges. Like with any cache, it's up to the individual to decide if they want to pursue the cache or challenge.

That's the way I view it too right now. Challenge created T=0. Person accepts the challenge T+1. Person completes the challenge T+2. Person uses a past experience to complete a challenge T-1...The challenge never existed then so you could not have completed it. I know it's up to the individual, but it seems bad form and no effort to complete the challenge for someone to use a past experience before the challenge was created to log it as completed. Logically people should be completing the challenge AFTER they accept it. You really can't complete something BEFORE it even existed, unless you can perhaps backdate your completed log, but that is not possible with Challenges. If Groundspeak on the other hand says it's ok to use a past experience to complete a challenge, then fine, atleast it would be accepted. I've looked at dozens of Challenges that I qualified for based on a past experience, but I don't see the point of marking those as complete now, unless I do it again. I don't need another smiley that bad. I also see people accepting and completing challenges that are not valid. Ie, there are a lot of "locationless" challenges being created, but fortunately these are quickly archived once they are flagged.

I see tons of great challenges and I have looked at hundreds of them and completed my first 2 today. Yes there are a lot of challenges currently that need to be archived because people are not following what a location-specific challenge is. Read the FAQ and specifically the following: Why not create some great challenges.

I know that it's up to all of us to decide for ourselves if we have completed a challenge, but I am seeing an increased number of people marking a challenge as completed even though they visited the location well BEFORE that challenge was ever published. Ie they might take an old vacation photo of a place featured in a challenge that they may have visited a year or even just a week ago and use that as evidence that they have completed a challenge. In reality that could probably be looked at as nothing more than a couch potato log as they are not doing any effort to complete the challenge and Groundspeak has stated quite awhile ago that couch potato caching is no longer acceptable. Look at it as, how can someone complete a challenge before that challenge is even issued? I am not saying it is right or wrong, just that I was surprised to see it happening so often and am wondering if people feel it is acceptable or not.

I am guessing from reading the FAQ that the Kiss a Frog and many other Challenges are getting automatically archived. http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/faq.aspx How do I report a Challenge that is inappropriate? On each Challenge page there is a link to flag the Challenge as spam, unplayable or for offensive or prohibited content. If a Challenge is flagged enough times it becomes permanently unavailable. There has already been a lot of abuse of the challenges and I am sure that people who don't like the concept are going around flagging the caches in hopes that there will be enough flags to get them automatically archived. This is also very apparent by the amount of people who gives some of these challenges a "thumbs down", and yet they have not even attempted the challenge. Groundspeak needs to remove the negativity of the thumbs down and the auto archiving if it gets too many flags. We should be focusing on the positives of these new challenges.

We here at the Ontario Geocaching Association are going to be creating our 3rd geocoin and we are once again holding a contest for geocoin designs. If you have any ideas or designs (mint ready art would be great but not necessary), please submit them to me at ralphs@ontgeocaching.com. You can find our logo here: http://www.ontgeocaching.com/about/ontario-geocaching-association-logo/. Deadline for submission is July 21st. We still have a small handful of our Suncatcher geocoins available for anyone that wants them. Visit our OGA Store.

Could I get an invite again...We've moved and I need to update my address. Thanks.

Thanks everyone for the information. 5000 geocaches in excellent...Much better than the 1000 limit on the 60cs and Legend.

I have a Garmin 78s. I download my pocket queries of 1000 caches each and copy the gpx file over to the GPS. My question is, how many caches can be loaded on the 78s through these gpx/pocket queries. I assume this has nothing to do with the 2000 waypoint limit as I have had more than 2000 caches loaded by copying the gpx files.

I think that many caches took us 5 or 10 minutes to find. And likewise we would spend 5 or 10 minutes on a cache before moving on to the next if we didn't find it. I think we might have spent 15 minutes on Landslide which we dnfed, atleast it seemed like we were there for awhile. Knowing that we had a goal of finding 150 caches you do have to make a decision to move on at some point especially after searching 5 or 10 minutes and realizing you probably won't find it but there was always that urge to continue searching. By the time we hit 200 finds we had 16 dnfs. As for keeping track, it was pretty easy as Keith created an excel spreadsheet from the mapsource route and it was just a matter of writing our numbers down on the list as we found the cache...1, 2, 3 etc and as Keith said we compared numbers every so often with those in other vehicles to make sure we were in sync. I also created a spreadsheet to fill in to keep track of our hourly totals. I think the toughest thing was the planning. About a month before I started creating a list of caches and the route and that took hours and hours and hours and more hours especially with revising and changing the route a couple times. A bookmark list was created and put in order, which eventually I didn't bother with the order in the bookmark list as it served no purpose and was a pain to order as I also had the order in the route in mapsource which was much easier to do. Then a cuple weeks before a new series called London Loop started appearing every day so I added some of those to the list too. In the end we had over 400 caches on our list so we had plenty. We started in the rural area around London and not until the evening did we actually enter into London. I think this was the right choice since although caches were further apart, there was less/no traffic to get from cache to cache. We had 16 people that were taking part with 4 people in each van so that worked out well. It's definitely not something I want to do every day, but it was a lot of fun for everyone and we surpassed our goal by a lot. Would I do it again? Maybe or most likely something similar.

Go to here http://www.geocaching.com/account/default.aspx Is you email address under Your Validated E-Mail Addresses correct?

Me Sign-up: Yes Name received: Yes - 21 March 2011 Package sent: Yes - 5 April 2011 Package received: - 13 April 2011 (see picture below) my daughter TK2100 Sign-up: Yes Name received: Yes - 21 March 2011 Package sent: Yes - 5 April 2011 Package received: Yes - 5 April 2011

Me Sign-up: Yes Name received: Yes - 21 March 2011 Package sent: Yes - 5 April 2011 Package received: my daughter TK2100 Sign-up: Yes Name received: Yes - 21 March 2011 Package sent: Yes - 5 April 2011 Package received: Yes - 5 April 2011 - The baby played with the coins and other items for over an hour in bed before going to sleep. She was really focused on them.