The return of Virtuals

3.7k · August 8, 2011

When you complete a Challenge (the new virtual) it will now be included in your overall "find" count. That's the only change to my original comment. I was resisting but was worn down by my fellow lackeys.

Good move. I think it stands a chance now!

5.7k · August 8, 2011

But drafting a cache page does not mean to use the Groundspeak system for caches. It could well mean write a draft of a text on one#s local computer and save it in a file.

Cezanne

To clarify, it isn't going to be a cache listing at all, so posting a new cache listing as a placeholder for a virtual would have no point to it.

I'm following so far. I have virtual listings on another site, and listed waymarks. Just who will be allowed to list virtual listings on this site? Lacky's? PM's? Any member?

Premium Members during the initial release will have the ability to post them, and even then they only post one every 24 hours (max). This will open up later, based on how the system is holding up.

I'm more than ready to give them a try. Can't wait to see the guidelines. I'd like to try and list a few with a good WOW factor.

9.4k · August 8, 2011

But drafting a cache page does not mean to use the Groundspeak system for caches. It could well mean write a draft of a text on one#s local computer and save it in a file.

Cezanne

To clarify, it isn't going to be a cache listing at all, so posting a new cache listing as a placeholder for a virtual would have no point to it.

I'm following so far. I have virtual listings on another site, and listed waymarks. Just who will be allowed to list virtual listings on this site? Lacky's? PM's? Any member?

Premium Members during the initial release will have the ability to post them, and even then they only post one every 24 hours (max). This will open up later, based on how the system is holding up.

I'm more than ready to give them a try. Can't wait to see the guidelines. I'd like to try and list a few with a good WOW factor.

Guidelines? What guidelines?

1.7k · August 8, 2011

But drafting a cache page does not mean to use the Groundspeak system for caches. It could well mean write a draft of a text on one#s local computer and save it in a file.

Cezanne

To clarify, it isn't going to be a cache listing at all, so posting a new cache listing as a placeholder for a virtual would have no point to it.

I'm following so far. I have virtual listings on another site, and listed waymarks. Just who will be allowed to list virtual listings on this site? Lacky's? PM's? Any member?

Premium Members during the initial release will have the ability to post them, and even then they only post one every 24 hours (max). This will open up later, based on how the system is holding up.

Do challenges have to be directed at you? Or are they there for everyone just like every other cache?

9.4k · August 8, 2011

Guidelines? What guidelines?

What I mean is there are no guidelines, though there will be some encouraging text.

9.4k · August 8, 2011

Do challenges have to be directed at you? Or are they there for everyone just like every other cache?

They are location-based and for everyone to do.

5.7k · August 8, 2011

Guidelines? What guidelines?

What I mean is there are no guidelines, though there will be some encouraging text.

How do we list them here? I'm confused. :blink:

19k · August 8, 2011

Those videos creep me out a little. This one was a bit more palatable with the British accents.

I have to admit, I've seen so many of these that I kept waiting for it to get funny. But it's a good summary.

That was a "summary"? :lol:

9.4k · August 8, 2011

Guidelines? What guidelines?

What I mean is there are no guidelines, though there will be some encouraging text.

How do we list them here? I'm confused.

That's ok. It will be clearer when we launch the feature.

August 8, 2011

Guidelines? What guidelines?

What I mean is there are no guidelines, though there will be some encouraging text.

How do we list them here? I'm confused.

That's ok. It will be clearer when we launch the feature.

*sigh* You mean you aren't going to break down and just tell us what this is all about right now?

5.7k · August 8, 2011

Guidelines? What guidelines?

What I mean is there are no guidelines, though there will be some encouraging text.

How do we list them here? I'm confused.

That's ok. It will be clearer when we launch the feature.

Good, kinda thought that I missed something. I have some listings to submit and I've been holding off on how to list them. I waymark and list virtuals on another site. I'll wait and see. Looks like all PM's will have the same chance to submit for review when they are launched. Thanks.

7.3k · August 8, 2011

Guidelines? What guidelines?

What I mean is there are no guidelines, though there will be some encouraging text.

How do we list them here? I'm confused.

That's ok. It will be clearer when we launch the feature.

*sigh* You mean you aren't going to break down and just tell us what this is all about right now?

:laughing:

8k · August 8, 2011

Good, kinda thought that I missed something. I have some listings to submit and I've been holding off on how to list them. I waymark and list virtuals on another site. I'll wait and see. Looks like all PM's will have the same chance to submit for review when they are launched. Thanks.

There's been some discussion on the Waymarking forum as to what this means to Waymarking. If people are going to decide not to waymark something because the new challenges let them share cool interesting places where they are too lazyunable to hide a cache, will there be a need for Waymarking? In particular, is there going to be a need for categories like Best Kept Secrets which was meant to address some complaints of why Waymarking categories didn't work for many places?

I'll wait and see what the new challenges are like and whether they address the needs of those who wanted to share cool locations but didn't want to use Waymarking to do it. If this seems to work, I might just as well abandoned the Best Kept Secrets category and any hope that Groundspeak will do anything to save Waymarking from becoming a niche site for obsessive compulsive list makers.

Those videos creep me out a little. This one was a bit more palatable with the British accents.

I have to admit, I've seen so many of these that I kept waiting for it to get funny. But it's a good summary.

That was a "summary"?

Should this new proposal work, I can add another six minutes to the video :mellow:

August 8, 2011

There's been some discussion on the Waymarking forum as to what this means to Waymarking. If people are going to decide not to waymark something because the new challenges let them share cool interesting places where they are too lazyunable to hide a cache, will there be a need for Waymarking? In particular, is there going to be a need for categories like Best Kept Secrets which was meant to address some complaints of why Waymarking categories didn't work for many places?

This brings to mind a concern I have for these new challenges which is similar to the major concern I had with Waymarking.

What system will be in place from having the same location being used for multiple challenges?

Since it has been said that there will be no real guidelines for these I am a little concerned that we might end up with 15 challenges all wanting the same photo of the same location which was one of the major turn-offs of Waymarking for me.

5.7k · August 9, 2011

There's been some discussion on the Waymarking forum as to what this means to Waymarking. If people are going to decide not to waymark something because the new challenges let them share cool interesting places where they are too lazyunable to hide a cache, will there be a need for Waymarking? In particular, is there going to be a need for categories like Best Kept Secrets which was meant to address some complaints of why Waymarking categories didn't work for many places?

I'll wait and see what the new challenges are like and whether they address the needs of those who wanted to share cool locations but didn't want to use Waymarking to do it. If this seems to work, I might just as well abandoned the Best Kept Secrets category and any hope that Groundspeak will do anything to save Waymarking from becoming a niche site for obsessive compulsive list makers.

I really enjoy some of the Waymarking categorys, but the site is unused in my area. I have some darn nice listings just sitting around. Most have never been logged and I don't expect them to be anymore. I just list them for my own enjoyment.

8k · August 9, 2011

This brings to mind a concern I have for these new challenges which is similar to the major concern I had with Waymarking.

What system will be in place from having the same location being used for multiple challenges?

Since it has been said that there will be no real guidelines for these I am a little concerned that we might end up with 15 challenges all wanting the same photo of the same location which was one of the major turn-offs of Waymarking for me.

I still don't understand the concern with a location appearing in multiple Waymarking categories. Perhaps because I was around when there were still locationless caches. A few people were able to get "finds" on multiple locationless caches using one set of coordinates - it was a round building, on the Register of Historic Places, with a funny sign, and it had palindromic coordinates. More often there would be an existing physical or virtual cache at the coordinates someone used for a locationless.

These were different caches and most people didn't worry about the fact that they shared the same location.

I'm not certain what the EarthCaching rules are now. I know of EarthCaches that have identical coordinates to existing virtual caches. And I believe that at one time you could even have two EarthCaches at the same place if there were two different Earth Science lesson that could be given there.

So my guess is that if you had two completely separate challenges they would be no reason why they couldn't be at the same coordinates. Now of course, since they will be counted as finds, if you had two challenges and they both were to post the same picture, someone would think it is "unfair" to allow someone to get two finds for the one picture.

They might have a proximity rule to limit the number of challenges in a area and that would have the effect of limiting one challenge to a particular location. We'll have to wait and see.

6.8k · August 9, 2011

Sure seems like a lot of angst over someone else's find count. Since when can you compare the find counts of two geocachers and say that both agree on what they counted as a find?

At least I have not encountered this angst in this thread. I am concerned about the effects on geocaching and not about the fins counts of other caches. Coldgears was concerned about his own find count.

I suppose that not having something count may serve as a sort of break to keep it from becoming too popular.

I'd rather say that it would help to limit the project to those who really have some interest into it.

If they don't have much effect on geocaching, then who cares.

On the one hand, I think that they will have quite some effect on geocaching (like powertrails had an enormous effect) and on the other hand, it also depends

how these challenges are sorted out (this is not yet known to us). If the challenges are going to be listed when one is doing

a nearest search from one's home coordinates, it would clutter up the result pages, something I would not like at all.

I never logged a locationless cache, even thought they were available when I started geocaching, because I thought these were not geocaches. But I wasn't bothered that other people logged finds on these. I've never done a webcam cache, because I think they're pretty silly too. But others count these.

Both with webcams and locationless caches there has been some natural limit on their number - this does not seem to be the case for the new challenges.

I'm also not bothered that some people log multiple attended on a event for each temporary cache they find.

On the one hand, such practices do not exist at all in my country and on the other hand, it has no consequences on my caching and on which caches are hidden and how many of them.

If I decide not to do challenges (or not to log them), I won't be bothered that someone else might get a "find" for them.

If will not be bothered either if it has no negative consequences for me.

August 9, 2011

So.... from reading all of this, I still couldn't find a release date. Has this been posted or is it to remain a surprise? Thanks for the explanations Jeremy!

14k · August 9, 2011

When you complete a Challenge (the new virtual) it will now be included in your overall "find" count. That's the only change to my original comment. I was resisting but was worn down by my fellow lackeys.

Bad news.

Why? I'm really curious what the argument would be for *not* including a completed challenge as a find. I don't recall Jeremy or anyone else stating that the proximity guideline will be less than than what it is for physical caches and it sounds like that challenge submission page will be complex enough to prevent a huge number of challenges being created leading to an inflation in find counts. If someone is just looking to increase their find count there are plenty of power trails out there for that.

14k · August 9, 2011

Guidelines? What guidelines?

What I mean is there are no guidelines, though there will be some encouraging text.

How do we list them here? I'm confused.

That's ok. It will be clearer when we launch the feature.

Ok, but can you answer this much?

Will the 528 guideline be in effect for challenges?

Will the "no vacation caches" apply to challenges?

I"m looking forward to the new feature, especially not that challenges are included as a find. Personally, I like the idea of "encouraging text" rather than additional guidelines. Hopefully it will encourage a bit of creativity in creating challenges.

1.2k · August 9, 2011

I made my challenge/virtual 528 feet away from a traditional just in case. I hope we can submit them soon.

6.8k · August 9, 2011

When you complete a Challenge (the new virtual) it will now be included in your overall "find" count. That's the only change to my original comment. I was resisting but was worn down by my fellow lackeys.

Bad news.

Why? I'm really curious what the argument would be for *not* including a completed challenge as a find.

There are several arguments. I need to mention however that I would also prefer that participation in events does not count as cache find. I have not found a cache or something cache-like when I have attended events.

I don't recall Jeremy or anyone else stating that the proximity guideline will be less than than what it is for physical caches and it sounds like that challenge submission page will be complex enough to prevent a huge number of challenges being created leading to an inflation in find counts.

If any PM can come up with one challenge per 24 hours, the system does not seem to be that restrictive.

If someone is just looking to increase their find count there are plenty of power trails out there for that.

Agreed. The power trail example shows however how the importance of find counts has had a negative impact.

Another aspect not yet discussed is the influence the hide count might have.

If the new challenges count towards find count and possibly also towards hide count and will get a new icon, then I pretty sure that this will motivate many, many cachers to some up with challenges just to earn the new icon. Even if the challenges get badly rated and will later appear automatically, they will never lose the icon.

Cezanne

2.5k · August 9, 2011

I made my challenge/virtual 528 feet away from a traditional just in case. I hope we can submit them soon.

To clarify, it isn't going to be a cache listing at all, so posting a new cache listing as a placeholder for a virtual would have no point to it.

3.1k · August 9, 2011

Good, kinda thought that I missed something. I have some listings to submit and I've been holding off on how to list them. I waymark and list virtuals on another site. I'll wait and see. Looks like all PM's will have the same chance to submit for review when they are launched. Thanks.

There's been some discussion on the Waymarking forum as to what this means to Waymarking. If people are going to decide not to waymark something because the new challenges let them share cool interesting places where they are too lazyunable to hide a cache, will there be a need for Waymarking? In particular, is there going to be a need for categories like Best Kept Secrets which was meant to address some complaints of why Waymarking categories didn't work for many places?

I'll wait and see what the new challenges are like and whether they address the needs of those who wanted to share cool locations but didn't want to use Waymarking to do it. If this seems to work, I might just as well abandoned the Best Kept Secrets category and any hope that Groundspeak will do anything to save Waymarking from becoming a niche site for obsessive compulsive list makers.

I'll have to go check that discussion. For me, Waymarking would still be valid. It's less about sharing places than about finding things wherever they are, i.e. just like Locationless.

August 10, 2011

It would be good to have confirmation that existing Virtual caches won't be affected by this new virtual/challenge development?

It would be a real shame if existing Virtuals were axed overnight as happened when Locationless caches morphed into Woemarks. :huh:

August 12, 2011

I don't think that we were ever told that virtual caches were coming back. I believe what was said was they were going to try and come up with a substitute that would please both those who want virtuals again and those that didn't. Obviously bringing them back in the original form would not do that.

In the UserVoice updates I never said that virtuals were coming back in their previous form, but instead something would be available that should capture the interest in virtuals without the baggage (such as the subjective review process).

To me, this is the most exciting project that we've worked on in years, but it will take some time to iterate through the idea and I know we'll get some things wrong, but the framework is solid. We'll be investing a substantial amount of effort with this project moving forward.

Some points:

It will be on Geocaching.com, not a new web site. It will be a separate section in the beta, but I expect it to be integrated into a joined search at some point.

Currently they will not go towards your find count, but it might at some point. It won't at the beginning though.

It will be a visible statistic, so you will see them on the profile, on the logs, etc.

We'll be hopefully launching with mobile applications to compliment the activity. I expect that the majority of participants will be using smartphones, but we will have components (Pocket Queries, GPX file downloads, etc) for traditional GPS devices.

For the comments that we should involve the community more, we do. We don't have a public discussion about it, instead working with a smaller sampling of geocachers.

When you complete a Challenge (the new virtual) it will now be included in your overall "find" count. That's the only change to my original comment. I was resisting but was worn down by my fellow lackeys.

oh yes! i'm thinking that these new "virtuals" will be amazing!

[Edit: fixed the stupid quote boxes and my comment...]

Edited August 12, 2011 by lookout.

1.4k · August 15, 2011

It would be good to have confirmation that existing Virtual caches won't be affected by this new virtual/challenge development?

It would be a real shame if existing Virtuals were axed overnight as happened when Locationless caches morphed into Woemarks.

That happened about 4 months after we started geocaching and if I remember it right there was about a month or two of warning, it wasn't like there was no knowledge of Locationless vanishing until Dec. 31, 2005 and then on Jan. 1, 2006 they were all locked.

August 15, 2011

I think it's too bad that in order for people to be interested in partaking in an activity it has to add a "find" to their Geocaching profile, no matter if its geocaching or not.

My view of the whole system would be to have Groundspeak.com the core place that everyone comes to. Your profile and all statistics would be hosted/displayed there and only there. From Groundspeak.com you would then be able to visit the individual activities like geocaching, Waymarking, Wherigo, benchmarking(side note: would love a separate benchmarking.com website). The sites would all integrate with each other, yet still have unique objectives. For people interested in numbers, your profile would display individual stats sort of like:

"Groundspeak User Name"

Geocaches: 2738 Finds | 15 Hides

Waymarks: 456 Discovered | 45 Created

Whereigos: 40 Games Played | 4 Games Created

Benchmarks: 379 Recovered

6.8k · August 15, 2011

I think it's too bad that in order for people to be interested in partaking in an activity it has to add a "find" to their Geocaching profile, no matter if its geocaching or not.

What you write is true for some cachers, but there are many for whom it is wrong. My interest into virtual caches has no connection at all to find counts. Unfortunately, neither Waymarking nor the new challenges offer what I like about virtual caches.

Cezanne

3.1k · August 15, 2011

It would be good to have confirmation that existing Virtual caches won't be affected by this new virtual/challenge development?

It would be a real shame if existing Virtuals were axed overnight as happened when Locationless caches morphed into Woemarks.

That happened about 4 months after we started geocaching and if I remember it right there was about a month or two of warning, it wasn't like there was no knowledge of Locationless vanishing until Dec. 31, 2005 and then on Jan. 1, 2006 they were all locked.

They stopped accepting new ones after about a week's notice, during which time they put it to a vote. It was some time later before they were completely removed.

Edited August 15, 2011 by Dinoprophet

1.2k · August 16, 2011

I don't like the idea of getting a find without ever leaving my house. At all... Even if Challenges were lets say "find 50 caches in a day". You didn't find a 51st cache at all. I don't feel comfortable with this.

Two things I hope.

1. That it won't make getting your find count up too easy. Like, someone makes a challenge for "get your first cache" "get your second" "Your first DNF" ect.

2. It will be optional. If I complete a challenge I don't have to claim the extra "find".

Easy solution - simply ignore this feature.

3k · August 17, 2011

Photo Challenges obviously require a photo to prove you completed the challenge.

Wonder what Action Challenges will require to provide proof you completed the challenge?

14k · August 17, 2011

Photo Challenges obviously require a photo to prove you completed the challenge.

Wonder what Action Challenges will require to provide proof you completed the challenge?

Honesty.

6.7k · August 17, 2011

Photo Challenges obviously require a photo to prove you completed the challenge.

Wonder what Action Challenges will require to provide proof you completed the challenge?

Honesty.

That'll result in a large number of "Greetings from" logs.

The return of Virtuals

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