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New "Geocaching Challenges" caches


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Question - ive found one for the Reebok stadium....a picture one.....does the pic have to be taken AFTER the challenge was published ???? cause i have a perfect pic for it......Might be a thick question but im not the sharpest tool (just look at some of my answers on the pub quiz pages haha) :huh:

Nope... There are no rules to this madness!

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Google Images has a lot of stock photos you could use!

Makes a complete farce of the idea of a challenge.

I'm off caching this morning with my kids, we'll be walking, not photoshopping! My 6 year old thinks she can boost her finds number with these challenges...she is a numbers girl though!

Edited by The QCs
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Oh oh oh, this thing could get *so* silly. I wonder if Groundspeak realise just how silly this could get.

 

Yes, I'm guessing our Cousins from across the Pond don't realise that the British have an eccentric nature and sometimes like to be contrary or ironic just for a giggle. I might take up Prem membership after all just to start messing with their heads! :lol:

 

(Just noticed that they removed the hillarious challenge cache posted in E Kilbride - seems we can add lacking sense of humour to lacking common sense)

Edited by Bendos
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I reckon ppl will just cheat themselves to get the numbers up.....But C'mon guys n gals, if you do set a challenge make sure it cant be photoshopped or cheated! So im wondering weather the accept that reebok challenge or email the dude and ask if hell take it or not! Gonna do it the proper way and ask first :)

 

Meh there's people who cheat for the numbers with caches and there will be people who cheat for the numbers on challenges. I take the same view. Geocaching might be a sport, or it might be a hobby. But which ever way you call it it's still a pointless activity. If you want to stay at home ticking boxes for the numbers then whatever go for it. The fun of geocaching is getting out of the house.

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What the heck? They deleted my challenge without any explanation. And there are no guidelines for me to refer to that might help me understand the reason. Perhaps it wasn't sufficiently location-specific (go to Crickley Hill Country Park, find a particular set of five walking-trail signposts), but I've no way of knowing that.

 

I had CX6, too :(

I don't know what a CX6 is, but I accepted your Crickley Hill challenge. I was looking forward to doing that with the family at the Glorious Gloucestershire event. :rolleyes: Did you have a set of coordinates attached to it somewhere, making it location specific? It's odd how your challenge has been archived but walk tall's hasn't, there doesn't seem to be any logic to their archiving process. Mind you, I am starting to consider which water purification process to use on the water to complete walk tall's challenge (if it lasts that long.)

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The problem just seems to be that people are setting really crappy challenges, especially Groundspeak themselves. These will get voted down, and the people who set them will get bored. Hopefully in a few weeks what will remain are some good challenges, along the lines of virtuals.

 

I've set one up in the hope that I can raise the bar and make challenges worthwhile. Groundspeak set the bar very low with their first challenge. Disabling all of your caches because you don't like this new aspect of the game is just ludicrous. Talk about toys out of the pram. So you don't think a new side aspect of the game is fun, that doesn't mean you have to stop playing, and stop everyone else playing entirely. It's the same as taking your football home, because little Jonny thinks that rush goalies should be allowed. <_<

 

Edit: My challenge is this: http://coord.info/CX71B

 

Let me know why it sucks and shouldn't be allowed on the geocaching site.

Edited by lifechooser
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The one a day rule is not good... and the one I had that doesn't and didn't exist as there's no trace of it still seems to count.

 

Have several others lined up... best stop thinking up new ideas...

 

Was gonna do one inspired by Jady of having your photo taken in Leeds kit outside Old Trafford during the hour before a home game... but thought I may feel guilty if anything happened to anyone.

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What the heck? They deleted my challenge without any explanation. And there are no guidelines for me to refer to that might help me understand the reason. Perhaps it wasn't sufficiently location-specific (go to Crickley Hill Country Park, find a particular set of five walking-trail signposts), but I've no way of knowing that.

 

I had CX6, too :(

I don't know what a CX6 is, but I accepted your Crickley Hill challenge. I was looking forward to doing that with the family at the Glorious Gloucestershire event. :rolleyes: Did you have a set of coordinates attached to it somewhere, making it location specific? It's odd how your challenge has been archived but walk tall's hasn't, there doesn't seem to be any logic to their archiving process. Mind you, I am starting to consider which water purification process to use on the water to complete walk tall's challenge (if it lasts that long.)

CX6 = sixth Challenge to be published. First in the UK, second outside of the US. *weeps into his coffee*

 

It was location-specific, with the coords taking you to the walking-trails information board. I've appealed. I really hope GS see fit to reinstate it: I put a fair amount of work into that in the lead-up to Challenges being introduced :(

 

Currently you can do the Challenge, just not get credit for it. The bingo card is still here.

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Ahem, straight from the Geocaching home page:

Geocaching is a real-world outdoor treasure hunting game. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using GPS-enabled devices and then share their experiences online.

 

I know we have the exceptions of virtuals, earths, webcams, etc. but they've got a bit of a cheek to call these "Geocaching Challenges" when Groundspeak tell us on their homepage that we will be looking for a hidden container. A new site would definitely have been more appropriate. Don't see why it couldn't have sat next door to Geocaching.com, just like Waymarking.

 

Saying that, I have created a "sensible" challenge. I don't really like the idea of it all though. :(I'm waiting for "Geocaching Places" to appear where you can earn finds by checking in. Quickly scrubbed that out incase I give Groundspeak ideas! ;)

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Edit: My challenge is this: http://coord.info/CX71B

 

Let me know why it sucks and shouldn't be allowed on the geocaching site.

 

To me that seems like the kind of thing they should have been about. It's a shame that something like that gets lost among the "kiss a frog" and "fart on a tree" dross. One of the challenges I saw was "go and find a geocache and log it as found". Not sure if that's still there or not.

 

What troubles me isn't so much the extra feature (that's easy enough to ignore) but the way Groundspeak seem to simply ignore what their users (i.e. paying customers) think, leave features half-working or broken for ages while introducing more and more fluff to the site. Throw in a few big steps back, like the cache page that includes extra graphics (this coming from a company whose issues in the past seem to stem from a lack of bandwidth), takes away a precise date in exchange for something vague, and a new layout that can't even present logs in a consistent format, and one has to wonder what "improvement" they'll dream up next.

 

If people are looking to stop funding this increasing farce it's not a big step from there to move listings to competing sites. After all, if Groundspeak doesn't care what cache hiders think why do those cache hiders owe Groundspeak anything in return?

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The one a day rule is not good... and the one I had that doesn't and didn't exist as there's no trace of it still seems to count.

 

Have several others lined up... best stop thinking up new ideas...

 

Was gonna do one inspired by Jady of having your photo taken in Leeds kit outside Old Trafford during the hour before a home game... but thought I may feel guilty if anything happened to anyone.

 

Do u want more riots on your hands Natty......Id happily do it but id also be sporting sunglasses and a black cap.....and my latest technological breakthrough of a time travel machine!!!!!

 

Flip that though "a challenge inspired by jady" ooooo me likes a lot :)

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Edit: My challenge is this: http://coord.info/CX71B

 

Let me know why it sucks and shouldn't be allowed on the geocaching site.

 

To me that seems like the kind of thing they should have been about. It's a shame that something like that gets lost among the "kiss a frog" and "fart on a tree" dross. One of the challenges I saw was "go and find a geocache and log it as found". Not sure if that's still there or not.

 

What troubles me isn't so much the extra feature (that's easy enough to ignore) but the way Groundspeak seem to simply ignore what their users (i.e. paying customers) think, leave features half-working or broken for ages while introducing more and more fluff to the site. Throw in a few big steps back, like the cache page that includes extra graphics (this coming from a company whose issues in the past seem to stem from a lack of bandwidth), takes away a precise date in exchange for something vague, and a new layout that can't even present logs in a consistent format, and one has to wonder what "improvement" they'll dream up next.

 

If people are looking to stop funding this increasing farce it's not a big step from there to move listings to competing sites. After all, if Groundspeak doesn't care what cache hiders think why do those cache hiders owe Groundspeak anything in return?

 

+1

 

"Sail Away" [CX71B] is what this should be about - very location specific, needs a GPSr to complete, is away from where a physical cache could possibly be. I also like the cryptically implied alternative solution !

 

But, with no D/T ratings on challenges there is no more kudos for a numbers hunter in completing this than there is in the proverbial "kissing a frog". Hence, this kind of challenge will be the exception and get lost amongst the dross.

 

BTW : I think the challenge "go and find a geocache and log it as found" might just have been conceived with a little irony :)

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What the heck? They deleted my challenge without any explanation. And there are no guidelines for me to refer to that might help me understand the reason. Perhaps it wasn't sufficiently location-specific (go to Crickley Hill Country Park, find a particular set of five walking-trail signposts), but I've no way of knowing that.

 

I had CX6, too :(

I don't know what a CX6 is, but I accepted your Crickley Hill challenge. I was looking forward to doing that with the family at the Glorious Gloucestershire event. :rolleyes: Did you have a set of coordinates attached to it somewhere, making it location specific? It's odd how your challenge has been archived but walk tall's hasn't, there doesn't seem to be any logic to their archiving process. Mind you, I am starting to consider which water purification process to use on the water to complete walk tall's challenge (if it lasts that long.)

CX6 = sixth Challenge to be published. First in the UK, second outside of the US. *weeps into his coffee*

 

It was location-specific, with the coords taking you to the walking-trails information board. I've appealed. I really hope GS see fit to reinstate it: I put a fair amount of work into that in the lead-up to Challenges being introduced :(

 

Currently you can do the Challenge, just not get credit for it. The bingo card is still here.

I hope they reinstate it too.

I wonder if it is because it required a composite photo and so people couldn't show they had completed the challenge using the app, in the field.

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There's part of me that thinks there should be some sort of competition to see how many people can log 'legitimately' (as in meeting the cache owner's requirements but not necessarily Groundspeak's) without leaving your property ;-)

Not me, that doesn't interest me at all, but it seems there have been a lot of people who feel the same way as you!

 

Anyone got the app? What is it like?

 

Also, we have had little enough information in English about these challenges - was any of it translated into other languages?

Edited by Fianccetto
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There's part of me that thinks there should be some sort of competition to see how many people can log 'legitimately' (as in meeting the cache owner's requirements but not necessarily Groundspeak's) without leaving your property ;-)

 

I was wondering the same thing. Or to see how many challenges you can complete without getting them disallowed, without leaving your home.

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I hope they reinstate it too.
Thanks :)

 

I wonder if it is because it required a composite photo and so people couldn't show they had completed the challenge using the app, in the field.
I showed a composite photo, but that was just to help illustrate what needed to be found. I didn't ask for photographic evidence; I'm happy to trust people when they post a completion log.

 

Fingers crossed GS will get back to me. Toes crossed, too, that they'll say "okay, we'll grant your appeal".

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There's part of me that thinks there should be some sort of competition to see how many people can log 'legitimately' (as in meeting the cache owner's requirements but not necessarily Groundspeak's) without leaving your property ;-)

 

I was wondering the same thing. Or to see how many challenges you can complete without getting them disallowed, without leaving your home.

 

Seen CX898 then?

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Anyone got the app? What is it like?

 

I've got the iPhone app. I think it's very nice actually. Quite slick. If these are apparently "Geocaching Challenges" though it shouldn't have been a separate app, should have been integrated with the existing "Geocaching" app. Afterall, these challenges are apparently part of Geocaching now. :angry: While they're at it, a Waymarking app would be nice! :laughing:

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There are 3 worldwide challenges published today which are along the lines of 'hike along a trail near you' 'take a photo of a landmark near you with your finger pointing to the top' and 'pick up litter in a park'. (In case anyone else was trying to flag a couple of those for not needing a GPS! :rolleyes:

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Anyone got the app? What is it like?

 

I've got the iPhone app. I think it's very nice actually. Quite slick. If these are apparently "Geocaching Challenges" though it shouldn't have been a separate app, should have been integrated with the existing "Geocaching" app. Afterall, these challenges are apparently part of Geocaching now. :angry: While they're at it, a Waymarking app would be nice! :laughing:

So you get the geocaching/google map with the challenges on it, or is there no map? :unsure: Maybe I should just get it for my android...I just don't want to clutter up my phone with a lot of junk, the geocaching.com app takes long enough to load as it is.

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Seen CX898 then?

 

Archived before I could see it, but I can hazard a guess. *rolls eyes in disbelief*

 

The level of cheating (and by cheating, I mean really cheating) amuses me no end (in a 'I can't believe they did that' kinda way). I've just seen one called Hug a Bear which refers to some physical statue somewhere, only for a cacher to complete it by posting a picture of Bear Grylls. Then there is the 'Meet A Lackey' challenge where someone has photoshopped (badly) themselves next to Jeremy.

 

I must admit that when people get all "cache police" or "Daily Mail" about things, I tend to get annoyed. I don't worry how other people cache, what they do or don't do different to my perception of what's acceptable or not. I just concentrate on caching my 'legitimate' way (and sometimes do things to deliberately annoy those trying to be judge and jury). But this is so blatant, it's almost hysterical (in a bad way).

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There's part of me that thinks there should be some sort of competition to see how many people can log 'legitimately' (as in meeting the cache owner's requirements but not necessarily Groundspeak's) without leaving your property ;-)

 

I was wondering the same thing. Or to see how many challenges you can complete without getting them disallowed, without leaving your home.

 

Seen CX898 then?

 

How come my challenge has gone? I made sure I wanted people only to complete properly.

 

Shame.

 

A cacher called ChallengeChallenges seems to be doing a grand job at armchair completing.

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Let me know why it sucks and shouldn't be allowed on the geocaching site.
I would have thought it was quite obvious that it shouldn't be allowed on a geocaching site, simply because it isn't a geocache, or anything like one.

 

It sounds like a fine challenge to go on a Challenge site though.

 

Rgds, Andy

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Anyone know whether you have to have any clothes on for the "snog a frog" one? My shower curtain has frogs on it . . .

 

I'm gonna say for the sake of anyone that logs after you... yes, you have to be clothed ;-)

 

Or you could strategically position a couple of shower-heads to preserve your modesty. :laughing:

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I attempted the "Kiss a frog" challenge, but when I kissed the frog, it turned into a Princess who refused to have her picture taken in case it reversed the spell and she became a frog again. How do I claim this as a 'find'?

 

Maybe I'll have better luck with the 'find a unicorn' challenge....

 

:) :) :)

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As I commented elsewhere...

 

I kissed a frog. I'm not ashamed to admit it. (Still waiting for my prince in tights to appear)

 

My guess is that that was chosen as a first Worldwide Challenge because Groundspeak wanted something really easy that anybody could do if they just wanted to "try out" how a challenge would work in practice. Yes, it's a bit silly but at least frogs have an special status within geocaching.

 

As for the rest... I think it's a pity that within the first hour of the Challenges being released some cachers were already throwing out the Challenge equivalent of the film pot in the bush. Maybe the mistake that Groundspeak made was in thinking that geocachers would take the time to consider the full potential for creating interesting/engaging/clever/amusing challenges and would police the standards themselves?

 

I'm hopeful that once all this initial silliness has worn off that we'll end up with some worthwhile challenges. Once those who think they're being oh-so-clever by logging all the daft things with photoshopped logs get bored maybe, just maybe, there will be something interesting left that will add a new dimension to this whole Language of Location thing.

 

MrsB

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I have obviously missed this and I can't really be bothered to trawl through posts to find it but can someone tell me why GC have done this? I just don't understand what the difference is between these and virtuals and I don't know why virtuals were stopped in the first place. I am ignorant of these matters and I am not ashamed to admit it.

Please enlighten me

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I have obviously missed this and I can't really be bothered to trawl through posts to find it but can someone tell me why GC have done this? I just don't understand what the difference is between these and virtuals and I don't know why virtuals were stopped in the first place. I am ignorant of these matters and I am not ashamed to admit it.

Please enlighten me

 

This is a pretty good explanation of the old Virtuals and their background - The History of Virtuals

 

MrsB

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When I click on 'view nearby challenges' in my profile, it shows me challenges in Seattle?? It tells me I am 1 mile away from them! (I am in Scotland) I looked at my home location and it is still correct. Is anyone else getting this? I wanted to see if there actually were any 'challenges' nearby! :(

 

Edit: guess it is a glitch, I put my home coords into the search and found two that are miles away (but closer than Seattle ).

Edited by wabbitways
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