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Challenges: Now that they are released


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Still watching the spinning wheel waiting for my location. Yes I understand the site is flooded.

But I also heard cachers are declaring thumbs down because they just don't like the idea of this. I am still on the fence about it but I am not going ruin it for others to enjoy. I think those cachers putting thumbs down have a little respect for others who do want to do it

Jeremy said the idea behind these are "Go somewhere and do something" So any challenge that is not location based and can be completed without leaving your house is getting a thumbs down. I'm sorry but I don't think users should get to increase their finds because they can google a photo of a sleeping cat.

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I see folks are spotting these weird things in their areas...

I click on "nearest challenges" on my profile page and I get WA (the first says it's "nearby") - I'm in PA.

The coords space above won't allow me to correct it.

Worse than virtuals, not sure if I want to figure this out.

Numbers padders must be in heaven about now.

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If Challenges add to your find count, will they also count as finds in the statistics page, and specifically color in a place on the Maps?

 

The answer is yes to the first question. As the second is regarded, I do not know, but I am not sure whether the cache map will also display the challenges. In any case, the challenges will not be part of the PQs.

 

Cezanne

 

I'll probably try completing a challenge later tonight that's has a location in a country in which I've already found a cache to see if it adds to the totals. If it does, I just won't complete any challenges that are not in locations that I haven't visited.

 

In an earlier message you mentioned that people in your area don't use smart phone apps for geocaching much. I haven't tested if there is a proximity test when creating a challenge to see if it's near my home coordinates but if there isn't a geocacher traveling through your area could create a challenge using their smart phone while in the area. Locals that don't use the smart phone apps could still complete challenges created by non-locals. Personally, I'd love to visit Austria and there's a decent chance I might be going to Rome in October and I ought to see if I can find a reasonable flight with a long layover in Austria.

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Still watching the spinning wheel waiting for my location. Yes I understand the site is flooded.

But I also heard cachers are declaring thumbs down because they just don't like the idea of this. I am still on the fence about it but I am not going ruin it for others to enjoy. I think those cachers putting thumbs down have a little respect for others who do want to do it

Jeremy said the idea behind these are "Go somewhere and do something" So any challenge that is not location based and can be completed without leaving your house is getting a thumbs down. I'm sorry but I don't think users should get to increase their finds because they can google a photo of a sleeping cat.

But this cacher required a photo of specific something with the cacher in it and one cacher drew a picture instead.

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Here's a difficult one. I challenge you to say something good about challenges!

 

Has there been any geocides due to challenges yet?

I dislike them but not that much. I love Geocaching way too much to quit. I have a feeling that there may be a meeting going on at HQ about how things have not turned out as they hoped and there may be some revisions coming soon.

 

I would love to see a link to a great challenge

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If these things count, why don't benchmarks count? It was harder to take a pic of a legit benchmark than some of this stuff, but I didn't get a count for it.

Make a challenge "Find Benchmark XXX and take a photo of it".

 

That's s good idea! Can I log my own too???

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Shouldn't this entire thread, and anything else challenge related be moved to a "Non-Geocaching Topic" section of the forum, because as it stands right now, very few challenges actually involve geocaching, or even getting out of the house.

 

My geocache count, will stay for geocaching, and unless things change my challenge count will stay at 0, but I woulndn't want challenge discussions clogging up the geocaching topics

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If Challenges add to your find count, will they also count as finds in the statistics page, and specifically color in a place on the Maps?

 

The answer is yes to the first question. As the second is regarded, I do not know, but I am not sure whether the cache map will also display the challenges. In any case, the challenges will not be part of the PQs.

 

Cezanne

 

I'll probably try completing a challenge later tonight that's has a location in a country in which I've already found a cache to see if it adds to the totals. If it does, I just won't complete any challenges that are not in locations that I haven't visited.

 

It suffices to look at the profile of cachers who have completed challenges. Look e.g. at these Dutch cachers

(like some Germans the Dutch community also has been an eldorado for couch potato virtuals years ago)

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=8e45be56-681e-4f11-b62d-02b05b20460e

At the time when I am writing this, they have already completed 16 challenges.

 

In an earlier message you mentioned that people in your area don't use smart phone apps for geocaching much. I haven't tested if there is a proximity test when creating a challenge to see if it's near my home coordinates but if there isn't a geocacher traveling through your area could create a challenge using their smart phone while in the area.

 

No, there is no check at all currently. There are challenges by European cachers with coordinates in the US, but the intent is not to visit those as they are locationless anyway.

 

Locals that don't use the smart phone apps could still complete challenges created by non-locals.

 

That's true, but actually hardly any foreign cachers from far away visit my area (relatively close to the border with Slovenia). There are more tourist cachers in Vienna and Salzburg.

 

Personally, I'd love to visit Austria and there's a decent chance I might be going to Rome in October and I ought to see if I can find a reasonable flight with a long layover in Austria.

 

If it works out and you need some recommendations for caches and/or translation help, feel free to contact me.

 

Cezanne

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I'm going to be spending some time thumbs down-ing these things for the next week or so. Any one else?

Tempting, but I don't think I care enough to even bother with that.

 

Anyone hit the "Flag Challenge" yet?

 

I actually had an idea for what I thought might be a fun challenge. Just down the hill from me there's a large metal rooster sculpture. I've thought about placing a nano on it but it's in a very highly visible spot and there might be proximity issues. I was thinking of putting a Action Challenge there and calling it "Choke the Chicken" and see how long it takes someone to flag it as inappropriate.

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Heh.

 

I posted a local challenge, and it's kind of going ... out of control. It's international already.

 

It'll be fun to see where this goes...

 

http://coord.info/CX10D

 

So basically anyone can find any picture and post it to a challenge and it has NOTHING to do with the challenge and the challenge owner can't delete it. Geez. I wonder if I'll get any real logs to my challenge or just bogus ones.

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Anyone hit the "Flag Challenge" yet?

 

I actually had an idea for what I thought might be a fun challenge. Just down the hill from me there's a large metal rooster sculpture. I've thought about placing a nano on it but it's in a very highly visible spot and there might be proximity issues. I was thinking of putting a Action Challenge there and calling it "Choke the Chicken" and see how long it takes someone to flag it as inappropriate.

 

That challenge would get a thumbs up vote from me.

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Anyone hit the "Flag Challenge" yet?

 

I actually had an idea for what I thought might be a fun challenge. Just down the hill from me there's a large metal rooster sculpture. I've thought about placing a nano on it but it's in a very highly visible spot and there might be proximity issues. I was thinking of putting a Action Challenge there and calling it "Choke the Chicken" and see how long it takes someone to flag it as inappropriate.

As long at the action is specifically to choke the sculpture that would be okay with me.

Other wise :blink::blink::blink:

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My Thoughts on Challenges:

 

Action Challenge - Have some merit, but should be specific to some kind of outdoor activity and involve a GPS.

 

Bad Example of an Action Challenge: Play a game of checkers with your kids.

Good Example of an Action Challenge: Find 50 multicaches with your kids ... or ... Find a cache in all 50 U.S. states.

How would you feel about this: go to location of a large checkerboard. Play checkers.

Good Example of a Photo Challenge: Take a photo of yourself holding a geocaching logo at the summit of a mountain ... or ... take a photo of yourself with a geocaching logo and GPS ... in Big Ben ...

How, exactly, would you get IN Big Ben?

Challenges should be reviewed and have some kind of standards just like hiding a cache.

As far as I can tell, geocaches have no such standards.
And finally CHALLENGES SHOULD NOT COUNT TOWARD YOUR FIND TOTAL!

Why?
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How negative does it have to be to be removed? People are downvoting mine because, this is just an ASSumption, that they live in Germany and/or the UK. My challenge can come off as VERY commercial. However, buying a cheese steak at Pat's and Geno's is something EVERY tourist does. They have a long-standing rivalry. Trust me, i've been there plenty of times, you see so many tourists its ridiculous.

 

If you, however, have never been to Philadelphia, or have don't live in the US, you wouldn't know it was a tourist attraction. So you would be led to believe that it is strictly commercial.

 

I am not liking the rating system, you don't even have to live within 5000 miles of the challenge, or even attempt it in order to rate something you have no idea about.

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And finally CHALLENGES SHOULD NOT COUNT TOWARD YOUR FIND TOTAL!

Why?

Because I'd like to participate, but I don't want them counted in my find count, as I don't think they're geocaching.

 

I felt the same about Locationless, but I had the option of logging notes on those.

Edited by Dinoprophet
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If Challenges add to your find count, will they also count as finds in the statistics page, and specifically color in a place on the Maps?

 

The answer is yes to the first question. As the second is regarded, I do not know, but I am not sure whether the cache map will also display the challenges. In any case, the challenges will not be part of the PQs.

 

Cezanne

 

I'll probably try completing a challenge later tonight that's has a location in a country in which I've already found a cache to see if it adds to the totals. If it does, I just won't complete any challenges that are not in locations that I haven't visited.

 

It suffices to look at the profile of cachers who have completed challenges. Look e.g. at these Dutch cachers

(like some Germans the Dutch community also has been an eldorado for couch potato virtuals years ago)

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=8e45be56-681e-4f11-b62d-02b05b20460e

At the time when I am writing this, they have already completed 16 challenges.

 

In an earlier message you mentioned that people in your area don't use smart phone apps for geocaching much. I haven't tested if there is a proximity test when creating a challenge to see if it's near my home coordinates but if there isn't a geocacher traveling through your area could create a challenge using their smart phone while in the area.

 

No, there is no check at all currently. There are challenges by European cachers with coordinates in the US, but the intent is not to visit those as they are locationless anyway.

 

Locals that don't use the smart phone apps could still complete challenges created by non-locals.

 

That's true, but actually hardly any foreign cachers from far away visit my area (relatively close to the border with Slovenia). There are more tourist cachers in Vienna and Salzburg.

 

Personally, I'd love to visit Austria and there's a decent chance I might be going to Rome in October and I ought to see if I can find a reasonable flight with a long layover in Austria.

 

If it works out and you need some recommendations for caches and/or translation help, feel free to contact me.

 

Cezanne

 

Thanks for the offer. If I do fly through Austria it would most likely be through Vienna or Salzburg.

 

So I checked the profile of someone that recently completed a challenge (the coord.info/<ProfileNumber> was broken earlier today but it appears to be fixed now). Their profile page indicated that they had 1028 finds and one Challenge completed. When I looked at their Statistics/Maps page it only showed the 1028 finds. I don't recall if that Stat information is cached (in memory) so I'll have to check later.

 

What I have seen so far is that there are a lot of "Location Based" caches that are not location specific. World wide challenges (such as Kiss a Frog) were only supposed to be created by Groundspeak and everything else was *supposed* to be a photo or action which took place at the location associated with the challenge but there's nothing to enforce that, thus there are challenges like "post a picture of your favorite beer" that are essentially worldwide challenges so at least this point in time the distinction is meaningless.

 

I've also seen a lot of retroactive logging from those that completed the challenge before the challenge existed.

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How negative does it have to be to be removed? People are downvoting mine because, this is just an ASSumption, that they live in Germany and/or the UK. My challenge can come off as VERY commercial. However, buying a cheese steak at Pat's and Geno's is something EVERY tourist does. They have a long-standing rivalry. Trust me, i've been there plenty of times, you see so many tourists its ridiculous.

 

If you, however, have never been to Philadelphia, or have don't live in the US, you wouldn't know it was a tourist attraction. So you would be led to believe that it is strictly commercial.

 

I am not liking the rating system, you don't even have to live within 5000 miles of the challenge, or even attempt it in order to rate something you have no idea about.

Oh that was yours. Sorry but I do not think that challenges should be commercial. Next thing you know you get a find every time you drive thru McDs

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How negative does it have to be to be removed? People are downvoting mine because, this is just an ASSumption, that they live in Germany and/or the UK. My challenge can come off as VERY commercial. However, buying a cheese steak at Pat's and Geno's is something EVERY tourist does. They have a long-standing rivalry. Trust me, i've been there plenty of times, you see so many tourists its ridiculous.

 

If you, however, have never been to Philadelphia, or have don't live in the US, you wouldn't know it was a tourist attraction. So you would be led to believe that it is strictly commercial.

 

I am not liking the rating system, you don't even have to live within 5000 miles of the challenge, or even attempt it in order to rate something you have no idea about.

 

Sounds like a delicious challenge. I live about 35 miles away and wouldn't mind doing that one!

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I don't mean to be negative, but I feel like this has happened:

Us: Bring back high-quality, meaningful virtuals!

Groundspeak: You want high-quality, meaningful virtuals?

Us: Yes!

Groundspeak: Okay, here you go. Create your own virtuals with no reviewer oversight.

 

I'm sorry, Groundspeak, I know you're trying, but this seems like the singular, best way to insure that there would be boatloads of exactly the types of pointless virtuals that most people didn't want.

I disagree.

 

Since it has a voting mechanism, I can only assume that it is going to be very to decide whether one of these is 'meaningful' without even reading it's write-up. With people expressing their opinions on each one, why would I need a reviewer to give me his?

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I just posted a challenge (http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CX1A9) that I hope is in the spirit of the original virtual caches. I had wanted to list it as a virtual, but didn't get it submitted before they were shut down. I do agree, though, that many (most?) of the challenges so far are completely ridiculous!

 

Agreed. I don't think we can place the blame for that fully on Groundspeak. The proliferation of completely ridiculous challenges is the result of a lot of utterly unimaginative geocachers creating a challenge just because they can.

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I would just like to put my 2 cents worth in on the subject of Challenges. If things don't get better, there will not be any finds from me. I have been trying for the last 3 hours to get a challenge completed to see what happens. I am still waiting. My internet keeps locking up. My screens just sit there with a little wheel turning waiting for something to happen. No instructions, just hunt and peck to figure it out.

As far as this replacing virtuals, this isn't what I was imaginning it to be. This looks like it is just going to become a variety of Waymarking. I saw nothing wrong with the old style of virtuals. We learned things, we saw things that we would have never seen before, and we went places that we would never have thought of going.

This is a poor replacement.

PLEASE BRING BACK VIRTUALS as they were. We at least had to verify with the owner of our find. This has no way of verification.

 

Just a number thing in my opinion. Challenges of this type should not count toward finds as regular caches.

 

Does anyone else feel as I do, or am I alone out here??????

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I'm going to be spending some time thumbs down-ing these things for the next week or so. Any one else?

Tempting, but I don't think I care enough to even bother with that.

 

Anyone hit the "Flag Challenge" yet?

 

I actually had an idea for what I thought might be a fun challenge. Just down the hill from me there's a large metal rooster sculpture. I've thought about placing a nano on it but it's in a very highly visible spot and there might be proximity issues. I was thinking of putting a Action Challenge there and calling it "Choke the Chicken" and see how long it takes someone to flag it as inappropriate.

 

Haha! That's great.

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My thoughts so far? Garmin will be very happy...

Are you trying to suggest that people will go to a site that has minimal support only a handful of caches (most dual listed) and lots of issues just because they dislike challenges.

 

I'm not buying that. A lot of people are showing their dislike in many ways and I'm betting there will be some changes to challenges that require them to be tied to a location. Then all they have to do is make them archive after so many negative votes.

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