Challenges: Now that they are released

August 18, 2011

Sorry, this is so silly and ridiculous that I can't be constructive. This is a really bad joke.

You may have just saved it. Go back to your challenges page and you should see a "publish" button.

Hope that helps.

Edited:

Oops, sorry Motorcycledude, replied to the wrong person.

Edited August 18, 2011 by baax

August 18, 2011

Let me make sure I understand this:

You just go to the location, and do whatever silly thing the poster thought up to do. Nothing to find; no information to get; nothing to sign. But it adds to your numbers.

Stupid! Seems like there are other things Groundspeak could be spending time on!

6.8k · August 18, 2011

I can't figure out how to find any of them, well I can find the two global ones.

And the Find Me button doesn't work for me, anyone else.

If you do not know where they are, the only option to find some of them at the moment seems to be to look at the

list if recent activity and see if someone has just created or completed a challenge.

I'd like to have a country-wise search option, but probably the country is not even contained in the data base.

Cezanne

2.8k · August 18, 2011

Let me make sure I understand this:

You just go to the location, and do whatever silly thing the poster thought up to do. Nothing to find; no information to get; nothing to sign. But it adds to your numbers.

Stupid! Seems like there are other things Groundspeak could be spending time on!

In some cases you don't even have to go to a location, you can do it from your bathroom.

August 18, 2011

It's been a long time since I've posted to these forums, but since receiving the notification about Challenge caches, I feel obliged to put in my 2 cents.

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.

Photo Challenge - Mostly ridiculous and have little merit. Again, photo challenges should be limited to geocaching related activities or activities that require you to hike, get outdoors and/or visit someplace spectacular where caches would otherwise not be allowed. And, to make it so people can't simply go through their photo folder on their computer to find pictures that meet the criterion, I would propose they should be holding a geocaching logo to make it count. I mean, come on, "Kiss a Frog?" ... Really? How is that related to geocaching?? So far I've seen kiss a frog & take a photo of your dog. Silly and stupid.

Bad Example of a Photo Challenge: Take a photo of yourself kissing a frog (or some equally ridiculous thing that you can find in your house or go to a store and purchase). Take a photo of your dog. Take a photo of anything that requires minimal effort and can be done just to pad your numbers.

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 on the Great Wall of China / in Big Ben / at the edge of the Grand Canyon / near Old Faithful (you get the idea).

Challenges should be reviewed and have some kind of standards just like hiding a cache. Challenges that receive a high percentage of 'thumbs down' votes should be removed from the site or at a minimum archived.

And finally CHALLENGES SHOULD NOT COUNT TOWARD YOUR FIND TOTAL!

Edited August 18, 2011 by Western Mass Clan

August 18, 2011

' timestamp='1313694463' post='4813366']

Let me make sure I understand this:

You just go to the location, and do whatever silly thing the poster thought up to do. Nothing to find; no information to get; nothing to sign. But it adds to your numbers.

Stupid! Seems like there are other things Groundspeak could be spending time on!

In some cases you don't even have to go to a location, you can do it from your bathroom.

That is eaxtlcy my point geocaching is about going outdoor not taking picture in a mirror like i did for the Frog Challenge and i did not kown that was count toward my REAL cache count... this should be on a separate counter and NOT or at leaset have a choice to have it in our total counter! Chalenge should have a separate site GEOCHALLENGE.COM or anything not GEOCACHING.COM! Juste liek Wherigo, Waymarking etc....

August 18, 2011

Isn't it ironic that photo log requirements on earthcaches were forbidden since it put your personal integrity in danger? I wonder what would make me look more stupid to future emploers etc, a picture of me at the Niagara Falls or me kissing a toy frog?

6.8k · August 18, 2011

It's okay to be critical but let's try to be constructive as well.

Above all, I am missing the location part in many submissions. For most of the challenges I have looked at the coordinates do not play any role. I thought that only world-wide challenges work that way, but there are challenges with coordinates somewhere in the Netherlands, in Finnland, in Germany etc which are logged in a locationless manner (by providing photos of sleeping animals, going to the location where one has found one's first cache, finding a cache, photographing one's cache mobile or caching shoes etc).

In particular, the German community already seems to be very active in coming up with challenges where the coordinates do not play any role at all. No big surprise anyway that in the one of the paradises of armchair logging these type of challenges are finding a warm welcome.

Maybe this is happening just because cachers have not understood the location-based idea, but I guess if there is no central control it will be hard to get the thing working.

Currently the challenges rather create the impression of being a mixture of locationless caches and ALR with no control system for the logs.

Another issue is that 2000 characters is very short when it comes to provide interesting information about a location - this was an aspect that I really enjoyed about some virtual caches. The new challenges are tailored for the needs of people with mobile applications and not for old-fashioned cachers going around with paper print-outs.

Cezanne

Edited August 18, 2011 by cezanne

4.1k · August 18, 2011

I find it amazing that someone can 'create' a challenge, then accept it and log it! Isn't that like logging a find on your own cache?

They need to put a time reference on when the 'challenge' was published (?) so you could tell if someone actually did the challenge or just used an old photo of themselves at the target destination.

So far, they completely missed the mark as a replacement for Virtuals and did a mediocre replacement of the old Locationless caches.

John

14k · August 18, 2011

How do I find them? How do I get mine to show up?

Looks like to have to go to menu and select Play / Find Challenges to get to the the Challenges search screen.

It doesn't work. Like others have said, the search shows zero results.

It worked for me once I was able to enter a location which had a Challenge "Near by". I tried my home town, then two of the closest larger cities and didn't get any results. Finally, I entered Buffalo, NY and the one at Niagara Falls showed up.

I think I found the first "archived challenge". Someone created a challenge called "Challenge to Kill Challenges" and when you go to the link there is a message that "This Challenge has been archived and is no longer available."

August 18, 2011

Furthermore, Groundspeak refers to these as "Geocaching Challenges"

However, most of the challenges I've seen so far have absolutely nothing to do with Geocaching and only a few I've seen require that you actually even leave your house.

While I have enough foresight to recognize that there is some merit to the idea of "Geocaching Challenges" this implementation of it by Groundspeak was poorly thought out and needs A LOT of work. As implemented, it has the potential to take Geocaching in a direction that does not fit Groundspeak's mission of getting people active and outdoors.

Challenges need to have standards to really benefit the hobby ... just like any "real" geocache.

Western Mass Clan

Edited August 18, 2011 by Western Mass Clan

August 18, 2011

I submitted a challenge which is the type I think they all should be. You have to go and take a picture at a specific place, not of your dog or climbing a tree in your backyard. I thought that was the idea, like a virtual. To attract people to some place that you can't otherwise place a cache container. Mine is to take a creative picture of a bridge near me that is unique. The other ones that have nothing to do with going to a specific place are ridiculous!

Also, if it adds to your regular count, why is there a seperate block for challenges in your profile. I thought it would only count there, not on both?

Edited August 18, 2011 by deb3day

6.8k · August 18, 2011

It worked for me once I was able to enter a location which had a Challenge "Near by". I tried my home town, then two of the closest larger cities and didn't get any results. Finally, I entered Buffalo, NY and the one at Niagara Falls showed up.

The coordinate search method does not make sense at the moment anyhow.

Take this challenge

http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CX4B

The coordinates are meaningless for it.

The same for that one

http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CX111

Other examples

http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CX87

http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CX15C

The frog example made the majority misunderstand what a photo challenge should be. The intent was that worldwide challenges are only created by Groundspeak, but what happens now is that most of the challenges created are of the worldwide type, but classified in the wrong way. I can hardly imagine that Groundspeak will manage to cope with this chaos. There are so many cachers coming up with challenges that have no information available about what challenges should look like and many of them do not even understand English.

Cezanne

Edited August 18, 2011 by cezanne

3.1k · August 18, 2011

I submitted a challenge which is the type I think they all should be. You have to go and take a picture at a specific place, not of your dog or climbing a tree in your backyard. I thought that was the idea, like a virtual. To attract people to some place that you can't otherwise place a cache container. Mine is to take a creative picture of a bridge near me that is unique. The other ones that have nothing to do with going to a specific place are ridiculous!

Yes, I'm pretty sure you have the idea that was intended.

Groundspeak should not have done the Worldwide challenge. That has completely derailed it, in my opinion.

August 18, 2011

I was just looking at CX151.

Basically it is to go to a certain casino and play poker. That's not very challenging and has absolutely nothing to do with GeoCaching in my opinion.

14k · August 18, 2011

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?

2.1k · August 18, 2011

Hug your dog? Kiss a frog? Sleep?????

Meh.

14k · August 18, 2011

I'm planning on creating a Challenge that involves going to a certain place nearby and taking a photo of a fossil (there's actually an earthcache nearby that has the same criteria) but I'm afraid someone will post a photo of an old person.

1.2k · August 18, 2011

No rules/guidelines = a bunch of crap.

More:

http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CXFD

http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CX87

Oh look find a MUNZEE (how long before it goes boom): http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CX126

First archived challenge??? http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CX81

3.1k · August 18, 2011

I'm planning on creating a Challenge that involves going to a certain place nearby and taking a photo of a fossil (there's actually an earthcache nearby that has the same criteria) but I'm afraid someone will post a photo of an old person.

Then you just delete that log.

Oh....right....

August 18, 2011

It's been a long time since I've posted to these forums, but since receiving the notification about Challenge caches, I feel obliged to put in my 2 cents.

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.

Photo Challenge - Mostly ridiculous and have little merit. Again, photo challenges should be limited to geocaching related activities or activities that require you to hike, get outdoors and/or visit someplace spectacular where caches would otherwise not be allowed. And, to make it so people can't simply go through their photo folder on their computer to find pictures that meet the criterion, I would propose they should be holding a geocaching logo to make it count. I mean, come on, "Kiss a Frog?" ... Really? How is that related to geocaching?? So far I've seen kiss a frog & take a photo of your dog. Silly and stupid.

Bad Example of a Photo Challenge: Take a photo of yourself kissing a frog (or some equally ridiculous thing that you can find in your house or go to a store and purchase). Take a photo of your dog. Take a photo of anything that requires minimal effort and can be done just to pad your numbers.

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 on the Great Wall of China / in Big Ben / at the edge of the Grand Canyon / near Old Faithful (you get the idea).

Challenges should be reviewed and have some kind of standards just like hiding a cache. Challenges that receive a high percentage of 'thumbs down' votes should be removed from the site or at a minimum archived.

And finally CHALLENGES SHOULD NOT COUNT TOWARD YOUR FIND TOTAL!

I agree, I can only see the worldwide ones since I have nothing "near me", but the ones I see are not anything I would consider a "challenge." Taking pictures of your favorite beer, an animal sleeping has nothing to do with geocaching.

2.1k · August 18, 2011

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

6.8k · August 18, 2011

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

2.8k · August 18, 2011

I think I found the first "archived challenge". Someone created a challenge called "Challenge to Kill Challenges" and when you go to the link there is a message that "This Challenge has been archived and is no longer available."

I archived mine as well. I want nothing to do with the farce they seem to have become within only a couple of hours.

August 18, 2011

I was really excited about the concept of "something similar to virtuals" returning, but always envisioned them as sorts of CultureCaches, or HistoryCaches, with strict publishing limits and review similar to EarthCaches. This seems to instantly have brought Waymarking on Steroids to Geocaching. I bet you could log dozens of locationless photo challenges from your computer right now.

For the Photo Challenges, which were designed for "go to a location, take a photo" activities, people are skipping the "go to a location" part and just creating "locationless challenges," like one I saw where you just have to take a photo of your computer screen as you post to your Twitter account. Cute, yes, but the problem is that it counts to your find total, which will upset many traditional cachers.

I also don't see a way to prevent someone from creating an identical or similar Photo Challenge at the same spot as another Photo Challenge. What's to prevent one particular location from having 50+ Photo Challenges?

I was excited about this, but I'm now leaning to not accepting any challenges because I don't want to taint my find total.

Edited August 18, 2011 by Sharknose Bunnies

August 18, 2011

Photo of a sleeping animal? Kissing a toy frog? This is the evolution of geocaching? There needs to be a review process, or no worldwide "locationless" challenges. This is horrid.

2.3k · August 18, 2011

I wish he would have stuck with these not counting towards find total. More over it blows my mind these do and benchmarks don't. Wow. And they got rid of locationless and virtuals for this? Wow.

2.1k · August 18, 2011

I was really excited about the concept of "something similar to virtuals" returning, but always envisioned them as sorts of CultureCaches, or HistoryCaches, with strict publishing limits and review similar to EarthCaches. This seems to instantly have brought Waymarking on Steroids to Geocaching. I bet you could log dozens of locationless photo challenges from your computer right now.

For the Photo Challenges, which were designed for "go to a location, take a photo" activities, people are creating "locationless challenges," like one I saw where you just have to take a photo of your computer screen as you post to your Twitter account. Cute, yes, but the problem is that it counts to your find total, which will upset many traditional cachers.

I also don't see a way to prevent someone from creating an identical or similar Photo Challenge at the same spot as another Photo Challenge. What's to prevent one particular location from having 50+ Photo Challenges?

I was excited about this, but I'm now leaning to not accepting any challenges because I don't want to taint my find total.

I set up a second account to deal with this. That way if I decide to try some of these I can do so without dinking up my Caches Found count. My second account is called MJSChallengeAccount, seemed creative like the new Challenges.

5.2k · August 18, 2011

These were supposed to be a replacement for virtuals. But everyone is creating replacements for locationless :blink:

I hope Groundspeak archives those.

1.2k · August 18, 2011

HA I have a new favorite challenge: http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CXE4 Can I award it favorite points?

7k · August 18, 2011

These were supposed to be a replacement for virtuals. But everyone is creating replacements for locationless

I hope Groundspeak archives those.

It doesn't matter. Even if the challenge is properly location-bound, people will still log it from elsewhere, and nobody can delete those logs.

August 18, 2011

I'm just curious if fulfilling a challenge cache boosts your number?

Yep it does count towards the found it count.... which is a bad thing. I just sat on my couch and did the tweet tweet and kiss a frog challenges... went back to my home screen, my count went up as if I went out and found 2 caches!

I sure hope these get better, sounds like you can just challenge folks to do anything... heck I need a sandwich, any one want to be challenged to make yawppy a pB&J sandwich!(Seriously! LOL..come on, I hope they tweek it to be a bit more interesting than that, guess it is great if you are hospitalized tho!

2.1k · August 18, 2011

I wonder if anyone is looking at the dbs and noting what users are using the thumbs up and down.

Wonder if I can find a list of all the Challengs I've thumbs downed so far?

August 18, 2011

HA I have a new favorite challenge: http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CXE4 Can I award it favorite points?

LOL YES.....That's a good one!!! I think I see archive in its future!

6.8k · August 18, 2011

Wonder if I can find a list of all the Challengs I've thumbs downed so far?

I cannot even list all the challenges that someone has found/completed. It only shows the number.

Cezanne

3.2k · August 18, 2011

I guess it is the something for everybody thing.. but certainly not for me. What a farce!!!! Put it on a separate site or make it go away.

1.9k · August 18, 2011

I'm hoping that after the shiny new toy effect wears off, that we can move on from the silly to more decent ones as intended challenges. Hopefully we can vote the silly ones out of existence.

Not sure about the count thing yet -- on the one hand, I am a numbers person, and a good challenge would be worth counting. On the other hand, I don't think that I want to bump my numbers by doing lame things (but that never stopped me from grabbing an LPC or a guardrail cache). I guess we just have to choose which ones are meaningful to us.'

Location wise, I found one near my location already, and it is worthy in my opinion. It is a hike and a photo at a nearby park where physical geocaches are not allowed.

August 18, 2011

You don't even have to have your own pic to do it. You can find a challenge then go snag some pic off the internet to fullfill it. Stupid, very stupid.

6.8k · August 18, 2011

HA I have a new favorite challenge: http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CXE4 Can I award it favorite points?

Challenges: Now that they are released

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