Selective Geocaching

[+Isonzo Karst]

At the risk of wandering too far from the OP, I'll mention that in my area, there are hundreds of caches unfound for over a year. I own 12, a couple of them not especially high terrain either (a couple at 3 years unfound). A lonely cache challenge here is hardly even challenging.

 

To the OP, if you want to end Challenge Caches as being ALRs, it might be easier to just post a thread and say that. I think, after reading this, that was/is your point?

 

I mostly agree with Toz on this, now that challenge caches have their coords posted, you're at liberty to find them whenever you feel like it. Post a note. If you ever qualify post a find, or post a find anyway, that might fly. The cache is accessible to you. You might have to keep your own score, if the number of smileys is important to you. I'm a lazy logger these days, so my smiley and find count are not a match. I don't care, and don't track this anywhere. I appreciate that stats ARE important to many though. But challenge caches are also important to many. There's no pleasing everyone on this.

 

At some point, perhaps some sort of badge system will be implemented - I've seen nothing from Groundspeak to suggest that. But threads that promote it is how it might someday happen.

[+tozainamboku]

I'm still not clear how you feel about what. From what I can decipher, you made a feature request for a feature that you don't really want. If it was simple commentary/opinion of the state of challenge caches, perhaps the General Topics forum may have been more appropriate.

The OP says he posted here because Groundspeak told him to post here.

 

My powers of speculation give me the impression that he wrote Groundspeak asking for a clarification of the ALR rule/challenge exemption and was told to post his comments as a suggestion. I suppose that he can ask this to be moved to Geocaching Topics if he just wants to gauge opinion.

 

The OP is certainly not along in feeling that the exception for challenge cahes makes no sense. Not just that challenges are ALRs but that fact that Groundspeak needs to keept updating just what challenges are allowed. There are many existing ones that are grandfathered and this undoubtedly causes problems for reviewers when someone wants to replicate a challenge that wouldn't be allowed under the new guidelines. It would be far simpler to just do away with the idea that you can reward as smiley for something other than finding a cache. There are better ways to implement challenges - a hall-of-fame to your cache page for people who do an optional challenge or souvenirs for accomplishments that appear on the cacher's profile.

[+cerberus1]

There are better ways to implement challenges - a hall-of-fame to your cache page for people who do an optional challenge or souvenirs for accomplishments that appear on the cacher's profile.

I agree.

Way before there was such a thing as "challenges", a young guy in NJ (Woodlit) started a series that he called the "SKS" challenge.

Completing any of the caches within that group counted for a spot on a "Hall of Fame" board and many had fun attempting them.

- If challenge caches were done similar today, I'd probably be hitting a few.

[+dprovan]

I understand what you mean but ALR's now have to optional.

People like challenges, so they were defined to allow ALRs. Some guidelines were established to keep challenge requirements reasonable. I think the line makes sense and works.

[team tisri]

 

One challenge concept I do like is the resuscitator caches, where to qualify you have to find a cache that hasn't been found for a year or more. It's interesting to see how few caches meet the criteria, so it's quite a tough challenge to complete. Most of the caches that haven't been found in a year are either hard climbs or hard puzzles.

 

I've seen challenges like mentioned before and wondered how something like that would work in my area. I haven't looked at local listings in awhile to see if there any "lonely" caches nearby but it would seem to me that if a challenge like this were created that there may be a few caches that had not been found in a year, but once the challenge had been in places for a few months,someone would likely have to have to travel quite a distance to find a lonely cache because all of the caches that had not been found in a year within close proximity of the challenge would have been by those attempting to complete the challenge.

 

Within 25 miles of me there are at least two dozen caches that haven't been found in a year. Mostly they are puzzles with high difficulty ratings although every once in a while a relatively straightforward traditional just happens to go 12 months between finds.

 

I've resuscitated two caches, and the resuscitator cache concept is one that often has me looking for caches that haven't been found in a while to see if I can resuscitate them. Even though I've qualified twice over for the challenge (just haven't got around to going to find the cache) it put the idea in my head to see what's unloved out there.

 

If your area is one where you don't get much in the way of difficult puzzles or tricky climbs, and you live in an area with a lot of travelling cachers, you may find that few if any caches go a long time between visits. Maybe a multi with lots of stages will qualify sooner or later, the kind of thing that a tourist probably wouldn't make time to do and that goes a long time between finds once all the local cachers have either found it or decided not to bother with it.