Archived as part of site maintenance and database clean-up?

[+fuzzybelly]

I wonder the #. Just curious. How many cache might this affect? If you can even say. Actually might not be a good idea to say.

 

At first I didn't like caches being archived, for history purposes. But now I don't mind the idea so much. In this case I could see it really causing issues for reviewers, and potential publishers.

Moun10Bike has already said "scores of thousands." A "score" is "twenty." So, we are talking at least 40,000 listings.

 

If an automated process clears out 39,000 abandoned listings that just cause "noise" and delay, then the reviewers are happy to unarchive the remaining 1,000 manually upon request. There are hundreds of reviewers (if you count dogs, too). We can handle it. Total unarchive requests I've received in one of the USA's top ten regions for cache density: zero. Two of my own listings were caught up in the sweep. I haven't written to myself yet, but I'll get around to it.

Thx 4 the reply Keystone.

 

WOW, amazing, and I hope the note don't get lost in the mail, it is a busy time of the year.

[+fuzzybelly]

I wonder the #. Just curious. How many cache might this affect? If you can even say. Actually might not be a good idea to say.

 

At first I didn't like caches being archived, for history purposes. But now I don't mind the idea so much. In this case I could see it really causing issues for reviewers, and potential publishers.

Moun10Bike has already said "scores of thousands." A "score" is "twenty." So, we are talking at least 40,000 listings.

 

If an automated process clears out 39,000 abandoned listings that just cause "noise" and delay, then the reviewers are happy to unarchive the remaining 1,000 manually upon request. There are hundreds of reviewers (if you count dogs, too). We can handle it. Total unarchive requests I've received in one of the USA's top ten regions for cache density: zero. Two of my own listings were caught up in the sweep. I haven't written to myself yet, but I'll get around to it.

 

The actual count when all is done will be in excess of 131,000 caches. That amounts to more than 5% of the current active cache count, which is not insignificant.

 

Note that these are just the caches that have been untouched for more than 1 year. The count would exceed 175,000 if we dropped back to 6 months (which we do not plan to do at this time).

 

That's even more amazing. Thanks for the #'s Bike. 5% sounds fairly insignificant to me, but everyone will have a different opinion on that. I'd probably wait juuuust a bit before doing the ones 6 months old

 

HEY, I need to get to planning some caches

[+JL_HSTRE]

Much thanks to Moun10Bike and the Reviewers who have helped clarify this situation. Very interesting and I would have never guessed the sheer number of listings involved.

 

I think the proposal about mystery cache listings and proximity has some merit, especially since the new cache creation form requires final coordinatesI. It might not only make things easier for Reviewers but also for those looking at cache pages.

[I!]

Fine, no problem. When the people who work for months to plan new caches all around a Mega-Event site get bumped by a newbie who hid a guardrail cache because I can't see the works in progress, may I refer them to you?

Refer all you like. I'm questioning the logic of using the (arbitrary) GC code as a tie-breaker: I have a few oldish listings I could keep alive, just to give me precedence on the local beauty spots if I wanted to ... which hardly seems fair.

 

Deferred publication might have been a cleaner solution to what is obviously a tricky issue: you'd have the coordinates claimed (and locked) at the time of submission, but allow the CO to say "publish no sooner than X". Your mega-event would be safe and the basics of a multi-cache (that is, the locations) could be set in stone months before the gloriously detailed listings were finished.

[Keystone]

It doesn't typically work that way, but thanks for your comments.

[+cerberus1]

Much thanks to Moun10Bike and the Reviewers who have helped clarify this situation. Very interesting and I would have never guessed the sheer number of listings involved.

 

I think the proposal about mystery cache listings and proximity has some merit, especially since the new cache creation form requires final coordinatesI. It might not only make things easier for Reviewers but also for those looking at cache pages.

And thank you for bringing it up.

Learned something new today...

[cezanne]

The mere presence of a started cache listing of type mystery which only has header coordinates and nothing else should not block anything and if right now alerts are sent this happens because the system is lousy. Then the system should be improved instead of humans having to change.

 

Speaking as someone who works in IT, I hear this view quite often and the answer is always the same - computers are neither sentient nor clairvoyant - they don't think for themselves - they do what they are told, using systems originated by humans.

 

Yes, of course humans have to act in order for something to happen. What I meant is that the system reviewers have available right away leaves them with much more work to do than seems reasonable to me. There are many aspects of the reviewer work where the human brain is needed, but that's not the case everywhere.

 

I have often started development of a mystery cache with the 'header' coordinates being the true position of the cache, and only just before publication modified them to some fake coordinates and added the true coordinates as a hidden waypoint. If your proposal were adopted I would have to change - and I'm human (just) - so basically if the system changes, humans (cachers or reviewers) have to change, or at least adopt different practices, one way or the other.

 

But what's the benefit of using the correct coordinates as the header coordinates before you finally change them?

 

Being able to write down parts of the cache story has the advantage that one can already see how everything looks like on the Groundspeak page and it is also easier for me to keep track and to have an additional place to save my work (so I do not have to keep multiple updates - just keeping one suffices then for me).

 

I sometimes start cache pages many months before I even start to look for a hideout and long before I even have an idea where the cache container might be hidden.

 

Having to restart once a year sounds relatively reasonable for me, but having to restart every 6 or even 3 months is something I regard as very annoying.

In such a case it could happen that I would need to restart (open up a new listing) 5 times or more for the same cache project as I would not want to write to a reviever several times regarding the very same cache. That's not very convenient.

 

 

Cezanne

[+Lil Devil]

I find it interesting that the last several posts are focused on issues with mystery caches and false coords, when they were a very small percentage of the 131K unpublished caches that were archived. Face it folks, the reviewers have to live with the system the way it is for now, so archiving these (mostly) forgotten caches was the easy solution.

 

For those that care, it's simple to unarchive their listings.

[+SwineFlew]

I wonder how many will stop placing with GS after they made this move.

[+kingbee]

Looks like anything over 6 months old may get archived even if it is part of a series, It does not show up as one of your caches but is stillthere somewhere. Glad we pay $30/year for them to do this.

[+NeverSummer]

Our Volunteer Reviewer here in AK did a great job of notifying folks about the coming archivals. Emails were sent, forum posts made, and notes were left of cache pages.

 

The process for unarchiving a cache is still the same. You can email your Reviewer, or you can contact support@geocaching.com for more help.

[+ChileHead]

I wonder how many will stop placing with GS after they made this move.

 

Probably none. I had about 12-15 caches archived in the sweep between my account, my dog's account, and a couple socks I have. If I really want them back it will take all of 30 seconds of my time to make the request.

[+ChileHead]

Looks like anything over 6 months old may get archived even if it is part of a series, It does not show up as one of your caches but is stillthere somewhere. Glad we pay $30/year for them to do this.

 

I thought it was a year. Remember, it's not the age. It's the last update. Just post a note on your in-progress cache pages "still working it" once a year and you should be good.

[+JL_HSTRE]

It does not show up as one of your caches but is still there somewhere.

 

As a previous post in this thread noted, you can still find the cache listings even if you don't save the GC# or the archive email.

 

Go to the Geocaches option on your geocaching.com Profile and there is a sidebar on the right titled "Your Geocaches Awaiting Publication". Click "Show Archived" and any caches archived in this week's sweep will show up there with a line through them.

[+wmpastor]

I'm sorry blue In 'history" I meant like with annual sweeps where old caches with many DNF's or a string of "Needs Maintenance" posts, lead to archiving.

 

BTW, one of my favorite movies. I like "The shoveler". I get to do a lot of that.

Where's all of this shoveling happening? Hopefully not digging holes to place caches!

[+Crow-T-Robot]

This seems long overdue. Anyone crying that this is unfair of GS...they've given you a pretty easy out to keep your listing.

[cezanne]

I find it interesting that the last several posts are focused on issues with mystery caches and false coords, when they were a very small percentage of the 131K unpublished caches that were archived.

 

I'm aware of that. I do not criticize what happened. I just think that there are better ways to do it in the future.

 

Face it folks, the reviewers have to live with the system the way it is for now, so archiving these (mostly) forgotten caches was the easy solution.

 

Probably for Groundspeak, but why do they always need to take the easiest one and not a much better one?

It was also the easiest one to allow powertrails, but in my point of view not the best.

My aim is typically the best solution that can be achieved with a reasonable amount of resources.

 

For those that care, it's simple to unarchive their listings.

 

True, but as I said if in the future they will take such actions every 6 months or even 3 months (NB: some posts talk about the recommendation to work not more than 3 months on a listing without posting a reviewer note) I would not want to ask for unarchival of the same caches 5 times or more and I also would not want to start a new listing each time.

 

From my point of view what I suggested would make a lot of sense also when setting this archive round aside.

It is also emminently important that the header coordinates of multi caches are classified and not all reviewers require a separate waypoint to that end (so the system should require that automatically). The header coordinates per se however do not have a classification (i.e. whether question to answer, stage of a multi cache etc).

 

I think that the reviewers deserve a system that shows them alerts only for waypoints that can create a conflict and not all waypoints.

 

Another idea how to deal with the issue of listings that are around in the system for a long time (but which does not adress the more general issue of missing classification of header coordinates) would be to introduce a switch the owner could turn on and which would have the effect that the waypoints are not shown to the reviewers when making distance checks. Not everyone who starts working on listings does this with the idea of reserving something. It can easily happen to me that I start out with some ideas, get stuck and continue many months later and that this process iterates.

 

Cezanne

Edited December 20, 2013 by cezanne

[+Team Microdot]

I think that the reviewers deserve a system that shows them alerts only for waypoints that can create a conflict and not all waypoints.

 

That's precisely what they already have.

[+Team Microdot]

I have often started development of a mystery cache with the 'header' coordinates being the true position of the cache, and only just before publication modified them to some fake coordinates and added the true coordinates as a hidden waypoint. If your proposal were adopted I would have to change - and I'm human (just) - so basically if the system changes, humans (cachers or reviewers) have to change, or at least adopt different practices, one way or the other.

 

But what's the benefit of using the correct coordinates as the header coordinates before you finally change them?

 

Simple answer - there is no material benefit - it's just something that I sometimes do, for various reasons - and because it is possible for me to do it, the systems need to be able to cope with it.

[+Isonzo Karst]

But what's the benefit of using the correct coordinates as the header coordinates before you finally change them?

 

1. You can see the listing coords in the maps linked on the cache page - MyTopo Maps, Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo, MapsMSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, OpenStreetMap

2. You can click the ...all nearby caches link on the cache page and see what's around (EZ check for nearby Traditionals, and physical starts on Multi)

3. Although it won't show on the Geocaching.com map, that map will center on your coords if you click that link.

 

I find it quite useful to put the final coords at the top, and any physical stage coords as Public (Ie show coordinates) when developing a cache. That way they're all shown on the small map on the cache page.

[ZeMartelo]

I can only imagine the outrage that would follow if google decided without warning delete everyones drafts in their gmail accounts because it was taking room and was slowing their servers... ot Microsoft with hotmail or Yahoo, but its Groundspeak so its cool, no biggie.

 

Just think about it, we own or control NOTHING with GC. Nice.

[+Team Microdot]

I can only imagine the outrage that would follow if google decided without warning delete everyones drafts in their gmail accounts because it was taking room and was slowing their servers... ot Microsoft with hotmail or Yahoo, but its Groundspeak so its cool, no biggie.

 

Just think about it, we own or control NOTHING with GC. Nice.

 

While I agree it's slightly inconvenient to have one's unpublished caches archived if they haven't been modified in twelve months - as far as I can tell the exercise has nothing at all to do with server resources.

 

It's actually being done for two main reasons as I see it:

 

1. To improve the lot of the volunteer reviewers who give their time freely on a regular and ongoing basis to publish the caches we all hide and find.

 

2. To help to streamline cache publication by de-cluttering the map of the abandoned cache pages and the proximity issues that arise from them.

 

Obviously there are benefits and drawbacks - as with most things in life and on balance I would say it's perfectly reasonable.

[Keystone]

Your draft emails aren't making life difficult for anyone else. Your draft cache pages are.

 

GMail wouldn't have a local volunteer available to restore your deleted emails promptly upon request. Groundspeak has the volunteer reviewer group; people you see at events and out on the trails.

 

If you don't care about the complexities created for reviewers by these 131,000 dormant listings, maybe you'll care about the impact on your fellow cache hiders.

[+wimseyguy]

True, but as I said if in the future they will take such actions every 6 months or even 3 months (NB: some posts talk about the recommendation to work not more than 3 months on a listing without posting a reviewer note) I would not want to ask for unarchival of the same caches 5 times or more and I also would not want to start a new listing each time.

Once again you are demonstrating selective reading. Moun10bike posted that there are no plans to cull inactive listings that are newer than one year back in post 49.

 

From my point of view what I suggested would make a lot of sense also when setting this archive round aside.

It is also emminently important that the header coordinates of multi caches are classified and not all reviewers require a separate waypoint to that end (so the system should require that automatically). The header coordinates per se however do not have a classification (i.e. whether question to answer, stage of a multi cache etc).

 

I think that the reviewers deserve a system that shows them alerts only for waypoints that can create a conflict and not all waypoints

 

Another idea how to deal with the issue of listings that are around in the system for a long time (but which does not adress the more general issue of missing classification of header coordinates) would be to introduce a switch the owner could turn on and which would have the effect that the waypoints are not shown to the reviewers when making distance checks. Not everyone who starts working on listings does this with the idea of reserving something. It can easily happen to me that I start out with some ideas, get stuck and continue many months later and that this process iterates.

 

Cezanne

 

It sounds like you are asking for them to improve the system so that it ignores your long-term work in progress listings. Wouldn't you be a bit disturbed if they did ignore them, you took a dusty puzzle off the shelf after 15 months, and then discovered that it cannot be published as there are now three other newer listings nearby that are blocking your grand plan?

 

The current system requires them to take a look at those listings and make an informed and reasonable determination if they are active projects or simply abandoned ideas. I prefer this degree of hands on involvement and suspect most others will as well. Especially in areas where there are a lots of puzzle and multi stage listings and fewer quality locations for new caches.

[cezanne]

True, but as I said if in the future they will take such actions every 6 months or even 3 months (NB: some posts talk about the recommendation to work not more than 3 months on a listing without posting a reviewer note) I would not want to ask for unarchival of the same caches 5 times or more and I also would not want to start a new listing each time.

Once again you are demonstrating selective reading. Moun10bike posted that there are no plans to cull inactive listings that are newer than one year back in post 49.

 

I noticed his post, but it is in contraction to this text cited by the OP (coming from GS HQ).

 

In the future, please work to submit cache pages for review within three months of creation. If you are working on a complex cache, or are waiting on permission, communicate your progress by posting regular reviewer notes to unsubmitted listings. Submissions older than six months may be automatically archived.

 

Groundspeak asks to submit a cache within three months or to communicate progress by posting regular reviewer notes.

Quite often I do not make any progress within 6 months because I did not even touch a cache during that period.

As long as I'm not blocking anything, I still think that this is ok and harms absolutely noone.

 

If I could hide my temporary listings from the reviewers (if I wish to do so), they had less work

and I have no need to write a note every three months to say that I had not time to continue my work.

 

To sum up, archiving cache drafts that have an age of over a year, is ok with me as that would mean to have to ask the reviewer once or at most twice to unarchive something.

The three months ventilated by someone else would cause a big issue for me.

 

 

It sounds like you are asking for them to improve the system so that it ignores your long-term work in progress listings.

 

No, my main point was I think that the system the reviewers have available has a lot of weaknesses.

 

Wouldn't you be a bit disturbed if they did ignore them, you took a dusty puzzle off the shelf after 15 months, and then discovered that it cannot be published as there are now three other newer listings nearby that are blocking your grand plan?

 

Actually not as I'm not expecting Groundspeak to reserve anything for me for those type of listings I talked about.

(Right now I do not have such a listing, but for example I worked quite a while on my last cache.)

 

I'm following what happens in my city anyway and so I'm up to date where I can hide something.

For most of my mystery caches the setup of the puzzle parts and the virtual stages (note I do not own a single cache that only has a single

stage) is the important part of the

work - the final at the end is more or less irrelevant and does not play a big role. I take care about at the very end.

 

What I find much more disturbing is that for example the header coordinates of multi caches are not classified and so it can happen that distance

conflicts arise because sometimes something is hidden at the header coordinates while in most cases in my country nothing is hidden there.

Quite often the default approach of the local reviewers is to assume that nothing is hidden.

So I think that classifying the header coordinates makes sense in any case.

 

The current system requires them to take a look at those listings and make an informed and reasonable determination if they are active projects or simply abandoned ideas. I prefer this degree of hands on involvement and suspect most others will as well. Especially in areas where there are a lots of puzzle and multi stage listings and fewer quality locations for new caches.

 

I still would prefer if there existed a switch with which I could actively tell a reviewer "You do not need to waste your time at the moment with my listing. I'm working on it, but there is right now nothing that I want you to take into account." Note that this only reduces their work and does not harm anyone. I'm not saying that noone should be able to have some temporary reservation - this of course makes sense in many cases, but just not in my case.

I do know from experience that quite a number of cachers have cache listings that are not abandoned but where they do not wish to block anything by them at that moment. So why making this obligatory? Why not offer an option to "opt out from blocking something"?

 

 

Cezanne

Edited December 20, 2013 by cezanne

[+Team Microdot]

I still would prefer if there existed a switch with which I could actively tell a reviewer "You do not need to waste your time at the moment with my listing. I'm working on it, but there is right now nothing that I want you to take into account." Note that this only reduces their work and does not harm anyone. I'm not saying that noone should be able to have some temporary reservation - this of course makes sense in many cases, but just not in my case.

I do know from experience that quite a number of cachers have cache listings that are not abandoned but where they do not wish to block anything by them at that moment. So why making this obligatory? Why not offer an option to "opt out from blocking something"?

 

Ever heard of the KISS principle?

[Nomex]

I have often started development of a mystery cache with the 'header' coordinates being the true position of the cache...

 

This is also true of Challenge Listings as well, so the original assertion that the system should ignore the posted coordinates on Mystery/Puzzle types would not work so well in that situation.

 

Why not offer an option to "opt out from blocking something"?

 

This option is available at this time. It's called, "don't generate a Listing page on the site". If you don't have a need to "hold" a spot, then merely work on the Listing offline on your computer without creating a Listing page. If you must test formatting of the HTML or something, create a page to test it, then Archive it when you're done.

 

This has become almost a daily issue in my Reviewing area, so even though a few of the Listings on my Player account got caught up in the sweep, I was quite happy to see the clean up take place.

[+ChileHead]

I can only imagine the outrage that would follow if google decided without warning delete everyones drafts in their gmail accounts because it was taking room and was slowing their servers... ot Microsoft with hotmail or Yahoo, but its Groundspeak so its cool, no biggie.

 

Just think about it, we own or control NOTHING with GC. Nice.

 

That's not quite a good comparison.

 

GS isn't deleting your draft geocaches ... they are just moved. You can see them here: http://www.geocaching.com/my/geocaches.aspx?archived=y

 

A better google comparison is if messages > 1 year old in your drafts folder were moved to a "old-drafts" folder, and you couldn't edit them. It's all still there, but you'll have to copy/paste.

[+ChileHead]

I still would prefer if there existed a switch with which I could actively tell a reviewer "You do not need to waste your time at the moment with my listing. I'm working on it, but there is right now nothing that I want you to take into account." Note that this only reduces their work and does not harm anyone. I'm not saying that noone should be able to have some temporary reservation - this of course makes sense in many cases, but just not in my case.

I do know from experience that quite a number of cachers have cache listings that are not abandoned but where they do not wish to block anything by them at that moment. So why making this obligatory? Why not offer an option to "opt out from blocking something"?

 

I think that's a reasonable thing to do, but I think that would confuse more people than it would help. I can imagine many people not completely understanding what the switch means, and they click it during cache creation, and then a lamp post cache comes out blocking theirs a day before the cache they spent 6 months creating.

 

It seems like the new process of archiving old (1+ years) caches is brain dead simple, easy to explain, and is easy to fix if something got caught in the sweep that shouldn't have.

[+ChileHead]

Why not offer an option to "opt out from blocking something"?

 

This option is available at this time. It's called, "don't generate a Listing page on the site". If you don't have a need to "hold" a spot, then merely work on the Listing offline on your computer without creating a Listing page. If you must test formatting of the HTML or something, create a page to test it, then Archive it when you're done.

 

I like that idea. geocaching.com is a listing site, not a documentation staging site. If you want to capture ideas & thoughts for caches on keep them online, do so in google docs or private blog. When you're ready to create the cache page, copy/paste from google docs.

[+DadOf6Furrballs]

I still would prefer if there existed a switch with which I could actively tell a reviewer "You do not need to waste your time at the moment with my listing. I'm working on it, but there is right now nothing that I want you to take into account." Note that this only reduces their work and does not harm anyone. I'm not saying that noone should be able to have some temporary reservation - this of course makes sense in many cases, but just not in my case.

I do know from experience that quite a number of cachers have cache listings that are not abandoned but where they do not wish to block anything by them at that moment. So why making this obligatory? Why not offer an option to "opt out from blocking something"?

You could always just park the cache coordinates out in the middle of the Pacific somewhere, so it doesn't block anything. Work on it to your heart's content. Do an occasional update on it so it doesn't get broomed in the yearly sweep. Then when it's ready, move the coordinates to your planned spot and submit it to the reviewer.

[+thebruce0]

See? angst.

 

To what DadOf6Furrballs said, you could take it one step further and only have one 'development' listing out in the ocean (not that that would protect it from automated sweeps) wherein you develop and test your listings. Then instead of moving that one, that's when you actually create the new cache listing and copy out all the dev listing content, and publish that one. The dev listing will be regularly updated if you keep using it to playtest your upcoming caches.

 

However, that still doesn't stop additional waypoints that you may want actually AT their locations from still popping up in the proximity alerts.

 

Really, none of this matters if you don't take more than 6 months (or at whatever period the automatic sweep will occur) to create your cache.

 

The issue is only if you do absolutely nothing with an unpublished placeholder listing for more than a lifetime

 

So, why all the angst?

[+Mudfrog]

This seems long overdue. Anyone crying that this is unfair of GS...they've given you a pretty easy out to keep your listing.

 

Yes, not sure what the concern is or what the crying is about.

 

I too had an unpublished cache archived. Guess what, it was so old that i didn't even remember it. No matter what the reason, it was my fault for never following through with it. If it had been that important to me, then i'd have found a way to finish it up. It's not really fair to other cachers that my procrastination/delay in submitting keeps them from going through with a hide.

[+kunarion]

geocaching.com is a listing site, not a documentation staging site.

If the problem is too many documentation stagings, archiving them doesn't fix that.

[+CanadianRockies]

Why not offer an option to "opt out from blocking something"?

This option is available at this time. It's called, "don't generate a Listing page on the site". If you don't have a need to "hold" a spot, then merely work on the Listing offline on your computer without creating a Listing page.

When I don't want one of my "in progress" cache listings to block another cache, then I simply set its coordinates to one of my active traditional caches. It's unlikely anyone will try to place a cache near an active traditional cache. Even if they do, the reviewer still would need to inform them that their cache is too close to another cache. Hence, there's no extra work for the reviewers.

[+kunarion]

This seems long overdue. Anyone crying that this is unfair of GS...they've given you a pretty easy out to keep your listing.

 

Yes, not sure what the concern is or what the crying is about.

I'm sure what the concern is: We were told that placing your noncache on your existing cache's GZ would cause no issues (such as archival), which is exactly what I did on one of my two archived noncaches. Now we find out we must also keep the page active on some yet to be defined schedule. These requirements are kind of fluid and tough to keep up with. I hope you don't mind when someone asks what the deal is, when they need to know what the deal is. How could we automatically know it's a "coordinates" thing or a "staging thing", or a "time limit" or whatever today's reason is, with no stated reason? Maybe it's s fine point, but although I may not be concerned if or when my noncache gets archived, I'd like to in advance that it could happen, especially after I've done the things that were supposed to cause it not to.

 

I'm guessing the real reason these noncaches are archived is to discourage people from using them for other than the purposes of making a cache. Like proximity alerts for mystery cache waypoints or whatever. That's fine with me, except there then could be no official specific info about how to keep a noncache alive (since that tends to prevent the archive).

 

All of my caches have an unfairly high quality requirement [imposed by me]. You can't detect anything special about them , but that's not the point. I make a cache page (I have 5 now due to the removal of two muggled caches recently, but typically no more than 3 noncaches) and may then discover an issue that prevents placement as planned. A surprise archival adds a layer of difficulty. A real cache would often have some advance notice, or languish for many years with no activity.

 

I don't have a lot of angst, and I don't particularly care. But it is a surprise, since nobody warned me in advance that my listing may get messed with (such as being archived). OK, sure, “everybody knows”, but nobody said it.

Edited December 20, 2013 by kunarion

[cezanne]

I have often started development of a mystery cache with the 'header' coordinates being the true position of the cache...

 

This is also true of Challenge Listings as well, so the original assertion that the system should ignore the posted coordinates on Mystery/Puzzle types would not work so well in that situation.

 

In my opinion, in those cases one should have an additional waypoint final with the coordinates pointing to the same coordinates than the header and then the alert should be caused due to the final waypoint and not due to the header coordinates. So I still see no reason why the header coordinates of a cache which is not a traditional need to cause an alert per se.

 

This option is available at this time. It's called, "don't generate a Listing page on the site". If you don't have a need to "hold" a spot, then merely work on the Listing offline on your computer without creating a Listing page. If you must test formatting of the HTML or something, create a page to test it, then Archive it when you're done.

 

This has become almost a daily issue in my Reviewing area, so even though a few of the Listings on my Player account got caught up in the sweep, I was quite happy to see the clean up take place.

 

It is quite inconvenient to keep working on a listing in this way over a year and more and each time when one wants to test something to open up a new listing and to archive it.

Moreover, I work on many different computers. So having available my ideas when I need them e.g. because someone asks me something or because I suddenly have a new idea is of clear advantage. Offline data is not very helpful for me - it is also one of the reasons why PQs and a local data base of geocaches to be found are of zero value to me. It's the online part of the site that has the key value for me.

 

The complex ones among my caches are well received within the target audience and it's that audience that will lose something if I decide to stop working on a project or do not get finished because some of my ideas get lost. It is not me that loses something.

 

What I proposed would not affect the job of the reviewers and it would be simple to implement. Of course it is up to GS how they handle their site. I can only state that something makes me very unhappy and all what has been written here is not suitable to make me any happier.

 

 

Cezanne

Edited December 20, 2013 by cezanne

[+dprovan]

I have often started development of a mystery cache with the 'header' coordinates being the true position of the cache...

This is also true of Challenge Listings as well, so the original assertion that the system should ignore the posted coordinates on Mystery/Puzzle types would not work so well in that situation.

This is more of an argument for making Challenge Caches their own type than it is for maintaining this source of ambiguity for the more common use of the Unknown type. (I don't have any love for the idea of making Challenge Caches their own type, and I have no problem with the ambiguity, I'm just saying this particular argument doesn't work very well.)

 

If you don't have a need to "hold" a spot, then merely work on the Listing offline on your computer without creating a Listing page.

While working out the description before hand is, of course, a good suggestion, what the owner contributes to the cache page is just one part of what it looks like.

 

This has become almost a daily issue in my Reviewing area, so even though a few of the Listings on my Player account got caught up in the sweep, I was quite happy to see the clean up take place.

It sounds like it should be done more regularly. And I'm also not exactly sure why you're so adamantly against suggestions people are making that would avoid the problem to begin with by simply having a state a cache could be in that keeps it out of your hair. After all, as has been clearly explained, these caches can be unarchived on request, so essentially they're in exactly such an out-of-the-way state now, it's just that the cache owners can't put them into or take them out of that state without getting a reviewer involved.

 

So, why all the angst?

The people posting that were actually affected by this seem uniformly indifferent. To the degree there's angst -- and, frankly, I'm more amused by the little bits of angst floating around here than anything else -- it's about the big bad GS doing something unilaterally and without any warning (that I'm aware of). I don't think GS did anything remotely wrong, I'm just saying that seems to be the cause of the mildly negative reaction some people are having. That suggests to me that the only problem here is that the guidelines aren't more clear about the temporary nature of unpublished caches, and I think this thread has shown that a specific policy with a clear supporting case would be easy to establish, and that it should be regularly enforced rather than once in a while only after 130K abandoned listings having piled up so deep that they've become a serious problem. But I'm also OK with repeating this thread again in a year or two, if that's how GS wants to handle it.

[+dprovan]

It sounds like it should be done more regularly. And I'm also not exactly sure why you're so adamantly against suggestions people are making that would avoid the problem to begin with by simply having a state a cache could be in that keeps it out of your hair. After all, as has been clearly explained, these caches can be unarchived on request, so essentially they're in exactly such an out-of-the-way state now, it's just that the cache owners can't put them into or take them out of that state without getting a reviewer involved.

Actually, now that I've posted that, it occurs to me that an owner could put their cache into that state without a reviewer's help by archiving the unpublished listing, right? Could they then turn around and submit the cache for review when it was finally ready in order to have it unarchived and published?

[Keystone]

While the process change suggestions are interesting and (in some cases) helpful, please bear in mind the following:

 

1. The reviewers are familiar with the details of the reviewing process, involving tools that the general geocaching public does not see. Rest assured we ask for improvements in those tools regularly. We have to wait in line, too.

 

2. The capability to perform an automated mass archival was something available NOW to solve the problem. The reviewers prefer that over waiting for a year while challenge caches are split into a separate cache type, a special new "draft" cache page state is invented, etc.

 

3. Changes like "always require an indicator saying whether the posted coordinates are real or bogus" are interesting ideas going forward. There were 131,000 legacy pages in the database where nobody paid attention to that.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Why not offer an option to "opt out from blocking something"?

 

This option is available at this time. It's called, "don't generate a Listing page on the site". If you don't have a need to "hold" a spot, then merely work on the Listing offline on your computer without creating a Listing page. If you must test formatting of the HTML or something, create a page to test it, then Archive it when you're done.

 

I like that idea. geocaching.com is a listing site, not a documentation staging site. If you want to capture ideas & thoughts for caches on keep them online, do so in google docs or private blog. When you're ready to create the cache page, copy/paste from google docs.

 

I also wonder what percentage of those 131K listings are actually listings caches a CO is ever intending to have published, and what percentage of them are listings that serve no other purpose than keeping track of trackable items or to take advantage of the image hosting functionality that GS is providing. I bet if there were image hosting services like Flickr, Imageshack, Picassa, etc. active when the geocaching site was first developed that GS would have partnered with one or more of those services so that they were hosting images rather that Groundspeak. The recent issue about broke images in user profiles that is going to take the rest of the month to get restored might lead to a decision to have users use commodity image hosting services rather than act as an image hosting service themselves.

 

 

[+Lil Devil]

I also wonder what percentage of those 131K listings are actually listings caches a CO is ever intending to have published,

Based on the feedback that is being posted in the private reviewer's forum, less than 0.2% have been requested to be unarchived.

 

The vast majority of inquiries we've been seeing is from people who had accidentally submitted a cache twice. One instance was published, the other languished. When the abandoned one was archived, confusion ensued. A simple explanation and everybody is happy.

[cezanne]

I still would prefer if there existed a switch with which I could actively tell a reviewer "You do not need to waste your time at the moment with my listing. I'm working on it, but there is right now nothing that I want you to take into account." Note that this only reduces their work and does not harm anyone. I'm not saying that noone should be able to have some temporary reservation - this of course makes sense in many cases, but just not in my case.

I do know from experience that quite a number of cachers have cache listings that are not abandoned but where they do not wish to block anything by them at that moment. So why making this obligatory? Why not offer an option to "opt out from blocking something"?

 

I think that's a reasonable thing to do, but I think that would confuse more people than it would help. I can imagine many people not completely understanding what the switch means, and they click it during cache creation, and then a lamp post cache comes out blocking theirs a day before the cache they spent 6 months creating.

 

Somehow I get more and more frustrated about the many things that cannot and are not done because of the people who are not investing time into understanding a system before they use it.

 

It seems like the new process of archiving old (1+ years) caches is brain dead simple, easy to explain, and is easy to fix if something got caught in the sweep that shouldn't have.

 

If they really stick to 1+ year, I can life with it, but as I said the archival notes in the first post talk about three months!

 

Moreover, the approach I suggest would mean that the bogus waypoints of listings someone is working on will not cause additional works to the reviewers during the year the listing is active. So assuming knowledgeable users I still think that what I propose is better than the sweep over all cache listings performed once per year.

 

Cezanne

Edited December 20, 2013 by cezanne

[+Team Microdot]

So assuming knowledgeable users I still think that what I propose is better than the sweep over all cache listings performed once per year.

 

Successful systems engineering based on wishful thinking is doomed to failure.

 

A practical, realistic approach - such as we've seen here - has a much better chance of achieving the required results.

 

I refer you to my earlier post re. the KISS principle.

[cezanne]

1. The reviewers are familiar with the details of the reviewing process, involving tools that the general geocaching public does not see. Rest assured we ask for improvements in those tools regularly.

 

Of course I do not have the insight of a reviewer. I only know that the reviewers in my country often argue that many things are not possible due to the deficiencies of the reviewer tool.

 

2. The capability to perform an automated mass archival was something available NOW to solve the problem. The reviewers prefer that over waiting for a year while challenge caches are split into a separate cache type, a special new "draft" cache page state is invented, etc.

 

I do not object against this single incident automated mass archival and I'm convinced that many of the caches that got archived will never be needed again.

 

I'm unhappy however with the request to keep cache listings only active for three months unless reviewer notes are posted and I thought about alternative ways to handle the issue in the future that could help both reviewers and cachers by allowing to keep the time period between successive automatic archivals reasonably large, i.e. a year.

It is perfectly ok to me to require reviewer notes for caches where someone wants anything to be reserved for him, but for other cases I really wished there existed something like a draft version. Pictures can be hosted easily somewhere else. Keeping an overview about a cache in progress is best done in my experience on gc.com. The last I want however is to increase the work of a reviewer by working on draft versions over many months.

 

Up to this thread I have thought that if a have a non-submitted listing for a multi cache or mystery cache with no waypoints of type final or stage of a multi cache, the reviewers will not receive any alerts regardless of where the header coordinates and potential question to answer waypoints point to, but apparently I was wrong.

 

Cezanne

[Nomex]

I do not object against this single incident automated mass archival and I'm convinced that many of the caches that got archived will never be needed again.

 

I believe this is a rare and one time process, and your concerns appear to be out of proportion to the reality.

 

The way I've been told to handle conflicts with Unpublished Listings, is to make an attempt to contact the cache owner to see if they are still intending on submitting it. From my experience, 99% of the time I get no response, and the Listing eventually gets Archived during my monthly clean up of Disabled Listings. If your local Reviewers are handling things in the same way, this should have zero impact on the way you do things currently.

 

Believe me when I say, this is good customer service. I can't tell you the number of annoyed cache owners I've dealt with because someone is squatting on a spot with an unused placeholder.

[+dprovan]

I believe this is a rare and one time process, and your concerns appear to be out of proportion to the reality.

Ah, I think this might be the disconnect. I'm not concerned, but I would guess that this will be a problem that comes up over and over again. That's why I'm thinkng it might be better to integrate it into the guidelines instead of defending it in the forums every year or two when it needs to be done again.

 

Believe me when I say, this is good customer service. I can't tell you the number of annoyed cache owners I've dealt with because someone is squatting on a spot with an unused placeholder.

I recognized this as good customer service from the beginning. But in addition to cleaning up the database, wouldn't it be nice if someone squatting on a spot automatically got archived after a few months so it didn't fall on you to have to explain to those annoyed cache owners why nothing can be done about it until another 130K unpublished caches pile up and trigger another database purge?

[+Crow-T-Robot]

I think GS is being pretty generous in allowing unpublished listings to remain if they've been edited within the past twelve months. I would've supported a move to archive all unpublished listings over twelve months old, whether they've been edited or not.

 

If you haven't edited the listing in a year...I doubt you really care about placing a cache at that location. If it takes you a year or more to create and publish your cache, you have some kind of OCD issue and as the saying goes "(blank) or get off the pot".

[+Sharks-N-Beans]

I think GS is being pretty generous in allowing unpublished listings to remain if they've been edited within the past twelve months. I would've supported a move to archive all unpublished listings over twelve months old, whether they've been edited or not.

 

If you haven't edited the listing in a year...I doubt you really care about placing a cache at that location. If it takes you a year or more to create and publish your cache, you have some kind of OCD issue and as the saying goes "(blank) or get off the pot".

Well, I was thinking that, and you posted it. We had 4 unsubmitted cache pages archived by this sweep. Really no big deal. It would be more interesting if, instead of debating the theoretical, someone would post details of an example where they felt they were wronged.

[4wheelin_fool]

I don't think that it is much of a hassle of sending an email and requesting an unarchival. It takes much more energy to discuss it here if someone is posting more than once about it. The reviewer on the other hand has to deal with a minefield that is invisible to everyone else, and send emails when there is a proximity confict with something long forgotten. I'm rather surprised that this thread is more than half a page.