Keeping Wherigos private

[+Mausers72]

I'm creating a Wherigo for a class (or would like to) and I was wondering if it was possible to create one and run it without publishing it to the website? It wouldn't make much sense to anyone not taking the class. Thanks in advance!

[Ranger Fox]

Set it as active, but clear the check box that makes it available in the directory. You'll then have to circulate the URL to everyone in class (run it through bit.ly or something to make the URL smaller).

 

I have a question for you, then. This is within context of the new Wherigo site I'm working on. I don't have a concept of a private Wherigo cartridge, per se. You can, however, not publish the cartridge and, instead, assign a user account as a playtester (or as many user accounts as you wish). You can then circulate the cartridge's WG code to everyone. As long as they're a playtester, they're able to see your unpublished cartridge and log it. Will this work for you or do you have another suggestion for what would help?

[Geo-Magician]

I'm creating a Wherigo for a class (or would like to) and I was wondering if it was possible to create one and run it without publishing it to the website? It wouldn't make much sense to anyone not taking the class. Thanks in advance!

 

Hiding the cartridge (RF's advice) is the way to go. There is however a small glitch (if I remember correctly). I did a "private" educational Wherigo some time ago and I think the publish notification did still get out to the premium members that have Wherigos activated in their notifications. I can not guaranty that this is what happened back then (the publish was 4 years ago) but it can't hurt to mention the "special" nature of your Wherigo in the title and/or first sentence of the description.

 

Send me a message if you would like to see the webpage that has the instructions for the participants on it (might save you some time ;-).

[Ranger Fox]

I am unaware of Wherigo cartridge publication notifications (on Groundspeak's site--the Wherigo Foundation site allows notifications to be set for any account type). The notifications you described seemed to be related to a Wherigo geocache. To my knowledge, there isn't a way to convince Groundspeak's reviewers to publish a private Wherigo geocache. However, the reviewer system is largely based upon the whims of your area's reviewer, so you may be blessed with one more benign. If this is indeed the case--you set up a private Wherigo cartridge paired with a publicly-listed Wherigo geocache--I'd be interested in reading about how that was set up, the local cachers' take on the matter, and the success you've encountered. Considering I believe Wherigo could benefit from a reviewer system similar to that of earthcaches, I am interested in the matter.

 

As far as I am aware, you can set up a private cartridge, circulate the link, and not have to involve a listed geocache (or involve one that relates to another listing).

[Geo-Magician]

I am unaware of Wherigo cartridge publication notifications (on Groundspeak's site... The notifications you described seemed to be related to a Wherigo geocache.

 

That makes a lot of sense. I fear I am wrong . I still remember that a few cachers knew about the cartridge without me advertising the link. Might have been my mistake during the publish.

[Ranger Fox]

A few cachers probably knew about it because you made the cartridge listing (on Wherigo.com) public before the cache was published. On Groundspeak's site, there is no way to sync a cartridge listing's publication with the geocache listing's publication. The Wherigo Foundation site does this syncing by waiting for someone to click the link on the geocache listing. If the person wouldn't otherwise be able to see the cartridge listing, it checks the gc.com's geocache listing for its publication (because only published caches are retrievable over the geocaching API) and published the cartridge listing automatically if the cache listing is published. That's pretty much the best way I found to maintain some sort of sync. However, I don't have anything set up with regard to a cache listing's archival.