Do events require giving people 14 days to *RSVP*?

[+kyrasantae]

The guidelines say that events have to be "submitted at least two weeks prior to the event date", but some people in my region (myself included) have experienced events being denied because by the time the reviewer got to them in the queue, "there is not 14 days left for people to decide to attend" (ie, it could not be published 14 days prior). (In my case it was 9 days before when the reviewer got to it and it only required a small change. But he considered the RSVP time the more "important" violation.)

 

The expectation (for most caches) is that caches should take (at most) about 1 week to review, which at minimum leaves 1 week for people to RSVP, which, for simple meets such as in an urban park or coffee shop, is, IMO, "sufficient" time (to use the wording in the old guidelines, which has now been replaced). I actually receive most of my "will attend" notes in the two or three days leading up to the event, or the morning of.

 

I can understand more out-of-the-way places might need more time to plan out and set up transportation for going there, etc.

 

But it is not the event creator's job to guess how busy the reviewers are and try to submit things and hope the reviewer gets to them with 2 weeks to spare. For example, I might not know I will be going somewhere for a business trip until 2 weeks prior. Does that mean I cannot set up an event even though I can submit it on the website because it's 2 weeks before?

 

Even though people have received rejections for the above reason, other events have been published less than 14 days before they take place, especially in cases when they are organized for a public holiday or souvenir event.

 

How does this guideline work? Is it "submitted 14 days before the event" as on the GC website and the event creation page, or "submitted as early as the owner might think to have it be published 14 days before"?

 

--

 

I posed the above as a request for a clarification to be asked at a meet the reviewers event which I couldn't attend, but I read the transcript of the interview afterwards, and I don't know if it's just the language barrier (I read but don't speak the local language so the interviewer would have had to translate) but the reviewer in question said only that we should submit as soon as plans are ready in order to leave "sufficient time" for people to RSVP. But HOW MUCH TIME IS "SUFFICIENT" (isn't this why the guidelines were changed?) AND WHY DOES HE MAKE EXCEPTIONS???

[+palmetto]

This is a murky area; cache owners used to be told the lead time for review was 3 days, it's been years since that was altered to 7 days, with no change in the event guideline about lead time. It may well be appropriate to revisit that.

 

I would expect that had your event been guideline compliant, no changes need, it would have been published.

 

As a cache owner, if completely guideline compliant event submitted 14 days in advance was denied because the reviewer didn't get to it in time, I'd appeal. I'd expect to win that appeal.

 

Specific to your event, I would have apologized for the review delay, as your reviewer did, and recognized that the changes needed and the time remaining meant no event was to be published for that date. I would have emphasized that it was call for geocachers to meet you inside an existing non-geocaching event, a guideline violation, this being more important in my view than the other issues. Your reviewer didn't mention this at all, but the other issues instead. Reviewer may have missed that, may see it differently, or may decided not to pile up a list of issues, once he realized that publication was not going to happen.

Edited September 4, 2015 by palmetto

[+Mausebiber]

Hmmm, don't know where the "three days" are coming from, but the guidelines http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=81 says:

 

The Review Process

If you've successfully submitted a geocache for review, and have read the email from noreply@geocaching.com, you know that geocache listings are reviewed by community volunteer reviewers. Reviewers strive to begin the review within 7 days of enabling your listing. You may experience longer than normal waiting time in the week following a holiday, or after a large geocaching event. We ask for your patience. Please keep in mind that reviewers are volunteers and sometimes things come up in their lives that delay geocache review.

 

So, I think best would be, to submit any review for an event 4 week prior the event date.

How does this guideline work? Is it "submitted 14 days before the event"

The way I understand this is, it has to be published at least 14 days before the event takes place.

Edited September 4, 2015 by Mausebiber

[+kyrasantae]

(I meant it was 9 days before the planned date.)

 

The target audience for my event was in no way related to the convention I was attending (I was in fact skipping the convention's party and wanted to meet with other kinds of people instead), and was placed in a location away from the convention, away from the hotel, away from anywhere convention attendees would have any reason to go to.

 

Can you explain the reasoning behind how that works? I can understand it being like if the people are already gathered there for some other reason, but it was a bit more like "I'm visiting town for this convention but I can't go 'on record' meeting a separate group of friends/peeps while I'm there." Was I supposed to just not mention the convention at all? I'm one of those people who are always for full disclosure.

[+palmetto]

was placed in a location away from the convention, away from the hotel, away from anywhere convention attendees would have any reason to go to

 

My apologies, I have complicated this with false assumptions. You named your event for the convention, and mention it in several sentences. I assumed that your event was inside some part of that gathering. And that would mean a new location, as well as the other changes mentioned by the reviewer.

The local reviewer may have understood that your event was okay in this regard, which is why they didn't mention it.

[Nomex]

I look at the date submitted. Looking at your Listing that was rejected, it was a pretty close call. Appeals is always an option, but if your submitting an Event < two weeks out, I wouldn't expect to win that argument.

 

Can you explain the reasoning behind how that works? I can understand it being like if the people are already gathered there for some other reason, but it was a bit more like "I'm visiting town for this convention but I can't go 'on record' meeting a separate group of friends/peeps while I'm there." Was I supposed to just not mention the convention at all? I'm one of those people who are always for full disclosure.

 

Looking at the wording on your Event Listing, I probably would have questioned it. It sounded like you were putting on the Event for the Conference Attendees, which would have been in violation of the spirit of the Guidelines:

 

If an event is already organized outside of the geocaching community or it will happen without a Geocaching.com listing, it is likely not an Event Cache. Examples include concerts, fairs, sporting and scouting events.

 

If the nearby Conference is irrelevant to the Event, it probably doesn't belong on the Listing page.

[+bflentje]

I find the 14 days lead time comical in that nearly 60% of my event attendees don't RSVP until 1 to 3 days out. Clearly if attendees can't figure out their schedule until the day before, what difference does the 14 days make?

[+JoLTeam]

I've submitted an event in Mexico one week ago... still no response from any reviewer whatsoever. Soon the 14-days-in-advance time will have passed. Will my event be denied then, even if I submitted it more than 3 weeks before the event date? Does anyone know which reviewer "handles" Mexico?