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deletion of finds ~> souvenirs stay online


alsterdrache

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Hello friends,

 

It is a well-known bug on the website (for quite a long time!) that a souvenir will not be deleted if you delete the find log that lead to it.

 

The April Fools' Day gag of 2016 included a bookmark list of numerous geocaches all over the world that were happily logged by thousands of geocachers.

 

Am I right that all those log entries AS WELL AS the souvenirs will be deleted asap this week? The result of the "Galaxycaches" bookmark list is that roughly 150,000 bogus souvenirs have been issued.

 

Thanks for taking care!

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As someone sagely noticed, the joke was on YOU. Hah.

 

I don't believe their database has any way of telling the difference between April 1 souvenirs and any other souvenirs. It's just a simple set-and-forget bit for each souvenir.

 

That's why they added a feature to optionally hide souvenirs. A feature I appreciate.

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As someone sagely noticed, the joke was on YOU. Hah.

 

I don't believe their database has any way of telling the difference between April 1 souvenirs and any other souvenirs. It's just a simple set-and-forget bit for each souvenir.

 

That's why they added a feature to optionally hide souvenirs. A feature I appreciate.

Unfortunately that feature is only partially implemented. You can hide them on Groundspeak but they are proudly there for all the world to see on Project-GC. Seems the API really doesn't care if you hide the souvenir or not.

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As someone sagely noticed, the joke was on YOU. Hah.

 

I don't believe their database has any way of telling the difference between April 1 souvenirs and any other souvenirs. It's just a simple set-and-forget bit for each souvenir.

 

 

I would say that delete logs, remove souvenir, recalculate souvenir entitlement would work. Sadly it would also bring the database to its knees.

 

It can be optimised I reckon. Delete logs, delete souvenirs that were created after April 1st (this seems to be known) and in the possible Galaxy areas. In the same database transaction check the users remaining logs on or after April 1st for entitlement. Job done.

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What they could do is for each souvenir, provide an option to 'reverify'. Individually. Not automated. Not an API function.

It would be trivial for the database to check your own finds to determine if you qualify for a specific souvenir, however complex that check is.

The function would need to be created new for each souvenir, different than the set-forget function executed when logging a find.

 

As it stands, not knowing how the souvenir reward system works on the backend, when you log a find the system has to first determine which souvenirs are applicable to a find on that geocache.

 

Presuming it's a function that's run for the cache against each souvenir - In which case the verification test does exist, but on a 1-to-1 comparison. Not something that can feasibly run for each user's entire history of finds.

 

Thinking through this...

 

eg, set-and-forget (how I believe it currently works):

* When a Find is posted, for each souvenir execute the checker function to determine if it's applicable to the cache being logged. If yes, set the user's souvenir flag.

If I'd created the catalog of souvenirs this way, I'd also group the souvenirs into classes by similarity/exclusivity. For example, location souvenirs will only have one level of reward, state/country (maybe two if they can be nested) so this checker wouldn't be run on each location souvenir, but rather use the cache's location to determine which souvenir(s) is applicable and ignore the rest. But this shows how complex a custom-programmed souvenir system is and why it's not trivial to create a universal verification algorithm.

 

Complete reverification, given the above system, after the user selects a currently awarded souvenir to re-check:

* For the selected souvenir, run a function designed to check if any cache in the finds history qualifies. Set the flag as determined. (this would be a function per souvenir that I assume doesn't currently exist)

 

Finding out if you qualify for any cache you don't currently have rewarded is much trickier, since that check only happens when you log a find. Unless GS decides to provide you a list of every souvenir in existence for you to manually run their reverification checkers.

Alternatively, and this would be tedious but require little programming, is running a virtual re-logger function on every cache you've logged as found, ultimately you have every souvenir you should.

 

However, if I recall, GS did do this when they first implemented souvenirs, correct? As they rolled out souvenirs, each one we qualified for popped up in our inventory based on past finds. That same process rolled out over time could in theory re-verify our souvenir inventory, though now there are many many more souvenirs to scan through for each user. On a global level that may be easier, since for example, awarding the California souvenir would just mean setting its flag in all users' inventories who have a Find logged in California. A simple query. But would be unfiltered, global. And potentially angstify a whole load of users unless it's done as an opt-in event.

 

Regardless of method, hidden-souvenir flags would have to remain otherwise large segments of the community might get all angsty with having to re-hide what they already hid manually :P

 

The community is so touchy these days! :omnomnom:

Edited by thebruce0
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The standard reply to all emails regarding the AFD joke is:

Hi friend!

Thanks for reaching out to Geocaching HQ. All the new souvenirs that you acquired on April 1, 2016 as part of the April Fools joke will be removed in the next couple days. All the finds will be converted to "notes" and your statistics will update as well. Thanks for your patience and for playing along!

Best,

Carly

Community Manager

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I would say that delete logs, remove souvenir, recalculate souvenir entitlement would work. Sadly it would also bring the database to its knees.

 

It can be optimised I reckon. Delete logs, delete souvenirs that were created after April 1st (this seems to be known) and in the possible Galaxy areas. In the same database transaction check the users remaining logs on or after April 1st for entitlement. Job done.

Another way to reduce the database load would be to create a list (temp table) of all accounts (cachers) that created a "Found It" (now changed to a "Write Note") log for the Galaxy caches. Then check the state/country souvenirs awarded on-or-after 4/1/2016 in the production tables, but only for those accounts that are in the temp table.

 

I looked at a very small sample of profiles for 'finders' of the Galaxy caches and see that those cachers still have the various state/country souvenirs that were awarded earlier this week.

 

It probably would've been better to have created a 'Galaxy' state/country and assigned that location to each of the caches in the GeoArt, then loggers would've received just that one souvenir. GS could then either let folks keep that souvenir or simply deleted that single souvenir from the system.

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The standard reply to all emails regarding the AFD joke is:

Hi friend!

Thanks for reaching out to Geocaching HQ. All the new souvenirs that you acquired on April 1, 2016 as part of the April Fools joke will be removed in the next couple days. All the finds will be converted to "notes" and your statistics will update as well. Thanks for your patience and for playing along!

Best,

Carly

Community Manager

 

Hi Carly,

Good to hear that the bogus souvenirs will be deleted. Thanks for that. Will this also be done in the case that the logs of the April fools caches have been deleted? I ask this because I already deleted all my logs for these caches.

Greetings from Holland,

Thijs / Eenhoorn1761

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