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Moratorium update


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A similar issue arises with certain souvenir challenges, such as the Souvenir Triathlon Challenge. This challenges requires souvenirs from three non-U.S. countries, from three U.S. states, and for three special dates/events. But GC doesn't currently categorize its souvenirs. So, unless GC's new checker guideline allows for open-ended lists that can be modified in the future, there isn't an infallible way for a Project-GC checker to validate this kind of challenge.

I have done some work on a checker to handle this. Souvenirs are an open set, but they are an open set that grows rather slowly and doesn't have multiple languages, so it's pretty manageable.

 

If I remember correctly, I did code to categorize souvenirs into countries, states, special days, events and others. After looking at the then-existing list of souvenirs it felt like rather simple to categorize all the existing ones and then add the few new countries and days that were announced and just assume anything else that wasn't known to be an event. What made me (at least not then) finish the checker was that I also needed to know what country each event belonged to, meaning that I needed to keep the list up to date monthly or so to be useful. Not impossible, but has to be done. We'll see if I finish it later.

 

But still, for at least a decent percentage of souvenir-related challenges there is already a working checker that knows about countries and states.

If Groundspeak continues adding souvenirs at the same pace that it previously has, then I have no doubt that it would be relatively easy to maintain an open-ended, amendable list for souvenir-category challenge caches. The question is whether any kind of open-ended, amendable list checkers will be allowed by Groundspeak when they approve future challenge caches.

 

As I've noted previously, I hope Groundspeak's new challenge cache guidelines will allow for such flexibility. Right now, there are indications that Groundspeak might view checkers as being the final arbitrators of what is or isn't acceptable (and thus preclude open-ended, amendable checkers).

 

All new challenges will require an online challenge checker -- it's a nice, simple bright line test as opposed to debating about the definition of "easily proven with the statistics."

It's up to the CO to ensure that the checker is infallible. If it's not, then the cache is subject to archival. The CO certainly has a vested interest, then, in infallibility of the checker.

I'm hoping the post-moratorium guidelines make it clear that checkers don't have to be infallible, bright-line tests regarding what's acceptable. I'd like to see challenge caches published even if it's known from the very beginning that they might generate false negatives. Sure, that could result in some appeals when cache owners and challenge finders disagree over whether a particular souvenir is a "special date" souvenir. But Groundspeak's goal should be to reduce challenge cache appeals -- not to entirely eliminate those appeals.

Edited by CanadianRockies
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I still would accept every such cache as a qualifying cache.

So pretty much up to the whim of the cache owner? What could possible go wrong with that scenario?

I honestly don't know what could go wrong when leaving the cache owner in control. I wish this whole discussion wasn't based on imagining challenge cache COs being universally evil and nasty, ready to ruin someone's day if given the chance. The absolute worst case is a stupid CO is determined to have no one enjoy his challenge cache, and the dreaded result is that someone doesn't get a find they thought they deserved. Horrors!

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Some of my favourite challenge caches have been thematic (25 Christmas words), letter-based (first letter of caches spelling out a phrase) or map-based (caches in X squares on walking map number X) - none of these are going to be possible and it will all be down to number crunching. To improve what exactly? Big thumbs down from me.

That's a pity. Too bad you didn't provide input a year ago in the User Insight topic. It might have made a difference in the outcome. Unfortunately, what you describe, sounds like what many of the responses in that thread (and presumably the survey that followed) was exactly what a majority of people didn't like about the current Challenges out there.

You must be kidding. These kinds of caches have always been some of the most popular. The fact that you don't think enough people lobbied for them just demonstrates how completely interpreting the "input" was focused on the negative comments by people that don't like challenge caches at all and, for reasons I still don't understand, want to seem them banned.

Quite the contrary. I saw many positive comments in that thread, and I've never felt that Groundspeak was looking for a way to ban them entirely, but just a workable solution to go forward (i.e. make them simple enough to understand, and something that is relatively easy for the user to verify).

 

I appreciate the constructive discussion in this thread, to help me understand some of the benefits and shortcomings of the PGC checker issue, but for an active user to come in after the ample input period is closed, seems exceedingly lame to me.

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As has been stated before here but probably still isn't clear to everyone: A checker consists of a checker script and a tag. The script is program code, the tag consists of a couple of fields to fill in on a web page.

 

Since much of the discussion here has been about animal name challenges (a to me incomprehensible challenge that has nothing to do with geocaching, but hey, I don't need to like all challenge types): The checker for this type of challenge is simple to trivial, and - of course - already exists. I don't expect the author of this script to need to do anything more even if more challenges of this type are added.

 

What is needed is a new tag for each challenge that connects this checker script to the specific challenge. The tag needs to contain a list of animal names, fruits or whatever. This list can later be edited by the tagger. This person could be the cache owner, the script author, or a third person. Tagging a challenge requires a special privilege, but it's not the same privilege as writing a script. As of today, 85 people have written at least one checker script while 361 people have tagged at least one challenge.

Assuming Groundspeak even allows open-ended, amendable lists to be used in future challenge cache checkers, the next question is how long will Groundspeak allow those lists to go unmaintained when a list modification is pending? Even with 361 current tag-writers, there's no guarantee that any of them will get around to making the necessary modification within, say, a month. Will Groundspeak allow a checker to go unmaintained for more than the "recommended" duration as long as the challenge cache owner has made a modification request to Project-GC within that "recommended" time period? Hopefully, they will.

Edited by CanadianRockies
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...

Yes, but a human being can read the description and see that it says "the cache involves a walk fo 20km", but that human has not verified that the cache actually requires a 20km walk.

The type of challenge cache scenario I described can perfectly work with "the cache involves" - it does not need to reply on requires.

Nope. It's not objectively verifiable. If you agree with that, then we agree. And so the challenge description would have to state that the descrpition mention the hike length, but the CO cannot require that a cache actually hike the indicated length, as that is not verifiable. That's it.

 

And what about hiking for a cache that doesn't actually require, in any way, a hike (as ChileHead as Touchstone discuss)? More appeals disputes.

No appeals at all when the cache description is formulated properly.

Apart from "properly", that's exactly what I'm saying. "hike 20km for 10 caches" is not a valid challenge as it is not verifiable. "Find 10 caches that indicate '20km' in the cache description" is, whether or not the cacher hikes that 20km. Your challenge, the former, would not be allowable, old or new, unless given an exception. The challenge description must be consistent with what is being checked. That is a "proper" challenge.

 

If the challenge says "the description must indicate a hike length of 20km", that then is objectively verifiable by text analysis, even if the cache may not actually require hiking 20km (provided the checker has access to the description text in order to analyze it per the challenge requirement). Again, it's about the challenge description accurately describing what the checker is actually checking.

That's not checkable as it can be in any language and one needs to understand the context except you ask for a fixed formulation in a fixed language and even when you will end up with incorrect checker results while no human being will make such mistakes.

... if the checker script knows how a distance may be formed, yes it's quite simple to provide a few common variations of text to look for in a block of text, even over different languages, especially for numeric values which are quite common. If there is a typo in the description, well then the finder had better ask the CO to make sure their cache description is accurate (whether or not they mention that it's for a challenge checker script). If the cache mistakenly says "2km" instead of "20km", then the cache description is itself misleading, and it'd be better for the CO to fix it. If not, then it won't be qualified in the checker looking for "20km". In that case, it's just an incorrect attribute setting - as previously and with the new CC guideline implications, that's just fundamentally how it works.

 

I understood that difference even before you explained anything at all. A computer checker can easily check for the presence of an attribute, it cannot check reasonably well for language that does not have to follow any format rules and it#s stupid to impose format rules and force humans to act so that computers can do some work more easily.

So you're calling the new challenge cache guideline setup stupid. Ok then, can't debate that opinion. I'm sure it's an opinion GS is ready to acknowledge as unavoidable, cuz you know, you can't please everyone :P

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I appreciate the constructive discussion in this thread, to help me understand some of the benefits and shortcomings of the PGC checker issue, but for an active user to come in after the ample input period is closed, seems exceedingly lame to me.

I'm sorry, perhaps I misunderstood this comment. Are you calling me lame and claiming I didn't provide this same input during the input period?

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Nope. It's not objectively verifiable. If you agree with that, then we agree. And so the challenge description would have to state that the descrpition mention the hike length, but the CO cannot require that a cache actually hike the indicated length, as that is not verifiable. That's it.

 

Of course it's not verifiable whether someone really hiked the distance and I never said so.

I'm perfectly ok with a challenge that allows all caches where the description mentions that the cache involves a hike of a certain length and this is easily checkable by a human.

 

Apart from "properly", that's exactly what I'm saying. "hike 20km for 10 caches" is not a valid challenge as it is not verifiable.

 

I never suggested to use this formulation in a challenge cache. I thought it should suffice to explain the underlying idea. A tree climbing cache will need to be set up via the tree climbing attribute but the real driving force to set up such a challenge is of course tree climbing.

 

"Find 10 caches that indicate '20km' in the cache description" is, whether or not the cacher hikes that 20km.

 

The formulation definitely should not be 10 caches where 20 km arises in the description but 10 caches where the cache description says that the cache involves a hike of at least 20km.

The first case of course is easily checkable by a string search for 20km and would not depend on language.

 

Your challenge, the former, would not be allowable, old or new, unless given an exception. The challenge description must be consistent with what is being checked. That is a "proper" challenge.

 

I did not provide a clean challenge formulation and only described the underlying idea as I thought that should be sufficient to demonstrate that there are many challenges that involve objectively checkable requirements which cannot checked reasonably by a computer.

 

... if the checker script knows how a distance may be formed, yes it's quite simple to provide a few common variations of text to look for in a block of text, even over different languages, especially for numeric values which are quite common.

 

I have already explained that there could be statements like "The distance from the end point to the nearest train station is 20km" which of course is no statement about the cache length. Moreover, I do not expect that there will be ever project gc checkers working for all languages of the world, not even for much easier cases.

 

Actually, I'm quite sure that not even suggestions like the one to check for all cemetery polygon data on OSM will ever lead to a checker that can really be run on project gc.

 

So you're calling the new challenge cache guideline setup stupid. Ok then, can't debate that opinion. I'm sure it's an opinion GS is ready to acknowledge as unavoidable, cuz you know, you can't please everyone :P

 

No, I'm not calling the new challenge guideline setup stupid - I call it stupid to use a computer for something humans can do better. GS's solution apparently is not to allow what computers cannot do properly. That's their choice.

Edited by cezanne
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As I've noted previously, I hope Groundspeak's new challenge cache guidelines will allow for such flexibility. Right now, there are indications that Groundspeak might view checkers as being the final arbitrators of what is or isn't acceptable (and thus preclude open-ended, amendable checkers).

Just to raise the point again, I don't think this is an issue if the challenge wording matches the checker functioning. This would only be an issue if the challenge were to state "any text in category X", as opposed to "any text from the following acceptable list". The former can't feasibly be coded, but pre-moratorium was allowable though theoretically the 'list' of words was in the CO brain (or maybe a notepad on their desk), amendable after reading a new find log with an item not previously on the list; if allowed and not denied. This would really just be asking the CO to adjust the challenge wording a bit and maintain that list outside their brain to be accessible by a checker script :laughing:

 

As has been stated before here but probably still isn't clear to everyone: A checker consists of a checker script and a tag. The script is program code, the tag consists of a couple of fields to fill in on a web page.

 

Since much of the discussion here has been about animal name challenges (a to me incomprehensible challenge that has nothing to do with geocaching, but hey, I don't need to like all challenge types): The checker for this type of challenge is simple to trivial, and - of course - already exists. I don't expect the author of this script to need to do anything more even if more challenges of this type are added.

 

What is needed is a new tag for each challenge that connects this checker script to the specific challenge. The tag needs to contain a list of animal names, fruits or whatever. This list can later be edited by the tagger. This person could be the cache owner, the script author, or a third person. Tagging a challenge requires a special privilege, but it's not the same privilege as writing a script. As of today, 85 people have written at least one checker script while 361 people have tagged at least one challenge.

Assuming Groundspeak even allows open-ended, amendable lists to be used in future challenge cache checkers, the next question is how long will Groundspeak allow those lists to go unmaintained when a list modification is pending? Even with 361 current tag-writers, there's no guarantee that any of them will get around to making the necessary modification within, say, a month. Will Groundspeak allow a checker to go unmaintained for more than the "recommended" duration as long as the challenge cache owner has made a modification request to Project-GC within that "recommended" time period? Hopefully, they will.

So I'm still a bit unclear on one point, pinkunicorn. Who maintains the tag? If it's the CO, then the checker author doesn't need to do anything or approve anything; the CO can just add an item to the tag's list for their cache checker. Thus if the description describes exactly what's being checked, there wouldn't be a pending list modification in order to keep the checker valid; the challenge will just remain accurate to what's considered 'valid' by the script.

 

I sort of envision this situation:

CacherX runs the script and finds that he doesn't qualify for finding caches. Reading the wording, he sees the list of valid animal names, [AnimalA,AnimalB,AnimalC]. Hopeful that the CO could allow AnimalY with a cache he found and feels it could be considered applicable to the theme of the challenge, he logs the Find and contacts the CO with the request to add AnimalY to the qualification list.

 

A] CO is responsive:

i] CO decides it's a valid animal and adds it to the list. User's qualification can be checked and now verified. CO doesn't delete the Find.

ii] CO decides it's not a valid animal for this challenge, informs the user, and denies the Find. CacherX can't dispute, because the challenge requirement remains accurate to what the checker checks (not open-ended, but from the list of accepted animal names), and the script doesn't indicate that the user qualified.

 

B] CO is unresponsive.

i] CacherX Find log remains intact, even though the checker returns unqualified for the challenge. ...I dunno, this seems to me much like the situation of Earthcache logging where a Finder doesn't send any info to the CO, but the CO doesn't check or verify any. It really is up to the CO to do any verification and determine if Find logs are valid. For challenges, the checker is the arbiter, but not the guardian. People could still post invalid Finds. But the CO can point to the checker as evidence, and there's no valid dispute (unless the challenge outline differs from the checker functionality, in which case, as they say, the 'cache is subject to archival')

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There was some discussion about elevation, but I don't know if it was brought up, but Project-GC doesn't seem to handle elevation well. Look at my stats, PGC list http://coord.info/GC1XYQ2 as my lowest elevation cache. They have it listed at -66 feet, but it is definitely on land.

Looking at the location of the cache, I don't think 66 feet is a terrible margin of error in that case.

Depending on the situation, 66 feet (probably over 70 feet, in this case) isn't a terrible margin of error. But most humans can quickly glance at an online topographical map and guess that the cache's true elevation probably falls somewhere between 0 and 10 meters above mean sea level.

 

This is a nice example of where Project-GC checkers sometimes can be more fallible than human checkers. That's something Groundspeak probably should consider when it determines just how "infallible" they expect their future challenge cache checkers to be.

 

It's up to the CO to ensure that the checker is infallible. If it's not, then the cache is subject to archival. The CO certainly has a vested interest, then, in infallibility of the checker.

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What is needed is a new tag for each challenge that connects this checker script to the specific challenge. The tag needs to contain a list of animal names, fruits or whatever. This list can later be edited by the tagger. This person could be the cache owner, the script author, or a third person. Tagging a challenge requires a special privilege, but it's not the same privilege as writing a script. As of today, 85 people have written at least one checker script while 361 people have tagged at least one challenge.

Cool, that sounds exactly like what I/we were hoping was capable. As I haven't connected a PGC checker to my (2) challenge caches, is it the CO who creates that tag? What form does it take? ie, if one of the fields is a list, is it an open input value with no max length, or is there indeed a limit?

 

A challenge can be tagged by anyone who has checker-tagging-privilege on Project-GC. This includes all current challenge checker authors. Exactly who will be awarded this and after what process is currently being worked out.

 

The tag consists of three things: a reference to the appropriate checker script, a GC code refering to the challenge, and (optionally) some configuration parameters for the checker script necessary to handle this particular challenge. For the technically-minded: this is json, so you can put in various bits of information, as long as the checker can parse them out again. I assume there is a length limit to the json field, but I don't know it.

Edited by pinkunicorn
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Assuming Groundspeak even allows open-ended, amendable lists to be used in future challenge cache checkers, the next question is how long will Groundspeak allow those lists to go unmaintained when a list modification is pending? Even with 361 current tag-writers, there's no guarantee that any of them will get around to making the necessary modification within, say, a month. Will Groundspeak allow a checker to go unmaintained for more than the "recommended" duration as long as the challenge cache owner has made a modification request to Project-GC within that "recommended" time period? Hopefully, they will.

 

There is a misconception buried in this. All challenge checkers at Project-GC are created by volonteers, i.e. cachers (who may or may not be the challenge cache owner). That means that there won't be any "modification request to Project-GC". You always talk to the specific cacher who made the checker/tag.

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Of course it's not verifiable whether someone really hiked the distance and I never said so.

I'm perfectly ok with a challenge that allows all caches where the description mentions that the cache involves a hike of a certain length and this is easily checkable by a human.

Ok, so we agree - IF the checker has the capability to check and verify that a cache's description text contains some arbitrary text implying the length of a hike for a cache, regardless of whether the cache actually requires hiking that length, regardless of whether the cacher themselves actually hiked that length, then the challenge would be valid, if that's exactly what the challenge requirements describe. That's the only verifiable criteria in this case, so:

- If you find a cache you hiked 20km for but didn't need to, it wouldn't be admissable as a qualifier.

- If a cache actually requires hiking 20km but the description doesn't include the length, it wouldn't be admissable as a qualifer.

 

 

Apart from "properly", that's exactly what I'm saying. "hike 20km for 10 caches" is not a valid challenge as it is not verifiable.

I never suggested to use this formulation in a challenge cache. I thought it should suffice to explain the underlying idea. A tree climbing cache will need to be set up via the tree climbing attribute but the real driving force to set up such a challenge is of course tree climbing.

The driving force, yes, but the CCO of course can't require that cachers climb trees. Only that they have caches with the treeclimb attribute. I presume you understand agree with that.

 

"Find 10 caches that indicate '20km' in the cache description" is, whether or not the cacher hikes that 20km.

The formulation definitely should not be 10 caches where 20 km arises in the description but 10 caches where the cache description says that the cache involves a hike of at least 20km.

The first case of course is easily checkable by a string search for 20km and would not depend on language.

Yay!

But technically, both are theoretically possible, depending on how complex a script the author wishes to code. It's the same issue as an open-ended challenge - if the CO wishes to accept "any language", including typos and bad grammar, with which of course a human may have no issue but is harder for a script to understand. If you want that level of open-endedness, unfortunately it seems you aren't going to get it (and to me it seems unnecessarily open-ended and complex, just like open-ended challenges, as discussed in previous comments.

 

But hey, if someone can write a free text language parser in a PGC LUA script, that would be absolutely amazing!

 

I have already explained that there could be statements like "The distance from the end point to the nearest train station is 20km" which of course is no statement about the cache length. Moreover, I do not expect that there will be ever project gc checkers working for all languages of the world, not even for much easier cases.

And I think that a challenge requiring such specific language-agnostic wording in a cache description in order to validate a hike length is unnecessarily complex, and also wouldn't have been published pre-moratorium either, barring reviewer exception. I think we agree that in this case a separate field indicating a hike length value would be helpful towards this type of challenge as that value is objectively verifiable, but again the challenge would be for "caches indicating 20+km", not that cachers "hike 20+km for caches".

 

So you're calling the new challenge cache guideline setup stupid. Ok then, can't debate that opinion. I'm sure it's an opinion GS is ready to acknowledge as unavoidable, cuz you know, you can't please everyone :P

No, I'm not calling the new challenge guideline setup stupid - I call it stupid to use a computer for something humans can do better. GS's solution apparently is not to allow what computers cannot do properly. That's their choice.

...that's...the same thing.

As so far described, a checker script is now required for challenges. That means requiring that a computer do something that previously a human did; only what you want to do (effectively analyzing language for implied properties) isn't a] considered reasonable for a challenge, and b] isn't something a computer (that is, a PGC script) can reasonably do. And so you have your comment about the new challenge guideline setup: "it's stupid to impose format rules and force humans to act so that computers can do some work more easily."

If GS allows checkers to be able to analyze description text, then the door is open wide for a checker author to create as complex a script as they are able to in order to analyze text for qualifying content. And as long as the CCO accurately explains what the checker actually validates, then it's a valid checker and a valid challenge -- whether it scans for "20km" in a description, or checks multiple language/grammar variants of "the cache involves a hike of at least 20km". As long as the challenge description doesn't imply requiring a cacher "to hike at least 20km".

Edited by thebruce0
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As I've noted previously, I hope Groundspeak's new challenge cache guidelines will allow for such flexibility. Right now, there are indications that Groundspeak might view checkers as being the final arbitrators of what is or isn't acceptable (and thus preclude open-ended, amendable checkers).

Just to raise the point again, I don't think this is an issue if the challenge wording matches the checker functioning. This would only be an issue if the challenge were to state "any text in category X", as opposed to "any text from the following acceptable list". The former can't feasibly be coded, but pre-moratorium was allowable though theoretically the 'list' of words was in the CO brain (or maybe a notepad on their desk), amendable after reading a new find log with an item not previously on the list; if allowed and not denied. This would really just be asking the CO to adjust the challenge wording a bit and maintain that list outside their brain to be accessible by a checker script :laughing:

As I've noted previously, I have no problem if a future challenge cache owner wants to reduce potential disagreements with finders and creates a challenge cache with the requirement that all finds must have titles that include words from a specified, unchanging list.

 

What I'd also like, however, is a Groundspeak challenge guideline that is flexible enough to allow other future challenge cache owners to state that qualifying finds must have titles that include "any text in category X." I fully realize that, in many cases, these kinds of challenge caches cannot feasibly be coded as Project-GC checkers...if Groundspeak requires a fixed, immutable list of acceptable words from the very start.

 

But Project-GC checkers are capable of utilizing a good, basic list of acceptable words from the very start and allowing modifications to that list as new examples come to light. It's unclear, however, whether Groundspeak will publish future challenge caches that rely on such open-ended, amendable lists. I hope they will, but there are indications that they might not.

Edited by CanadianRockies
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Assuming Groundspeak even allows open-ended, amendable lists to be used in future challenge cache checkers, the next question is how long will Groundspeak allow those lists to go unmaintained when a list modification is pending? Even with 361 current tag-writers, there's no guarantee that any of them will get around to making the necessary modification within, say, a month. Will Groundspeak allow a checker to go unmaintained for more than the "recommended" duration as long as the challenge cache owner has made a modification request to Project-GC within that "recommended" time period? Hopefully, they will.

There is a misconception buried in this. All challenge checkers at Project-GC are created by volonteers, i.e. cachers (who may or may not be the challenge cache owner). That means that there won't be any "modification request to Project-GC". You always talk to the specific cacher who made the checker/tag.

I'm sorry for my confusion. But your clarification only heightens my concern.

 

There certainly might be instances (e.g., illness or extended vacation) when the Project-GC volunteer who created the tag for the checker associated with my challenge cache might be unable to modify it within a "recommended" time period that Groundspeak might desire. I hope Groundspeak would take this into consideration and/or Project-GC would allow another tagger to make the necessary modifications when that challenge cache is subject to archival.

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I appreciate the constructive discussion in this thread, to help me understand some of the benefits and shortcomings of the PGC checker issue, but for an active user to come in after the ample input period is closed, seems exceedingly lame to me.

I'm sorry, perhaps I misunderstood this comment. Are you calling me lame and claiming I didn't provide this same input during the input period?

I'll have to defer to the TLDR, because I haven't followed every comment you or anybody else has made. That particular comment just struck me as odd.

 

The other option is to delay it another year, because basically, Groundspeak stated that some solution to the problem was required, because the current situation was unmanageable.

 

To be honest, I'm all for kicking the can down the road, but it looks like the PGC devs have chimed back in with some constructive observations, so I'll give it a rest :)

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As I've noted previously, I have no problem if a future challenge cache owner wants to reduce potential disagreements with finders and creates a challenge cache with the requirement that all finds must have titles that include words from a specified, unchanging list.

 

What I'd also like, however, is a Groundspeak challenge guideline that is flexible enough to allow other future challenge cache owners to state that qualifying finds must have titles that includes "any text in category X." I fully realize that, in many cases, these kinds of challenge caches cannot feasibly be coded as Project-GC checkers...if Groundspeak requires a fixed, immutable list of acceptable words from the very start.

 

But Project-GC checkers are capable of utilizing a good, basic list of acceptable words from the very start and allowing modifications to that list as new examples come to light. It's unclear, however, whether Groundspeak will publish future challenge caches that rely on such open-ended, amendable lists. I hope they will, but there are indications that they might not.

Agreed.

But yeah, in that case I'd carefully word the challenge indicate that qualifying fnids can only use the current list [as included in the cache description], if it's allowable to as the disclaimer that the list may grow if as a finder you have a suggestion. I think that's really as close as the open-ended 'category' style will get if checkers are required, and don't have language analysis with access to a dictionary lookup service :P

 

However... what if the finder would be given the ability to provide a list of words when running the checker on their own finds, so that the script outputs qualification or not, also indicating which words are not currently in the CCO approved list. In that case, the checker could also say something like "Not qualified. But qualified with the following user word list: ..." as an easy way for the CO to actually use the checker and decide whether the qualification/Find should remain, and amend the official acceptable list. That way there'd also be a record of what parameters provided the qualification, if the CO decided to leave it intact.

 

The only change there would be that in addition to the CCO providing a full list of qualifiers, the finder could provide a list of known/requested qualifiers, and still be 'verified officially' by the checker (no subjectivity, apart from deciding whether to amend the list). Only the "official" qualification by the CCO's list would be the arbiter for Find/Qualification validity, of course.

Edited by thebruce0
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- If you find a cache you hiked 20km for but didn't need to, it wouldn't be admissable as a qualifier.

 

Of course it would if the description mentions that the cache involves a 20km hike.

All my recent hiking caches mention the length of the walk/hike as they are designed to be walking/hiking caches. My area is however not out in the wilderness. So by using a vehicle and only visiting the stages

one can shortcut the distance and one can even further shortcut the distance by only visiting the final.

 

Those caches in my area where you really need to hike 20km are at least 40km or longer.

 

- If a cache actually requires hiking 20km but the description doesn't include the length, it wouldn't be admissable as a qualifer.

 

That depends on whether a cache owner is allowed to make exceptions. Personally, I would if I know the cache or receive any other sort of proof.

 

The driving force, yes, but the CCO of course can't require that cachers climb trees. Only that they have caches with the treeclimb attribute. I presume you understand agree with that.

 

I mentioned the driving force notion as when I wrote about hiking caches of length >20km, I never had in mind to use exactly this formulation in a challenge cache very much the same as I would

have written about tree climbing caches.

 

But technically, both are theoretically possible, depending on how complex a script the author wishes to code. It's the same issue as an open-ended challenge

- if the CO wishes to accept "any language", including typos and bad grammar, with which of course a human may have no issue but is harder for a script to understand. If you want that level of open-endedness, unfortunately it seems you aren't going to get it (and to me it seems unnecessarily open-ended and complex, just like open-ended challenges, as discussed in previous comments.

 

It's not complex at all for human beings - rather the contrary. It is very easy to understand and very easy to check. It only gets complex when one wants to use computers in areas for which they are badly suited or not suited at all.

 

But hey, if someone can write a free text language parser in a PGC LUA script, that would be absolutely amazing!

 

And I think that a challenge requiring such specific language-agnostic wording in a cache description in order to validate a hike length is unnecessarily complex, and also wouldn't have been published pre-moratorium either, barring reviewer exception.

 

Most cachers who go out for a longer hike want to know the length anyway. For a human being it's not at all complex and very normal to scan a cache description for length information when it comes to a longer hiking cache. This is very basic information regardless of challenge caches and there is no reason for humans to rely on rigid formatting rules.

Living in an area where many different languages are used within even my normal caching radius (not referring to vacation) and in a country where regularly cachers from many different countries visit caches, I do not think it to be a good idea to restrict oneself to certain languages.

 

I think we agree that in this case a separate field indicating a hike length value would be helpful towards this type of challenge as that value is objectively verifiable, but again the challenge would be for "caches indicating 20+km", not that cachers "hike 20+km for caches".

 

Actually the length field would be useful anyway and has been asked for often but to no avail (for example the opencaching site offers such a field since many years).

With such a length field one would check for length>20km and signficant hike attribute set.

 

...that's...the same thing.

As so far described, a checker script is now required for challenges. That means requiring that a computer do something that previously a human did; only what you want to do (effectively analyzing language for implied properties) isn't a] considered reasonable for a challenge, and b] isn't something a computer (that is, a PGC script) can reasonably do. And so you have your comment about the new challenge guideline setup: "it's stupid to impose format rules and force humans to act so that computers can do some work more easily."

 

I do not agree as I do not believe that such complex checkers is what GS has in mind and will allow. I'm expecting them to be pretty strict and to exclude checkers that are open-ended by design or which take very long to execute (as I expect that reviewers will use them too as a basis for deciding how many cachers already qualify).

 

If GS allows checkers to be able to analyze description text, then the door is open wide for a checker author to create as complex a script as they are able to in order to analyze text for qualifying content. And as long as the CCO accurately explains what the checker actually validates, then it's a valid checker and a valid challenge -- whether it scans for "20km" in a description, or checks multiple language/grammar variants of "the cache involves a hike of at least 20km". As long as the challenge description doesn't imply requiring a cacher "to hike at least 20km".

 

Yes, if ................ I do not believe that they will and I do not believe that project gc will want to spend the computational powers that would be required, and that's why we differ on the above.

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Of course it would...

 

Your scenarios can't even be described as Additional Logging Requirements. I think I'd have to characterize them as Arbitrary Logging Requirements. Sounds to me like your *solution* would be unworkable on PGC, and would require some sort of governing body to arbitrate disputes.

 

The other option is to give CO's total control over who is allowed log a Find, irrespective of the *truth*. I could see some Users getting very upset, after investing time and money, at being called a liar and not allowed the Find. There are a few historical precedence to what I say :ph34r:

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CCO's compiling and maintaining lists of hundreds of qualifying items...

 

Finders cross-referencing hundreds or thousands of finds against those lists...

 

My Funometer is off the scale at the prospect of such joy...

 

At least I'll save on gas money by spending more time on admin than actual caching.

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Your scenarios can't even be described as Additional Logging Requirements. I think I'd have to characterize them as Arbitrary Logging Requirements. Sounds to me like your *solution* would be unworkable on PGC, and would require some sort of governing body to arbitrate disputes.

 

I already said that without a length field a project gc solution for the hiking cache scenario does not make sense. Note that it was not me who tried to come up with weird manners to check for cemetery caches and other stuff. I wrote from the beginning that the requirement for a project gc checker excludes many challenge requirements that I find attractive.

I never proposed a project gc solution so I do not know what you mean with *my solution". It never has been my goal to try to twist requirements to make them checkable by some automatic checker. I do not agree that a governing body is required whenever automatic checks are not possible.

 

As my hiking example is regarded, I'm sure that at least in my area not a single dispute would arise if the formulation was that all caches where the description mentions that a hike/walk of at least y km is involved count. Of course it could be that the provided length is wrong. That can happen with any part of a cache description.

Edited by cezanne
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We've just now posted an update about the Challenge Cache Moratorium in the Announcements section (link).

 

The text of the announcement is below.

 

 

Thank you for the update Rock Chalk, and thank you Groundspeak for coming up with a solution that makes the Reviewers jobs easier, reduces the appeals workload and provides Challenge Cache CO's & Challenge Cache Finders a way to remove ambiguity and subjectivity as to who do and doesn't qualify for a challenge. Hopefully, there will be more options for validating, such as GSAK, but all things considered, I like the way this is going.

 

Thanks GS for not killing Challenges outright. They can be a fun part of the game.

Hopefully, we'll get a new icon for Challenges too!

I've always like this guy! challenge.png

B)

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As my hiking example is regarded, I'm sure that at least in my area not a single dispute would arise if the formulation was that all caches where the description mentions that a hike/walk of at least y km is involved count.

 

Sounds like a wonderful place. Although it should be of no surprise that the inevitable march towards a more objective criteria (and yes, I regard stating how far I had to hike to a cache location as being somewhat, but not always, subjective) for Challenge Listings has been going on for several years now. It should be pointed out, that the original Challenge Listing (a Delorme based Challenge), was VERY objective. It shouldn't be a surprise that Groundspeak would like to nudge back to that original model in some fashion.

Edited by Touchstone
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As my hiking example is regarded, I'm sure that at least in my area not a single dispute would arise if the formulation was that all caches where the description mentions that a hike/walk of at least y km is involved count.

Sounds like a wonderful place.

 

There are five challenge caches in total within a quite large area around me. One is a well travelled challenge, one asks for a cache in all 13 regions of my province (of which 11 need to be multi caches) and three deal with logging the find when the number of finds has a special property (prime number, palindrome, number with all digits being the same) - even for those last three challenges there are no disputes and cachers really wait with logging their finds (which e.g. for the last case might take very long for cachers beyond 1000 finds).

 

There are so many other caches to find .................

 

 

Although it should be of no surprise that the inevitable march towards a more objective criteria (and yes, I regard stating how far I had to hike to a cache location as being somewhat, but not always, subjective) for Challenge Listings has been going on for several years now.

 

I never said that you should state how far you have hiked. I said that what should count is what is provided as length of the involved walk in the cache description which is something which can be checked without any subjective component. It's just not the right thing to be checked by a computer.

 

It should be pointed out, that the original Challenge Listing (a Delorme based Challenge), was VERY objective. It shouldn't be a surprise that Groundspeak would like to nudge back to that original model in some fashion.

 

Not any more objective as checking for a text component mentioned above. The header coordinates could be wrong as well as the claimed length of a hike in the description can be wrong.

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Assuming Groundspeak even allows open-ended, amendable lists to be used in future challenge cache checkers, the next question is how long will Groundspeak allow those lists to go unmaintained when a list modification is pending? Even with 361 current tag-writers, there's no guarantee that any of them will get around to making the necessary modification within, say, a month. Will Groundspeak allow a checker to go unmaintained for more than the "recommended" duration as long as the challenge cache owner has made a modification request to Project-GC within that "recommended" time period? Hopefully, they will.

There is a misconception buried in this. All challenge checkers at Project-GC are created by volonteers, i.e. cachers (who may or may not be the challenge cache owner). That means that there won't be any "modification request to Project-GC". You always talk to the specific cacher who made the checker/tag.

I'm sorry for my confusion. But your clarification only heightens my concern.

 

There certainly might be instances (e.g., illness or extended vacation) when the Project-GC volunteer who created the tag for the checker associated with my challenge cache might be unable to modify it within a "recommended" time period that Groundspeak might desire. I hope Groundspeak would take this into consideration and/or Project-GC would allow another tagger to make the necessary modifications when that challenge cache is subject to archival.

I'm glad that I'm not the only person with concerns about this. I hope that whatever system is put into place for requesting checkers/tags considers how requests will be tracked. Besides the issue of non-response from a checker writer/tagger, there's also the possibility of wasted work effort. For example, a CC CO requests a update to a list of words in their CC's checker, the original writer/tagger doesn't respond for x days and so the CC CO asks another writer/tagger to make a copy with the requested edits. Unbeknownst to the CC CO or this second writer/tagger, the original writer/tagger is working on the edits and now there are two 'updated' versions of the checker. I'm sure the second writer/tagger would've preferred not to spend time on making the copy.

 

It's an issue of how workflows will be managed to avoid rework, but also to avoid CC's from being archived for non-maintenance. A bit of a balancing act.

 

ETA: I understand that restrictions were light for tagging pre-moratorium, but PGC has stated there will be new restrictions for tagging rights post-moratorium. As of yet, those new restrictions have not been announced. So, the level of concern fluctuates based on the level of restrictions.

 

Regarding SLA's: If a CC CO needs an edit to a checker and asks the checker writer/tagger to make the edit, then how long should they wait for a response before reaching out to ask another checker writer/tagger to make a copy? Since CC's are subject to archival if their checkers are not maintained and/or don't work correctly, then timelines become an issue. These are details that the new framework should consider.

Edited by noncentric
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Some of my favourite challenge caches have been thematic (25 Christmas words), letter-based (first letter of caches spelling out a phrase) or map-based (caches in X squares on walking map number X) - none of these are going to be possible and it will all be down to number crunching. To improve what exactly? Big thumbs down from me.

That's a pity. Too bad you didn't provide input a year ago in the User Insight topic. It might have made a difference in the outcome. Unfortunately, what you describe, sounds like what many of the responses in that thread (and presumably the survey that followed) was exactly what a majority of people didn't like about the current Challenges out there.

You must be kidding. These kinds of caches have always been some of the most popular. The fact that you don't think enough people lobbied for them just demonstrates how completely interpreting the "input" was focused on the negative comments by people that don't like challenge caches at all and, for reasons I still don't understand, want them banned.

I recall reading through that User Insights topic and noting that the majority of 'negative feelings' were around streak and rush (x in a day) challenges. The requirement of a checker will have no effect on those types of challenges, as those seem to be easy to code/tag within PGC. I'm curious to see if there will be other restrictions around challenge 'types' when the final guideline changes are announced.

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I recall reading through that User Insights topic and noting that the majority of 'negative feelings' were around streak and rush (x in a day) challenges. The requirement of a checker will have no effect on those types of challenges, as those seem to be easy to code/tag within PGC. I'm curious to see if there will be other restrictions around challenge 'types' when the final guideline changes are announced.

Someone did mention one effect checkers could have on "streak" and "rush" challenges. Because Project-GC checkers don't have access to Lab Cache information, future streak/rush challenge caches might have to make it clear to geocachers that Lab Caches will not be counted. The "streak/rush" statistics that appear on a geocacher's Statistics page will not match up with the "streak/rush" statistics currently generated by Project-GC challenge checkers.

 

Similarly, the "Find Dates" calendar, "Milestones," and "Find Rate" information on a geocacher's Statistics page also will not match up with the Lab-less data that Project-GC utilizes.

 

This raises an interesting question. What information can a geocacher use to prove they have successfully completed a post-moratorium challenge cache? If the Project-GC challenge cache checker indicates my longest (Lab-less) streak is 47 consecutive days but my Groundspeak Statistics page indicates my longest (Lab-included) streak is 386 days, then can I claim a find on a post-moratorium 100-day streak challenge?

 

There are some indications that post-moratorium challenge caches might have to rely on the Project-GC challenge checkers as being the sole arbiter of successful completions:

 

Earlier in the thread there were a few good posts pointing out that a lab cache not being counted could have other consequences for otherwise valid challenges, like messing up milestones or leaving a gap in a streak if a lab cache was the geocacher's only find for that day. Oh well. Challenge cache hiders and seekers will need to ignore lab caches.

What if an unaware challenge cache owner fails to mention on their challenge cache listing page that Lab Caches are excluded from their post-moratorium challenge and an all-too-human volunteer reviewer fails to catch this omission? When a geocacher who used Lab Caches shows that they have successfully completed the challenge as it was laid out on the listing page (which did not exclude Lab Caches), will Groundspeak Appeals back the "successful" geocacher? Will that challenge cache be subject to archival for having a fallible Project-GC checker? Will the challenge cache listing page be edited to exclude Lab Caches? What about all the geocachers who are in mid-streak when the listing page is edited?

Edited by CanadianRockies
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I recall reading through that User Insights topic and noting that the majority of 'negative feelings' were around streak and rush (x in a day) challenges. The requirement of a checker will have no effect on those types of challenges, as those seem to be easy to code/tag within PGC. I'm curious to see if there will be other restrictions around challenge 'types' when the final guideline changes are announced.

Someone did mention one effect checkers could have on "streak" and "rush" challenges. Because Project-GC checkers don't have access to Lab Cache information, future streak/rush challenge caches might have to make it clear to geocachers that Lab Caches will not be counted. The "streak/rush" statistics that appear on a geocacher's Statistics page will not match up with the "streak/rush" statistics currently generated by Project-GC challenge checkers.

 

Similarly, the "Find Dates" calendar, "Milestones," and "Find Rate" information on a geocacher's Statistics page also will not match up with the Lab-less data that Project-GC utilizes.

 

This raises an interesting question. What information can a geocacher use to prove they have successfully completed a post-moratorium challenge cache? If the Project-GC challenge cache checker indicates my longest (Lab-less) streak is 47 consecutive days but my Groundspeak Statistics page indicates my longest (Lab-included) streak is 386 days, then can I claim a find on a post-moratorium 100-day streak challenge?

 

There are some indications that post-moratorium challenge caches might have to rely on the Project-GC challenge checkers as being the sole arbiter of successful completions:

 

Earlier in the thread there were a few good posts pointing out that a lab cache not being counted could have other consequences for otherwise valid challenges, like messing up milestones or leaving a gap in a streak if a lab cache was the geocacher's only find for that day. Oh well. Challenge cache hiders and seekers will need to ignore lab caches.

What if an unaware challenge cache owner fails to mention on their challenge cache listing page that Lab Caches are excluded from their post-moratorium challenge and an all-too-human volunteer reviewer fails to catch this omission? When a geocacher who used Lab Caches shows that they have successfully completed the challenge as it was laid out on the listing page (which did not exclude Lab Caches), will Groundspeak Appeals back the "successful" geocacher? Will that challenge cache be subject to archival for having a fallible Project-GC checker? Will the challenge cache listing page be edited to exclude Lab Caches? What about all the geocachers who are in mid-streak when the listing page is edited?

Yeah, I mentioned the discrepancy between geocaching.com statistics and PGC statistics back in post #33, then elaborated on the calendar filling in post #77. igator210 added the note about streaks in post #78. I wonder if a possible solution is to allow cachers to manually add their Lab Cache finds, similar to how Lab Caches are handled on mygeocachingprofile.com, but I'm not sure whether PGC can 'store' such data for a specific cacher or not. If not, then it could be quite onerous for some cachers to manually add their Lab Cache finds every time they want to run a checker where Lab Caches are relevant. A lack of storage would also pose a problem if a CC CO runs the checker for a CC finder, since the CC CO wouldn't be able to manually add of the CC finder's Lab Caches.

 

It seems odd, to me, that PGC statistics will now trump statistics on the geocaching.com website itself. It seems that some simple things that can easily be proven on a profile's Statistics page, such as cache icons or calendars, shouldn't need to rely on PGC checkers. But consider this exchange in post #219:

 

So to get a challenge approved you have to ask project gc to write you a macro first? What about challenges that are easily proven with the statistics provided by geocaching.com?

Or write it yourself, once Project-GC permits applications for new script writers.

 

We’re not going to put reviewers in the position of having to debate with COs about whether or not their challenge cache should require a checker. That would be a nightmare. Therefore, all challenge caches will require checkers.

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The other option is to delay it another year, because basically, Groundspeak stated that some solution to the problem was required, because the current situation was unmanageable.

Unfortunately GS has never said what was unmanageable about it. I could have sworn we were told by some insider a year ago that appeals of find logs was a minimal part of the problem, but this discussion about checkers is based on the assumption that COs commonly reject finds which are later reinstated on appeal. If that's the problem, I submit that there are easier and more effective ways of dealing with it that don't outlaw so many reasonable and enjoyable challenges.

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I would think that the challenge cache CO would work with the scripter/tagger both upfront and to address post-publication bugs through edits.

If a checker is written and that checker writer becomes inactive, maybe they become busy with other things or are otherwise unable to continue as a checker writer, then can another checker writer 'take over' the checker?

 

 

Yes, the source for all scripts and tags are available to everyone. It is possible for anyone with script author access to copy/paste a script and modify it in any way he/she sees fit. The CO would have to link to the new script/tag-combination and then the problem would be solved. Script authors also have access to older versions of their scripts. I'm not sure if history is available to everyone.

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I have also written other neat checker scripts such as the "Generic map script" used for validating for example DeLorme challenges, and other map-based challenges (with visualization of areas and qualifying caches on a map).

Are there any Thomas Guide scripts available? I haven't been able to find one. Thomas Guides are maps of smaller areas than Delorme, many times counties or cities.

The GenericPoygonChecker will take any set of polygons you feed it, Delorme map pages, Thomas guide map pages, nature reserves, islands, burrows, continents... your choice.

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Just chiming in with thoughts on a couple of the oft-repeated themes...

 

It's natural to speculate on what sort of challenges the checkers will and won't be able to handle. But I suggest it would be more fruitful to do so after the rest of the framework has been announced. I know that won't stop the speculation. But if it was me, I wouldn't attempt to determine whether a challenge checker could accomodate my challenge idea until I could study the framework in its entirety.

 

These kinds of caches have always been some of the most popular. The fact that you don't think enough people lobbied for them just demonstrates how completely interpreting the "input" was focused on the negative comments by people that don't like challenge caches at all and, for reasons I still don't understand, want them banned.

I only quote this particular comment because it represents a common refrain that I think deserves to be addressed.

 

It would be erroneous to think that any of the results of the moratorium are based on lobbying or lack thereof. We're not doing anything because one "side" yelled louder or the other "side" didn't yell loud enough. Rather, the decisions are based as much as possible on review of quantitative data. Of course, qualitative and anecdotal evidence also feed into the decision making. Many of the people who've been most intimately involved with the process have several years of experience with reviewing challenge caches and/or addressing challenge-related appeals.

 

If something is added after the moratorium (e.g. challenge checker), you can safely assume it's because the data showed a significant desire for it from players and/or reviewers. By contrast, if something is subtracted, you can assume it's because the data led to that decision. Of course, that doesn't mean everyone will quietly accept every aspect of the new framework. But perhaps at least a few of the protesters can acknowledge that the decisions were long-deliberated and thoughtful, even if the results aren't completely acceptable to them. Or perhaps not.

 

But back to the part about calling challenge caches "popular." In 2014 (the last full year before the moratorium began), only 2.4% of active users logged a challenge cache. Judging by Found It stats, Multi-Caches are roughly 8 times more popular than challenge caches. (But how often do you hear people say Multis are "popular"?) Wherigos are actually found more often than challenge caches, which surprised me. (I know, I know....it'll be argued that challenge cache popularity should be measured in other ways. That a lot of cache finds go into qualifying for that one challenge cache find, etc., etc. Nevertheless, this is some of the hard data we have to work with.)

 

Now, I say all of this as someone who personally loves challenge caches. Last I checked, I'd logged something like 1,400 of them. But I'm informed enough to know that the overwhelming majority of the community doesn't share my passion. Just because I like challenge caches a lot, and you like them a lot, and the people around us like them a lot, doesn't necessarily mean I'm ready to accept for a fact that they're "popular." Our main goal of this process to reduce the difficulty of reviewing them, but we also hope to see them become more popular for players before all is said and done.

 

Unfortunately GS has never said what was unmanageable about it.

I do a double-take whenever I see it implied that the reasons for the moratorium have not been made clear. Anyone needing a refresher can read the Help Center article.

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So rather than let the CO add the word to the list for future use in the checker, you'd rather they have to remember (or research a second, third, fourth time) whether or not the word is valid? If you write it down for future checks, why not add it to the list to make things easier on yourself?

 

First, every CO should be allowed to choose what they prefer. Second, I do not believe that a system where words are added over time will be allowed by Groundspeak and a system where the list of words has to be fixed from the beginning, is too inflexible and destroys all chances for creativity.

 

Once it's verified, the CO adds it to the list and doesn't have to worry about translating again.

 

How do you think that such a challenge would be worded? I'm quite convinced that the cache description of future challenge caches will need to be very precise what is allowed and what not.

 

Why? Just because it's easier? No one is required to use the service provided, even paying members.

 

Of course not but as soon some have these tools, the level of difficulty will go up. If you have an exam where pocket calculators allowed, the problems will be set up differently regardless of whether some students decide not to use the calculator.

 

We can still do it the "old-fashioned" way and look through our finds to determine if we qualify or not. I'm not a paying member and I go through all my finds to see if I qualify.

 

It's not a matter of being a paying member. Every member can make 10 checks per day.

 

Speaking generically, challenges do require you to find more caches to complete a goal. The thing I don't get is why that matters to anyone. Why does it matter if someone caches a lot more than anyone else? Why should people have to limit their caching to meet someone else's standards or philosophy? Caches are meant to be found (some more than others) and it doesn't matter to me if someone chooses to find 100 a day or 1 every month.

 

I do have the right to prefer challenges that are not much easier or even trivial (since already done) for cachers that cache a lot (or for a long time in some cases).

 

For example, I have a filled day grid but never worked on it. It's no achievement at all. If I go out and find 10 long distance hiking caches or 10 orienteering caches it does not happen by chance but deliberately.

You REALLY don't get what we are talking about do you?? In the checker for it to check ANYTHING related to words in the title it needs a list of valid words. Whether that's a short list eg: names of countries, or an open ended list eg: names of animals, it doesn't matter the checker has to have a list to check against.

 

My point was an open ended list eg: animals you aren't ever going to list every animal in every language so you make a decent stab at a list this gets written into the checker and the checker is published. Note the challenge says find 50 caches with animals in the name (or something like that).

 

Now as people log the cache the owner realises have missed some options so they update the list. This can then be fed back to the checker and the extra words added to the checker. The EXTREMELY SIMPLE YET IMPORTANT part you missed was that the challenge doesn't change at all so there is absolutely nothing for Groundspeak to allow or deny. So you are introducing a complete red herring suggesting Groundspeak won't allow extra names to be added. The challenge HASNT CHANGED. It's only the list of things the CO is prepared to accept that changes eg:someone gets clever and comes up with an animal the CO hadnt thought of. So the CHECKER is updated NOT he cache challenge.

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I'll wait and see how the challenge checker works on Noah's Ark Challenge (find thirteen pairs of caches wit a animal's name in the title.)

Will the checker be able to find the 'hen' in:

Hell's Kitchen's Kitchen!

POPS - Stonehendge

If it cannot, then LUA must be a shockingly poor programming language. In most languages, it's actually harder to find "hen" as a complete word.

The problem with this sort of challenge is not finding a word in a name that's trivial a CanadianRockies says. The problem is that the "list" of possible animals is endless, what language is the animals names in? What constitutes an animal, do birds, insects etc count? Challenges that have open ended lists are IMPOSSIBLE to write a comprehensive checker for. You can write a checker that does a decent job but it's only ever going to be as good as the list the checker author puts on the cache.

 

Thus open list challenges will almost certainly not be allowed as they cannot have a verifiable checker. To fix this a CO would need to define a list of valid words.

 

Wow. That's sad. A fun and interesting would be disallowed because the list is open-ended. Sounds like programmer error to me.

The nearby challenge cache asks for thirteen cache names which would cause a phobia problem: Example: Uranophobia: Fear of Heaven for: Pamachapura: Stone From Heaven.

So some fun challenges would not be acceptable because the programmer is incapable of providing a checker? Wow!

NO NO NO NO NO! The programmer is PERFECTLY CAPABLE of writing the checker. You have completely and utterly failed to understand what I wrote.

 

CHECKING a list of words is trivial.

PROVIDING the list of words isn't trivial.

 

So as a CO if you provide a list of valid words that meet your challenge then the checker can easily be written. If the list is open ended and the CO cannot provide a list of valid words then the checker will be incomplete.

 

The best compromise here is that the CO provides a long list of valid words and the list gets added to as enterprising cachers come up with new ones the CO sees as valid. These new words are then added to the checker. This is extra work but is achievable. The key point is that as a CO for that sort of challenge you could not expect to just lie back and have everyone else do the work you would need to maintain a list of valid words. So the onus for those sorts of caches is entirely on the CO actively maintaining a list of valid words.

 

Sounds to me that the programmer is incapable of providing the checker. As someone said: human minds work differently than computers. The programmer is incapable of providing the required checker. "Sorry. That challenge will not be approved because our programmers are incapable of providing the required checker."

Sad.

Sorry what part of the checker can easily be written do you not understand???

 

The problem is NOT writing the checker!!

The problem is NOT writing the checker!!

The problem is NOT writing the checker!!

The problem is NOT writing the checker!!

 

Is that clearer perhaps??

 

The problem is maintaining the list of valid words that the CO finds acceptable for her/his challenge. So the problem lies with the CO maintaining a list of valid words the problem is NOT with the programmer. How much clearer does that have to be for you to get it?

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I do a double-take whenever I see it implied that the reasons for the moratorium have not been made clear. Anyone needing a refresher can read the Help Center article.

 

With great respect, Rock ... the cited article isn't terribly informative, at least from where I sit. Let's look at the relevant part of the article you cite:

 

They are neither a separate cache type nor do they have a specific attribute, so the logging requirements are easily misunderstood.

 

Okay, that statement is pretty clear to me.

 

Challenge caches can also be very difficult to publish due to the large amount of subjectivity involved relative to other geocaches.

 

Where does this subjectivity show up? The article doesn't say.

 

I hate to say "I've never seen a problem with the challenges in my area, so there must not be a problem", like so many folks have said in these forums; that's a logical fallacy. But ... well, in my area, any of the challenge caches I've seen have had pretty clear qualifications posted. Perhaps that's an artifact of living in a "good region" with "good cache owners"; perhaps it's because I only see the challenge caches that are objective enough to clear the reviewing process. I've never had a good explanation of what level of subjectivity was involved with challenge caches. Can you elaborate?

 

While they account for only ~1% of all geocache submissions, challenge caches comprise the bulk of appeals made to Geocaching HQ.

 

What kind of appeals? Appeals by prospective cache owners who were denied publication? Appeals regarding whether or not a given finder qualifies for the challenge, or adequately demonstrated their qualifications? Which types of appeals are most common? Which types are most time-consuming? None of that information is in the announcement. Can you elaborate?

 

Historically, Groundspeak chose to handle all these problems behind the scenes, so that the vast majority of geocachers wouldn't know about them. I can appreciate that. John Godfrey Saxe said "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made." I suspect the cache approval process might fall into a similar category.

 

But one consequence of that decision is that very few of us who aren't reviewers have any idea of the scope of the problem that Groundspeak is trying to address. Since we don't see the "bad caches" or the "bad fights over bad caches", we don't really understand the problem.

 

Alas, I fear that the "partial announcement" made by Groundspeak last week didn't help matters much. Yes, I know, the one-year anniversary of the moratorium was over, and cachers wanted to know if/when the moratorium would be lifted. While hearing about the challenge checker requirement certainly piqued the interest of many people (including me), it also invited massive speculation about how this new requirement interacts with the rest of the caching world. Hearing that there are other changes forthcoming means that we're spending a lot of time here debating issues that probably are moot ... but you can't tell us that, because doing so would be yet another "partial announcement", inviting even more fruitless speculation.

 

And all of this is offered with the greatest respect. For $30/year, I get an enormous amount of pleasure out of this obsession sport, including challenge caches. I had been thinking about creating my first challenge cache when the moratorium was put into place; I'm content to wait and see the full story to see if my challenge cache idea will pass review. I appreciate all the work that the men, women, and dogs who review caches put into this sport so that we can enjoy ourselves looking for Tupperware in the woods.

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I'll wait and see how the challenge checker works on Noah's Ark Challenge (find thirteen pairs of caches wit a animal's name in the title.)

Will the checker be able to find the 'hen' in:

Hell's Kitchen's Kitchen!

POPS - Stonehendge

If it cannot, then LUA must be a shockingly poor programming language. In most languages, it's actually harder to find "hen" as a complete word.

The problem with this sort of challenge is not finding a word in a name that's trivial a CanadianRockies says. The problem is that the "list" of possible animals is endless, what language is the animals names in? What constitutes an animal, do birds, insects etc count? Challenges that have open ended lists are IMPOSSIBLE to write a comprehensive checker for. You can write a checker that does a decent job but it's only ever going to be as good as the list the checker author puts on the cache.

 

Thus open list challenges will almost certainly not be allowed as they cannot have a verifiable checker. To fix this a CO would need to define a list of valid words.

 

Wow. That's sad. A fun and interesting would be disallowed because the list is open-ended. Sounds like programmer error to me.

The nearby challenge cache asks for thirteen cache names which would cause a phobia problem: Example: Uranophobia: Fear of Heaven for: Pamachapura: Stone From Heaven.

So some fun challenges would not be acceptable because the programmer is incapable of providing a checker? Wow!

NO NO NO NO NO! The programmer is PERFECTLY CAPABLE of writing the checker. You have completely and utterly failed to understand what I wrote.

 

CHECKING a list of words is trivial.

PROVIDING the list of words isn't trivial.

 

So as a CO if you provide a list of valid words that meet your challenge then the checker can easily be written. If the list is open ended and the CO cannot provide a list of valid words then the checker will be incomplete.

 

The best compromise here is that the CO provides a long list of valid words and the list gets added to as enterprising cachers come up with new ones the CO sees as valid. These new words are then added to the checker. This is extra work but is achievable. The key point is that as a CO for that sort of challenge you could not expect to just lie back and have everyone else do the work you would need to maintain a list of valid words. So the onus for those sorts of caches is entirely on the CO actively maintaining a list of valid words.

 

Sounds to me that the programmer is incapable of providing the checker. As someone said: human minds work differently than computers. The programmer is incapable of providing the required checker. "Sorry. That challenge will not be approved because our programmers are incapable of providing the required checker."

Sad.

Sorry what part of the checker can easily be written do you not understand???

 

The problem is NOT writing the checker!!

The problem is NOT writing the checker!!

The problem is NOT writing the checker!!

The problem is NOT writing the checker!!

 

Is that clearer perhaps??

 

The problem is maintaining the list of valid words that the CO finds acceptable for her/his challenge. So the problem lies with the CO maintaining a list of valid words the problem is NOT with the programmer. How much clearer does that have to be for you to get it?

 

Well, if you're going to yell!

Yes. I comprehend. You are incapable of writing the checker.

Shall I yell back?

You are INCAPABLE OF WRITING THE CHECKER.

Is that clearer?

What do I not understand? That you are incapable of writing the checker! So, many interesting Challenge Caches will no longer be approved because you are incapable of writing the checker. Seems clear to me.

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I'll wait and see how the challenge checker works on Noah's Ark Challenge (find thirteen pairs of caches wit a animal's name in the title.)

Will the checker be able to find the 'hen' in:

Hell's Kitchen's Kitchen!

POPS - Stonehendge

If it cannot, then LUA must be a shockingly poor programming language. In most languages, it's actually harder to find "hen" as a complete word.

The problem with this sort of challenge is not finding a word in a name that's trivial a CanadianRockies says. The problem is that the "list" of possible animals is endless, what language is the animals names in? What constitutes an animal, do birds, insects etc count? Challenges that have open ended lists are IMPOSSIBLE to write a comprehensive checker for. You can write a checker that does a decent job but it's only ever going to be as good as the list the checker author puts on the cache.

 

Thus open list challenges will almost certainly not be allowed as they cannot have a verifiable checker. To fix this a CO would need to define a list of valid words.

 

Wow. That's sad. A fun and interesting would be disallowed because the list is open-ended. Sounds like programmer error to me.

The nearby challenge cache asks for thirteen cache names which would cause a phobia problem: Example: Uranophobia: Fear of Heaven for: Pamachapura: Stone From Heaven.

So some fun challenges would not be acceptable because the programmer is incapable of providing a checker? Wow!

NO NO NO NO NO! The programmer is PERFECTLY CAPABLE of writing the checker. You have completely and utterly failed to understand what I wrote.

 

CHECKING a list of words is trivial.

PROVIDING the list of words isn't trivial.

 

So as a CO if you provide a list of valid words that meet your challenge then the checker can easily be written. If the list is open ended and the CO cannot provide a list of valid words then the checker will be incomplete.

 

The best compromise here is that the CO provides a long list of valid words and the list gets added to as enterprising cachers come up with new ones the CO sees as valid. These new words are then added to the checker. This is extra work but is achievable. The key point is that as a CO for that sort of challenge you could not expect to just lie back and have everyone else do the work you would need to maintain a list of valid words. So the onus for those sorts of caches is entirely on the CO actively maintaining a list of valid words.

 

Sounds to me that the programmer is incapable of providing the checker. As someone said: human minds work differently than computers. The programmer is incapable of providing the required checker. "Sorry. That challenge will not be approved because our programmers are incapable of providing the required checker."

Sad.

Sorry what part of the checker can easily be written do you not understand???

 

The problem is NOT writing the checker!!

The problem is NOT writing the checker!!

The problem is NOT writing the checker!!

The problem is NOT writing the checker!!

 

Is that clearer perhaps??

 

The problem is maintaining the list of valid words that the CO finds acceptable for her/his challenge. So the problem lies with the CO maintaining a list of valid words the problem is NOT with the programmer. How much clearer does that have to be for you to get it?

 

Well, if you're going to yell!

Yes. I comprehend. You are incapable of writing the checker.

Shall I yell back?

You are INCAPABLE OF WRITING THE CHECKER.

Is that clearer?

What do I not understand? That you are incapable of writing the checker! So, many interesting Challenge Caches will no longer be approved because you are incapable of writing the checker. Seems clear to me.

Doh!!!

 

The checker is ALREADY written. all that it needs is the list of valid words. This is a very very simple concept why are you struggling to understand?

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Some of my favourite challenge caches have been thematic (25 Christmas words), letter-based (first letter of caches spelling out a phrase) or map-based (caches in X squares on walking map number X) - none of these are going to be possible and it will all be down to number crunching. To improve what exactly? Big thumbs down from me.

Sorry why do you think these won't be possible?

 

There are already a range or checkers that are letter based based on first letter or cache or last letter, I vaguely recall seeing one based on most frequent letter in cache name. There are also several checkers based on various popular US map options. The Christmas words one is the same as any other word challenge as long as the CO can provide the list of words the checker already exists and just needs the list of words in the config tag.

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Assuming Groundspeak even allows open-ended, amendable lists to be used in future challenge cache checkers, the next question is how long will Groundspeak allow those lists to go unmaintained when a list modification is pending? Even with 361 current tag-writers, there's no guarantee that any of them will get around to making the necessary modification within, say, a month. Will Groundspeak allow a checker to go unmaintained for more than the "recommended" duration as long as the challenge cache owner has made a modification request to Project-GC within that "recommended" time period? Hopefully, they will.

There is a misconception buried in this. All challenge checkers at Project-GC are created by volonteers, i.e. cachers (who may or may not be the challenge cache owner). That means that there won't be any "modification request to Project-GC". You always talk to the specific cacher who made the checker/tag.

I'm sorry for my confusion. But your clarification only heightens my concern.

 

There certainly might be instances (e.g., illness or extended vacation) when the Project-GC volunteer who created the tag for the checker associated with my challenge cache might be unable to modify it within a "recommended" time period that Groundspeak might desire. I hope Groundspeak would take this into consideration and/or Project-GC would allow another tagger to make the necessary modifications when that challenge cache is subject to archival.

This is already the situation any checker writer or tagger can change the tag on a cache and update it. This then generates a new tag/cache/config combo. The CO then just needs to modify the link to the checker.

 

Let me given a very basic example. Challenge find 100 caches starting with an A. The challenge is tagged with a script that checks for starting letter, the config is set as 100, A to indicate 100 caches starting with A. This generates a URL for the checker ending something like /12345 indicating that was the 12,345th combo of tag, cache & config on the system.

 

After a while a cacher gets a failure complains to CO and sees that the problem is that the checker was case sensitive and the CO wasn't meaning caches beginning with A but caches beinging with capital or lower case A. A change request is made and someone else retags the cache with the same checker but changes the config to 100, Aa. To allow a lower case A. This then generates a new URL ending /23,456 the CO then updates the URL for the checker on the cache page with the new tagged combo.

 

This does not in any way rely on the original checker tagger being active.

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Assuming Groundspeak even allows open-ended, amendable lists to be used in future challenge cache checkers, the next question is how long will Groundspeak allow those lists to go unmaintained when a list modification is pending? Even with 361 current tag-writers, there's no guarantee that any of them will get around to making the necessary modification within, say, a month. Will Groundspeak allow a checker to go unmaintained for more than the "recommended" duration as long as the challenge cache owner has made a modification request to Project-GC within that "recommended" time period? Hopefully, they will.

There is a misconception buried in this. All challenge checkers at Project-GC are created by volonteers, i.e. cachers (who may or may not be the challenge cache owner). That means that there won't be any "modification request to Project-GC". You always talk to the specific cacher who made the checker/tag.

I'm sorry for my confusion. But your clarification only heightens my concern.

 

There certainly might be instances (e.g., illness or extended vacation) when the Project-GC volunteer who created the tag for the checker associated with my challenge cache might be unable to modify it within a "recommended" time period that Groundspeak might desire. I hope Groundspeak would take this into consideration and/or Project-GC would allow another tagger to make the necessary modifications when that challenge cache is subject to archival.

This is already the situation any checker writer or tagger can change the tag on a cache and update it. This then generates a new tag/cache/config combo. The CO then just needs to modify the link to the checker.

 

Let me given a very basic example. Challenge find 100 caches starting with an A. The challenge is tagged with a script that checks for starting letter, the config is set as 100, A to indicate 100 caches starting with A. This generates a URL for the checker ending something like /12345 indicating that was the 12,345th combo of tag, cache & config on the system.

 

After a while a cacher gets a failure complains to CO and sees that the problem is that the checker was case sensitive and the CO wasn't meaning caches beginning with A but caches beinging with capital or lower case A. A change request is made and someone else retags the cache with the same checker but changes the config to 100, Aa. To allow a lower case A. This then generates a new URL ending /23,456 the CO then updates the URL for the checker on the cache page with the new tagged combo.

 

This does not in any way rely on the original checker tagger being active.

It seems there is some discrepancy between what you and pinkunicorn have expressed about how the checker writing/tagging process works. I've bolded/colored the statement from pinkunicorn that basically implies a CC CO should reach out to the original writer/tagger with edit requests. In which case, there is some reliance on the original writer/tagger. At least, there will need to be some way to know whether that original writer/tagger is still active so that a CC CO will know they need to look for help for someone else.

 

If the process of editing checkers doesn't get worked out, then I fear the guidelines will say that checkers cannot be edited and should be infallible from the start or else the CC is subject to archival. It has already been expressed by Rock Chalk that checkers should be infallible or CC's are subject to archival. Again, the details of how this will all work is still unknown. This means that there are some challenges where we can envision it's possible to create checkers, but we still don't know if the as-of-yet announced guidelines will allow them.

 

As I noted in post #424:

I hope that whatever system is put into place for requesting checkers/tags considers how requests will be tracked. Besides the issue of non-response from a checker writer/tagger, there's also the possibility of wasted work effort. For example, a CC CO requests a update to a list of words in their CC's checker, the original writer/tagger doesn't respond for x days and so the CC CO asks another writer/tagger to make a copy with the requested edits. Unbeknownst to the CC CO or this second writer/tagger, the original writer/tagger is working on the edits and now there are two 'updated' versions of the checker. I'm sure the second writer/tagger would've preferred not to spend time on making the copy.

 

It's an issue of how workflows will be managed to avoid rework, but also to avoid CC's from being archived for non-maintenance. A bit of a balancing act.

 

ETA: I understand that restrictions were light for tagging pre-moratorium, but PGC has stated there will be new restrictions for tagging rights post-moratorium. As of yet, those new restrictions have not been announced. So, the level of concern fluctuates based on the level of restrictions.

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Using a specific example, let's say I've found 84 of 100 caches with an animal name in the title. The old way had cachers sifting through each cache name manually in order to see if it had an animal in the title.

One of the interesting features of challenge caches that require a complicated amount of data mining is that they encourage people to actually accept the challenge and go out to find 100 more caches with animals in the name since it's almost as easy and much more fun than sifting through thousands of cache names looking for past finds that fit the requirements.

 

Of course, requiring a checker kills that, too.

 

What really kills challenges of that nature is when someone - usually the CCO or one of their friends - starts spamming the area with x number of micros in rubbish locations with animal names in their title just to bump up the number of finds on their challenge and/or their micro's with animal names in their title. Where is the challenge in that?

 

That sort of practice is just another part of the race to the bottom - caches placed purely for the purpose of bumping up points rather than for some genuine value. Challenge caches fuel poor placements - always have, always will.

 

On top of that the crappy caches placed lead newcomers to the game to think that this is what it's all about and either recoil in disbelief / disgust and give up before they ever discover something worth finding or else go out and place crappy caches of their own - accelerating the race to the bottom at an ever increasing rate.

 

And then - unbelievably - the CC owners complain that the area is rammed with crappy caches.

 

Hopefully whatever GS has come up with will at least rid us of these aspects of challenge caches that drive the game faster and faster into the ground.

You are lumping all challenge caches together and making a flat statement (bolded above) that is untrue in a couple of ways:

1. Some CC's may inspire more caches, but they aren't all "crappy caches". Besides, crappy caches pre-date CC's and most have no bearing on any CC.

2. Some CC's can not in any way inspire more caches, of whatever quality. I started the <State> History Challenges years ago. How can "find all the cache still around that were placed during the first year" inspire anyone to place a cache for that challenge? There are many other CC's with a historical bent.

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My point was an open ended list eg: animals you aren't ever going to list every animal in every language so you make a decent stab at a list this gets written into the checker and the checker is published. Note the challenge says find 50 caches with animals in the name (or something like that).

Actually I think the point here is that that challenge wouldn't be valid, because a checker can't check an open-ended category of words without a list. If the challenge description implies "any animal name", no checker could possibly check for that. But if the challenge description implies "any animal name found in this list of accepted names", then it is consistent with the checker, which uses that list as provided by the CO.

I think people who focus on 'open ended' challenge are correct that a checker can't be written. But, that kind of checker technically requires a judgement call from the human CCO anyway, and as I mentioned earlier, in a way they are in fact keeping a mental 'list' of accepted names, and doing cross-references to 'add' to that list whenever a new finder suggests a new name. So in theory, we come back to the theoretical checker that verifies against a list of acceptable words, and can be added to by the CO. The means the problem comes down to consistency of the challenge requirement description with what the checker actually checks. In every case, the checker must check against a list, so to be valid, the challenge description would have to in some way state that list, otherwise the checker results (checked against a list) won't be consistent with the described requirements (any possible animal name).

Am I making sense? ;P

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I do a double-take whenever I see it implied that the reasons for the moratorium have not been made clear. Anyone needing a refresher can read the Help Center article.

 

With great respect, Rock ... the cited article isn't terribly informative, at least from where I sit. Let's look at the relevant part of the article you cite:

 

They are neither a separate cache type nor do they have a specific attribute, so the logging requirements are easily misunderstood.

 

Okay, that statement is pretty clear to me.

 

Challenge caches can also be very difficult to publish due to the large amount of subjectivity involved relative to other geocaches.

 

Where does this subjectivity show up? The article doesn't say.

 

I hate to say "I've never seen a problem with the challenges in my area, so there must not be a problem", like so many folks have said in these forums; that's a logical fallacy. But ... well, in my area, any of the challenge caches I've seen have had pretty clear qualifications posted. Perhaps that's an artifact of living in a "good region" with "good cache owners"; perhaps it's because I only see the challenge caches that are objective enough to clear the reviewing process. I've never had a good explanation of what level of subjectivity was involved with challenge caches. Can you elaborate?

 

While they account for only ~1% of all geocache submissions, challenge caches comprise the bulk of appeals made to Geocaching HQ.

 

What kind of appeals? Appeals by prospective cache owners who were denied publication? Appeals regarding whether or not a given finder qualifies for the challenge, or adequately demonstrated their qualifications? Which types of appeals are most common? Which types are most time-consuming? None of that information is in the announcement. Can you elaborate?

 

Historically, Groundspeak chose to handle all these problems behind the scenes, so that the vast majority of geocachers wouldn't know about them. I can appreciate that. John Godfrey Saxe said "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made." I suspect the cache approval process might fall into a similar category.

 

But one consequence of that decision is that very few of us who aren't reviewers have any idea of the scope of the problem that Groundspeak is trying to address. Since we don't see the "bad caches" or the "bad fights over bad caches", we don't really understand the problem.

 

Alas, I fear that the "partial announcement" made by Groundspeak last week didn't help matters much. Yes, I know, the one-year anniversary of the moratorium was over, and cachers wanted to know if/when the moratorium would be lifted. While hearing about the challenge checker requirement certainly piqued the interest of many people (including me), it also invited massive speculation about how this new requirement interacts with the rest of the caching world. Hearing that there are other changes forthcoming means that we're spending a lot of time here debating issues that probably are moot ... but you can't tell us that, because doing so would be yet another "partial announcement", inviting even more fruitless speculation.

 

And all of this is offered with the greatest respect. For $30/year, I get an enormous amount of pleasure out of this obsession sport, including challenge caches. I had been thinking about creating my first challenge cache when the moratorium was put into place; I'm content to wait and see the full story to see if my challenge cache idea will pass review. I appreciate all the work that the men, women, and dogs who review caches put into this sport so that we can enjoy ourselves looking for Tupperware in the woods.

Thank you for this thoughtful and respectful post. It motivated me to go back and search for my posts in the weeks and months following the moratorium, that contained the word "challenge" in them. I saw more than a half dozen posts, written from the heart of a veteran reviewer who also loves finding challenge caches as a player. I explained that the appeals volume (to both reviewers and official appeals to HQ) was disproportionately occupied by challenge cache hiders. That the community only saw the challenges which qualified for publication -- in many cases, after hours of work to get them in shape. That challenge caches were universally recognized by the reviewers as the number one time drain out of all cache reviews -- they were the 2015 version of what virtual cache reviews were like in 2005.

 

My posts largely fell on deaf ears, so I stopped typing them. It wasn't for lack of trying to communicate.

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Thank you for this thoughtful and respectful post. It motivated me to go back and search for my posts in the weeks and months following the moratorium, that contained the word "challenge" in them. I saw more than a half dozen posts, written from the heart of a veteran reviewer who also loves finding challenge caches as a player. I explained that the appeals volume (to both reviewers and official appeals to HQ) was disproportionately occupied by challenge cache hiders. That the community only saw the challenges which qualified for publication -- in many cases, after hours of work to get them in shape. That challenge caches were universally recognized by the reviewers as the number one time drain out of all cache reviews -- they were the 2015 version of what virtual cache reviews were like in 2005.

 

My posts largely fell on deaf ears, so I stopped typing them. It wasn't for lack of trying to communicate.

 

Perhaps this will be addressed in the full frame work, but the bolded statement is what bothers me. What was the work needed to get them in shape and how is it that the PGC script writers can do this more efficiently than the GC volunteers and appeals desk? It seems if the volunteers had to put a lot of work into making the challenge cache acceptable we just moved that over to the PGC volunteers. I'm missing something I'm afraid.

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Thank you for this thoughtful and respectful post. It motivated me to go back and search for my posts in the weeks and months following the moratorium, that contained the word "challenge" in them. I saw more than a half dozen posts, written from the heart of a veteran reviewer who also loves finding challenge caches as a player. I explained that the appeals volume (to both reviewers and official appeals to HQ) was disproportionately occupied by challenge cache hiders. That the community only saw the challenges which qualified for publication -- in many cases, after hours of work to get them in shape. That challenge caches were universally recognized by the reviewers as the number one time drain out of all cache reviews -- they were the 2015 version of what virtual cache reviews were like in 2005.

 

My posts largely fell on deaf ears, so I stopped typing them. It wasn't for lack of trying to communicate.

 

Perhaps this will be addressed in the full frame work, but the bolded statement is what bothers me. What was the work needed to get them in shape and how is it that the PGC script writers can do this more efficiently than the GC volunteers and appeals desk? It seems if the volunteers had to put a lot of work into making the challenge cache acceptable we just moved that over to the PGC volunteers. I'm missing something I'm afraid.

As stated in the original post by Rock Chalk, it really doesn't have anything to do with the Review/Appeals process:

 

This is one of the changes we’re implementing based on feedback from community surveys. We hope that challenge checkers will make it easier for players to determine their qualifications for challenge caches.

 

Presumably, when the guidelines are announced, the other aspects of the problem will be addressed.

Edited by Touchstone
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I'd be more interested in seeing what sorts of challenges that currently exist can't have checkers written for them, and what would have to change either on the GC side or on the project-gc side to make the viable.

 

It's natural to speculate on what sort of challenges the checkers will and won't be able to handle. But I suggest it would be more fruitful to do so after the rest of the framework has been announced. I know that won't stop the speculation. But if it was me, I wouldn't attempt to determine whether a challenge checker could accomodate my challenge idea until I could study the framework in its entirety.

Groundspeak might want to coordinate better with its forum moderators.

 

Personally, I was pleased when a moderator asked for forum feedback on what we knew about potential problems that might exist with Project-GC checkers validating challenge caches. If issues are exposed before the moratorium is lifted, then maybe Groundspeak and Project-GC could reduce those problems before the entire framework is finalized.

 

For example, if Groundspeak values Waymarking and/or benchmarking challenges, then maybe they could expose those databases to Project-GC checkers sooner rather than later. Or incorporate Lab Cache information into their API sooner rather than later. Or perhaps back away from the notion that the checkers have to be the sole arbiters of whether geocachers successfully complete challenges. Or maybe compromise a bit and allow open-ended, amendable lists for checkers instead of requiring closed, inflexible lists.

 

Of course, it's certainly possible that Groundspeak has been fully aware of these issues for months and already has taken all of them into account as they finalize their new challenge cache framework. But it seems just a tad arrogant to me to assume that nobody in the forums could possibly have come up with a potential problem that Groundspeak hadn't already considered.

 

Sorry for trying to help out.

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Some of my favourite challenge caches have been thematic (25 Christmas words), letter-based (first letter of caches spelling out a phrase) or map-based (caches in X squares on walking map number X) - none of these are going to be possible and it will all be down to number crunching. To improve what exactly? Big thumbs down from me.

Sorry why do you think these won't be possible?

 

There are already a range or checkers that are letter based based on first letter or cache or last letter, I vaguely recall seeing one based on most frequent letter in cache name. There are also several checkers based on various popular US map options. The Christmas words one is the same as any other word challenge as long as the CO can provide the list of words the checker already exists and just needs the list of words in the config tag.

 

One would need to provide the list of currently accepted words in the cache description and that's restricting creativity a lot.

While I personally would not set up a Christmas challenge cache, I would certainly not start out with a full list in my head just in case I owned such a cache. The nice part would be to see what people come up with.

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I do have the right to prefer challenges that are not much easier or even trivial (since already done) for cachers that cache a lot (or for a long time in some cases).

 

For example, I have a filled day grid but never worked on it. It's no achievement at all. If I go out and find 10 long distance hiking caches or 10 orienteering caches it does not happen by chance but deliberately.

You REALLY don't get what we are talking about do you?? In the checker for it to check ANYTHING related to words in the title it needs a list of valid words. Whether that's a short list eg: names of countries, or an open ended list eg: names of animals, it doesn't matter the checker has to have a list to check against.

 

I know very well what I'm talking about. Of course a PCG needs a list, but a human being does not.

 

My point was an open ended list eg: animals you aren't ever going to list every animal in every language so you make a decent stab at a list this gets written into the checker and the checker is published. Note the challenge says find 50 caches with animals in the name (or something like that).

 

I do not believe that a challenge cache gets published if no list is provided in the cache description and if the checker gets updated after every find. That would leave too much freedom and would not result in what Groundspeak strives for.

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There is a misconception buried in this. All challenge checkers at Project-GC are created by volonteers, i.e. cachers (who may or may not be the challenge cache owner). That means that there won't be any "modification request to Project-GC". You always talk to the specific cacher who made the checker/tag.

I'm sorry for my confusion. But your clarification only heightens my concern.

 

There certainly might be instances (e.g., illness or extended vacation) when the Project-GC volunteer who created the tag for the checker associated with my challenge cache might be unable to modify it within a "recommended" time period that Groundspeak might desire. I hope Groundspeak would take this into consideration and/or Project-GC would allow another tagger to make the necessary modifications when that challenge cache is subject to archival.

This is already the situation any checker writer or tagger can change the tag on a cache and update it. This then generates a new tag/cache/config combo. The CO then just needs to modify the link to the checker.

 

Let me given a very basic example. Challenge find 100 caches starting with an A. The challenge is tagged with a script that checks for starting letter, the config is set as 100, A to indicate 100 caches starting with A. This generates a URL for the checker ending something like /12345 indicating that was the 12,345th combo of tag, cache & config on the system.

 

After a while a cacher gets a failure complains to CO and sees that the problem is that the checker was case sensitive and the CO wasn't meaning caches beginning with A but caches beinging with capital or lower case A. A change request is made and someone else retags the cache with the same checker but changes the config to 100, Aa. To allow a lower case A. This then generates a new URL ending /23,456 the CO then updates the URL for the checker on the cache page with the new tagged combo.

 

This does not in any way rely on the original checker tagger being active.

It seems there is some discrepancy between what you and pinkunicorn have expressed about how the checker writing/tagging process works. I've bolded/colored the statement from pinkunicorn that basically implies a CC CO should reach out to the original writer/tagger with edit requests. In which case, there is some reliance on the original writer/tagger. At least, there will need to be some way to know whether that original writer/tagger is still active so that a CC CO will know they need to look for help for someone else.

 

If the process of editing checkers doesn't get worked out, then I fear the guidelines will say that checkers cannot be edited and should be infallible from the start or else the CC is subject to archival. It has already been expressed by Rock Chalk that checkers should be infallible or CC's are subject to archival. Again, the details of how this will all work is still unknown. This means that there are some challenges where we can envision it's possible to create checkers, but we still don't know if the as-of-yet announced guidelines will allow them.

 

Instead of "You always talk to...", I should have written something "It is best if you always start by talking to...". It's perfectly possible to work like ShammyLevva describes and just create a new tag when there is a problem with the old one. If the change is done that way the old tag will still be there and show up in searches. That's not a problem for people who go to the cache page and check from there if they are qualified to log the cache.

 

An interesting question, though, is how multiple checkers work with the automatic checkers. For paying users of Project-GC, all challenge checkers are run regularly. This is done so that all maps can display a red X or a green checkbox in the corner of the challenge icon on all maps so that you see easily which challenges you are allowed to log. I'm not sure how this works if there are multiple checkers for the same challenge (which is perfectly possible) but they report different results.

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In 2014 (the last full year before the moratorium began), only 2.4% of active users logged a challenge cache. Judging by Found It stats, Multi-Caches are roughly 8 times more popular than challenge caches. (But how often do you hear people say Multis are "popular"?) Wherigos are actually found more often than challenge caches, which surprised me.

 

Did you also look into this from a regional point of view? The challenge caches are very unevenly distributed. In my area there are very few challenge caches. I actually have written more notes for challenge caches than qualifying finds as I visited the final for some reason (e.g. being with a friend, or wanting to know where the cache is hidden in case of a challenge cache with a puzzle) but have not qualified and in many cases will never qualify. Most of the existing challenge caches in Austria direct themselves to those who are willing to go on power runs or cache every day (e.g. visit at least 8 different cache types per day in a second country - I do not even have 8 cache types in my country over 13.5 years of caching, have a streak of 500 days etc, find at least 100 caches on one day etc).

 

Apart from the areas with very few challenge caches, there are also areas with many of them and even challenge cache trails. There there will be cachers who get so annoyed by this that they will decide to do no challenge caches either while they certainly might do an occasional challenge cache they find attractive.

 

It would be interesting to know how many challenge caches are logged on average in areas with a resonable number of challenge caches, neither very low nor too high.

 

Our main goal of this process to reduce the difficulty of reviewing them, but we also hope to see them become more popular for players before all is said and done.

 

I don't think that the second part will work out. All of the number related challenge caches can easily be checked automatically while the ones that could attract other audiences can't.

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Using a specific example, let's say I've found 84 of 100 caches with an animal name in the title. The old way had cachers sifting through each cache name manually in order to see if it had an animal in the title.

One of the interesting features of challenge caches that require a complicated amount of data mining is that they encourage people to actually accept the challenge and go out to find 100 more caches with animals in the name since it's almost as easy and much more fun than sifting through thousands of cache names looking for past finds that fit the requirements.

 

Of course, requiring a checker kills that, too.

 

What really kills challenges of that nature is when someone - usually the CCO or one of their friends - starts spamming the area with x number of micros in rubbish locations with animal names in their title just to bump up the number of finds on their challenge and/or their micro's with animal names in their title. Where is the challenge in that?

 

That sort of practice is just another part of the race to the bottom - caches placed purely for the purpose of bumping up points rather than for some genuine value. Challenge caches fuel poor placements - always have, always will.

 

On top of that the crappy caches placed lead newcomers to the game to think that this is what it's all about and either recoil in disbelief / disgust and give up before they ever discover something worth finding or else go out and place crappy caches of their own - accelerating the race to the bottom at an ever increasing rate.

 

And then - unbelievably - the CC owners complain that the area is rammed with crappy caches.

 

Hopefully whatever GS has come up with will at least rid us of these aspects of challenge caches that drive the game faster and faster into the ground.

You are lumping all challenge caches together and making a flat statement (bolded above) that is untrue in a couple of ways:

1. Some CC's may inspire more caches, but they aren't all "crappy caches". Besides, crappy caches pre-date CC's and most have no bearing on any CC.

2. Some CC's can not in any way inspire more caches, of whatever quality. I started the <State> History Challenges years ago. How can "find all the cache still around that were placed during the first year" inspire anyone to place a cache for that challenge? There are many other CC's with a historical bent.

 

Given the number of quotes from different people I'm not sure which of us you're taking issue with but just in case it's me, the point I made is perfectly correct in the context it was made.

 

I now return you to your normal programming (no pun intended but I liked it so I left it in).

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