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I too had problems with the rejection of the Bi-Polar challenge. Guideline 10 (user-defined polygons) was the cited reason. Lines of latitude are not under user control, unlike polygon sets.

 

Did you try to ask whether a formulation along the lines of what AnnaMoritz suggested would be ok?

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I too had problems with the rejection of the Bi-Polar challenge. Guideline 10 (user-defined polygons) was the cited reason. Lines of latitude are not under user control, unlike polygon sets.

Did you try to ask whether a formulation along the lines of what AnnaMoritz suggested would be ok?

And if they say it would be OK, can you ask why the original was rejected for no reason other than its wording?

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I too had problems with the rejection of the Bi-Polar challenge. Guideline 10 (user-defined polygons) was the cited reason. Lines of latitude are not under user control, unlike polygon sets.

Did you try to ask whether a formulation along the lines of what AnnaMoritz suggested would be ok?

And if they say it would be OK, can you ask why the original was rejected for no reason other than its wording?

 

I wouldn't count on degrees any more, who knows whether there will be a new "not acceptable" for angles. Sticking to the explicitly allowed counties/regions seems more promising.

 

If corresponding counties/regions give a similar result compared to the archived challenges (minus the 5 russian arctic caches that would be lost because they can't be addressed by region or county) there shouldn't be a problem as county is acceptable and there are already cachers fulfilling the requirements.

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It wasn't up for long and 5 people passed the checker.

That is more than I thought.

 

That doesn't surprise me at all. Not too few people that travel (especially from Germany and from neighboring countries) travel a lot and far, some are very 'well-rounded' geocachers across almost everything.

 

Example: I know of two Austrians (maybe there are more) that even would be successful for a challenge that combines (numbers for geocachers from Austria for reference where easily available)

 

finds on 6 continents

more than 30 countries (78 Austrians)

minimum 15 cache types

minimum 1500 caching days (153 Austrians)

minimum 115 souvenirs (17 Austrians)

minimum 2 DT loops (125 Austrians)

(real) caches above 4000m or below -70m

(real visit) Antarctica (1 Austrian) OR Scandinavian counties N > 66.5° (ca. 154 Austrians)

APE in Brazil (21 Austrians) OR > 800 find on one calendar day (4 Austrians for one day, probably more for the allowed one calendar day)

Groundspeak Blockparty (22 Austrians)

GIGA-Event (473 Austrians)

 

There would be enough audience from Austria and neighboring Germany and Czech Republic for such a challenge as it directed at geocachers that travel a lot. Like Jasmer, which is connected to traveling far for Europeans. Or like the Bi-Polar-Challenge, which is also connected to traveling far.

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It wasn't up for long and 5 people passed the checker.

That is more than I thought.

 

That doesn't surprise me at all. Not too few people that travel (especially from Germany and from neighboring countries) travel a lot and far, some are very 'well-rounded' geocachers across almost everything.

 

Example: I know of two Austrians (maybe there are more) that even would be successful for a challenge that combines (numbers for geocachers from Austria for reference where easily available)

 

finds on 6 continents

more than 30 countries (78 Austrians)

minimum 15 cache types

minimum 1500 caching days (153 Austrians)

minimum 115 souvenirs (17 Austrians)

minimum 2 DT loops (125 Austrians)

(real) caches above 4000m or below -70m

(real visit) Antarctica (1 Austrian) OR Scandinavian counties N > 66.5° (ca. 154 Austrians)

APE in Brazil (21 Austrians) OR > 800 find on one calendar day (4 Austrians for one day, probably more for the allowed one calendar day)

Groundspeak Blockparty (22 Austrians)

GIGA-Event (473 Austrians)

 

There would be enough audience from Austria and neighboring Germany and Czech Republic for such a challenge as it directed at geocachers that travel a lot. Like Jasmer, which is connected to traveling far for Europeans. Or like the Bi-Polar-Challenge, which is also connected to traveling far.

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I am the CO of the Bi-Polar Challenge and I submitted a proposal to the reviewer that breaks down the regions into countries and counties. I'm waiting to hear back. The volunteers at Project-GC have been a great help.

Honestly, if they can't look at that challenge and reconsider the restriction because it prohibits a cache for no earthly reason, they've lost all perspective. If you manage to get it published, it will be one of the best examples of jumping through hoops that I've ever seen. I'll be really impressed, although at this point I wouldn't be surprised if they just add a new restriction that prohibits any challenge that uses the word "circle" in the explanation so they can block it again.

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I am the CO of the Bi-Polar Challenge and I submitted a proposal to the reviewer that breaks down the regions into countries and counties. I'm waiting to hear back. The volunteers at Project-GC have been a great help.

 

I'm curious how regions and country breakdowns help. There are no regions/countries in the vicinity of your Southern Arctic latitude. I can think how it might be done for the Arctic circle.

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I am the CO of the Bi-Polar Challenge and I submitted a proposal to the reviewer that breaks down the regions into countries and counties. I'm waiting to hear back. The volunteers at Project-GC have been a great help.

 

I'm curious how regions and country breakdowns help. There are no regions/countries in the vicinity of your Southern Arctic latitude. I can think how it might be done for the Arctic circle.

 

Antarctica is a region and a continent. Per Progect-GC it is considered a country.

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I wouldn't count on degrees any more, who knows whether there will be a new "not acceptable" for angles. Sticking to the explicitly allowed counties/regions seems more promising.

 

Neither would I, but the answer might be interesting anyhow to understand what the rules actually are.

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Admittedly I sort of fail to understand the reason for not allowing challenges that are based on 'broadly available' values in geocaching.com profile statistics page simply using 'Find Farthest North' 'Find Farthest South' 'Find Farthest East (from Prime Meridian)' 'Find Farthest West (from Prime Meridian)' . For the Bi-Polar-Challenge that would be N and S.

 

The archive log gives a clue:

"User Defined Polygon (i.e. inclusive of the following guidance: mapping polygons, radius, latitude/longitude, etc.)"

 

If 'mapping polygons, radius, latitude/longitude, etc.' is the new way there won't be new challenge caches for popular concepts any more that you could connect to radius like

 

2 caches that are x km apart like GC6KY52 100 Kilometers Apart Challenge - as you could interpret 'a circle with radius 100.5 km and what is nearer than 500m counts'

30 events, one per 5km interval counts GC5MWDC The CHALLENGE of Attending Events - as you could interpret 'circles with radius 5, 10, 15 ... and take one from each'

find cache min. 2000 km from specified point GC69HJK [CàO] 07 - Challenge du routard - as you could interpret 'a circle with radius 2000 km and what is outside counts'

 

and other popular concepts that are connected to degrees or minutes as maybe you could argue that in the end it is about latitude/longitude (well, isn't everyt location based game at least partly about latitude/longitude :ph34r:) like

 

min 1 find in each minute or a certain degree GC6K8MR West 94 Degree Challenge

every minute of a degree GC6HXJ7 #02 - 59 grader nord - Challenge

90 degrees between two caches GC6K6YE 6 degrees of separation (+ 84) challenge

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Admittedly I sort of fail to understand the reason for not allowing challenges that are based on 'broadly available' values in geocaching.com profile statistics page simply using 'Find Farthest North' 'Find Farthest South' 'Find Farthest East (from Prime Meridian)' 'Find Farthest West (from Prime Meridian)' .

 

Actually, I fail to understand the reason for a lot more of the new restrictions. Originally I thought that the goal is to make reviewing easier and to reduce the number of appeals but many of the new restrictions do not fit into this pattern.

 

I also cannot understand why there is a problem with using elevation data - GS trusts into project-gc and even handed them over the whole checker business. Elevation data are not only available on project gc but on many other sites too and are not subjective (of course they are subject to some inaccuracies but that can be easily handled with good will). The inaccuracies involved are in any case smaller than e.g. the inaccuracies caused e.g. by attributes or D/T-ratings on gc.com listings which are not subject to review.

 

I think it would have been way more honest to say we do not allow new challenge caches any longer and probably be more satisfactory as it would have avoided a lot of frustration.

 

As a reviewer I would be much more unhappy with the current situation than with the old one. It could happen any time that a challenge cache that I published because I thought it is fine, gets archived soon afterwards. That's also the situation challenge cache hiders are facing - very unpleasant and not motivating to invest work into a challenge cache if it's one of those boring 0815 caches where it is known for sure that they are ok like a 100 day streak without further restrictions or finding 100 traditionals without further restrictions.

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I think it would have been way more honest to say we do not allow new challenge caches any longer and probably be more satisfactory as it would have avoided a lot of frustration.

I fully agree.

 

@AnnaMoritz: At least I'm not surprised it doesn't surprise you, because you are something like the Almanach of Geocaching. Thank you very much for your input.

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I think it would have been way more honest to say we do not allow new challenge caches any longer and probably be more satisfactory as it would have avoided a lot of frustration.

I fully agree.

 

A long time ago I wrote in one of the threads that the decision about challenges was long made and that GS wouldn't allow them back after the moratorium. I was only partly wrong. The new rules restrict a lot of fun challenges (one of my favorite examples was "create Frankenstein's monsters with body parts in cache titles") and even for some that followed the new rules, another new rule was quickly created to disallow them too.

It seems clear GS wants challenges gone but in order not step on the many toes of people liking them they resort to allowing "run of the mill" challenges that can be qualified for by many without to much effort. That way there are less complaints about "I"m not allowed to log that lonely cache to clear my area's map because..... "

 

There would be a lot less complaining is cachers would just accept they can't/won't find them all and ignore what they don't like.

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Admittedly I sort of fail to understand the reason for not allowing challenges that are based on 'broadly available' values in geocaching.com profile statistics page simply using 'Find Farthest North' 'Find Farthest South' 'Find Farthest East (from Prime Meridian)' 'Find Farthest West (from Prime Meridian)' . For the Bi-Polar-Challenge that would be N and S.

 

The archive log gives a clue:

"User Defined Polygon (i.e. inclusive of the following guidance: mapping polygons, radius, latitude/longitude, etc.)"

 

If 'mapping polygons, radius, latitude/longitude, etc.' is the new way there won't be new challenge caches for popular concepts any more that you could connect to radius like

 

2 caches that are x km apart like GC6KY52 100 Kilometers Apart Challenge - as you could interpret 'a circle with radius 100.5 km and what is nearer than 500m counts'

30 events, one per 5km interval counts GC5MWDC The CHALLENGE of Attending Events - as you could interpret 'circles with radius 5, 10, 15 ... and take one from each'

find cache min. 2000 km from specified point GC69HJK [CàO] 07 - Challenge du routard - as you could interpret 'a circle with radius 2000 km and what is outside counts'

 

and other popular concepts that are connected to degrees or minutes as maybe you could argue that in the end it is about latitude/longitude (well, isn't everyt location based game at least partly about latitude/longitude :ph34r:) like

 

min 1 find in each minute or a certain degree GC6K8MR West 94 Degree Challenge

every minute of a degree GC6HXJ7 #02 - 59 grader nord - Challenge

90 degrees between two caches GC6K6YE 6 degrees of separation (+ 84) challenge

 

Being always keen to learn, how do I see the archive log. I guessed archive.org might have it but no luck. Is there an extra URL parameter to see page history? Thanks

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Admittedly I sort of fail to understand the reason for not allowing challenges that are based on 'broadly available' values in geocaching.com profile statistics page simply using 'Find Farthest North' 'Find Farthest South' 'Find Farthest East (from Prime Meridian)' 'Find Farthest West (from Prime Meridian)' . For the Bi-Polar-Challenge that would be N and S.

 

The archive log gives a clue:

"User Defined Polygon (i.e. inclusive of the following guidance: mapping polygons, radius, latitude/longitude, etc.)"

 

If 'mapping polygons, radius, latitude/longitude, etc.' is the new way there won't be new challenge caches for popular concepts any more that you could connect to radius like

 

2 caches that are x km apart like GC6KY52 100 Kilometers Apart Challenge - as you could interpret 'a circle with radius 100.5 km and what is nearer than 500m counts'

30 events, one per 5km interval counts GC5MWDC The CHALLENGE of Attending Events - as you could interpret 'circles with radius 5, 10, 15 ... and take one from each'

find cache min. 2000 km from specified point GC69HJK [CàO] 07 - Challenge du routard - as you could interpret 'a circle with radius 2000 km and what is outside counts'

 

and other popular concepts that are connected to degrees or minutes as maybe you could argue that in the end it is about latitude/longitude (well, isn't everyt location based game at least partly about latitude/longitude :ph34r:) like

 

min 1 find in each minute or a certain degree GC6K8MR West 94 Degree Challenge

every minute of a degree GC6HXJ7 #02 - 59 grader nord - Challenge

90 degrees between two caches GC6K6YE 6 degrees of separation (+ 84) challenge

Technically, user-defined polygons are being treated as any explicit limitation on where caches can be found. Above and below the arctic circle means that not even in theory could a qualifying be cache be found anywhere but in those regions.

Reworded as 100km apart means that in theory caches anywhere in the world could be found. So, for your example, they wouldn't be denied based on user-defined polygon clause, but depending on how complex the relative nature of the finds are, could fall into 'pattern matching' territory.

 

Pattern matching still allows caches to be fuond theoretically anywhere in the world (whether it's a pattern on a DT or year grid, or a pattern of lat/lon grids, or what have you), but the argument I was given against patterns is connected to user-defined polygons in that there's an endless number of arbitrary 'designs' that a CO may conceptualize and could cause reviewer headache were they to have to judge and decide subjectively whether a pattern (which itself isn't geocaching-related) should be allowed.

 

It feels like these restrictions each touch in some small way at least one or two ideals GS has outlined in the new guidelines. Geocaching related, less reviewer headache, reasonably achieveable, less bookkeeping, etc. Each of those calimed to come from community polls and discussion, but if a challenge can be seen as inextricably linked in any small way to at least one of those points, it can be denied. At this stage, they seem to be hashing out the wording as we keep bringing new ideas to the table attempting to work within the wording.

 

It's almost like, instead of taking the route of "reviewer judgement may grant exceptions but doesn't set a precedent", they've flipped to the opposite "reviewer judgement should be in line with general consensus". At least until the guidelines are clear enough, for their satisfaction.

 

 

Also, I don't think it's helpful at all to start throwing around claims that Groundspeak wants challenges gone (true or not, though I don't believe so). That's presumptuous and argumentative, and I was hoping that would be avoided (in this thread at least ;P)

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Also, I don't think it's helpful at all to start throwing around claims that Groundspeak wants challenges gone (true or not, though I don't believe so).

 

My formulation was just that I think it would have been more honest and less frustrating for many cachers if they had ended challenge caches right away. It would not have raised wrong expectations.

on4bam even only wrote that GS did essentially remove those challenge caches where maybe someone might complain .....

 

What is left is hardly anything for which no badge exists and hardly anything for which not yet a challenge cache exists.

 

I did say nowhere that I believe that Groundspeaks wants challenge caches gone. However the current situation is unsatisfactory and I cannot imagine that it makes the reviewers happy what is going on and it definitely

will not make happy those who enjoyed challenge caches which were out of the box and do not stats challenges which yet exist many times around the world.

 

It's like from now on only allowing traditionals that are 1.5/1.5 boring drive ins.

 

Geocaching related, less reviewer headache, reasonably achieveable, less bookkeeping, etc.

 

Elevation based challenge caches do not fall in this category just by default (of course they would if one asked for many caches above 7000m).

Edited by cezanne
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Also, I don't think it's helpful at all to start throwing around claims that Groundspeak wants challenges gone (true or not, though I don't believe so). That's presumptuous and argumentative, and I was hoping that would be avoided (in this thread at least ;P)

I, too, had hopes to avoid talk about whether the actual goal is elimination. But the conclusion has become inescapable.

 

It feels like these restrictions each touch in some small way at least one or two ideals GS has outlined in the new guidelines. Geocaching related, less reviewer headache, reasonably achieveable, less bookkeeping, etc. Each of those calimed to come from community polls and discussion,

This is the part that makes my blood boil. Even at the time, I objected that the polls were all along the lines of "what don't you like about challenge caches?" and "why don't you do challenge caches?", so the results were no surprise: plenty of ammunition against any given challenge idea while discounting any input from people that enjoyed any or all those challenges. When I filled out the survey, I was careful to express my position being strongly in favor of all challenge caches and against arbitrary restrictions, but in the end I realized that, because of the design of the poll, my input would be considered neutral.

 

It didn't help to see that while the claimed problem was always review overhead, nothing in the survey had anything to do with that.

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Also, I don't think it's helpful at all to start throwing around claims that Groundspeak wants challenges gone (true or not, though I don't believe so). That's presumptuous and argumentative, and I was hoping that would be avoided (in this thread at least ;P)

 

I don't CLAIM that GS wants do do away with challenges but seeing/reading things from before the moratorium to now it's hard not to get the impression that's the case.

Also see dprovan's post about the subjective setup of the poll questions, it all looked like a way to get confirmation that challenges were unwanted, which they're not.

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In the blog entry announcing the return of challenges, GS closes with these thoughts:

 

"We love how challenge caches encourage people to set fun goals and expand their caching horizons. There’s no question we want these caches to thrive for years to come. We have high hopes that this new framework for challenge caches will reduce some of the pre-moratorium difficulties for reviewers and the community.

 

But challenge cache owners are integral to the success of this framework. It’s important that they work within these guidelines in order to reduce the burden that reviewers felt prior to the moratorium. If after a period of evaluation we find that a lot of the pre-moratorium issues are still causing problems, then we’ll know that this new framework isn’t the answer. We don’t have a backup plan. The only remaining option would be to not permit challenge caches as they currently exist."

 

Any speculation beyond the explicit statement is unwarranted. GS says they want challenge caches to succeed. They hope the new guidelines will address the issues they were causing. In any event, this thread is not the place to discuss the future of CCs. Make a new thread for that. The title of the thread defines the topic. Now the conclusion may be that the new rules mean that no one can think of any interesting/imaginative challenges that fit within the new rules.

 

Is there a thread that characterizes the nature of the large number of appeals going to reviewers? Are they from CC creators or finders who claim it but are deleted by the CC owner? I'd love to read through it.

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"We love how challenge caches encourage people to set fun goals and expand their caching horizons. "

 

Well, I just wonder how they intend to achieve that when even such simple challenges like your bipolar one got rejected. Those challenge caches that simply map goals for which there are badges do not expand one's caching horizons and the goals are known since many years.

 

It would be nice to hear positive news of what can get through and goes beyond the badge style challenge. I think one of the reasons why we ended up with comments here that are not right in the focus of the original intent of this thread is that we mainly get negative news (what does not work) and hardly any positive news (anything not known since years that works).

Edited by cezanne
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Since I pointed out the need to get back on topic, I will go ahead and describe my plan for a challenge type that I've not seen that should be ok with the new guidelines. We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

 

I have the script written but until PGC lets me join the ranks of scripters, I can't easily do final testing. Some may grumble that this rewards folks who can afford to travel a lot. I envision a local area like a state having a challenge word that can be done only visiting counties in the state so challenges with modest travel can exist.

 

One ought to be able to layer other constraints like allowed DT level on the acceptable finds but this is an area that I need to test. My mock PGC API is just not general enough.

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Is there a thread that characterizes the nature of the large number of appeals going to reviewers? Are they from CC creators or finders who claim it but are deleted by the CC owner? I'd love to read through it.

 

]

 

Not likely, as Groundspeak has a well established policy regarding privacy of the individuals involved. If I had to guess, I would say it's more likely on the submission/creation aspects and not the deletion of logs. Typically the latter are dealt with infrequently compared to the number of submissions that were Published during that time period.

Edited by Touchstone
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Since I pointed out the need to get back on topic, I will go ahead and describe my plan for a challenge type that I've not seen that should be ok with the new guidelines. We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

 

Interesting that you should make that suggestion. I thought that if GS allowed challenges based on *city* names that spelling out a work using the first names of cities might be kind of interesting. I could spell out lots of words using the first letter of countries in which I've found a cache but for those that are constrained by how far they can travel a similar challenge cache based on city names might be fun to do and achievable by a lot more geocachers.

 

 

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Is there a thread that characterizes the nature of the large number of appeals going to reviewers? Are they from CC creators or finders who claim it but are deleted by the CC owner? I'd love to read through it.

Likewise. Though the initial claim for the moratorium was that the weight was on publishing appeals, not finder complaints.

My hope here was that we might get some first hand reports by which we can determine what does/doesn't work, not necessarily discussing the merits (good/bad) of the quoted guideline clauses :P (I failed in a couple of comments myself, but I'm really, really trying to look at the cup half full here)

 

Well, I just wonder how they intend to achieve that when even such simple challenges like your bipolar one got rejected. Those challenge caches that simply map goals for which there are badges do not expand one's caching horizons and the goals are known since many years.

Again, going strictly by what they quoted, it seems that explicitly limiting the location of finds by anything other than known geographical boundaries inlcuding Country, State, and County, will be denied. If the instructions can be changed so that finds can theoretically be anywhere (or bound by the above regions), even if there are limitations on how qualifying finds are related to each other, it'll pass muster at least on that point.

 

I think one of the reasons why we ended up with comments here that are not right in the focus of the original intent of this thread is that we mainly get negative news (what does not work) and hardly any positive news (anything not known since years that works).

Nope, it gets negative because people complain about the negative instead of bringing it to light and seeing how we can work within / around it :) There are other threads to discuss the state of challenge caches. Oh, I'm certainly not enamoured with the new system, but really, truly, I hoped to have at least one thread that could remain somewhat positive about challenge caches /:)

(please, please let's continue with the more topical discussion!)

 

It would be nice to hear positive news of what can get through and goes beyond the badge style challenge.

It's good to actively watch the challenge publication feed (advanced search for 'challenge' by whatever region or the world) to see what gets published - in the hopes that there are some new(ish) ideas, so they can be posted here to perhaps help inspire.

 

Additionally, if anyone works on pubilshing caches, any information about what's approved (positive) and/or disapproved (negative) with the reasons given will help us better understand the thought process, and maybe if someone reads this thread it may make the reviewers' job just a tad easier :laughing:

 

The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

I'm not sure that would work either - it falls in line with the 'bookkeeping' clause. I don't think GS intended to limit the clause only to cache name and owner; the spirit of that clause was about finders having to keep track of text content for qualifications, scouring through lists, etc (at least how I interpret their 'bookkeeping' word), which they state is not a geocaching-related activity. I mean, you could try, but I'm guessing it wouldn't work.And if it did, it could also open the floodgates for loads of 'arbitrary' spell-this type challenges based on whatever text field they haven't explicitly listed. =/

Edited by thebruce0
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Since I pointed out the need to get back on topic, I will go ahead and describe my plan for a challenge type that I've not seen that should be ok with the new guidelines. We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

 

Interesting that you should make that suggestion. I thought that if GS allowed challenges based on *city* names that spelling out a work using the first names of cities might be kind of interesting. I could spell out lots of words using the first letter of countries in which I've found a cache but for those that are constrained by how far they can travel a similar challenge cache based on city names might be fun to do and achievable by a lot more geocachers.

 

The difficulty level of a challenge has always been up to the CO. Some set nearly impossible ones but more considerate COs do thing like Bronze, Silver, Gold challenges with each being harder than the previous one. This gives an early reward and incentive to work towards the next level. Cities can't be used because there is no way to automate the checking.

 

Picking short words or providing more free letter would allow graduated difficulty.

Edited by rragan
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Is there a thread that characterizes the nature of the large number of appeals going to reviewers? Are they from CC creators or finders who claim it but are deleted by the CC owner? I'd love to read through it.

Likewise. Though the initial claim for the moratorium was that the weight was on publishing appeals, not finder complaints.

My hope here was that we might get some first hand reports by which we can determine what does/doesn't work, not necessarily discussing the merits (good/bad) of the quoted guideline clauses :P (I failed in a couple of comments myself, but I'm really, really trying to look at the cup half full here)

 

Well, I just wonder how they intend to achieve that when even such simple challenges like your bipolar one got rejected. Those challenge caches that simply map goals for which there are badges do not expand one's caching horizons and the goals are known since many years.

Again, going strictly by what they quoted, it seems that explicitly limiting the location of finds by anything other than known geographical boundaries inlcuding Country, State, and County, will be denied. If the instructions can be changed so that finds can theoretically be anywhere (or bound by the above regions), even if there are limitations on how qualifying finds are related to each other, it'll pass muster at least on that point.

 

I think one of the reasons why we ended up with comments here that are not right in the focus of the original intent of this thread is that we mainly get negative news (what does not work) and hardly any positive news (anything not known since years that works).

Nope, it gets negative because people complain about the negative instead of bringing it to light and seeing how we can work within / around it :) There are other threads to discuss the state of challenge caches. Oh, I'm certainly not enamoured with the new system, but really, truly, I hoped to have at least one thread that could remain somewhat positive about challenge caches /:)

(please, please let's continue with the more topical discussion!)

 

It would be nice to hear positive news of what can get through and goes beyond the badge style challenge.

It's good to actively watch the challenge publication feed (advanced search for 'challenge' by whatever region or the world) to see what gets published - in the hopes that there are some new(ish) ideas, so they can be posted here to perhaps help inspire.

 

Additionally, if anyone works on pubilshing caches, any information about what's approved (positive) and/or disapproved (negative) with the reasons given will help us better understand the thought process, and maybe if someone reads this thread it may make the reviewers' job just a tad easier :laughing:

 

The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

I'm not sure that would work either - it falls in line with the 'bookkeeping' clause. I don't think GS intended to limit the clause only to cache name and owner; the spirit of that clause was about finders having to keep track of text content for qualifications, scouring through lists, etc (at least how I interpret their 'bookkeeping' word), which they state is not a geocaching-related activity. I mean, you could try, but I'm guessing it wouldn't work.And if it did, it could also open the floodgates for loads of 'arbitrary' spell-this type challenges based on whatever text field they haven't explicitly listed. =/

 

I don't get the bookkeeping aspect. With a checker there is no bookkeeping, you either qualify or you don't. The location where you make the find is not under user control short of saying hey went there. I guess I won't know until I try to publish a cache with the script. Oh well, it gave me an excuse to learn Lua and the PGC APIs.

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GS says they want challenge caches to succeed.

I have to admit, I no longer believe them, although for a long time I held on to the idea that they honestly thought they wanted challenge caches to succeed, they just didn't understand that they were eliminating most of what people enjoyed about them.

 

They hope the new guidelines will address the issues they were causing.

Alas, there's no longer even the slightest link between the restrictions being added and any issues they've told us about which challenge caches were causing.

 

Since I pointed out the need to get back on topic, I will go ahead and describe my plan for a challenge type that I've not seen that should be ok with the new guidelines. We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

That sounds great, and I hope you're successful. It sure does seem to skirt on the current crop of restrictions, so perhaps it will get approved. But notice that there's absolutely nothing about your challenge that's different in any significant way from a simple challenge based on cache names. It makes zero sense for yours to be allowed and spelling directly with cache names to be prevented. (A point, unfortunately, which is more likely to be used to ban yours than as a reason to reconsider whether it makes sense to ban simple spelling challenges.)

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Since I pointed out the need to get back on topic, I will go ahead and describe my plan for a challenge type that I've not seen that should be ok with the new guidelines. We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

There was a similar challenge published recently, World Scrabble Challenge, but the owner made the spelling part optional.

 

I cannot connect to Project-GC at the moment, but I seem to remember a discussion there that indicated that the reviewer forced the spelling part to be optional. While it didn't technically violate the guidelines, Groundspeak apparently doesn't like word challenges in general. Maybe you'll have better luck with your reviewer, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

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Since I pointed out the need to get back on topic, I will go ahead and describe my plan for a challenge type that I've not seen that should be ok with the new guidelines. We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

Interesting that you should make that suggestion. I thought that if GS allowed challenges based on *city* names that spelling out a work using the first names of cities might be kind of interesting. I could spell out lots of words using the first letter of countries in which I've found a cache but for those that are constrained by how far they can travel a similar challenge cache based on city names might be fun to do and achievable by a lot more geocachers.

The difficulty level of a challenge has always been up to the CO.

Actually an upper limit of difficulty has been left to reviewers' discretion for several years now. Challenges have had to appeal to and be attainable by a reasonable number of [local] geocachers.

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Since I pointed out the need to get back on topic, I will go ahead and describe my plan for a challenge type that I've not seen that should be ok with the new guidelines. We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

 

Interesting that you should make that suggestion. I thought that if GS allowed challenges based on *city* names that spelling out a work using the first names of cities might be kind of interesting. I could spell out lots of words using the first letter of countries in which I've found a cache but for those that are constrained by how far they can travel a similar challenge cache based on city names might be fun to do and achievable by a lot more geocachers.

 

The difficulty level of a challenge has always been up to the CO. Some set nearly impossible ones but more considerate COs do thing like Bronze, Silver, Gold challenges with each being harder than the previous one. This gives an early reward and incentive to work towards the next level. Cities can't be used because there is no way to automate the checking.

 

Picking short words or providing more free letter would allow graduated difficulty.

 

I suppose that in some area there are Bronze, Silver and Gold challenges of a similar type but there has never been anything official which limits a challenge of a specific type to three levels of difficulty. One might think of a Bronze, Silver, and Gold challenges which require to find caches in 5, 10, and 15 countries but there was nothing stopping someone from creating challenges for finding caches in 7,9, 13, and 32 countries. Where I live there are very few challenges at all. A search for unknown caches with challenge in the title shows only 8 caches within 50 miles and a couple of them aren't challenge caches.

 

Automating checking of caches within a specific city is no more difficult than caches in a specific country, state, or county.

 

Using the geonames API one can send lat/long coordinates and retrieve place names. For example:

 

http://api.geonames....9&username=demo

 

Will return the following:

 

<geonames>
<address>
<street>Stewart Ave</street>
<mtfcc>S1400</mtfcc>
<streetNumber>152</streetNumber>
<lat>42.44002</lat>
<lng>-76.48973</lng>
<distance>0.02</distance>
<postalcode>14850</postalcode>
<placename>Ithaca</placename>
<adminCode2>109</adminCode2>
<adminName2>Tompkins</adminName2>
<adminCode1>NY</adminCode1>
<adminName1>New York</adminName1>
<countryCode>US</countryCode>
</address>
</geonames>

 

In those results you'll get the countryCode, State (adminName1), county (adminName2), and city name (placename). The lat/long coordinates are, of course available from any cache data. It would seem to me to be pretty easy to get ones finds, send the lat/long coordinates to geonames to get he city names, then compare the names (or first character) to see a user has a qualifying cache for each city in a list.

 

 

Edited by NYPaddleCacher
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The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

I'm not sure that would work either - it falls in line with the 'bookkeeping' clause. I don't think GS intended to limit the clause only to cache name and owner; the spirit of that clause was about finders having to keep track of text content for qualifications, scouring through lists, etc (at least how I interpret their 'bookkeeping' word), which they state is not a geocaching-related activity. I mean, you could try, but I'm guessing it wouldn't work.And if it did, it could also open the floodgates for loads of 'arbitrary' spell-this type challenges based on whatever text field they haven't explicitly listed. =/

 

I don't get the bookkeeping aspect. With a checker there is no bookkeeping, you either qualify or you don't. The location where you make the find is not under user control short of saying hey went there. I guess I won't know until I try to publish a cache with the script. Oh well, it gave me an excuse to learn Lua and the PGC APIs.

 

That's OK, if it seems allowed, they will just tighten the language to disallow it.

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Since I pointed out the need to get back on topic, I will go ahead and describe my plan for a challenge type that I've not seen that should be ok with the new guidelines. We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

There was a similar challenge published recently, World Scrabble Challenge, but the owner made the spelling part optional.

 

I cannot connect to Project-GC at the moment, but I seem to remember a discussion there that indicated that the reviewer forced the spelling part to be optional. While it didn't technically violate the guidelines, Groundspeak apparently doesn't like word challenges in general. Maybe you'll have better luck with your reviewer, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

I was an active party on that thread. Without digging back through it, as I recall the CO just decided to simplify his challenge rather than wait for a checker script and maybe have it rejected. PGC is not responding just now so I can't check my recollection.

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Since I pointed out the need to get back on topic, I will go ahead and describe my plan for a challenge type that I've not seen that should be ok with the new guidelines. We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

 

Interesting that you should make that suggestion. I thought that if GS allowed challenges based on *city* names that spelling out a work using the first names of cities might be kind of interesting. I could spell out lots of words using the first letter of countries in which I've found a cache but for those that are constrained by how far they can travel a similar challenge cache based on city names might be fun to do and achievable by a lot more geocachers.

 

The difficulty level of a challenge has always been up to the CO. Some set nearly impossible ones but more considerate COs do thing like Bronze, Silver, Gold challenges with each being harder than the previous one. This gives an early reward and incentive to work towards the next level. Cities can't be used because there is no way to automate the checking.

 

Picking short words or providing more free letter would allow graduated difficulty.

 

I suppose that in some area there are Bronze, Silver and Gold challenges of a similar type but there has never been anything official which limits a challenge of a specific type to three levels of difficulty. One might think of a Bronze, Silver, and Gold challenges which require to find caches in 5, 10, and 15 countries but there was nothing stopping someone from creating challenges for finding caches in 7,9, 13, and 32 countries. Where I live there are very few challenges at all. A search for unknown caches with challenge in the title shows only 8 caches within 50 miles and a couple of them aren't challenge caches.

 

Automating checking of caches within a specific city is no more difficult than caches in a specific country, state, or county.

 

Using the geonames API one can send lat/long coordinates and retrieve place names. For example:

 

http://api.geonames.org/extendedFindNearby?lat=42.44&lng=-76.49&username=demo

 

Will return the following:

 

<geonames><address><street>Stewart Ave</street><mtfcc>S1400</mtfcc><streetNumber>152</streetNumber><lat>42.44002</lat><lng>-76.48973</lng><distance>0.02</distance><postalcode>14850</postalcode><placename>Ithaca</placename><adminCode2>109</adminCode2><adminName2>Tompkins</adminName2><adminCode1>NY</adminCode1><adminName1>New York</adminName1><countryCode>US</countryCode></address></geonames>
[size=2]

[/size]

In those results you'll get the countryCode, State (adminName1), county (adminName2), and city name (placename).

 

Of course you can determine city names but they are not on the list of three geographic area types allowed for challenge caches.

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Nope, it gets negative because people complain about the negative instead of bringing it to light and seeing how we can work within / around it :)

 

I disagree. For example, the reformulation AnnaMoritz attempted for the bipolar challenge was a constructive one but we did not get any feedback whether that would work.

 

 

It would be nice to hear positive news of what can get through and goes beyond the badge style challenge.

It's good to actively watch the challenge publication feed (advanced search for 'challenge' by whatever region or the world) to see what gets published

 

That does not help at all. Have you noticed in some areas challenge caches get published that clearly violate the guidelines and in some other cases caches get published where first it was thought that they are ok and later it turns out that they are not?

 

As long not someone from HQ tells us that a certain idea is ok, there is no chance for a really positive message and that's what I find very frustrating. Which cache owners wants to invest work into a cache that exists just for a few days/weeks and gets archived soon afterwards?

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Since I pointed out the need to get back on topic, I will go ahead and describe my plan for a challenge type that I've not seen that should be ok with the new guidelines. We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

 

Interesting that you should make that suggestion. I thought that if GS allowed challenges based on *city* names that spelling out a work using the first names of cities might be kind of interesting. I could spell out lots of words using the first letter of countries in which I've found a cache but for those that are constrained by how far they can travel a similar challenge cache based on city names might be fun to do and achievable by a lot more geocachers.

 

The difficulty level of a challenge has always been up to the CO. Some set nearly impossible ones but more considerate COs do thing like Bronze, Silver, Gold challenges with each being harder than the previous one. This gives an early reward and incentive to work towards the next level. Cities can't be used because there is no way to automate the checking.

 

Picking short words or providing more free letter would allow graduated difficulty.

 

I suppose that in some area there are Bronze, Silver and Gold challenges of a similar type but there has never been anything official which limits a challenge of a specific type to three levels of difficulty. One might think of a Bronze, Silver, and Gold challenges which require to find caches in 5, 10, and 15 countries but there was nothing stopping someone from creating challenges for finding caches in 7,9, 13, and 32 countries. Where I live there are very few challenges at all. A search for unknown caches with challenge in the title shows only 8 caches within 50 miles and a couple of them aren't challenge caches.

 

Automating checking of caches within a specific city is no more difficult than caches in a specific country, state, or county.

 

Using the geonames API one can send lat/long coordinates and retrieve place names. For example:

 

http://api.geonames....9&username=demo

 

Will return the following:

 

<geonames><address><street>Stewart Ave</street><mtfcc>S1400</mtfcc><streetNumber>152</streetNumber><lat>42.44002</lat><lng>-76.48973</lng><distance>0.02</distance><postalcode>14850</postalcode><placename>Ithaca</placename><adminCode2>109</adminCode2><adminName2>Tompkins</adminName2><adminCode1>NY</adminCode1><adminName1>New York</adminName1><countryCode>US</countryCode></address></geonames>
[size=2]

[/size]

 

In those results you'll get the countryCode, State (adminName1), county (adminName2), and city name (placename).

 

Of course you can determine city names but they are not on the list of three geographic area types allowed for challenge caches.

 

Agreed, but the point is that limiting geographic areas to countries, states, *and* counties is arbitrary as the county has to be derived from some other data source (other than a data available in a cache listing). If GS is going to allow challenges based on counties, I don't understand why they would not allow them based on city names other than it would limit the number of challenge caches.

 

 

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I don't get the bookkeeping aspect. With a checker there is no bookkeeping, you either qualify or you don't. The location where you make the find is not under user control short of saying hey went there. I guess I won't know until I try to publish a cache with the script. Oh well, it gave me an excuse to learn Lua and the PGC APIs.

The problem is, by that logic if a script can automate any complexity of challenge, then it should be allowed. But that's not the case. I'm not solid on what is specifically referenced with 'bookkeeping', but I've only really seen it as two possible views: As a finder, the process of seeking and keeping track of qualifying caches before qualifying; And as reviewers, with an arbitrary and unlimited collection of possible 'themes' it can be daunting to keep track of them so as to avoid oversaturating with cookie-cutter challenges (they already tend to do that sort of thing, rarely though, for some common but difficult challenges; for example, it's almost certain they won't publish a whole bunch of identical jasmers in the same forest or trail; So there is a bit of bookkeeping on their part in observing the local 'landscape' of challenges).

 

Me, personally, I love bookkeeping. And it sounds like most people in these threads really don't mind word/letter-based challenges. *shrug* Like you said, get a script, and it's as easy as a click or two. Heck I even write scripts to tell me qualifying caches for my entire Ontario GSAK cache database :) Alas, most people aren't programmers, let alone tech-savvy. So I'm thinking they're trying to keep the bar pretty low.

Edited by thebruce0
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That does not help at all. Have you noticed in some areas challenge caches get published that clearly violate the guidelines and in some other cases caches get published where first it was thought that they are ok and later it turns out that they are not?

Yes. And we're finding out about them here. And those challenges are probably causing some headache for the reviewer team, especially if they've agreed to all be on the same page (worldwide) and some are still either making exceptions or not being thorough enough. Or maybe some COs are still playing the game of editing their listing post-publish. Who knows. Either way, this thread is so that we can know what's going on with Challenge Caches, what works and what doesn't. Maybe those post-publish archivals will happen less regularly. Who knows.

I'm personally just interested in finding out ways to be creative in the new guidelines.

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That does not help at all. Have you noticed in some areas challenge caches get published that clearly violate the guidelines and in some other cases caches get published where first it was thought that they are ok and later it turns out that they are not?

Yes. And we're finding out about them here. And those challenges are probably causing some headache for the reviewer team, especially if they've agreed to all be on the same page (worldwide) and some are still either making exceptions or not being thorough enough. Or maybe some COs are still playing the game of editing their listing post-publish. Who knows. Either way, this thread is so that we can know what's going on with Challenge Caches, what works and what doesn't. Maybe those post-publish archivals will happen less regularly. Who knows.

I'm personally just interested in finding out ways to be creative in the new guidelines.

 

Agree. It's like cases go to the Supreme Court for a final decision. GS has some "sense" of what is in the spirit of geocaching but writing that down in simple rules is hard. New challenges are making case law.

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We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

 

I have the script written but until PGC lets me join the ranks of scripters, I can't easily do final testing.

Before you spend much time on your checker, I highly recommend sending a pre-emptive messsage to Appeals and ask if this idea will pass. Personally I'm betting it won't. Just because you found a loophole in the current guidelines, doesn't mean they won't close it. It's pretty obvious (to me) that they don't want word challenges at all.

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We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

 

I have the script written but until PGC lets me join the ranks of scripters, I can't easily do final testing.

Before you spend much time on your checker, I highly recommend sending a pre-emptive messsage to Appeals and ask if this idea will pass. Personally I'm betting it won't. Just because you found a loophole in the current guidelines, doesn't mean they won't close it. It's pretty obvious (to me) that they don't want word challenges at all.

 

Ok, I will do that. I tried a loophole using bookmark lists and they rapidly closed that one. The script is done so either way it was a useful exercise.

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I'm not sure that would work either - it falls in line with the 'bookkeeping' clause.

Wait, there's an actual bookkeeping clause now? I thought it was just slung around as a completely arbitrary and intentionally vague Bad Thing about challenge caches to be used as an implicit argument against everything. And it's one of the reason I seriously question the sincerity of the effort since the other side of the coin -- the requirement for a checker -- explicitly forces all challenge caches to be nothing but bookkeeping.

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I'm not sure that would work either - it falls in line with the 'bookkeeping' clause.

Wait, there's an actual bookkeeping clause now? I thought it was just slung around as a completely arbitrary and intentionally vague Bad Thing about challenge caches to be used as an implicit argument against everything. And it's one of the reason I seriously question the sincerity of the effort since the other side of the coin -- the requirement for a checker -- explicitly forces all challenge caches to be nothing but bookkeeping.

Bah, ok no it's not written in the guidelines (had to check), but it seemed to come up repeatedly when working through the pattern-matching problem in publishing. Yeah, arbitrary and vague. Correct my original quote to bookkeeping concern, as it's not literally a clause. "Unwritten" clause perhaps :P

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I'm not sure that would work either - it falls in line with the 'bookkeeping' clause.

Wait, there's an actual bookkeeping clause now? I thought it was just slung around as a completely arbitrary and intentionally vague Bad Thing about challenge caches to be used as an implicit argument against everything. And it's one of the reason I seriously question the sincerity of the effort since the other side of the coin -- the requirement for a checker -- explicitly forces all challenge caches to be nothing but bookkeeping.

Bah, ok no it's not written in the guidelines (had to check), but it seemed to come up repeatedly when working through the pattern-matching problem in publishing. Yeah, arbitrary and vague. Correct my original quote to bookkeeping concern, as it's not literally a clause. "Unwritten" clause perhaps :P

Perhaps this would be an opportune time to review the Latitude 47 announcement:

 

Challenges cannot be based on these listing elements: cache titles, cache owner names, GC Codes, or listing text. This would include such challenges as “Find a cache for every letter of the alphabet” or “Find caches with the Periodic Table symbol in the GC code.” They generally reward database management, rather than geocaching achievement. More importantly, they often lead people to place caches whose titles start with a certain letter or contain a specific word, only to help people qualify for challenges.

 

It's easy to see how "database management" was replaced by the more vernacular "bookkeeping" reference.

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They generally reward database management, rather than geocaching achievement. More importantly, they often lead people to place caches whose titles start with a certain letter or contain a specific word, only to help people qualify for challenges.

 

The more importantly clause however does not apply to the case when e.g. countries are used.

 

As to the bolded part, it might be part of the problem of thinking of challenge caches uniquely as a reward for geocaching achievement. It seems to be me that many see challenge caches as some cache type they enjoy and the focus on the fun, the enjoyment (this can include the challenge aspect) and the way in which challenge caches can enrich their caching experience (for example by making them go visit caches they would not have noticed/visited otherwise), but they do not see it from the achievement point of view. This achievement point of view is already well covered by badge systems in my opinion.

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We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

 

When I first saw the 'Generic alphabet checker' that can use county (and the no longer allowed cache name and owner name) I shortly pondered whether it would deserve a try and about what would be the difference in outcome compared to different required numbers of counties for my own country Austria.

 

I suppose that for most cachers that haven't visited all counties, an alphabet of counties is easier as big parts of the country in terms of area are alpine and the country is quite inconvenient formed having lost major parts after WWI. ;) Starting fom Vienna, the big-head of Austria, the most western Austrian county is more than 500km (and a big mountain range) away. You can visit twelve other european countries if staying below 500km as the crow flies and four of them (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia) fall completely in this radius. Maybe it would be worth the efford to build a challenge from countries/states/counties comparable to 'all crownlands of the Austrian Empire'. ;)

 

Then I discarded the idea, not because starting letters are rather unequally distributed here and not all letters play a role, but because I would suspect that

 

there was the wish to end all "letter soup" attempts, but no one thought about -that- loophole when writing the new guidelines and that "These listing elements: cache titles, cache owner, GC Codes, publishing Reviewer or listing text" would immediately be adjusted with adding "names of country, state, county (or equivalents)"

 

What if a more resourceful cacher next then comes up with a soup challenge that uses letters from attributes, sizes, or letters extracted/converted from numbers like found at lat/lon D T?

 

Somehow I remember faintly at least one (grandfathered, don't know whether it has a checker) challenge that asks you to spell a certain word with first letters of countries where you have finds.

Edited by AnnaMoritz
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Regarding bringing up brillant ideas that isn't that easy within the given restrictions.

 

Generally I'm quite surprised (well not really) and astonished about the inconsistency of which challenge caches are allowed to stay and which have to go that are published in 2016 using for example polygons, reviewer names or types for streaks that are definitely listed as not acceptable in the guidelines.

 

And that there is still no clarification about elevation, which clearly doesn't fall into "Challenge cache criteria must come from information broadly available on Geocaching.com" and isn't explicitely mentioned as allowed but on the other hand there are at least eight elevation-based challenges that got published 2016.

 

And of course I'm not clever enough to see the substantial difference between the original Bi-Polar-Challenge (above x° and below y° which restricts to Arctis and Antarctis, various countries and regions allowed) and asking for finds in certain minutes of a degree which seems still allowed for other challenge caches.

 

Well, there is a difference in the nature of the corresponding "polygons": one is the surface area of two spherical caps and the other is a number of areas on spherical wedges. :ph34r: Both don't allow finds elsewhere, but only in -this- area and the area is at least 10 times larger for Antarktis than for one degree.

 

So a challenge idea I'm thinking of is 'collect a certain number of unique degree (without the minute part) combos', this can be everywhere and information is on cache page.

 

There is another idea beeing discussed that was really fun for me to see whether I qualify: Fill your grid with 9 caches per cache type (seems that is -speaking in terms of available caches- easily possible in Europe for 8 cache types) and the remaining 9 places fill up with caches of any type that have more than 10 (in my case also 100 is possible) favorite points (the original idea was owned caches, but that's not allowed).

Edited by AnnaMoritz
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...the inconsistency of which challenge caches are allowed to stay and which have to go that are published in 2016 using for example polygons, reviewer names or types for streaks that are definitely listed as not acceptable in the guidelines.

heh, I'd ask to see examples of any that still currently exist, but fear that may lead to their (then consistent) archival... :P So I'm not sure how much water that statement holds; the ongoing action by the reviewer team seems to be specifically to remain consistent.

 

And that there is still no clarification about elevation

If there's no mention of it yet, presume it's safe, though with the data not available on gc.com, it likely falls into the same protected category as County borders (which is something not mentioned until recently). =/

 

And of course I'm not clever enough to see the substantial difference between the original Bi-Polar-Challenge (above x° and below y° which restricts to Arctis and Antarctis, various countries and regions allowed) and asking for finds in certain minutes of a degree which seems still allowed for other challenge caches.

I've looked, but perhaps not hard enough, for caches that restrict to latitude or longitude degrees and haven't found any. I believe the only challenges that currently exist post-moratorium that are location-restricted are, in fact, based on only Country, State, or County.

 

In my deliberations it seems that reviewers are allowing collections of finds within some defined regions - such as "have X number of latitude degrees with at least N finds". This is different in that it's not restricting finds to any particular region, but allowing the user to select from their finds (worldwide) and group as they choose within the challenge parameters in order to qualify.

 

Well, there is a difference in the nature of the corresponding "polygons": one is the surface area of two spherical caps and the other is a number of areas on spherical wedges. :ph34r: Both don't allow finds elsewhere, but only in -this- area and the area is at least 10 times larger for Antarktis than for one degree.

 

So a challenge idea I'm thinking of is 'collect a certain number of unique degree (without the minute part) combos', this can be everywhere and information is on cache page.

heh, I should read forward first. :) Yes, that's my finding as well, and I have a couple of challenges in the queue, approved, with that style setup, as described above.

 

So based on that structure, the bi-polar challenge would be restrictive. But, perhaps if you consider 'poles' to be merely opposite each other on the sphere of the Earth, you could publish a challenge that requires a minimum spherical degree difference between two caches - found anywhere on the planet, but has to be calculated so as to fall within two opposing 'caps' on the planet. (ie, the mere difference between latitude and longitude values wouldn't be valid, it has to be calculated)

 

There is another idea beeing discussed that was really fun for me to see whether I qualify: Fill your grid with 9 caches per cache type (seems that is -speaking in terms of available caches- easily possible in Europe for 8 cache types) and the remaining 9 places fill up with caches of any type that have more than 10 (in my case also 100 is possible) favorite points (the original idea was owned caches, but that's not allowed).

I don't see why that would be denied if reasonably attainable in your area. It is more the 'achievement' style based on additive stats.

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We know using titles as a source to spell words was liked but is now gone. The new challenge type would let you be challenged to spell a word but the source of letters is countries, states/regions, counties where you have found a cache plus free letters allowed by the tag definer.

 

When I first saw the 'Generic alphabet checker' that can use county (and the no longer allowed cache name and owner name) I shortly pondered whether it would deserve a try and about what would be the difference in outcome compared to different required numbers of counties for my own country Austria.

 

I suppose that for most cachers that haven't visited all counties, an alphabet of counties is easier as big parts of the country in terms of area are alpine and the country is quite inconvenient formed having lost major parts after WWI. ;) Starting fom Vienna, the big-head of Austria, the most western Austrian county is more than 500km (and a big mountain range) away. You can visit twelve other european countries if staying below 500km as the crow flies and four of them (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia) fall completely in this radius. Maybe it would be worth the efford to build a challenge from countries/states/counties comparable to 'all crownlands of the Austrian Empire'. ;)

 

Then I discarded the idea, not because starting letters are rather unequally distributed here and not all letters play a role, but because I would suspect that

 

there was the wish to end all "letter soup" attempts, but no one thought about -that- loophole when writing the new guidelines and that "These listing elements: cache titles, cache owner, GC Codes, publishing Reviewer or listing text" would immediately be adjusted with adding "names of country, state, county (or equivalents)"

 

What if a more resourceful cacher next then comes up with a soup challenge that uses letters from attributes, sizes, or letters extracted/converted from numbers like found at lat/lon D T?

 

Somehow I remember faintly at least one (grandfathered, don't know whether it has a checker) challenge that asks you to spell a certain word with first letters of countries where you have finds.

 

I filed an appeal yesterday to find out officially if first letters of geographic names is allowed. You can't game the challenge by making up odd cache titles so that problem is gone. If they say a spell the word EASY with country names where you have finds is disallowed, then you switch it to find a cache in Estonis, Albania, Switzerland, and Yemen (but enumerate all the E,A,S,Y countries) I've achieved the same challenge but in a complicated way. We will see what they say.

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