Demonising the DNF

[+Mudfrog]

Just to add another example that makes me wonder. Here are the last few logs posted on a cache near us. Granted, the email may have been sent out but still, this listing seems to be hanging in there.

Didn't find it 05/31/2017 Lots of over growth and downed tree limbs...unable to locate

Didn't find it 05/02/2017 Out with ******  to grab a cache or two today. Gave this one a pretty good search but wasn't able to come up with it.

Didn't find it 04/20/2017 Lots of trees down, was not able to locate

Found it 09/18/2016 Found on 3-20-16. Just now getting to log it. Great day caching with ****** *****

Found it 08/09/2016 Found it but it is destroyed

Found it 07/30/2016 I found it but the container is destroyed. Nothing there.    Three DNFS and a couple of troubling finds, the last being over a year ago. I'm supposing it may be that it just takes a longggg time for the algorithm to make its sweep of the millions of listings.

[+Team Microdot]

3 minutes ago, Mudfrog said:

Three DNFS and a couple of troubling finds, the last being over a year ago. I'm supposing it may be that it just takes a longggg time for the algorithm to make its sweep of the millions of listings.

That, my fine amphibious fellow, is a very good point.

Although I expect that the emails are generated in 'realtime' as the CHS of a particular cache falls below the golden threshold.

I doubt the servers are constantly churning through the database looking for victims - that would be rather wasteful of resources.

[+niraD]

6 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

Let's imagine for a moment that TPTB decided to switch off the automated emails so that the first sign of any concern from on high was a communication from a volunteer reviewer.

Would people be happier with that?

That would be good. Or the automated email could actually suggest a course of action when the email is sent in error, when there is no indication in the logs that the cache actually needs a maintenance visit. That would be good too.

Yeah, I know... What a crazy far-out idea.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

7 hours ago, redsox_mark said:

Example of a recent conversation with a very reasonable CO:   "some guys who never made it to GZ (their logs said they turned back because of the weather) logged DNFs and now I have Groundspeak sending me mails".   He wasn't really angry, it was just conversation at the pub, but I'm sure he was at least a little bit annoyed.  Yes the emails can be ignored, but I understand why COs don't like getting these.

The emails can be ignored but, ignoring the email doesn't change the CHS and it doesn't tell a reviewer that a CO is choosing to ignore the CHS email because it's a false positive.  If cache owners can ignore the CHS email messages without any consequences  then the CHS email serve no useful purpose.  

[+NanCycle]

The more there are clearly false positives (e.g. a find by an experienced cacher after 2-3 DNFs by noobs) the more there will be armchair OM logs to counteract them.

[+coachstahly]

2 hours ago, Mudfrog said:

 

Three DNFS and a couple of troubling finds, the last being over a year ago. I'm supposing it may be that it just takes a longggg time for the algorithm to make its sweep of the millions of listings.

Yet it can spot a brand new cache less than 2 months old that was found (FTF) and then subsequently DNFed twice (at the same time) and send out an email.  Sure enough, it was still in place and has been found 4 more times since the email (and the subsequent OM and check on the cache) was sent.

[+L0ne.R]

6 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Yep, exactly. That's the problem that needs to be fixed.

How many NAs did you post in 2017? How many NMs? How many cache owners responded to your NMs? Did you follow up any NMs with an NA? Did anyone else, if there was no owner response?

 

[+dprovan]

8 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

Let's imagine for a moment that TPTB decided to switch off the automated emails so that the first sign of any concern from on high was a communication from a volunteer reviewer.

Would people be happier with that?

I'd be happier if the automated process was eliminated, but I still wouldn't be happy that everyone, including the reviewer, thinks the reviewer is required to scan the database for problems.

8 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

Or would we see volunteer reviewers, quite rightly in my opinion, thinking heck - because people can't look after their own geocaches I now have to invest EVEN MORE of my time for free cleaning up after them ?

I certainly agree that, whatever the approach, the reviewer shouldn't be made upset. That's one reason I argue that the reviewer should not be considered responsible for cache quality.

8 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

And would we also see the railing against the CHS simply switch to railing against the idea that Big Brother is watching you?

I suspect so.

It's a little hard to talk about the CHS in this context, since the reviewer would almost certainly be using the CHS, too, but an e-mail from an impersonal robot is much more like Big Brother than a reviewer personally filing a log that he's willing to stand behind even if he is using CHS to justify it.

But in the broader view, yes, absolutely, one of the most important reason I hate the idea that reviewers must step in because geocachers won't do it is the fact that reviewers have to risk their incredibly important neutrality by presenting the case against a cache and its owner instead of evaluating cases presented by peers and impartially picking between them.

8 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

People react so badly to a peer from their own tier of the so called 'community' daring to suggest an issue with their cache, with cries of caching police and other peurile insults that it would seem grossly unfair to simply divert all that to the reviewer's inbox.

I've never seen anyone react that badly, so I have to take your word that such COs exist and are immune to any reason, but even stipulating this, these COs (or whoever) you're describing strike me as a really huge problem, much bigger than cache quality. So I think it's doubly wrong to deploy robots specifically because you want to leave this problem to fester in a hundred other ways. I'd much rather spend reviewer's times to resolve this kind of personal conflict than have the reviewer clean up a vicious CO's caches, making the unhinged CO especially annoyed with the reviewer, just so that CO can plant new caches and be nasty to even more people.

6 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

I've been on the receiving end of a considerable amount of abuse as a result.

I'd like to hear about that. I assume you don't really mean "abuse" in the technical sense, since that would obviously call for GS intervention and the rapid elimination of the other player. So I assume you mean more like you were given a bad time, and I'm wondering on what grounds the offending party rejected your explanation about why you needed to contribute your input. After all, I'm sure you wouldn't be bringing it up in the context unless the case you presented was cut and dried, since that's the kind of cache we're expecting the algorithm is going to identify, so I'm at a loss imagining how the clear expression of that cut and dried case could result in a response that's abusive, but not so abusive that GS doesn't step in.

[+thebruce0]

2 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

If cache owners can ignore the CHS email messages without any consequences  then the CHS email serve no useful purpose.  

Sure, if you ignore all the owners who actually do not ignore the email and legitimately are reminded to check on a cache that actually does have problems, or it was even just a little nudge that it might be worth checking. "No" useful purpose?  No.

 

1 hour ago, NanCycle said:

The more there are clearly false positives (e.g. a find by an experienced cacher after 2-3 DNFs by noobs) the more there will be armchair OM logs to counteract them.

In cases of no problems with the cache, this is a non-issue. In cases where there are issues with the cache, eventually the fact that a problem cache is never checked but continuously OM'd will come to reviewer attention, and the owner's status will likely drop as a "good CO" (after course the reviewer intervenes with the problem caches).  In other words, it's only an issue where there are issues.  And in the long term, the only ones practically affected are 'bad owners' who have 'problem caches'.  Not a problem cache? Not a problem. Good owner with problem caches? Issues are dealt with, not a problem.  Bad owner with problem caches? Problems remain, issues not dealt with, caches disabled/archived, and lingering CHS may affect future cache listings (speculation).

Edited October 5, 2017 by thebruce0

[+niraD]

8 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

And in the long term, the only ones practically affected are 'bad owners' who have 'problem caches'.  Not a problem cache? Not a problem.

I'm not convinced of that. In situations where the email is sent in error (i.e., false positives, where a human reading the logs can tell that there is no reason to be concerned about the cache's condition, or even that the cache is known to be in good condition), I think Groundspeak could be squandering the goodwill of "good owners", who learn that they can/should ignore these automated emails. Or they could be annoying "good owners" to the point that they are less willing to place and maintain caches in the future.

[+thebruce0]

14 minutes ago, niraD said:

In situations where the email is sent in error (i.e., false positives, where a human reading the logs can tell that there is no reason to be concerned about the cache's condition, or even that the cache is known to be in good condition), I think Groundspeak could be squandering the goodwill of "good owners", who learn that they can/should ignore these automated emails. Or they could be annoying "good owners" to the point that they are less willing to place and maintain caches in the future

"squandering the goodwill"?  As in, such "good cache owners" being annoyed and/or insulted by an email they know they can ignore on a cache in good condition, knowing that it's sent not by a human but by an algorithm that they can help tune?  According to the context of your paragraph, that sounds more like feelings being hurt and essentially 'sticking it to Groundspeak' (and ultimately the community) for annoying them, by deciding not to hide any more. Taking good caches away from community enjoyment, on principle, because of an email.

Edited October 5, 2017 by thebruce0

[+NanCycle]

1 hour ago, L0ne.R said:

How many NAs did you post in 2017?   14

How many NMs?   17

How many cache owners responded to your NMs?  none

Did you follow up any NMs with an NA?  no, but looking back through them, there are a few that I should.

Did anyone else, if there was no owner response?  some cachers replaced damaged containers.

Almost all NAs  were archived by reviewer.

 

 

[+niraD]

21 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

"squandering the goodwill"?  As in, such "good cache owners" being annoyed and/or insulted by an email they know they can ignore on a cache in good condition, knowing that it's sent not by a human but by an algorithm that they can help tune?  According to the context of your paragraph, that sounds more like feelings being hurt and essentially 'sticking it to Groundspeak' (and ultimately the community) for annoying them, by deciding not to hide any more. Taking good caches away from community enjoyment, on principle, because of an email.

Sure, it could play out that way. They could decide to throw a tantrum, "stick it to Groundspeak", or commit geocide.

Or they could just decide that the way they had been approaching geocaching is no longer fun (in theory, that's why we do this, right?), and choose to approach geocaching differently, in a way that is more fun. If that means no longer bothering to own and maintain geocaches, then as "good owners" they will of course archive the listings and remove the containers, right?

[+Mudfrog]

29 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

"squandering the goodwill"?  As in, such "good cache owners" being annoyed and/or insulted by an email they know they can ignore on a cache in good condition, knowing that it's sent not by a human but by an algorithm that they can help tune?  According to the context of your paragraph, that sounds more like feelings being hurt and essentially 'sticking it to Groundspeak' (and ultimately the community) for annoying them, by deciding not to hide any more. Because of an email.

Bruce, ya gotta remember, humans are involved here. Some can go along just fine when a problem arises but for many, nope,, their feelings get hurt, they cry foul, and they do silly things to make things right. I can understand someone taking their ball home when the carp flies their way but a CHS email? I wouldn't think it'd be enough to trigger this.

But if a person did decide to quit, are they deliberately trying to punish anyone? Some yes, but i'd bet most of the time it was because the fun had left the building and they decided to move on to something else.

Edited October 5, 2017 by Mudfrog

[+L0ne.R]

30 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

"squandering the goodwill"?  As in, such "good cache owners" being annoyed and/or insulted by an email they know they can ignore on a cache in good condition, knowing that it's sent not by a human but by an algorithm that they can help tune?  According to the context of your paragraph, that sounds more like feelings being hurt and essentially 'sticking it to Groundspeak' (and ultimately the community) for annoying them, by deciding not to hide any more. Taking good caches away from community enjoyment, on principle, because of an email.

I don't get it either, except maybe the initial 'What the Heck?' reaction, but after understanding why I would hope most owners whould see the benefit to the community far outweighing a bit of initial annoyance.

I use to always write a note after doing a maintenance visit, then one day I got a reviewer email saying I needed to post an OM. I didn't understand? What's an OM and why should I use it? I'm a good owner, I check my caches, I post notes. But then my reviewer explained and I looked up some more info about OMs. Made great sense for COs, for finders, for reviewers.

[+thebruce0]

22 minutes ago, niraD said:

they could just decide that the way they had been approaching geocaching is no longer fun (in theory, that's why we do this, right?), and choose to approach geocaching differently, in a way that is more fun. If that means no longer bothering to own and maintain geocaches, then as "good owners" they will of course archive the listings and remove the containers, right?

Sure, yep, they could. That would be quite unfortunate though if the straw that broke the camel's back was merely the reception of a harmless email, per the context above.

 

12 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

I don't get it either, except maybe the initial 'What the Heck?' reaction, but after understanding why I would hope most owners whould see the benefit to the community far outweighing a bit of initial annoyance.

I use to always write a note after doing a maintenance visit, then one day I got a reviewer email saying I needed to post an OM. I didn't understand? What's an OM and why should I use it? I'm a good owner, I check my caches, I post notes. But then my reviewer explained and I looked up some more info about OMs. Made great sense for COs, for finders, for reviewers.

Yep. I'd imagine there was similar annoyance at having to manually remove that NM flag every time someone posted a NM, before the reviewer would step in and "proacively" disable the cache due to the lingering flag, even though the owner felt there was no issue. There are little things CO's have over the years had to increasingly do in order to help provide a smoother experience for the community, and usually after reviewers were given the right to act proactively.

In the case of the email, only the CO gets it, no one else in the community knows. The email does nothing. It's sent after a threshold has been crossed. If you are confident it's in error and the threshold shouldn't have been crossed, delete the email, ignore it, or help improve the system. Couldn't be simpler. Even easier than having to manage that NM flag on a listing. And it's not even anything to take personally, since a human didn't send the email.

[+barefootjeff]

3 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

How many NAs did you post in 2017? How many NMs? How many cache owners responded to your NMs? Did you follow up any NMs with an NA? Did anyone else, if there was no owner response?

 

If you must know, so far this year I've logged 3 NMs and 3 NAs and also voluntarily archived one of my own hides that was having ongoing muggle troubles, but as I said before, I encounter very few gone-to-pulp caches in the course of my caching and I'm not the one complaining about widespread geolitter.

[+barefootjeff]

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

"squandering the goodwill"?  As in, such "good cache owners" being annoyed and/or insulted by an email they know they can ignore on a cache in good condition, knowing that it's sent not by a human but by an algorithm that they can help tune?  According to the context of your paragraph, that sounds more like feelings being hurt and essentially 'sticking it to Groundspeak' (and ultimately the community) for annoying them, by deciding not to hide any more. Taking good caches away from community enjoyment, on principle, because of an email.

From the response I got from HQ when I tried to report my blatant false positive last December, and the fact that it's still pinging high D/T caches with only one or two DNFs and no other issues, I'd say they have no interest in tuning their algorithm to reduce false positives or even want to hear about them.

[+barefootjeff]

7 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

And I'm confident that this entire thread discussing DNFs has had an impact on their weight and incorporation into the algorithm.

From the evidence of the algorithm's most recent pings on caches with only one or two DNFs, I suspect nothing's changed at all.

[Keystone]

On ‎9‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 1:55 PM, Keystone said:

The cache health algorithm is pretty sophisticated, and it's tweaked from time to time in response to feedback.  One such tweak is in testing right now, for deployment in the near future.  Some of that feedback comes from reviewers, who can see each cache's health score.  We can, and do, question why a cache triggered a reminder email to the owner under certain circumstances that, as geocachers, we'd call premature, and where, as reviewers, we would not take action.  The opposite is also true:  "why didn't this 1/1 cache with eight straight DNF's over the past year not trigger an email reminder to the owner?"

I'm copying over this post I made to another thread a few weeks ago.  By way of update, the referenced tweak to the algorithm was deployed at the end of last month.  So, it's now been about one week since Geocaching HQ listened to feedback and responded by updating the formula for calculating a cache's Health Score.  As a reviewer, cache owner and player, I am grateful for their responsiveness.

[+niraD]

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Sure, yep, they could. That would be quite unfortunate though if the straw that broke the camel's back was merely the reception of a harmless email, per the context above.

So how could it be made more clear that the email is indeed harmless when the email is sent in error?

[+barefootjeff]

33 minutes ago, Keystone said:

On 20/09/2017 at 3:55 AM, Keystone said:

The cache health algorithm is pretty sophisticated, and it's tweaked from time to time in response to feedback.  One such tweak is in testing right now, for deployment in the near future.  Some of that feedback comes from reviewers, who can see each cache's health score.  We can, and do, question why a cache triggered a reminder email to the owner under certain circumstances that, as geocachers, we'd call premature, and where, as reviewers, we would not take action.  The opposite is also true:  "why didn't this 1/1 cache with eight straight DNF's over the past year not trigger an email reminder to the owner?"

I'm copying over this post I made to another thread a few weeks ago.  By way of update, the referenced tweak to the algorithm was deployed at the end of last month.  So, it's now been about one week since Geocaching HQ listened to feedback and responded by updating the formula for calculating a cache's Health Score.  As a reviewer, cache owner and player, I am grateful for their responsiveness.

Thanks for that, it's good to hear. Let's hope the bug (I say that because, given how out-of-left-field some of the recent reports are, it sounds more like a coding bug than a fine tuning thing) has been fixed.

It'd be nice, though, if there was some way for recipients of such blatantly wrong CHS pings (like the D3.5 that had a few historical DNFs prior to its most recent find) to report them to HQ, without just being told that it's been generally well received by the community and as a CO it's your responsibility to regularly visit and maintain your caches, which to me reads as if you hadn't been slacking off, you maintenance-shirker, you, you wouldn't have been pinged.

[Keystone]

On behalf of Signal the Frog, and all other amphibian mascots for geolocational gaming activities, I extend profuse apologies for the one email sent to Barefoot Jeff as a result of the Cache Health algorithm that was in effect in late 2016.

[+barefootjeff]

34 minutes ago, Keystone said:

On behalf of Signal the Frog, and all other amphibian mascots for geolocational gaming activities, I extend profuse apologies for the one email sent to Barefoot Jeff as a result of the Cache Health algorithm that was in effect in late 2016.

That's fine, thank you, but I wasn't looking for an apology, I was hoping for an improvement in the system that would allow recipients of blatantly false positives to report them without just getting a brush-off and a reprimand. If that's now happening, great, but if not, maybe something to consider?

[+L0ne.R]

3 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

If you must know, so far this year I've logged 3 NMs and 3 NAs and also voluntarily archived one of my own hides that was having ongoing muggle troubles, but as I said before, I encounter very few gone-to-pulp caches in the course of my caching and I'm not the one complaining about widespread geolitter.

Last year I posted all together about 150 NMs and NAs. When I detailed them in a post I was called a cache cop. This year 7 all together. Can't be bothered.  There's just too many to make a dent in the problem. The red wrenches just keep piling up. 

[+Team Microdot]

7 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

Last year I posted all together about 150 NMs and NAs. When I detailed them in a post I was called a cache cop. This year 7 all together. Can't be bothered.  There's just too many to make a dent in the problem. The red wrenches just keep piling up. 

If only volunteer reviewers would stop publishing caches by proven maintanance shirkers. But they aren't allowed to

[+NYPaddleCacher]

16 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

19 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

If cache owners can ignore the CHS email messages without any consequences  then the CHS email serve no useful purpose.  

Sure, if you ignore all the owners who actually do not ignore the email and legitimately are reminded to check on a cache that actually does have problems, or it was even just a little nudge that it might be worth checking. "No" useful purpose?  No.

A cache owner that responds to a few DNF logs, NM logs or other criteria used to produce a low CHS is probably going to respond quickly even if the CHS did not exist.  

[Keystone]

3 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

If only volunteer reviewers would stop publishing caches by proven maintanance shirkers. But they aren't allowed to

In the past twelve months, I've stated to you several times that this is not true.  Saying something over and over again doesn't make a statement true.

In any case, the statement is off topic.  I just couldn't let it sit there uncontested.

[+Team Microdot]

10 minutes ago, Keystone said:

3 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

If only volunteer reviewers would stop publishing caches by proven maintanance shirkers. But they aren't allowed to

In the past twelve months, I've stated to you several times that this is not true.  Saying something over and over again doesn't make a statement true.

In any case, the statement is off topic.  I just couldn't let it sit there uncontested.

Have you? Oh - sorry - I must have forgotten. In fact I clearly have forgotten - that's weird - your memory must be better than mine. Thanks for the reminder

So if they are allowed to do it, maybe they should? I imagine the CHS could be used to facilitate identification.

[+L0ne.R]

1 hour ago, Keystone said:

In the past twelve months, I've stated to you several times that this is not true.  Saying something over and over again doesn't make a statement true.

In any case, the statement is off topic.  I just couldn't let it sit there uncontested.

Interesting. Good to hear that maintenance shirkers are being denied new publications.

I had assumed that wasn't the case because there's been no chatter about it in the forums. I was expecting someone to come in and say they had heard angry discussion at events that admired event-going but maintenance-shirker xxxx-cacher can not hide caches anymore and it's just wrong (or maybe secretly glad that s/he was stopped). Although I have noticed a couple of maintenance-shirkers not posting new caches in the last year. I had assumed they had enough but maybe they were denied. 

[+Mudfrog]

6 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

If only volunteer reviewers would stop publishing caches by proven maintanance shirkers. But they aren't allowed to

 

2 hours ago, Keystone said:

In the past twelve months, I've stated to you several times that this is not true.  Saying something over and over again doesn't make a statement true.

In any case, the statement is off topic.  I just couldn't let it sit there uncontested.

This is interesting.  All i've ever heard, and i thought from you as well, was that if the cache meets current guidelines, the publish button had to be pushed.

This is something new i suppose, and if so,,, Good!

Edited October 6, 2017 by Mudfrog

[Keystone]

Guidance about stopping geocachers from hiding more caches if they have chronic/numerous maintenance issues with their existing caches has been in place for nearly a year, and has been discussed in the forums several times since then.  Personally I've used the option three times.

In addition, the guidance from Geocaching HQ to Community Volunteer Reviewers is now "public facing" since the update to the Geocache Listing Guidelines on September 5th.  Quoting from the new Guidelines:

Quote

Cache owners who do not maintain their existing caches in a timely manner may temporarily or permanently lose the right to list new caches on Geocaching.com.

 

[+Team Microdot]

3 hours ago, Keystone said:

In addition, the guidance from Geocaching HQ to Community Volunteer Reviewers is now "public facing" since the update to the Geocache Listing Guidelines on September 5th.  Quoting from the new Guidelines:

Quote

Cache owners who do not maintain their existing caches in a timely manner may temporarily or permanently lose the right to list new caches on Geocaching.com.

Is that the sum total of the guidance from Geocaching HQ to Community Volunteer Reviewers with regard to cache owners who do not maintain their existing caches in a timely manner potentially temporarily or permanently losing the right to list new caches on Geocaching.com?

[Keystone]

52 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

Is that the sum total of the guidance from Geocaching HQ to Community Volunteer Reviewers with regard to cache owners who do not maintain their existing caches in a timely manner potentially temporarily or permanently losing the right to list new caches on Geocaching.com?

No.

[+Team Microdot]

19 minutes ago, Keystone said:

1 hour ago, Team Microdot said:

Is that the sum total of the guidance from Geocaching HQ to Community Volunteer Reviewers with regard to cache owners who do not maintain their existing caches in a timely manner potentially temporarily or permanently losing the right to list new caches on Geocaching.com?

No.

So not really public facing then.

Edited October 6, 2017 by Team Microdot

[+niraD]

2 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

So not really public facing then.

No, the full guidance from Geocaching HQ to Community Volunteer Reviewers is not public facing.

That applies to cache owners who do not maintain their existing caches yet try to list new ones, as well as so many other topics.

Did you expect it all to be public facing?

[+Team Microdot]

7 hours ago, niraD said:

No, the full guidance from Geocaching HQ to Community Volunteer Reviewers is not public facing.

That applies to cache owners who do not maintain their existing caches yet try to list new ones, as well as so many other topics.

Did you expect it all to be public facing?

You seem to have taken comments made in relation to a quite specific topic area and massively generalised them.

I'm not sure why.

[+dprovan]

15 hours ago, niraD said:

No, the full guidance from Geocaching HQ to Community Volunteer Reviewers is not public facing.

That applies to cache owners who do not maintain their existing caches yet try to list new ones, as well as so many other topics.

Did you expect it all to be public facing?

 

For once, I understand Team Microdot's point, so I'll defend them: Keystone said explicitly (and proudly, I would say) that the guidance was now "public facing" and then turned around in his very next post and admitted that there's more guidance that isn't public. I assume that a general overview has been published, but that there's a lot more to it that's still not public. KeyStone was a little clumsy about how he expressed that which confused Team Microdot.

[+Team Microdot]

52 minutes ago, dprovan said:

16 hours ago, niraD said:

No, the full guidance from Geocaching HQ to Community Volunteer Reviewers is not public facing.

That applies to cache owners who do not maintain their existing caches yet try to list new ones, as well as so many other topics.

Did you expect it all to be public facing?

 

For once, I understand Team Microdot's point, so I'll defend them: Keystone said explicitly (and proudly, I would say) that the guidance was now "public facing" and then turned around in his very next post and admitted that there's more guidance that isn't public. I assume that a general overview has been published, but that there's a lot more to it that's still not public. KeyStone was a little clumsy about how he expressed that which confused Team Microdot.

While I appreciate your support I want to assure you that at no point was I at all confused

Edited October 7, 2017 by Team Microdot
typo

[+niraD]

Okay, I reread the recent posts on this topic, and I can see how easy it is to interpret Keystone's comments to mean that "[all] the guidance from Geocaching HQ" is now public facing. At no point did I interpret his comments that way.

[+Team Microdot]

6 minutes ago, niraD said:

Okay, I reread the recent posts on this topic, and I can see how easy it is to interpret Keystone's comments to mean that "[all] the guidance from Geocaching HQ" is now public facing. At no point did I interpret his comments that way.

Nobody did as far as I can tell - at any point. Hence my surprise at your question.

[+dprovan]

47 minutes ago, niraD said:

Okay, I reread the recent posts on this topic, and I can see how easy it is to interpret Keystone's comments to mean that "[all] the guidance from Geocaching HQ" is now public facing. At no point did I interpret his comments that way.

Really? He said, "The guidance from Geocaching HQ to Community Volunteer Reviewers". I can't even imagine how to interpret that other than meaning all the guidance. I interpreted it that way, but I just assumed he misspoke since publishing the details for all to see doesn't really make any sense.

[+niraD]

12 hours ago, dprovan said:

I can't even imagine how to interpret that other than meaning all the guidance.

I assumed that he meant that the fact that there is such guidance (from HQ to the volunteer reviewers) is now public facing, not that all such guideance is public facing.

The idea that all the guidance from HQ to the volunteer reviewers (on any topic) would be public facing seems absurd to me. I guess I just never considered it as an alternative.

[+Team DEMP]

I'm an aggressive NM/NA cacher, even for caches which I haven't physically visited but are in areas I target to possibly hunt.  I mark caches NM and put them on my watch list. I follow-up in a month or 2 and post a NA if nothing has been done. Within a week, a reviewer posts their note and 30 days later the cache is archived. I'm not sure there's been any case where I've posted a NA that it wasn't archived. Often I do so knowing the CO is gone from the game and expect no response from my NM, NA or the reviewers action.

If everyone in this thread and many cachers not in this thread took 15 mins a week to do what I described above, a fair amount of known crap would get cleaned up. I know some feel it's the CO's job but when the CO is gone or not attentive, we can make things better. 

Automation is great but unless there's some magic AI algorithm that will be implemented, we, the caching community, will always be much smarter at it. So stop posting to the forum and start logging NMs (with you following-up in 1 month) and those NAs and lets clean things up.

P.S. If you don't like this approach, don't do it, which changes nothing. Just because you don't want to do it, don't criticize those that do any more than you wouldn't want me or others to criticize your lack of DNF, NM and NA contributions. 

Edited October 8, 2017 by Team DEMP

[+cerberus1]

5 minutes ago, Team DEMP said:

I'm an aggressive NM/NA cacher, even for caches which I haven't physically visited but are in areas I target to possibly hunt.  I mark caches NM and put them on my watch list. I follow-up in a month or 2 and post a NA if nothing has been done. Within a week, a reviewer posts their note and 30 days later the cache is archived. I'm not sure there's been any case where I've posted a NA that it wasn't archived. Often I do so knowing the CO is gone from the game and expect no response from my NM, NA or the reviewers action.

If everyone in this thread and many cachers not in this thread took 15 mins a week to do what I described above, a fair amount of known crap would get cleaned up.

No thanks. 

To intentionally NM/NA caches I've never visited first  would probably keep us from being able to attend events anymore.

 - But if I ever decided to, I'd make it COs who are still in the game, instead of taking a "non-confrontational" approach with absent members.  Those folks  might pick up their garbage after I've nailed 'em remotely...

Just yesterday I NM a cache that was close to being gross (and one designed for kids to boot), yet  no one mentioned that the contents were slowly degrading.   Supergeosenses wouldn't have caught that from afar.   Visiting it did...

 

[+on4bam]

51 minutes ago, Team DEMP said:

I'm an aggressive NM/NA cacher, even for caches which I haven't physically visited but are in areas I target to possibly hunt.

So, without knowing the situation you're guessing a cache NM/NA? I would never log NM without making sure a NM is needed. That means no NM if I DNF but only after a find and actually seeing there is a problem. I've seen caches where, reading the logs, it may seem there's a problem (mostly something broken, wet/full log) but when finding it it was actually fixed already but the CO forgot to log a OM. So why logging a NM/OM on a guess?

Looks a bit like a film critic writing a review without seeing the movie.

Edited October 8, 2017 by on4bam

[+Team DEMP]

I'll follow up later when I get back from a football game with lots of real life examples, not theoretical "what if" scenarios as this thread describes.  

As for not visiting the cache, you mean the Cache Health Score, or does a computer visit each cache before sending out a message to the cache owner? Like I said, you don't have to do this but my real life experience shows 100% success with the cache either being properly maintained after extensive neglect or archived. Not sure how it could get any better. 

Edited October 8, 2017 by Team DEMP

[+cerberus1]

A couple years ago I found an ammo can in an open area that had numerous DNF logs from people I thought were better searchers than me,   stating that "one couldn't possibly be there".

Betting that no one seemed to have noticed the size-not-chosen at the top of the cache page, and I headed out with the other 2/3rds...

Found the mini "ammo can" in about ten minutes.   That was when I realized that something simple can fool a lot of people,  and I've headed out and looked myself before placing any actions on it since.  

[+Mudfrog]

There may be some reviewers that see nothing wrong with someone filing an armchair NM or NA. If i were a reviewer, and knew the email came from a person that hadn't even been close to the cache site, i'd have a canned response email ready to cover it. Something like,

"Greetings from the Reviewer covering the cache you assume has a problem. Please present some evidence, usually obtained when actually visiting a cache site, to support your assumption that there is a problem with this cache. I'll be happy to look into the matter when such evidence is brought forth. Thank you for your understanding."

[+Team Microdot]

29 minutes ago, Mudfrog said:

There may be some reviewers that see nothing wrong with someone filing an armchair NM or NA. If i were a reviewer, and knew the email came from a person that hadn't even been close to the cache site, i'd have a canned response email ready to cover it. Something like,

"Greetings from the Reviewer covering the cache you assume has a problem. Please present some evidence, usually obtained when actually visiting a cache site, to support your assumption that there is a problem with this cache. I'll be happy to look into the matter when such evidence is brought forth. Thank you for your understanding."

What would you do if they just wrote back that they'd searched for an hour and found nothing?