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Release Notes (Geocaching.com, Friend League) - July 11, 2017


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A local high find count geocacher posted in the local geocaching FB group the other day complaining that she was getting bombarded with friend requests from people she's never heard of from all over the place.  She's decided to "turn off friend requests" until this souvenir promotion is over.  

I haven't received any friend request and have no interest whatsoever in participating on a feature with a "leader board".  To me, there's already too much competition in geocaching and I refuse to support a feature that encourages more of it

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What happened today?  We saw that our score had reset to zero as planned at 05:00 PDT.  We then logged a new find (GC5RQF6) at about 06:00 PDT (14:00 BST) but our score did not change.  We were getting a lot of server error messages at about that time.  Did that cause caches to be excluded from the Friends League scoring or is my time zone conversion wrong?

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On 7/13/2017 at 7:37 AM, Twinklekitkat said:

Also, if more than 10 of your friends are active during the time frame, will you be able to see more than 10 slots?

At present, ten is the maximum number of friends displayed, though the total score reflects the sum of all friends' scores. We are actively working on adding the functionality to view more than ten friends at once.

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2 hours ago, Travelling-MnM said:

What happened today?  We saw that our score had reset to zero as planned at 05:00 PDT.  We then logged a new find (GC5RQF6) at about 06:00 PDT (14:00 BST) but our score did not change.  We were getting a lot of server error messages at about that time.  Did that cause caches to be excluded from the Friends League scoring or is my time zone conversion wrong?

There were a few minutes of downtime this morning during the score reset due to heavy load causing a timeout. There was also a short-lived bug where website logs on caches in certain time zones were converted to a time earlier than noon UTC. This has been fixed and sounds like the case with your log, since your conversion seems correct. An easy workaround is to edit the log you think should be counted in this week's friend league. If you hit the edit button, don't change anything, and hit save, the log should self-correct.

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3 hours ago, hleeful said:

There were a few minutes of downtime this morning during the score reset due to heavy load causing a timeout. There was also a short-lived bug where website logs on caches in certain time zones were converted to a time earlier than noon UTC. This has been fixed and sounds like the case with your log, since your conversion seems correct. An easy workaround is to edit the log you think should be counted in this week's friend league. If you hit the edit button, don't change anything, and hit save, the log should self-correct.

Interesting, I know friends of mine have found 5 Caches on the 17.07 but they are not showing up on my list as they are outside of my top ten. See how this goes.

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6 hours ago, hleeful said:

There were a few minutes of downtime this morning during the score reset due to heavy load causing a timeout. There was also a short-lived bug where website logs on caches in certain time zones were converted to a time earlier than noon UTC. This has been fixed and sounds like the case with your log, since your conversion seems correct. An easy workaround is to edit the log you think should be counted in this week's friend league. If you hit the edit button, don't change anything, and hit save, the log should self-correct.

 

Thanks hleeful.  That fixed the problem.  I got my points.

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15 hours ago, monsterbox said:

It's so easy ;) The list simply show the top gold coin earnings. And everyone of your friends does count!

My question was geared towards the friends with 0 points and how those were sorted.  It's pretty basic to see the ones with points are in order by total.  Those with 0 points were originally listed in random order but now appear to be in order by join date.

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Thanks, Groundspeak. I'm now being spammed by random strangers around the internet looking for 'friends'. This sort of unwanted intrusion is precisely the reason I don't participate in Facebook, Twitter and the like. I am not impressed.

Having enabled friend requests so that a small group of people I do know can form a crew, I'll put up with the noise for their sakes until this Mary Hyde thing is over. At that point I'll empty the friend list, block new requests, and go back to the peaceful hobby that Geocaching used to be, engaging with real people in the real world.

 

 

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What a great world we live in, using a service where we've been given the freedom to be able to do just that, use the tools of technology at our disposal in such a way that we're satisfied without impacting others!  Amiright? :)  #positivity

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This looked like a fun challenge for the summer; however, it is not quite clear in some of the aspects..one big question is does every person on your league have to log at least one cache and earn 5 coins (points)?  If one of the team does not, does that mean the rest of the team will not get that week's souvenir even though they all did 5 coins or more and totaled 30 or more coins (points) for the week?  Should one remove any of their team members who have not done any finds by Sunday the 23rd if all friends of the league (team) must earn at least the 5 coins (points)?  Hope can get an answer by tomorrow July 23rd!

Edited by Silverheels
wrong date typed in so changed
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5 hours ago, Silverheels said:

This looked like a fun challenge for the summer; however, it is not quite clear in some of the aspects..one big question is does every person on your league have to log at least one cache and earn 5 coins (points)?  If one of the team does not, does that mean the rest of the team will not get that week's souvenir even though they all did 5 coins or more and totaled 30 or more coins (points) for the week?  Should one remove any of their team members who have not done any finds by Sunday the 23rd if all friends of the league (team) must earn at least the 5 coins (points)?  Hope can get an answer by tomorrow July 23rd!

Hmm, I don't really understand you ;) The description clearly said that your team needs to earn at least 30 points and YOU need to earn 5 points to be eligible for the souvenir then. That clearly implicates that the team members who don't find a cache will simply not get the souvenir.

 

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1 hour ago, monsterbox said:

... The description clearly said that your team needs to earn at least 30 points and YOU need to earn 5 points to be eligible for the souvenir then. That clearly implicates that the team members who don't find a cache will simply not get the souvenir.

So far, to me, the goal of all this seems to be to get cachers to be minimally active.  To get the first souvenir, you had to attend an event.  The second souvenir doesn't actually require you to have friends at all as it's easily accomplished by finding a few caches.  If you DO have friends, you need to find at least one cache during the week and contribute to the "crew" score.  The goals have been pretty simple, and easy to do IF you are even halfway active.

I'm curious what the next goals are going to be - if they will get increasingly more difficult unless you have an active crew ... or still doable individually.  Guess we'll all find out at the same time!!

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3 minutes ago, CAVinoGal said:

I'm curious what the next goals are going to be - if they will get increasingly more difficult unless you have an active crew ... or still doable individually.  Guess we'll all find out at the same time!!

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2017/07/faqs-the-lost-treasure-of-mary-hyde/

Quote

You’ll earn the souvenir with the second map piece when you collect 10 gold coins individually. Souvenir will be awarded on your profile on August 2, 2017.

Quote
  • Find and log a geocache* = 5 gold coins.
  • Find and log a geocache with 10 or more Favorite points = 7 gold coins.
  • Attend and log an event cache = 7 gold coins.
  • Retrieve a trackable from a cache = 5 gold coins.
  • Drop a trackable into a cache = 10 gold coins.

*Excludes lab caches and web cam caches.

 

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4 minutes ago, thomfre said:
Quote
  • Find and log a geocache* = 5 gold coins.
  • Find and log a geocache with 10 or more Favorite points = 7 gold coins.
  • Attend and log an event cache = 7 gold coins.
  • Retrieve a trackable from a cache = 5 gold coins.
  • Drop a trackable into a cache = 10 gold coins.

*Excludes lab caches and web cam caches.

 

Ahhh, so this is an individual goal, and the coins awarded are different amounts and for different geocaching related tasks.  Find 2 caches - you're done, pretty much.

Thanks Thomfre, I hadn't seen the blog page yet. :)

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Quote
 Quote

You’ll earn the souvenir with the second map piece when you collect 10 gold coins individually. Souvenir will be awarded on your profile on August 2, 2017.

  Quote
  • Find and log a geocache* = 5 gold coins.
  • Find and log a geocache with 10 or more Favorite points = 7 gold coins.
  • Attend and log an event cache = 7 gold coins.
  • Retrieve a trackable from a cache = 5 gold coins.
  • Drop a trackable into a cache = 10 gold coins.

*Excludes lab caches and web cam caches.

 

So, that means I can get the ten gold coins by putting my personal geocoin into a cache, and then removing it?  That sounds easy!

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Quote

You’ll earn the souvenir with the second map piece when you collect 10 gold coins individually. Souvenir will be awarded on your profile on August 2, 2017.

 

So, there's no need or use for the Friends League this week?  Sort of defeats the whole porpoise of the Friends League.  Which I will unfriend after the series stops.

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16 hours ago, Silverheels said:

This looked like a fun challenge for the summer; however, it is not quite clear in some of the aspects..one big question is does every person on your league have to log at least one cache and earn 5 coins (points)?  If one of the team does not, does that mean the rest of the team will not get that week's souvenir even though they all did 5 coins or more and totaled 30 or more coins (points) for the week?  Should one remove any of their team members who have not done any finds by Sunday the 23rd if all friends of the league (team) must earn at least the 5 coins (points)?  Hope can get an answer by tomorrow July 23rd!

If your entire 'team' gets 30+ points, then everyone on the team that contributed 5+ points will get the souvenir.

Anyone on your team that achieved 0 points will not get the souvenir.

Having cachers on your team that achieve 0 points will not prevent active cachers on the team from getting their souvenir.

Hope that answers your questions?

 

 

2 hours ago, Harry Dolphin said:

 

So, there's no need or use for the Friends League this week?  Sort of defeats the whole porpoise of the Friends League.  Which I will unfriend after the series stops.

Maybe the difficulty in understanding the 'team' requirements prompted TPTB to make the 2nd week's requirements simpler?  It certainly seems, in the forums and other social sites, that plenty of cachers had trouble understanding the requirements for the 1st week's souvenir.  Maybe they'll bring back the 'team' aspect for the 3rd week's requirements, but use the intervening 'off week' to refine how those requirements are communicated so cachers won't be confused. Just a guess.

 

 

 

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On 7/19/2017 at 2:26 PM, gasbottle said:

Thanks, Groundspeak. I'm now being spammed by random strangers around the internet looking for 'friends'. This sort of unwanted intrusion is precisely the reason I don't participate in Facebook, Twitter and the like. I am not impressed.

Having enabled friend requests so that a small group of people I do know can form a crew, I'll put up with the noise for their sakes until this Mary Hyde thing is over. At that point I'll empty the friend list, block new requests, and go back to the peaceful hobby that Geocaching used to be, engaging with real people in the real world.

 

 

 Im +1'ing you instead of "hearting" your comment and I'm not reading the whole thread from start. Did anyone other than me get this weird feeling that this is a sad little social experiment?

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7 hours ago, Harry Dolphin said:

So, there's no need or use for the Friends League this week?  Sort of defeats the whole porpoise of the Friends League.  Which I will unfriend after the series stops.

I haven't actually "friended" anyone I wouldn't have otherwise - in fact, I've added ONE "friend" who is someone I would have friended earlier on but they weren't accepting friend requests.  Then I got a request from her, so I accepted.  

I was able to accumulate 70 coins on my own the first week, so I contributed to whoever has me on their friends list, and would have earned the souvenir regardless of what anyone else on my "crew" did.  Week 2 is an individual goal; widening my friends circle would not have made a difference so far.

Perhaps in the final two weeks the "Crew" you've built will play into the game a bit more?  To date, I've done nothing different than what I normally would have, except to make a point of attending an event on July 15/16.  I would have found caches at the same pace whether I was going for a souvenir or puzzle piece or whatever ... I haven't gone out of my way to grab a bunch of new friends, especially from the random strangers that post everywhere begging to be friended!

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Hi, I have a question about the souvenirs. Are they expected to appear in the profile just after finishing week or later? First week (17-23 July) finished, I have collected required 30 gold coins, but I still have no souvenir. I think the rules are not too clear...

Regards,

fossilis

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1 hour ago, fossilis said:

Hi, I have a question about the souvenirs. Are they expected to appear in the profile just after finishing week or later? First week (17-23 July) finished, I have collected required 30 gold coins, but I still have no souvenir. I think the rules are not too clear...

Regards,

fossilis

Souvenirs will be awarded the Wednesday after the corresponding week, as players have 2 days to post logs towards the prior week. As each week is announced, the rules for the week as well as the day on which that week's souvenir will be awarded will be updated here. The souvenir for July 17-23 will be awarded on July 26.

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16 hours ago, noncentric said:

If your entire 'team' gets 30+ points, then everyone on the team that contributed 5+ points will get the souvenir.

Anyone on your team that achieved 0 points will not get the souvenir.

Having cachers on your team that achieve 0 points will not prevent active cachers on the team from getting their souvenir.

Hope that answers your questions?

 

 

Maybe the difficulty in understanding the 'team' requirements prompted TPTB to make the 2nd week's requirements simpler?  It certainly seems, in the forums and other social sites, that plenty of cachers had trouble understanding the requirements for the 1st week's souvenir.  Maybe they'll bring back the 'team' aspect for the 3rd week's requirements, but use the intervening 'off week' to refine how those requirements are communicated so cachers won't be confused. Just a guess.

Thank you so much for the complete answer to our question! Now we know ...

 

 

 

 

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The "team" label is weird. It's not a team. It's a network. A team implies an exclusive agreed-upon circle of individuals. This is just... whoever you're connected with benefits from your applicable finds. One person could be helping you and 1000 other people not on your "team". It doesn't seem very teamwork-like.

But yeah, seems more like trying to get as many people minimally active as possible, and that's about it... =/

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Hi there.

I was checking my profile page and I didn't find any souvenir regarding the second week of this pirate thing, although I have accomplished the minimum coins and the "team" also got more than 30 coins. Am I missing something here or the souvenir is only given at the end of the "Friend League"?

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14 minutes ago, AntMadeira said:

Hi there.

I was checking my profile page and I didn't find any souvenir regarding the second week of this pirate thing, although I have accomplished the minimum coins and the "team" also got more than 30 coins. Am I missing something here or the souvenir is only given at the end of the "Friend League"?

The souvenir for the 1st week will be awarded tomorrow (Wednesday). The weekly souvenirs will be awarded on the Wednesday following each week of scoring. 

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On 7/18/2017 at 0:23 AM, hleeful said:

There were a few minutes of downtime this morning during the score reset due to heavy load causing a timeout. There was also a short-lived bug where website logs on caches in certain time zones were converted to a time earlier than noon UTC. This has been fixed and sounds like the case with your log, since your conversion seems correct. An easy workaround is to edit the log you think should be counted in this week's friend league. If you hit the edit button, don't change anything, and hit save, the log should self-correct.

Will this work for last week too?  My daughter finally registered her account and logged her finds.  On Saturday we did 3 different events (CITO, mega, regular), a cache with a couple hundred favorite points, and one other traditional, which should total 45 points.  On my friends league, it shows only 15...

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1 hour ago, xxSubSeaxx said:

Will this work for last week too?  My daughter finally registered her account and logged her finds.  On Saturday we did 3 different events (CITO, mega, regular), a cache with a couple hundred favorite points, and one other traditional, which should total 45 points.  On my friends league, it shows only 15...

The bug referred to was only an issue last Monday (7/17) and was fixed shortly after. To see last week's points, you can hover over the "Week of" dropdown at the top of the friend league page, and click "Week 1". Looking at the data, all of your logs for Saturday 7/22 are accounted for in the friend league points for last week.

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Hey All, I had satisfied the requirements, my friend group got way past 30 points I contributed roughly 80 points or so. I still haven't seen the souvenir from 7/17-7/23. Has anyone else got theirs? I thought they would be awarded today.

Oh I see someone else already brought this up, I guess it helps to go to page 2 before posting a reply :P lol.

Edited by ZillaCloud
My question already brought up.
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3 minutes ago, PathfinderMark said:

WHEN and WHERE do I see the week 1 Mary Hyde souvenir?  I logged on time, and I even logged my kids accounts on time (grr on the time but anyway)...but I don't see any souvenir on any of our lists.  Yes I received an email to confirm that we had achieved the goal.

I see you have the Weigh Anchor map piece souvenir. If you are referring to the Ahoy Me Hearties! souvenir, you were required to attend an event on the 15th or 16th. I don't see an event in your profile for those dates.

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Two questions or issues:

I just noticed that the "Yer total score" portion accurately shows the number of coins earned -- in my case, currently 59.  But the leaderboard portion that shows the ranking of your friends indicates a different number not reflecting coins received for retrieving or dropping trackables -- in my case, currently 42. Is this intentional?

Additionally, I have noticed a bug in the rankings. When two or more friends tie for a particular ranking, the following rank is incorrect. For example, if Friend A and Friend B tie for 4th place, they both should be listed as 4th. Then the next person or persons should be listed as in 6th place as with any other leaderboard you may see. But yet with the current programming the 6th place friend of friends will shows as 5th place.

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3 hours ago, Team Christiansen said:

Two questions or issues:

I just noticed that the "Yer total score" portion accurately shows the number of coins earned -- in my case, currently 59.  But the leaderboard portion that shows the ranking of your friends indicates a different number not reflecting coins received for retrieving or dropping trackables -- in my case, currently 42. Is this intentional?

Additionally, I have noticed a bug in the rankings. When two or more friends tie for a particular ranking, the following rank is incorrect. For example, if Friend A and Friend B tie for 4th place, they both should be listed as 4th. Then the next person or persons should be listed as in 6th place as with any other leaderboard you may see. But yet with the current programming the 6th place friend of friends will shows as 5th place.

Hi Team Christiansen,

When looking at your account, I see both "Yer total score" as well as your record within the league showing 59 as your total. I don't see a 42 on the page for any league members. Perhaps a refresh of the page will help?

The ranking system is a valid point, as the current system is less accurate but was originally chosen in order to keep a logical flow of numbers being displayed. We will internally consider changing the way ranks are displayed.

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4 minutes ago, hleeful said:

Hi Team Christiansen,

When looking at your account, I see both "Yer total score" as well as your record within the league showing 59 as your total. I don't see a 42 on the page for any league members. Perhaps a refresh of the page will help?

The ranking system is a valid point, as the current system is less accurate but was originally chosen in order to keep a logical flow of numbers being displayed. We will internally consider changing the way ranks are displayed.

Thank you. A page refresh did the trick.

But these leaderboard rankings are weird when you are used to seeing other leaderboards such as in golf tourneys, stage races, or even other online competitions.

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This was a fun summer challenge until you included the "trackable" challenge.

We were initially delighted, thinking it would get some old trackables moving again.  But very disappointed to see folks logging TBs as "dropped" and immediately relogged as "picked up".  My opinion of that tactic is CHEATER!  

You need to weed out those folks unless you approve of that pathetic excuse of obtaining points.

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2 hours ago, Nick&Nora2 said:

This was a fun summer challenge until you included the "trackable" challenge.

We were initially delighted, thinking it would get some old trackables moving again.  But very disappointed to see folks logging TBs as "dropped" and immediately relogged as "picked up".  My opinion of that tactic is CHEATER!  

You need to weed out those folks unless you approve of that pathetic excuse of obtaining points.

I used to think like that.  People who game the system are cheats.  But I now realise that what they do doesn't affect me in any way.  If someone gets a souvenir by dropping and retrieving a trackable, it doesn't degrade my souvenir. Mine is still fine.  Now I just shrug and let them get on with it

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It may not be in the spirit of the challenge, but it's technically not cheating. They're doing exactly what they're allowed to do. It's only "cheating" if you compare their actions with yours (in the spirit of the challenge) - in which case, as mentioned above, just shrug it off, since it really doesn't tangibly affect you in any way.  C'est la vie.  Chances are they'd get the souvenir anyway, as pretty much everyone will.

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24 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

It may not be in the spirit of the challenge, but it's technically not cheating. They're doing exactly what they're allowed to do. It's only "cheating" if you compare their actions with yours (in the spirit of the challenge) - in which case, as mentioned above, just shrug it off, since it really doesn't tangibly affect you in any way.  C'est la vie.  Chances are they'd get the souvenir anyway, as pretty much everyone will.

We will be dropping trackables (which we would have to do anyway, souvenir or not) to get the souvenir. We are finding enough caches to get hundreds of points, but since I can't log them online in time, dropping trackables is what enables us to keep enjoying the summer souvenirs. So thank you, Groundspeak!

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