Jump to content

Mary Hyde annoyance


Gill & Tony

Recommended Posts

Many people log caches as found in the field, via a smart phone.

The coin counting algorithm resets at 05:00 PDT on a Monday.   This is midnight Monday in NSW so any caches logged in the field on a Monday get counted for the previous week.  Since there was no previous week, all caches logged in the field yesterday (yes, it is Tuesday already here) are lost.  

Why not reset each person's counter ar 05:00 Monday,  local time?

Link to comment

We logged a cache at 06:00 PDT  (14:00 BST)  but it was not counted,  even though the reset from the previous week had occurred  (our score was back to zero before we logged the new cache. 

 

The system was very slow - even giving HTML error messages like 'Server not responding' - at the time.  Has this challenge overloaded Groundspeak's servers and caused caches to go unscored?

Edited by Travelling-MnM
Link to comment
6 minutes ago, Travelling-MnM said:

I guess the question is what is your local time when you are travelling - the time at your home or the time wherever you are (which can go backwards when you change time zones!)

Why not do the simple thing and look at the log date?   If the log date is 17 July then it gets counted into week 1.  23 July into week 1 and 24 July into week 2.

 

After all, that is what the instructions say.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
12 minutes ago, Heather_Erinfan said:

The text of the Mary Hyde challenge doesn't mention what time or timezone counts for start. Only from the 17th until 23d. 

the following is of the web page

To earn the souvenir you must contribute at least 5 gold coins towards your crew’s total. The Friend League will refresh every Monday at 5am (PST), noon (UTC). This week’s souvenir will be awarded to your profile on Wednesday July 26, 2017.

the rules change every Monday at 5 am PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) this resets counts and start the new week off 

so for the long white cloud (NZ) the timing is

Mon 5am PDT (USA) =  Mon  12.00am mid night nz
wed 5am PDT (USA) =  wed 12.00am mid night nz  19 hours ahead

 

Link to comment
36 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

Why not do the simple thing and look at the log date?   If the log date is 17 July then it gets counted into week 1.  23 July into week 1 and 24 July into week 2.

 

After all, that is what the instructions say.

 

Gill & Tony,  as far as I can tell the log date is based on the time zone of your computer.  I leave my laptop on GMT but my phone picks up local time.  This can lead to odd results if I use them alternately to log caches. 

 

Presumably if they used log dates you could fake the data just by setting the clock on your PC.  (That might still be more user friendly than the current scheme.)

Link to comment
26 minutes ago, Travelling-MnM said:

 

Gill & Tony,  as far as I can tell the log date is based on the time zone of your computer.  I leave my laptop on GMT but my phone picks up local time.  This can lead to odd results if I use them alternately to log caches. 

 

Presumably if they used log dates you could fake the data just by setting the clock on your PC.  (That might still be more user friendly than the current scheme.)

Logging through the web site has a drop down date.  So, if you found the cache yesterday and log today, you can just set the drop-down to yesterday's date.

 

As for cheating the system, that has always been available to allow people to get souvenirs or to fake streaks.  I don't like it, but there's never going to be a way to stop it happening

Edited by Gill & Tony
Link to comment
1 hour ago, Gill & Tony said:

Many people log caches as found in the field, via a smart phone.

The coin counting algorithm resets at 05:00 PDT on a Monday.   This is midnight Monday in NSW so any caches logged in the field on a Monday get counted for the previous week.  Since there was no previous week, all caches logged in the field yesterday (yes, it is Tuesday already here) are lost.  

Why not reset each person's counter ar 05:00 Monday,  local time?

Hi Gill & Tony,

Thanks for bringing up this time zone issue. When logged through the app, the logs will have a time stamp. However, if you go to your logs on Geocaching.com and choose 'edit', correct the date to 7/17 and then 'save' them they will default to noon UTC and should show up on your Friend League. Alternatively, you can wait until Monday, noon UTC to log your caches on the web going forward and they should all count for the correct week.

The Friend League is set up to refresh at one moment in the universe for now. It would take considerable more work to build the feature to automatically reset each geocachers' Friend League at 5 am their local time. We wanted to learn if geocachers like and use this feature before considering to spend a lot more time building out that functionality.

Note: Additionally there was a problem with logging caches after noon UTC for some geocachers today. The issue has since been fixed. Anyone who logged after noon UTC today (7/17) and did not receive gold coins for their Friend League, please go to your logs on Geocaching.com, choose 'edit', and then 'save'. We apologize for the inconvenience!

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Lebbetter said:

Hi Gill & Tony,

Thanks for bringing up this time zone issue. When logged through the app, the logs will have a time stamp. However, if you go to your logs on Geocaching.com and choose 'edit', correct the date to 7/17 and then 'save' them they will default to noon UTC and should show up on your Friend League. Alternatively, you can wait until Monday, noon UTC to log your caches on the web going forward and they should all count for the correct week.

The Friend League is set up to refresh at one moment in the universe for now. It would take considerable more work to build the feature to automatically reset each geocachers' Friend League at 5 am their local time. We wanted to learn if geocachers like and use this feature before considering to spend a lot more time building out that functionality.

Note: Additionally there was a problem with logging caches after noon UTC for some geocachers today. The issue has since been fixed. Anyone who logged after noon UTC today (7/17) and did not receive gold coins for their Friend League, please go to your logs on Geocaching.com, choose 'edit', and then 'save'. We apologize for the inconvenience!

It is possible to do this without any resetting at all.  I'm guessing you have 4 fields in the database for each cacher - their scores for weeks 1 to 4.  I also assume that there is a bit of code which looks at a log and adds something to the current week's score.  By simply changing that bit of code to say "If Log date between 17 and 23 July inclusive add to week 1 score, if between 24 and 30 inclusive add to week 2 score etc." Then at the cut off time, do whatever you have to do to determine whether the requirements are met.  No resetting needed and everyone gets to log in the field or at their leisure.  Anyone who logs into week 1 after the week 1 cut off doesn't get those logs counted, just like now.

I came here to ask how long it took to register my find and found about the bug.  I went off and did my edit/save bit and all is well.  Does that mean that someone who logged in the field yesterday can get their coins by editing/saving the log now? 

 

PS  What has happened to the "Preview Post" ability - my typing is terrible and I always like to check before saving?

Link to comment

I tend to do this every time I'm logging finds close to midnight easter. I'll avoid logging via field note uploaded from the phone, and just create a new log via the website, just to ensure there is no chance of including a time with the date. (sometimes I wonder if changing the date from a composed field note will keep the time component, just shifted to a different date, which would not be what I want).

 

Any doubt? Just post the log via the website. Guaranteed no timezome issues.

Link to comment
9 hours ago, Lebbetter said:

The Friend League is set up to refresh at one moment in the universe for now. It would take considerable more work to build the feature to automatically reset each geocachers' Friend League at 5 am their local time. We wanted to learn if geocachers like and use this feature before considering to spend a lot more time building out that functionality.

Not to mention, the complications that would arise if cachers within a single 'Friend League' are not in the same time zone.

Link to comment
On ‎18‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 8:48 PM, noncentric said:

Not to mention, the complications that would arise if cachers within a single 'Friend League' are not in the same time zone.

This.

 

I think that's why these friend leagues (is this a new feature that is going to stick around after this Mary Hide thing? If so, why?) have to reset at a specific time - currently published as noon UTC.

 

Link to comment

And even worse, after having tried to change the date to 18/7, my caches are still not counted for the Mary gold coins...  What can I do to this ?  Do I have to recreate all my 10 logs ?  NB: I have logged via the GSAK application. But till now, I have never noticed an issue with that to get the previous souvenirs.

Link to comment
On 7/17/2017 at 8:23 PM, Gill & Tony said:

....PS  What has happened to the "Preview Post" ability - my typing is terrible and I always like to check before saving?

The Preview Icon is all the way to the right on the edit bar, it's the page with magnifying glass to the right of the Size selector box.

Terribly obscure is how to GET OUT of preview! which is to click the X in the black circle, in the upper right corner of the preview

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
3 minutes ago, Isonzo Karst said:

The Preview Icon is all the way to the right on the edit bar, it's the page with magnifying glass to the right of the Size selector box.

Terribly obscure is how to GET OUT of preview! which is to click the X in the black circle, in the upper right corner of the preview

Thanks.  I would not have thought of that.  

 

Cheers

 

Tony

Link to comment

Same sort of trouble here. I attended an event, logged it and it did not come up in the Friend League. Editing and saving did not help. Deleting the log and posting an  Attend again did help: the coins are there now. I'm guessing the trouble is I booked it as an 'Will attend' first and then changed it to 'Attend'.

Even worse is I have attended a Mary Hyde event on 16 July (GC77TN6), but I did not get the souvenir. Probably the same issue and not so easy to fix as the Event has already been archived..

Well, no tears for pirates, I guess.

 

Link to comment
7 hours ago, D&M's said:

Same sort of trouble here. I attended an event, logged it and it did not come up in the Friend League. Editing and saving did not help. Deleting the log and posting an  Attend again did help: the coins are there now. I'm guessing the trouble is I booked it as an 'Will attend' first and then changed it to 'Attend'.

Even worse is I have attended a Mary Hyde event on 16 July (GC77TN6), but I did not get the souvenir. Probably the same issue and not so easy to fix as the Event has already been archived..

Well, no tears for pirates, I guess.

I think it's common knowledge that changing a log type (will attend to attended or note to found) will not activate the souvenirs.  Just because the event was archived, does not mean that you cannot log  'attended' (for the appropriate date.)  

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
On ‎22‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 11:55 PM, Harry Dolphin said:

I think it's common knowledge that changing a log type (will attend to attended or note to found) will not activate the souvenirs.  Just because the event was archived, does not mean that you cannot log  'attended' (for the appropriate date.)  

It wasn't common knowledge to me. I changed a DNF to found for an earthcache (with full permission from the CO), and didn't get the coins. I emailed Groundspeak about this, but so far they haven't fixed it. Fortunately I've got more than the required number of coins anyway, so it isn't an issue, but I can see it being a problem for some.

Link to comment
13 minutes ago, Optimist on the run said:

It wasn't common knowledge to me. I changed a DNF to found for an earthcache (with full permission from the CO), and didn't get the coins. I emailed Groundspeak about this, but so far they haven't fixed it. Fortunately I've got more than the required number of coins anyway, so it isn't an issue, but I can see it being a problem for some.

I also wouldn't call it "common knowledge", but it was accessible knowledge. Maybe.

The Mary Hyde FAQ notes notes that points won't be earned if a "write note" log is changed to a "found it" log. I guess it could've been inferred that the same would happen if changing a "didn't find" to a "found it". But yeah, probably not as clearly communicated as it could've been.

Link to comment
35 minutes ago, noncentric said:

I also wouldn't call it "common knowledge", but it was accessible knowledge. Maybe.

The Mary Hyde FAQ notes notes that points won't be earned if a "write note" log is changed to a "found it" log. I guess it could've been inferred that the same would happen if changing a "didn't find" to a "found it". But yeah, probably not as clearly communicated as it could've been.

Thanks - I hadn't read that part of the FAQ. I've now deleted and resubmitted the log, and my loot is correct.

Edited by Optimist on the run
Extra info
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...