False Publication Dates

[+The Snowdog]

I just noticed that there are a lot of caches, mostly with German titles, with false publication dates - years 1900, 1901, and so on right up to 2000. I did not know that Groundspeak allowed that. Any explanation or reason for this? Thanks.

[+geocat_]

Ah yes, Germany....

You would think with the recent changes to the logging system (e.g., not allowing a second "Found It" log even by accident) that they would have made it impossible to predate a hide.  Maybe that will be forthcoming.  

[+niraD]

FWIW, there are puzzle caches where the "Hidden" date (note that it isn't called a "Publication" date) is an important part of the puzzle. Retroactively changing the "Hidden" date of such puzzle caches could break the puzzles.

And I've heard of letterbox hybrid caches that were placed as letterboxes before geocaching existed, and then later listed on the geocaching.com site using a "Hidden" date based on the original letterbox placement.

[+The Snowdog]

OOPS, I should have said "hidden date." But most of these are just traditionals with bizarre hidden dates.

[+Isonzo Karst]

The current cache reports allows back dating of the date hidden date by one year from date of page creation and I one day forward. So as originally written and saved, that's the placed date  limit (excluding events of course, which all have forward dates). But the edit page has changed little through many years. At some point, it was altered such that 01 January 1900 is the earliest date you can select for hidden (I've seen older, on cache pages created in or earlier than 2002). 

Reworking the edit page on the to do list per staff posts in the Website section, but hasn't happened yet. Mostly, other than this dating issue, I'd rather they leave it alone in its simplicity ;-). 

I'm not going to hunt for the thread, but sometime in the last year (?) this came up, and there were 19 such pre-dated caches (before May 2000) . I see 50 now, but not many German, mostly Czech. You can see them from this link, which is worldwide caches, sorted on placed date, oldest first.

Here's a bookmark list that's fairly current. There are some project-gc script writers tracking these as well, as they need to be individually excluded from placed date challenges.

[+HHL]

12 minutes ago, Isonzo Karst said:

[...] Here's a bookmark list that's fairly current. [...]

This list sortable (click here).
This list mapped (click here).

Have Fun
Hans