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Release Notes (Website: Dashboard, owner maintenance tool) - November 21, 2017


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1 hour ago, Pontiac_CZ said:

Isn't something wrong with the CHS algorithm if a disabled cache with NM flag does not show up in the widget? Such a cache certainly cannot be considered "healthy".

In my area (and perhaps most, but I can't say that unequivocally), our Local Reviewers do periodic sweeps for long Disabled caches.  Perhaps they thought it was redundant to include such caches in the CHS, and rather focus on other aspects that could indicate a problem.  The other aspect of a Disabled cache, providing that your Local Reviewer is keeping up on the issue, it usually means a more active CO if they went to the trouble to come online and Disable their Listing in the recent past, compared to a Listing that is piling up DNF's/NM's without any response.

In my area, most people will post a NA after a month or two of being Disabled, in order to alert the Local Reviewer that corrective action seems a bit slow.  Perhaps a similar approach will work in your area.

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1 hour ago, Pontiac_CZ said:

Isn't something wrong with the CHS algorithm if a disabled cache with NM flag does not show up in the widget? Such a cache certainly cannot be considered "healthy".

Right. But it seems that the cache is not sick enough. ;-)

Hans

Edited by HHL
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2 hours ago, Pontiac_CZ said:

Isn't something wrong with the CHS algorithm if a disabled cache with NM flag does not show up in the widget? Such a cache certainly cannot be considered "healthy".

The CHS algorithm was originally designed for a different purpose, and is still being used for that purpose.

If the widget needs to automatically show caches with the NM flag, or automatically show disabled caches, or automatically show disabled caches with the NM attribute, then I think the solution is to change the widget, so that it does not rely solely on the CHS. Changing the CHS for this purpose would cause problems with the other applications of the CHS.

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On 11/22/2017 at 4:19 PM, thebruce0 said:

Or, the other way to look at it - it remains on an "annoy" list. At best, nothing is ever done about the cache, and the nag remains an annoyance. (Yes, if there is no problem with the cache, a reviewer may agree and nothing may ever be done about it). 

How is a reviewer that sees that a message as sent due to a low cache health score supposed to know that nothing needs to be done to the cache if the CO just ignores the message.  There have been plenty of examples posted which describe false positive scenarios, but unless the CO communicates to the reviewer that it's most likely a false positive, I would expect that a reviewer would take action when the email message was ignored.  A CO that has left the game (but hasn't archived their caches) is going to ignore those CHS email messages as well.  How is a reviewer supposed to tell the difference between a CO that has left the game and one that is just ignoring their CHS messages?

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22 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

How is a reviewer that sees that a message as sent due to a low cache health score supposed to know that nothing needs to be done to the cache if the CO just ignores the message.  There have been plenty of examples posted which describe false positive scenarios, but unless the CO communicates to the reviewer that it's most likely a false positive, I would expect that a reviewer would take action when the email message was ignored.  A CO that has left the game (but hasn't archived their caches) is going to ignore those CHS email messages as well.  How is a reviewer supposed to tell the difference between a CO that has left the game and one that is just ignoring their CHS messages?

That's up to the reviewer. They would judge if they believe the cache needs to be dealt with. If it does and the CO hasn't done anything, then rightly the reviewer will act. If the reviewer doesn't think it does, then they won't act. If it doesn't, and the CO has ignored the email, but the reviewer DOES think it needs attention, then that's on the CO.  Assuming reviewer judgements are reasonable, then that makes perfect sense to me:

If it looked like a cache of mine to an outsider might need a checkup even though I know it doesn't, then I wouldn't ignore that email. I'd want to make sure the public understood that everything was good to go, despite the algorithm thinking it's not. So I'd post an OM. No skin off my back. And it keeps the reviewer, who might get the impression that it needs maintenance, at bay.

If I did happen to ignore it and the reviewer inferred from the status that it needs a checkup, then most likely the reviewer would provide a nudge rather than taking immediate and drastic action (I'm confident my region reviewers would do so). At that point I'd know that even though I got the email and ignored it because *I* knew there was no problem, the reviewer didn't get that impression and likely the community wouldn't either. So I'd thank the reviewer for the nudge/contact, and post an OM an clear the flag.

But let's say the reviewer did take immediate drastic action and disabled my cache. First, I likely would do a visit, just to appease the reviewer. But I could alternatively post the OM with an explanation and re-enable the cache. At that point, the reviewer might still request that I visit the cache (I might be annoyed, but I'd trust the reviewer's judgement, and if not I'd go to appeals; standard operating procedure), but if I've been reasonable and they are reasonable, then they'd understand the false-positive.

Edited by thebruce0
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On 22.11.2017 at 11:25 PM, niraD said:

I would hope that the algorithm is robust enough that it takes negative logs into account, even if the CO deletes them. The owner can still post armchair OM logs, but simply sweeping the negative logs under the rug by deleting them should not work.

Of course, that begs the question of whether DNF logs should be considered negative logs...

I don't log any more DNFs ;) I don't like that the caches I logged a DNF for are shown differently on the map now. That's why :) And I also don't exactly like this CHS. Just went to 2 hard core caches that will get LOADS of DNFs in the future as the caches are so hard to find. Not sure if the system is capable to understand that...

 

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This is the most recent Dashboard thread I could find. I've found an issue. On my dashboard a few of my friends found many caches in the past few days. When I click the link next to their name in the Recent Activity section in brings me to the old Advanced Search page instead of showing me the list of caches they have found, as it did previously.

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On 12/10/2017 at 10:25 AM, Sherminator18 said:

This is the most recent Dashboard thread I could find. I've found an issue. On my dashboard a few of my friends found many caches in the past few days. When I click the link next to their name in the Recent Activity section in brings me to the old Advanced Search page instead of showing me the list of caches they have found, as it did previously.

When a user on your activity feed has found 5+ caches the activity is condensed into a single item. Clicking on the link for the condensed activity will take you to a list of all of the user's finds at /seek/nearest.aspx?u={username}. Is it possible that the user you are clicking on has non-alphanumeric characters in their username?

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1 hour ago, HiddenGnome said:

When a user on your activity feed has found 5+ caches the activity is condensed into a single item. Clicking on the link for the condensed activity will take you to a list of all of the user's finds at /seek/nearest.aspx?u={username}. Is it possible that the user you are clicking on has non-alphanumeric characters in their username?

Yes, that is the case. The person who I tried clicking the link for has & in their geocaching name. Anyone else who I click the link for works as expected.

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If to your best judgement you don't believe it requires a maintenance visit, then ignore the notice. Or, if you want it removed from your 'check up list' on the dashboard, post an OM clearly stating why. Or, just visit the cache anyway ro verify it's available firrst hand. (even someone with 65 finds can be right sometimes).  It's really up to you at this point.

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34 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

If to your best judgement you don't believe it requires a maintenance visit, then ignore the notice. Or, if you want it removed from your 'check up list' on the dashboard, post an OM clearly stating why. Or, just visit the cache anyway ro verify it's available firrst hand. (even someone with 65 finds can be right sometimes).  It's really up to you at this point.

Better yet, report the false positive to Groundspeak so they can fix their algorithm.

You could try the "Contact Us" links. Or if you consider it a bug, then you could submit a bug report in the Bug Reports forums.

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2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

If to your best judgement you don't believe it requires a maintenance visit, then ignore the notice. Or, if you want it removed from your 'check up list' on the dashboard, post an OM clearly stating why. Or, just visit the cache anyway ro verify it's available firrst hand. (even someone with 65 finds can be right sometimes).  It's really up to you at this point.

If it's a genuine T4.5 then "just visit the cache anyway" isn't likely to be trivial. A T4.5 is defined as " Extremely demanding movement over potentially hazardous terrain." Likewise, a D4 cache is " Very difficult and may take special knowledge, advanced preparation, or multiple trips" and ought to be expected to get lots of DNFs intermingled with an occasional find, just like this one.

The cache was last found two weeks ago and the two DNFs since then say "very busy and unable to locate" and, translated from Swedish, "Too much movement", suggesting the problem was too many muggles in the vicinity or perhaps the structure was swaying.

In spite of everything that's been said about the algorithm being "fixed" to properly cope with high D/T caches, it clearly hasn't been.

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2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

If to your best judgement you don't believe it requires a maintenance visit, then ignore the notice. Or, if you want it removed from your 'check up list' on the dashboard, post an OM clearly stating why. Or, just visit the cache anyway ro verify it's available firrst hand. (even someone with 65 finds can be right sometimes).  It's really up to you at this point.

From the logs, I know they weren't even looking in the right place. It's a D4 for a reason... so yes, I've had to post an OM. But this doesn't feel like the right solution when I haven't had to maintain anything.

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18 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

In spite of everything that's been said about the algorithm being "fixed" to properly cope with high D/T caches, it clearly hasn't been.

Ok, that would have been a sufficient response.

Everything else was just providing the options for the CO to decide. I don't disagree with anything you said.  (except that I know plenty of 4.5T's that are indeed trivial to check on; even 4.5/4.5's)

8 minutes ago, -KROP- said:

the links say it should be posted to the forum so I did both.

And, sadly, they have no obligation to let you or anyone know if they heard you, let alone implement a fix based on your feedback. :lostsignal: One can only hope.

8 minutes ago, -KROP- said:

From the logs, I know they weren't even looking in the right place. It's a D4 for a reason... so yes, I've had to post an OM. But this doesn't feel like the right solution when I haven't had to maintain anything.

Agreed. But it's what we've got to work with...

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14 hours ago, -KROP- said:

From the logs, I know they weren't even looking in the right place. It's a D4 for a reason... so yes, I've had to post an OM. But this doesn't feel like the right solution when I haven't had to maintain anything.

You maintained the description by removing the misleading wrench icon. I actually use OM quite often when I make important edits to the description. You can explain the situation in the log so nobody can understand it wrong.

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We keep track of the feedback that comes in from various sources related to the health score. As you might imagine there are a lot of scenarios that come up and we are trying to balance them all. I can tell you that we do not make changes based on individual reports, but when we see trends we will try to identify changes that result in a net positive result (i.e making a change in one place shouldn't make it worse in another).

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