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First Event stacking rules, then Event blocking rules, what'll be next?


Tilhet

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For reasons I have never completely understood Groundspeak has tried for some time to restrict organising Event Caches in a given region. Since then various kinds of rules regulating so-called event stacking have emerged. In the Nordic countries, for instance, any event should be either 5 hours or 30 kilometers apart from another event. Thus, if an event is organised in the Helsinki city centre from 4 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. it blocks all the greater metropolitan area from any other event from 10.30 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. during the same day.


This has created a new problem known as event blocking, and new rules seem to be needed however hypothetical the problem may be. (New rules in stead of modifying the event stacking rules which cause the blocking problem...) As far as I'm concerned, these new rules have not been published properly. I have, however, learned that according to them a single geocacher cannot hold a series of events, such as one imitating Christmas calendar. Why? Because it is thought that such an effort by a single geocacher would effectively block all other cachers willing to organise events in the same area (within the 30 km radius in the Nordic countries).

Unfortunately in Finland one such series was partly published before all of the reviewers were properly aware of the new rules. As a reasonable conclusion this geocacher archived the published events since the idea of Christmas calender was gone. For the Porvoo region the result has been that there will be only one event during December. Evidently there was no one to be blocked! (Porvoo region is famous for the succesful Mega-Event in 2017 as well as for a splendid GeoTour. Previously it has also been known for a very active event life.)


According to the new rules any single geocacher/geocaching team shouldn't be allowed to organise more than one event per week, at least when an 'event series' is concerned. Whether two or three events in a week by one geocaching nick will be treated as a series remains totally unclear.

For sure, it is not necessarily a totally wrong idea to encourage geocachers to work together when creating a series of events. In some areas, it may, though, be difficult to find six other geocaching nicks willing to cooperate in such a forced manner.

So. Rules forbidding event stacking have created problems of (unintentional!) event blocking. And rules forbidding event blocking create again new problems and surely a lot of events won't be organised because of these new rules. And more potential event organisers will be frustrated even further.

Is the result more or less fun and social activities for geocachers? In deed, the underlying objective seems to be less fun and less social gatherings for geocachers. This is really really difficult to understand.

I suggest that Groundspeak could, in contrast, publish more relaxed recommendations or rules for event stacking. The new more relaxed rules would, for example, make it easier to organise two separate events during one day in one city. That would solve most of the assumed event blocking problems. Then we could ask are any new rules concerning event series or event blocking really at all necessary?

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5 hours ago, Tilhet said:

According to the new rules any single geocacher/geocaching team shouldn't be allowed to organise more than one event per week, at least when an 'event series' is concerned. Whether two or three events in a week by one geocaching nick will be treated as a series remains totally unclear.

We've had a bit of a tradition:

Last CITO of [yyyy] on December 31

First CITO of [yyyy] on January 1

Would events like this be allowed under the current guidelines if organized by the same person? If organized by different people?

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15 hours ago, niraD said:

We've had a bit of a tradition:

Last CITO of [yyyy] on December 31

First CITO of [yyyy] on January 1

Would events like this be allowed under the current guidelines if organized by the same person? If organized by different people?

I think you should ask it from your local reviewer. In an answer from the Groundspeak HQ they told that "it is not possible for one CO to have a sequence of events that happen at a pace of one event per day over so many days" and further referred to the published guidelines which state that "Submit events as one single event if your event has one of the following - - A sequence of events".

A Finnish reviewer has summarised the new rules like this (my translation): "Events of an event series should each be organised in a different location and in an event series a single geocaching nick should submit max. one event per week."

Whether two events constitute 'a sequence' or 'a series' or not, I honestly haven't got a clue. I hope someone who does have a clue and sufficient authority will inform us soon. However, the "over so many days" part in the GS response suggests that two or three events / CITO events shouldn't be a problem.

The main problem is, of course, that a major part of all event organising rules and guidelines have not been made public and many of them are local interpretations of the rather vaguely put official guidelines.

Edited by Tilhet
Correcting typos.
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On 12/8/2017 at 10:38 AM, Tilhet said:

The main problem is, of course, that a major part of all event organising rules and guidelines have not been made public and many of them are local interpretations of the rather vaguely put official guidelines.

So true. But as I see it, the event stacking rules and event blocking rules are solutions for a problem that is not clear or doesn't exist to begin with. I personally have had a lot of issues with local reviewers as a result of the unclear and unpublished rules. The current rules set is very unclear and creates more problems than it solves. So my strong recommendation to Groundspeak is really to get rid of these event stacking and blocking rules. Before we had these new rules, getting events published worked just fine . . .

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In mid-December I've sent a separate inquiry to Groundspeak urging them to reconcider event stacking and blocking rules (and to publish all of them). I especially pointed out this thread and asked them to contribute here.

This far the only response has been an auto-generated message on Dec. 15 telling that " We’ve received your email and will do our best to respond quickly so you can get back to geocaching! During the week, it normally takes us approximately 24 hours for a reply. On weekends, and especially holiday weekends, it will likely take longer."

And also "Thank you for your patience."

Well, you're pretty welcome, then.

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Coming up in a couple of weeks is the Signal the Frog Australia Day souvenir promotion which requires attending or hosting an event over the three-day long weekend. Obviously with a short time frame like this, there's going to be lots of events on at around the same time, typically around lunch time in keeping with the Australia Day tradition of picnics and barbecues. I got in early, submitting my event at Umina Beach just a few days after the souvenir was announced (GC7FT24), but just the other side of the bay is the northern fringes of Sydney and I now wonder whether I've inadvertently blocked events there, even though by road it's quite a long way around, particularly with holiday weekend traffic, so I doubt I'll have anyone from Sydney at my event unless they come across by boat.

Edited by barefootjeff
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Yep. Event stacking is strictly forbidden with new and new rules creating event blocking problems but still, at the same time, Groundspeak promotes special event or Cito days around the year and encourages people to organise as many events as possible on those particular days. Not seeing the contradiction here requires some very special skills.

As far as your problem is concerned I suppose that it'll be local reviewers who will decide what is OK and what is not. These kinds of uncertainties as well as this kind of guessing and anticipating will continue everywhere until someone in Seattle in particular will make the rules properly public.

Anyway, tremendously joyful and hopefully not so hot Australia Day for you!

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7 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Coming up in a couple of weeks is the Signal the Frog Australia Day souvenir promotion which requires attending or hosting an event over the three-day long weekend. Obviously with a short time frame like this, there's going to be lots of events on at around the same time, typically around lunch time in keeping with the Australia Day tradition of picnics and barbecues. I got in early, submitting my event at Umina Beach just a few days after the souvenir was announced (GC7FT24), but just the other side of the bay is the northern fringes of Sydney and I now wonder whether I've inadvertently blocked events there, even though by road it's quite a long way around, particularly with holiday weekend traffic, so I doubt I'll have anyone from Sydney at my event unless they come across by boat.

I'm seeing no less than 7 Events scheduled in the Sidney area or in nearby communities around that weekend.  I think your concern is unfounded, but thanks anyway.

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2 hours ago, Touchstone said:

I'm seeing no less than 7 Events scheduled in the Sidney area or in nearby communities around that weekend.  I think your concern is unfounded, but thanks anyway.

There's only one in Sydney on the 28th, that being in Earlwood about 47km away from mine, so I'm still not sure whether these event stacking / event blocking rules apply on days when HQ's encouraging lots of people to hold events for special promotions.

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1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

There's only one in Sydney on the 28th, that being in Earlwood about 47km away from mine, so I'm still not sure whether these event stacking / event blocking rules apply on days when HQ's encouraging lots of people to hold events for special promotions.

January 26th

https://coord.info/GC7FJXK

https://coord.info/GC7H1CC

https://coord.info/GC7GN3Y

https://coord.info/GC7G03M

https://coord.info/GC7FVX8

January 27th

https://coord.info/GC7FZ0B

January 28th

https://coord.info/GC7GCJ3

Looks like Friday is a popular day for the souvenir, but I'm not sure that's HQ or the Reviewers fault.  These are all Events in and around Sidney or within a short driving distance.  Doesn't look too restrictive to me, unless you have other information that you're not sharing.

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37 minutes ago, Touchstone said:

January 26th

https://coord.info/GC7FJXK

https://coord.info/GC7H1CC

https://coord.info/GC7GN3Y

https://coord.info/GC7G03M

https://coord.info/GC7FVX8

January 27th

https://coord.info/GC7FZ0B

January 28th

https://coord.info/GC7GCJ3

Looks like Friday is a popular day for the souvenir, but I'm not sure that's HQ or the Reviewers fault.  These are all Events in and around Sidney or within a short driving distance.  Doesn't look too restrictive to me, unless you have other information that you're not sharing.

Friday is the actual Australia Day, so that's why it's the popular choice. No, I don't have any other information, I was just wondering, after reading this thread, how the event stacking and event blocking rules are applied on special promotion days like this where HQ is encouraging people to host events at the same time.

Edit to add: If the 5 hour / 30km rule mentioned by the OP was applied here, at least a couple of those Friday events would have fallen foul of it.

Edited by barefootjeff
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I'm with Tilhet here. I don't know any other hobby where this vague set of rules would be ok. Let's take hockey for example: the International Hockey Association decides that from now on the only goals are those hit on the top corner. They tell these rules to the judges. The players play as happily as ever and cheer everytime they think they made a goal - untill some judge says "naah, they changed the rules, we now count only those hit on the top corner". Silly? Of course it is! Then why isn't it considered silly on geocaching?

Someone said you can always ask the reviewers. Of course, if I knew the right questions. Or I could ask them everytime I start thinking about an event that "hey, thought about an event, what are the current rules" and hope for the best (hope that the rules are the same after a few weeks when I've done the online work getting it published). If everyone did this before planning an event, the reviewers workload would multiply considerably (but maybe then they would get a "copy&paste" answer).

I really don't understand why this is so disregarded by the HQ. I thought they would listen to us players.

I used to enjoy organizing events; deciding on a lovely/fun/interesting location and/or planning something special to do. Now I'm like "meh".

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2 hours ago, Delenna & Tehotytöt said:

Let's take hockey for example:

Sure, let's take hockey for instance.  Now it all depends on which rule book you're using...

Halifax Rules

Montreal Rules

IIHF Rules

That would clear things up for sure.  Three sets of Guidelines, and you don't know which one to use when you submit a Listing for Review.   That ought to help clarification and streamlining.  What could possibly go wrong?

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On 1/28/2018 at 0:13 PM, Delenna & Tehotytöt said:

Someone said you can always ask the reviewers. Of course, if I knew the right questions. Or I could ask them everytime I start thinking about an event that "hey, thought about an event, what are the current rules" and hope for the best (hope that the rules are the same after a few weeks when I've done the online work getting it published). If everyone did this before planning an event, the reviewers workload would multiply considerably (but maybe then they would get a "copy&paste" answer).

Actually, that is exactly what I do by now. It's not that I ask them for the rules, but do paint a picture of what I'd plan to do and ask if that is against the rules. Because these stacking and blocking rules remain vague, but ARE being enforced. I've also asked the local reviewers to publish the rules they use to review new event requests against. And for some reason that doesn't get clear either, they seem unable or are not allowed to do so. I really wonder what's going on with this.

Edited by NLBokkie
adding a line for clarification.
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