Event Guidelines - Does Groundspeak review/train the reviewers?

[+hikecycletri]

I'd like to understand how an event such as, https://coord.info/GC7E7K3, can be published? Some small group of cachers in this area have set up 31 events for each day of January. The events appear to all be at restaurants from 18:15-18:45, yet the events have many different D/T ratings. I thought that all events needed to be a difficulty of 1 and that the terrain should reflect that of the location. Yet, four of the 31 events are in restaurants in nearly the same location and have the following D/T's: Day 2: 5/2, Day 9: 3.5/4, Day 23: 2.5/2.5, Day 24: 3.5/4.5. How does one reviewer publish these, yet another reviewer would reject them for improper D/T ratings? and possibly for stacking - one person or group blocking others from placing events in the area?

I recently travelled to Austin, TX and attended two events that were intentionally stacked - one to trim an outdoor tree and the other, 30 minutes later and 2.5 miles down the road, to have hot chocolate after trimming the tree. Both events referred to the other and most people went directly from one to the other. I stopped for some caches in between and got to the second event just 15 minutes before the official end time, yet the CO's had already left. They didn't reply to a note on the cache page or a message asking if I was at the correct location until the next day.

Clearly some reviewers follow the guidelines to questionable extremes (rejecting events that are meant for different audiences based on drive times/bridge locations/adult-locale vs family-friendly, using their own arbitrary "as the crow flies" mileage requirement,) while other reviewers seem to ignore the guidelines.

I would ask that Groundspeak provide training to the reviewers on how to apply the subjective event guidelines, adjusting as appropriate and reasonable for traffic, bridges, and intended audiences. And, if I understand correctly, that events are all supposed to be D1, perhaps it's time to 1) update the cache submission code for events to not allow any difficulty rating other than D1, and 2) request that the old challenge caches that require the 81 D/T combinations for Event caches be archived or modified to correspond to the new event guidelines.   

[+Touchstone]

 

39 minutes ago, hikecycletri said:

I thought that all events needed to be a difficulty of 1 and that the terrain should reflect that of the location. Yet, four of the 31 events are in restaurants in nearly the same location and have the following D/T's: Day 2: 5/2, Day 9: 3.5/4, Day 23: 2.5/2.5, Day 24: 3.5/4.5.

This aspect of your post has been addressed recently in one of the latest updates:

Quote

D1 is enforced for all Event Caches. Event Caches must have a 1-star difficulty rating because it is easy for geocachers to “find” events. 

Link for reference:

Adding...I see that the Event your referenced was Published after the release of the update mentioned in the Release Notes, so it appears to not be working, or someone has found a workaround (aka post Publication change?) that defeats the feature.  You might want to mention this issue in the "Website" subforum, where the HQ Staff can take a look at it.

Edited December 17, 2017 by Touchstone

[Keystone]

To answer your question, yes, the training provided to Community Volunteer Reviewers is extensive and effective - and not only on the subject of event caches.  The training program involves both Lackeys from HQ's CVS team, and other Reviewers from a new Reviewer's home region.  Training relies on:

• an extensive online course covering technology tools, communications strategies, roles and responsibilities, listing guideline details, ethical conduct standards, and a variety of other subjects.
• live coaching from the new reviewer's regional team members.
• a special private forum section dedicated to questions from new reviewers.

Even as one of the longest-tenured Reviewers that is still active, I find myself checking the extensive Reviewer resources library on a weekly basis to remind myself of a detail I may not have focused on for a long time.  And, I still make mistakes from time to time.  Reviewers are human, after all.*

The Reviewer who published the events you're complaining about is also a very experienced volunteer; one who is eminently qualified to be training newer Reviewers.  So, like Touchstone, I strongly suspect a post-publication change occurred.  Even before the recent site update that intends to enforce a difficulty rating of one star for events, the reviewer toolset included a bright-red alert warning that the Event Difficulty is greater than 1.  It was really hard to miss.

 

*Many Reviewers are dogs.

[+hikecycletri]

Thanks for the replies. It is good to know that Groundspeak has attempted to programmatically enforce the D1 event guideline. And good to know that it is likely that a reviewer was duped by after publication changes. I have noticed that some cachers manage to get around guidelines by "tricking" the reviewer, for example supplying different final coordinates for a physical stage of a puzzle or multi in order to place it less than one tenth mile from an existing physical cache. As long as there are people and guidelines, there will be people that find ways to get around the guidelines. Early in 2017, I had some frustrations with denied events, so I gave up on hosting events - except the GIFF that I've hosted in the same location for three years. I want to keep my hobby fun, so if an aspect of it takes away from my enjoyment, I will avoid that aspect.