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Hidden Creatures? Say Wha...


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7 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

 

I keep thinking of the email I got today, basically stating that premium members will get a little different newsletter than members.

 

We all (premium members) received the same email newsletter. Within the newsletter there is a link to the blog post (titled Uncover a new world of Hidden Creatures) announcing the Promotion. At the bottom of that blog post there is a button (linking to the promotion with the souvenirs shaded) and below that button there is a link with text "Have more questions? Visit the FAQ!" linking to the faq ;)

 

Screenshot from 2018-05-30 10-57-03.png

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5 hours ago, Ragnemalm said:

Groundspeak,  can you please remember that geocaching is a highly diverse hobby that is not only about quantity? This campaign seems like a power trail promotion to me. I that what you want to promote, quantity?

 

I have suggestions for future quests/challenges:

 

- Log 10 different D/T combinations in a week. Or 15-20 in a month. 10 is nice, you can do that even on a wheelchair!

- Log 20 different attributes in a week. Or month.

- Log one multi every week for a month.

 

The numbers are not so important. The diversity and some level of challenge is. One more thing: Make souvenirs interesting. Getting a souvenir for logging one cache is a bit too easy, right? Even for a beginner.

 

Just a suggestion.

100% agree. These promotions are becoming "find a bunch of geocaches no matter how good they are." It is promoting quantity or quality. This encourages people to just go out and do a power trail or a bunch of park and grabs. What happened to the days of Finding a T5/D5 cache, or finding a cache with 10 favoite points. You're awarding people for finding high quantities of caches, instead of awarding them for finding high quality, unique and creative caches. I do not like where these promotions are going.

 

Plus if you've already found many or all of the caches in your area how are you supposed to find 100 caches in a month? I think I've only ever done that once. I work a full time job and finding 100 in a month averages out to just less than 4 a day. This is getting a little out of hand I think

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12 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

There could've been some fun possibilities to weave "habitats" in with cache attributes, like tree-climbing (birds or monkeys), wading (amphibians), swimming (fish), abandoned structure (vampires?), livestock (moo-cows), stealth required (timid creatures), night cache (nocturnal creatures), etc. But no, it's just a numbers game.

 

Yeah, I theorized that too back when the teaser announcement was made.  Got no response; maybe they thought "oh, we should have thought of that" =P

Edited by thebruce0
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12 hours ago, hzoi said:

I have no idea what all the "habitat" and "chance of discovering" whatnot is about.  I am ignoring it as marketing (or some kind of fever dream)

 

Yep, it bears as much relation to reality as the planetary sillyness did. No thematic link beyond the picture on the souvenir I suspect.

And I do hope the estate of the late Terry Pratchett notice the use of what looks like a very derivative turtle ...

 

4 hours ago, baer2006 said:

 

My personal solution is simply to continue caching as I would have done anyway, and ignoring this so-called promotion :P. By counting each find equally (without any regard to cache type, difficulty or favorite points), GS has apparently completely surrendered to the "numbers crowd". Let's see how many pointless powertrails will be placed within the next 4 weeks to satisfy the "urgent needs" of the caching community...

 

The numbers crowd are numerous (no pun intended) and therefore will be pandered to , simply because Groundspeak are in it to make money, and the more cachers (especually app users) the more profit. Neanderthal computer using traditionalists (especially non-premium GPS users) may have been around for longer, have the experience, enjoy finding (and often settting) the out of the ordinary, interesting caches, but we hardly contribute any CASH , so are unimportant to the business model.

 

I've thought about the whole social/business model cacher/frog relationship mismatch for some time, and just finished reading "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely, an interesting book about how we make choices,  chapter 4 articulates what I couldn't put into words myself rather well. Companies (he says, I paraphrase) can't have it both ways: you can't treat your customers as family one moment, then impersonally a moment later when it becomes more convenient or profitable. 

 

If we misunderstand the relationship (as the company would like)  and feel loyalty and even a sense of family, it comes as a nasty surprise when we finally realise that despite the marketing blah,  it's just a business.

Promotions are simply to bring in page views, app activity, advertising revenue., statistics. 

A cacher's reward for taking the bait ?

A little rectangle of cheap virtual 'art' which has a value of zero and a negligible cost to Groundspeak.

Hey, but a souvenir is free ! . Yeah, see chapter 2 about free stuff  ....

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5 hours ago, baer2006 said:

My personal solution is simply to continue caching as I would have done anyway, and ignoring this so-called promotion :P.

 

Same here, as I did with the other ones. I guess I will have to "hide" a bunch of souvenirs again in 4 weeks time. I will not change my cache preferences for whatever souvenir anyway.

 

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6 hours ago, anpefi said:

 

We all (premium members) received the same email newsletter. Within the newsletter there is a link to the blog post (titled Uncover a new world of Hidden Creatures) announcing the Promotion. At the bottom of that blog post there is a button (linking to the promotion with the souvenirs shaded) and below that button there is a link with text "Have more questions? Visit the FAQ!" linking to the faq ;)

 

Screenshot from 2018-05-30 10-57-03.png

I was aware of that. 

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2 hours ago, on4bam said:
7 hours ago, baer2006 said:

My personal solution is simply to continue caching as I would have done anyway, and ignoring this so-called promotion :P.

 

Same here, as I did with the other ones. I guess I will have to "hide" a bunch of souvenirs again in 4 weeks time. I will not change my cache preferences for whatever souvenir anyway.

 

I found I did not have to make any real effort to "earn" the previous souvenirs; my usual caching resulted in receiving them.  We did look fro higher favortie points and did more puzzle caches, but it was fun.  And I rarely even look at my souvenir page, so no need to "hide" anything.  I've been averaging just over 3 cache finds a day, and we will be traveling to the East Coast during this promotion, so again, I'll probably earn all the souvenirs without doing anything different than what I would have done anyway.  Except for going to find GC39, The Spot, I'm planning a special trip just for that one!  

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I think the promotions are simply to give everyone on the discussion boards something to lose sleep over. Mission accomplished! LOL. 

 

We already know that we will do just about anything for souvenirs, just so we can promptly forget about them and never look at them again. We already know that most of our caching habits don't change dramatically over what Groundspeak does or doesn't do, we make the game what we want. 

 

So all of this just makes me laugh. 

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sigh

 

It never fails when the souvenir threads roll around.  Those that are too cool for souvenirs just have to post about how they're too cool to participate in this particular souvenir promotion, and/or oh, man, what a struggle it'll be to have to hide yet another batch of souvenirs.

 

If only you were also too cool to post in the thread about the souvenirs that you're too cool for, the rest of us could discuss without you instead of around you.  But here we are.

 

No animosity here, just puzzlement why, if souvenirs are such a waste of time for the cool kids, the cool kids still feel the need to come post about how their time is wasted by them.  I think we get it.  At least I certainly do.

 

Should we have a sticky thread, "I'm Too Cool For Souvenirs," so we can all know once and for all who's too cool for them?  It'd save the cool kids some time and effort, since souvenir promotions are clearly going to keep happening, regardless of anyone's too coolness.  It'd also declutter future discussions on specific souvenir promotions.  Just a thought...

Edited by hzoi
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Point is that one of the arguments against the challenge caches was that they made people change their caching habits. This was no longer allowed and guess what these promotions seem to do ... :ph34r:

 

BTW, I didn't know certain opinions were not allowed in certain threads, maybe there should be a new thread where only people who like these souvenir promotions may post <_<

 

 

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If G$ makes these promotions dependent on higher D/T, how will those Basic Members using only the Official App play along?  They can't, so the promotion is set to allow them to participate.

 

The scoring system is heavily loaded to give souvenirs at the lower find count, making things easier for those in less cache-dense areas.

 

It seems to me that they tried to accommodate the largest number of members.  Those that want a greater challenge, like at any other time, go find the more difficult caches.

 

Whether I decide to go for the full compliment of pictures to hide in my profile will be determined when the promotion dates start.

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17 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

 

There could've been some fun possibilities to weave "habitats" in with cache attributes, like tree-climbing (birds or monkeys), wading (amphibians), swimming (fish), abandoned structure (vampires?), livestock (moo-cows), stealth required (timid creatures), night cache (nocturnal creatures), etc. But no, it's just a numbers game.

I must say I like your ideas a lot more, sounds like lots more fun!! I'm afraid we won't be going out of our way for those souvenirs

....

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4 hours ago, on4bam said:

 

Same here, as I did with the other ones. I guess I will have to "hide" a bunch of souvenirs again in 4 weeks time. I will not change my cache preferences for whatever souvenir anyway.

 

Ditto for me too.   I wish they'd stop calling them souvenirs though.   In "real life" a souvenir is something that one chooses to acquire as a token of remembrance.   These "souvenirs" are more digital awards for participating in a promotion, and even those that choose not to participate, but through their cache preferences qualify for an award, will get them added to their profiles anyway.   A week ago or so we stopped in Gettysburg on the way to Washington DC and spent an hour or so in the visitor center.  We went through the gift shop but decided not to buy  a souvenir.  What GS is doing with these promotion is like going back to my car and finding a "I <heart> Gettysburg" bumpersticker on my car because I had parked in the parking lot.

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1 hour ago, hzoi said:

sigh

 

It never fails when the souvenir threads roll around.  Those that are too cool for souvenirs just have to post about how they're too cool to participate in this particular souvenir promotion, and/or oh, man, what a struggle it'll be to have to hide yet another batch of souvenirs.

 

If only you were also too cool to post in the thread about the souvenirs that you're too cool for, the rest of us could discuss without you instead of around you.  But here we are.

 

No animosity here, just puzzlement why, if souvenirs are such a waste of time for the cool kids, the cool kids still feel the need to come post about how their time is wasted by them.  I think we get it.  At least I certainly do.

 

Should we have a sticky thread, "I'm Tool Cool For Souvenirs," so we can all know once and for all who's too cool for them?  It'd save the cool kids some time and effort, since souvenir promotions are clearly going to keep happening, regardless of anyone's too coolness.  It'd also declutter future discussions on specific souvenir promotions.  Just a thought...

You're making a lot of assumptions there.

 

Of course, if you're all about obtaining as many souvenirs as possible, it's a case of "I don't have a problem with this, therefore nobody else should complain".

 

I like *some* of the souvenirs, but I want to choose which ones I acquire.   Instead of yet another promotion with "souvenirs" as a reward for participating, on the heels of the planetary pursuit promotion,  I'd prefer to see GS continue to add regional souvenirs for the many countries which do not yet have one available.  For that matter, I'd prefer to see GS spend the development time they're putting into these promotions into bug fixes and features in the web site and application.  

 

Hopefully, this time, the site won't go down numerous times from all the people trying to get credit for attending two events during a four week period, or several hot fixes applied due to a problem in how the souvenirs are awarded.  

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11 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

Ditto for me too.   I wish they'd stop calling them souvenirs though.   In "real life" a souvenir is something that one chooses to acquire as a token of remembrance.   These "souvenirs" are more digital awards for participating in a promotion, and even those that choose not to participate, but through their cache preferences qualify for an award, will get them added to their profiles anyway.

Calling them "badges" or something like that might be more accurate. Maybe there could be a "Souvenirs" tab on one's profile, and one could put the badges one values most on the "Souvenirs" tab.

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Just now, niraD said:

Calling them "badges" or something like that might be more accurate. Maybe there could be a "Souvenirs" tab on one's profile, and one could put the badges one values most on the "Souvenirs" tab.

 

That's a feature I've requested a couple of times.   Make the Souvenirs tab user editable and also add a  user editable "Badges and Accomplishments" tab.  Currently, the only tab that is user editable is the "About" tab so any customization to ones profile has to be done there.   For a souvenirs tab I've suggested having a process such that when one has qualified for a souvenir that they're sent an email message (or something in the message center) with a link that allows one to "claim" the souvenir and have it added to their souvenirs page.  Perhaps if they didn't spend so much time with promotions related to planetary objects and mythical creatures there'd be more time to work on user requested features.  

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2 hours ago, K13 said:

Those that want a greater challenge, like at any other time, go find the more difficult caches.

 

That is a good idea. Challenge your friends to make them all greater than 3/3 hides or no traditionals. Or all new virtual caches! Or all with the scuba attribute! 

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2 hours ago, K13 said:

If G$ makes these promotions dependent on higher D/T, how will those Basic Members using only the Official App play along?  They can't, so the promotion is set to allow them to participate.

 

In one of the weeks of last year's Pirate promotion, they temporarily lifted that restriction from the Official App. If that's their concern, wouldn't this be a better solution than reducing the whole promotion to app-only basic member level?

 

2 hours ago, K13 said:

It seems to me that they tried to accommodate the largest number of members.  Those that want a greater challenge, like at any other time, go find the more difficult caches.

 

Except in this promotion, going off to find more difficult caches gains you nothing and costs points when you could be out driving along a power trail racking up the numbers instead. I expect we'll see a marked downturn in activity on non-P&G caches during this promotion.

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Well, it is simple.   I prefer the past ones where certain caches gave greater "points" than others, but I guess they want to change it up and this time went for a simple count.

 

I'm one who knows this is just a marketing thing, but I like trying to get the souvenirs anyway.    Yes, during the promotion time there is a disincentive  to look for difficult/long caches (e.g a single cache which could take all day), and more incentive to do a trail with multiple caches.    But I'll still play along.

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On 16-5-2018 at 9:44 PM, J Grouchy said:

 

I was thinking more like Mid-World  (points to anyone who understands this reference)...

 

See the TURTLE of Enormous Girth
On his shell he holds the Earth.
His thought is slow, but always kind.
He holds us all within his mind.
On his back all vows are made;
He sees the truth but mayn't aid.
He loves the land and loves the sea,
And even loves a child like me.
 
 

It's a bit of both. The idea of the world being supported by 4 Elephants, who in turn are standing on the back of a huge turtle, is from the Fantasy Series Discworld by Terry Pratchett.

 

The poem above is from Stephen King's the Dark Tower and describes the turtle Maturin, an enemy of Pennywise/It and one of the 12 guardian animals that guard the beams that support the Dark Tower. Weather or not he actually carries the world on his back I don't know, but the poem suggests he does.

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I asked the following on Twitter: 

Quote

@GoGeocaching why have the souvenir promotions been promoting quantity over quality? Isn’t that kind of the opposite of what you should be encouraging people to do?

 

 And got the following response:

Quote

Thank you for your feedback! We like to try various promotions to engage the entire community, from new to seasoned cachers. We may have promotions in the future with a different point system—stay tuned!

 

I understand trying to make different promotions to "engage the entire community" but this promotion is essentially the same as Planetary Pursuit; go out and find a bunch of caches to get a bunch of points and then you get a bunch of souvenirs. This one however is even less interesting because all caches have the same number of points. At least Planetary Pursuit rewarded you for finding more creative and interesting caches. 

Edited by Sherminator18
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1 hour ago, Sherminator18 said:

I understand trying to make different promotions to "engage the entire community" but this promotion is essentially the same as Planetary Pursuit; go out and find a bunch of caches to get a bunch of points and then you get a bunch of souvenirs. This one however is even less interesting because all caches have the same number of points. At least Planetary Pursuit rewarded you for finding more creative and interesting caches. 

I liked the past challenges where each Souvenir required finding only a single cache of a particular type--a mystery/puzzle cache this week, a multi-cache next week, a D5 or T5 cache the week after that, and so on.

 

I won't earn the points needed to receive all the Souvenirs for this promotion. I didn't earn the points needed to receive all the Souvenirs of the Planetary promotion. I did make a point to get out and attend a couple events during the Planetary promotion, but I didn't get them logged before the deadline, so I guess the Planetary promotion wasn't very motivating for me after all. The new promotion is even more about raw numbers. Meh.

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One thing that could help the souvenirs if HQ really wanted to improve them is to give them more value and user flexibility. Hiding them on the public list is one thing, but really - no sorting? No grouping? Those would be the most important minimal features to allow users to to feel they have more value in the 'souvenir' display. Allow people to customize what they want to show. It's like, give us a drawer full of these 'tags', and let us choose what we want to display on the board, and how we want to display them... That would at least provide the option of people feeling they can imbue a little more value on them.

 

And as commented above, yes definitely split the souvenirs (things we choose to earn) from the badges & accomplishments (things we get passively to mark achievements) - whether fundamentally or by letting us fully customize the display.

 

Or, as some might absolutely love - why not the ability simply to disable the souvenirs view altogether?

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30 minutes ago, niraD said:

I liked the past challenges where each Souvenir required finding only a single cache of a particular type--a mystery/puzzle cache this week, a multi-cache next week, a D5 or T5 cache the week after that, and so on.

 

I won't earn the points needed to receive all the Souvenirs for this promotion. I didn't earn the points needed to receive all the Souvenirs of the Planetary promotion. I did make a point to get out and attend a couple events during the Planetary promotion, but I didn't get them logged before the deadline, so I guess the Planetary promotion wasn't very motivating for me after all. The new promotion is even more about raw numbers. Meh.

 I agree. The Summer Road Trip promo was probably my favorite. That was the first time I pushed myself to go out and get a T5 cache. It actually prompted me to try different caches I probably would not otherwise have. Now, just go out and find any 100 caches.

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20 hours ago, on4bam said:

I didn't know certain opinions were not allowed in certain threads

 

Did I say your opinion was unwelcome?  No, but I openly wondered why you bothered to share it if you think souvenirs are a waste of time.

 

On 5/30/2018 at 9:36 AM, on4bam said:

Same here, as I did with the other ones. I guess I will have to "hide" a bunch of souvenirs again in 4 weeks time. I will not change my cache preferences for whatever souvenir anyway.

 

If you don't care about promotion souvenirs and don't want people to see that you have them, fine.  You are absolutely entitled to have that opinion and hide whatever souvenirs you don't want.  But, why are you bothering to make a big show about how you're going to hide them?  You could just skip the discussion.  It just comes off as unnecessarily smug.  Maybe that's not how you intended it, but that's how it comes across to me, and that was my point.

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52 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Hiding them on the public list is one thing, but really - no sorting? No grouping?

 

I like this idea.  I never look at my souvenir list, but I looked today after reading this thread.  Even if I can't group them, at least put prefix tags in front of the different categories to sort them alphabetically by collection on my list.  For example, my US State souvenirs are randomly scattered throughout my souvenirs based on state names, while a "US State: New Jersey" would put that state near "US State: Pennsylvania" (instead of my Original Cache Location souvenir being in between).  Currently they are called New Jersey State and Pennsylvania State.  The souvenir folks did well with Mary Hyde souvenirs, which are all called "Mary Hyde: " souvenirs, and they did that with the Planetary Pursuit souvenirs and 31 Days of Geocaching souvenirs as well.

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4 hours ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

The souvenir folks did well with Mary Hyde souvenirs, which are all called "Mary Hyde: " souvenirs, and they did that with the Planetary Pursuit souvenirs and 31 Days of Geocaching souvenirs as well.

They missed it a bit on the Planetary Pursuit ones. All of the planets/dwarf planets were prefixed with "Planetary Pursuit:", but the final souvenir was simply called "Official Space Explorer", which puts it out of order.

 

missed-it-by-that-much.jpg

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10 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

And as commented above, yes definitely split the souvenirs (things we choose to earn) from the badges & accomplishments (things we get passively to mark achievements) - whether fundamentally or by letting us fully customize the display.

 

Yes!  Separate the souvenirs from the tokens!  On my list:  Oregon, Pennsylvania. Next should be Prince Edward Island, not Pi Day and Planetary Pursuits.  Those are tokens, not souvenirs.

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11 hours ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

 

I like this idea.  I never look at my souvenir list, but I looked today after reading this thread.  Even if I can't group them, at least put prefix tags in front of the different categories to sort them alphabetically by collection on my list.  For example, my US State souvenirs are randomly scattered throughout my souvenirs based on state names, while a "US State: New Jersey" would put that state near "US State: Pennsylvania" (instead of my Original Cache Location souvenir being in between).  Currently they are called New Jersey State and Pennsylvania State.  The souvenir folks did well with Mary Hyde souvenirs, which are all called "Mary Hyde: " souvenirs, and they did that with the Planetary Pursuit souvenirs and 31 Days of Geocaching souvenirs as well.

 

The souvenir page is a mess but tagging the titles, as you suggest, would go a long ways to fixing it. You could even tag each souvenir ("US STATE: OKLAHOMA") with a new field and sort by the tags and leave the existing titles ("Oklahoma") the way they are. I could probably code that up in an afternoon...

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On 30/05/2018 at 12:22 AM, brendan714 said:

If this is 2018's major summer geocaching promotion it gets a big ol' "yawn" from me. Find 100 caches, get 13 souvenirs. There are a lot of ideas going through my mind, but I'll keep this post simple and just say that I expected something more. 

 

Completely agree - it's not about the numbers - except when it is.

 

Pretty clear where Groundspeak's focus lies these days.

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23 hours ago, niraD said:

I liked the past challenges where each Souvenir required finding only a single cache of a particular type--a mystery/puzzle cache this week, a multi-cache next week, a D5 or T5 cache the week after that, and so on.

Me too.


If the current promo does turn out to be simply find up to 100 caches to earn up to 13 souvenirs then it will be even more boring and tedious than the 31days of August from years ago, and it seems to be pushing quantity over quality or diversity - which is a shame.

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It feels like this one really is more geared towards the kids.  Attempting to make something more positive from it than mere finding caches, it could be possible to track which finds will earn the next souvenirs, and plan the find to be thematically relevant for that creature and fun in its own, self-imbued way.  You could of course do this without the promo, but then without the souvenirs.  I kind of picture parents taking their children out to a certain cache for today's find, with the hopes of locating the special creature - then once they find the cache and log it, hey look! We found the creature! as the souvenir popup shows.

 

Hey I'm trying... :P

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I'm disappointed with the format for this years souvenir challenge especially as it seems to go against the quality v quantity stance which Groundspeak have promoted over the last year or so..

I thought we had seen the back of time-restricted challenges when the new *challenge cache* guidelines were published.. 

image.png.e6484782201291fd87f33abad862d2c9.png

Yet here we are, offering greater reward to the numbers hounds and promoting quantity over quality..

I appreciate that no-one is being forced to go out and find 100 caches in 28 days.. (or 95 caches in 14 days in my case because it coincides with my annual 14 day holiday which was booked many moons ago and where there are only 5 unfound caches on the island).. but it's disappointing that the target audience is the power-trail brigade.. while the rest of us are penalised for being more selective. 

Geocaching isn't as inclusive as it pretends to be. :unsure:
 

Edited by LFC4eva
typo
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11 minutes ago, jenny08_1015 said:
On 2018-05-30 at 6:36 AM, hal-an-tow said:

And I do hope the estate of the late Terry Pratchett notice the use of what looks like a very derivative turtle ...

 

The earth on a turtle's back is also from Native American mythology.  

 

The specific concept of a gigantic turtle supporting four elephants supporting the world wasn't original to Terry Pratchett either, per this link.

 

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Hi.  I am new to geocaching.  I see this event and I want to play, but I am not finding a lot of information explaining it.  Can anyone help?  Is this a local event, or where does it take place?  What if one of the events it talks about is at a day and time that I cannot go?

 

Any help from the experts would be great!

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18 minutes ago, Snug418 said:

Hi.  I am new to geocaching.  I see this event and I want to play, but I am not finding a lot of information explaining it.  Can anyone help?  Is this a local event, or where does it take place?  What if one of the events it talks about is at a day and time that I cannot go?

 

Any help from the experts would be great!

 

No worries, Snug418. The promotion doesn't start till June 27.  Just find caches to earn souvenirs.

Here's some information:

https://www.geocaching.com/play/souvenircampaign/hiddencreatures

 

And here's the point summary:

 

 

HiddenCreaturesPoints.png

Edited by Max and 99
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2 hours ago, Snug418 said:

Hi.  I am new to geocaching.  I see this event and I want to play, but I am not finding a lot of information explaining it.  Can anyone help?  Is this a local event, or where does it take place?  What if one of the events it talks about is at a day and time that I cannot go?

 

Any help from the experts would be great!

It is a promotion designed to get people out finding geocaches, not a Geocaching event where people gather to talk about Geocaching.

 

I've stopped most of my geocaching for the current time, waiting for the summer temps to go below 90F.  Maybe September in my area.

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If this souvenir promotion requires a geocacher to "find 100 caches in 4 weeks" to gain all the souvenirs, then it contravenes the Challenge  guidelines which we geocachers have to abide by.
I.e.  "Time-limited caching: as in some number of finds per day, week, month, or year. Example, Busy Day, 50 finds in a day, 500 finds in a month, etc."
 

The official Groundspeak Blog 25 May 2016 explained the reasoning:

Time-limited challenges are not permitted. For example, “Find 500 caches in a month” or “Find 10 different icons in a day.” The aim here is at least two-fold. First, these challenges encouraged people to hurry to find caches in a short time period. That’s something a majority of survey respondents said they didn’t like about challenge caches. And it’s not something we wish to encourage. Second, we’ve seen a lot of people creating Events and/or CITOs only to add an icon to the area for “Busy Day” challenges. That’s not at all the spirit for which those activities are intended.


You might wonder why the Groundspeak management would do this, since their own blog says (a) most geocachers don't like hurrying to find caches in a short time period and (b) they don't wish to encourage events being created just to help meet a time-limited challenge. (By the way, that's happening in my area, with two events/week placed already and a promise of a power trail going out specifically to help people meet this souvenir promotion. And people have changed their caching behaviour, "saving up" caches to find once the promotion starts.)

My guess is that the private website company Groundspeak Inc, being a profit-driven business, wants to increase the website's attractiveness to advertisers.  The more page views, the higher the the price the company can charge for advertising.  Has there been a drop in website usage which they are trying to ameliorate  with two promotions in a row this year? We know that the Groundspeak company has increased the amount of advertising on cache pages in the last year, which indicates that they are trying to increase revenue.

Another point is that the Groundspeak company management are not concerned about the opinions of committed geocachers. They know that we are going to keep on geocaching because we love exploring different places and we love placing caches which give our caching colleagues enjoyable experiences. We're going to keep on being paying customers* for the Groundspeak website since in most parts of the world it's got a monopoly for geocache listings. The real target for these promotions is the beginner cacher, who's not yet  "addicted" and is quite likely to drift away from the activity after finding a few dozen caches. But if that new cacher is presented with a reason to invest more time and effort into finding caches, and if they see a reward for their efforts, well, they are very much more likely to  keep on caching and (most important) become another paying customer for the website.

As an aside, it's very much easier for new cachers to find a time-limited challenge such as 100 caches in 4 weeks because they haven't yet found many caches in their neighbourhood.  And, as usual, this promotion is designed for the Northern Hemisphere summer to satisfy that key USA market - it's midwinter in the Southern Hemisphere.

Regarding this marketing promotion, obviously it's up to each person to decide whether they'll enjoy it.  Myself,  I think I'll be joining baer2006 in ignoring it. I find one promotion a year okay,  if it is achievable and offers an interesting challenge. But two marketing promotions so close to one another, and (from the information so far) focused  on quantity rather than quality, makes me feel unpleasantly manipulated. 

* I use the term "Paying customer" instead of the Groundspeak company's inaccurate term "Premium member" because we are customers buying a product, not members. The difference is crucial. Members of a non-profit club have voting rights and control how their club is run.

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Aw, my 5-year-old would love that fairy, and the dragon, and the turtle! I'd better go pay for the premium membership asap. :laughing:

Seriously, geocaching with my kid will be even more fun during this time -- it's exactly the kind of extra motivation that a preschooler needs... :D And I'm glad GS are doing it. 

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5 hours ago, daywalk said:

If this souvenir promotion requires a geocacher to "find 100 caches in 4 weeks" to gain all the souvenirs, then it contravenes the Challenge  guidelines which we geocachers have to abide by.
I.e.  "Time-limited caching: as in some number of finds per day, week, month, or year. Example, Busy Day, 50 finds in a day, 500 finds in a month, etc."

 

It's a good thing that a souvenir promotion isn't the same thing as a challenge cache, then.  They even use different words to avoid confusion.

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