+Simrebel Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 last couple days i've been getting notification of fav point added to my hides then removed. is this something HQ is doing? Quote Link to comment
+cerberus1 Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 Curious, why would you think Geocaching HQ would be adding and deleting favorite points on your caches ? Quote Link to comment
+Team DEMP Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 Not sure but it might be Project-GC catching up on some backlogged data or someone that did something wacky (eg GSAK Macro gone wild) and they are undoing their screwup. Quote Link to comment
+geocat_ Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 I keep receiving notifications in project-gc.com that I am both receiving a favorite point and that a favorite point is being removed simultaneously. The user is listed as §OPTOUT§4095§ which seems like some sort of bot. Can anyone explain why a bot would give and remove favorite points. Why would it even "care"??? Quote Link to comment
Keystone Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 This is not a Geocaching.com bug or feature request, so I'm moving the thread to the correct forum section, where I will then merge it with another thread on the same subject. The issue could also be discussed in the Project-GC support forum. 1 Quote Link to comment
+hzoi Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 18 minutes ago, Keystone said: The issue could also be discussed in the Project-GC support forum. It is, in fact. I asked it a couple days ago. Apparently it's related to the dreaded GDPR. Quote Link to comment
+SerenityNow Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 I don't think the above answer is correct. Over the last few days, I've received about 8 of these favorite point changes. I checked every one of those caches and have found that a cacher that started in 2002 has changed his caching name. His new name is one of the favorites on every one of those caches. So, I believe the favorite point is taken away under the old caching name, and reapplied under the new caching name. Could this be true? Quote Link to comment
+The A-Team Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 26 minutes ago, SerenityNow said: I don't think the above answer is correct. Over the last few days, I've received about 8 of these favorite point changes. I checked every one of those caches and have found that a cacher that started in 2002 has changed his caching name. His new name is one of the favorites on every one of those caches. So, I believe the favorite point is taken away under the old caching name, and reapplied under the new caching name. Could this be true? Changing the name on an account wouldn't require the points to be removed and added. The new name would immediately be visible everywhere across the site. I guess they could create a completely new account, log in as the old account, remove the FP, log in as the new account, and add the FP, but I don't know why someone would do that. 1 Quote Link to comment
+SerenityNow Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 2 hours ago, The A-Team said: Changing the name on an account wouldn't require the points to be removed and added. The new name would immediately be visible everywhere across the site. I guess they could create a completely new account, log in as the old account, remove the FP, log in as the new account, and add the FP, but I don't know why someone would do that. Your explanation makes no sense because I didn't get a deletion notice from project-gc with the old cacher's name nor a new favorite point notification from project-gc under the new name. I got what everyone else has mentioned as shown in this snip. Quote Link to comment
+The A-Team Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 40 minutes ago, SerenityNow said: Your explanation makes no sense because I didn't get a deletion notice from project-gc with the old cacher's name nor a new favorite point notification from project-gc under the new name. I got what everyone else has mentioned as shown in this snip. My post wasn't meant as an explanation of what's going on, but rather to point out that your proposed explanation seemed unlikely. I have no idea what type of processes Project-GC uses, nor what the "OPTOUT" notation might mean. They'd be the ones who could give a definitive answer. hzoi's post seems to imply that there's already a discussion of this matter going on over on their forums. Quote Link to comment
+SerenityNow Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 1 hour ago, The A-Team said: My post wasn't meant as an explanation of what's going on, but rather to point out that your proposed explanation seemed unlikely. I have no idea what type of processes Project-GC uses, nor what the "OPTOUT" notation might mean. They'd be the ones who could give a definitive answer. hzoi's post seems to imply that there's already a discussion of this matter going on over on their forums. I posted to the thread at project-gc forums but have not received an answer. Not much of a discussion over there! Quote Link to comment
Keystone Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 I disagree with the earlier post on the Project-GC support forum thread referenced by hzoi. The post theorized that GDPR was to blame - the right a person has to eliminate all traces of their Geocaching.com account. Once a person exercises that right, all their logs disappear entirely. There's no opportunity to go back and remove favorite points. There is a separate right to be anonymous at Project-GC, requesting that your statistics be hidden from public view. It is possible that accounts that have exercised that option are now fiddling around with favorite point assignments, such that the related cache owner notifications include an anonymized "OPTOUT" account name. This is pure speculation on my part as I have no special knowledge of Project-GC's inner workings. 2 1 Quote Link to comment
+JL_HSTRE Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 10 hours ago, Keystone said: The post theorized that GDPR was to blame - the right a person has to eliminate all traces of their Geocaching.com account. Once a person exercises that right, all their logs disappear entirely. There's no opportunity to go back and remove favorite points. What would happen to their cache hides in that situation? Quote Link to comment
Keystone Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 4 minutes ago, JL_HSTRE said: What would happen to their cache hides in that situation? Cache pages remain available for reference by other geocachers, such as prior finders, and they continue to be reported in a "My Finds" pocket query. When a geocacher exercises their right to delete account information, all of their owned cache pages will be archived and the name of the cache owner is changed to "[DELETED_USER]." See this Help Center article. 1 Quote Link to comment
+hzoi Posted January 26, 2019 Share Posted January 26, 2019 Potentially, this is caused by folks who have opted out of third party websites on geocaching.com adding favorite points. Quote My friend said she had "selected to opt out of third party vendors" on geocaching.com. To me this makes sense (and I'm really nobody so take this with a grain of salt!), but in essence Project-GC has no idea who my friend is at this point. Her favorite point is "removed" on Project-GC (and is assigned the "OPTOUT" user name), but the total on geocaching.com remains the same. In order to reconcile the difference, Project-GC is adding one back in on their end. Again...this makes sense to me, but since I don't work for P-GC I'm not sure if this is the actual case or not. Quote Link to comment
+Wæki3_KL6 Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 This seems to be the reason, view link and scroll to bottom of page (found under Settings > Authorizations): https://www.geocaching.com/account/settings/authorizations Authorized Developer Authorizations Control the information you share with Geocaching.com's Authorized Developer applications. Do not allow Authorized Developer applications to access my public profile information. Learn more https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=27&pgid=920 Quote Link to comment
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