Carnival Souvenir - New Orleans

[Ian's Dad]

The New Orleans souvenir needs to be changed to represent Mobile, AL.  That was historically the first Mardi Gras in America in 1703; New Orleans wasn't established until 15 years later.  Groundspeak can't even research correctly. 

 

"Mardi Gras, New Orleans' Carnival celebration, dates back to the 17th century, and came to North America as a French Catholic tradition. Today it is celebrated with large parades and balls. So called Krewes clubs prepare all year to create the most opulent balls and parades for the occasion."   

 

Geocaching has gone down over the past few years and are trying too hard but without much success.  I'm not renewing my Premium any longer.

 

  https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/history/

 

 

[Moun10Bike]

Maybe I missed it, but where on the souvenir does it indicate that New Orleans was first? The text simply indicates that Mardi Gras traces its roots back to the 17th century, not that it was celebrated in New Orleans then (which would be the 1600s). Surely you are not arguing that the Mobile Carnival is better known than the New Orleans Carnival...

[+The Leprechauns]

Wikipedia says that "The first record of Mardi Gras being celebrated in Louisiana was at the mouth of the Mississippi River in what is now lower Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, on March 2, 1699."

 

In my book, that counts as "17th Century" and it's pretty darn close to New Orleans.

 

Still, I have to award the OP a prize for the "Most Unpredictable Reason to Cancel Premium Membership."  Definite style points there.

[+hzoi]

10 hours ago, Ian's Dad said:

I'm not renewing my Premium any longer.

 

...over a souvenir?  Seems a little extreme, but you do you.

[Ian's Dad]

2 hours ago, hzoi said:

 

...over a souvenir?  Seems a little extreme, but you do you.

No not over a souvenir but for other reasons.  Hardly extreme...simply saving money.

Edited March 28, 2019 by Ian's Dad

[+hzoi]

1 hour ago, Ian's Dad said:

2 hours ago, hzoi said:

...over a souvenir?  Seems a little extreme, but you do you.

No not over a souvenir but for other reasons.  Hardly extreme...simply saving money.

Well, at least it's not geocide.  You own a ton of caches in Mobile, which is a great spot for caching - I have fond memories of slogging my way to High Point, which you adopted and kept going for a while.  It would be a big loss if you took your ball and went home.  So, at least from me, thanks for doing your part to keep quality in the game.

[+peedieduchess]

HUGE loophole. Or is it intentional? You can get all the carnival souvenirs very quickly simply by asking all your friends to award favourites.  They don't even need to find your cache.  They could even remove a FP they gave you years ago then re-award it. Am I right? Was this meant? 

[+MartyBartfast]

1 hour ago, peedieduchess said:

... loophole

Or alternatively, just find 10 caches* with >50 FPs and log finds then delete the finds. There have always been loopholes with the awarding of souvenirs. Personally I don't care if someone want's to jump through hoops to get a few pixels on their profile page, so I don't think it worth investing much coding effort into fixing these loopholes.

 

(* could probably do it by logging one cache 10 times.)

[RuideAlmeida]

4 minutes ago, MartyBartfast said:

(* could probably do it by logging one cache 10 times.)

 

No longer possible... at least.

[+MartyBartfast]

Just now, RuideAlmeida said:

No longer possible... at least.

Bet you can if you delete each find, then re-find it....

 

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, peedieduchess said:

HUGE loophole. Or is it intentional?

Yeah, Souvenirs are awarded based on the logs you post online. If you post bogus logs, then you'll be awarded bogus Souvenirs. This isn't anything new.

[+newsboy5331]

19 hours ago, peedieduchess said:

HUGE loophole. Or is it intentional? You can get all the carnival souvenirs very quickly simply by asking all your friends to award favourites.  They don't even need to find your cache.  They could even remove a FP they gave you years ago then re-award it. Am I right? Was this meant? 

You are partly right but I doubt that it was intentional on HQ's part. We have spotted someone in our area awarding retrospective FPs to a family member and a friend on caches this cacher logged years ago, in one particularly blatant example on caches in a series that was archived five years ago. It seems you can award a FP on a cache at any time but you have to have actually logged it at some time in the past. You can't add a FP without having logged it already. Geocaching HQ could close this particular loophole for the future by restricting retrospective FP awarding to say a month, after the actual log.

Edited March 30, 2019 by newsboy5331

[+hal-an-tow]

Personally I don't think 'souvenirs' from promotions have any value,: they are simply a marketing ploy, and anyone swept up in an acquisitive frenzy for them could benefit from taking a step back and considering what is really important (probably not caching, let  alone souvenirs ...) .

Every time one of these promotions kicks off, there is a bunch of complaints on here by annoyed folk who didn't immediately get their little picture due to some  glitch in the system,  so it's probably less hassle for Groundspeak to have the awarding system as simple and generous as possible : better happy cachers with easy, everyone gets a prize 'souvenirs' than unhappy customers.

 

Just like throwdowns, fake logs,  passed around final co-ords for puzzles, and frequent PAFs to avoid the horror of a long search,  this sort of system gaming inevitably goes on , individuals ethics vary considerably, just note that's what those particular people see as fair, and move on . At least the gaming of souvenirs doesn't negatively impact a cache owner *, so  it's hard to feel any indignation about it. Caching has never been a competition for me, and apart from competition there's not much use for souvenirs or that deplorable leaderboard either. Use the old dashboard page and you won't even notice it .

 

 

* The only instance I can think of is if there is a nearby challenge cache based on number of souvenirs.

[+kunarion]

21 hours ago, peedieduchess said:

HUGE loophole. Or is it intentional? You can get all the carnival souvenirs very quickly simply by asking all your friends to award favourites.  They don't even need to find your cache.  They could even remove a FP they gave you years ago then re-award it. Am I right? Was this meant? 

 

I've removed Favorite Points and seen them vanish.  That peculiarity comes up in the Forums from time to time.  It's best to not fiddle with FPs.

 

When I saw a couple of my caches recently caused me to get points, my first reaction was that there was a mistake (maybe my mistake).  Had to go look it up.