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There has just been 50 new challenge caches published in my area.  All are not premium member caches.  I am a premium member of GC.  But I find because I', not a premium member of project gc then I can't check all the challenge checkers.  I can only check 10 in a 24 hour period.  So I either need to cough up for premium membership for another site, or wait 5 days!  I find that a bit rich that I pay my premium membership (an have done for 7 years) but can't access basic statistics as to whether I meet a certain challenge cache or not.

 

 

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Unless you want to FTF the caches there's no reason why you wouldn't check over a 5 day period. If you're a GSAK user you can see if you qualify yourself (remember the time before project-gc checkers?).

As an alternative, go out and find them all. Write a note and change to Found it 10/day after checking. No big deal, right?

 

I filter for challenges every once in a while in GSAK and check a few if there's a checker adding notes when needed and tagging some we'll never qualify for (81 D/T, T5's, high number of events... ). No rush to check them all at once.

 

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1 hour ago, on4bam said:

If you're a GSAK user you can see if you qualify yourself (remember the time before project-gc checkers?).

I took a quick look at the new challenge caches in question, and many wouldn't even need GSAK. I can see a number of them that can be checked by simply looking at the automatic geocaching.com stats (e.g. 31 day streak, months of 2010, 35 large caches, etc.), or simple counting of things (75 souvenirs).

 

FYI to day1976: there's no requirement that you must run the challenge checker before claiming a find. As long as you meet the challenge requirements, you can log it as found. It's up to the CO to check your requirements.

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4 hours ago, The A-Team said:

FYI to day1976: there's no requirement that you must run the challenge checker before claiming a find. As long as you meet the challenge requirements, you can log it as found. It's up to the CO to check your requirements.

 

As an example, the following would no longer be allowed on a Challenge Listing (nor do I think it's grandfathered for Challenges with valid Checkers):

 

Quote

Any logs without a list of qualifying caches or by anyone who doesn't get the tick from the project-gc challenge checker will be DELETED!

 

Edited by Touchstone
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6 hours ago, day1976 said:

There has just been 50 new challenge caches published in my area.  All are not premium member caches.  I am a premium member of GC.  But I find because I', not a premium member of project gc then I can't check all the challenge checkers.  I can only check 10 in a 24 hour period.

That is an issue to address with Project-GC, which is not the same service provider as geocaching.com - they have their own expenses and staff, most of whom are volunteers by the way.

 

6 hours ago, day1976 said:

I find that a bit rich that I pay my premium membership (an have done for 7 years) but can't access basic statistics as to whether I meet a certain challenge cache or not.

What "basic statistics" are you unable to access?  The statistics are available in your Profile and your Finds history, if they weren't available then PGC would not be able to check them.

What PGC provides is a fast and no-effort way to check that you qualify. That convenience comes at a price, either in money or time. Plenty of cachers validate their challenge qualifications without even using the PGC Challenge Checkers.

 

 

Edited by noncentric
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8 hours ago, day1976 said:

There has just been 50 new challenge caches published in my area.  All are not premium member caches.  I am a premium member of GC.  But I find because I', not a premium member of project gc then I can't check all the challenge checkers.  I can only check 10 in a 24 hour period.  So I either need to cough up for premium membership for another site, or wait 5 days!  I find that a bit rich that I pay my premium membership (an have done for 7 years) but can't access basic statistics as to whether I meet a certain challenge cache or not.

 

 

 

When you find a modern challenge cache with a checker there is no need to proof that you have met the requirements to find the challenge. Actually, this is the cache owner's responsibility to verify that you are eligble to log the cache found on-line. Checker is needed if there is a dispute with the CO whether you have met the requirements or not. You are always allowed to find and sign the cache whenever you want to do it.

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4 hours ago, Isonzo Karst said:

Challenge article, section 7. Signing the Log 

For cache pages published after April 21, 2015 with a challenge checker, the owner can confirm the finder's qualification with the checker when the cache is logged as found. No further documentation is required from the finder.

 

 

I honestly had no idea this was the case.  I always assumed the checker was for the finders to be able to verify their qualifying for the posted challenge.  I'll still post my qualifying finds for challenges after this date, as I like to reminisce a bit, but this is still good to know.

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2 minutes ago, coachstahly said:

 

I honestly had no idea this was the case.  I always assumed the checker was for the finders to be able to verify their qualifying for the posted challenge.  I'll still post my qualifying finds for challenges after this date, as I like to reminisce a bit, but this is still good to know.

I was aware of this, but I realize that most people are not.

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

I found it completely stupid that the guideline ask the CO to verify for the qualification. Why asking the CO to do the extra work or trust the finders when its easy for the finder to do a copy/paste of the qualification.

As has been discussed before, it's worse than this. If the geocacher claiming a find on the geocache does not give permission for Project GC, then the CO cannot confirm the challenge requirements have been met. Unless, of course, the requirements are easy enough to confirm from the finder's stats. But if stats are hidden and Project GC permission has not been granted, the CO is out of luck. They can't delete the online log if the physical log has been signed, according to the wording in the Help Center.

I agree-it should be the finder's responsibility to prove they met the challenge.

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33 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

But if stats are hidden and Project GC permission has not been granted, the CO is out of luck

 

How sure are you of this? and since when. Because for a long time, I hid my stats both on Geocaching.com AND on project gc, and i'd NEVER granted project gc any permission or access of any kind, but other people could still check my name in any project gc checker.

I concede that since GDPR, this might have changed.

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15 minutes ago, Isonzo Karst said:

 

How sure are you of this? and since when. Because for a long time, I hid my stats both on Geocaching.com AND on project gc, and i'd NEVER granted project gc any permission or access of any kind, but other people could still check my name in any project gc checker.

I concede that since GDPR, this might have changed.

Well if that's the case, then that's great! I stand corrected.

 

I don't grant permission either.

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58 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

I found it completely stupid that the guideline ask the CO to verify for the qualification. Why asking the CO to do the extra work or trust the finders when its easy for the finder to do a copy/paste of the qualification.

 

It is not always so easy. Sometimes it happens that the checker can not check at all. There are more than one reason how this may happen.

 

53 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

If the geocacher claiming a find on the geocache does not give permission for Project GC, then the CO cannot confirm the challenge requirements have been met.

 

This is one possible reason why checker can not be used. I don't know what happens if there is a dispute in this kind of case when it is not easy to verify the requirements.

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5 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

Well if that's the case, then that's great! I stand corrected.

 

I don't grant permission either.

 

The permission is granted by default but some players have revoked the permission and then they report mysterious errors when trying to use PGC site.  :)

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11 hours ago, Isonzo Karst said:

 

How sure are you of this? and since when. Because for a long time, I hid my stats both on Geocaching.com AND on project gc, and i'd NEVER granted project gc any permission or access of any kind, but other people could still check my name in any project gc checker.

I concede that since GDPR, this might have changed.

 

I just checked you out on one of my challenges and could verify if you qualified or not. Not to be a stalker just curious.

 

Isonzo Karst does not fulfill challenge North to South Canada to Mexico County Challenge (GC7V6D8) according to https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC7V6D8/36298

 

Full disclosure I recently became a paying member of project-gc and am very happy with the extra features come with it. Yes I get infinite checker access, and instant status update, I prefer them over GS, I'm a statistics and map junkie. The challenge tab is awesome keeps track of all my signed challenges automatically(though I still do this with a list on GS) It also tells me when I qualify if a checker is available. Then comes the map options search options that are pretty cool. The map of challenge checkers lets me easily see if there are challenges in the area I am visiting or planning on visiting. So for me the few bucks I spend on the membership I feel I get good value out of. I recommend give it a try yourself as a trial. Personally I wish the two sites would merge as I use both platforms. 

 

Now on the subject of requiring a checker, you do not actually have to use the checker. There are many out there grandfathered that do not have a checker and being a apple user GSAK does not work for me at all. Grumble Grumble, no its not enough for me to switch or do other things to get it to work. So for those caches I do it the manual way and create bookmarks or other non-automated methods. Before I became a member, as previously suggested I would sign the log and if I knew I qualified i would put that I would update my log in the next day or so because I  hit the limit. Or you can simply write a note and then change it to a find later as well.

 

 

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I realized I can see your statistc data in both GS & Project-gc. So I tried the Alamogul and the checker was able to run no problems and yet their stats are blocked. The reason for this is geocaching finds are still visible but the statistics are not. Checkers must parse the find information.

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1 hour ago, MNTA said:

I realized I can see your statistc data in both GS & Project-gc. So I tried the Alamogul and the checker was able to run no problems and yet their stats are blocked. The reason for this is geocaching finds are still visible but the statistics are not. Checkers must parse the find information.

 

There are other players you can not check with challenge checker. It is not about public stats which is another feature. Players who deny access to 3rd party apps can not use the data even themselfs from the app like PGC.

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2 hours ago, MNTA said:

Or you can simply write a note and then change it to a find later as well.

 

This raises an interesting point, since the onus is now on COs to check whether a finder qualifies, yet don't get notified of someone, say, posting a note saying they've found the cache and signed the logbook but haven't yet qualified and then later changing that note to a find. For my own challenge cache this isn't a big deal, as it only has 11 finds and 10 notes in the almost three years since it was published, but I would imagine for a more popular one getting hundreds of finds and notes logged each year, it could be a pretty challenging task unless they're paid up members of PGC and get the edited log notifications.

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2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

posting a note .... and then later changing that note to a find

 

This is true across all caches, not just challenges. Write note, wait a while, convert to find.  I learned this very early in my geocaching play, as I noticed a cacher near me who always logged DNFs,  sometimes multiple DNFs on the same cache - then I noticed they all became finds later.  

 

I agree it seems to be an issue for owners of challenges more than for other caches.  I checked all my caches after a major hurricane in 2017, and found that 5 of the most recent 7 finds on one of my challenges were unaccompanied by signature.   This is  a pre-moratorium challenge, where the onus of proof is on the finder, not a checker. It makes no difference really. Now I cringe when someone writes note to the cache page with their qualifiers, and "now have to get there and sign log".

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20 hours ago, Lynx Humble said:

I found it completely stupid that the guideline ask the CO to verify for the qualification. Why asking the CO to do the extra work or trust the finders when its easy for the finder to do a copy/paste of the qualification.

 

Perhaps because it's a cache owner's responsibility to maintain their cache, including the online listing.  Before a CO deletes an online log for a challenge cache, it's their responsibility to run the challenge checker to see whether a finder is qualified.

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1 hour ago, hzoi said:

 

Perhaps because it's a cache owner's responsibility to maintain their cache, including the online listing.  Before a CO deletes an online log for a challenge cache, it's their responsibility to run the challenge checker to see whether a finder is qualified.

I never said that the CO would delete a log before making sure the finder isn't qualified.

 

My point was the current guidelines give unnecessary extra work for the CO. For virtual and earthcache it's the finder that need to prove he is qualified.

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10 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

For virtual and earthcache it's the finder that need to prove he is qualified.

 

But the CO still needs to verify that the answers the finder provides are correct.  If they're not, then no find (if they truly feel that inclined to press the issue).  If a virtual asks how many horseshoes are displayed on the tree and the answer back is "Green", then the CO's work isn't done.  I don't see this as that much different.  In fact, it's almost as easy as verifying answers on ECs and virtuals because all the new challenges require a checker, which the CO can use to verify a finder.  

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20 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

I never said that the CO would delete a log before making sure the finder isn't qualified.

 

My point was the current guidelines give unnecessary extra work for the CO. For virtual and earthcache it's the finder that need to prove he is qualified.

 

There is no extra work because the CO must check all logs whether they are genuine or counterfeit.

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1 hour ago, Lynx Humble said:

I never said that the CO would delete a log before making sure the finder isn't qualified.

 

My point was the current guidelines give unnecessary extra work for the CO. For virtual and earthcache it's the finder that need to prove he is qualified.

 

And now you know one of the reasons why there was the moratorium on challenges and the resulting revamped rules. There was a lot of finders saying that they qualified and owners having no way to verify.

Should a finder post how they qualify? Sure, but what is to stop them from using bogus name in a checker and saying "See, I qualify." It still falls to the CO to verify the qualifications and the checkers provide this function.

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6 hours ago, arisoft said:

 

There is no extra work because the CO must check all logs whether they are genuine or counterfeit.

 

The extra work is having to keep track of those who've logged a note to say they've completed one of the two requirements (either qualified but not yet found the cache or vice versa) and then subsequently change that note to a find. For a paid-up member of PGC that's made a bit easier, but for someone that isn't, there's no notification of when that happens so it falls to having to periodically go through the logs checking qualifications. As I said earlier, for a cache that only has a dozen finds it's no big deal, but for one that has many hundreds or even thousands of logs it's a different matter entirely, especially when the qualification and cache visit could be years apart.

 

11 hours ago, Isonzo Karst said:

This is true across all caches, not just challenges. Write note, wait a while, convert to find.  I learned this very early in my geocaching play, as I noticed a cacher near me who always logged DNFs,  sometimes multiple DNFs on the same cache - then I noticed they all became finds later.

 

Yes, it can happen on other cache types, but it's far more common on challenges where there are two steps to completing the find. On mine, there are currently 11 finds logged and 9 notes from people who've completed one or other of the steps - of those, five have qualified but not found the cache and four said they've signed the log but not qualified. The former camp are more likely to log a separate Found It log when they visit the cache, so the log date matches their visit and to say something about their journey to the cache (it's a long and somewhat challenging hike so those logs tend to be quite detailed), but the latter group who've already visited the cache and waxed lyrical about the adventure in their note may just change it to a find once they've qualified, without the CO becoming aware they've done that.

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