Challenge Caches - 'Time Limited' guidelines

[+BFMC]

Hi All

 

Wanting to seek out some opinions on the following challenges. I submitted checker requests for each, they queried whether one met the requirements (number 5 below) about time limitation and told me to seek advice from my reviewer. Which I duly did (and they sought further clarity themselves), only to come back with a response that the only one I could publish was #7 (because it was acceptable based on having months of the year)

 

I'm most likely going to go through the appeal process on this one. At this stage I want to point our that my reviewer has been nothing short of fantastic, and I can see why they came to the decision they did based on what clarification they sought out. Before I do I thought I would seek some thoughts on these boards.

 

The caches were a series of 7 challenges, all based on completing a certain challenge on all 7 days of the week. All of these have checkers built, and all are cumulative over time. #1 has been published multiple times around the world since the current challenge guidelines were released.

 

1 - Find all D ratings and all T ratings on all 7 days of the week: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8F0GY/45817

2 - Find 7 different (specified) cache types on each day of the week (multi, trad, unknown, letterbox, earth, virtual, Wherigo): https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8F0HA/45814

3 - Attend an event (any type) on each of the 7 days of the week: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8F0JD/45813

4 - Find all 7 cache sizes on all 7 days of the week: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8F0JH/45816

5 - Minimum 77 finds on each day of the week: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8F0JJ/45824

6 - Minimum 777 favorite points found on all 7 days of the week: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8F0KW/45825

7 - 1 find on each day of the week in all 12 months of the year: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8F0JX/45823

 

My understanding of time-limiting restrictions was to avoid challenges that required cachers to have multiple finds on a single day (whether that be any day, a specific day of the week or a certain date) e.g. 100 finds in a day. I wouldnt mind being able to do challenges like that but can understand why GS dont want it. Where im getting confused is on a couple of points:

1 - All of the above challenges can be completed by finding no more than 1 cache on any given day. Sure, it would take a while to do it that way, but it's possible.

2 - The feedback my reviewer got was that GS didnt want challenges at a more granular level than calendar month. I'm not sure I can understand why, as a challenge based on days of the week means you have ~52 opportunities per year to get a qualifying cache/caches yet a challenge based on months means you only have 28-31 opportunities per year. Days of the week also occur all year round whereas monthly challenges can (and do) force cachers to get out in some pretty hairy winter conditions in certain parts of the world.

 

The above 2 points would be my basis for taking the caches to appeals and my thinking behind this is what i'm hoping to get some opinions on.

 

Cheers

BFMC

[+ecanderson]

Yeah, past acceptance is no guarantee of future acceptance ...

But recent challenges include finding caches on each of the 366 calendar days and others with similar 'day' vs. 'month' granularity.  Not sure why yours was bounced due to 'granularity'.

[+MNTA]

I like #1 already qualify. Even though there is no streak or specific date required, think of it from GS rule perspective of someone that does not qualify yet. Now they don't want to require someone to find a certain cache type on Thursday that forces a behavior. They want it to be fluid I suppose, but daily streaks in my opinion are worse than this, I really disliked caching after stopping at 423 days in a row, it became a job, it became a hassle. When you have the flu  and you got to go out and make a find, thank goodness for saving that LPC down the street for this emergency. Silly, anyway I see their point and yours.

[+BFMC]

1 hour ago, ecanderson said:

Yeah, past acceptance is no guarantee of future acceptance ...

But recent challenges include finding caches on each of the 366 calendar days and others with similar 'day' vs. 'month' granularity.  Not sure why yours was bounced due to 'granularity'.

 

Agreed - I wont be using them as a predence argument to say 'you should publish because'

 

Granularity was my understanding of the feedback I got & attempting to understand why, as opposed to a clear response.

[+MartyBartfast]

If you do appeal and get over this hurdle, how will you fare on the "must be achievable by a reasonable number of cachers" requirement? 

Looking at the descriptions some of them looked fairly difficult to me will there be enough cachers in your area with the numbers?

 

I was a bit surprised when I checked and discovered I only need to find 1  Wherigo on a Thursday and I've qualified for all of them.

 

[+arisoft]

I didn't make complete research but at first I found that your challenges seems to be streak challenges of 7 consecutive days starting from a monday. For a streak you are allowed to require only one find per day without other stipulations.

Edited October 25, 2019 by arisoft

[+barefootjeff]

3 hours ago, MNTA said:

I like #1 already qualify. Even though there is no streak or specific date required, think of it from GS rule perspective of someone that does not qualify yet. Now they don't want to require someone to find a certain cache type on Thursday that forces a behavior.

 

But it doesn't have to be thisThursday, it can be any Thursday in the rest of their caching life. Is that really any more onorous than challenges requiring some number of finds with particular attributes or D/T ratings? When, for example, I was out finding D2/T4 caches for a particular challenge, I couldn't use that caching time to pound the pavement grabbing urban micros.

[+Lynx Humble]

Yeah I always found strange they allowed 365 days streak challenge but finding a cache on a Wednesday is a big no-no

[+arisoft]

3 hours ago, Lynx Humble said:

Yeah I always found strange they allowed 365 days streak challenge but finding a cache on a Wednesday is a big no-no

 

Just define it as 365 days streak with option to skip all other days except one thursday.

[+thebruce0]

The only reason that comes to mind as mentioned above, and has been given to me when I tried publishing shortly after the moratorium, might be about the day-of-week requirement where the challenge effectively 'forces' a person to change their caching habits in that if they need a cache for Tuesday and it's Wednesday, they might not find a cache they otherwise would in order to save it for next Tuesday.

 

Now, imo, 1 week is no big deal in the grand scheme, but I could see them using a 1 week period as too 'granular'.  Ironically, if someone needs a certain qualifier in March, but they miss it and it becomes April, they might feel forced to wait a whole year to find that cache next March.  But... then again, at such a scale, yeah it's a 1 year wait, but the chances of another qualifier appearing before then means they could still find that particular cache and have little to no impact on the challenge.

I dunno, its' a toughy. I can see why the reviewer had to get a 2nd opinion.

 

I'd allow it. But IANAR

I hope your appeal is successful, I might use the idea about day-of-week qualifiers too ... used the same concept for location by restricting common challenges to specific counties.  Granularity in various contexts is a touchy aspect of challenges

[+igator210]

I don't qualify for #1. I need to Find a D4.5 / T5 on a Thursday and I would qualify. Not bad for not even trying.

[+The A-Team]

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

The only reason that comes to mind as mentioned above, and has been given to me when I tried publishing shortly after the moratorium, might be about the day-of-week requirement where the challenge effectively 'forces' a person to change their caching habits in that if they need a cache for Tuesday and it's Wednesday, they might not find a cache they otherwise would in order to save it for next Tuesday.

 

A streak challenge effectively forces this same behavior, and usually on a much larger scale. Likewise with fill-the-calendar, where I would hold off on finding a particular cache and save it for one of the days I still needed to fill in. If those challenges are allowed, this reasoning shouldn't be used against the OP's challenges.

 

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with the proposed challenges. It will be interesting to hear what comes out of appeals.

[+thebruce0]

3 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

A streak challenge effectively forces this same behavior, and usually on a much larger scale.

Yep, and they drew the line at 1 year length.  However the streaks are for any cache so it doesn't technically discourage you from finding a specific (property of) cache to save for another day.  In a sense, the time period is 1 week instead of 1 year, but these challenges above are much more limited in qualifiers than a find-a-day streak.  (acknowledging that some areas don't have over 365 caches in reasonable distance, but that's a different concern for streak challenges themselves)

 

5 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

Likewise with fill-the-calendar, where I would hold off on finding a particular cache and save it for one of the days I still needed to fill in.

IIRC streak challenges can't be restricted to cache properties, so it's much much less likely that you'll hold off finding a specific cache, to the degree that a cache-property-restricted challenge would.

 

Again I'm just guessing that these are some of the reasonings for the denial, not that I agree with them

[+arisoft]

56 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with the proposed challenges. It will be interesting to hear what comes out of appeals.

 

I tried to publish a holiday bingo style challenge but it was denied being time limited. I can see it only a partial calendar challenge.  I am also interested in the result.

[+msrubble]

I can't read the challenge at Project GC (no account there), and don't know whether there is clarification.

 

As stated in the opening post, however, there is ambiguity about what you mean.

 

1. Find at least 77 caches in one day. Do this for a week in a row.
2. Find at least 77 caches in one day. Do this repeatedly, at least once on a Sunday, once on a Monday, etc.
3. Have a total of at least 77 finds for every day of the week, the way your profile says that you find most caches on a Friday.

The first two interpretations might be problematic, especially the first.

[+BFMC]

On 10/26/2019 at 12:40 PM, msrubble said:

I can't read the challenge at Project GC (no account there), and don't know whether there is clarification.

 

As stated in the opening post, however, there is ambiguity about what you mean.

 

1. Find at least 77 caches in one day. Do this for a week in a row.
2. Find at least 77 caches in one day. Do this repeatedly, at least once on a Sunday, once on a Monday, etc.
3. Have a total of at least 77 finds for every day of the week, the way your profile says that you find most caches on a Friday.

The first two interpretations might be problematic, especially the first.

#3 is the challenge here. Add up all your finds on Mondays. 77 caches on one monday or 1 cache on 77 mondays, either fulfils the challenge. Rinse and repeat for the other 6 days.

Edited October 27, 2019 by BFMC

[+BFMC]

On 10/25/2019 at 7:17 PM, arisoft said:

I didn't make complete research but at first I found that your challenges seems to be streak challenges of 7 consecutive days starting from a monday. For a streak you are allowed to require only one find per day without other stipulations.

Nope. You can qualify for all challenges finding no more than 1 cache a day and no more than 1 day in a row.

[+BFMC]

Thanks for the input all. I hit the appeal button today so will see what happens.

 

Prior to submitting the appeal I ensured I had enough qualifiers in my immediate area (I have more than enough for all of them). Given I qualify for all of them after 2 years and 1600 finds I find them to be challenging without being impossible (which was the aim).

 

should the appeal get up i’ll have to settle on D ratings for them all, happy to take thoughts on that too ?

[+arisoft]

1 minute ago, BFMC said:

Nope. You can qualify for all challenges finding no more than 1 cache a day and no more than 1 day in a row.

 

For me, this looks like an adidtional stipulation: " Find 7 different cache types on each day of the week "

[+BFMC]

Just now, arisoft said:

 

For me, this looks like an adidtional stipulation: " Find 7 different cache types on each day of the week "

yep, wording them to the point of being beyond interpretation is difficult, hence including the checkers. You can do that challenge in anywhere between 7 and 49 caching days.

 

All of the challenges simply take all of your finds on Mondays over all time and see if you meet the challenge. Same for Tuesday, Wednesday etc....

[+arisoft]

9 minutes ago, BFMC said:

yep, wording them to the point of being beyond interpretation is difficult, hence including the checkers. You can do that challenge in anywhere between 7 and 49 caching days.

 

All of the challenges simply take all of your finds on Mondays over all time and see if you meet the challenge. Same for Tuesday, Wednesday etc....

 

This is one important problem to note. Checker is made for the cache owner, not the player as it is not guaranteend that a player can even use the checker.

 

Your description must be exact. A reviewer asked me to add some exaples to my only challenge cache for this reason to make it clear, how to follow challenge rules in practice.

[+mustakorppi]

Requiring caches with the size ”not chosen” in challenge #4 might be a bit unfair. You can’t search for that size on geocaching.com (they’re listed under ”other”) and new caches can’t be made so it’s possible to permanently run out (in a reasonable geographic area).

[+Isonzo Karst]

 In a PQ, if you ask for size Unknown, the return will be Not Chosen as parsed by a project gc checker, or shown on your stats module.  The ability to select Not Chosen as a size ended early May 2014, so the numbers are finite. In Victoria, OZ there are 49 ( 36  need to have their size changed to Virtual ;-) - mostly Earthcaches. )

 

On a Pocket Query, you can ask for

• Micro
• Small
• Regular  
• Large
• Other (see description) 
• Virtual
• Unknown

 

On the Stats module you see:

• Micro
• Small
• Regular
• Large
• Other
• Virtual
• Not Chosen

 

Edited October 27, 2019 by Isonzo Karst

[+barefootjeff]

9 hours ago, arisoft said:

 

For me, this looks like an adidtional stipulation: " Find 7 different cache types on each day of the week "

 

This might be a language thing. For a native English speaker, "day of the week" implies just a Monday, Tuesday, etc., not any specific week.

[+arisoft]

6 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

This might be a language thing. For a native English speaker, "day of the week" implies just a Monday, Tuesday, etc., not any specific week.

 

I would say "each day of a week" if the week is not defined. I mean that there must be some meaning in the definite article in this case. I may be wrong and it needs a more complicated sentence to be clear that days may be at any week and not seven caches at every weekday.

[+barefootjeff]

8 minutes ago, arisoft said:

21 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

This might be a language thing. For a native English speaker, "day of the week" implies just a Monday, Tuesday, etc., not any specific week.

 

I would say "each day of a week" if the week is not defined. I mean that there must be some meaning in the definite article in this case. I may be wrong and it needs a more complicated sentence to be clear that days may be at any week and not seven caches at every weekday.

 

"Day of a week" would imply they have to all be in the same week since "a week" is singular. Even "any week" still implies that they have to be all in the same week, just not any particular one. "Day of the week" has special meaning, along with "month of the year", in that they refer only to the names of the days (or months) and not to any particular week or month.

Edited October 27, 2019 by barefootjeff

[+arisoft]

10 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

"Day of a week" would imply they have to all be in the same week since "a week" is singular. Even "any week" still implies that they have to be all in the same week, just not any particular one. "Day of the week" has special meaning, along with "month of the year", in that they refer only to the names of the days (or months) and not to any particular week or month.

 

That sounds a plausible explanation. So, it is not a streak.

[+IceColdUK]

3 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

 

"Day of a week" would imply they have to all be in the same week since "a week" is singular. Even "any week" still implies that they have to be all in the same week, just not any particular one. "Day of the week" has special meaning, along with "month of the year", in that they refer only to the names of the days (or months) and not to any particular week or month.

I’d say ”each weekday” ... I think!

Edited October 27, 2019 by IceColdUK

[+thebruce0]

For clarity, I'd likely describe it as "each of the 7 days of the week"

[+BFMC]

58 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

For clarity, I'd likely describe it as "each of the 7 days of the week"

 

I think that nails it - I'll check my cache pages and see how it is worded in there.

 

edit: Thats actually almost exactly how I worded the cache pages...

Edited October 28, 2019 by BFMC

[+NYPaddleCacher]

On 10/25/2019 at 2:37 PM, igator210 said:

I don't qualify for #1. I need to Find a D4.5 / T5 on a Thursday and I would qualify. Not bad for not even trying.

 

That seems to be the case for a lot of "challenges".  If you just find a lot of caches you'll eventually meet the criteria for a lot of challenge caches without even trying.  

[+Lynx Humble]

58 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

 

That seems to be the case for a lot of "challenges".  If you just find a lot of caches you'll eventually meet the criteria for a lot of challenge caches without even trying.  

With all the restrictions put by GS its hard to put something too specific that avoid that.

 

I tried for fun the checkers and only miss a few DT and an event on a Thursday.

[+thebruce0]

45 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

1 hour ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

 

That seems to be the case for a lot of "challenges".  If you just find a lot of caches you'll eventually meet the criteria for a lot of challenge caches without even trying.  

With all the restrictions put by GS its hard to put something too specific that avoid that.

 

And that's really exactly what HQ wanted.  I look at it like they want to strongly discourage challenge that you can "unqualify" for with regular geocaching habits.  The obvious example exception being streaks up to 1 year. Ratio challenges are similar.  If you can cache normally and eventually qualify (even without trying) then it'll likely be accepted (as long as you're not "bookkeeping" or being arbitrarily artistic with region borders beyond counties).  But anyway...  They basically want to make it as unlikely as possible that someone will regress away from qualification in any way if keeping up their normal geocaching habits.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

 

And that's really exactly what HQ wanted.  I look at it like they want to strongly discourage challenge that you can "unqualify" for with regular geocaching habits.  The obvious example exception being streaks up to 1 year. Ratio challenges are similar.  If you can cache normally and eventually qualify (even without trying) then it'll likely be accepted (as long as you're not "bookkeeping" or being arbitrarily artistic with region borders beyond counties).  But anyway...  They basically want to make it as unlikely as possible that someone will regress away from qualification in any way if keeping up their normal geocaching habits.

 

What are "regular geocaching habits",  "cache normally", and "normal geocaching habits" because I'm pretty sure that I don't do any of things or I'd qualify for a log more challenge caches.   To me, finding more than 1000 caches a year seem like finding a lot, but apparently that's what many consider "regular geocaching".

[+thebruce0]

Yes. It's quite subjective. And therein lies a problem.

[+vpdj]

Personally, I like these challenges - why? - because they challenge me to find something different from what I "always do" - and with over 6000 finds, I still do not qualify for some of those - but I would enjoy the challenge of working to meet the requirements as set out here.  I enjoy challenges thoroughly and understand the need for the rules to prevent outlandish challenges - but in my opinion, these are relatively simple to understand and not too difficult to eventually accomplish.

[+barefootjeff]

33 minutes ago, vpdj said:

Personally, I like these challenges - why? - because they challenge me to find something different from what I "always do" - and with over 6000 finds, I still do not qualify for some of those - but I would enjoy the challenge of working to meet the requirements as set out here.  I enjoy challenges thoroughly and understand the need for the rules to prevent outlandish challenges - but in my opinion, these are relatively simple to understand and not too difficult to eventually accomplish.

 

Yes, while I've only done a handful of challenge caches, the one I most enjoyed was the one requiring 24 caches with a D/T rating of 2/4. It took me a year to qualify but along the way I did some pretty amazing caches, including one half way up a mountain on Lord Howe Island.

 

With my limited caching opportunities here, the only ones I'm likely to qualify for are those that require small numbers of particular caches. For example, I doubt I'll ever qualify for #3 in this thread (attend an event on each day of the week) as all the events around here are only ever held on weekends.

[+arisoft]

40 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

With my limited caching opportunities here, the only ones I'm likely to qualify for are those that require small numbers of particular caches. For example, I doubt I'll ever qualify for #3 in this thread (attend an event on each day of the week) as all the events around here are only ever held on weekends.

 

This is simple to fix by hosting some new events at every day of the week.

[+barefootjeff]

14 minutes ago, arisoft said:

 

This is simple to fix by hosting some new events at every day of the week.

 

Then I'll just have five events where I'm the only attendee and people will start accusing me of gaming the system .

 

[+arisoft]

9 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

Then I'll just have five events where I'm the only attendee and people will start accusing me of gaming the system .

 

 

If You Host It, They Will Come  

[+BFMC]

8 hours ago, vpdj said:

Personally, I like these challenges - why? - because they challenge me to find something different from what I "always do" - and with over 6000 finds, I still do not qualify for some of those - but I would enjoy the challenge of working to meet the requirements as set out here.  I enjoy challenges thoroughly and understand the need for the rules to prevent outlandish challenges - but in my opinion, these are relatively simple to understand and not too difficult to eventually accomplish.

 

This is exactly why I wanted to do them in the first place. Most of my caching friends have between 3k and 20k finds and very few qualify for all 7 already, even though I do with only just over 1600 finds. I had to work on the D/T challenge to complete it and found the same experience you are referring to. I enjoyed it (apart from the fact the checker didnt tell you what you were missing but mine addresses that) & wanted to put out some challenges that experiences cachers would still have to work on.

[+BFMC]

6 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

 

Then I'll just have five events where I'm the only attendee and people will start accusing me of gaming the system .

 

 

I hosted an event on a Tuesday at lunchtime. A friend and I were having lunch to celebrate my 366 streak so we jokingly decided to make it an event expecting no-one to come. There was 30 odd people..... I've been to a fair few weeknight events that were well attended also.

 

Events was one of the challenges I had to complete myself - I was missing Wednesday and Thursday. Drove 1 hour to a regional town to attend a breakfast event last Wednesday and have a Halloween event this week that will tick Thursday off.

[+thebruce0]

11 hours ago, BFMC said:

Most of my caching friends have between 3k and 20k finds and very few qualify for all 7 already, even though I do with only just over 1600 finds.

 

Yep, I've been surprised by some people who've been caching for many years longer than I, some around or over that 20k mark, yet don't qualify for some "easier" fizzy challenges (especially in our region). Casual caching tends to get you a very heavily weight upper-left DT grid.  Working on challenges gets you to focus more on caches you may never have even thought of doing otherwise, without realizing you could.  I think they can be a healthy addition to the hobby.  Pre-moratorium many of these style of challenges were labeled "well-rounded" challenges. These days most of our region challenges are by nature rounding out people's odd/rare stats

Edited October 29, 2019 by thebruce0

[+BFMC]

7 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

 

Working on challenges gets you to focus more on caches you may never have even thought of doing otherwise, without realizing you could.  I think they can be a healthy addition to the hobby.

 

My thoughts exactly. And like any other cache, if you don't want to do it you don't have to do it but I know plenty that will enjoy working on it. My favorite challenge I have worked on so far (but am still yet to go and sign) was pre-current guidelines. 50 years of unloved finds with a cap of 50 caches. No sharing, so if you went in a group of 3 only one of you could use the unloved for the challenge. I spent months targeting and finding caches that were unloved for over a year. It was thoroughly enjoyable and took me to caches I probably wouldn't have otherwise gone to anytime soon. (edit: I can understand why this type of challenge is no longer permitted though. Too hard to validate.)

 

Got an email from HQ this morning apologising for the delay because challenge appeals take longer than usual. No apology needed, all that tells me is that they are giving it due consideration rather than turning around a quick 'Thanks for your email, but no'.

Edited October 29, 2019 by BFMC

[+McLookers]

I enjoy working towards challenges and I enjoy creating challenges for others to work towards.  These challenges are brilliant.  I have found that working towards challenges have diversified my caching experiences.  It has encouraged me to target a range of caches that I may never have really explored and in turn I have had the benefit of exposure to many places and opportunities that I may have missed.  Surely this is what geocaching is all about?  I applaud you BFMC on your quest to give us greater caching opportunities and experiences. And, for those that are not interested in challenges and the like, they can continue to cache in the way that suits them...something for everyone!

[+Isonzo Karst]

@BFMCLooks like you got a positive response from HQ on the "day of week" basis. Announcement

[+BFMC]

1 minute ago, Isonzo Karst said:

@BFMCLooks like you got a positive response from HQ on the "day of week" basis. Announcement

 

Correct! Happy dance ensues....

[+thebruce0]