+FerrariGirlNr1 Posted March 17, 2020 Share Posted March 17, 2020 I know, due to COVID19 we are all busy but that topic made me aware of a missing feature: Here in Germany, events are archived by volunteer reviewers due to restrictions of the authorities. I fully support that, but I recognized, that geocachers that have logged "will attend" to such an event will not receive any notification via e-mail about that archive. Since archived events cannot have announcement logs, it is not possible for the owner to reach all geocachers at once now and (although I think that this rarely happens in the current situation) some geocachers may not know that the event that they want to attend is cancelled. Therefore here is my feature request: Is it possible to add a notification, if an event is archived on a date before the "hidden date", which means the date when the event takes place (similar to announcements that are also mailed to every attendee)? Greetings, FerrariGirlNr1 4 1 2 Quote Link to comment
+thebruce0 Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 (edited) I support this request! Ontario events were also retracted (not merely archived but returned to pre-publish state - 404 on the website) and the only way to find the event was to look at your raw list of Will Attend logs and see that the connected listing is no longer available. That prompted me to check the calendar on the new Dashboard at which point I discovered all events for 2 weeks had suffered that fate. There was no notification of this (outside 3rd party / social media updates - no guarantee of attendees finding out). A notification of archivals - or any switch to 'no longer available' - for events to anyone who should receive alerts (attendees, watchers) would be very helpful. Thanks. It's probably never come up because how often do event owners kill of their listing without informing anyone? Rare at best. Good suggestion ETA: Makes me wonder how many people added such events to their personal calendar, and may still show up because they didn't hear or check to see the event was no longer available? Edited March 18, 2020 by thebruce0 Quote Link to comment
Keystone Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 Widespread, systematic archivals or retractions of published events by Community Volunteer Reviewers has never happened prior to this month - just on a one-off basis when an event was found to be in violation of the listing guidelines. I hope it never needs to happen again. Hopefully the announcement log posted by Geocaching HQ to every active event on March 13th provided some notice and context for the actions that many Reviewers are taking, based on local conditions and governmental pronouncements. That log told all attendees that Reviewers may disable, retract or archive events that were already published. 2 Quote Link to comment
+thebruce0 Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 9 minutes ago, Keystone said: That log told all attendees that Reviewers may disable, retract or archive events that were already published. Yeah, the problem is there was no notification that it had been retracted or archived. Before then, the listing was still available to view and watch for updates from the event host. As mentioned, once the event's gone, not even the event host can inform people that it has been disabled, retracted or archived. Quote Link to comment
+hal-an-tow Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 Should this need to be done again (and assuming no contingency plans are put in place in the meantime ) it strikes me that the achival/withdrawing is only truly urgent for events in the very near future, say the next few days from the date of the decision. Given that many events will be more than a few days away from 'decision day' why not send those C.O.s advance notice of the imminent de-listing, which will occur in 24 hours, and suggest they send out an announcement before then so it will be received by those who have posted a 'will attend' before the event page evaporates ? Events for the next day or two could have a similar pre-warning of their loss, but a shorter deadline to send out the announcement : a few hours would at least give an alert event setter a chance to do the right thing and communicate reasons for what is happening. It would be easy for HQ and/or the reviewers to sort events by date to decide on the urgency required: I just checked and I can do it in GSAK as the 'placed' date column is the date on which the event takes place. Quote Link to comment
+thebruce0 Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 All of that, true. But, at the same time, the mechanism already exists to send out a notification, just like an announcement, if a listing is 'delisted', with an explanation. Seems the simplest solution that doesn't require having to remember or rely on communication with multiple parties to happen optimally. But the latter is definitely a good process if nothing on the backend changes. Quote Link to comment
+hal-an-tow Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 43 minutes ago, thebruce0 said: But, at the same time, the mechanism already exists to send out a notification, just like an announcement, if a listing is 'delisted', with an explanation. Seems the simplest solution that doesn't require having to remember or rely on communication with multiple parties to happen optimally. Yes, the 'delisting' ought to be accompanied by an announcement to all who placed a 'will attend' , but does such a mechanism actually exist already ? And if it does, why on earth wasn't it used as the listings were retracted ? I wonder if the 'announcement' log type is only available to the E.O. , and not HQ/ reviewers currently ? I often 'watch' events I hope to attend, as not every setter uses announcements for updates , I wonder if any message would arrive in my inbox to show a listing had been retracted , I know if it was archived that would appear as a log. Quote Link to comment
+thebruce0 Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 6 minutes ago, hal-an-tow said: Yes, the 'delisting' ought to be accompanied by an announcement to all who placed a 'will attend' , but does such a mechanism actually exist already ? By mechanism I was referring to the ability to send an automated email to a list of recipients - that's accomplished with posting an announcement, or for watchers any log posted to the listing. Extend that automated mechanism to the action of delisting an event. 1 Quote Link to comment
Keystone Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 Reviewers do not have the ability of posting an "Announcement" log on someone else's Event Cache. Obviously, HQ does have that ability. 2 Quote Link to comment
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