The old geocaching "challenges"

[+GeoElmo6000]

Remember the old geocaching "challenges"?  They came and they went in the 2011 - 2012 timeframe.  First they counted as finds.  Then they counted as a separate tally.  Then they were deleted completely.

 

Does anyone have information on them, such as:

1) When they started and ended?

2) The email announcing the removal of challenges?

3) A screenshot of when they were part of our accounts (but as a separate tally)?

 

Thanks in advance!

[+Max and 99]

15 minutes ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

Remember the old geocaching "challenges"?  They came and they went in the 2011 - 2012 timeframe.  First they counted as finds.  Then they counted as a separate tally.  Then they were deleted completely.

 

Does anyone have information on them, such as:

1) When they started and ended?

2) The email announcing the removal of challenges?

3) A screenshot of when they were part of our accounts (but as a separate tally)?

 

Thanks in advance!

They started about August 2011, If I have my information correct:

 

[+Max and 99]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they were gone by December of that year. But that was a long time ago, and maybe I'm not remembering accurately.

 

Edit: Browsing all my forum posts on Challenges, I don't see any after September 2011. That may mean nothing, I'm just pointing it out.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Max and 99

[+niraD]

I took a look at the page http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/ via archive.org, and it seems to have been live until around December 2012. The November archives show the real page, and the December 12th archive announces the retirement of Geocaching Challenges.

 

I recall having installed the Android app and just started to look at the local Geocaching Challenges, and then the next week the announcement came out that they were going to be retired.

[+Max and 99]

14 minutes ago, niraD said:

I took a look at the page http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/ via archive.org, and it seems to have been live until around December 2012. The November archives show the real page, and the December 12th archive announces the retirement of Geocaching Challenges.

 

I recall having installed the Android app and just started to look at the local Geocaching Challenges, and then the next week the announcement came out that they were going to be retired.

Wow, I didn't think they lasted over a year!

[+niraD]

6 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

Wow, I didn't think they lasted over a year!

Yeah, I recall a lot of silliness early on, and I basically ignored them. And then I read a comment that they had started to settle down and people (including Groundspeak) had started figuring out how to use them in interesting ways. So I installed the Android app, looked around, decided that they were being used in interesting ways now, and read the announcement of their retirement.

 

Sigh...

[+Viajero Perdido]

I didn't like how they went poof and vanished in a cloud of invisible smoke.  No history, no trail, no memories.

 

I vaguely recall, I threw up one of those things, didn't really own it, some people logged it, some people faked it; I couldn't control the fake logs, poof.

 

At least with this game, even if it vanishes completely, I'll always have the diary of my 15 years of logs, the adventures, archived safely offline via that GSAK macro.

[+MartyBartfast]

12 hours ago, niraD said:

I took a look at the page http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/ via archive.org, and it seems to have been live until around December 2012. The November archives show the real page, and the December 12th archive announces the retirement of Geocaching Challenges.

 

I recall having installed the Android app and just started to look at the local Geocaching Challenges, and then the next week the announcement came out that they were going to be retired.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by MartyBartfast

[+thebruce0]

They were in a sense a version 1 of lab caches - location-based non-physical task-based claims to a +1. But Geocaching Challenges were much more limited and at that time there was a much larger contingent of haters who flooded the system with bad logging and cheap challenges. General opinion was also that being so hands-off meant there was real way to control, police, or improve content, and it just slowly went downhill. Now Adventure Labs have improved greatly on the concept and rather than the 'challenge' requiring a photo to claim, labs require a passcode and allow much more content and functionality. Still fairly hands-off and disconnected, but I think also introduced at a better time of mobile smartphone tech and landscape where that style of play is almost late to the game.

The original challenges had the potential to be great (and there were some great ones), but they also had the potential to be a waste of time, and so of course they trending downward.

If I ever get one, I could create an Adventure Lab from the Geocaching Challenge series I'd made which I thought was pretty neat (of course who doesn't think their own ideas are neat? heh)

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I think the biggest problem when Challenges was that they had a different set of guidelines for how they worked (e.g no formal review process) yet many wanted them to work like geocaches.  In 2012, power trails were becoming rampant.  There was a strong all about the numbers mentality and along comes a game that, IMHO, was not about the numbers.  My impression was that challenges were not about how many challenges one could complete (and show a big number on their profile) but how one completed challenges.  It seems silly to do a challenge that required taking a picture of a frog if all you were doing is counting that you took a picture of a frog.  If, however, you viewed the challenge as trying to find a unique frog and attempted to create an artistic photograph, then meeting the challenge was more about how you completed it, rather than just taking any old picture so that you could get credit, and add a +1 to your profile.  It was a different game yet many wanted to play it with the same goals as they did for geocaches.  

[+thebruce0]

7 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

It was a different game yet many wanted to play it with the same goals as they did for geocaches.  

Right, and the extreme flexibility and lack of guidelines meant that people would publish them just so that they were out there, rather than putting creative effort into the experiences, and the average 'quality' (for lack of better term) trended downward along with the negative sentiments. Eventually they were just cut off because HQ didn't want to 'improve' the system (and thankfully just before implementing the QR Geocaching Challenge, around the same time the game-that-shall-not-be-named was taking off with the idea). They effectively started from scratch and turned the experimental Lab Cache concept into Adventure Labs.

[+captnemo]

I sort of remember these.  Did a few but found them rather silly so stopped and didn't really miss them when TPTB killed the whole idea.

 

The only one I sort of really can bring to mind is "kiss a frog" where you posted a picture of you kissing a frog. Sorry can't find the picture.

[+Max and 99]

9 minutes ago, captnemo said:

I sort of remember these.  Did a few but found them rather silly so stopped and didn't really miss them when TPTB killed the whole idea.

 

The only one I sort of really can bring to mind is "kiss a frog" where you posted a picture of you kissing a frog. Sorry can't find the picture.

One of the first things I noticed was geocachers around the world treating location specific challenges as if they were a worldwide challenge, or whatever the name was, like kissing a frog, where there was no set location. 

[+hzoi]

I completed a few.  Not many.

 

I put out a photo challenge for cachers to share photos of themselves at the Ziggurat of UR.  I don't think anyone completed it before challenges went away.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

1 hour ago, hzoi said:

I completed a few.  Not many.

 

I put out a photo challenge for cachers to share photos of themselves at the Ziggurat of UR.  I don't think anyone completed it before challenges went away.

 

I put out a few as well.  Just prior to having it shut down I put out a challenge to take a photo at the Olympic Rings at Squaw Valley (winter olympics 1960).    There are actually a few places where there are Olympic rings at Squaw Valley but the location for the challenge was up on the mountain at a spot accessible via the tram (theoretically one could hike up, especially in the summer). That location has an exceptional view.   Considering the number of locations around the world, a take a photo of Olympic rings at a location where the Olympics were held would have been a good location-less challenge.

[DarthJustice]

I remember the challenges. They came and went not long before my long hiatus that I'm trying to come back from with geocaching. The only one I can remember, for whatever reason, was one that had you take a selfie (or just a picture?) in front of a Dollar General.

[+Max and 99]

17 minutes ago, DarthJustice said:

I remember the challenges. They came and went not long before my long hiatus that I'm trying to come back from with geocaching. The only one I can remember, for whatever reason, was one that had you take a selfie (or just a picture?) in front of a Dollar General.

I really liked my challenge of posing like Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller in front of her lifesize sculpture at the library until people  around the world started logging visits posing at home.  Then it was no fun at all. 

[+on4bam]

I ignored them.

[+cerberus1]

6 hours ago, on4bam said:

I ignored them.

 

Same here.   "Challenges",  I thought, were sillier than locationless.

Still Challenge cache free as well...       

Do now have one LPC and one guard rail cache found though ...   Both for that "days" grid for the other 2/3rds.      

[+thebruce0]

4 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

11 hours ago, on4bam said:

I ignored them.

 

Same here.   "Challenges",  I thought, were sillier than locationless.

 

Many were. But they had the potential to be so much more, and there were some great ones. But that was the problem - way to open with little to no management or control. That's why they died

[+NYPaddleCacher]

On 4/28/2020 at 2:28 PM, thebruce0 said:

 

Many were. But they had the potential to be so much more, and there were some great ones. But that was the problem - way to open with little to no management or control. That's why they died

 

In other words, the flaws were not entirely due to how Challenges were implemented, but how Challenge creators used the system.  The fact that they were open allowed people use their imagination in creating challenges.  Creating a Challenge involving taking a picture at a Dollar general is just one example of a lack of creativity.

[+niraD]

2 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

Creating a Challenge involving taking a picture at a Dollar general is just one example of a lack of creativity.

But taking a photo at Dollar General while wearing a George Washington costume (and maybe green face paint) would be cool...

[+colleda]

3 hours ago, niraD said:

But taking a photo at Dollar General while wearing a George Washington costume (and maybe green face paint) would be cool...

So long as George Washington is there to verify the correctness of the costume.

[+GeoElmo6000]

I'd still like to, if it's at all possible, get an image of a profile from the "challenge" days showing a separate find count for geocaches and a separate one for challenges.  Can anyone come up with this?  It doesn't have to show the account name.  I tried @niraD 's idea of archive.org but wasn't successful, though maybe that would work if I knew what I was doing.  Thanks!

[+MartyBartfast]

2 hours ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

I tried @niraD 's idea of archive.org but wasn't successful, though maybe that would work if I knew what I was doing. 

 

you won't get it from archive.org as you need to be logged into a valid user account to access that detail and those archive machines can't do that. I suspect the only chance you have is that if someone happens to have  a screenshot tucked away somewhere, or if you can find someone who logged a challenge cache (the ones that still exist) at the time and posted a clip of their profile page as evidence of qualification.

 

 

[+funkymunkyzone]

On 4/12/2020 at 12:30 PM, GeoElmo6000 said:

2) The email announcing the removal of challenges?

 

Geocaching <noreply@geocaching.com> 5 Dec 2012, 11:47   to me               Dear Geocacher, In our effort to inspire outdoor play through Geocaching, we are often faced with decisions about what to focus on next, and what to focus on less. It is through these decisions that we explore opportunities to grow the global game of Geocaching. Occasionally, during this process, we are faced with the reality that certain ideas don't catch on as we had hoped. In these situations we owe it to ourselves and to you to make tough decisions about the future of every project and the resources to be applied to each. Sometimes, as a result, cool features must become casualties. In this spirit, we have decided to retire Geocaching Challenges. This means that, effective today, we have disabled the ability to create new Challenges. We have also removed the Challenges application from all mobile application stores. In approxim ately 7 days, we will be removing all traces of the Challenges functionality and related content from Geocaching.com. On an office wall here at HQ is a sign that reads, "Let's make better mistakes tomorrow." By accepting that we will sometimes get it wrong, we can allow ourselves to learn from and imagine new opportunities in the world of Geocaching. Our hope is we can take the lessons from Challenges and create better tools to guide you on your next adventure. Sincerely, Geocaching.com If you wish to change your email preferences, please visit http://coord.info/email. © 2000-2012 Groundspeak, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Groundspeak, Inc., 837 N 34th Street Suite 300, Seattle, WA, 98103

[+Tentmantent]

Late to this thread. I remember enjoying some of these Challenges, although I'm glad they never counted towards my main total. When they announced their retirement, I was on about 89 logs, so I rushed around to get up to 100 before they vanished. I even treated myself to a Geocaching Challenges coin to celebrate! [https://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?tracker=TB4TZV3] My pal Northking made me a souvenir (attached) and I eventually finished on 103. My 100th was at Robin Hood's hideaway, the 'Major Oak' in Sherwood Forest!

 

Interesting to see that despite the lessons learned from this project, geocaching.com seems to be hell-bent on repeating it with Ad Labs, except they're not even keeping to totals separate!

 

 

[+JL_HSTRE]

1 hour ago, Tentmantent said:

Interesting to see that despite the lessons learned from this project, geocaching.com seems to be hell-bent on repeating it with Ad Labs, except they're not even keeping to totals separate!

 

The problems with GeoChallenges were obvious almost immediately.

 

Adventure Labs started out feeling to me like a Virtual/Wherigo hybrid. The first year or two I only encountered good ALs. Then people seemed to run out of AL credits before they ran out of AL ideas and it went into a downward spiral. 

 

Ultimately, the biggest failing of both systems was the lack of review process. Considering how much Reviewers are necessary for geocaches I don't understand why Groundspeak thought they could get away without regulating either GeoChallenges or ALs.

[+thebruce0]

9 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Considering how much Reviewers are necessary for geocaches I don't understand why Groundspeak thought they could get away without regulating either GeoChallenges or ALs.

 

I think they felt and hoped that the ease and streamlined nature of the platforms would help to community regulate itself. If there's no value in "cheating" (because there really isn't any 'cheating') then the hope is people would gravitate to the 'spirit' of the feature, rather than the loopholes. Video games kind of went the same route, as cheap small handheld games aren't really worth cheating, as opposed to online mass market games with competitions and stake in your gaming stats. In any case, the 'shell' of the platform for ALs means any 'cheating' is entirely arbitrary - some might call 500+ smiley geoarts "cheating", but it's within the realm of allowability, generally, unless HQ decides it's an abuse and archives the series of ALs. Who knows. It's a wildcard playground. *shrug*

[+JL_HSTRE]

6 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

 

I think they felt and hoped that the ease and streamlined nature of the platforms would help to community regulate itself. If there's no value in "cheating" (because there really isn't any 'cheating') then the hope is people would gravitate to the 'spirit' of the feature, rather than the loopholes. 

 

Self-regulation is only effective where everyone had integrity comparable to Captain America. 

[+Viajero Perdido]

6 minutes ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Self-regulation is only effective where everyone had integrity comparable to Captain America. 

 

I posted one.  There were some fun logs, but also cheats.  (Greetings from _______!)  That didn't take long.

[+baer2006]

On 1/6/2025 at 12:03 PM, Tentmantent said:

Interesting to see that despite the lessons learned from this project, geocaching.com seems to be hell-bent on repeating it with Ad Labs, except they're not even keeping to totals separate!

(Emphasis by me)

 

I think this "small" detail is a key point here. My pet hypothesis is:

If AL completions did not count towards the total GC find count, then almost no cachers would care at all for ALs. And things like "AL Geoart" for mass-logging hundreds of ALs from a parking lot wouldn't even exist.

Impossible to prove, though .

[+thebruce0]

Another reason any challenges I make from now on will be focusing on physical geocaches, not find/smiley counts, as that stat has nearly lost all meaning.

 

Newbie: "Geocaching? How many geocaches have you found??"*

Vet: "I've got over 50,000 now!"

Newbie: "You've found 50,000 geocaches?!?!"

Vet [to himself]: "Well, 25,000 of those were words entered into a prompt on my phone at the airport." [to newbie]: "Yep!  It's an awesome hobby!"

Newbie: "What's the best thing you've found in a geocache?"*

Vet: "Oh I don't do it for swag, I'm in it for the fun and adventure!"

 

* The two most common questions muggles have of a geocacher hearing about it for the first time; both inapplicable

Edited January 7 by thebruce0

[+GeoElmo6000]

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Newbie: "You've found 50,000 geocaches?!?!"

 

Geocaching HQ distinguishes geocaches from Adventures / lab caches (you'll always see them separate when GCHQ mentions them) but because they bundle the find count together geocachers will claim they found X geocaches when they meant Y geocaches and Z lab caches.  I'm a big proponent that the two should be separated.  

 

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Vet [to himself]: "Well, 25,000 of those were words entered into a prompt on my phone at the airport."

 

This is one of the big reasons.  (and don't worry, I know you're just using this as an example)

 

And I know it won't happen.  Imagine if it did?  

[+JL_HSTRE]

5 hours ago, baer2006 said:

My pet hypothesis is:

If AL completions did not count towards the total GC find count, then almost no cachers would care at all for ALs. And things like "AL Geoart" for mass-logging hundreds of ALs from a parking lot wouldn't even exist.

Impossible to prove, though .

 

A number would still be going up so I think it would still have problems, though fewer. 

 

I wonder how much AL issues are ignored by Groundspeak because the engagement level is high and the risk of legal consequences are minimal because the locations are virtual. ALs can't cause bomb threats, don't leave trash behind, and can't be stolen.

 

Personally, I would probably quit physical caches for Adventure Labs if Adventure Labs were reliably good. (Or Waymarking, with an app and a much better interface).

 

I'm looking for where geocaching takes me; hunting for the physical container with my lousy eyesight, which half the time has a wet or moldy logsheet. The Find is more of a way to track where I've been than anything else.

 

All the various virtual GPS games seem to reward going to the same places, usually in urban areas, often uninteresting locations, and lingering there with your face to your phone.

[+thebruce0]

1 hour ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

I'm a big proponent that the two should be separated.  

 

That's why I call them smilies now, not 'finds', as much as I'm able to remember.

[+thebruce0]

32 minutes ago, JL_HSTRE said:

All the various virtual GPS games seem to reward going to the same places, usually in urban areas, often uninteresting locations, and lingering there with your face to your phone.

 

Yep, people want to play games in that sense and more often those people are in it for the game, not the travel and adventure (which has inherent costs). So ALs are kind of a hybrid between geocaching and location-based mobile games; but not really either one.  It has a unique demographic, with some crossover.

[+cerberus1]

On 1/6/2025 at 6:03 AM, Tentmantent said:

Interesting to see that despite the lessons learned from this project, geocaching.com seems to be hell-bent on repeating it with Ad Labs, except they're not even keeping to totals separate!

 

Used to be, your find total would say, "200 finds with 187 distinct ".  Another word replaced distinct but I don't remember what...

This all changed when this hobby became a game, and multiple finds on your own caches during maintenance, multiple finds on one cache (UK benchmarks and moving caches), and other silliness started being found out by others when people asked for help in these forums when their totals didn't match in stat sites.  Oddly those people rarely came back...       

Now those same people can hide everything in their profile.  That doesn't seem very "Community friendly" to me...

[+barefootjeff]

4 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Personally, I would probably quit physical caches for Adventure Labs if Adventure Labs were reliably good. (Or Waymarking, with an app and a much better interface).

 

I'm looking for where geocaching takes me; hunting for the physical container with my lousy eyesight, which half the time has a wet or moldy logsheet. The Find is more of a way to track where I've been than anything else.

 

My experience is pretty much the opposite, but that's maybe due to the sort of physical caches I go for and enjoy. Last week I joined a group of cachers from Newcastle to do an eleven-cache series set along a picturesque nature trail. They all had themed containers that the CO had clearly put a lot of thought and effort into making and probably all deserved an FP even though I only had one available to give. A similar themed series I did earlier last year, called The Haunted Woods, had a trail of blood-stained knives and dismembered body parts leading to an awesome demonic finale. Then there's the water-access LBH I did a few months ago with a genuine large container, a concrete block about a metre high with the geocaching logo moulded into it. Other memorable caches I've found over the past year had me clambering around over rocks and in sandstone caves, using my telescopic ladder or tree-fishing pole to access caches in trees and figuring out how to open field-puzzle containers.

 

The ALs I've done, even the ones that take me to interesting places, are mostly just about finding a keyword or numeral on a sign, or counting something, and keying that into my phone. Once the novelty wore off, they've become mostly rinse and repeat. Perhaps that's why ALs peaked here in the second half of 2020 and have since pretty much died out, with the last new one in this region appearing in mid 2022.

 

For me at any rate, with physical caches I'm a participant in the environment, getting my hands and knees dirty and twigs in my hair, whereas with ALs I'm just a spectator looking at stuff. Of course others enjoy different things, but it's the variety that makes caching so enduring and ALs seem to lack much in the way of variety.