Why are required links to commercial sites allowed for puzzle caches?

[+fizzymagic]

The guidelines are clear that requiring paid entrance to a commercial business is not allowed.  Why, then, are links to commercial websites (such as jigidi) allowed to be required in order to obtain coordinates for a cache?

 

When one goes to an advertisement-supported website, one is paying just as one would to go to any other commercial business.

[+arisoft]

For me, "paid entrance" if quite different thing than "advertisement-supported". Is there anything common between them?

[+TeamRabbitRun]

1 hour ago, fizzymagic said:

The guidelines are clear that requiring paid entrance to a commercial business is not allowed.  Why, then, are links to commercial websites (such as jigidi) allowed to be required in order to obtain coordinates for a cache?

 

When one goes to an advertisement-supported website, one is paying just as one would to go to any other commercial business.

 

Fizzy - are you equating 'being exposed to ads' with paying a fee for entrance?

 

Not sure I agree with that. Yes, we "pay" in the sense that with "free" TV we have to expend time and effort putting up with commercials as opposed to "pay" TV services that are commercial-free, but I think the spirit of the thing is in actual, quantifiable payments and transfers of a valuable commodity. Like 'money'.

 

[Keystone]

Jigidi is on an "exception list" of approved sites that can be linked to from cache pages.  Another example is YouTube.

 

While these are commercial sites with some ad content, the benefits to the geocaching community outweigh the "free advertising" that Geocaching HQ provides by driving traffic to the website.  If the advertising content of the third party site is too pervasive, then it doesn't make it onto the list of exceptions approved by HQ.  In some cases, previously approved sites have dropped off the exception list due to changes in the website's content. 

[+fizzymagic]

So if I may paraphrase the guidance:   The very clear language in the guidelines:

Quote

Cache pages perceived as commercial will not be published. Commercial content includes any of the following characteristics

• Overtones of advertising, marketing, or promotion
• Suggests or requires the finder do any of the following
  • Go inside a business
  • Interact with employees
  • Purchase a product or service
• Name, links, or logos of the following
  • Businesses
  • Commercial products
  • Competing games or cache listing services

 

Applies unless it doesn't.  You will notice the lack of a link to a whitelist, which means it is arbitrary.

 

How delightful. 

 

To be clear on my position, Jigidi is a blight upon the earth and in no way adds any value to the geocaching community.

Is there any way one can provide feedback to this that this mysterious, unpublished list?

 

Yeah, I thought not.

Edited March 18, 2021 by fizzymagic

[+barefootjeff]

12 minutes ago, fizzymagic said:

Cache pages perceived as commercial will not be published. Commercial content includes any of the following characteristics

• Overtones of advertising, marketing, or promotion

 

Our cache pages already have overtones of advertising, marketing or promotion on them whether COs want it or not...

 

[+on4bam]

None of the websites I visit have ads (that I can see)... that includes GC

 

[Keystone]

3 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

So if I may paraphrase the guidance:   The very clear language in the guidelines:

 

Applies unless it doesn't.  You will notice the lack of a link to a whitelist, which means it is arbitrary.

 

How delightful. 

 

To be clear on my position, Jigidi is a blight upon the earth and in no way adds any value to the geocaching community.

Is there any way one can provide feedback to this that this mysterious, unpublished list?

 

Yeah, I thought not.

 

If you don't want to provide feedback, I'd be happy to close your forum thread.

 

Many geocachers enjoy hiding and solving puzzle caches that rely on assembling a jigsaw puzzle on the Jigidi website.  I have published around a half dozen of these within the past month.  If you don't like this type of Mystery Cache, feel free to place it on your ignore list.

 

The whitelist is constantly changing, and includes guidance for Reviewers to follow, so the list itself is not public.  But it is not "mysterious."  If you see a cache published with a link to a commercial site or which requires use of a commercial site to solve a puzzle, then you can assume that either (1) that site is permitted, (2) the Reviewer made an error, or (3) the cache was edited post-publication to include the link.  Most situations, such as YouTube, Jigidi, What Three Words, etc., fall into the first category.

[Keystone]

I recalled discussing this issue recently, and found this thread a bit further down the page.  Since this thread is specific to Jigidi, I'm keeping it open.

[+fizzymagic]

2 hours ago, Keystone said:

Many geocachers enjoy hiding and solving puzzle caches that rely on assembling a jigsaw puzzle on the Jigidi website.  I have published around a half dozen of these within the past month.  If you don't like this type of Mystery Cache, feel free to place it on your ignore list.

 

Whoosh.

 

Apparently anything I don't like about the inconsistent and unpredictable guidelines is just me trying to keep other cachers from having fun. 

 

I'm disappointed.  Feel free to close the thread.

Edited March 19, 2021 by fizzymagic

[+mustakorppi]

4 hours ago, Keystone said:

Many geocachers enjoy hiding and solving puzzle caches that rely on assembling a jigsaw puzzle on the Jigidi website

That is true. I myself have at times solved jigsaw puzzles for fun.  Still, I  think that puzzles that take orders of magnitude more effort to solve than create are generally not good for the game.

[+JL_HSTRE]

14 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

Jigidi is a blight upon the earth

 

That site specifically, or simply as an example of the excessive number of solve-at-home jigsaw puzzle caches being published in recent years?

[+JL_HSTRE]

GeoCheck has ads. @fizzymagic, would you suggest that should be banned as a geochecker option?

[+IceColdUK]

19 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

 

Whoosh.

 

Apparently anything I don't like about the inconsistent and unpredictable guidelines is just me trying to keep other cachers from having fun. 

 

I'm disappointed.  Feel free to close the thread.

Definitely whoosh for me!  I thought your thread was about commercial content, but now I’m a bit confused.  Would a jigsaw site without ads be ok?

[+NYPaddleCacher]

22 hours ago, Keystone said:

 

If you don't want to provide feedback, I'd be happy to close your forum thread.

 

Many geocachers enjoy hiding and solving puzzle caches that rely on assembling a jigsaw puzzle on the Jigidi website.  I have published around a half dozen of these within the past month.  If you don't like this type of Mystery Cache, feel free to place it on your ignore list.

 

The problem with ignore lists is that you can't put a cache on an ignore list unless you've refrained from ignoring it.  

[+barefootjeff]

49 minutes ago, IceColdUK said:

Definitely whoosh for me!  I thought your thread was about commercial content, but now I’m a bit confused.  Would a jigsaw site without ads be ok?

 

Yeah, now I'm confused too. For post-moratorium challenge caches, you have to use the Project-GC checker but that site has some pretty in-your-face ads on it before you get into the actual checker...

 

 

By contrast, the ads on the Jigadi site seem pretty minimal, subliminal in fact...

 

 

I've done maybe a dozen jigsaw puzzle caches and don't mind them. They're good for filling in an hour or two on a winter's night when there's nothing much else happening.

Edited March 20, 2021 by barefootjeff

[+Hügh]

2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

For post-moratorium challenge caches, you have to use the Project-GC

 

Not necessarily; you can often check your qualifications using the built-in search functionality. 

 

That said, I don't disagree that the ads and/or time-outs are excessive for a service that Challenge Caches depend on. 

[+fizzymagic]

3 hours ago, Hügh said:

 

Not necessarily; you can often check your qualifications using the built-in search functionality. 

 

That said, I don't disagree that the ads and/or time-outs are excessive for a service that Challenge Caches depend on. 

 

I am content that Groundspeak and PGC have an established relationship.  I in no way meant to impugn such things.  My concern is about commercial entities with which Groundspeak does not have any public relationship.

 

Somebody mentioned Geocheck.  For MoM puzzles, I am a little uncomfortable that Geocheck is required to solve the cache.  As a (non-required) checker, I have no problem if it is commercial. I don't believe that Certitude has any ads (I would not see them if it did), but if it did, I would likewise have questions about the keyword-based puzzles that depend on it.

 

I have long had issues with steganography puzzles that require finding the one website (or, even worse, executable) that will extract the data.  Since generally the creators do not put a link to the magic website in the puzzle, it's another situation where the puzzle requires visiting a potentially harmful website.

 

Back in the olden times, the guidelines were formulated such that a puzzle solution could not depend on a particular website or application; if you wanted to use such a thing, an alternative solution method was required, and the alternate solution had to be a realistic solution path.  That standard has been entirely abandoned, presumably because it placed too much of a burden on puzzle creators.  I don't have a good answer to the conundrum.

[+fizzymagic]

6 hours ago, IceColdUK said:

Definitely whoosh for me!  I thought your thread was about commercial content, but now I’m a bit confused.  Would a jigsaw site without ads be ok?

 

Yes.

[+barefootjeff]

46 minutes ago, fizzymagic said:

I don't believe that Certitude has any ads (I would not see them if it did), but if it did, I would likewise have questions about the keyword-based puzzles that depend on it.

 

Certitude has a panel of ads down the lefthand side...

 

[+Ms Maddy]

I’m about to reconfigure a few mystery caches that are linked to jigidi. Jigidi is a website owned by an Danish couple (family) and they suspend, ban and delete accounts on a whim. That makes it unsuitable for geocaching puzzles which require permanency to be workable. There is also the issue of tracking and advertising across Jigidi. Adverts can only be removed if you pay. It’s becoming more of a problem as so many puzzle caches are now linked to Jigidi accounts. There are hundreds, entire series of Jigidi caches, where I’m based. 

[+Jayeffel]

What may I ask is Jigidi?

[+TriciaG]

2 hours ago, Ms Maddy said:

I’m about to reconfigure a few mystery caches that are linked to jigidi. Jigidi is a website owned by an Danish couple (family) and they suspend, ban and delete accounts on a whim. That makes it unsuitable for geocaching puzzles which require permanency to be workable. There is also the issue of tracking and advertising across Jigidi. Adverts can only be removed if you pay. It’s becoming more of a problem as so many puzzle caches are now linked to Jigidi accounts. There are hundreds, entire series of Jigidi caches, where I’m based. 

Side comment: I use uBlock Origin as an ad blocker, and I don't see ads on Jigidi. FWIW.

Is there an alternate jigsaw-type puzzle site that could be used instead?

[+arisoft]

5 hours ago, Ms Maddy said:

Jigidi is a website owned by an Danish couple (family) and they suspend, ban and delete accounts on a whim. That makes it unsuitable for geocaching puzzles which require permanency to be workable.

 

Jigidi allows playing without an account. I have not noticed any major problems. Few days ago there was a temporary bug that prevented displaying the message but it is fixed now.

[+ChriBli]

We definitely don't need more restrictions on puzzle caches. If you don't like Jigidi, just don't do them.

[+mustakorppi]

4 hours ago, ChriBli said:

We definitely don't need more restrictions on puzzle caches. If you don't like Jigidi, just don't do them.

Out of curiosity, how many jigidi caches are being published in your area? So far in 2022, 61 out of the 371 new mystery caches in Finland include a jigidi. I feel that over 16% of new mystery caches is just way too much.

[+ChriBli]

7 minutes ago, mustakorppi said:

Out of curiosity, how many jigidi caches are being published in your area? So far in 2022, 61 out of the 371 new mystery caches in Finland include a jigidi. I feel that over 16% of new mystery caches is just way too much.

How did you count that? So far this year, 380 unknowns have been placed in Sweden, that's too much for me to investigate. I looked at the Stockholm area, 56 new unknowns this year. Only one of them was a Jigidi it seemed. I could have missed one or two.

 

But that's not the point. To someone that doesn't like Jigidi it shouldn't matter how many of those there are. Only if one could assume that placing a Jigidi-based puzzle somehow prevented that CO from placing another, more interesting puzzle cache. If Jigidi would be prohibited they might have placed a traditional, or nothing at all. Then there is no puzzle to solve.

[+barefootjeff]

39 minutes ago, mustakorppi said:

Out of curiosity, how many jigidi caches are being published in your area? So far in 2022, 61 out of the 371 new mystery caches in Finland include a jigidi. I feel that over 16% of new mystery caches is just way too much.

 

In my local region, there's been one new mystery cache published this year, a challenge cache which I aspire to someday qualify for but it'll probably take me at least a year to get there. I'd welcome a few Jigidis, as at least they'd be some new caches to find.

 

State-wide, there have been 110 new mysteries, 63 by a single CO who's spread them around regional centres in western New South Wales, and of those it looks like about 16 are Jigidi. Of the remainder (and sorting by D-rating as Jigidis are unlikely to be much more than D2), I've only spotted one.

[+ChriBli]

5 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

State-wide, there have been 110 new mysteries, 63 by a single CO who's spread them around regional centres in western New South Wales, and of those it looks like about 16 are Jigidi. Of the remainder (and sorting by D-rating as Jigidis are unlikely to be much more than D2), I've only spotted one.

So around 16% for you too, then. Less here. I've seen Jigidis with higher D than 2 though, some CO:s rate them based on the number of pieces. And I have heard of (but not seen) Jigidis where the picture is basically blank or at least with very little variation (like a picture of a pebble beach), those should be rated a bit higher. I kind of enjoy jigsaw puzzles, but I think I'd stay away from that kind.

[+mustakorppi]

17 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

and sorting by D-rating as Jigidis are unlikely to be much more than D2

Unfortunately not the case here. Low detail images, multiple jigsaws per cache…

 

56 minutes ago, ChriBli said:

How did you count that?

We have public bookmark lists.

 

[+Team Canary]

32 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

State-wide, there have been 110 new mysteries, 63 by a single CO who's spread them around regional centres in western New South Wales, and of those it looks like about 16 are Jigidi. Of the remainder (and sorting by D-rating as Jigidis are unlikely to be much more than D2), I've only spotted one.

 

60 of the 110 are jigidi!

 

54.5%!!!

 

Mostly by one CO, but way too many!?!

Edited March 31, 2022 by Team Canary
Error

[+Hügh]

6 hours ago, ChriBli said:

If you don't like Jigidi, just don't do them.

 

What bothers me about Jigidi puzzles is seeing this...

 

 

...when I open the jigsaw puzzle's page.

 

This jigsaw took the CO no more than a few seconds to create (upload image, click, click, 600 pieces... voila!), but will require potentially hours for me to solve. This makes me feel like the CO is just trying to (make me go blind from staring at a screen too long and cause me to develop repetitive strain injury) waste my time.

 

On the other hand, seeing this,

 

 

...makes me feel that the cache owner isn't "just" sticking a jigsaw puzzle on a cache they've hidden. You would be surprised as to how much more willing I am to solve this second jigsaw, over the first.

 

If it were up to me, I would require that COs using Jigidi jigsaws in their puzzles demonstrate that they have solved the jigsaw.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Hügh

[+barefootjeff]

52 minutes ago, Team Canary said:

 

60 of the 110 are jigidi!

 

54.5%!!!

 

Mostly by one CO, but way too many!?!

 

Yeah, you're right. I hadn't spotted that so many of their ones that didn't have jigsaw in the title were also jigsaws.

[+arisoft]

7 hours ago, ChriBli said:

So around 16% for you too, then. Less here. I've seen Jigidis with higher D than 2 though, some CO:s rate them based on the number of pieces. And I have heard of (but not seen) Jigidis where the picture is basically blank or at least with very little variation (like a picture of a pebble beach), those should be rated a bit higher. I kind of enjoy jigsaw puzzles, but I think I'd stay away from that kind.

 

Those, almost blank puzzles, has been very interesting ones for me. Five years ago, a CO made series of ten D5 puzzle caches and each of them had 20 almost blank 500+ pieces Jigidi puzzles to solve in a row. I managed to make all of these 200 puzzles (about 100 000 pieces together) but got only six FTF of ten possible because some caches were too difficult for me to find.

 

In Finland we have over 1500 Jigidi puzzle caches (list1 list2) and new ones are popping out continuously. In this context @Ms Maddy's complain about severe problems seems quite odd, because I have seen no discussion about such problems with Jigidi caches in Finland. In many cases Jigidi is only part of the cache idea to get more hints or another task (Like ROT-13). For example, in my own puzzle cache GC8YPR8 you must solve three Jigidi puzzles at first, but then you will get more challenges with another type of tasks.

 

7 hours ago, Hügh said:

This jigsaw took the CO no more than a few seconds to create (upload image, click, click, 600 pieces... voila!), but will require potentially hours for me to solve. This makes me feel like the CO is just trying to (make me go blind from staring at a screen too long and cause me to develop repetitive strain injury) waste my time.

 

I think that you are absolutely correct, but statistics tells another story. The example puzzle above contains three jigsaws and when I open the leaderboard of the first one I see 478 solvers It is an amazing number of players!

[+ChriBli]

3 minutes ago, arisoft said:

a CO made series of ten D5 puzzle caches and each of them had 20 almost blank 500+ pieces Jigidi puzzles to solve in a row.

The horror...

[+thebruce0]

Jigidi only bans when they determine that cheating is going on. It's annoying to be sure, but it's not willy-nilly.  I can greatly respect their daily efforts to thwart 'cheating' on their platform which is web-based and fundamentally impossible to reasonably secure in that sense.  Just like if you own a server, you're constantly observing for hacking attempts, hacker strategies, back doors, bugs, etc.  Undoubedly, jigidi was contacted by geocachers who use the system and begged them to put more effort into blocking cheaters.  And to my knowledge today it is the hardest online puzzle website to actually cheat on effectively. Thus, very endearing to cache owners who like having puzzles that have to be completed, and have a very prominent thing against 'cheaters'

(this isn't a word about the merit of cheating or lack thereof - that's a whole different discussion :P)

[+Hügh]

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

And to my knowledge today it is the hardest online puzzle website to actually cheat on effectively.

 

Hey, can you send me the final co-ords of GCXXXXX? Thanks.

[+thebruce0]

11 minutes ago, Hügh said:

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

And to my knowledge today it is the hardest online puzzle website to actually cheat on effectively.

 

Hey, can you send me the final co-ords of GCXXXXX? Thanks.

 

Are you a puzzle website?  duuuuude, I had no idea! You seemed so..real!  

 

I was of course referring to websites that provide jigsaw puzzles in-browser, and hacking ways to 'solve' the puzzle without doing it legitimately... Not referring to asking another human for a solution, which can apply to every puzzle/brainteaser geocache.

[+Hügh]

22 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Are you a puzzle website?  duuuuude, I had no idea! You seemed so..real!  

 

Er; move along, these are not the droids you're looking for. I'm dЄfinitė̸͙̰̻̳̺̲̘̺͚͉̗̮͍̙̋̒̄͊̔͒ͅly r̴̡̦̼͙͔͖̼̥͋͆̐̄̽̽̓̈́͂́͑̚͝ea̸̦̜̅̉͆͛́̔̃̓̀̅̊̎̈́̉͠l̵̩̳͇̳̣̳̰̥̺͉͍͉̓̐́.

 

The point that I was trying to make was that if one can "ask another human for a solution, which can apply to every puzzle cache" then what's the point in Jigidi investing so much effort? So far it seems like the hackers are still winning (I mean, my script sort-of still works?) I feel like they could be doing other things...

 

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Thus, very endearing to cache owners who like having puzzles that have to be completed, and have a very prominent thing against 'cheaters'

 

I personally think that a better strategy is to design puzzles that are "good" (appealing? Interesting? It is, admittedly, difficulty to give a definition of "good" that everyone will agree to.) that people will want to solve. It seems like many don't enjoy jigsaws (ie. me) but one way to make me slightly less annoyed would be to implement my earlier suggestion to

 

On 3/31/2022 at 3:59 PM, Hügh said:

...require that COs using Jigidi jigsaws in their puzzles demonstrate that they have solved the jigsaw.

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by Hügh

[+thebruce0]

1 minute ago, Hügh said:

The point that I was trying to make was that if one can "ask another human for a solution, which can apply to every puzzle cache" then what's the point in Jigidi investing so much effort? So far it seems like the hackers are still winning (I mean, my script sort-of still works?)

I personally think that a better strategy is to design puzzles that are "good" (appealing? Interesting? It is, admittedly, difficulty to give a definition of "good" that everyone will agree to.) that people will want to solve.

 

You can surely see the downward spiral with that mentality? If cheaters will always cheat, then why do anything to ever dissuade it? The easy answer is "compel people to do it right", but that will never compel everyone. As mentioned above, server administrators have to deal with hackers every day as well; they won't just let it go just because there will always be hackers. 

It's the process that - for whatever reason - Jigidi has decided to deal with actively, to thwart hacking and cheating on their website. Video games with competitive elements (multiplayer primarily) also have to deal with it. I only assume that geocachers were a big voice in the encouragement to do so here, but perhaps it was just their choice to... who knows. Jigidi has leaderboards and scoring - that's incentive enough for people to try to 'cheat', regardless of geocaching.  And in any case, that would be why COs who want to make an "uncheatable" jigsaw puzzle would be drawn to jigidi.

 

I had a manner of getting through their puzzles quickly as well, and they followed up with exactly what I thought they'd do in obfuscation, making it extremely tedious to try to create a workable automated script, as you seem to be aware . But that's the same back and forth that hackers and server admins have. Find a way, block the way, find another way, block the other way, etc etc. 

I can imagine the Jigidi tech team constantly observing internet chatter to see if anyone has found and shared a new way to hack the site and solve the puzzles - then immediately work on ways to plug that hole as well. Working in IT, I can say there's also even likely a draw to want to do that, as their 'baby', and treat it almost like a game itself, protecting the code system..

 

Anyway, starting to wander OT.

 

 

My point was just that Jigidi only bans and blocks when they become aware of a user who is 'cheating' their system.  Otherwise, it's free to play with or without an account, but ads will be inevitable.

[+Hügh]

11 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

You can surely see the downward spiral with that mentality? If cheaters will always cheat, then why do anything to ever dissuade it? The easy answer is "compel people to do it right", but that will never compel everyone.

 

It will never compel everyone, sure, but it will compel some people (I'd hope.) A 600-piece completely-blank puzzle carries a certain 'connotation' that a different puzzle (even a read-my-mind one) does not.

 

11 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

I had a manner of getting through their puzzles quickly as well, and they followed up with exactly what I thought they'd do in obfuscation, making it extremely tedious to try to create a workable automated script, as you seem to be aware . But that's the same back and forth that hackers and server admins have. Find a way, block the way, find another way, block the other way, etc etc. 

I can imagine the Jigidi tech team constantly observing internet chatter to see if anyone has found and shared a new way to hack the site and solve the puzzles - then immediately work on ways to plug that hole as well.

 

Mhmm. That is exactly why I didn't mention any details of my method.

Edited April 1, 2022 by Hügh

[+arisoft]

23 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

And to my knowledge today it is the hardest online puzzle website to actually cheat on effectively.

 

This is very interesintg subject, but I can not confirm this statement. They finally made the most obvious move, hiding too quick results from the leaderboard and counter. I don't know why they didn't do this at the beginning. Now no one has to envy in vain. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[+thebruce0]

On 4/2/2022 at 5:00 PM, arisoft said:

This is very interesintg subject, but I can not confirm this statement. They finally made the most obvious move, hiding too quick results from the leaderboard and counter. I don't know why they didn't do this at the beginning. Now no one has to envy in vain. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

 

I would imagine it's because of potential controversy about how the algorithm would 'judge' whether a time is real or not. Obviously in most cases it'd be obvious, but where do they draw the threshold? If the threshold can be figured out, reverse engineered, someone will start logging legit times just past the threshold if they really want to keep that #1 spot on the leaderboard. It's bound to happen  But perhaps at this point they just said "whatever". At least it'll avoid those 02s times on leaderboards with 4h15m times... the obvious cheaters.

[+arisoft]

42 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Obviously in most cases it'd be obvious, but where do they draw the threshold?

 

I guess that Jigidi has enough statistical information about how many pieces a player can put together in one second. For geocachers, there is no reason to wait several minutes to get the final message.