Adventure lab not starting at the listed position - is it a bug?

[+frostengel]

Hi all,

 

as most of you know, there are two settings for adventure lab caches considering the order in which you visit the stages:

- you can visit the stages in any order you like or

- you can visit only the next stage and the owner forces the order of your visits.

 

So far, so good, but today we made a lab cache of the second type and the posted coordinates of the whole adventure (place of the lab icon) were not at the starting stage but stage 4 which was about 2 kilometres away from the start.

Fortunately we saw this as we made a second lab cache parallel but usually I go to the given position and THEN start the adventure. In this case we would have gone out in the fields to the coordinates just to see that we need to solve other stages far, far away first.

 

For me that's a clear bug. The given coordinates should always show a place where you can start the adventure. In the first order type it might be any stage but in the second type it should be the stage which the owner gives as first stage.

 

I haven't created a lab cache by my own so I don't know what the owner can choose: starting stage and coordinates of the lab icon? In my eyes the second one should come automatically with the stages: owner gives stage 1, 2, 3, ... in any order he likes, he decides if the visit order is free or forced 1, 2, 3 ..., lab icon is always at the stage he has given as stage 1.

 

Is it a bug or is there any useful reason not to make the given position a place to start the lab? Thanks!

 

Jochen

[+dprovan]

I don't know about that AL, but I could understand an AL posted at the parking area even though you have to walk from there to start at stage 1. In fact, that makes enough sense that I'd say it should be allowed even if the AL you're looking at used the feature poorly.

[+frostengel]

1 hour ago, dprovan said:

I don't know about that AL, but I could understand an AL posted at the parking area even though you have to walk from there to start at stage 1. In fact, that makes enough sense that I'd say it should be allowed even if the AL you're looking at used the feature poorly.

 

Hi dprovan, hi all,

 

that might be one reason, thank you. I wonder if you may use any coordinate or only of the stages? In this case you needed to give completely free coordinates (and that way I could list my urban lab cache in antarctica!?).

 

By the way I do not like cache coordinates at parking areas. For instance with multi caches the guidelines say clearly that stage 1 is at the posted coordinates but still some multi caches "start" at the parking lot far away from stage 1. We should not forget that not everyone only caches by car and I hate it when I ride my bicycle to stage 1 - why isn't stage 1 here? Oh it is the parking area. :-(

 

So I see your point but I don't see it as a reason for "random coordinates". Can someone who has created a lab confirm which kind of coordinates are available for the lab icon? Any stage you want? Free coordinates?

 

Thanks!

Jochen

[Moun10Bike]

The owner of an Adventure is free to set the starting coordinates for it to anything they like. It sounds as though in this case, they chose a non-optimal location. I would provide them with feedback on the issues you ran into because of that.

[Keystone]

I moved this thread from the Geocaching Topics forum.

[+frostengel]

31 minutes ago, Moun10Bike said:

I would provide them with feedback on the issues you ran into because of that.

 

Of course I do that - I always give feedback though most cachers have stopped doing so in their logs.

I have said it in my (too short) log of the lab cache which will hopefully warn others. And I'll add this to my (much longer) bonus log.

 

33 minutes ago, Moun10Bike said:

The owner of an Adventure is free to set the starting coordinates for it to anything they like.

 

Good to know that, thank you, but still - I do not like it. Why not make it the same rule as with multi caches? The cache should be listed where the cache starts.

 

Luckily enough this is the first time that this happens and maybe - only maybe :-( - the owners will change it.

 

Jochen

 

PS: Thank you, Keystone, for moving the thread.

[+barefootjeff]

4 hours ago, Moun10Bike said:

I would provide them with feedback on the issues you ran into because of that.

 

Other than sending a private message or email (which you can't do from within the AL app), posting feedback on ALs isn't easy because owners don't get notified of activity logs so are unlikely to see anything you put in there, at least in a reasonably short timeframe, and if the problem results in you being unable to complete the AL there's no way to log anything, other than perhaps posting a DNF on the bonus cache if it has one. Okay, you can report a miscreant AL to HQ but that's probably overkill for a minor issue the owner can easily address.

Edited June 14, 2021 by barefootjeff

[+dprovan]

On 6/13/2021 at 12:29 PM, frostengel said:

By the way I do not like cache coordinates at parking areas. For instance with multi caches the guidelines say clearly that stage 1 is at the posted coordinates but still some multi caches "start" at the parking lot far away from stage 1. We should not forget that not everyone only caches by car and I hate it when I ride my bicycle to stage 1 - why isn't stage 1 here? Oh it is the parking area. :-(

I don't think I've ever seen a multicache start anywhere except the first stage. The guidelines say, "The posted coordinates for a Multi-Cache are the first stage," so I'd say the posted coordinates being the parking would be a mistake unless the spot to get the pointer to the next stage is the parking lot.

 

Adventure Labs are something else, so I'd want to be more flexible about it. After all, the adventure includes the path between stages even though the questions are only at the stages, so I think that an AL creator should be free to start his adventure with a walk to the first stage. In fact, an interesting idea for a first stage question could be "how many pink telephone poles did you pass on the walk from parking to the first stop?" From what you're saying, it sounds like the AL you're talking about just has a mistake, but, on the other hand, you don't really explain to us why this 2k starting leg couldn't possibly have any redeeming qualities. After all, since you'd have to go 2k from stage 1 to stage 4, without any additional information, I don't really have any reason to say it makes no sense to start by going 2k from stage 4 to stage 1. Is that 2k really such a bad part of the journey that you hated doing it twice?

 

In the end, what you're saying is that you don't like the feature conceptually, and that's fine, you don't have to like everything. I don't think that's a good reason for forbidding it. I'm thinking of more and more reasons it could be used effectively to make a better AL, and that's all we really need to leave it be despite the fact that some people don't like it, and some AL creators might use it poorly.

[+frostengel]

9 hours ago, dprovan said:

I don't think I've ever seen a multicache start anywhere except the first stage. The guidelines say, "The posted coordinates for a Multi-Cache are the first stage," so I'd say the posted coordinates being the parking would be a mistake unless the spot to get the pointer to the next stage is the parking lot.

 

Sure it is. Still many cachers do it around here. In the "Bundesland" next to mine I would say about 10 percent of the multi caches have this "feature". I always say so in my log and give the paragraph from the guidelines but usually nothing happens. We are a car drvier country and you'll see it here. Funny enough if I would be a car driver, too, probably I would not care that much. ;-)

 

9 hours ago, dprovan said:

After all, since you'd have to go 2k from stage 1 to stage 4, without any additional information, I don't really have any reason to say it makes no sense to start by going 2k from stage 4 to stage 1. Is that 2k really such a bad part of the journey that you hated doing it twice?

 

It was a nice 3 km hike (2 km: direct line) from stage 1 (in the nearby town) to stage 4 (anywhere in the woods, hard to reach) with nothing to do while going there - information and question were always only at the given coordinates. The bonus cache was back in the town. So starting at stage one with our bikes it was  a nice round tour. (For the drivers there are many parking possibilities near stage 1 but not near stage 4.)

So it was perfect starting at stage 1 and going to the icon coordinates first wouldn't have helped in any way.

 

I think it is just a mistake made by the owners. I'll tell them and hopefully they will fix it. No problems with that but it would be easy to make it an automatism to reduce this kind of errors. Or - and that's not useful, too - to reduce "planned errors" like listing my AL near antarctica just for the fun of it.

 

I do not want to discuss this special case as it is clear that there is no reason here. It was just a general if there is a reason for this possibility or is it a bug. That's it.

 

Jochen

[+dprovan]

8 hours ago, frostengel said:

Still many cachers do it around here.

That's interesting. Must be a local thing. Have you asked the reviewer about it? He may consider it a local standard that's acceptable. I'd find it confusing since I've never seen it before, but I guess I don't have a big objection since everything else about the multicache is telling me where to start and where to go. One more leg doesn't strike me as that much of a burden.

 

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm reminded that I recently did a multicache where the posted coordinates weren't the first stage, but it was worse: instead of being parking, the posted coordinates were out away from everything, some place I don't think was even accessible. I have no idea why the CO did that, but I noticed before I started, so I adjusted the coordinates to start at real first stop and didn't even remember that quirk when I was out in the field doing the multicache.

 

8 hours ago, frostengel said:

I think it is just a mistake made by the owners.

Yeah, sounds like a mistake to me, too. They could have made a very similar mistake even without using the start coordinates you're asking about by accidentally labeling stage 4 the first stage, so count your blessings that at least you didn't have to actually go to those coordinates to get started!

 

8 hours ago, frostengel said:

I do not want to discuss this special case as it is clear that there is no reason here. It was just a general if there is a reason for this possibility or is it a bug. That's it.

Yeah, I understand. I was just wondering if there might have been a legitimate reason in this case that you were overlooking, but obviously not. So a bug in that AL, but I don't think it's a bug in the overall design of ALs.

[+frostengel]

dprovan, thank you for the discussion and your insights. :-)

 

Jochen