Logging Mega-Events

[+sparkyfry]

Yesterday (Friday, August 13), I attended the West Bend Cache Bash mega-event.  The cache description lists this as a two-day event for Friday and Saturday, and says "If you log the Mega Event on Friday, you will not get the Virtual Souvenir on your profile."  However, the event is posted on geocaching.com for Saturday, August 14, and there does not seem to be a way to actually log it for Friday.  Does anybody know how to get around this?  I don't particularly care about the souvenir, and I would much rather have the mega-event on my stats for Friday, since I found a bunch of other cache types yesterday as well.  Plus it's, like, the day I was actually there.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[+Hügh]

Log it for Saturday, then edit the log and change the date. You'll get the souvenir, and it'll also appear in your stats as being found on Friday. 

Edited August 14, 2021 by Hügh

[+sparkyfry]

4 minutes ago, Hügh said:

Log it for Saturday, then edit the log and change the date. You'll get the souvenir, and it'll also appear in your stats as being found on Friday. 

I tried that, but it doesn't seem to work.  The calendar doesn't appear allowing you to change the date from 8/14/21.  I also tried logging a note, changing the date, and then changing it from a note to an attended log.  But as soon as I change it to an "Attended" log, the date changes to 8/14/21 and doesn't let you change it.

[Keystone]

For event caches (including Mega Events), attended logs default to the date stated on the event cache page, and cannot be changed.  The date of the West Bend Cache Bash is 8/14.

[+sparkyfry]

1 hour ago, Keystone said:

For event caches (including Mega Events), attended logs default to the date stated on the event cache page, and cannot be changed.  The date of the West Bend Cache Bash is 8/14.

Do you think Groundspeak would ever make an exception to that rule?  Seems like there might be grounds in this case, since the cache page includes apparently inaccurate information that people relied on.  Specifically, the cache page says you can get 12+ cache types on Friday, including the mega-event, and says you can log the mega-event on Friday.  (See the attached screen grab.)  I know I'm not the only cacher who got a bunch of different cache types yesterday under the assumption they'd be able to also log the mega-event yesterday.  If Groundspeak would consider an exception, who would I contact to request it?  Thanks in advance.

Edited August 14, 2021 by sparkyfry

[+Hügh]

6 hours ago, Keystone said:

cannot be changed

 

Hmmmmmm...?

 

 

The engineers might want to consider doing some server-side data verification if they really want to enforce this. You know, because you never trust user input.

 

---

 

EDIT: Oh man this screwed up my statistics! I suppose that's what I get for wasting my time on dumb things. Time to revert...

 

Edited August 14, 2021 by Hügh

[+Isonzo Karst]

Mega-Events must take place at one main location and held on one day. Mega-Events must be a minimum of four (4) hours in duration. Events occurring on days before and/or after the main event day are side-events.

 

https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=23&pgid=86

 

Lots of edits to that page, as it was postponed due to Covid. Possible that the version you're seeing was done by someone who wasn't familiar with Mega as on one day.

[+Rustynails]

On 8/14/2021 at 11:31 AM, sparkyfry said:

Do you think Groundspeak would ever make an exception to that rule?  Seems like there might be grounds in this case, since the cache page includes apparently inaccurate information that people relied on.  Specifically, the cache page says you can get 12+ cache types on Friday, including the mega-event, and says you can log the mega-event on Friday.  (See the attached screen grab.)  I know I'm not the only cacher who got a bunch of different cache types yesterday under the assumption they'd be able to also log the mega-event yesterday.  If Groundspeak would consider an exception, who would I contact to request it?  Thanks in advance.

 

Five days and no response from HQ ?

[+GeoElmo6000]

8 minutes ago, rustynails. said:

 

Five days and no response from HQ ?

 

In my opinion your issue is with the event owners, not HQ.  Never have I seen an event that is allowed to span multiple days, so their claim that it's a two day event (from the cache page: "Fri & Sat, August 13 & 14, 2021") is untrue.  The event was Saturday, August 14th per the cache page.  If there was something going on Friday then it should have been another event.

 

I just did a "busy day" with 12 cache types at a mega event on August 7th, but I couldn't get "community celebration" because it was the day before.  So I concentrated all my effort on the day of the mega event and got 12 cache / event types.

[+arisoft]

44 minutes ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

Never have I seen an event that is allowed to span multiple days

 

I have attented a such Mega event https://coord.info/GC30N2R

 

[Keystone]

1 hour ago, rustynails. said:

 

Five days and no response from HQ ?

 

1.  This is not the bug reporting forum.

2.  I doubt highly that an intentional programming change would be reverted for a single Mega Event.  It opens a floodgate of bad precedent.

[+niraD]

FWIW, in the Help Center article Camping Event caches, it says, "The event listing should occur on one specific calendar day, and have a set beginning and ending time."

 

I would expect similar rules to apply to other big "multi-day" events, and sure enough, the Help Center article Mega-Event classification says, "Mega-Events must take place at one main location and held on one day. Mega-Events must be a minimum of four (4) hours in duration. Events occurring on days before and/or after the main event day are side-events."

 

It looks like the fault is with the mega-event organizers, for advertising their event incorrectly.

[+day1976]

As someone who has been involved with organising MEGA events for nearly 7 years now, all of the MEGAs I have been involved with have run over two days (Saturday and Sunday).  Not side events, the actual MEGA.  So Stall holders are there for two days, registration desk is open for two days, log book is available to sign for two days. There's always been a "nominated day" for a MEGA, but our MEGAs have always been open for two days and always been able to be logged on whichever of the days people attended.

 

Something changed this year and MEGA event organizers weren't informed about it.

 

I have just queried it and been told from HQ that "You can only log an Attended for a Mega-Event if you attended the Event on the day listed on the cache page."

 

So, if the nominated day of the MEGA is the Sunday (like ours is in January), and someone attends only on the Saturday, then they are not allowed to log the MEGA as "attended.

 

Honestly, every year the make running MEGA events more and more difficult.

[+Max and 99]

53 minutes ago, day1976 said:

So, if the nominated day of the MEGA is the Sunday (like ours is in January), and someone attends only on the Saturday, then they are not allowed to log the MEGA as "attended.

Who would know?

[+Lynx Humble]

53 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

Who would know?

The ones going to the event on the first day because they can only log their attended for the second day

[+Max and 99]

19 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

The ones going to the event on the first day because they can only log their attended for the second day

But what's to keep someone who attends on a Saturday from logging on a Sunday? It's not like they have to sign a log book. 

Just wondering! 

[+Lynx Humble]

44 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

But what's to keep someone who attends on a Saturday from logging on a Sunday? It's not like they have to sign a log book. 

Just wondering! 

Stats

[Keystone]

On 8/14/2021 at 11:56 AM, Keystone said:

For event caches (including Mega Events), attended logs default to the date stated on the event cache page, and cannot be changed. 

 

In my prior post, I neglected to mention that this change in the attended log default date was made in August, 2020.  The primary purpose was to reduce errors by people logging "attended" - which was especially frustrating when an event-related or date-related souvenir was involved.  Secondarily, the change reduces the opportunities for statistical "funny business" at Mega and Giga Events, from people trying to accomplish a "busy day" with as many icon types as possible.

[+Lynx Humble]

1 hour ago, Keystone said:

Secondarily, the change reduces the opportunities for statistical "funny business" at Mega and Giga Events, from people trying to accomplish a "busy day" with as many icon types as possible.

Why Groundspeak put road blocks with one hand and promote busy day (in newsletter) with the other then????

 

Why they release GC8NEAT that is ''funny business'' on steroid.

 

Also you can't even do a Challenge about Busy Day so why Groundspeak even care about ''funny business"?

Edited November 25, 2021 by Lynx Humble

[+day1976]

On 11/25/2021 at 1:22 PM, Keystone said:

 

In my prior post, I neglected to mention that this change in the attended log default date was made in August, 2020.  The primary purpose was to reduce errors by people logging "attended" - which was especially frustrating when an event-related or date-related souvenir was involved.  Secondarily, the change reduces the opportunities for statistical "funny business" at Mega and Giga Events, from people trying to accomplish a "busy day" with as many icon types as possible.

Are you guys that out of touch with what geocachers attending MEGA events want?  This is one of the big draw cards of MEGA events, especially when they have things like GC8NEAT, Community Celebrations, GPSMazes involved as well.  With one hand you are deliberately providing attendees increased opportunities to accomplish "busy days" and with the other taking those opportunities away.

 

And the argument that it is to reduce errors doesn't fly for multi-day events because people do attend on one day (often not the "nominated day") and then continue caching elsewhere on the nominated day, which stuffs up the logging sequence, which in turn mucks up cache-to-cache distances and then there is TB visit logs and TB travels too.

[+Isonzo Karst]

 1 February 2019 the cache report form for events separated from the form for other caches, and added the date time module, limited to a single calendar day.

 

I see Keystone states, "attended log default date was made in August, 2020".   I thought it happened with the cache report change, but looking at a monthly recurring event in my area, see Attended logs scattered around the event date through 2019.

 

"One day," guidance for all events including Mega and Giga is at least as old as 1 February 2019. 

Edited December 9, 2021 by Isonzo Karst

[Keystone]

2 hours ago, day1976 said:

Are you guys that out of touch with what geocachers attending MEGA events want?  This is one of the big draw cards of MEGA events, especially when they have things like GC8NEAT, Community Celebrations, GPSMazes involved as well.  With one hand you are deliberately providing attendees increased opportunities to accomplish "busy days" and with the other taking those opportunities away.

 

And the argument that it is to reduce errors doesn't fly for multi-day events because people do attend on one day (often not the "nominated day") and then continue caching elsewhere on the nominated day, which stuffs up the logging sequence, which in turn mucks up cache-to-cache distances and then there is TB visit logs and TB travels too.

 

I'll assume that, by "you guys," you mean the programmers at Geocaching HQ who made the change I described in my prior posts.  As for me, as a player, I enjoyed having a 13-icon "Busy Day" at a Mega-Event last summer.  I did that without time traveling, without saying that I was at a Saturday Mega-Event on some other day.  It was good honest logging.  My favorite memory was the GPS Adventures Maze, which I logged as my 9,000th find.  Little did I know that I was featured within the local version of the Maze exhibit!  Such a fun day.

[+Lynx Humble]

25 minutes ago, Keystone said:

 

I'll assume that, by "you guys," you mean the programmers at Geocaching HQ who made the change I described in my prior posts.  As for me, as a player, I enjoyed having a 13-icon "Busy Day" at a Mega-Event last summer.  I did that without time traveling, without saying that I was at a Saturday Mega-Event on some other day.  It was good honest logging.  My favorite memory was the GPS Adventures Maze, which I logged as my 9,000th find.  Little did I know that I was featured within the local version of the Maze exhibit!  Such a fun day.

The ''you guys'' he meant was the higher-up at Groundspeak that give the order to the programmer to make the change without including an exception for Mega-Event covering multiple days.

 

day1976 never suggested doing time travelling by logging a Mega-Event (or other icons) on a completely bogus day (except for logging a Mega-Event on the day he wasn't there because of the current 1-day logging restriction). Not sure why you are suggesting he would do dishonnest logging.

Edited December 9, 2021 by Lynx Humble

[+Isonzo Karst]

1 hour ago, Lynx Humble said:

make the change without including an exception for Mega-Event covering multiple days.

 

There was no exception for Mega to cover multiple days. Hence, no logging exception. 

 

Specific to West Bend mega from opening post, it was likely written up in 2019, after the date time module (assumed, given that it has that module on the page). but before logging restrictions. Even when was it postponed to year later, it would have been right around the Aug 2020 logging date restriction, easy to not know it.

 

That event page has been edited by the way.  Now clarifies that you can only the log the event on the event date.   Those guys just got caught in a change, complicated by Covid.

 

I don't know for sure when mega = 1 day started. I know that event start and end times were requested from 2014.   Curious, I checked GeoWoodstock, always heavy reviewer involvement in its organization. The first one (the first mega) in Dallas was "memorial day weekend". The next one already limited to one day   May/26/2007

Edited December 9, 2021 by Isonzo Karst

[+day1976]

On 12/10/2021 at 12:00 AM, Keystone said:

 

I'll assume that, by "you guys," you mean the programmers at Geocaching HQ who made the change I described in my prior posts.  As for me, as a player, I enjoyed having a 13-icon "Busy Day" at a Mega-Event last summer.  I did that without time traveling, without saying that I was at a Saturday Mega-Event on some other day.  It was good honest logging.  My favorite memory was the GPS Adventures Maze, which I logged as my 9,000th find.  Little did I know that I was featured within the local version of the Maze exhibit!  Such a fun day.

 

I'll finish with an excerpt from this great email that we got from HQ today...

 

"Good news! We've processed your request and added the souvenir files and information to our database. The souvenir will be awarded to attendees as they log their attendance on 16 Jan 2022 through 18 Jan 2022."

 

Thanks guys!

[+Max and 99]

11 minutes ago, day1976 said:

 

I'll finish with an excerpt from this great email that we got from HQ today...

 

"Good news! We've processed your request and added the souvenir files and information to our database. The souvenir will be awarded to attendees as they log their attendance on 16 Jan 2022 through 18 Jan 2022."

 

Thanks guys!

 HQ seems to be referring to only a specific upcoming event. So it still doesn't help the one you attended, correct? The one in the OP? 

[+Isonzo Karst]

1 hour ago, day1976 said:

attendees as they log their attendance on 16 Jan 2022 through 18 Jan 2022."

 

That has to be Maze, not a Mega. I assume https://coord.info/GC9C72H

though the dates seem off

If it does refer to a Mega, then someone at HQ doesn't understand that the logging module will only allow Attended logs on 1 event date. 

Edited December 14, 2021 by Isonzo Karst