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For many years, the geocaching community has been clamoring for the return of Virtual geocaches. There were a lot of issues with the implementation of Virtuals that prevented us from bringing them back in their original ...
We hear your concerns, and thank you for your feedback. Now we are asking you to give Challenges a chance. You don?t necessarily have to participate, but give us some time to improve the feature set. Here?s why.
For many years, the geocaching community has been clamoring for the return of Virtual geocaches. There were a lot of issues with the implementation of Virtuals that prevented us from bringing them back in their original form. When we set out to find a way to bring Virtuals back that would appeal to the community, we determined that the basic idea behind Virtual Caches was ?go somewhere, do something.?
This is what Geocaching Challenges are all about. Over 99% of Challenges will be location-based Challenges created by the community. You might be Challenged to take a picture of yourself walking across the Abbey Road crosswalk or tasked to take a picture from the top of the Empire State Building. These are fun, outdoor adventures that can happen even in locations that do not support physical caches.
If a Challenge is not specifically location-based, or does not require a photo (for a photo Challenge) or an action (for an Action Challenge), please flag it or vote it down. When flagging, think of yourself as a reviewer. You wouldn?t deny a cache just because it sounds boring (though, in this case, you could vote it down), but you would deny it if it were inappropriate or did not meet the guidelines. We think the instances of locationless Challenges being submitted by the community will decrease as people come to better understand what Challenges are. We are working now to improve the educational materials within the Challenges section of Geocaching.com so that it is clear what is acceptable for a Challenge and what is not.
Worldwide Challenges are the one exception to the location-based rule. These are Challenges created by Groundspeak that are meant to bring the community together by letting us all experience the same adventure. If everyone participated, we could have well over five million geocachers hiking their local trails one day or biking to work the next day. We will generally be creating one Worldwide Challenge per day, although we may add a few in the early days to get everyone started. These will almost always be outdoor adventures. We started with one that was not necessarily an outdoors Challenge (Kiss a Frog) because we thought it would be fun. But, we realize that such a Challenge is not in keeping with our mission of getting you outside. So, we have archived the Challenge effective today. We will soon be adding functionality to allow you to remove ?Acceptance? and ?Completion? logs you?ve entered, if you choose to do so.
If you think an individual Challenge is bad, you are welcome to vote it down. All users have the ability to sort by the highest rated Challenges (simply click on the column header ?Rating? in the search results), so voting a Challenge down will send it further down the list.
We will be updating the mobile applications, adding functionality to the API so that other developers can incorporate Challenges into their applications and services, and working to improve the website functionality on an ongoing basis. In the interim, we ask that you to allow us some time to innovate.
We believe that, if people use the Challenges system as it was meant to be used and populate it with Challenges they think others would enjoy, Challenges will add more to geocaching than Virtuals ever did.
WHY will you not listen to the hoards of people who pay the bills asking to have challenge totals separate from finds? It seem like this would be an easy thing to do. At LEAST let issuers control their challenges. Let them be able to delete bogus "completed". And what is to stop me from logging a bunch of simple "action" challenges from my chair? I know....I'm only cheating myself....but there ARE those cachers who pad numbers and use their find totals as a badge of honor.
And last but not least, a personal opinion about the improvement policy: Why do you (GS) keep on inventing new things and do not improve the features and handling and UI of the current system. There are many things to do. Look at all the userscript extensions that clearly show the issues and even solve them (like making tours of caches, moving mystery solutions on the map, etc.). Why not just adopting them and making the experience of Geocaching and the web page better? Saying this as userscript owner, who has put immense effort in his script over the last year.
We have no problem with the "Challenge Cache" concept, but please keep the totals seperate from the found caches as is done in Waymarking and Benchmarking.
The reason why I love Virtuals was not that I could go somewhere and DO something but that I could go somewhere and LEARN something.
It seems to me that you have misidentified what we liked about the original virtual caches. You said, "... we determined that the basic idea behind Virtual Caches was ?go somewhere, do something.?
Not really. What we really want is to ?go somewhere at specific coordinates, do something specific and report to owner.? Like a virtual cache.
I've looked at a dozen or so Challenges now and they are pretty lame as are many of the "finds." I really think that Challenges should be excluded from total finds and renamed. The name challenges should remain for challenges such as the DeLorme, county, fizzy, etc. Those challenges are some of my most fun and demanding geocaching experiences. And finding a physical cache gives completion to the challenge. The new Challenges depreciates that. I've heard speculation that challenges will somehow be rolled into Challenges. That would be a huge mistake, IMO.
I agree, what we like is to go to a specific coordinates, not just do some task that can be done anywhere. That's find if they want to do this, but keep it separate from caching totals. If they don't, I'll never complete them because I wouldn't feel right to have one in my totals.
From here in the cheap seats, it looks like Groundspeak has given you exactly what you wanted. Sure, we could continue gnashing our teeth because some mook didn't bother reading the guidelines and created an ambiguous Challenge, and we could continue rolling our eyes because during this early phase a few folks are being less than creative about the Challenges they submit.
Can we agree that all smileys are not hard earned? If someone finds 1,000 micros in one day by driving along a single road, do they deserve more credibility within the community than someone who has found 250 complex multi-stage caches over a period of 5 years? As with traditional caches, I believe that a good Challenge is better than a bad one and the value of the experience lies in the perception of those who participate in the experience. As far as I am concerned, completing a good location-specific Challenge is far better than easily finding a lame cache. Right now, the geocaching.com website allows you to easily distinguish between the number of caches vs. challenges that a participant has found/completed. You can judge them as you see fit and only they can decide how they will judge themselves.
Why do you wanna ban powertrails? If you donīt like them, donīt find them. Keep everyone doing what they like, and donīt ban powertrails just cause you donīt like them. There are many people that like powertrails, and I canīt see any reasonable argument why to ban them. They are from boxes just like all other caches.
I like idea of challenges, but there are 2 problems. People that are making challenges like "hug your friend, hug your dog, take a photo of sleeping animal, take a photo of you and your animal, find a cache" which are meaningless. Try to do some challenges that are entertaining, or meaningful (like picking garbage). Second problem is that completed challenges counts into total stats. I donīt have problem with "easy founds", but I canīt see the reason for counting them into stats, when they are not caches but more like benchmarks which are not counted into stats. I hope that counting them into stats will be fixed.
I think the main point is that challenges are not geocaches, any more than travel bugs or benchmarks are, and therefore they should not be included in a person's cache total. It is a different activity, which I am going to try out, but please don't include them in the totals. I don't see the "easily distinguish" part--the total that shows under my name and avatar on the cache logs clearly combines the two into one number. Thanks for listening... :)
Bryan - Are the challenges going to be "location-specific" or not? The ones I've seen like "go hiking" or "show us your landmark" are not location specific at all. It should be "go hiking on the Appalachian Trail" or "show us a pic of you with the Eiffel Tower". I don't like the idea of counting non-specific location challenges in cache totals, and if that's going to be the case I'd never do them because I don't want to fraudulently skew my find numbers. However, if they didn't count in the overall number, I think it's a pretty good idea to have them.
I have found a lot of easy caches that did deserve to be smiley faces.. With poor write up and poor container along poor area chosen. Why don't get-rid of them also... If a challenge is well thought of and there is proof that one has completed it.
I personally see the potential for Challenges, but if you are going to separate them from find counts, why not take the chance to separate the other "finds" which aren't really finds. Out of the 17 Icons / Cache Types, only 6 actually involve finding a box in the woods.
It seems to me a lot of those complaining about this have been perfectly happy to claim a smiley for not finding a physical cache for a quite a long time, if suddenly their Earthcache, Virtual, Locationless, Webcams, Events, Mega, Cito, and Maze smileys got knocked off their find count, they would realise what a lot of fuss about nothing this is. Or perhaps it's time to remove find counts all together :)
For me, Geocaching is now about getting outside, exploring new locations and having fun with a GPS, not just "finding a box and nothing else".
I appreciate the clarification. And the challenge idea is an aspect that adds another level of entertainment to the sport. As long as a person can have cache finds and challenges separate, in order to keep the pure basics of the sport intact for those who might wish to do both, I don't really have an issue with it. But, I feel that bringing back virtuals in this way is a bit of a cop-out. My opinion is that a virtual is like an earthcache: no container to find or log to sign, but you have to go to a spot, find out something, send an answer to the cache owner, and log the find. Pretty straightforward. Lets be clear: you can put guidelines up the whazoo for the type of cache, distance between caches, even how a person can list an event, but you can't come up with good, clear guidelines for placing a virtual?
That is all fine and dandy but lazy cachers will create lazy challenges and presto lazy finds. I just ask you make those completions of challenges separate from the find total. This makes my finds worthless. Also how about a formal apology from Jeremy for the rude comments he left in the forums directed at the customers of geocaching. Give me that and I MIGHT renew my membership.
Nothing anyone else does makes my finds worthless to me, because the numbers don't matter. That mindset has served me well during my 7-year love affair with geocaching.
As I posted in the feedback forums, if you would like a personal apology for me, I attend many events in the US and around the world. If you come up to me and ask for an apology I will be more than happy to give it to you.
Hey, I like the Idea of challenges. I'm new to caching and new to premium membership. I looked at challenges today and It's obvious that the concept is in its early stages. I'm looking forward to some more interesting and involved challenges.
I actually like that the challenges count towards my "find" total. If I'm going to get in my car and make the effort to go somewhere and see something (and take a picture of it and upload it and log it), I want credit for it, dammit! :-D Just like I get when I do a virtual. That said, I want those challenges to make me have to go somewhere and see something interesting. It will be up to US to make sure lame challenges are marked as lame. I'd like to get to the point where the challenges are just like the old virtuals. No, you won't have to get dates off of plaques and email answers to the CO. But you can post the coordinates of cool historical area you know about, put a little history there, and encourage the finder to read whatever information is at the location. Someone here mentioned a Virtual in Niagara Falls - you had to take your picture by a plaque. I actually did that one too. You didn't have to send the CO any answers, you just had to take the photo by the plaque (with GPS). But of course you were going to read the plaque! And it was interesting. This virtual cache could be done exactly the same way but called a Photo Challenge. Go to the coordinates and take a photo by the plaque. Right?
I can not see ourselves ever logging one of these, much less even looking at them, seams like a big waste of time on the programmers part, and a big waste of server space and banwith resources that could be used elsewhere. But I am one of the minority that think that virtuals should stay archived, as with the locationless caches. How about giving us some of the functionality that we really want, like the favorite points and attributes in a PQ??? prob a lot less programming time will go into that, maybe we should make a challenge to groundspeak to finish one programming change each day that is actually useful to the user. I see challenges as a way to get the waymarking cround interested in caching.
Well, I've looked at some of these "challenges".... In a nut shell the ones I saw were "go here and stand on one foot (phoon?) posing for a picture... I didn't realize "making an ass of oneself" in public was what you people think a challenge should be... Lose this crap and just bring back real virtuals... I did one in Niagara Falls where you go to a lookout and take a picture of you and your GPS in front of the plaque that tells of a heroic deed... THAT my friends is a virtual. It brought me to a place of significance, to see something that most people would likely just walk past without even noticing. The photo is just proof of visit. No dumb stunts, weird poses standing on one foot...
There are some stupid challenges and there were plenty of stupid virtuals. The virtuals you see today are the ones that lived the test of time. It sounds like you have a good handle on what a good challenge could be, so I welcome your challenge submissions to help guide this in a direction where you and the community would like to see it.
I think that the term challenge is not ideally chosen. The focus with the old virtuals was not to go somewhere and do something extraordinate or funny there. At least in Austria almost all challenges I have come across either make fun about challenges or are meant to propose actions similiar to the old ALR. I think this is happening because no one in Austria will regard a visit to a statue, a nice church tower etc as a challenge for others. So they add additional requirements like that only visits at 2:00 in the night count or where one is wearing some special costume or where one has perform some crazy actions. I am not saying that such challenges are automatically bad, they are just bad in getting close to former virtuals. I think that another name for challenges might have helped to get results closer to what lovers of virtuals like.
I'm interested to see where the idea of challenge caches goes. I just hope that one of the future improvements will be some way to make the really poorly rated challenges effectively disappear. Without that feature, over time there will be huge number of crappy challenges that will clutter things up forever more.
I agree, I much prefer the virtuals taking you to a place that a cache could not be placed and making you see something you may not have noticed before. We just did that same one in Niagara Falls last month :)
SO far I am unimpressed. This has nothing to do with the geocaching concept. Heck, it doesn't even require coordinates or a GPSr. At the very least do not let these count as cache finds.
And if You want to keep them, please treat the challenges like Geocaches, with the full reviewing procedure. This seems to be necessary after the crap issued the last 24 hours... :
I too think that the number of challenges you do should NOT be included in the total finds. It should be a separate numberjust as it is a separate catagory in geocaching.
This challenge setup is better then bringing back virtual caches. However, I am concerned that there are no individuals reviewing them for appropriateness. What I might think is good (or bad) will be different from other cachers. I believe that new volunteers should be recruited to oversee this new addition to the game of geocaching.
When I saw the challenges link on the website I got quite excited. I thought, "Great, this is going to be fun". I was expecting to see challenges like:
What I found was go and stand on a hill and sing a song! Not impressed. This has so much potential, but for me seems to have fundamentally missed the point of what makes geocaching so much fun i.e. a challenge, learning something, going somewhere new. Make these challenges actual challenges in the same way that finding a cache is.
I cannot understand why bringing back virtuals would be an issue. Go to coordinates, take a picture or email the CO a stat or fact, and boom, you've counted it as a cache. I didn't really understand challenges so I did one - it involved taking of picture of myself with my kid's stuffed animal on my couch. SO DUMB! You won't let me delete it from my count or erase it from my page. Seriously ... listen to the community and bring back virtuals and stay true to the fun of geocaching.
I am among the number clamoring for the return of virtuals. With virtuals it is definitely about where it takes you or makes you look at instead of walking by. It is not really about the find. I can see some of the issues with evaluating what is a quality virtual. Because it is not about the find, virtuals do not fit perfectly with physical caches (neither do earthcaches but that's another discussion).
Recently I spent more time on the Waymarking site. This site could fulfill exactly what I like about virtuals. Sure there's the crap on there (i.e. Fast Food restaurants) but there are far more cool sites to be seen. My frustration with Waymarking is how difficult it is to use. I would love to be able to make a PQ as I do on the Geocaching site so when I need a break on a long drive I can go see something cool rather than a rest area.
These new challenges feel like a better fit on Waymarking. They have the potential to be neat but they do not fit with traditional caching. In truth I would love Groundspeak to direct the efforts of its programmers to improving Waymarking which could include moving these new challenges over there. There are difficulties with file size and bandwidth that would be encountered with PQs on Waymarking. Given the right amount of time and attention, they could be overcome.
I appreciate Groundspeak's continued drive to innovate and to listen to their users. Regardless of what happens to Challenges I look forward to seeing how the Waymarking site continues to develop. In the mean time thanks for a fun game. Cache on!
As once a challenge is accepted, it is out of the hands of the challenge creator, and it is up to us (the finders) to give the thumbs up,down or flag the challenge.
I have over a hundred geocache hides, with 65 more being published in a week, some like my hides, some don't, for different reasons, and when I hear a complaint, I usually contact the complainant and ask why.
Most complaints about some of my hides are they are too difficult, and I explain to the complainant that my hides are rated accurately, and it is up to an individual to read and understand the rating system.
So most complaints turn out to be towards having hard caches.... Well that does not make sense, as everyone has the right and ability to NOT DO THEM..!!
Same as these new challenges, if you do not like the idea of challenges, DON'T DO THEM, if you can't stand seeing the little Challenge profile symbol in your profile, don't go to the web site, it's a game, and it's a game geared for everyone.
Challenges meet the needs of those who were looking for something totally different, while giving the "Old Schoolers" the opportunity to just not participate.
If you do not like the Air conditioning in your car, you do not complain to the car company, do you? No, You just do not turn it on.
You still know it's there, but it does not bother you... And maybe, just maybe on a real hot day, when your out caching, you may just be tempted to turn it on, Just once....
C) and lastly the "This looks like a lot of fun" lets, and if this is fun then lets go find some containers, because that must be fun as well"
And for those who do not wish to participate in challenges, "See you on the trails" and keep enjoying the aspect of geocaching you have come to love, and just ignore the rest.
If the statistics are kept totally separate I could possibly live with it, but combining traditional geocaching with middle school pranks will drive me away.
I see challenges as worthless dribble. WE WANT VIRTUALS, WE WANT WEBCAMS. Maybe larger print will help. You speak about the community asking for virtuals, and that you are listening. Really? I can see how a virtual may be done as a challenge, but its not the same. Not sure why virtuals went away, and I have no idea why you just cannot bring them back the way they were. Worked before, just add the bloody code back in. Move the silly challenges to one of the other sites that it fits in with. I think finding a bench mark is more in tune with caching than this wacked out idea. At least you are out and looking for something. Take a photo and post it.
Seriously, there are admitted problems / concerns with these challenges. For example, no review process to ensure that the challenges meet a base set of guidelines (like *Go SOMEWHERE, Do SOMETHING* meaning to go to a specific place, and do a specific thing). Second, no manner to delete bogus "finds."
However, the potential for good here is enormous. The photo challenges ARE virtual caches, exactly the same as they were, just with a different name (and the two issues I mentioned above). What people forget is that there were terrible virtuals then, too - and only the good ones have survived.
Reviewing challenges for good / bad would be very difficult, admittedly. It's that "wow" factor thing. Here's a compromise / suggestion: have "challenge volunteers" to check and make sure that the challenge meets a base set of guidelines (specific location, specific action / photo, perhaps not too close to another challenge / cache). Pretty quick process, really. Then, go ahead and publish it.
In addition, maintain the Thumbs Up/Down, and, after a week, if the number of thumbs down exceeds the number of thumbs up, it goes away. HOWEVER, one can only vote if they have attempted the challenge - thereby making it a vote on whether it's got that "wow factor" or not, rather than if they like the write up, or the sound of it. I've disliked a LOT of caches based on the write up, but when I arrived, was super impressed - it's about the experience of it, rather than the write up, after all.
Yes, there's potential for good - but that potential has been squandered by Groundspeak's ham handed implementation of the concept. And your review process highlights one of the key reasons virts went away in the first place - the extreme difficulty of fairly evaluating them. The second key reason was that so many of them could be done from the armchair. (These are both things Jeremy has said over the years.) Yet, here are virts back with the same old problems and a whole host of new ones.
I'm fine with 'take a photo of yourself crossing abbey rd' and those kind of things, but I'm worried challenges will not always be that cool... like 'this is my favourite tree. talk a photo with it!' I'm mainly concerned about the sheer number that will pop up that, but sounds like worldwide caches will be limited, so it's not just 'Who else drinks milk? Take a photo!'... I feel locationless caches went that way in the past.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'd like them to be clever, creative or worth doing, but I have heard the argument that a nano on a guardrail might not be any more fulfilling. It's hard to please 5 million people who all have their own opinions; you won't make everyone happy. For example, I think it'd be hilarious to have a worldwide 'planking at a GZ', but I'm sure that'd make a lot of people very angry.
Like others, I think that the concept of challenges is quite different to geocaching, and as such do think they shouldn't be counted in the finds total. Geocachers can gets mad enough if you forget a pen to sign the log, so I think there will be a big objection to a locationless challenge being ''worth'' as much as a traditional cache.
So I'll be interested to see challenges develop. I really think you guys will do a good job developing the idea further, and I'm much more positive about the concept after the post.
Finally, I know there's been a lot of anger around and demanding for apologies and threats of non-renewing memberships, but if it makes you feel better, just think about how much the general public ridiculed the iPad when it was first announced!I know you really are trying to make improvements to the game for us all.
I don't care about other peoples numbers. If they want to cheat, run them up or whatever thats their business. I will not accept any challenges of this type because it is NOT geocaching. I have accepted challenges such Delorme, County, Alphanumeric, etc. Those are challenges are real. As far as virtuals go we need them back in geocaching not this junk you are trying to cram down our throats.
I'm looking forward to the concept maturing. The biggest problem right now is people not understanding what it's all about and creating challenges that are not location based. I don't see how this is any different than the old virtuals or webcams other than an initial quality control before it is published.
The thumbs up/down should help that quality be evaluated by the community rather than the reviewers. I hope to see poorly thought out challenges that get lots of down votes just disappear.
I agree - I think the first challenge posted by groundspeak, "Kiss the Frog", set a bad precedent. I understand why they did it - as something fun to wet our feet. But I think it backfired a bit because it also set the "example" of what a photo challenge should be. At least for some people. But as time goes on, I think things will settle down and we'll all get a feel for what a quality challenge should look like.
I've read this 3 times and I still can not see how this will improve the geocaching community !! I understand that all you fine folks on the west coast can do what you want with your site and geocaching .com and we have no voice in what direction you decide to go but to try to reinvent the wheel when the majority just wanted the return of virtuals does not make a bit of sense to me. I have a choice and I will not be playing.Just hate that I have to look at the zero challenges all the time!!
I agree. We have a choice and can vote with our own actions. I have completed one, just for the sake of it, but won't do any more...yet. I wait to see how the users feedback is taken. But it does make a mockery of our little shiny top right hand corner numbers which are so important to us that we have milestones for them.
I am agreeing with everyone who feels like the numbers should be separate from geocache finds. This is something all to itself and the laziness of these challenges just lowers the standards of the game. It is bad enough you let people log a geocache without actually typing one word!
I'm looking forward to some challenges being issued in my area. I live in an agricultural region dotted with small towns - no big cities nearby. I've found most of the caches within a 15 mile radius. Challenges have the potential to offer a fun activity on days I don't have the time or can't spare the gas to drive out of the immediate area. I will be interested to see how it evolves. I personally don't have a problem with completed challenges being included as cache finds. I'm not planning to accept any challenges that don't at least get me off the couch and out of the house, and I don't really care what anyone else does. Whether I sign a piece of paper or go somewhere and take a photo, the point is to get out and do something fun. I'm willing to give this a fair chance.
Please don't combine them with our geocaching finds. We work very hard to find caches and get our numbers up ( numbers are not everything but..) we walk miles and miles to get a smiley, even look under lamp skirts if we really have to, but some of these challenges are really not worth a smiley, I know some cachers that got a smiley by just sitting on the computer and take a pic or photoshop it! No walking or hiking or even a movment in there legs! We want to be active and not be a couch potato!!
If we really have to have them please don't count them into our totals, make a dif. website just like waymarking. Nothing wrong with that challenge!!! Hope you guys listen to the paying custumers, I don't really know many cachers that like the new set up!~!
I'm willing to give it a chance. I just think you need to listed to the overwhelming number of requests to make this a seperate count from the cache smilies. You have it listed as two different boxes on our profile page! Seems like you meant to have it be seperate. Why isn't it?
I like the idea of a new way to play, however I don't like how this was implemented.. I think you guys totally over estimated the sincerity and integrity with which many play the game how to fix it?
2. do away with the "action" types.. or at least have some way for false completions to be deleted or, include a verification step that must be completed by the person making the challenge.. I noticed a local-to-me cacher yesterday, post a "completed" for a photo challenge in Seattle, and also post a "completed" for an action challenge in Australia.. on the same day.. not sure that is possible and I'm pretty sure they never went to Australia.. The reason this is important is I would be totally frustrated as a challenge creator to find a ton of completions that are obviously false.
speaking of integrity challenged cachers.. did anyone see the announcement today by that other caching site (the one backed by a certain GPS manufacturer)? they are now using technology in interesting ways to make sure cachers are actually finding your hides..
Ummm....One important thing that is missing...is the teaching to what the challenges are on the Find a challenge, Make a challenge page. It does not explain what it is all about. I just now read about it hear thanks to FB. Without the guide lines you will have a lot of challenges that mean nothing....Unfortunately I made one of those today not knowing that it is replacing Virtual style caches. So I hope they are also meant to just go do something nutty...say like photos of planking. Please add to the Make a challenge to keep it educational if that is the intent.
Glad it was not released an week ago, then I would not have started geocaching at all, espacally the worldwide concept. But I can ignore it (although the world-wide out of cache-count or both types out of statitics would be nice)
However I have something looking as a question about the world-wide challenges, as they are worldwide and therefor might suggest someone does something illegal in one country that is not (or something dangerous, but as usual)
I don't believe that the challenge counts should be added to your total. It's not the same game at all. With the old virtuals, at least they took you to an interesting/historic spot and you learned something. Kissing a frog is not the same thing. I don't see that these challenges will ever be the same idea as virtuals. As for inviting feedback, I tried repeatedly yesterday to do just that, but the link would never open the application.
But a challenge in public doesn't match the character of geocaching as a stealthrequiering stash-hunt! Why are his two different concepts mixed up?
Almost all of us agree with everything Bryan said about challenges. Would love to give them a chance ! They look like they could in fact be fun things to do for those who choose to do them BUT........they are NOT geocaches. Remove them from the geocache find totals and 90% of your customers will be happy. If groundspeak is so confident of challenges being accepted they should be able to stand on their own as a fun activity.There is no doubt in most of our minds that they are only in with geocache find totals to FORCE their acceptance by numerous geocachers. Again, if groundspeak and customers love them - they will stand on their own as a great idea. Please stop attempting to force apples and oranges to go together in totals. Your pure geocaching customer base will be happier for it.
I am trying to give them every chance I can. I have released a couple and have a couple ready to go. I do hope they work out as they have the potential to be fun.
My issue is with the way you do these things. I understand you wanted to rush this along so the release coincided with the block party but did you really need to release it without the features that you know we want? We use GPS. It's what we do. Sure, some of them are built into our phones but it is still a GPS. It is what this game is built on. So why not build the thing from the start with the tools needed to load these challenges right to the GPS? Why not have them on the maps? Why add one more thing that should be, but isn't, included in the PQs? You have to realize that we are going to want these things. You are smart people, act like it.(my God! I heard that in mom's voice even while typing it!LOL)
Also, work on the communication. You release these things with very little explanation and that in places we have to hunt to find and then seem surprised when things don't work the way they should. It should have been required to read and agree to the basic rules of challenges (guidelines, whatever) before being allowed to create one. The pop up that we get now is a good idea, but should have been there from the start. Can I suggest that after a while you add a check box to it that stops it from popping up once you have read it?
I have changed my mind, I think challenges can be great. However I think it is important that the status of the challenges are increased, severely. To do this I believe there needs to be an owner of the challenge, someone that stands for whatever you are supposed to do. The creator/owner will put more effort into making a good challenge if they are responsible. The owner will also be able to make sure that "complete" loggs really are completed and not just bogus like many are today. If a want a finger on top of a landmark it should be there, I do not want an old picture when you are pinching the landmark the wrong way. If everyone are aware that there really is an effort (go somewhere, do something) behind every logg I think more participants will like the challenges. Then I even might accept it in the count toward my total finds.
I will no go outside and collect some pictures for my first challenges but I will not create a challenge until I am able to control.
Well said!!! Thank you for your words!!! Keep up the good work!! I have enjoyed each and everyone that you have put out!!! Keep it up!!!!
Very cool. I think this will help eliminate the silly ones, and cut down on the frustration people are feeling. Thanks for your work!
Also the notion that "all the bad virtuals went away already" is a cop-out. If there were bad virtuals that is the fault of the guidelines and/or reviewers for approving them to start with, not a conviction of the virtual concept. I appreciate what the reviewers do and the time they invest, but crap still happens, like the cache 10ft from a live railroad line that was listed here months ago and took several weeks of 'needs archived' logs to finally get archived. Should we stop allowing ANY new geocaches to be listed just because there are a bunch of crap ones?
The idea that Virtuals are too hard to evaluate is bogus. They are/were no harder than earthcaches, those require heavy evaluation and yet you have not gotten rid of earthcaches. And an overworked, out of state reviewer can still determine in 30 seconds if a virtual would be decent or lame if some sort of proper description is provided.
Reviewers don't want the extra work to evaluate a virtual? Set up a separate Virtual Reviewer Group like you have the separate earthcache group.
Like a lot of people I am willing to give challenges a try. It will be interesting to see how these shake out. I suspect I will do these as often as I do waymarks or benchmarks which is rarely, but it gives people a new way to play. I'm sure some people will love these.
Just for the heck of it I did the "Kiss a Frog" challenge because it was quick and easy to do last night. I agree that it was silly but why not for a first try.
One thing I would like to see is that on archived caches you can still look at them for reference purposes. The archived challenge is just gone. These is no way to see what the challenge was or the silly pictures people took. Is there a way to make archived challenges viewable.
As I posted in Facebook comments yesterday, my concern was how some of the ones I saw didn't even require much effort. There was a "Take a photo of a sleeping animal" challenge. Well, I can pull up an image using a Google search for that and post it. Geez, it's not even my picture, I just cut and pasted someone else's photo they took of a sleeping animal.
I guess that sort of thing is not what I think of when I think of Geocaching, and it's certainly not how I would describe it to someone I wanted to get excited about the hobby I love.
Why not... My daughter is loving the challenges. We went out scouting some areas. We found some around our area.. We want Photo's to approve that they did do it.. Remember have fun with it...
When I searched, yesterday, the Challenges were not being displayed on the map - will they be displayed on the map from the near future? Otherwise, you might be standing right beside one & never know! Also, will Challenges be included in PQ searches?
Just listen to the user's feedback, integrate them to the "normal" website, include them in PQs, include log requirement, let them be reviewed by revievers... What is exactely the part from the user's feedback you don't understand?!
I think the reviewing part was one of the problems, actually. With physical caches, reviewers have a set of rules they follow as to what can be approved and what can't. But a virtual would be subjective - what one reviewer might think is interesting and unique (a covered bridge) another reviewer might find boring and uninteresting (a covered bridge). That opens the door for huge inconsistencies in different areas. I personally love interesting virtuals - going to a city and finding that little spot that only the locals know about - or a place with an interesting bit of history, etc. I don't mind the idea of a photo challenge, but I would prefer that the community as a whole agreed they should be location specific and interesting/unique (can I do this in anytown, or can I only find this thing here). Perhaps instead of harassing Jeremy or the other Lackeys, we should harass the people that put out lame challenges! :
After attempting to use the geocaching website today I would like to suggest that you should look to your basic functionality and get it working BEFORE adding new features that use more resources.
We currently have one page on our profiles for geocaches (found and owned), and another page for trackables (found and owned). Why not simply expand the theme to have a page for waymarks (found and owned) and another page for challenges (completed and owned)?
Regarding giving them a chance, I have to ask. When the first challenge published by Groundspeak was to "kiss a frog" where it could be a real frog, a model frog, a person called Frog, what kind of response did you expect to get? It really is the equivalent of saying what a great new sport geocaching was and then making the first ever listed cache a film pot behind a post among piles of litter that stinks of dog urine, in an area where the down-and-outs gather to get drunk.
Challenges introduces enormous problems to those of us working with parks and land managers. It provides an "out" for parks to ban physical placements. I really hope my local park superintendent doesn't get wind of Challenges, or all physical placements will be archived in favor of only challenges not because of any environmental concern, but because of less administration and one less thing to think about for them.
With the recent success of getting many physical placements in National Parks, this will remove leverage of saying, "If you don't allow physical containers, you're not geocaching."
As for being the "vocal minority", I would say that it is the largest "vocal minority" on a particular issue yet. To have over 1000 votes in under an hour to remove challenges, who knows how large it would have gotten if it was allowed to continue. It would be exponential number more people than the number of people who ever wanted virtuals back. Funny thing is a lot of people voted to bring virtuals back but also voted to remove challenges.
In developing Challenges, I think Groundspeak has taken a very thoughtful approach to addressing the numerous requests to bring back virtuals. In separating Challenges from geocaches they have tried to keep those geocachers who say that Challenges (like Waymarks) are not worth doing if it can't count towards my geocaching total and those who think that they shouldn't count at all toward the cache numbers. I think many of the early lame challenges are sarcastic postings by those who do not support challenges. I try to look at challenges through the eyes of someone who is interested in virtuals. When looking at a challenge, I ask myself "Would this make a good virtual?" and "Is this challenge going to take me someplace interesting?" irregardless of what I have to do to satisfy the challenge. Maybe Groundspeak has overreached by bringing back locationless caches as worldwide challenges. I did not hear an desire to have locationless caches brought back. Despite that, I did do one of the worldwide challenges yesterday (landmarks) and did have fun looking at the landmarks that were posted from around the world (although, the coordinates/locations were missing from the logs, but I'm assuming that may be corrected in a future update). I think that Challenges do need to be tweaked, but I'm not ready to throw the baby out with the bath water. I agree to give them a chance. Let the rhetoric calm down and then see how they can improve the concept.
Thanx Brian! For the past couple days, a vocal minority has been working overtime to discredit Challenges. Hopefully they will heed your words of wisdom. Like any new thing, Challenges could stand some tweaking, and I am confident that the Lackeys are doing just that. While it's still too early to tell if Challenges will be the greatest thing since sliced bread, I believe that after a good shakedown period, the ones produced by the players will make a viable alternative for virtuals, whilst the worldwide ones made by Groundspeak will make a viable alternative for locationless.
(1) I logged a (photo) challenge that I had recently accomplished. When I began looking, I found what I thought was the same challenge and my "complete" did not take (thought it was a user error not a computer error) so I did it again. Now, I have come to realize that it was another (2nd) challenge for the same thing. Both these photo challenges are for a very specific location. Thus it now shows two complete challenges. I will remove on of them at some time the the future but opting to leave it at the present. (Just say for experimental purposes). This should definitely be addressed but I am not sure how.
(2) As I stated before, I just happened to have completed one of the challenges thus logged a complete. Upon doing so, I noticed on that one (or maybe it was another one that I was looking at) that someone had posted a completed and in the log acknowledged that he (she) had done the challenge years prior. They had the needed photo. (I believe they said from 2001.) Having completed the requirement(s) recently (within a few days/weeks) and having completed the requirements a few years ago are two different things. I can see where could a problem as well.
At this time, I have only logged completed on the challenges mentioned in the first of my concerns. I do plan on logging more as I complete them. I really like flexibility with the challenges but also see that with so much freedom this hobby might become weakened, as there are some people in this world that do abuse such flexibility.
In challenge directions, it should probably be noted that people shouldn't be asked to take pictures of their GPSr at the challenge location, as many people use smartphones for caching, making it impossible to take a picture of the camera/GPSr itself.
Well before I commented on this topic, I decided that I should try out a few challenges: I tried a worldwide photo challenge, an action challenge and I created a photo challenge. After doing this, I went back and deleted my completion of the worldwide challenge and am considering deleting the action challenge. I Can't do anything about the one I created since it isn't even mine - huh? I don't see this is anything that really has any long-term interest for me and I'm getting the same feeling from a lot of people have the same feeling based on posts on the forums and in talking with fellow geocachers.
I find the whole concept not well thought out nor well implemented. The worldwide challenge really doesn't sound much different than the old Locationless caches (go "find" something was the old locationless cache idea whereas the worldwide challenge is go "do" something). Fairly small semantics to warrant a whole new type/subtype. Wouldn't it have been easier to re-implement into the existing Locationless structure instead of creating something new on the website that has this tacked-on not the mainstream feel to it on the website?
On the non-worldwide challenges - don't see the big different between the old Virtuals and the new challenges. I remember the boring virtuals that are no-longer around - but some of the current virtuals are still in that category and still aren't a big deal to ignore. Again I think you could have fixed the virtual category much easier than creation this new "challenge" category that is basically non-policed for publishing. You say that old virtuals were bad - I see the new challenges even worse.
I hear give it time, we will fix the things that are broken. I've heard that before. Why didn't you do that for the locationless/virtuals in the first place? Groundspeak went off and created the waymarking website in 2005 to "fix" these two cache types and after 6 years did it fix it? I think most people would say no (including me). I am likely in the minority of the geocaching community that actually tried to give waymarking a shot (almost 600 visits and 22 waymark creations as of today). From my perspective waymarking way a failed attempt at locationless/virtual replacement and given that Groundspeak created challenges I would think they are admitting the same thing. I personally don't see the new challenges having any more success at widespread use as does the waymarking site (at least the challenges are on the same website - other than that I don't see the long-term viability or interest in the idea).
Also the whole name of the new idea was not well thought out from a normal geocachers perspective. There are already challenges out there as Mystery caches - Delorme, Fizzy, etc. The new name just adds confusion and perception (real or imagined) that the new challenges will somehow replace the challenge caches. Let hope not considering how much theses challenge caches have as a following.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment. However, if past history of groundspeak is any indication, these words are just that - words and won't have any sway into the decisions that are made to the website.
Once people figure out that challenges are not locationless, I see this as a great alternative to virtuals. Obviously virtuals had their problems with the Wow factor, and not we the community - not a small set of volunteers - can help decide what is worthy and what is not.
If somebody puts out a challenge "Can't hug every cat" where you have to hug as many cats at the pet shelter as possible, and everybody thinks it's dumb, it should just wither away.
You know how almost everyone dislikes pushy salespeople? The majority of groundspeak customers bought into (and loved) the geocaching game pretty much as it stood. Now we are being told to try and we are being force fed this challenge addition to the game, that interferes with our total cache find numbers (and cheapens the game). Be patient they say - you will like it - much akin to a pushy salesperson who arrived at your door uninvited and won't leave - despite you telling him/her repeatedly that you do not want their "free" addition to your game.
Like thousands of other cachers are saying - let your new game stand on its' own merits and be separate from our geocache finds. Now get away from our door with this idea - time to use our GPS, go out find a container and sign a logbook !
The fact that Challenges actually count to my finds is not bad at all. I like my statistic and I love to have a look at what I achieved and where I've been. So therefore Challenges clearly should count for this.
Unfortunately many players just go caching to have as much finds as possible and to be the "best geocacher in his/her area". The possibility of making easy finds by just sitting on the couch clearly threatens their prominence...
I won't make challenges I don't like or that don't seem interesting to me, just because I don't need to. Just as I wouldn't search a Geocache that doesn't seem interesting for me. But even I fear that Challenges as they are now will not work well - without any clear rules! So you should just make a few more rules that just make Challenges that can be done without any effort and without going outside impossible to do...
But if I see "challenges" like "try to find some sand on a beach" or "get yourself a coffee to go"... that's crap and that can't be the idea of challenges.
I am trying to give it a chance - but that's hard, if about 95% of the challenges are not worth thinking about doing them, just because they are stupid.
I always believed that geocaching was "community" based. It brings people together with something in common - the fact that they love to go outdoors and go "treasure hunting" or "hiking / tramping" or finding new places they've never been to. It's one of the few sites you can meet other like minded people with no ulterior motives. As such and with so many people out there who enjoy it, you really should be listening to the community and not trying to invent things. The feedback system is great, and it tells you what you should be doing / creating all the time. The day that there is no feedback means you have listened and everyone is happy. But when overnight literally the community says 'Get rid of challenges" and its ranked currently at third position, you need to listen to them.
Rather ask the community for ideas, or tell them what you are thinking about doing and get their feedback. A million+ peoples feedback can't be wrong.. And the community will help you out. If you really wanted to do so, you could decided to listen only to those that pay to be members - Remember if they are unhappy, they will stop paying membership and without them you will not have a site at the end of the day.
Listen to the community - We are only trying to help you out. Don't be stubborn and tell us to give it a chance. The fact that so many people are upset should give you a very clear indication that this was released incorrectly, wont work and was a waste of developers time that could have been put to much better use.
hmm isn't this odd?... Groundspeak having to explain why they implemented Challenges, and then 'fogging' the idea these are the new Virtuals that a lot of us didn't want us to see archived.
This isn't Geocaching, and should be separated from the main site as were Waymarks (which I recall were also the new Virtuals when they were first launched).
hmm isn't this odd?... Groundspeak having to explain why they implemented Challenges, and then 'fogging' the idea these are the new Virtuals that a lot of us didn't want us to see archived.
This isn't Geocaching, and should be separated from the main site as were Waymarks (which I recall were also the new Virtuals when they were first launched).
You said that it is optional to participate in the new challenge thingy. So please let them be separate from the "real" caches and please don't add them to the total found caches. In Sweden I have not heard anyone like the new challenges as they became. We had hope for something completely different.
3 simple things are needed to make these acceptable then.... 1. do not integrate the find counts. 2. add the same sort of common attributes and rich html to the description. That way it will be very similar to the way virtuals are and should be created. A 3rd one... find/replace the word challenge. There is another challenge request in the backlog that is actually a very good suggestion. Maybe this is a containerless cache or a simulated cache. I think you will get a lot more participation or at least quiet acceptance if a few of the common feedback items are taken into consideration. Thanks for (trying to) make the sport more fun and dynamic.
I see the potential in this set-up. Work on getting more challenge type set up (Webcams!). If you can remember back aways there was a similar outcry when the Beta maps started. Look how that turned out. (Hint: amazing)
That explaination on Thursday and a better communication to the crommunity (i received a quite irritating mail from the HQ) ..... And you didn't get 70% of the scream you've received....
At the moment the challenges are not really intergrated into the GC website. You are not able to create nice complex listings or give a challenge a difficulty factor. There should be the possibility to create challenges which earn the label "challenge", if challenge has the meaning of dare. (Btw. the english language is not precisly enough)
Second point or bug: If you accept a challenge und the challenge is archived before you can solve it, it will still be listed on your personal challenge page ("Challenges ouīve Accepted"). If somebody solves an challenge without really solving it, the owner isn`t able to delete the "solving entry". This is bad.
Can you clarify what happens when someone flags a cache? Does a challenge listing automatically get archived after a certain number of flags, or does a lackey review the flagged challenge and make a determination? And does it matter which choice under "flag" we choose if a listing is not location-based--should it be flagged as "unplayable" or "prohibited", or does it not really matter?
Thank you for the additional information. I think these challenges have a lot of potential. I like the flexibility and the sense of fun that I've seen in some of the listings. I hope people won't abuse the system just to try and make a point!
One suggestion: make clear that challenges must be prospective in nature. For example, to complete Colorado's "Climb a 14'er" challenge, you should accept and THEN climb a peak: you can't just accept and then immediately mark complete because you already climbed one or several 14'ers in the past.
The only real concerns I have are; 1) some caches require you do things which can't be proven such as sing a song and 2) as the person who creates the challenge can't enforce completing the challenge you could upload a photo of your foot for every photo challenge and who says that wasn't adequate proof you completed a challenge to visit say The Bean and take your photo in the reflection. I'm good with the finds being part of the find count as long as you can't log your big toe a thousand times.
Is there a certain number or percentage of "thumbs-down" votes that will trigger a red flag to have that challenge archived? Kind of like the kiss-a-frog challenge--there was nothing illegal about it, it was just not geocaching.
There are systems behind the scenes monitoring "signals" like high thumbs down clicks, but only being just over a day old our algorithms will need some tweaking. Keep your approval (and disapproval) coming! But also flag a challenge if it isn't challenge worthy.
When flagging a challenge for not being "location" specific, how specific does the location have to be? Does it have to be at a specific set of coordinates? So far I've seen location specific challenges for larger areas like Central Park, and for an entire state, like Kansas.
The best thing you can do is give ownership of a challenge to the one who set it up. I understand that reviewers didn't want to be dragged into a "review"
One thing right now is the search radius. I can search within a very small radius or I can look at random stuff being done in big cities (or locationlesses) on the main page. Without performing dozens of searches I can't even tell if anyone has added something in Poplar Bluff, Sikeston, Cape, Malden or a dozen other places I would be WILLING to drive to to give this thing a chance. Want me to give it a chance? Don't make me work so hard at trying to.
Nope. You still have that wrong. Your feedback is from a small limited type of geocachers that have somehow found the feedback section of the on-line forum pages.
The vast majority of geocachers do not bother to input their opinions in here, are not happy about the recent changes, and will once again acquiesce.
Thanks for the update. I am glad you got rid of the kiss the frog, it did not set the tone for thing to go well the first day. I think there is a place for this kind of activity. I believe that the way that you have things set up if given a chance will allow the good challenges to rise to the top and bad ones to sink. Will there be a map search for this type in the future?
Good explanation. I think Challenges could work, now that the ridiculous 'Kiss a Frog' type Challenges are no longer going to be permitted. I think more and more will require activity and and a purpose which sounds quite fun to me, although as there is no cache or response to owner, or need for gps, it is not geocaching.
If you want challenges to be caches, which they are not, why do you make the way to make them, look at them, find them, log them,... different from other caches ?
But on the other hand, why introduce this new feature while loads of ongoing features are not completed yet ? Wherigo ? betamaps ? API ? to name 3...
Why does something not even betaworthy has to be released first and after a day you have to shout "but wait, it's not ready yet, give it a chance"... ?
Sorry, but I really disagree with anything which causes the disparity in the Geocaching community to increase any more than I can prevent. Everyone who registers as a Geocacher should be able to access any geocache, and anyone who browses casually to the site should be able to see the current, correct data for their location and/or query point.
We are open to the concept, and have posted our first challenge. Like everything new everyone is quick to critisise. Obviously the "challenge" part of geocaching will evolve over time , and GS will iron out the bugs. If you do not want to participate, you have the option not to .I still think that the traditional Hide & seek container caches will always be the cachers favorite. We are a tactile lot and like to be rewarded for our efforts.
In response to below - having a free membership is a privileged! Besides, you alone knows the value of your count, does it really matter if someone "cheats" by your standards? Taking the easy way out on caching would have to be one of the most pathetic kinds of cheating possible. I mean, this is all for personal satisfaction isn't it? I like the idea of the challenges, and obviously it will take some time to work out the kinks. I really liked virtuals for when I wanted to experience a place and answer questions but did not care to search in front of a large group of people thus exposing the cache and possibly getting myself into trouble.
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