Change History

I will happily take over for my valued volunteer colleague, OReviewer. My credentials: I have found around 120 challenge caches and I own or co-own three -- two of which are prohibited under the 2016 guideline changes. I still love challenges, which is why I post a lot here in an effort to make the new system work smoothly. I qualify for the "contiguous counties" challenge with a string of more than 250 counties.

Guidance from Geocaching HQ has been quoted or summarized in this thread, accurately. HQ and a group of reviewers have participated in an active private discussion about how challenges like this ought to work. They must rely on true mapping and political geography principles -- and not one single geocacher's set of rules. (Don't worry, MaxB... your grandfathered challenge predates the current guidelines.)

A proper data file for a "contiguous counties" checker would reflect political boundaries that meet in the middle of a body of water, regardless of the presence or absence of bridges, tunnels, ferries, etc. It would also count as "contiguous" (or "touching", per most dictionary definitions) two counties that meet at a single point. Hopefully interested persons can work on a new data file, leaving MaxB's file alone for use with their pre-moratorium challenges and their grandfathered user-defined mapping rules.

Until that happens, I regret that new contiguous county challenges cannot be published. That makes me sad, since I'd like to find or own such challenges, so I'm motivated to help.

I will happily take over for my valued volunteer colleague, OReviewer. My credentials: I have found around 120 challenge caches and I own or co-own three -- two of which are prohibited under the 2016 guideline changes. I still love challenges, which is why I post a lot here in an effort to make the new system work smoothly. I qualify for the "contiguous counties" challenge with a string of more than 250 counties.

Guidance from Geocaching HQ has been quoted or summarized in this thread, accurately. HQ and a group of reviewers have participated in an active private discussion about how challenges like this ought to work. They must rely on true mapping and political geography principles -- and not one single geocacher's set of rules. (Don't worry, MaxB... your grandfathered challenge predates the current guidelines.)

A proper data file for a "contiguous counties" checker would reflect political boundaries that meet in the middle of a body of water, regardless of the presence or absence of bridges, tunnels, ferries, etc. It would also count as "contiguous" (or "touching", per most dictionary definitions) two counties that meet at a single point. Hopefully interested persons can work on a new data file, leaving MaxB's file alone for use with their challenges and their grandfathered user-defined mapping rules.

Until that happens, I regret that new contiguous county challenges cannot be published. That makes me sad, since I'd like to find or own such challenges, so I'm motivated to help.

I will happily take over for OReviewer. My credentials: I have found around 120 challenge caches and I own or co-own three -- two of which are prohibited under the 2016 guideline changes. I still love challenges, which is why I post a lot here in an effort to make the new system work smoothly. I qualify for the "contiguous counties" challenge with a string of more than 250 counties.

Guidance from Geocaching HQ has been quoted or summarized in this thread, accurately. HQ and a group of reviewers have participated in an active private discussion about how challenges like this ought to work. They must rely on true mapping and political geography principles -- and not one single geocacher's set of rules. (Don't worry, MaxB... your grandfathered challenge predates the current guidelines.)

A proper data file for a "contiguous counties" checker would reflect political boundaries that meet in the middle of a body of water, regardless of the presence or absence of bridges, tunnels, ferries, etc. It would also count as "contiguous" (or "touching", per most dictionary definitions) two counties that meet at a single point. Hopefully interested persons can work on a new data file, leaving MaxB's file alone for use with their challenges and their grandfathered user-defined mapping rules.

Until that happens, I regret that new contiguous county challenges cannot be published. That makes me sad, since I'd like to find or own such challenges, so I'm motivated to help.