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Re: Lonely KC

[Cancelled] Lonely KC
March 31, 2018 11:40PM
I have an idea for a challenge and want to find out if it follows the new guild lines and a checker can be created. The checker would be focused on Kern County California. To qualify for my idea, a cacher would need to have found, owned, or a combination of the two, 10 out of the top 20 loneliest caches that are active at that given point in Kern county. I am looking at the first page of the statistics, lonely caches, narrowed down to Kern County Ca USA. The statistics will adjust as cachers find caches in the top 20, so the checker would need to be flexible. Is my idea possible?
Re: Lonely KC
April 01, 2018 06:27PM
If it is based on the lonely cache definition of Project-GC it must be possible but it requires a script writer to make a new script for this idea
Re: Lonely KC
April 01, 2018 08:54PM
vogelbird Wrote:
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> If it is based on the lonely cache definition of
> Project-GC it must be possible but it requires a
> script writer to make a new script for this idea

Do you have idea how to access the "loneliness" attribute to find the 20 most loneliest caches?
Re: Lonely KC
April 01, 2018 09:25PM
Re: Lonely KC
April 01, 2018 09:38PM
I once tried "last to find" challenge but it was rejected because it is a "competition". The challenge was also difficult to verify by the CO because the criteria may change after the challenge is completed and there is no public history for qualified challenges. I would suggest to ask from the local reviewer, whether the challenge is acceptable or not, before adding new methods to the checker platform.
Re: Lonely KC
April 03, 2018 07:43PM
Thanks for looking into this for me. What do I need to do to contact Ganja1447?
Re: Lonely KC
April 03, 2018 07:49PM
Katarn1977 Wrote:
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> Thanks for looking into this for me. What do I
> need to do to contact Ganja1447?

To make this checker possible we need modification to the checker platform before we can program the checker. Ganja1447 makes this kind of modifications but it may take a long time to finish the request.

I suggest that you ask from you local reviewer, will this challenge be published, because there is no reason to make a checker if there is guideline problems with the challenge itself.
Re: Lonely KC
April 03, 2018 08:30PM
I will send a local reviewer a message...Thanks for the input
Re: Lonely KC
April 01, 2018 08:08PM
That’s awesome. I did a bit of research on local cachers and the nearness of qualification. The active locals would currently have 3-9 out of 10, so it would be a fun challenge. Can someone create a checker for me?
Re: Lonely KC
April 01, 2018 08:13PM
The container is hidden. GC7MD77
Re: Lonely KC
April 05, 2018 07:14AM
Hi Katarn,

This sounds like a cool challenge.

To be sure we're on the same page, these are the requirements as I understand them:

1. Find 10 caches in Kern County California.
2. All 10 caches must <<at the time you claim a find on the challenge>> be one of the top 10 "loneliest caches" in Kern Count
3. The "loneliest cache" is is calculated by dividing the age of the geocaches (in days) by the number of finds.
4. The 10 caches can be of any cache type
5. The 10 caches can be premiere or non-premium caches.
6. All 10 caches must <<at the time you claim a find on the challenge>> be active.

In your first post, you said "found or owned". Having an "owned" requirement is not allowed by the new guidelines, so I am excluding that as a requirement.

All of that said, I want to make sure you have checked with your local reviewer to make sure that YOU can post a cache with the above requirements. I did some quick checking, and I noticed you had only found a few of the top 20 loneliest caches in Kern County. To publish a challenge, you must also satisfy the criteria of the challenge yourself and there needs to be a reasonable number of people in the local area that also would satisfy the criteria of the challenge. Can you double check with the local reviewer (Marko Ramius I think) to be sure you can publish with the above 6 criteria, I will work on a script for you.

Thanks,
-TG
Re: Lonely KC
April 05, 2018 07:30AM
While a challenge can't require a cacher to own a cache, I don't believe there's any prohibition on counting owned caches as if they were found.
Re: Lonely KC
April 05, 2018 07:35AM
sumbloke Wrote:
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> While a challenge can't require a cacher to own a
> cache, I don't believe there's any prohibition on
> counting owned caches as if they were found.

In some cases the challenge would be impossible or much harder if you can not add owned caches. For example, a challenge to find the oldest cache in the area. Impossible for the CO :D
Re: Lonely KC
April 05, 2018 08:22AM
Ah, yes, I see that that owning caches could pass muster to qualify. I'm looking forward to hearing what the reviewer has to say.
Re: Lonely KC
April 06, 2018 07:13PM
Hi TG, thanks for the detailed response. I will share with you the message I received from a local reviewer:

Hi,

Lonely cache challenges have always been somewhat problematic, but it may be possible to create one. Before the challenge cache moratorium, GeoHQ would allow them if there was a sufficient body of "lonely caches" in an area (so that there was no possibility of exhausting the supply. (California has always had lots of lonely caches so the supply is plentiful.)
Post-moratorium, It may be possible to create a lonely cache challenge, but after reading through your question, here are the issues that I can see that you will need to address.

1) The challenge can only be about finding lonely caches. Challenge criteria can't include owning a lonely cache.

2) You (or whoever is submitting the cache) must meet the challenge criteria.
3) You should be prepared to submit a list of 10 "local" cachers who can meet the challenge criteria. The So Cal reviewers don't often ask for this and if we do, we tend to apply "local" relatively broadly -- e.g. SoCal/Nevada. So, just be aware that we might ask for it.
4) The number to be found cannot be a percentage of caches in an area. "Find 10 in Kern County" is OK.. "Find 10 of the Top 20 in Kern County" is a percentage (50% in this case) and isn't allowed.
5) And now for the tough one...you will need to define "lonely" cache in such a manner that,
a) loneliness can be determined by a Challenge Checker.
b) loneliness is not significantly affected by the actions of others. (One of the problems with the usual definition(s) of lonely cache is that a cache can cease to be lonely when people find it.) This is particularly a problem with multiple accounts go on a cache hunt and all find the cache on the same day -- but as they log their finds, someone may get aced out because enough other people in the same group logged the cache first and the cache ceased to be considered to be lonely. And the checker will need to return the same result when the challenger runs it and when the cache owner runs it a week later. (In other words, the CO needs to be able to use the Checker at an arbitrary time in the future to determine if you met the challenge.)

One other alternative to consider -- if you don't want to deal with meeting the requirements of a Challenge Cache, you could make meeting the lonely challenge an option. Make your cache a traditional cache that can be logged without meeting the challenge, but include an optional "Hall of Fame" element. If someone meets the challenge criteria, they get their name added to the Hall of Fame on the cache page. (Such a cache cannot have "Challenge" in its name and cannot have a Challenge Checker on the cache page.) See https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC25WQ2 for an example.
Hope that helps. Let me know if there are further questions.
=LavaLizard=
Groundspeak Volunteer Cache Reviewer


I decided this would be too difficult to create the criteria for my idea, so I took the advise of Lava Lizard and published a traditional with a "Hall of Fame."
Problems:
1. Owning a cache in the top 20 would not count.
2. I would need to get going to meet the criteria. At this time there is no one that would qualify, although some are close.
3. I can provided 10 local cachers who would be in striking distance to completion, but there is no one that qualifies. My idea to make this one interesting was to put it in striking range for all of us, but we would all need to compete as well. This way, it could be a fun local thing we could do together. Without this, it defeats what I was aiming at.
4. Point four kills the idea of top 20. It would work for other types of lonely challenges, but not this one.
5. The 5th point also kills it with meeting the timing criteria.

Ah well, it was a good idea, but just wont work with the new rules. I think the traditional will work best, that way there is no restrictions and we can still have our local contest. Thanks so much for looking into this for me.
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