Re: GC9XZP0 Twin Town Challenge Munich

I need a checker for my twin town challenge. GC9XZP0
There are exists some checker for other towns, they use the Generic County checker (by Rikitan).

The twin towns for munich are:
Edinburgh (Scotland)
Bordeaux (France)
Cincinnati (USA)
Kiew (Ukraine) or Kyiv
Harare (Simbabwe)
Sapporo (Japan)
Verona (Italy)
Be'er Scheva (Israel)

Thanks, Petra

Unfortunately "town" is too specific a region to require finds in. The best we can do is the county the town is in, or, for regions that don't use counties, the region. For example the best we can do for Sapporo, Japan is the prefecture of Hokkaido.

In addition, please clarify how this challenge works. Do you need one find for every town? Or only one find in at least one of the towns?

county is good, i think the other twin town checkers are the same.
You need to find one physical cache in one of the counties, not in every.

Understood.

I will probably leave this for one of the other taggers since I am on a road trip (only phone.) However if I arrive at the hotel and it still hasn't been created I can borrow a laptop.

EDIT: See below.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2022 12:03AM by Hügh. (view changes)

@Tintenklexx Have you checked if this challenge would be accepted by a reviewer? I tried to get a several challenges published with similar conditions, but they were all rejected, either because cities (or towns) are not a defined geographic area on Geocaching or because I 'made up' my own subset of geographic areas (for example: you cannot have 'find a cache in X EU-countries' as a challenge, because the EU is not a recognised geographical division on Geocaching). I think this goes for your challenge idea as well. In my opinion, your challenge is very creative and fun to accomplish, but unfortunately with these new challenge guidelines, they don't allow a lot of creative challenges like these anymore

What the Challenge Cache Guidelines say is:

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Challenge Cache Guidelines
Challenge cache criteria may be based upon these geographic areas: countries, states/provinces, counties (or their local equivalent).

Hence, a Challenge cache based on finding caches in cities is not publishable.

Unless, of course, the city is in its own county. For example, "find one cache in the city of Los Angeles" could be rephrased to the almost equivalent "find one cache in Los Angeles County, California."

However, this can't always be done. For example, Japan has no "counties", which means that "find one cache in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan" is not publishable. Luckily, it sounds like Tintenklexx is willing to change that to "find one cache in Hokkaido, Japan," as per their post above. This is publishable.

Quote
Pihoqahiak
because I 'made up' my own subset of geographic areas (for example: you cannot have 'find a cache in X EU-countries' as a challenge, because the EU is not a recognised geographical division on Geocaching)

This one is tough. However (if you apologize to the English) and then alter the Challenge slightly to "find one cache in X member Nations of the European Union," that should absolutely be publishable. You have not "made up" a set of regions/states/countries that suits your whims. "Member Nation of the European Union" is not a list that you can even remotely control.

Similarity, unless Tintenklexx is Mayor of Munich, "Sister Cities of Munich" is not something they can control.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2022 05:18PM by Hügh. (view changes)

This challenge was rejected by a reviewer:

Find a cache in 3 non-sovereign countries or territories.

Sovereign countries will be defined as the 193 UN member states + 2 observer states (Vatican City and Palestine). The remaining 55 countries or territories defined by GC will qualify for this challenge, being: {insert list here}

I never suggested my EU-country example after this, because I think it would be rejected for the same reason. I can't see what's wrong with this challenge, but the explanation I got was (translated to English): "You are not allowed to make selections on the data other than shared on geocaching.com". That means basically that you can only create challenges based on single countries or continents. Funnily enough, a simple challenge based on continents was rejected a few weeks later by the same reviewer, because 'continents were also no longer allowed'. It was only accepted if the full list of countries per continent was included on the cache page. This was apparently because the definition of continent by GC and PGC differ slightly, so it had to be specified.

Needless to say, I'm a bit confused about what is and what isn't allowed as challenge criteria anymore...

Your Reviewer's justification sounds strange to me. There is a huge difference between:

Quote

Find a cache in 3 non-sovereign countries or territories.

and

Quote

Find at least 6512 caches in Canada, and at least 308 caches in the United States, and at least 202 caches in Japan...

One of those is a very specific list that I have "maliciously" constructed (in fact, those are my exact statistics for those nations.) The other is a list that is entirely beyond my control. In addition, if

Quote

You are not allowed to make selections on the data other than shared on geocaching.com

are you permitted to publish a Challenge based on elevation? For example, "find 10 caches above 3,000m elevation." Geocaching.com does not provide this data; however, I have confirmed (a few years ago) with Geocaching HQ that this is permitted.

Anyways, no point in you being the messenger in this debate between me and your Reviewer. Ultimately each Reviewer interprets the guidelines differently, and they have the power to enforce them however they see fit.

I will ask a reviewer if the challenge will be accepted.

I strongly believe that this should be publishable. (Make sure that you clarify that you are not requiring finds in the city, but in the county within which the city sits.)

However, in the off chance it is not, I will wait until your Reviewer responds. This will take some research effort on my part, that I would rather avoid if the checker will not live to see the light of day.

I have the answer from the reviewer. He said the challenge can be published. Cacher that want to log the cache, have to find one cache in one of the counties ( or regions ) were the twin towns are.

Cool. I am currently helping setup a certain Giga — once I get home I will set this up.

Here is a Checker.

https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC9XZP0/70603

It currently requires a single Traditional (*) cache find in at least one of:

- United Kingdom (Country), Southern Scotland (Region), Edinburgh (County)
- France (Country), Nouvelle-Aquitaine (Region), Gironde (County)
- United States (Country), Ohio (Region), Hamilton County (OH) (County)
- Ukraine (Country), Kyiv (Region)
- Zimbabwe (Country), Harare (Region)
- Japan (Country), Hokkaido (Region)
- Italy (Country), Veneto (Region), Verona (County)
- Israel (Country), South (Region), Beersheba (County)

Do let me know if you would like to change anything.

(*) I have filtered down to Traditional caches since it is difficult to define what happens when the posted coordinates are within the city but the final coordinates are not. Project-GC only has access to the posted coordinates.

Thank you very much. Can you change a thing. I want more cache types than only traditional. Every physical cache is possible.
Thanks

When you say "Physical" cache -- any cache with a logbook? (so no Event, GPS Maze, Locationless, Virtual, EC, etc...)

yes, thats rights. Every cache with a logbook.

Ok. Give me one moment. The link will be the same so you can put it in your cache page and get ready to submit to the Reviewer.

Changes have been made. Accepted types are Traditional Cache, Multi-cache, Unknown Cache, Letterbox Hybrid, and Wherigo Cache. I have not included Geocaching HQ/Project APE since those have logbooks but they are not located in sister cities thus could not possibly be used to qualify.

Note that for everything other than Traditional, it is the posted coordinates that count.

It looks good now. Only the name of the Cache is missing. I have changed it a little bit. Now is:
Twin Town Challenge - Munich

That will automatically get added once your cache is published.

OK, thank you very much for your work.