Re: Scripts supporting to exclude attributes?

This is only by part related to script development, but since I am BOFH I guess I can do what I want?

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The conclusion is that I wish to create a challenge where a certain (or a pair of) attribute doesn't count. Imagine for example "Full D/T on geocaches not requiring boat", though that's not my plan. But it's simpler to understand.

Are there currently any scripts supporting the requirement of an amount of finds or similar (like full D/T, full calendar), where finds with certain attributes are excluded? And if so, is there any challenges actually using this? I have been trying to search as well as I can, and I couldn't find any. To be honest I am surprised that I am the first person to have this idea.

You're not the first to have this idea, but no, I never finished the script I envisaged. :-)

@pieterix Thank you for the information. I took a shortcut when doing it, I added hard coded options to the three scripts I wanted to use (which were already my own). One parameter per setup I wanted to avoid. For example noParkAndGrab: true.

However, HQ doesn't seem too fond of the idea and I don't really see their point yet. Even though prejudices doesn't exist I wanted to scan the market to see what already existed, to see if there are any challenges based on the same concept that more clearly are very good ideas.

See, I can partly understand the point of view to be against challenges that try to avoid to include certain geocaches/series. And it could potentially be that they are opening the door by allowing what I am suggesting. What I have an issue with is that my challenges god denied, with reference to a 100% unrelated rule in the guidelines, "14. Positive Challenge Criteria".

As I see it that rule is all about not making the user *not* geocache. This is not the case here, there is no disadvantage of logging anything, it just doesn't help for the challenge. Just as a T1 doesn't help if you are supposed to log 100 T5s.

But most of all I think that they with their statement are preferring cache series where 60-70% have the wrong rating above seriously designed challenges. Or, it's just a big misunderstanding, since the referred to rule isn't related.

I suspected they would deny challenges like this. They seem to be anti anything where something is excluded. But then again they're not very consistent with their decisions, especially when it comes to their souvenir challenges where users often have to do stuff that are actually against challenge guidelines (date based finds where some people have to effectively stop caching until that starting date is reached since they've already found most if not all caches close to their home coordinates). I don't agree that this is against rule 14. To me it would be the same as requiring X finds in county A, so if you find caches in county B, they won't count. It's the same for your proposed challenge. If you find a cache with attribute C, it simply won't count for the challenge. It'll still count as a find and won't penalise you for completing the challenge. Reading your response again, it's the same as your T1 vs T5 example.

This certainly seems like a different take on the negative rule.

Fizzy doesn't reward DT's you already found.
Jasmer doesn't reward months you already found.
Collect attributes doesn't reward attributes you already found.

There have been comments in the community that the Attributes may not have been checked as closely say DT's and therefore are not reliable for challenges. This was in context of attribute Fizzy's which seem quite popular now. Maybe you are seeing a response to this sentiment.

A fizzy with no park and grabs seems like a fine challenge.

So after some more thinking, there might be an argument that makes sense to you. It discourages CO's from using attributes.

On the flip side, attributes are supposed to be pretty cut and dry. If special equipment is needed, T5. If the equipment has an attribute, then select it.

@sloth96 Absolutely, I agree, good argument. And it would have been nice if HQ actually had arguments like that.

But I also agree with your flip side. Sometimes COs actually could need some discouragement on that topic. And also on the other hand, many challenge discourages low ratings then, which should be at least as big of an issue. But it also seems that geocaches are getting higher and higher rating for less and less effort, though I doubt challenges are the (pure) reason behind that.

I just feel quite frustrated when people can log a "Full D/T multis" challenge because they logged all 81 D/Ts in five hours on a trail, where ~75 could be solved from home (I did that), and 50-60 of them has wrong rating, in both D and T. For example, then there are plenty of such series with mysteries as well. But yes, it would definitely become a problem if such COs choose to not use the proper attributes to make their geocaches work with a challenge like mine. However, I personally don't think they have made their series to actually nerf the challenges, so I don't think they will walk that path. But that's guesses from my side of course.