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Re: Lab caches included in challenges?

Lab caches included in challenges?
June 21, 2019 09:09PM
Hi folks,
according to https://project-gc.com/forum/read?7,27 lab caches are not included in the challenge checker system yet.\

Are there plans in changing that?
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
June 24, 2019 06:48PM
It is not possible to - Geocaching HQ's API currently does not provide Lab cache data to API partners.
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
June 25, 2019 03:11PM
... and lab caches may not be used in challenges as per rule 10 of the challenge cache guidelines...
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
January 14, 2020 06:34PM
I know that the guidelines disallow "specifying Lab cache finds", but doesn't disallow using them to qualify for a challenge.
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
January 14, 2020 10:43AM
Project-GC actually has lab cache data. But since the Guidelines for Challenges disallow them, we are not exposing the data. It's quite a mess of incompatibility anyway.
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
January 14, 2020 06:28PM
What bothers me is this: HQ allows Lab Caches in streaks, so according to Geocaching.com statistics my streak is 555 days long. But PGC doesn't count lab caches in streaks, so whenever I use a "streak checker" I am told that my streak is only 263 days long (I logged a Lab on day #264.) If you have access to "found date" data, why don't they get counted in streaks?

Also, it's not like HQ has outright "banned" Lab caches for challenges — see https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2016/05/return-of-challenge-caches/

Quote

We are not permitting Lab Cache challenges because Lab Caches are temporary, are generally only available to those who attend Mega- or Giga-Events, are not associated with Found It logs, and are not completely integrated into Geocaching.com stats. However, since they are included in user profile stats for Total Finds, Longest Streak, and Finds for Each Day of the Year grid, we are making an exception to permit Lab Caches to be used as qualifiers for challenges related only to those metrics.

I know that it's an old blog post and not the guidelines, but it might be worth checking with HQ.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2020 06:37PM by Hügh. (view changes)
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
January 14, 2020 06:43PM
Hügh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Also, it's not like HQ has outright "banned" Lab
> caches for challenges — see
> https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2016/05/return-of-challenge-caches/

You are probably right, I just didn't recall the Guidelines correctly.

Lab caches has been a topic before, and it has been under discussion how we should implement it. I don't really recall the forum thread about it and the result, but as I remember it, there was never an agreement of how it should work.

The simplest solution is to just add a new method, and let the LUA scripts handle the merge, for those Challenges where it's relevant. I have now added such method in our development environment, expecting a release of it tomorrow.

	/// @brief Returns an associative array with the labcache finds from given profileId.
	///
	/// Returned fields: guid, name, date_found
	/// @param[in] int $profileId An integer with the users profile id.
	public static function GetLabCacheFinds($profileId) {

I could also add an option to GetFinds() to include the Labcaches there as well. However, several fields will be empty/null, and we have no way to sort Geocaches and Labcaches found the same day. We are currently lacking data for to know the order.

Including it in GetFinds() will require a bit of my work in my end, but I will try to look at it.
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
January 14, 2020 06:46PM
That sounds great! If you could also make sure to update the TopStreak page (https://project-gc.com/Statistics/TopStreak)... I would be happy :)
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
January 14, 2020 07:10PM
Hügh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That sounds great! If you could also make sure to
> update the TopStreak page
> (https://project-gc.com/Statistics/TopStreak)... I
> would be happy :)

Top streaks isn't related and that works completely different. If we update that, we will have to update every other top list on the site. Otherwise it doesn't make sense. As it is now, it's a super hard task to do this, sadly.

The issue is that labcaches and geocaches aren't compatible at all. They do not exist in the same data tables and that makes it very hard to run live analyzes on millions of users.

I honestly doubt it will happen even within a year.
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
January 14, 2020 10:54AM
Not really checker related, but will Project-GC ever show owned lab caches on the profile statistics?
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
January 14, 2020 10:57AM
I can't answer for the fact if we will do it years from now. But right now, no, we don't have owner data.

I remember asking for it, don't remember HQs reason to not handing it out.

CREATE TABLE `labcaches` (
`guid` char(36) CHARACTER SET ascii NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(128) COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci DEFAULT NULL,
`first_found_date` date DEFAULT NULL,

CREATE TABLE `labcache_logs` (
`labcache_guid` char(36) CHARACTER SET ascii NOT NULL,
`log_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
`profile_id` int(10) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
`date_found` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
January 14, 2020 11:09AM
Aha, thanks for clarifying. Seems there's very little information on lab caches then, unless there's more tables with the rest of the information?
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
January 14, 2020 11:31AM
That's all the information Project-GC has, and if I recall correctly we store everything that's exposed to us via the API methods (for labs) we have paid for.

I think there actually are two dates in the API. One that's UTC and one that's "local". We only keep one of them, the one that seems to match correctly with the dates as shown on Geocaching.com.

The first_found_date column is probably something we have created ourselves as well.
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
January 15, 2020 12:13PM
Two implementations ready for testing: https://project-gc.com/forum/read?6,35985
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
March 08, 2020 12:57PM
Has anyone checked with HQ in which way Labs may or may not be included in challenges?

Quote

We are not permitting Lab Cache challenges because Lab Caches are temporary, are generally only available to those who attend Mega- or Giga-Events, are not associated with Found It logs, and are not completely integrated into Geocaching.com stats. However, since they are included in user profile stats for Total Finds, Longest Streak, and Finds for Each Day of the Year grid, we are making an exception to permit Lab Caches to be used as qualifiers for challenges related only to those metrics.

Does this still hold?

What about "Find X different types"? Or really just these three specific cases?

And are there any other challenges affected? I can't think of any since Labs don't have D/T, no country associated and name/owner/cacheid/gccode are not allowed for challenges (and partially not even accessible via gc.com).
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
March 08, 2020 01:01PM
I haven't updated myself on the topic. I assume nothing has changed.
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
March 08, 2020 02:21PM
I'm happy to create/modify scripts to cater for Lab Caches, but not if HQ is just going to rip the carpet from underneath us. So who will be able to ask HQ as to whether/where they will be allowed in challenges?
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
March 09, 2020 11:30AM
pieterix Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm happy to create/modify scripts to cater for
> Lab Caches, but not if HQ is just going to rip the
> carpet from underneath us. So who will be able to
> ask HQ as to whether/where they will be allowed in
> challenges?

I don't have any good contact for this. In my opinion, the best thing is to try to publish such challenge, and be open with the reviewer that it might break that rule, and ask the reviewer if he/she wants to ask HQ, or one should appeal it, or if the reviewer thinks its super clear of course.

But I have a feeling it can end up being multiple appeals before the whole things has a final interpretation.

Personally I don't think "Find X different types" would be accepted, since it's not listed in their exception list.
Re: Lab caches included in challenges?
March 09, 2020 11:38AM
Yet it features under the different types on the geocaching.com statistics page. Given your new flag on PGC.GetFinds() I could easily adapt a script to cater for that. I suppose it can still be used for grandfathered challenges.
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