Re: Technical support for event start/end times

This is this far undocumented, but there has just been added technical support in challenge checkers to retrieve information of which time events start and ends.

The event start/end times can be retrieved by adding either event_start_end as a field to GetFinds(). Or event_start and/or event_end. The data will then be returned in the fields event_start_date, event_start_time, event_end_date, event_end_time.

That events have a timestamp in HQ's database is "new" (several years old now) so it doesn't exist for all events. Events which doesn't have this will get the value false in the LUA sandbox.

Most important - Project-GC needs to refresh information about ~500,000 events to retrieve this data. It's in progress. I am expecting it to be finished in 24-48 hours from now. Before that there should be no attempt to actually publish a challenge checker with this information.

Also, we do not know if this data will be accepted to use for challenges.

We've had plenty of requests for checkers that use the event time, but didn't have a way to get the data, other than parsing the description (as more recent events have a standardized way to display the date). So, we'll probably be finding out soon enough whether this is acceptable... I might make one myself to try it out. Thanks!

If you do, and remember, please post the outcome. I have a personal interest as well.

I asked Geocaching HQ about using event times for challenges and they responded that it's not permitted as a challenge criteria as it's not searchable on Geocaching.com.

And they never seem to take this as a sign that their search function sucks...

I've been cited the "not searchable" guideline before, but actually reading the guideline,

"must come from information broadly available on Geocaching.com such as on the statistics page, cache placement dates, types, attributes, souvenirs, etc." and
"must be verifiable through information on Geocaching.com. "

Which doesn't actually say anything about searching, just verifying. So, I'm not sure if they changed the language or not, because I swear it mentioned searching before.

On the other hand, when would you actually search for _event times_ as a normal geocacher? For challenges, sure. But for "just geocaching" it doesn't seem likely.

I dunno... Maybe you want to make sure you'll have hours to hang with your people. It really wouldn't be hard to add a better search... they celebrated adding attribute search after like 15 years (but not NEGATIVE attributes, because that's too hard). I don't know JavaScript, but it can't be that hard.... I wish they would hire me... I'd fix it all.

I submitted my challenge... I await the inevitable rejection.

Seems to work reasonably well... it appears that events back to 2019 have these values, although I'm not sure if more will populate as the process is ongoing. This is probably the first one I'll try to test the water with my reviewers (who are PICKY). Attend 20 events (any type) that are at least 2 hours long:

https://project-gc.com/Challenges//91152

... now I need to go out into the real world and actually hide something! :)

There are ~120,000 (25%) events left to refresh the data for. Since the newest ones have been refreshed first I would assume that the date you have found is the break point for when this feature was added by HQ, and that there won't be any new ones found.

All events should be refreshed now. It went faster than I hoped for.

Just to update - yes, my challenge was rejected by my reviewer, and also GC HQ appeals. Strike one for creativity.

But, due to the massive inconsistency in reviewers, others might be luckier. As I said, mine are keen on "the rules" (even "the hidden rules"), and so I didn't expect much. I also suspect they're reading these forums and saw me coming from a mile away... so maybe I need to be more stealthy :)

I am not surprised that reviewers rejected it. Or, they should at least ask HQ. But I am actually surprised that HQ rejected it. I'm my opinion it's within Guidelines. But I guess they didn't like the concept then, or are afraid of where it will head.

A lot of time wasted then. :(

I'm not surprised HQ has rejected it. I've had 5 or 6 appeals about challenges, and never has HQ allowed them, even though none of them actually violate any guideline. They said for this one "because it's not searchable on geocaching.com"... which is what I expected, but as I said above, isn't actually a guideline (and also BS, because you can just search for Megas, which would qualify by definition).

I know they have an internal forum where they've made all these decisions, because I've had it referenced to me several times, but no matter who/how many times I ask, they just tell me that it would be too complicated to release into the public
(because people on here *always* thoroughly read the guidelines before requesting a checker! :)) Anyhow, it's pretty unfortunate, because it would really help us out not creating challenge checkers that they've pre-decided aren't allowed.