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Re: HQ appeal about challenge cache local rules - help appreciated

HQ appeal about challenge cache local rules - help appreciated
February 15, 2023 01:38AM
Hi!
I'd gladly use a minor help (suggestions, corrections) of some more experienced checker writers with writing an appeal to the Geocaching HQ about reviewer creating their own, local rules about challenge caches.

After an exchange of messages with my local reviewer we've reached a stalemate where the reviewer forces his own rules, independent from official ones, and I do not recognize them as reasonable considering local geocaching conditions. Reviewer's last suggestion was that either I agree with them or write an appeal. If the situation would relate to my challenges only I would probably let it go but after talks with some of the top cachers of the local community, we've reached a conclusion that it would only make the problem go to the next person creating challenges and postpone the whole situation in time.

All comes to the following part of requirements:
Quote
4. Source of Criteria
Challenge cache owners must demonstrate that there are plenty of qualifying caches to meet the challenge at the time of publication.

Reviewer decided that he will change the following rule to:
Quote
Reviewer
Challenge cache owners must demonstrate that there are plenty of LOCAL qualifying caches to meet the challenge at the time of publication.

As a result, all challenges requiring finding caches abroad will no longer be published. All challenges requiring anything that isn't possible to fulfill with caches within a country's borders will no longer be published. Any Jasmer challenge (even though official rules state otherwise) will no longer be published as it isn't possible to fulfill within a country.

As long as such a rule could possibly make some sense in isolated, geocachingly undeveloped countries, Poland isn't a case for such. We're part of the Schengen Area - a zone of European countries with abolished borders and with the visa-free, passport-free unrestricted movement of people which results in a great part of our geocaching community caching abroad on a yearly, monthly, and sometimes even weekly basis.

Until recently we've had a whole lot of challenges published across the country that required visiting 10, 20, and sometimes even 30 countries as well as multiple continents. Such challenges were fulfilled by quite a large amounts of cachers so there was never a fear of such challenges being dedicated to only small groups of people.

Introducing such a rule will make our country an inglorious exception within European countries' challenge cache standards.

Considering the above I've decided to file an appeal to the HQ within the following few days. If any experienced checker writer, cacher with a history of won appeals, or simply a good soul would like to spare some of their time, share their knowledge, experience, or advice to help this appeal succeed I would be more than grateful and transfer some Project-GC membership time as a token of my gratitude.
Re: HQ appeal about challenge cache local rules - help appreciated
February 16, 2023 05:06AM
Recall that the Guidelines are only guidelines. They are only curated by Geocaching HQ in an attempt to help Reviewers be as consistent and impartial as possible for publications in their region. Reviewers are free to adapt and interpret guidelines however the situation demands.

In my experience, this particular interpretation:

Quote
Reviewer
Challenge cache owners must demonstrate that there are plenty of local qualifying caches to meet the challenge at the time of publication.

is one that a number of Reviewers that I've spoken with subscribe to. For instance, a friend tried to publish a "Find 100 Wherigo caches" Challenge, but was rejected because there were, at the time, only 120 Wherigos in the province. I have seen similar Challenges for numbers of attributes, D/T grids, etc. be rejected because of unavailability of qualifying caches in the region.

That said, your Reviewer's interpretation seems particularly strict. Given that Geocaching is a global location-based game, a complete ban on all Challenges requiring finds in foreign countries is certainly counterproductive.

I wish you the best of luck with your appeal.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2023 05:08AM by Hügh. (view changes)
Re: HQ appeal about challenge cache local rules - help appreciated
April 04, 2023 12:25AM
@Hügh I wanted to transfer you 14 days of premium membership on project-gc as a way of thanking you for your help but I came across a problem - for some reason the "Transfer to" field doesn't take your nickname. Do you know a possible reason for that? If not I'll contact project-gc for help.
Re: HQ appeal about challenge cache local rules - help appreciated
February 17, 2023 07:01PM
Some of the guidelines are very clear, and the reason behind them is quite obvious and sensible.

But, there is way too much room for interpretation in challenge guidelines. It would be quite easy to them to compile a list of what is acceptable, and what isn't. For example, I've heard that challenges requiring a "not-chosen" size are not acceptable anymore (perhaps reasonably, as there aren't many left). But, these aren't part of the guidelines. I've also heard challenges you can "unqualify" for are also generally not acceptable, but also not stated anywhere.

From what I gather, HQ is unwilling to clarify the guidelines, because they like to be able to retroactively disallow any challenges they don't "like". For example, in our area there have been a few challenges force archived recently (including one of mine), because it was deemed after publication (presumably by HQ) that the reviewer shouldn't have published it. However, based on those precedents, there are several other challenges with nearly the same criteria which should also be archived (but haven't been.... yet).

Regardless, in your case, your reviewer's interpretation directly conflicts with guideline #10 - "Challenge cache criteria may be based upon these geographic areas: countries, states/provinces, counties (or their local equivalent)". If you have explicit permission to create challenges based on finds in other countries, it means that there must be non-local finds required in those challenges (unless you live in a super small country), and thus non-local finds must be allowed as criteria.
Re: HQ appeal about challenge cache local rules - help appreciated
March 03, 2023 12:32PM
You are wrong. Rule #10 criteria
refers to the definition of the division of the world into specific administrative units, instead of polygons freely defined / defined by the author of the challenge. You used to be able to set yourself a challenge, e.g. find X cache in district Y in city Z.
This don't have nothing with limitations challenges based on for example "attributes criteria", to caches placed only in one specific county/province/country.
Re: HQ appeal about challenge cache local rules - help appreciated
April 04, 2023 12:22AM
@bmuzzin As a way of thanking you for your help I've transferred you 14 days of premium membership on project-gc :)
Re: HQ appeal about challenge cache local rules - help appreciated
April 04, 2023 12:20AM
So...I feel like some sum-up is needed as the whole thing came to an end. Just in case someone will have a similar problem and would randomly come across this topic.

I've used your suggestions, written an appeal, and sent it to the HQ. The first response I got was a copy-paste response that challenge caches have to follow the guidelines and reviewers are allowed to add their own rules depending on local conditions which was followed by two links to the following topics. After I responded to them that neither of these links contain the rule made by the reviewer their only response was about this single challenge cache where the reviewer proposed something straight against the rules and about all the rest... They said that the reviewer didn't refuse to publish them and they are still a topic to work out with the reviewer - which obviously is not true as the reviewer said it straight that he will not publish caches requiring finds abroad, adding that it was not only his decision but all of the reviewers reviewing in my country. Did they consider it a "work in progress" as cache listings haven't been archived and they did not understand my correspondence with the reviewer (it was all in Polish)? I have no idea at this point. What matters, in the end, is that reviewer himself contacted me saying that after reaching out to reviewers from other countries he decides to revoke his decision and all the challenges which were the topic of the original problem will be published as soon as I resend them to publication.

Now I can only guess that something could have happened behind the scenes. The thing is that it's pretty obvious that from HQ's point of view, the main goal is to de-escalate conflicts, especially on the reviewer's side as the right people for this job are not that easy to find. A nice thing to know was that when I actually met in person with one of the reviewers reviewing for different regions of my country I was said that the decision about introducing this rule was at least not unanimous.

In the end, 3 of 18 challenges had their requirements changed - but these were for reasons that I can agree, that even if they are not against the rules, are fulfilled by the minimal required amount of cachers from the region (which in our country is 10), and they are just easier versions of challenges published nearby (but on the other side of the country border), may be problematic in some ways. So as the valid reasons for the change were shown I had no problem with changing requirements for these 3. All the rest that was refused at the beginning passed the review successfully, all the series got published and just last weekend cachers scored their FTFs on them :)

The final conclusion is that it was worth sending an appeal. Even though the first outcome was negative the final result was the winning of the case, even though not in a very straightforward way. If anyone would have a similar problem in the future - make sure you really learn all the rules, that you understand them, that you can point at specific points in them, and don't give up unless you're sure that the case is finished and you can't come up with more valid arguments.
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