[Resolved] New problem with checker

Hi

Sorry to bother you again.

I have a new problem with my checker for GC82G84

My reviewer just decided that Danish counties (kommuner) are illegal to use as challenge requirements - as of now we're only allowed to use Countries and Regions. He also tried to make it illegal to require finds in a specific month though it is clear in article 9 that it is ok - he referred to article 13.

Could you please change it to be Region Hovedstaden instead of Tårnby/Dragør?

Thanks for your patience

There's nothing in the guidelines stating that counties may not be used, so I disagree with the reviewer there. I agree with the reviewer regarding the find date though, as that violates rule 13. If you want to retain the 7, you could always change your challenge to find a cache placed in the 7th month? Just my 5 cents...

Edit: Hmm, rule 9 will allow you to specify the find month, so not illegal.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2019 07:35PM by pieterix. (view changes)

Hi

Thanks for your input, pieterix - always a pleasure!

The challenge states that you need to find a cache in the US and a cache in Dragør/Tårnby in the month of July - just one each place. He has accepted that for now. It follows article 9 "Finding some number of caches per month, provided the number is cumulative over all years. Example, 100 finds in Januarys."

The county-thing he brought up to HQ (and so did I) and they took his word for it that the Danish "kommuner" are not valid tough I referred to pgc and the way it's stated here. He believes that counties = danish "regioner" which are the 2nd layer of geographical areas and "kommuner" are the 3rd layer of geographical areas in the country.

Though I strongly agree with you in this matter, but I need to get this cache out in the world as it was approved of another rewiever last week and pre-released at an event. The reviewer who approved it discovered the error of the locationless counting as the US and didn't lock it then and set a release date because of that.

Understood. I've alerted sumbloke to modify the checker for you.

Updated to region=Hovedstaden. Please confirm it is working as expected now.

Thanks - it looks allright.

I'm still debating with my reviewers though and wondering if you can help:

What is the string difference in the checker code weather it's Hovedstaden or if it's Tårnby/Dragør?

And as of now the reviewers have decided that County = the Danish regions - what influence will that have on the code/the site if they insist on keeping it like that?

We don't know your local area so can't comment on which is the correct name to use. All we can see are regions and counties as defined by Geocaching HQ and Project GC, so we'll simply use whatever you give us to use.

Thanks for the answer, though that was not what I meant :-)

for starters: Denmark is a country divided in 5 Regions and 98 "kommuner". The Regions don't have much power politically - it's the country and the kommuner that have that. Cities and towns within the kommuner do not have any power politically at all - it's all controlled by the kommuner and the country.

If the Danish regions are converted to be named counties instead of states/regions (or what it says in the code) - how would that influence the site? As if the regions should be counted as counties in all aspects?

In my pov it will cancel all current checkers on regions (Hovedstaden, Sjælland, Sydanmark, Midtjylland, Nordjylland) and change current checkers based on kommuner (98 different within the regions) - including checkers in the rest of the world as - again in my pov - you cannot differ from the code in pgc as it is now where country=Denmark, Region=those 5 mentioned before and Counties= 98 kommuner. So if say I make a challenge that will require the user to having found let's say 5 US counties and all 5 Danish counties (currently regions) then you will have to make a different script for the two strings. Right? (and of course remember that counties in Denmark = regions and that what pgc defined as counties are "illegal" - unless the site's code is rewritten).

(I'm trying to get some good arguments for my case here as you may see ;-) and a bit stubborn..)

I also got a list from magma1447 of challenges created this year to check up on which ones fit my pov :-)

Last I've tried to decipher the code text of the challenge checker but cannot find the string where the region/county is defined. Of course I'll be looking more thoroughly at it later. I have this one challenge and a couple of others to compare as I've had 2 challenges published already that's on kommune-level.

Both Geocaching HQ and Project GC have built-in "maps" of the sub-divisions of most countries. This structure is available to us on the checker system as country / region / county. Project GC normally follows what Geocaching HQ uses fairly closely and magma1447 alerts us whenever any of those structures are changed or renamed and then we update all the affected checkers to the best of our ability. I'm not privy to the structure (political or other) of Denmark (other than what you've described above) and all we see on the checker system are 5 regions and 98 counties. They might have other names in local context but that's not important to us. All we use are country / region / county. For example GC86YGM shows as Denmark / Hovedstaden / Gribskov in Project GC but only Denmark in Geocaching HQ. No idea if this answers your question/comment, but if it doesn't, feel free ask specific questions and I'll try to answer.

Thanks for your clearification. That will help me in my argumentation.

I also wrote the pgc-mail for more info on the technicalities as I know you gus just make the checkers from what information you have :-)

Lastly:
When you code the checkers: what is the string you use to decide the geographical area? I still haven't found it in my search of the code from my checker (maybe I'm not looking in the correct place)

The config has: region == 'Hovedstaden'. We've used region since that's where Hovedstaden is shown in the structures. As mentioned in earlier post, "region" is simply the name of the 1st level under country and "county" is the 2nd level.

Thanks for your great help - much appreciated!

I got a message back from another one of my reviewers: they stand on their new opinion that the Danish kommuner (counties) are too small of a unit to make challenges of off. That it will open up for too many challenges in the country. Well - we have quite a few challenges on that unit size in fact they allowed two for me personally in 2017 and 2019 and also for others after the new guidelines.

What is the situation with this request ?? Can we move it to ARCHIVE Checker requests

Please mark it completed - I'm still waiting for the rewievers to publish it - it is in the que.