Getting edited log emails about opted-out cachers that opted out years ago. Did the system change>

Question

I receive edited log emails from time to time when a cacher opts out of data collection, and I understand the reason.

Lately, it seems I am receivng them again, for cachers who already opted out, and for whom I was previously emailed.

Why am I being notified again? Did something change in the system to cause new notifications? Is the system running the "edited logs" notifications again for data that was lost and has been restored?

Answer 1

When a player changes the setting on geocaching.com so that third-party applications (like Project-GC) are not allowed to see their information, then Project-GC will get an empty log text for that user the next time we try to refresh a cache that they have logged. This means that Project-GC will think that their log of that cache has been edited (when it really hasn't, but Project-GC has no way of telling the difference between actually editing the log to be empty and changing the permissions like this).

Project-GC continously updates caches, but not everything happens at once. If a cacher changes this setting I would expect notifications going out for at least a month for caches they have logged that are still active, and longer than that for archived caches.

If this cacher then changes the setting back to allow access for third-party applications, then the whole process starts over again. For the caches where Project-GC had had time to detect the previous change, we will eventually detect this change back as well and then send another notification about a changed log.

Comments

I'm now receiving notices on non-opted out users that don't ever appear to have opted out.

So, I'll ask again: what has changed? Because now I know it's not someone who only just opted out or someone who only just reversed their opting out.

And some of these logs are 15 years old, so forgive me if I don't believe that they just happen to have edited their log recently.

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It would be useful if we could get log IDs for some notifications of changes where things seem to be wrong.

(I edited 10-15 years old logs when I started using Project-GC, in order to add FTF tags.)

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First example: https://www.geocaching.com/live/log/GLQ66K7Q

Per email, Change detected at 2024-01-30 10:28:37 UTC

There is no difference between the two logs, and at no time between 2017 and now did I receive a Project-GC email that this log had been edited - I searched my emails for phrases in the log and found none. I do see notes from my reviewer profile that this user changed their name twice, but both of those changes were in 2014, before they logged this cache, so that should not have affected this log.

Original text (from the email I received in 2017):

First official day of geocaching with a purpose on this particular road trip. Been in the area for several days with family activities splitting our time. Today we are focusing on logging caches in Arizona and New Mexico counties, and in the process finding Challenges, Virtuals, Earthcaches, and highly favorited caches. Of course our Team 43 motto is "No Pass Cache" so who knows where and when we will stop along the way.

It has been a fun day exploring the two states. Thanks for your part of our enjoyment today. Signed logs as Team 43 (StarPop, GeoKashers and myself), mostly to save space and time. I think we replaced one cache along the way. Pretty much everything was as it should be for this Smiley filled journey.

Thanks for the earth cache. We will have to send in the required information in a few days.

"Edited log:"

First official day of geocaching with a purpose on this particular road trip. Been in the area for several days with family activities splitting our time. Today we are focusing on logging caches in Arizona and New Mexico counties, and in the process finding Challenges, Virtuals, Earthcaches, and highly favorited caches. Of course our Team 43 motto is "No Pass Cache" so who knows where and when we will stop along the way.

It has been a fun day exploring the two states. Thanks for your part of our enjoyment today. Signed logs as Team 43 (StarPop, GeoKashers and myself), mostly to save space and time. I think we replaced one cache along the way. Pretty much everything was as it should be for this Smiley filled journey.

Thanks for the earth cache. We will have to send in the required information in a few days.

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Second example: https://www.geocaching.com/live/log/GL2Y133C

I no longer have the original email, but I have the log in GSAK. I again see no difference between the edited log and the original log. Kostemer has never changed their user name. Per email, Change detected at 2024-01-30 07:42:35 UTC

Original text:

Bei schönem Sonnenschein erst mal auf die Bank gesetzt und gerechnet. Danach schnell gefunden. TFTC
In: GC
Out: TB

"Edited log:"

Bei schönem Sonnenschein erst mal auf die Bank gesetzt und gerechnet. Danach schnell gefunden. TFTC
In: GC
Out: TB

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For the first log (GLQ66K7Q): Project-GC has seen three versions. One with text, one without, and the one with text again. Thus, you should really have received a third mail as well, in between those two. I have no way of knowing if this was actually sent or now.

Regarding the second one: whether they have changed their username is not relevant here. The relevant thing is the setting on geocaching.com to allow third-party access or not. It could be the same thing there, that you are (also) missing the middle email about the (apparently, but not really) empty log.

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I did not receive an edited log email for empty logs for either of these.

If project-gc thinks the logs became blank, I'm wondering if there was a data loss, and if data was recently restored, the system assumed the logs had been edited and is churning out all of these edited log emails.

I ask because I have been getting emails every day for the past week, containing up to 20 logs at a time, for multiple users, where I used to get perhaps two a month with one or two edited logs in it.

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For reasons unrelated to this, the system is currently refreshing a whole lot of logs and may therefore find log changes previously unseen (which may not necessarily be log changes in reality, but due to permissions as described before the system thinks so).