Challenges

[CodeJunkie]

Some notes based on my second listen of the podcast. I’ve provided approximate timestamps to allow you to scroll through and listen to selected comments.

Virtual History
(~ 5:00)
* Geocaching is about the journey to the location and the “Eureka Moment”.
* Goal is to create that “Eureka Moment” without having the physical container.
(~ 7:15)
* Request to bring virtuals back is the most popular feature request item

Challenges (General)
(~ 11:00)
* Challenging someone to go somewhere and do something.
(~ 11:30)
* Taking the responsibility from the reviewers and putting it on the community
(~ 14:30)
* At a bare minimum the geocaching site is about allowing people to share location based experiences with one another.
(~ 16:20)
* Goal: Turn every location into and adventure
* By taking the container away a lot of the guidelines don’t make a lot of sense and are really unnecessary.
* See how the community responds when the guidelines are lifted.
* The community will regulate the quality of the experience.

Challenges (Specific)
(~ 18:00)
* Thumbs up / thumbs down rating as opposed to star rating for geocaches.
* You can rate it with or without completing the challenge
* Feedback mechanism to report spam, unplayable, etc.
(~ 19:25)
* Challenges aren’t owned by anyone.
* Once a challenge is accepted you have no other rights to the challenge.
* The submitter has no control over the logged completion of challenges.
(~ 23:30)
* Future challenge type will be “Discovery” which is similar to virtuals with some form of “verification” via a word, phrase, color, etc.
* Another option would be scanning a QR Code.
(~ 24:15)
* Without the container, we can go beyond the traditional cache.
* Worldwide challenges are the same as the old locationless caches and can only be created by Groundspeak.
(~ 29:00)
* Allow challenges to be created with mobile devices because the location doesn’t need to be very accurate
(~ 30:00)
* Won’t be in pocket queries yet, but working on GPX downloads
* Will be used more through mobile devices than via traditional GPSr
(~ 31:00)
* Not concerned with duplication of existing virtual with a copy as a challenge
(~ 31:40)
* We’ll be leading by example by creating good location based challenges in our own area to prove it out.
(~ 32:15)
Very basic feature set

Challenge vs. Achievement
(~ 32:00)
Example of the Delorme Map or 50 state and rules could be programmed to automatically give a user the achievement status.

[CodeJunkie]

@hack1of2 wrote:

I would dislike it if the challenges were counted toward our geocaching find total, but they don’t. They’re listed separately. … They just happen to be conveniently totaled on one’s geocaching profile for a handy reference.

If they’re breaking them out on the profile page then why not just break them out in all the places. Seems pretty simple to me (i.e. as a programmer) considering they have plenty of screen space with photo block they’ve added. And if they’re “separate” then why ever total them? And if they’re going to total them, why not put benchmarks into the total because they clearly are differentiated on the individual user pages.

[gotta run]

@GetMeOutdoors wrote:

Gotta Run – stop being so lazy. yeesh!

Sorry, I was out kissing a frog. Or scratching my butt. Basically my usual daily routine.

Ok, so groundspeak is going for the “eureka!” moment. Well, think back to your most memorable adventures. I’m guessing there would be a lot of stories about epic treks capped with FINDING SOMETHING.

Let’s take “Eagle Source,” a GMO favorite 🙂 . Would we have assembled a caching party, driven two hours, then trekked into the middle of a frozen swamp to find a nice view? Ah…..no.

I think there might be a place for these things where containers can’t be hidden, or because of density issues, or whatever. But to say it is for a “eureka” moment–the real surprise comes when you hold the container in your scratched up, dirty, mosquito-bitten, sunburned, grubby fingers. At least in my view of the game.

BUT…as I said before, don’t like ’em, don’t do ’em, and if enough people don’t do ’em they’ll collapse under their own weight of irrelevance.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[GetMeOutdoors]

@gotta run wrote:

Let’s take “Eagle Source,” a GMO favorite 🙂 .

I still haven’t done that one but I want to, I’ve looked at it several times… and yes, I think it will probably get a favorite point from me, based on what others have told me 🙂 Woohoo!

[CodeJunkie]

@gotta run wrote:

But to say it is for a “eureka” moment–the real surprise comes when you hold the container in your scratched up, dirty, mosquito-bitten, sunburned, grubby fingers. At least in my view of the game.

Then you’ll be glad to know I had a “Eureka” moment on Sunday as I was standing thigh deep in muck in a swamp trying to get back into my kayak. No small feat I may add as I tried to extract my legs from the muck and get in without putting one end or the other (or both) into the black goo. I used the method you taught me a few weeks ago and actually had success without getting my A$$ wet this time.

This gives me a great idea for a challenge …

[Team Black-Cat]

@CodeJunkie wrote:

* Request to bring virtuals back is the most popular feature request item

Not really… “Don’t make completions the same as finds” has surpassed that one in just a few days.
Even one about showing coords for solved mystery caches is higher.

* At a bare minimum the geocaching site is about allowing people to share location based experiences with one another.

I though it was about geocaching.

* See how the community responds when the guidelines are lifted.

Check.

* Allow challenges to be created with mobile devices because the location doesn’t need to be very accurate

…and the description doesn’t need to be more than a sentence or two.

* Not concerned with duplication of existing virtual with a copy as a challenge

…or with duplication of an existing challenge 10 feet away.

Very basic feature set

…because we didn’t have time to do this right before our block party last weekend.

[Team Black-Cat]

BTW, thanks for the recap, CJ.

[Lostby7]

Under Review → Started

We are working on splitting out cache finds and challenge completion counts. Both will be displayed on the logs unless you have not found a Challenge. In that case the statistics for Challenges won’t be shown. This should be done by the end of the week (August 26) (30517)
Jeremy

Jeremy
Admin, Geocaching

[huffinpuffin2]

Status Update From “Feedback”:

Bring Back Virtuals
Started → Completed

As you are undoubtedly aware, Challenges are the new virtuals. I encourage you to give the new feature a chance and provide feedback on what can be improved. As Jeremy has posted elsewhere, “Challenges are what you make of it. You have the power to create good Challenges to represent what you want it to be, or let others define the activity for you. I’d prefer the former.”
Moun10Bike

Moun10Bike
Admin, Geocaching

[huffinpuffin2]

[hack1of2]

A well-written blog by Groundspeak co-founder Bryan. I think the concept is brilliant! Knock yourself out with “virtuals” if you want to, but they won’t count as caches! And they’re sustainable by the geocaching community via a voting system.

[CodeJunkie]

@Lostby7 wrote:

Under Review → Started

We are working on splitting out cache finds and challenge completion counts. Both will be displayed on the logs unless you have not found a Challenge. In that case the statistics for Challenges won’t be shown. This should be done by the end of the week (August 26) (30517)
Jeremy

Jeremy
Admin, Geocaching

I think this is a HUGE step in the right direction.

[-cheeto-]

When you click on to add a challenge, now there is a little blurb of instructional text that wasn’t there before:

What makes a good Challenge?

Location-specific

The location of a challenge should be directly related to the action. “Take a picture of yourself with the Eiffel Tower” is location-specific, while “Take pictures of the night sky in Seattle” or “Find this/a geocache” are not. The goal of Challenges, and Geocaching, is to explore the world around you.

There should only be one location where you can complete the challenge. Worldwide Challenges are only issued by Groundspeak, but you can recommend new Worldwide Challenges on our feedback site

Straightforward

The Challenge should be easy to understand and not too complicated to do.

Appropriate

Keep Challenges clean so it reflects the family-friendliness of Geocaching.

Fun!

Like geocaching, Challenges should be a light and fun activity. Create Challenges that reflect this.

[Braid Beards Gang]

I kind of wish that you would have to complete a challenge, before giving it a thumbs up or down.

[Braid Beards Gang]

Mr. Irish posted this on Facebook. I think it is what he wants challenges to be:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4XkF5AeuJo

[Author]

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