retaining d/t ratings

[peach107]

i have a lot of puzzles posted and most are of a 5 difficulty. if i give 1 person a clue, i feel that it should go out to all. as i release clues to cachers, the difficulty should come down, so i lower the rating. to me this is not fair to the cachers that have already solved and found my puzzle without the use of clues. it is also not right to give clues out and allow cachers to log a 5 difficulty puzzle when this puzzles has thus become a 2 or a 3 with the use of clues. i feel that cachers should retain the d/t levels of a cache at which it was logged and not at the levels to which i have altered them. possible changes in the future of logging caches? just saying.

[huffinpuffin2]

@peach107 wrote:

i have a lot of puzzles posted and most are of a 5 difficulty. if i give 1 person a clue, i feel that it should go out to all. as i release clues to cachers, the difficulty should come down, so i lower the rating. to me this is not fair to the cachers that have already solved and found my puzzle without the use of clues. it is also not right to give clues out and allow cachers to log a 5 difficulty puzzle when this puzzles has thus become a 2 or a 3 with the use of clues. i feel that cachers should retain the d/t levels of a cache at which it was logged and not at the levels to which i have altered them. possible changes in the future of logging caches? just saying.

First off, we greatly enjoy completing your caches, a creatively unique combination of tough puzzles, fun puzzles, and informative Earthcaches. It is apparent you enjoy creating and placing them, likely with a bit of devilish glee.

In reply to your statement:

Just like Finders do things differently, according to what they are ‘comfortable’ with, so should CO’s.

If we might be so bold: You make a good argument for not disclosing any clues on your D5 puzzles. It seems that would clarify your philosophy to Finders, and keep things simple and enjoyable for you, by

– preserving the integrity of the D5 for all who earned the solve on their own,
– removing the need to provide hints,
– eliminates struggling over fairness.

(and as you once noted elsewhere, it should control the number of finds and needed maintenance on those caches.)

Just some thoughts. 🙂 🙂

[JimandLinda]

I’ve always done the D/Ts as if a brand new cacher was going to pick out some caches to look for. Newbies don’t know that they can ask for help, at first. It doesn’t matter to me if a veteran cacher comments on a D/T rating. They can take it as they want to.

I wouldn’t change a rating just because a few cachers “know” the solution, even if they didn’t earn it. Plus, it may change someone’s Blackout grid, and we can’t have that! 😯 😉

[Northwoods Tom]

I have always wondered how the site handles those cache D/T changes. Does it get stored as to what it was on the date found or does it change to its present D/T status.

Along those line, and I personally don’t care to much about “my” D/T stats, when a group of 5 cachers finds a 5/5, shouldn’t they only get a 1/1 credit in their stats when only 1 person in the group solved it?

That’s one of the reasons I don’t put a lot of credence in D/T stats.

As a side note, I think the difficulty on many of your puzzles is to low.

[WStemple]

Since a change in a D/T on a cache is reflected to all finders, their dataase does not store it on the cacher’s find record. That would be a bad database design and causea large load on the server(s). What they are doing is pulling that information from the cache description.

I too would like to see the D/T rating stick with the cacher so that it is not affected by a change to the cache. If there is a cache that has been around for a long, long time and is getting muggled, the CO may make a change of sorts to preserve the cache, but also change the D/T to reflect the change. It would be a shame to archive the cache and “create” a new one just to preserve people’s grids.

[Northwoods Tom]

@JimandLinda wrote:

…it may change someone’s Blackout grid, and we can’t have that!

So does that mean the CO can delete your log? 😯
Some challenges are beyond my present abilities. (Thank goodness)

[peach107]

JimandLinda wrote:
…it may change someone’s Blackout grid, and we can’t have that!

or help?

[Team Deejay]

The reality is that your D/T rating are yours (as a CO) to do with what you want. You can change it every day and no one from Groundspeak will care. Now, admittedly, you might catch some flack from people in these forums, but something tells me that you wouldn’t mind.

[Northwoods Tom]

Numbers, numbers, numbers.

Bring me to a great view or experience in figuring it out and that’s what I personally care about. Maybe we need a “WOW” rating. Favorite points seems to be the closest we have come to that so far. Cache of the month seems to also be aimed towards that. I’m actually one of those that will read others logs to find out if it qualifies as a “WOW”.

[Hardinfam]

D/T should be at a newbie scale. In other words, would a brand new person to geocaching find it really difficult or would they find it easy. Even with help a lot of your puzzles are tough. You are very cryptic with any help you give.

[Todd300]

They are puzzles for a reason. If they give away a lot of help, they might as well make them traditionals, right?

[peach107]

bring it on!!! lovin it!!!

[kungfuhippie]

@Hardinfam wrote:

You are very cryptic with any help you give.

That’s how it should be for hard puzzles to preserve the difficulty level. Honestly, I don’t have problems giving out hints, but my hints may be more tricky and convoluted than my puzzle. If I’m giving away free info, I don’t have to make a D5 into a D1.5

[Northwoods Tom]

@Hardinfam wrote:

Even with help a lot of your puzzles are tough. You are very cryptic with any help you give.

I didn’t even realize Peach gave out any clues let alone cryptic ones. 😯 😯 😯

I’m trying to think if I’ve ever asked for clues. May have. The only one I can remember for sure is “It’s All In the Numbers”-Puzzle” (GC1CF1P). And that was asking the individual who adopted it from you. Never heard back so I figured that I need to figure it out by myself. And then if you go back and look at the most recent log, Peach couldn’t even find it 😯 😯 😯

That’s Cryptic 8)

And I don’t want to hear from any of you smart people out there who found it and on “How Easy It Was”!

[Walkingadventure]

@kungfuhippie wrote:

@Hardinfam wrote:

You are very cryptic with any help you give.

That’s how it should be for hard puzzles to preserve the difficulty level. Honestly, I don’t have problems giving out hints, but my hints may be more tricky and convoluted than my puzzle. If I’m giving away free info, I don’t have to make a D5 into a D1.5

o_o

Following the signals from space.

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