What’s to keep someone from just resubmitting a similar challenge?
After thinking about it for a couple of days, I think I figured out why “challenges” bug me so much. It’s not because of the easy numbers and armchair logging.
What really bugs me is that recently, the whole experience of geocaching has become so diluted. It used to be when you mentioned geocaching, the response would be “Oh, that sounds cool!”. Now the response is more like “We’ve tried that. Kind of stupid”.
If I was starting now, I would probably have the same thought. Now with challenges being lumped in with geocaches, it’s gotten even more so. I can’t see very many newcommers sticking around for much more than a summer.
I think challenges could be “fixed” without much rewiring. When a new challenge is submitted, it won’t show up as a geocache listing until AFTER it passes the existing “peer review” process. The crap will sink and never become a cache listing. The best will be allowed to become full fledged geocache listings on Geocaching.com and have real description pages, a ghosty icon and real logs.
The reviewers wouldn’t be burdened with all the crap listings, virtuals would be back in the same familiar format and the whole geocaching experience would be better.
I haven’t submitted this to Grouondspeak Feedback since right now it would probably get lost in the noise. If someone wants to submit it, feel free…
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