Challenges No More.

I was going to write an article about my thoughts and musing on the Challenges created by Groundspeak, Inc., on the one year anniversary of their introduction.  However, I had some pressing issues preventing me from posting at the time.

Boy, am I ever glad I waited.

Groundspeak, Inc. sent out the following email to members on Dec. 4, 2012 :

"Dear Geocacher,

In our effort to inspire outdoor play through Geocaching, we are often faced with decisions about what to focus on next, and to focus on less.  It is through these decisions that we explore opportunities to grow the global game of Geocaching.

Occasionally, during this process, we are faced with the reality that certain ideas don't catch on as we had hoped.  In these situations we owe it to ourselves and to you to make tough decisions about the future of every project and the resources to be applied to each.  Sometimes, as a result, cool features must become casualties.

In this spirit, we have decided to retire Geocaching Challenges.

This means, that, effective today, we have disabled the ability to create new Challenges.  We have also removed the Challenges application from all mobile application stores.  In approximately 7 days, we will be removing the Challenges functionality and related content from Geocaching.com.

On an office wall here at HQ is a sign that reads, "Let's make better mistakes tomorrow."  By accepting that we will sometimes get it wrong, we can allow ourselves to learn from and imagine new opportunities in the world of Geocaching.  Our hope is we can take the lessons from Challenges and create better tools to guide you on your next adventure.

Sincerely, 

Geocaching.com" 

Groundspeak, Inc. launched Challenges on Aug. 17, 2011 amid much fanfare.  The concept, according to co-founder and Groundspeak, Inc. CEO Jeremy Irish was this: "It became quickly apparent that the community wanted virtuals back as much as we did. However, knowing the history of virtuals, we couldn’t just flip a switch and have the same process again. So we sat in a room and tried to distill the idea of virtuals into one sentence. The result was “go somewhere and do something.” This evolved into Geocaching Challenges." (source: Groundspeak, Inc. Blog Latitude 47 titled The Eureka Moment: Challenges Aug. 17 2011 accessed Dec. 4 2012 from http://blog.geocaching.com/2011/08/the-eureka-moment-challenges/).

Within the first week, there was backlash from the Geocaching community:

• Worldwide Challenges (i.e., "Kiss a Frog") were accused of promoting "armchair caching"
• Forum posters were angry and called Challenges a cheap cop-out for replacing virtuals
• Geocachers did not like the fact that Challenges were counting as part of the finds total

Groundspeak, Inc., to their credit, addressed many of these issues quickly, changing requirements for creating Challenges and separating find totals from completed Challenge totals.

Things died down, and caching continued on.

Challenges in the region where I am from never really caught on.  I gave it an attempt.  I did 12 Challenges, and I created 1.  I found the whole concept fraught with problems from concept to execution to delivery to completion.

For me, there were 3 basic areas where Challenges fell flat.

The idea that Challenges were a replacement for virtuals 

Groundspeak, Inc's idea that Challenges would be a suitable replacement for virtual caches in the eyes of cachers likely doomed this idea from the start.  I personally felt that the Challenges idea was a big cop out by Groundspeak, Inc.  Virtuals were problematic for volunteer reviewers and staff:  there were poor quality of submissions -interesting statues and landmarks were being replaced with spray painted bridges and the local Tim Horton's; armchair logging was commonplace with information readily available through a quick Google search; and, there were no consistent rules from reviewers on what constituted a "good" virtual.  The decision was made to grandfather them.  Here is the thing: The same problems that grandfathered the virtual cache existed with Challenges- poor quality, armchair logging, no rules.

To me, a virtual cache is similar to an earthcache in how you play: go to a location of interest, find the answer to a question posed by the cache owner, and then email said answer to the cache owner in order to log the find.  So why can guidelines be created for an earthcache, but not a virtual?  Groundspeak, Inc. can create all number of guidelines for where a cacher can place a cache, the distance between caches, what constitutes an event, etc.  So why not clear, consistently enforced guidelines governing the creation of a virtual cache?

No control for the creator past creation

If you created a Challenge, your ownership for editing purposes lasted a mere 24 hours or until it was found.  The creator was not responsible to keep an eye on the area, nor were they required to police or review logs.  

It is like that old infomercial tag line: "Set it and forget it!"

This was an obvious attempt by Groundspeak, Inc. to get a large number of Challenges out there, and appeal to newer cachers through fast creation and a lack of responsibility for maintaining something like a physical container.  However, ownership, and the responsibility for cache placement and maintenance that comes with it, is the cornerstone for good, high quality cache hides.  With no ownership of the Challenge, there was no reason or opportunity for the creator to track logs, view what the level of enjoyment cachers had in doing the Challenge, or potentially improving the Challenge over time.  That aspect of caching was lost.

Not user friendly

This was the major issue that I had with Challenges: They were simply to hard to find compared to a geocache.  Being able to see Challenges on the map, and download them via a GPX file, would have gone a long way towards realizing the full potential of this concept.  Groundspeak, Inc. even acknowledges these areas for improvement under their official Challenges FAQ.  It is a shame the concept never became reality.  Making Challenges as easy to access as a geocache would have gone a long way to improve the enjoyment of Challenges as a whole.  I know I would have done a lot more of them if I could have seen them on the map while planning my caching route for the day.  Being able to download a GPX file of Challenges to my GPS from that map would have been awesome.

Groundspeak, Inc.  launched Challenges as a (now) failed attempt to quell public outcry for not bringing back virtual caches.  

Now is the time to move in the right direction.  Please, Groundspeak, Inc., bring back the virtual caches we all know and love. 

Five Years of Fun.

The title of my blog is borrowed from a cache hidden in the New Maryland area (GC1JWX). It seemed appropriate given what today is.

September 17, 1997, I found my first geocache GCPD5C Royal Road Park by Ace226 (traditional cache).

That means today is officially my 5th year geocaching anniversary. So, I decided to go through some of my statistics. These are official ones found through the geocaching.com statistics feature on a cacher's profile page:

Find Rate: 1.8119 caches/day

Longest Streak: 12 consecutive days with finds from 09/22/2007 to 10/03/2007

Longest Slump: 27 consecutive days without a find from 01/10/2010 to 02/06/2010

Best Day: 121 caches in one day on 10/23/2010

Best Month: 192 caches in October of 2010

Best Year: 851 caches in 2010

I currently have found 3,316 caches in 4 provinces, 1 state, and 2 countries. Not too shabby, considering the personal struggles I have gone through the past 3 years (the loss of my father, father in-law, and an 11 year old niece, loss and struggles with work), and the demands of work, my wife finishing her PhD, and raising 8, 5, and 1 year old girls. The stats are obviously fluid. I have a current goal of finding 1,000 geocaches in a calendar year; as a result, both the Find Rate and Best Year stats will change.

I decided to dig deeper and look at some other, more unusual or interesting, stats:

28,877. Those are the number of kilometres I have put on the travel tag attached to my geocaching "murse" (I actually call the trackable "forestfauna's murse"). It has visited 2,025 caches since it was activated on July 29, 2010.

702 and 5,495. Those are number of caches visited, and kilometres hiked, with my hiking stick, Woody, which I turned into a trackable item on October 4, 2009. I made Woody by hand from an interesting young red maple I found growing on a woods road. He has been a constant companion on long hikes.

377. The number of trackables that I have discovered or moved over the past 5 years. I was actually surprised at this number as I had thought it would have been higher.

36. The number of First to Finds (FTFs) I have found.

6 and 3. The number of Travel Bugs (TBs) and geocoins, respectively, that I have released into circulation. Of these, only 2 TBs and 1 geocoin are still in circulation. One TB (our first as a family) was lost when the cache went missing in a flood; the others went into the hands of novice cachers and haven't been seen in 6+ months. What is really cool is that one of the my TBs (travel turtle) is currently visiting the Cook Islands!

1. This is the number of days I have left until I can say that I have logged a cache on every day of the calendar year. I am missing November 24; I started the attempt to fill in my calendar in September of last year, and to my horror, when December came around I realized I had missed a day in November.

So, what I have learned, or gained, over these past 5 years? I believe I have gained a new outlook on my life and a new perspective on who and where I am. I have been more physically active than I was in the 5 years prior to finding geocaching. I have found a hobby that is amazing to share with my young daughters. I am enjoying life more. I have lost friends and gained friends. I've experienced amazing highs and absolutely crushing lows. But through it all, the basics of caching has kept me going forward: going outside, finding a cache, and having fun doing it.

I should note that today is the 1st birthday of my youngest cacher. Complete coincidence, I assure you. I still found time to go out and get a few caches today.

When is a Hotel a Prison?

There is currently some debate within my local geocaching community concerning the concept of Travel Bug Hotels. 

A Travel Bug Hotel is "a geocache that serves as a high-traffic location for travel bugs, geocoins, and other hitchhikers. TB hotels are usually regular or large size containers located near major transportation centers (e.g., airports), and are usually easy to access and find." (source: http://www.cacheopedia.com/wiki/Glossary#T).  This is different from what is referred to as a Travel Bug Prison.  A Travel Bug Prison is similar in design and concept to a Travel Bug Hotel, but "...somehow "imprisons" travel bugs, typically with rules against freely retrieving travel bugs (e.g., requiring cachers to drop one TB for every TB retrieved, or to maintain a minimum number of TBs in the cache)." (source: http://www.cacheopedia.com/wiki/Glossary#T).

I have to admit that until the debate started, I had no idea what a Travel Bug Prison was.

A cacher who I've had the pleasure to meet a few times and attended events where he and his wife were hosts posted on a local geocaching forum that he went to a Travel Bug Hotel (but on closer definition, more of a prison) while on a trip and removed a number of travel bugs to help move them along.  The following note, in bold, was posted on the cache description page:

FOR EXCHANGE of TRAVEL BUGS and GEOCOINS.

You can take ONE TB OR ONE GEOCOIN without exchange if you are sure to move it in the right direction… Thanks.

Subsequent email exchanges between the cache owner and the cacher were not pleasant (downright nasty even) when the cache owner found out the cacher had taken more than one travel bug.

The cache owner stated two reasons for requesting the exchange policy in his cache:

1. That he wants travel bugs to be in the cache so that subsequent cachers can discover and enjoy them (a noble effort to improve the enjoyment of the game for others). 
2. He likes to discover them (perhaps a not-so-noble effort).

However, it appears that Groundspeak, Inc. frowns upon this:

"TB Hotels: A 1:1 rule is a cache rule on some caches, not a TB rule. Don't let TB's linger too long just because someone wants their cache stocked with other people's TB's. The TB's do not belong to the cache owner. (Send them a link to this thread if they complain)" (source: http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=94185)

If you type in "travel bug prison" in the search function on the geocaching.com forums, a lot of links pop up.  None of them good.

Here is where it gets interesting:  There is nothing in the guidelines published on geocaching.com which says you can or can't restrict movements of travel bugs (e.g. a "take one only" rule) into or out of a geocache.

This is from the Groundspeak Help Center (source: http://support.groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=148):

3.1 Trackable Etiquette.  A Trackable is released so that it can travel by means of geocacher activity. Please check the mission of the Trackable so that you can help to complete the mission. If you think you can help, please take it to advance its goal.  Log the Trackable promptly. If you don't know how to log it, please refer to the "Logging a Geocoin or a Travel Bug" article linked below.

Be considerate and don't take a Trackable if you are not planning to go geocaching in the next 2-3 weeks. The owners want them to travel and not to stay too long in one cacher's hands. Sometimes, unexpected delays occur. Simply send a note to the owner of that item and let them know the situation.

You can revisit a cache you've already found to pick up or drop a Trackable. It's okay to drop and pick up Trackables from caches you own. Log your visit as a note.

Keeping or selling a Trackable which doesn't belong to you is frowned upon, unless you have received express permission from its owner.

Nope, no mention of not being allowed to restrict a travel bug's movement here.

You can check the full list of guidelines on trackables here: http://support.groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.book&id=10.  No where is the concept of a Travel Bug Prison mentioned.

How about under the guidelines for listing a cache?  http://support.groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.book&id=11.  Nope, not here either.

Travel bugs are meant to move.  That is why people buy the geocoins or attach travel tags to items and send them on their merry way towards some destination or goal.  No one wants to see their travel bug languish in a cache for months on end.  But it does happen.  And it doesn't just happen with caches; cachers will sometimes hold onto travel bugs far longer than they should.

It appears that any efforts, even as innocent as wanting other cachers to have the thrill of seeing a travel bug or geocoin, which might hinder the progress of a trackable in any way is considered a big no-no by the caching community.

But does this type of rule actual hinder or restrict the movement of trackables into and out of a cache?  I am not sure it does.  Each trackable in a Travel Bug Hotel has an equal chance of being selected to be moved by a visiting cacher.  

My question is this: If a Travel Bug Prison is frowned upon by the geocaching community, and looked down upon by Groundspeak Inc., why does Groundspeak, Inc. allow them?  Why does Groundspeak, Inc. not create a guideline preventing their creation?  If the cache owner is potentially interfering with the movement of trackables in and out of their cache for whatever reason, then Groundspeak, Inc. should be dealing with it.

It should be noted that any rule on a cache is unenforceable.  The only thing we, as geocachers, are required to do when we find a cache is log our find in the log book.  If a cache owner creates a Travel Bug Hotel and posts a "take one only" or "one-for-one" rule, it is certainly within our rights as geocachers to ignore it and carry on with our caching life.

When I come across a Travel Bug Hotel, do I empty it of every trackable present?  No.  And faced with a rule of  "take one"or "trade one-for-one" with trackables, I may not abide by it.  But I almost certainly wouldn't empty a cache out.  I do my best to respect the wishes of cache owners (even if they are somewhat misguided, odd, or possibly wrong) as I would expect the same courtesy in return.  After all, it is their cache, and as per the guidelines, they are responsible for it-from listing to placement to maintenance.  We are all part of the same big caching community, and we should show each other the same respect that we expect in return.  Others may feel differently than I do, but as it has been told to me in the past, geocaching has no "rules", only "guidelines".  People play the game how they want to play it.  But we are definitely playing this game on a slippery slope. We all want to play the game according to the established guidelines, as our own morals and ethics on gamemanship dictate, and not step on anyone’s toes in the process. It is not always possible.

The Unpaid Geocaching Workforce.

The game of geocaching, although not invented by Groundspeak, Inc., is certainly controlled by it.  The decision of the types of caches a person can find, where they can find them, how they can find, and how they can record these finds, are controlled by a private company.

It is a game, and much like Monopoly is owned by Hasbro, so too is geocaching “owned” by Groundspeak, Inc.  I say “owned” because some would dispute the fact that geocaching is owned by anyone or any organization.  Even if they are not the owners of the term geocaching, they are most certainly the owners of the game that we currently enjoy participating in.  Twelve years ago Jeremy Irish saw an opportunity right at the get-go and ran with it, and today, almost two million people are running right along with him.

But let’s get back to my original thought, the title of what is, hopefully, the first of many blogs concerning  my thoughts on geocaching.

Groundspeak, Inc. is a business.  They are an incorporated entity.  According to their company website, they have a current staff of 40 employees (source: http://www.groundspeak.com/about.aspx#OurTeam) .  They support their business through the sale of premium memberships, licensing of the geocaching image, sale of merchandise, and, most recently, geocaching apps.

However, where they differ from most traditional businesses is that their success weighs predominately upon the shoulders of a dedicated group of volunteers.  As of June 21, 2012, there are 400 people around the world volunteering their time for Groundspeak, Inc. in the areas of cache reviewers, forum moderators, and translators (source: http://blog.geocaching.com/2012/06/geocaching-com-presents-geocaching-volunteers/).

What other business do you know of that “employs” such a large number of volunteers?

According to their own blog, Latitude 47, dated January 13, 2011:
“Volunteer reviewers power Geocaching.com by reviewing and publishing each geocache.”

Also this blog post from Latitude 47, dated November 23, 2011:
“Collectively, they have published more than a half million new geocaches, supported more than 380,000 new geocachers and translated geocaching information into more than 25 languages in the past year alone. That’s a lot of time and geocaching know-how shared for the good of the global geocaching community. Oh, and most of them have “regular jobs” too.”

Groundspeak, Inc. says, in essence, that volunteers ensure that the sport of geocaching using the geocaching.com website as a platform runs smoothly, and by extension, ensures that Groundspeak, Inc. stays in business.

If there were no unpaid volunteers, there would be three likely outcomes: 1. The company would have to remove the free play option and hire additional staff, running up the cost of doing business, which would be passed down to us, the consumer; 2. The review of caches (ALL caches, as in, worldwide) would be done by the small, dedicated staff at HQ, slowing down publications, creating backlogs, and likely causing people to leave the sport; or 3.  The business model would not work as it stands, and the company folds, along with geocaching.com.

It is not like there is any arm-twisting going on here.  Volunteers know full well what they are getting themselves into.  Groundspeak, Inc. has an identified list of criteria for what would make a good volunteer cache reviewer (source: http://support.groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=278).  There is also the unwritten rule that you never ask to be a volunteer, but are asked.  Asking means you will never become a Groundspeak Inc. volunteer in this lifetime.  The company does provide compensation, a “thank you”, of some kind to their reviewers (I have heard, among other things, a specially designed, limited edition geocoin), but clearly this is not the same as being a salaried employee.

Is Groundspeak, Inc. a heartless corporate monster, riding the wave of an unpaid labour force in order to enhance their own bottom line?

Personally, I find myself conflicted.  Although I do not like the idea of a company flourishing because of the sacrifices of unpaid volunteers, I also recognize that the dedication of volunteers to the sport of geocaching has allowed for free access to anyone who wants to play the game through geocaching.com.

What are your thoughts?