GCA Archiving - A proposal and debate.

Geocaching Australia governance issues
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caughtatwork
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Post by caughtatwork » 07 June 07 9:56 am

djcache wrote:Sounds GCA is getting rules...

DJ
That's why it's in the senate for the active GCA seekers and hiders for comment.

If the consensus is yes, then we proceed.
If the consensus is no, then we stay unchanged.

Better to seek community input than impose rules.

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Dik:
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Post by Dik: » 07 June 07 1:57 pm

As the owner of a GCA cache that gets more DNFs than finds I can assure you all that a DNF doesn't mean the cache is gone or in need of maintenance. Merely that people are looking for it in all the wrong places. :shock:

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Post by Nilbog_Aus » 07 June 07 4:23 pm

I think some sort of automated archiving would be good but caches getting archived in 6 months rather than 3 would seem a better timeline to me.

Also it would be good if any log from the cache owner reset the counter. That way if there was a good reason a cache needed to be disabled for an extended period of time (or if its just bloody hard to find :) ) the owner would only need to log a note occasionally to keep the cache "alive".

Anyway just my 2cents.

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Re: GCA Archiving - A proposal and debate.

Post by zactyl » 07 June 07 4:58 pm

caughtatwork wrote:eg.
1 month after a cache is marked as temporarily unavailable, an email is sent to the owner requesting action.
2 months after, a reminder.
3 months after, the cache is automatically archived by the system.
The beauty of GCA is that the owner can at any time, unarchive the cache without permission or intervention by an "appropriate authority".

Another eg.
Same scenario as above, but change temporarily unavailable with SBA.
I think you've covered both situations nicely. I thought 1 month might be a bit short a period of time to start hassling someone, but I'm a bit slack about fixing caches sometimes. :wink: Make sure the "Your cache has been archived" email includes the information that they can return their cache to its "Disabled" state if they have a need to.

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Post by CraigRat » 07 June 07 7:19 pm

Sounds GCA is getting rules...
And just how does this concern you???

Thinking about it today, archiving of long term temp disabled is not even close to being a 'rule', its more about removing it from searches etc...

Implementing archiving on active caches would be rules IMO, which changes things....

I'd second that maybe the timeframe proposed be extended a little

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Post by zactyl » 08 June 07 1:52 am

CraigRat wrote:Implementing archiving on active caches would be rules IMO, which changes things....
I was thinking about that too, maybe a combination of X number of DNFs, + no finds in the last X months + no note from owner + inactive owner (not logged in for the past X months) could trigger an email and the three month process? :shock: :lol:

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Post by caughtatwork » 15 July 07 10:07 pm

http://forum.geocaching.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=8604

Interesting. We seem to have a situation that would warrant intervention.

Should we?

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Post by CraigRat » 15 July 07 10:43 pm

Theres nothing stopping any of the concerned parties from posting a 'Needs Maint.' Log or a SBA on the cache to alert the owner.

Should it go to a vote as to if the maintainers should have authorisation to Archive the cache after a NM or SBA after say 4 weeks for Database Mainanence purposes? (this of course assumes that there have been a solid bunch of DNF's from seasoned players prior to any NM or SBA?)

This wouldn't be a rule for playing the game ...it's more about the maintenance of the data....there's no point listing something if it doesn't exist!

If an owner places it back as active, so be it.... Archiving isn't deletion...

Abandonment is the hard one to figure out what to do.....I have no suggestion for that....

As for voting for anything senate related...how the heck can we do that? I don't like the idea of using the forum polls.....

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Re: GCA Archiving - A proposal and debate.

Post by SuperMoosie » 16 July 07 10:37 am

caughtatwork wrote:
That does mean that abandoned or muggled and not maintained caches will remain in the system for ever.

eg.
1 month after a cache is marked as temporarily unavailable, an email is sent to the owner requesting action.
2 months after, a reminder.
3 months after, the cache is automatically archived by the system.
Just thinking of anouther dimension of this debate.

In the interests of Treading Lightly, maybe we need to think about getting removing abandoned and archived caches removed from their hiding spots and not remain in the envioment for ever.

My thoughts are that either:
A) there could be a list by state of caches that have been archived by the above process.
B) They could still come up in the normal listing on the website but with a "remove me " type status.

Cachers could see there is a old cache in the area, remove it and then log that is has been removed and then fully archive it.

Or a local could may log that they will take ownership of a particular cache and be responsible for either adopting it, or removing from the enviroment.

Just a thought

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Post by caughtatwork » 16 July 07 1:28 pm

I would suggest that an active cache is one that does not have 4 DNF's without a maintained log.

If it's got 4 DNF's in a row and there is no maintained log, then it, for all intents and purposes, is probably gone. If it's that far gone, there's probably nothing left at the site anyway.

If it's still there, then all the owner has to do it log a maintained log indicating it is still actually there. That stops the process until another 4 DNF's are logged. This allows very difficult finds to remain active.

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Re: GCA Archiving - A proposal and debate.

Post by Papa Bear_Left » 16 July 07 4:21 pm

SuperMoosie wrote:In the interests of Treading Lightly, maybe we need to think about getting removing abandoned and archived caches removed from their hiding spots and not remain in the envioment for ever.
Careful with this idea. They might've been archived on GCA and re-listed on gc.com or another listing site, so you'd be removing an active cache!

In the greater scheme of things, if we all pick up the occasional bit of rubbish on the way to and from caches, geocaching's eco-karma can accomodate a few abandoned boxes, I think.
caughtatwork wrote:I would suggest that an active cache is one that does not have 4 DNF's without a maintained log. ... This allows very difficult finds to remain active."
We could even code part of this. Allow 2*Difficulty DNFs before prompting for a maintenance check/log.

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Re: GCA Archiving - A proposal and debate.

Post by caughtatwork » 16 July 07 7:32 pm

Papa Bear_Left wrote:
caughtatwork wrote:I would suggest that an active cache is one that does not have 4 DNF's without a maintained log. ... This allows very difficult finds to remain active."
We could even code part of this. Allow 2*Difficulty DNFs before prompting for a maintenance check/log.
I don't disagree with the thought, but I wouldn't expect that there would be many caches with 6 consecutive DNF's. i.e. a diff 3 x 2 = 6
Once a cache gets three or so DNF's, there are few to no attempts after that.
I'd hazard a guess that there wouldn't be too may with 4 DNF's either, but it's a place to start.

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Post by Facitman » 16 July 07 9:28 pm

I've got a dashboard thingy that tracks Victorian caches and have found that 3 DNF's in a row generally indicate that the cache has a problem. The only twist is sometimes you get a false positive when teams are caching together and all log a DNF; doesn't necessarily mean it's missing.

You could look for 3 DNFs on different days?

Of course some caches just get lots of DNF's even if they are a-okay eg. this evil tree one

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