Contest Clarifications
There have been some questions and requests for clarification on some of the rules and tasks for the Come Out & Play contest. We’ve updated the rules/task sheet and a new printout is available for printing here. Any clarifications we’ve updated are meant to benefit the players not put anyone at a disadvantage and most were asked for by the players. Rule #12 has clearly stated from day one that we may do so.
There has also been some discussion about the fact that we didn’t have a group discussion to make these clarifications before the contest began. It never crossed our minds. We copied (and tweaked to fit our needs) this contest from the ACGA website (who copied it from a Sask. website) and we had absolutely no reason to believe it would ever be an issue as, to our knowledge, it hasn’t been for either of them. However, had we done so, had we put a group together to go over everything, all those involved in that discussion would not have been eligible to play. We’re pleased that as many people as possible are able to participate.
We have listed below the changes made to the original rules/tasks sheet. We’re human so forgive us if we’ve missed one 🙂
Rules – the only rule clarification was for #6 to make it clear that caches hidden before the contest were not eligible for hide tasks.
Tasks – all applicable tasks now state “find and log” to make it clear that your own hides are not eligible for find tasks and to reiterate that all caches actually have to be found and logged to claim a task.
Task #16 Earth Cache – revised to make it clear the hide must be published during the contest period.
Task #17 Host(ess) With the Most(ess) – revised to make it clear the event must be published during the contest period.
Task #18 Hide a Big One – revised to make it clear the cache must be hidden during the contest period.
Task #19 – Hide Mystery/Puzzle Caches – revised to make it clear the hides must be published during the contest period and that the 3 hides must be published and claimed within 7 days, as per rule #5, not spread out over the length of the contest.
Task #20 – Hide Traditional Winter Friendly Caches – revised to make it clear the hides must be published during the contest period and that the 5 hides must be published and claimed within 7 days, as per rule #5, not spread out over the length of the contest.
Task #34 Move Along Buggy – revised to make it clear to use the cache you found the TB in for your claim.
To those who have already made claims on tasks that have been revised we were lenient where there were gray areas and approved the ones we could. For those who asked for clarification beforehand we responded with the clarifications as listed above.
If contestants have any questions or would like further clarification on something please let us know, either by replying to this post or at milosheart@gmail.com.
Happy hunting!!
Awesome, thanks for doing this. I am sure it takes up a lot of your time and we are grateful.
“However, had we done so, had we put a group together to go over everything, all those involved in that discussion would not have been eligible to play.”
It is your game, and as such, administered as you see fit. However, I would argue a different point-that open discussion of rules, claims or tasks (such as allowing a claim “swap out”) would not prevent anyone from participating in the challenge, especially if it is done by consensus. Changes were made to last years’ challenge through in-person discussion and online forums, and everyone was able to participate. For this contest, the only person who really cannot partipate is the person tracking and recording the claims- they would have the unfair advantage of knowing everyone’s tasks and scores and would be able to play their game with that insider knowledge.
The ACGA is doing the Nova Scotia contest in the forums, including the claims. This allows everyone to see who is claiming what. Not that I don’t trust the scoring here but it would be interesting to see what caches are being found and how many everyone else has found.
Rev, if I’m not mistaken, you’re more interested in the caches found and tasks claimed for curiosity’s sake rather than to best someone but I’ll try to explain how and why we’re doing things the way we are. 🙂
We watched what NS was doing on the ACGA and had 2 main concerns. One was that if we had, say, 50 players each making 20 claims that would be 1000 posts on the thread that I would have to scroll through (really hard on these old eyes), respond to and try to keep track of. The other concern was that we wanted to do it on Cache Up NB rather than ACGA. Zor was up to hosting the game on the site so with his help we came up with the registration and claim forms. I like to keep things organized and dealing with hundreds of posts on a forum left me shuddering with dread. I’m much more comfortable, and have more faith in, spreadsheets and paper copies.
In my opinion, it would be better to keep the caches and scores private to keep people guessing. Several people have mentioned to me that they also prefer it this way. As forestfauna said above, “….they would have the unfair advantage of knowing everyone’s tasks and scores and would be able to play their game with that insider knowledge.”
But just for information, this is how it works:
When a claim is submitted I get an e-mail. I print it, hi-lite the player’s name and task being claimed, check the cache on GC.com to verify the details, enter it on our spreadsheet then approve or deny it, which generates an e-mail back to the player. Once that’s completed I file it in a binder, under the cacher’s name, for back-up.
The spreadsheet has the list of players and all 40 tasks with the formulas to calculate the scores for each of them. On sheet #2 is a list of the players where I record the GC codes to make sure none are used twice.
At the end of December or beginning of January I plan to send each player an e-mail stating their total score and number of tasks claimed to date. This is both to let them know their score and as a double check for us. If what they have doesn’t match what we have then we can go back through the records and make any neccessary adjustments.
We have a deadline of December 1st for players to register. I know NS has chosen to go with no deadline but we’re sticking with having one so I know what Im dealing with as far as time needed to process everything. Right now I spend about 2 hours every evening processing claims and answering questions. It’s very managable but if, for instance, we had 20 more people join in March it would be too much.
What we will do, is send all players an e-mail after the December 1st deadline to ask them to vote on whether or not to publish the players’ scores. Whatever the majority wants we’ll do. We can post it on here or send them a copy of the spreadsheet, or both. We can’t, however, publish the caches they’ve found for each task as we don’t have a record of that without going through all 500+/- e-mails. Please don’t ask me to! 🙁
Hope that answers any questions and/or alleviates any concerns. 🙂
Yes, you are right, I was just curious to see what caches were being found, don’t need to see the score for the caches found. I agree it would be daunting to keep track if it in the forums, I looked at the ACGA page and it is over 10 pages long already.
I agree with Forestfauna’s comments, some rules were vague and needed to be clarified, my point was that it didn’t matter to me who wins. I am having a hard enough time figuring out what caches to find let alone which ones would be worth more or less points.
Personnally, i like that the scores and caches are kept secret. Adds to the intrigue. When i dont know what everyone else is doing, it pushes me to try a little bit harder, or to drive a little bit further to get to that one special cache. I guess i am going to have to sit tight, wait for the vote, and hope that my secrets wont get revealed 🙂
Something that Gwen and I discussed the other day, is that, in a way, the contest can disadvantage the people who have been caching for a long time. But that’s the beauty of having prizes for high and low scores. it levels out the playing field a little bit. For example, a cacher who has, lets say, 2000+ finds, may have found all the 5/5 or 4/4 caches in NB, and getting 20 claims with high numbers could be near impossible. However, there is never a shortage of guardrail or lampost caches that keep popping up all over the place, making it easier for these people to get a low score. I know if i redo the contest next year, i will have to change my strategy a bit. It is a contest, and I do want to win, but if i’m not having fun in the process, it takes the fun away from winning, and then what’s the point?
Given that this year is the first run of this contest, there are bound to be little glitches and hiccups that can’t be foreseen. Expecting otherwise is unrealistic. I think a discussion on how things went down, after the contest is over, will probably be the best way to ensure that these problems get fixed, should another similar contest be held again.
I LOVE the idea of doing a review of the whole thing once the contest is over. There is absolutely no way anyone could have known what would happen this time around since it’s never been done before. When all is said and done, get as much feedback from folks as you can and use that to make the next one even better. That’s exactly what I did with the race and it seems to have worked quite well.
I’m impressed Gwen – I’ve got a spreadsheet of my own to figure out which tasks will give me the most bang for my bucks, so I can imaging what one for 40 plus people must look like. I also like that the scores are not revealed, if some one wants to spend a lot of time and effort they can look at the cachers profile and get an impression of where the cacher is. (have fun with that!!).
Yes there have been/are/and will be glitches, if we do it next year there will be new glitches pop up. I am a project manager, and know from experience that you can not think of all the problems. But right now the contest seems to be working, so are we all having fun yet. Cache On !!
Would there be any interest in a Winter Challenge geocoin again this year? I’d put some qualifications on it – such as only 100 would be made (it was selling off the last 50 that was painful last year). I think we could use the same icon as last years, thus saving some cost as well. Might even use the same back (the snowflake) with a new colour palette, thus designing one new side. Cost would be about $6 or $7 each. With 48 people participating this year, I figured there could be some interest. I’ve asked for a quote just to confirm prices if there is any interest.
hmmm that would be an idea i’d pick up one or two again.
I would buy one for sure.