Novas regras para colocação de caches (incluindo regras para manutenção)

Today, Geocaching HQ is releasing updated guidelines for hiding caches. The main goal of the update is to make the Geocache Hiding Guidelines easier to read and understand. Here is what we have done to achieve that goal:

• Improved guideline layout
• Made text more clear
• Reduced number of words by 15%
• Moved supporting material to Help Center
• Added some changes or clarifications to specific guidelines (see below)

In addition to the text updates, the page got a face lift, including better navigation! Read the new guidelines.

Community volunteer translators are currently translating the new guideline text into 24 languages. As these translations become available, the guidelines will be updated in those languages.

Changes and clarifications

Some guidance has changed since the last update a few years ago. Those changes include:

Caches must be accessible

Make sure to hide your cache for the long term, where it is available most of the week, and so it can be found without contacting anyone. Check out the new section in the guideline text about accessibility.

Caches cannot be buried – except with permission

To avoid problems with land managers and property owners, geocaches were previously not allowed to be buried under any circumstances. In general, this is still the case, unless you get explicit permission from the property owner. See the Regional Geocaching Policies Wiki for details in your region.

Definition of container and logbook

The lack of proper definitions and examples for container and logbook has led to confusion in the past. We have included more specific guidance for logbooks and containers in the new guideline text. The container must hold the logbook. The logbook must be physical, replaceable, easy to sign, and enclosed within a container.

Don’t hide caches far from home

Vacation/holiday caches are usually not published because they are difficult to maintain. It’s best to place physical caches in your area so you can respond quickly to maintenance needs. In rare circumstances, a vacation cache with an acceptable maintenance plan might be published.

Communicate with your reviewer

We have added new tips on how to communicate with your reviewer. Prior to publication, cache hiders should always provide information about the geocache location, container, and how it is hidden.

No precedents

Although “no precedents” was part of the previous guidelines, the reviewers were unable to link to it. You can find the new link here.

No agendas

We have updated text to clarify that what we mean by agendas, including highlighting causes such as charitable ones.

No commercial content

We have added text to make it clear that Geocaching HQ may make exceptions to the commercial guidelines for GeoTours and trackable promotions.

Family friendly

We have added text to clarify that cache pages must be family friendly.

Cache owner responsibilities

If you are a cache owner and unsure about your responsibilities, head over to this new section that details maintenance expectations.

With more than 3 million geocaches worldwide, cache owners must be extra careful to keep their geocaches in good shape. This prevents “geo-litter” and keeps the game fun for all involved. If a cache owner shows that they can’t keep up with the maintenance of their existing caches, they might lose their hiding privileges.

In addition to keeping the cache page and cache container in good shape, cache owners are also responsible for keeping the cache page guideline compliant after publication.

Letterbox Hybrid Caches

Rules about the distance between the final coordinates and the posted coordinates are defined by the underlying cache type: Traditional, Mystery, or Multi-Cache. See Letterbox Hybrid.

Wherigo Caches

Wherigo posted coordinates must be the same as the “Start at” coordinates on Wherigo.com. Exceptions:

• “Play anywhere” cartridges
• “Reverse” cartridges
• Cartridges that start at a later waypoint
• Cartridges used for geo-art

For these exceptions, the posted coordinates must be within 2 miles of the final.

Event Caches

Events cannot be held in or near transportation centers, such as airports, cruise ship ports, and train stations.

CITO Event Caches

We have updated the text regarding CITO caches to clarify that we encourage partnering with other organizations and that a separate sign-up is all that is needed such events.

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2017/09/guidelines/

Dicas para a resolução de "caches enigma"

http://www.geocachingnsw.asn.au/index.php/geocaching/finding-a-geocache/134-tips-for-solving-puzzle-caches.html

Puzzle caches are a great alternative to traditional geocache. But for many geocachers, they are too difficult or require too much effort.

This page has been written to give you some tips on how to solve those puzzle caches that might currently be beyond your reach.

It covers what to look for when solving a puzzle cache, some of the clever techniques used to hide clues and how to confirm you're on the right track.

This session was originally presented at the Geocaching NSW 2010 AGM event by founding president, Darren Osborne.

1. Look for patterns

A puzzle cache will typically require you to solve all the digits in the coordinates (15 in total), the minutes (10) or the decimal minutes (6). For example;

• AB CD.EFG HIJ KL.MNO - 15 digits
• S33 AB.CDE E151 FG.HIJ - 10 digits
• S33 26.ABC E151 04.DEF - 6 digits

Solving a 15-digit puzzle is easiest as you can use the degrees part of the coordinates to confirm you're on the right track (see next tip). Puzzles that require 10 digits are typically the hardest.

Armed with this knowledge, you should look at the puzzle to see if there are 6, 10 or 15 objects, items, words, phrases, lines, etc. in the cache description. This may be where the answer is hidden.

2. Study the 'fake' coordinates

Since mid-2008, puzzle caches require the starting, or fake, coordinates to be within about 3.2 kilometres from the actual geocache. In southern Australia, this equates to roughly ±2' (minutes) east/west and ±1.7' north/south. Typically this will also mean the degrees portion of GZ will be identical to the fake coordinates - unless it is close to a longitude/latitude line, which will narrow down your search for 10- and 15-digit puzzles.

For example, if the fake coordinates are S33 24.509 E151 02.677 and you need to solve AB CD.EFG HIJ KL.MNO, you can reduce this to S33 2D.EFG E151 0L.MNO and that D is 3,4,5 or 6 and L is likely to be 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4.

If the puzzle uses repetition – such as AB BB.ACA – this will help you even further.

Example:

The geocache’s starting coordinates are S 33° 46.800 E 151° 01.000

The puzzle asks use to find the cache with the following: AA° BC.DEF GHG° FG.ACG

We could quickly solve most of this as we know A=3, B=4, G=1, H=5 and F=0.

So now our puzzle have been reduced to this 33° 4C.DE0 151° 01.3C1

3. Substitutions

There are many ways to convert numbers and text into something that looks unintelligible.

Below are some examples. To crack the substitution code, look for repetitions and patterns (see tip).

Examples:

Actual coordinates:S 33° 46.975 E 151° 02.996

Morse Code
... ...-- ...-- ....- -.... .-.-.- ----. --... ..... . .---- ..... .---- ----- ..--- .-.-.- ----. ----. -....

Roman numerals
XXXIII XLVI CMLXXV CLI II CMXCVI

ASCII Codes in Decimal / Base 10
83;51;51;167;32;52;54;46;57;55;53;32;69;49;53;49;167;32;48;50;46;57;57;

Binary / Base 2
00100000 01010011 00100000 00110011 00110011 00100000 00110100 00110110 00101110 00111001 00110111 00110101 00100000 01000101 00100000 00110001 00110101 00110001 00100000 00110000 00110010 00101110 00111001 00111001 00110110

Octal / Base 8
14611037 71472024

Hexadecimal / Base 16
33121F E67414

4. Learn about ciphers

Not all puzzles will solve as numbers. Some spell out the coordinates as words, such as 'south three three ...' or 'south thirty-three', or provide other clues – ‘next to the trig point’.

Ciphers have been used to hide text for thousands of years. In fact the hints that are typically shown on geocache listing pages use the ROT 13 or Caesar shift-13 cipher. ROT5 is a simple numeric substitution cipher. Other substitution ciphers include: substitution, Keyed Caesar, and Pigpen or Masonic. These are all "monoalphabetic" ciphers, meaning that each incidence of any particular letter or number in the original message always encodes to the same symbol in the encrypted message.  

ROT13 cipher

A

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Caesar shift-5

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ROT5

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	3	4

Keyed Caesar

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Pigpen cipher

The first step to solving these ciphers is to use a technique known as frequency analysis. This involves looking at which letters, or combinations of letters, appear most frequently. For example, the letter E is the most commonly used letter in the English alphabet. If the letter J appears most often in the ciphered text, then you maybe able to assume that J represents E and the cipher could be a Caesar shift-5.

Also look for common combinations that look like THE, THREE, and AND. Other patterns include

• The two Es in the word THREE
• TY on the end of TWENTY, THIRTY FORTY etc.
• SEVEN and SEVENTY repeats E in the 2nd and 4th positions
• NINETEEN repeats one character in the 1st, 3rd and 8th places and another in the 4th, 6th and 7th places.
• COORDINATES is a relatively long 11 letter word that shows up surprisingly often in geocache ciphers and it has O repeated in the 2nd and 3rd positions so it can be easy to spot.

Examples:

UQWVJ VJKTVA VJTGG HQTVA UGXGP RQKPV VYQ PKPG QPG GCUV QPG JWPFTGF HKHVA QPG VYQ RQKPV PKPG UGXGP UGXGP

8-1 4-2 3-2 2-3 2-1 2-3 4-2 3-2 4-3 7-4 8-2 6-2 3-1 3-2 7-3 8-1 4-2 3-2 7-3 6-3 2-3 5-2

The topic of ciphers and codes fills volumes of textbooks; far more than we can even begin to outline here. But if you're interested in learning more, here are some related terms worth researching:

Affine	Columnar Transposition	Playfair
Atbash	Double Transposition	Polybius Square
Base64	Enigma	Railfence
Baudot	Keyed Caesar	ROT47
Bifid	Letter Frequency	Steganography
Caesar	One Time Pad	Vigenere

Also, at the end of this article is a list of useful websites.

5. Other coordinate systems

Some puzzles result in coordinates that are not in the commonly used 'degrees-decimal minutes' format. They may be decimal degrees (S33.5684 E151.1789), degrees minutes seconds (S33 24' 31'' E151 03' 12''), or other grid references (UTM55 12 1235).

geocheck - solução final e passos intermédios

O objectivo deste artigo é ajudar na criação de um enigma por passos, utilizando o geocheck.

1 - Assumindo que o owner tem conta criada e que efectuou o respectivo login, o primeiro passo é clicar em "nova solução":

2 - Em seguida devem ser preenchidos os campos assinalados: (não esquecer que a primeira coordenada a introduzir é a final):

No final deverá obter uma "resposta" semelhante a esta:

Para colocar um link na listing para o checker deverá utilizar uma das opções apresentadas.

Em seguida vamos introduzir as coordenadas dos "passos intermédios". Como exemplo vamos usar as seguintes coordenadas intermédias: N 41°01.100  W 008°01.100 e N 41°02.200  W 008°02.200 (nestas localizações não existe nada).

3 - Clicar em "minha conta":

e em seguida no nome da cache (neste exemplo "Cache das Caixas"):

Neste ponto deverá ter as seguintes opções:

4 - Escolher "Incluir Sub-Coordenadas":

Na lista de "Minhas Soluções" a cache passou a ter uma sub-coordenada (neste exemplo Cache das Caixas - Sub #1):

5 - Repetir os passos 3 e 4 para a segunda solução intermédia (N 41°02.200  W 008°02.200):

Se a quantidade de soluções intermédias for maior que 2, repetir este passo tantas vezes quantas as necessárias.

No final, deve ser feita uma verificação end-to-end de forma a validar a correcta resolução de todos os passos.

...

Logging Etiquette (from Groundspeak Help Center)

Logging Etiquette

You found the geocache you were searching for!  Congratulations! 

Some things to consider as you write your log:

• People hide geocaches to give back to the game and the geocaching community.  Their reward for that effort is reading the online logs posted about their geocache. Take the time to acknowledge their effort by writing a nice log.  They enjoy reading your story so much more than a log that says only TFTC. 
• Cache hiders improve with experience.  Positive feedback is useful to include in your log, but remember to always be courteous. 
• Don't spoil the hunt for others by giving away the cache location in your log or a photo.
• Each geocache should be logged as found only one time by any one geocacher.  If you visit the cache again, you should write about your experience by posting a note, not logging another find. 
• If you don't find the cache, post a "Did not find" log.  Don't replace the container and log a "Found it".  See why here.
• Don't log a find on your own geocache.

Reading the logs of other geocachers that have visited the same geocache that you have is one of the enjoyable parts of geocaching.  Your logs help contribute to this and enhance the game for others.

in http://support.groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=795

Pocket Query (www.geocaching.com) - Portugal - Placed During

Exemplo de uma Pocket Query para lista de caches colocadas em Portugal Continental, entre duas datas:

Pressuposto: 500km em volta de "My Home Location" cobre todo o território de Portugal Continental.

Outras opções:

a) caso se pretenda todas as caches, isto é as encontradas e as não encontradas, retirar o pisco no campo "I haven't found"

b) caso se pretenda apenas as caches de um determinado distrito, escolher "States / Provinces" e seleccionar o distrito pretendido. Exemplo para Lisboa:

Depois de clicar em "Submit Information" verificar se a quantidade de caches abrangidas na Pocket Query é inferior a 1000. 

Não esquecer que ....

Pocket Query Tips:

• The (and) and (or) means each selection would either be an 'and' or 'or' statement when you check two or more options. So for types of caches, the search will return caches that are either traditional or virtual (if those two were checked). For an (and) selection, all items checked will need to match to show the cache. So selecting caches with Travel Bug® Trackables in them and caches you have not found would only give you a cache you have not found which contains one or more Travel Bug Trackables.
• Pocket Queries are generated in Pacific Standard Time (PST). This may mean that your Monday is different from our Monday.
• The more caches you choose, the larger your file will be. If it doesn't end up fitting your handheld, consider filtering your searches.
• Since you are limited to 1000 results - In busy areas, create several different queries for different cache types.
• Less is more! Choose the types of caches you like, and filter out the caches you will most likely not seek out.
• Don't go overboard! When you put together a pocket query, make sure you don't combine searches that won't work. The easiest mistake is to check too many boxes so that you get no results at all!
• Start with one search and see how it works before creating a second search. This way you can decide what is effective.

in https://www.geocaching.com/pocket/gcquery.aspx