What does it take to get Groundspeak to list a country souvenir?

[+Tylrwnzl]

I find it somewhat intriguing that Groundspeak doesn't just by default give you a souvenir for each distinct country you find a cache in, but rather specifically chooses countries and (in the case of the US) States to give souvenirs to. I'm not criticizing that approach, I'm just curious if there is a specific criteria. For example does a country need to have a certain number or density of cache's to be considered for souvenir status?

 

As someone who has been actively pushing caching in the country I reside in (Costa Rica) I'm curious what would be required to get my country to qualify for that status.

[+noncentric]

Some relatively recent threads that you might find interesting:

 

Creating country souvenir

International Souvenirs

Continue releasing country based souvenirs

New Country Souvenirs coming

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I find it somewhat intriguing that Groundspeak doesn't just by default give you a souvenir for each distinct country you find a cache in, but rather specifically chooses countries and (in the case of the US) States to give souvenirs to. I'm not criticizing that approach, I'm just curious if there is a specific criteria. For example does a country need to have a certain number or density of cache's to be considered for souvenir status?

 

As someone who has been actively pushing caching in the country I reside in (Costa Rica) I'm curious what would be required to get my country to qualify for that status.

 

There are some system overhead issues involved in the release of a new region based souvenir, primarily because GS has always retroactively awarded region based souvenirs to anyone that had previous found a cache in the country.

 

In general, countries/regions chosen for a souvenir appear to be based upon the number of caches in the country but there have been several exceptions. Iceland, for example, has fewer caches than several countries which have more geocaches. GS may also factor in the number of cachers which may likely visit the country (Iceland has become quite a popular tourist destination) and seems to have selected a few countries based on the fact that the area is under represented.

 

There are quite a few countries which do not yet have a souvenir that have more caches than Costa Rica, but given that it is somewhat of a tourist destination and that there are no countries in Central America with souvenirs, I think it would be a good candidate. As I've also traveled to Costa Rica twice and found a few caches while there I wouldn't complain if CR got one.

 

Typically GS has released a few country/region based souvenirs in December of the past few years. Last December we got five new ones and I think there are quite a few geocacher that wish they'd do it more often.

[+CanadianRockies]

There are some system overhead issues involved in the release of a new region based souvenir, primarily because GS has always retroactively awarded region based souvenirs to anyone that had previous found a cache in the country.

It seems highly unlikely that the retroactive awarding of regional souvenirs is the primary reason why so few new ones are created each year. With any halfway decent database system, that task should be relatively trivial.

 

From what I heard on a recent podcast (I'm pretty sure it's this one), the main bottleneck is coming up with appropriate artwork for the souvenir. After some early missteps, Groundspeak makes a concerted effort to ensure the image reflects the region well.

[+DragonsWest]

I find it somewhat intriguing that Groundspeak doesn't just by default give you a souvenir for each distinct country you find a cache in, but rather specifically chooses countries and (in the case of the US) States to give souvenirs to. I'm not criticizing that approach, I'm just curious if there is a specific criteria. For example does a country need to have a certain number or density of cache's to be considered for souvenir status?

 

As someone who has been actively pushing caching in the country I reside in (Costa Rica) I'm curious what would be required to get my country to qualify for that status.

 

To be concise: They have to feel like making it so.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

There are some system overhead issues involved in the release of a new region based souvenir, primarily because GS has always retroactively awarded region based souvenirs to anyone that had previous found a cache in the country.

It seems highly unlikely that the retroactive awarding of regional souvenirs is the primary reason why so few new ones are created each year. With any halfway decent database system, that task should be relatively trivial.

 

From what I heard on a recent podcast (I'm pretty sure it's this one), the main bottleneck is coming up with appropriate artwork for the souvenir. After some early missteps, Groundspeak makes a concerted effort to ensure the image reflects the region well.

 

Yet, when GS released several states and a couple of German states at the same time, there were many that didn't get ones for which they had qualified. Of course, as more countries have had souvenirs become available, the number of retroactively awarded souvenirs has decreased significantly.

 

How much effort does it take to ensure the image reflects he region? Spend a little time to study to history of the region or, as many have suggested in the past, either take suggestions (or even actual artwork) from people that live in the region, or create something generic (like the country flag).

 

Here's a post from 4 years ago which questions what the constraint is for releasing new country souvenirs.

 

The primary reason why so few new ones are released is that it's not a high priority. But we did get an "improved" newsletter (at least some got it) recently.

 

 

 

[+hzoi]

Yet, when GS released several states and a couple of German states at the same time, there were many that didn't get ones for which they had qualified. Of course, as more countries have had souvenirs become available, the number of retroactively awarded souvenirs has decreased significantly.

Yes, I would bet it is much less of a load now when new geographic souvenirs are released and made retroactive, because there is a diminishing pool of people who qualify. When the US and German states went out, they had to retroactively apply to thousands and thousands of geocachers, and let's face it, the system was pretty new. Now, any country souvenir that comes out is only going to have to sift through retroactive awards for 2,000 caches or less -- even poor North Dakota had more caches back then -- plus they're (hopefully) better at rolling them out.

 

edit -- trimmed a sentence I missed, we are more in agreement than not

Edited March 14, 2017 by hzoi

[+DragonsWest]

Yet, when GS released several states and a couple of German states at the same time, there were many that didn't get ones for which they had qualified. Of course, as more countries have had souvenirs become available, the number of retroactively awarded souvenirs has decreased significantly.

Yes, I would bet it is much less of a load now when new geographic souvenirs are released and made retroactive, because there is a diminishing pool of people who qualify. When the US and German states went out, they had to retroactively apply to thousands and thousands of geocachers, and let's face it, the system was pretty new. Now, any country souvenir that comes out is only going to have to sift through retroactive awards for 2,000 caches or less -- even poor North Dakota had more caches back then -- plus they're (hopefully) better at rolling them out.

 

edit -- trimmed a sentence I missed, we are more in agreement than not

 

I haven't heard about the status of the Souvenir system since talking with Moun10Bike. At that time the system was pretty shaky, good at doing simple things like dates, not good at complex operations.

 

I assume geographic areas would be farmed out to a routine which had a pretty good set of points defining boundaries, often software divides such things up into myriad tiny triangles, which are then very easy to identify if a point exists within or not. It still would take some CPU power and if you've ever played with GSAK FindStatGen you've an idea who long it takes to sort through some of this.

 

Going back and reviewing the entire backlog of finds would bring even the finest supercomputers to their knees, so diligent have been geocachers at running around far and wide. Perhaps at slack times the servers could have a go at this.

[+funkymunkyzone]

I assume geographic areas would be farmed out to a routine which had a pretty good set of points defining boundaries, often software divides such things up into myriad tiny triangles, which are then very easy to identify if a point exists within or not. It still would take some CPU power and if you've ever played with GSAK FindStatGen you've an idea who long it takes to sort through some of this.

 

I suspect it's actually just from the country and state selected by the CO from the drop down lists on the cache submission/editing page.

[+CanadianRockies]

Yet, when GS released several states and a couple of German states at the same time, there were many that didn't get ones for which they had qualified. Of course, as more countries have had souvenirs become available, the number of retroactively awarded souvenirs has decreased significantly.

Yes, I would bet it is much less of a load now when new geographic souvenirs are released and made retroactive, because there is a diminishing pool of people who qualify. When the US and German states went out, they had to retroactively apply to thousands and thousands of geocachers, and let's face it, the system was pretty new. Now, any country souvenir that comes out is only going to have to sift through retroactive awards for 2,000 caches or less -- even poor North Dakota had more caches back then -- plus they're (hopefully) better at rolling them out.

The folks at Groundspeak aren't retroactively awarding geographic souvenirs by hand. They use computers, and computers with databases can handle this kind of task very quickly...even with millions and millions of geocachers.

[+hzoi]

Yet, when GS released several states and a couple of German states at the same time, there were many that didn't get ones for which they had qualified. Of course, as more countries have had souvenirs become available, the number of retroactively awarded souvenirs has decreased significantly.

Yes, I would bet it is much less of a load now when new geographic souvenirs are released and made retroactive, because there is a diminishing pool of people who qualify. When the US and German states went out, they had to retroactively apply to thousands and thousands of geocachers, and let's face it, the system was pretty new. Now, any country souvenir that comes out is only going to have to sift through retroactive awards for 2,000 caches or less -- even poor North Dakota had more caches back then -- plus they're (hopefully) better at rolling them out.

The folks at Groundspeak aren't retroactively awarding geographic souvenirs by hand. They use computers, and computers with databases can handle this kind of task very quickly...even with millions and millions of geocachers.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Yet, when GS released several states and a couple of German states at the same time, there were many that didn't get ones for which they had qualified. Of course, as more countries have had souvenirs become available, the number of retroactively awarded souvenirs has decreased significantly.

Yes, I would bet it is much less of a load now when new geographic souvenirs are released and made retroactive, because there is a diminishing pool of people who qualify. When the US and German states went out, they had to retroactively apply to thousands and thousands of geocachers, and let's face it, the system was pretty new. Now, any country souvenir that comes out is only going to have to sift through retroactive awards for 2,000 caches or less -- even poor North Dakota had more caches back then -- plus they're (hopefully) better at rolling them out.

The folks at Groundspeak aren't retroactively awarding geographic souvenirs by hand. They use computers, and computers with databases can handle this kind of task very quickly...even with millions and millions of geocachers.

 

The system would not even have to iterate over millions of geocachers.

for each cache in country
   for each log on that cache 
       if the log is a found it or attended log and the username does not yet have the souvenir 
          award souvenir to user
       end 
  end
end

 

For the remaining countries which do not yet have a souvenir the number of caches and number of logs on each cache is getting relatively small. It may not be the most efficient, but it should run pretty quickly.

 

 

Edited March 15, 2017 by NYPaddleCacher