Opted out user updates

[Corfman Clan]

I recently was notified by geocaching.com that how data for opted out users are revealed to third party partners will be changing. This change will most likely occur in early August.

The basic change is that third party partners, such as LonelyCache, will no longer receive opted out users' identities. As I write this, we receive IDs but not names, or log text.

What this means for LonelyCache, is that there will no longer be any way to track what caches opted out users have found. Likewise, LonelyCache will not be able to know what opted out users have found a cache. Also, LonelyCache will not be able to know what caches an opted out user owns, nor who owns a cache, if the owner has opted out. LonelyCache should, in most all cases, know how many cachers have found a cache. In light of this, opted out users will no longer be included in any leaderboards and will essentially be excluded from LonelyCache altogether.

I'm working on changes to LonelyCache to support these updates.

Regards,
Russell

[afudc]

If I understand this correctly, the cache points shouldn't be affected, but rankings could be because the opted outs will no longer be ranked in any category.
Sounds like a lot of work on your part to modify everything.
Thanks for keeping Lonelycache going. I haven't been as active as I would like, but I do still use it to see where I might find a lonely cache or two.

[Corfman Clan]

If I understand this correctly, the cache points shouldn't be affected, but rankings could be because the opted outs will no longer be ranked in any category.

Yes, that's correct in most cases, though there are some exceptions. Two I can think of off the top of my head:

• If an opted out owner also has a found log for that cache, then that find log will be included in calculating the cache points. Normally any find logs by the cache owner do not affect the cache points.
• If an opted out user has multiple finds on the same cache. Normally, duplicate finds are ignored but with this change there is no way to tell whether an opted out user has multiple finds on the cache or whether multiple opted out users have found it. This is only an issue with older caches before geocaching.com restricted users to only one find per cache.