Find FTF logs do not display if someone "fount it" even before the published date

Question

I know the system is just doing what it is suppose to be, which is to look at the first log date and check if you found it that day and then suggest you may have been FTF, and let you look into it.

Now when someone comes along and dates their log badly this can really mess up the system. I'm thinking two catches for this would be nice.

1. all logs before the published date are ignored. (I know some caches this would throw a false positive, but for the most part this would help. plus we would rather add extra false positives then remove real caches of interest right?)

2. perhaps ability to set a number of finds cut off as well. as in, if you logged a find within the first 10 people to have found a cache or even first 3 or so. this help make sure caches don't get filtered out, even with bad log dates by others that are after the published date.

thoughts? and in case anybody was wondering, this did happen to me and I had to go correct the log for

http://coord.info/GC4THGC

Comments

And it is possible to FTF a cache before the publication date.
I have found non published caches on trail where they was 165 m apart and one new was published each day. After 3 days we found the remaining 7 caches before publication

And a cache can be released offline before it is published online
The link below is number of finds of the caches the day before they was published. They were released during a mega event and published the day after online

http://project-gc.com/Statistics/TopLoggedCaches?country=Sweden&region=%C3%96rebro&fromyyyy=2015&frommm=10&fromdd=31&toyyyy=2015&tomm=10&todd=31&cachename_begins=FAD+2015+%23&submit=Filter

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i said this much even, I also mentioned I would rather have these false positives rather then real caches of interest being left out. It's goal is to find ftf's you forgot to tag.....if it fails to show your actual ftf's because of bad log dates, then it is not working properly and needs adjusted, even if the only adjustments possible would through in alot of false positives.

Answer 1

The "System" does not look for the first logs.

If someone wants to "claim" the FTF in Project-GC, he just has to mention {*FTF*} {FTF} (FTF) (and some similar formations) in the log. Then PGC assumes the find is a FTF. 

Someone could write that in every log, so he would get every log counted as FTF.

Or he just puts up a bookmark list with all of his finds and uses it as FTF-List in his PGC-settings.

That's just how it works.. Because the whole FTF-thing is not official, and thus not supported in the Geocaching.com API.

Comments

you are thinking of the ftf list, i am talking about the "find missed ftf" feature.

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As i said. The FTF-Thing is nothing that official on geocaching.com and thus  there is no data in the API and therefore there are no data of FTF logs. Only the user who found the cache can do something to mark his FTF. He has to write the "magic letters" in his log or he has to put the cache on his Bookmark list.

If he forgets to do the one or the other thing, PGC will never know of the FTF.

There is no data. It's just a user generated thing.

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I know there is no data in the api, that's why i suggest additional filters to make it still work. simply if it excludes FTF because someone dated their log incorrectly, then the program does not fully work. It IS a bug. also as for the person who got FTF not logging, well not much to be done there. but i have mainlt used it to go back and add the [FTF] tag to old lgos where i wrote then "ftf, woo hoo" so it get's picked up by project-gc. The whole website uses filters to let us parse the data in our unique desired ways.....all i am saying is it's a real world issue with bad log data that the "Find missed FTF" does not work then and a simple filter can fix it.

again you are clearly thinking of the FTF list, are you not aware of project-gc FTF finder? it looks for your found caches that you logged the first day it was logged and you can decide if you need to add a "ftf" tag to it. it's for when you forgot to log your ftf yourself, as you mentioned you have to add a tag yourself or bookmark them.

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Oh, i am sorry. I really did not know of this feature..