Badge Head.in.the-ground incorrect

Question

At November 10th, i logged Germany´s deepest cache GC38TF7. which is 800 metres below sea level. I have  noticed on my Badgegen screen that the head in the ground badge is showing that I have only found one cache that was 5m below sea level. Why does the badge doesn´t change now to the higher stage ? 

Answer 1

The elevation of the cache is calculated from the elevation of the coordinates. The cache has coordinates well above sea level, and therefore, you will not get the badge. This is of course not what you wanted, but it is impossible for project-gc to know if the cache is under ground or not.

Answer 2

There is a fine section about this topic in the FAQ:

http://project-gc.com/Home/FAQ#4179902386

Long story short: Cache elevations are not part of the dataset for a cache listing. If you have ever placed a cache yourself, you would know that you were not asked to input the elevation of the cache. If the person hiding the cache does not input the elevation, there is little way of geocaching to know this.

The above FAQ entry explains how project-gc goes about assigning an elevation to each listing. It basically assumes that all caches are at ground level and tries to calculate an approximate elevation. This is of course not accurate all the time but as far as fully automated methods of accomplishing this go, I'd say it is about as good as it gets.