Oldest/Youngest cache found interpretation

Question

Hi everyone,

This question may sound ridiculous, but it's really bothering me.
In the profile stats, there is a stat called "Youngest cache found" and "Oldest cache found".
I wonder how "youngest" and "oldest" are interpreted here, since I see 2 ways to interpret this and I would like to know which interpretation Project-GC uses.

Oldest could mean :
1) Simply the cache with the earliest hidden date of all caches I have found. Youngest would then mean the cache with the most recent hidden date I have found, so basically the age of the cache until today is taken into account.
2) The cache that was the oldest when I found it. So the highest number of days between the hidden date and the date I found it. This would mean the youngest would in many cases be a FTF, with an age of less than a day when found.

Kind regards,
AxelFox.

Answer 1

#1 is correct. This is suggested by the fact that the date hidden is listed for both stats but only the "oldest cache" one lists the date found. But to confirm it...

GC3E "Lane Cove" is my oldest cache found. I checked the stats for "Ideology", who was the first finder of that cache (less than a month after it was hidden). Their stats show that cache as their oldest find and another cache as their youngest (with a hidden date listed as being after their last find - I guess the CO updated the hidden date when re-hiding it at one point). There was at least one cache they found more than 2 years after it was hidden, so GC3E would not be "oldest" under #2.

Comments

Thx, make perfect sense.
I could not deduce this based on my own stats, as in my case, both interpretations would probably result in the same oldest/youngest caches.
My "earliest hidden" cache was only found by me last year, so this could have meant #1 or #2. My youngest cache has changed a few times over the past few months, but it was always a FTF, so I always found it less than a day after it was placed, so this could have been considered a "tie" with the latest hidden date as a tie breaker.

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@AxelFox - I have no way to verify this since I don't work with the database but I suspect meta data is recorded and, if needed, will be used to determine results in the statistics.  Relatively speaking, let's say you happen to find 2 FTFs in the same day; the actual time of publishing would then be considered for youngest.  We don't see the time but it makes sense that one will be published before the other based on the meta data.  Pure speculation on my part until someone with knowledge confirms or disputes.

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Thx Tigretoot.
I don't need to know the exact details and which cache is the oldest and youngest is actually not so important. Just wanted to know that "oldest" and "youngest" meant exactly. From sumbloke's analysis, it seems that #1 is probably going to be the way it is meant and that's good enough for me.
This does mean that the youngest cache is going to change constantly, so I'll check that when I actually find a cache hidden later than my latest FTF and I find it more than 1 day after it was hidden.

Answer 2

Obviously, it is relative for each player since it is based on a players' specific finds.  My oldest find is called Tombstone hidden 2000-09-26.  Should I decide to travel 480 miles (772.5 km) and find Mingo hidden 2000-05-11 that would now become the oldest for me replacing the Tombstone find.  The youngest is very dynamic and changes a lot more frequently for me as I attend an event or chase an FTF, or find a more recent hide to help fill in that current jasmer month.

Comments

The fact that a cache gets archived should not change it being indicated as oldest / youngest found.

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OK, thanks for clarifying.  I'll fix that in my answer.

Answer 3

clearly your first answer, the hidden date is decisive