Puzzle Description:

(This puzzle was recovered from the 2016 database crash. Description not available.)

#1: Web Paint-By-Number Robot (webpbn) on Oct 18, 2018       classify

Found to have a unique solution by infrapinklizzard.

Found to be solvable by line and color logic alone by infrapinklizzard.

This seems to be in either outer Mongolia, or a farmer's field in Manitoba (with an unindicated minus sign.)

Is geocaching still a thing?

Given the standard format of geocaching coordinates, and the fact that geocaching isn't big in Mongolia, the coordinates here would be:

N49 56.6890 W097 02.847

That spot is in a park in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I don't suggest that anyone look for it. Urban geocaches are usually tiny, so even if it was still there, it would be a difficult find, especially since we don't have the hint that usually goes along with a geocache. As an example, that location is near the corner of a building and a tree, so I'd be looking for something like a magnetic key holder stuck on the back of a downspout, or a fake pine cone hanging from a tree branch. It would not be a big ammo box full of cool stuff.

Why yes, I do engage in geocaching. It's still a thing, though probably a bit less of a thing than it used to be.

Hm. I typed in the digits from the puzzle's solution at the Geocaching website and the first search result was this cache:
https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC9R8V4

But the geocaching site says this cache was created in 2022, and this puzzle was created in 2016, so that can't be the right geocache.

Next, I tried entering Greg's coordinates into the geocaching search, and found a cache in Manitoba:
https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC8AC5E
The text says that the actual cache is not at that location. Then there is a description of a fictional geocaching baseball game, which must have clues to where to actually find the cache. But this cache is dated in 2019, so it, too, must not be the cache that the puzzle is about.

So: No idea!

This geocache is the first one in the search results that is older than this puzzle:
https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC5619H

But still, no idea!

Adding: Puzzle 27594 was identical to this one. I took it offline so that the discussion of the puzzle would all be in a single thread here.

All of that (digital) digging and no found geocache. How frustrating for you, Valerie. Sorry.

Joanne -- Actually it was just a few minutes that I spent on it, so not too much digging. But your comment gave me another idea to try: I did a search for "geocache" "webpbn" (that is, each word in its own set of quotation marks) and found a thread on the geocaching forum, where partway down the page a comment from someone with the username fuzziebear3 says that in 2008 he or she discovered geocaching because of a comment on webpbn:

https://forums.geocaching.com/GC/index.php?/topic/422305-what-got-you-into-geocaching/

I thought that was neat and wonder if fuzziebear3 is still here, so many years later.

There is a fuzziebear3 whose last login was in October of this year

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