Rules for the Junior Rangers Spring BioQuest

This competition is governed by QuestaGame's Terms of Service. We've done our best to make them easy to understand, so we recommend you give them a read. All competitors should also ensure they have read and understood the Safety Check.

Competition Period - Start and End Time

The competition starts 12:01am, 23 September, 2017,  and ends 11:59pm 8 October (Melbourne time). Sightings must be submitted within this period to be eligible. Eligible identifications can continue to be offered after this period, until all eligible sightings have been verified.

Winners will be announced on questagame.com when all eligible sightings have been processed. Winners will be notified using the contact details they provided upon registering for the competition, and/or using the email address provided upon creating a QuestaGame account. 

Sightings - Eligibility

For this competition, sightings must be taken and submitted during the competition period.

All players registered for the competition will be able to submit up to 112 sightings during the competition period, and a minimum of 7 sightings per day. Players' individual daily sighting submission limits will apply.

QuestaGame won’t accept a second sighting of the same species if it is within 1 kilometre and 24 hours of the previous sighting. So for example, if you submit a photo of a monarch butterfly resting on a statue, QuestaGame won’t accept another sighting of a monarch butterfly within 1 kilometre of the same statue, unless 24 hours have passed.

QuestaGame will accept just about any sighting of a living organism in the 'wild'. However we may not accept a sighting if we consider it "not suitable" for biodiversity records. This may occur if:

  • Photo is of a human (homo sapien) or includes a recognisable human. We humans are part of biodiversity, but right now, we need to learn more about the life all around us so we can better protect it.
  • It’s a It’s a domestic animal (such as a pet or farm animal), or living in an enclosure (such as a zoo). (such as a farm animal), or living in an enclosure (such as a zoo).
  • It’s a cultivated plant. We all want to know more about the plants in our gardens, but we don’t accept sightings of cultivated plants.
  • Multiple species in single sighting. Please try to only submit one species at a time. You can submit up to 5 photos of the same species in a sighting, but not multiple species in a single sighting.
  • Photograph(s) not clear enough to identify a specimen; or not enough photos of the specimen from different angles (you can submit up to 5 photos per sighting).
  • A screenshot, copied image, or a photo of a photo.
  • A duplicate submissions.
  • A dangerous situation, for example near a road or from a car.

The easiest way to submit a sighting is to use your phone’s camera. However QuestaGame does accept sightings that use photos taken on non-mobile phone cameras (so long as you can work out how to upload them to your camera). The system does confirm the date stamp of the image though, so if that metadata is missing, it won’t accept the photo.

Photos obviously have to be your own work. If you are suspected of using someone else's image(s) you will be warned, and repeat offenders will have their account deleted.

Sightings - Scoring

Scoring for sightings is based on QuestaGame’s in-game ‘gold’ rewards. Gold is awarded for sightings that you submit, based on the rarity (by location and season) of what you find. Note that plants are not yet scored on rarity, and instead receive minimum gold.

For their protection, sightings of species considered to be threatened will not be awarded any gold.

Certain gold bonuses in QuestaGame will not count towards your score for the purposes of this competition.

Bonuses that will be included:

  • Correct ID bonus

  • Field notes

  • Quest bonuses

Bonuses that will not be included in scoring:

  • Head-to-head challenges,

  • Player of the day

  • Clan of the day, and

  • Equipment bonuses

Identifications - Eligibility and Scoring

To be eligible for the 'Champion Identifier' prize, identifications can submited through the in-game 'QuestaLab' or through the BioExpertise Engine (http://bee.questagame.com). 

Identifications must be given during the period from the start of the competition to the time when all eligible sighting submissions are verified (i.e. when there are no more unidentified sightings from the competition period). This means identifications you provide after the competition period may still be eligible. 

All identifications you provide during this time will be eligible, and they do not have to be against sightings eligible for this competition.

A correct identification is only awarded for a specific identification if your suggestion matches the final verified identification. That is, if you correctly identify a sighting to a genus, but the final verified identification is at species level, unfortunately you miss out.

Junior Rangers Quests

Each of the participating parks will have a 'Junior Ranger Quest'. Players can join these quests via the 'Quest' menu in the app. The quests will provide players with a set of three species to find within each participating park. Submitting sightings of these species will be worth bonus gold for players who have joined the quests. Players can complete quests by finding all of the species on the list. 

Prizes

  • 'Quest Hero' will be awarded to the player who completes the most park quests (and in the event of a tie, the player who completed the quests first). The prize is 4 nights camping accommodation at Wilsons Promontory National Park.
  • 'Champion spotter' will be determined based on the highest overall score for an individual for sightings submitted during the competition period. The prize is 2 nights camping accommodation bookable through ParkStay.
  • 'Best find' -  will be determined based on the highest scoring individual sighting. The prize is 2 nights camping accommodation bookable through ParkStay.
  • 'Champion Identifier' will be determined based on highest number of correct IDs provided by an individual (through the in-game QuestaLab or the Bio-Expertise Engine) during the competition and until the time that all competition sightings have been verified. The prize is 2 nights camping accommodation bookable through ParkStay.

Camping dates are subject to availability and must be redeemed within a 12 months of prize notification.

Coordinating Prizes

Prizes will be coordinated by Parks Victoria. Upon registration for this competition you are providing consent for QuestaGame, in the case of you winning a prize, to provide your player name, and associated contact details, to Parks Victoria for the sole purpose of their coordinating the relevant prize.

Improving the Junior Rangers Program

When you register for this competition we will ask you some optional questions designed to help Parks Victoria better understand who is participating, and who would like to receive additional information about other activities they run. Where you respond to these questions, we will provide your answers to Parks Victoria for this sole purpose.

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