TripCyclone

Thanks, but I was looking for something free if possible. Did you see the picture of the prize pool in the Great TB Race post? There is no entry fee, but you do have to ship it to me. My race starts from a common location to give every contestant a fair shot, hence why it's shipped to me. If that's still more than you're willing to do, that's okay. Not everyone is up for that. I've seen a web page somewhere that has links to some races (not everyone posts on there), but I don't have the link at the moment. Anyone else know what it is?

I am having the same problem. The last e-mail I received is about 11:30 PM CT on Friday. Not a single e-mail has come through since. I should have had e-mails yesterday from people logging my event. I sent a few e-mails to people today and I had it set to send a copy to myself. That was this morning. I doubt it's my browser thinking its spam as I have filters set up to automatically sort my geocaching e-mails into a separate folder. It would be odd for my ISP to suddenly block something that hasn't ever been blocked in the last year of using that ISP. I'll wait for tomorrow in hopes that when you get back to work, you might see something. I'll try contacting my ISP too.

We have 7 contestants who have entered the race so far. I thought I would post a picture of the 2009 Great TB Race Prize Pool. It is what I currently have in my possession. There are some items that are on their way. The box everything is on is NOT part of the prize pool.

I did this with my first geocoin, which I got at a local annual event I attended in 2008. I ended up keeping up with logging it into every cache I visited until I reached the same event a year later. It was an interesting challenge to see how many I could find. I ended up with 1200 finds. It is painstaking at first until you learn some tricks. For me, Greasemonkey scripts helped me to set things up that sped up the process to just some basic clicking. It does become a chore after a 30 or 40 find day, but if you are dedicated to it, you'll keep it up. I don't plan on doing it again any time soon but it was an interesting experience.

First, let me show you how to quote. At the end of each person's posts is a button that says "Reply". If you click that, it will come up with the reply window, but also with all of their message already in your window. There are two lines to really look at...the first and the last. Each of those lines will start and end with the "[" and the "]" icon. The first line is the start of the quote and the last line is the end. If you want to break up the quote, like I did, here's what to do. Find the part of the quote you want to highlight. Copy the respective start and end codes in the spots where you want the quote to be. There, you've quoted something. Now, back to your message. I've done the same thing before. I once sent out a message to people who I thought would understand the message. They didn't. They drastically misinterpreted my message to the point that I quit the organization in disgust because of how they handled it. While I could have probably written my message a bit differently, their reaction went way beyond a simple misunderstanding and a few actually started lobbing verbal attacks at me. A few other people sided with me, including a key person in the organization. The organization actually made themselves look bad enough that the entire collection of board members lost reelections and membership actually started to drop for a few years (and is still not close to what it was while I was there). Do I regret my wording...a little bit. I lost some connections. But despite my best efforts to put it behind me when dealing with some of them, for several years I got cold shoulders and disapproving looks from them whenever I run meet some of them (and I unfortunately had to deal with them because I soon became a board member on an organization that regularly deals with them). In your case, it was a communication error. It happens. The only thing we can do is learn from it at this point. As stated before, families is kind of an odd example because you almost always have situations where not everyone is there. Yes, separate accounts is easiest to deal with this problem, but not always what happens. It's a matter of deciding within the family how to handle it. I wouldn't expect you to not log something if you're on a business trip just because the family isn't there. My example of "majority present" probably applies more to non-family teams. I thought I made that clear but maybe I didn't. In almost every case of non-family teams that I've ever seen or been involved in, that's usually how it's handled. Having a Mac makes the stats harder due to the variety of software. I've heard MacCaching is a good GSAK equivalent for Macs, and it can run GPX files, but don't know if it will offer the same options. I don't use macs so can't tell you. You would either have to have someone helping with managing who has a PC and GSAK, or you'd have to ask your contestants to send you a list of caches each month. It might just be the easiest for you. Most everyone can easily check there stats and send you correct info. You could even ask for a screenshot of their stats. If your software can accept GPX files, and it tells you the total number of waypoints in the database, then you might be able to fudge the monthly counts by having people send a GPX file to you that only includes their finds for that respective month. Load up the GPX, see how many finds are in it, and move on to the next one. Not having a Mac, I'm not quite sure how this works, but if you know the answer to this, there's another option. Does your Mac have a Mono Environment set up? If so, you could try using Cache Stats, which will run on a a Mac if it has a Mono Environment installed. It's a wonderful little stats program and of the list of things you mentioned for potential prize categories...it does each of them. FTF's, monthly, daily, and more. Hope some of this helps. If you do decide to try this, and can come up with a system that doesn't involve a single account, post an announcement on here. There will likely be enough interested people if you sell it right.

But that isn't exactly the same situation. In the above two situations, you created an account, find and sign logbooks using that account, and log them online using that account. THAT is acceptable. However, in both your situations, the account involved two people. Your team seems to be comprised of more than just two people. And it sounds like the majority of you ran into each other frequently and thus visited the same caches together quite often. Slightly different than your provided scenerios. Let's look at your scenarios. Let's say the husband/wife are from Missouri. Any time their team name is used to log something, either one or both of them have physically found the cache. Six months later, they are thinking about how fun it would be to add another person to the team. So, they contact someone in California. Someone they don't know & have never met before, but they saw their name on some random California geocache they looked at. They would like this person to sign their name on all future finds, in exchange for something, say a geocoin once a month. They've never been to California & they don't plan on going to California. They just thought it would be fun to have another person as part of their team. Would you consider their California finds as legitimate finds merely because this person agreed to be part of their team? Most people would say no because that third person is in no way related, family or friend relation, to the original team members and because they were not original team members. I will add this. Originally, many saw this as a way to boost numbers for the Team. From what you have said, this is not the case. Based on that, my original guess was wrong and I apologize for thinking this was merely a way to boost your numbers. I've rarely seen a team used (other than a family or couple team), where if only one person of a larger team is present they will sign the team name. The reason...because the majority of the team wasn't there. In almost every situation I've seen where a member is missing, the majority of the team members WERE present to sign (maybe not at the exact cache as someone may have stayed with the car to get ready for the next cache). The rules may state that you must log your name, but they also talk about physically visiting the cache. Most people who are on here that aren't quite on board with your idea are likely considering THAT point. Team Cacheaholic didn't find the cache, a single person of a large 100+ team (as you've stated your intention to be) found it. Most don't consider that a team find. Yes, you aren't asking people to log your personal name. But you are asking them to log your team name. Still a bit of the same thing as a personal account when you consider that your team was originally comprised of a group of individuals all stationed in Japan who happened to be FTF hunters that regularly ran into each other. I'm not part of that team, therefore my log of your team name would be considered by many as dishonest. I think this is a rather great idea. Maybe that wasn't made clear in my previous posts. But there is one question I have to ask. Why can't I just send you a weekly list of my finds, or even a weekly My Finds PQ? If everything was logged with the team name, you have to go through and figure out which team members logged which caches. If you had gotten up to 100 people, you'd likely have a lot of logs on a daily basis to sort through. That's a lot of extra work. A My Finds PQ sent to you on a weekly basis, or even just a list of caches that I have found during that week would give you the same information and make it a lot easier to run stats on the numbers. If using GSAK, you could easily filter the finds for a specific month to get a total number then run a stats macro to get any additional numbers you decide you want to use (like high number days, FTFs, etc). Find someone with programming skills and you might be able to create a macro that would do this and compile stats for EVERYONE in the competition in one simple step, merely from their My Finds PQ. If the e-mail I had received had suggested that as opposed to me signing your team name as the way for you to compile stats, I likely would have joined the competition and wouldn't have questioned anything. It's the signing of your Team Name that made people question everything. And quite honestly, makes more work for you. First, the guidelines do state that you must physically find the cache. They aren't clear on teams, and on many other things, so we are back to my above idea that any team other than a family team should have a majority of the group present. Is this a rule...no, and there will likely be people out there that don't agree with that. But amongst most of the people I have met or talked to over the last few years, that's how many view teams. Second, the name in the logbook is not all that is required to log the cache. Based on that, I could sign the name of my buddy in Nebraska every time I find a cache in Missouri and he could claim the find merely because his name is in the logbook. Would you consider that honest? I get the impression you wouldn't. And the reason why ALR's aren't allowed anymore isn't just because of the idea of sign the log & claim the find. That was more the underlying goal to get back to. It was more a combination of that and the increase in just plain questionable ALR's. Making rules for what ALR's were and were not acceptable was just more work than saying no more ALR's. Many people play the game differently. I accept that. I'm not looking down on you for that. I merely questioned the honesty of me signing your name, even if it was a team name, to a cache. And thinking back to your statement of talking to a couple other team members before you did this, one of your team members already posted in another post about this that they had no idea you were doing this. Might I recommend in the future that if there is a group of people involved, talk to everyone, not just a few of them. You're original email came off like spam mail. This is part of the reason you had people questioning it. I would have recommended that you post something on the forums announcing this competition and asking people to contact you if interested. You could handle entries how you want, but it wouldn't seem so spammy as the e-mail that got sent out. I have a TB race I'm running and I've just opened up entry to next year's race. I didn't send out e-mails to a bunch of people. I posted in the TB section of the forums, publicly announcing it to everyone instead. Just a suggestion for the future. Again, it's a great idea. It's the way you presented it and what you were asking people to do that turned this into the conversation we are having now.

And that would seem reasonable to me. It would be a great idea to have that posted on the account page to explain the team's purpose. While it wouldn't take much to just pool My Finds queries instead of using a single account, at least the purpose is now understood. Based on your above description of the intended goal of the account, I'd lean towards "okay, it's a stats thing and not phantom logging". The idea that this might be related to phantom logging is more a result of the "recruitment" e-mails that went out the last few days to various random people asking to join the team as part of some competition. With no reasonable explanation of what was going on and why some of us were being asked to log someone else's name on caches we visited, I hope it's easily understood why some of us believed it was a way to boost numbers under the guise of competition. If you didn't know that these e-mails had gone out, then I would probably be wondering which member of the team decided to do this and why the rest of the group wasn't notified. Quite honestly, it came off as spam. Several of the GeoTwitterers that I communicate with all came to the same idea...sounds like spam, sounds suspicious, sound like number boosting. Thank you for taking the time to get online and explain some of what was going on, even if you weren't able to explain it all.

That reminds me of this Shhhh...no need to tell them where I got the idea.

If this was a husband/wife team, sibling team, or some kind of team where the only people involved were related in some way, that might make sense for them. The above example, and math, for the husband/wife team would be perfectly acceptable IMHO. But, there is a difference in this case. I've heard someone say that the current team members, one in Japan and one in Nevada, are brothers. If they had left it at that, no big deal. But now, they are trying to sign up random people to be part of their team. People they don't know, aren't related to, etc., etc. THAT is what makes the difference here. And they are doing it several months AFTER they created the account and have been finding caches. Most teams that would be looked at as acceptable are doing this from the beginning of the account and THEY ARE NOT trying to recruit other people. With regards to the guidelines, I'm looking at the part where it says you have physically been to the cache site and found the cache to be able to claim the find. Team Cacheaholic is not doing this. Their recruits are doing this for them, while they claim the finds. If it was a husband/wife team and let's say the wife had been on a trip to Kansas City and happened to find one of my caches...no problem. But if they are in Japan and one of the people who sign up to be part of this "competition", and remember that they are signing people up under the idea of joining a competition, then I will likely delete it and politely inform both parties that I consider the Team Cacheaholic find as bogus and ask that they do not try to sign any more of mine. Heck, for the competition, I have to report my numbers to them so they can log it online. It would save them a considerable amount of work to just have me tell them what I found under MY NAME. A quick check of my stats would back it up. So to me, the only real reason to require that I sign with their name is to boost "Team Cacheaholic's" numbers.

Ok, I'll just need your PIN number so I can access the account... Actually, are they planning on handing out the account password to everyone who joins the team? I guess they are, how else would they get others to log caches under their name? According to the e-mail, you don't do that. You inform them of the find and "they will take care of the rest." Already sent this to Groundspeak earlier in the evening. Too many people surporting the idea that this is against guidelines, it's cheating, and it's borderline spam to boost their numbers.

Oh.. too funny! What next? Enlarge your Geosense? I have two for you. -I am a hot, 2 year old ammo can cache just waiting for you to come check out my live webcam cache show with my best friend Miss Decon. All you need to do is sign up for an account at eyeloveALR.com. No purchase necessary for our public camo'ed shows, but have a credit card on hand for age verification. Fees do apply for our Wherigo shows. -Every day, puzzle caches are being ignored, destined for a life of solitude and DNF's. But you can help. For only a little bit of your time and $30 a year, you can help rescue the life of a puzzle cache. With each rescue you will receive a picture of the cache, along with clues for how to solve the puzzle so that you may share in the joy of providing the cache with a find. Please, e-mail us with your desire to help a puzzle cache and our friendly GPSr's will help you make your first payment through Paypal. You can make a difference in a neglected puzzle's life by providing a fresh logsheet and camo in just a few short days after your first payment. Act now with the activation code listed below and you'll receive a free piece of swag from the cache.

I've seen ones like this before. How often have the keys traveled to places outside the area? That is usually how these caches die. Only once. And somebody else caught it and brought it back. I figured out who did it easily enough and tried to passively inquire about the bug (never let it known that I thought they didn't read the tag) and never heard back. You can find full information about the cache design at Creative Caches & Containers. Just go to the Blog Archive on the right side and click on October 2009. The two entries are labeled "It's Locked". You'll find a picture of the tag attached to the travel bug, which has instructions for keeping it in the area (hence why it spoke volumes about the people who moved it 2 hours out of the city). So far, I've had nothing but positive responses about the cache. It's a bit different and people seem to respond to that. Now, if I had put a puzzle on the outside that you had to solve to get the key to open the cache...I've already earned a reputation for causing "Tripophobia", the fear of caches placed by TripCyclone, thanks to some simple, yet devious caches I've placed...so I'm sure that if I did that to the lockbox, they would be picketing outside my house. The only negative part was not the cache, but the location. The original location became a bit questionable, especially after some extremely suggestive artwork was found near the cache (and yet the cache never got muggled). Now that it has been moved, everything is good again.

I have a similar cache, but there are some differences. It's called I Lost My Keys. The difference is that the listed coords are parking coords and the key isn't inside the cache. To get the final coordinates and a key to the cache, you have to find one of five travel bugs that are traveling around Kansas City. Find the travel bug, and it will have a key and the final coordinates listed on it. Go find the cache, then move the key to another cache for someone else to find. Less frustrating because you don't have to solve a puzzle, but still a bit frustrating because you have to track down the key.

Yep, that's the same one. I got the message too. Frankly, it wouldn't bother me so much if the idea of a competition involved signing MY OWN name and just reporting my numbers to the organizer. It's the fact that to enter the contest involves signing THEIR NAME on caches and boosting THEIR NUMBERS, in exchange for the chance, repeat CHANCE that I might win a coin. Sorry, not interested.

Uh...the same thing. I was just trying to avoid mentioning their name outright.

I got a weird e-mail from a geocacher today. The e-mail was from someone, we'll call them Team X. Team X joined GS earlier this year but didn't start caching for several months. Team X contacted me to offer me a chance to enter their monthly competition. The monthly competitions have an unactivated geocoin, or so they say, as a prize. So far, seems normal. But wait, it's the next part that is weird. To participate in this competition, I have to sign their team name on any geocache I find, and log the find online. Not my name...THEIRS. The main prize is for the most finds in a month. Additional prizes may be for most found in a day or the most FTFs found. To me, it seems like a gimmick to help Team X oost their numbers. On top of the competition, they are also claiming the following goal: " What we are looking to accomplish is the unification or geocachers across the states". I wasn't aware we needed to unify geocachers. Based on their account stats, it seems some have already joined "the team", as I've seen finds jump back and forth across the Pacific SEVERAL TIMES IN ONLY 48 HOURS! I'm not joining the team. Why spend my time helping someone else boost their numbers dishonestly. But then I started thinking, should I be contacting Groundspeak about this account. I don't see anything in the Terms of Use that prevent this, but it seems to me that this would violate general geocaching guidelines about what constitutes a find. If they were only asking me to report my numbers to them, I'd think differently. But this is clearly asking me to sign TEAM X on logsheets for caches that they have not visited. My mind says to report this, but I thought I would post here first. Any thoughts out there on whether I should report this account to Groundspeak?

It's not an imaginary TB travel agent. It's a guy who goes out of his way to make sure that every travel bug he finds is taken care of. Considering the number of TB's that get lost because people don't bother to keep up with them, misplace them, don't even log them, the service he is doing is a good service. He replaces damaged bags or tags, he tries his best to help each TB meet it's goal, or at least get closer to it. I've seen lots of travel bugs without goal cards (I have some myself). He isn't the only one I've seen that helps this by sprucing up the travel bug with a goal sheet and baggie. For some travel bugs, this can extend the life of them. If this guy get's a life, as you so eloquently put it, many TB's that he has probably helped fix up and save would have been long since lost. There are many TB's that get overlooked because they blend in with surrounding swag. On several occasions, the tiny tag (between 1"x1" and 2"x2"...not that big) that he attaches has helped me see a travel bug that I thought was merely swag. Like someone else said, I've seen comments about him before, but this might be the first one where I've seen people who seem to be responding negatively to what is a very positive service for Travel Bugs. I'd be honored if one of my TB's got in his possession. I'll at least know that it will be taken care of. If more people were as considerate about travel bugs, we wouldn't see so many missing and unaccounted for. So what if he likes to place a little tag on there. Do you complain every time you see a signature item in a cache? He isn't hurting the TBs, it's not coming anywhere close to hindering the ability of the TBs to move, and he's not altering your travel bug. If you are that concerned about the small laminated tag, then attach a note to your next travel bug or post a note on your travel bug missions that says "I DON'T WANT A MAXB'S TAG ATTACHED TO MY TRAVEL BUG". But to turn around and get upset with someone because their way of playing the game is to HELP travel bugs, to tell them to get a life.......I not so sure I want one of my travel bugs in YOUR possession. EXTRA NOTE: I've just been informed by a friend that this guy often is the one managing the TB tables at Mega-Events, like GW7. From what I saw in pictures, it was extensively organized and very well managed.

With regards to now signature in the logs, it's possible whomever grabbed them has found the cache before and stopped to grab the TB's. Now, if they were doing that you would think they would log the TB's, but it could have been a stop on day of caching and they just forgot. I have been to caches for TB stops without signing the log book because I'd already found it before. I'd wait another month at least before considering it missing. Sorry to hear that happened.

2009 saw the start of my Great TB Race. 81 contestants from over a dozen countries entered the race, which began in Kansas City, MO. With a total prize pool currently exceeding $150, the final two months is going to be exciting as we figure out who wins. Due to travel bugs going missing (and today I announced the addition of three "MIA Prizes" to be awarded to random contestants who suffered this problem), the pool of contestants still racing hard to win one of the top three spots is down to around 50 - 55 contestants. The Great TB Race is a bit different than your standard mileage race. Instead of focusing on how far the travel bug goes, the focus is on completing "goals". Each time a travel bug meets a goal, which includes things like mileage, visiting events, and getting a picture taken, points are awarded. The contestant with the most points at the end of the YEAR-LONG race is the winner. Now, as we come to the end of 2009, it's time to announce the 2010 race, to take place during the 2010 calender year. Several changes will be made, including where the starting location will be, the point system, and a few other minor details. Other than that, the basic premise will remain the same. Earn more points than everyone else and you will win. Prizes are awarded to the top three spots. Third place is guaranteed a prize package value of at least $15 dollars (which should be more than the cost of purchasing a travel bug tag and shipping the travel bug to me). Entry period begins now, and ends in late December. The entry period is different for International vs Domestic entries, so please read the details on the race site for more information. Entry is done on the race site itself. Details regarding the 2010 race can be found at The Great TB Race - 2010 Race. Read through the remainder of the race site for details about the 2009 race. If you have any questions, feel free to post them here and I'll try my best to answer them. Also, I am looking for volunteers to help with managing the race, including with the dreaded points update (I call it that because it takes so long for one person and because I kept getting hit with problems that interrupted the updates in the last several months). Volunteers could help speed the process up. With that, I announce the start of the 2010 Great TB Race entry period. Get on over to the site and enter the race if you want to join in on the fun. Let's hope next year's race does as well as the current race does. Bookmark the page if you would like to follow either race. TripCyclone

Well I do have a phone, buuut, a problem that is not cheap is we didn't get texting with our plan, sooo, to do it your way isn't to bad, buuut, it's just reaeaeallllly expensive ( 20 cents per text). Depending on the phone, most phones these days, even ones that are a few years old, can be hooked up to a computer. And they usually come with the cable to do so. So you can also just hook the camera up, pull the picture file off the camera, and go from there. The guideline change for ALR's didn't apply to Earthcaches. That was one of the things originally brought up when the change occurred and they made that one clear. Personally, if someone e-mails me and told me they had a problem getting a photo, but they've provided in the other requisite information, I'll allow the log. I do not agree with the supposed threatening of archiving EC over a photo requirement, if that was actually done like it seems someone said. With the pluthra of digital cameras in consumers hands these days, especially with the advent of camera phones, taking a photo shouldn't be such an issue. Now granted, CO's need to be considerate of the fact that not everyone has a digital camera on hand, in any form, and deletion of a log over that without finding out why a photo wasn't posted is a bit extreme. I've seen some cases where the photos are a week late because the cacher forgot about it or hadn't gone through the photos yet. That's my two cents.

I just got my good laugh for the day. Great newbie story.

Probably not if he doesn't have a valid e-mail address. I would post a "needs maintenance" and if nothing changes in 3 months a SBA. I don't think we need caches without owners. I posted a "needs maintenance" back in june and nothing has been done. It is a very extreme cache and there is no log or lid. I actually signed the container in hopes that it would be repaired and I could prove that I actually got up there. If you posted a needs maintenance in june and it still isn't showing any activity, then a needs archived would be in order. At this point, it's obvious they aren't caching any more, which includes maintaining their caches. Send the reviewer an e-mail and let them know of your desires to fix it up and place a new one out. Good luck.

Here's the thing to consider. If you adopt it, many in the area have already found it so the amount of finds after adoption will be lower. If you get it archived, fix it up, and submit it as a new cache, it both gives everyone a chance to find it again and it gives you the opportunity to give it your own little twist. Maybe you can fix it up and change it just a bit to make it different. Either way, contact your reviewer. If you want to adopt, you might need their help (I've never adopted one before...can someone verify if it is the reviewer who does this?). If you want to archive, fix, and make a new cache, letting them know of your plans would be a good idea so that they are aware of what's going on. UPDATE: Has anyone posted a "Needs Maintenance" on the cache? Try that first. Let it go a week or two. If there is still no evidence of activity by the owner, then contact the reviewer. The reviewer might either know the cacher in question, or know that person in the area who "knows everyone" and can help get a hold of them. If that is out, then posting a "Needs Archived", especially if it does need work, would be appropriate.

I don't see a problem with you dropping the coins in your own cache provided they are getting picked up again. If it's been three weeks and people are visiting and passing it up, then try moving it along to another cache. The occasional coin dropped in isn't a bad thing. Now, if you were hording a dozen coins to drop in all at once, then I'd say maybe you should spread them out among several caches instead. With regards to STF...I don't think it's rude to log before the FTF. The person who got FTF might be out for a day of caching, which means you'll be waiting all day. FTF means that it was found first, not that it has to be logged first. While some people have fun by saying "FTL" (First to log), it really isn't the same thing as a FTF so don't worry about it. I doubt the FTF cares if you logged it before them as long as you aren't trying to claim FTF from them.

I've also engaged in dipping a coin. For me, it was the very first geocoin that I ever owned a Cache-O-Rater coin. I had purchased it at the 8th Annual Kansas City Picnic. The picnic was my 800th find and I wanted to try dipping it into every cache up till I reached 1000. Then I reached 1000 and thought, "Let's see if I can get a thousand finds on my coin." Seems pointless to some but I wanted to try it. As I reached that 1,000 caches since purchasing the coin, I changed my plans once again. This time, I told myself, "I'll stop dipping it at 2,000 or at the 9th Annual Kansas City Picnic, whichever comes first." Seemed like an interesting goal. Then as the picnic rolled around, I realized I could make the picnic my 2,000th cache. And I did. And while I haven't gone caching this last week, I have decided to stop dipping the coin into every cache. In essentially one year's time (since the picnic is held at roughly the same time each year...give or take a week), I found 1,200 caches. And my coin is a sort way to sort of highlight those 1200 caches. If you go to the map for that coin, you can see where I've been and how much I've bounced around. The map shows the amount of cache-to-cache mileage I accumulated (exactly 14014 miles), how sporadic my movements were within Kansas City the last year, how I found caches in nine different states during that time. Will I do it again? Likely not. It's quite time consuming to have to "retrieve" it every time, especially after a long cache run. Was it fun? Depends on how you define fun. It was definitely interesting to look at the map once in a while. To each his own, but that is why I did it.