paleolith

Sure sounds like a Yahoo problem to me. Others have suggested gmail. Another possibility is fastmail.fm. Edward

There's a long thread on people logging finds on virtual caches without visiting them -- a large and growing problem with the offenders being mostly mostly European. I started the thread but it's obviously hit a nerve with a lot of forum participants. (Please keep the discussion in this thread on suggestions for web site changes, and discuss the phenomenon of armchair logging in the thread linked above.) Several points have come out in the discussion: -- Most of the bogus loggers appear to honestly misunderstand the intent of virtual caches, mistaking them for a virtual reality branch of geocaching. The use of the word "virtual" turns out, in 20/20 hindsight, to have been a bad choice for this reason, but that's water under the bridge. -- There are even bookmark lists of "couch potato" caches, lending credibility to the erroneous beliefs about virtuals. -- The gc.com FAQ and even the listing guidelines are not exactly crystal clear that a physical visit is required. You have to do some reading between the lines. The listing guidelines are more clear but are not required reading for finders. -- Those documents are only available in English, and are long and complex. These days, many cachers do not have strong English skills. The "reading between the lines" mentioned above is difficult when reading a foreign language. It is good that geocaching has become so inclusive, but this has created issues which need to be addressed. -- The number of armchair finds has reached the point that some virtual cache owners, especially those no longer active in geocaching, are getting very tired and annoyed. -- There do not seem to be many attempts at outright fraud. For example, a requirement to post a photograph of yourself at the cache seems to be sufficient to stop armchair logging. No cases of photoshopping logs have been reported. THEREFORE I suggest that the web site take these steps to address armchair logging: 1) improve the wording in the FAQ and in the listing quidelines. (I'm willing to help.) 2) Add a note to the effect that To log a find on a virtual cache, you must physically visit the location, either near the top of the main cache web page for virtuals, or on the log entry page for virtuals. Edward

The contact page says but it does not give a link to a specific forum, and there is no forum called "Geocaching.com discussion". I am guessing that it refers to this forum. Please correct the text and/or give a specific link. Thanks, Edward

Option 2A: log a DNF describing the extent and effort of your search, then forget it and move on. Option 2B: log a DNF as above. Email owner a simple question to see if they are getting email. (I've seen owners reply quicky to email when they wre not responding to logs.) When they don't reply, email several previous finders to see if any of them will verify that your obvious spot was the right spot. If you are wrong, end of story. If you are right, you have the choices for a missing cache with MIA owner: log SBA, go out and replace the container, or pursue non-consensual adoption. Both are good choices, so choose based on your own preferences. Edward

Check out the September 8 and 9, 2007 logs on SURF'S DOWN. Edward

And what if someone was around to hear it before it goes off, but not afterward ... Edward

And hey, I have no problem with armchair caching, though I wouldn't do it myself. What I have a problem with is armchair caching where it isn't welcome. gc.com virtual caches are not set up as armchair caches. "Could have" and "should have" are not the same thing. Thanks for not logging what you didn't find. Edward

As long as the way they play it doesn't affect the way I play it, it doesn't matter. But part of the way I play is reading the logs, because I enjoy finding out what other people saw and remembered. So finding a virtual log with 2 real finds and 20 bogus finds is a bummer. These bogus loggers DO affect me. Edward

Most boulders are overed with lichens. Rubbing an eraser around would damage the lichens. This is one reason there are guidelines: what you assume ain't necessarily so. All public land has a manager. Sometimes far more active than others, sometimes so inactive they can be hard to locate. But the buck always stops somewhere. Edward

Looks like you have at least on bogus log on your Mingalazedi View (Myanmar/Burma) too. OTOH, based on your caches, it does look like asking for a photo is effective against this crowd. I have not yet seen anyone try to photoshop their way to a find. Too much trouble perhaps. I nonetheless recommend including the statement that VIRTUAL CACHES REQUIRE A PHYSICAL VISIT to help educate this virtual crowd. Edward

I suggest that in addtion to requiring a photo, you make the direct statement in the description that "A physical visit to the cache location is required to log the cache". That might even be more important, since this trend appears to be a basic misunderstanding and not intentional abuse. As discuseed earlier in this thread, it appears that most of these no-visit loggers do not have strong skills in the English language, and that most of the documents on gc.com are not available in other languages. The term "virtual" has turned out (in 20/20 hindsight) to be a poor choice, since it can so easily be interpreted to be related to "virtual reality" -- something that I just see on my computer and not in the real world. To make matters worse -- and I just discovered this -- the main FAQ says which is WAY too easily interpreted as meaning all you need is the answer and you don't really have to go. (I know, it doesn't actually say this. But imagine yourself reading this in a language you don't know well.) The LISTING guidelines state it somewhat differently: That's a little better, but in retrospect (now that we know this misunderstanding is rampant) it's obvious that even this is too indirect -- the part about answering the question is first, putting the cart before the horse. And in any case, I don't think it's reasonable to expect finders to read the listing guidelines. I did, but then I read reference manuals, food ingredient lists, um ... yeah, don't worry, I'm really OK. And even I would read a lot less of something in a foreign language. So ... well, from your point of view, please email those links above (FAQ and listing guidelines) and point out the phrases "prove you were there" and "verify [you were] physically at the location". Then in your description say "AS WITH ALL VIRTUAL CACHES, A PHYSICAL VISIT TO THE LOCATION IS REQUIRED TO LOG A FIND". But then ... how do we get TPTB to do something about this? First, they need to revise the FAQ to make it MUCH clearer what a virtual cache is. I'd also like to see a very prominent notification for virtual caches -- either right under the cache name or on the log entry page -- that A PHYSICAL VISIT IS REQUIRED TO LOG A FIND ON A VIRTUAL CACHE. I think the official position is that it's up to cache owners to monitor the cache pages. But a lot of virtual cache owners are in the same position as you, no longer active in caching. Given how rampant this misunderstanding has become, I think it's reached the point of being worth addressing at a higher level. And how do I report a cacher who is logging bogus finds? I don't see a place. For a cache I know to write the reviewer, but what about a cacher? Again, this has become a big enough problem that it needs attention at a higher level. Edward

See bad geocoin icon for a possible contact. Edward

Before installing the plug-in, try just changing your email preferences to receive text rather than HTML. If that doesn't do it, then install the plug-in. I did not do all permutations, but I found that the plug-in with HTML email did NOT solve the problem. Did not try text email without the plug-in. Edward

OK, thanks. Now I just have to figure out why the caches I did load, disappeared ... I'm pretty sure this is a misconception. The eXplorist 210 can only have 250 (I think) active at one time, but you can load multiple cache/POI files and activate any of them (one POI file and one cache file at a time). I never tested to look for a limit, but I don't think its software even looks inside the cache/POI files until you activate them. In any case, I definitely do NOT miss the speed of the eXplorist 210. It is slower than molasses at almost everything. I even avoided cycling through the map page because it was so slow to draw, and it got worse with more than a few POIs active. The Hcx takes a couple of seconds to draw the map, but is almost instantaneous by comparison, and all other operations happen with no noticeable delay. The color LCD screen is highly readable in direct sunlight with no backlight. Overall the interface is much better thought out. I haven't had a chance to push my luck with the high sensitivity chip, but I was impressed the first time I turned it on when it got a fix INDOORS. I'm liking it despite the learning curve. Edward

OK, this may be dumb but ... I just got a Garmin eTrex Vista Hcx to replace my Magellan eXplorist 210. On the eXplorist, I could choose from different geocache files (and different POI files too). This allowed me to limit the caches (or other POIs) visible in a given area. For example, this weekend I'll be hiking in an area which has some interesting caches in a small area which I might find. Or I might want to just look for the older caches in a larger area. On the eXplorist I simply had different GSAK databases for the two sets, generated both .gs files and copied both to the GPSr, and selected one of the files. This concept does not seem to exist in the eTrex, not that I could see anyway. So is there a way to accomplish this same thing in the eTrex? Does not matter to me in the least how it's done -- multiple files as on the eXplorist, some kind of tagging, whatever. Edward

An exception which hasn't been noted in this thread: challenge caches. Previous discussions indicate that just about everyone agrees that owners of challenge caches should log finds when they complete the challenge, though perhaps leave FTF to someone else. Setting up a challenge cache generally does not place the owner in a significantly different situation from others attempting the challenge. Edward

I don't doubt it. I ran across the Barringer Crater earthcache recently. The writeup is good but the educational activity is basically missing -- the description actually says "Somewhere along the way, my original proof of visit requirements got dropped." The "activity" is "email me how deep the crater looks like it is". The site is great and worthy of an earthcache of course but the cache is lame. (I saw it from an airplane last month. I can guess how deep it is. Should I log it?) So has anyone investigated how this came to pass? Is the Geological Society not taking it seriously? Are the earthcaches being modified after approval (as it looks like happened with Barringer Crater)? Something else? Has anyone brought up the issue to the society? Obviously a main point of involving an outside group is to take the heat off the gc.com reviewers along with guaranteeing quality. Maybe the reviewers still need to review the outside organization. (But then who reviews the reviewer reviewers?) Edward

I'm 98% certain the cause of the problem is the omitted CR characters. I verified that in my case the emails which Eudora does not display as intended are the ones with bare LFs. The ones with CRLF (per email standards, RFC2822) display as intended. I doubt it'll help much to give Groundspeak more clues until they listen to this one. Edward

Slimmer's Soliloquy

All-numeric dates should always follow the ISO-8601 format, yyyy-mm-dd. It is, after all, an international standard. mm/dd/yyyy and dd/mm/yyyy are both insupportable. Edward

For once, I disagree. The latter is a bit more fluent and is the way I'd write it, but the former is perfectly good English. Edward

long recent thread on this topic

OK, what I'm finding is that the plug-in does not work as advertised for previously received messages. However, it seems to be working for new messages, at least for plain text. Caveats: for already-received messages, I mostly had HTML to try it on. I only had a couple of badly formatted plain text messages, and they were from mid-October, when the problem began. So for recent messages, the combinations I tried were: HTML, already received: plug-in did not work. Plain text, newly received with plug-in active: properly formatted. I have NOT tried: Newly received HTML with plug-in active. Newly received plain text with plugin NOT active. Plain text already received. Others will have to do the remaining experiments if needed, since I'm now a happy camper. However, the fact remains that email with bare newlines is broken. Edward

If immediate downloads were allowed, then the entire issue of "what is today" would mostly go away for those of us who only run PQs ad hoc. No need to even tell us what day it is. Still useful for avoiding the daily limit though. Edward

Rather than restricting virtuals to places which prohibit physicals, perhaps a better way would be the Earthcache approach. Have an organization outside gc.com which certifies caches as appropriate within a context. Find an historical society (or more realistically, a geocacher who is a member in good standing with an historical society) to certify history-related virtuals. Perhaps a hiking group would certify scenic wilderness caches. Etc. Edward