tozainamboku

I haven't detected that shaming someone in a forum they don't read has any effect on their knickers.

I can't understand why if your knickers are twisted you would ask for new ways for people to twist your knickers even tighter. If there was a code word you might stop some people from logging caches they didn't actually find, but on the other hand you get some people who would share code words (or perhaps even crack the code words for some caches) and log caches they didn't find. I recently got a log on a geocoin in my collection. It's sitting in a drawer at home and I haven't let people discover it for several years. I don't know if someone in Germany got a hold of the tracking code or if they just made a typo logging another coin and ended up discovering my coin. I am sure that similar things will happen if you had code words to log caches.

I would think a puritan would say "logging 2 times is not once". Didn't realize someone would think that 15 times is not as bad as 125. Of course the issue with mega events shows the dilemma that Groundspeak faces. If you have 500+ people, many of whom are logging an event multiple times, that's a lot of logs. Some people will watch an event to see if others post pictures. The extra logs could get annoying. I would have thought that might be the reason to use a designated cache instead. People who want to watch the event could do so without having to get all the emails from people logging temporary caches. I don't think people are as likely to watch the designated traditional, so the people who want to log the temporaries could do so and annoy fewer people Boy, was I wrong, Apparently logs on tradtional cache cause more twisting of knickers than extra attended logs on events. Who knew?

What annoys me is when some high number cacher DNFs a cache and cache owner archives it with a note "If Mr.Highnumbers didn't find it, it must be missing." I regularly DNF caches and log them as such, yet expect that the next log will be from a newb who post "Thanks". So why should a cache owner assume the cache must be missing? However, what usually happens is that the next log is from Mr.Highnumbers who writes "Since an experienced cacher like tozainamboku couldn't find this, I took the opportunity to leave a replacement for the missing cache".

Whether the font size needs changing or not, I can't see a good reason the designers' hands should be tied because a small number of users like to play with HTML tricks to make the DNF count appear as it is part the profile generated by Groundspeak. This thread should named "... HTML/CSS pride" not "... DNF pride!"

Prior to the temporary guideline, I suspect that it was fairly common for event organizers to put out a slew caches just for the event. They would ask the reviewers to publish the caches the day of the event and then archive the cache the day after the event. These temporary caches (listed on GC.com) were no doubt a big draw for some events. With the decision to add a cache permanence guideline, there were probably a lot of people hosting event who complained this capability was no longer available. TPTB probably told them that they could put out their own temporary caches, just not have them listed on GC.com, and find some other way for attendees to get credit for finding these. As someone who doesn't believe that a smiley point from a Found log is 'credit', I would have interpreted this differently. Posting the number of temps you found in your attended log, or logging your temporary cache finds on a separate site, would seem a better approach than multiple 'attended' logs or multiple finds on another cache. And certainly in some areas, event organizers found ways to have temporary caches without resorting to allowing multiple find logs on a Groundspeak listing for this. However, Jeremy has made it clear that there is no reason to get one's knicker in twist over find counts, and while TPTB have on a few occasions decided that some logging practices cross the line into abuse of the system, they don't seem very concerned about this one. As silly as I find the practice, I find the reaction of those who let this bother them far sillier. Frankly, I don't really care what people in Ohio do. Even if I were to visit Ohio, these logs would have little influence on what caching I might do. I find it rather unlikely that I'm going to use the most finds as a criteria for selecting what I'm going to look for. Far more likely I'd look for most favorite points. And if I went to an event, I personally wouldn't waste my time entering logs for each temporary cache I found. My knickesr are quite comfortable; I just can't figure out why so many people have gotten their knickers in a twist.

I would like a robot that untwisted my knickers when they get twisted. ..... and a pony!

Yeah. But it's no longer elitist to change your forum title. As of two updates ago, basic members were given this ability. My opinion is this has depreciated the value of my premium membership and I am due a refund.

A quick question: In your experience as a reviewer over the years, as the 'guidelines' have evolved, and types of caches have come and gone, how hard would it be for Groundspeak to implement (or change) guidelines to discourage these kind of activities? I don't really want answer for a reviewer (it's a bit like logging finds on a cache for finding a different [temporary] cache), however I will say that Groundspeak has really tried to avoid creating guidelines to prevent logging of caches. Instead they created a guideline that the maintenance responsibilities of a cache owner include deleting logs which are bogus (like a DNF on a cache you didn't look for), counterfeit, off-topic, or otherwise inapproriate (like a DNF log that really wasn't about your caching experiernce but instead was commentary better suited for the forums). This left the definitions of bogus, counterfeit, off-topic, or inappropriate up to the cache owner. This had resulted in a few additional guidelines that limit the ability of the cache owner to delete logs by eliminating the practice of having additional requirements to log caches (of course challenge caches excepted). Groundspeak certainly can have guidelines that make some attempt at forcing cache owners to treat certain types of logs as bogus. The main examples have been couch potato logs on virtual caches, and photo logs that convert a traditional cache into a virtual. In these case the logs aren't deleted, but the cache page is likely to be archived and locked. Groundspeak might be more consistent if they allowed these questionable logs along with logs for temporary caches or various outher 'bonus' logs. Perhaps a lackey can explain the difference. I suspect that the difficultly in enforcing these sort of guidelines makes TPTB wary of using them too often.

Exactly. So why would anyone lose sleep that occassionally some "cheater" posts a find log on an archived cache? Most of the cases occur when a team splits up. The member(s) who don't keep the account, want to start new geocahing accounts that reflect the find the made when there were part of the team. I don't think the reviewers would volunteer to be on-call to unlock caches one by one so these people could post their backdated finds. After that are people who for one reason or another decide to look for an archived cache and find it. (Or they just happen upon the cache while searching for a new hiding spot). Many people feel they have found a cache and that the online find log is the proper way to report it. While you might have a personal preference to only log finds on active cache, that is your personal choice. Nowhere is there a rule saying that you can't log a find in this case. Again reviewers would not like to have to unlock pages so people could log, nor have to explain that you can't log the cache because it's been archived some arbitrary length of time. As it stands, caches get locked now; particularly virtual caches that have no owner and a record of "couch potato" logs. I had a virtual that had been on my to do list for years. When I finally visited and got the required info, I discovered that the cache page had been locked. Initially I was pretty upset (even posted a thread). In the end I decided that logging online is not what makes caching enjoyable for me. I had fun finding the virtual. I found the information I was supposted to find. By my personsal count this is a find. but Groundspeak locked the page (because they hate vritrual caches), so I decide not to make a fuss about it, and leave it unlogged on GC.com. Frankly, if someone wants to log archived caches I couldn't care less. Even if they didn't actually find the cache, it's no skin off my nose. To get back on topic; the problem here is not that people are logging an archived cache. The issue dates back to a decision made by TPTB regarding what they call pocket caches. It was becomming common for people to bring old (sometimes archived) caches to an event and let people sign the log. People who believe the great lie that if you signed the log you have found the cache, would sign the log and then log the find on it. They really didn't find any cache. They went to an event an signed a piece of paper in an old container that may have once been used as a geocache. TPTB wanted to make a statement that geocaching invovles at going to ground zero for a cache. (You might extend this by saying once at ground zero you need to find the cache - or sign the log, though that policy had not been enforced) Personally, I have been to events where such shenanigans went on. People seemed to have fun doing this. It didn't appeal to me since it didn't seem like geocaching. On the other hand, I didn't see any harm in it. People really do strange things when they ascribe magic properties to the online logs. As much as I laugh at the people who would log a pocket cache, what really cracks me up are the people who squirm in their uncomfortable twisted knickers when someone does it.

Depends on what magical powers you ascribe to the online log. Caches are listed on Gecocaching.com as a way for the cache owner to inform the community that they have hidden a cache. Cache listings may be archived for a variety of reasons. Often this is because the cache owner believes the cache is no longer there (sometimes based purely on someone logging a DNF). Sometimes the cache owner is simply indicating they no longer want to deal with the maintenance they committed to when they hid the cache. Sometimes the cache no longer meets the guidelines for listing on Geocaching.com. Certainly there are cases where cache is archived because the cache owner or the property owner/manager does not want people to search for this cache anymore. This is rare and should be stated in the archive log. The rules for challenge caches state that challenge geocaches must not require geocachers to log geocaches that are disabled or archived, but they don't forbid challenge owners from allowing people to use such caches to qualify if they want to. Other that this there are no rules that tie the online log to the state of the cache. Many people will argue that they found a geocache and therefore posting a found log online is the appropriate thing to do. Sure some might determine this is an abandoned cache and will remove the container, and that might be appropriate in some cases. Some may decide for one reason or another to post a note instead of a found log - that is certainly allowed.

Tell that to Google, Facebook, Apple, AT&T, Verizon, etc. The next thing you'll be claiming is that the Government has the right to collect geolocation data on it citizens because it's their GPS system

I think it's getting to the point where 90% of your posts contain the phrase "knickers in a twist". Or the word "generic" or "non-generic" I think I may have only used "generic" in this thread. The reason is that I prefer to blame the practices of throwdowns and cache shifting on the idea that cache finds are generic, rather than on someone "cheating" to increase their find count. I personally will never get my knickers in a twist because of whatever silly reasons someone might use for posting an online find log. I will complain if I think some practice should not be applied by default to caches. I invite people who insist on wearing uncomfortable underwear to join me in my discomfort that caches can be viewed as a commodity where containers can be moved around or replaced without getting the owner's permission.

How about French presidents who cheat on their wives? Or how about these other populations: "In a survey of 24,000 students at [American] 70 high schools, Donald McCabe (Rutgers University) found that 64 percent of students admitted to cheating on a test, 58 percent admitted to plagiarism and 95 percent said they participated in some form of cheating, whether it was on a test, plagiarism or copying homework." "In the last quarter of 2005, participation in tax evasion [in Greece] reached an estimated 49% of the population, while in January 2006 it fell to 41.6%." "Fifty-five percent of French men and 55 percent of Italian men surveyed said they had cheated [on their spouses] at least once in their life -- but only 33 percent of French women and 44 percent of Italian women said the same." I read Ma & Pa's comment as not believing that 30% of any population would cheat at anything that was a meaningless game with no trophies and prizes. I personally find it amazing that as many as 30% of the forum regulars seem to be unable to keep from getting their knickers in a twist in a game with no trophies or prizes. If you want to discuss the problems that cache swapping and throwdowns cause cache owners and other finders, regardless of the find count of the individuals who swapped caches or left throwdowns, I'd have no problem that people are bothered by this. But when the discussion inevitably turns to how high-numbers caches have no scruples and will cheat to increment their find counts by some vanishingly small percentage I have to scratch my head as how people continue to let such trivial matters cause them discomfort.

3) Shows how easy it is to get someone's knickers in a twist.

Not really, if the idea is to say "find a waterfall nobody else has logged and post a picture of it", that's a very different proposition from "find a waterfall nobody else has listed, then encourage everybody and their dog to visit it and log it". But if we take out the bolded bit (since nobody does that), we're left with "find a waterfall nobody else has logged and post a picture of it" (locationless concept) and "find a waterfall nobody else has listed and post a picture of it" (Waymarking concept - I added the "and post a picture of it" text to the Waymarking part since pictures are almost always a requirement for creating new waymarks). I don't see any real the difference between these two statements, so it sounds to me that Isonzo Karst's statement has merit. "Find a waterfall that nobody else has logged and get a smiley" vs. "Find a waterfall that nobody else has listed" The difference seems clear to me.

The more dedicated geocachers would; the less dedicated ones wouldn't. If the Geocaching website was the same quality as the Waymarking site, then there certainly would be much fewer active geocachers. I don't doubt that poor performance would discourage some people. The problem is that most geocachers today are using smartphone apps, so as long as the smartphone app seems responsive, most geocachers would not care if the website was slow. I remember when Waymarking was first launched. Back then there were all sorts of issues with Geocaching.com. It seemed that Groundspeak was have a difficult time scaling Geocaching.com as the number of users grew. I know one of the reasons for the initial moratorium on locationless, and probably the launch of Waymarking itself, was to push some of the load off geocaching.com. Locationless were an impediment to making improvements in GC.com performances since they didn't fit the model of other caches. You couldn't search for nearby locationless, so you needed to have a search for all locationless caches. Yet, locationless caches had coordinates so they showed up in regular searches as well. Then if you were going to find a locationless cache you had to look at all the logs to see if the location you had in mind had already been logged. Some popular locationless could have thousands of logs. IIRC, the design of Waymarking and the underlying database were meant to be more scalable than the database that was then being used for geocaching.com. Then developers tested this were pretty confident that queries of waymarks would not become unbearably slow when the number of waymarks became large. In fact the idea was to use the underlying architecture of Waymarking to solve some issues with Geocaching.com by migrating the geocache database to use the Waymarking architecture. Instead. Groundspeak appears to have taken a different route. I still believe the original geocache database got migrated, only to another relational DB engine, that was better designed to deal with large databases than the original freeware one. They hired some consultants that helped tweek the schema and SQL to improve performance. A few capabilities were dropped because they were deemed to be too much of a load. As TPTB began to see an income stream from geocaching that allowed them to upgrade hardware. Front-end problems were addressed with some redesign and the development of geocahing apps took some of load off the website. In the meantime they pretty much abandoned work on Waymarking. AFAIK the Waymarking database may still be on ten year old servers. I don't think performance is the issue with Waymarking as much as the UI. I personally liked what was a modern user interface at the time. But many people got lost in the busy interface and couldn't find the way to do basic simple tasks. Geoccaching had established the idea of 1) enter your zip code; 2) look for caches you want to find; 3) download the caches to your GPS. But Waymarking is a bit more complicated game - primarily for creating new waymarks in various categories with visits really a minor side game. So I think that any UI is going to have the problem of dealing with a more complex set of tasks. But I suspect that if there was a team dedicated to making improvements to Waymarking that the UI would have changed quite a bit instead of being stuck with what was originally provided.

Finding a locationless is more like creating a waymark than visiting a waymark. The idea in both is to go out and find examples of something. For locationless you simply had to submit a find log with the coordinates of the example you found. For Waymarks you need to write up a page, collect category specific information, generally post pictures, and then submit all this to the category managers to get it reviewed and published. Given all the extra work involved for waymarks I find it interesting that way more waymarks have been created then there were ever find logs on locationless caches. Sure waymarks have the advantage of there being many more categories than there were locationless caches; and although most people thought it acceptable to find and log multiple examples of a locationless caches, many would only log one find per cache, while waymarkers who have a interest in a particular category may log hundreds of waymarks in that category.

Like some others, I really don't care what other people wish to count as finds. It has absolutely no effect on my caching. What I do feel has an effect are the occasions when a cache owner has placed a special (non-generic) cache for people to find and these caches have been swapped or replaced with a generic container by someone who views caches as generic and sees no problem with swapping or replacing caches (in fact they may see these activities as beneficial). Unfortunately, instead of trying to deal with unwanted swapping of containers or leaving of replacements, this thread seems to be dominated by people whose knickers have gotten twisted by what they view as rampant "cheating" by people who have a high number of cache finds. While certain tactics that may be used by power cachers to maximize the number of finds in a day might be called cheating by puritans, telling someone that their method of counting finds is cheating won't stop them from doing these things. These high number cachers are not suddenly going to see the light and convert to puritianism as they work the powertrail to Damascus. I'd think you would be more effective trying to explain what these tactics do to people who want something besides a generic find. But so long as people let their uncomfortable knickers influence their judgment of others, there is little hope of that happening.

Generic cacher is doing a power trail and swapping containers. In the middle of the power trail is a cache that is not part of the trail. The cache is apperantly missing. (Perhaps a muggle cut the tie and stole the cache?) the generic cacher leaves the container from the powertrail in its place. (Possibly mistaking the this cache a part of the trail, since the container is missing he doesn't find it tied to a fence in a way that would obviously indicate it wasn't). But since it was Tony Stewart a high number cacher, its much simpler to imagine that the wire was cut in order to not be slowed down.

I thought that thread got locked.

How long do you think it takes to cut a wire? Well the number cachers I know wouldn't do that. They wouldn't even carry cutters to do it. You're talking about real geovandals. I didn't say every number cacher cut wires; I said some apparently do. The wire cutting story seems bogus. As stated if you're intent is to maximize your find rate, taking time to cut a tie would seem silly. Just swap the logs and leave the container alone. If you believe containers are "generic", the ties would likely be a good indicator that the owner thinks his container and its location are non-generic enough to use a tie. I think this would discourage "generic" cachers from thinking the containers are swappable. However, a muggle might find a containter tied to some existing object might think the container must have some value and is worth stealing, or maybe just thinks that people shouln't be tying things to trees or fences and takes the offending item. Later a generic cacher might leave a throwdown replacement. But the "high-numbers" cachers are an easy target, so let's blame them for it.

Sure the commercial area within the Waymarking site has categories that are commercial in nature. Waymarking isn't bound by the guidelines of Geocaching. TPTB decided to allow quite a bit more flexibility in what they allowed to be listed as a waymark or a Waymarking category. Since the point of the commercial categories is for people interested in these establishments to list their locations or to visit them, the idea of keeping commercialism out of Waymarking makes less sense than it does for geocaching. It's easy to avoid the categories you're not interested in. If you want to object to Waymarking categories that would not past muster as geocaches, why not complain about "buried" waymarks or ones with an agenda? Resting Places of Medal Of Honor recipients seems like one that ought to get complaints. In fact, the Department of Veteran's Affairs sent a letter to Groundspeak asking them to take down this category - so you could argue that it lacked permission as well. In order to satisfy the VA, the rules for creating waymarks in this category as well as visiting the waymarks had to be changed to ensure proper decorum is followed when visiting/photographing these sites. But to get back on topic, the idea of Groundspeak owning/selecting the locationless caches has more to do with how difficult is it to find reasonable categories. As mentioned above the idea it to find categories that are generic enough that people have a reasonable chance to find one, without it being so easy as to be trivial. I like the idea of them being for a limited time as well, as that makes them into a contest of "can you find an example of X before the clock runs out". And then there will be a new X to look for.

I'm going to channel my inner Toz and answer your question thus: It doesn't matter. The find count is not a score. To paraphrase Jeremy, there's no need to get your knickers in a twist about what someone else considers a find. </toz> Mustn't mess with the magical names in the logs, or what will the puritans use as the scarlet letter to identify (and publicly shame) the sinners.