tozainamboku

The D/T ratings came about in a period before attributes, before events, and before there were many multicaches and puzzle caches and these were listed as traditionals. I don't know the specifics, but probably when Jeremy was putting together the website he thought about what data would be captured for each cache. I believe in the earliest incarnation there wasn't even a title; they were all called "Geocache". And there weren't cache types; they we all just "Geocache". At some point he though there should be some indication of how difficult a cache was and how hard it was to get to the cache site. So added the D/T ratings and told people: "On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 be easy and 5 being difficult how would you rate your cache?" The forum community, being then what is is now - highly opinionated and slightly nerdy - began to debate what the numbers meant. In the wonderful ignorance of the masses they decided - after much debate - what each number 1 to 5 meant and that the database should allow .5 points so you can tweak the rating if you cache was something in the middle. Officially, at least for a time, the official definition was 1=easy and 5=difficult, but the descriptions that came out of the forum made it in to the help center and Clayjar wrote his website based on these definitions. I agree that T5='special equipment needed' does say a word about how difficult the terrain is. Often these caches are quite easy to get to if you have the equipment and only difficult it you try without equipment. And in deciding whether this a cache you want to try, it doesn't give you any information about what equipment you need. That was done much better when attributes were added later. It's an example of how the early community used whatever tools Groundspeak gave them to solve problems and how now we are stuck with imperfect solutions. My guess is that misrated caches - particularly events - exist because the system is flawed and people know it. When the field doesn't really apply to a cache, people will put what ever they like. Fizzy challenges and online stats seem to have become the new cause for ill fitting knickers. If it wasn't for these the comment "It's just a convenient way to pad stats for appearing to do something that you didn't" would be meaningless. If someone uses an arbitrary value because the option "N/A" was never given or because of the lousy set of definitions used by Clayjar and now posted in the help center didn't take in to consideration some situation, who would care. You wouldn't accuse them of padding anything. I feel sorry that geocaching has changed this way. However, I'm enjoying the reaction on the forum in two threads now discussing what should be done to untwist their knickers.

So they can get logs like this, as well as this and then this, and eventually capitulate and change it to "other"? Yes, that happened on this cache. Well, I would follow each of those logs with a Note explaining that a nano is a subset of micro and then write into the cache page GS's definition as quoted by niraD. I would not change the cache size to accommodate the ignorant, but would attempt to educate them. Probably even send an email to the writer of each of those logs; hopefully after the first one, there wouldn't have been anymore. 'Other' isn't necessarily a bad choice for a nano. 'Other' is supposed to mean you have a unusual container and that is descibed in the cache description. Those who want to provide a bit more detail than 'micro' could use 'other' and in the dexciption describe the cache as a nano. Of course one could list a cache as 'micro' and provide a desciption as well. I suspect that 'Other' is used so widely in some area that people believe that nanos should always be listed as 'other'. I personally find that nanos are pretty easy to find if you know what you are looking for. Using 'micro' may cause some cachers to be looking for something like a film can and overlook the obvious locations where a nano might be hidden. Originally many nanos were listed as 'Unspecified' because the hiders wanted this to be an 'evil' hide where you didn't think of something so small. As nanos got more popular, 'unspecified' is often a dead giveaway to look for a nano; so it now has the opposite intent.

I still stand by that. Anything explicitly disallowed, is not allowed for good reason, due to whatever experiences may have occurred, and lessons learned. Not just someone's random preference. So one of the things that is disallowed are virtual caches. I think cezanne may be from the "Waymarking" school of geocaching. (I know he doesn't care much for waymakrking ) What I mean is that there has alway been a segment of geocachers for whom geocaching is not primarily about finding caches but about the places you go in order to find a cache. Virtual caches (especially once the "wow" requirement was put in place) were tha epitome of this. "Since the reward for a virtual cache is the location, the location should “WOW” the prospective finder". In addition to virtual caches, some people created multicaches that were meant to take you on tour of some area and point out sites of natural, cultural, or historic significance along the way. There would be a physical cache at the end, but the real reward for many was the tour. Such caches seem to be particularly popular in Europe, but I know at least two of my favorite caches in Los Angeles would fit this category. A lot of effort went into setting up such complex multicaches and it could take a whole day to do one of them (a few might take several days and require long trips). I'm certain that people are still creating caches like these, but my guess is that there are fewer like this than in the past because the tend to not get visited. People who set these up would probably find it better to set it up on some other site. If Groundspeak were to do something with Waymarking or Wherigo and promote this as way for people to set up their own tours of interesting sites you might find a way to create a community where these sorts of multis could succeed.

Event sizes are silly (especially giga). Mega was added because of regional and international events meant to attract cachers from some distance when they might stay overnight. Special guidelines were needed since these events need to have a longer lead times to organize. Unfortunately the numbers oriented at Groundspeak headquarters could only come up with number of attendees as a way to differentiate these events. However, I was around when small was added as a container size, so there is a precedent for adding sizes. The main reason for this was that many 'regular' sized caches were becoming too 'small' to hold some trackables. If you attached a trackable tag to any item larger than itself, it wouldn't fit in many containers. So small was introduced to indicate a container that was only large enough to hold small trade items and trackables. Some micros can hold very small items in additions to a log. There have been proposals (as well as some shifting definitions) to have 'small' include these larger micros and reserve 'micro' for log only caches. This ^.

It's beyond me to understand how such a triviality as D/T numbers can twist people's knickers so much. These values seemed to have been added to the initial Geocache database on a whim. Nobody knew what they meant, you were just told to enter a a values from 1 to 5 for them when you submitted a cache. 1 was easiest and 5 was most difficult. Of course this caused a great deal of discussion in the early forum resulting is the guidelines from which Clayjar developed his website to assign values. I wasn't around then, I probably would have looked askance at the whole process and suggested that a 1 to 5 scale isn't a particularly good way to do this. How about a choice: Easy, Medium, or Hard; or if you had to have 5 categories: Very Easy, Somewhat Easy, Medium, Somewhat Hard, Very Hard. The 1/2 stars are stupid and unnecesarily confusing. The early discussions were for traditional caches, the other kinds of caches were not existent or at least not common (even in Europe where they became common soon afterwards). When events were added people didn't even consider these number had any meaning for events. Everyone was aware that Groundspeak had decided to list events in the Geocache database - essential forcing a square peg into a round hole. Who really cared that events had D/T. Back then events had container sizes as well. (so did virtual caches). I don't know what has changed to make some silly numbers that someone might use to get a rough idea if a cache was going to be hard or easy into magic numbers whose accuracy (or lack thereof) causes such knickers twisting. Perhaps it is due to Grounspeak's efforts to limit abusive owners from deleting logs. The idea being that you can't 'force' people to participate in most activities by deleting or withholding online logs. So people think an event is always D1 since it only involves showing up. Perhaps it is that rare cache type where you apparently can withhold online logs - the challenge cache, and in particular the challenge of filling a fizzy grid. Some people tend to get twisted knickers because the traditional ability to put nonsense D/T numbers for an event or for a so-called liars cache means 5/5 and some other combinations can be gotten through what some view as false pretense. Jeez, just loosen your pants so they don't bunch up. It's a fun game and nitpicking over accuracy just seem inappropriate to me.

I originally started to reply that "no ALRs" applies only to physical caches, There is no published guideline saying you can't have ALRs for events. But... Originally the commercial guideline was used to require many of these sorts of events to at least have an option to not participate if the activity involved a fee. Even events at restaurants were told that they can't require people to purchase food. However I suppose if there is no fee you might be able to require participation. However... Recently Groundspeak has add logging guidelines for event caches that state you can log Attended if you attend the event. Even though you can have a log book at the event, signing the log is optional and cannot be a requirement for logging an Event Cache online. It isn't clear if this is meant to forbid requiring any activity beyond showing up. There is no guidance for how log you have to stay to have attended or if you have to interact with anyone. Surely just sticking your head in the door and the leaving is would not be attending? My guess is that, while Groundspeak wants cache owners to delete bogus logs, they don't think that cache/event owners should get their knickers twisted because somebody thinks they deserve to log a find/attended. The logging guidelines are pretty much to tell cache owners that they no longer have carte blanche to delete find/attended logs for whatever reason they like. Sure, if there is a skating or kayaking event one would hope that people would participate. But you can't use the the online log as a "prize" for participating. Apparently there are only "prizes" for doing challenges.

No such thing as privacy with Project-GC around. You don't have to opt into Project-GC. Your profile there probably has just about every statistic available from GSAK...and more. Fortunately privacy was not the main reason for not opting in to statistics sites. Mostly is was lack of interest on my part, but perhaps also the idea that if it meant people would be discouraged from evaluating geocaching based on statistics it might make the complaining go away. Just make it simple - are you having fun? Maybe what was meant was just that the typical places where the QR codes of the m game are to found are as boring and insignifant than LPC caches. I have hoped for a while that the m game would absorb some of the boring and score oriented activities within geocaching, but that did not happen. My guess would be that sites like these may work better for a few people who want to play mindless check-in with your cell phone games. Maybe some of them would have gone to geocaching otherwise. What I suspect is that people find finding LPCs more fun than checking in when they get to the street corner or even scanning the QR code some has stuck on the crossing light. There are certainly people who blog about the more interesting cache they find. I suspect many ask for people to post their recommended caches. GCVote is still around for people who don't think the favorite vote goes far enough, that lets people rate caches. Perhaps because someone has to recommend or vote on the cache these site don't get the inputs needed to get a reasonable rating. Or maybe there is just too many opinions about what makes a good cache or what is "worthy of the Good Old Days".

I suppose if you play a game where you score points for finding things, the idea of signing a paper log could have long been replace using technology that could at least verify the point scored was geographically close to the cache site. With a two way connection from the box itself (even using the the finders smartphone as a network gateway) you even might be able to verify the cache was opened. There is a thread in the Website suggestion section or certified found it logs. My guess is that GS has not looked at ways to verify finds electronically because there would be push back to the idea of making geocaching any more of a scoring game that it is. I'm not entirely clear on the reason you think there is some tradeoff between QR code caches and LPC caches. I know that a lot of the QR codes are stuck to the outside of the pole so you don't need to lift the cover. Is lifting the cover what you object to, or the fact that most geocaches are hidden so that muggles don't find them? Has there been a website that tries to add value to geocaching.com instead of competing with it? These threads lamenting the lose of the old ways always seem to lead to an admission that good caches are still possible, many exist, and many more would exist, except that no one can find them among all the power trails and LPCs and other micros. Creating a competing site wouldn't work, but could a cooperating site fill in the missing pieces? There have been various sites that have tried to add value. There have been a number of sites that have provided statistics in one form or another. Some of which have at least been successful for a time. Their biggest issue has been requiring people to opt in and often upload their finds. Project-GC uses the GC api so it may be a bit easier to use. Since I view Geocaching a a fun activity and not a competition, I tend to avoid statistics sites (even the GC stats page on my profile). The stats I'm interested I can get from my GSAK records and keep them mostly private. I've not opted in with an account so I'm not sure what stats of mine are visible on Project-GC. It seems clear, however, that many people enjoy comparing their stats with others and for them sites like Project-GC seem to provide added value.

That sounds only a bit childish to me. As a cache owner, you have to accept the fact that some people just will not log your cache in a way that you'd prefer. It's part of the game. Basically threatening to take your toys and go home unless people log the way you want them to log is blackmail of sorts. No - you don't have to accept anything and you have complete freedom of choice as to whether you want to bother maintaining caches for the sake of TFTC logs or instead choose to archive them and spend the time doing something you enjoy more - including ignoring people who throw out trite, hackneyed phrases to try to make you feel bad about exercising your freedom of choice to not maintain a plastic box with a piece of paper in it for their finding and TFTC'ing pleasure Why provide a ball for others to play a game that you're not going to enjoy. Surely it makes sense let them provide their own ball? Certainly cache owners are free to archive their caches for whatever reason they want. But archiving because others enjoy a different aspect of geocaching and might not view the online log the same way seems counterproductive. I'm not sure if I feel "Good riddence, we don't need cache owners who expect everyone to have the same particular view of the online log", or "I'm sad because I prefer caches that give me a reason to write more than TFTC in the log, and some selfish owner has archive this because he insisted on getting long logs".

My view is that geocaching is, was, and probably always will be a light fun activity. There may be some people who envision competitive professional geocaching where there are leader boards, prizes, and trophies awarded for getting the most smiley counts; but I believe that whether people prefer a hike to find a single cache or one that takes take you someone remarkable place they wouldn't have visited otherwise or prefer to spend a day with friends on a powertail, they do so because they are having fun. It's sad that people who enjoy caches that give them a unique experience feel their enjoyment is ruined by people who enjoy finding generic containers hidden in routine locations. It sure seems that a bit of effort spent in selecting which caches you look for would eliminate most of the caches you disdain. Perhaps back in the day when there were few caches to find, you could find them all. In some areas, you might have found most of those old caches were ones you enjoyed and the "lame" caches were few and far between. Clearly as cacher demographics has change, generic hides dominate in some areas. But there are now more than enough caches that you can be choosy. There are plenty of tools to help avoide LPCs in parking lots and to seek out a cache that is special or unique.

And I strongly suspect that it isn't some guy named Bud Weiser that helps you with your logging. I also enjoy a beer or two when sitting down to log a few caches. If' I'm finished logging caches, but the beer isn't finished, I can continue to drink it while reading/posting on the forums. Thanks or reminding me that I need to pay a visit to the craft beer store downtown. Just as long as it isn't Keystone.

My theory is that people who were good at Spot the Differences puzzles as a kid make good geocachers.

XH is not HX

It may sound like this belongs in a different thread but back in the good ol' days, the reviewers minded their business and geocachers were given a lot more latitude (and longitude) to be creative. You got ideas like liar's caches, the D/T was fake but the logs were a lot longer, because most people participated and made up a story. You had events where you had to solve a puzzle to get the coordinates, or where there was an ALR to log you attended (allowed back in the ol' days). Even fake D/T events were ok to support a theme. One local had a Halloween event that was always rated 5/5 (because it was so scary). I think a bunch of narrow-minded, uncreative geocachers simply decided that if there were ratings they ought to have rules. They first went after cache types (ostensibly because they decided Traditional cache should be findable is you only had the coordinates and didn't read the description). Then they went after caches sizes (complaining that they relied on this to decide if they could leave a trackable in the cache). Later they complained about the Scuba attribute or the snowmobile attribute being used for caches in the desert (as if they were going to pack their scuba gear or snowmobile when the went to look for the cache). Now it's the D/T rating. This game has too many self-righteous puritans who can't stand that some people like to use the attributes is some silly and sometime humorous manner just to keep the whole game light. The invent rules that never existed before and complain until TPTB direct the reviewers to enforce them. I liked it better in the good ol' days.

Sadly we can't all cache in Lake Wobegon (a reference to an American radio show about a fictional place where "All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average") There are caches that will meet your standards and ones that that will not. It may be true that a segment of the geocaching community are generic cachers. By this I mean that they seem the caches themselves as interchangable and really view geocaching as going out and finding lots of caches rather than as a series of experiences with individual caches. I sure that the they still enjoy some caches more than others but they aren't going to be particularly upset if they get string of below average caches. After all, they were out doing that geocaching thing. I suspect that they get some enjoyment simply by finding caches even when others may view these caches as less challenging and in less than the most interesting places. And in many cases, the fact that they did this activity with a bunch of friends is really the reason they find it enjoyable. I won't deny that there has been a change as more people view the activity as generic caching. These people are likely to place more caches and may spend less time trying to create a unique experience for each cache. However there are still plenty of people hiding caches who spend time making "special". And long ago, I found that even the mose annoying generic cache hider, simply by placing so many caches, places a few that are worthwhile. The problem is how to determine what these caches are. If you accept that you don't live in Lake Wobegon, and you don't have to find every cache (or even want to), then you start to find ways to seek out the hides you are more likely going to enjoy.

The so-called powertrail rule was asking the reviewers to apply a "wow" requirement. Just which series of caches were "wow" enough to allow? Sure there were attempts, like those of the Swiss reviewer, to create rules limiting the number of caches any one user could plance in a a given area overs some given time. But these were hard to enforce and what worked in Switzerland might not work in Los Angeles or in upstate New York. At the same time it is hard to deny to poopularity of pwoertrails. While some cachers bemoan the loss of some astract definition of quality to the view that gecocache finds are a commodity, there are cleary many people who prefer havint more caches to find. My guess is that the reason most people stop caching has always been that they find it's just not enjoyable anymore. Sure, there are always those who stopped because phyically becoming unable to cache anymore or because other commitments prevent them from caching. But way back in the day, some people quit because the found all the caches in a reasonable distance from home and didn't want a hobby they could only don when they travelled far from home; few peopld could give this reason anymore. How? At a minimum, for those who view the smiley as the point of geocaching, having more caches to find means more opportunities to cache. Granted there are many people who find the enjoyment is visiting new places or the challenge of finding a well hiden or cleverly camouflaged cache. For thes people a powertrail seems absurd, let alone caches in every parking lot iwth a lamppost. But just because you enjoy one thing doesn't mean another person can't enjoy something else

Some CO's are notoriously proud of their cache and don't like any negative logs. No matter how you word it, a CO will think your log pointing out problems with the site are actually being critical of him for selecting the site. Some people would have first emailed the cache owner privately to point out the issue so at least the owner doesn't feel his faults are being exposed to the world.

Maybe. But at least when I started in So. California in February 2003, there was already people playing this as a numbers games. Most new caches were urban hides, many with comments like "this area needs more caches" and many players had stopped looking for anything that took more than jumping out of the car and walking a few feet to get to. Sure there was still a high percentage of of caches in the mountains or even in local parks, but I can remember the cache hidden around the corner in a newrack a few weeks after I joined, and the one in the shopping cart return at a nearby supermarket. I remember on that one wondering why there instead of at the park .25 miles away which had no caches at that time. I would say that by 2003 the changes you bemoan had already taken place (at least in certain areas). The whole discussion of absolute numbers of certain kinds of caches vs. the ratio of caches reminds me of the contrarian position I take on Favorite points. People tend to give far too much importance to averages. Clearly, the numbers types will hide a lot more caches - since the purpose for them is to have more caches to find. Even if they account for only a small portion of the geocaching community, there are likely to swamp the other kinds of hiders. One thing that has changed are the tools to help select caches. Pocket Queries, attributes, and favorite points make it easier than ever to find caches that have something to offer beyond the smiley. Even the maps are better. It's easy to tell if a cache is in a park or in a parking lot. And if you see a string of caches following a back-country road, you have a good idea that it's a powertrail.

The above are not correct. Guidelines state: "1.Logging of All Physical Geocaches Physical caches can be logged online as "Found" once the physical log has been signed." This basically means that a cache owner cannot delete your log if you signed the phyical logbook/logsheet. COs can allow online finds in cases such as a soggy/moldy logbook you were not able to sign, etc. It is up to the CO to allow those online finds, but they can make exceptions as they see fit. Thank you. I can see how someone new can read this section of the guideline and misinterpret it to mean that you must sign the physical log before you can make an online found log or else it's cheating. If you were around when this section was added to the guideline then you would know that it was added at the time Groundspeak decided to tell cache owners that they could no longer enforce additional logging requiremenets. Prior to that time cache owners were free to say something like "In order to log a find online you must post a picture of yourself wearing twisted knickers". Groundspeak decided that with the exception of certain geocaching related challenges, you could no longer require that cachers complete any activity beyond finding the cache. Now, TPTB have always stated that the physical log book in the cache can be used as proof that someone has found the cache, and that doesn't change. If the online log looks suspicious, a cache owner may check the physical log and delete the online log if the physical log was not signed. What happens when a group of cachers goes out and one person in the group signs the physical log on behalf of all the people in the group? I have seen cases where a cache owner insisted on the log having individual signatures from all who log the find online, and then being told by the reviewer or a Groundspeak lackey that they must accept the online logs of everyone in the group. I've seem some cache owners who don't like this ruling take their ball and go home (i.e. archive their cache).

Leapfrogging consists of grabing the waistband of somebody's underwear and pulling it up so that the underwear gets stuck in ... no wait, that's giving a wedgie.

On the flip side, I know people who used to be geocachers that would go on hikes to find caches, and who are now hikers that occasionally find a geocache while on a hike. That made me think of cezanne's complaint that there are no long hiking cache getting placed in Austria. So I did a little research and found that hiking in Bavaria or Austria has definitely changed.

I'm not so sure he wants a physical reward. It seems a virtual souvenir on the app would be sufficient. We are talking about something called game dynamics. This is some occurrence in the course of the game that players may see as achieving a goal or earning a reward. While I don't like it, the Woohoo, I'm getting another smiley (or WIGAS point) for logging the caches you find (even more than one time) is seen by many as a score. So the game dynamic has become to accumulate points. That might move you up in the "leaderboard" or it may result in a trophy or souvenir. The idea of unlocking another level is common in online games as a 'reward' for achieving a certain score. 1. The points are for what every you want to use them for. Some of us don't see the find count as points at all. We find individual caches and, when we do, record it using the online log and share our experiences. Before the app, some people would write a story about their cache search and even upload pictures. You are certainly welcome to set a goal of finding 1000 caches in the next year or something like that and let us know if you make your goal (and what kinds of adventures you had doing so). You may also want to look at challenge caches. These are listed as mystery type caches - so you may not see them on the introduction app. Here cachers have set goals based on finding geocaches, and if you achieve the goal, you may find and log these caches. 2. Virtual caches were an experiment from the early days of geocaching. Instead of finding a cache someone had hidden, the idea was to to find some object that was already there. Instead of signing the log, you would take a picture or answer a question to prove you 'found' that object. While virtual caches are no longer published, the old ones were grandfathered and many can still be found.

I'm fed up explaining that the idea of the Best Kept Secrets category was to replicate some the features of the old virtual caches. It doesn't get many submission and recently there are just for miscellaneous places where there isn't another category. The submitter will say "this places isn't very well known" and expect that makes it a best kept secret. And who can blame them. There are probably dozens of waymsrkers who don't even know what a virtual cache was. There are probably geocachers with no idea as well. We were going to call the category "Wow" waymarks or "Virtual Caches". Jeremy was the one who suggested Best Kept Secrets. I think he should be the one to tell grandmabetsy why the trail she submitted is not a best kept secret. I'm tired of doing this. While there continues to be occasional threads asking to bring back virtuals, IMO there doesn't seem to be anyone who actually wants to create anything that approaches what made a virtual different from the average waymark. 9 years ago I though I could use the Waymarking site to carve out a niche category that was not just a category to list item but would be a kind of virtual geocache replacement. There is no interest in doing that here. So I give up. If someone want's to manage a Best Kept Secrets categories for grandmabetsy's secret trail or the cold war era spy headquarters in Prague, just drop me a line and you can take it over.

I've noticed that you can almost split up the responses by join date of the responder. Those who started in 2000-2002 remember a time when there were few caches and few rules. From 2003-2005, people discovered a game that was becoming established with more guidelines for placement of caches and many area saw a rapid growth in the number of caches. But there was a spirit of adventure at being part of something that was still new and still discovering the direction it was taking. From 2005-2008, people began to notice more and more 'numbers' caching. Some old timers liked that you didn't have to go as far to find caches, but others saw the new caches as inferior to the more adventuresome hides that had 'survived' from earlier times. The guidelines were more established and any little change (powertrails, ALRs, challenge caches, etc.) was bound to cause controversy. In 2009 the iPhone came along, over the next few years the game changed to a smartphone based game instead of one that required investment in a special standalone GPS. Some saw that as democratizing the sport (as well as making it easier to find caches when you were away from home), while others wanted to blame intro app users for destroying every thing they liked about caching.

Jeremy used to post in the forums. Certainly the demographics have changed and this is partly due to the greater availability of devices with GPS cabability tha can be used for geocaching. I'm not so sure that caches were all that better in the old days. Certainly many will complain about micros taking over. I recall the first cach I found that I considered a nano, just a couple of months after starting back in 2003. And about a year after that finding my first binky-button cache (what developed into what we now call a nano). Yet I think many people still get excited finding a regular sized cache that has some interesting swag. I know that it was common for me in those early days to find leaky tupperware full of water, and lots of caches with cracked lid that didn't survive well in the wild. We were learning then what containers lasted. One migth expect with that knowledge gained back then that cache containers have improved; however, people will still try to hide the cheapest container. I think location has already been mentioned. Back when there were few caches people tended to place them in new locations - a new park or an interesting site that didn't have a cache. A common acronym in old logs was 'YAPIDKA' (yet another park I didn't know about) because the cache would take you to a little park somewhere you hadn't been before. With so many more caches we tend not to explore as far from home, and even if you do end up in a park you didn't know about, you probably found a dozen other caches nearby. I may be hard to recreate that experience given the number of caches placed nowadays.