simoktm

Yes, it is true that a virtual brings you to an interesting place that you will probably visit even without the virtual... but... if you log it many years after your visit... what do you “get”? If I start logging virtuals published in places I visited many years ago, or places where I have been on holiday, my logs will be a long “collection” of places I visited in my life... and this is not my ( My, so... my opion) idea of geocaching... I think that every cache should bring you to “search” something, or to do a specifical thing...even if it is a virtual. A cache which can be logged from google earth or from a previous visit in my opinion is not a good idea..Maybe a virtual where you have to pm the owner a particular word written on a sculpture that only a “person who is searching that word” notices, or a virtual which requires a picture with your gps or with a piece of paper with your nickname will be better...

According to my “ethics” ... I would not log a found. When you visit a place as a cacher... it is different. You go there in order to “find” the cache, and the cache makes you enjoy and discover the place. Logging a cache published later doesn’t give you nothing but a “found” which increases your smiley count. This is not an experience, just a number, and logging it is, in my opinion, meaningless. It is not a thing against rules... if a geocacher asked me to log my virtual ( I don’t own virtuals but... it is just an example), and sends me correct answers thanks to a “previous visit”, I would not delete the found.

Hi everyone. I would like to share with you a big problem that is affecting earthcaches in my country. I live in Italy, and the GeoAware who reviews the earth caches doesn't speak italian, the local language. In the last months, a great amount of earthcaches were published by tourists. The main problem is that most of these earth caches have an italian listing (which is compulsory, according to guidelines) which is impossible to understand. Probably it is translated with an online translator. I am not meaning a few grammar mistakes: The descriptive part (which is the part that should "teach" a lesson of geology) is often impossible to understand, full of sentences with no meaning. Also the "questions" are often not understandable. In some caches, the translation is so bad that the question have a meaning totally different: there is an earth cache with only questions about weather and atmosphere, in the italian part! Listing like these should be rejected, but the GeoAware can't do it because he reviews only the part in the language he knows (english), and can't check the italian one. Moreover, it is impossible to report N/M, the reviewer should "trust" me if I say that the italian listing is totally wrong. I think there is a lack of control about these caches, maybe an italian-speaking Geoaware could solve this problem. I think that I'll report this situation to Groundspeak, but I don't know if it will change the things... However... I posted my thoughts here to have some advice: What could solve this problem? Should I report this problems to GS or not?

A few years ago, when I was a newbie geocacher, i was exploring a natural reserve on a river, a beautiful naturalistic place. I got close to a birdwatching postation ( a small wooden “little room” with a door always open, used by people who take photos of birds), and decided to hide the cache nearby. after searching a bit for a hide, I noticed a perfect place, where one wooden axis of the pier could be rotated and there was a hole which could contain a small container... so i put my cache there and... suddendly noticed that something had fallen down. I went under the pier to see what it was, and I found a small pack... wrapped... I didn’t look inside but it was really similar to the packs of drugs used by drug traders i saw on tv. i was really scared and I immediately removed my cache and put back everything as it had been before. I left the place and never came back again. Then I discovered that the place had a bad reputation. Luckily i did not meet anyone... even if I found something belonging to someone else...

Yes, I agree. When I found a PT of 20/30 identical caches is very difficult to say something different for every cache...Generally I write a "common part" for the entire trail, where I give my opinion (I liked, it was a difficult/easy path..) and then add a few (short) considerations in the log of every cache..

I think that a log should describe the "experience" of the search. This includes maybe the journey to the cache, and I appreciate when someone writes a long log to my caches, and I try to do the same. When you read the logs of a cache, it is interesting to read a lot of different logs instead of a series of "TFTC" " found quickly"... writing a good log is , in my opinion, a good way to thank the owner for the time spent while hiding and mantaining the cache.

I hid a geocache dedicated to snake, the videogame installed on old telephones. the cache container is a flexible tube, containing some marbles. Inside the tube, between the marbles, there is a nano cache which contains the logbook. The tube is not transparent, so if you want to find the logbook, you have to put a marble into the tube and pushing, so that another marble comes out from the opposite side of the tube. Then you pick this marble and do the same thing, until the nano cache comes out.

Luckily it never happened to me but... you are right. Generally the "abandoned caches" I find belongs to newbies who hide the cache and then immediately give up geocaching ( and often the destroyed cache becomes rubbish ) but there are surely other situations... But let me say that an active geocacher who finds the time for searching a lot of caches and doesn't mantain his own geocaches is not a good owner

Maybe I didn't say that I am talking about abandoned and missing or destroyed caches. Obviously i am not meaning active caches belonging to other owners. The only reasons to log a N/A on an abandoned cache in my opinion are: 1) the cache has missed for a long period of time (months after the first N/M log) and the owner has not replaced it yet without a motivation. 2) the cache is still at the place but totally destroyed, and the owner hasn't done mantainance for a long time. in these situations the owner may have given up geocaching, or may be very busy. So I usually email him, asking about the cache. If he doesn't reply, there are two options 1) I perform mantainance to his caches without his permission ( and in my previous answer I explained why this is not a good thing in my opinion) 2) I post a N/A note, writing that the owner has disappeared and hasn't replaced the cache for a long time If the owner replies I explain him the situation about the cache. In these situations many owners archive the cache by themselves or give it in adoption, but there aren't other options, an owner MUST do mantainance. if he doesn't do it, he's only occupying a place with a disappeared cache.

In my opinion, you should at first contact the CO to ask for adoption, then if he doesn't reply you can log a N/M and then a N/A. I think that doing the mantainance to a cache which is not actually yours is not the best thing to do, because if you are not the owner, you can't edit the description, change coordinates if necessary and you can't delete fake logs. In these cases in my opinion you should hide a new cache connected to your account.

I think that there is a (unwanted) lack of control on the earthcaches. the fact that they are not physical, means that many tourists, as they want to have a "hide" abroad, create an earthcache every time they go on holiday. The result is that there are a lot of identical and uninteresting earthcaches for example in big touristic cities as Rome, created by tourists only for their "stats". Translation in local language is a very big problem, many of them are incorrect ( and not understandable), so it is impossible to answer to some questions for some language speakers. I don't want to blame geoawares (who are giving a great service to the community) but even if they are expert of geology, they can't "Review " correctly a earth written in a language they don't know, but only the English version or the languages they know. i think that, in order to avoid these problems, in the countries where the Geoaware doesn't speak the local language, a further "check" should be introduced. For example, after the "review" of the geoaware, who check that the geology is correct, the cache should be checked by a local reviewer, who is not a geoaware but knows the rules and the language...

I give FP for the same reasons of the author of the topic. But we should remember that every geocacher gives FP as he/she wants. There is not a rule. Someone gives a FP because the CO is a friend, or because the CO has helped him, for this reason FPs are not always an index of the quality of the cache. In my opinion there's no need to "separate" the two kinds of FP, because a fp is for the "global experience " of searching for the cache. If you liked the place you liked the experience. If you liked the cache you appreciated the "experience" of finding it because is very creative...

Why do we hide geocaches? We hide geocaches in order to make geocachers visit interesting places or we do it in order to increase their smiley count? I think that power trails can be interesting under some points of view. For example, if a PT is placed in order to make the geocacher follow a particular path (for example along a lake or between two or three mountains) which is interesting under an historical or naturalistic point of view, i think it could be a great idea. if the PT is placed along a highway, where there is NOTHING of interesting, nothing to see, and the only reason for coming there is finding the caches, i think it's not a good idea. but... a lot of geocachers seem to like PT of ugly caches more than a single very beautiful cache. I don't share this view but I respect it.

Hi, when you adopt a Geocache, the name displayed as "owner" will be the name of the previous owner, but you can change it. In fact, when you adopt the cache, you can edit the "hidden by.." Section in the edit menu of the cache, where you can delete the name of the previous owner and write your own name.

Ciao e scusa il ritardo nella risposta. Probabilmente è troppo tardi ma ti rispondo comunque nel caso possa esserti utile in futuro. Ti consiglio innanzitutto, di leggere le linee guida riguardo agli eventi, su cui puoi trovare una risposta ad ogni tua domanda. riguardo a quanto hai chiesto: sí, è possibile, il fine dell'evento non può essere solo quello di cercar cache, ma nel tuo caso visto che è in concomitanza di una festa, sí. È chiaro che poi come molto spesso accade, si cercano delle cache. Avevo partecipato ad un evento molto simile. ciao!