baloo&bd

+1 on c:geo, it kind of sets the standard by which others are measured, official app included.

That is one sure way to ensure the death of geocaching.com. The overwhelming majority of cachers are casual, and of the premium members it is probably a safe bet that a significant percentage of them did not find their first caches after becoming premium members. Not to mention cacheers who come and go due to life situations and may become casual for a extended period of time. Premium does not equate to quality cacher. In our area, the most ignored cacher who also create lots of issues is premium and has multiple sockpuppet accounts, some also premium. This adds no value to a member who is not interested in purchasing from the online store or can not afford membership. This, quite frankly, was a volunteer or staff member who caved to a CO who did not want to play nice in the sandbox. It should have been handled along the lines of "thanks for pointing out the inconsistency in the wording on the site, we will fix it as soon as possible. In the meantime, the found it log will stand as it complies with stated guidelines as well as long standing practices and intentions of Groundspeak". Problem solved, no drama with the exception of a control freak CO possibly dropping out. Net result would be a positive for Geocaching.

Locking this would be unfortunate as 1> the comments have been on topic 2. informative and 3. not rude. Trying to bypass guidelines is bad enough however trying to do it on the website that set up said guidelines seems somehow much worse (i.e. rude). The comments posted are simply those taking you OP at face value and commenting.

This bookmark may help. Other than Mingo (Which I have debated back and forth) I try to keep it uptodate with caches that have not had any significant lapses of service,movement, etc.

I care if I do something to upset others, however if doing something I agreed to and having the cache listing as accurate as possible. if they get upset it is their issue. Again, as I mentioned earlier, this happens so rarely I do not understand why (beyond the troll factor) this is a charge you feel a need to lead.

Roman, help me out here. Let's take the above example. It was place January of 2001. The next closest January 2001 is 589 miles from this GZ. Am I being selfish to those filling the date grid to archive it and put the correct D/T rating on the new one, thus depriving them from that placed date combo? If I leave the D/T combo as is, and the location has a fantastic view, am I depriving someone from finding this cache because for whatever reason they do not look for caches over a 3 terrain? Am I being fair to those who found it when it was a 3 terrain to issue a gimme to the new finders? Help me, which of these are selfish and which are not? What are the guidelines? I just started to try to fill grids recently to add some further challenge. While I would be disappointed, if there were valid reasons for changes, they would not bother me. It would bother me however, if a cache that was placed in a rare month/year combo was replaced to preserve the D/T combo, as the later can always re-appear nearby where the former never can once it is archived. By archiving the cache you are not affecting anyone's stats, fact is old caches do get archived, some people may have gone well out of there way for your D/T combo so changing it can affect other people's stats. But since you like extreme examplea, someone finds your 4.5/5 cache and fills his grid, on his hike out he falls and is paralyzed, a month later a road in is built, would you change the D/T knowing he'll never be able to find another. Or the owner of Mingo moves it 100 yards and changes the date placed, now it is affecting others stats, is this When it comes down to it, your trying to find a solution for a problem that does not exist. So rare in fact, that there have been few mentions of it in the forums. The examples were not extreme while I used the example given in the thread, that very issue happened one state over from me. Contrary to your opening statement in this reply, you certainly are affecting someone stats. If Mingo is the only 5/00 nearby, which by the way is a very rare placed date, and it is moved and changed (as it should have been anyway) it does affect everyone's ability to obtain that date, where as the D/T will only affect those that have only found that particular cache and they can more readily replace the combo. As an example, if you are looking to fill a grid square for the month/year combo 7/00, in the US you only have 5 possibilities left in all 50 states. Conversely, if I changed a 5/3.5 today, there are not only 342 more opportunities in the US to get one of those, over the next 5 years there could well be 100 or more placed. If that swamp is filled in, has a road and sidewalk installed within 100 feet of the cache, you can bet I would change the 3.5 to a 1.5 or 2. To do anything else would be dishonest.

Roman, help me out here. Let's take the above example. It was place January of 2001. The next closest January 2001 is 589 miles from this GZ. Am I being selfish to those filling the date grid to archive it and put the correct D/T rating on the new one, thus depriving them from that placed date combo? If I leave the D/T combo as is, and the location has a fantastic view, am I depriving someone from finding this cache because for whatever reason they do not look for caches over a 3 terrain? Am I being fair to those who found it when it was a 3 terrain to issue a gimme to the new finders? Help me, which of these are selfish and which are not? What are the guidelines? I just started to try to fill grids recently to add some further challenge. While I would be disappointed, if there were valid reasons for changes, they would not bother me. It would bother me however, if a cache that was placed in a rare month/year combo was replaced to preserve the D/T combo, as the later can always re-appear nearby where the former never can once it is archived.

Everyone sure seems to be putting a lot of thought and effort into fixing something that is not even broken. An old and tired adage comes to mind, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Not sure why nobody's asked this yet, but ...........why?

Something sounds like there is more behind this post then the obvious.

I know what I am about to give is a non-answer, but please indulge me. When I first got GSAK, it was to "simply load PQs" while I built a database. Many others after me all started with GSAK for the same reason. While I won't say all, many ended up finding that it did things they didn't know they wanted, but now won't live without. Everything from parsing the PQs to statistics. Interfacing with maps to using GS's API to get caches in an area you will be visiting without having to use up a PQ (i.e. you can do it on the fly). Some use the API to do a quick update of their entire database (mine covers a 80 mile radius) before they head out the door to make sure they have the most up to date info. OK, commercial over. Just think you might want to give the free version a try as you ook for something else. You may be surprised.

Ours can be found here. There are posts and logs associated with each shoulder patch. One of the members of our group made up pamphlets for officers we run into. We have even had officers help us look for caches.

An explanation from Groundspeak would be nice, but since they didn't communicate too much to the OP, I wouldn't expect too much communication from them. Perhaps they could erect a chimney and send some smoke signals. Don't be so quick to say there was not more communication with the OP. Again, something here is missing. Until stated otherwise, their previous stance is in effect. If you are in the log, it is a legit find. No matter PM status. Someone form GS may feel free to correct me, however I have heard nothing to show they have made an official change to this stance.

Because if in soccer, a few people decided that after a ball goes out of bounds it can thrown in and taken in hand and run down the field until knock out of their hands, it would be a foul. More often than not, people are criticized for playing the sanctioned games and not the FTF side game than the other way around. No one is criticized for playing the FTF game. They are criticized for imposing their rules on other, sometime unsuspecting, players. If I choose to give my coords to a friend or post them on Facebook and someone uses those coords to find it before they get approved for listing here, they are first to find. If they decide to take the risk of arrest and break a law to get the cache, they are first to find. First to find is a binary state, either you are or you are not. If you choose to ignore someone finding it prior to listing, that is up to you however the issue comes in when you impose that rule on a CO or other cacher.

I have never really understood the attraction and have no desire to "walk in the FTF shoes". In our area, there was never really a race for FTF until a few years ago. Most, if not all the area cachers, have just got FTFs through the normal course of our caching. Now there is one cacher who races out for every cache. Most of us just sit back and let them have enough time to find it otherwise we all have to endure the ensuing drama and it's associated nastiness. While most likely not true in all areas, our experience with FTF hounds (albeit mostly just this one) is that abandoning job, family and friends is a requirement. Sorry, just not for us. We'll pass.

It amazes me no one sees that there is something more to this story. The backdoor methods are not only well known, but when they were inadvertently broken during an update a few years ago, GS rushed to fix them. The fact that it was handled, then retracted in a move that on the surface appears to go against GS position on the matter, begs the question of what part of the story are we not hearing?

Is it possible for the moderator to change the thread name to "Proximity rule should not be affected by integrity"?

..or getting the coords emailed to you from the CO, someone wo helped them place it or off a post on a blog or FB. All are valid FTFs. Even if GS were to ever sanction the FTF game (doubtful) this would not change.

Thread seems kinda pointless now. Not only have all the reasonable suggestions been rejected, it turns out it was a non-issue to begin with as the reviewer at already worked it out for the OP.

One of the reasons for the rule is so people do not stumble across one cache while looking for another. Another reason is that too many caches in the area are not good for the area, or even for caching. Being able to walk and find a cache every 50 feet is not really desirable or we would all be rushing over to do Munzees. If they are discouraged from geocaching because there are rules, them not wanting to geocache is the least of your problems. There are many rules in life we either are unaware of or don't understand/agree with that we have to abide by. This is an excellent opportunity to set an example of how to deal with them. Before coming here and trashing the rule (as well as other types of hides), a better example would be to ask for an explanation for it's implementation before going on the offensive.

That is the way it is SUPPOSE to work. More often than not, it does not. Use one of the fixes mentioned or simply be careful, it will eventually fail.

Trust us, they are there just don't come to the forums too often. Mostly because they are busy studying things like punctuation, grammar, etc.

After reading the first few incorrect responses to your post, I just skipped to reply, however this has probably been said before. FtF is a binary state, either you were or you were not. Publish date, weather, park rules, etc. have no effect on that state. You either are or you are not. Had you stated you were with him or he guided you there by the hand, then it could be said you didn't "find it", however that does not appear to be the case here.Many CO's, myself included h, hand out the coords to friends and other cachers while waiting for it to be published. It is also common for events to hand out the coords for caches they have requested to not be published till after the event. Both acceptable practices. To claim a find according to GS rules one must sign the log thus to be FTF one must sign the log first thus if someone beta tests a cache and doesn't sign the log (which I think is the right thing to do) FTF is still up for grabs. Not sure what you are responding to. The OP signed the log and the rest of what you said is simply repeating the obvious, well, with the exception of there being some GS rule.

However among the Montanas many flaws, the lock on the card fails more often than it works so be careful, especially when doing a battery change. I also think you were asking how many caches it will hold. It is 12000. PoIs are only limited by memory size.

After reading the first few incorrect responses to your post, I just skipped to reply, however this has probably been said before. FtF is a binary state, either you were or you were not. Publish date, weather, park rules, etc. have no effect on that state. You either are or you are not. Had you stated you were with him or he guided you there by the hand, then it could be said you didn't "find it", however that does not appear to be the case here.Many CO's, myself included h, hand out the coords to friends and other cachers while waiting for it to be published. It is also common for events to hand out the coords for caches they have requested to not be published till after the event. Both acceptable practices.