Fawkes2574

Just a quick suggestion, or maybe even a question. There should be an option for users to be able to delete old messages from their inbox in the message center, rather than just "hiding" them. My inbox is flooded and getting overrun with very old messages that I can't do anything about. I know that I can hide them, but they are still there and I would like to clean it up.

Good to know. Thanks.

Does it remove it from the listed inventory?

As fun as this game is to many people around the world, let's face it, not everyone commits to it for the rest of their lives. People start it, get into it to a certain point, then just lose interest. This includes travel bugs. Now everyone knows about the issues with travel bugs, keeping them safe, and managing them. They go missing because they and the caches aren't handled properly (using stealth, etc). Muggles find them, not understanding what they are, or simply don't care and take something that they know doesn't belong to them. But eventually, some travel bugs go neglected because their owners lost interest in geocaching. They don't log into their accounts, change or check their status. So travel bugs that are lost, are forever stuck inside a cache's inventory cause their neglectful owners won't update them. I just got done viewing a geocache that has 20 travel bugs inside it's "listed" inventory. TWENTY! Mainly cause it's a travel bug cache, its in the name. (Check out GC3HAY2.) And according to one of the cache owner's, 18 of them are missing. But apparently can't clear them out of the inventory because that's up to the owners. But what if those owners don't check their bugs anymore for any number of reasons? Are these just supposed to stay in limbo until that cache is archived? There should be a feature that should allow cache owners to clear out any travel bugs from their inventory if they can confirm that they are not inside the cache, and are therefore missing. Clearing them out will then automatically update the bug's status as "missing", but allowing to show its last known location. But then you get some geocaches that go neglected cause their owners have stopped playing, and no longer access their accounts. So add another feature so that players can log a travel bug as missing. But as a precaution, don't change the status as missing after one "didn't find it" log by a player. Allow it to where it would take multiple hits, multiple no finds, before auto logging it as missing. This gives active players the ability to log missing bugs from caches, where both the bug's owner, as well as the cache owner are no longer playing.

Well thanks for the responses. I was not aware that there is another version of the game that does that. I see that the current way is the more traditional way and I can definitely respect that.

Greetings all.... My name is Michael and I am relatively new to geocaching. I was introduced to it by an old friend of mine back in 2006 and my interest was piqued for a short while. And I finally got around to creating my own account, ready to take up the adventure myself now that my son is old enough. We currently live in Ocala in Central Florida and are well on our way to developing our numbers. We just recently discovered a few travel bugs, our first ones, a couple of days ago. We've had a few hits & misses and I sometimes find myself thinking about this new found hobby, and what ways can be done to improving it. Which leads me to this thread. Traditionally, a user signs a paper log hidden with the cache, and will log that they found it online either at that location if they have a mobile device, or on a computer at home later on. Sometimes, you have the location & nearby area to yourself to sign that log sheet. Other times, not so much, especially in areas where it can be very difficult to be stealthy. Since geocaching has started, our technology has advanced a bit. Back in 2006, my friend had used a handheld GPS device to be able to track the coordinates of the caches he was looking for. During my adventures, I have simply used my tablet and the geo cache app to track the 10 that I have found so far. With the production of the iPhone, we were brought into the age of smartphones that enable us to find caches in ingenious new ways. Now, what if there was a way that we could log our caches with the devices that we use to find them? As we all know, smartphone apps have ways of scanning different bar codes such as UPC and QR bar codes. My suggestion would be, for current and future caches, to include either a QR or UPC like bar code that can be attached or stamped onto the cache case, and that code would have ALL of the information associated with that particular cache such as location, coordinates, the user who hid it originally, and its website. Scanning it with the geocache app automatically logs it onto the site, and BOOM! Done. I am not saying to completely replace the paper logs, because those would be handy for those who either want to cache the traditional way, or cannot get a stable signal in the area of the cache. I also suggest this, if the geocache app is not getting a stable signal, then it should designed to still be able to scan the bar code, and hold it until the device can pick up a stable signal to be able to log it. I have seen other apps for completely different tasks being able to do something similar. Being able to quickly scan it would really be helpful when you are trying to be stealthy in your hunts for these caches. Can this idea be put into works, and if so, feel free to pass it along to those in charge. Otherwise, just let me know. But what does anyone else here think?