-CJ-

At least twice a month I get requests to log into the website, load a page with some geocache (which I would not ever load myself) and see if there's anything valuable on a picture of a GPS receiver (a digit or two). If there is nothing interesting, I should load the page at particular hours to catch the moment when these digits can be seen. Then I should make a screenshot and send it to some person who needs it. With all respect to the diversity of interests that geocaching offers to its fans I should say that I find no fun in "Global Geocaching". Is this "Global Geocaching" really popular?

As a CO I don't delete logs of visitors who accidentally found any throwdowns at my caches. As a cache hunter I don't (and will never) worry about any of my smileys if they're deleted by any CO. I may ask questions to understand the CO's position but no appeals. In my opinion, it's a game and one more smiley isn't worth the volume of negative noise that might be raised around the case. Loosing a leg in a car accident is a problem. Loosing a yellow smiley in a game isn't a problem. As for throwdowns, in my country two geocaching games are actually played: this one and the "national" one. It can be that there's no throwdowns at all but a container belonging to this competing game. Should anyone's claim a find in two games after finding a container belonging to one of them? (say, another container was actually missing) Probably not. Also, we here have a really big headache because of drug dealers who use the same methods of hiding their stashes for their "customers". They even use similar containers sometimes. Did you know that? Many people seem to be surprised when I explain the situation to them. So, would it be fine if anyone grabs such a stash, remove pills/powder and put a logsheet inside ("ok, I found a container and it had some strange junk in it which was against the guidelines so I removed this junk (consumed it?) and added the missing logsheet, now it's OK, I acted in good faith")?

Thank you all who quoted that hockey piece :)

- I want to join your hockey game. - Welcome! Where's your stick? - I forgot it. - But you need one. - What if I just take a selfie with the puck and the gates? - Sorry, you need a hockey stick to play hockey. - How can you be so unsympathetic? Hockey is for fun. It's not about sticks. Anyone can forget their stick. Or loose it. Or break it... - We've got our guidelines... - Guidelines? Guidelines? Yesterday I played tennis. They also had their guidelines. And I forgot my racket. And nevertheless I won the game. Here's my golden cup. See?

I should make it clear: I was talking about geocachers from other cities/countries that don't need to be introduced to the game but want to hunt for some caches in my city with me.

1. One doesn't need any special device to hunt geocaches in Russia, indeed. It's OK to use the same device as for other countries. Using smartphone is OK in our country. There are many areas in Russia where you can only hike and you will probably need some days to reach your destination; however, there are very few caches in such places. For "general" tourism (such as visiting Moscow and SPb for several days) there's no need to buy a handheld GPS receiver. 2. Buying a local SIM card makes sense in some countries where geocaching is really active. It can easily be that you've got your pocket query and downloaded on Monday but something changed in Tuesday - for example, the owner checked the cache and restored it in some other location. In our country life isn't that fast Also, you need to provide your ID to buy a SIM card in Russia (some people aren't happy with this fact). I'm not sure about Estonia though. Estonia is much more "electronic" country than Russia and also more than the two other Baltic countries so probably buying a SIM card there will require no documents (as it happens in Lithuania). Anyway, if you've got a good SIM card from a European provider (one that won't cut your traffic when you travel within the EU but out of the country where you purchased it originally) you can probably use this SIM card in Estonia too. 3. In my view, the question "do I need maps" shouldn't be answered based on the fact that most old-school'd geocachers here started without any maps (my first GPS receiver was Garmin eTrex, the yellow model, very basic one). Maps mean much. GPS signal may be poor in narrow city streets and show that I'm behind that wall or around that corner and it may be confusing and not much fun, especially when there are CCTV cameras and policemen/guards watching. When you're in your home city using a device with no maps may seem an additional challenge but when you're abroad and only have three or four days in the city for sightseeing/geocaching/cuisine/meeting people, you won't be happy if you waste your time on trying different turns and paths blindly. After all, if you've got a smartphone you can get maps easily. Locus (there's a free version for Android) is nice and geocaching friendly. OSMand is an alternative for offline navigation. Maps.me is the easiest app among all of them (e.g. you download maps with one click directly from the app, no need to visit any websites or count tiles) but it lacks geocaching features. Perhaps you like to have several apps on your smartphone (this is what I have and it has helped me many times).

I've got a picture resembling one by barefootjeff, no need to attach it. And I always prefer to leave some caches untouched in my area. Those are for cases when some guests arrive and say "hey, let's go geocaching!" - and I respond with "ok, I've got most of caches found in my city and around it but actually there are some that are still waiting..."

Mon: No log = no smiley. This is what the guidelines say. Don't tell me that "the game is for fun". Tue: I cannot find this cache. Did I make any mistake? The previous geocacher boasted it was easy. Wed: Once again, no luck. The previous geocacher said he found this cache in a minute. Thu: I didn't find this one too! The previous geocacher claimed his find after 5 DNFs in a row... Fri: There's a construction site at the GZ! Everything has been destroyed and fenced! Nevertheless the previous geocacher found the cache! He must be a damned magician! Sat: Or... Sun: The terrain is 5 and I lack any equipment. However, the game is not about having equipment, it's for fun, right? "#3004, it was easy, TFTC" :)

Many of us have seen these very nice movies and voted for them. Most movies are targeted at the geocaching community itself: they are about geocachers and for geocachers. There were two movies in 2018 however that described (I'm trying to find proper definition) various social roles of geocaching. You obviously remember these movies: one was about finding names and dates of grand-grand-grand...grandparents carved in a rock centuries ago, another was about a cancer survivor. These movies can play a significant role in promoting the game, showing muggles that this sport has different meanings and can be connected with different social issues - such as helping a common family to find pieces of its history or giving motivation for one to fight such a serious illness and win. This is what I could show to my mother (who is far from understanding of my strange hobby) and the old lady could be impressed. I suggest that we have the category of "social geocaching movies" in 2019 and choose a winner in this category. What do you think?

Да. Хотя правила рекомендуют сначала набить руку в поиске тайников, а потом создавать свои, это не жесткое условие. В общем, понятно, что во многих регионах России просто физически нет возможности что-то искать.

Haven't been here for a while but don't want to leave anything unanswered. (Sorry for the delay). The answer is yes, exactly as you described.

When I provided an example of an event in a remote monastery it seemed to me that you opposed with a positive attitude towards this possible event. So I provided a hyperlink to make my idea clearer. Imagine that I'm going to get to this particular place say in three weeks. (An expedition). How likely is that you will get all necessary equipment, obtain Russian visa, travel that far, find local guides and be there on that island among bogs on the same day and time? By publishing notes I meant popular situaion when cachers physically cannot attend an event but say something like "what a great place, I wish I'm able to get there sometimes!"

I'm on the road now moving from one place to another so I couldn't follow this thread closely but I managed to read all comments today. First, thank you all for your input. I'm quite impressed that people exchange opinions actively and these opinions are different. Second, I liked that more people seemed to share my original thoughts and got the idea why this thread appeared. Indeed, there's nothing I wanted to suggest to impose any restrictions, manually or automatically, on "poor" events. This chat is not about finding any technical solution. As NYPaddleCacher said If anyone's still asking the question "but how you know?" please get back to the original posting in this thread. There are several examples. As for archiving events with no WA logs: yes, I was in both situations. In two cases I appeared in time and waited and no one came. In one case I cancelled the event because of no WA logs. I'd say my decisions depended on circumstances. Before I cancelled the event I looked through all caches in the area and it happened that most of them were in poor condition, likely being abandoned. I wrote to some local cachers in person and told them I was going to host an event but they never responded. If maybe it was just a vacation journey and I had plenty of free time I would still be there at the GZ but it was a business trip and my schedule was really tight. With all that information I cancelled the event (and no one wrote "hey, I was going to attend!" or published any other events in the city). But it also happened to me many times that the majority of visitors posted their WA logs at the very last moment or even didn't post any logs but just appeared. On the other hand, I understand that people might want seeing some practical output from this discussion so that it's not yet another "well, bad things happen but good things happen too" thread. So, what I personally do to make things better? - I added some suggestions regarding events to the "All nations" forum, "Geocaching in Russia" thread. There are general ideas about hours and places that - in my opinion - could help hosts making their events more social. For my own city (Moscow) I even suggested a list of places more or less suitable for events (because I know from my own experience as a traveller how difficult it could be to choose a good location for an event in an unknown city. - I practiced organizing various events in my city myself in forms different from "meet-and-greet" events; for example, it could be a guided tour in the downtown Moscow. - I used to highlight that I welcome all questions/requests regarding events in the city such as "is this a good place for an event?". - While doing my own meet-and-greet events abroad I'm not only trying to choose location/time wisely but also tell people who come why I chose this location and time. (And listen to their opinions if they share them). There are always people who say "this is my first event!" or "I have never organized my own event" - and I hope that they will probably learn from others experience.

How could you explain this? "Minimum efforts", as you said, or is there anything else that haven't been mentioned?

You seem to play for a long period of time and I see that you've hosted your own events too. So, how could you explain the change you mentioned?

In my opinion an event is when some people meet some other people. Perhaps some of you good people will oppose this idea too; I will appreciate this point of view and I think we just cannot go further then. bflentje, you're my absolute champion with your "why every little thing has to be complained about by somebody". I even clicked a green heart button to show how much I like this comment. Let me drop a couple of clarifying sentences to my original post. It was about events when hosts initially have no intention/hope to meet other geocachers. I've taken part in wonderful .5 hour meet-and-greet events. On the other hand, when I host my own events I usually announce them to last for 30 minutes only; it's a guaranteed (and required) time for the logbook to be available. It's common that events are longer and that we move from the initial gathering point to some other location. So, it's not "a duration issue" I think. Why I think it might be important: because of poor example and practice that pseudo-events demonstrate to cachers who think about hosting their own events for the first time. Really, why should I care about an "event" scheduled here? https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Рдейский_Успенский_монастырь#/maplink/0 Because no one will come. (niraD and cerberus1 will publish their notes probably but won't attend). Of course, I can imagine extraordinary situation when two geocaching teams compete in reaching the point as Amundsen and Scott did; and they both will be there and celebrate their achievement. However, it's highly unlikely, you know. And moreover, the majority of "lunch events" has nothing common with places of interests such as this wonderful old monastery. IceColdUK, you wrote to longest comment (and I appreciate your effort) so I will take some time, hmmm, commenting it. I agree. I used to hold regular events in my city earlier; now I mostly do them on my travels. In the nearest half a month I will host as many as 4 events in Latvia and Lithuania. I'm not sure about the exact situation with caches/geocachers in the area you're talking about. Did you really expect any guests at your event? If yes, than it's OK. If not, this is what I was talking about. That's it. An honest attempt. I myself had two such "lone events" hosted in Voronezh, Russia, and (surprisingly) Istanbul, Turkey. Both were honest attempts: I knew for sure that there were geocachers in both cities, and I chose good time when people (supposedly) were not busy at work, and I also chose great locations in the downtown, and I even wrote to some of local cachers, and these events were not supposed to be in pubs, dear Touchstone, still no one came. Well, I did my best. I ran into two cachers when looking for the box nearby. Is there a more popular touristic spot in the whole Denmark?

I'm talking about events like these: - An event on a highway while having some rest and a lunch with companions. - An event in a local village near a big river in taiga during a 2-hour stop of a cruise ship. - An event in a remote monastery deeply in woods/bogs. - An event at a gas station right after the hosts crossed the border and entered the country. - An event in a hotel lobby at 6am "because we're going to leave early". Events are supposed to be a social side of the game. Geocachers meet, talk, exchange trackables, walk, spend time in a pub, whatever. It's usually quite clear if an event is published just for a souvenir in someone's profile. Formally, nothing is wrong with such "lunch events" in most cases but - in my opinion - this practice undermines the very idea of geocaching events.

As in many other countries we have our regional policies, sort of "add-ons" to the Guidelines of the game. Most of you who come to our country will probably place no caches but some people do if they have someone here in the country who can maintain their hides. The regional policies for Russia are here: https://wiki.groundspeak.com/display/GEO/Russia Since they are in Russian language only, I summarized them here in English. Areas with limited access: YES (+ recommendations) Areas with paid services: YES (+ conditions) National parks: YES (and strictly following the local rules) Nature conservations: NO Historical sites: YES (with "no harm" rule) Containers in old stone walls: NO Cemeteries: YES (+ limitations) Small pedestrian bridges: YES Other bridges: ONLY areas of general pedestrian access (e.g. passages and railings) Schools, playgrounds and other objects/areas accosiated with kids: NO Territories controlled by police, border guards, security services, other guards (e.g. foreign embassies): NO Construction sites: NO Electrical switchboards: NO

Well, perhaps I'm the only Russian cacher who's active at this particular forum. It's sad that this thread is not really known by those coming to Russia; the vast majority of visitors go geocaching on their own here. Folks, don't hesitate calling/writing if you're going to visit Moscow. Galince, thanks, I believe we can make something of your idea once

Spent half of the day with a nice lady from the US who visited Moscow. We started early on Sunday morning and drove to different geocaches and places to see nice and unusual streetart, some funny architecture, and old Russian house "izba", a manor where Leo Tolstoy lived, a couple of parks, and little bronze ducklings near Novodevichy Monastery. The weather could be better but luckily it wasn't raining much. Found some caches, replaced a couple of missing hides.

Sometimes the coordinates aren't that correct or a GPS unit may go wild, etc. We all know it's not necessarily that a hiding place is always within few meters from the spot where GPS device brought us - so we use hints and spoilers. When I publish a cache I assign it some difficulty level, say, 3. With an additional spoiler this level can actually be decreased to 1.

An ammo can would surely make an extraordinary cache container around here The problem with spoiler photos is that they often disclose hiding places even if the exact hiding places aren't in plain view on that photos. It's common that a photographer takes photos while standing a couple of metres from the GZ so that one can easily calculate the point where these photos were taken from. Indeed, there are caches where such spoilers don't matter much - but there are different caches too. Getting back to the original question: any "photo proofs of presence" aren't needed on my caches.

Design, right; I would say that photos of the container often work as spoilers for hiding places. I used to delete such photos in my caches from time to time.

I own about a hundred of geocaches in Russia and Ukraine and I'm not happy if anyone posts a "photolog" because they "forgot a pen". It's a game and the game has its simple rules. You don't say "let me play hockey without a hockey-stick because I forgot my hockey-stick but I still want to play hockey". This sounds like putting one's wishes above the game we all like. Your case is different. If you ever visit this country you will have no problems getting smileys for any of my hides as soon as I know the reason for you not signing paper logbooks. Photologs aren't necessary either.

Please also keep in mind that you're visiting a country where human rights aren't much valued by the government/police and public protests aren't tolerated. I would love to keep politics away from geocaching totally but now it's about your safety so please be careful. In the days of world football cup they will bring even more police officers to Moscow and other big cities. Most possible they will ban any public actions for this period (they already issued such regulations).