-CJ-

For me it's not about the length of a log, it's more about what was written. The logs that I like most are those when a geocacher talks about the place he visited. Something special. It's interesting to read about how people liked a museum, or a lake, or some ancient manor or church, and (not really often but it happens sometimes) new facts they found being there. E.g. "we managed to talk to a local and this old man told us..." I don't mind if such story is longer than a usual log. When I myself find anything interesting (luckily, this happens almost everywhere I go for geocaching ) I write "thank you for getting me to this wonderful place... (and... )" - even if I'm actually logging a DNF. I've also run into logs with useful data, e.g. changes in a bus timetable or recent restrictions on access to the territory. Again, it's not about the length of such logs. They provide information that may save me some time/health/money. I know some geocachers around here who used to describe their geocaching adventures in details. "I got up at 8am, left home at 10am, missed my train, waited for the next one, the weather was sunny, it was hot, I was wearing a geocaching t-shirt, ...." etc. Just the same for the cache hunt: "First I approached the GZ from the train station, there was a pond... a cottage... two dogs, a collie and a terrier... my GPS lost signal... changed batteries... got through bushes... saw a squirrel..." I have nothing against anyone writing in such a manner but (sadly) I used to have troubles with these people publishing spoilers again and again. They used to discuss my hints, describe camouflage and enclose photos of themselves sitting near the hiding place. I'm not happy with such stories because it takes me time to read everything to find out if there's anything that should be removed/encrypted. If anyone posts a log consisting only of "TFTC" I don't feel being insulted or anything... This doesn't mean much, I know. He/she may dislike the cache or just have not enough time at the moment or even don't know language good enough to write about his/her impressions. I agree with people who talked critically about long copy-paste logs. Especially when I see such a log from geocacher who claimed several thousand finds and whose log is a whole paragraph of text. Sounds more like an advertisement then a geocaching log.

I never even thought about requesting a DNF before giving a hint. Don't consider this to be a "trade" at all. It happened several times that people got wrong answers when trying to solve puzzles and called me for a hint. The funniest story was with one of my multi-steps (temporarily disabled now). It was a chess puzzle, a pretty easy one but with one clever "addon" that prevented it from being solved in a couple of minutes. Once an unknown guy called me and asked for a hint. He said the puzzle seemed to be too difficult. "Our team spent much time on it. We requested assistance from a master in chess. And he failed. We all failed. Cannot move further. Please help". It was raining outdoors and I felt sorry for a whole team of geocaches getting completely wet and hopeless in a wood. "OK, at what step are you now?" - asked I. - "At the very beginning". - "Did you find the first microcache then?" - "Microcache? Oh, no. We're in our office". I called this story funny because it was highlighted in the cache description: "Please don't try to solve the puzzle before you find the first container". In fact, on this first step a geocacher used to get a small but important change to the published puzzle and he had absolutely no chances to solve the puzzle without it. People are different. I know guys who will never ask me for any hints. I've got calls from folks who said "pray don't give me a hint - I will tell you my variant, just say if I'm on the right way". There are people who won't call you but will write an insulting log (they blame you for their fail). And there are always people who don't wan't to spend their time and/or to switch their brain on. So, the idea of a "trade" becomes a rather complex task. There will be a whole market created around hints

Thanks for the information.

I used to think that everyone needs to be registered at the website to see coordinates and play the game, so I can contact any of visitors of my geocaches if I need. Yesterday there appeared an offensive log at one of my geocaches. Nothing personal, just "....! we finally found it!" Nevertheless I had to delete it. Today I saw a new log by the same author. Now it was a spoiler describing the hiding place. I had to delete the new log too. The guy appeared just 1 day ago at the website and has only 3 finds in his statistics; I believe that he's new to the game and perhaps knows little about it. I used to write a PM to such people telling them what was wrong with their logs and answer their questions. I would most probably don't delete these logs by myself but leave "as is" for a short period of time or encrypt them so the geocacher could edit his text. And there would be no need for a forum post. However his account is marked as a "Not Validated Member". I cannot send him any messages since "this email address has not been validated by the user". All I can do is to leave a note in the cache's log asking people not to post spoilers and rude messages. It sounds rather awkward since logs that are present have neither spoilers nor rude language (I already deleted the controversial texts). So, I see there's option at the website "to register but not to register". Do I miss anything? Is there any way to contact such person? How long a "not validated member" may act without validation?

Most probably. "The Russian way" is rather specific. Geocaching.com has been a source of many interesting and useful things about the game for years but sometimes it looks like people here discuss some troubles that we here in Russia have already run into. One of them are "Why are really new cachers able to place caches?" The question has been discussed in the Russian community many times. Each time someone suggested to prevent newbiew from placing new caches until they find 10..20..30..40.. caches. However geocaching experience doesn't depend only on quantity of geocaches found. For instance, in our community there are geocachers that are respected as experienced players - but their experience is limited to virtuals and park-n-grab caches. One of such "geocaching gurus" declared some time ago that there cannot be a pencil in a microcache (because a pencil is too long to fit into a micro container). It happened that the guy hasn't found any microcaches in his life. Another "guru" recently talked about that from his experience containers "abroad" (at geocaching.com) were always filled with cheap garbage. After I checked his statistics I discovered that he had found only 5 geocaches of small to regular size. So, you cannot rely on numbers when talking about "geocaching experience". Perhaps a 50-geocache power trail of identical micros hidden identically doesn't provide enough experience to do a good camouflage for a regular container.

Right. In our Russian geocaching community virtuals have never been banned (or in any way limited). Now more than 1/2 of all geocaches published at the national website are virtuals. People used to find 20 or 30 virtuals and believe that this is how geocaching should be played. They place a couple of their virtuals, and so on.

If your local community is about hanging you for your 1,000 lamp post caches - feel free to hide a couple of such stashes in our area. There are still no caches of this kind here

When I publish a new geocache I'm suggested to enter the date of when the cache was placed. The built-in calendar gives nice and quick opportunity to complete the task. However when I tried to enter the date manually (dd/MMM/yyyy) I failed. E.g. I wish to set the date to 13th of July, 2011. So, I need to type 13/Jul/2011 However, the website allows me to enter only this string: 13/Jul/201 Looks like the date field was mistakingly limited to 10 characters for a 11-chars format. P.S. I ran into this bug under Linux, Firefox 20 though I doubt this makes any difference...

True. At the same time - you are right - if one wishes his TB to reach some remote destination he/she will attach this goal to the TB, just for sure. It's so easy, really. If they don't do this I suppose they are not so much interested - then why should I take any responsibility (with my rather limited experience)? I wondered if there were any kind of rules/recommendations "Please attach a goal statement to your TB before putting it into any container". From your answers (thank you both) I suppose there have been no such rules/recommendations.

It's quite common for me to travel without Internet connection. Sometimes I have only cache descriptions/hints at hand. Sometimes I meet TBs in containers. Usually they are left alone, just some souvenirs and chained TB signs. One who dropped a TB into the cache doesn't say anything but "IN: Roasted Chicken TB" in the cache's logbook. I believe people expect that next visitors will check inventory online. As I said, I sometimes don't do this (or have no chance to download up-to-date description/inventory because I lack Internet connection in some remote locations. Last year in Ireland, Co.Clare, I ran into the cache which I had downloaded to my smartphone a couple of weeks before I went for a hunt. Inside one cache I found a TB from the US with a note in a small plastic ziplock saying: "Next destination: Russia". The TB was put into the cache by one US geocacher three days before (so I had no idea about this TB). It was a lucky chance for this TB because I'm Russian and was about to travel back to my country soon. However, without this comment about destination I would most probably leave the TB in its place (and raise its chances to be muggled and never reach Russia). My question: is there a practice of attaching brief missions to TBs? Or was this Irish story just an exclusion from a general tradition?

...I would consider moving it to a better hiding place.

I've archives a series of my caches for the following reasons. 1. The cache surroundings have changed. New constructions appeared, more roads, fences, etc. Lost its cozy atmosphere. 2. The abandoned structure at GZ became too old and dangerous to walk inside. 3. I wasn't happy with the original hiding idea and no one suggested anything better. 4. The traditional cache was stolen by a local cache thief so I archived it and published a puzzle cache (more difficult) instead. 5. Caches in the middle of nothing where no visitors have appeared in years.

As a CO I know that there is always at least one geocacher in this world who will consider my hint too bad for him. There are dozens of selfish people who believe that the only criteria for a good hint is some sort of a personal guarantee for them to find the cache in not more then 5 minutes after they get a hint. If they fail then the hint is described stupid, useless, misleading, etc.

My first one was placed in the end of 2002 next to a ruined church deep in woods. Took me about two hours to get there through the forest without any paths. Luckily bogs were already frozen and it was not so hard. The cache has lived a long and lucky life, it has never been muggled or replaced. I archived it recently because the local community made a road into the woods, built a new church and a series of small houses around so the place became rather popular and lost its charming atmosphere.

We've some discussion concerning popularity of different events in our area. Among other arguements we remembered the Leap Day of Feb 29, 2012. Most of us took part and logged some geocaches that day. We also know how many accounts logged that day (statistics provided by Groundspeak). The question is if there's an option to see how many geocaches was logged as found on some specific day in some specific region, e.g. Leap Day in Russia? I suppose I could build a pocket query for geocaches placed at a certain date but not logged as found. Am I right?

I'd say the CO should think about finding some other hiding place.

This photo reminds me of dozens of geocaches around here...

45L backpack. Mine is actually an alpinist piece of gear but I like it. Perfect for one day hike.

I think the most problematic for me would be jargon which is difficult to translate from English into my language.

Perhaps the CO is worried about being requested to spend his time and do maintenance to his cache after several DNFs. So he simply deletes DNF logs.

One side of geocaching is that the game is open to everyone. So there will be always some (luckily low) percentage of folks who seem to have no other aims in their poor lives than to struggle against someone whom they believe to be their enemy. This is their way of self-determination I guess. We have such people around here incuding anonymous cache stealers who used to send offensive messages to email and forums. Sadly we cannot do anything with them - just hope they would get bored and switch to some other object. It's no use of trying to guess any reason for such behaviour I think. Recently one of such people (not anonymous but very persistent in posting hate speech at discussion boards against me) was asked by one of "neutral" cachers about the reason. The answer was that about five years ago (as the offender stated) he went to some of my geocaches and found it muggled and that I wrote that he should call me in advance and be prepared to make maintenance for this cache. Of course I don't remember this story and the offender refused to tell what exactly geocache he spoke about. I doubt that such conversation happened at all. It sounds absurd. Nevertheless, since then the guy decided to oppose everything I've ever said or done. So, I believe you may never find out any reasonable arguement for such attitude. You may probably be FTF at some geocache an hour before someone who was very disappointed with this fact. You don't have to talk to them to dislike you. They simply need someone to do any harm to you because it keeps them feeling they're on the right side and doing something important.

It's not advisable to take photos of such objects as bridges and railway stations, and I would suggest you avoid approaching military units at all (but you will hardly run into them without specific intention in Moscow). Also it would be not a good idea to approach any governmental buildings with the purpose of hiding or searching for a container. This relates to all objects guarded by police, e.g. embassies. Use your stealth abilities or just move to some other geocache if it looks too risky and/or you feel being watched by strangers, guards/CCTV in particular. As far as I know, most geocaches in Moscow are located in places that allow some thoughts/search without immediate police alert. We've had no cases of bomb squad calls here so far. I know about one case in Moscow when the group of inexperienced geocachers was questioned by police after they produced much noise and worried the neighbourhood. There was also a case when the cache was hidden in the wall of the building belonging to a cultural centre of one of foreign countries; the staff was anxious and called police, so they arrived, took the cache away and sent an email message to our local geocaching website telling that we can come and take the container if we like. So, there have been nothing special about local police comparing to other countries except maybe that they most likely don't speak languages other than Russian and know nothing about geocaching. Getting out of their bloody hands may be a bit of time and luck You can use GPS devices with no problems, many people have GPSrs embedded in their smartphones and are never asked for any permission or anything of this kind. I've never heard about the word "cache" as a threat and consider this to be a joke, especially in Germany with its enormous number of caches If you're worried about your safety I believe I could suggest some geocaches within Moscow where you will almost 100% not be questioned by anyone including the police. We mostly have micros here (within the bounds of the city) though there are few standard/small containers in parks. Not as many as in European capitals as Amsterdam I think but there's something to choose from. Please feel free to ask any other questions if you have and let me wish you a good journey and a nice river cruise.

I would add: "But don't get TOO much into multi-caches". In my area geocachers are fond of multi-steps. The community happily accepted the idea that you described. So we now have many walking tours with 10-20 steps. At every step you're supposed to count something and then calculate final coordinates with maths like "A+B-C*D+(E/(F-G))...". It becomes even more crazy when the CO makes a mistake in his formula like it was with one of geocaches that I visited in Ireland where I spend about 1.5 hours trying to find my way through private yards and "no tresspassing" signs while the hiding place was in plain sight in a little public park not far away. I solved this puzzle remembering that someone had mentioned in the cache's log that dogs had played in that small park so when I noticed an old gentleman with his dog I followed him and they got me to that park AFAIK many cachers before me have run into the same problem with that multi-step.

This conversation shows how arguable are remarks about "poor coordinates". When I joined the game I soon got a similar log for one of my fist geocaches. The guy stated that coordinates were not OK and attached his own coords. I thought it was a good advice and changed my coordinates. After some time I noticed that the guy obviously was happy to leave different notes like "there's a grammar error here" or "there could be a bigger container" or "difficulty is actually 1 not 1.5" or "the hiding place is too close to low (high, narrow, far away)", etc. He could not resist educating others even when it was not really necessary. I will leave no notes about coordinates if they are 5-6 meters off the hiding place. If more, my action will depend on the "level of importance" of the coordinates. Many geocaches can be found relatively easy without exact coordinates (but also with descriptions, photos, common sense) and this could be interesting.

Lucky you, folks. We've no ammo cans available in this country. So - plastic containers from a supermarket, yes.