-CJ-

"they need to understand", "cache owners, don't expect me"

One more log which should be mentioned, a really short one: "Found it". Why? Someone can see your smiley and think you're just kidding. This log is to confirm to the world that you really found this cache.

This is one of my puzzles. Please advise whether I can do anything of it in English language or not. http://coord.info/GC4FB1C

You don't need to go further and talk about tourist spots or difficult puzzles. Just imagine that you're a CO and you don't know English at all. You're asked to provide translation into English. An obvious way is automatic translation. a) Automatic translation can be done by any visitor when needed. (And some visitors may prefer translation not in English but in other language). There's no need to massively consume website's resources. b ) Since you cannot verify / proof-read "your" translation it can be misleading. Thus, you cannot be responsible for your cache - and this contradicts one of the basic principles of the sport.

This won't happen. See, it's good to see the opposite side sometimes.

The theme about poisonous plants and insects deserves its own thread

I've found bills and coins many times. Sometimes it was something special, like and old coin or an unusual coin or a coin from some remote place. You can put a Swiss frank into a cache in Russia and it will be a cool trade item. On the other side, sometimes it's obvious that some cacher just had nothing to put in a box but some loose change. If I open a container in my country and see Russian change inside I treat it as rubbish and take it away.

Signing logs is really easy If I don't sign logs it's not about me being lazy; it's about making (absolutely ungrounded) exclusions for myself from the rules and traditions of the game. I don't want to spoil my reputation and I don't want to give poor examples to newbies, this is the main reason for me to sign logs.

L0ne.R, it's not about witnessing a fact of successful search, or meters, or feet. It's about when someone proudly announces that his kung-fu is better then mine (the original coordinates are wrong because his device showed something different). Bugs happen so I'm happy to know that visitors help to make coordinates more accurate but this could be done in different manner. Newbies often hurry to claim their coordinates to be correct (of course, a brand new GPS receiver ($500) cannot be wrong). Kelux, thank you for understanding. msrubble, artificial acronyms, interesting. I suppose it's a language issue: in our community we rarely use acronyms. The Russian variant of the game had its tradition of long logs, full stories about "how I got there and what I saw there". Nowadays Russian cachers use "TFTC" but this is the only acronym which is popular: the level of knowledge of English language is low and prevents any experiments. Still, your point should probably be included in the list because people can run into "home-made" acronyms while reading other logs.

Sorry, I didn't understand your question.

My priorities have changed since I joined the game in 2002 (at the national website first). Unlike many others, I had no opportunities to hit milestones or travel extensively. So my steps were: a) Using geocaching as a nice add-on to my main hobby (hiking), b ) Developing the national variant of the game, c) Experimenting with new caches, mostly difficult field puzzles in woods, d) Getting acquainted with international experience, finding caches while travelling abroad, geocaching events, e) Promoting the sport in our country.

Thank you. Yes, it's common too that a person complains about a cache which cannot be found without something or someone. I see.

AnnaMoritz, thanks for your input. @logs I've also heard this from cache cops. It's so rare nowadays that people write unique long logs! Mostly it's just a copy-pasted piece of text repeated 40 times. What's PAF? A guitar pickup? Yes, this is one of the most popular logs. Last week I checked several of my caches because of people complaining that "it is obviously not there". In fact, all caches were OK. Once I saw a complaint about full logbook and when I checked the hide it appeared that only one side of the logsheet (it was a micro cache) was full. The second side was blank. The guy just seemed to forget that paper usually had two sides. Failed to get your point here. You mean that some people aren't accurate and use wrong logs they prepared well in advance? Spoilers.

The A-Team, thank you for explaining me basic things ("need to understand", "that's the risk you run") Being a cache owner in Moscow city, I don't place caches in high-muggle areas because I just want to increase risks. Neither I do it because I love maintaining caches each weekend. And no, this is done not for creating yet another theme on this forum. If I place a cache in a high-muggled area it's done for you. Yes, for a cacher who comes to Moscow for vacations and has only three days to walk in the very heart of the city... oh, these are the most muggled areas in Moscow, aren't they? Somewhere not far from Kremlin walls nearby the most known places of interest. And let these caches be simple, no d=4 or 5 so people could be happy with at least several finds in their really limited time. And let their descriptions being translated into English, not in Russian language only. And hints too. I fully understand risks you're talking about and I volunteer to take them (and more) for good cachers to be able to play the game here. I don't expect nice logs or favourite marks or cache maintenance or cool stuff in my containers. The only little thing I really hope to get is some level of respect. Typically it can be reached at a very small cost. And the stealth attribute is just a reminder. Let me give you an example. Once I accompanied a group of tourists (geocachers) from some foreign country who wanted to find one of my simple city caches in the very heart of Moscow. I was standing nearby watching them. They arose great noise. They argued loudly about where the cache could be. They walked directly to places where they expected the cache to be and examined them without paying any attention to muggles. A couple on a bench stopped talking and watched the group of foreigners doing something really strange. A waiter left his job in a nearby cafe, lit his cigarette and stared at the group suspiciously. Everyone's got involved. Effective searches could be done without all that noise. Having an impressive number of 4,677 finds you should know how to achieve this. SwineFlew, I failed to comment what you said because I couldn't see much behind your numerous "I", sorry

There's a small group of enthusiasts in my city who work hard to place and maintain caches. 95% smileys from city guests are for caches located in the centre, usually in very muggled areas. We don't expect our foreign colleagues to search for caches at 4am on Saturday morning when not a single living soul is around. We've got enormous number of policemen in our city who aren't always sweet. No one knows about geocaching. We also have an anonymous idiot who does his best to steal caches. Maintaining all this stuff isn't easy. What I mean by adding a "Stealth" attribute to my listing? Just "Please mind that muggles are usually nearby. Be careful". Sorry, but the attitude quoted above - "I don't care, it's the cost of doing business for the hider" - sounds highly disrespectful to me.

I saw a complaint about not publishing an additional waypoint for parking. The hiding place was about 5 meters from a parking lot. Sure, why not. Just let us complete and polish it This is similar to #8, no? I'm also thinking about situation when someone asks me (CO) for help and gets a hint or two but still fails to find the cache. Then he blames me in his DNF log for not being helpful. I've run into such people several times.

Mudfrog, thanks. I will add your idea to the list. It's so close to what we have here in Russia with the national variant of the game where people used to go sightseeing rather then to search for caches. Viajero Perdido, I actually wanted to add one more point to the list - large portions of cut-and-pasted text. It's usually not about any specific cache or geocaching experience but just general bla-bla-bla "I visited your country and the weather was mostly fine but not always". However we discussed such logs once here in this forum and I was told (by serious tutors ) that such logs were just perfect. cerberus1, the only hope is that the guy who did that maintenance for you will feel himself much better and probably will help when it's really needed. knowschad, thanks

(Please share ideas and add your variants. I'm going to publish this in our local community after a while) 1. "TFTC". Nothing else. The most respected way of logging. It's short and polite and truly international. You even don't need to know what "TFTC" means. 2. "It was easy". This kind of log is especially welcomed by cache owners who invested much into their hides and by cache seekers who failed to find this cache. 3. "#2814". It's cool to expose your statistics. Yes, it is already shown next to your log. We know. But it's obviously not sufficient. It's important to demonstrate that this cache was #2814, not 2815 or 2816. Your biographers care. 4. "Had no pen so photolog". Have you heard about paperless geocaching? That's it. No need for pens or pencils anymore. "BYOP"? It's to celebrate your find. "Buy yourself one pint". 5. Add spoilers. People will thank you for making their hobby more comfortable. 6. Don't miss your chance to improve caches. "The difficulty level is 2 but it must be 2.5". "The coordinates are inaccurate, 6 meters off". "The attribute "Not suitable for people with hedgehogs at night" is missing". 7. Demand quick actions from cache owners. "The pencil wasn't sharpened. FIX THIS ASAP!!!" 8. Once anything is wrong (as with this poor pencil) don't hesitate adding NM or (even better) NA log. If you don't do it the problem may stay unnoticed. 9. If you failed to find some cache just add smiley and go on. Geocaching is not about numbers. 10. Cheating? Well, if you believe it's cheating - don't publish any logs at all. You will probably return to this place next year. Or in your next life. 11. DNF? Think twice. One DNF log will probably spoil your reputation forever. To avoid this risk you better explain that it was the owner's fault. Wrong coordinates, missing attributes, too dark, slippery, headache, kids, snakes, tsunami, anything. 12. Geocaching is multi-national so write your logs in any language you like. Hindi is as good in Iceland as Chinese in Nigeria. English is for loosers, Google Translate is for all.

Yes, as I noticed earlier, Google Translate was pretty much good for cache descriptions but significantly worse when language became less formal and contained jargon, i.e. cache hints and logs. In Latvia and Lithuania I found it of little help. Sometimes I failed to understand anything and one third of words wasn't translated at all. Luckily, in big cities and nearby popular tourist attractions it wasn't a big problem.

В личку мне пишите, пожалуйста. Теперь на сайте есть центр сообщений, можно и туда. Этот форум - не про наши края, он вообще "обо всем", и люди сюда ходят очень редко. Вот, я заглянул и вижу - объявление за апрель, ну как же так...

I've used Google Translate on a smartphone. Indeed, you don't need Chrome. You need a Google Translate app with an offline dictionary (these dictionaries can be downloaded from within the app separately - depending on your destination country). Then you need to copy and paste text. In some particular situations it may be even easier. Not the most convenient way of doing the job but still something. The worst thing is that Google Translate appears to be useful not in all languages. I experimented with a series of languages in my geocaching practice and discovered that German -> English was pretty much OK; Spanish -> English was noticeably worse; and Lithuanian -> English was useless. I can only imagine how hard it is with languages like Hungarian and Russian!

Annoying? Is the new message center supposed to replace the mentioned ways of communication? To use forum messages one needs to use this forum but the forum has its own atmosphere and community and it's not in language which the majority of my compatriots understand. You may notice that there are not many people from this part of the world here. They use different means of communication (forums, chats, blogs, social networks). The new message center is translatable. In fact, we already translated its interface into Russian. And you don't need to enter any community to use it. Email is good but it's common that people use email accounts they don't check often or their incoming email suffers from antispam filters. I personally have tons of email every day at all my accounts. Sometimes I risk to simply miss this or that email message. The new message center is single-purposed and integrated into the geocaching website.

Thanks for this new feature. We discussed the new message center in our local community. This is what we would suggest to be added /changed. 1. Links from the MC to user profiles. While being within the message center it would be nice to click on a user's photo/avatar and get to their profile. It's common that I wish to know a bit more about who I'm communicating with. 2. Links from user profiles to the MC. I would like to have a hyperlink in a user profile to take me to the MC and send a message to this person. 3. MC settings available from the MC webpage. Currently I see only one setting for the MC (switching email notifications on/off) and it's hidden in the general settings section. It would be great if there is more straightforward/simple way to get to settings from the MC. 4. To delete messages/conversations. Currently there's an option to hide conversations. This may be useful sometimes but I believe it's not good at whole because once a conversation is hidden it's too easy to just forget about it. For privacy reasons (and also to save resources) I think it's necessary to have an option to delete conversations completely. It could be implemented somehow similar they used to do this in Facebook. 5. To limit the number of potential message senders. There are "friends" feature on this website already. I've never had any profit of this feature. Perhaps this could be the case: to have an option to select people to get messages from ("All", "Friends only"). 6. To block any user at once. Currently I can block someone but to do this I actually need to communicate with them first. It may easily happen that I wish to block someone whom I don't want to communicate at all (for example, someone who has already proved to be rude with my friends). 7. More space to enter text. With the limit of 1000 characters per message it's not comfortable to have only two strings to enter text. Normally, you even have more space in feedback forms at websites. In the MC I have to scroll again and again and again to compose a message which is bigger then a general SMS message. Four or at least three strings would be much better. 8. Different types for attachments. I suggest that .GPX, .LOC, .ZIP and .TXT files are also allowed. Perhaps it would be OK to limit size of an attachment. 9. Number of new messages shown on the frontpage of geocaching.com / in user account. There are currently two ways of knowing that I've got a message: following an email notification and manually checking the MC. It would be great if the number of new (unread) messages are somehow displayed along with the envelope icon in the header of the website. If this is not done, it often happens that there's no conversation at all, I have to wait until my friend opens his email inbox - in this case I better send him the same message by email. Geocachers here also asked if the new feature appears in your mobile app.

There might be places in every big city where you will feel nervous while searching for a cache The big advantage of the Red Square is that you definitely know you should avoid muggles' attention since the area is heavily watched by police. On the other hand, you can find places in the city when it could be far more risky to hunt a cache. The Red Square is a popular tourist attraction so walking visitors taking photos of the Mausoleum are common. In quiet neighbourhoods where tourists are uncommon it might me more difficult to pretend that you "just went sightseeing" As I said: folks, don't hesitate contacting me if you have any questions about geocaching in Moscow and surroundings, need any contacts in other cities or wish to pass any trackables - or just meet and greet. If I'm not away from the city I'll be glad to help.

From our local perspective I see two reasons for this "idea" to come from. a) Cachers originating from the Russian community used not to search for hidden boxes at all. In the national variant of the game it's typical that seekers have exact descriptions, detailed hints and spoiler photos with big red arrows. It can be that one is advised to look for the only one birch among pines at the GZ and still the spoiler photo is provided. There's more sightseeing in this hobby then cache hunt. So, when a box cannot be found for any reasons it sounds like a problem that should be fixed and you're (usually) welcome to publish additional hints in your logs, except for the very limited number of creative puzzle caches. When people with such experience join the game at geocaching.com it's sometimes hard to get rid of old habits. b ) Many cachers seem to suffer from their inability to publish creative logs. The most obvious way of avoiding pure "TFTC" log is to add a story "how I found this cache". This is how spoilers appear. Besides, spoilers can be different. As with photo spoilers, someone may say "I don't demonstrate the hiding place so it's not any spoiler". However, this is what I can get from this photo: - how the container looks like (can tell me more about the hiding place), - the area where to search for the box (people usually don't walk 30 meters away to sign the logbook, so the hiding place should be somewhere close to where the logbook is seen on the photo), - and if I know that the CO takes care of spoilers I will probably exclude the area on the photo from my searches because I know that if the cache was there this photo would not exist on the website.