Mol Ecule

I think these are good points. In addition, I would add a couple of things to this discussion - 1. there are all ready games where you can go to places to claim a find - think munzee. I don’t play these games because they don’t appeal to me - it seems a lot like checking into Facebook that you have arrived SOMEWHERE. (I know there’s more to it than that, I’m simplifying) 2. one of the great things about geocaching is the thrill of the hunt, and being free to approach from any angle (sometimes the wrong one!) and the way that someone’s a simple cache will take forever or the way you can sometimes walk up to a very hard one and feel great about snagging it so fast. I myself use geocaching as a way of meditation, of tuning things out, focusing on the cache, and challenging my mind. 3. if I wanted a guided tour of a place, I’d go to a museum. Geocaching is about gaining your own experiences in a world that is all ready packed full of people telling you what to think and where to go and how to experience something. I certainly don’t go to a park so that I can have someone quiz me on my experience. I understand that these “adventure labs” are targeting a different audience, and I am grateful that there is a while separate app for them and that I can hide them on the cache app. I agree with what others have said that they should not count as per of the finds in geocaching. If a person were to do a bunch of ALs and gain, say, 1000 “finds”, their logs would have a much different weight to them, even if they’ve only found say 3-4 trad. Caches. It would look like they had experience that they do not. anyway, these are my thoughts of a rainy Monday.

I took pics of the log pages and have combed through the history of caches for various cachers - none of the dates for found seem to match the physical logs, but back in '06 when the cache was placed no one was using cell phones to log finds as they found them. no luck so far.

If you do a map compare on project-gc you could find archived and disabled caches around a centre point. If you have the approximate coordinates this would find all caches that have been located within, say, 1 km of them. It'll be on that list. Not hard to do, but if you give us the coordinates I'm sure someone can sniff it out for you!

I had thought of that, but this cache doesn't mention any previous cache - also, it's a mystery cache, so it's a little more secretive

That's a great idea - hadn't thought of that route - I'll return to the cache site this week and gather the info.

It's definitely an old geocache - the GC number is on the log but the ink is smeared, making it impossible to determine what the original cache was, even if archived. I have reached out to the CO of the current cache.

Trackables used to not disappear? ah, the golden years, i guess. All of the ones ive released have vanished without a trace within a week, even the ones ive placed in premium caches. very weird. But dont hold a grudge against the "cellphone" cachers. i'm one of them, but very serious about the caching. the phone is cheaper and easier to use, though i can see how it can invite the casual passerby who has no passion for the art.

I've heard of people using notifications as a way to manually filter caches. Essentially, when they see a notification for a cache they might be interested in, they add that listing to a bookmark list. That way, they review each potential cache only once (when they receive the notification), and they don't even need to bother ignoring or filtering caches. If it's on the bookmark list, then they though it was interesting when they first saw it. If not, then they never see the listing again. It isn't the way I play (I've never used notifications), but it is a way that some play. And it has nothing to do with the FTF hunt. Okay. I've never heard of anyone doing it that way, but I'll accept that some people might. But I'd have to observe that if being inundated with a thousand new cache posts is objectionable to those players, perhaps the reasonable solution for everyone is that those individuals who filter at the email level modify their way of doing things, and leave the other 99% alone. I don't think it's any more complicated than the "ugly baby" issue. No one wants to hear that their baby is ugly. And the volunteer reviewers certainly don't want to be in the business of telling people that their babies are ugly. Back when caching was new, and there weren't caches every 528 feet, all across the country, the rules were different than they are today. You used to not be allowed to create a power trail. I know cachers who were denied permission to place caches because the approver was concerned that they were creating a PT. You used to not be allowed to place caches under ANY bridge that had vehicle traffic on it. Approvers back in the day were called Reviewers, and, in the very early days, they actually did review caches they were approving. To be fair, their workload was a lot less than it is today. But if the rules said No Micros In The Woods, and that rule had stayed intact into present times, there'd be a whole lot less complaining about junk caches taking spaces that a better cache could occupy. If the rule that said No Power Trails had stayed intact, there'd be a whole lot less complaining about junk caches clogging notifications, pocket queries, etc. I will say that if telling someone their baby is ugly is part of the job, and someone doesn't want to do that part, or any other part of the job, they shouldn't have taken the job. Approvers have no problem denying permission when someone wants to place a cache too near another cache. Or in any other way that violates the current rules. We have one approver locally to whom physical barriers that make it impossible to go from one cache directly to the next are not a good enough reason to give a 50' variance on the 528' rule for a cache. If the rules still said No Micros In The Woods, they'd be enforced. And to all those who think difficult hides of tiny caches in the woods are somehow clever, I say any moron can hide a nano in the woods that's all but impossible to find. I've found nanos wired to pine tree branches. Want to impress someone? Hide an ammo can they can't find. THAT takes skill and talent. But it also takes effort. Yes, things have changed a lot. The Guidelines are constantly updated. Numbers of finders and hiders has increased dramatically. Trackables used to travel, not "disappear". More people use apps on their phones than gps's. But they are not called "approvers". They are Reviewers. Why are we wandering so far off-topic in this thread? B.

Hello - While out caching in a relatively obscure park recently, I came across a cache located under the hand-railing of a footbridge. The thing is, I didn't see the micro cache container at first and searched instead underneath the bridge, where I found an ammo can (which was NOT the cache i was looking for) with a log that hadn't been signed since 2014. Which seemed odd to me, because the cache i was looking for had been found the previous day. Eventually, after comparing the online logs against the signatures in the ammo can log, I realized that what I had found was a forgotten and archived cache, placed at the same location as the "new" cache I was searching for. I left the ammo can where I found it, though I was tempted to claim it. My question is this - what is the etiquette in such a situation? Ive searched some forums but didn't on the subject. Is the ammo can up for grabs?

Joke = whole

Agreed - I don't care much one way or another - if someone wants to collect light pole caches all day, so be it - I enjoy those too. But the issue is claiming to find caches that you did not - what's the point of the DNF if cache owners don't bother to check? I've replaced joke caches and logs and never a peep from the absent CO. As a player, I can't want to find more than a CO wants to hide.....

Well, I'll introduce myself. The only time the armchair caching thing has bothered me is once when I drove to a little town where some caches I had posted DNF's on were suddenly found - impossibly so, it turns out, as in one case the tree where the cache was hidden had been removed from a cemetary, and the cache not replaced or marked unavailable by the CO - all of the caches were missing in the end, but I made a trip to the area based on a cacher who falsified the finds.