kpanko

Ha! I see what you did there.

The cache was probably in a better location in the beginning. Write a note to the cache owner explaining your concerns. They will probably just archive it of their own will.

Agreed! It's just not interesting when a log just says "#X of Y for the day. Find number #Z. Temperature was T degrees, conditions were [cloudy, sunny, rainy, or snowy]. Cache condition was [great, good, fair, poor]. TNLNSL. TFTC. It's not rude, but it is boring. It is annoying when a geocacher creates a slogan for themselves. E.g., "Woof, woof! Awesome dog sniffs out another!" This is then written on every single log they write.

Well, sort of. There is a guideline telling cache owners that once the physical log is signed, then an online log must be allowed. This is the "anti ALR" guideline, meaning that cache owners must not force people to do other tasks beyond just signing the log, e.g. take a picture at the cache. But that does not mean you MUST sign the physical log before logging online. Of course, that is the general idea of geocaching, so please do make all reasonable attempts to sign the physical log!

If you consider that it's human nature to do the same thing as your friends do, then it's not odd at all. Young people do that especially. It probably has nothing to do with you. Could just be a group of immature people and some harmless misunderstandings.

I can back you up on that -- it seems to come up when there is a question about a cache being "too close" to railroad tracks. The guidelines ask for (I believe) 150 feet between a railroad track and any cache. And it has been claimed that the reason for that guideline is that people going too close to railroad tracks are trespassing on that property. Therefore, it is further claimed that the issue with railroad tracks has **NOTHING** to do with the danger of being hit by a train, it is simply about trespassing. And finally, it is also claimed that Groundspeak has no guidelines regarding safety, because if they were to judge safety, it would create legal liabilities that they do not want. I believe that CanadianRockies is trying to investigate the validity of these claims. The desired outcome, at least from me, is simply a better understanding of how true these claims actually are. Just to satisfy curiosity.

I think we all agree for the most part.

No, sometimes a danger is not obvious to everybody, but some people can recognize it. E.g., radiation that is invisible to the naked eye, or land mines.

There is a difference between judging one or two caches, and judging all of them as a matter of general policy. The general policy of not endorsing does avoid the "Good Housekeeping Seal" liability. But, it is still necessary to judge safety in special situations, and therefore not publishing, or archiving, a few caches may sometimes be a good idea. This does not mean that the general policy has changed. This is my opinion, I am not a lawyer, I cannot site anything that backs me up.

Indeed it is.

I would not try to explain the concept of logical fallacies, but it's pretty easy to understand that the policy is not to evaluate every cache for safety, as a matter of general course. If just ONE or a small number were evaluated, that does not mean the other 999,999 caches were also evaluated and found to be safe and appropriate. It seems that this line of reasoning would lead to a situation where Groundspeak (or their appointed reviewers) KNOWS that a cache is dangerous, they KNOW there are no warnings about the danger, and yet they MUST publish the listing because they have a policy PREVENTING them from evaluating the safety. That is ridiculous, and I believe they would have a liability if it can be proved in a courtroom that they KNEW of the danger and NEGLECTED to warn people. Therefore, as a general policy, the caches are not reviewed for safety, and might be dangerous. But, if a cache page had a reviewer note attached saying "This cache is in an area with land mines, is that okay?" the reviewer would not have to say "That's okay, we don't evaluate for safety, so you don't need to bother adding a warning to the cache description or anything. Consider it published!"

Yes, what he said.

I am also curious to know the answer to the original question, which was: Is it true that Groundspeak can decrease their legal liability by having a policy of not reviewing cache listings for safety? I suspect that the answer is "yes, but not completely." As with many things in life, it is not a black and white situation. This is why we hire lawyers.

One cache to hide them all, one cache to read them, one cache to maintain them all, and in the geopile find them!

If you like this idea, vote for it here http://feedback.geocaching.com/forums/75775-geocaching-com/suggestions/1269457-time-controlled-publish-of-new-caches?ref=title

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?

I am a bit confused about this. I think you proposing to give users the option to not show the complete list of their geocaches on their profile. This way, if someone decides to go destroy all your caches, they would not have a list of targets from your profile. But your caches are still there on the map, and if someone really wanted to, they would be able to go through everything on the map and eventually they could find all of your caches. It would just take longer that way. Similarly, you also want the option to hide your list of found geocaches -- but not actually hide the log entry. So someone could look at all the caches in your town, and look at the full log, and eventually they would find out which caches you logged. Do I have it right?

They buried it in the article. After saying "This park had no such sign," the article goes on to say: Apparently, the sign was not clear enough.

I saw a triple encrypted hint -- in Spanish, reversed, then ROT13. And then it just said "five" (cinco). That meant something in context.

At least on my phone (a Palm), no. The app cannot create a new account, so it is necessary to visit the web site at least once.

I don't know, 100 ?

I used to submit online logs from my phone, although they were not blank. As a newbie to the game, I would often not see the cache and I would have no idea where to start looking. Yes, I would go and read the online logs from other people, and try to get clues so I would know if it's in a tree or on the ground, or whatever. Once I found the darn thing, I would then want to write a spoiler -- it's in the big tree hanging from a branch. But I knew that would not be allowed, so better to write a short log and not give it away like that. I understood that if the cache had a problem, it would be good to say that in the log, but if the cache is just fine, then what is there to say? It takes time to learn what is appropriate to share in a log.

Sounds like a plan!

What a strange turn of events. If not for this forum, I would never had learned that. I was lead to believe it means Thanks For The Cache. We need a new thing that does mean that. Like, NRV for No Reedeming Value. "That guy had the nerve to leave a NRV log!"

If a newbie does it, no disrespect was intended. They are figuring out what to write. Perhaps they read somewhere that TFTC means "Thanks for the cache," and that's a nice thing to say. Assume they just did not know any better, but they had good intentions.