Mr.Benchmark

The Moore the Merrier? Perhaps we should just rate cache sizes by volume in liters or milliliters. I'm sure everyone in the "getting started" forum would enjoy answering questions such as: "whats a ml?" "how many ml is my lock-n-lock?" "Is it 'liter' or 'litre'"? "how many liters is an ammo can" "whats a ml?"

I have to wonder if Moore's law should really apply to geocaching?

ROFL about the class-action lawsuit. OT: I couldn't help notice that Trackinthebox tended to talk to himself once things really started not going his way. As in "Hey Track, what happened that made you shut down _____ I was gonna do that one next week?" I've noticed this type of post from other seemingly irrational people on other forums. Is there a psychological term for this type of behavior? Anybody know? I'e seen this particular rhetorical device employed many times, and I'm struck by both the frequency with which it is used, and how unfailingly it makes the person employing it seem just crazy.

If what he did was solve the problem in a manner other than what you intended, well, all I can say is that you should expect that this will happen from time to time. Provided he didn't damage your physical cache, I don't really see a problem with that.

EDIT: And thinking about it even more, I could definitely be persuaded to soften or even change my opinion in the case of mass cache thefts. Anyone else have an opinion? The two replacers could have replaced the caches without claiming finds for something they put there themselves. Or "enjoyed the trail" by just going for a hike along it. If they didn't log a find, how would anyone know they'd replaced the caches and they were findable? A DNF would likely just blend in with the string of other DNF's. A note doesn't stand out very well. I wouldn't feel comfortable logging a find, but practically speaking, if you want to replace a cache and tell others "yep, it's there now" in a way they'll notice, you should log a find. I requested on the suggestion forum a "non-owner" maintenance log type for this sort of situation, so that someone could clearly note non-owner changes to a cache in a way that stood out from other logs. There are always unusual circumstances where someone helping out isn't actually a terrible thing to do. What would seem ideal to me would be to encourage is people to help out in ways that help others, as opposed to mostly just helping themselves alone, and actually making problems for others. This is the main issue, to me, with dropping throwdowns after a cursory search - someone who does this may feel good logging the find, but they likely left a duplicate cache and a messy situation for everyone else subsequently. If someone is going to do this type of maintenance, they really need to understand what they are doing, have a good reason for doing it, and they should document it.

So suppose nobody replaces the cache with a new listing? There are areas where this happens - how is that a good outcome? I'm not trying to argue for the practice of throwdowns, and in populous areas, I think good spots barely get cold after being archived before a new cache is listed. But in remote areas with few cachers, you could well end up -1 cache, and that's the end of it. How is that a better outcome?

But shouldn't that be a DNF and a NM? That's certainly what I'd do. However, I'm not apparently a power trail kind of cacher. Given the logistics of some of the bigger power trails, I can understand why some would feel like non-owner replacement was expedient and even a good idea. I've also noticed this tendency locally in rural Oklahoma. There aren't a lot of cachers compared to some other places, and there are towns where more or less the only hides present are by CO's who are no longer playing. In a case like that, I can see how someone would feel it was more useful to replace a cache, than to DNF / NM / NA a cache, because once the cache is archived, there may well be no replacement for it anytime soon. I don't agree with this line of thinking either - but I think that is what is happening in some cases. (They have a point too - I've observed locally the count of caches going downwards nearby me. Oh to be sure in populous areas like Tulsa and OKC, this is a total non-issue, but in less populous / more remote areas it seems to happen, at least here.) I can also kind of understand this in areas where the cache is really remote - there are some out here where NOBODY lives nearby. You can flag it NM (and again, that's precisely what I'd do), but the owner is likely going to be quite a while visiting the cache. And even when it's nearby, there are some CO's who aren't fast about maintenance. (The one time I've considered replacing a container was in a situation like this - I found the ruins of the log / container in a really remote, but extremely interesting cache. The CO is easily 100 miles away, and the last 15-20 of those miles are NOT trivial. Note - I would only consider this because I'm certain I know where the cache belongs, because I found clear and unequivocal remains of the cache, and I'm still iffy on doing it.) Filing "NA" logs on caches that you didn't find, and haven't been found for a long time without CO maintenance works just fine. People seem to be reluctant to file these logs though for some reason. Perhaps people are nervous that the cache really isn't missing? Perhaps it is viewed as just being too much trouble? Perhaps people, in general, don't understand how to use these logs? Well, whatever the reasons, throwing down a cache solves the perceived problem right there on the spot. The most recent throw down I found was no doubt done precisely to let the finder and his buddy get +1 smiley. (Seems to me that was the motivation from reading the log, anyway.) It was an LPC at a QuikTrip gas station in a big city. I reported the throwdown to the CO (the container was, shall we say, unusual. It was also hilarious and didn't seem to fit the description on the cache page.) I think the CO decided it was OK, and left it. So I don't think I accomplished much. Under the circumstances, I have a hard time coming up with reasons the throwdown was just terrible. I don't like the idea - but one LPC container was replaced with another. It was a low cost container in a fairly routine location replaced by another. Ultimately the CO seemed fine with it. What was the problem exactly, other than general principles? I dunno, maybe some people are just better at rationalizing this stuff and I'm just taken in by it. Mostly I'm just trying to understand why people do what they do, I hope.

I find this the most illuminating comment so far. And the other side of that coin: in other cases, the original cache could have been no better than a throwdown to begin with. Why replace a cache like that? So whether the throwdown's good enough or not, either way it seems pointless. And I'm not saying that because I'm too lazy to carry around throwdowns so I can get those extra smilies. Non-owner maintenance of a power-trail would be the reason to do this. See my prior post for why this isn't a great idea either.

I think in the majority of cases it's done simply to obtain a smiley. When was the last time you saw someone throw down a cache and log a DNF or a note? It's nearly always a "found it" even though they found nada. I'm sure they justify it by making believe they are doing the CO a favor. Not that I condone this practice at all Briansnat, nor am I trying to defend it - but if you have a cache with a string of DNF's, and you replace the cache, logging a note or another DNF doesn't really tell subsequent finders that a cache is findable again. For example many use filters in software like GSAK to filter out caches that have long strings of DNF's. Logging a "found it" lets others know that maintenance was performed. (I have requested that a "non-owner maintenance" type log be added, so that people could actually log what they have done, rather than using "found it" as a proxy for this. I have zero expectation that this will actually be implemented.) I think in many places people do it to be helpful, although getting a smiley is also likely part of the motivation. I am particularly suspicious of people who sneak the mention of the throwdown into the midst of a longer log - making it sound like they found something, when they really PLACED something. It's one thing to do this on a trivial hide with an absentee owner. It's quite another to attempt it on a challenging hide or any hide with an active owner. I think both of those are horrible ideas - indeed, I think that in general, a throwdown is a terrible idea. BTW, even on trivial hides on a power trail (a situation where many would argue that a throwdown is most appropriate), I've seen situations where throwdowns caused a lot of grief for the CO. I found and reported a couple of duplicate caches along a local power trail. Someone else had done more of the trail and noted several more, although unlike me, they didn't note *which* of more than 200 caches had duplicate containers present. (They just copied-n-pasted this into most of their logs for the trail.) So, the local reviewer made the CO temporarily disable and physically check a couple of hundred caches along the trail, to find 3-4 duplicates. The CO dutifully did this, but it took a while. The vast majority of the caches had no issues at all. A few were missing and were replaced, and a few duplicate caches were fixed up. I'd guess this particular situation happened for the reasons you state Briansnat +1 smiley. This particular section of the power trail employed 3-4 different hiding techniques, and some of the hides were clever for a power trail - some of them could've taken up to 5 minutes to find!!!! I mean, really, who has 5 minutes on a power trail? So in that case, it is hard to believe the dude who threwdown had pure motives at all. I didn't find any of the ones I looked for to be particularly difficult to find, and I'm terrible at this game.

How could you possibly assume this? Maybe it's true - maybe it isn't. The way I read the OP's post was that there were nice back roads better suited for the placement of roadside caches. Without knowing anything more, it's hard to decide whether or not the caches are really in a dangerous location. It's not like weezulguy was complaining about the long walk from safe parking... Or that he was complaining that people were tempted to park in the wrong place when a safe alternative was available. Maybe that is really what he meant, but it's not how I read it.

I can see your point if the cache is well described and difficult, and the throwdown is trivial and totally not similar. That would (and has) raised a flag for me when I've found a cache. That said, the majority of throwdowns I suspect I've found have been: - micros, probably never clearly labelled - on caches that were, at best D1.5 - hidden in the same obvious way as the original Perhaps I've found more of these than I suspect - how would I know? Also, as a finder who subsequently found one of these, how did I cheat? It is hard to tell one cheaply made micro from another often times. Here's a real example. I logged a dnf on this nano hidden on a fence. Others do too. The owner replaces the nano. Ok fine so far. (btw this was at an interesting historical home, would've been a virtual at one time.) A subsequent finder discovers the original nano on the ground, hidden in the grass. The CO missed it! So he logs it, rehides it, but now there are two caches here! So which one is the valid find? If I find the rehidden original, with logs back to the FTF, should that log be deleted? Or the logs on the new container the CO placed? Neither? If you deleted my log on a cache that I found in good faith, but turns out to be a throwdown, unknown to me, are you going to send me an email explaining the situation? Or am I going to have to go back and try to figure out what happened and what I did wron to have a find deleted and sort out my records of finds / DNF's? Does that sound like it is fun to you? I do see your point on a cache with significant difficulty trivialized by a throwdown. I'd understand if my log were deleted in that case, although I wouldn't be thrilled about cleaning up my records. Whether or not I'd return would depend on the quality of the cache/location, and how politely you emailed me about the deletion. (if you imply I'm a cheater, I'd likely not return - again I didn't make the mess, just fell victim to it like the CO.) BTW, in every situation where I've notified a CO about a suspected throwdown, I've yet to have a log deleted. I always ask about that, and inform them that I'll delete my log if they so desire. I don't care about +/- one smiley. It's one thing to deal with this on something I found last week.I would hate to try to figure out what the hell happened on a deleted log I filed months ago though!

Sure, all the time. You almost never, especially when a creek is involved, want to follow the GPS in a straight line - always look for an easier approach. (Sometimes there isn't one.) I've nearly gotten my vehicle stuck many times. I fall down / drop stuff almost every time I go over any unpaved terrain. Fall into the creek? Sure. Mud? Yep. Face-first into the poison ivy? Yep. Disoriented in the woods, at night? Yep. Lacerated by thorns? Frequently. (My first aid kit is pretty regularly used.) One of my old caching buddies always used to photograph me because he thought my predicaments were hilarious! An example: early last month, I logged this really easy cache in a state park. It was next to a picnic table. I couldn't believe it hadn't been muggled - but there it was. So I open it, kind of kneel on the concrete bench at the table with one knee for balance, and - it splits in half right under my knee! This startled me, and I got scraped up a bit. I was not prepared for the concrete bench to just split like that. Hints: 1. Get a hiking stick is very helpful many times. 2. Let people know where you are going, especially if it's remote 3. Carry a good flashlight. (In fact, carry two.) 4. Carry some basic survival gear, first aid, etc. 5. If you can drop it, attach it to yourself with a lanyard, because whatever it is, it WILL go down hill into the creek. (There is a corallary to this for vehicle repair too - anything you drop on the ground while working on a car will roll underneath the car, directly under the hardest to reach location.) 6. It's always good to judge the conditions wherever you are - and if you feel the conditions aren't safe or don't feel right, bail and come back another time.

The slippery slope on the road to throwdown: 1. A decent cache goes missing, the CO is gone. You are in the park anyway, you've found it before, you search around, it ain't there, so you replace it. (This is relatively virtuous.) 2. You don't find a cache, and it's in a remote area - it'll take the CO a while to get out that way. But it's pretty obvious where it has to be from description and hint, so you replace it. Maybe you find the remains of the cache. (Depending on the circumstances, this one can also be relatively virtuous.) 3. A cache goes missing, so does the CO - lots of DNF logs. You've never found it before, but it is in a trivially obvious hiding spot, so you replace it. If you don't log a find, people won't know that it can be found. (We're going down hill here...) 4. Cache #87 for the day, spent 2 minutes searching, can't find it, darn, quick and pop out a handy replacement. Log found so next guy knows it's in play. (Hey, with 10,000 finds, if you don't find it, it's gotta be missing!) Later on, can't remember which ones you through down, was it #86 or #93... (Rock bottom) I think the second example is more common in sparsely populated areas with low cache density. In all cases I'm quite certain the person doing the replacement believes they are providing a service. BTW, I've seen examples of case #1 where the CO themselves accidently created a duplicate cache at their location. (It can be hard to find a missing nano, so you replace the one you think is missing, then someone else finds it in the tall grass, putting it back where they think it goes.)

Apologies. OK - here's my take: Just don't ever throwdown a cache. There is never a good reason to do this.

Remember they art mortal. Duh. The problem with creating a vast and largely unrivaled empire is the tendancy to think that you have arrived (Creating a mutual admiration society)when in reality the landscape is still moving on. The other problem is admitting bad decesions and either fixing them or reversing them. Things could be a whole lot better, but in areas that have nothing at all to do with the OP of this topic which is completely subjective to individual aesthetics. Here's a little story about free stuff for the OP. My wife volunteers with Toys for Tots every year. They take donations and provide free Christmas gifts to families in need with children - stuff for kids who'd otherwise get nothing during the holday. This year, we had my big, scary looking son (he looks like a biker) join her for security. You actually need security when you give kids Christmas gifts. Turns out that when people go to pick up toys to give to their kids for Christmas, the following things one might not expect can go wrong: 1. Many people take WAY MORE STUFF than the need or even intend to give to their kids. So you need security to prevent them from doing this, so that people who arrive later can actually get something. 2. Some people will get gifts ostensibly for their kids, and then attempt to return them to the store (or a pawn shop) for cash so that they can buy alcohol and drugs. (We remove the UPCs and other stuff needed for a return, and local merchants are wise to this.) However, as reprehensible as you might find this type of behavior (I think the second item is particularly vile), as one of my friends pointed out - "how can it be stealing if the toys are free?" Anyway, next time you look in a cache and are disappointed by the contents, just think about this happy little tale of human nature, kindness, and charity.

OK, sounds like we agree. I don't understand the notion of "well I WOULD have found it, so I'm logging a find." I'm not super happy with ambiguous situations like "this is bound to be the geocache - there's more of it here, than not, but I can't really sign this mess," but in that case I am more comfortable with logging "found" if it really seems like I did indeed find something. (I'd follow up with NM and owner email though.) I don't think I'd do as Mr.Yuck threatens, and go back and turn one of my "found" logs into a DNF because it turned out that I had unwittingly signed a throwdown while the original was still present. I say this because I can't think of why, unless I suspected at the time something was fishy and the cache was added to my watch list, or the cache was really spectacular, I would ever go back and read subsequent logs. And even if that were the case, I'm not sure I'd do it anyway, because it isn't always very clear from reading logs what REALLY is going on, and in my effort to fix up the past and have a perfectly 100% accurate accounting of my real and true finds, I might well screw up and just muddle things worse than they already are. So I try to just honestly report what I believe I found, and move on. If it turns out I was in error, meh - I'm human, and sometimes the situation on the ground is ambiguous.

It's a relatively simple concept: the further away from home you are, the less likely you'll ever be back at some later point after the required maintenance has been done. I've even used that logic once or twice myself, but it has to be very special circumstances such as a puzzle cache or multi where the final hide location is undeniable yet the cache is clearly missing or damaged beyond being able to sign the log. I understand that being farther from home makes it less likely that you'll return. But how does being farther from home make a "clearly missing" cache more of a find? A damaged cache with an unsignable log isn't clearly missing. Hey, you found a cache. A throwdown is also not clearly missing to the finder. (This is one of the reasons I hate throwdowns - I don't want to unwittingly be part of someone else's possibly misguided little stunt.) I do agree that if the final is clearly missing, this is a DNF, regardless of distance. I would be somewhat more frustrated if I put a lot of effort into finding a cache at some distance away and couldn't find the final - but I would still log a DNF.

Right, human nature. Need to fix that - check. AFAIK various solutions to this have been attempted over time, none have worked. It's all very well to suggest that GS doesn't care and that this is their problem - but what actually could they do? A variety of solutions for this have been tried on other sites - they don't work either.

RubinsCube mentioned young women in his log - that's where the talk about that started: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=9506dcdb-dd88-403c-84dc-0cbc9aecf54b It's not in the thread.

Hopefully they didn't know - there are people who pay just about zero attention to the news. (How would you have known if you hadn't happened to check facebook?) The bigger problem with doing something like this if you knew about the gunmen is that you potentially put other people's lives in jeopardy.

There is some overlap between the two cache types. However, an offset cache is defined as a multicache by geocaching.com: http://www.geocaching.com/about/cache_types.aspx Multi-Cache (Offset Cache)A Multi-Cache ("multiple") involves two or more locations. The final location is a physical container. There are many variations, but most Multi-Caches have a hint to find the second cache, and the second cache has a hint to the third, and so on. An offset cache (where you go to a location and get hints to the actual cache) is considered a Multi-Cache.

I'd log based on container, so FI on #1 & #2 (with location where you found it), DNF # 3 and email to co + NM on all 3. This is messy enough though that you wouldn't be wrong to log based on location either. Either way seems arguably correct to me. #2 should probably get a NA log too so it can be disabled since nothing is findable there. (It is arguable that all 3 could be logged NA because this is such a mess, that way a reviewer could disable them until it is sorted out.) What a mess!

Sure, but if you saw a cache like that rated T2, you'd have a right to be annoyed. (hey you can drive right to the boat ramp...) Agreed about limitations, that is why an accurate terrain rating is important. I'm glad you upped yours a bit, that plus the attribute should help keep people who have no business trying the cache from attempting it. Really, that is all you can do.

1. I've encountered many homeless people while caching and never had a problem. If GZ is in the middle of their living room, move on and let the CO know about it. Maybe they will move on, or maybe the cache will need to be moved or archived. Having someone more or less permanently at GZ makes it hard to retrieve the cache, and it really isn't very fair to the homeless person either. There are some very kind homeless people, just FYI. 2. There are, unfortunately, plenty of sex-offenders who are not homeless. I'd guess that most of them have homes. 3. Locations change over time. Someplace that is very safe when a cache is placed can, over time, become extremely dangerous. How would a moderator know this? For that matter, how would the CO? BTW, I'm not trying to paint an overly rosy picture of the homeless either - many of them actually are substance abusers (usually alcohol), and some are profoundly mentally ill. Like any encounter with someone who you don't know, you need to keep your eyes open, your wits about you, and when in doubt, bug out. Some of them are really nice people, some of them are not. Almost to a certainty, though, they have more serious problems than you do - so consider that.

I really, really, really wish they called it "found cache and signed log" rather than "found it". It would've reduced a lot of ambiguity. There is NOTHING in the term "found it" that suggests you need to sign the log. Nothing. I agree about 99% with your definition of "find a cache," and the only time I've logged a find without signing the log have been weird maintenance type situations where I absolutely positively 100% sure I'd found the cache - but the physical log was just unsignable for some reason. (Had there been a log type "found but unable to sign log" that didn't count for a +1 smiley, I'd have picked that instead.) I think the ambiguity in language on this is very unfortunate and leads to misunderstandings. Well, it's been 10 years, so there's no changing it, but I still say it's unfortunate. I really, really, really wish that people did not view the Found log as some kind of score or as a reward that cache owner gives for meeting their definition of a find. While NYPaddleCacher's definition may be the most widely accepted definition of find, there's no reason to get one's knickers in a twist if some uses a different definition. Of course as some point that we all may define differently, someone's definition of a find may become your definition of bogus. Most of agree, for example, that couch potato logs should be deleted. I don't believe I said anything of the sort. I am genuinely confused as to what you are talking about. My only points in this thread are: 1. If people who can't complete your cache are attracted to your cache, you should figure out what is wrong with your description, because that isn't a fun situation for anyone. There is no problem with having caches that not everyone can complete. That they can't complete it physically should not come as a surprise to be discovered only when they visit the cache site, in my opinion. 2. I wish the guidelines and terminology were less vague. I realize that you probably don't - that's fine. I'm not especially interested in policing what other people do - I just hate ambiguity. For what it's worth, my only actual interest in any sort of "rules" are that this game should continue to be fun for people. I am against arm-chair logging mainly because if the game devolved into that, I think it would rather quickly become boring because it is simply too easy to do this. The online logging portion of this game is not sufficiently engaging to be fun, if that is all you do. On the other side of the coin, designing caches that are extremely difficult merely for the sake of being difficult, and that don't involve some element that is fun for the finder are not good either. If the goal is to see how many DNF's you can rack up on a cache, that is not a good design in my opinion. (For example, I don't think it would be healthy for the game if most people decided to place caches that are essentially unfindable - what the hell good would that be if everyone did that?) Between these two extremes (and this would encompass very easy and quite challenging caches), is where fun lies, in my opinion. My personal view is that placing a cache that looks like a park-n-grab, is rated like a park-n-grab, but requires real climbing is not a well designed cache, because people who show up who can't possibly complete it, and who wouldn't have bothered with it were it rated correctly, are apt to be disappointed. I'm all for challenges - don't get me wrong. I just think that the information on the cache page should be sufficient so that people have a reasonable shot at deciding before they depart whether or not they are up to the challenge of a given cache. "Surprise! You can't do this!" is a lousy design feature, in my opinion.