Louise_Gerhard

FE, I have one more question. I am busy preparing a cache that I need to publish soon. This cache could be frustrating and I would like to be present when this cache is searched for by the first cacher. It will give me an indication and feedback of how tough it is or not. I would like to act as observer at the first hunt and I will have the cokes ready for the cacher and his family while getting the feedback after the find. Here in Gauteng the cachers move quickly and I know that there is a good chance for a cacher to find it on the same date of publishing. Due to the possible frustration level and the effort needed I am planning to use a quality coin as a FTF price. I am waiting for this coin at present. In the beginning of the January we will release the cache. My question: Do you think the reviewer will be kind enough to release this new cache on a certain date and time such as 01h30 – oops I mean 08h00 on a Saturday morning? That will give me time to be at the location for the day. FishEagle, you know the reviewer better than me so maybe you can twist his arm. Gerhard

Well done to all for their milestones achieved. I noticed that 1090 finds were done with 52 hides up to present for this month. Today is the 18th so a forecasted figure of more than 2000 finds at December will not be too shabby. Some useless info. There are now 957 456 caches worldwide. In the last 7 days 395 537 logs were done by 58 816 users. We have 0.3% of these logs. Gerhard

Well done Tinkerbell with the 150. Now you have to catch Wazat and I read that you have the right tool to do so. I hope that the GPS is going to help a lot. I am glad that you could share Wazat’s 500. I got to the 1000 sitting on a rock, missing my family which was at that stage about 500 km away and it is just not the same. Ok, I tried to shake my own hand and I tried to say “Well done” to myself but somehow I think it did not go down well. It feels good to add a reply when you have the met the person behind the name. I think I must do more events to meet the face behind it all. I am glad the cachers have a good time. Danie, where are you?? Gerhard

Wow it is happening. DiePienaars – KZ – 750. It was nice to meet them at the KZ event. There was a moment that I thought that my drink was spiked as I was seeing double. But that was resolved quickly. Krazong – NW – 300. Cool and I hope to find some more of your caches soon. I must pay a visit to your province. Besem – GP – 1000. Another cool one dude. He swept and he swept and got them all. I was watching this one for a long time. The other day a newbie and now 1000 finds. I am glad you enjoyed it Wazat and I am glad you had someone special to share it with. For some reason I see you climbing up a rock face – wonder why? Well done to all. Gerhard

Thanks for the replies. First we had a bag with a thank you, then we had 5 cents in the bag, then a cat in the bag and then we had an oar in the bag. Nice to see that no one wants to drop a bomb in this bag. Sorry TVM but I think this discussion is relevant to your topic. If I am wrong then I apologize for hijacking your topic. I love the idea of the floating trophy. Well done and maybe we can have more of these in the other provinces. The issues seemed to be resolved and we all agree more or less. The expat question is still open for debate. To highlight the problem I need to use a cacher as an example – unfortunately. First we had the CF team. Very few people realize it but they were not on the 2000 cache find criteria at that stage when the coin was issued. This was discussed with some of the donators and they agreed that their value adding outweighs the requirement and an exception was made. Also the event they organized was probably the best opportunity to do the hand over. They are expats but yet they make sure that we read RSA stats everyday. They could have turned around and said that we are on our own but they did not do that. They are even involved with the tracking of the TB race. Some of the cachers on this forum are here because this team introduced them to this hobby. Some of the events they held had probably the most cacher count ever. In overall the positives exceeds the negatives by far. We could not exclude them and I think there are many others that will agree with me, the donators would not have been there if this was an issue to them. This team received the coin and the donators wanted to do this and they wanted to recognize their input and effort and to say well done. In my heart it was good to do this award and I think all of the donators feel the same and it was a huge pleasure to recognize team CF for their efforts and to experience their appreciation. Here we did not follow the rule but we done the right thing. We have a person such as Carbon Hunter. I recognized this man as the person that actually got the earth cache ball rolling. It is simple to test his value. Did he add any value to me or not? The answer is yes – he did. If you remove all of his EC’s I will have little understanding of geological formations. EC’s will have no value to me and I will probably still be sitting on a silver level and not on platinum. He participates in this forum and his input is valued. Sometimes I do request more information from him to understand the EC and he will explain with no complains. Does he add value to the community – without a doubt yes. I speak on my own behalf but I am sure that there are many cachers out there that will support me. If Carbon Hunter achieved the 2000 mark with 1000 RSA caches should he not get it due to the value he added to all of us. I am sure that we will find the donators for his coin and that each donator will back us up with no hesitation. Same apply to Besem and many more. The expats issue is a toughie and we have to throw the ideas around. Maybe there is not going to be a clear cut rule on this one. Some of the expats is getting close to the 2000 finds. I think the way forward will be on merits for the expats but not as a right to the award as this is a RSA community driven project. We will have to deal with each case separately. The coin represents the community so the community must have the final say in this award and donation. I will dread the day when Carbon Hunter is at 2500 cache finds with 1000 RSA finds and to say to him that our rule do not apply to him. If I ever meet him at an event then I will not be able to look him in the face as the rule will be unfair and I will know it. Sorry CH and CF for using you as an example but I think it is positive in the illustration and does highlight the extend of this issue with a reality. On the other side of the coin I think the idea from Besem to have a minimum RSA cut off limit as a requirement is good and fair and maybe this is the way to go. The simpler the better, it is easy to verify and easy to apply and to explain to someone and it is fair. Is this the way? Gerhard

Sorry Pooks, it was not meant to be a problem. It my right brain that is causing the hassles. At present I am mobile and I move around a lot. If I get a chance I will log on but then I need to scan quickly. It is easier for me to keep tabs. I am also planning to go to Botswana for work related issues and the cost of Internet is extremely high that side and I will work long hours, so it is hit and run all the time. I will probably not even be logging caches during the next three weeks. By the way – some cachers stated that we must discuss this in this forum and now they are the ones that are not responding. You had your opinions when you e-mailed me and now you are gone. Are you there? Issue 1: (Award handover) Cachers want this as part of the event and it was tested with TVM and CF and they are happy. So it looks as if this is the way forward. The handover to iPajero was a slight disaster. We had it planned during an event at Gauteng. But due to circumstances (postal strike) the coin was not available. The second best was at number 2500 at the final tonteldoos cache. This was a huge problem. In this case the Gauteng cachers agreed to do the donation. This team was not known to most of the Gautengers but they had the chance to meet with them at the event. They liked them so much that I had to stop some of the donations. If this must form part of the event then I will have to request permission from the event owner and only with his permission this hand over will proceed. Issue 4: Who? (new one) One issue is still in question. We have a lot of expats that is still involved with the RSA cachers. We made the rule as 2000 RSA cache finds. It appears as if this is in question. How are we going to manage this? Let us say that cacher X is from the UK, he visit his uncle in Ermelo and find one of my caches and he is now on 2000 finds - what now? Shall he/she be awarded and how? What if he returns and he informs all his mates and family and 500 of them arrive to complete their 2000 finds? Must we now award all 500 of them. We will be ruined. Or must I contact his community and present them the opportunity to award him for the number and for them to hold the event at his community? We need some guidance here. Here I also need the input from the community to discover cachers like this as this will be very difficult to control. Someone will how to shout and say “I noticed another person at the 2000 cache find milestone”. Issue 2: (Milestone cut off and finance) Anton, we done a forecast on the growth of cachers and the rate at which cachers will reach the 2000 finds. We also calculated the number of cachers that is not responding to the voluntary donation requests. The actual no response percentage is lower than expected. Based on this forecast 8 cachers are needed to cover the cost of the coin. We do not want to bankrupt the cachers but at the same time we want to give a high quality coin. The other focus is that if a cacher has received the award coin he must not be placed in a position where he actually pays for the coin with his donation. To pay for your own award is defeating the objective. There are cachers that want to donate on a fixed monthly basis. We need to say thanks to these cachers. At present I can not allow it as we will run into a credit on the account. I would rather run on a slight debit or loss. For this we will not cut our pulses and it will not ruin the relationship with the bank manager. Feel free to forecast it on your own and to play with the numbers. You are the stats man and your help will be appreciated. For obvious reasons I do not want to publish the rate of no response but I will e-mail it to you if needed. Keep your forecast figures away from the forum and we can discuss it privately. At present we forecast cachefan and cownchicken as the next that will reach this wall and I am keeping an eye on their caching rate to determine the probable due date. The tracking number should be explained. I use this as a crude financial tool. If a cacher donates monies then he/she will appear on the Income statement and his name is then coupled to the tracking number. With other words I use this as a delivery note that the monies were received and that it is allocated properly on the account. On the other hand I am not the owner of the coin. This coin actually belongs to the donators but it is given to the 2000 finds cacher unactivated. During the handover the coin becomes the property of the person receiving the award and he can do with it as he pleases. I think it is fair that the person donating the money should be entitled to the tracking number. I also discovered another important issue while dealing with the awards. Most of the people donating the monies have great respect for the cachers with the 2000 finds and they do like to keep track of them. They use the tracking number to see what these cachers are up to. The financial statements are available to any cacher that has donated monies. I am busy working on a web page that will have this information behind a password. Only donators and the persons that have received the awards will have access to the password and also what is happening behind the scenes such as the next plan. Anton, maybe this is where you can help as well. I am a strong believer in financial ethics. There are always two people that deal with an account and there are always two documents. The person placing the order is not the person receiving and accepting it. You can add value here. Maybe you should deal with the control and financial statements. On the other hand we are in the middle. We had to start with the awards somehow and in the process we had to make rules to get the idea going. I am standing with CF, TVM and iPajero on my left hand side that have done extremely well and on my other side I have the geocaching community that wants to recognize their efforts and they want to shake their hands and they want to recognize their efforts. I do not know if it is acceptable for the owners if the tracking numbers are issued to the donators. Maybe they do not like it, but they as the owners need to comment and they need to say yes or no. We will adapt to their wishes. Thanks for the reply. Gerhard

Well done to the cachers reaching the following milestones, I hope you all have many more. Strange enough – looks like a lot of old GP hands are now moving around. Enjoy your festival period and stay safe. Rodnjoan – GP – 800; the 1000 is now in reach. Wazat – KZN – 500; This friend had me worried; I noticed a count of 499 for the weekend and then it went very quiet. I waited and waited but the score card stayed on 499. It is your fault that I went to bed at 02h00. Not too shabby, Marge. How does it feel to be right in the middle of the GP cachers – all seven of them? I am glad you had tinkerbell with you when you achieved it – I hope she awarded you well. I am sure that last month was your best month. Urban Hunters – GP – 1250; look like they got out of the closet, they were quiet for a while. Welcome back. When are we meeting under the BRIDGE for the area agent to show me the way? Danie Viljoen – GP – 650; Well done the next one is around the corner, I am watching you this holiday. Happy Hunters – GP – 300; Picking up momentum and still happy to hunt them with a smile and a laugh. Mystic Boer – GP - 50; he was also quiet but the Boer is on the hunt again. Slangvz – GP – 100; reached his cricket score century. I can remember his first couple of logs and suddenly he is at 100. Good. RedGlobe – GP – 1200; I am chasing this man, but he absolutely refuse to stand still or to lie down. Your coin with the grapes had a good time. The grapes visited the wines. The input went to the output. It was real nice from cownchicken to give him a lift to visit his family. Well done. Gerhard

This is an example of the format of reply. Try to name the issue so everybody can follow the various comments to the issues in hand. If you have another issue that does not fit in one of the three issue classes then you need to call a consecutive number such as Issue 4: xxx xxxx xx. If you have general comments please include it at the top. Issue 1: (Award handover) I think it depends on the individual person receiving the award. For example if such a reward is given to me I would not like to see an event with my name on it and to be the focus of that event. I am a private person and more introvert than extrovert. I do not like to be the centre of the event. I would like to received it at an event but more informal and on the side. To me it is the idea behind the award and the fact that it came from the community which makes it special. I think if a person is eligible for such an award then that nominee should have the say. Issue 2: (Milestone cut off and finance) I am divided with this issue. 2000 finds was selected as the award milestone as this was also the year geocaching actually kicked off. This award must be special and it must be a real challenge. This must be like a gold medallion at the Olympics. Some of my fellow cachers stated that if there is an official milestone coin for example at 1000 and 500 finds then it will be good for geocaching as a whole and it could stimulate growth. I personally feel that if this milestone awards are lowered from the 2000 finds criteria then we could loose the focus of the objective of geocaching. It could turn into a number game and an official award for that number game. Instead the focus is to enjoy the caches and to see something new or to do something new in your life. At 2000 finds we should shake the hand of that cacher. Milestones will then just become milestones with anything lower than 2000 finds. At 2000 finds it is special and here I think the line must be drawn. There are people that reached 100 finds in less than a month. During the next months this cacher disappears again. A person at 2000 finds is a person that will carry on unless something happened to his health or personal affairs. On the other side of the coin we have cache stashes. I am too scared to award on cache stashes. How do you award and compare a cacher with 50 lamp pole stashes against another cacher with 50 high quality and unique caches? I also have this feeling that if hides become an award then the quality of caches could suffer. I would rather settle for a yearly award such as the top 5 hides for the year. Here everybody can have a chance and the whole community can interact to find the top 5. As a small community it is also not possible to financially sustain any awards lower than the 2000 finds line. Issue 3: (Cacher not donating) I personally would like to stick to the rule. The rule is 2000 RSA finds and he/she will get it even if he/she refused to donate any monies. I am not going to justify it – if a donator feel that a certain person is not worthy of getting such a coin then we will look for other donators that will contribute to his award. We should be able to get pass this obstacle. I would not like to select certain people for this award. I think this is unfair and it will cause a split and anger in the geocaching community. More harm than good will be done. So I personally would like to stick to the rule but the donator could exercise his right not to donate to that specific cacher. Both parties should then be happy.

We started with an idea to reward a cacher with a 2000 finds coin when he/she reached the 2000 finds milestone. We selected some cachers with the hat in the hand as a test. The response and the feedback were positive. The idea then started to materialize. With the voluntary donations we were in a position to do the awards. I actually had to block a couple of cachers as they wanted to donate the full amount of the coin. The idea however is that it must be given via the caching community and not one single person. The following awards were done in the past for their efforts and achievement based on the 2000 finds count. 1. iPajero (Received it at final Tonteldoos) 2. Crystalfairy (Received it at the Kia Ora Event) 3. TVM (received it at Fine Wine event) Our original idea was to keep this award coin low profile and to do it in the background. The format of the handover was never planned. We left that for the donators to arrange. But this has evolved a little bit and some of my fellow cachers requested me several times to bring this to this forum for discussion. I agreed to do so pass the third handover. A complex system is not needed so the following simple rules were adapted and agreed via the cachers that donated the monies needed. 1. To qualify for this 2000 finds coin one have to find 2000 South African caches. Some of the cachers had the argument that a cacher could find 1999 finds in the UK and 1 in RSA and then he will get the award. The question now is if this is fair. You can get to 2000 finds in the UK quicker than in RSA. So we had to adapt to this rule and it will be in place from today to make it fair and just from this point forward. 2. The second rule that was agreed upon is that the person donating the money for this coin will receive the tracking number of the coin. In matter of fact he will receive two tracking numbers for one unit of donation. 3. The last rule is that a cacher will donate a unit which is equal to R30. Or else we will get the situation where one cacher will donate R400, the next one R600 and the next one will donate R10. This will become a nightmare to manage. Now it is a fixed amount and it is once off. We do not want to build reserve funds but we want to break even on the financial balance sheet without creating any credit amount. If a cacher wants to donate more than one unit then he will donate two units which cost R60 and he will received the next 4 tracking numbers of the awards given to the 2000 finds cachers. Working in units is easy to manage. About 8 units are needed to cover the cost of one coin and it is easy to achieve and to manage this. I think the rules are clear and if not then I will try to explain it again if needed. Three rules is easy to manage and the more the rules the more the interpretation of the rules and the more complex it becomes. Then we all change into lawyers and I would like to be a geocacher. However the following questions started to arrive and it was highlighted by the cachers and we need to discuss this as a community. So here they are as promised. Issues raised for discussion by fellow cachers: 1. Issue 1: (Award handover). Some cachers felt very strongly that we should award this coin at a special award event in the province where the cacher resides. The question and the discussion should be “Should we carry on giving it in the background and informal or must this now be formalised as a handover at an official event?” iPajero received his privately, maybe he can comment. TVM & CF received it during an event and their feedback will be good. Maybe they would like to see it different. 2. Issue 2: (Milestone cut off and finance). The second question that has arrived is the question of “Should we award this on other cache find milestones as well”. For example at 1000 finds. We will need answers to this as well. 3. Issue 3: (Cacher not donating). Eish, this is a tough one. If some cachers refused to do any donations are they eligible for the award? Should we award them the coin or not. I hope we can get a fruitful debate. Nothing is wrong and nothing is right, speak you mind and let us draw some conclusions and agreements on this one. At the end the focus is on the cacher receiving this award and we should do the best we can do to make it special for them. Your input will be appreciated. The majority will set the rules. Try to keep the issues apart while discussing it so that is can be followed. I will post a reply as an example and please keep to the example given. In this fashion we will keep control of the issues and it will be easier to follow. I hope I made myself clear. It is easy to manage issues if they are named and broken down in manageable chunks. OK, the floor is all yours. Gerhard

Nope, just very dumb and blond. I planned to get to the event on Saturday and to do caches back the next day. During the planning phase we removed all archived caches, and then we removed the ones that had more than 2 DNF’s during the last 4 searches. We were then left with all different types. This is when it happened. I only selected traditional and forgot to tick EC as well. So if you look at my KZN cache finds you will only find traditional ones. I did it at your cache as well. I missed Babsfontein a couple of times until I realised my mistake. Maybe old age is kicking in but the cache finds were good enough in KZN and I am happy. I will get to the EC’s soon. If all is well then I back in February 2010. So I if you want to be a good friend you will drop me an e-mail at the end of January with – “My Alzheimer friend please remember to select EC as well”. Maybe it will ring a bell. Gerhard

Bouts, at present there are too many things that are keeping me busy. My house is sold, wife must now move to somewhere; if Gauteng then we will be away from MP for a long time. A visit once a year will then be the standard. Botswana is now on my wish list – one of the guys at the company that side wants to escort me on a walking trial and we are planning to plant three caches in this area. This is now planned for the 16th December. Some of the locals will escort me and we will see if this is safe for cachers or not. According to them there were no incidents up to present. There are extremely good places near Gabarone. I even visited the Anglo Boer War graves – I never expected this one. I planted one cache in Botswana but before publishing we had to abandon it. They have many rules in Botswana. You are not allowed to take photos from any military base, not allowed to take a photo from their towers. By accident I planted a cache near a tower that looks like a FM tower just to realise that it is a military radio tower. So no cache is allowed there. I tried to find an EC somewhere near Gabarone but I can’t find the necessary documentation. Maybe some one has the information that is needed. If you move more north then there is plenty of EC’s waiting to be done but in the South I want to stay. I will appreciate it if someone with information about geological formations near Gabarone can forward me the details. Gerhard

Well done Bouts with your new EC’s in MP. I would love to do them some time but so many caches so little time. Gerhard

Well done to cownchicken (WC) with 1650 finds. Thanks for the quick meeting at the airport. Megaben (GP) with 750. I noticed you are moving around. Well done. Gerhard

Wazat, I will drop you an e-mail to arrange a date. Not good to publish a date and time for the climb here and it is getting off topic. There are too many cachers that could pay a visit. Do not be scared to do this one. The instructors are good and they are qualified, they are not family of Mickey or Donald. We will belay each other and we will tie up to the rope under their strict guidance and control. They will check if the knots are dressed properly and that control of the rope is maintained at all times. The most serious incident they had is when a lady sprained her ankle when she stepped skew on a stone on her way back to the lodge. Falls were experienced on this rock face, but this is rare. I will drop you and e-mail to arrange the climb. After this climb I will arrange an event for the other cachers. Hopefully we can get more cachers to understand the techniques. So you have all the motivation and your own target to get to the 500 and I hope the constant pressure gives you go. For number 1000 you could be in a position to do Sentinal. Go for it. RedGlobe when is your next milestone – you are too quiet. Gerhard

Wazat, I am watching you like a hawk. Only 15 caches left to meet the challenge - 11 in the bag yesterday. I myself done good yesterday but I still need to log them. Maybe this weekend. There is one tiny problem left. You accepted the challenge without questioning the reward. If you meet the challenge then you have to supply me with a date somewhere in January (end) so I can arrange and book the climb. I would like to offer you this opportunity to learn something knew. We will do a one day introduction climb at Hekpoort. We need to be there at 09h00. I pay for the course. Your kit will be issued to you and it will be inspected by the qualified trainers. A nice stiff walk will lead us to the mountain. I was here before and the view over the dam is good – you can relax if the stress gets too much. They will then explain the knots, equipment and the climbing techniques to you. You will practice them. You will also receive a little book on the basics. To test your understanding you will then do an easy single pitch climb up the rock face which is not too technical under supervision of the trainer. It is very safe as the instructor uses a top rope technique. At the top we will relax a while and a walk down the mountain will follow to relax the muscles. At about 16h30 we will be finished. Do not plan for caching the next day – you will discover pains in places you never knew before but the feeling of achievement will be great. We are busy arranging an event at this location and you will be the test subject. The planned event will be scrapped if we should loose you during this climb or if you bounce too many times on the rocks below. If you get to the top and you are still fine then the event will be hold to allow the other cachers to scream like a little girl. I am only joking - do not worry you are safe – if you should fall then it will be inches. After this session you will know how to belay, learned something about knots and how to climb a rock face and you will have the photos to proof it on your web site. Maybe your TB will like it here. This could be a good place for an extreme cache. I can’t drag you up this mountain so the second price is a 500 finds coin. The coin will not add the same value to you as the climb. I will do the climb first and you will follow. Now which one will you select? So many choices … Just remember about 500 cachers are waiting to read your answer. Well done and I hope you meet the challenge and the other one. You done well. Gerhard (with a small d)

It was a good weekend. Well done. Sardine2009 (WC) – 50. The 100 mark is now close. Cache-fan (GP) 1600 in the bag. Only 400 to go; should take you about 3 months. Battlerat and pussycat - 1000 which I was watching for a while got to the 1000 and a good cache which was planned well. Gerhard

It would be a simple log if smiley ran down the barrel. !@##%^. &*^%$@!. Gerhard

Wazat, you do good – too good with this challenge. Shall I shift the goal post to 600? LOL. Platberg is an easy one. Get to it at about 02h30 and you can still get to work in time. A Nice refreshing one to start the day; or you can do this one with a bicycle like Hosta. He achieved a world record for the fastest speed ever reached on a bicycle. If you want to relax a bit this weekend – just remember I am watching you. Gerhard

Thanks ipajero. It sounds so easy. That will take me another two years. But at least I enjoy it, so maybe the numbers will come quickly - I hope it is possible to move around in Gauteng with the soccer. If not then we will wait for three years. Gerhard

I had a nightmare with the logs on the EC’s – who found what en where and did I approve or not??? Maybe this will help someone. I found a way around this one and I changed it to a close loop system. It is now easier to keep tabs on them. It also serves as a public notice that the answers were accepted or not. I log a note on the same date the cacher has found them if his answers is more or less in the correct direction. If there is no note from me then he never gave me his answers. Now it is easy to manage the logs on the EC’s. If you need to see an example go to one of my EC's. Gerhard

Well done to Hemachatus. He found his first EC and a FTF, I feel good that he selected my one. I hope you find many more. CH is the master and you will learn a lot from him. Give the Gauteng EC's a try. By the way - battlerat and pussycat why are you waiting. I noticed that you have 999; where is the one that is missing??? Yes, I am watching. Gerhard

Well done to the following people !!!! Jors (GP) for the big 500 - it is so nice to see this one, CF (NZ) 2050, tomtwogates (WC) 600, geocacher_coza (GP) 350, paddawan (WC) for a very quick 150 and a high count for the month – looks like you are on a roll, cincol (QA) with 400 – the big one is now in reach, TVM (WC) with 2250, capaccr (WC) with 400 and last but not least BruceTP (GP) with 300. It appears as if the WC cachers are on the prowl and on the move. Before I forget also well done to Wazat for finding the cache at “AdySally Waterfall”. I read your log late last night. Mountain man you have done extremely well as this one and it was a pleasure to read your log. I will attend soon to this one due to the challenge involved but I will do it the traditional way with climbing equipment. I am not scared of heights or a fall but it is the repeated bouncing on the rocks 50 meter below that gets to me. Gerhard

Thanks FE for the answer. You must have hair on your teeth with a lot of patience. I think you have enough on your plate. At present there are according to GSAk about 53 problem cases in the way I ran the query but in reality there are only about 5 problems. The rest is bogus, not a problem yet or that is found by newbies. To keep and eye on more than 3000 caches and to have only 5 real cases is extremely good. You are doing a great job and you have done a lot for the caching community with the strong and the weak hand. Keep it up. Gerhard

FE, I have a question. How does the reviewer know of a problem on one of the caches? Do you get an e-mail from geocaching.com with the details, do you run a database query. Or do you manage it as a combination of both? Do you have a special database from geocaching.com or do you have special review access permission to their database? I sometimes run a query called CacheCop written by Wayne on GSAK which shows all maintenance request, archived cache requests and DNF’s. If I go to a selected area I use this query to remove all the ones in questions and all of them who appears a problem. I found this is working for me and I am getting better finds by removing the bad ones. Ok, sometimes I select a cache with a problem just to visit the location and it did happen a couple of times that I actually find the cache after 3 DNF’s was recorded. Every time I run this CacheCop query I have this question in my mind. Ok, I can see the reaper is also busy as the total number of the results is changing quickly. But I also note discrepancies in the result of the query run. If I find this discrepancy should I report them to you or should I just keep them off my list as I was not at the cache and are not at liberty to comment on the cache? I included the second log below from one of the three cachers that recorded DNF's. Some of the DNF’s are quite funny. This one tickles me. There are three DNF’s on this specific one. First DNF recorded on 22 March 2009, second was 27 April 2009, third one was on 19 Jul 2009. I replaced some words with XXXX. There is one cache with 6 DNF's and a archived request but it is still alive since 4 October 2009. Ok, there is also a couple of archived requests for a log that is full, but these is not worth mentioning. %#@*! Camped in XXXXX for the weekend and went up there 3 times w/o any success! Even after talking to XXXXX (thanks!) and they narrowed down the search area. We've covered every hole and crack with at least 7 pairs of eyes... So either we're blind or the cache has gone AWOL! Gerhard

Siek verlof is 'n lelike ding. As jy hom nodig kry dan is daar nie genoeg nie.