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Gan Dalf

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Posts posted by Gan Dalf

  1. NO ONE IS ADVERTISING THAT THEY HAVE SOMETHING IN THEIR CACHE.

    The cache listing includes information (presence of a trackable) that will draw certain types of people to the cache, yet the CO knows this information to be false. That's poor cache(-listing) maintenance if the problem is a persistent one.

     

    I've suggested a remedy for us bad 'ole cache owners who don't maintain our travel bug inventory lists properly.

     

    http://feedback.geocaching.com/forums/75775-geocaching-com/suggestions/2360118-remove-the-travel-bug-inventory-list-from-cache-li

     

    Hmmm... I wonder if this will releive the problem of harvesting/hording as well... If there is no advertisment that a trackable is in a cache, it removes the enirticement for thieves and horders to go to caches that bugs are listed in,

  2. He's not posting notes, he's posting Needs Maintanance Logs which CO's can't delete.

     

    Sure they can.

     

    Can they? If so my bad, thought they were like Archive Requests. Maybe it's just that the attribute can't be removed without an Owner Miantanace Log...

  3.  

    Please do not do that again.

     

    oh, but i fully intend to go through ALL of your caches.

    and if any of the listed trackablesare missing........

    i do fully intend to place a note on your page.

     

    And... there it is! The sound of a thread [and an argument] imploding!

     

    Fortunately, the knower of chad can delete pointless, spammy notes.

     

    He's not posting notes, he's posting Needs Maintanance Logs which CO's can't delete. They acan however request that a reviewer do it which is what I would do in this case.

  4. OP, while others agree that trackable inventories are somewhat of a problem (myself included), you seem to be the only one that thinks that your solution is the correct one. I'm not sure who it is that has it as their forum signature but a wise cacher once said, (I'm paraphrasing):

     

    "Geochacing is supposed to be about fun, if you're coming to the forums and typing 5000 word rants with your caps lock on, you're probably missing the point"

     

    As far as becoming a volunteer goes, I think your actions and behavior here has significantly hindered that possibility. Your actions include browsing for caches with trackables in them on the other side of the country from your home area and posting notes on CO's cache pages telling them to mark the trackables missing when you have no first hand knowledge of that being the case. It is not a stretch to call this behavior stalking and is not likely to garner the respect of the general caching community which seems to be a prerequisite for consideration as a Groundspeak volunteer reviewer/moderator.

     

    If I were you I would take the pumpkin pooches advice. Get a little more experience looking for, finding and hiding geocaches before you start making suggestions about how to make the site better. Perhaps that will calm you down a bit and you'll learn that it's best not to try and force your opinions on to people that have been doing it long enough to have well formed opinions of their own.

  5. if only a poll could be done.

     

    the cachers that enjoy trackables would be behind me 100%.

    if only they knew that discussion wass going on.

     

    You can lower your percentage by one. I enjoy trackables and I enjoy maintaining caches that encourage their placement. What I would not enjoy is someone from outside my area, percieving that I am being lax in my duties and coming to my cache and removing bugs from it's inventory becasue they think they know a particular bug is not there. Likewise, I wouldn't want my bug removed from a cache without first hand knowledge of someone that has been there.

     

    this is most likely what Keystone was eluding to when he said he had stopped doing it. Too many CO's and TO's sending him angry e-mails for trying to "help".

  6. you can get folk's opinions if a "needs maintenance" should be done if a TB is left in the cache which is what you are doing a lot in our area.

     

    Not sure If I am hearing this correctly. Is the OP going to cache pages that have travel bugs listed in them and logging a NM if he percieves that the tracakbales are missing? Without ever having visited the cache himself?

     

    If so, that is out of line. Needs Maintanance Logs should only be used by those individuals that have visited the cache and know first hand that there is a porblem with it.

     

    I feel that 'maintaining' the 'trackables inventory' is part of a COs responsibility.

    AND unlike other maintenance, which is often ignored, it can be handled by someone other than the CO. Only a simple computer entry is required.

     

    I would agree that if a CO knows that a trackable that is listed as being in his/her cache is not there than marking it as missing is the courteous thing to do but the Trackable owner shares some of that resposibility. It is THEIR trackable after all and if they have been informed that it is not listed in a particular cache and some time has gone by since they were made aware of it then they should mark the item as missing as well. As far as others handling it go, only the CO and the trackable owner have the option of marking something missing...

     

    I don't necessarily agree that a NM log is the appropriate action for a missing trackable. If nothing else is wrong with the cache then it doesn't need maintanance. A NM log is to indicate a problem with the cache itself and other than prohibited items in the cache, does not extend to it's contents, IMHO.

  7. From the cache page, in the trackable window, click the link that says, "View Past Trackables". At the top of the next page will be a number that says "Total Records" This would be the number of trackabels that have passed through the cache. You would then need to scroll through all the pages of trackables to see how many trackabels have been marked missing (they'll have a question mark associated in the location column).

     

    If you are talking about The Cache called Wile E. Coyote (Travel Bug Hotel) that is listed as being disabled in your profile, I did a quick check. The cache has 97 trackables recorded as passing through it. 17 of those have been marked missing. That's a rate of about 17.5% That does not necesarily mean that they went missing from that cache, only that at some point after being placed in your cache they have been marked missing by another Cache Owner or the owner of the bugs themsleves. You would have to go to the individual bugs in question to find out where they went missing from...

  8. The action you describe is common practice. Go right ahead as there is nothing wrong with that.

     

    ...just leave it a PMO and give the info to my friend and let them look for it.

     

    This, I believe, would be a violation of the TOU, supplying information to those not entitled to same.

     

    Actually there is a well known back door, and someone correct me if I am wrong, that even Jeremy endorces for non Premium Members to log PMO caches. I just don't know if it is considered bad form to tell someone how to do it in the forums.

  9.  

    Girls get the message from a young age, from many places that they are not to do a lot of things that boys can do.

     

    Precisely why the differences should be enjoyed and celebrated and not shunned and minimalized.

     

    I agree that women are not given the same opportunities as men, there pay is less and in many things more is expected of them then should be. But to deny that men and women are different is just silly.

     

    Kids pick up these things. You won't know it at the time, but they are often a lot more observant than you think. And some of it is subliminal, that they won't be aware of, but will form the opinions of society and themselves that last a lifetime.

     

    Exactly! In other words, it makes them people, as everyone elses life experiences do. Again, This is no reason to "protect" them from our prejudices. I know that my kids are inteligent enough to understand that not everyone thinks the same way. I just hope that I am a good enough parent to teach them that they are smart enough to know that...

  10. I had no idea what rickrolling was until this, and once I found out, I laughed so hard I cried. Yep, it's the dumb stuff that gets me. That's great. Gotta love when someone tells you they're tricking you and you're surprised when you get tricked.

     

    Beleive it or not, some people find it incredibly offensive. To rickroll someone is considered to be the ultimate insult.... Some people have no sense of humor, but that is a subject for another thread...

  11. I'm confused. We were always taught "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me." Are today's kids so fragile that mere words are that upsetting?

     

     

    That was what we were told, yes, and thankfully that particular bit of horse manure is being recognized for what it is. Words hurt, it's a fact, and anyone that doesn't recognize it is blind. I speak from experience and I'm in my upper 40's. I just had a discussion in the car with my 9 year old son while taking him over to a friends house for trick or treating tonight about this very subject. He's a good kid, nice, friendly well liked by most people and some little **** has taken it upon himself to make his life miserable everyday on the bus to and from school.

     

    But that is beside the point. The question being asked here is if a particular cache name should be allowed or not because some people find it offensive and don't want to have to be a parent and explain it to their kids. I believe that we are on the same page as far as that goes. I still believe that most kids under 12 would not even recognize it as an "offensive" title unless the parent reacts to it. If you make a big deal about it, then they will percieve it as such.

  12. Not based upon a posting in a Forum, but directly from a Land Manager? Certainly.
    Well, as knowschad observed, the Parks guy's reply is a little software than "don't do it" - it was more "we'd prefer you didn't, for now" and they haven't decided what to do with any already in place.

     

    After reading his response I don't think it was even that harsh. I read it more like, if you must, be gentle, and don't be suprised if our new policy requires you to remove it in the future

     

    Over in the Northwest/Orgeon part of the forum, I posted the more direct regional concern. As of yet there is only one reply, basically a snarky "no one cares." Which may be true enough to be a problem in itself.

     

    I read this differently too. B+L wasn't saying, no one cares, on the contrary, I think his tone was that as wrong as it is, poeple are going to place caches in parks no matter what the policy. I think he cares very much, and he is not alone. He was saying that most people don't bother or care enough to ask for permission, thye just place caches anywhere they please, be it in a park or otherwise.

     

    I don't know about in Oregon but in Washington State The WSGA has a Parks Liason program. They have been instrumental in getting caches reinstated in Dsicovery Park and working with Land Managers to keep other parks open for caching. does Oregon have a local Geocaching Association? If so I would recomend consulting with them about your concerns...

  13. From the tracking number, I see it is a tag that has not been activated. It's not a good idea ot publish the Tag Number though in case it does get activated.

     

    This might be tough. You'll have to track them down by working backwards. There is no way for a moderator to figure out where the bug came from. You're best bet is to go back the cache page that you pulled the bug out of and see if any of the logs mention dropping it in the cache. Then contact that cacher and find out if it is theirs or where they got it from.

     

    If that doesn't help then you probably can't do anything else. At that point, I would just realease the bug myself and maybe put a note on the bug page to contact you if they want to adopt it back.

     

    This same thing happened to me with my very first trackable I found. I still own the buig, although I did figure out the owner really was and they just told me to keep it...

  14. I found travel bug named "Circus Circus TB" with number XXXXX. Could anybody help me find owner.

    Please edit your post to remove the tag number. It is not a good idea to post tag numbers in public forums. Use the TB# from the bug page instead...

  15. Same thing goes for the name of the cache. I don't think that my 9 or even my 11 year old would question the name at all

    You apparently had a much different childhood than I did. There wasn't much we didn't know by that age, and that was during the "Leave It To Beaver" era (connection to the cache name is purely coincidental).

    I wasn't speaking about myself at 9 or 11 but my children now. Perhaps my wording is what caused the confusion and could have been stated better...

    I think I know what you meant. My parents had no idea I knew what I knew at that age, either. Kids are great secret keepers when it comes to older people.

    Maybe, and at the risk of being reprimanded... :o

     

    the other day my wife was looking at her Spam folder and if you are familiar with Gmail you know that wehn you empty out your Spam folder you know you get a message that states "Hooray! No spam here! My son (the 9 year old) was looking over her shoulder and when he saw the message he said to her, Hey, wait a minute, isn't spam that stuff that makes babies? :laughing::anicute:

  16. Same thing goes for the name of the cache. I don't think that my 9 or even my 11 year old would question the name at all

    You apparently had a much different childhood than I did. There wasn't much we didn't know by that age, and that was during the "Leave It To Beaver" era (connection to the cache name is purely coincidental).

    I wasn't speaking about myself at 9 or 11 but my children now. Perhaps my wording is what caused the confusion and could have been stated better...

  17. Brooklyn51,

     

    I'm kinda with you on this one. When I saw the name of this one show up I thought "Well, that's kind of tacky."

     

    I was at the Halloween Hoopla with my 11yo son. I thought the only explanation of female anatomy I might have to give him there was to explain that no, there wasn't really a three-headed woman living nearby.

     

    When we were there, we didn't go for B or B. I did overhear what the cache surprise is like, though. I agree that the name was probably chosen because it had some degree of "ooh, so naughty" to it. I'm guessing that the CO didn't intend to offend anyone-I've run into him enough to build my impression of him as not someone to intentionally do that.

     

    The biggest disappointment I had from the name of this cache is that there was a group of four guys who were just laughing it up at the table near us and adding plenty more off-color words. "Guys," I said to them, "there are kids here." One of them looked over at us, kind of sheepishly acknowledged us and got the others to change the subject.

     

    So on the way home we had a teachable moment in the car. Not really what I wanted, but as a parent I had to take it when he asked about what he'd overheard. I was a little frustrated that this had been pushed on me by a cache name and a bunch of inappropriate guys.

     

    Now, I'll await the anonymous parenting advice to come my way.

     

    the question I have is whether or not your son would have wondered about it if you had not brought attention to it by saying something to the 4 guys having a personal conversation, albeit in a public setting.

     

    Same thing goes for the name of the cache. I don't think that my 9 or even my 11 year old would question the name at all if we went to look for this particular cache and the only thing that they would remember about it is that there were Beavers near by, which they would think is very cool. I'm not trying to give parenting advice but I think it's important that childrens perceptions are much different than ours and often times we protect from things that they really don't need protection from.

  18. Requiring a date is an ALR, or so I was told by a reviewer when I tried to put a requirment for a date on a challenge cache I released.

     

    If a CO deletes your online log becasue you did not date the physical log and reasoning with them does not seem to work I would relog the original log myself. If they continue to delete your log, then write to Groundspeak (contact@Groundspeak.com) and explain what is happening. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, GS would most likely take your side and reinstate your log and lock it so that it could not be deleted again.

     

    I think the contact for this would be appeals@Groundspeak.com

     

    It is my understanding that the appeals@ email address is for appealing a reviewer mandated archiving or refusal to publish a cache. Those e-mails go directly to the Reviewer Coordinator at Groundspeak.

     

    The contact@ email address is for more general kinds of questions or requests for help, although e-mailing either of those or even an actual reviewer will probably all generate the same result.

     

    EDIT: I've seen it said before that disputes between goecachers should be sent to the contact@ e-mail address...

  19.  

    i don't understand why its always the female side that always seems to be offended

    the truth is we are physically and mentally designed different and to serve different purposes...there is one amazing book out there written by a two psychologists, husband and wife, it offers a great insight into why we are different

    Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps: How We're Different and What to Do About It

     

    there are naturally things that a man can do and a women can't and vice-verse...why is it so hard for some to get their head around it?

    why does it have to be seen as being substandard? :unsure:

     

    I'm a man and I love reading maps, I always do so before a trip so I don't have to pull them out when I get there. I also love to cook, hate clutter and don't like being late, does that mean I'm effeminate? :laughing:

  20. Requiring a date is an ALR, or so I was told by a reviewer when I tried to put a requirment for a date on a challenge cache I released.

     

    If a CO deletes your online log becasue you did not date the physical log and reasoning with them does not seem to work I would relog the original log myself. If they continue to delete your log, then write to Groundspeak (contact@Groundspeak.com) and explain what is happening. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, GS would most likely take your side and reinstate your log and lock it so that it could not be deleted again.

  21. Okay, at the risk of also of looking like a newbie, which of course I am, what does "No PAF's" mean by CO's in descriptions?

     

    As pointed out already, PAF=Phone A Friend, which is the practice of using your cell phone to call someone else you know has found the cache you are looking for which you can not find.

     

    If a CO puts "No PAF's" in the description of their cache they are implying that anyone who uses a PAF to find that particualr cache will have their logs deleted. Many CO's are annoyed by the practice of calling friends for help when you can't find a cache, the idea being that they put a lot of work into makeing the hide tricky and if they wanted people to be able to find it easily then they would have made it easier themselves.

     

    There are several problems with this. First is that there is no "rule" against asking for help with a cache from whomever the person looking for it wants to ask, be it the CO or someone else. Second, unless a cacher admits in their log that they used a PAF, there is no way for a CO to prove that they did and so saying No PAF's is somewhat pointless. Lastly, even if someone does admit in their log that they used a PAF to a cache with a No PAF's statement in the description, telling someone they can't use a PAF and then deleting their log if they do is an ALR (ALternate Logging Requirment) which are against the TOU (Terms of Use)and so the statement is pointless in that regard as well becasue there is nothing the CO can do it about if someone does.

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