HopsMaltYeast

We know why. Its about the smileys. Through Waymarking, you still get to use your GPS to find interesting places and some not so interesting places. Through Waymarking.com you can discover, learn, blah blah blah - all the things that were so "great" about virutals. Nothing has changed as far as that's concerned. What has changed is that you don't get a smiley for finding a waymark. The day (if it ever happens) that GC.COM starts counting waymark finds as cache finds is the day that Waymarking.com becomes as popular as a shopping mall micro. Its not about the learning, the hunt, the history, the discovery or the fun, its about the numbers. End of story.

For you folks that want to inflict your moralizing on everyone else because it is not enough for you to be miserable, you are upset that someone somewhere might be having fun, I’d say that you have not been able to support your premise in any factual or effective way. You are just plowing the same fruitless ground over and over again. If you come up with something new and interesting I may respond. Mean time you can suffer knowing that I am out there having fun, finding caches, and looking for caches and sometimes coming up empty. False logs, if there be any, cannot degrade me. I do not think false logs are getting ridiculous. You cannot convince me that I am degraded, so give up trying. And suffer – I am having fun. You can’t stop me.

I think I'll go with the cache owner's stated reason for archiving the cache, rather than your guess. Contumacious refusal to see facts. Cache owner decided to archive cache. Cache owner said he refused to follow the policy. I did not guess, the cache owner stated it in the archive message. False logs did not result in archiving of cache. Cache owner deciding to archive rather than delete false logs. Following policy and deleting false logs and leaving the cache in place would result in the cache being active. It was not false logs, it was not GeoCache policy, it was the cache owner's imposition of his set of values that resulted in his decision to archive the cache rather than meet his obligation to maintain the cache per policy. To me, you might as well argue that using a blue pen to sign a log leads to degradation of GeoCaching if one cache owner objects to blue ink and archives a cache because he cannot prevent the use of blue ink. These are very infantile arguments. If I do not respond to any future statements from you please feel free to assume that I think they have already been thoroughly refuted in many previous posts.

Absolutely - a relatively new forum member "gets it". It is really pretty simple and fun. From the original Post: I am proposing that cache owners who agree with the premise of physically visiting the cache location, do their part to enforce it - don’t allow false logs on your caches, and don’t be embarrassed to enforce this basic notion of geocaching. Appears that the owner of the Aviation virtual cache did not agree with you. Rather than enforce it they chose to shut the cache down. By extrapolation in the extreme, following that model, the thing that would prevent all false logs would be to shut the logging function down completely or shut down GeoCaching. Department of "Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face".

This is on a virtual, any evidence on a regular cache??? I hope not! My initial point of this thread was that I believe if we continue "bury our heads in the sand" on false logging, then it will eventually have a negative impact on geocaching. I would rather see us avoid allowing the degradation of geocaching. Someone in this thread made a comment that there has NEVER been a single virtual cache archived because of false logs. We have now found out that there has been. This just shows me that things are worse than I thought. As I said, I hope there aren't any regular caches that have been archived due to false logs, as this will just further confirm that the degradation is worse than I thought. Once again - this is not logically or factually true. An abandoned, unmaintained virtual cache was archived because it was abandoned - as per GeoCaching policy. The reason this violation of policy was discovered was because someone investigated logs - perhaps false logs. Not the same thing. The other cache was archived because the cache owner decided not to meet his obligation of maintaining a cache and or because he was afraid that even if he followed policy that a false log might occur anyway. Not the same thing. All the aviation virtual cache owner had to do was spend a few minutes deleting logs he thought were bogus or that had not received permission to log a find. From the Department of cutting off your nose to spite your face: One false log that slips though your net does not degrade your cache, my experience or other legitimate cache finder's experience. It is a hobby, no more no less. And please note: The fact that you folks found the cache page and posted links to it here makes the basic objection moot. You can still go find this cache and enjoy your accomplishment to your heart's content. You opportunity to look for this cache was not removed. The only thing left to complain about is the numbers game - you are upset because you cannot increment your find count by one lousy number. Or perhaps you need the praise of the cache owner if you had emailed him with the answer to his lame question that anyone with half a brain could have found by doing a google search from his basement computer. Go look at the memorial and enjoy and don't let some lame false loggers ruin you day or your life. Go have fun, live, enjoy, rejoice.

I'd say we've allowed degradation to the point where a cache owner can't even keep up with the false logs. What do you mean by "We" paleface? I didn't allow anything. I would say you missed the cache owner's message as to why the cache was deactivated. It was not because he could not keep up with false logs. He stated the reason - because he was outraged by false logs he chose to close it down. He could have deleted those he thought were false. He never said he couldn't keep up. That is different. Sounds more like he was frustrated that perhaps one or two false log would slip by. False logs at this cache could not degrade my experience had I gone to it. Nor would I have been so easily dissuaded from performing routine maintenance if it were my cache. Root cause: Cache owner decided he did not want to maintain the cache and logs per the policy. Now that the virtual was archived perhaps someone can place an actual cache at the location to prevent the degradation of the "hobby" and assure that others are not denied the opportunity to visit this site? Or a mystery or offset cache?

I still disagree that number 2 on the list is true. Were you able to find an example of a cache that was archived because of fake logs, as opposed to lack of maintenance? They are archived for lack of maintenance, but the fake logs are responsible for bringing the cache to the attention of TPTB. No phony logs, no archived cache. I heard that a virtual cache with no maintenance was archived due to a legitimate find and attempted legitimate log. The finder emailed the absent cache owner per instructions on cache page to get permission to log and got no response. When he complained to TPTB about no response they determined the cache was abandoned and archived it. So was the problem logging a find or failure to maintain the cache? Should we not follow policy in verifying and logging real finds? The root cause is failure to maintain the cache - virtual or real.

I still disagree that number 2 on the list is true. Were you able to find an example of a cache that was archived because of fake logs, as opposed to lack of maintenance? They are archived for lack of maintenance, but the fake logs are responsible for bringing the cache to the attention of TPTB. No phony logs, no archived cache. So fake logs are good then? They help bring abandoned caches to TPTB's attention and facilitate timely enforcement of the policy. Following the policy is morally good in my mind in most cases.

What me worry?

I still disagree that number 2 on the list is true. Were you able to find an example of a cache that was archived because of fake logs, as opposed to lack of maintenance? I would go further and say that all of them have as the root cause of the problem - "Lack of Maintenance" or missing caches. These things will happen regardless of logs one way or the other. The problem exists regardless of logs. A false log is incidental to a poorly maintained, damaged, abandoned or missing cache.

I'll second that... I'm right there with ya!... That's the frustrating thing in this thread. That peole are defending liars and cheats. 14 pages on micros suck I can see. 14 pages defending a lack of virtue? Hey don't stop there Senator Renegade Knight McCarthy and cohorts. Let's have names of those people defending liars and cheats. We need a list. We'll haul those folks before a committee and make them name names too of anyone they think might have logged a fake find. If they don't then we will blacklist them. HopsMaltYeast That's a ludicrous jump. I don't recall anyone screaming "lets burn them"! All I said, way back on page 2 was that dishonest behavior should be called as such. When someone responds to dishonesty with "it doesn't affect me, so I'm going on my merry way..." I see that as part of the problem. When society refuses, or just can't be bothered with calling bad behavior "bad" I feel that hurts us all. You can (and many here obviously do) disagree. DCC Last time I checked this was a GeoCaching site. I come here for GeoCaching information, not to wring my hands over the fact that someone might lie and therefore degrade me or my experience with GeoCaching. Debating when or if lying or cheating might ever be moral is not GeoCaching. I believe that lectures on morality could be better placed on a philosophy or religion site or thread or on the off topic board. GeoCaching is hunting for a cache.

A modest proposal: After 700+ posts to this thread, I have not seen any hard evidence that there is widespread cheating or lying, nor any data to demonstrate that cheating is higher now than in the good ole days. I have not seen evidence that lying on logs degrades my experience or the hobby in a moral sense. I have seen a few anecdotal examples of actually events or possible events when someone might be inconvenienced because they counted on a log to be factual and visited a cache site to find it missing or archived. However, even in those cases the root cause was that the Cache was either missing or abandoned. And in a minor way, that inconvenienced cacher had the opportunity to “elevate” the hobby of GeoCaching by reporting the missing cache or a cache that needed maintenance. A few days ago someone else was posting vague and/or unsubstantiated opinions that folks were ignoring rules to obtain proper permission for placing caches, and out of frustration later even said, “…everybody is placing caches without permission…” Perhaps we should check facts before slinging accusations? I have a greater concern that unsubstantiated or speculative claims of these sorts have a higher potential for damaging the image of GeoCaching than a few armchair find logs has. I imagine a new comer who has had no thought of cheating or that cheating occurs, when reading claims like these, deciding to move on down the road to a different hobby. Why get involved with something that is corrupt and going to the dogs? I think to a new comer the prospect of joining a club crawling with liars, cheaters and rules ignorers would be a bit off putting. Recall that the OP and thread say, “Are we allowing the degradation of GeoCaching – subhead – “False logs are getting ridiculous!”” I am much more concerned with the impact of abandoned and poorly maintained caches on the hobby of GeoCaching than the impact of a false find log.

I'll second that... I'm right there with ya!... That's the frustrating thing in this thread. That peole are defending liars and cheats. 14 pages on micros suck I can see. 14 pages defending a lack of virtue? Hey don't stop there Senator Renegade Knight McCarthy and cohorts. Let's have names of those people defending liars and cheats. We need a list. We'll haul those folks before a committee and make them name names too of anyone they think might have logged a fake find. If they don't then we will blacklist them. HopsMaltYeast I do not now, nor have I ever defended liars and cheats. Saying that someone somewhere making a false log does not degrade me or my experience in GeoCaching is not the same as "Defending" liars and cheats.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there are only two kinds of people in the world; those who say there are only two kind of people in the world, and those who don't. ;-)

BRAVO

This website will archive unmaintained caches. They consider virtuals where the owner doesn't address bogus logs to be unmaintained and they will archive them. No skin off my back, however it does degrade the sport for those who are into virtuals. There are a fixed number. No more will be listed, so every one archived is one less for fans of virtuals to find. The example you give of a virtual cache being archived because of a false log is flawed based upon you description. The root cause is the cache owner has abandoned the cache. Policy is that caches that are not maintained will be archived. The policy was enforced. A false log is incidental to the real problem – abandoned caches. A legitimate find resulting in the same outcome – parallel example: I make a legitimate find on a virtual. I follow the instruction on the cache page and email the owner for validation and permission prior to logging the find. The owner has abandoned the cache and does not respond. I contact TPTB/GeoCache asking how I can log the find since the cache owner has not responded. GeoCache determines the cache is abandoned and archives it per policy. You are now denied the opportunity to find this cache (because it was abandoned, not because of a legitimate find/log). Perhaps the policy could be changed? Perhaps the ability to log a find on abandoned virtual caches could be suspended and leave the abandoned cache active?

With all due respect CGS, I miss your logic entirely concerning degrading GeoCaching. You started this and you have not been able to support your original premise and neither has anyone else. You want to say lying, cheating and stealing are immoral then I am with you. That has nothing to do with degrading GeoCaching or my experience with it. In the past month or two I searched for a number of caches that have led me to some absolutely inspiring and breathtaking locations in my little burg. Pursuing these caches and learning more about GPS and spending time together has brought my little family together and added meaningful shared experiences for me and I think for my family. Before reading this thread it never occurred to me that false logging would be an issue. After reading this thread I still embrace my experience and do not find them degraded, insulted or diminished in any way. After reading this thread, even if I buy into the premise that I find as ridiculous, that there is widespread false logging of finds, I cannot see how a few false logs should degrade GeoCaching. The idea that some anonymous person somewhere has falsely claimed to find a cache that I have found or a cache that I have failed to find will in no way discourage me from continuing to hunt for caches or to promote the hobby to my friends and family. It is fun to hunt for caches whether I find them or not. It is fun to go to new locations and find cultural, environmental or historical information that I would have missed otherwise. If one or two folks lie about finding a cache I will likely never know and if I do I will not care as far as enjoying the hobby is concerned. As far as this thread and your premise are concerned – you have been completely unconvincing in showing that a few false logs are degrading GeoCaching. It is alive and well. You have not convinced me that it will remain alive and well. I guess we just have different opinions. I did not start a thread saying it was degrading and I would hate being associated with it tomorrow.

Mostly this is pretty self-evident, but as to number 1. If there was a legitimate find logged on January 1, and a false find logged on January 2, how is that confusing to other Geocachers if the the cache went missing on January 5, and I went looking for it on January 10? #2, see above, #3 see above #4 see above That is how they can in some cases make a practical difference. Each and every one of them does not necessarily result in the problems on your list. In those cases there are no practical issues. Failure to report a DNF can cause problems as well. Failure to respond to a DNF can cause problems. Failure to do routine timely maintenance can cause problems.

With all due respect CGS, I miss your logic entirely concerning degrading GeoCaching. You started this and you have not been able to support your original premise and neither has anyone else. You want to say lying, cheating and stealing are immoral then I am with you. That has nothing to do with degrading GeoCaching or my experience with it. In the past month or two I searched for a number of caches that have led me to some absolutely inspiring and breathtaking locations in my little burg. Pursuing these caches and learning more about GPS and spending time together has brought my little family together and added meaningful shared experiences for me and I think for my family. Before reading this thread it never occurred to me that false logging would be an issue. After reading this thread I still embrace my experience and do not find them degraded, insulted or diminished in any way. After reading this thread, even if I buy into the premise that I find as ridiculous, that there is widespread false logging of finds, I cannot see how a few false logs should degrade GeoCaching. The idea that some anonymous person somewhere has falsely claimed to find a cache that I have found or a cache that I have failed to find will in no way discourage me from continuing to hunt for caches or to promote the hobby to my friends and family. It is fun to hunt for caches whether I find them or not. It is fun to go to new locations and find cultural, environmental or historical information that I would have missed otherwise. If one or two folks lie about finding a cache I will likely never know and if I do I will not care as far as enjoying the hobby is concerned. As far as this thread and your premise are concerned – you have been completely unconvincing in showing that a few false logs are degrading GeoCaching. It is alive and well.

This website will archive unmaintained caches. They consider virtuals where the owner doesn't address bogus logs to be unmaintained and they will archive them. No skin off my back, however it does degrade the sport for those who are into virtuals. There are a fixed number. No more will be listed, so every one archived is one less for fans of virtuals to find. My be you can use your influence to change the rules and allow unmaintained caches to remain active.

Phony logs are a pain in the butt for cache owners. When I get a fishy log it means I have to set aside time to check the logbook. It's enough work keeping up with the usual cache maintenance issues like animal damage, water damage and full log books. The last thing I need is some Bozo making more work for me because he gets his jollies logging phony finds. How do you know it is a phony log? If it is an obvious phony log then delete it. Who says you have to set aside time or drop everything and go check on a potentially phony log? This is a hobby. There is nothing urgent in checking a fishy log. Check it on your normal maintenance run seems OK. If someone falsely logs a "needs maintenance" log then that is different than logging a false find. Do you run out every time someone logs a DNF to make sure all is OK? What is a fishy log? That has nothing to do with the OP which was false find logs. If you know it is phony why are you checking on it? How do you check on it? You could do this later on a normal maintenance run.

This website will archive unmaintained caches. They consider virtuals where the owner doesn't address bogus logs to be unmaintained and they will archive them. No skin off my back, however it does degrade the sport for those who are into virtuals. There are a fixed number. No more will be listed, so every one archived is one less for fans of virtuals to find. I am relatively new so I am not sure I follow this logic and maybe the terminology. Like what is a virtual? But, if no one was monitoring the cache then who determined that it was not maintained and that there were bogus finds that were not addressed? If the virtual was not being maintained shouldn't it be archived anyway? So you are saying that ignoring the rules about maintaining a cache are important unless it is a cache that you want to remain active even if unmaintained? I am probably missing something obvious here. But it sounds like even if the cache were unmaintained it could last one hundred years without a single find. If there were 100 DNF's that would be fine. If there were 100 real finds that would be fine. One false find would not be OK? Who and how were a few bogus finds found and determined to be a problem and by whom? Do you mean that a reported find would require a response from the absent owner? Why would a real find or a false find result in a different outcome? I am seriously lost.

I'm saying one is a problem and deleting it is right. 1, 10, one million. Doesn't matter. Wrong things are fixed one at a time. Your asking me to make a case that there is a magical threshold where all of the sudden the last bogus log will break geocaching. I think it's simple enough that if you find a bogus log it should be deleted. The problem and solution are both at the individual level. You have still not addressed the central issues: How does one false log out of ten million degrade GeoCaching, you, me, my friend in Africa, my efforts, your numbers, yada yada yada? Cache owners are under no obligation to make detailed audits and rectifications of paper logs to online logs. Cache owners should delete obvious bogus logs. You have no idea how many, if any, cache owners are not following that guideline. The OP questioned that false logs were degrading GeoCaching, neither you nor the OP has presented a single piece of evidence to support that allegation. How has it been degraded. How have you been degraded? If you think there should be a sanctioning body and independent audits of every log and cache owner then I think you should advocate that. I would think that would be a much bigger threat to GeoCaching than a few false logs. It is a hobby, a fun pursuit, a family pastime and a lot of other things, but it is not a competition and one or 100 or 10,000 false logs will not degrade my experience or GeoCaching.

False logs on virtuals have led to the archiving of the virtuals involved. That takes away a potential cache for all of us.. Why was the virtual archived? why did false logs lead to the archiving. Even with the false log the virtual could have stood and been available all of us. How was that degrading? How did that hurt your integrity? That is not very convincing. If the virtual had been left active for the honest potential cacher would not that have been a better decision? Sounds like the owner of the cache made the crucial decision. Why didn't the cache owner just follow the guidelines and delete logs that were obviously false? Why punish everyone?

True. I don't. I also don't think how many matters. The case I'm building simply says false logs are a problem. Not that you need a certain number of them to matter. A slew of false logs cased our reviewer to spend time evaluating a bunch of local caches for the need to be archived. Ultimately that cacher was banned. In the meantime a lot of time was wasted that could have been better used approving caches or dealing with real issues. Quotes are FUBAR. Oh well. OK, you don't know how many false logs there are. You don't know if it is an insignificant issue, a significant issue or a huge issue that will bring down the house. You do not even know if it will degrade the experience one iota. I don't know how many are a slew. but, it appears from your account that the system worked sufficiently to get a cacher banned. (was that the hider or the false log hunter?) But it seems like in your example the problem was "caches that needed to be archived" not false logs. I understand, and I think everyone commenting agrees, that false finds in a few isolated cases might have delayed maintenance visits by cache owners. But, Cache owners should make maintenance visits regardless of logs. Many caches require maintenance with or without internet logged finds or dnf's. The cache would have required maintenance or archiving regardless of any false log. Some cache hunters will encounter missing caches even if there is never a false log. Some newbie attempts at GeoCaching will come up empty and some of them will be discouraged by a DNF - whether the DNF was caused by a tough hide, a missing cache or a missing cache that had a false find log. Some of them will be challenged and try again. My first 2 attempts were dnfs. The caches were there. I tried again and found them. If I had not tried again it would not matter if they were there or not.