marnen

I'm no expert, but I've never heard of this, and I'd be surprised if there's any geocache that would need bolt cutters. Generally, you're supposed to be able to find the cache and put it back as you found it without disturbing anything. Having to cut through a lock would kind of negate that.

Correct. Which is why nautical charts don't really need a mileage scale: you just use the latitude lines.

Palm OS 5 comes with an image viewer (it's called Media), but the m500 doesn't run OS 5 AFAIK. What I've been doing is printing cache descriptions to PDF files (using the built-in PDF creation in Mac OS X), then viewing them on my Palm with PalmPDF, which is free and excellent. You could do this with maps too.

I have a feature request for LOC file downloads. At the moment, the downloaded file always gets the name geocaching.loc, which means it's hard for me to tell which waypoint's data it contains, and causes problems with overwriting on my Palm. I am requesting that the file have a unique name, probably the waypoint code -- GC1234.loc is so much more informative than geocaching.loc . Thanks!

Or they have more disposable income. Neither of these is a bad thing, but I don't think we can draw conclusions from the presence or absence of a premium membership. EDIT: I just realized I took your quote out of context, and that you were speaking hypothetically. Sorry.

Or the cost of a GPSr, for that matter? I am aware that these items are expensive, but I think it's irrelevant. Anyone who'd bother to search for such a cache probably already has the equipment. And anyway, the requirement of rappelling gear is inherent in the siting of the cache itself. Making a cache PMO is simply an artificial barrier that has nothing to do with the nature of the cache. Yes, but it excludes them for intrinsic reasons, not extrinsic ones. And that's the big difference. Of course it won't, nor should it. IMHO, being able to fork out three bucks should not make the difference in making any cache accessible -- and that's what's wrong with PMOCs. I have no problem with the concept of premium membership, but I believe that its benefits should be in the area of site features, not in access to particular caches.

I said "being hunted", not "being found". And the answer would be "it depends". If it's a difficulty 5 on a remote mountaintop, then twice in 5 years doesn't indicate anything. If it's a LPC at Wal-Mart (which is what I was talking about), then twice in 5 years indicates that no one cares to look for it.

Please, folks, let's try to keep this thread at least moderately civil...

For the third or fourth time: No one is suggesting abolishing premium membership.

Well, let's get one thing straight. I don't really think PMOCs are unfair -- I just think they're against the inclusive spirit that GC.com seems to promote. I have no such problem with puzzle caches and high-terrain caches. After all, geocaching (for many people) is about the thrill of the hunt. Making the hunt deliberately challenging, either physically or mentally, just provides more fun. And unlike a PMOC, such a cache can still be hunted by anyone willing to take on the challenge.

That's true but irrelevant. I'm arguing this more on general principles than on how it would affect me personally -- which is why I said that offering to buy Icefall a month of premium membership missed the point as far as I was concerned. (Of course, I'm not Icefall, so I have no idea if he feels the same way, but that's how I'd react if the offer had been made to me.)

Really? If so, this is interesting, to say the least. What sort of evidence do we have for this? It certainly sounds so, assuming there's nothing else confounding the issue. Would you mind telling me the approximate area? I'd be extremely curious to look over the logs around there. Which would seem to imply that PMO status may not be as good a protection as might be guessed. Personally, I'm kind of surprised that someone would bother paying money to be a cache maggot. Or was this person an otherwise serious cacher who happened also to have some undesirable traits? Right. It will also stop a lot of law-abiding cachers who aren't ready to pony up quite yet. There's gotta be a better way of doing this... Perhaps. Seems pretty marginal to me.

Speaking only for myself, my dislike of PMOCs has nothing to do with thinking that "everything...should be a right". I certainly do not think that. I simply think that it's possible that GC.com has drawn the line between free and paid in the wrong place here. I don't know why this raises so many people's hackles.

They probably strip <style> because it only belongs in the <head> element. Since your profile data goes in the <body> element, putting <style> in it would be invalid HTML. Or do you mean that they strip the style attribute on other tags too? As far as auto-play music...yeah. Just don't do it. Myspace does it as well as I've seen anyone do it, but even that gets annoying. Sound clues are great, but please make the user click a playback link to start them.

I don't recall for certain, but I believe I saw the word "geocaching" used in a friend's LiveJournal, and I thought it sounded interesting, so I looked up what it meant.

Really? If so, this is interesting, to say the least. What sort of evidence do we have for this? Unfortunately, our current system doesn't really allow the level of granularity that would provide "a touch less traffic".

I am not taking a position here for or against any particular type of cache. But... Then the problem (if there is one) will solve itself. If no one likes these caches, then sooner or later no one will hunt them. And that means that sooner or later no one will bother making them. Corollary: if LPCs are still being created, and if they're still being hunted, then that means that enough people like them to make them viable.

Geocaching.com exists to serve its users. Anything that helps elucidate what its users want is a useful topic in the forums. If you think this topic is moot, why are you posting here?

Right. That's $30 worth of premium services right there. Ah, that would explain the spelling, then.

No. Read this post again, and please don't put words into my mouth.

I realize that several people have said this already, but it's still a straw man. Can you show me any place on this thread where it is suggested that premium membership be abolished? That's right, you can't. Because no one is suggesting that. We're just arguing about whether access to certain caches should be a privilege of premium membership. Sheesh.

You are confusing encouraging civility (good) with encouraging mediocrity (questionable).

I can't speak for the original poster, but for me, that completely misses the point.

I do not think that making it a PMOC would achieve this. Even a PMOC is visible by about 54000 people. Sure, they're not all going to be in a position to visit, but 54000 people is still a large pool, too large to represent any real control, IMHO. If you want control over your own back-40 cache, publish it on TerraCaching, or on your own private website.

FTF is not "alll the services". This is not entitlement whining, IMHO. It is a reasonable comment about a benefit of premium membership that currently exists, but may be unjustified. If anytime someone questions the current benefit structure, we label it "entitlement whining", then where does that leave us?