Navdog

What might be nice also, would be a thread on Christmas day, where folks can post pics of their ongoing holiday festivities and show off their new geocaching toys. A couple of years ago, one of the prominent cachers had a web cam set up on a cache page. The camera showed their holiday party in their house. Cachers were invited to log on, view the camera and log the cache with a xmas greeting.

I'm all for image quality, but what is the advantage of 250K images?

Jomarac, I lose more respect for you with every post. Personally, I think the frog mascot isn't that bad.

I bought a half dozen of theses at a surplus store recently. They're great, because of the seal on the lid! A catchy name to the cache and it will be a classic.

True geocachers at heart!!! Just find it!

Questmaster, I understand you frustration with lame micros, but I don't see any need or way to regulate them at this time. What we need to do is to continue to vocalize our dislike of them as a way to educate others that there is more to this sport than tossing a container out the car window and yelling "MARK". I'm hoping that if a geocaching online magazine gets started that there will be energies spent in educating and showcasing the many ways to make caching more interesting, educational, and entertaining.

I do caching under my own name. I also cache under the moondog3 name with some friends who live over a hundred miles away in Central Oregon. When we first started caching a few years ago, we would create personal cache challenges. On my way out of town, I would hide a cache for my friend to find at his leisure. After he found it he would take it and hide it somewhere else. Then on my way into town for a visit the next few weeks, I would try to find it. Then we would repeat the process over again. It was a lot of fun.

Most activities labeled a sport entail some type of competition. Therefore, I prefer to call geoacaching a sport. The competition is between me and that box somewhere out there in the woods.

You have it wrong. It's the childish egotism of a handful of people that has created the tightening of the forum policies by the moderators.

My money is on this site.

You see, we should just check a box saying we read the guidelines. We should take responsibilty for our caches. The admin seem to make up silly rules and excuses like, "I wouldn't like that spot" Umm... never mind. I think your post speaks for itself.

That's funny, I thought this site was about GEOCACHING. Finding and placing caches is hardly boring. The problem is some people want these forums to be their form of personal entertainment. The forums are only a small part of what this sport is about.

Umm, whats the point? Do I gain or learn anything by cheating?

Amen to what El Diablo said.

Great post Eraseek. With your permission, I'd like to use that phrase on a future cache page of mine.

And well deserved it was. You call other people smug, yet your whole post was dripping with conceit and smugness.

I'm not sure a guideline like that is something that could be applied in every instance. I'd rather see a container that is as small as possible to avoid possible plundering. Why have a five gallon bucket when a smaller container will do. Besides, Land managers are probably going to be more receptive to the idea of smaller less conspicuous containers. How would an approver ever have the means to determine what container is appropriate. As a side note, I have never been a big fan of trading items. For me the journey is the reward and I am happy to just sign the logbook. I've actually considered filling come of my caches that are ammo cans with expanding foam and leaving just enough room for a logbook. It's hard to beat the durability of an ammo can in remote locations. But, many people like to trade so, I haven't gone that route yet. I have an urban micro that is a multi and is hidden in a phone booth. Does that mean it hasn't enough WOW factor? Well, it isn't the final hiding place that makes the cache special, it is the other virtual waypoints you need to find and learn something about the area that makes the cache something special. Finding durable places to hide micros in an urban enviroment is a challenge.

I'll second Briansnats opinion above, but with someone who has 1500 finds like you, I would think you have seen enough good and bad caches to put together a really challenging and enjoyable cache or two.

Well said El Diablo!

Sorry, I see it the other way. There are a handful of people trying to use the forums as their own playground. These are the ankle biters constantly bringing up the subject about moderation. I would bet that if the polls were working, most folks would be in favor of the moderators attempts to bringing the boards back under control. Nothing wrong with the occasional off topic "swing", but there are just too many people with a self-serving attitude diluting the real reason for these forums.

The real irony of this story is that had the pastor given you permission to place the cache. It is possible because of the increased activity of future cachers, one of them may have caught the arsonist.

I know that a cache rating system has been talked about and shot down many times for good reasons. How about considering an anonymous rating/feedback system that is only viewable by the cache owner. Each finder that logs the cache has an opportunity to rate the cache, lets say on a scale from 1-10. No ratings would be shown for the first few finds to allow those finders to be anonymous, but after a few finds the overall "average" of the cumulative ratings and subsequent ratings would be available to the cache owner as a way of judging the quality of the cache. This would at least give an honest appraisal of a cache, because as much as it has been said that a lame cache will not get hunted, I tend to see that really lame caches, which are often easy finds, get the most hits. Why, because most cachers are lazy and will still find these no matter what, and most finders will not be honest in their logs, but merely state; "Found it. TNLN. Thanks". This idea might not be a cure-all for the lame cache, but an owner of several caches with poor ratings might consider spending a little more time on the next one. Everybody has at least some pride in what they do.

How dare you call my microcaches lame! A few quotes from some logs of just one of my urban micros: "Dude, I would PAY to go on your hunts. They're that good. This was my fourth Navdog find; the hardest and most fun so far. Life-enriching and clever. The perfect compliment to this sparkling fall day. Hats off to you, sir." "We wanted something special for #500 and this was the only puzzle that I could solve and it turned out to be another Fantastic Navdog urban caching experience." "BRILLIANT! Hey, credit, where credit is due. So many people, in our opinion, forget to acknowledge that. You, ‘My Man’, are the *Master of Urban Caches*! ...Thanks for the absolutely great hunt!" "I'm somewhat of an architecture buff so this was the best urban multi I have ever done. Excellent job, Navdog!" There is no difference between a lame tupperware cache or a lame micro. There are a lot of both. Don't bash all micros as lame until you have found a few good ones. There are some cachers in different parts of the country that have obtained legendary status for their clever micro hides. I'm not there yet but i'm working on it!

Lessenergy, your buttery approach to stir up the pot again just keeps leaving a bad taste in my mouth. You stated in another thread that you felt geocaching didn’t have any negative impact to an area, yet your very first post on these forums was about how you didn’t like the idea of caches at all because they were just “out there”. Not a very consistent thread of thoughts. Now you are back trying to dictate policy about permission. Maybe you should look THE BLM MEMO HERE, or AT THIS CACHE, or maybe at some of the many local cache organization websites and read about how cachers everyday are working with local land management agencies, city parks, county parks, and state parks to set policy about cache placement rules and permission. If you really are interested in cache placement policy or this game at all you would actually go find a few caches and contact some local cachers near you about what you can do in your area to promote the sport and to increase the database of areas where caching is allowed with a permit or where we don’t have to ask for permission at all. Join this community, ask what you can do to help, or shut up. But don’t keep coming here saying what’s wrong with us or the game without actually getting involved. Show us you are real and that you are interested in joining our game.

Lessenergy, your buttery approach to stir up the pot again just keeps leaving a bad taste in my mouth. You stated above that you felt geocaching didn’t have any negative impact to an area, yet your very first post on these forums was about how you didn’t like the idea of caches because they were just “out there”. Not a very consistent thread of thoughts. Now you are back trying to dictate policy about permission. Maybe you should look AT THIS CACHE, or at the BLM MEMO HERE, or maybe at some of the many local cache organization websites and read about how cachers everyday are working with local land management agencies, city parks, county parks, and state parks to set policy about cache placement rules and permission. If you really are interested in cache placement policy or this game at all you would actually go find a few caches and contact some local cachers near you about what you can do in your area to promote the sport and to increase the database of areas where caching is allowed with a permit or where we don’t have to ask for permission at all. Join this community, ask what you can do to help, or shut up. But don’t keep coming here saying what’s wrong with us or the game without actually getting involved. Show us you are real and that you are interested in joining our game.