Stump

I figure about 25% of the people I mention geocaching to know about it. Especially with the recent segment on it on Northwest Backroads (local outdoor TV show) and coverage in The Olympian (Olympia newspaper). Don't get too many "that sounds dumb" mostly get "sounds interesting I guess" but quite a few that sounds really funs. I currently have 2 friends and an uncle that are waiting for me to take them out. Just need to find the time and the weather to take them out! Edit to add: Make that 3 friends. Forgot about a friend last night finding out about it and saying "that sounds really fun". I'll have to take him out sometime!

Not sure why a finder rating couldn't be implemented. If Yahoo, Amazon, Ebay, etc. can let users rate products why not let geocachers rate caches. To get back on topic I agree with Quest Master. I enjoy micros and have even hidden a few myself, but there are a number of really lame micros. Just throw a 35 mm cannister underneath a bush. We took a day trip to an area we thought would be fun to cache. Turns out it was mostly lame micros.

While it wouldn't be a big deal if I wouldn't have been able to log this as a "Found It" there are some very valid reasons for logging a Found It on an archived cache. In the below cache, many people couldn't find it and the owner archived it without checking on it. I was looking for a cache that was hidden to replace it, looked in a good place to hide a cache and found the cache. Writing a note would have been less satisfying but would have been acceptable. As long as you could add a log some way. Swano Lake Ironically, on this cache the first and last finders of this cache didn't have the correct coordinates to it.

I agree. I think it's so frustrating to see cache after cache where people post finds that say they found it on the third or fourth time but there's no DNFs. They should let the cache owner know that they looked for it and couldn't find it. Maybe the difficulty is too low or it needs a hint or it's been plundered or moved. I'm hesitant to go to one cache near my Dad's because it hasn't been found in a while. Not sure if it's because people are looking and not finding and it's probably plundered or whether they just aren't looking. Of course, with that said, I won't report multiple DNFs on a cache until I find or propose it be archived. I don't want to scare people off who don't notice it's the same moron that can't find this cache not a bunch of different people.

Trapping for recreation and commercial uses is allowed on NWR land. I find it hard to believe that a tupperware container is more harmful to sensitive ecosystems than a steel-jaw leghold trap. I agree there should be a policy on NWR land for geocaching but it shouldn't be to ban it completely.

I usually go with someone else but have on a few occasions gone out by myself either because I want to do a quick run somewhere during the day or because I'm extending the cache hunt into the night. Always make sure I have my cell phone with me when alone.

I have 140-something finds and have ran into other geocachers 5 times now in 4 different cities. Mostly on the weekends but once during the week. Twice while they were examining the contents of the cache, once while they were leaving and twice while I was looking for the cache. Ran into the husband of a geocacher once but since the cache was at their house it probably doesn't count.

quote:Originally posted by hoffenmuller:It seems to me that the main purpose of micros is boost stats. I agree that they don't suit the name of the game. If I wanted to boost stats I'd go for the regular sized ones. They're usually much easier to find than a well placed micro. I see micros and regulars as very different types and depending on my mood prefer one over the other. Sometimes I love the micros where the hider put in a lot of effort to making it a fun hide and it takes me a while to find the cache. Other times I enjoy the out of the way locations of the well placed regular caches. They should be treated as different IMHO. It would sure make things easier. I once spent a bunch of time looking for a 35mm film cannister because the owner said is was in a film cannister but didn't list the size of the cache. Turns out it was a regular sized cache and easily findable if you knew that.

We have the opposite "problem" here. Anything hidden in the Olympia/Grays Harbor area seems to be found almost immediately. Yesterday I hid a cache at noon, it was approved that day at 7:30 (thank you very much Moun10Bike), and by 10:30 that night a find was logged. You have to be hardcore to get a FTF around here.

I'm a trophy husband. Have the time to cache during the day but mostly cache on the weekends or afternoons when we can do it as a family. Try and get out benchmarking during the day, the kids don't really enjoy that. Love night caching/benchmarking.

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I'd like stats on founds and destroyeds. Personally, I think destroyeds should count as founds. It often takes me longer to mark one as destroyed than to find one. Or at the very least count destroyeds towards the 700,000 number by either raising the number found or lowering the number left to find. I like the idea of reverse chronological order though. Or better yet, you can select the order their in.

quote:If the report is properly labeled "destroyed", the datasheet is moved to unpublished where it can remain as part of the historical record but is not normally pulled by people looking for still existing marks. Geocaching does not have the destroyed datasheets. One possiblity for this situation is that the person reporting didn't submit the required documentation to report it destroyed. Ok, thanks. Should I report these to NGS or just mark them as destroyed on gc.com and get on with my life?

In our city there are a number of "benchmarks" that are listed by NGS as destroyed in the Official History but still show up in the database. http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.asp?PID=SC2588 http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.asp?PID=SC2587 http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.asp?PID=SC2622 http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.asp?PID=SC2597 I am marking them as destroyed (which is frustrating because it doesn't affect the 700,000± figure ) as I assume I should. My question is should I also send in some report to NGS? Why are they even included in the benchmark database? I apologize if this question has already been answered. I couldn't find it in another thread but assume our little city isn't unique in this problem. [This message was edited by gaviidae on September 23, 2003 at 08:03 PM.]

quote:Birding groups like the American Birding Association have been selling life list pins for years. Yep, I've worn my life list pins for years and no one has ever checked my resume to make sure I'm not cheating (I'm not!). If someone is so petty that they have to pretend to earn something they didn't to get a minor little reward I say let 'em. I'd love to put a 100 benchmark and 100 cache pin on my GPS strap. Of course, I'd want to earn them first...

quote:I think what has been logged twice is RM 1, not SC2659 As the second "finder" of this benchmark I agree that it was indeed RM1 that was found. I wasn't thrilled about "finding" it but since it was already found and was still listed as a benchmark I logged it as found. Question I guess is what should be done with this? Should it be logged as destroyed? Does it really matter since the benchmark was destroyed? After all, this is just a game and we're not actually using them for surveying. Another question. Does logging a benchmark as destroyed reduce the number left to find on the benchmark page of geocaching.com? We have a number of destroyed benchmarks in our little city and I'd like to think that logging them as destroyed is accomplishing something.

quote:Originally posted by geo-jedi:Could some birdwatcher add some observations from that hobby in terms of how individual stats hurt or make it more enjoyable. I'm a birder (birdwatchers watch birds, birders watch birds and keep stats) and I commented briefly earlier in this thread regarding it. As far as I know there has been little if any problems with stat keeping. The people that don't care about stats ignore them. There's no money involved so why cheat? Those that "cheat" are not thought highly of in birding circles so no one I've heard of does it. Being #3, #2, or even #1 doesn't really mean squat. If you didn't do it fairly no one else cares what your score is and you certainly wouldn't feel good about the accomplishment. Another thing that has staved off problems is the variety of stats that are kept. Anyone with a little effort can be at the top of some list. We have lists for days, years, life. State, country, county, yard. # of birds seen on wires, seen dead, eggs, or one I created myself but haven't had much luck spreading # seen defecating. If gc.com or whoever makes leaderboards makes them flexible enough to keep track regionally (even down to county) I can't imagine you'd have many problems. And it would get people out to a larger variety of places. I would never go look for a crow in podunk county, washington if it weren't for the fact that it would count on 3 or more lists.

quote:Originally posted by embra:When the promised pocket queries for benchmarks come, this should be doable. Did this ever happen? I don't see benchmarks as a choice on the pocket query page.

quote:...and finds on the other side of the country would be worth more than those local to you. Problem with that is that if you move across the country then suddenly your score goes way up.

quote:There have always been people who pump up their totals through fake finds, or just by knocking off bunches of 1/1 caches and ignoring anything that takes more than 15 minutes to find. If this is a concern you could always weight the finds for a leaderboard according to terrain and difficulty. Harder they are to get more points you receive. I'm a birder and there are definitely two groups of people, those who care about stats and those who don't. For those who don't they just ignore the stats. For those who do we keep making up new stats just to make it more fun to go out to new places. Stats by the year, county, state, etc.