fbingha
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Posts posted by fbingha
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I was quite confused when I received an email about owning a new virtual. Quite the pressure on me to come up with something worthwhile, especially since I've pretty much given up on ever hiding another geocache.
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If you really want to stop it, you have to post an NA. Report the throwdown, especially if after your DNF, the person who threw it down actually said in their log that they threw a new cache down. But some reviewers might not archive it because throwdowns on PT trails are allowed (nudge nudge wink wink).
I tried. That doesn't work around these parts. An NA on a throwdown is just seen as a NM and unless three people concur (as I was told) then the cache lives on.
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Look at my profile, I've made a decision that I will only hide letterbox hybrids and have about twenty of them now.
The letterbox hybrid cache is the only reason I continue to hide caches, otherwise I would have archived everything and become a only a letterboxer. It is the only saving grace for me as Groundspeak continues to make decisions that promote the selfishness of finders.
All of mine are hand carved and I've become quite proficient at carving. By putting the investment in to learning how to carve intricate designs and putting a lot of them out locally, I feel I have put out something that others really do enjoy.
I respect the distinct icon because it seems to keep some finders away, finders whom are more likely to take the stamp.
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Makes no sense to me to provide a phone friendly view of a web page for logging, drafts, or the cache page when you have an app that would provide all the same features. There's no harm in creating a responsive/mobile friendly web site, but it would be priority #12,643 if you have an app. Make the app robust and make the website robust for non-app devices (aka desktop).
There is a reason if you wish to replace some of the app's functionality with web views. You make a compromise of desktop functionality for the sake of one shared view.
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Try using <pre></pre> around your data, assuming you are using spaces to set spacing.
"Text in a <pre> element is displayed in a fixed-width font (usually Courier), and it preserves both spaces and line breaks."
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While it will be a problem in that this new system encourages less information, as a finder you can still do it "the old way".
1. Leave your find it log
2. Leave a "Write Note" describing the problem while checking Needs Maintenance.
This generates three logs instead of two, but what are you going to do when someone at GS is obsessed with streamlining the web interface for mobile usage.
With these changes, I expect that the app may be dropping its custom controls for logging, replacing them with a web view that calls the same html source as the website does for logging a find.
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My daughter had one hide that I adopted from her a few years ago. She didn't get the thank you souvenir either.
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All of this back and forth, end of the day, nothing will change, just as what happened with the new map icons. I am sure rule #2 of HQ is stay away from the toxic forums.
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If this thread was merely about someone posting a "Needs Archived" over this series, the masses would be shouting "PLAY THE GAME LIKE YOU WAN'T TO PLAY IT AND IGNORE THE REST. LEAVE IT ALONE".
When Groundspeak makes the same call, then the tide shifts to "STOP WHINING, YOU RULE BREAKERS".
Frankly, bowing to the Power Trail lot was a bigger loss of face than allowing this lot to keep logging their markers.
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Be realistic.
Yes, some jurisdiction, somewhere once prosecuted someone for stealing a geocache.
In reality, the vast majority of law enforcement is going to look you up and down and then tell you they don't have time to deal with the taking of a pill bottle that someone left on the side of the road.
To the OP, all you need to do is just ignore the offender, show no more interest in what he is doing and he will move onto something else.
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I see that geoawareANZ published 3 earthcaches in Tonga on February 28, 2017, two by funkymonkeyzone and one by alpenmilch80, so all's well that ends well.
I also see that all three have finds predating the publication by people who were there when the CO was planning out the earthcache, which is interesting. Never really thought about what I'd do in that situation, as I've never been in it -- not calling anyone out, just food for thought.
Yep, to be clear, with my opening post, I wasn't panicking, just asking if there was a backlog. Clearly didn't take much for it to come to the attention of GeoawareANZ and all sorted.
Re the pre-publication finds, I helped research alpenmilch's EC so, with her blessing, our group knew the location and questions prior to our trip. It's an awesome spot and I highly recommend a visit! With regards mine, I developed the tasks/questions on site and from prior research and everyone there with me completed them to my satisfaction. No point making people fly back across the Pacific when they've already visited and completed the EC! And no claims made regarding the unofficial FTF side-game
I to would do this or allow others to do it because earth caches are NOT geocaches. Since there is nothing to sign, what does it matter when you were actually there. You either know the answers or don't. If virtual caches were still published and one was published of a spot that I have been to in the past, I would log that without revisiting. These listings are not materially different than waymarks, which describe someplace you've been, not were you there after the waymark listing was created.
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Here's the FP issue with making an early "found it" log and later deleting it in favor of a more substantial log:
- As a Premium Member, for every 10 caches you log as "found," you get to award 1 Favorite Point.
- The system tracks this by, essentially, giving you 1/10th of a Favorite Point for the first "Found It" log you log on a cache.
- If you later delete that first "Found It" log - for whatever reason - you lose that 1/10th of a Favorite Point.
- And you cannot get that 1/10th of a Favorite Point back. A subsequent "Found It" logs on the cache will not restore the lost 1/10th of a Favorite Point.
Example:
- A Premium Member with 500 finds would, normally, be able to award 50 Favorite Points. 1 point for each 10 finds.
- But say that cacher has 50 FTF's. And say that cacher uses your proposed method of logging a short "found it - more later" "Found It" log immediately upon finding, which they later delete and replace with a more detailed "Found It" log.
- That cacher will receive no credit towards being able to award Favorite Points for those 50 FTF's. The FP-awarding system will only see them as having 450 finds, not 500. And so, instead of being able to award 50 Favorite Points, they will only be able to award 45.
Hmmm ... I'm curious. I never heard of this issue, so I tried it just now. At the start of the experiment, my Profile page said "Logs Until Next Favorite Point: 9". Then I logged "Found it" logs on two of my own archived caches. As I had never logged these as "found" before, the Profile page now said "Logs Until Next Favorite Point: 7". Just as expected.
Then I deleted the two bogus logs, but the number is still at 7! Of course it also stays at 7, if I write another find log for one of the two archived caches. So it's correct, that only the first "Found it" log adds to the FP counter, but deleting that log apparently doesn't decrease the counter. Is there some sort of "delayed update" involved? I hope so, because otherwise some jokers might get the idea to beef up their available FP by fake-logging caches all over the world and deleting the logs immediately afterwards
.I've given out 50 favorite points and the system says I have 6 remaining. I've found 559 caches so one would think I would only have 55 favorite points to play with, but not the point.
I've deleted many found it logs over the years and replaced them. I surely should have less favorite points than I currently do if the proposed logic was ironclad. I do think it must just be a temporary situation that is corrected during an ongoing process.
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Did you switch to links based on performance issues generating a custom listing for each email?
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While I see the advantage in certain scenarios, I cringe at the thought of a CO getting 5 e-mail notifications when I have an off day and spend the next five minutes editing the log as I spot misspellings and poorly expressed thoughts.
This is why the feature would insert unique user_id/cache_id pairs into an email notification table along with a timestamp. An ongoing process would monitor this table, say every minute, sending out emails for rows that are older than 30 mins. This would allow you to only generate, at most, one email per cache, every 30 minutes.
Something similar to what niraD posted, but I hadn't read until after posting. The photo upload could insert into the same process.
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My oh my. You know what? I get email notifications when 'notes' are left on geocaches.
If whatever software you use doesn't deal with notes then take it up with the developer of that software.
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I have a nice one to add to this thread though this was found when looking for a spot to hide rather than finding a cache.
You will be thankful I have no photo.
Nice, secluded spot near the river off the bike path, a place that doesn't get a lot of foot traffic.
Get back in there, and I see someone has been hanging out, darn it, there goes this spot. I know this because sticking out of the ground, attached to a threaded rode, is a large rubber phallic instrument. Lifelike.
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Hi Narcissa, doing your "evil is afoot" vibe to this thread as well, I see. <sigh>
Hi Nutlady.. She is semi local to me.
Nutlady, I don't play FTF but I do mark my FTF logs as such as a courtesy to the others around here who do rush out the door. I also will send a FTF log from the phone, with just that "FTF" so Wayne, Kevin, (you know them), know that they can turn around.
I don't do it because I am cowtailing to bad behavior, but to give them a heads up that I already found it. If they rolled up an hour or three later and saw my name, they wouldn't say anything negative about it. The shenanigans game that Narcissa sees isn't happening everywhere and we do things not for the reasons that she perceives.
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You win. I posted the only NM and I then posted an NA on a cache that just needs repairs. Obviously I was wrong to believe that was appropriate. May cachers continue to log that putrid mess. It's the type that shows up for new cachers so maybe they feel encouraged to continue playing. Maybe the CO, who played for 2 weeks back in the summer of '13 will come out some day and bring it back to its former glory.Did my question get an answer?
On the forums, let's continue to argue semantics while the game devolves everywhere, except for dprovan's area, the utopia of geocaching.
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2 -You believe that the geocache is missing, and the cache owner has been unresponsive to previous DNF and Needs Maintenance logs.
That doesn't help when the cache has been replaced with a throwdown. A throwdown means the cache is no longer missing. Still need two other cachers to leave NM logs before the NA will be accepted.
Well, strictly speaking, the cache is still missing... it's just that someone has left a proxy - which isn't the cache and so NA would be appropriate
Oh that doesn't work. An NA on a throw down is just a NM, as was made clear to me.
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2 -You believe that the geocache is missing, and the cache owner has been unresponsive to previous DNF and Needs Maintenance logs.
That doesn't help when the cache has been replaced with a throwdown. A throwdown means the cache is no longer missing. Still need two other cachers to leave NM logs before the NA will be accepted.
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Regarding quality, I think there is some things we can't all agree on (location, container size, swag, difficulty) but there are some things I think we can all agree on. Nobody likes a broken container or wet, moldy cache log at least.
I don't think that is true. Some finders seem to not care about it, or at least like to play that angle as a forum poster.
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One way favorite points can be misleading is with challenge caches that reward those with tasks that can only be completed if you find a humongous amount of caches. I notice that these caches, bison tubes stuck on a fence or a plastic tube in a SPOR, collect a lot of favorite points.
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Fourteen days?!?
It takes THREE standard NM messages to get a response from our reviewers so if your cache manages three of them and you still don't do anything, I would be overcome with joy if you were given three months to fix it. As it is now, a cache won't ever get archived unless (1) three people say it is missing (2) three people post a NM, or (3) it breaks a rule.
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I've tried to get caches archived for throwdowns with no maintenance by the flash in the pan COs but found it to be pointless. Throwdowns are not enough reason for our reviewers to archive a cache.
That's why people who think about it, including the people that post here in the forums, try to talk people out of dropping throwdowns. It is sensible for the reviewer to stay out of it because it's just not a good idea for The Powers to get involved when a cache is demonstrably functioning even if, in your opinion, it's not the same as it was originally. It's important to recognize that the problem is the throwdown iself, not the reviewer's reaction to it.
I've been told by my reviewer that outside of property owner/trespassing issues, a cache will not get the "You have 30 days to fix your cache" warning unless there are three different cachers posting NA, DNF, or NM logs.
I think this is reasonable. No, I'll go further and say this is a good idea. Unless there's a black and white issue, the reviewer should only react when there's a consensus about the cache's status, not just because one person has decided there's a problem. You've noticed a problem and logged it. Move on and forget about it: the next person can confirm your analysis and push the cache along towards whatever fate it deserves.
This makes sense strategically even when only considering honest and fair seekers like you and me, since we can always have blind spots or make mistakes. But it becomes critical when you consider the possibility of a seeker that's unreasonably obsessed with the cache and wants it archived for reasons unrelated to its true status.
Thanks for the insight into the matter but it is important to recognize that I don't see the problem being the reviewer's reaction to it, but rather the guideline that is being followed.
My point is that there won't be an improved quality of caches for 2017 if a cache requires 3 people to agree on it being a waste of time for anything other than getting another smiley on the map. There should be latitude allowed for a reviewer to take into consideration the other logs that have been left, that elaborate on the cache being junk, but the user didn't leave a NM.
If the finder needs to reach a foot into the ground, grab a throwdown that has been left in putrid water, then I think there should be some avenue allowed to archive that doesn't require two other cachers to have the nerve to leave a NM.
has gotten wretched in its location. I had a spare container and log. It should be water proof nowIt was gross!If you care, I am sure you can find it in my history. I'm just a bit tired of the NM meaning nothing for hiders who ignore them. There are no repercussions for failure to respond to NM unless multiple people leave it. This cache had its first a year ago. If a hider can't take the time to clear the message then archive the cache after a few months.
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Updated Geocache Hiding Guidelines
in General geocaching topics
Posted · Edited by fbingha
This guideline change could have been made clearer to illustrate what is being allowed and what isn't. This would be better:
I believe that is what HQ was going for with the guideline change.