team tisri

If I knew in advance that the final was many miles away I could make an informed decision. If I got to the first stages and found a few near to each other and only then realised the final was 8 miles away I'd be annoyed. If I'd enjoyed the cache up to the point of making a 16 mile round trip I may still do it. One day I cycled a 20 mile round trip to find a nano, even though I dislike nanos, because I'd enjoyed the puzzle and wanted to finish the job (it also qualified me for a resuscitator cache, which helped). Promising that the final is worth the trip won't carry a whole lot of weight because few cachers would say something like "it's 8 miles away, frankly I wouldn't bother with it".

I liked it better back in the day when it was more of an adult game. Now it's super easy for a preteen/tweenie to try cache ownership via the intro app. So many preteens have short attention spans. What they think is cool this week is forgotten the next. Which is what kids do. And because their travel is limited to a few blocks from home or school on a bicycle, so is their access or knowledge of more interesting locations. Their containers of choice are usually whatever container mom is throwing out - usually disposable food containers (yogurt tub, margarine tub, ziploc disposable container). Back when you had to purchase a handheld dedicated GPS unit to play, kids had to play with their parents. Hiding a cache meant a parent/guardian/adult was usually involved. I have seen this among children who have cached with their parents, I even found out a few of them were hoarding trackables. I will speak though, in defense of myself. I have never hidden just a pill bottle, a peanut butter jar, or even just an ammo can. All of mine are creative hides i made at home with the tools available to me. As for what can be done about the intro app, the only thing I can think of to help make things better is having a cap of how many caches can be found with it, before they have to buy it for 99 cents. I don't get this. Are you guys really saying that just because I'm a teen, I shouldn't geocache? The generalization is real. Sure, some teens do just bounce from one hobby to the next, but the ones that do stick with it, they want to learn more and actually cache. I don't usually have money, so I cannot purchase the full app or premium membership just yet. But maybe soon. I do think the intro app should have more information on it though I think the problem here is the way logic doesn't reverse very well. To say "most of the cachers causing problems are intro app users, mostly teenagers with the attention span of a gnat" doesn't mean that everyone who uses the intro app causes problems, or that all teenagers have the attention span of a gnat, or that all teenagers cause problems. If you're about finding geocaches, playing the game the way it was supposed to be played, moving trackables, rehiding caches etc, then I don't think anyone would say you shouldn't be playing the game. Whether you're using a cheapie GPS or a borrowed smartphone or the top-of-the-range device you bought from your trust fund doesn't really matter. The key difference is that the people who take the time to do a little research into what the game is about are unlikely to cause problems, while the ones who just download a free app figuring they've got half an hour to while away and don't understand the game are likely to do all sorts of things that will cause problems. Whether they believe the idea is to find the cache and then hide it somewhere else, or they think the stuff inside the cache is the prize for finding it, or if they just don't understand the concept of stealth in busy areas, they are likely to create problems with caches disappearing. If the intro app let you find a dozen caches and then you had to pay 99c for a more functional version it's hard to see anyone really saying they couldn't afford it. I'd expect to pay more than 99c for a drink and a snack on a geocaching run.

Interesting idea. Running with the multi idea, you could always have two solutions to the puzzle where each solution took you to a container with half the coordinates and the coordinates of the other container. Whichever answer you found you get what you need to finish the cache. As long as there's some way of knowing from the cache page that the coordinates aren't for the final cache it should work pretty well. It's good to know whether solving the puzzle effectively turns it into a traditional or a multi.

I think this goes back to giving people some idea of what they're letting themselves in for if they start the cache. If you attempt a 5/5 multi/puzzle that makes reference to needing a light, you can be reasonably sure that some or all of it needs to be done in the dark, so if you don't have time/inclination to come back at night you know not to bother with it. If you start something, get most of the way through, but then realise you can't finish it because you have to go "back to base" and figure something else out, it's irritating for locals and a totally wasted opportunity for visitors. The time they spent following a dead end with your cache could have been spent seeking someone else's cache that they could have actually completed. If it's a high difficulty cache you can be a bit cryptic about the fact there are two solutions but I think it should be presented to the seeker in some way. If they are attempting a high difficulty puzzle cache they can't really complain if they didn't pick up on something crucial in the text of the puzzle - it's the difference between a puzzle that presents what they need in a way they may or may not notice, and a puzzle that essentially just wastes lots of time expecting them to keep going back to base to try again until they hit the right version of the answer.

First, if I ever happen to hide a challenge cache, it would not be a traditional. The three challenge caches (one now archived) in my region aren't traditionals either. Maybe people near you are more inventive. Every single challenge cache I've seen so far is at the posted coordinates. So basically they are traditionals with an ALR. That's often not possible with a single cache. Say I want to encourage people to cover 300 km with 20 multi caches (example from Germany where this exists), I cannot do that by hiding one such cache. The solution is in the problem description there. When I said "place something to encourage those people" I think it's pretty clear that if you want to encourage people to cover 300km on a caching run you hide whatever will encourage them to do it, whether it's 30 multis covering 10km each or 1800 film pots behind signs exactly 160m apart. If I ever want to reduce the traffic to a cache, it never is due to muggle issues. Moreover, I already mentioned that challenge caches are not necessarily traditionals, they can be multi caches, mysteries etc. Sure they can, but what's the point of having the prequalifying criteria? Why not have a multi or a mystery cache that you can just go and claim without having to find puzzle caches on every date that represents a prime number or some such? Yes, but this is not what I'm interested into in this context. It's the regional focus that attracts me. I would not be interested to learn who others managed to find a multi cache in each county of their state/country. That's of interest for me only in my own region and nowhere else where I neither know the cachers nor the caches. So create a challenge/badge/achievement/whatever-else-it-gets-called for people to find a multi in every county of your state/country? If people can confirm achievement and award the badges they can be as specific as the creator desires. Is the achievement of finding a multi in every county any greater for finding a challenge cache at the end of it, or any lesser for not finding the challenge? If as a visitor to your country I managed to find a multi in every county what's wrong with granting the associated badge regardless of whether I found a challenge cache (which could easily be a cache at the posted coordinates) associated with it? Definitely not. They are caches with the only allowed form of ALR. I think that much is clear. I still don't see any good reason why an ALR is a good thing.

I think the option of one cache with two solutions has some merit but could easily lead to a lot of frustration. If you solve the puzzle and get to the coordinates only to find a cache that basically tells you to go home and try again to get the other half that would be annoying, especially if you're a distance from home. If you were to use something like a custom geochecker to confirm the coordinates and say (openly or cryptically) that there was another solution that needed to be found, that would overcome the issue. Personally I'd go for just about anything other than micros under lamp post skirts. You never know what else might have taken up residence there, they can be difficult to get at if there's much muggle activity going on (which is often unpredictable), and if there are people nearby even if they aren't looking at what you're doing it's sometimes hard to lift the skirt without making a lot of noise. If I was a long way from home I'd feel most disappointed if I'd made the effort to solve a difficult puzzle only to find I couldn't finish it because a really lame intermediate stage was nigh on impossible. Even if the best way to place the cache is to say something like "at the coordinates you'll see a number ABC, add this to the westing" and hide a keysafe behind a guard rail, that's better than the lamp post skirt. Long before I gave up on micros in general, any time I realised a cache was a skirtlifter cache I ignored it. I got tired of trying to lift a metal skirt up a metal pole without the sound of metal grating on metal attracting all sorts of unwanted attention. Seriously, if you're going to go to this level of effort to make a good puzzle, do something more inventive than a skirtlifter film pot.

I would not mind at all if such badges existed. If I were however the owner of a challenge cache that I had hidden to encourage visits to a certain class of caches, the idea would be to hide the cache mainly for this group and not for everyone who wants an additional find. The same is true if I hide a puzzle cache - I hide it for those who solve the puzzle. It makes sense to me for caches to be hidden to be found. If you hide a traditional you're basically saying "here it is, come and find it". It might be as simple as a film pot behind a post, it might be in some hugely improbable location, but on reading the cache page you know where it is. If you hide a multi/puzzle/Wherigo etc you're basically saying "it's somewhere near here, figure out where it is and come find it". What's the point of saying "it's right here, but you can't have it because you didn't find some other arbitrary combination of other caches"? If you're encouraging only certain people to find it, place something to encourage those people. If you're trying to reduce the traffic to the cache to avoid it being muggled, a cache type that tells the seeker exactly where it is doesn't seem like a good way of doing it. If that's the aim then place a regular puzzle. Unless the idea is to use the challenge as a way of doing something like hiding the cache from intro app users, where the "challenge" is to find a cache before you find this one or something equally trivial, I don't understand why you'd do that. And if you're trying to hide the cache from intro app users you might as well make it a puzzle where the text says something like "543.21 100W 654.32 21N" and the cache is called "Backwards". The badges as a side game, rather than challenge caches, could easily encourage people to complete the challenge and then write a few words about how they completed it. The challenges would be centralised so people could see comments from worldwide cachers regarding how they found their 100th puzzle, or finally completed the D/T grid, or whatever else. In the meantime the existing challenges could be turned into traditionals, since that's essentially what they are.

It would also mean that the big majority of those who like challenge caches at the moment, would instantly lose their interest when you take away the physical element. The badge collecting group is a different target group. Not if I also placed a traditional cache and said it was for people to log in addition to logging the related "challenge". But the difference is, I wouldn't make that cache exclusive--anyone can log a find on it, but I'd welcome the completers of said challenge to come on by and log a find. Right? Wouldn't that be the same, except for the exclusivity of it all? The extra bonus would be the smiley for completing the challenge for those who complete it. If it is a physical cache they want, they can go find that honorary cache if they so choose. I've seen too many pill bottles at rest areas or parking lots to think that the physical geocache reward is anything more than just another smiley, albeit an exclusive one. That's pretty much my thought. When finding a box hidden in the woods is there really any additional enjoyment to be gained knowing that other people can't claim a gold star on a web site just because they didn't perform some arbitrary caching beforehand? If you complete the challenge you get to tick a box. If you find a hidden box you get to tick a box. Why is it necessary to complete both to tick one box? The locationless aspect means people can aim for the challenges if they so choose, and people who find the hidden boxes get to sign the log book and claim a find. Of the challenge caches I've done the fact my prior caching activity met some mostly arbitrary criteria didn't cause me to like the caches any more or any less, and where challenges are particularly interesting it seems a shame when they are geographically restricted. I particularly enjoyed the resuscitator cache. Finding the cache itself was much like finding any other cache, but finding a cache that hadn't been found for a year or more was the interesting part. Why shouldn't someone get a badge for resuscitating a cache (and maybe multiple badges, or a badge with a counter in it, or whatever) regardless of whether or not there happens to be a resuscitator challenge cache near where they live?

A few I've found quite interesting: http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCJTAW_crossword-crosswalk http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC1HP37_east-meets-west <--- this one only works if you're a reasonably long way away from the Prime Meridian. http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC15FEX_duct-tape http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC42BWG_get-cracking <--- this one gets bonus points for the final being in a lovely location despite being in London. http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCTWWA_half-powered

Very much this. Don't create a really intricate and interesting puzzle and then take people into the middle of nowhere to find a film pot under a pile of garbage. I remember a puzzle I solved that used particular sequence of letters in the name, which related to the method that was needed to solve it. Having solved it and got the coordinates, it turned out the final location was outside a building that used the same sequence of letters in its name. I'm being deliberately vague there so as not to give too much away. Another cache had a name that appeared totally random, but when reaching the final stage the name of the cache had a very specific relevance, and if you didn't realise what it was there was no way you could get to the container. You could see it but not reach it. Again, being a bit vague so as not to give the game away...

Everything now sold. Thanks to those who bought items, apologies for the disappointment for those who missed out.

Reintroducing challenges as a locationless type is an interesting idea. It would mean challenge caches were essentially global (rather than having local caches with identical or near-identical goals), which would also mean that anyone wanting to create a new challenge would need to go through the existing ones and make sure they weren't duplicating. That alone would slow the flow of them over time. Requiring the name of the cache to make clear what the challenge was would also be helpful, so if you had a challenge that required you to find 100 puzzle caches it would be called "Find 100 Puzzles" or some such. It would also mean that people could place as many challenges as they wanted without taking up space that could be used by other caches. Where areas like rails-to-trails are concerned it often seems a shame that places that could host relatively easy caches for beginners get saturated with far more demanding caches.

But if they are not interested, it does not play a role whether these caches are challenge caches or not and that's exactly my point. Why should it be so important to have those caches on one's list of found it caches if one is not a numbers cachers (and thus will not qualify)? Cezanne I don't care if a particular cache is on my "found" list or not. My concern is that when an area starts to get overrun with a particular type of cache (whether it's a fiendish puzzles, film pots behind posts, challenges, whatever) it starts to restrict the game for people who dislike that particular type of cache. Whether people end up not doing particular caches because they are physically incapable of climbing tall trees, lack the time/resources/inclination to jump through the hoops required to qualify for a challenge, or simply can't be bothered to find endless film pots behind posts, the end result is that geocaching for that person in that area becomes significantly less fun because there are ever-fewer places to hide a cache that might interest them. At this point (and I can hardly believe I'm saying something positive about film pots behind posts) the advantage of endless film pots behind posts is that if you choose to go and find them they are usually easy enough to find, even if not particularly interesting. A challenge cache that says you have to have found 1000 puzzles beforehand is remarkably difficult for many, a challenge that requires caching in 5 different countries requires a potentially significant financial commitment (obviously it's much easier for someone in Belgium than someone in Colorado), and so on.

It doesn't help at all if the cache is left out in the open where anyone can spot it, along with a well formed geopath leading directly to it. Add in geocachers who are in a hurry and don't rehide it, followed by others who "rehid as found" and who leave it there. Some hiders are rather naive in their beliefs about traffic in an area. One cache I found was obvious to anyone and 2 feet from a path used by dozens of people on a regular basis, as well as 6 feet from a creek. After a flood it disappeared and the CO complained to me that a student they knew was taking their hides. Yeah, PMO is going to help. A chain may keep someone from taking it, but if the container is locked they likely will be curious enough to return and break in. Certainly a potential problem. An ammo can left in the woods could easily trigger the "cool, an ammo can, I can use that" response as the finder takes it away. An ammo can securely padlocked and chained to a tree is more likely to trigger a "wonder why they locked it, there must be something worth having in it" response as the finder goes to get a bolt cutter to take it away.

It's certainly an interesting continuum between logging things you actually found and armchair logging. I remember back in the days when the explosion of icons was new, and it was common to see people picking over piles of coins at events writing down all the numbers to log them. Then that evolved into people with large collections producing lists of tracking codes to hand out so people could admire the coins but didn't have to write down all the numbers themselves. The obvious evolution was that some people would just look in the bag to see all the pretty coins and take the list while others would just take the list. It's a small step from taking the list without looking at the coins, to taking someone else's list without even attending the event. "Go with your conscience" works well, because as soon as things are branded "cheating" it becomes necessary to define where the line between "cheating" and "not cheating" actually lies.

High-terrain caches do tend to be self-limiting as you say because there are only so many places you can put them. That said in a park with lots of tall trees I don't suppose anything stops the person who feels a need to hide caches 528 feet apart when they are all up trees. A theoretical power trail of caches requiring scuba gear would have minimal impact on those who weren't into scuba diving because they would probably be more than 528 feet from land, and so have minimal impact on other people placing caches. A regular power trail of 1.5/1.5 type caches of the endless film-pot-behind-post or keysafe-behind-guardrail genre is, in theory, easy enough to ignore but has an obvious impact on other cache placement because of the way it creates a quarter-mile-wide sausage shaped exclusion zone for anything else to be placed. Those not into numbers can do them a few at a time if they feel like it, although those not into numbers aren't likely to be interested in endless film pots behind posts or guard rails regardless of whether they find 5 at a time or 500 at a time.

And no doubt the fantasy loggers would point to that fact as some equally baseless justification for their fantasy logs I don't suppose armchair loggers feel any need to justify what they are doing, beyond the fact they're playing the game their own way. Especially when any cache or trackable owners that really object can delete logs.

You could have your cache as a micro with a nearby larger container so people can just do a quick cache-n-dash (might be appreciated in a rest stop) or take longer to find the combination and open the larger container. A muggle isn't going to care about taking the time to open a container properly if they want it, although from what you've described the problems you're trying to solve are people who open the container as it was intended to be opened, rehide the container, but just plunder the TBs from it. Regarding the name, a cache big enough to take trackables in an area where lots of people will be passing through on their way to places both near and far doesn't really need to be named "TB Hotel". If a cache is in an interstate rest stop or near a major airport or sea port it doesn't take a genius to figure that people might go to find it while waiting for a connecting flight or on a cross-country drive or some such, so leaving a trackable there increases the chances of it being picked up by someone about to travel a long way. Sadly it also doesn't take a genius for TB thieves to figure out which caches are worth raiding and putting them on a watch list so they can pay a visit any time anybody drops something off. Unless you're going to regularly change any combination lock, the TB thieves only need to find it once and can then pass by as often as they want to relieve your cache of its trackables.

Only in the land of make-believe, where it's worth the effort to pretend you've done something you haven't - or have other people pretend they've done something with something you own that they've never actually even been in the same room with Sadly this kind of thing is an inevitable byproduct of having lists that could be interpreted as leader boards. Sooner or later people are going to cheat to get a higher "score". With all the assorted geocoin icons out there now it's not surprising that sooner or later people are going to log things they never saw to get the cool icon. When there's usually no way to know whether they really did see it or not it only makes it more likely that people will have a go. The way it seems the overwhelming majority of geocoins spend their lives in the owner's collection and are never released into the wild certainly doesn't help.

Exactly. It's impossible to know they're not to keep it. So the newbie cachers who think TBs are trade items (as indicated in other threads) aren't looking at the tag. If people aren't reading tags (and from proposals in what used to be the Suggestions forum it seems people don't want to read the cache pages either) it's hard to know what to do, other than perhaps highlight what a TB looks like when people are writing a log. ETA: If newbie cachers do realise they're supposed to move the TB along it's obviously sufficiently unclear just how to do it that at least some of the time logs appear that say things like "Took travel bug TB1234", later followed by a log that includes "Left travel bug TB1234" - not only do they write the tracking code in plain text for anyone to use/abuse but because they haven't correctly logged the move the site thinks the bug is in the previous cache. The inevitable result is some people recording "bug not present" until someone else grabs it from where they found it. Or, if they didn't record where they found it, they end up apparently picking it up from the cache that's reported as having the bug missing. Even with the wording on the TB tag many geocoins have no such wording, and it seems to have been standard practise for a while to release copies of coins into the wild because they get stolen. Looking at the few geocoins I have left none of them say anything like "Don't keep me" on them.

I guess part of the problem is that if people are focussing on nothing more than their find count they won't do anything that slows down the "scoring". Taking time out for a multi or to solve a puzzle is time that they could be out finding traditionals - why spend an hour on a multi when in the same time you could grab a dozen caches on a power trail? So making a cache a multi that's more than a simple offset, or a puzzle, will probably take out an awful lot of cachers who would visit a traditional. The upside it it takes out a lot of cachers who might steal the TBs or mistake them for trade items. Where TBs are getting stuck I wonder whether it's due to a lack of visitors or a perception that you have to leave something in "trade" for the TB, maybe even that you have to leave a TB if you're taking a TB. Unfortunately it all comes back to the eternal issue that having lots of visitors makes it more likely that a TB will be stolen or mistaken for a trade item, and reducing the likelihood of TBs vanishing requires reducing the number of visitors to the cache.

Wasn't the original purpose of the saturation guideline to prevent confusion caused by finding one cache while searching for another? In the example you gave it's hard to see how people might find one cache while looking for the other. Does the fact the guy with the rope and skills could abseil actually mean anything significant? It probably took him longer to abseil to the second cache than it would take any able-bodied person to walk the 528 feet between film pots on a power trail. Generally speaking the saturation guideline is good, to avoid confusion and also prevent power trails from getting even more concentrated, but it seems to me it's good to look at the rationale behind a guideline as well as the wording of it.

If the container is still in place with all the swag but no trackables it's almost certainly a geocacher who took the trackables - I'd expect a muggle to either take everything or just take the things that appealed to them. That could easily mean taking the trackables and leaving the swag, if the trackable items were interesting and the swag uninteresting. That doesn't mean one geocacher came along and took all the trackables, it could easily be a slower process and could easily include a new cacher who didn't realise how trackables operate. I've seen a few logs over the years that say things like "Took travel bug TB1234" where the cacher subsequently logged "Left travel bug TB1234", and of course all the while the system things the travel bug is in the first cache. If it's a geocacher how would your proposals to require pre-approval to take trackables help anything? If you were to visit the site with the cacher, stand over them and note which trackables they took, and write a note on the cache so everybody knew who took which trackables, how would it help? If they wanted to steal them they could just pick a random cache and claim to have dropped the trackables in the cache, and wait for them to be marked missing as it became clear they were "no longer" in the cache. If you're not planning to visit with every pre-approved cacher then unless you visit very frequently how would you deal with the cacher who jumps through whatever hoops you put in front of them, gets the code, and then contacts you to say the lock was broken and there weren't any trackables in the cache? Would you know whether it was a visitor before them, or whether they'd gone through the motions so you wouldn't suspect them of taking them all?

Excellent post in its entirety. I would like to respond only to the last paragraph. I think you have correctly categorised the issue: "misunderstanding the game." I seriously doubt there is any malicious intent in this issue. The problem in education in any sense is how to make it happen. My "blanket statement" that "no one reads anything" is of course, hyperbole. (You knew that, LOL) But the poinbt is entirely accurate as you acknowledge- "People are lazy, so design interfaces so that the path of least resistance..." That "path" has to be mandatory entered upon loading the app for the first time. But still, you can't make anyone read or even look at a video. Without some kind of test, it will be treated by most exactly like the privacy statement- click the box and move on. At least if the tutorial ran automatically, SOME people who might not understand, would. Pretty simple fix for a lot of it. I think sometimes there is malicious intent, but for as long as things are being left unattended in the middle of the woods there's realistically nothing that can be done to stop those with malicious intent. If someone really wants to steal the sandwich box, or the toys with metal tags on, they're going to whatever we might like to think. If we can address the users who just don't understand the intention of the game we're probably most of the way there. Maybe the intro app could provide a multi-stage process to log a find that started out with "what did you think of the cache?" with a box to answer, then "did you take any trackable items?" and "did you leave any trackable items", followed by a short message of congratulation and a reminder to put the cache back where it came from and hide it so it wouldn't be disturbed. It won't stop the people who find it and then can't be bothered to rehide it because they've had their fun, but maybe it would help. Maybe it would also become annoying enough that people sticking with the game would make a small payment for a less intrusive app.

Damage per user minimised, as long as there isn't a tidal wave of users who sign up, think the idea is to find the cache and then hide it somewhere else, and don't understand they're supposed to maintain the caches. Of course if they think someone will find it where they hid it and move it on, why would they even consider the implications of maintaining their cache? Over-rating will make the game appear far less friendly to those with mobility issues than it can currently be. It will also make it harder to figure out which caches are really going to involve a bit of physical effort if everything is routinely rated 3/3 as a minimum. It would still be counterproductive, on the basis that Groundspeak gets the money while the users get their caches destroyed. Removing the free option might slow the flow of people signing up because it was free, trashing a couple of caches because they didn't know how the game was supposed to be played and then getting bored and moving on. But removing the free option is pretty much the same as closing the door to new cachers using the app - it's hard to see people paying $10 for three months just to try a new game. Good idea overall but also restrictive in urban areas and for those with more limited mobility. A slight variation on the theme, if your email isn't validated you can log in and view/update your own profile but can't do anything else. It would let people update their email address etc but not go out and look for caches. That does seem like a good idea.