Fugglestone

Ditto this. You can't find that which you already know the location. You could just leave it out there for a little while until someone decides that they don't like the hide and posts a "rehid it better than I found it" note. Then you and your friend can go out to do some maintenance, but first you have to find where the person before you might have stuck it. The best of both worlds!

oooh, ooh! i've been waiting for someone to say this! where exactly in the rules does it say it's against the rules to move a cache? you will find that just as absent from the rules as running a cheat site. If I may: Taken from the Getting Started -> Finding your First Geocache page of geocaching.com. While not necessarily listed as a RULE OF GEOCACHING!!!! I would still consider it to be a prescribed guideline set by the site.

So, if I am reading the gist of this thread correctly, it seems that people would rather that no one find their caches than have some people "cheat" their way to the answers. Why is this true? Sure, it would be entertaining to punish someone who you felt acted unfairly and make the puzzles they are trying to solve unsolvable. But what am I supposed to do when I solve it legitimately? How will I know that what I solved isn't just someone's revenge tactic to get back at the faceless masses. Or how will I know that the puzzle I am working on has no solution at all? I know! Make it a logging requirement that in order to find the cache you first have to solve the puzzle. Then you have to e-mail the owner and tell them exactly how you solved it, what you got for coordinates, how long it took and what you were wearing while you did it! That should stop those sneaky cheaters. Until of course, they figure out that they can pass that information amongst themselves as well. Darn! Back to the drawing board. I don't see any way to single out those that people feel have cheated in some way without punishing all who may be out to find the caches placed. And really, wasn't that why you put them out in the first place? To be found. Maybe not. Maybe you just want people to be impressed at how hard your puzzle is and the cache itself is secondary. I can understand that you put alot of effort into the puzzle, but if finding the coordinates becomes that much more important than finding the cache, maybe you should just cut out the cache altogether and shift it to a more puzzle oriented site. Now let me say that I do enjoy a good puzzle cache. I don't solve most of the ones I look at, but I do have a good time working my way through the ones I have solved. But it really wouldn't take too many instances of solving a puzzle, heading out, searching for a while, and finding just a note that says "Sorry! No cache here! Too many cheaters so I changed the hide. You will never find me!" for me to decide that maybe they aren't worth the effort after all. And since nitpicking word choices seems to be a favorite pastime of many here I do have to quible a bit here. When did this become a moral issue? It is immoral to seek the answer to a puzzle through any available means? So, all those years that I have glanced to the back of the book for crossword puzzle answers that really stumped me I have been performing immoral acts?!? Darn! Well, I guess I am off to church to confess my sins and hope God forgives me for my wicked, wicked ways.

That thing is frustrating! I just spent an hour talking to a robot *trying* to figure out the coordinates for a cache that is almost 2000 miles from my house... I need a life... I have been poking that frog with a stick for the last half hour myself. No answer yet, but my screen is developing a nice dent. I think the frog cheats. Every third question I ask gets answered with "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage".

So the cache was only worth finding to you because of the chance at being FTF? Personal opinion don't be offended I see most beta tests coming from cachers who go out together on a hike for other, already placed geocaches. Rather than make a second trip, the friends sign the log of the new cache before it is placed. To me, this a mild form of "number padding." I never said it was only worth finding if I could be first. Never. I plan on finding the cache, 1st, 5th, 500th, I will still seek it, and still be glad when I find it. I am talking simply about the relationship between FTF and beta tester, which to my mind are the same person. If two people go out on a hike together, Person A hides a cache, Person B then finds it, you can call it beta testing if you want. You can call it FTF before publish, it doesn't matter. B was the first finder. Wether they sign on the first page, or the tenth, they were still first. I just don't see a beta test as a test if you couple it with a found log. That makes it a find, the first one of the cache in fact. Congratulations on your FTF! Obviously everyone has a different opinion on this matter, otherwise what would have been the point of even bringing it up? I appologize if anyone has taken offense to mine, I don't mean to insult or demean with my posts. I am simply trying to sort some definitions in my own mind.

I tend to run on this same theory. I haven't been present when many have been hiden, but my girlfriend will always run her ideas past me before hers publishes. By the time the listing goes up, I know what the container is, approximately where it is, and how hard she made it. I won't run off to those because it seems an unfair advantage to get it first. I have always felt that the first finder should have the pure experience of it. No past logs to draw on, no hints from the owner (outside of those on the page) just you, the woods and some pesky little hidden thing. I have seen FTF logs with the cache owner standing over the shoulder of the finder, calls to the owner for hints, etc. And this was in the first day!

I am not at all opposed to testing caches. Alot of times it makes sense. Like I said originally, if it is particularly complex, or difficult a little test to save everyone down the road some grief just makes sense. But in this particular case that caught my attention this morning, it is a difficulty/terrain 2/1.5, by a very experienced cacher. And what is refered to as a beta test was actually a gimme FTF while the cache was being placed, which when called such, I have no problem with. I have seen alot of "placed in honor of XXXX so they were given the chance to FTF" caches, and I think they are great. I guess what just got me about it was the term. Beta Tester. It just seems like a euphamism for being FTF before anyone else knows the cache even exists. It makes the finder feel good because they don't believe they robbed anyone else of the FTF. It is meant to make the next finder feel good knowing they were first after publish. But I just find it a little silly. I enjoy FTFs. I enjoy chasing them even if I am pretty sure I have no chance of making it before someone else does. I don't expect everyone to enjoy going for them. Nor do I expect cache owners to always cater to my FTF cravings. If I don't get this one, I will chase the next one, not a big deal. I guess "honor" was really the wrong word to have used. I look at it as more of a mini-game within the game. I have fun with it, I enjoy the chase. But if there is already a signature on the book before the cache is published the chase is over. There is no FTF after publish and "real" FTF, there is only the first. There can be only one!

Since it ate my original . . . . Now, I can understand if you have a particularly complex multi, or a puzzle or something that is just plain hard you might want to have a friend check it to see that all is in order before you publish the cache. I guess you could consider it a test of the emergency geocaching system. But beyond that, I kind of feel like giving someone the coordinates, and asking them to find it, then logging that find is kind of a cheat for giving away FTF. Not the FTF prize, just the honor of the FTF. I don't know about the rest of you, but I get a little charged when there is the possibility of a FTF on a cache, and when I look at a brand new publish that was found and logged 2 days prior (GC1JWDX), it takes some of the joy out. I will still go to it. I will still log it. I just won't run out to do it right away. Not a huge deal. It isn't a game breaker for me. Just a tiny little rant for a wet Monday morning. Thanks for playing, and we will see you next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel!

I have cooled myself a bit now from when I first posted this question. And in the long run, after much pondering, I have agreed to adopt the attitude that most everyone else here seems to have, I put it out to be found. And since if the stats I saw earlier were correct, they probably put in far more work than my pitiful little cache was worth, they deserved the FTF they got. I will most likely be throwing out more caches in the future, but probably just leaving the bugs out till last.

That is good to know. Live and learn I suppose. I will admit it is pretty clever, tracking the bugs and all, and definitely the harder way to go about it. But next time, I will definitely be more careful about placing the TBs. Of course, this is always a good option too.

I just set out my first cache. Honestly, I was pretty excited about it, waiting for it to post, checking to see who would be first to find, etc., etc., etc. I log in this morning to find that people had found it before it ever posted. Not something I even knew was possible. I have learned that this is called "poaching". The more I thought about it the more annoyed I became that someone couldn't just wait the few hours and grab it when it posted like everyone else. There wasn't even a FTF prize for goodness sake! So, I wanted to ask the forums as a whole, how poaching is percieved? Am I the only one who is worked up about it? Is it considered fair chase to get to them first no matter what means?