bons

I just want to thank you so much for that picture. It really warms my heart to see my bug and that plaque together, especially after meeting Team 360 and the Original Can Of Beans. Feels better than winning. Thanks!

You know, I was going to say something about the appropriateness of exculding people deliberately and how the non-handicapped accessable cachers weren't placed with the purpose of deliberately excluding people but why bother... Have fun everyone. After that last post by Brian, I'm all funned out.

Everyone has them. Everyone can see their own. No one else can see yours (well, except for moderators, the powers that be, etc. etc.) They're there so that people will ask what they are. They seem to have some other purpose as well, but the main reason is to produce threads like this one.

What's interesting about your example is that the same thing that caused the problem for the elderly lady in the first place is the same thing you do: Adjusting for local conditions. What's a "2" in Florida isn't a "2" in Western NC. What's a "2" in Eastern Nebraska is not a "2" in Colorado. What once cacher bumps up by half a point, the next cacher bumps down by half a point. So many people have problems with caches that aren't rated correctly, but it seems to me that we don't even have a consistant agreement on what these ratings REALLY mean. We have a nice set of words we can point to but we're all interpreting these words differently and then we're wondering why no one else rates their caches what we would have rated them. I'm willing to live with The Jester's solution: Live with it. But that's something that, as a group, we're going to need to agree to do.

Don't believe him. Bubbles is the only one that cries and she's a crybaby anyway.

http://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx#offlimit Even if you were to get permission from the local police department in writing, I'd be a little questioning about the rider you're suggesting.

So if the system is subjective can we quit complaining that not everyone agrees with everyone else and just admit that terrain ratings are personal opinions and not worth the paper it takes to print them out? What you think a particular rating means and what I think it means are probably two different things. And the more subjective we get the less accurate we get. We have a tool that spits out consistant numbers but the very people who want consistancy keep changing that number to reflect their personal beliefs and then they get upset that the numbers everyone comes up with aren't consistant. Because when it comes down to judgement and common sense it occurrs to me that anyone with any would realize that if everyone would use the same tool without readjusting it to suit their own personal beliefs then we would get consistant results and all we'd have a much better understanding of what the terrain difficulty of any particular cache really was.

Nothing is a gimmie with 4 feet of snow on the ground...

Actually what I'm doing is making a point. Why not just follow the guidelines? Good question. You don't and you don't seem to have any problem with the fact that you don't follow them. Well heck, if you're going to adjust the ratings and other people are going to adjust the ratings then why the heck do we tell people to use tool whose purpose is to provide a rating we don't agree with? Here you are complaining that my suggestion makes them useless when you're out there doing the exact same thing. So which is it going to be? Use the rating system we have and admit that a "1" is simply any cache where the first button for every question is pushed and that's all it means or make up our own personal rating systems and complain whenever someone's rating system is different from our own? Because beating people up because they don't use the same system that everyone else also doesn't use is really getting old.

And that's why I suggest throwing accuracy out the window and adjusting your rating towards center. You'll probably get away with it if your "2" or a "4" cache is listed as a "3". If a 4.5 is listed as a 3.5 or a 4, you're probably safe. But don't use "4.5" or, heaven forbid, "1" in your cache ratings unless you're willing to defend yourself to the hilt. "4" and "1.5", while not accurate, are much safer.

If you click on the clayjar page and then you fill out the form and get a rating THEN the guidelines pop up. Not knowing this causes people to stare at you in horror and treat you like an idiot because they assume this behavior is obvious. But don't worry about it. They're only guidelines. As shown above by briansnat and clayjar, they aren't meant to be followed religiously. You can adjust your rating any way you choose. Unless of course you're the owner of the cache that started this whole thread off or any of the other examples of "incorrectly" rated caches that appear on this site on a monthly basis. If you're the owner of one of these caches, it's entirely your fault for not using the clayjar "guidelines" correctly as well as not following any of the other guidelines that someone or other has decided in their own mind that you need to follow. Some simple additional guidelines are: If you're not in a wheelchair, never rate your cache a 1. Rate it a 1.5. Hardly anyone gets flamed for saying that they weren't sure if it was wheelchair accessable or not and being on the safe side. If fact, adjusting by a half point towards the middle lessens your chance of being flamed. Sure, it throws the accuracy out the window but what the heck. It's better to be off than to be flamed. Add a description of the terrain in your cache. If someone complains that the trail wasn't long enough to deserve a rating of "3" you're golden if the cache description says exactly how long the walk is.

If I'm reading your last two posts correctly, you seem to be saying that freely interpreting the clayjar system to mean what you want it to mean and adjusting the ratings to suit what you think the ratings really mean is perfectly acceptable as long as you actually used the clayjar system at some point, even if the ratings you entered aren't the ratings it gives and the meaning of the definations aren't what the clayjar system says. Note that not only does a "1" not use the words "wheelchair accessable" (which you interpret "handicapped accessable" to mean), nowhere on the page does it discuss "ramps and similar accomodations" in order to make sure that that particular piece of accessability is there. Not only is it not a test for wheelchair accessability but it doesn't even claim to be that. If everyone sets their own scale for how far to adjust the clayjar system (and a number of people in previous threads have indicated they do just that) and if the definition of a rating isn't what the clayjar system says (and I've seen a lot of tests for rating 1 that aren't on the clayjar system, from the "shopping cart test" to "how high the cache can be off the ground") then why do we get upset when someone's ratings are off? It seems like the constant advice on this forum is "Use the clayjar system" but the problem is that people aren't using the clayjar system. They're all using their own personal varient of the clayjar system and then complaining that the results aren't consistant.

I just want to thank everyone for this really uplifting and re-affirming thread. It made my day. Thanks.

Actually, it still doesn't. The words "wheelchair accessable" don't appear anywhere in the clayjar page. The ONLY case of the word "wheelchair" is in the terrain elevation section and the actual description of a "1" is "Handicapped accessible. (Terrain is likely to be paved, is relatively flat, and less than a 1/2 mile hike is required.)" which doesn't say jack about being able to reach the cache while sitting in a wheelchair. It also doesn't say anything about "trail will not have this big barrier in the middle near entrances and bridges designed to keep vehicles (such as wheelchairs) wider than bikes off the trail". A close reading of the page looking for the words "wheelchair accessable" and realizing just how many barriers to wheelchair accessability aren't on the page will tell you on thing: just how many people are really "rating things based on their own perspective of how easy or hard it is to get to, and not learning about this system so they can rate it the way it should be rated." A 1 star rating either means "wheelchair accessable" or it means what the clayjar system says it means. But the two are NOT the same thing. Edit: Adding link: http://clayjar.com/gcrs/

Electric Mouse is a new approver in the Midwest. I have nothing but good things to say about everything e-mouse has done. And that's odd considering what a buttmuch I usually am. The timing is excellent too. In my opinion Mtn-man and CO admin could both use the break to deal with things that are a lot more important that geocaching. Having someone else to fill in the gap is one of the best things that could happen.

Oddly enough the part that caught my eye was the fact that the military already had GPS jamming equipment that they knew worked. Never really thought about that before.

Note on the historical marker multi issue. Click on the below link and find the number that occurs twice in the plaque: http://www.oglefamilyofmarylandandalliedfa...AL%20MARKER.JPG Ok. Good. Got that out of the way? Are you sure you know the number? Now here's the next step. Ask yourself if you really read the plaque in an effort to learn what it said or if you were distracted by the number of times each year appeared. And did you really read the plaque to the end? If you read it all and paid attention to it, congrats, but that's simply not how a lot of people's brains work. People don't stop and enjoy the moment for what it is, especially when they're busy trying to get to the ending. The secret to writing a good story is to get the reader so immersed that he forgets he's reading a story. If you can succeed in doing the same with a cache and get the searcher immersed in the area then you have a wonderful cache. Unfortunately, it really isn't easy. http://www.findadeath.com/Decesed/g/Fred%2...al%20marker.JPG is interesting. I could see someone wanting a cache near this particular marker. What's fun is that if you have the person waypoint the marker and you have them waypoint the entrance to the location of the church bell and then do something with those two waypoints I think the people are more likely to actually read the entire marker. They're not thinking about the math because they can't actually do any math or anything else until they get to the church and that frees them up to actually read the marker without as much of a distraction. (note: both markers were pulled off the front page of a google image search for "historical marker". Any similarity to real caches is purely accidental.)

Some folks also don't like placing caches. And some take way too long to plan their caches. And some realize that maintaining a cache is a responsibity that they feel they shouldn't assume at this point in their lives. Place a cache you can't maintain and be insulted or don't place one and be insulted. This place will get you both ways.

I've been going to graveyards for gravestone rubbings, photographs, story ideas, ambiance, and things that shouldn't be mentioned in a family forum long before I heard of geocaching. Being respectful of others nearby is important but it's no different from any other geocaching when there's muggles around. Either you do what you do without attracting attention and bothering people or you come back later.

I stop after the snow gets above my waistline.

nevermind

You're making a big assumption there about WHY someone is watching a cache. A good chunk of the caches on my watchlist are there because they're potential trouble caches. Caches I've logged a DNF. Caches with wet logbooks. Caches that I know are no longer maintained by anyone else. Some people add all the caches they've found to their watchlist. In short, all you really know is that people are watching it. You don't know why.

There are times I think caches have some serious maintainence issues but despite the logs or e-mails nothing seems to be done about these caches. What I wonder is what an acceptable reaction would be to these caches since leaving them as they are would be a disservice to other cachers. Some examples would be: 1) The perpetually "temporarily disabled" cache. I can see someone turning off their cache for the winter and promising to replace it in spring when the ground cover has returned, but it's June now. How long should a cache remain in this state? Should a SBA be posted if e-mails don't get a response within a reasonable period of time (a week after being sent perhaps)? 2) The broken multi. These can be interesting. When the multi is just getting a string of DNFs, that's one thing, but we've managed to have a couple multis with missing stages that are still going strong. People have found later stages using hints and continuing on from there. Some of these remain this way for a long time. 3) The incorrect co-ordinates. I've seen these with regular and puzzle caches. The puzzle caches get really interesting as everyone attempts (and sometimes succeeds) at figuring out what the correct co-ordinates are. I've seen puzzle caches that require making simple math errors in order to solve and another cache where the local cachers seem to have rebuilt the graphics needed in order to get the correct co-ordinates. 4) Has a SBA note, but still persists. What's a reasonable amount of time to post a second SBA? I'm thinking 1 month, but I could be wildly off.

Then he should probably go to where there are geocachers and shouldn't be making money off the deal. The difference is that the geocoins probably weren't lying on the ground. If they were travellers in a cache then they weren't lost, abandoned, or swag. They weren't lying around any more than a rental car in a parking lot is considered lying around. If they were swag, they were swag. If they were travellers then it gets to be a bit sticky.

http://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx#reverse Unfortunately since there's no specific location, this would probably be listed as a locationless cache and not approved. Sorry.