Cryptosporidium-623

Dollars to Donuts, I bet that it was a strongly worded letter from the Attorney General's office, not a filed lawsuit. Even if it were a lawsuit, I doubt it would get to any government agency web site that quickly.

Was this from a private e-mail or on some web-based source? Could you share a link?Thank you.

A. This seems silly as it's only a matter of time until someone reaches out to NDOT to get the details (assuming they were even involved in the final decision). B. Again, this seems silly. The CO's are going to talk to their friends and family, it will make the circles sooner or later. Why not get it from the horses mouths here? It is USEFUL information (if posted in the proper tone) and it would hardly violate any TOS (yes, yes, I know, GS reserves the right to interpret and change the TOS as they wish). C. Which doesn't reduce GS or cacher headaches in the future. For all we know, someone was offended by the shape of the caches on a map (Someone saw the Flying Spaghetti Monster eating spare ribs or something.) D. Yes. And when those new cachers are affected and inevitably search for this, they will see that GS offered no guidance in these situations, wasted the CO's time and money. This is bound to have... "mixed reactions" among the user base. Update: While I was typing, MissJen threw water on prior point B (curse my slow alien fingers!). A, C, D remain to be seen.

If only there was some sort of forum-assigned authority figure who could monitor threads and keep them on topic...

Looks like this:

Didn't mean to be the cause of any attempted thread hijack. Just trying to say that the only reason that the state agencies in Nevada got involved is due to irresponsible behavior by some of the people that cached the area. We don't know the reason why this happened. A couple of weeks ago NDOT said they only wanted a few caches moved. Something has changed since then and we don't know what changed. Certainly some official statement from NDOT or GS explaining what happened would be welcomed.

I made the mistake of doing some urban caching during Democratic National Convention. Talk about heightened security. We went for a cache along a bike path, several miles north of our downtown area. The bike path we were searching was bordered on one side by a river and a water treatment plant (which you couldn't see because of the trees). On the other side of the bike path, was small gravel area, then a public road, and then some sort of gas processing facility whose buildings were a good 1/2 mile from where we parked. We weren't searching the bike path area for more than 5 minutes before all sorts of security showed up, acting very hostile and telling us that we couldn't be in that area (on a public bicycle path!?) We decided to not push the matter and left, but WOW talk about an intense couple of minutes!

Thanks. That will work for a "stare and compare" in lieu of a revision log.

Is there a place where I can see some sort of "revision history/changelog" of the geocaching guidelines? I'd be interested in seeing how the rules evolved over time and when certain changes were/are incorporated. Does it exist? Is it accessible by mere mortals?

If the request is reasonable, then sure. A photo? No problem. Putting something small/minor in the log that requires some grey matter? Sure. Respecting private property, public hours of operation, etc? Yes, yes yes! Sacrificing small animals in front of the cache? Procuring and wearing a penguin outfit while searching for the cache? Not so much.

My $.02 is to keep it simple, stick to what you think you can easily handle your first time out and set expectations up front. The good news is a lot of these type of events tend to run themselves. The bad news is that you're usually so busy making sure everything is flowing and everyone is happy that your own MnG time will be limited. On the activities side: I find that having to manage too many "activities" (e.g. kids activities, giveaways, non-raffles, etc.) at the same time as "meeting and greeting" can become a bit overwhelming, especially on your first time out. If you've got enough "helper" support, then it might be a little more possible, but again, keep it simple until you feel more comfortable with the mechanics. You also have to consider what activities "blend well together". For example, a MnG is probably NOT the best place for conducting a workshop, because the people strictly focused on the meeting and greeting may serve as a distraction for the other activity (if the room is not sufficiently large). You may want to have a very simple agenda that outlines when MnG/chitchat happens, versus a group photo (if you want one), versus another specific activity (e.g. cache exchange, Q&A, pin the tail on the cacher, etc.) On the materials side: * For kids activities, don't forget the pens, crayons, wooden nickels, markers, etc. - Ebay or a party supply store will come in handy here. * If you're bringing (or having people bring) food, the usual cups, plates, plasticware, and maybe tablecloths and garbage bags (depending on the facility) * If you're doing trackable discovery and trading, I'd bring a couple of plastic bins / containers and label them "Discovery Only" and "Swappable". * If you're doing some sort of raffle or giveaway, you'll need tickets (Office Depot or any similar place will have them) * Some type of log * If you have a local Geocaching group, you may want to contact them to see if they'd like to help co-sponsor or support the event in some way (e.g. loan you a piece of equipment, give you some sort of small door prize to give away or raffle off for the group's benefit, provide a representative there to answer questions, etc.) I hope this helps.

Tholian Hip Inductor?

And yet he can't find it in the real-world to log it, even though it was right there, attached to the metal power pole support. Now if I could only figure out how an LPC cache worked...

High-Four Gorak! Extraterrestrial caches rule! Silly Hoomans.

Agreed. It should not be up to a cacher to decide this in a vacuum. It should be checked with the CO. Ideally if GS wants to support this, an attribute called "swappable" or a cache type called "power trail FC", etc. should be added. That way, non-swappable caches along a route could be filtered out. In lieu of this (since it obviously doesn't exist today) I'd say that people that want to support such activities on their caches band together with their "cache neighbors" for creating a standardized, common graphic or segment of text for all caches along a route letting the finder know that it is allowed. If the common graphic or text passage doesn't exist on a given cache along that route, then the finder should assume that it IS NOT OKAY to swap. Of course, this all assumes that the cachers on such a run would be bothered to either filter out the other caches or read 500-1000 cache descriptions just to make sure that swapping was allowed (yeah, THAT's gonna happen! )

Agreed. A new career path in the making.

To be fair, however, a responsible cacher might say "maybe it isn't worth digging through the darkness looking for it if it's that difficult". A responsible cacher might also say "now that I found the cache, maybe I should put back all the things I moved, tossed, etc., instead of just driving off into the darkness for the next FTF".

I'd really like to hear what this cache is made out of. Right now, I'm envisioning something with welded metal camo, military grade hardened corners and a water repulser field. I'm going to be really disappointed if this turns out to be a paper Pringles can covered in bright pink masking tape.

Ok, well we've at least established that there's a whole lot of reasons to not assume it was the FTF without considerably more data. Since you don't visit the cache every day, you really don't know when the damage occurred. As Ecylram said, maybe it was a STF looking around and caused the damage and either didn't find it or chose not to log it to avoid the revelation that it was them. Beyond that, without knowing the nature of the container, the camo, the construction materials, and the extent of the damage, I'm not sure what additional value we can offer at this point. Right now my speculation meter is running everywhere from "extreme cold" to "snow plows" to "evil hobo overlords" to "aliens".

I'm not saying you guys are wrong and I'm certainly hopeful that this is the EXCEPTION and not the RULE. I'm only trying to illustrate that a FTF searcher and a "highly ethical cacher" are not always the same person.

My additions: * Sometimes I will watch a difficult cache that I couldn't find to see if anyone else finds it (to help me validate whether it's there or it might be missing) * If I place a fairly easy-to-find cache in an area with another cache nearby (e.g. a park), I might watch the other person's cache to see if cachers log a find on that one but then don't log anything on mine. It helps me to determine if I need to go check on my cache (especially when folks don't post DNFs)

Maybe in your area. I've watched FTFers tear places up, just trying to make a find "quickly". The end results: Mulch on the sidewalk/road, damaged plants/shrubs, disassembled bricks (even after the cache advised that it was not hidden in any of those places).

As they say... one data point does not make a trend. That said, after you own a number of caches and/or happen to find a number of "pristine" caches right after certain finders, you start to get a feel for which cachers are careless or unnecessarily "hard on caches". I make it a habit to check on some of my caches after those folks find them to perform any necessary repairs (mostly because they won't even tell me if there's a problem with the cache). Someone gave me a good piece of advice once. When you construct a cache, make it 2-3 times more durable than you EVER believe you'll need it to be.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. This has helped greatly!

Except, according to the guidelines: "Requiring cachers to find an explicit list of caches (rather than a broader category of caches) will likely prevent the cache from being published." While this cache obviously got published, who is to say if the next cache would, based on the language in those guidelines...