kelly@9

Well, it is also important to remember that certain caches that violate the current rules have been grandfathered in because they met the rules that were current on the site when they were submitted. So as long as they stay active on the site and maintained by their owner, they will still be available on the site. For example, there are a number of travelling caches (where the finder re-hides them in a new location and posts the coordinates for the next finder), which clearly violate the current cache rules, but are allowed to remain on the site. Not every rule change will permit existing caches which violate the new rule to be grandfathered in, but some will. Also, remember that reviewers generally only review new cache submissions and existing caches that are brought to their attention.

This is something that travel bug and geocoin owners probably need to state clearly in their bug's description and goals, since for some bugs and many geocoins -- where there is the fear that someone might like them a little too much and decide to keep them rather than moving them on to another cache -- the owners would actually prefer them to be in harder caches so that there is a greater chance they will keep moving. Also, unlike ratios and minimum quotas, putting them in harder caches doesn't make an arbitrary rule imprisoning a travel bug, it just makes it more challenging to find them.

My Travel Bug Prisons bookmark list is up to 54 listings now from a little bit of all over. I have some more caches to look up their policies as well. I think the good news I can report here after viewing lots and lots of travel bug hotel cache listings is that there do indeed appear to be a lot of former travel bug prisons still operating today without their old restrictive travel bug trading rules! Based on the obviously-updated cache descriptions, it looks like their owners have "seen the light"! In fact, many of the caches without trading rules actually have more travellers moving through them than the prisons!

Yeah, I'll buy my 1 LE and 2 regular when the time comes as well.

The travel bug web pages, How to use a Travel Bug and Travel Bug FAQ, could really use an update to indicate the current state of trackable geocoins through geocaching.com! For instance, on the "How to..." page, under "Step 1": "The number is normally on the dog tag that is attached to the item, with exception of USA and Moun10bike geocoins which are stamped on the coins." Well, except that there are really tons of geocoins out there that are trackable now. Perhaps something like this would be more accurate: "The number is normally on the dog tag that is attached to the item, or on the geocoin itself for geocoins which say 'Trackable at geocaching.com'." And then on the "FAQ" page: I think I found a Travel Bug but there was no tag. Is it a Travel Bug? Probably not. Some people have created their own systems for tracking objects. If it doesn't have a tracking number it isn't tracked on Geocaching.com. With exception to some geocoins, you should also see the Travel Bug barcode logo for it to be a legitimate Travel Bug. The last sentence should probably be something like "With the exception of geocoins that are stamped with 'Trackable at geocaching.com', you should also see the Travel Bug barcode logo for it to be a legitimate Travel Bug.' Do you track geocoins? Yes. We track USA Geocoins and Moun10bike geocoins through the web site. "Yes. We track a variety of geocoins, all of which are stamped with 'Trackable at geocaching.com' on one side of the coin." These updates might clear up confusions, especially among new geocachers, about geocaching.com trackable geocoins!

The list is public, it should appear on the cache pages of the prisons (although the cache owners can delete it from there I think, right?). It is provocative, but I'm willing to try it for awhile and see where it goes.

The other thing I'd like to point out is that if you're putting geocoins out in local caches with the express intention of having them around for local cachers to find, perhaps the initial goal of your geocoin on the TB page (and included on a printout with the coin itself!) should indicate that the coin should only be placed in caches within X miles of your location. This isn't fool-proof of course, but it might help keep your coins local. And it should be easy enough for you to take and retrieve the coin later and give it an updated goal sheet stating it can travel further afield once you decide local cachers have had enough opportunities to log it. I'll be releasing several of my geocoins with goals like this soon. Some of them will stay permanently with local goals, and others will eventually be changed to roam free all over.

Tons of travel bugs (but few geocoins) travel through the Washington, DC area. I'm guessing the fact that people come to DC lots for both business and leisure travel makes a big difference. Right now there are about 115 caches with travel bugs (well, and geocoins) within 20 miles of my house. The fact that home caching area of DC area cachers tends to overlap with Frederick and Baltimore, Maryland cachers' home areas (and theirs with other cachers to the north) probably tends to help move bugs around the Northeastern US. Looking at the bugs I've personally found, lots of them came from outside the DC area, but some have kicked around various DC/MD/VA caches quite a bit, and then moved on to pretty much all over the country! But basically, we get bugs in and out all the time. Too much for any one person to keep up with really. Of course, if you want to see more bugs in your area, you have options: collect up bugs on trips and bring them back (and encourage other local cachers to do so too) or buy tags and start your own!

Ok, we'll see how long I can take the heat from this one... My Travel Bug Prisons shared public bookmark list. Feel free to contact me and send me other caches with travel bug trading ratios or quotas that should be listed here. Also, I will happily remove any and all caches from this list if the cache owner abolishes their travel bug trading "rules"!

Obviously people have geocaching-related events, and like tracking them on the site. If the current event cache setup doesn't work well for this, I'd suggest redesigning the site infrastructure to support it better rather than sending people off to fend on their own on other event sites like Evite. Using another site raises a whole host of issues for both the event planner(s) and attendees, especially if different event cache organizers use different sites and everyone has to go sign up for several different sites just to keep getting info about event caches they plan on attending! If the feature proposed in this thread isn't one Groundspeak wants to implement, maybe thinking about how to redesign and reimplement event caches overall to make them a more useful site feature might be in order. This also doesn't preclude the idea of Groundspeak partnering with another company (like say, Evite or Meetup) to host the event cache features integrated (as least loosely) with geocaching.com rather than doing it all in-house!

After having received quite a few coins recently where the tracking numbers are barely readable, I'd like to submit a plea to the folks designing coins to please, please make the tracking numbers bigger so they are easy to read! I know you probably want to minimize the encroachment of the blank space for the numbers into your wonderful coin design, but the tracking numbers are important!

I'd be interested in purchasing 2 of these as well.

I have considered attending, but I'm rather ambivalent about the whole thing. Seeing binders full of other peoples' geocoins doesn't excite me in the slightest, and I'm not really looking to do a bunch of trading. I just think it is fun and interesting to find geocoins in caches, and I'd like to provide the opportunity for more local cachers to do so.

So I've noticed that for all the geocoins that are being minted and sold these days, very few of them are ending up actually travelling in geocaches, especially in caches in and around the DC area. I've been buying some coins here and there and soon will begin placing them into caches, but not having an unlimited budget, I'm only buying 1 or 2 of each with the goal of placing 1 in caches soon after I get it, and saving the second (if I buy it) to either place in caches (like 6 months or a year) later or trade for other interesting coins, which again will likely be placed into caches at some point. But this got me thinking, I know hardcore geocoin collectors are often organizing into geocoin buying collectives, where they all commit to certain quantities and then place a big order and get discounted shipping and handling (if not discounted pricing as well). Now, I'm not a harcore geocoin collector -- nor do I want to be -- but one thing I have noticed is that due to the per-order shipping and handling charges, the price per coin is significantly higher for those of us who just want a coin or two rather than buying 8-10 (or more) at a time. So much so that I'm guessing lots of people who (like me) think geocoins are kinda neat, but aren't rabid about collecting them just don't bother getting them at all. Also since many coins sell out shortly after they go on sale, you really have to be on the ball to get the really nifty ones. So anyway, here's my question... are there any DC area cachers out there who'd be interested in getting together to form a small scale geocoin buying collective with the intention of primarily buying coins to send out travelling in caches? I'm thinking small here, like a handful of people who want only 1 or 2 coins each and not every coin that comes out (which are several per week now it seems!). You would not be required to purchase every coin that the collective decides to purchase, only the ones you're interested in. That said, my further thought is that the group would buy 1 extra coin with each purchase, which would be owned by a collective sock puppet account and would also be sent out travelling (and who gets to start it could rotate). This would still wind up being cheaper than everyone buying 1 or 2 coins on their own in many cases since we'd be saving on shipping and handling costs, plus we'd have an extra coin to release into the wild. And yes, you would have to be in the DC area to participate, the goal here is to make face to face transactions for coins, so that we wouldn't have to pay to re-ship them. Anyone?

I would consider buying 2 at $10+shipping, but would pretty much definitely buy 2 if they were cheaper, in the $8 range or so. Well, unless the design was aweful.

It is ridiculously easy to get a special license plate for an interest group in Virginia, all you need is 350 people willing to buy the plate and/or to pay a $3500 administrative fee. There are over 180 special interest plates in Virginia! So if some Virginia geocachers got together, there could be an actual "Virginia Geocachers" plate design! See: VA DMV Specialized License Plates: Develop A New License Plate

I generally carry a lot of stuff in my pack just because I only use the pack for geocaching, and it is easier to leave the same set of basic supplies in it all the time and consistently know what I have with me rather than having to repack what I think I might need every time I go out. That said though, if it is a short cache and dash, I will sometimes leave the pack in the car. And for some urban caching, I just bring the GPSr, a pen and my little moleskine notebook w/ cache notes. I also try to replenish any supplies I used for minor cache maintenance or CITO (chiefly pens, ziploc bags and trash bags) immediately upon return from a caching trip, so that I'm restocked for the next outing as well.

Yeah, seems like the existing "All Finds" at once a week is probably fine, but adding a "All Finds Past 7 Days" (or 30 days, or 60 days) that could configured like the rest of the PQs to potentially run daily would be a nice addition.

I agree with this in principle, but I can't imagine all the arguments that will go on to hash out just what the "rules", or even the guidelines, should be. There are lots of people with differing and incompatible opinions on pretty much every potential guideline, just look at any forum thread!

Or just compromise on YYYYMMDD, which no one uses in "the real world", but is logical to computer geeks everywhere.

You may have stumbled upon a stash of weapons hidden for use by a youth gang. Gangs here in the DC area, especially Latino gangs, tend to favor machetes as weapons rather than guns. Presumably there was nothing that resembled blood on them, if there had been, your local police department would likely be interested in them.

So, after reading a thread on another forum asking about difficult caches, I created a PQ for all the difficulty 4+ caches close to my home, asking for only traditional and multi-caches. I specifically did not include the mystery/puzzle caches since I was interested only in traditional and multi-caches that were hard hides, not hard puzzles to solve even to find out the cache coordinates. But going through the first page of my PQ, I'd say roughly half of them are actually offset caches or puzzle caches of some type, not caches where the coordinates listed are the cache location (or first stage location if a multi). So from reading the guidelines for placing a cahce, it specifically states Offset Cache as a distinct type, but yet this doesn't seem to actually match reality. Reality is that offset caches (and other puzzle type caches) are often listed as traditional or multi-caches, at least here in the Washington, DC area. But yet, at other times, offset and puzzle caches are in fact listed as mystery/puzzle caches. So finally, here's my question: how should these caches be listed on the site? I'd guess they should be listed under the mystery/puzzle cache, but the listings are right now really inconsistent. This inconsistency really bugs me. Are these types of things something to get the local reviewer(s) involved though? Would/should they fix them? Or would I just be bugging them and generating more unneeded work for them?

I like this idea. As someone who tends to make copious logs w/ lots of details about which TBs are in a cache or are missing from them, I'd also like to suggest that maybe anyone logging a find on a cache could also provisionally mark a TB as missing, and then either the cache owner or TB owner would have to approve the missing designation for it to actually stick.

Personally, I would like to see the existing bookmark list functionality just expanded to include all of people, places, and things (i.e. users, caches, and TBs) interchangably. Would give a lot more flexibility than just a "friends list"!

Y0wza... bummer that the public sale of these was over in 1/2 an hour. I was like, you know, actually out geocaching at the sale time, and by the time I remembered these went on sale today while I stopped to grab some lunch and fired up the laptop and wireless card, they were already gone. I'd like to urge all state geocaching groups and others making non-personal, non-event coins to please consider increasing the quantities made, or specifically stating that if their first edition sells well, there will be second (and perhaps more) editions in a slightly different metal or something. I really liked the NV design because of the skeleton, if anyone has extras, I'd be interested in purchasing or trading for a future draft pick (since I have no collection yet).