BogWalker

This is what I was looking for, but seems hard to find. There's no FAQ page that I found that points to the glossary.

LOL.... Freudian slip?

I'm one of those below-average folks. My sister got us into geocaching, my brother really got into it. I've got other reasons to get outside, so I don't do a lot of caching myself. But when we get together as a family I'll log a cache or two. We live in 3 different states, and did not get together last year. But in general I would have expected geocaching activity to go up last year, since it's something you can do by yourself and keep social distance. Maybe some publicity articles would help. I remember reading about in the papers in the 2008-2012 time frame, I haven't seen an article in a newspaper/magazine for some time.

Last week I was just out for a hike and saw a cache lying out in the open. I didn't have a pen/pencil with me, and the one in the cache was rusted beyond use (water issues over time). I remembered seeing a tree that had fire damage not too far away, so I went over and grabbed some charcoal, I could put the date in, but the signature was pretty rough. Then I hid the cache a bit better before leaving. But generally speaking, there's no monetary awards for finding caches, so I go with the honor system. (Maybe a puzzle find needs some proof).

I grew up in a rural area with lots of swamps around. I would frequently go out for walks, and couldn't avoid the swamps so I got adept at walking thru them, and they're interesting in their own right. 'Bog' is shorter than 'swamp', so I went with that. Also, my relatives (who got me into geocaching) all had names that combined a place and an action - rockhopper, prairieRambler, etc (not quite their real names).

...then you use grass, leaves or dirt, combined with key or fingernail or stick or stone. I've done it more than once. I've written about it and attached photos in different threads more than once. There's *never* a reason not to sign the log if the log is in your hands. Some people think "sign" means a full signature. Not needed. Tiny sheet, almost full, in a micro? Pull out, say, a red pen. Put a red dot to the right of cacher "John Doe's" signature. In the log say "I signed by putting a red dot next to John Doe's signature." But again, grass or leaves work wonderfully when there's no pen. It seems to me a selfie with you holding the log is a whole lot more proof than some squiggles in charcoal or leaf juice or even pencil on a wet log. A selfie would also eliminate the possibility of people signing in for others too. Since there is no monetary reward or great recognition for finding a geocache, geocaching has always been largely on the honor system. I don't see any reason to get bent out of shape on this. Especially since, as noted, most cache owners don't compare the log to the find claims and even more unlikely to remove somebody's entry because of it. Personally I'd be more interested in an interesting and humorous entry about how you found it but were unable to sign it than a boring one-line "TFTC" entry by somebody who actually did sign it. Geocaching is more about the stories than about the rules. On the flip side, I've seen logs that have been signed by people that didn't get around to claiming their find online. I'm pretty sure I've done that too. Gone out geocaching with relatives while on a trip, no internet service at the campsite (my brother in particular comes prepared with a list of potential targets). Forget about it by the time I get home, or forget the cache names and don't want to search around to figure out which one it was.

That is a useful link, thanks! It should be in the 'resources' or 'getting started' pages that are in the navigation links on the left of the main geocaching pages.

I know a person's Geocaching user name, and I want to look at their profile (I have the basic membership). How do I easily see their profile? I would think there would be a straightforward way to do this, but unless I know a cache that they logged a visit on, and click to their profile from there, there's only one other way and it's not straightforward: I go to my account, click on send e-mail, it says I can't send to myself, so I enter the user name desired, click on next, then click on 'view profile' (and abandon sending the e-mail). TIA, bogwalker