The A-Team

Since I live near you, I might as well address your post! As far as the caches around here having give-away hints and not being far from the trail, a lot of the time that's done to protect nature. If you tell cachers it's in a stump next to the trail, it's unlikely you'll have cachers tromping through a sensitive area. If your coordinates are 100m from the trail, and there's no obvious hiding spot and no hint, you'll get a lot of damage to vegetation. The parks around here are mostly urban or suburban style parks, so they're heavily used and often carefully protected. The "other town" you referred to is much more rural than here, so the hides probably tend toward being more "woodsy" (I couldn't come up with a better term), allowing them to use larger containers and not having to be as careful about being caught off the trail by a parks official. I've never cached there, so I may be wrong, but that's how I imagine it. The flagging is mostly on the old TEAM KFWB GPS caches. They tended to take you to out-of-the-way places, but didn't intend for the cache to be hard to find, just hard to get to. You may have to bushwack for hundreds of meters, but they'll let you know exactly what you're looking for once you get there. That was just their style. I assume the recent ivy hide you're referring to is "G"? I think the complaints about the ivy are just because locals are frustrated with searching in ivy. There are lots of caches around here hidden in ivy, and some are pretty evil. I wouldn't take the complaints personally. My opinion is that if you hide a cache in a difficult area (ie. ivy, rock wall, etc.), make sure you carefully consider the difficulty rating. Also, not providing a hint or expecting multiple visits should also be considered when choosing the difficulty rating. There's a cache around here that's a film canister in an evil mesh-enclosed rock wall (photo), with what I understand are fairly loose coordinates, a useless hint, but only difficulty 2! Cachers rarely find it on their first visit. I've been there at least 4 times now (I'm losing count), and still haven't found it. Asking previous finders doesn't really help, because unless you take a wide-angle photo with someone pointing to it, they can't describe where they found it. Unsurprisingly, it also seems to migrate. Considering all this, if this was my cache, I'd rate it at least 3.5, if not higher. Correspondingly, if I was searching for this cache as a difficulty 4, I wouldn't be anywhere near as frustrated at DNFing it as I am now. At difficulty 2, I would expect at least a slightly helpful hint. It wouldn't have to give away the hide (otherwise it would be a 1 or 1.5), but it should allow cachers to have a higher probability of finding it on their first visit. Personally, if I see a cache rated about 2 or under, I very much expect to find it on my first attempt. If you hide a cache difficult enough to take multiple attempts, rate it higher.</rant> As far as cachers expecting to have their hand held, yes, there are some of those around here. You'll probably find, though, that they tend to be newer cachers. We have a lot of experienced cachers around here, and I can't see them complaining like you're describing. Parking and trailhead coordinates are not necessarily expected, but in some cases very much appreciated. If parking or the trail are difficult to find, it's a very good idea to provide the coordinates. There have been many a cache where I've had a very hard time finding where to park or where to access the cache from. If it will help with legal (avoiding private property) or safety (avoiding dangerous parking area or dangerous access) reasons, you should most definitely provide coordinates. I've only DNFed one of your caches, and that was only because of muggles. I've never seen any reason to complain about any of your hides. They're far more creative than the ones I can come up with, and the amount of information you provide seems to fit perfectly with the types of hides. I'd say you should keep doing what you're doing, and just ignore the complainers.

Does it happen with other browsers? Have you tried on another computer to see if it's something wrong with your profile or the computer?

Probably not special equipment, but there are two other attributes that fit perfectly: "Tree Climbing" and "Teamwork Required". I hope the listing at least had one or both of these.

That would be me. But really, it doesn't matter if someone or several people are in front of me, I'll still catch the webs. Even if we've just gone up a trail, and are coming back, I'll still manage to find some webs. Maybe we just have really fast spiders around here? It's so bad, unless it's a heavily-traveled trail, I'll often walk with my hands up to break the webs. At least at this time of the year the spiders aren't very active, so I don't have to worry about it as much. As far as branches, there doesn't really seem to be a consensus around here. Usually it just depends on how fast you're going relative to the people in front or behind. You may try to keep some distance behind someone, but if they suddenly slow down, you're quickly going to be right behind them and in the path of any swinging branches. There was one night cache (GCZ6PR) that 11 of us went to get a couple of years ago. As we worked our way along a pretty well-defined geo-trail, calls would go out like "root", "rock", "cliff!", and get passed back along the line, so there was an almost continuous chain of calls ringing out through the forest! It was pretty windy that night, and someone posed the question, "If a tree falls on a cacher in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Ah, the memories...

I like this one too: That seems very ill-advised. I wonder how many cachers got caught trying to stamp numbers into an "existing historical monument, plaque, or even a benchmark"? I see this was still in the FAQ up until the last time the Wayback Machine was able to crawl the page in August 2003. Lots of the benchmarks around here are all gouged and scratched, maybe I should start looking for numbers in the scratches?

See here.

In the menu at the top of any Geocaching.com page, go under "Play" and then "Find Trackables". The first field is for trackable codes. You could also use the Geocaching app for Android or IPhone. How much easier do you want it?

Is "Not part of a power trail" necessary? I know some people don't like power trails, but do you really need to advertise your cache as not being part of one?

I just tried clearing my cache, but it's still happening. To be clear, this isn't something new. It's been happening for many months now (I'm not sure exactly when it started). After some testing, I've found it's only Firefox that it's happening with. It works properly in IE and Safari-on-IPhone. The problem is occurring with Firefox 8 on Windows Vista and 7. To make sure, I disabled the only add-on I have (an ad-blocker), but that isn't it. Here's what I see: I'm positive this has been mentioned in the past, but it was probably blown away with the demise of the Feedback site. I really wish we could at least have historical access to that site for a little while. I had my votes scattered across several different issues, but now I can't remember what they were.

You've already got the ISO file (it's the file you downloaded and showed here). There's no need to do any extracting. The next step is to burn the ISO to a DVD. In Roxio, under the Copy menu on the left, click on "Copy Guide". You should then have an option in the main window called "Burn Image to Disc" (see here). Point it to the ISO file you downloaded, pop in a blank DVD, and burn. Alternatively, you can right-click on the ISO file in Windows, and tell it to "Open with..." Roxio, at which point you should just have to pop in the blank DVD and burn. Once it's done burning, continue from step 4 and install. Let us know how you get on. Andrew

I remember seeing this mentioned somewhere before, maybe the Feedback site, but I can't find it on here. For quite some time now, the mini-map at the end of the description on cache listing pages will blank out under certain circumstances. To reproduce, do the following: 1. Bring up a cache page 2. Scroll down and confirm the mini-map is displaying properly 3. Click on a link that will navigate away from this page, such as a username, View Logbook, Past Trackables, etc. Not opening in another window/tab, but navigating within the existing window/tab. 4. Use your browser's Back function to go back to the cache page At this point, the mini-map will be blank. Reloading will not bring it back. If you originally navigated to the cache page from a link, going back and clicking that link again will bring up the cache page with the mini-map working. This is really annoying, because sometimes while looking at a cache page, you might want to click on another link to quickly check something out, then come back to the cache page, only to find the map isn't showing. Hopefully this can be fixed. Thanks Andrew The A-Team

I give up. I've looked for a while, but I can't find it. It's been months. Can you at least give a hint?

There will be once the GPX schema linked to by OpinioNate comes into effect. I like the changes outlined there. The change to a numerical lookup value for many fields will make future expansion much easier. Hopefully, once that schema is in use, they should be able to easily add the long-awaited "nano" size. I also like the addition of images associated with a listing. That will help greatly with offline apps.

Wow, now that you mention it, I'm seeing the same thing. I just went back to find some of my own photos, and they come up fine from the user gallery and cache gallery. Clicking on them from the cache page, though, brings them up tiny.

How? Look for the log that says "TNLBomb TFTC"?

...and do they want it in latitude, longitude, or a combination of both? I doubt the trail in question runs exactly N/S or W/E. "Clicks" are not a good way to measure distance.

But they still don't show in the corrected position on the Beta Map, and it's still limited to only Mystery and Multis. It most definitely needs to be extended to all cache types. Like GOF and Bacall, I noticed right away that the ordering of menu items on the front page is a little suspect. Shopping is now more important than community? What is this game coming to? Overall, this update doesn't seem to have created any new problems, but that's mainly because it really didn't do much. Most of the changes (other than the PQ changes) are just minor tinkering with the UI.

While I've been reading this thread, I keep thinking back to the discussion (argument?) that happened about events honouring Veterans on Nov 11. Basically what GS/the reviewers came out with was the matter of a "cause". Giving to charity or supporting Veterans can be viewed as "causes". The question was, "Where is the line between an acceptable cause and an unacceptable cause?" Groundspeak decided that rather than having subjective decisions made by reviewers about what would qualify as an acceptable cause, they disallowed any cause. That way, there's no "line" or grey area. If it is or is related to a cause, it cannot be in a listing. Here's a quote from that discussion, made by Groundspeak: In reference to the event in question, see RCA777's post here. I agree with him that the mention of a charity in the listing does constitute a "cause", and can change the perception of attendees. I don't see any reason why the event can't go ahead, but if you want to have it listed on Geocaching.com, the mention of "charity" will have to be removed. As far as consitency, can things not change over time? Are reviewers forced to apply rulings the same as they did in the past, or can rules/guidelines be reinterpreted? Maybe we should just go back to the way the guidelines were enforced 5 years ago? As long as reviewers apply the guidelines consistently from now, I don't see a problem. If you are seeing rulings that are inconsistent, and it bugs you, feel free to bring it to the attention of the reviewer or Groundspeak. Just remember that by doing so, you may be affecting someone else's enjoyment of geocaching. ...and that's how I see it.

I just browsed through your multis, and I couldn't figure out which one it is, so I'll ask. Did you make sure your final coordinates were listed as a hidden waypoint? If not, the reviewers would have no way to know where your final was. There are a lot of old caches around here where this is the case, so we end up with caches being as close as tens of meters apart. BTW, nice area you have there! Those look some great multis.

I just tried it, and it returned the correct result. I did a search with radius of 10 km, and in the resulting URL, the distance had been converted to the equivalent in miles (6.25).

I'm the new owner of the outer cache. The original owners hid what is now the outer cache, and then a while later hid the other cache with meters of it. I still have no idea why they placed the second one, but over time, it migrated closer and closer to the original. By the time I found it, the "new" one had been archived, but was still hidden inside the "old" cache. I kept this arrangement when I adopted the outer cache, so finders still get a 2-for-1 smiley! As for the topic, I've found one archived cache, and I have the coordinates for another one which I'll be looking for soon. Around here, we've had a very prolific group of cachers called TEAM KFWB GPS who had hidden over 350 caches since 2002, mostly in this area. Many are legendary, and some involve long, complicated puzzles and lots of difficult terrain. In March of this year, they decided to archive all of their remaining caches out of frustration with the changing face of Geocaching. Since these caches are so historical, and much-loved by the local caching community, an arrangement was worked out between our reviewers, Groundspeak, and TEAM KFWB GPS to allow the unarchiving and adoption of their caches. In the end, almost 200 caches were saved and given new owners and will bring joy to cachers for years to come! The few caches that didn't get adopted were either missing anyway, or have been picked up.

I'm not sure what to call them, but as far as the above, anyone becomes a cacher once they've actually found a cache. Muchers? (pronounced mush-ers)

I don't see it anywhere. Which attributes are you seeing above and below it? These are the ones I see: Recommended for kids Takes less than an hour Scenic view Significant Hike Difficult climbing May require wading May require swimming Available at all times Recommended at night Available during winter Stealth required Watch for livestock Field Puzzle Night Cache Park and Grab Abandoned Structure Short hike (less than 1km) Medium hike (1km-10km) Long Hike (+10km) Seasonal Access Tourist Friendly Front Yard (Private Residence) Teamwork Required

Well, it looks like she went out over the last couple of days and checked on her caches. She replaced some containers and logs, but didn't disable any that are missing, and no updating of coordinates. She even replaced some of her archived caches, which indicates she doesn't know what "Archiving" really entails.

@Moun10Bike Is there any way you guys can post a list of changes from the "hotfixes", like the one that was implemented today? It would be nice to have a list of the things that have been fixed/changed. I notice the Stat Bar has been fixed to not include Challenges, but it's hard to tell what else has changed. Thanks Andrew