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HistDrew

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Posts posted by HistDrew

  1. Not the cache, but I think Street View caught some cachers.

     

    I was bookmarking http://coord.info/GC19GDF to get during my trip and went to street view to make sure I'd recognize the area. I'm pretty sure that if you look at the spot in front of the barn, then turn right so the barn is on your left, and then "walk" backwards away from it, you'll see a couple of people in a car just sitting in front of the spot. The car is in the same spot for an awfully long time. I'd bet that the google car caught a couple of geocachers trying to solve the first stage of the cache. Pretty cool.

  2. I've probably seen one that was grandfathered in, same as older Earthcaches that still claim a photo requirement.
    The ALR ban applies only to physical geocaches. It does not apply to grandfathered virtual caches or webcam caches, and it does not apply to EarthCaches.

     

    Yes, I know. I was giving an example of something grandfathered in. Plenty of ECs still have a photo requirement listed, even though that's not allowed. Nobody's made them change the wording of the EC. Likely the same thing as the cache I saw. Nobody made the CO change the description.

  3. No, saying "write something more than Tftc or I will delete your log" used to be legal. It was considered an Additional Logging Requirement (i.e. and ALR), and people could make you write a limerick in your log, or force you to have your picture taken holding the cache while standing on one leg, or whatever. You joined in 2009, they might have gotten rid of them then, or in 2010, I can't remember. :lol:

     

    That quote definitely addresses ALR's, including online logging. Even if it doesn't appear to on the surface.

     

    I've probably seen one that was grandfathered in, same as older Earthcaches that still claim a photo requirement.

  4. I seem to recall once seeing a cache page that said "write something more than 'TFTC' or I will delete your log." Are such warnings fair? It seems to me that the CO sets the conditions of what constitutes a smiley. So if the CO wants more than just a short "thanks" s/he could make that a condition of the find, no?
    Once upon a time, that was true. Cache owners could require logs containing at least a full sentence, or logs in limerick form, or logs with a photo of the finder wearing a funny hat, or anything else. But these "Additional Logging Requirements" are no longer allowed.

     

    From the guidelines:

     

    "For physical caches all logging requirements beyond finding the cache and signing the log are considered additional logging requirements (ALRs) and must be optional. Cache finders can choose whether or not to attempt or accomplish such tasks. This is a guideline change that applies to all logs written since April 4, 2009."

     

    True, yes. But that speaks to signing the log, not logging online. No?

  5. I seem to recall once seeing a cache page that said "write something more than 'TFTC' or I will delete your log." Are such warnings fair? It seems to me that the CO sets the conditions of what constitutes a smiley. So if the CO wants more than just a short "thanks" s/he could make that a condition of the find, no?

  6.  

    I agree totally. I don't usually think about it, but I believe this year I will start making an effort to reach out to new cachers proactively, and offer welcome and assistance. But (and I don't mean to turn this into an intro app bashing thread), intro app users are not required to provide a validated email address and therefore in many cases there is no way to contact them.

     

     

    Yeah, excellent point about the app being something that makes it more difficult to bring those people into the fold.

     

    And, to bring it back on topic--but refrain from too much app-bashing--it isn't as easy to write longer logs with the app. I sometimes log via my phone, and will sometimes use the voice-to-text component to write the kinds of logs I like. I like my logs to tell a bit of the story of that cache. When I do power trails I usually cut-and-paste some portion of it and then try to customize it to each cache, if possible. That's harder to do on the phone.

  7.  

    The biggest challenge now seems to be intro app users. I'm .still getting a lot of "That's one more find for me! Thanks so much for hiding this cache!" auto logs from newbies with only two or three finds showing on their profile. Unfortunately it seems a lot of these folks have never even visited the site and so have never been exposed to what a quality log should look like. To them Geocaching is nothing more than a "hit the Found button, move on to the next one" kind of game. If they stick around for awhile and get into the game for real, this tends to improve. It gets even better when they finally hide their first cache, and they begin to realize just how much effort goes into making a hide and what a bummer it is to get lazy logs on your own caches.

     

    Sounds like a great opportunity to welcome them to the community--both the local and the bigger ones--and help them with a bit of socialization. When I started caching I had two locals contact me to say "welcome to the game," which I thought was very nice. Now I do the same, and usually include a sentences about local practices, local gatherings, and a few other things.

  8. The last several logs from a virtual, for which the answers have been covered up since before the first person in this series (at the bottom) logged it. One of the "finders" has more than 50k finds, another has more than 20k. Tsk tsk.

     

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    :) Found this neat old virtual while caching around the area this morning with ****. Thanks **** for bringing me here. E-mail is on it's way. TFTV

     

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    [Posted Note] The plates with the answers are currently covered up, so it's not possible to log this right now.

     

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    :) We visited this area with lots of workers around putting up more and more Christmas lights. We dodged the equipment and went inside and got what we could. All of the information signs were covered up with cloths and children's Christmas ornaments. ****** even went down the stairs to see if she could find someone who knew the answers. Thanks for this cache.

     

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    :) Woohoooo!!!

     

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    :) I thought ***** was such a nice place. They already had most of the Christmas decorations outside which I'm sure will be pretty at night. On the inside they were still working so it was like an extra hard scavenger hunt for the answers today. TFTV & history!

     

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    :) Visiting *** today with ****. The *** is very scenic here. I hike alot at **** which is a different river. They had the Christmas Decorations out in the building today which made it more difficult to locate the answers but we got it done.

  9. I would be worried about annoying some fellow cachers, but I'm not worried about breaking any rules by deleting the logs. The rules say they have to sign THE log, not ANY log. By technicality, the throw down is a cache that was placed and violates the proximity rules and therefore is not a valid cache.

     

    Yeah but . . . . really? Deleting the log of someone who's completely innocent in all of this? That seems a bit excessive to me. What difference does it really make if someone, in all innocence, found the wrong container. There are two other guilty parties here, and neither of them are the subsequent finder.

     

    Don't take this the wrong way, I don't mean it to be snarky, but it seems to me that in the case of the subsequent loggers the person at fault is you. If someone threw down a log, then it's up to the CO to go out and fix things ASAP. If someone gets to the cache before the CO can fix things, they can hardly be blamed that A. someone threw down, and B. the CO couldn't get out quickly enough to fix things.

     

    Just my $.02.

  10.  

    I also realize that there are times when we cachers need to police our own. Imo, this is not one of those times. There can be a multitude of reasons why a cache accrues DNFs. Because of this, i wouldn't dream of getting involved from my armchair. A person needs to actually search for a cache and get a "feel" for themselves of what might be going on before they post a NM or NA log.

     

    I agree, we do need to take care of our local area as much as possible. You have to know the area, and know the cachers. My brother has a cache with 20+ DNFs and two finds [two people working together, logged it at the same time] in the middle of the DNFs. The cache has been there the whole time, and it's a 5-star difficulty for a reason. He told me how he hid it, and I think I'd still have trouble finding it. After the first dozen DNFs one might be tempted to armchair NM or NA it. Unless you know him and the area.

     

    Checking to see when the CO logged in last is a big part of it.

     

    As for reviewers, you have to know the reviewer, too. When I lived in England I posted a NA on a cache with a string of DNFs and the CO hadn't been on in over a year. The reviewer archived it the next day, no warning time. Not a big deal in this case, but I learned that the local caching culture there was a bit different than where I had lived before.

  11. 1) Armchair Needs Maintenance or Needs Archived Loggers. I'd never dream of logging same unless I'd actually went out and tried to find the cache.

     

    Yabbut . . . .

     

    I know this area of my state *very* well. And there have been more than a few times that I have DNFd a cache where the CO hasn't logged on in a long time (>1 year), or where I know the CO isn't an active cacher any more. So I put the cache on a watchlist. After a few more DNFs, if nobody else has, I'll put a NM on it without another visit. And then an NA. But that's only if I'm certain of the situation.

     

    Out of my area, though, never.

     

    Add to "irks," newbies who put a NA on a virtual that can still be logged. Saw that, where the newbie noticed the CO hadn't logged on for several years and the virtual had some nearby construction that made it temporarily unavailable.

  12. I don't think the CO gets any notification when you solve a puzzle and correct the coordinates, only if you actually post a log on the cache page. Some folks do post a Note occasionally to let the CO know they've solved it and will be going out to look for it soon (without mentioning the coordinates in the log, of course, that would be a spoiler). I don't own any puzzle caches myself so I couldn't say for sure.

     

     

    Ah, OK. This makes sense. I own a couple of mystery caches, but I don't know if anyone's ever used that tool on the page for mine.

     

    In this case I've solved about a dozen or so from one CO, and he doesn't use a link to a geochecker. So, I sent a message with all the solutions asking for confirmation. He was very helpful. But it's also nice to simply be able to download them straight into the GPS instead of doing manual changes.

     

     

    Andrew

  13. Newbie question here. I'm just now getting into finding more puzzle/mystery caches. I have a run of about 20 that I've solved and am trying to figure an easier way to change the coordinates than by doing it manually in my GPS. On each cache page there is a section, of course, near the top that shows the coordinates. There's also a pencil icon that allows a user to change the coordinates.

     

    If I use the pencil and enter new coordinates, does it change it just for me, or does it send an alert to the CO? I don't want to mess with this if it's going to screw things up for the page or the CO, but it would be wondrous if it would change the coordinates just for me.

     

    Advice and help appreciated.

  14. Reading these responses about keeping your hands in sight, not making sudden moves etc makes me even more glad I live in the UK. Good general advice though, I was wandering around a park in Cardiff the other evening with my other half and was getting increasingly worried about looking suspicious, particularly with kids around.

     

    Why? Do people not try to kill other in the UK? Are there not things people want to hide? I don't care where you are, but doing anything that might make a cop think you have a weapon is a bad idea. So is making any movement that looks like you are trying to run.

     

    Because police in the US are far more quick to pull out a taser, baton, pepper spray, or a gun and then use it than in Europe or the UK. Sorry to say it, but that's from lots of experience living and traveling abroad. I've sat in a car in Peru watching a companion berate a police officer for pulling us over for an inspection. Screaming, shouting, cursing and the cop, who just watched, waited, and walked away. I was terrified. You'd never get away with that in the US. It was hard to explain to the Peruvian, afterwards, what freedom of speech means in the US.

     

    When geocaching, calmly explain things and tell the truth. If you aren't trespassing you've got nothing to worry about.

  15. True story. I was caching in Tennessee and stopped to grab what I thought would be a quick one. It had been a long day, and I had nearly fallen off a 70+ foot cliff trying to get to a nearby cache. So, I was tired and ready to be done. As I got out of my car, which I parked in an odd place, a police officer pulled up and asked what I was doing. He seemed pissed to me. I said "geocaching," and gave him my standard boilerplate explanation. He gruffly said something about parking near heavy traffic, and being careful, etc. I apologized and started to get back in to my car. He said "Well, hurry up and go get it. It's on the telephone pole, 3 feet up, on the other side. It's a micro." Then he laughed, told me to have fun, and drove away.

     

    Honesty is always the best policy.

  16.  

    This isn't particularly irksome to me personally (I'm immune to poison ivy and oftentimes don't realize it's there until someone else points it out), but I do find this puzzling. We have a local who seems to find it amusing to bury the container in a patch of poison ivy and thorns, and sees it as kind of a "signature." It's as if the person is saying "Finding it isn't enough, I wasn't you to get injured retrieving it."

     

    Keep in mind you can gain or lose "immunity" to urushiol.

    Also, simply brushing by the leaf doesn't necessarily mean you've been exposed to the oil...I believe the leaf/stem needs to be damaged or crush to bring that to the surface for exposure. I've walked through PI numerous times in my searches, brushing by it without any effect. Any time I accidentally touch it with my hands, of course I wipe them well with some hand wipes I have in my car and then follow that up with a good hand washing with cold water as soon as possible. I have yet to get the rash, though...but I don't assume I'm immune and I know repeated exposure increases the possibility I will suffer for it.

     

    Yeah, I've been warned about all this. I've brushed by the stuff, trampled and kicked it in bare feet, used the vines as handholds when climbing--just about everything short of eating or smoking it. I'm one of the very lucky few. My wife is not. She's very sensitive to it and has gotten it from touching my clothing.

     

    It's funny, though, because when I was young I was sensitive to it. That sensitivity seems to have gone away. I've read that while people can become sensitive to it, people can also lose sensitivity as well.

     

    I'm sure one day I'll wake up covered in it again. Circle of life.

  17. Placing a cache in or around poison ivy. I've located two caches lately where the only poison ivy around was right at the GZ. It's easy to get "target fixation", becoming so engrossed in locating a small cache way out in the woods that I fail to notice the evil stuff until I've already walked through it. Then I have to carefully strip and wash everything, including my shoes and laces, the minute I get home. So far, I've been lucky. I recently read a log where a woman had taken her granddaughter to find her first cache. When I later arrived at the GZ, I found poison ivy all around it. That little girl may well remember her first geocaching experience for the wrong reason.

     

    This isn't particularly irksome to me personally (I'm immune to poison ivy and oftentimes don't realize it's there until someone else points it out), but I do find this puzzling. We have a local who seems to find it amusing to bury the container in a patch of poison ivy and thorns, and sees it as kind of a "signature." It's as if the person is saying "Finding it isn't enough, I wasn't you to get injured retrieving it."

  18. [Although not quite on topic, I thought this fitting for this thread.]

     

    When a cacher sent their answers, I reply with a thank you and sent the 'correct' answers back. Now we've received our own answers from someone; They copied the 'correct' answers from someone else and sent those to us...

     

     

    And you're absolutely sure it was a cut and paste thing?

     

    I'd reply by writing "Usually when someone sends in their answers I reply with all the correct answers in a list. You seem to have copied that list from someone else. Can you give me an idea of why they are identical?"

     

    And see what s/he writes back.

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