thebruce0

Reviewers can make mistakes, sure, or not be very good reviewers at all. Remember, all reviewers are dogs.

How about, let's give it a day - almost every time something new happens that takes place worldwide, somewhere someone will say it's screwed up, usually from various timezones If there is a legitimate bug, it'll get fixed, and almost certainly any qualifying actions taken during the 'buggy time' will still be counted. Well first off, it'd be good to check each day, if you're really concerned about it counting, especially considering how little wiggle room you may feel there is with this one. Secondly, "indeed getting close" doesn't make it a streak. Of course, 20 days out of 28 days means there will effectively be at least some streaks, but the requirement is not "20 consecutive days". And if you're not confident ALs will count, then back those days up with an actual geocache find. Or, if you find logging immediately isn't working, then find the caches but log them (for the proper dates) next week, or at the end of the month. You don't have to technically log your finds on the same day that you find the cache - as long as the log is dated correctly. Guaranteed win: You could rack up 20+ days of geocache finds and log'em all on the last day of the month, when you know any technical kinks have been worked out. And if you can demonstrate that you logged them correctly and still didn't get the souvenir, then that's a bug I'm sure they will correct for you, because you can demonstrate you absolutely did follow instructions and complete the task. Just enjoy the spirit of the challenge

Oh everything that makes sense has been guessed who knows if there could be multiple meanings or really just none and the fun he has is just in not telling anyone

Agreed. It seems more efficient to instead of provide a whitelist of what is allowed rather than a blacklist of everything that's at some point decided as restricted... Other causes for their existence now may occasionally be an exception, a container change since publish, or the cache being intentionally misdescribed... If someone is concerned, bold, and brave and decides to report what they find, the reviewer can decide if action should be taken or if it was permitted as is.

First, if there's no issue with the cache, then answering reviewer questions shouldn't be a problem or an issue. Rather it should be great if he can talk to a reviewer and confirm that the cache is good to go; that firms his stance and the cache status. Second, if his initial response to your OAR log is anger given what you said, that is not a nice CO and I wouldn't bat an eye if the reviewer decided to do something about the cache. This is another reason why having a strong community is so important! More local events, let cachers meet each other and get a sense of who each other are and what their ethics are. Even ideally build a good rapport with others around. hmph.

Yes I recall that question arising with the new rule. It was to dissuade the magnetic sheet style flat stuck to a surface and exposed to rain and moistures, things like that. If a log is in a baggie or makeshift 'flatpack' wrap that can close, it's still permissible.

And to echo the point - the container does not belong to geocaching.com. The container belongs to the owner. It would be, technically, illegal for the listing service to claim they own the item. At best they are a middleman between the property owner and the container owner. Given the state of the hobby, it would be just as wrong to assume that a random individual contacting the website about a container and ranting and raving about it being on private property actually IS the property owner, and not someone with a personal vendetta against the container owner. Thus, the process for adequately proving you are the property owner. If there is enough drama, then of course all it takes is an archival of the listing, but that will not stop people from potentially doing what the property owner doesn't want them to do. That is not the realm of the website. That is the realm of the container owner who - assuming everything is accurate - trespassed in the first place. But as mentioned, it's been there over 20 years and an issue has just been raised. Sometimes properties change hands. Sometimes permissions are forgotten. Sometimes decisions change. The most effective way for a property owner to take the first step is to understand what geocaching is, first, and then if still desired, contact admin at geocaching.com and/or the owner of the listing, and respectfully demonstrate legal ownership of the property and the request that the listing be removed. Beyond that, business of physical items on property and access to property is entirely between the property owner and the container owner.

Yes, via messenger the website may send an email notifying the CO of the new message with its content, but the Email option via website, with your own email kept hidden, will go straight to their email account. I typically do Messenger only, because of the email notification the CO should get. If there's an issue, then I'd just do the Email form. If they don't take either of those means, that's their problem.

...but to add, I do agree that I don't believe they can require you to email an address to log the EC. Just offering a patchwork solution (and general advice for similar situations ;P)

I think its use in this way is precisely why we should be glad there's no stat to go with it. I'd say, because of its innocuous implementation, any "misuse" has just as little spotlight as actual proper use. So when its used properly, it has a positive effect, though really only relevant to the person reading who finds it of value, while when it's used improperly there is no incentive to continue using it properly because there's no fanfare for it. I think the feature is great as is - don't give it more visibility. That'll affect the growth of its misuse more than the growth of its proper use. Anyone who doesn't care about it loses nothing by ignoring it and it virtually no impact on the use of the website.

I think simply seeing the list with the 'dotted' souvenir thumbnail should be sufficient to clear the dot. If an 'unviewed' thumbnail appears on the screen in the list, then clear its flag. Or, have a 'mark all as seen' link/button

When I first started I thought I was so witty reducing my log to TFTCTNLNSL... took forever to figure out what YAPIDKA meant... someone nearby consistently uses UPB in logs and titles but won't confirm what it means... also AYBABTU, for years, which I'm still not sure of

Technically it's not a streak. It's just up to any 20 days within the challenge period. Theoretically someone could choose to place a small powertrail or series in their area for others to find to publish in June - no one will have found them, so everyone can willingly pick them off one by one for as many days as needed.

I've been all about challenges for years. We started the Challenge Talk podcast in 2020 which is great for challenge enthusiasts. Personally there are so many challenges in Ontario now that I'm not so much working focused on specific challenges any more, but passively working on any I don't qualify for yet As mentioned above, I have a doc that lists all the challenges I know of and I periodically update them all with current progress, and whether they're qualified (then log it as such with a note); and if I sign in first I mark it in the doc as found as I know once it's qualified I can just log it found. Going on trips is prime time to prioritize finding qualifying caches. But I also have them sorted by priority. Dates needing find specific qualifying caches go straight on my calendar so I know "today I've got to find 5 caches, 2 letterboxes, 1 Other, and a 3.5/4" for example. If I'm traveling then region and location becomes priority. Any rare caches in the vicinity of travel go on the stop-and-find list. Especially region oldests, jasmer caches, rare DTs, or even just properties that don't appear nearly as often near to home. Rarely ever on a trip do I just casually find caches. There are too many and the vast majority don't help towards any qualifications. Even so, before casual caching I'd be searching for high favourite points for the best chance at maximizing my travel's experiences. Challenges give that extra goal, a new layer on top of regular geocaching (like geocaching on top of the real world :P)

Create a gmail account for spam use. Simple. I have a private email and more than one alternate email, and I used to be more vigilant about not using my personal in questionable locations to minimize spam, but it still comes in. Now I just white-list trusted emails and visually scan and trash anything else. Nonetheless, it's always good to have a secondary non-personal email. And this is a perfect use for it.

See that's an idea I could get behind. It still puts the user behind a pay-wall (to reduce the 'vandalism' aspect) but if it's a one-time pay to "go advanced" as it were, without going Premium subscription, that gives HQ yet another way to get a little bit side $, but it would also benefit against the confusion of official-app-only beginner restrictions vs premium membership... I wonder if anyone at HQ had thought of something like that? The one-time pay would be only for the official app (since that's the app that restricts advanced-non-premium), so it would be an app flag, not a brand new geocaching user account flag. Only app devs would need to worry about it... right?

There's the classic double-sided bottle cap style "world's shortest multi" with one side to unscrew to "open first", directing you to open the other side which held the micro/nano logsheet.

Same concept I used when planning my road trip in Iceland. Between parking locations I noted the estimated drive time (usually rounding up) Add estimated walk time, whether it's a P&G or hike Add estimated search time allowance Add buffer for just enjoying the location (some sites are just fantastic!) Add a bit of extra buffer time I made a sheet that programmatically had all that info, and showed date/time into and out of each stop as well, which I could update while on the road. I had stop prioritized, so if I was behind, I could skip low priority, while ensuring the high priority wouldn't be behind schedule. Even then, one day a mountain climb for a cache took much longer than anticipated (underestimated effort required! lol) and it flipped the switch on the rest of the trip; timing was off for time-sensitive stops the next two days and it would be way too rushed to get around the island in time. Decided to double back. But it allowed me to visit sites I'd decided to skip or hadn't added. The 2nd half was actually a little more adventurous, I'd say Anyway, these days there's cachetur.no which effectively does much of all of that automatically. And there are loads of tutorials on how to use that website available to absorb.

I break out my kayak TB for the summer, out of my collection, so it can be discovered and travel. Then I drop it back into Collection where it can only be discovered. I keep my 'phone TB' out all the time and my car TB. I just get used to moving in and out of Collection depending on whether I want it to Visit listings or not. *shrug* But a feature to allow Visits as well as Discovers while never leaving owner hands would be convenient, for sure.

Apart from the tag-in-geocache idea, it could now be used as a sort of Beacon because it can contain additional information that anyone with a smartphone can read - I do believe Android can also read the details when close by, though the find-my ping isn't automated with android. Just like a beacon you can add a tag in the forest, and when close enough, read the information for the next stage. As for pinging privacy, anyone hiking a trail nearby with an iOS device would also set off pings to the owner (if not disabled by the owner). And any pings are entirely anonymous so there's no way to know "It's a geocacher!" for certain, let alone who. The privacy concerns, IMO, are minimal at worst. Personally I'd find more value in it as a smartphone agnostic "Beacon" tool than something inside the geocache to track how many visits to it itself... but that's me

I see FPs as a combination of both "I think this cache is worthy of my FP as an indication to others" [for whatever reason], and "I'm marking this to remember the experience which I had that no one else may ever have". There may be others of course, but I believe those are the two biggest uses, and given their dramatically different implications, the value of the FP score is generally not as helpful... But I do think more FPs are given knowing the public perspective than purely for personal records. I was just about to mention the Wilson score - https://project-gc.com/Statistics/TopFavWilson is one tool for it.

Just bookmark geocaching.com/play/leaderboard in your mobile browser. An in-app view would be nice, but the 'one-click' is as easy a browser bookmark.

Absolutely, you can host an event for most any reason you'd like. And if you want to celebrate your anniversary, I'm sure people would love to attend. Now if you're asking for gifts, that might be a little much But even a flash mob will attract people just for the sake of attending an event... go for it! Some people even host for milestone finds, like if the event will be the host's 10,000th smiley, for instance. Have a ball!

I'm just happy there aren't challenge caches for Adventure completions. They can be included in general count challenges with geocache listings (smiley counts), but they can't be explicitly listed as a required qualifier. Yet couch-claim AL geoarts and trails are still trending. =/

Because ALs that don't follow guidelines should be reported, just like geocaches that don't. But of course do not report just because you "don't like" something. That is also an abuse of available features. Power trails of thousands of pill bottles (in and of themselves) do not break guidelines, therefore they should not be reported. AL locations that do not require visiting a location are not the same as a power trail pill bottle.