ZeekLTK
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Posts posted by ZeekLTK
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(Some people don't log any DNFs, and I'm OK with that decision, too.)
I don't think that's "OK". DNF is supposed to help warn people that "hey, maybe this thing is missing" and if there are enough DNFs in a row, "hey, maybe the owner should go check to see if it's actually there". So if you looked for it and didn't find it, log the DNF!
Plus, by not logging a DNF you are wasting other people's time. I will not go to a cache if the last 4-5 logs are DNF, so then I won't be looking for something that (probably) isn't there. I imagine there are plenty of others who check for DNFs before going to search. If no one logged a DNF though, how would I know to avoid it?
Be considerate of others and log a DNF if you couldn't find it!
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The person who finds it will log it and will "take possession" of it. So just be patient, the problem will solve itself when someone is pleasantly surprised to find the trackable in the cache that they weren't expecting.
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I found 76 caches in 2007-8, took a bit of a break with 15 caches from 2009-15. I've found 51 caches this year, and not a single TB or GC. The difference is amazing to me. 8 or 9 years ago, it felt like I could expect a trackable or two in most caches I found.
I used to find and move trackables all the time in like 2010-2012. I started to find fewer and fewer in 2013 and I honestly don't think I have seen a single one in the last 2 years.
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How inexpensive/accessible are RFID chips these days? I feel like we should be at the point, or at least approaching it, where it would be feasible to put some kind of chip in the container of a cache so that you can track it if it does go missing. I've only just thought of this though, so I've never looked into it. Wonder if anyone else has?
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It's difficult to convey what "Do Not Keep Me" means. I don't know why takers can't understand the phrase, (nor the "place it within 2 weeks" etiquette) but they can't. Get the word out that if people are wondering aloud on the Forum why a TB isn't being placed and logged, a taker should re-evaluate what he's doing with Trackables. And that he should consider logging "Discover" instead from now on, and leave these alone in the cache.
It's not always so simple. In 2013 we were preparing to move from Michigan to Maine. So I grabbed as many travel bugs as I could find to bring with me, as that would help put a lot of miles on them. Once we got to Maine, I put the travel bugs in various caches that we found. However, after I placed the last one I realized that my list wasn't empty, it said I still had one more left to place. I just couldn't find it anywhere though, must have gotten packed into another box.
It's been almost 3 years now and I still haven't been able to find that darn bug. The site still lists that I have it, and I'm sure I do. Where exactly, that's a tougher question to answer. I always look for it when we go through a box that hasn't been touched in a long time, but unfortunately it just hasn't shown up yet.
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Maybe a brief note to a Reviewer or Groundspeak saying that the CO would like others to do maintenance for him (with the "nasty" email), might get it a Temp Disable until he comes to his senses.
On the other hand, we've received NM logs, to find that nobody bothered to flip the log sheet over, or (in one case) use the other side of the log book pages...
Meh, it happened almost 3 years ago and the cache has since been archived (I wonder why? lol).
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It's hilarious how mad some people get over a perceived slight of an NM log.
We once found a cache that had a completely full log book. Well, it was full after we signed it. I logged the find saying: "Easy find on the way up to XXX. We used the very last spot in the log though - it's completely FULL now!" and then logged a "Needs Maintenance" just saying: "Log book is full."
Seemed simple enough, just letting him know he needs to go replace it soon. But a few days later the cache owner then sent me a very nasty email, very upset that I had logged a "Needs Maintenance" and basically telling me that I should just replace the paper myself. Pretty sure that's not my job...
Then, 12 days later, the very next person who found it also logged a "Needs Maintenance" saying the same thing: "Log is very full needs replacing."
I wonder what kind of email that guy got. lol
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I'm with you. At one time all you needed to do was turn on your GPS and 90 percent of the time it would take you to some place special.
I have hidden most of my caches with that in mind, to bring cachers to special places. To find most of my caches a round trip hike of a mile or more, sometimes 4-5 miles is required. The logs are pretty rare these days, but the few people who enjoy those sorts of caches still seem to really enjoy them.
Ten years ago I couldn't keep up with the logs on these caches. Now I may get a handful of logs a month on those caches together, even though I still own over 200 active caches.
I'm not interested in getting 100 finds on a 7-Eleven dumpster cache in a month. Now I'm lucky if I receive 100 logs a year spread out among my 200+ caches, but I keep them there for those who enjoy that sort of cache. There are some cachers who are still into that and it is that segment that I cater to.
I'm not alone, they are out there. Lots of them, but it takes a lot of winnowing through the chaff to find them.
You also have to consider that once someone has found a cache, they aren't going to try to find it again. As time passes, there are simply fewer and fewer people in any given area who haven't already found the local caches. At that point, the only way someone new would look for the cache is either if another local started geocaching or, much more likely, a geocacher from somewhere else is passing through AND has the time to look for your cache.
Since most traveling geocachers are typically on a time constraint, a lot of them simply won't be able to attempt to find a good hide that takes a while. They'll opt for something quick and easy so that they can continue going where ever they are headed.
For example, when we drove from Florida to Maine, we made sure to get a find in each state. However, we also made sure to try to go for the easiest possible finds, because we weren't about to spend 2-3 hours in Georgia looking for 1 cache, or multiple caches if we wound up with some DNFs. We just wanted one that we could find on a 5 minute break and then get back on the road so that we could get to Virginia before midnight.
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Also I will speculate that the reason this is so important is that the OP has one of those tracking devices on his leg and was not allowed to leave the town of Newark. So he saw this specific cache pop up which said that it was in Newark, so he was excited that there was finally a new cache to find in his limited area of mobility. But once he got to the GZ his device went off and he discovered that he had violated his probation because it was actually not inside Newark! After 5 more years in prison, he is finally back out and is still furious that the thing that did him in was some guy carelessly writing "this cache is in Newark" when clearly, based on the events that unfolded when he visited the cache, that is not accurate!
Sorry for the bad luck OP! Did you at least find the cache before they found you? Or did they at least let you log a DNF before taking you in?
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I mean, things like mentioning the wrong town (and only "technically") I don't think are that big of a deal. But I wish people would pay attention to the geography when placing caches near borders. There is one cache that I found on the Michigan side of the Michigan-Indiana border, but the owner incorrectly marked it as being an "Indiana" cache. So now on sites like project-gc.com my stats are slightly off, since it counts the cache as what the owner marked it, rather than where it actually was.
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See the bolded part of my comment. Supporting apps requires developers that are 'extra' compared to supporting the website or the database. App developers cost money. If Basic Members want to see everything in the app, then they should help support the cost of the app with a recurring fee. A one-time payment of $10 does not contribute as much as a recurring $30 payment.
Just an FYI - when I first started caching, the first couple apps that I downloaded were not the official app. When someone searches 'geocaching' in the Google Play Store, then a full page of apps is displayed and they could certainly try any of them. If they read the reviews of the apps, which they should do anyway, then they will likely end up not loading the official app anyway.
Sure, recurring $30 > $10, but $10 + ad revenue > $0.
$0 is what you get when your app sucks so much that even though it is the "official" app, people still don't use it (such as your example). So Groundspeak isn't getting $30 recurring payments, they are getting passed over and people are downloading other apps that work better. Those other apps are getting the ad revenue that Groundspeak COULD be getting. So what is the point of hiring those expensive developers to create an app that your primary target demographic (people who want to geocache) are not going to use?
IMO the 1.5/1.5 restriction makes absolutely no sense because, as others have pointed out, anything other than a lamppost cache is generally higher than that. We've been caching since 2009 and were without our phone for a weekend, so we tried to download the new app on someone else's phone to use, only to find out that it was essentially worthless because of the restriction. Every single cache we had planned to get that weekend was higher than 1.5/1.5, so we couldn't use the app to find any of them! We immediately deleted it and downloaded a different app instead.
So what is the point of it? Why not make an app that people will actually use? Are there that many people who do pay the $30 to make an app specifically for them? Because I just don't see how a non-paying member would ever find this one useful. And that means Groundspeak is missing out on a huge demographic that they could at least get ad revenue from, and instead they are channeling those people to other apps, and by doing so they get absolutely nothing out of it. Because previously, you would always hit something on Groundspeak - either the website or the app - to log a cache. Now you can completely skip interacting with Groundspeak at all by using these other apps and still geocache. By having this restriction on their own app, they are basically encouraging people to skip interacting with them. To me, it doesn't make any (financial or logical) sense.
They should want to be the primary source for geocaching, to get all traffic to come through them, but this is doing the opposite, it's pushing people away.
*Edit: lol, it automatically capitalizes the word Groundspeak. Interesting.
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Usually this happens when logging from the app. Out in the woods, service isn't great, so sometimes it looks like the log did not submit. So you click submit again and finally get the confirmation screen... and then later (if) you look at the cache on the website you see that it posted both times that you clicked submit.
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I ran into a muggle problem today. I needed to drop off a TB and thought this ammo can on the way into town would work great. So I come around the corner and there's a car parked there with this guy just sitting in it. They do that there sometimes; I don't know why. Then, when I'm returning home, there's a group of homeowners hanging around nearby. I would obviously attract unwanted attention if I got out of the car right in front of them. Needless to say, I still have the TB.
The guy sitting in the car could have been a geocacher waiting to make sure there weren't any muggles around - and then he saw you, assumed you were a muggle, and continued to wait.
Or maybe he actually had the ammo can in his car and he was in the process of signing it?
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You can always take matters into your own hands and "muggle" the cache yourself, then report it missing and hope the CO is too lazy to replace it.
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I'm not sure what you expect them to do. The point of a trackable is that if you come across the tracking number, you can go online and put that number in to log it. There is no way that the website can determine HOW someone came across that tracking number in the first place. There is no way to know if someone parked next to you and took a picture of the number so that they could log it later, or if someone came across that picture and also decided to log it, even though they never saw your van in person. As far as the code/website is concerned, they are both doing the exact same thing: typing in the tracking number.
If your number is out there for anyone to see, then I don't understand getting mad when people log it. I have a travel bug that I use just to track my own personal miles and I have never had someone else discover it, because I've never shared the tracking number with anyone.
Those seem to be the only two realistic options: either never share your tracking number with anyone, or do share it and assume that anyone in the world will be able to find it.
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I recently noticed that the description of the Michigan state badge says:
The "Wolverine State" is comprised of two peninsulas, the Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula. It is famously the heart of the American car industry. Michigan has the longest freshwater shoreline in the world.
The issue is that it uses the term "Wolverine State", which is incorrect. The state's primary nickname is the "Great Lakes State", as seen on the national currency that was created back when a quarter was made for all 50 states. The "Michigan quarter" uses the official nickname:
Is there any way this souvenir description can be updated to use the proper nickname?
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What do you like most about challenge caches?
I like that it adds more to the game than simply going to specific coordinates to find a single cache (ok sure, puzzles and multis also do this, but challenges seem to be even bigger than those, which I like). It is a nice way to tie together many different caches that would otherwise not be connected in any way.
What do you not like about challenge caches?
I don't like how some challenges do not make sense for the location that they are in. For example, there is a challenge cache nearby that requires users to have found a cache at an elevation of over one mile above sea level. However, there are NO caches in this entire state (Maine) that are a mile above sea level. So this seems like a bad location for such a challenge.
I also don't like how arbitrary some of the locations of the actual caches are. For example, there is a challenge about "finding a cache in every state along the Atlantic Ocean". Awesome, I have found a cache in all 14 states that border the Atlantic! ... but the actual cache is in Miami, FL. As I said, I live in Maine... so even though I've completed this (difficult) challenge, I still can't log it because it's too far away. Lame! For cases like this, I would like to have some ability to log it "virtually", because I shouldn't have to go all the way to Miami in order to officially complete it.
What would you like to see changed about challenge caches?
As I said above, I would like to see more "virtual" challenge caches so that users can attempt to complete many different challenges rather than just a few local ones (which, as pointed out with the "mile high" one, may not even be local either).
If you could describe your favorite challenge cache type, what would it be?
I would like to see more location-specific challenges like the historical county challenges in (southern) Michigan. The gist of those are that the user needs to find 5 of the 10 oldest active caches in the county (or something like that) and then they can log that county's challenge cache. Then there is a cache for certain regions (if you've completed the challenge in [these five counties] then you can log this other challenge cache", etc.), which I think is fun. It gives you a lot to work on in a relatively small area, but it's also straight forward and includes many different ways of completing it. I would like to see this concept used more.
I think these are the best ones because they don't require nearly as much traveling to complete, but I do understand that they are also harder to set up and verify. So I guess it would be nicer if there was a better way to sort "locally". I feel like a lot of the challenges are "too big" because it is easier to check if you've found a cache in 14 different states than it is to see if you've found a cache in 14 different cities that are all in the same county, etc.
What types of challenge caches do you avoid?
I avoid the ones that are too arbitrary or just too hard. For example, the mile high one mentioned earlier. Sure it would be nice to eventually log it, but I'm not going to go out of my way to travel to a location that has a high enough altitude in order to be able to complete it.
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(3) In my judgment, and in my judgment alone, the follow-up email to the cacher was unhelpful. I think a "friendly" warning along the lines of "please don't cross private property without permission when caching in the future", coupled with a promise to amend the cache's description, would have been more effective.
Unprovoked "nasty" emails from a cache owner to a log are usually never helpful.
I came across a micro in which the log sheet was so full that I basically couldn't sign it. Just had to scribble my initials partially over someone else's signature (since it was a cache several hours from where I live, I couldn't just wait and come back another time) in order to get it on there.
When I got home to log it, I noticed that the last 2-3 logs had also mentioned that the log was full. Since several weeks had passed since the first person had noted that, I logged a "needs maintenance" to get the owner's attention.
Rather than going to replace the log, he sent me a nasty email basically saying that if I was so concerned about it, I should replace it myself. lol
And what's the big deal? You put a cache out, then you're mad that you have to maintain it? lol
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It's gotten ridiculous how much people cheat in order to say they got a "FTF" - it pretty much makes it meaningless IMO.
For example, I was browsing caches in my area to go find and came across one where the guy literally wrote that the only reason he placed it is because his friend had a streak going (had at least 1 FTF every month for [however many months]) and it was almost the end of January and the guy didn't have a FTF yet, so he was placing the cache just so his buddy could log a FTF on it.
At that point, how is such a streak even worthwhile if you have to cheat to keep it going? Is that really "fun"?
I would have loved to read that someone else got a FTF on that one, and the guy's streak ended anyways (lol) but I bet the log was already signed before it was even published. So lame. -
I found a similar series a few years ago. This was the one I found, I took it from Michigan to Maine to help it win the "first to the east coast" contest.
http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?tracker=TB420KH
I never did find any of the other ones.
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I started geocaching in 2009, and although I never found a ton of caches (I just passed 200 total this year), I seemed to find a travel bug fairly regularly (in fact, I think that was the aspect that got me "hooked" - I'm always traveling, so I liked taking one with me and dropping it off in a new state). But lately, in the past year or so, I've noticed that I'm not finding hardly any TBs any more (I haven't found one at all this year yet! And I've found more caches this year than I have in any other year before!). Are there just not as many out there? Or are there so many geocachers now that they just get taken immediately when they get dropped in a cache?
It's also difficult to even see what caches actually have travel bugs in them, because lots of caches are marked as having a travel bug, but they don't actually have one. I think this is also making it harder to find them, because you can't even reliably look for the "has TB" icon - it's usually a false positive.
Has anyone else noticed this as well? Any idea why this is happening?
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Does anyone know what the following Acronyms could be?
RtFTF = ?
BM = ?
HTH = (besides from "Hope this/that helps or happy to help")
GOAT = ?
JOMBWGH = ?
TFTFPC = ?
GOAT = greatest of all time?
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ec1warc1, the meaning of a couple acronyms change depending on how they are used.
For instance, the acronym "TFTC" translate literally to "Thanx For The Cache".
If used as spice to a well written log, the translation is accurate.
But if that acronym is the entire log, the translation changes to "Your Cache Really Sucks".
That's not true.
I sometimes cache with my wife. We each have our own accounts. I'll write up my log for the find (using the word "we" to describe what happened) and then, instead of repeat the same thing, she'll just log "TFTC".
Just one example, at least, of using that while not meaning to diss the cache.
In fact, I would rather people just post "TFTC" instead of copy/paste a long winded, yet generic, explanation about their whole trip that they put on EVERY cache they find that day - which usually has no specific info about the actual cache(s) they post about.
"Today we left at 6:30 AM and drove 200 miles up the coast. It was a lot of fun to see everything and find a few caches along the way. This was one of 36 that we found today" - is, IMO, a much more boring/worse log than to just say "TFTC", since it has absolutely nothing to do with the cache itself. It is especially annoying when you see the exact same log over and over again on all the caches in a certain area.
If you don't have anything to say about the cache, or you did too many too remember them individually, then just write "TFTC" and move along.
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I've been using this: http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html
But you do have to convert to either DD.DDDD or DD MM SS
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How many people don't read cache descriptions?
in General geocaching topics
Posted
It depends. If we are traveling and just looking for a quick cache in order to get a find in a new area that we would otherwise never visit or stop in (aka, just driving through), we typically just pull up the app and look for the closest cache off the highway. All we check is the "recent log" list to make sure it's actually there. If needed, we'll look at the "hint". Rarely will we look at the description; just don't have time for it in those cases.
I'm much more likely to read the description if I'm using the website to look up caches beforehand or even after the fact; if I didn't log it on my phone and now I'm back at home logging everything on the website then I'll finally read the description at that point, even though I made the find several hours earlier.
If you really want people to read your description, make it a puzzle or multi-stage cache - so that it will not be possible to find the cache without reading the description.