Robin and June

What a breath of fresh air ;-) No, I never did quite make it to second-hand car salesman. My past is mentioned on www.caching.info - well worth a visit to cast light on what these postings are really about. I'm afraid most people on this newsgroup - including me, have no wish to keep going over the same old Lovelock cache chestnuts. You will find my sites through the search engines easily enough, and you will see I certainly don't need GeoCaching to promote GPSS. I'd rather keep each thread specific. This one is: "does anyone agree that any Lovelock caches should have been phsically removed without his consent, particularly since they were all archived on geocaching.com but live on the two other sites ?" Many Thanks. Robin Lovelock

please add us - Robin and June Lovelock

please add us - Robin and June Lovelock

I suggest we take a vote on whether the 35 Lovelock caches should be deleted - rather than remain archived as they have been since 5th November. Now that I do not have write access to these geocaching.com pages, they are rapidly drifting away from reality. The log I posted saying that they were missing and that I no longer had write access has also been deleted. These caches are obviously on several other geocaching sites which are kept up-to-date as they are replaced or changed. I'm relaxed on the final decision, and suggest that the moderaters inform me and Jeremy of their decision after a suitable period of discussion. Robin Lovelock

June and I have been criticised on this UK Newsgroup for planting 35 Lovelock caches between central London and Newbury, most of which are within 15 miles of me. I suggest those who think this is a large number look at the caches around this lat/lon: 47.617 -122.132 - Jeremy Irish's location in Belleview,WA,USA. I have a URL to a map out to 15 mile radius: but the URL would no doubt be censored :-) But this is not the most dense cluster in USA: I understand from a Geocacher friend on west coast of USA that bigger and denser clusters are to be found near San Francisco and Sacramento. Why not experiment via Buxley's maps ? Here is a quote from part of his email to me >>> The result is a diversity of caches, which range from a 1/1 to a 5/5, and a diversity of cachers - some are wheel-chair bound, some are competitive(highest number of first to find), some are eXtreme types, who enjoy the mental and physical challenges, and some like to plant caches more than finding them (I've met one cacher who has found 89 caches and planted 92). <<< I suggest we learn from those who have been doing it a little longer than us in the UK, and without GeoTrashing. Robin Lovelock

Many Thanks Rincewind & Luggage/TheAla/TheNorthumbriam. I suggest we keep this thread specific to the question "does anyone agree that any Lovelock caches should have been phsically removed without his consent, particularly since they were all archived on geocaching.com but live on the two other sites ?" I will respond to Cache Density on another thread. Robin Lovelock.

Pity that Tim's message and a few others did not import to the new forum. Here is my last one>>>>> Many Thanks Tim, for posting this message. As you know, I have recently visited two of your caches near Winchester, and you have visited almost all 35 of mine, logging a nice message on all. You also know that we spoke on the 'phone many months ago, after I follwed your email address to your business web site which gave your full name and contact details. I have always recognised that you have a low opinion of me, but I do respect you as a "good" geocacher. I will answer your questions now, but may I make a few points first. Some of these questions were answered many months ago, on my web site pages, but there is a policy - at local UK Newsgroup level I believe, of removing links to my own web site. Those who wish to find my web site or the two other geocaching web sites holding our 35 caches will need to look via search engines or other means. I hope that the words themselves are not edited. This may seem paranoid, but unfortunately it is possible. It is bad enough that a person can shout abuse on this newsgroup under one or more user names, hiding his identity, but it would also be nice if all text, including URLs remained unchanged. The fact that we have planted a large number of caches in the London to Newbury area, mostly within 10 miles of us, is no reason why others should not plant in this area. June and I would LOVE people to plant good caches in this area - we'd have less far to travel. We sure would like to spend more time walking and less time driving :-) All we ask is that these are quality caches and that they are planted responsibly, so that the hobby does not get a bad reputation with landowners and other authorities. The result would be that others would have difficulty planting caches. Again, this is a subject already dealt with in depth on my website. I don't think I've ever given reason for people to hurl the abuse that we've received on this newsgroup alone. Unfortunately mud sticks, and so I'm sure many of your readers (100 or 200 ballpark now?) do not have a good opinion of me. However, June and I are comforted by what we read on our logs - particularly the log books themselves, and by our conversations with people by email, phone or directly, who are not afraid to hide their identity. Perhaps the most significant point in all this is that Jeremy Irish has, in all this time, not deleted the Lovelock caches. It is only recently, when these caches went missing, that the Robin Lovelock account write access was removed (locally?) and they are therefore highly misleading. Deletion of these caches is easy, by whoever has write access - you simply delete the description text, and change things like lat/lon to zeros, titles to "deleted" etc. I'm sure Jeremy has even neater ways. In November 2001, following pressure from (an unknown) few on this newsgroup, Jeremy archived all the Lovelock caches. After protest from others, who had been happily visiting the caches, he un-archived them. After one of the moderators threatened to resign, he archived them again. When an American visited UK hoping to visit these caches, Jeremy suggested that he login and visit the archived cache pages using links from my site (which also has links to my backup pages and the two other geocaching sites). I've not had replies from Jeremy for some months, but understand that is a common problem and one that I have sympathy with him on (again explained on my site). Now let me answer your questions Tim: A. Would you be willing to use the Geocaching.com website purely as a hobby/pastime instead of an extension to your business ? - Yes, this has been the case since I first started Geocaching. The only connection is the indirect one that I have always openly declared: if Geocaching results in a massive increase in GPS product sales, it will also help my business. B. If Jeremy were to allow you to place new caches on this site, could you do so without mentioning your business or websites either on Geocaching.com website or in your caches and without requiring cachers to email you direct rather than through the 'mail bot' thereby compromising their privacy ? - Several points here, all of which I have no problem with, so long as I am protected from the sort of abuse I have already suffered. There is no immediate need to place new caches on this site, of course. C. Would you be willing to not put your advertising material (or allow others to do so on your behalf) into other peoples caches thereby using them as a vehicle for your advertising ? - No problem at all: our visiting card is not "advertising material" - if that is what you are thinking of: it gives links into our personal geocaching page hosted on my business web site, and links to all three major geocaching sites. It also has words promoting good practise. I'm sure no reasonable person would object to this card. If I could quote a URL here it would be to a picture of the card - but I can't. Are you happy with the 5(?) copies I dropped into your cache along with the torch, etc ? Or did you object to it Tim ? D. Would you agree not to flood an area with your caches (which would deprive others of placing caches in that area, common sense must prevail) ? - As mentioned earlier, my caches certainly do not prevent others planting theirs. Also, the density of my caches are far fewer than other clusters already, some of which you have visited, along with ours, logging nice words. You should see how dense the clusters of caches are in some places in the USA, or parts of Europe. If anyone wishes to plant caches within 20 miles of us in Sunninghill, I'll be glad to give what help I can, including donating materials such as boxes, cameras, and advice. Part of that advice, after our own experience, would be to publish the caches on all three geocaching sites, in addition to keeping their own backups. I think the average number of caches per user is 3:1 - see the front page of geocaching.com - however a very large number of Geocachers plant no caches at all, so it requires those that can to plant more than this average. There you go folks: as always I feel more comfortable speaking with those who do not hide their identity. One or two postings on this site certainly do not deserve a reply, but Tim certainly did. I know he has a very poor opinion of me, and objected strongly to me phoning him on his published work number, but despite his hostility to me, I do have a high opinion of his good practise of Geocaching - both what he publishes on the Net and what he writes in log books - including our own. Thankyou also to those who have spoken good sense here, even if you share the views of others about me - for whatever reason. I only have one question now, before this thread is deleted: Who of you think the Lovelock caches should have been physically removed without my consent ? Robin Lovelock 22 Armitage Court Sunninghill, Ascot Berkshire, SL5 9TA Tel: 01344 620775 email: gpss@compuserve.com Geocaching page URL - not given since it would be deleted anyway :-)