DadOf6Furrballs

As of this morning, 313 from the front porch of our palatial estate here in the Black Hills.

If you attended it, yes. That's why that log type is called "Attended". With rare exceptions, almost everyone I know also logs their own hosted events the same way. Those tiny few that don't may or may not log it as a note, but that's a personal choice with them.

3. All or none of the above.

We don't use any formulas or ratios or supercomputers to decide what "quality" cache we might want to go for. We just read the cache descriptions and look at the logs. That's it. No magic, no smoke. If we see a good write up, and good logs from cachers we know have a similar mindset as ours, or an area we've never been to, we have a fairly high confidence it would probably be a good experience. And usually that works out. Of course, at other times we simply want a cache or 3 to fill an craving that day. Or we need a day filled on the calendar. Or we want a quick numbers run... just because we can. We have no set rhyme or reason why we do what we do, caching wise. We just find caches, and let the chips fall. If it's less than a perfect time, we still had fun together, outside. And that's what's important. YMMV. And that's fine too.

What mechanism would you suggest be used by the community to identify intro caches? I think it is equally important to allow a CO to opt out of having their cache included in the list of intro caches. Like I said before the CO of an intro cache will be an ambassador for geocaching and we need willing ambassadors. Forcing someone who doesn't want to be an ambassador to be an ambassador will be a great disservice to the CO and to those new to geocaching. My answer to was simply to say that reviewers shouldn't be the ones to decide if any particular cache should be on the list of "Intro caches", as Clan Riffster had proposed. That would be like going back to the days when reviewers had to decide if a Virtual was worthy enough to be published. No thank you, not interested. I wouldn't wish that on any reviewer. If some mechanism were to be invented and agreed upon, it should be the local caching community that decides how and what caches should be included on that list.

That made me LOL Looking at that animated GIF made me wonder. If you beat the dead horse long enough, would the directed energy force it downward, past the ground level? If parts, or even all of the deceased equine, does go below ground level, would it meet the elements of 'buried', as defined by the guidelines? Would the horse corpse be the dreaded 'pointy object'? How about the cane? It looks kinda pointy. Inquiring minds want to know... Only if you stuck a logbook in its mouth and called it a geocache.

Thank you. I totally agree. Our first cache find was a lamp post in a parking lot that took 3 visits to figure out that thing lifted up and concealed an orange matchstick holder. A micro. We found it with a car Nuvi, stumbling and wandering around that parking lot like we were drunk. Our second and third finds were micros. We got hooked, splurged, and bought a cheapo yellow etrex. 4 1/2 years later with almost 5700 finds we're still addicted. Micros, even "lame" ones, have an important place in this game.

~snip~ What if we kept the favorites points aspect, along with the other standards, but lowered it to 10%? 5%? Would that give us enough caches to make this viable? Same criteria as before, as of today there are 848 caches with at least 1 FP. Out of that subset, there are 279 with a 10% FP/F ratio, and 487 with a 5% FP/F ratio. As for the worthiness of those individual caches, I can't comment on that other than to say many of them are on our own personal Favorite list. I'm not totally convinced that FP are the best way to filter the cream of the crop. Everyone uses them differently. What is a cool cache for me as a player may be a yawner for someone else. What's cool for you, I might find as ho hum. Some cachers never use their points, despite everyone saying a particular cache is a mega-super-cool-awesome-totally-rad-gotta-do-this-cache, cache. Some give their FP away like free money. It's an individual perspective. Sure, it might give a player some idea of what might be good, but that's about it. As for eliminating micros, I know of MANY micros out there that have high FP ratios. Filtering them out would be a disservice to both the CO and the newbies. It's the location and presentation that make those work well. Knowhatimean?

Out of almost 7,000 caches in South Dakota, using your criteria (small/regular/large only, D/T <=3/3, no maintenance issues), but limiting to traditional only, and showing just non-PMO caches, I get about 102 total caches in the entire state using normal GSAK filters and the finds/fav macro. Many of the ones that I would personally choose (as a player) aren't included in the 20% or higher list for various reasons, mainly because the caches are old enough that they haven't accumulated a large ratio of finds v fav points, unless people were to go back and add them to their fav list. They're still great caches for beginners to find, however. With all due respect, and speaking only for myself, in my opinion having a Reviewer choose which caches would be "worthy" of Intro cache status isn't something they should be a part of. Reviewers should never be arbitrators of worthiness, awesomeness, or... lameness. That's best left up to the caching community to decide.

I had full intentions on making it to 100. Then the great South Dakota blizzard of 2013 struck, stopping us at day 65.

Out of 129 active caches we own, 15 of them are PMO for various reasons. I can't remember the last time I looked at the audit logs. After a while, the novelty of that particular "feature" wears off and it really doesn't matter anymore.

Any log is fine for me. I'm just glad they found the cache and hope they had fun doing it.

I don't think Groundspeak has an "official" position on this matter. Actually, now there is. Kinda... Here, #8

So... if the cache honoree is on a 3 month safari thousands of miles away, should it just sit there unfound and unlogged until he or she returns? Back to your question, I've seen the locals hold off and wait until the honoree logs it, I've seen FTF addicts grab it anyway. I don't think there is any unwritten rule about it. Once a cache is published, it's fair game for anyone.

Interesting. I would have never guessed SD was that high.

If Art Linkletter was standing around posing for photos... today... I certainly WOULD get his autograph.

That's Karma in my profile pic. I have 5 more where she came from.

I have no problem with logs on any of our caches from someone in their native language. I'm just happy they found it, and hopefully had fun.

Exactly. I could check on each and every one of my caches today, yet sometime overnight one or several may get sucked into a black hole, or removed from the planet with a Klingon tractor beam. There's no guarantee any cache will be there at some specific moment in time.

We have a cache on top of a "small" mountain in the Black Hills that hasn't been found in almost a year and a half. No DNF's. Because of where it is and how it's hidden, there's no way that it's gone. It's just that... it's not a park and grab, which seems to be the new normal today. There's no need to disable it based solely on last found date. Now if it gets a couple DNF's in a row, I'll make the climb up there to look and replace if necessary.

It's equally stupid to think Groundspeak should set a policy for something that has never been documented to occur, simply because a handful of overtly paranoid entitlement junkies think it could happen.

Something I read once by a very wise and experienced cacher here in the forums, paraphrased by me to fit this context: 1. Not every cache has to be found. If the cache bothers you (you, generically and globally speaking), ignore it. Also, if the name of the cache bothers you, ignore that one too. 2. Not every challenge cache has to be accomplished and found. If it's too complicated, or in one's opinion lame and stupid, ignore it. In summary, find the caches YOU want to find, and ignore the rest. Enjoy life. Believe me, one sleeps better at night when they get to that point in their caching career.

Thank you.

I'm probably in the minority here, but I kind of like it. Of course, I don't spend all day staring at the home page of the site worrying about the colors, I'd rather be outside with my wife having fun, uhh.... *gasp*... geocaching.

^^^ This ^^^