Kacher82

Forgot to mention in my earlier post that I'm a fairly experienced cacher who is trying to get all the souvenirs. Haven't gone out today yet, but I'll get out there soon.

In the case of unearned, mistakenly awarded souvenirs, an email to Groundspeak should get them removed.

What they consider "low-cost", might be cheap in comparison with similar technology, but it's still way too much for me to spend.

I recently learned of a practice some people use where they visit and gather information for a Virtual or Earthcache, but wait to log it until a later date where the find could be more useful, like filling in a blank date on the calendar. I find this no different than logging a physical cache on a different date than the actual find. Cheesy, lame, dishonest. If people want to lie to themselves like that, it's up to them. I personally couldn't live with myself if I did that. I'm all for filling in calendars and such like, but it wouldn't mean much to me if I knew the dates had been messed with.

IMO, the PQ should flag corrected coordinates in some way so that third-party programs can recognize it. Since it doesn't, I don't usually change the coordinates on the web page. I do it instead in GSAK, so I know which ones are solved.

Puerto Rico: now a country. As far as Groundspeak is concerned, yes. See the country list on this page. They list quite a number of non-countries as countries. They have a broad definition of "country". All the U.S. territories, and even the U.S. minor outlying islands, are in the "countries" list. Funny, though: I didn't see any Canadian territories in the list.

Will they ever be able to get that in one handheld unit?

If you use Firefox, there's a Greasemonkey script discussed here that includes that. If you use it, make sure to apply the fix described in post 71 of that thread.

I've had 4 or 5 trackables that have gone missing or been in someone's possession for over a year, out of 12 that I've released. Most or all, I believe, would be because of faulty logging or forgetfulness (I like to think so, anyway). One was picked up by someone from the only cache he found. Not very common. I believe most clones would be people cloning their own trackable for some reason. I've only seen one, and that was the case there.

Can the trackable be the item you take and I leave something in trade for it? Vice versa? I picked up my first TB today and I left a toy. When I drop off this TB should I not take something from the geocache unless I leave something else too? You can leave something in a cache anytime, as long as there's room. You don't have to take anything. If you do take something (besides a TB), you should leave something of equal or greater value (besides a TB). TBs are not trade items, so they shouldn't be left in trade for something else.

If the finder had at least been somewhat apologetic about it, it would have been better. All I see is someone that had no care what happened to the cache, as long as he signed the log. His "found" log and subsequent notes show no sign of apology. It's his attitude more than anything that's upsetting.

I don't think you can set preferences for that. If someone logs your cache, you will get notified.

Have they been submitted and published? If you just hid them and haven't submitted them for review yet, you can just wait to do that until after you check it out. Otherwise, it doesn't seem to me like a big deal. You can post notes on the pages if you like, so finders aren't confused about the wrong name. It's up to you.

I'm thinking the same as the posts above. The first log shows the owner moving it to their collection, but no logs show them moving it back to their inventory.

The * means "multiply". "X times 18 plus 20 equals AAA". I'm getting good at posting the same time as someone else.

You might want to remove or edit the picture with the geocoin in it. The tracking number is too visible.

I'm going for a physical cache every day. I consider an event a bonus, not a means of getting a souvenir. I might go to a morning event later in the month, but I'll certainly be doing some caching afterwards.

Does the phone app show attributes? "Hike" (varying lengths) and "Park and Grab" are attributes that can be set for a cache. Look for caches based on that.

It might be nice to post coordinates of the nearest legal parking, and set the "short hike (less than 1 km)", or "medium hike (1-10 km)" attribute.

Interesting point. The clone I ran into was just a small heavy paper card, so I didn't have any trouble seeing it as trash and throwing it away. If someone minted a bunch of coins with the same trackable number, that would be different. At some point there's a line between a worthless duplicate and a valuable alternative. I picked up a wooden nickel with 2 tracking numbers on it. Going to the TB pages and realizing they were obvious clones, I had no qualms about trashing it.

Looks like the picture's been corrected now. It should be fine.

The cache owner and the trackable owner can both mark the trackable missing. If they don't show enough interest to mark the trackable missing, then I don't see why I should be very concerned about it. But I tend to view trackables as more of a happy accident. I don't really seek them out. The people who do seek them out are the ones most likely to be disappointed to find they aren't there. I always like to gather up trackables if I'm going abroad, and while I'm abroad I gather trackables to bring home. One year I brought something like 18 trackables back from the US, and because I didn't want to just dump them all in a small area it took me most of the next month to get rid of them all, scattering them over what was then my striking distance by mountain bike. I remember on one occasion taking a trip out to revisit a cache in PA to grab a couple of coins that turned out not to be there. As it happened they were the same two coins I'd reported as missing from the cache two years previously. Neither the trackable owner nor the cache owner are active users. The proposal was that a trackable could be marked missing, at which point it would be "ghosted" and if no further activity was reported within 3 months (or some other time period) it would be moved to the TB graveyard. Assuming you got home within three months of finding the trackable it wouldn't be removed. Even if a TB is sent to "unknown location" (marked missing), simply logging a "retrieve" or "grab" will get it back.

Unfortunately, that chart illustrates it quite well.

Maybe this thread could be moved to the Wherigo section?

If past performance is anything to go by I wouldn't hold your breath waiting. Ask for a new range of pointless souvenirs, they seem to have the resources to implement those. Personally I've drawn the conclusion that Groundspeak aren't actually interested in improving the game at all any more. Maybe if everyone asked for a bunch of new souvenirs, GS would find something else to do.