The Blue Quasar

Isn't that's why CITOs exist as CITOs.. and not just as "Events..... where you bring a garbage bag" ? They have a pre-defined goal which justifies why they are a different cache type; I don't believe the primary goal of a CITO is to be social; it's to clean up. If you read the CITO FAQ (http://www.geocaching.com/cito/faq.aspx) it says (as as example) "These events can last for a few hours and even up to several days. Each person can decide for themselves how long they can help. Perhaps there are a couple of shifts of volunteers.". CITOs are not, in my view, intended to be social. (Shift-work isn't social!) CITOs exist because Groundspeak recognize it as a suitable, worldwide "cause" and a defacto exception has been written into the Listing Guidelines for them. Events I believe were intended to be social. Except that our profile pages suggest that CITO is an Event Events can take on many forms. Something needs to be updated regardless of whether OGH's become allowed or not. BQ

Adding to this, I find that CITO has exactly the same issue. People gather briefly then break off into several small groups that barely socialize. CITO really isn't an event by the definition that it is a social gathering. I also agree that when caches are added into the mix of an event, it detracts from the event itself. Events should be "get-togethers" instead of having a "go-away" element. But based on how I host, I think that is pretty obvious. BQ

Sometimes I wish that Niagara was as lucky as Ottawa or Kitchener/Waterloo or Mississauga. A monthly group outing would be fun. Or maybe there is one and I don't know about it. Timings don't always, or often, work out but having a "come if you can" approach would be great. Ottawa is really lucky to now have more than one option. I was out with some of the CCC people for breakfast once, and enjoyed a day of GAGging. They seem like every other group... some were awesome, some quiet, some have opinions, and some weird. Sounds like almost every family I know. I feel the same way about the Crew from Waterloo. I don't know the Mississauga people but I suspect they are the same. But yes, there are locals that I adore (and they likely know who they are) and locals that annoy me (and maybe it is mutual) but I wouldn't trade it for anything because we need all types so we know when we have it good. And I do. Niagara is full of great caches placed by great people that I would love to spend more time with. BQ edit: smiley

I got to thinking about this a bit more and have some concerns about it. A public parking garage is a privately owned building, even if it belongs to the city. Most of the ones that I have been in are signed that they are for parking of vehicles only (along with other warning about what that means) and I would hazard a guess that they do not allow skateboarding or other recreational activities. For example, I would bet that security or the police would escort a group of people from the premises if they were playing street hockey on the rooftop. Now, as silly as this might sound to us imagine how the actions of geocachers compare to those other examples. Someone is searching around pillars, elevator shafts, etc for several minutes doing who knows what? If I wasn't a cacher, I might be really worried about this. It's not as simple as some teenager on a BMX flying down the ramps as cars try to avoid them. This could be someone placing a bomb or searching for their hidden drugs... So then it comes back to "Get permission in writing" since you believe that this location can support a geocache, it should be a simple affair to get someone in charge of the garage to agree with you and allow it officially. Then everyone is happy. BQ

Interesting. I've found a few of these in the past and somewhat enjoyed them. As long as the general public can enter on foot without paying a fee then I would assume that this would be okay. Listing off a bunch of other caches really doesn't endear you to a reviewer. Instead it's insulting and often just causes them to dig in their heels more, which likely isn't the best response but neither is the act of throwing a bunch of other listings under the proverbial bus. From what I understand each listing is reviewed based on the current guidelines as the individual reviewer interprets them. Reviewers have the latitude to be able to grant exceptions through discussion with the Cache Owner, and just because someone else was published does not mean the same is true on subsequent reviews. Each listing should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Work with your reviewer to increase success for everyone. BQ edit: fixed smiley

It's funny how often people agree to the listing requirements and guidelines but either didn't actually read them or over time have forgotten what they agreed to. Cache Maintenance Recently I found a cache that I think most people would agree should be preserved. The container is basically destroyed. And while I could have fixed it, I didn't. It's not my job. Sure it would be nice to do it, but cache owners need to take ownership of the duties they agreed to. But my view has always been that anything that leads to a cache being archived is 100% due to the choices of the cache owner. And yeah, there does seem to be a lot of whining going on lately... especially on social media sites. And a lot of people acting like they need to be involved in the affairs of other people. So much assumed injustice, opinions on how things should be done or improved, and on and on. Sometimes I get the feeling that people just want to debate, fight and argue just for the sake of it. People would do better to focus on accepting things... challenge yourself, not others. BQ

This set should be used to show Ontario Parks how such a program can work for them. Maybe some day another attempt will be made to get Ontario Parks to reconsider their erroneous beliefs. This ridiculous and uniformed ban has been in place for far too long. BQ

And FWIW, that Virtual is grandfathered. Which means the CO is allowed to move it and apparently change the "Date Placed" as they see fit to do. This Virtual is special and unique, at least in Canada, and such a listing cannot be created anymore. If you are looking for a "Found It" like no other then this listing is a good contender. BQ

Having read this whole thread, several thoughts come to mind Jeremy's posts made a lot of sense to me. There is little if anything related to the cache container related to the attached pre-requisites in order to log a 'challenge cache'. I'd rather see a collection of souvenirs to earn for completing tasks like the Fizzy Challenge, the 100 Days in a Row Challenge, the Found Every Cache Type Challenge... etc etc. Why do I need to travel to Alaska just to log a cache for finding the "First Cache Placed in my Home State" challenge cache? Even though I currently have eight challenge caches in place, I'd rather people be able to log them as personal goals they completed from anywhere in the world without having to come here. Nothing in 'challenges' needs to be location/coordinate based. However, I don't see at all how this addresses the so-called "Return of Virtual Caches". Unless I've been mistaken for ten years, a Virtual Cache is about going to a location and seeing something then either answering a question about it or taking a photo at it. } Completing a "Jasmer" is a Challenge - not coordinate based at all, people can complete it in many different places } Taking a picture at the Space Needle is a Challenge - specific coordinate based, unattainable to most There seems to be a disconnect between the two types that sounds like they are being painted with the same brush. I'm not saying both aren't fun, just that I don't see how } There is no need for a container for a challenge is the same as } Go to this specific place and do something BQ

Edit: posted under wrong profile

Actually I agree with t4e on this issue. Challenge caches are supposed to be geocaching (Waymarking / Wherigo too) achievements and not affected by the actions of others. When "Player A" logs a find on a cache then that cache is not longer eligible for "Player B" to use. That means the actions of one cacher can impact another. But since the "Lonely Cache Challenge" is a long standing accepted concept from before the death of ALRs that introduced this new push for challenge caches... I assume the idea is grandfathered. I would expect that the CO of this challenge is able to use some latitude like the reviewers do, in that they will determine if the log is valid or not and why it isn't if they do decide it doesn't count. BQ

This is the major reason I cannot take Waymarking.com seriously. Why would I want to log visits to McDonalds? And to think that Waymarking is a replacement to Virtual Caches? I've never seen a virtual cache that celebrated a Dairy Queen. I might feel the same way about geocaching.com if there was a cache at almost every McDonalds ... having said that, we've logged a few Wally Worlds but we were young and inexperienced ... but we are trying to manage an ignore list and if the rules of Waymarking were also the rules of geocaching then maintaining that ignore list would be unmanageable. Waymarking and Geocaching are completely different animals, thank goodness. Dead horse but still... Instead of focusing on the low end of that game, why not look at the good quality listings that are available? That is what you say you are doing in Geocaching. How is that any different than if people only want to think of Geocaching as lifting a lamp skirt at a big box store, cause that is how many people do view geocaching now. As for the point of having to ignore so many listings over on Waymarking, I'll assume you mean the ones like McDonald's... perhaps you don't know that you can actually ignore all of the Business department with one click. Wouldn't that be great in geocaching if you could do that for all the caches you don't like that are placed at big box stores and fast food locations? To try to smear Waymarking because some of the categories, like McDonald's, are of less quality or suggest that is all that is there is simply untrue. Comparatively both games have the same levels of listings and experiences. But I am wasting my breath. Truth is, deny it as much as you want, but if waymarks suddenly counted for points in your Found It list... most people would log them all. I say that because many people already log pretty much anything that is listed as a geocache. Nothing wrong with that. But it is really hypocritical in my opinion to log this because you enjoyed it but not this unless the only difference is that one gives you a smiley and the other gives you a special icon. If the second one counted for a "find point", it would get logged. And don't for one second try to suggest that almost all of the Virtuals out there are high quality listings. Most of them are already cross listed on Waymarking. So if they are so great to visit as Virtuals, then they are equally great to visit as Waymarks. It's the lack of a smiley, you know it and I know it. BQ

Have to agree... it is the only EarthCache that I enjoyed (it's a personal decision), and I really resisted going to it. If it wasn't for Scubabare being so insistent it is likely I might never have.. it is an awesome thing to see. BQ

For me the Bloom is still on the Rose.... and I very much enjoy giving out a favorite point. Yesterday I found 9 caches and I think I tagged 2 of them as favorites. In the past I may have been a bit (cough) judgmental but now I simply find caches. Sometimes, like those I plan to find today, I look forward to but often it is just to find them. I do not expect to find favorite caches without doing some advanced preparation, and sometimes I do stumble across a great cache mostly by luck. For example, this summer I plan to do many of ElectroQTed's caches... why? Because I've looked them over and I see that people really enjoy them. As such I expect to dole out more than 10% to him. Obviously there are many other people that make good caches and pride themselves on putting in above average effort. If I was interested, I could easily exhaust all of my remaining favorite points by being selective in my caching choices. BQ

Haven't read any replies to this but surely you know the difference between Groundspeak posting something on their own website and an account created to use the site doing so. Great solution. Even better, also provide the link to the Waymark right in the listing itself. Sound similar to this post. BQ

I'm only using this post because it touched on many of the differences from my viewpoint. I did read the whole thread, and being honest I thought Happy Humphrey expressed his opinions quite eloquently and intelligently. But I respectfully disagree on several points. In the interest of disclosure I'm also a reviewer but way over in Canada under the account "CacheDrone". I was not asked to contribute by anyone nor even directed to this thread by anyone. This wording can't be taken literally, as it would invite ridicule. An iphone is a "commercial product", and "Park Farm" is a business, but it would clearly be crazy if you couldn't say in the cache description "Your GPSr (or iphone) will take you past Park Farm, where you should look for the footpath sign.". So it's the principle of what's behind the guideline that has to be understood before a sensible interpretation can be made. I do take it literally 100% of the time and for me it has rarely invited ridicule. For what little it is worth, I make every effort to ensure that all listings that I publish are completely free of any commercial reference. That includes having no businesses by name or inference, no products, or anything in those general areas. Likely some have slipped through, it happens. But to say that it would be "clearly crazy" would be inaccurate in my eyes. I see no reason for the suggested line quoted above to be in a listing. It can be written in such a way to convey the information without any mention of Park Farm. No, that isn't the test. A commercial cache is what you quoted from the guidelines. What you have described sounds like some form of gray area where content about caching has been suspended in favour of off-topic content unrelated to caching as alluded to below. Neither of these examples would get published if I was reviewing them. I really don't understand this theme of extraneous information that is supposedly used to assist a visiting cacher. Parking coordinates help a cacher. No one needs to know where any pub is to go geocaching, unless it is where the Event Cache is happening. I'd have to say that you guys have it pretty good with your reviewers in the UK, and from what I understand you guys sound pretty passionate about pubs in general. Reviewers are given the flexibility when it comes to interpreting the guidelines, some like me don't stray very far from them if at all, and some are willing to accept local flavours or be more liberal in their decisions. Where I come from, cache listings are about caches. Some educational content is fine as long as it not commercial or promotional of anything.

Who these Lackies will be - And If they are actually covert agents in disguise just pretending to be lackies remains a mystery. Stay Tuned! I have a wish list... BQ

My advice is to play the game your way and have fun. Don't worry about what other people think or you will spend most of your time trying to please others. That's solid advice! ^^^^ I tip my hat to that! Another player once said something to the effect of "Place caches you would enjoy finding" and that has stuck with me as my guiding principle. I've been known to say "For every avid hiker there is a single mom pushing a stroller. Both deserve to enjoy the game how they are able." BQ

Yes, there certainly are. Yeap, couldn't agree more.

Please don't interpret this beyond a suggestion as how you might be able to include the info but instead of including the information about the current movie in the listing, you can create a waymark for the "Movie Location" and then cross-reference that in your listing with something like "This location was recently used in an upcoming motion picture" with a link to the waymark. While I know many people do not enjoy that other game, it is a way that people can reference such content easily if they are interested. BQ

I favourited that one, Stage 1 was great fun. A taxi is definitely needed for any caches as the airport is a bit remote. BQ

Broadly... yup, that sums it up nicely BQ

Not that I can think of. As long as it is family friendly... let er rip.

About two months ago I placed a new cache and went home to write up the listing. It didn't go well so I started over and that also didn't go well. Since then I've started and stopped numerous times, as a part of being my own worst critic, not being happy with the listing. Still though, the cache is sitting out in the wild unpublished as I figuratively beat my head on the wall trying to get something to pop out. Nothing.... So this morning I decided to solicit help from the fine cachers of the Canadian Forums. What I am looking for is this... In total I need 6-8 pieces of trivia that can have 10 possible answers, so if you have a favourite piece of trivia to submit please send me just one question and the answer. You don't have to provide any wrong answers unless you want to. I'll naturally give you credit in the listing unless you ask me not to. The trivia should be fun-based or at least of interest to the general population. Novelty is good as is a feeling of "Oh, isn't that neat?" If I get more than 8 pieces of trivia, I will select the ones that I think are the most fun and workable. Please do not add it to this forum thread, instead send it to me through my profile page so no one else will see it. I will close this thread when I have what I need. Thanks in advance to anyone that helps me out with this community project. BQ

When it comes to spending my favorite points, I didn't concern myself with whether a cache had been archived or not. I went through the "My Finds" PQ in GSAK and ticked the ones that I remembered enjoying. I figure that everything I've found contributed to the number of favorite points I had to dole out and I wanted to give praise to any listing that was in the top 10% of what I've experienced. If the cache was fun because of the cache, it was considered. I'm not sure how my caching companions factored into it since I always have fun with my friends regardless of the caches we do during an outing. I like that favourites allows us to say "These are the best 10% of what I've done in my opinion" without having to label the rest as anything less than a favourite. For now I'm not sure how the percentages would factor in since there are so many variables like location, D/T ratings, listing type, and to be honest who made the cache, among many others. What does sway me is when my friend's have said it was a favourite then that adds value to doing it. Last time I checked Dr. House has a cache that has been found only 9 times and from that 7 people tagged it a favourite. I'm one of them. Truth is, not a lot of people are going to do that cache for various reasons. Might the high percentage drive some more visits? I dunno. Maybe just as much as the D/T rating does for some other challenge cache. Doesn't matter. My vote was for one specific reason.... it's one of my favourites, nothing more and nothing less. BQ