J Grouchy

If the rationale is still the same, why has it disappeared from the guideline. The problem the guidelines suffer is not the power trail aficionados squawking, but rather the reviewers demanding a simplified rule where they don't have to make subjective decisions. Instead of having to determine if a series was dominating an area, they simply look at distance from existing caches. The caches might or might not dominate an area and might or might not result in one cacher monopolizing an area. The guideline no longer has the original rationale. Certainly an arbitrary distance can be less the 200 ft. And certainly if the cache is properly marked there is no reason to confuse two caches adjacent to one another. I have found letterboxes within feet of the cache on several occasions. I've found other boxes left near caches as part of other games. Oh yes, I've even found an old archived cache at the site of new cache and signed both logs and claimed the find on both caches. Do you find that devastating? Yeah...I don't have a problem with the smaller distance, as long as there is some good judgment involved. 100 feet apart in a parking lot? No. 200 feet apart in a scenic park or along a hiking trail? Sure...why not? Problem comes from the reviewers being far enough removed to not be able to use such judgment...seems like a lot to ask. One problem I have is an interesting location I tried placing a cache was rejected because the physical cache location was 475 feet from a puzzle cache. First, I had no way of knowing where that puzzle cache was because the listing did not give the cache location. I only found out after the cache was placed and the reviewer disabled it. Granted, there was one other problem with the listing because of its location and permissions...but that was easily overcome with a slight adjustment that wouldn't require a long walk or a drive to another location. Second, my location actually had some historic and scenic value while the existing cache was located right by a freaking parking lot. I'm now forced to make mine an offset of some sort, probably having to put mine in a less interesting location while trying to somehow route them through the intended location. It's quite possible and is not really a "hardship"...but I would have preferred not force people to traverse roads and parking lots to get to the cache I intended, which is the only possible thing for me to do now. If the 528 rule could have been more flexible, I could have adjusted my cache location and, while within a tenth of a mile from another cache, it would have been worlds apart...tucked into an almost completely unknown but cool little spot near my office. I don't like 'blanket rules' like the 528 rule because it basically just takes one part of reviewing completely out of a reviewer's hands.

They are email notifications...not in-app notifications. http://www.geocaching.com/notify/edit.aspx

Got my first FTF yesterday. Funny how things line up sometimes... My family and I decided to go to a movie, which was listed online for 4:30. When we got there, we found out the online listings were incorrect by an hour, so we'd already missed half the movie. From there we thought we might try bowling...but when we got there we realized my daughter wasn't wearing socks and both kids were kind of whiny, so we opted just to go to a park on the way home that has a cool playground the kids like. Five minutes after we got there, I hear my phone ding...and when I look at it a few minutes later I notice it's an email notification of a new cache that's only a few hundred feet from where we are standing! Couldn't believe the luck...so we all rushed down and I found it pretty quickly. I don't think I'll ever want to rush out of the house to get an FTF...and I doubt I'll ever get an opportunity like I had yesterday to pop up like that again.

Hi, let us know how long it stays until someone "Takes it as swag" I thought of otter box's but also thought they my get pinched.. Yeah...It's cool, but it was actually cheaper than a fancy lock and lock or ammo can. Only five bucks! I may make it premium only and mark it to make it slightly less desirable.

Yeah...I downloaded the lot in my vicinity and maybe I'll go for some of them. I hadn't really planned to go benchmarking, but my unplanned discovery got me interested. As for the one I found today, it was in a scrubby, junky, weedy, thorny, overgrown area...so "scenery" is a generous term. The only thing worth seeing within ten feet all around was the benchmark itself.

I did. Tried wading through a million lines, but it all seemed to talk about hunting benchmarks when you already have a goal in mind. Anyway...found it on my own with Google. http://benchmarks.scaredycatfilms.com/

I was out doing maintenance on a geocache I own and saw an orange metal post in the ground a little way into the overgrowth. When I checked it out I saw the National Geodetic Survey note and at its base found the telltale concrete mound. I had to clear away gunk and debris and there was the brass disc. How do I find out which one this is so that I can log my visit? I've never logged a benchmark, but these don't show up on the GC maps and there doesn't seem to be a mapping function for benchmarks on this site.

So far it has 2 DNFs, zero finds and about 2 million (well, 1200) "notes". Sheesh! I wouldn't mind getting the FTF on that one, though...

I haven't stopped eating ice cream just because in most places I can only get soft-serve. As with anything else, old timers like to remember how things once were. Geocaching has changed since the early days. There are a lot more caches and a lot more people geocaching representing a much broader demographic. For many old timers the new style has brought many caches that seem a bit like soft-serve ice cream - cheap and covenient, but a lower quality than old-fashion ice cream. They prefer caches in the style of the older caches and for the most part can continue to enjoy geocaching because there are plenty being placed that are in the style they like. The main difficulty is identifying these caches. A lot of the complaints/suggestions in the forums are for ways to make it easier to identify caches done in the old style. Some old timers truly believe that certain new styles are bad for the game (caches are hidden in places that can cause a problem even when permission is given or power-trails multiply the chances that a land manager or state hiqhway department will take notice and end up putting restrictions on all caches). According to the OP, Dave Ullmer no longer geocaches because he doesn't consider most caches to be worth finding. Evidently the proliferation of soft-serve has caused him to cease eating ice cream altogether, following your analogy. I said, to each his own. Yeah...it's one thing to be burnt out on the game and just not want to play anymore. Another thing entirely to make it sound like everyone else who's playing it is wasting their time.

It really amuses me to hear phrases like "old-timers" and "early days" when talking about something that hasn't even officially hit its teenage years yet...

The worst thing about geocaching is the condescending attitude and personal attacks by people who have been in the game for a relatively long time. The person who invented it doesn't get to dictate what everyone else does. Agreed on both counts. I've seen a fair number of emotionally charged and mean-spirited posts in the short time I've been in these forums. Hard to believe people get so worked up about it or treat 'newbies' so poorly when all they want to do is get answers or ask for help or advice. Frankly, I think the game has grown large enough now that anyone can get what they want out of it. If you want sheer numbers, FTFs, challenges, mysteries, scenic vistas...or any and all of the above and more...you can have that without having to spoil it for anyone else.

Okay...now THAT is cool. I'd like to do something like this.

I just hope it doesn't take a month or two before someone visits the cache again. It's a great location, but one drawback is its infrequent visits. I wanted something out of the way to start, but I'm almost regretting going THAT far out of the way. If nothing happens for a couple of weeks, I may revisit that cache and drop it in another great cache that gets a lot of traffic.

Done! http://coord.info/TB551P3 http://coord.info/TB54XW1 I started them off together and hopefully the first finder will split them up and start their separate journeys. Found a nice big cache to put them in. Secluded and with an extremely low muggle-factor. Of course, that doesn't mean these won't go missing from day one...but at least their first step gives them a chance at moving out a little bit.

There was debate about this in another thread...so this one got approved? To me it seems like a difficult sell because of the potential for using it for advertising or nefarious purposes. Same with QR codes, I suppose. Is there a way the QR codes could be "hijacked" to direct a device to a site with a virus?

I am curious. Serious question. What would have happened if you didn't log it? This game becomes so much different once you realize that you don't have to find every cache. I had a LPC cache in my local supermarket parking lot. I parked and shopped there once a week for six months before the parking space in front of it was open and I parked in it. Since I was there, I grabbed it and signed the log, then logged it online. If it would have gotten archived in that six months, no big deal. I simply don't have to find every cache. Had another one just opposite the front door of a 24 hr Fedex store. Way past my comfort level, so I just waited a year for the store to be closed and relocated. It's probably a small case of OCD on my part. I'm trying to clear out everything within about a mile or two of my office. A few can't be done just yet (one is in a drainage ditch that I can't go into in my work clothes, two are challenges that will take a while for me to clear, one is a multi with one stage I can't find and am not sure is there). Like I said, I'm planning to sign...just not worrying so much about updating the log.

I found a cool little Otter Box container marked half off from $10 because it had some scrathes and a crack on the lanyard attachment. I'm interested to see just how "dry" this thing stays when I use it.

I AM opposed to QR codes BEING the cache. Not only is it that idea kind of boring because there is nothing to open and hide stuff in...but also because it involves stickers and the like which, to me, involve defacing of property and the general uglification of the surroundings. I am NOT opposed to QR code logging. To me, that seems like a good confirmation of a find. Not any sort of requirement, but maybe a "verified log" tag on an online log sheet posting.

Personally, I find DNFs on my caches to be a badge of honor! It says it was well hidden!

If you feel you really must find that cache go after it before or after normal business hours when you're less likely going to encounter people in cars or walking through the parking lot. As far as "the only place it could be hidden" goes, I know of a cache where the coordinates lead you to a lamp post in a parking lot with no other features that could obviously be used to hide the cache. It's not in the lamp post. There's a creek bed and tunnel that runs underneath the parking lot where the cache is actually hidden. There are a lot of DNF and NM logs on the cache from people that assumed that "it must be missing". Well, since the Hint is "Look closely... under the skirt", I think it's safe to say it's hidden under the pole base cover. As for "regular business hours"...there are several restaurants and a liquor store there, so we'd be talking after midnight for that.

That's a pretty fun idea. I think I would put just a little twist n it and make it a key that opens a specific cache. I think I would need to attach a request to the TB that stats the key should stay within a certain distance of the cache and I might need to have some other requests guidelines like requesting the key is put in a different cache within a week or something. Oh, and definitely have a backup key or two for when (not if) it eventually goes missing. Can anyone think of any rules this idea would break? I contacted my local reviewer about that exact idea to see if it was 'kosher' and he pointed me to an example (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GCWGCJ) that he says was very frustrating because of how often the key went missing. I actually may still do that, but I'd probably send out about three or four and just let people go anywhere in the state with it instead of trying to keep it within ten miles. Maybe limit it to metro-Atlanta (my home town) at the most.

I'm 99% sure it's the phone. Phone GPS, while perfectly adequate, does not have the reliability of a standalone GPS. I've used several of the geocaching apps and this occurs in all of them. For me, c:geo is a little less buggy in compass mode than the 'official' geocaching app...but only a little. I don't have a standalone GPS device (I can't really justify spending the money on one of those at this time), but I gather they have greater accuracy and stability. What I tend to do is just get close and if I need that compass, I'll get within ten feet...then back away about 30 or 40 feet and come at the location from a different angle. Sometimes I have to do that a couple times to zero in on the hide if it's not obvious where I should be looking.

Yeah...me, I found out when another...ummm...non API...app was featured on my phone's app store. It was free, so I downloaded it and promptly forgot about it. I never knew about the API stuff until I'd been in the forums for a few weeks, but I did buy into the "official" app with the $50 Play Store credit I had from my new phone...so we're jake now. Then I went to a state park near me and remembered I had it, but couldn't get a good signal so gave up. When I got my new phone and was installing apps I ran across it again and thought I'd look up stuff near my office...found my first cache at lunch time and got hooked.

I was going to suggest velcro, but those have adhesive and are basically stickers that could be interpreted as defacement. Only other suggestion would be to alter its location to keep it away from accidental jarring...like in a corner or on a place on the structure where something else is attached that would 'obstruct' or guard against it getting bumped by a broom or someone leaning against the wall or column. If it's in a place that gets a lot of activity, perhaps you should reconsider the type of hide. If something as simple as a cleaner's broom could knock it loose, perhaps you should put it in a spot out of the way of common activities like cleaning or someone leaning against the wall, etc.

Confession time: A local LPC I've been trying to clear since I started caching. I know precisely where it is...only place it COULD be since it's literally in the middle of a giant parking lot and there is nothing else around to hide the cache on. I've tried about four times but every time there is someone either sitting in their car who can see me or people walking by. I really just don't want to put any more effort into an LPC, so I logged it and since then I actually have felt bad about it. And it's not even a fun cache! I'm probably going to try again to sign the log just so I can get it off my conscience. Sad, I know.