dprovan

Could be either or both. For some reason, people love to put pretty bling on the web, so I'd generally bet on that one, but trying to reduce auto-solving seems like a good reason, too, and one that I can't really object to. I suggest asking the CO for a plain copy. If necessary (and honest), promise not to use an auto-solver. Even if they don't have a plain copy, at least it will get the issue into their heads for consideration when they're inventing future puzzles. While your specific problem with seeing the confused puzzles isn't to be minimized, the simple problem of printing something like that is a general pain-in-the-neck that most solvers will face.

I can sympathize. So far, I've been lucky. There's one in an underground parking structure in San Francisco (http://coord.info/GCK08Z) that really should be a puzzle cache, but for some reason it seems as if you just keep your wits about you, you walk right to it. But its difficulty rating is 4, just in case you leave some of your wits behind. And the coordinates turn out to be impeccible. That doesn't help in the field, but if you look at it in advance, it gets you on the right track. I've found several in parking structures where I went to the top to get zeroed in the right stairwell, then was left with the task of figuring out which level it's on. Nice COs put it on the top level, mean ones put it in level 3...

I've seen several caches where you have to interpolate because although the cache is at the posted coordinates, you can't get a signal.

Yeah, I'd say about 50/50, too. More missing in tourist areas. I've run into a few cases where I suspect muggles (kids mostly, I would guess) have learned about a cache and regularly go look to see what's in it and take what's pretty. I'm guessing they have no idea what geocaching is, just that they found a box in the woods that people seem to visit and leave different stuff in. I'm not sure how many missing travelers can be attributed to that. Another failure involving cachers: I ran into a guy that typically goes caching with his kids and lets them take care of the swag. From what he explained, he sometimes discovers months later that they took a traveler. I was stunned that anyone would let that happen, but from the way he talked about it, it happens to him all the time. I wouldn't be surprised if this was another common cause of missing TBs.

Not worth worrying about. Either the cache is good or bad. If it's good, it doesn't matter how many they've found. If it's bad, it might still be bad even after they've found a bunch. Certainly, I would encourage people to get some experience before hiding something, but I'd never dream of making it a requirement.

I'd go so far as to say he should have it visit the cache where he found it. To this day, I regret the time -- from before I thought of the idea of dipping a TB in the cache I found it in when it wasn't logged in there -- when I found a TB 2 states away from where it was last logged, then immediately took it out of state, so it never was officially in the state where I found it. Now I always make sure a TB that's out of position visits the cache where I found it.

Wow, that's really interesting. I agree it now appears to zero at the coordinates themselves. And it even seems to zoom the map to be sure both the coordinates and its guess at the actual location are visible. I know I've had trouble before with the specific coordinates I was looking at being off the screen because Google put its guess at the center. I think the old behavior's been changed so it finally works the way I'd expect it to. Thanks for pointing that out so I can stop jumping through hoops!

That "red marker" can confuse the dickens out of me because Google centers the view there, even when that's far enough away from the true coordinates for them to be off the map. That's why others suggest "loc:N 37° 30.371 W 121° 56.058", which tells Google that you want that precise location, not the nearest address. I actually do something different: "N 37° 30.371 W 121° 56.058 (waypoint 2)". I don't understand why, but that also tells Google to present the precise location and, in addition, gives that point a name that shows up when you hover over it. That can be convenient when you're putting multiple points in the same view.

But it would be so cool if it turned up when someone finally goes to check on why that one drain hasn't worked very well since 2012. Or someone at the car wash could have seen it on the ground and just put it back on the wrong car. The interesting possibilities for it to live on are endless!

Other responders have pointing out good reasons for leaving a cache disabled long term. There are also "bad" reasons: laziness, forgetfulness, no longer caching, and others. When you think about it, these bad reasons are pretty good excuses, too, in themselves. The real question is what problem the disabled cache is causing. We're all assuming no details were given in the disabled log, so there's no shame in posting a friendly needs archived log, asking for a fix, an explanation, or archival. Where I cache, "8 months disabled is long enough" would be a typical needs archived log for such caches. If there are good excuses of the type other responders are suggesting, the CO or the reviewer (or others) can respond by clarifying why they think the cache should remain in its current state. As others point out, if you want to plant a cache in the area, direct contact with the owner might expedite that.

Also some challenge caches allow you to find them multiple times if you meet the challenge requirements multiple times.

It wasn't a mile, and if you would have seen the UV Light Required Attribute.... It was a mile from where I parked, and if the UV Light Required Attribute had been set, I wouldn't have complained.

The problem with decoys is that they do seem clever the first time, but soon they just become annoying. But, as you say, that's OK, not everyone has to be pleased with everything. I think the takeaway message from the responses here is don't do it for every cache, and it sounds like you're already talking about just a one-time thing. Just be prepared for logs that say, "There was no log in the cache, just a note saying 'keep looking', so I signed the back of that. TFTC!" Yes, that happens.

Wow, I'm glad I'm not in your area. Not only would I have the terrain rating correctly present the problem, I'd probably say, "Look at the terrain rating" in the description or at least the hint. I might even say, "Bring a ladder." I've skipped checking much, much less difficult possibilities due to the terrain rating clearly ruling out anything extreme.

If the idea is for them to guess what to bring, at least make it fair and give them a fighting chance to recognize something's required and provide clues as to what. Very annoying to walk a mile to the start of a multi only to discover that, for no good reason, a UV light is required. On the other hand, if the idea is just to have them do something unusual, you could provide the tool yourself. I've see a few caches do that.

I guess I must be unimaginative: I give favorite points to the caches that are my favorites. I suppose there's overlap between your first 4 points and what makes a cache good enough to be a favorite of mine, but I don't think of those things when using my points. There are a heck of a lot of fun caches out there, so one thing I have noticed is that a cache is more likely to be a rise above the bar into favoritehood when it's found on a particularly enjoyable excursion.

I certainly would have expected the default to be "Not Collectible", but we have two pieces of evidence to the contrary: 1. If that were the intention, then the default could have simply been made "Not Collectible". Instead, they went out of their way to create this neutral state "not specified" and make it the default against all reason. That suggests to me that someone wanted older travelers to be collectible without being obvious about it. 2. And this agrees with Droo's statement that the feature was designed to allow some old, coveted coins to be collectible unless the owners went out of their ways to prevent it.

I don't think I've ever seen a trackable that was marked "Collectible", so I would have no idea how they'd get into the wild or why. That's part of my point: it's such a rare and specific characteristic, it just adds to the confusion that every TB owner is supposed to consider it, and every one that reads a TB description is told the state. Also, keep in mind that from what Droo just told me, the "not specified" state was specifically designed to make the default imply the coin was collectible so the moun10bike coins would be grandfathered into being collectible. Conceptually, that means that most coins are implicitly collectible. Good thing most people just ignore it.

Yeah, I understand that. I have no idea how we can identify such an event as opposed to one of the hundred other ways trackables disappear, but for the purposes of discussion, let's take the example of someone that's intentionally stealing a coin that know they shouldn't take. As far as I can see, this has nothing whatsoever to do with "collectible" except... From what Droo just told me, "Collectible" allows them to take and keep the coin legitimately. It's not just a lame excuse, it specifically makes the action not stealing. (I know nothing about it, but "selling" in this context must mean giving money to the non-owner to allow the buyer to move the coin to his own collection. I don't see any problem with that, either, according to the rules: if the buyer's willing to pay for having the coin in his collection, why shouldn't that be allowed? Presumably he understands that the "purchase" doesn't give him ownership of the coin, just possession.) But Droo says that's exactly the way it was intended to work. Well, certainly I agree with you that the owner should be in control, and that's the way I'd play the game. But, then, I don't see the value of having something in my collection. On the other hand, if I did think possession had value, and I paid another collector $50 to take a coin neither of us owned and put it in my collection, I might be pretty annoyed if the owner then demanded I release it. Is it any more than your opinion saying I'm required to comply? If so, the design should allow for the owner to mark a collected coin Not Collectible. Does it? What I'm hearing is that this is how you think it should work, but it's by no means clear whether it's the way it's supposed to work. In fact, I'd claim that if what you describe is the way it's supposed to work, the design wouldn't involve a general characteristic that the owner must explicitly turn off by setting the coin "not collectible", but would, instead, involve granting individual rights to an individual to move a specific coin into their collection.

I think you've laid out the problem perfectly: the problem here isn't clarity, it's that there is no one meaning. You're telling me here the check mark is for what I originally thought (even though it was hard to believe): setting a traveler to collectable is explicit permission for anyone that finds it to put it in their collection. This is, of course, almost exactly the opposite of what I've been told earlier in this thread, where two different people told me, no, no, I still had to get permission from the owner before I could put a traveler marked collectable into my collection. I was even told quite specifically that to put it into my collection without permission was stealing. I'm not interested in collecting, so fortunately I don't have to worry about who's right. I could write the guidelines for you, so long as you're OK with something that starts, "The term 'Collectable' means different things to different people..."

Ah, good. The angry face made me concerned that you were resisting. So the short answer is, it's played different ways by different people. Hints do get snuck into logs all the time, and most CO's don't mind if they aren't give-aways. But since you're a newbie, you should lay low for a while until you know for sure what's a subtle nudge and what's an objectionable spoiler, and which COs don't distinguish. One thing you could say in your log is "way harder than I expected from the rating" or some such. That would tip future seekers off about the otherwise unclear nature of the hide. Very few COs would try to delete a generic comment like that, and I suspect any that did wouldn't get away with it for long. That doesn't explicitly help future finders find the cache, but it might warn them to pick a different circuit if that's not what they're looking for. One thing I've learned is that you run into all kinds of COs. Yes, it's a drag to miss a cache on a 5 mile circuit you'll probably never get a second chance on, but don't let it get you down.

OK, so not that I'm contesting the basic idea, but do you see how this can be confusing? Someone gets a TB out of a cache. That's not stealing. The TB is marked "collectable" or the neutral not selected, which can be read as "I don't care whether it's collected." Can you see how someone could keep it and consider their actions perfectly honest? They might not be aware of the possibility of "moving to their collection", in which case they wouldn't know they're supposed to leave a proper log online. As an official, knowledgeable collector, you see a difference. To someone saying, "Wow, neat coin," there's no difference because the owner has said they don't care if it's collected. So certainly that's the way I've always thought of it, so I've always ignored the "collectable" feature other than a curiosity that I want to have configured correctly on my travelers. But what I'm pointing out is that this collectable feature seems to give people a button that tells them they aren't stealing, they're collecting. (I don't actually remember what it takes to move someone else's traveler to my inventory. Forgive my ignorance if it's more than just a logging selection.) To recap, from what I can see, the presentation of this "is/isn't/don't care collectable" flag seems to confuse -- if not contradict -- your clear and reasonable statements. Anyway, thanks for clarifying. Now I know that it really is that flag that's wrong. I have to admit, I've been assuming I just didn't really understand the rules of collection and that some people would have common reason for giving any schmoe that happen to see their TB in the wild permission to keep it. Seemed odd to me, and now I know that's because it's wrong.

Wow. Thanks. Unclear doesn't begin to cover it. I never even considered looking for an explanation because the term "collectible" seems so clear and obvious, I never dreamed it had this implicit "...but only if you have explicit permission from the owner" clause tacked on in big red letters that you and kunarion are saying is implied. Yeah, OK. I don't understand why there's a switch to control whether that can be done, though. And I don't understand why the setting of that switch is displayed prominently to anyone looking at the trackable description. From what you're saying, it's only important to the owner and someone the owner has explicitly given permission to collect. Almost all TBs of any age are marked this way. I don't think most owners even notice there's a selection to be made. In fact, the only reason I noticed was I kept seeing that "no preference" in other TBs, so I looked carefully at the TB edit screen to see how it was controlled. I understand the collectable feature fine. I'm aware that people have TB collections even though I've never been interested myself. What I still don't really understand is the feature that controls whether a TB is or isn't collectable. It seems at least redundant, since permission to collect is still required in addition no matter what the setting is. Yet having the configurable characteristic inappropriately suggests that when it's turned on or even unchosen, collecting is OK.

Yeah, the bottom line is that your physical container can't be closer than a tenth of a mile from another physical container. (People have been known to lie about where the actual cache is in this kind of situation where there's really a huge conceptual distance -- inside vs. outside -- but you didn't hear that from me.) But an inside cache is kinda special, so have you considered asking the other CO to yield the area?

According to this CO, you are out of order, yes. That's the end of the story. It's possible that the CO is just real tight, or it's possible that your hint went over the top. We can't tell from here, but in the specific case, it doesn't matter, 'cuz the CO has told you what you need to know about this log. Other COs don't mind hints, particularly if they're witty and subtle. Yes, he can. No, of course not. But in this case, the CO's not trying to control what you write, he's trying to protect the value of his cache. From what you're saying, he was exceedingly nice about it, so I don't know why you're hesitating to please him. In particular, it sounds like the very best information about this subject in this particular case will come from discussing it with the CO himself. That will give you good insight into possible points of view of COs, whether his views turn out to be common or not, and give you ideas about how to provide hints that this CO would find acceptable, if any.