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dino-irl

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Posts posted by dino-irl

  1. Many reviewers are anonymous as they want to be given space and freedom to make decisions based on the guidelines without being accused of impartiality (either for or against anyone)

    I imagine that most reviewers would be delighted to be accused of impartiality :lol:

    :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

  2. I do sense some residual defensive hostility that I think may be a leftover of some heated discussion in the past. It’s a little sad that post are looked on with suspicion and scanned for alternate meaning instead of being exactly what they are, but again after witnessing some of the heated exchanges on here I fully understand

    Not from me or at least not intentionally. However, the subject of child protection and potential child abuse is probably one of the most serious and sensitive that anyone can be dragged in to and I for one am very focused on making sure that the queries raised here are dealt with completely. It is not a shadow I want sitting over what we do in any shape or form.

  3. ............ although I have stated to you my concerns on anonymity. Coming from a social work background, the thought of a person having any access to young or vulnerable minds in complete anonymity rings warning bells, and fail to see the need for this (again I’m sure there is a reason and it of course is only my opinion)..........................

    I can fully understand your concerns. However, there is so much nastiness in the Geocaching community that I personally don't blame reviewers for keeping anonymity.

    We're not in complete anonymity. Each reviewer is first of all known to all the other reviewers (both within our regional team and within the global reviewer community) and is of course known and ultimately responsible to Groundspeak lackeys.

     

    Many reviewers are anonymous as they want to be given space and freedom to make decisions based on the guidelines without being accused of impartiality (either for or against anyone) and unfortunately also for the reason given by Dave above. This applies in this region but also on a global basis.

     

    It's interesting that in the recent discussion on FB that one person suggested that all reviewers should be anonymous as otherwise it looked like we enjoyed the limelight that comes with our role and now someone else is criticising those who choose to do so.

     

    Back on topic you may be interested to know that if we suspect that we are dealing with a minor we always attempt to either involve a parent/guardian to ensure they are aware of what the minor is doing or contact GSP to attempt to make that contact. As geohatter pointed out though it's not always easy to make that conclusion and often we are wrong.

  4. So my question is, if it is as clean cut as castagnari says, why has Graculus felt the need to refer the question to Groundspeak? Either something is being hidden or castagnari hasn't got a clue what he is talking about?

    There are two separate questions from Mollyjack and MartyBartFast. Graculus recommended one be passed to GSP to answer due to the seriousness of the question being posed and the sensitivity of the topic. Castagnari answered the second which is much more general.

     

    As a reviewer I really don't want to get drawn into a discussion about child protection. This is way outside our pay grade and needs to be resolved by GSP who own and manage the site as the ultimate responsibility lies with them.

  5. I was going to make a post in this thread with the intention of trying to assist a relatively new cacher understand why the decision was made but having read it again and seeing the amount of knowledge of events leading up to and during the decision and the use of personal names I'm now of the conclusion that this is not a new cacher, is probably someone better known hiding behind an alternative identity and is simply a trolling exercise.

     

    I've better things to do than waste my time arguing with a troll :(

  6. But what I still don't understand (and probably NEVER will understand) why you don't use Ireland (or Republic of Ireland) and UK in addition to the old regions.

    You may have missed this bit in my other post:

     

    Using the historical boundaries in Ireland *did* remove politics from caching in NI. Prior to this some cachers were choosing UK or Ireland depending on political persuasions and backgrounds thereby making a political statement using their cache listing. This caused discomfort among many in the NI caching community.

  7. So I still don't exactly understand why NI caches don't show UK but Ireland instead. For ME it looks like the ones forcing this decision wanted to show the world that they don't want to be part of UK but part of Ireland and if this isn't a political decision, what else is it?

    I don't know how to explain it any further then. You don't seem to be able to accept the reasons why it was done this way. I guess maybe you need to live here to understand why as it always seems to be visitors from outside of Ireland that have problems with it. Everyone here seems to understand it and be happy with how the system works.

  8. I've been away for a few days so I've missed much of this so apologies for not following up.

     

    Using the historical boundaries in Ireland *did* remove politics from caching in NI. Prior to this some cachers were choosing UK or Ireland depending on political persuasions and backgrounds thereby making a political statement using their cache listing. This caused discomfort among many in the NI caching community.

     

    Ulster is a description that is used to describe NI by those in all communities. Some use it to describe only the 6 counties (which incidentally don't officially exist any more) and some use it to describe the 9 counties. As Ulster pre-dates all upheavals in Ireland by hundreds of years it is a non-political designation that everyone seems to be happy with. Ulster is very neutral way of describing the northern area of the island of Ireland.

     

    Incidentally Ireland is not actually a country. As Simply Paul stated above it is an island, a geographical entity but not a country. It is comprised of two countries, UK and RoI.

     

    The use of the 4 traditional provinces plus Dublin works for cachers in Ireland and although I understand you can't see the reasoning it works for us.

  9. You're entitled to your opinion but you are wrong. As I said earlier the intention was to depoliticise caching in NI.

    So in the end it's not that hard for me to live with this decision (just GSAK stuff), it's just funny as you are the only ones in the whole wide world not having political borders used for your caches

    None of the regions in UK are political. They are all based on geographic designations so Ireland isn't unique in this.

  10. The whole point was to remove the politics from geocaching.

     

    This article from the KB explains better: http://support.Groundspeak.com//index.php?....page&id=98

     

    Please note these two lines in particular:

     

    In both the United Kingdom  and Ireland  the decision was made to use non-political, geographical divisions...........The solution was proposed and the community agreed with the proposal.
    This decision received widespread support at the time of its introduction, and is in no way meant as a sign of disrespect.
  11. Real answer - Americans don't do geography! :anibad::laughing::)

    Just to point out that the UK & Ireland review team were heavily involved in deciding the boundaries and names of the UK & Ireland regions. The final decision for Ireland was made by Groundspeak but based on my advice.

     

    NI and its designation is way more than just geography and there's not much point in dragging this hot coal out of the fire again :P

  12. Thanks a lot. Thought already about something like that but I don't exactly like it as it breaks my find maps and makes me changing this info in GSAK in the end to fix it. That was the reason why I've found out about this issue. :anibad:

    It doesn't break the maps if you use the right ones :laughing:

     

    And by the way: I extra wanted to search for irish caches only (not NI caches) and this makes it close to impossible to do so... So this decision has pros and cons as you can see. It looks that I need to think about that next time I'm in Ireland again.

    If you search by state and choose Connacht, Dublin, Leinster or Munster you will get caches in RoI only. As NI is part of Ulster it is only Ulster caches where you have a "problem".

  13. In a way, you're right. The ealiest micro I can find any record of was indeed Water of Tyne (Tyne & Wear) as mentioned previously by Delta68. This cache was owned by Moss Trooper who was himself an 'Approver' (as they were then) but I doubt if he approved it himself. There's no mention on the cache page as to who actually approved it... Tim & June, maybe?

    [Activating special powers]

     

    captainchaos2.jpg

     

    Having checked this for you I can say it was actually MT that published his own cache. Not unusual considering the number of reviewers around then?

  14. There have been a number of UK reviewers before Deci. Probably the best well known were Lactodorum and Eckington who were reviewing at the same time as Deci. I think what Deci means in that statement is that he is the longest serving of the current reviewer team.

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