infiniteMPG

Great statement and the biggest part is wanting your kids to grow up.... be independent... make decisions on their own set of right/wrong rules. Once kids are out of the nest your rules and values have little weight (unless you think it's a parents job to force right and wrong on them and not teach them how to decide between the two on their own). I would hope geocachers need hints and clues and not hand holding and disipline and anyone who feels the need to do such isn't getting the rational behind the game.... to have fun (unless of course that's fun to some). As stated before if you're concerned that much with cheating, put a code in your caches and make everyone email it in for credit. But don't expect everyone else to follow suit as each owner has some inherent rights to how they rule their own little domain of caches...

I still don't see how you could even prove that scenario. Someone posts a log online that they found a cache. Someone else goes waaaay out of their way trying to find it assuming it's there. Turns out it's MIA. If it's missing there's no log to prove it didn't go missing AFTER that person found it. If it was known missing BEFORE they logged they found it then the owner should of disabled it. Don't see how you would have proof to prove that it went missing before they logged their find as even any DNF's before them could of just been DNF's.

And everyone would (or should) do that for their kids. But I don't see it as my position to do that with your kids or my neighbor's kids and I don't see a cache owner becoming some psuedo parent to everyone who logs a find. You're talking fundamental issues of honesty and trust, and geocaching is a little different then tossing your wallet and your car keys to someone and asking them to go get you a burger. Fix (or have logger edit) improper logs. Delete obvious bogus logs. Enjoy geocaching. Chill out.

Tut-tut... looks like rain! Hmmm, step away from this thread to watch some football game and it still manages to keep rolling. Last I checked geocaching was recreational activity and not a competitive sport. More like the Montu at Busch Gardens then then The Masters at Augusta. And with the Montu there are just as many people buy the "I SURVIVED RIDING THE MONTU" T-shirt who didn't ride as who did. As soon as they leave the park you can't tell them from the front row addict (except a pure front row addict probably wouldn't care to wear the tacky shirt). But you can either look at them and chuckle, or look at them with hate an anger and dispise thinking somehow they made riding the ride less fun because they really didn't do it. It's a perspective and attitude thing, believing that for the most part most people are honest, or believing in the dark world of the shadows where no one can be trusted and evil lurks behind their smiling masks No one condones cheating with fake logs. No one said they wouldn't delete a fake log if it was proven fake. The line in the sand is how far we each go to investigate the fakes. If anyone is truly against ANYONE faking a log then it's simple. Put a code or a catch phrase on the front of your log book. Tell everyone to email you that or they won't get credit for the find. You might get a few people who share the code but that would be really rare. Then it's the proverbial 'end of story'. No more cheaters. And no fancy techniques or efforts in proof reading logs or validating signatures. But then it's up to the owner who will have to validate every log listing, but if owners are that dead set against cheating then that shouldn't be much

Striving for honesty is never a character flaw, but it's a pretty futile task trying to mandate it. We all migrate towards what we like, and our hides and how we maintain them are reflections of ourselves. We each do what we think is right, but no one should expect everyone to have the same definition of what that is.

Double bullseye, well said! If geocaching got all serious and hard lined many people would take up another activity... this is one activity where cheaters are basically just cheating themselves out of the fun of the game.

As far as seeking a missing cache because of a bogus find, if the cache was missing and active prior to your visit, you couldn't really prove it didn't go missing after the person in question logged it. If the cache was missing there's no log book to check. And if it was known to be missing prior to that and the owner didn't disable it then it's bad on the owner. Once again, those could fall into the "Sorry, I entered that log for the wrong cache" category, which I myself have done on several occasions. I would hope that the owner finds out if that's what happened before they just smite the log from the records. But I agree that looking into things that set off alarms is a good thing as I can see where bogus logs could confuse others seeking the hide. Just don't see myself probing much to look for the fake. I would think if someone was too lazy to actually seek the cache, they'd probably just cut-and-paste TFTH into every log entry.

I think you understand the implied meaning in the subliminal remarks that were leading you to the conclusion that I was insinuating. Sounds like all in day's work in responsibly maintaining your hides, repair leaking containers, moving when needed, replacing wet or full logs, updating coords, tweaking camo, adding waypoints, checking that logs don't give the hide away, and all that jazz. I think a bigger problem is people who either don't close a container properly (especially decon's!!!), don't re-hide/cover properly (if at all), or just don't grasp the method of logging trackable items.... but that's kinda off topic.

I would agree with that, too, but with several thousand logs on my caches I have had only a couple that would fall into those categories and they were typ-O's by the cachers and fixed. Like a date wrong or logged under the wrong cache which I could tell by their text (and I have been guilty of that one myself). Unless a faker is a total bumbling fool they could post logs and not hit one of those flags. And I'd rather not cut back on fighting crime just so I can turn my spidey senses to validating fake geocaching logs And what do you do if someone just posts "TFTH!" or "Thanks for the tour" in the log? You check on all those? If it slams me in the face I'd question it, but I don't see myself digging thru logs looking for it.

Yeah! And 250 finds get you a red Swingline stapler! It's not easy but people love the camo and the locations and I love reading the logs. Makes it worth the effort! My question is what would look fishy? Some people simply enter "TFTH!" and that's it. Other's write a book. People's personalities come out in the log entires and everyone's different so not sure what would constitute "fishy". My nephew went out and in one weekend they logged +200 finds. Valid finds. I went out the same weekend and logged 1. Not sure what would raise the flag a log is fishy. As far as I'm concerned unless I'm doing maintenance, replaced a log book/sheet and happen to have it in my hand when I'm at my computer, I won't even have the opportunity to validate finds. You gonna print out all the logs, hike a dozen miles to your cache, pull the log book and sit in the woods validating signatures? PUH-lease....

A- Unless you're competing for more finds then someone else, how does a fake log degrade the game? Guess I'm still a little unclear on this as it just seems like someone is only robbing themselves of the fun of the adventure. Recreational golf is notorious for people falsifying score cards but I never hear anyone saying it has degraded the game. B- By what means do you determine something in a log listing looks like it needs investigating without checking every posted log against the log book?

What???? You didn't get your Signal toaster when you hit 100 finds? You may rethink that statement when you pass 100 hides (I think I hit 235 recently). Checking "found it" posts against signatures would be a 3 shifts a day, 5 days a week non-paying career....

If people have the free time on their hands and somehow find pleasure analyzing and investigating if others are faking logs, then go for it. But if someone deleted my log entry because I signed for my GF with her standing right beside me, or we used caching stickers on the log sheet, it would be the last time I sought one of their hides. I'd rather spend my time working on my next piece of camo.... <deja-vu as I think I said that at least once before>

Do you state your personal rules for logging in your log description? 99% of the time I cache with my GF and I sign the log for us, I just do it like holding the door for her. I would assume that a lot of couples work like that. And what the heck do you do if people use their own personal find stickers on your log sheets? Do you delete them because they didn't personally sign the log sheet? And on a nano log you're lucky if you can make out what someone wrote on the little sliver of paper....

I don't think trading items is a requirement. If it was, we wouldn't have micros and nanos. We rarely trade items as seeking the cache is our enjoyment.

As long as the owner and the seeker are at the same place at the same time with their log book. But then again, I could give my log book to someone else, let them make a find and stamp my book for me. And I could take theirs with me... there's a way around everything if you think about it.

Okay, okay... sounds pretty obvious now that I see the comments. Just didn't know the mindset for this but totally do now. I think I may do this for some prevoius replacements, too. Already archived the old one and listed a new one. THANKS!!!!

I have been honing in my geo-skills with hide techniques as time goes on and occasionally I get to put this to good use. My question is when a cache ends up MIA, like one I had was in some trees that are now mulch as some major land clearing was done where this was hidden. The location is really cool so I replaced the cache away from the newly cleared land, but rather then just a Lokc-n-lock in some trees, I now did what I consider a pretty unique camo technique. It was close enough to the original cache that I didn't have to archive and re-list, but this has me scratching my head. If you replace a cache in a slightly different location but within the zone of the original, and do a new camo or hide technique, is it best to archive the original and make it a totally new cache so locals who have already found it can hunt it again?

Everyone seems in agreement on the issue that bogus logs should be deleted, but the gray area is still the application of this process. If the average respectible cache owner has a dozen hides, how does he police this? For example purposes, let's say this hypothetical owner has a dozen hides and gets several finds on each hide a week, scattered throughout the week. Now this owner has around 50 log entries to deal with. So now how does he validate the logs? Is it a cache owner's responsibility to visit each of his hides once a week (or some other regular basis) and check the entries? People seem to like caches in the woods much more then urbans so checking a single cache might be a several hour ordeal. I personally only visit one of my own caches when there appears to be a physical issue with it or a full log. Not sure about the rest of you but even that is pretty time consuming. When would this cache owner have time to cache????? If something jumps out and appears bogus then I can see checking, but if a faker were to want to do this they could easily visit a couple caches in an area, then sit at the 'puter, do a PQ and log a bunch around them. If they logged entries similar to other entires then how would you ever see a flag raised to make you want to go check???? Even the discussion about letterboxing with the stamps... when would these ever be checked???? I agree with the previous statements that if people look at this as some competitive or compulsive thing, then that's why they would do this, but I think your average cacher looks at the adventure of geocaching as the fun. I like the analogy of weekend golfing, if some hack in the other cart in your foursome wants to chop a few strokes off of each hole, who the heck does it hurt? Boosts his ego, makes him feel good, even if he looks foolish to the other 3 in the group. Unless we have something at stake on the score like who's buying after the game, then "oh well". Doesn't make golf less fun because he faked his score unless your goal in playing was to show everyone you're a better golfer then him.

Sometimes things change. Have a cache out north of the Skyway Bridge and it was a beautiful spot when I hid the cache. Now people have totally trashed the place and it's a mess. Another was at a nice clearing in the woods at the end of old abandoned RR tracks, neat spot with a lot of history. Homeless moved in, people dumped truckloads of trash, total wasted spot now. Not all caches at cr@ppy spots started out that way.

Sounds like time for a geocaching stake-out. Post a cache that the container sounds totally amazing and make a day of scum-cacher hunting.... Wasn't too long ago a few of Florida's finest (highway patrol) were near a stage of a multi-cache of mine when some cachers were seeking it. The cachers explianed geocaching but had to leave before finishing. Later that day they bumped into them again at a restaurant where one of the officers said not to search for it as they took it and they all laughed. I went out the next day and the final was gone. Not sure if it was coincidence but sure didn't sit too well with me.

Yup, but when the guidelines state Delete any logs that appear to be bogus, counterfeit, off topic, or not within the stated requirements. I take a little issue with the term appear to be bogus. I think I would handle this with care as I would rather allow 100 bogus logs then delete 1 valid one. If I saw someone logged a find and then I did a maintenance run and saw no signature, I'd approach the cacher before I'd delete the log. Maybe they could validate the find (with a different twist to most of my hides this wouldn't take much more then "What was the container?" being asked). I just don't see myself going out of my way to see if a valid looking log is valid or not. As stated before, someone entering "TFTH - Nice cache!" as a log entry pasted into a dozen of my caches would send up a flag long before someone who actually took the time and effort to post an actual log entry unique to that cache.

I would have to agree that if certain cachers have a reputation for that type of action (and I mean the bogus logs and not the stealing of the cache) then I'd watch, too. But that reputation would proceed them. Kind of like a baseball player convicted of steroid use, they can flash all kinds of numbers in your face, but how much weight does it carry?

Didn't think I had to contradict previous statements. I have +230 hides, if I picked one a day to check the logs on I would never have time to seek caches <-- sarcasm implied If you find a obvious bogus log, but then the question I'd have to ask is how do you determine a bogus log? If maintaining a cache you view the log book and see it obviously doesn't match the online logs. If you know a cache is MIA but someone logs a find. There are a few rather obvious situations, but as far as making a special trip to a cache just to find out if someone really found it, I think I'd rather be working on my next camo job

Sometimes it takes more then one person to figure out a puzzle cache. And what about a group of people caching together? You put 8 people out caching together, one person finds the cache, should they be quiet and run off somewhere and wait until each individual in the group personally finds it???