Team Smokey

Thanks @Isonzo Karst

There is still a bug with this feature. When I click on "Review your hides" link next to where it says "Some of your hides may need attention.", it shows 1 cache with low health score. When I click on that, No caches appear with a low health score.

I understand a lot about why Groundspeak makes the decisions it does. I may not agree with the decisions, but if I can understand the reasoning, then I'm fine with it. I don't complain a lot about many of the things that Groundspeak does that, if I were leading the company would do - like, I would not allow someone to place a new cache when they have other caches that need maintenance, I wouldn't allow cachers with less than 50 finds to place a cache of their own, etc. But I have to agree with nearly everyone and soundly say that these new maps are absolutely horrible. I even gave Groundspeak a couple weeks to work out the kinks, but let me ask this - can ANYONE get the satellite maps to render correctly? It is SO FRUSTRATING to try to look at a preserve or sanctuary that has 3 o 4 caches in it to try to plan a route when you can't use the aerial maps. Urban areas are even worse! I have tried at least 10 times to look at aerial maps and not once have they actually rendered properly and I've been VERY patient waiting.

We tried rearing one of our logs and it grew up into a beautiful 200 page novel!

We do any of the above depending on our mood and/or how many caches we want to find that day. Sadly, it seems that most of our recent logs have just been date and alias in the log book, but we do try to describe more of our experience online. Problem is, if it's a light skirt cache or similar, there's not really much of an experience to describe, so even online it might not be much more than a simple 'TFTC'.

Sure it's a long drive, but think of the number of caches you can find on your way!

Going with these 'requirements' it seems that a similar spot to where you might put a TBH.

Actually, yes, it's been on there for a couple of years now. Who would have thought a few years ago that actually taking ammo cans and leaving nothing would be a problem. Perhaps I should change it to, "Took McToy and left some really nice stuff for the next finder."

If your number of forum posts is greater than your find count, you're spending too much time indoors.

I always thought it was 'Phone A Friend'. What's the context?

I pay about US $6.00 for mine or US $8.00 for the 50cal and I've actually seen them cheaper.

With all due respect to The Cheeseheads, we programmers have all experienced other programmers code that wasn't the best. You're the first one that I've ever experience fessing up to it. With such a great program as INATN, I think all of us would agree that we would rather straighten out the spaghetti than not have any spaghetti at all. It was a great site and would be a shame if it all went to naught.

Oh yes, how rude to expect someone to post accurate coordinates. I'm not sure if you misunderstood me or not... I was speaking about the person who posted the inaccurate coords, not those who expect accurate coords to be posted. I did - my apologies. Glad we're on the same page. Wish I had the ol' foot in mouth jpg to go along with it.

Oh yes, how rude to expect someone to post accurate coordinates.

I don't use IE because it is prone to virus attacks, I use FireFox and don't have this bad of an issue. However, I wish the timeout of the site would be lengthened so that when I come back to the site later on, I'm still logged in. Sure, I could use the 'remember me' function, but I'd rather not for security reasons. Just let me stay logged into the site without logging me out for a longer duration.

It would be trivial for a single person (or a small, organized group) to screw up a lot of caches by abusing such a feature. I did think of that, and while you are most certainly correct, I don't see it happening. I think geocachers in general are good, honest people who wouldn't stoop to such activities. And before the can of worms opens, yes, I know that everyone knows of 'this one cacher', and we don't need to go into that here, but those are few and far between.

We have one account, 'Team Smokey' for our entire family which we have used since we started, but we have three players who we call Papa Smokey, Mama Smokey, and Li'l Smokey. Papa Smokey, me, is the main cacher of the family and has found all but one cache that the 'team' has found. The one in question was an FTF attempt, which Mama Smokey DID get. The cache was muggled before I could go get it. Mama Smokey has gone and gotten some other FTFs, but I decided that I wanted to find them as well. For me, Papa Smokey, I would have a hard time using a team account if Mama Smokey was more independent in her caching, but she's not. For her, she doesn't particularly care that I've found caches that she hasn't, so for us it works. I DO have concerns that Li'l Smokey will one day want her own account and will want to know which caches she has already found. I will not be able to tell her now that we're in the thousands and this sort of breaks my heart. I would suggest that if all of the 'team' has an interest in knowing their own statistics, that you separate NOW while your numbers are low. If you pretty much go caching together, I cannot think of a better way to 'celebrate' your accomplishments together than to log them under one account. Good luck!

With all of the caches that I have recently come across where the coordinates were 30+ feet off I would like to see Groundspeak come up with some sort of method whereby if n number of cachers report that the coordinates are off (and list them in their log), the coordinates would automatically be updated by the site (averaging the posted coordinates) . It is obvious that the COs of these caches aren't getting the hint despite all of the logs stating that the coordinates are off.

You don't need the tracking number to drop a bug. If they didn't have the tracking number to log the bug, then it would still be in the previous cache.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great idea and support it, but I find them a waste of time. I am one who can go to a book sale at a library, or church, or whatever, look through thousands of books and be lucky if I find ONE that I want. To get lucky to find one I want out of seven or ten books in a cache is highly unlikely for me. Keep in mind that these are evidently books that the cachers don't want anymore, so is it really feasible that others will want them? Sure, it's feasible, but what's the likelihood? I DO think that you have a better chance with kids books. I'm still behind the idea though and certainly wouldn't frown upon it.

This is where we differ. From experience I don't see this as a juvenile cacher. Experience is one reason I can get a held bug back into circulation. Well, we'll differ. If I drop off a travel bug and someone grabs it before I have time to log the drop, I won't be of a 'HOW DARE THEY!!' mind and grab it back. That's a petty and juvenile response. I concur. If someone wants to log the TB before I get a chance to drop it - by all means grab it from me. I just hope they will take the time to drop it into the cache they retrieved it from too.

What do I do? Finally - an easy one. I buy a license and bring a gun!

I'd send an e-mail to the CO. Keep in mind that just because they haven't logged into their geo-account, doesn't mean that they're not reading their e-mails.

We absolutely do, but WE choose the milestones. For us, Team Smokey, we chose: #100 - Smoke Report GC5102 #500 - SMOKEY'S CACHE GC103GW #1000 - Smokey's Last Resting Place GCXCN0 We thought about marking every 100 'milestone' caches in this way, but decided against it.

ONE WEEK?!?! No way - you have until the next night to drop that bug. I agree - you have the opportunity to drive home and log it, which is why I wait until the next night, after that, I believe it is rude for the dropper to wait so long. If you can't drop it online the same day you physically drop it in a cache, the person who grabs it from you is not the rude one. By the way, the Groundspeak site etiquette says to try not to hold on to them for more than two weeks. One week in and you're half way there.