Rikitan

Seems fair to reply back, when I'm receiving something (answers to my questions). I've got almost 1000 logs on my Virt so far - and I replied to all of them, 97% percent positive :) It's been 2 messages per day in average, so I written couple of boilerplate templates, which I'm personalizing a bit before sending. Many finders are really pleased when they receive correct answers with background story from CO. As well from finder perspective - it's nice to get feedback on my answers from CO of Virtual cache or Earthcache.

If solved, found, signed, hidden back by one & same person on his own, I'm impressed. Otherwise meh.

Only by searching in some trackable lover profile, I'm afraid .. but curious to see other responses too .. as well as your motivation

Fun or not, it does not matter. It is DNF. To date, I have logged more than 1200 DNF's (while I was more successful ~8900 times). One of the most painful DNF's was far from home - after really difficult climb, where we found a cache - which turned up to be from competing game, not Geocaching. CO told us afterwards. Funny or not, I changed my log to DNF and did not appeal, because he's right - we did not found his geocache, we found something else. I actually admire his approach and I'm happy with the experience itself! It was spectacular hike, I'm glad he took us there and that's more important than smiley on the map! Be honest to yourself and you'll find happiness in what you do. (That's not for you, just general quote, I know you only reacted to funkymurkyzone.)

Absolutely agree, this is very practical idea, needed by anyone who solved some mystery caches at home and gone out for the cache hunt, at least once.

Hello, Project-gc.com has it's own dedicated forum for challenge cache checker requests. You'll get better and faster response there. Secondly, your idea doesn't fit with current guidelines for challenge caches. Conditions can be limited to geographic areas like countries, regions and counties only. If you'll have the checker created, it likely won't be published anyway..

Anything what you think can have value for others. Of course, no food, explosives nor any kind of dangerous items.

I would do the same, delete the logs, as it is expected from cache owner anyway. They didn't found the cache, nor it's logbook.

With two small kids it is not really about the numbers anymore. If I will manage to maintain my portfolio of caches and make some of them better, I'll be satisfied. Each year I'm planning to buy T5 gear finally, but again I won't have time to learn it, I'm afraid. Hosting couple of CITOs again would be nice, it's the best feeling after.

If there are no caches around your area, just start hiding! Not very quickly, 2 or 3 at interesting spots would be great for beginning. Make sure to read the guidelines first to avoid newbie mistakes and choose solid container & safe hideout with small traffic of people, to minimize needs for maintenance. Algeria is not North Korea, there are quite many people traveling and they would love if there would be someone creating and maintaining caches for tourists. You can also help travelers with maintaining their caches as co owner. And definitely the best would be if you introduce the game to your friends and family, so you can start hiding caches for each other. That's how the game starts and spreads, actually it is very exciting to be at the beginning. You can become father founder for future community ??

This ^^^ was my first and then many times repeated feedback since the canned logs were implemented in 2017.

Don't see anything stupid there.

And trillion of players would start deleting their logs and logging again Have trust, it's good as it is.

You did not read what I have written, did you?

Thank you for well written response, now I understand your point better and also share some of these views. Look, now we are in second phase of initiative, which started by very broad discussion about cache quality. (Phase 1) HQ took most prevalent points from this debate, transformed lot of unstructured views into structured questionnaire. (Phase 2) This survey contains still broad mix of different views, options, ideas - now under rating - again by players - to eliminate those less important and highligh more important / helpful ones. So far, so good - there's not much what could HQ done better until now. What will come next? Assuming we'll find out results of the survey with rating of ideas from most helpful down to least helpful. Just then will come fact-based debate. What exactly is going to change - and, crutially, how the change will be done. Only then I can tell you my opinion - will the change really help, or not. Specific example: You are afraid that over monitoring and over policing can make more harm to game, then help. Totally understand, I deal with this on daily basis. Looking for right balance all the time / when both owners and players are happy. But we don't know what will come out of survey. If it will be call for more police, or the opposite. Maybe idea with players helping owners will "win", a call for more social / community / shared ownership. And we'll be looking for ideas how to make it possible in Phase 3. Shared ownership? Campaigns to promote helping hands? Any kind of positive motivation for players - helpers? All I wanted to say above - it's too soon to express fear of things going worse, because we are only assuming potential changes. It all depends on future facts - what is really wanted - and how it will be implemented.

Why do you think so? I'd call myself experienced cache owner and I feel the opposite. Year by year, game & players are more and more driven by quantity. 10-12 years ago I could read pages of stories in my physical logbooks & online. Now - kudos to exceptions - I'm happy if I find at least a nickname in the logbook and high % of online logs are just copy-paste summaries of cacher's day, hardly relevant to my cache. I'm not complaining, I'm not hiding for logs and it does not say much about quality. Just pointing out - this trend means depersonalized geocaching to me & deteriorating importance of CO. I welcome this broad discussion & survey about quality. Finally! Finally here's serious talk about caching for adventures, instead of caching for numbers. No, these proposals are not depersonalizing geocaching. We are talking here mostly about maintenance, because many COs of hundreds of caches are worried that maintenance & ownership expectations are still important for players and HQ. They are feared of restrictive changes, personally I hope changes will be more about new, healthy motivation factors, lesser so about new restrictions. Presented ideas are much broader, targeted to praise responsible owners. Let me remind us with some of them: For me as a cache owner, these proposals sound rewarding and highlighting my importance. If implemented properly, they can motivate owners to create maybe lower amount, but better caches, for all of us.

Along with toggle option for 0.1mi / 161m circles, please.

If there really isn't any free option, you are right. But typically, there's always some option. You can take a paid transport to Machu Picchu like 99.9% of tourists, or you have an option to hike there for 2-3 days on you own. There is an option. You can take paid cablecar to the summit of mountain, like 99.5% tourists do - or you can train climbing for years, get experience and climb it on your own. You have the option. You can take boat trip to the sea cave with 99.6% of other visitors. Or you can make it with your own boat / kayak - it is free-access option. There are many ways how to pay for access to get to cache location. If there is at least one free option, available for general public - I think that cache is OK to be published from commercial guidelines perspective.

Usually, I'm working in my queue daily, often several times during the day. But sometimes I'm out in the woods for long weekend (as any other regular player), often without internet connection, when caches are sitting in queue for 3-4 days before my initial review. Once I touch the listing, it really depends on its content - if there are no issues, when everything is explained by cache owner in the notes for reviewer - cache can be published immediatelly. But sometimes, review can go into short communication - questions / answers - with cache owner, especially when he's hiding his first geocache and does not have experience to think about everything. "Usually" does not mean a lot for each particular cache. As explained above, it can be 2 minutes if owner is experienced, detailed and lucky. Or it can be few weeks, if cache submission or communication is more complicated.

It's shocking that all finders are happy with that cache design. Edit: I realized that I know this CO personally. I'm going to PM him. He's very honest and reasonable guy and I'm almost sure he'll fix the problem.

That's not what I have written. Are you suggesting any guideline was bypassed? Which one?

To the point of the fee - 30$ entrance fee to access the cache is a bit too high than acceptable standard in most of the countries. But owners of Virtual Reward caches got a bit more latitude for their plans. It's the reward for them, for their overall contribution to the game. It is rather intentional exception than standard.

I'd post NM log (later maybe NA log) - because it sounds like CO is not doing maintenance (of logs) on his cache page properly. Either he should be sticked to his own standards - or loose those standards to accept pictures from ground level officially. Reference: Maintenance expectations - https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=38&pgid=57

Exactly .. you should never see this message when editing Multi: Final coordinates must be less than 2 miles/3.2 km from the posted coordinates.

Spot on. This was part of my feedback in cache quality debate started by HQ in the summer.