narcissa

Especially if he's going to wax poetic about "new cachers." --- Dude, you can learn all the intricacies of GPS, buy all sorts of different GPSrs and obsess about their accuracy, but when it comes right down to it, for those last few feet you have no choice but to rely on your eyes and your hands to get the cache. In geocaching, we have to rely on the goodness of other people - without it, the game wouldn't exist. We also need to be forgiving at times, or else we'll be endlessly frustrated with other people's mistakes and oversights. Geocaching is supposed to be fun. If you're in the forum typing 3000 word rants with your caps lock on, you might be missing the point.

The rules against soliciting, commercial caches, and agendas apply to the geocaches themselves - not the swag that cachers leave in them. In addition to being anal retentive nitpicks for complaining about your yo-yo, they're just wrong. On a handful of occasions, I've removed swag from caches because it was inappropriate - food items, religious pamphlets, dangerous objects. But something that simply has a logo on it? Pfft.

If I'm really in the mood to cache, it takes very severe weather conditions to stop me.

Assuming that there is a mob "ganging up" on people is a little ridiculous. Overwhelming agreement among the commenters doesn't constitute "ganging up." In the case you've brought up, there were many, many helpful suggestions, and links to BOTH the TOU and the guidelines. The problem wasn't a "mob," the problem was that the original poster felt that his case was somehow special and the guidelines didn't apply to him. I don't think anybody sees the reviewers as "perfect" - not even the reviewers themselves. But the guidelines are easily accessible, they aren't particularly long or difficult to read, and every cache owner agrees to them each and every time they make edits to their cache pages. The case you want to discuss was not confusing at all - the cache owner was buying time to argue his case, even though his actions were unambiguous violations of BOTH the guidelines and the TOU.

I think things get broken in caches if they aren't traded quickly. We have harsh winters here, and I think much of the damage to trade items occurs because of temperature changes, water getting in, etc. Stealing geocoins is a whole other issue that shouldn't be conflated with the "trade up" issue. It's an intentionally malicious act, whereas, at worst, a lousy trade is simply a nuisance to people who look for swag.

Stick a stamp in it, and you have yourself a Letterbox Hybrid! I almost said this, and then went to check because I figured you would say it.

Caches camouflaged as tumbleweeds?

All of my Earthcaches are "roadside" Earthcaches, so I didn't need to get permission from any land owners or land authorities. The educational requirements can be completed without leaving the side of the road.

We grapple with this a lot in Ottawa, because the area is pretty saturated with caches, and there are some older cachers who have vanished from the scene. There are some caches in our area that have taken on a bit of a life of their own because they're very old, very challenging, and much loved by many cachers. It's hard to let go of caches like that, even if, in the long run, it's the right thing to do.

Very cool. I wish more cachers would do the same. I try to do this also. Another question though about replacing logs? I found a nano the other day with a full log. Would it have been appropriate for me to remove the full logsheet and replace it, then email the cache owner and offer to send him the full log? or just leave it be and post a note telling him the log is full as I did? I own one cache that is sometimes a nano (it depends on the season) and I do appreciate it when someone puts a new log in for me - I think any reasonable cache owner would appreciate that. But mentioning it in your log is fine too. Posting a "Needs Maintenance" over a full logbook is kind of infuriating, unless it's been a long time and it's been mentioned several times in previous logs.

Yes, I realize it's hard to detect tongue-in-cheek, which is why I clarified that it was, and that I do not, in fact, allow my child to steal toys from caches. I am sure everyone knows what your idea of "cache degradation" means. What you don't seem to understand is that YOUR idea of "decent stuff" might be vastly different from MY idea of "decent stuff." "Trading up" is highly subjective, so running around admonishing people and complaining about cache "degradation" is futile. I've seen plenty of brand new caches filled to the brim with brand new stuff, and it's just not that exciting. Most of the really memorable caches I've found were old caches with nothing in them but a dirty golf ball, some marbles, and a logbook. What makes a cache memorable is the experience of finding it. A challenging cache in an exciting location has much greater value than any amount of brand new swag. If you're caching for the stuff, you're caching for the wrong reason. Our whole society is designed around acquiring stuff. If you want more stuff, go shopping instead.

I try to carry extra baggies, little notepads, small lock n' locks, and other repair items with me, and even when I forget those items I frequently try to dry out damp caches and logs. The only time I won't try to fix up a wet cache is if it's raining when I find it, and trying to fix it will only make it worse. If I know in advance that I'll be visiting a cache that has been reported to be in bad shape, I will often go prepared to fix or replace it. A lot of people in the Ottawa caching community take care of each other's caches. In the case of caches where the owner doesn't seem to be around anymore, it's common for other cachers in the area to formally or informally adopt them. There are even a bunch of old caches that our local club has adopted as a group, and we all keep an eye on them.

I prefer to just tell curious onlookers what I'm doing, or I wait for low-traffic times to grab urban caches. Sunday night is a perfect time to grab caches in areas that are otherwise swarming with muggles.

It was never my intention to encourage anybody. I just wrote, how I handle it. That's just my opinion, you have every right to have your opinion. I'm not a missionary! But I enjoy geocaching as a wonderful hobby. Hiding caches others can find is a lot of fun. If someone gets excited about just logging online, well that's like discovering lots of trackables after an event. Who am I to sniff around in the logbooks and spent time on the computer checking them? You can, of course do that, best thing probably is to do this at least once a day! GermanSailor My point was that you should delete obvious fakes, not that you should audit your cache logs frequently.

I think it's very rare that a cacher would leave a cache open with the contents spilled out. Chances are, if that has occurred, it's due to animals, muggles, or the elements. It's more common for cachers to be just a little careless - not taking the time to replace the camouflage, leaving a corner of a baggy sticking out so water gets in, not securing the cache. But even then, it's hard to know for sure what happened.

People in my area will often sign in as "geomob" without listing individual names, especially if it's really buggy or rainy.

If they're taking the reading from the wrong location entirely, then averaging the waypoint isn't going to help. The people who use the forums probably aren't the ones causing these problems, so picking fights here isn't going to result in better caches. Then again, neither is insulting people. I'll say it again: you can't control other people's behaviour, but you can control how you react to it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_%28plant%29 As for "newer" cachers - I joined the game 6 months after you did. Perhaps if your post was better written and less accusatory, it would have been received with less resistance. Storming into the forum and accusing everyone of putting out lousy caches isn't really conducive to a good discussion.

Your original post was complaining about 15 to 20 feet.

If he wants to take a toy from a cache, I will find something in my bag to put back in - a toy he's not interested in anymore, a dollar, a carabiner, whatever. And I only let him take one - if there are two things he finds interesting, he has to choose. My earlier comments about taking stuff from caches without leaving anything were tongue-in-cheek. Anyway, is it necessary to attack my mothering skills because I'm into caching for the search, and not the swag? My point is that there's no objective value to swag - the little toys that many people complain about are the only swag items that I ever bother taking, and that's only because I cache with a small child. If there is no toy in a cache to interest him, it's not a big deal - I still enjoy finding the cache, and taking a few moments to sign the log and read what others have written. I'm not going to storm home and spam the forums with complaints about how rude everyone is for leaving boring swag that my kid doesn't like. The people with the sense of entitlement are the ones who expect to find expensive prizes in geocaches, and complain about "cache degradation" when a cache's contents don't meet their particular tastes.

Either the guidelines should be changed so that Earthcaches are to be published in an official language of the jurisdiction they are in, or they should be published based on the English version.

Thank you for telling me how to care for my caches! It was about time. More than 2,500 logs on my caches and six hosted events within the last five years. It was about time someone explained geocaching to me! Thank you again! GermanSailor If you didn't need it explained to you, why are you encouraging behaviour that explicitly violates the guidelines? Your personal feelings about fake logs are irrelevant - you agree to the guidelines each time you create or edit a cache, and the guidelines tell you to delete fake logs.

I rarely come across caches with coordinates bad enough to notice or grumble about. When I am introducing someone to caching, I always try to teach them to use the GPS to get them close, and then STOP looking at the GPS when they are within a few metres. Geocaching is a game made up of people with various experience levels, types of equipment, and dedication. You can stomp your feet and shout all you want in the forum, but there's always going to be new cachers with iPhones or old timers who won't give up their Gecko posting coordinates that aren't perfect. You can't control other people's behaviour, but you can control the way you react to it. If fifteen feet of inaccuracy makes you blow your top, perhaps you have some work to do on yourself.

I've definitely taken a legally-questionable shortcut to get to a cache, but I don't blame the cache owner for it. Sheesh.

You are limited to five PQs a day, and those are limited to 500 caches each. Allowing people to run the "My Finds" PQ once a day would, as others have suggested, be very demanding on the servers. If you want to keep track of your finds *that* closely, you can manage them in GSAK.

I'm not sure if it's your weird punctuation that is obscuring your meaning or what, but I'm not sure that I understand what you are trying to say. Unless you're a small child out with your geocacher parents, trade items are not the main object of the game. Yet the trade items that are of interest to the young ones are usually derided as geojunk! There is no objective value to any piece of swag. You mentioned a broken pencil vs. a remote control car as an example of an "unfair" trade, but if that car is keeping the lid from closing and the cache could use a pencil, then hey - fair trade. When I bother putting swag in a cache, it's because I found something cool, but inexpensive that I thought other cachers would dig. I don't hit the trails with the expectation of finding expensive trinkets and gifts for myself. Any cacher who does have that expectation is seriously misguided. Seriously? you are going to criticize my punctuation? I suppose if you cannot grasp the meaning of what I am saying then I will let it go... I had thought people from ontario were superior... or from the lake at least... NM... Cancel my transfer payments... Your punctuation does make it tricky to decipher your meaning, and the puns don't clarify. Your bizarre attempt at insulting me because of where I live is inappropriate and not helpful in any way.