Sadie

Yes, it is skewed in that way. Many people are including scores from caches close to home and/or caches hidden to help bring that into perspective. Also to skew things is that many folks cache on road trips and such where people do not tend to do high terrain, mystery, or multi caches.

Bad premise. Typically, none of these defenses are visible. So, ruling in or out a victim based on these choices is moot. Otherwise, deprive the woman of her purse and odds are she doesn't have the last two options available. Martial arts or street fighting skills are a learned skill. If the person looked confident and alert, I would wait for someone else. Avoidance is the best, but I still say a dog is the best deterrent.

Can we use these numbers to caclulate MCE and UCR's?

Withing 50 miles of dowtown Las Vegas 925 caches found. Avg. Difficulty = 1.72 Avg. Terrain = 2.06 Avg. Challenge = 2.22 277 hard caches found (30%)

Oh, I don't know that this is a standard I use in any other part of my life. I think being a little bit of a cheater is like being a little bit pregnant: no such of a thing. Though, of course, I'd want cheating defined pretty specifically; I'm not above tagging along with better finders for caches I've had trouble with, for example. I don't doubt that some people with a ginormous find count that is dubious around the edges would probably, without those caches, still have a ginormous find count. That almost makes it more frustrating. If you'd put all the work into earning huge numbers, wouldn't you be extra special protective about the integrity of it, so that no doubt could possibly be cast over your achievements? Someone in my family has a really impressive personal resume that I know to be completely genuine. He has a tendency to exaggerate bits of it in the telling, often in ways that are pointless and add nothing. Makes me wanna smack him. So, a person who drives 1 mph over the speed limit deserves the same fine as a person who drives 30 mph over? Some say yes, others so no. We have our opinions and none are wrong. The example provided was to a log entry where the person was granted permission to log the cache as a find. Very questionable, and viewed differently by many people, but all in all is it worthy of having the label "cheater" branded across thier forehead?

OK what am I doing wrong? Get an error "The instruction at 0x0040249d referenced memory at 0x00000110. the memory could not be read" This is suspicious.

There is no tendancy to discredit people with high find counts. There is a tendency to discredit cheaters. I call your attention to this thread. Have a look at the find counts of many of those claiming these questionable finds including one very prominent high numbers cacher who has quite a few mentions throughout the thread. Brian, did you note how you just claimed there is no tendancy to discredit high count cachers, and immediately followed it with a link that discredits the person with the highest count?

No, it will be a scientific way to test the assertions made in this thread. The claim is that high-numbers cachers tend to find easier caches. You say it's the opposite. I say let's see the data. So I wrote a quick-and-dirty program that will calculate the numbers for Windows users. You can get it here. Just unzip the files and put them in a folder somewhere. Then drag your All Finds PQ (GPX) onto the executable. Sorry it's a little slow. I said the opposite? Please fizzy, let's not put words into the mouths of others. The claims were that there are a lot of ficticious finds and other questionable activities amongst the high number cachers. According to Grand High Poobah's list (Dec 6, 2005), there are 451 cachers with more than 1500 finds. I recognize many of the names. There are likely 449-451 that deserve my respect and acknowledgement of thier acheievement.

New thread? Will this become a "mine is bigger than yours" thread?

I am having trouble understanding where a lot of these posts are coming from. I have met many high find count cachers and every one are very deserving of respect and the implied status that goes with that achievement. Every one of them have found and ploaced thier share of terrain 4 caches. Thier caches are maintained. Why is there the tendancy to discredit those with high cache find counts? None of theses pepole have given any reason to suspect that theier finds are ficticious. For the sake of argument, lets say a "high find count' is over 1500 caches.

Take a dog with you. You don't need a special permit and the bad people will look for easier targets. If you carry a weapon (handgun, pepper spray, et al), bad people don't generally see it until after they attack. And we might even chase a ball for you.

Woof! Just an additional observation. Why do some people feel the need to add thier answer even after the OP recieved thier ansdwer, said "thanks, worked great"? I realize that they can close the topic, but typically people don't remember to do that.

And if the TB travelled from person to person, would it be better described as a virus?

I like the idea of a TB that goes from person to person, not cache to cache. As the person possessing the TB logs thier caches cache finds, the TB is "dropped and grabbed" virtually with each cache until it is dropped off. So, a personal TB would allways be in one's posession. And a "sitting on the shelf" attribute would prevent it from being logged at caches.

In another thread started recently, I noticed some very strong opinions and observations from many poeple. Some of the most assertive comments and opinions came from people with very high posts counts. Not all, but a lot. Thus the question... when folks come out here to the forums looking for answers or advice with regards to Geocaching, does a person's post count define some sort of expectations as to thier ability to answer your questions to meet your personal needs?

Why do people persist in say ing that a quality cache cannot exist in a parking lot and also imply that it must include a hike in the woods? Also, where does it state that a lot of cachers with 1000 or more legitimate finds never take a hike in one of these quality woods?

I should have stopped reading there. Man that's a lot of words... There aren't THAT many words. It's just that they are too close together and gives the impression of being over staturated. They need to be further apart so they can each be appreciated on thier own individual merit..

A llama-lless saturnallia. Woof

Even the President of the USA has status with respect to achievement. Many do not like, lack respect for, and acuse him of wrong doing. But, he has status. More status that the Mayor of a small town. Respect or otherwise liking the prson is an entirely different issue.

If the line has to be moved, then where does the line move to? If the saturation is reduce from 500 ft to 100 ft, then - - there is potentially 25 times more caches in a given area (math wiz folks, feel free to correct). - nobody goes for the rural caches or out on the trail. - more micros - more extreme numbers. 500 caches in a day? 1000? should be easy that close. OK, if it's interesting spot, then find something that will work. Would the reviewer allow this to be part of a multi cache?

Yes, this thread was taken out of that context on purpose. When I read that, it made me think of how I viewed other cachers, and how other cachers view me. I decided to start a seperate thread. If anyone says that the general populous does not factor in a cachers hide/find count into thier perspective of them as a cacher, I will argue. However minimal, it does have an effect. Nice person with 10-20 finds = nice guy guy that is just getting started. Nice person with 200 finds = nice guy that ius getting the hang of things Nice person with 2500 finds = nice person who gets out a lot and has a lot of experience with different types of hides. Replace Nice person with Jerk, Good orator, egotist, short person, rich person, sensible person, etc, etc. Remember - anyone with a lower find count than you needs to get out more, and anyone with a higher count has too much time on thier hands.

In a different thread, the question of high find count giving a person a higher status than another person without the high count. Rather than comment there, I thought a new thread might be a better idea. When you talk to a cacher, does thier find/hide count factor in to conversations about caching and how much weight you give thier opinion?

Woof!

I have started checking the DNF's against the physical log. I have discovered that in all occurances, the cacher posting the DNF did not sign the log book to indicate they were in the area. Sorry folks, but if you don't get anywhere near ground zero, it's not a DNF. [elvis]Thank you very much[/elvis]