knowschad

You have no finds/no hides, and yet you have some pretty strong opinions about this. Who are you, really? For the most part, you can consider that "guidelines" is just a nice word for "rule". The reviewer may allow a bit of flexibility by his/her discretion, but we, as hiders, are not.

FYI: The proverb has been traced back to Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde' (1385). George Herbert wrote in 1651: 'Whose house is of glass, must not throw stones at another.' This saying is first cited in the United States in 'William & Mary College Quarterly' (1710). And yes... your point about the guidelines being enforced selectively by country does seem to hold some truth. We've seen that many times in this forum. But... *should* that be? Should we not all be held to the same standards and requirements? If not, please explain why some groups should be treated differently.

Physical damage to the tree, perhaps, but the guideline is not about that (nor is the the place to debate that guideline). The guideline is about land manager's perception of geocaching. There are many threads here about that aspect of the guidelines.

That isn't "throwing sticks", and has nothing to do with perfection. It has to do with guidelines. The OP says to not post GC#s or "out" the cache owner. I see nothing wrong with that.

Why not just cut the cut&paste and stick with the something special part? If someone is having too busy a day to thank the cache owners that gave them that busy day, something is amiss.

Well, since I am a physicist, I can do it via information theory. I would say that "meaningful" == "high information density" TFTC conveys one bit of information in 4 bytes, or an information density of about .25 bits/byte. A long log conveys more information, but cut-and-paste logs reduce that information by the number of times they are cut-and-pasted. Probably the best indicator of the information content of a log would be the Kolmogorov complexity. A cacher in my area generates long logs that would be trivial to auto-generate on a computer; my estimate is that the information content (as described by the entropy between messages) is roughly 8-12 bits per log, with log lengths that regularly exceed 500 characters. That is an information density of around .02 bits/byte, less than a tenth that of the TFTC log. My own logs tend to be about 100 characters or so. Since each is unique, I will use the average information density of English, which is described to be between 0.6 and 1.3 bits per character. Since many of my logs contain common information (albeit expressed differently) let's be conservative and say that I have an information content of 0.2 bits per character, or an information density approximately equal to that of the TFTC log. That still gives me about 20 bits of information per log. Now let's assume that one of these cut-and-paste entries contains twice the amount of information that I would put into a log. If the logger finds 40 caches in a day, then the information content is about 1 bit per log, on a par with the TFTC log, but at a much lower density. So who am I to say what is or is not meaningful? Somebody who knows math, that's who.

I'm not asking them to read my mind - I'm asking them to mind their own business, which DOES NOT include harassing CO's simply because cachers can't find their hides (in most cases, hides that were placed with the sole purpose of being difficult to find) Yep, and those quickly become annoying thorns in my side, and on my personal ignore list. If there have been several DNFs as well as my own, and no word from the CO indicating that it has been checked, I'm not wasting time and gas to go look again until someone finds it or the owner chimes in that it is still there. Owner maintenance just says, yes, I checked, it is still there, all is well, maybe I wiped it down or added swag, come on out. No shame there, and I know that the owner does care. It is entirely your prerogative to ignore any type of cache that doesn't bring you enjoyment and entertainment. That is your business. But some people do like those caches... some people go out of their way for them. I wonder how many automated email reminders Fuzzy B is going to get on his infamous A Real Challenge (Muther's Challenge) http://coord.info/GC1764C

How 'bout a little newsflash: it IS their business. "We're just a listing service." For ten years we've been told that, and told that maintaining our (*OUR*) caches was our own business. Now, I have no problem, I guess, with an emailed reminder, assuming that the algorithm is smart enough, but I think what I'm hearing in this thread is that the emailed reminders are just the beginning... the tip of the iceberg, and that eventuallyall caches will be policed by archivebots rather than humans.

This thread could have been soooo much more positive had the OP refrained from the crying baby comments. Nevertheless, it could still be more positive if others would ignore those crying baby comments and focus on the webcam and the ALR instead of the baby comments.

That's come up here before (I think it has been years) but that would be a state law. True for some states, not for all. (state trespass laws)

Where do I sign up for Notifications of Help Center changes?

The point I wanted to make was that caches have been denied publishing because parking at restaurant XYZ where the trail starts (post from a few weeks ago). A cache named "GeoDay12: Milan Coffee Works" in front of this business can hardly have a listing not mentioning the name. I would only consider it commercial if the cache was sponsored by that business not if a CO uses names in a listing. In short (what I wrote in another post) using GBV means more than rules. (Let's look at "GBV" as a puzzle. Hint: abbreviation, hint2: not in English). It really isn't hard to modify a cache listing to keep it in line with the very clear guidelines about commercial/solitication issues. Use coordinates, use vague terms, whatever. I've found dozens of caches hidden at coffee shops etc. where the cache owners managed to have cache listings that didn't so much as whisper a name or slogan. It may be a bit frustrating to cachers, most of whom have good intentions, but without those guidelines, we'd be swamped with really lame, blatantly commercial caches everywhere, and the game wouldn't be seeing any benefit from it. We can argue until the cows come home about what makes a good cache, but first and foremost, a geocache should be created for the benefit of other geocachers. I'm not a big fan of Groundspeak's corporate partnerships, but they do seem to make an honest effort to make sure they have genuine relevance and appeal for geocachers, and they seem pretty selective about what they do. I can think of a couple of promotions that pre-date me (Ape caches, Jeep trackables) so it's not like any of this is new. I'd rather they didn't do this at all, but that's what we have to live with in the current state of affairs. Excellent post.

I declare Kunarion the winner of this thread.

That calls to mind a certain QR code based online game.

Apparently it doesn't to the CO. Right, apparently the CO created his own little "side game" of making unsolvable puzzles. It entertains him and bores and/or irritates everyone else. Ignoring the CO is the answer. Getting rattled by the taunts just feeds the troll. I've known a few cachers in my time that LOVE solving "impossible" puzzles, so I'd have to say that they don't exactly irritate *everyone else*. This guy is apparently one of them, and is just hiding what he likes to find. Calling him a troll for that seems out of line to me.

Personally, I really don't care for the witch troll hunting game very much at all. It makes us all look bad.

Regulars knew that they could prevent a waste of their time by just going on when they saw that comment. Newbies who didn't recognize the "troll attribute" reply were left to go back and forth with the troll, until/unless someone PMed them what "That's interesting" means. You'll note that "That's interesting" is not derogatory or even a put off if the OP was not really trolling. Just serves as a flag. That's interesting! Just kidding of course. But i will say that, although it wouldn't hurt anything to have a flag like this, i'm not sure it's really needed. I'd say that most who hang around here spot em fairly quickly. On top of that, many see the trolling going on and comment anyway. And others see trolls when there are none.

Or, if an "inflammatory" post isn't modded, then the regulars could avoid taking the bait and try to post a helpful response that isn't itself inflammatory in any way. ... which is something that you are particularly skilled at, and I want to thank you for that. I have noticed.

Did anyone else notice the cat in the sandbox? Yeah, I did, but I'm cutting the newbie some slack.

We have the Getting Startesd section. Perhaps when a mod wishes to bestow newbie protection to a poster he could move the post there. Otherwise, moderate the OP as they would any veteran poster. On other forums, inappropriate posts in regular forum areas get a detailed form comment about forum expectations, and then the offending posts are moved or locked. Frequently discussed topics are pinned. We don't need to have a new post about virtuals every time someone new discovers they can't hide one. We don't need to have a new post about FTF "rules." We don't need to have a new post about power trails. When there's something new and exciting, like special summer souvenirs, we don't need to have three or four simultaneous posts going on about them at the same time. The vast majority of threads do not need to exist as separate threads - they can be continuations of existing threads. When you look at the names of the people who actually start threads versus the people who actually comment on them, it tells you everything - forum regulars might be a bit crusty, but we respect each other enough that we don't start frivolous threads. Threads are generally started and abandoned by people just passing by who aren't willing to invest thirty seconds to search old threads before starting a new one. This is one of the main reasons things get so cantankerous so quickly. Every new thread about a touchy subject is a fresh wound instead of an old scar. The best threads, the ones that are calm and respectful and fun, are the ones that kind of plug along, with people adding relevant things as they come along. The other big, big problem in this forum is that the options for dealing with troublesome people are limited. When I block someone, they should be entirely hidden from me, and I should be entirely hidden from them. And people shouldn't be able to circumvent being blocked by adding special characters to their names. Seriously... what is the big deal about all of those situations that you mention? Perhaps we don't NEED a new thread on an old topic, but if someone starts one... why do you care? How does that ruin your day? If you're getting fresh wounds from a new thread covering a touchy subject... perhaps you need to take a break from the forums. What is an old topic to you most likely is a brand new question or idea or problem to the person posting it. Newbies get slammed for starting new threads when old ones exist, and they get slammed for resurrecting old zombie threads. Like you say so often about geocache logging... no matter how you do it, you're doing it wrong.

Not all threads are for all people.

I just looked through the first two pages of cache listings near your two logged finds, and most of the caches in the area seem to be getting found recently by others, so they must be there. There was one on the 2nd page of listings that sounds as though it may be missing (http://coord.info/GC2PPN0 ) but I would not say that anywhere near 3/4 of the caches in your area are missing. OK, I see one that you reported as missing: http://coord.info/GC4MMYT . I agree, based on the previous log, that it could be missing. On this one, you are assuming it is missing, but the person before you found it. Not sure why you would assume that somebody moved it. Those are the only two DNFs that I saw of yours. Are there others where you found evidence that the caches were stolen that you didn't log, or that I would not have seen in the first to pages of listings?

"What have I got in my pocket?" Oh, no you don't! I'm not falling for that one!

Apparently it doesn't to the CO.