Fugads

It's well and good that you are concerned about what other geocachers enjoy and are wanting to make geocaches that will appeal. I would only caution that doing this might stifle your own creativity while also serving to homogenize what kind of caches exist. Diversity is a good thing, if everyone only created what they already knew others would like than the game would become boring (IMO). For me, creating the cache is as much fun as seeing the logs of those that find it. And I particularly enjoy creating geocaches/puzzles that I haven't seen the likes of before. If you enjoy creating something, no one can take that away from you. It doesn't really matter if it is well received by your local geocaching community or not. Have fun with the creative process, however that appeals to you and don't sweat the small stuff.

Interesting that folks are condoning deleting notes (offensive or otherwise) when in just another recent thread (bringing attention to...), the deletion of a note without communication from the CO and note writer led to more "issues", not less. Seems like in that other thread, no one thought deletion of the note by the CO was warranted, although indeed the CO might have found the note rude.

Stumbled across this thread... what a cool coin! I'm not really savy to the world of H.P. Lovecraft, but I got sucked in to a terror of a cache series here in Southern NM and Far-west Texas (link to final of that series). If any cache-series was designed to drive you insane, this is it. Anyhow, the CO for that series included pathtags in the final. I am sure the CO for this series would love to stumble across one of the coins shown in this thread. As would I...

Has no one else ever made this mistake before? I know I have but a friendly email from the CO and I went ahead and changed my log to a DNF (and I'm not even a phone user with an un-validated account... yes we make mistakes too!). No deleting necessary on the CO's part, although I'm sure he could have. People make mistakes sometimes, it's best to give the benefit of the doubt, and reach out in a friendly manner.

Having the same problems myself. I tried changing my Forum signature/title very recently, and while it shows changed on GC.com, no change shows up here. And I thought I was jsut doing something wrong... [edit] Well I'll be, my title is now changed. But the signature is still unchanged.

I bought a GPSr after a harrowing search and rescue mission that I was part of, where GPS navigation played a big part. We were trying to reach two girls stuck on a rocky ledge, after dark, in a storm, and in an unfamiliar mountain range. The guy I was teamed with had a GPSmap 60cs, and it was our only aid to figuring out where we were moving that night, through a seeming maze of rocky spires and ridges. The mission ended on a good note, we got the girls off the mountain and they were airlifted to a hospital in the nick of time (both being severly hypothermic). The whole thing is one of my proudest achievements (maybe common place for you folks in the business of saving lives though?). Here's a News Story Link. A few months after the rescue, with REI dividend in hand, I got my first (and current) GPSr, a 60cs. I took up geocaching at first to learn how to use the thing, but then simply for the fun of exploring all the mountainous areas around where I am living. Almost a year later, I went back to that mountain range where the rescue occurred, to retrace my steps during the day. I even placed a multi-cache along the route, GC36RPV. A poor cell-phone image taken of me climbing up to the subjects

You are not becoming snobs by being selective, or only doing certain types of caches, or liking some kinds of caches better than others. That is entirely your prerogative. You are being a snob when you look down upon those who do not share your point of view or otherwise show them disdain. It's one thing to not find certain kinds of caches (or find them and sadly shake your head to yourself), it's another to find them and then write mean spirited posts about it or otherwise try to make the people that like said caches feel worthless.

Here is an example of a traditional cache that encourages CITO, Beer Can CITO. The CO is convinced the Bud-light makes up the majority of all trash in this area and is conducting an informal study. I think it's good fun, and the road where the cache is placed is a lot cleaner these days.

Yeah, I agree. That's not to suggest that the folks nominated are not awesome. They are! It's when Joe Public tries to decide the winner. Every month, Faceybook and Twits are saturated with folks promoting their buddies. The person who has the larger social connection will win, hands down, regardless of whether they are worthy. It's the same sophomoric drama observed in every year, in every middle and high school across the nation. Which is exactly why I feel that recognition is best done locally. But even that can become a popularity contests I guess. It probably depends on what your local geocaching organizations/communities are like. At least if it's done locally, any drama is only local and the rest of the global geocaching community doesn't have to get embarrassed by it.

I'll toss in my real-life experience with this one. I am GUILTY of having circumvented a lock on a difficult puzzle cache final. I had solved 90% of the very long and arduous puzzles, and was determined. The previous two finders did not spend half the effort as I did (they also happen to be much cleverer than me, or at least better at getting into the COs head). I did contact the CO about my intentions though and he had no problem with it, since it was obviously more work than he intended the cache to be. In fact, he posted a nice note on the cache page about my "out-of-the-box" solution. My point is, not all COs will be upset with you for finding a different way to solve their puzzle cache. A courtesy communication is key though, and the difference from being respectful and disrespectful. I have also been on the other end, with people finding my caches without having solved the puzzles. I can only smile to myself about this, since in my opinion they only cheated themselves. As the owner of a puzzle-cache, it's up to you to design the cache as well as possible to get people to solve it the way you want (or not).

Giving excellent geocachers recognition is a good thing, and I support it wholeheartedly, but I believe the people best suited to determine this are your own local geocaching community. I'm sure you know what geocachers have great hides in upstate NY, and are in a position to incentive them locally. But what is a good standard in Albany may be completely different in other places, and the people that know these things are the locals. Would it mean more to you to get some kind of "badge" from HQ than to be recognized by your peers as being an excellent role-model for geocaching? Who is more likely to come to your events, find your caches and share geocaching stories with you? To be honest, the Geocacher Of The Month recognition thing bothers me a little. It reminds me of grade-school popularity contests, where the people with the most friends win. Areas with large geocaching communities square off against other large-geocaching communities. I do like to see the nominees that HQ selects and the nice things people say about them, but then it seems to boil down to which local community can garner the most "likes". But maybe I'm just jaded because I never won any popularity contests back in grade school .

what am I supposed to say? Test?

Interesting how you see all sorts of new possibilities with the intercaching interface (or other browser interface). I see it slightly differently, where the new technology allows for a different way to execute ideas, with different pros and cons. For example, I have a choose-your-own-adventure multi-cache with nearly a dozen stages. You don't need inter-caching or Wherigo to execute this idea, but doing so removes the somewhat burdensome task of maintaining a load of physical stages. My multi-cache has been out over two years, and has needed some maintenance (as any cache does) but not anything I would consider out of the ordinary. In fact, I'm pretty pleased with how it's held up. How well will the intercache interface hold-up to technology changes? I have seen more than one puzzle-cache that relied on websites/3rd party something that ended up getting archived when those sites dies out. I'm not much of a IT guy, but are you concerned at all about the viability of the intercaching site to host your cache? Or is that thinking too far ahead (do people wonder about long-term viability of their caches anymore)? So the PRO for using intercache methods is reducing your cache maintenance load, but increasing your reliance on a different technology, which will require some kind of maintenance that is somewhat beyond your control (whoever controls the software for that site?). Just some passing thoughts. I do not own a smart phone... yet. I've been mulling getting one though... I would definitely go for someone's intercache/Wherigo if I had the means. I just don't see that you need those kind of technologies to execute grand ideas like the ones you mentioned.

Well here's an ancient thread that was totally forgotten. And why? It's an interesting thread, or maybe people stopped listening to music while geocaching about a decade ago? Perhaps that is when powertrails were invented and folks no longer were in their vehicles long enough to appreciate some tunes ? Regardless, I found this thread while searching for geocaching related songs, and Briansnat's post #10 particularly caught my eye. Turns out he and I shared a lot of the same musical tastes back then. Anyways, I am still thinking of putting together a geocaching related music CD to leave as SWAG as a kind of signature item, but in the meantime I thought I'd resurrect this gem of a thread. One of my vehicles only has a radio and tape-deck, and the tapes I had are all long disappeared, so in that car I listen mostly to NPR. It's either that or mariachi music down here on the Mexican border . The other car is stacked with mp3 cds. And the most recent additions to that are El Ten Eleven - El Ten Eleven Alt-J - A perfect Wave Heartless Bastards - Stairs and Elevators Bombadil - Metrics of affection The National - Boxer JEFF the brotherhood - Hypnotic Nights The Mountain Goats - Tallahassee Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha Dr. Dog - Be the void The helio sequence - Keep your eyes ahead Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix Seu Jorge - The life aquatic studio sessions Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend Bossanova - Hey, Sugar Not all of that is real new music, but newer than 2006-2007. I for one, would enjoy some renewed interest in people sharing what they listen to while on the road to geocache adventure. Bring it!

While you're at it, can you put my geocaching name on there too? I could use a cache find in Florida to help fill out my map... But make sure I'm ahead of Don_J so I can get FTF honors.

If I could have allowed more people to log the lab-cache, I would have designed the Scavenger hunt such that by completing the different tasks you figure out more parts of the completion code. Then cachers that complete the scavenger hunt, either as a team or individually would be able to claim the lab-cache as found. If it were done this way, there could still be a FTF aspect (first to complete tasks), but competing against others wouldn't be necessary, only completing the scavenger hunt on whatever day it is meant for (race against a clock so to speak). That would make the lab-cache less of a FTF prize (as it was for me vent), and more of a reward for participating. Heck, I could even leave it available for multiple days so that people could have all week to complete the scavenger hunt, I would just need to make the tasks/clues robust enough to survive that long. The bottom line is, using this platform to reward participation is what appeals to me, and unfortunately, I could only execute it this way by making this lab-cache a FTF-prize of sorts.

Nicely put! As an owner, don't sweat it if someone doesn't post much, it only reflects them not your cache. As a finder, keep in mind you are being judged by your post... better use that spell-check .

Glad to see this thread still going, and moved on to what people think about creating their own lab caches. I also created a lab cache for an event I hosted last weekend and wanted to provide some feedback/comments. As someone already mentioned, the survey on the lab-cache site is geared towards finders, not the creators. One thing I really like about the lab-cache format is how it can be used to generate more participation at events. As many people in these forums know, any one showing up at an event location at the right time can post an attended log, regardless of whether they participate. If you are putting a lot of time and effort into creating an event with fun activities, it is somewhat of a let-down when folks do not wish to participate. Having a lab-cache style find that is directly linked to participation seems like a great solution to this, and it appears that is exactly how they are being used at Megas. It give the people that choose to participate something extra for their effort, but does not deprive those not wishing to participate their "attend" log. It would be very cool to see Groundspeak provide a platform such as the I <3 Geocaching one for all events. For the lab-cache I created, I designed a Scavenger Hunt in my town with geocaching-related tasks: My Lab Cache. There was a challenging puzzle, a difficult terrain cache, a multi, some trackable-related hunts and some picture ID stuff. I tried to appeal to a broad spectrum of cachers. This all could have been done for my event without the lab-cache aspect, and the results could have been much the same; some people participated and some did not. Still, having the lab-cache "find" out there for those who participate is a nice bonus for them, or at least extra incentive to participate. I only wish I could have allowed more than one person the ability to log a find on the lab-cache as a way to reward those that participated. Of course, there are those that would consider this as creating an ALR-event-geocache-monster , and they may have a point. Perhaps some set of guidelines and Reviewer-oversight of the new cache type could stem those concerns. More study is needed.... Concerning the technical side of the I <3 Geocaching lab-caches, I wasn't able to get HTML to work in the text fields (simple links!) and I found the format all too restrictive. So I ended up using a 3rd-party web-resource to create my lab-cache scavenger hunt, and the I <3 Geocaching url was mostly useless. If more of these things are going to be done, it would be good to have a more complete system. As for creating something for an individual but still have it count as a public find, this really doesn't make sense to me. Geocaching is a public hobby with all caches open to everyone. Despite the fact that certain "public" caches are only found by people with certain abilities (mental, physical or otherwise) the geocaches themselves are open for the public to see. You can watch an impossible-for-you challenge cache to see what kind of crazy cachers come through your area, or keep tabs on that island geocache to see who is boating/swimming. And then you can read the stories that people post. This is fun, especially for those hard to log caches. And it also helps grow a community, where people are interested in what those around them are doing and achieving. Having private caches that only one other person can see or find seems like it would result in a less open community aspect to the game. I'm not really sure even what the point is of having private-person geocaches tied into the Geocaching website. Anyone can create something special for someone else, and then tell them about it (like in a simple email) for that persons enjoyment. Why have it tied into the public geocaching.com database? Is there some kind of satisfaction in knowing that you found something created just for you, and that everyone else can see you found something special, but they can't know what it was (unless you blog/vlog about it, thanks geocachingvlogger!)? Just plain odd if you ask me. In conclusion, I had fun with the experiment. The platform itself was not the source of the fun, but the underlying concept of having a findable cache that is temporary and tied to an event appeals to me, and would spur me to host/create more interesting events, as well as entice me to attend/participate in these kinds of fun events. I'll be keeping watch to see what comes next.

The blank log is only affirmation that you are FTF, but I hardly think seeing a blank piece of paper is what motivates anyone. The fun is in the race, getting there before the other local cachers that you either know or not. The competitive spirit is what people, including myself occasionally, enjoy about the FTF game. There is a little thrill in "winning the race". If you happened to live in an area where you are one of only two geocachers, I am quite positive you would not race out to be the first, since there is no one to race against (assume the other person is the only other person hiding). Seeing a blank log in such a situation would not give a thrill. As for putting something special in the cache for the FTF, that can serve as extra incentive for people to race to find it. Nothing wrong with that.

Actually I find the idea pretty fascinating. There are certainly aspects of it that are unattractive or could be misused. But I can imagine it being used appropriately to do exactly what the OP was asking for. And since I was curious, I posted the idea to see what kind of holes people could poke in it. Archived listings in general intrigue me. I know that some people use their archived listings for different things, such as trying out html-code in their logs, or making travel-bug repositories. I also have found some archived caches and had no issues with logging them as found. They were there, and I found them. Simple enough. So I posted my thoughts. Seems like that's what you do in these forums, although I recognize that sometimes it is best to keep thoughts to yourself. Perhaps this was one of those times... .

Prohibition? Really? Here is what I see in the Knowledge Book in 1.17 That doesn't look like a prohibition to me. But again, perhaps I am missing something else.

I don't see why not. They certainly exist, and I see no problem with them. But maybe I am just missing something subtle about the guidelines. I realize other "illegal" caches exist, like buried ones etc... But still, what is wrong with a "daisy chain"?

Here's a thought for a secret bonus cache that people can still earn a smiley; use an archived cache listing. This might be a terrible idea, and only get you in trouble with your local cachers and reviewers but hey, might as well discuss it in the forum right ? As far as I can tell, people can post finds on your archived listings, you will see their posts, but they do not show up on the GC.com maps, or in people's PQs so they are somewhat invisible. I can already see how this would be abused, someone posting a new cache and as soon as it is published, archiving it and then using it as their secret cache listing. This could erode trust with reviewers, and the local community. I would consider this poor etiquette, and maybe even go so far as condemn this since you could end up sending people on a wild goose chase when they get the notification for a new cache. If you happen to already have an archived listing, than you could possibly re-purpose it. This poses other issues, such as people earning double-finds on it if they had a find in its previous incarnation. Or erasing some of the "important history" of the archived cache. Some folks might be bothered that you are messing with an archived cache's information, but it's still yours right? I know of one cacher who routinely edits his archived puzzle caches, removing all information about the puzzle so that someone can't mine them for information. I'm not condoning the use of archived listings for the purposes you mention. It would obviously have/create issues. But it is a thought.

In my last post I basically said I would let this cache live but not put much effort into maintaining it. That's not entirely true. Since I pass by the cache often, I do check on it frequently and I agree about trying to keep the swag enjoyable and will try to do so. Having fun swag is another way to show beginners the positive side of geocaching.

You hit the nail on the head. I did want to archive it and was about to, until those last two find logs came in and made me pause and rethink. I am well aware that I do not require permission to archive it (but thanks for giving me your 'OK' anyways). And I am not worried about complainers either, I seriously doubt anyone around here would complain, let alone notice that this cache has died a quiet death (although out of curiosity, I checked the listing to see if anyone is watching it, and there are actually 3 people who have it on a watch-list. Never noticed that before). If I were a character in an Ayn Rand novel, I wouldn't have this hesitation, and the cache would be gone and replaced by now. The fact is, I am not a true "egoist", (but I'll admit to having some of those tendencies). I am trying to consider the broader geocaching community, not just my own personal preferences. Thus the dilemma and post. I have been following a couple topics in the forums recently (Intro app users killing the hobby and Why are new users allowed to place geocaches) with relevant discussions to this dilemma. While those topics range pretty wide, one of the points that caught my attention was the discussion on how to get new geocachers involved in a positive way. Having decent beginner caches around is one suggestion. Trying to reach out to those new geocachers is another suggestion. Both of these points make sense to me. Another point-scored for letting this cache live. I also went ahead and sent messages to both of the people who logged this cache as their first find, welcoming them to the game, and inviting them to contact me if they would like to ask questions. So far no response, but I'll give it time. None of my other caches give me much opportunity to reach out to new cachers, since they are all pretty involved, so this cache also scores a point for giving me an opportunity to help grow my local geocaching community (maybe). So that's two points for, and no points against. From the feedback I have received here, I see that in many places a geocache such as this one is considered useful/valuable for similar reasons. In fact, there really isn't much of an argument against keeping the cache alive other than my initial observations that the cache is pretty mundane. So I'm going to let the cache stay as is. As for the long term future of this cache, I won't worry myself too much over it. It was not one of my creations, and I do not feel invested in it as I do for my other caches. If it dies a natural death in a year or two or 4, so be it.