AustinMN

Disagreeing isn't "trashing." Stop defending yourself. I rarely see you agreeing with someone. I agree with people a very frequently. I don't feel a need to post a "me too" every time.

I'd love to know how you came to this conclusion.

On the flip side of the coin, why you and many others are so obsessed about this as well. Afraid that your right will be taken away? Many of you on the other side are so fast to tell the OP to get a life and leave this topic alone. Not sure why you are so worked up about it. This particular user has started several threads, the gist of each one being "I have 30 finds, people are doing something I don't like, and here's my really aggressive plan to force them to stop." So are you saying that only people with high found count got a voice and give them the right to shut down low found count finders in here? Thats what I am really seeing. You ought to be shame of yourself. Give everybody a voice and learn to listen...sometime a newbie make us think when we dont wanna hear it. I will also say this... some of you are afraid of changes. I don't mind LoW having a voice. I mind his attitude that he/she knows more than everyone else, that those who try to teach him are not worth listening to, and that those who catch him in gross inconsistencies are to be ignored forever, and that he learned all this from his first 30 caches. Ever follow the link in his signature? He's not interested in caching, he's interested in a flame war. Prediction: When he gets banned (it is inevitable), he will come back as a sock puppet to complain. Austin

"What the heck was that dolphin trying to do to my camera? ...and what the heck is a dolphin doing in the woods?!?!" Seriously, installing a game camera to watch a cache - even if notice is given - is a good way to creep out cachers. If the intention is simply to capture fun pictures of visiting cachers, do what's been done for years: put a camera in the cache and leave it up to the finders to decide* if they want their picture taken. to take the camera as SWAG. There. Fixed it for you.

Either way, I prefer 10 times a container full on "agendas" than a geocacher throwing trash in the woods. I think most of us do.

So far, I found a bullet, some pills, and I think a ceramic crack pipe, but it was really small. It was also kind of pretty. I can't be sure, since I am not a crack smoker. It was obviously used to smoke something though. I chucked that thing right in the woods. No further comment necessary.

All true. If you own the property where the camera is placed, in some states you may be required to place a sign saying something along the lines of "Notice: Continual Camera Surveillance In Progress" If I bring a camera with me to your store front and photograph of record something in progress while I'm there, my action is obvious. If something foul is in progress, today, more than a few people will whip out their smart phones and post it on facebook before you can blink an eye. However, if I were to put my own camouflaged, well-concealed secret surveillance camera up on your store front or in your store, and not tell you or the public about it, that would be a trespass issue. Likewise, if you installed a private camouflaged surveillance camera on public lands without permission, I'm pretty sure it's a trespass issue, and depending on the state, could be a criminal misdemeanor. Notice that in states where they say you're not allowed to place private hidden surveillance cameras in certain places, it's always places where you expect to find people. Well, we expect to find people at geocache, so maybe it really is a "terrible idea" unless you can pass the ethical requirements for a university study and get all your ducks in a row. https://www.rcfp.org...camera-statutes I realize LOW is not reading my posts, but for everyone else's sake I'd like to point out that his link deals with recording conversations. There are a couple paragraphs at the end about laws forbidding cameras in private places without the consent of those who are there. No law forbidding cameras (that do not record sound) in public places would ever stand court muster. Austin

I'm thinking of starting to leave pamphlets in support of my cause, "Save the pixels!"

I have no way of knowing if your post breaks the rules. But I do know that using a microscopic font that requires that we zoom in to read it is not going to win you brownie points with anyone.

My quote of the week, and it's only Monday.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I do work for lawyers and I am a photographer who has to know is legal rights and limits. In the United States, photography is considered a fundamental right. It is treated the same as free speech and freedom of the press, and the Supreme Court has always drawn from that first amendment to justify it's decisions. There might be an issue with leaving a camera in place, but that is about the camera itself, not the the photographs. The law in the United States, both written and case law, is very clear. If you are in a public place, you can photograph almost anything you see as long as you don't need specialized equipment. There are only two exceptions: * Military facilities (and then, they generally have to be posted and/or patrolled). * Whenever a person has a "presumption of privacy" (US Supreme Court's wording). I have only seen two examples of a "presumption of privacy" that are widely agreed upon. The first is inside a public restroom, and the second is when entering your PIN at an ATM. Virtually anything else is fair game. There is even a case where the Supreme Court determined that a celebrity did not have a "presumption of privacy" in her own bathroom if she left the blinds open. (I personally feel that one went too far, but I am not the Supreme Court.) There is no way on earth they would go along with a "presumption of privacy" argument for someone on trail (or off the trail) in a public park. The subject of "specialized equipment" has cbeen hashed out in detail as well, and "specialized equipment" comes down to super-telephoto lenses, light amplifying scopes, and infrared cameras. Notice that trail cameras are not on the list. Now if we were talking about recording people's voices, your statements would be just as wrong, but for the opposite reason. The courts have for a long time gone in the opposite direction with recording speech. Not only is it an ethics issue, but generally requires a court order. The courts do not easily give out those court orders, even to law enforcement agencies. Austin

In one post by you, I am apparently not able to tell the difference between a grandfathered cache and a traditional cache. In the next post, I'm someone who knows an awful lot about geocaching and now I'm disingenuous. I throw up my hands in fluster. I feel like I'm being toyed with here, and find myself darkly amused. Allow me to clarify. The cache with the mural from my original post is not the virtual grandfathered cache of the phoenix mural you have selected from my recent cache logs. I asked you to assume it was so we don't start a witch hunt on a perfectly valid cache. Searching my recent logs may have merely confused the discussion. Athens, GA is resplendent with murals on sides of buildings, many of them worthy of a cache on their own. I know enough about geocaching rules to get by. However, I don't have nearly that much experience in the field. Between the two extremes lies wisdom. I'm trying to gain some by picking the brains of smart individuals on this forum so I can acquire some degree of wisdom in a shorter time and with less pain. Apparently that's not always possible, eh? In all my posts, I have tried to be clear that I'm curious about how people sometimes bend the rules, and why. Edit: I decided to review the cache again. The name of the cache is "Cry Baby!". I copied and pasted the coords into google maps. This is what I got: The coords are exactly where they're supposed to be on google maps, even down to the fact that it's under the eave about a foot or so. Unfortunately, nobody took a great photo of the crybaby part of the mural yet. I probably should go back and do so. This is a valid cache by any judgement, since they really nailed the placement of the cache. My GPS failed to find it correctly, leading me to wonder if people might sometimes fudge the results intentionally. I really like the mural. Please don't accuse me of lying or disingenuity. To my knowledge, I have never purposefully done or been so on this forum. Chris This entire post says the CO did things perfectly, and you screwed up. But your original post said the opposite: Your own words demonstrate that you are being the very things you now deny. Done with another of your threads. Austin

Are there tall buildings nearby? WAAS could say 4 feet while actual accuracy could be off by 100 feet or more. Austin

Once found a cache where my log included the phrase "blood, sweat, toil, and tears" and proceeded to describe how each had happened in the trek to the cache. That was a great cache.

Are you pretending I'm making an arbitrary request that I haven't justified? Either you are pretending to, or you really are making an arbitrary request that you have not justified. It's a game.

It amazes me just how irked people can get over a game. For those of you that get irked over this stuff, get off your computer and go outside. Maybe even go find some caches. It will do you some good. It's a game. Just a game.

And no one can make you do something trivial that has been politely asked of you. Is it really polite when the consequences are being called a cheater for not complying with someone's personal preference? Is it really polite to expect geocachers to read minds so they don't run afoul of everyone's imaginary rules in addition to the actual ones? +1 and +1

I found a cache at the posted coordinates of an 8 stage multi once. It was hidden in the pole holding a trafficsign (as many micros are). As I lifted the "hat" of the pole I got the micro where I was supposed to find a transparent tag on the sign with the coordinates of the next WP. The cache was names "pastime - unnecessary fiddling" and was typical for the CO. Occasionally CO's mention that on the posted coordinates you can find info to go to WP1 but it's been awhile since I saw that, it mostly happened with older multi's. Description sometimes says "short multi, one stage (or WP) and the cache". We found a multi where the final was at the Stage 1 coords...with a padlock. You had to go to the other 3 stages to get the combination for the lock. Austin

I'm not saying it's wrong, but geo-art made up of puzzle can have a negative impact on those that are not interested in doing them. A potential cache owner that wants to place a cache within 2 miles of the art has to solve all the puzzles (even if they don't find the caches) in order to determine if there are proximity issues for a cache they want to place. Nonsense. Reviewers will check coordinates for a new cache before publication...as long as you ask them to.

No, not at all. And it isn't new. The recently archived Colorado Geo"Art" was also made up of mystery caches. The point isn't that "it must be wrong". The point is that it is a no-brainer to make a picture of something when you can make up the coordinates to be whatever you need them to be in order to make your picture. Now, the old steam locomotive geoArt... that, as I recall, was all or mostly all regular caches, and placed in very hilly terrain at that. THAT got my respect. This does not. This has all the creativity of playing Chopin on a player piano. Read your own post. Think about what you are really saying. It comes down to "I don't like it." So what? I don't like it, but I don't complain about it. The only reason to make a stink about things you don't like is because you think it is wrong or should be changed. The fact that there are things that are more creative or more interesting is totally irrelevant. You (or the OP) could have posted "hey this geo-art of traditional caches deep in the mountians is really cool." Instead, he decided a complaint about something that is not wrong and is not bad and is not harmful to anyone. Am I going to chase these? No. Am I going to complain about them? No.

Once again someone discovers that some cachers are doing something different, and therefore it must be wrong.

I used to have horrendous error problems. The GPS would suddenly ask me if I wanted to switch to automotive mode, because it was travelling across the nearby lake at 40 MPH (~64 KPH). After several miles, it would usually settle back on my current location, but I never knew when it was going to take one of these "trips." After living with this for years, I discovered that it was caused by my camera. I have since replaced both GPSr and camera, and I don't have the problem at all any more, but I always keep in mind that other electronics can and under the right conditions, will interfere.

Equally as worse, in my opinion are containers stuffed into a hiding spot such that they're difficult to extract, especially in an area with lots of muggles. At least for a container with a narrow mouth one can take the contain to a quiet spot and work on getting the log removed, sign it, replace the log and stick in back in the hiding spot. I spent a few hours caching with a former regular poster here awhile back and we found a cache that was a bison stuck in a small birdhouse that was hung from a branch. He spent several minutes try to get to bison fit through the hole in the birdhouse before handing it to me. I spent a few more minutes and was finally able to dislodge the container. Fortunately we were in an empty park so nobody noticed us. I would have given that a favorite point.

I see your point, but for me the size can be important to the search. If a cache is listed as a micro, I am looking for something micro size. The guidelines point to the inside space when determining cache size. I've found a couple that were large based on the outside but small or micro in the inside. In one case it was listed as micro, in the other "unknown." I agree with both. Austin

Okay, I can understand that. Maybe it's time to design an anodized widemouth bottle? Maybe it's time for you to put together a kit of the Tools of the Trade. My wife and I often cache together, and have decided we each perfer different tools. BTW, our posts are overlapping, so you may not have noticed my edit to my prior post.