addisonbr

I did some poking around and did find this in an old, locked thread, FWIW:

Ah, I think that's the key to my confusion... Unless I'm (again) mistaken, it was locationless caches that the offer was good for, a few months in advance of the mass archival. If you converted your locationless cache to a waymark, you were offered a free membership if you weren't already a premium member. If I have that right, does anyone know how that conversion was handled? By the owner manually, or was there a process that Groundspeak ran?

I just don't know how it was done, one way or another. I don't know if CO's archived things on their own, or if Groundspeak ported them over on their behalf, or what. I just don't know.

Back when they offered people a free year's membership for converting their virtuals to the new Waymarking site, how did they handle the conversion?

There was a suggestion that had some support in the old Feedback forum, that there be an option for a CO to designate a date / time for publication (I generally assumed that it would be an automated process, after the reviewer had clicked 'ok'). It had a ton of voting support; not sure what happened with it after the Feedback site went away though.

I'm not entirely sure this will appeal to all land managers.

I noticed that too, but then I thought that the blue sad frownie face was pretty appropriate. (ETA that the blue DNF face is obviously not a smiley)

Cool, where's the talk? In addition to the good suggestions above, you could also check out mygeocachingprofile.com (it's the engine behind gc.com's statistics tab, but they have a number of other metrics and etc. that Groundspeak doesn't use). PS - lamoracke, do not forget to find a cache on the fifth Wednesday in February!!!

That makes perfect sense from the standpoint of our over-worked and (most definitely) underpaid reviewing volunteers. I totally get it. Looking at it (it being the whole system) from an outsider's perspective, it raises some potentially uncomfortable questions though. I'd be careful.

There are a number of caches near me that I can't complete, or at least, that I can't complete without borrowing equipment from other cachers. I don't own a canoe, or a Wherigo-capable GPSr, for starters. But I don't mind.

North is Uptown, and typically trains going uptown are "Bronx Bound" or "Queens Bound". South is Downtown, and typically trains going downtown are "Brooklyn Bound". General rule of thumb: North = Uptown = Bronx Bound = Queens Bound South = Downtown = Brooklyn Bound

Best thing to do is run a "My Finds" PQ. That will return all of your found caches, even if they've been archived. Then you can go through the data, and if you have a tool like GSAK, you'll probably have your answer quickly. Link here: http://www.geocaching.com/pocket/default.aspx Look for the "Add to Queue" button near the bottom.

Can you tell me more about the app that needs to be installed? If it's not absolutely required to solve the cache - if there are other workarounds - I may be able to help you modify the cache listing to bring it into compliance...

I didn't realize that was happening. It is?

I can understand this is a sensitive issue for you, as it is for many others. It seems that Groundspeak relied heavily on the communities in Ireland and in the United Kingdom when deciding to use geographic designations: My advice would be to approach the Geocaching Association of Great Britain along with Geocaching Ireland and let your feelings be known to them. You may be able to either understand why they supported the database structure as it was implemented, or perhaps you may be able to persuade them to change their minds and bring the concern back to Groundspeak. But either way, I think asking those two local geocaching organizations will probably yield more fruit than what I fear this thread is about to devolve into. ETA: Fix broken quote tag

I think your final sentence contains the key to your best shot with this. If you can get a reputable third party source to commit to the project, you might be able to put together a winning proposal. I am skeptical that a group of committed cachers, no matter how genuine their enthusiasm and intentions, would inspire Groundspeak to introduce a new category of virtual caches (or, I would guess, it would have been done long ago). But an outside organization with serious credentials and a willingness to see the project through, that might be the kind of thing that would facilitate a good discussion. That's the direction I'd go.

This glossary may help as well.

This is a pretty good point.

Wow, I've never heard of that. Is that / was that a thing? Leaving log books in caves? That's really cool. Is it / was it organized anywhere? Where could I learn more?

I'm not sure I would call it unbiased. There do seem to be a number of links to original source material (emails, forum posts) that make for some interesting reading, especially in light of what we know in 2012. Sometimes it's hard to believe the game is barely a decade old.

I think it sounds great. I'd make sure you communicate the day pass information to the reviewer and include a couple of sentences on the cache page, so that cachers aren't caught unawares. Overall I think you'll get some great logs out of it.

Sure thing... The cache is Original Colonists (GC1N4JB). I didn't remember until reading the cache page again just now that there's even a little shout out to Matt Stum a few paragraphs in. (I'd love the GC number for the puzzle cache you're referencing as well... I love that kind of stuff.)

I think A Real Challenge (Muther's Challenge) got up to about 140 before finally being found.

I have a puzzle cache that depends on doing this kind of research, so I've got a few tricks up my sleeve: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=ff5971aa-6994-4560-b3a8-68dce6a175ec

Apparently ordering three sets and using the discount code TAXSUCKS will earn you free shipping to boot. I haven't tested it though.