niraD

IANAL, but it seems to me that a change like that could affect Groundspeak's role as a listing service. With this change, they would be exercising control over the ownership of the caches, and therefore, exercising ownership rights over the caches. It may be legal, but it may also put Groundspeak in an ownership (and liability) role that they don't want.

One downside of this approach is that you lose one tenth of a Favorites Point. The first Find log for a cache counts towards your Favorites Points. But if you delete that and log another Find, the second (and subsequent) Find logs don't count. Or at least that's the way it used to work, unless they've fixed it.

It's good that you're considering the potential of working with geocachers. There may be other issues with your plan, but the first thing I noticed is the idea of holding a geocaching event in conjunction with some other event. According to the guidelines (which you should read, by the way), "An Event Cache [...] Cannot be added to an existing non-geocaching event, such as meet-ups at concerts, fairs, sporting events, and scouting events".

No. The owner and watchers are not notified when a log is changed (either its content or its type).

Back in the days of "Please don't hide a cache every 600 feet just because you can", the various attempts at thwarting numbers trails were being subverted by having multiple accounts hide the caches. If each account has to place its caches 1 mile apart, then a numbers trail needs 10 accounts to own all the caches. If each account has to place its caches 2 miles apart, then 20 accounts. And so on. Eventually, Groundspeak gave up and the fans of numbers trails won. Do you expect to put the genie back in the bottle?

I think when the OP says "multiple no-finds", that means "multiple DNFs". Of course, that may or may not indicate a potential problem. For an easy PNG, multiple DNFs indicate a likely problem. For a difficult hidden-in-plain-sight camouflage cache, multiple DNFs should be par for the course.

See the Help Center article When a cache needs maintenance.

They're using Unicode characters. (Not all devices will support unusual characters though.) For example, here's the "Hundred Points Symbol Emoji" character that appears in your example: https://unicode-table.com/en/1F4AF/

This is worthy of being repeated.

Yep. And that's how teams were skirting any guidelines blocking numbers trails. Increasing the distance between caches owned by the same account just meant that the team needed more accounts.

Maybe old geocoins with history attached are a bad (financial) investment.

Oooh... Thanks for pointing that out. I'm looking for a new geocaching app (again) because API changes rendered my previous app useless (again). That's good to know.

FWIW, there was an app (Neongeo) that would get corrected coordinates from the Personal Cache Note, and use those corrected coordinates rather than the posted coordinates. This was extremely useful during the period of time after the development of Personal Cache Notes, but before the development of corrected coordinates. As soon as Groundspeak supported coordinates, Neongeo started using them too, and no one needed to use the Personal Cache Note for this purpose any longer.

Then don't "buy" activated trackables. What you're doing is adopting activated trackables. If you adopted a cache, then would you delete all the past logs to start with a clean history? The point of adopting a cache or a trackable is to take over its ownership, not to obliterate its history.

The early blinkers were called blinkers (or blinkies) because they were made from blinking LED jewelry. Paint over the LED(s), remove the watch battery, replace the watch battery with a small scroll of paper, and you've got one of these early nano-caches. The modern ones are designed specifically as nano-cache containers. I've also seen nano-caches that used pet ID capsules, which are designed to hold a scroll of paper with the pet owner's contact info, and to be attached to the pet's collar.

This forum really needs a "Sad" response...

As others have pointed out, if you sign the log, then your online log stands. If the CO deletes your online log, then you can appeal to Groundspeak and they will reinstate your log and lock it so that it cannot be deleted again. If you provide alternative proof that you found the cache (a photo of the log, a description of the hide), then it's up to the CO. The CO may allow alternative proof where the log was not signed. Or the CO may not allow alternative proof. Alternative proof isn't forbidden by Groundspeak. In a sense, it may be forbidden by a specific CO who always requires that the physical log be signed though.

It depends on how difficult the CO wants the hide to be. A fake pine cone in the same kind of pine tree? Extremely difficult. One might even call it a "needle in a haystack" hide. A fake pine cone in a different kind of pine tree? Very difficult, requiring keen observation. A fake pine cone in some other kind of conifer tree (fir, spruce, redwood, etc.)? Difficult, requiring good observation. A fake pine cone in another kind of tree entirely (oak, maple, sweetgum, etc.)? Easier, requiring some observation.

Most of the group caching that I have done has used the "Huckle Buckle Beanstalk" method, so everyone has a chance to spot the hide before it is spoiled by someone revealing it. Often, the only person to touch the cache is the last person to spot it. That person retrieves the cache, signs the log and then passes the log around (or just signs for everyone), and replaces the cache. Everyone is participating, even if only one of us actually touches the container.

Just like when I log a DNF, and the CO sends email with a spoiler...

It's basically the same thing as calling a toll-free phone number and getting information from the outgoing recorded message. Or clicking a link to a website, for that matter. You aren't interacting with a person. You're using an automated system.

True. If the spoiler is an image, then you can delete just the image. If the spoiler is in the log text though, then you'll need to delete the log.

Error 500 is a generic server error. The lackeys need to fix something, and there's nothing anyone else can do.

See the Help Center article Delete logs.

See the Help Center article Adopt or transfer a trackable.