niraD

Yes, the mystery/puzzle type is a catch-all. And the only caches on my ignore list have been mystery/puzzle caches (challenge caches within my "blast radius" that I don't expect to ever qualify for). But with that said... I love puzzle caches, and when I travel and I have time, I try to solve a few puzzle caches in the area around my destination before my trip. I enjoy bonus caches when the series itself was fun. But I enjoy multi-caches too. I enjoy Challenge caches with interesting challenges. Yeah, that's really subjective. The ones I was actually working on before we moved across the country were a USGS quadrangle challenge (grandfathered, as these kinds of location-based challenges are no longer allowed) and a bingo challenge (where one "bingo" of 5 sub-challenges looked approachable). Many of my Favorites have been mystery/puzzle caches, especially epic multi-stage puzzles that take a few hours and are often found be small teams working together to solve all the puzzles at the non-final stages.

It sounds like you've already done everything suggested in the Help Center article How to get accurate coordinates. If you don't trust your coordinates, then test them. Enter your coordinates into your device, and then approach the cache location from at least 100ft/30m away. The arrow should point right at the cache location as you approach. Repeat the process, approaching the cache location from various directions, from at least 100ft/30m away each time. No matter which direction you approach from, the arrow should point right at the cache location. If it doesn't, then adjust your coordinates until it does. Bonus points for repeating the test on another day when the GPS satellites are in a different configuration.

I for one never visit trackables to caches unless I have the trackable when I am at the cache.

Yes, we've been asked to create separate "irk" threads for each type of irk. So rather than create a single "What Irks you most? REDUX" thread, we should create a series of "What irks me? - [specific irk]" threads.

Yeah, as much as I like the CCC thread, the first few dozen pages are almost useless because most of the photos are no longer available.

So which is it? Are you having a friend in another country sign cache logs for you, so you can log them on your account? That's cheating. Or is it a shared account, where sometimes group members go geocaching together and sometimes group members go geocaching separately? That's just a group account. (I know a number of couples that share an account this way.)

I've observed the same thing on FB, where hiding/blocking/unfollowing doesn't actually stop the noise from appearing in my FB news feed. I ended up using a third-party browser plugin to filter my FB news feed. I wonder if there is a third-party solution to Groundspeak's message center.

Yeah, I've found a few throwdowns that were within arm's reach of the original (and much more cleverly hidden) container. I've been disappointed for the later finders of the throwdowns, who were robbed of the experience of finding the original container.

Some geocachers consider the DNF to be part of their geocaching history. I've been in groups where one person wanted to keep the DNF as part of his history, so we let him log the DNF for the group. I've also been in groups where two or more people wanted to keep the DNF as part of their history, so the group had multiple DNFs. Some of us think the GC bots should adapt to the way real geocachers post logs, rather than the other way around.

There are regional variations in this. I'm used to simple offset caches (gather information at a virtual stage to get the coordinates of the final) being listed as a multi-cache. However, I have cached in areas where they were consistently listed as mystery/puzzle caches. How are other simple offset caches listed in your area?

I don't understand how the CHS can ever be improved to deal with the way people actually post logs, if everyone stops posting logs that trigger the CHS.

The intro to geocaching classes that I've helped with have not used smartphone apps at all. Either the instructor has taken the students to a location where a number of containers have been hidden ("Raise your hand when you spot a hidden container"), or the instructor has given each group of students a preprogrammed handheld GPS unit and sent them out to find actual caches with an experienced geocacher as a guide/advisor.

My EarthCache was published in late 2015. At that time, using information on signs was allowed.

Keep in mind that these guidelines have changed over the years, and existing EarthCaches are grandfathered when the guidelines change. For example, my EarthCache uses information on signs to answer some of the questions, which was allowed when it was published, but which is no longer allowed for new EarthCaches.

I can see the negative version being used in jest, the way the "No Snowmobiles" attribute (the negative of the "Snowmobiles" attribute) is used in the San Francisco Bay Area in jest. (Although technically it's accurate, because no one can use snowmobiles where it never snows.)

It's part of the guidelines, specifically, the first paragraph of the "Cache page content" section:

The (non-FTF) groups I've geocached with would make up a group nickname, and sign that in 1 or 2 spaces, rather than filling the whole log with everyone's individual geo-names.

If you need more, then feel free to get a longer pole, a longer ladder, or both. I think I came up with the 7m figure based on the OP's comment about "caches that are placed 20 feet up a tree, telephone pole or lite pole". Although, to be fair, you'll get another 1-2m beyond the length of the pole just because the person using it will almost certainly have the lower end up in the air, not planted on the ground. My mind boggles at the idea of an 8m pole not being long enough. I'd hate to prune a tree or pick fruit or retrieve a geocache with a pole that long. Most of the extension poles I've used have been about half that, and they've been about as unwieldy as I'd want to deal with. And apparently, you need one that is even longer. Maybe these aren't "fishing" caches at all. Maybe they're drone caches, or something else. Have you asked around to see how others are retrieving them? Is everyone really using crazy long extension poles?

By any chance, to you mean GOLF ball water trap retrieval net-poles?

Why not just have a single hour-long event from 10am to 11am? That would make just as much "environmental and economic sense", wouldn't it?

Note that the Details button shows only verbose text descriptions explaining the cache type, and its difficulty, terrain, and size ratings. To see additional details about the cache itself, you need to exit Navigation (the left-pointing arrow at the top left of the screen), then scroll down to the Description button, then click the Description button. I have no objection to making the verbose text descriptions of the type and ratings available. But as both a cache seeker and a cache owner, I find it frustrating that Groundspeak's app hides the cache description from the user (who is often a new geocacher, since that seems to be the target audience for the app).

From the Help Center article Find an Adventure:

Be aware that the default map app may show the nearest street address to the coordinates, rather than the actual coordinates. It's been a number of years, but I ran into this with a puzzle-hunt style event that I organized. Some of the teams used map apps that took them to addresses along the road that encircled the lake, rather than to the correct locations somewhere on the lake.

I've also seen caches that suggested (not required, because that would be an ALR) that everyone claim some sort of FTF: First to Find, Fifth to Find, First to Find in a group that includes a toddler, etc., etc., etc. And then there was the liar's cache, which had many elaborate stories of being FTF.