Ragnemalm

But since they do not tell me that/why they enjoyed it, what am I supposed to believe? I know nothing so I can not do anything for making them happy.

This is one of my favorites: A log can be good with a single word (or two), while others are totally meaningsless with 1000 words about irrelevant things. And if you have to cheat yourself a high log length by copy-pasting, put the actual message first so we find it quickly. Then you can paste in your statistics-filler. "About the cache:"... "About the trip:"... That kind of logs are OK.

I am not sure we disagree, really, beacuse of course they do have different taste, and I don't mind a log that doesn't appreciate my ideas they way I hoped. That is called feedback, and I totally love every kind of meaningful feedback, they don't have to agree with me. That is how I learn what people like. Constructive criticism, meaningful logs. That and where the FPs go is what I use to learn what to make. What I could live without is when the whole point with the cache is skipped by riding along just for a signature. No puzzle solving, no overcoming physical challenges, just have someone else signing a log with your name while you are doing nothing. And then a pointless copy-paste log on that. But I don't make my caches for those people. What I do doesn't matter to them, so I do my best to ignore them and make fun things for those who want it. So I make more multi-caches, a bit challenging but managable to most people. They are popular, and fun to make, and get blissfully few meaningless logs.

Wow, no less than six obviously false "found" in a row! What are they thinking? "We consider it a find". How about "can we please log this as a find despite not having been near the cache?" or something like that? A photo log of the log book is OK with me, maybe even the last broken remains of a ruined cache, but "didn't find it so we think we found it"...?

I may quote you on that. You are not the first I heard with that view, and it is IMHO one the most justifyable reasons. Sometimes I feel that my efforts don't count, cachers skip over the fun part. If that is too common in an area, I see no point in placing there. I have three rather distinct areas that I place in, and there is definitely a difference. So I put most efforts where it is appreciated. But all three produce good logs often enough. If you had no such area to work with, I fully understand you. I suppose I am lucky.

I got it from another cacher who just wanted to help, but he helped too far. So, it will have to wait. It is a nice place so I don't mind going back. Concerning 5/5 vs 1.5/1.5, the 5/5 is a major accomplishment so I want to fulfill that accomplishment, I want to deserve it. 1.5/1.5 is very much one in the crowd - so much that I usually skip them because they usually are not interesting. (That us usually, not always. A cache with a decent number of FPs is another thing.) I am a rather unusual breed: 1.5/15 is not my most common combination but the fourth most common in my D/T matrix. Because we all cache the way we like.

Ride-along-logs are irritating, usually without meaningful content and generally downvotes FPs, but it is not against the rules so we have to live with it. With some luck, there are enough serious finds with nice logs to compensate. More generally speaking, long copy-paste logs (which often is a sign of ride-along) are a nuisance. They are not only without any interesting information, they are often also so long that you must waste time and energy browsing them to see if there is anything in there that you need to know! I can take one once in a while, but I was never so close to quit the whole hobby when I got a veritable shower of long copy-paste logs on a number of my favourite caches. But again, just a few of them, or TFTCs, are not much of a problem, I can ignore them and remember the good ones. Wet logs, however, rarely bothers me much. With a good enough pen, I can write on anything.

Fine with me, but I do wish that they understand enough of the puzzle to see the point, and hopefully appriciate it, rather than just see it as one more signature on a piece of paper. Myself, I refuse to log a mystery or field puzzle unless I have solved it myself. I recently visited the final of a really hard D5T5, but decided not to log it because I got too big hints. Now it will wait until I have forgotten enough of the hint to solve it for real so I see the whole solution and the trick to find it. I know, I am putting unnecessary demands on myself, but that is my right to choose.

For this kind of logs, I get one kind more often than anything else: (Found) I saw it but it is too high to climb! Everytime that happens, I write back and ask them politely to change the log to "note", and explain the rules. Yes, they "found" it as in spotted it... a couple of meters up, didn't climb, didn't open (which is sometimes an issue), and never saw the log book. I understand them, though. "Found" is a vague term, when it really means "logged".

Extreme case of my "revisit" suggestion, and I think we all agree that we don't want a "found" log every day from a cacher. But for a child who wants to find it, I would gladly put in a separate log book to write in. Although I want to defend my hobby, Turf is more appropriate for the situation. But it is not at all as fun and no physical container. Pokemon Go, maybe... Speaking of logging on paper only, I recently visited a cache I have in a cave. It was only logged once or twice in a year or more. Several months after the last online log, I wondered, is it still there? It was sad to see a cache in such a nice place being so rarely logged. I got a lovely surprise when I got into the cave! The cache was (almost) in place, just a bit too visible... and the log was *crowded* with signatures! The expected 2 or 3 was more than 30! So what had happened? Well, one way or the other, people are finding the cache, and *everybody* neatly sign and put it back! Have I made a cache that is used as guest book? Fine by me!

That's why I suggested that the "revisit" would only count *once* and at least a year after "found". Or more.

I agree, it is unfair. If you need hints in order to solve it, it will cause hints to spread, and fewer and fewer will actually solve the problem but rather get a solution and your beautiful problem is shortcut to a simple one-more-log. I fear that this happens with one of my most beautiful field puzzles. It is pretty hard, but quite elegant, but if you get the solution, do you appriciate that? You may not do that if the hint is too clear or you get it before even trying. It is a problem that we can't get awy from, but I think it is worse for mysteries, where you can more easily trade solutions since you know beforehand that the puzzle is the whole thing. For a multi, the actual nature of the problem may come as a surprise, and hopefully that makes you try solving it before asking for cheats.

You mean mystery caches? I thought we were rather talking about field puzzles. Mysteries, multis with field puzzles, traditionals with field puzzles... they are all mental challenges but in different ways. Mysteries, the ones you solve at home, and then go out in order to find a simple petling hanging at a low branch in a tree or behind a traffic sign, they are often very hard. We have lots of them in my areas, and they pose big troubles when placing new caches. A D2 mystery is often impossibly hard (but I consider that underrated). They get many logs (very high rate of copy-paste logs) but very few FPs so they are both popular and not popular. Multis with field puzzles is what I often make. They get fewer logs but much higher % FP. The puzzles, as I make them, are easier since they are supposed to be solvable on location. Since I want to know whether my caches are fun or not (after all, I make them for the visitors), I am sensitive to FPs as well as informative logs, which I get from these. Traditionals with field puzzles are often of mechanical or electronic nature, gadget caches. They can be very fun but they are sometimes damaged by rough treatment. I have a few and they relatively often need repairs so they must be close to home. Can be very hard to build. That's quite a range of "puzzles"... Like I mentioned before, I see no decline in interest for them, quite on the contrary.

I don't think I have never *ever* gotten a "note" for a revisit. I would like them but I only get notices of problems when someone is there the first time and find the cahce damaged. I have made several "revisit" note logs myself in order to help the CO but most cachers don't revisit. Most people need an encouragement to do that, and that is what I am after. I cache for exercise and accomplishment, geocaching gives me both. We all know that, the multiple sides, get out, get active, see new places, overcome mental and physical challenges. But when the well is dry, what should I do? Dig somewhere else? *Many* people have noticed that geocaching doesn't last for them, the whole area gets its logs and... then what? I have even seen the suggestion that caches should time out and be auto-archived after a certain time to make room for new ones, as a solution. No, I don't suggest that but that is what I hear.

Multiple "found" logs were indeed allowed in the past. (I never did it except once by accident and then I corrected it.) What I propose is to allow that in a controlled fashion. If you may log it again, but not as another "found" but as "revisited", and only once more and beyond a time limit, then it becomes an accomplishment and not a cheat. Reward, yes. It will be a "point" in your statistics that you may desire. One more thing to make challenges from, one more calendar that you can fill... That is what many are doing, right? So what do you do when the calendar is full? Fill it twice? Sure, but when there are few available nearby, how about starting on the "revisited" calendar? Or the "revisted" matrix? There are several benefits, and you mention one that I find important: The CO gets confirmations that the cache is OK! This will also give other cachers the same confirmaton. So you consider whether you should take that 5 km hike to try that cache that hasn't been found in five years? Oh, someone made "revisit" on it! Good, then I will try! Caches will not be lonely quite as much! We can't make "lonely days" challenges any more but this would help a little bit. So there are multiple benefits, and nothing negative for us users. (Most of us already ignore Ape caches, right?) The cost is for Groudspeak to support another log type.

Like I said, nobody would force you. I have revisited *many* caches - the best ones. And when possible, I do that to improve the experience, to manage it in a different way, solving a puzzle that was originally solved by others in the same team, to overcome a physical challenge... There are plenty of reasons to do so, but I think a log type would encourage that.

Not when there are no caches left to find, when you must use half a day to get to the closest ones you havn't found. You want some kind of accomplishment but don't quite have the time to go on a multi-hour trip to do it. That's when I consider switching to Turf just to get the exercise. And when cachers do that, we lose them.

https://patojen.wordpress.com/ https://geocaching.se/svenska-bloggar-vloggar/ https://geocachingkolmarden.wordpress.com/ Dessa är inte bloggar men nästan: Geovloggen av Andreas Niva: https://www.facebook.com/pg/geovloggen/ Found it! podcast: https://www.facebook.com/founditpodcast/

From the point of view of making any kind of log, you do have a point. You can also do what we already do, post a note about the visit. But there is no reward in doing that, nothing is added to your accomplishments, no change on your map or in your statistics (or whatever you care about). There is no attraction in that for keeping a cacher running out of local caches.

Everything is a suggestion. I consider that signing the log would make it "real", there is proof of the visit just like the found. But that is a matter of the status the log type would have.

I have a rather different experience. Multi-caches are more frequent than ever here, mostly made by me and one other CO. I make the harder ones, he makes the easier ones, a good combination. But when I say "harder" that means medium, rarely really hard. And I think the response is quite positive. The logs are pretty frequent and the FPs are too. In the list of the most popular recent caches (Wilson) the field puzzle multis totally dominate the top! Of course, long and hard caches are not logged much, but those that are clearly not so long and that you can expect to be not so hard, they are quite popular. But even the hard ones are fairly popular. Only one, which involves the highest free climbing tree cache I ever made (and two other free climbs, one of them pretty hard), is rarely logged. I can understand that. I think that many of the local cachers know that my field puzzles tend not to be impossible to solve, but rather something that you can solve in one visit. I aim for the "sweet spot" in difficulty, where the problem first have you puzzled, but after some thinking you do figure it out and get the nice feeling of success. However, I think this is very much a question of local culture. I have a few in the neighbor regions, and they are significantly less popular both in visits and FPs despite being quite good.

I propose that "revisited" would be a useful log type, to go back to a cache that you found long ago and log it again, not as "found" but as "revisited". Why? Because many cachers tend to give up when the entire area is covered and there aren't many new ones, and those who don't tend to waste much petrol to get to caches far away. If a revisit would count as a kind of log, you can take a second turn in your home area. I think this would be very good to keep beginners! How? In order to make it interesting, significant time should pass between the first and second visit. Then the location as well as the hide may have changed. I would suggest at least one year, possibly more, but one year would be a decent balance to make the feature interesting for beginners. I would suggest that you sign the log as usual, plus an "R" mark. On the map, I guess it could be a little marker in the corner on the "happy face" or something like that. You should also be encouraged to visit it in a different way, another time of year, another time of day, or in some different way, You may visit that island cache by boat instead of walking on the ice, you may visit a cache at night, and not least, you can climb that tree that you previously logged standing on the ground while your pal climbed it. Does it sound boring to revisit a cache you already found? Well, I have revisited many good caches, and there are also many caches that I never log in the first place because they are of no interest to me (in my case power trails, others skip high T). Like all caching, you can take it or leave it as you prefer. Compare this to Turf or Pokemon Go. In Turf you visit the same place over and over, to reclaim it, and I believe you do the same in Pokemon Go. They can visit the same zone hundreds of times, and this is normal! I propose we could do it *twice*. Finally, this could be a nice premium feature. Any opinions, ideas, variations? Is there some reason why this would not benefit the hobby?

Yes, it is amazing! I don't have a single cache with 100% FP. I have some that I thought were exceptionally good, but they still get too many "one more on the way". Even well designed T4.5's and D5's get that! I can only congratulate you on that. Good work!

Ah, sorry, now I mixed up your two links. I was thinking of the PacMan virtual, which uses positioning information somewhat like a Wherigo.

Assuming that this is indeed possible, you might have given me an idea. I have drafted it before and it sure would fit! So maybe, maybe I can thank you for it!