Ragnemalm
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Posts posted by Ragnemalm
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11 minutes ago, HHL said:
Give the Event-Labs a meaningful name and there will no confusion at all.
You mean names like "MEGA2021LAB name"? Sounds awkward to me.
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On 5/19/2021 at 4:47 PM, kunarion said:
I was with a group like that once. They sign it as "Everybody", and now they're back in the van, impatiently waiting for me. I think I might have seen the cache box for a moment.
Spot on! They might have seen the cache! How about at least touching the cache that you log? Or in some way contributing?-
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I must bring this up. I am building LAB caches for an upcoming mega, but have second thoughts. Am I doing something meaningful?
LAB caches are dead, killed by Groundspeak by the introduction of ALCs. ALCs are permanent virtuals, totally different things than lab caches, which are temporary event activities. If we have LABs on the events, they will be mixed with local ALCs and visitors will have problems telling them apart. Also, will they care about that event activity cache when they have five virtuals right outside the event that counts the same?
So as far a I can see, this means LAB caches are dead. Making LABs on events will only cause more confusion.
What can we do instead? My suggestion is this: We either need a new attribute, "event activity", on caches, or a new cache type, event activity cache. Or we just make activities that are not logged online.
Beacuse we do want fun activities on mega events, don't we? But logging them as "new virtuals" make no sense so... maybe we shouldn't make them loggable at all.
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For me, there are a few bad cacher types, on various degrees of bad. They have one thing in common: No regard for others.
- Cache saboteurs. In the worst case, they damage the cache, intentionally or not. They break locks, pry boxes open, disassemble what should not be taken apart. Others leave it in a bad state that ruins the experience for others, not putting things back properly.
- Throwdowns. Didn't solve the puzzle? Just put in a fake log! Didn't find the cache? Or couldn't reach it? Hang a petling at face hight and pretend it is the cache.
- Copy-pasters. Looong boring logs about nothing (just to fake that author badge) and not a single word about the cache, on a special, unique cache with much work in it. Yes it is legal. Legal to be impolite. I don't mind a TFTC much, but getting piles and piles of these boring copy-paste logs on something I have worked hard on... it makes me considering quitting the hobby. Really.
- People who can't communicate. People who misunderstand everything, takes offense when you try to help them, or don't respond. Can be both COs and finders.
But now I'd better think about the good cachers. Cachers who have fun and let me know it. Cachers that are careful. Cachers that you can talk to.
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On 4/24/2021 at 7:04 PM, edexter said:
...bring a throwdown with them to avoid the annoyance of a dnf...
Who are doing that? People who don't know that a throwdown log can get erased? You didn't sign the log, just your own piece of paper - erase! What bothers me most are the people coming next who believe that the throwdown is valid. But it is still invalid AFAIK.
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On 4/21/2021 at 5:39 AM, Spudyr said:
I just wanted to know what a favourite point deserving cache looks and functions like in all of your opinions!
Top 10% likeable in my view, for any reason:
- Could be a nice place
- Could be an historically interesting place
- Could be a nice field puzzle
- Could be a nice container
- Could be a good physical challenge
- Could be a good mystery
- Could be some other fun or commendable idea
but it is never
- FPs as "thank you", they are recommendations
- Randomly placed along a PT (If I would take a PT - which I don't - I would spot the best for possible FPs)
- An ALC (because I don't like the concept)
- The "new" kind of challenges (but I might give one to the "old style")
It does not have to be unique! If a cache must be unique for me to give FPs, then I will give fewer and fewer even to very good ones. I get one in ten, so I give one in ten.
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Some would say archive and re-submit because new caches are desirabe, but I did that once with a cache that I wasn't totallt happy with. I improved it significantly, which I thought would qualify for archive and re-submit. The response to my new better cache has been totally underwhelming, so I will not do that again.
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On 4/27/2021 at 6:29 PM, G0ldNugget said:
I had to look up Biltema Angel caches as I had never heard this term before. Heres a brief explanation:
"What are Biltema Angel Caches?
More and more often one reads that a geocache is a biltema cache. But what exactly is a Biltema Cache? The Biltema Caches, which are also called fishing caches or Sweden caches, are geoaches that hang at a certain height. Often these boxes are mounted higher than 5 meters or even at a height of 10 meters. These can be taken down with a fishing rod...
...These hinges are several conical, extendable rods which can be extended to a length of up to 15 meters. A hook or magnet is then attached to the tip of such a fishing rod in order to fish the can at this height.
https://www.geo-discount.ch/blog/was-sind-biltema-angel-caches/
I am a swede but I never heard the term "Biltema cache" on "fishing caches". I tend to refer to them as fishing caches, down-fishing or "Motala-style caches", since they are common there while we tend to climb the trees here in my town.
So this is typical for Sweden? I didn't know.
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One more thing: Yes, pine trees as well as fir can be sticky. Not always, but sometimes I can get some resin on my hands. No big problem, it is easy to remove with some soft hand cream, or even butter (followed by soap and water).
So I see very little problem with that. But oaks and birches are nicer in that respect. (I free-climbed an oak today, just for the fun!
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My kind of topic.
There are several kinds of caches high up in trees:
1) "Fishing" caches, use a rod to get it down. Pretty easy but tends to be replaced badly. D/T for these are debatable since you are still on the ground, but it has some physical challenge anyway. I use this rarely, tend to use T3 when I do. Usually a petling with a hook built from metal wire.
2) "Flag poles", you haul down the cache with a string. Needs to be fastened in a good way so the string does not saw off a branch over time. A loop of string which the main string goes through works if you don't want to use something more sturdy like a pulley.
3) Caches ment to be reached using a ladder. Fasten in the tree in a suitable way (see below). Usually rated something like T4 in my area. (I have only one of these.)
4) Climbing gear caches. Usually very high in a tree with few branches.
5) Free climbing! (My favorites!) Needs a good tree with many living branches of medium size, must go low if the tree is supposed to be reasonably easy.
Next part: How to fasten a cache in a tree!
1) Nails or screws. NO! Don't! Never in a living tree. Geocaching avoid to cause that kind of damage.
2) Strings. Good, but must have slack to avoid tree strangling. Trees grow, branches too. I prefer rather thick strings to reduce the risk of the string "sawing" into the branch, especially of the cache is heavy.
3) Flexible things like a bicycle hose. i am not sure about this, it will cause a strain the tree but hardly kill or make it grow over it. I never this this.
And finally: Trees to avoid.
1) Trees with many dead branches that encourage you to rely on them. This can be dangerous.
2) Trees with brittle bark that may get significant damage from climbing. I avoid pine trees, they are often too easily damaged.
3) Dead trees or trees with signs of rot.
Sorry for the length. I have been through these issues a lot, as I own many tree climbing caches and really want to do it right.
Next episode: Rock climbing caches.
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I checked out a nearby town, and got some expected results:
2010: 11
2011: 72
2012: 159
2013: 18
2014: 178
2015: 188
2016: 36
2017: 94
2018: 21
2019: 45
2020: 7
2021: 3 so far
What I see is not a declining trend but a strong dependency of very few people. From 2011 to 2012, one CO was very active, then stopped placing new and he has now archived all his hides, From 2014 to 2017, another CO was even more active, made lots of very original mystery caches. Then he got a full-time job that needs all his attention, so, few new hides since 2017. We see a dip in 2016, which perfectly matches his engagement in a mega event, so many new ideas went there.
2019 has a momentary top. Guess what? A power trail!
So all that area needs is a new CO making many new caches, but from the top in 2014-1015, the town as well as nearby roads are quite crowded.
So the conclusion is mostly the same: It depends on very few people. It usually depends on mass placements of very simple caches (PTs) like the 2019 peak. The 2014-2015 top is a bit different, also publishing of large batches, but in that case created by a very energetic enthusiast who made many (actually very good) mystery caches.
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I checked out the trend in my area, and here it is. The "län" is the region, about 70 km radius, and "kommun" is the area for my city, around 20 km radius.
Year Län Kommun
2013 1342 250
2014 1895 291
2015 1622 247
2016 1435 254
2017 1230 167
2018 811 157
2019 578 166
2020 866 329
The numbers are very, very dependent on a few COs, and very much on PTs and other mass placements where 20-30 caches are placed and published at the same time.
I can see two exact times where an active CO quit, end of 2016 here in my town and end of 2017 in the neighbor town. The first was very active in making challenge caches. The latter guy has the second to most caches in the whole Sweden. We can also see the placement of some major power trails in 2013-2016. All that are quick and easy caches to create.
What dominates the numbers are just that, numbers. They are totally unrelated to quality. In 2017-2018 I was very active placing multis, always fairly ambitious ones. They are totally invisible. The same goes for the most high-quality CO in the entire region. He has made fewer caches since some time in 2017-2018, but those are equally invisible.
Also, placement of new caches become harder. There are so many caches, not least mystery caches, that it is hard to find locations. Outside the cities, large areas are dominated by power trails, and although you can place caches by walking some 100 meters beside the trail, those caches will ineviably be treated very badly by power trailers. So a power trail area is essentially blocked from other kinds of caching, at least other traditionals.
So it is hard to tell whether there is any significant trend with so much noise in the system. A single very active CO dropping out makes a visible dent, and power trails totally destroy the statistics.
It would be more interesting, IMHO, to check whether the number of well worked, ambitious caches go up or down, but there is no way to measure that.
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On 3/5/2021 at 7:11 AM, fizzymagic said:
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Idea and figuring out if a puzzle is possible -- usually a few days, up to a week
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Creating the actual puzzle content -- this stage can take anywhere from a day or so to a few weeks
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Testing on myself -- I usually try solving the puzzle twice from scratch. If a computer program or math is involved, I write an independent solver to be sure it's right.
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Playtesting -- I send my puzzle to a minimum of two other people who have agreed not to be FTF (frequently, they are not locals) and ask for honest feedback. I am lucky to have friends that will tell me if my puzzle sucks.
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Refining -- I iterate using feedback from playtesters to make the puzzle better. Frequently this stage involves coming up with a better tie-in between stages of the puzzle. If the playtesters tell me the puzzle requires moon logic at any stage, I work with them to make the flow logically coherent.
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Checking the coordinates -- I almost ALWAYS do a coordinate check with my local reviewer.
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Building and hiding the container -- This stage can happen any time in the few weeks before publishing.
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Writing the cache page -- I generally leave this stage until after I have the puzzle completely working, and at this point I generate any final media content required.
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Release -- I include as much information about the hide and the puzzle as needed to make the reviewer comfortable with what I am publishing.
Is my process insane? How does it compare to what other people do?
You have a good and ambitious list that fits well for an ambitious and well worked cache. I have some that fits your process pretty well.
For mosty of my caches, even fairly ambitious multis, I don't ask for a coordinate check from reviewers since it is so strongly unwanted, but for complex builds I do. Same with playtesting. I test the problem myself, and in some cases I have other people testing.
So it depends on the kind of cache, but for the most ambitious ones, your list is very good and complete!
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And I wished that it would say AL... Splitting Adventure Labs from the very, very different Lab Caches would be a blessing! Although I think they could be merged with the very similar Virtuals.
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11 minutes ago, lee737 said:
Yes, but a plastic gold medal with FTF handwritten on it - would hardly appeal to the average cacher around here.... my son loved it.
My little story was cut short in your quote, misrepresents it a bit.....
Here is the full, unsnipped version....
I know that your son liked it. My point was that it had been ignored by the person it was actually intended for.
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On 2/1/2021 at 1:38 AM, Luckless said:
Hi all,
If I wanted to do a puzzle cache and it involved playing a game on another website or doing some computations on another website to get he answer, would you be willing to do it? Would you be risking getting a virus or tracking cookies or malware? Would having an antivirus on your computer be enough for you to want to run it? Would it make a difference if it was a well used website by many others and not some flybynight?- maybe even get my own website, but not sure if I'd have protection with that? Am I even allowed to do that?
Absolutely. It is done all the time, not least with JiGiDi puzzles. And there are various caches based on JavaScript programs. It is not very different from googling for answers to a mystery.
What I would not do is to download a binary to run on my computer. Then there are no safety barriers to my data and not even a virus checker would help.
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On 1/25/2021 at 9:58 AM, lee737 said:
Funny - years ago (5.5 actually, just looked it up), we were out caching on a new series - we found the first cache, and there was a medal in there - a plastic FTF medal. Samuel (aged 5 then) was thrilled to grab it, even though we weren't FTF on that cache.
FTF price ignored by the person making the FTF? That is my experience with placing FTF prices. I had a few in my early caches but they were totally ignored. Same thing with tradable items, they stay forever. I have stopped placing these extras, they are not meaningful.
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Most souvenirs are like this. They just roll in by themselves by logging a few caches. It was even worse with the "Memory Lane", which just came by itself with 10-20 finds. The souvenir page is littered with souvenirs that I never tried getting.
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On 1/13/2021 at 12:27 AM, cerberus1 said:
I get it, but just like the real Lab caches from ago, I simply skip by them (the other 2/3rds said they messed with "our" stats).
Did you skip real lab caches??? Are we talking about the same kind of lab caches, the temporary, physical ones, often highly advanced and special, on mega events? They are a prime attraction on mega events, but I don't know if they will survive ALCs.
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On 1/12/2021 at 9:44 PM, RedHunters said:
What would you think if i hide geocaches that can only be found by people that never had a LAB cache find? This would feel like me having all these LAB bonus around!
I totally understand your feeling! And hiding them from yourself doesn't help because you know that the ALC s may limit (eliminate?) the interest in Wherigos and lab caches (the original kind), and also make virtuals obsolete shortly after reviving them.
ALCs pop up everywhere now. It seems virually everyone gets one.
But we can't do anything but watching and see if this changes the hobby in the long run. Are Groundspeak trying to change geocaching into being mainly virtual or is this something temporary?
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On 1/12/2021 at 4:43 PM, kunarion said:
The O-rings tend to be unsuitable for outdoor use, they crack, get gummy, or break. Prepare for the challenge of finding replacements. The maintenance schedule of these can be so tough, these caches are often soaking wet, moldy, unmaintained.
Cachers' opinion, based on other such caches, may be that it's gonna be a terrible cache. Unless I see a lot of maintenance runs to ensure these are fine ("NM" or not), I tend to not even hunt them.
The short life of O-rings when exposed to sunlight is a major problem on cheap bison tubes. There are bisons with good O-rings, but I don't know how to spot them.
BTW, bisons come in many varieties, and at least for a while I could get them very cheap. A quick dive in my cache material surfaced five different sizes, and I have at least one more, plus that I also know of the "bullet" kind that I don't have.
The variety of sizes gives some freedom. I like the smallest best, 14mm I think, because it is small enough to comfortably drill a hole in a piece of wood (not a living tree, of course) to hide it. And hiding it where the sun doesn't shine on it will prolong the O-ring's life by years, literally. The bigger ones are harder to make enclosures for but it can be done. Not to mention that the popularity of the cache will be a lot higher if it is more than just a plain bison tube. I have one that is protected by a small plywood box looking like a very small birdhouse. Much more fun to find!
Protecting the O-ring can be even easier. I figured out that I could make small caches with locks with a transparent plastic test tube with a 14mm bison. I hade one of those hanging from a tree several years. Finally, the test tube fell apart from the wear of the sunlight but the O-ring was fresh! The transparent plastic had protected it from the UV so it hadn't deteriorated!
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On 1/11/2021 at 1:52 PM, JL_HSTRE said:
"Why shouldn't a Reviewer publish their own caches?" is like asking "Why does a good author need an editor or proofreader?"
You are perfectly right, I misread/misunderstood the question. Of course it is questionable for them to review their own caches. Then the question makes more sense.
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Interesting thought. A reviewer will have all information about other caches, so finding free locations is then trivial, often a tough problem for the rest of us.
Speaking of that, I wish us "common folks" could get a level of trust where we could find free spots in myst-heavy areas. Personally, I know the locaction of literally hundreds of mysteries that I havn't solved, given to me by other caches simply for finding free space, and I do not log a single one of them without solving them myself. But I know, how can GS know that I am to trust on that with thousands of people logging other's solutions, or having other cachers putting their name in the log while they stand besides just waiting?
Reviewers are expected to have their own regular account so why should they not publish their own? IMHO, the knowledge of final locations of mysts and multis is must more sensitive and where they must be given the highest level of trust.
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On 1/9/2021 at 8:38 PM, scipwraec said:
I think I would be more at peace with the monthly fee (I live where a yearly membership doesn’t make sense because there are few available caches in the wintermonths) if we got a discount for creating and maintaining caches. There is quite a cost for upkeep in time and money.
But if you are only caching casually, do you need a premium subscription? But I agree, COs that maintain more than they (that is, we) log should be acknowledged a little more as volounteers than as users. Except for summertime, I tend to do more maintenance than logging.
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LAB caches are dead! So what can we do instead?
in General geocaching topics
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If they take the ALCs anyway, since both count as ALCs...?
But if they are not lumped together with ALCs but something else, then I think they would benefit even without logs. They would be part of the event. But a new log type or attribute on a physical final would solve the problem.