Ragnemalm

ALs have plenty of problems, but isn't this one that it does not have? Since the AL stages are virtual, what are they taking over? There certainly are problems with good cache spots being blocked, especially by power trails and mystery finals, but not ALs. Right?

But that is not the only problem. Lab caches may get less interest (less visible in your count), which can be a drawback for mega events. Lab caches are AFAIK less flexible than Wherigo. The first point is in my view the biggest problem. Why did ALs have to be logged as the same kind of cache as something entirely different? Since it is basically a less flexible Wherigo, what is the point? The AL stages are just virtual caches with a coordinate check. The difference is too small, while the difference to lab caches is enormous.

I strongly agree, and add one more thing: Adventure labs water down the value of lab caches as a mega event feature. Suddenly your lab cache count skyrockets by just going to a place. Will this make the interest in lab caches drop? Maybe we should stop making lab caches and just turn them into "mega activities"? I have been offered an AL like everybody else, but I can't figure out how to make a good one. So, go to a nice place and count windows...? It doesn't sound interesting but more like a quick log immediately forgotten, easy come, easy go. No challenge, no interesting problem to solve, since the problems you can make AFAIK are only very trivial ones. With a Wherigo, I have some options to program it in custom ways that I can't see here. Yes, it pretty much is a Wherigo where you get half a dozen logs for a single Wherigo.

Now you are misreading your own citation. Your citation doesn't say that it is a way for me to personally remember what I enjoyed, but to share. To tell others. Which is exactly what I have been talking about all along. Sharing, helping others. Helping the CO to know what the majority likes, helping others to find good caches.

Yes, you are downvoting. You have a choice and you choose to not make the choice. So you refuse to help the rest of us? Why? Just because the concept is "new"? Most people wouldn't consider a concept established more than a decade ago to be some new thing. And why do you ignore it just because it is too new for you? So just because the tool gives a few very old caches fewer votes, you refuse to use it? That sounds like you personally try to limit the value of this "modern concept" that you don't like. So what am I supposed to judge cache quality from? Logs? Well, I do that too. Every non-informative log is a downvote too, especially copy-paste which really means "I don't care at all about your cache so I refuse to even tell you if it is in good shape". I hate them. Every such log means "archive that cache, it is junk" to me. And yes, the positive ones are upvotes, but the bad ones always hits me harder. I can take constructive criticism (actually, I like it) but indifference is harder to take. Maybe I should just stop making caches at all. I care too much. I want to make good ones that people like, but when I get copy-paste logs on my most ambitious caches, it really feels that I should do something else.

I am a but unsure about the rules here. I would like to promote our upcoming mega event, but the rules seem to be very restrictive about that. How am I permitted to use the word "mega"? Can it be in a cache name, in a cache description? Can it be that even when the mega event in question isn't pointed to? Can I have it in the description but not the title? Or nowhere? Or can I use the word "mega" freely as long as it doesn't explicitly link to the mega? Can a user name include the word "mega"? If I make a side event to a mega, surely I must be allowed to describe it as such and point to the mega?

Well, you are answering yourself. The reason why FPs are given or not given can be, and often are, in the logs. Not so often for the ones that don't though - they are often copy-paste logs with no information whatsoever. FYI: A basic member doesn't count for the FP %. I very much count nice logs as well, and try to give them when I can't afford an FP or the cache is not quite good enough for it, but I still want to let the CO know that I liked it. Why should I not archive a cache with 3% FPs in order to replace it with something better? The users have voted, let it go, think again, improve. On a cache with few or even 30-40% FPs, FPs are very much a positive thing, but an omitted FP on a cache with 90-100% FPs is obviously a downvote. Of course it hurts to see a great cache falling from the local top 10 to an anonymous lower top 100.

I am a paying member but get no notification on FP changes. I guess I have to activate that manually somehow, right?

That's the "votes" that are valid for P&G and PTs. A CO making a PT wants a lot of logs and FPs are irrelevant since the caches are trivial. It says nothing about quality, only quantity. But this is totally irrelevant for a hard multi or a neat gadget cache where the numbers are lower and the quality a lot higher. This is not really the same thing. On the services you mention, only the number of likes matter, just like the "upvotes" you argue for above. On Geocaching, the percentage matters more. A good cache should have more than 10% FPs. If it has 1000 finds and 20 FPs, then it is probably not a very good cache. If it has 30 finds and 20 FPs, then it is likely to be really good. Why should I not put it on my death list if it is clearly not popular? I want to make good caches, not fillers and PTs. I want them to have a point. If I missed the point, then I can trash it and make a new, better one. So please rethink your downvotes. They don't matter on PTs and P&G, skip them as much as you like, just rethink for those caches that are really special, with much work put into, or a particularly nice location, great challenge or whatever. The ones that stand out. Don't treat them as another petling in a bush. We want your help to identify them.

I am not so sure about that. Taking back an FP could also mean that the cache has gotten competition that deserved the FP better, but it could be nice to tell the CO that that was the case - you still like the cache but it is not quite top 10% any more. (FPs are primarily recommendations in my view.) However, there is one case where I think redrawing FPs is percectly fine, an archived cache belonging to an inactive CO, who you know has quit the hobby and does not care. That hurts nobody. I have at some time removed an FP from a cache belonging to an active CO that I know doesn't care about FPs, and doing that on an archived cache is just fine but not on an active one if I still believes it deserves it, for the good of other cachers, not the CO.

If you are only quantity caching, power trailing, no problem, but you do realize that if you find a nice cache with many FPs, you are downvoting it by refusing to give it an FP? You may be the first to downvote an excellent gadget cache. Would you do that? You give FPs to help others, not yourself. You let the CO know if the cache is a good one, and others can use it as recommendation. If my cache has less than 10% FPs, I put it on my "death list" for likely removal since it obviously is below average. Using existing FPs for planning caching or not is a matter of cache style, and there we are different. Giving them is a matter of helping the community. BTW, how do you write your logs? TFTC? Copy-paste?

Does any of the approved sites allow images to be available without recoding them? If the image data itself is unchanged, that would help a lot. You may need to kill the EXIF infomation for privacy reasons, but do you need to ruin the raw image data? Mysteries sometimes rely on information i the lowest bits. Why do you need to change them? Maybe transcoding to lossless JPEG would help a bit? I am not sure how far, though.

Removing double loggging is a logical move, because the second visit should not count as a find but as a revisit. However, revisiting after several years is often more exciting that you may expect.

And that is exactly the point. If "revisiting" was a thing, it would extend the game's longevity for many people. Just being able to make a log by revisiting caches once after over 2 years is a mild extension in comparison.

If I let them mean whatever I feel like without thinking about what they mean for others, that is just inconsiderate.

So you mean that the idea is to make part of the search letterbox-style? I can understand that, but I never saw one like that.

I must add this: This is partially a reaction to the discussion on revisiting caches, that I wished that to be a log type. These two issues stand out clearly against each other. Letterboxes, if they are merely copies of almost any kind of cache type, adds this to the hobby: It gives you a cache type that lets you boost number of cache per day stats plus one more stat to collect for Project GC badges. It confuses beginners. It puts unnecessay stamps into the caches, which are just litter in the forest and extra costs. Revisit logs gives One more log type to collect for Project GC badges. This was stated as a problem in the other thread. (But it isn't for letterboxes?) It gives the hobby more longevity without longer and longer car trips, making it more likely that people won't quit when caches in the area dries up. It means more visits for the cache, making it abandoned for less time, making it less likey to be forgotten by the CO, and makes it more likely that a maintainance need is discovered early. It is great for exercise because you can start taking a whole bunch of caches by foot or by bike. It is often interesting to see how the cache changes in 2-3 years or more. It may cause visits to archived caches, making it more likely that they are properly taken in since more people know that it is still there. (Better than just forgotten litter.) If it was a premium log type, it may cause people to stay premium. Groundspeak may like that. Some comparison. The main drawback with "revisit" and advantage with letterboxes is of course that letterboxes are implemented and revisits are not.

But then we have the word "hybrid". What is a hybrid of two kinds? One kind with a picture of the other slapped on the side? A boat-car hybrid, will it go on both land or water, or is it a car with a non-working life jacket in the trunk? All other cache types are cache types, they have some unique feature that affects how you log them. The type carries some information and demands it to follow the rules for that particular type. If a letterbox hybrid is not a letterbox at all, then it has no point. To me it means that it should be both. Varitey is good, but if letterboxes are just like the others, just poorly documented and confusing, where is the variety? If the logging of them actually gives a different experience than others, that's variety. An unused stamp in the corner of the box is not variety. The reviewers don't know if there is a stamp in it, and nobody cares. It is just an unnecessary feature to ask about. Speaking of GPS use, a lot of caches can be found without GPS. In many cases, you just have to look on a map. A difference here is that a letterbox probably should demand that it should be possible - but not as convenient - to solve without! Limits the options? In what way are options limited by demanding that the type is an actual type and not just a copy of another? If you want to make a multi, make a multi! I am saying that there should be a point with the type. If it is a letterbox hybrid, that means to me that it can be logged as geocache or letterbox. And that limits how it can be done. If someone can figure out another way to do that properly except projections, be my guest, but "letterbox hybrid" means to me geocache and letterbox, not a geocache with a meaningless extra.

I just ran into objections in an FB thread on letterboxes. I claim that letterboxes are best (or only) made as projections, because that is the only way I can think of that makes it solvable both with and without GPS, that is solvable as cache as well as letterbox. Yes, I know that letterbox hybrids can be made as any kind of cache, multi, trad, mystery, but I don't see why. If it is a trad, then you probably need a GPS to pinpoint the location. Same with multi and typical mysteries. But if it a projection, then you start at a relatively obvious location, take a bearing with a compass and estimate number of steps - or you do it the geocaching way to calculate the exact position and use the GPS. Perfect! If that is the case, then it is a true hybrid. If not, is it anything but an extra cache type to boost various stats in Project GC with a stamp in it with no purpose? And with the serious drawback that it is confusing to beginners and by being an "anything" type gives poor guidance to the rest of us? How about stricter demands on these?

I found one of these recently. Just a paper in a box, not very well hidden. It turned out to be a mystery final. But I find that rather common, mystery finals that are anonymous, and the log can be just a piece of paper with no markings. I can understand why, if you can't tell what mystery final you found then you need to solve it to be sure. Big risk to be tossed as trash though so I would advise something to identify it as a cache.

Since FPs are IMHO primarily recommendations for good caches and not rewards, I think it is fair to move an FP from anarchived one to an active one. If the CO is clearly inactive it can not be taken as offensive, and if you move an FP from an archived to an active by the same CO, that Co will most likely not mind. I know that I would prefer that; recommend my active ones, not the archived ones. Losing a point given to some other CO, that hurts a bit but if that cache is a good one, I better accept it. I have at some time removed an FP from a CO because that CO was openly not interested in FPs, but I think that was wrong; The recommendation is just as valid whatever the CO thinks. So I say it is perfectly OK, but I would just primarly do it to inactive COs or move to another cache by the same CO. Then I stay safe from being percieved as being rude.

In my experience it is hard to make them stick well enough. We have one out in a nearby forest but it keeps losing parts. I suppose you fix it with larger parts and more glue, but I think I will stick to 3D printed ones... but not the one at Thingiverse. It has some serious design flaws. We have our own that doesn't lead water into the container.

Why does "found it" need to be a log type? Why not just go out and sign the caches? Why does that have to be a stat? I want to follow my progress, that is why. I want to be able to look at the map and see what I haven't revisited, just like I did when I logged them the first time. I want the "not yet revisited" to show so I can plan my next trip.

Is this a problem? The whole hobby has problems with competitive behaviours, PTs and other caches that exist only for bringing your numbers up. Cache series that give the whole D/T matrix for some cache type. It has little to do with the suggestion to revisit caches. Should "revisit" be a cache type, it surely would count to your statistics, but it would also benefit good caches, which PTs don't.

Haha! Yes, I saw that was a joke. Why not log NM when we're at it? But to on4bam, there we have the problem with text communication. You can't hear the tone of the voice.