Ragnemalm

Thanks! Sorry for whining, I am tired. Much work. The Wilson score is my measure of popularity (together with nice logs), not the number of finds. I would rather want to make caches that are not necessarily found often but are entertaining than dull ones that are just yet another find among many. No, I don't mind that others go for quantity, that's their preference and diversity is an important strength of this hobby.

It is Sweden's second worst, in Wilson score. I thought it was funny and different, but seeing it in the absolute bottom, that means it was not a good idea at all and not fun. 51 finds is more than enough to be statistically significant. It is less popular than count-windows-virtuals! I want to make caches that visitors like. It is really hard to know what will be popular and what will not. Mine is probably too easy, since I was not allowed to demand what I wanted to make it interesting. My guess is that you need to make it really long with multiple (interesting?) locations to make it popular.

I wish I could put my virtual up for adoption, but that seems not to be possible. I am not very interested in it any more.

I am still working on the second round on the D/T. High T is not a problem, the big problems are high D. I can solve that with jigsaw mysts, but that feels like cheating, it is trivial, just takes time. But where can I then find a 5/3 or a 4.5/5? They are rare and extremely hard, like unsolvable mysteries or descending down *very* high cliffs with a rope (meaning working a whole day with multiple descents for a DNF...). Maybe high D are unusually hard here? Sweden? Can it possibly be Match Stash or Americana?

In my area, there has been a series of events with FTF hunts after the event for caches that are at the time unpublished, scheduled to be published in the night after the event. All attendants are given a link to a file with information about the new caches, and once they have the information, the whole gang sets off for FTF hunt. That means that FTF on the new caches are reserved for attendants! This is perfectly legal, but the local FTF hunters don't like it. They are locked out from FTFs if they don't attend the event, and an FTF hunt with 20 people isn't much of an achievement. FTF is a matter of agreement of inofficial rules. It is a pity when people disagree on them but that is hard to avoid.

And I am a yellow cheese and that's all I want people to know. Age, sex, color of my skin... who cares? In this hobby, what counts is that I try to be polite to others and be ready to take criticism. Also, to never ever get a cache archived by a reviewer nor be left in the forest after archiving, and to make caches that are better than average. So far it works pretty well.

I decided that in 2016, but when I felt that my body protested over too little exercise after a week of two, it gave me two choices: Go out and find some fairly tough cache, or find some other means of exercise. I took a reflex trail cache, pretty long and hard, and immediately felt better.

It must be very tempting to post a "will attend"-style log to something like this. I mean, we log "will attend" to events, so a similar log on this feels natural, although not very desirable. I can mention here, instead, that this will be a snap to log, since I will be part of arranging a Mega in september. No problem finding Signal there! Well, as long as I don't have to wear the costume myself of course! (That could be an interesting log picture.)

Kermit the frog is offended by your post!

Please tell me that you mean mystery caches or field puzzles, and not online jigsaws. They are everywhere.

Absolutely.. A clearly marked "on/off" switch takes care of this. I mostly use Li-Ion, but one cache is powered by a 9V alkaline. All of them hold their charge for months, and I mean many months. I was surprised that this was so easy. I thought the outdoors moisture would kill the battery in a matter of days, but it just runs and runs. Of course, there are no connectors exposed to the outside, everything is inside the box, but the box is not super tight. I also have one powered by a power bank, as Tungstène mentioned. This was not without problems though; with simple power banks it works just fine, but smarter power banks detect that too little power is drained from my low power circuit so it turns off! I had to add an extra resistor just to waste some energy!

I have a few of these. All are multis, since clever electronic lock mechanisms are hard to build and easy to break. I use sensors, LEDs, 7-segment displays, LED displays... but no motors or solenoids. Sorry, one with a motor, but not for opening a hatch but for lowering a bison tube down a pipe. Also, I always use small, cheap Arduinos or ATinys, not full size Arduinos.

I suppose a spoiler photo is a kind of hint, maybe. But quite a bit off the topic of strange usage of hints.

This is way off topic, but I avoid NM or DNF on any cache where I know or suspect that the CO is inactive. This is particularly true for good or very old caches. Most caches from the early years, say 2000-2005, have inactive COs. Some can still be contacted, some may post OM if you fix the problem for them, but many don't reply or even turn off the possibility to send them messages. If I want these caches to remain, I need to maintain them myself and never, ever post DNF or NM on them. Caches with active COs, or filler caches like PTs, are a totally different matter.

This was definitely one thing that got me going on this. If reviewers reject me for a hint not being a clear hint, why are others accepted when their hints are not hints at all? But live and let live... Let them have their fun confusing us.

My goals are pretty clear: Make a decent contribution for the Mega event in september that I am involved in. Primarily electronic lab caches. Fill a few empty spaces in my D/T "placed" matrix. But that is getting hard. Archive about 50 caches in order to keep the maintenance reasonable. That includes removing all parts. And related to the previous, not having any caches archived by reviewers but maintaining or archiving myself. Organize a new T4.5 bathing event. Find some caches, primarily ones far out in the woods so I get some exercise, and some that sound particularly good, plus bunch of decent ones (no PTs!) to get FPs for the good ones.

As everybody else say, permission, state clearly in the description that you have permission, and provide the reviewer with the address to your contact person. I think it is perfectly fine to state that one partial goal with the caches is to activate children at the hospital. And, again, to avoid the "commerical content" problem I would not mention the name of the hospital. I don't know how far you can say that it is a hospital. I have two caches near a restaurant, and I set the "food" attribute but I don't mention the restaurant explicitly. Finally, I would make sure that the area you are placing in is fully "safe", publicly accessible with no risk of being sensitive for the patients.

Well, hiding the solution in a strange place is fine for a high-D mystery, but both cases of "required hint" are low D, D2 and D1.5. I must say that that adds to my feeling of a misused hint.

But you have seen some? So this seems to be accepted by reviewers? I find that pretty odd.

Isn't it is significant difference between "suspicious pile of branches" and "enter the code 12345 to start the Wherigo"? In the first case, you can try searching without the hint. In the other case, you can't do anything without the hint! In my book, a vital instruction is not a "hint".

Is there anything in the rules about what a hint should be? There are some sweeping ideas here: https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2013/10/tips-on-geocache-hints/ but these are not rules, only "tips". Still, I have been denied publising a cache since the hint was vague. But, there is another kind that are accepted: Caches where you must read the hint to find the cache! I am not talking about a cleverly hidden trad, but the code for accessing/starting a Wherigo or the actual problem for a mystery. If you don't read the hint, it is literally impossible to solve it! IMHO this should be against the rules, since it is downright counter-intuitive, a clear case of reading the COs mind. Any normal person tried without the hint, since a hint is a hint! It is like placing the actual coordinates in the hint. Do you find this OK? Is there anything in the rules or guidelines that oppose this kind of false hints?

I have 162 active caches, and that is too much. I have my own "Deadpool" of caches (which obviously means "good odds to get killed") that I can archive on any opportunity. These are typically caches that have been around for some time without collecting many FPs. (I don't care about number of logs, easy and boring caches get many logs but nobody think they are fun.) I take some away once in a while, archive+remove. I strongly consider working myself down to under 100. The cache saturation is a problem though. I know that it is hard to get a new place, and that makes me hesitate to archive a half-decent cache, knowing that it is likely to be replaced by a 1.5/1.5 petling. Archiving "so someone can make something better here" never works.

Oh yes there is! You get 5100 film canisters or petlings! (Or, if you are unlucky, pastilles boxes). ...but what would I do with 5100 petlings? I bought 100 and regretted it. I don't log nor make power trails or any other mass logging caches so I only use one now and then.

Abandoned caches is definitely a problem, but if we honor ownership of an abandoned cache, should we honor ownership of a McDonalds bag by the side of the road instead? Litter is litter and should be taken care of! When I archive caches, I always remove them! I am more selective when taking away other CO's archived caches. I do that when: it is hopelessly broken it can be confused with an active cache it is in a location where it can cause disturbances it is likely to drop into some place where it will definitely turn into litter In the picture, we see one that fulfilled #1 and #4. It was destroyed by the sun and pieces were dropping into a lake in a nature reserve, a sensitive place. We salvaged every piece that we could find! Otherwise, I note its location and put it on my list of "archived caches that I monitor", making myself a kind of maintainer of them. Logging archived caches is a fun little bonus sometimes, if the cache is not in a totally awful shape. Also, I make a point in always removing significantly more litter from nature than my caches can ever become. I have carried at least four bags of litter out of a forest in the same day, and I didn't bring a single bag but collected all litter in bags that I found!

That was a new kind for me! I have not seen it in any retailers here. PS: I searched an I think I found it. But I kind of wonder if I should like the idea of producing things from stone.