Goldenwattle

I noticed that. I just thought something had gone wrong with the programming, and hoped the bug was being fixed. If it has been done on purpose...surely not ...why.

If I want to send a message I go to the geocacher's page and use send message there. The one on the cache page never works for me.

It was good of you to volunteer to adopt it, but I can understand your feelings about it now. It takes commitment to maintain caches. That's why I don't have many caches, as I am not prepared to commit to too many, because they need maintenance.

Yes, that's what we do. It's often mentioned that (cacher name) was with the CO when the cache was placed, but they won't be claiming FTF. They will log after the FTF. We sign lower down on the log, so that the FTF(s) can log above.

This is my opinion, but I wouldn't consider that cache remote. There are other caches in the area, and it's on the doorstop to Sydney.

Spoilsport, especially if it's an old one, placed in the early days before there was the distance rule, and knowing the owner (if they are still active) very likely won't be able to get to it. Why not treat them as historic and maintain them?

I was not going to answer this again, but okay I will. Remote cache: If this is not maintained by others there will be few, or even no caches for a long distance, which could be 100s of kms. Very unlikely that new caches will be (can be) placed here, so there will be no replacement if this cache is not maintained and it's archived. So there therefore could be NO caches. The CO likely doesn't live nearby; maybe even 100s, or even 1000s kms away. Cache in urban area, or country areas where there are people living and plenty of caches. If one cache is not maintained and is archived; so what. There are plenty more, and new ones can be placed also. There will likely always be caches available in this area to find and new ones can be placed. The CO also likely lives close. That is the difference between remote and populated areas. I have explained this before and I don't know why some people just can't get the difference.

That might not work out if a later finder manages to squeeze their name before the first signature. I put FTF and a place for a signature on my logs. So far this has worked. I have not had any disputes about FTF with any of my caches, and I have not had any disputes with anyone else when hunting and claiming FTF. But that could just be the friendly local community, who generally agrees to share FTF with all the people who are there and searching. If there wasn't this agreement, I could see how it could cause conflict.

I gave my answers.

Another reason for me to not make an effort to get souvenirs. (Except country and 'state' souvenirs.) I MUCH prefer the ease of a GPS.

I've pretty much given up arguing; that's why I have not responded for awhile. I am so bored with it. In fact I feel harassed. Too much blame has been placed on me, where the blame actually lies with lazy COs who expect others to maintain their caches. I maintain my caches and don't expect anyone else to do it for me. What I do expect is the courtesy of finders to log a NM on my caches if there is a problem, so that I know about it and will go and fix it. As I did with the example I gave. The difference is that I wouldn't ignore the NM, as this CO did, expecting others to fix the cache for them. If I ignored the NM, then I hope and expect someone to log a NA, because either I am dead, or I deserve the kick up the back side, so to speak. As for which caches I am prepared to do any maintenance on, that is entirely my choice, because I don't have to do any if I choose, so please stop telling me I have double standards, because what I do is my choice and what you do is your choice. I am over this constant bombardment. I am so bored with it. Go bombard the COs who don't maintain their caches, instead of those reporting unmaintained caches.

That's a good idea for caches away from urban areas.

Australian caches are very unlikely to make the list, as we don't have the population to give a cache enough numbers to add to a list. Even if some of the best caches occurred here, they would not make the top of the list. Lists like this are skewed towards large populations. I have never added a cache to a list. I find percentages of favourites the best way to judge a cache.

After one has been caching for years, of course you get to know the names of many other geocachers (even if you have never actually met them) and even from logs can see their travels. I'm sure that's the same for much of the world. I don't know all the names, but some are familiar. Entering a new area the names might not be familiar at first, but then they become more so, so if later that name turns up in my local area (they log one of my caches for instance, or turn up at a get-together), I have been known to say to a geocaching friend, I noticed that such and such from the NT, or Tasmania, is passing through the area.

Not always, but yes I often do know these other cachers. I might have even met them, but if not, at least I know many by name. They would know my name too.

Okay, not everywhere, but it was working on remote caches I found; most of which I didn't need to do any maintenance on, as others had done it before me. Or the cache was set up properly in the first place and it was surviving because of this. On the very few I did do maintenance on, I got more than one thank you from COs. Look, there are many opinions here. I am not bullying anyone on their opinions, but I certainly felt there were bullies out there attempting to bully me. I wasn't the one who kept coming back to attack others opinions; even making up things about me such as suggesting I was searching online to find abandoned caches and then going there just so I could throw them away. What the, I thought! I admit I did react though so to defend myself from bullying false accusations.

Let's make this simple: Cache in urban area and populated country areas: Can be easily replaced by CO, or if not another geocacher can place another cache there after the earlier cache is archived because the earlier CO has abandoned it. Even if this doesn't happen there are still many other caches that can be found and keep geocachers busy finding them. Cache in remote areas. There are no towns; there are no geocachers living here, and almost no people. (There is no mobile coverage either; but this is only an add on, as there are GPSs.) If any stations (farms) they spread over hundreds of square kms and up; the biggest is Anna Creek Station which an area of 23,677 square kilometres. That is to give an idea of how remote some of Australia is. The extreme remote cache example I gave is on a rough dirt track of over a 1,000km with no towns, no petrol station etc. It takes preparation to drive that (unless you are careless with your life). Not all remote caches are quite as remote as that, but are still remote. If a cache is not maintained in these remote areas by travellers, which it has become customary to do (In effect they are community caches now.), there will be no caches for hundreds of kms, as no new ones will be placed. I am not alone in doing maintenance on these grandfathered caches; as most passing through geocachers here would do the same. So please stop making up statements such as, "You then stated that you will (and have done so) take that presumed sole responsibility upon yourself by maintaining someone else's cache." Because there's nothing "sole" about this maintenance. People who suggest this maintenance shouldn't be done and these remote caches should be archived and we should have no caches to find in large areas of the country, have in all cases been making these comments from far more populated places where they will likely never face a situation where there are no caches to find. I find it a nasty, selfish attitude suggesting it's okay that we have no caches to find; while they are alright Jack; they have plenty of caches to find, so what does it matter. Then to suggest that a carefully maintained cache is a throw-down, as though comparing it to a chucked down pill bottle in a city. It's customary here for travellers to maintain these remote, in effect, grandfathered caches. Please don't tell us in Australia not to do this and I won't tell you how to maintain the caches in your country. However fortunately a lot of these earlier caches have good cache containers, such as ammunition boxes, and last well, so often it's only minor maintenance. As for placing a NM on a cache, I consider each situation and have no hard and fast rules on this.

What the...this is sounding like the Twilight zone and getting so unreal. Now you are manufacturing stories.

Ha, ha that was only in your mind; not everyones', or I wouldn't have got likes.

The photographic example was rubbish. I can't imagine any CO would want to keep it in the real world. It's the sort of object that regular organised clean up days target. That is if the rangers don't find it first.

Good bye.

What I have written is: "if someone is not maintaining a cache to the point the plastic is crumbling into the ground / even when the plastic container is now in tiny crumbling pieces, as was the last cache I picked up / If a cache is in this condition I will carefully pick up the crumbling pieces and dispose of them responsibly. / So I should leave that crumbling pile of plastic without a log behind. No, I'm too responsible to leave that there to litter and continue to break further down to micro plastic which, depending where it is, could add to the micro plastic problem the environment has." So after describing MANY times the type of cache I would pick up, why are you arguing with me? I have made it very clear numerous times what I am referring to.

Of course I wouldn't remove an intact archived cache. Would you? I consider finding archived caches as part of the game. Many people, myself included like to find archived caches. I don't know why you think I would remove one...unless it was turning into shards and the small pieces of plastic were mixing with the ground. This described a recent non-archived cache I removed. At least the parts of the cache I could find. Some tiny bits of the broken plastic had already been washed or blown away into the environment on their way to being micro plastic. And I don't understand why some people have a problem with removing what's left of such a cache, and rather want the pieces to remain, so they too can be washed or blown away. This is one cache (but far from the worst example which was just unrecognisable crumbly plastic chips) I removed. I never found all the bits of plastic for this cache. In this case there was a new throw down (a reasonable one) nearby.

No issue with me, because I never said I would take such a cache. Please don't twist what I wrote.

Yes in some cases it's just laziness, but there are groups of geocaches (in one area west of where I live it appears the fashion) to not rate any cache higher than (now) 2 (even if it should be rated higher) so non paying members can find them. Almost all the caches used to be rated no higher than 1.5, but since the rating allowed for non-paying members has been raised to 2, many of the caches have now been raised to a 2 rating. When I found them, I didn't consider many of the caches were really 1.5 rating and now they have been raised to 2, obviously the CO didn't really believe they were only the 1.5 they rated them either. I don't believe all of them are only 2 now either, but that's the highest that allows non-paying members to view those COs' caches.