Goldenwattle

Bad, bad bad. The code will be passed around and some people won't bother visiting the cache. Just log from their armchair. It is extremely easy to carry a pen and sign you name. LESS control over whether the cache is really found. Code passed around and the cache logged without visiting it from home. Nothing for the CO to check, the claimant did bother to visit it and find the log. The present very simple system works very well. Yours invites abuse and cheating.

With the exception of some old caches and remote caches, I agree. Others could be maintaining those, but often they can't make an OM. I have commented on some old caches (more than one) that the rating or whatever, needs updating, and a volunteer has messaged me to say they would like to do this, but the original owner, although inactive, won't relinquish the cache to others who are maintaining it. Therefore I am very hesitant to do a NM/NA on those caches. I do on others though, and have several caches pending, so to speak, before I put a NA on them. I came upon a 2000 cache that someone had stolen the cache container of. The original log was still there though. All I could do was put the log in a plastic bag. There was no way I was going to make a NM log of a 2000 cache (we have so few in Australia), so I just mentioned in my log what I found and asked if the nest finder could bring a container. Just as well I didn't make that NM, as I didn't know that some local geocachers were maintaining it, and next day it had a new container.

That sounds good, as long as it doesn't include favourite points, which some parts of the world can't compete with.

I want virtuals to be available for everyone on the world, not, if your suggestion was taken up, likely to be only given to those in Europe and the USA. You mentioned wanting virtuals given out to people with high favourite points. Yes that might benefit you, but also as I said, that means that likely no one south of the equator or in Asia would get one. If they are to be given as a reward for having good caches (which is a good suggestion) the only way to measure that is by percentage of favourites. Number of favourites is not a good way to judge the quality of a cache, as that depends where the cache is (small village or a wildness area, as against in the CBD of a very busy touristy city), how many people visit it - see previous comment. Say, five visits a year as against thousands can make a huge difference to possible points. The brilliant five visits a year cache could have 100% favourites, but still be a fraction of the number of favourite points for a very ordinary cache that gets thousands of finds. Also, my opinion is that the virtuals should only be given to those with a minimum of years as a geocacher and have published some caches.

A few years ago now, but I flew in and was flying out, and so I stayed near the airport, in a hotel that offered free shuttle to both the airport and the light rail station. The hotels near the airport were much cheaper than those in the city, and the light rail conveniently took me to the city. I can't remember how I got from the station to HQ, but likely walked.

Back to that selfishly giving virtuals to only the USA and Europe. And none to anyone in the southern hemisphere or Asia. We DON'T have enough finds to get that many favourite points. Is it that hard to comprehend that? Also where the geocacher lives in a country makes a difference too. A very ordinary cache in the centre of a city with lots of tourists to top up the local geocaching population could have many times the favourite points of a brilliant cache in a more remote place. Most favourite points does not necessarily equal great cache. The ONLY one to look at for that is %.

"There are geocachers there", would be interpreted as living in the town or locality.

How have you come to that conclusion? I already explained that the nearest geocacher that I know of is 500kms away. People travel, they pass through. Some people do this for only a few months, some for years. They are on the road, travelling. I spent three months travelling around the country in 2022. That's when I placed the cache in Normanton. The rules are I must have visited the spot in the two months before placing it, which I did. These caches mostly cater for the travellers, not locals (if there are any at all); none of whom are likely geocachers. They get finds. Just as Barefootjeff wrote, many would be so called 'grey nomads'. Most have a caravan and pull that around the country, going from place to place. Many free camp (pull up where they like and stay there for the night); although there are also paid camping places. Most would free camp with others, for safety. I have free camped in the past, although I slept in my car. Can be very social, sitting around a campfire with others. Very basic camping. No electricity; often no facilities. Not having a toilet in my car; unlike caravans, I only free camped where there was a toilet. Still, no electricity. So in the outback, under the stars, with no street lights, etc. Only maybe a campfire, and the torch or lantern of someone moving about. I always travel with both. There are known places where people tend to gather to free camp. There are even published books (likely online now) listing places, with coordinates. I see a caravan turn of a main road onto a dirt track in the late afternoon, and I think, free camping. Setting up for the night. Especially in the more remote north. Many Australians, especially the retired, do a lot of travelling. A cache doesn't need locals to find it. Plenty of travellers passing through. In fact, many of the caches I do come upon (outside of bigger towns), are placed by these 'nomads'. They will be be back that way in the future. https://www.google.com/search?client=avast-a-1&q=grey+nomads&oq=grey+nomads&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQABhAMgYIAhAAGEAyBggDEAAYQDIGCAQQABhAMgYIBRAAGEAyBggGEAAYQDIGCAcQABhA0gELNDcwOTQ4ajBqMTWoAgCwAgA&ie=UTF-8#ip=1 Extracts from the last logs of my cache; all travellers. "On a campervan trip across Australia from New Zealand." "Had a little chat about the cyclone coming and us having to change our travel plans." "We are travelling in this area and stopped here for your virtual." "------ and I were on our way from Mt Isa to Karumba today" "Heading to Cape York" "After having a fantastic time at the last ever QOGM event in Longreach we are now heading north" Etc, etc

That's a GOOD improvement, as before someone who didn't qualify for a find could make a note, wait a few months and then sneakily change their non-find to a find. The CO would get no email about this. Now it needs another log for a find, so the CO will get an email and be aware if person is a cheat.

I do agree with this comment , but you also wrote, "And you don't necessarily need caches in areas where there are no cachers, right? " I doubt there are any geocachers in the area of the cache I mentioned, or for 100s of kms in any direction. The nearest geocacher I know of to there is 500kms by road away. So I put my Virtual cache there; a place where it would be very hard to put a physical cache, because of the 161km distance rule and no geocachers living there. It brings people to the old tropical railway station and museum; plus it's a SideTracked cache, which will attract collectors of those. A tourist train regularly pulls up there offloading tourists too, so all the answers can be found in the station to be convenient to the passengers.

No, not North Korea (um, obviously), but caches (would usually have to be Earth or Virtual caches) are appreciated in places that people visit. I, plus other travellers appreciate it if we can find caches in remote places in Australia as we are driving through, in the Antarctica (lots of cruise ships visit sections of that). Dubai is another. Not many geocachers live there, but it's the second busiest airport in the world, so travellers pass through. I have geocached twice there. Other places too. You would deny geocachers who visit there the chance to find some caches. The last log for my remote-ish cache GC9P6QB in northern Australia, to show caches in these areas are appreciated. "We wouldn't have stopped here if not for the cache. " They give people more places to visit. "On a campervan trip across Australia from New Zealand. The heavy rains from Cairns seems to have slowed down. This is our first cache on the trip. Answers sent to CO. We wouldn't have stopped here if not for the cache. Thank you for bringing us here 🙂. TFTC" The previous finder got a personalised tour. "Fantastic location. We rocked up and were seeking out our answers when the station master(?) popped out and saw us. She then kindly offered to open the museum, set the video up and open the train and carriage for us to have a look. It was great almost like our own private tour - in first class as she also provided us with a couple of QR fans and a bottle of water as it was a hot, hot day."

Then ALL the Virtuals will go to well populated areas with lots of caches, that don't need another cache. NONE will go to Australia and other southern hemisphere countries, NONE to Asia. Alright for some... Now, if it was for % favourite, that would add some fairness.

I never suggested this .

I didn't know that. My caches I mentioned as examples, are Premium User only caches. The % is not visible though without clicking on it.

I tend to fiddle with the rating of my caches, taking feedback aboard, in the early days of the cache's placement, but rarely change the rating after that. An exception was one cache, where the terrain went from 1 to 3, size micro to small, and back again. I kept finding the T1 cache on the ground, so found another hiding spot, which was a T3. After (likely by an animal) I kept finding this cache kicked out of the hole and at the bottom of the hill, I managed to buy a cache with a better magnet and put it back in the original hide, and it's been there okay ever since. So from rating micro D1.5 T1 to small D1.5 T3, it's back to micro D1.5 T1. If I hadn't been able to change the ratings, I would have likely archived it and not replaced the cache. It was number 1 (the first placed) in a community series of caches. I would just hope that someone else would have relaced it.

That's the sort of cache I was referring to I found in Europe. Extremely ordinary, but with a large number of FPs. My cache (GC847R1) with the highest FPs has 83 favourites, for 242 finds. It's a furnished and fitted out TB hotel. Carpet, wallpaper, paintings on the wall, beds and other furniture, tiny suitcases, etc. Even has a working wall clock. No insult intended (I too also have other caches similar to the cache you described), but only giving FPs is INSULTING to geocachers who have made the extra effort to precent something more interesting. Which is going to attract more people to stay in geocaching; another film canister or bison (my boring caches), or an interesting, thought out cache? My two other caches with the highest percentage of FPs are: Guarded (yes, it's in a guard, but the name doesn't only refer to the road guard) GC7AWYW, published 2017, with 26 FPs for 79 finds. Red Hill GC4CB12 (published 2013), with 37 FPs for 119 finds. They demonstrate why number of FPs is not an accurate measure of how good a cache is. Your cache has 18,000 finds . I can't even imagine that here in Australia. My Red Hill cache for instance, published in 2013 has only 119 finds. That's only about 12 finds per year on average. And the cache is in a suburb, not out in the country. Giving only FPs is not comparing apples with apples.

Well , that will take some time when listing hundreds of caches for a trip. Not practical. Percentage is MUCH more important than number to judge a cache by. If people think that there is enough information already (I don't agree), then just have the percentage of favourite points instead, as that gives a far better idea of the cache quality. In some places caches are found almost every day. In Europe I found some caches that were found this often; in fact it wasn't uncommon for some to have several finds in a day. In other places a cache might only have one or two finds (maybe even less) a year. So someone comparing these caches, says look this one (with several thousand finds) has 200 favourites so it must be the best cache. In reality it only has 10% favourites, but most people won't want to waste time working this out. Most people haven't thought it worthy of a favourite. Meanwhile the other cache has a piddly 5 favourites, so in comparison it can't be a good can it. I mean only five favourites . That's nothing! In fact it has 100% favourites. As in many things in life percentage gives the truer picture.

Sorry I just realised I didn't answer that properly. The rating does affect whether you do an Owner Attention Requested. If a 1 or 1.5D for instance, and say three DNFs, I would consider making an Owner Attention Requested, as either the cache is likely missing or it's rated wrongly and the rating should be corrected. However, some geocachers stubbornly rate all their caches low and won't give a correct rating. It also depends who made the DNFs. If all were experienced geocaches I would likely make an Owner Attention Requested, but not if they were all beginners. If a higher rating I might not make an Owner Attention Requested, and after only three DNFs I would most certainly not make an Owner Attention Requested if the difficult was say rated four. Yes, the rated difficult makes a difference. The number of times a cache is found makes no difference, as a cache might be where not many people visit, and so it gets very few finds. If people have been giving photographs because they could not find the cache, treat those as DNFs.

Yes, very few. That would have been good. I think Virtuals are best in places with few caches, as it doesn't require a local to maintain it, but there's a cache to be found. Plus you can see which geocachers are travelling and where they are. I often recognise the names. I have only one find in Fiji. At the time it was the ONLY cache in Suva, the capital. There are now three caches in Suva, but not the one I found, as that's been archived. I put my Virtual from the third round in a town with only one other cache (no other caches when I planned this), and 70km one direction to the next cache, 301kms another direction and 155kms another direction. Where I live already has lots of caches and I felt it would have been wasted. This was such an opportunity to put it somewhere more needy. Good thinking about Fiji. I know other Australians have caches on some of the islands. I found an Earthcache for instance in New Caledonia by a local from Canberra.

Please, never remove logs.

Do you also do that if the cache is not likely to be found by many people, due to either high difficulty or being premium only? And what if the previous logs were photologs but should really have been Owner Attention Requested (months earlier, couldn't sign, container was outside its hiding place, full of water, with the lid meters away)? If there has been an 'Owner Attention Requested' at least a month ago and still no action by the owner, and the log, etc is in very bad condition, then it might be time for a 'Reviewer Attention Requested' log instead. If no previous 'Owner Attention Requested', do one of these first and then put a watch on the cache and if the problem is not fixed in a month or two, then consider a 'Reviewer Attention Requested' . I should have said before; welcome to geocaching, and I hope you enjoy the game. Look out for meet and greets where you live, as that is a chance to meet other geocachers. Well done in enquiring about the things to do re cache condition. However, as you are a beginner you might not be taken as seriously as a longer term player would be, when logging an 'Owner Attention Requested' or a 'Reviewer Attention Requested'. Maybe only put these on the very worst examples at present, until you get more experience.

NEVER take the old log away. Some geocachers actually check logs to find proof that someone found the cache. I do. I'm not keen either on someone leaving a new log. Maybe if the cache is remote or there is something special about it (old cache) that would be okay, but no throw-downs (replacement caches) if no cache is found. Unless with permission from the CO. The situation, depends. Better though until you become more experienced not to replace a log. Log an Owner Attention Requested log, especially if others have mentioned the problem before you. A few owners get upset about this. Ignore them. There are always, delicate, precious people out there. LOL, that's how I think about them. (What I am prepared to write here ), so now they don't worry me so much anymore. Plus they should be doing maintenance, as that's their job. An 'Owner Attention Requested' is a thoughtful thing to do when the cache need maintenance. It's letting the owner know. Don't do a Reviewer Attention Requested for the first maintenance log. The first maintenance log is the Owner Attention Requested. Then it needs one or two months before it's upgraded to Reviewer Attention Requested. A full log might not be enough for that.

I post something similar, after I have sat the GPS there awhile for it to settle. I often write, my GPS was out so many metres and it was showing (coordinates). Not claiming their coordinates are out (no, no no ), it's my GPS that is wrong...

In some parts of cities, such as narrow alleyways between tall buildings, taking the coordinates off Google maps (fairly accurate where I live) would be better than from the phone or GPS. Wouldn't matter that much though, as finders GPSs will be way off too. In one experience 50m off.

Did you mention the coordinates need fixing? Maybe a NM? Of course if it's like my experience some will argue that their coordinates and right and yours are wrong. One experience, even if the coordinates are several hundred metres out.