elmuyloco5

I disagree that a lack of owner visit indicates that it is in poor shape. I have a few caches that I have not visited in 3 or more years. I got to them in the past 2 months and all were in perfect shape. Didn't require any intervention of any kind from me. Under the 'plan', these caches would be archived and become geo-trash when In fact nothing is wrong with them. Also - a semi-local cacher spent 3 years serving overseas, he did not log any caches and only a few visits to the site during that time. Would we have archived all of his hides?? He is now back home and quite active. I just wanted to point out that I didn't state that an inactive owner indicates that the cache is in poor shape, but rather that it will be at some point in the future (what that point is depends on too many variables to determine). For your instance of the military member being overseas, my personal opinion should be that their caches are temporarily adopted or archived. I'm an ex-military member and so is my husband. I'm in no way trying to be unfair to those serving overseas, but rather being fair in my opinion that ALL caches should have an active member. If you have to be inactive for an extended period of time, I'm sure local cachers would be more than happy to help you out. Notification of such to your local reviewer is always a good idea in these cases. Which is why I said that the process would include a notification system. The whole thing is super simple and requires very little programming to actually function. The site already monitors when members have last visited GC.com whether it's to search other caches or read their own. Once this time frame hits one year since last visited, a form letter would be immediately sent off to the email address they provide to GC.com. This letter would ask if they intended to remain an active member and maintain their owned caches as active. If they did, nothing would happen to the cache. If they reply that they do not intend to, or they do not reply at all, the cache is then placed on a "needs to be adopted" list online where it sits for a predetermined amount of time, say 30 days. Once that time has expired, it is clear that the owner is not interested in the cache and neither are other cachers, the cache is then archived. The cache is placed on an "archived list" that can be accessed by all GC.com members for removal. If the member removes it, they get a green smiley for their CITO work (love your idea Egami....by the way). Seems simple to me. It's unbiased, fair, and consistant. It helps keep geotrash cleaned up, and should upset no one. If the owner didn't respond, they clearly don't care what happens to their cache. If their fellow cachers don't adopt it, they don't care to see it still in place. So who could possibly have an issue with it? It's no more work for the reviewers as we all know that caches with no owner will eventually be archived anyway as at some point in the future something will happen to the cache, even maintained ones require new containers after a period of time from cracked tupperware or broken gaskets etc. It requires a small amount of effort on GC.com's part in the beginning to impliment, but if they are truly about the CITO, then this plan helps keep our planet cleaned up.

I guess my point on this aspect remains that I'd be curious of the details as to how the system programmatically determines when that is. I could actually go with this if the current infrastructure remained in place as far as cachers being allowed to cache maintenance logs and needs archiving logs. I think it's fair to argue that part of a cache owners' maintenance could be retaining active status on GC.com, so long as it's not cumbersome and there is some leeway....maybe before the cache location becomes active it has to be done by the approver in the area just so there is a human element of a check and balance. When the process of "letter...adoption/archival" would begin would need to be determined by GC.com. I gave the example of a years time being inactive from GC.com (visible from a member's profile page), but it could be 6 months, etc. And certainly, I would agree that the current procedure should remain intact. My idea was only to supliment the current procedure to help eliminate caches that will only have future problems because of a lack of an active and participating owner. My method would also have no effect on geotrash as the inactive owner has already caused the cache to be geotrash by not keeping up with it. In time these caches would be archived anyway due to a lack of maintenance and would result in the same amount of trash. My idea would help keep caches alive by creating an active adoption process as well as archiving some prior to the cache being trashed. These caches could be picked up to eliminate the geotrash issue as I have described on here previously....but that's a whole other issue.

I am not suggesting it is not perfect. I guess I am curious as to what your proposal. It's one thing for you, the OP, or anyone to shoot from the hip and say we need this, but I think what you'll find is that when you try to write the rules for an automated system you'll introduce all kinds of new problems for caches in areas where this isn't a problem. But isn't a cache without an owner a problem? How is an owner who is unactive for over a year any different than placing a cache while on a trip? Trip caches are supposed to be shot down and yet some of those people might be back by the trip cache before the unactive person would ever come around again. I can understand that. But is it fair to those that do maintenance theirs to have to auto-archive them or be belabored with republishing them after theirs expire in this proposed system? I am simply saying that this proposal isn't without flaws itself. I am not one for simply trading one set of issue with another. Just to clarify, I DO NOT AGREE with the OP about archiving in regards to the numbers of visits to a cache. I'm talking about a program that puts caches with inactive owners up for adoption or archival, if no one wants to adopt it. This is no way would effect members who are doing maintenance. Those members would be active, hence this would not affect them. Also, if they are not active on the site, but are maintaining their cache, they would respond to the letter sent to them inquiring their desire to keep the cache open. I'm looking to clear up the caches that have an owner who clearly are not intersted in the geocaching sport/game/whatever anymore. Someone was talking on the forum about how the numbers of geocachers registered is probably fairly inaccurate because many have signed up, but since left over the years.

I understand that people take care of some caches, but there is no owner to answer questions should they arise. In my method, these caches could be adopted by the members who have been taking care of them. I'm not advocating that they should all be immediately archived. But, if the owner doesn't want to take part in the sport/game/whatever you want to call it, why shouldn't someone else get to own the cache or have the space opened for those who do? I think OP is saying they should be archived regardless of if they are being maintained or not. I don't think you are in this category, but that one comment has me unsure. I wasn't responding in regard to what the OP said, I don't agree with their reasons for archival, although there's nothing wrong with their opinion on the matter. What I meant by the statement is this.....the current proceedures being used wait until there is an issue witht the cache, be it water infiltration, damaged container, etc. I think that there would be a lot less of these issues if we made sure that there was always an active cacher owning these caches. While the problem wouldn't disappear, it would be less likely to occur. I agree with this, but I think the current process manages this effectively assuming cachers log correctly. Is there any way to magically have caches archived that are abandoned unknowlingly though? I don't see a process like has been suggested solving that issue...I think if anything it emphasizes what is so good about the current method. The problem is that cachers don't log correctly, hence leading to missing caches not being mentioned as well as those in need of serious repair. I'm not sure if it's magical or not, but my process would be easy to impliment. The site keeps tabs on when people visit GC.com already. When someone hasn't visited for a certain length of time, let's use 1 year for an example, then the site will then search to see if this person owns any caches. If they do, they will have a stock letter sent out to them to find out if they plan to maintain the caches and be an active member. If they receive no response, or one that confirms that they are inactive, the cache is automatically placed on an "to be adopted" list. If the cache is clearly well liked, someone will adopt it. If not, then it needs to be archived after a period of time, say 30 days. This way, we are able to keep really great caches, and prevent some of the maintenance issues that arise (again not solving all of them, but better than we currently have it). Proof that the current system doesn't work as well as it could. And maybe an additional improvement would be to track members who have had caches archived due to unresolved maintenance issues and not allow them to hide more. (By unresolved, I mean the member doesn't try to fix the cache) I've not brought this subject up because I am upset with the lack of space to place caches in my area, there are lots. And we're getting ready to place a 20 cache series, which is enough caches to maintain for us. We have not been caching long, but as we have, we find many that are in poor shape. We like to help out and fix what we can and CITO where we are able to. The idea I proposed was only to help improve the overall quality of caches out there for the members who are an active part of the geocaching community. edited for better quote layout

How are you determining that? Based on their forum appearances or based on their GC.com activity? I am just mentioning this because I know a number of cachers that have never posted on the forum, but are active cachers and can be found logging finds, etc,. on GC.com. Sorry, should have clarified......I was going off of the profile on GC.com. Not only are some absent, but some of their caches are missing or in need of repair. I personally haven't searched for those caches, just found them while looking for local caches we wanted to do. I therefore don't feel that it would be appropriate for me to notify the reviewer of these members. But, I don't think that we should have to wait until there is a problem with a cache either, to archive it. I just personally feel that caches should have an active owner, someone who actively wants to participate in this activity in one way or another. I'm sure there are a number of caches out there who have been placed by someone who has left the activity altogether for whatever reason. Shouldn't these caches be adopted if they are well liked, or archived and the space given to someone who does want to participate?

Even if the program was clearly the manufactured disc? I homeschool and have lots of educational type computer games that our kids complete and have no further use for. I think they'd make a nice item for a kid. I understand that you have to worry about viruses and such, but can they put viruses on a retail item like that? How is it any different than purchasing the item over Ebay? And if they could put a virus on a retail computer program, couldn't they then also do the same thing to a retail music cd or dvd? Lots of people place those in caches, and those items can be used on your computer too. I also won't buy programs on ebay. To answer your questions, I don't know. Since I don't know, I don't want to find out the hard way. I also won't take cd's or any other media items of this nature. That's me, do as you please...but be careful! I'm guessing there's always someone out there that can do whatever to those items, maybe I'm paranoid. Maybe I'm totally wrong here, some of you techies out there correct me if I am. But, I looked this subject up. What I read said you can get a virus from prepackaged unopened software that you purchase from the store. This means, that the manufacturer has a virus on their system and it then infects all of the items they create. It's rare, but possible. So you would have to stop buying all software to be totally safe, stop using the internet, etc. I was not able to find anywhere that an individual could place a virus on already created software from a manufacturer, however. I would venture to say that they couldn't just as you cannot add files to an non-writable disc. As for used software, and new for that matter, virus programs can scan the disc in your drive prior to downloading anything to check for viruses, so if that is true, I see no harm in leaving computer items in a cache.

And you could take a sample of any traditional caches that you've chosen to do and have the same probability. The logs reflect missing stages in both cases. It still comes down to the fact that a finder doesn't want to put out the effort to look for more than one cache if the search must end due to a lost cache. The feelings towards multis would most likely be different if the first stage was the one that was always missing, which clearly shows it's not all about the hunt. We personally have NEVER found a missing stage in a multi, but have found several traditionals missing. Granted, we haven't been caching long, but I think it has more to do with the fact that we read EVERY single cache description prior to putting the cache on our list of things to do, than it does with our lack of numbers. For us, it's the hunt that is fun......not how many smilies we see. I can't even tell you how many we've done cause we just don't care.

I posted this response to the OP in the first thread this discussion started in so I'll post it again: I wouldn't want a mandatory archive for the reasons listed above, however, I think that the system should check for owners that have been absent for a year or more from the site and contact them. If they do not respond in 30 days, the cache should be automatically archived or adopted out. Every single cache should have an active owner to perform maintenance and to answer any questions the finders might have. I've looked in my tiny town and found at least 6 members that have not been to this site for at least a year, and each of those members owns multiple caches. You can imagine what a large city has. I think you would find that the quality of caches would go up and the number of places to hide would obviously increase as well, letting the active cachers have a better choice of areas to place.

I'm sure if you start looking around at craft stores and different places, you'll find lots of things made that are yellow, or are yellow stars. Why not use some yellow star buttons for small caches? Xmas is coming up so you should be able to find some ornaments that are yellow or gold stars. You could easily get yellow star stickers for you to log with. I think your name opens up alot of options. Check out Oriental Trading Co online for yellow star items.

By dirty, I don't mean with dirt. I meant an opened, used, nasty, hazardous bandaid. And, if it was put in there clean, my point of a small baggie to contain the items would have kept it that way. The baggies can be bought at any craft or hobby store for very little money. I think we bought 100 for just over a dollar. If the person had put a sticker with their name and such on there and placed a couple of bandaids and maybe an antiseptic wipe, for example, the swag would go from potential trash to a nice small first aid kit. It's all in how you present the swag that makes a difference. Edited to add: Those who put in items with an expiration date, I feel sorry for. We recently found two baseball tickets in one, but they were expired by months. We wouldn't have taken them anyway, as it's not our choice sport, but I feel bad for the person who left it. Seems like a waste of their money. Maybe items that expire aren't the best choice.

I don't see anything wrong with the "nano in the woods" idea. A responsible cache owner marks what size the container is, if you don't want to look for a dot in the woods, just don't do the cache. Some of the most creative containers require you to put a small nano inside. I would much rather look for a little acorn cache that's inventive than another tupperware stuck in a bush. I have three little ones that always cache with us, so yeah, the bigger caches are enjoyed because you can put swag in them, even our kids enjoy a creative container. One of our areas most creative hides had us looking 3 seperate times for it, and when we found it, we got a good laugh. I know some people don't like them, but some do, and it's fair to have a little of everything available to meet everyone's levels of enjoyment. And, if you're getting stressed out, maybe you should take a break. This is supposed to be fun. If you're no longer enjoying yourself then a new hobby might be in order.

I would oppose archiving caches based on frequency of visits for various reasons: 1. The cache might be a high terrain or complexity level and wouldn't expect too many visits from the general geocaching public. 2. The cache might be archived but who is to say the cacher who placed it would agree to go clean up his cache after it had been involuntarily archived. 3. Who decides the otherwise arbitrary time or frequency in which a cache is to be archived? Just my opinion. I wouldn't want a mandatory archive for the reasons listed above, however, I think that the system should check for owners that have been absent for a year or more from the site and contact them. If they do not respond in 30 days, the cache should be automatically archived or adopted out. Every single cache should have an active owner to perform maintenance and to answer any questions the finders might have. I've looked in my tiny town and found at least 6 members that have not been to this site for at least a year, and each of those members owns multiple caches. You can imagine what a large city has. I think you would find that the quality of caches would go up and the number of places to hide would obviously increase as well, letting the active cachers have a better choice of areas to place.

NM has had a couple this year, I don't have the exact count, and I don't know how many are in the works. I know we'll be conducting one in the spring but don't have a date as we have to wait for the snow melt first. But, Las Cruces (a city in NM), has a monthly citywide cleanup. We took some time doing it while we were gecaching on a trip. There was actually a lot of people out along the roadside working. I wish more cities organized events like this.

I think it would depend on how you want to organize your finds. We leave our DNFs up, but then again, we're not at 4000 finds like some. I could see where it would get confusing after a while, but for us, that's a non-issue. I don't think it would matter if you deleted your DNF as you clearly have found it. I can see where it would be helpful to do so if you go back to make sure you find all the DNFs you have. I think it boils down to a personal choice.

Even if the program was clearly the manufactured disc? I homeschool and have lots of educational type computer games that our kids complete and have no further use for. I think they'd make a nice item for a kid. I understand that you have to worry about viruses and such, but can they put viruses on a retail item like that? How is it any different than purchasing the item over Ebay? And if they could put a virus on a retail computer program, couldn't they then also do the same thing to a retail music cd or dvd? Lots of people place those in caches, and those items can be used on your computer too.

I think one of the best ways to find some swag is to garage sale your house, so to speak. I'm sure I' m not the only one that has lots of items that never get used and get packed away that other people could use. Or even cds or dvds that you no longer want, computer programs, books, jewelry, trinkets, are all nice things to leave. There's nothing wrong with something being inexpensive, or free for that matter. And yes, the value of something is in the eye of the beholder. But sometimes, I think, it's in the way it's presented. Such as the Barbie leg. Some people would go to that cache and remove the item for trash. But, if the person who placed it was a doll refurbisher and put a tag on it with something to that effect, it would be considered a sig item. Same thing with the keyboard letter. If it was from a computer programer, for instance, now it's a sig item. It takes so little to make a small card or sticker and place something in a little baggie, but it goes a long way to coming across as something meaningful. And it doesn't have to be because you work with the item, that's just an example. The point is in how things are displayed to others. Some of the "junk" you might be finding, might be meaningful. It would just be nice if the owner told us about it.

He clearly keeps up on the site, and will probably read this thread. His user profile shows he was here last in Sept. Here's an article that says most of the same things written by some fellow geocachers: http://www.todayscacher.com/2006/mar/people.asp

I don't mind so much if it's cheap items, as much as I do if there's just plain trash. Nothing is grosser than a used bandaid, q-tips, or the like. I just don't get why someone would leave that! I would rather they took an item and left nothing in return, at least that way I wouldn't have to clean up after them (and then douse myself in Purell afterwards). As far as the cheap stuff goes, well I doubt that will ever change. The worst thing we've seen are those little craft foam cut out pieces. They were stickers, but just shapes. Like some kid is gonna say "OOOooooo Mommy, I want to wear the blue oval"! At least spend a little bit more and put in a real sticker. Personally, we make nice swag items that cost us under 25 cents a piece with foreign coins, but people love. It's really not hard when you buy in bulk. It might cost a bit at the beginning, but you have a ton of swag to put out too.

We were caching up in Taos, NM off trail in the woods. My husband was leading, but paying so much attention to the GPS, he didn't even notice what was around him. He stepped right over a freshly dimembered dear leg, blood, skin, and all. I said, 'You gotta be kidding me, how did you miss that?" He glances down and gets this look on his face. We were out there with our three little kids and the sun was almost down. We decided it was probably best to leave incase whatever it was that had the deer for dinner, didn't have us for dessert!

You can get free containers at any film developing area. Most of the chain stores or grocery stores that develop film save their 35 mm film canisters. They'll give them to you for free. Slap on a nice CITO sticker that you personalize with your printer and stuff it with a bag and a latex free glove. Then, when people are done with your CITO, they can use the container for a cache, or put another sticker on and fill it up for someone else!

Don't forget to add a glove inside your 35mm CITO container! Some of that trash is pretty nasty. We add latex free ones to our CITO micros. They get placed in every cache we go to that they can fit, and we always have a bunch with us in the car so we can use them ourselves when we find some trash.

If we're caching on a trip then we plan out caches along the route that are quick or special in some way that we don't mind spending extra time, because we usually want to get where we're going and don't want to bog ourselves down with too much caching. If we're doing our state challenge, we only pick quick ones along the route as the state ones are the most important to us for that trip. We love to hike, so if we're planning on a certain trail, we'll see if there's any caches nearby. And, if we just plan to go out caching in general, then we pick an area and do a PQ for what's around. No matter why were caching though, we have the same method: 1-PQ for the area, or a route 2-sort through results for caches that have had a lot of DNFs recently (probably missing), sound like they're poorly maintained, or sound like something we wouldn't enjoy and check those off our list. 3-map out the remaining caches on google 4-download the ones we want to our GPSr and PDA

I don't personally care too much for the items that are marked on. If someone wants to use the keychain, they may not want your initials all over it, while it wouldn't matter at all to someone who just collects them. I think it looks more professionally done if you use card stock and print out a little blurb (your name, etc) and place it in a little craft ziploc with the item. The ziploc will keep it clean and the card shows that you put some time into making something nice. We started out making jewelry with marbles (necklaces and earrings) and we would put them in a baggy with a card that had our name and also the name we gave the type of marble we used. People liked them, but we found that the people in our area really liked the foreign coins that my husband had collected when he was in the Navy. We ran out of those, but have recently purchased some more online. We also got US wheat pennies, and I print out cards with facts about the coins, exchange rates if applicable, etc. Our kids leave little mini science experiments in baggies. They're usually a penny or a balloon with a card printed out telling how to do the experiment and why it works. None of our swag costs much (maybe 10-25 cents a piece after all is said and done), but you can tell we put time in to making something nice to collect and educational as well. Swag doesn't have to be expensive, but if you put a little extra time into it, the appearance is that it costs a whole lot more.

There's tons of night caches that are approved on here all the time that use firetacks (and the descriptions state it too)......they're hammered into trees. How is this different? Seems to me that it only depends on the permission, which obviously needs to be obtained, but still had nothing to do with the issue that the OP brought up. They asked if they should notify their reviewer, in which they have assumed the placer didn't have permission. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling the reviewers wouldn't want a flood of emails from every individual who questions whether or not someone obtained proper permission before placing a cache. Can you imagine how many emails they would start getting if this became the norm? If the cache page doesn't STATE permission was granted for that type of hide, I'd be asking too. I can't say much for the firetacks except the fact that they are merely a TACK! (at least all I've seen) A tack won't even go through the rough bark of most trees, so no harm at all to anything. But the point is, neither will harm the tree at all, so tack or screw, it doesn't matter. But, if you follow the guidelines, neither is allowed as BOTH deface the tree. You can't have it one way and not the other and be fair to everyone. Most caches don't state that the owner obtained permission.......so shall we bog down our reviewers with questions about all of them? Not just one, but all of us? They'll be so busy answering email that they'll never be able to publish anything new.

There's tons of night caches that are approved on here all the time that use firetacks (and the descriptions state it too)......they're hammered into trees. How is this different? Seems to me that it only depends on the permission, which obviously needs to be obtained, but still had nothing to do with the issue that the OP brought up. They asked if they should notify their reviewer, in which they have assumed the placer didn't have permission. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling the reviewers wouldn't want a flood of emails from every individual who questions whether or not someone obtained proper permission before placing a cache. Can you imagine how many emails they would start getting if this became the norm?