kelmar

All of this technical stuff is going way over my head. My system to get with 1 inch of a cache is easy. I follow my cheap GPSr until the distance to the cache hits zero, and then tell my ten year old daughter to "find it, girl!" It never fails.

Alan, naw,its not French, its Ozark Mountain slang for "citizen" I just used it since scumbag was rather harsh for a civilized forum like this one.

Hey TotemLake Although this is only my first time posting on this board, it does not mean that I have never posted on any board. You made several assumptions, and like most assumptions, they were wrong. 1. I did not say anything about "pirates" which I understand to be a completely different subject, and which is not a problem in my area anyway. 2. I did not offer any suggestions about what you should do with your wife. I could care less. The quote you referenced merely stated that geocaching, which is a good bargin at its current cost, would still be one for $30 a year. I always tend to disregard the opinions of anyone who throws out catch words like "elitist" or "racist", and the like. I did not intend this to be a discussion of political or social matters, nor do I spend much time trying to define what constitutes riff raff, and what doesn't. In my experience, riff raff usually are easy to spot, and they, and all kinds of other predators infest the internet, and any activity that has anything to do with the internet. Prudent people take precautions to protect themselves, their families, and their property, as well as the things they value, such as geocaching, from them. And I am, if anything, a prudent person, if that makes me elitist, so be it. Just as you were posting your "caustic" post, I was posting my above one, where I had listened to what the others had commented on, and realized that paid memberships were not a solution. Which is why I asked the question in the first place, and it was a question, and not a suggestion. However, I will make this suggestion. Read people's posts a bit more carefully before you go off on them, especially if they are new to the forum. More sensitive people might have been scared off by your reply. Cheers, Paul

Ahhh, of course, I looked at this issue from the perspective of a person who has had nothing but wonderful experiences with geocaching from the start. (I should be glad that Jeremy doesn't take a lesson from drug pushers and tell me I need to pay $100 a cache from now on) And I suppose trial memberships would not be the answer, as any vandals will most likely get tired of messing up caches after a year anyway.

I just finished a few hours of catching up on some of the recent threads on this board, and my attention was caught by a comment by Xitron concerning the division of geocachers into "elite and riff-raff" by the use of MOC caches. Here are a few thoughts on the subject. Sadly, there are riff raff in this world, and much of our time, energy, and money is spent to protect ourselves from them. All of us have experienced having a "good thing" ruined by the actions of vandals, criminals, or just evil minded people. In a world where it costs $50 to take your family to a movie, or out to dinner, how oppressive is a cost of $30 a year to enjoy the sport of geocaching. If I were to look back over the last year, I would guess that would work out to about .25 cents an hour for me and my family. Do you think a "pass word protected" access to the coordinates and descriptions of caches would cut down on cache losses, and vandalism? Would a required fee to "play the game" seriously hurt the growth of geocaching? Would geocaching be better off if "quality, rather than quantity" was its main focus? I would be interested in hearing what you all think.