Quest Master

Yes, same here. Geocachers have sent me emails via the geocaching.com email system that contain mention of the N word and also contain link to caches at that N site, and the posts have arrived in fine shape. I suspect that the OP may be creating a story and a drama where there is none, simply due to the occurrence of some coincidental accidental events. I beg to differ. It happened and I shared this information with a handful of persons who tried it and confirmed that it was happening to them too. We know that there was a navicache filter and that it was turned off shortly after I started this topic. If you tried it after that, you were late to the party. What would be my motivation for creating this drama? Talk about a conspiracy theory!

I think that I adequately explained why I was using the geocaching.com email and what I was using it for. It was the only means I had to contact the geocacher who had DNFed the cache on geocaching.com. The navicache link that I tried to send was just a convenient way to pass along an extra hint. I wouldn't have done it this way if I had known that my email was going to disappear into cyberspace on account of there being a navicache link in it. I also wouldn't have done it if I knew that there was a rule prohibiting this and as far as I know there isn't such a rule. It would have saved me and the cacher in question some headaches if geocaching.com had informed me that my email would not be sent. I reiterate that I don't like the idea of my email being censored without my knowledge. I agree that geocaching.com reserves the right to do this but I don't have to like it. I'm left wondering what else they might do. I opened this topic to see if others feel the same way.

I guess I need to say that I pretty thoroughly tested the possiblity that an autocensor wasn't happening. Like everyone else, I initially believed that this must have been a problem with spam filters or something along those lines because I couldn't believe that there was any reason for geocaching.com to autocensor lowly navicache. My only thought was that it was a relic left over from the days when they used to autocensor it from the forums. Some of you that have been around for a long time will remember that they used to do that. I tried emailing links for a few other websites that might be considered competition but everything I tried went through except for navicache. I got some friends to try it and the same thing happened to them even though they had different email servers and spam filtering schemes. I know what I know and the fact that this situation has abuptly changed from more than a week ago when I first discovered it is highly irregular. I'm not smart enough to know for certain that this isn't some kind of a bizarre coincidence but at this point it will be hard to convince me otherwise. I'm hoping that the website will come clean or help me to understand why my emails didn't go through. I kept copies of most of them just in case they want to investigate whether or not there is a glitch in the system. If geocaching.com does not want for us to send links or urls for competing websites, that's their perogative. I think it's bad policy but I guess we would all have to live with it. What I don't like is not being told that this is not allowed and having my email mysteriosly disappear into cyberspace. I guess that this problem is resovled so long as they don't turn the autocensor back on. This assumes, of course, that there actually is one and that it's not just a figment of my wild imagination.

It suddenly started working for me too. Isn't that a strange coincidence? It's probably a good thing that I shared this with a few other cachers before I started this thread because I might otherwise think that I was mistaken or crazy. I strongly suspect that it was easier to turn off the autocensor than it was to explain it.

Nope. I'm not on drugs... I have tried it several times over the past week and a half and I have asked others to try it as well. I just tried it again to be sure and I'm getting the same result. Emails without navicache go through, emails with navicache do not. I don't think I'm being signaled out but I suppose that's possible.

Did you know that the geocaching.com email has an auto-censorship feature? Did you know that they read your email and simply fail to deliver it if it contains something that they don't like? Neither did I... A couple of months ago, I started cross-listing my caches on another geocaching website. It's the one that begins with an "N". I hesitate to mention it by name after discovering by accident that you can't even send a link to it through the GC mail without having the system eat it. That's right. It eats it. There is no warning or explanation. It just fails to deliver the email to the intended recipient. I even get a copy of the email that was supposedly sent but it doesn't go through. I found this out the hard way. I was sending the link to one of my listings on navicache.com to a fellow geocacher that logged a DNF one of my more difficult caches. I was doing this because the navicache listing contains two extra hints that I had routinely given out to others that had DNFed this particular cache. What I didn't realize is that my emails weren't getting though on account of the navicache link being autocensored. I finally got suspicious when I received a request for the promised extra hint just minutes after I had already sent it. We went back and forth a few times before I realized what was going on. In the couse of this discussion, I was thinking that this geocacher must be a complete idiot and he was thinking that I must be a total (profanity removed by moderator) for not giving him the hint that I promised and gave to everyone else. I don't need any help making an (profanity removed by moderator) out of myself, thank you very much. What the heck?! This is an outrage! If this website is going to censor my emails to other geocachers, they should at least tell me about it and offer an explanation instead of simply failing to deliver the email. I think that this nonsense is a disservice to the geocaching communtiy which exists beyond the confines of this website whether they like it or not. What else are they censoring? Are the autocensors referring emails with suspicious content to TPTB so that they can indentify and censure people perceived to be troublemakers? Am I alone in thinking that we should have some degree of privacy when corresponding with fellow geocachers? What does everyone else think?

The numbers hounds that will do anything for a stat remind me of some kind of a bizarre cult. They move swiftly from this lightpole to the next guardrail to leave their initials on a scroll of soggy paper in the sacred magneto-microscraps left by other cultists that frequent these shrines. They make these "numbers runs" alone or in trains of motor vehicles known as "machines". They have also been known to gather together for religious festivals called "events" where they sign a great many scraps of these scrolls of paper that were brought to be sacrificed. It appears to be some kind of a penance ritual but it is not. It is believed that they will gain the indulgence of some unseen internet entity and receive happiness in the form of "smiles" when these deeds are reported to the high priests of Groundspeak. I don't get it and I have been called a heretic and worse for speaking this blashphemy. The true believers have made me an outcast by sending the inquisition after me. I think that I am probably doomed to excommunication but I'm holding out hope that a cure will be found for their obsessive-compulsive disorder. If you see THEM passing out purple kool-aid at the next Geowoodstock, don't drink it!

Sure. Not New Stantion But! was a spoof in its inception but it became something of a running joke that was endlessly entertaining to its cult following. It was a really good example of how to hide a really bad micro. Somebody lost their sense of humor and deleted one of the funnier logs but it was a really fun cache while it lasted. It was praised for being lame because it succeeded at that. I still get emails from people asking me what happened to it and they're really bummed when they find out they can't log a DNF.

How is that off-topic? That was my all-time favorite micro. It's a shame that it's no longer with us.

I think you have the wrong cache. If somebody can get me the waypoint or a link to the correct cache, I'll be able fix my list. This is the right cache: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...45-06675ada7bad It turns out BOTH 'horses a**' caches are next to Landmark Banks. (just search for landmark bank on the google maps business search, and cross ref with cache locs) But the news article says it was in Sherman, and only the 'II' cache is in Sherman (the other is in Denison) So.. you archived the wrong cache, reviewer. Now we have archive two caches, better be safe than sorry, have you been to the cache to tell us for sure which one it is ? Max Cacher Geocaching.com Volunteer Cache Reviewer // Moderator I saw that the first cache was supposedly found the day after the incident happened and that it did not appear to be in the city mentioned in the article. That's what tipped me off that something was amiss. I have corrected my list. Thanks benh57!

I think you have the wrong cache. If somebody can get me the waypoint or a link to the correct cache, I'll be able fix my list.

It's not even close to being the first time. It's just one more for the List of Bomb Scares and Other Fun Stuff.

You got it wrong Lep. The disussion was about finds vs. unique finds and the ratio between them. I referred to this as the "Horatio", as in "number ho"-ratio, like multiple logging of events to jack ones numbers up NOT a slap at sexual preferences or pointing out that WJTB. Thanks for bringing that piece of history up though it makes the notion even funnier. ROTFLMAO! That's rich! It would be even funnier if people didn't get banned on account of these wild leaps of logic. With all due respect to the effort that was invested into creating this program, I don't like that it makes individual stats public. Even if it was not intended, it forms the basis for an unhealthy competition. Scoring against aggregates is interesting but I don't think that geocachers should be comparing their numbers with other individuals. I hope that TPTB will discourage this practice as they have done in the past.

So everyone should have psychic powers and know everything about the cache ahead of time, so that they can avoid those they don't like. What a helpful suggestion. It works very well if you start from the position that there's no such thing as a lame cache. The defenders of crap don't need psychic powers nor do they have to comb the listings looking for something worthwhile to hunt. It's the rest of us that are left to be disappointed.

I got my illusions from here. These "illusions" were reinforced by the first cache I found and many that came after it. I hid my first cache and every cache on this very principle. It was expected. Sadly, this principle has been lost in a sea of rules (guidelines) and plenty of bad examples. Now it's being called an illusion. That's really disappointing.

I would. This picture is suitable for the refrigerator of a proud parent but I don't think that it should displayed in public. Would the curator of an art museum be responsible if he exercised no standards and put everything and anything up on the wall just because somebody asked him to? Moreover would he be responsible if somebody gave him a big stack of this "art" expecting for all of it to be put on display? Thus we have the geocachers gallery where art isn't appreciated but people come anyways to say that they saw this art and that art so that they can get a smiley and increment their precious find count. It's very fortunate that this particular gallery has no standards because that means more "art" for everyone to enjoy. If you don't like it, you don't have to look, right? I'm disappointed too. This game is on a downward spiral and the laziest common denominator is destined to rule by the sheer numbers of crummy caches they hide. I think that the stats should go away and that there should be limits on the number of caches that any one person can hide. These are non-subjective solutions to a subjective problem that could reverse this trend. It's a shame that this website will probably do nothing and dismiss this whole thread as a "tempest in a teapot". This game sure has changed a lot since I started playing. I often wish that we could burn the whole mess and start over.

This is old news.

Hi! I don't know how many cachers there are up that way but I'm from Westmoreland County and I have a few caches hidden in the valley. Nevertheless, the Vandergrift neighborhood is pretty foreign to me compared to the rest of the county. If you're looking to meet some local cachers, you might want to check out the Burning Micro II event on September 9. It's shaping up to be a pretty big shindig!

Whether the cache was placed with permission is at the center of the issue. Think of these two scenarios: A box is placed in front of a business, under a bench. The business owner doesn't have a clue what it is. A muggle spots it and calls the police who send the bomb squad. Perhaps the placer has some liability. A box is placed in front of a business, under a bench. The business owner approved it's placement. A muggle spots it and calls the police who send the bomb squad. The placer has no liability. The procedure of just dumping all these caches on a list and expecting a reader to do all the research is detrimental to the game. The list doesn't address any issue. It's just a list. The cache page speaks for itself with regard to the permission issue.

What are you calling "bull" on? I read the news story and exerpted the information from that into the list. I do not feel a need to report that the cache was placed with permission because that information is one click away and it does not change the fact that the bomb squad responded to the incident. I have since updated the description to include the fact that the cache was put back because that information was not known to me until later. If somebody had emailed me with that information instead of posting it to this thread, I might have gotten to it sooner.

How is this accurate? It's totally misleading! It leaves off the important facts that 1) the cache was on Historical Society property, placed by the Historical Society, 2) the cache has been returned to its hiding place, 3) the police even added some swag, and 4) the local news ran a positive report on the incident. If such a list is going to exist, at least report all the facts. When I said "the list appears to be pretty factual", what I meant was "the list appears to be pretty factual". Not "every item in the list is 100% accurate". I'm sure that if you spent the time to pick all the nits, plenty of errors could be found in it. The incident was only reported a day ago, so some of the facts that you outline may well not have been available to the list owner when he added the entry. Which is exactly why that list is NOT helpful. It is incomplete, and NOT revised to show the facts that develop after he makes the initial entry. The other pathetic fact is that when the maker of the list can't defend the list, he resorts to pointing out a spelling error. THAT's useful.... I do revise the list when I have time and when relevent facts are brought to my attention. Nobody bothered to email me with any additional information per my explicit request in the list description. And, FYI, I wasn't JUST pointing out a spelling error. I honestly don't understand what you were trying to say in your post. It doesn't make sense! Try rereading what you wrote and work at expressing yourself a little better instead of making snide remarks. It's obvious that you don't like the list and that's fine. I know it's not perfect (and I say so in the list description) but I think it's a useful resource for answering some of the questions brought up in this thread. If you have got the idea that it is intended to be critical of caches that got blown up or the persons that hid them, you're way off base. It's just a list.

Another one for the list! I state again...this "list" is a disservice to the geocaching community. While it is true that some placements should have been thought out better, there is no reason to call attention to the fact that some caches are placed according to the guidelines, WITH permission...to no avail. <I am self editting my next comment, as name calling and questioning the intelligence of fellow cachers does NO one any good.> I'd like to respond to that but it doesn't even make sense. <I am self editting (sic) my next comment, as name-calling and questioning the intelligence of fellow cachers does NO one any good.>

Another one for the list!

Yep. I felt that way about JQ004. It has been aorund a LONG time - and has gone thorugh a few adoptions, even! I officially got the permit for Laurel Hill extended for three more years.

This falls my goal of being in, about or by a person in centre county pa You should try here: http://www.negeocaching.com/modules/newbb/...rum.php?forum=8 Incidentally, I saw Salvelinus this weekend. He told me that he archived "The Underground Railroad" because he's disgusted with how Bellefonte got microbombed. Apparently the final stages of "The Underground Railroad" were in Bellefonte and he no longer cares to contribute to a game of hide-and-seek in parking lots.