barefootjeff

I realise that. Did you try swiping down on the cache page in tha app? When I've had that problem, refreshing it that way makes the Enable option visible instead of Disable. This is really an awful bug in the app.

You need to swipe down on the cache page in the app to force it to refresh. The app caches just about everything about a cache the first time it sees it, including its enabled/disabled status, and won't refresh by itself.

There have been other instances where some geocaching.com stats only update after another find has been logged. I see your last actual find, other than changing earlier WNs to finds, was on the 2nd of February, so I guess just wait and see what happens after your next find.

Really? 0.1% of 4000 is 4, yet Malaysia alone has 7 VR2 published, along with 6 VR3 and, so far, 4 VR4. Given that Malaysia has just over 1000 caches spread across 128 COs, I think you did rather well out of those virtual rewards. Japan, another Asian country that's not in North America, Europe or Australia, has a total of 97 virtuals, the great bulk of which are VR2 or later.

Sorry, I'd forgotten that I'd set that one to PMO because of the dangerous location. I've set it back to full access now so you should be able to view it (GCABG77).

I hope so .

If someone doesn't want any red marks on their hides, they should provide good quality fit-for-purpose caches and and carry out whatever maintenance is needed to keep them that way. Anyone who bites the head off a finder, especially a newbie, for trying to be helpful and give them a heads-up about a problem, really shouldn't be a CO. If it's one of my caches, I'd much prefer an NM/OAR about any problem no matter how minor. I got caught out badly on one of my hides a few years back when someone vaguely mentioned an issue near the end of their long log and I didn't twig to it at the time. It was only when a friend mentioned it a month later that I realised there was a problem so immediately dashed out there to fix it. If they'd logged an NM, it would have been much harder for me to miss. I want to be made aware of any problems with my caches and the red flag the NM/OAR puts up is the best way to ensure I won't overlook it or forget if I become distracted. An NM/OAR isn't a request for a cache to be archived and I think it's a shame that it's being turned into that.

Yes, this is a long-standing bug in the app where it assumes that just about everything to do with a cache, including its enabled/disabled state, is unchanging and is cached in the app indefinitely from the first time the cache is viewed.

Exactly. No matter what "innovations" they might come up with, they'll never be able to guarantee that every cache is a good experience for every searcher. There'll always be damaged caches, inactive or inattentive COs, throw-downers and armchair loggers, and as long as they don't become the dominant experience, I think the best approach is still being vigilent in logging OARs and RARs on those problem caches encountered. A lot of the suggestions that keep coming up in the forums, such as codewords, geofencing, mandatory annual (or even quarterly) owner visits with OM logs or mandatory archival after five years or whatever, risk killing the goose that laid the golden egg by wiping out all the really amazing experiences and leaving just a sea of urban micros that will still get soggy and tattered logs every time it rains. In a recent podcast about Missing DNFs, they said their study revealed that as many as one in five caches were missing or unfindable. That's sounds pretty horrible until you turn it around and see it's saying that at least 80% of caches were fine. To me, that sounds pretty good. If people were proactive in logging OARs and RARs on those 20% of problem caches, that percentage would probably be a lot lower.

On Monday I did 11 kayaking caches along a tidal creek. All but one were micros (3D-printed containers with Rite-in-the-rain logs), the other similar but just big enough to make it a Small. I was lucky that the tide was fairly high at the time I was there and I was able to reach most of them while seated in the kayak, but two required getting out, climbing onto rocks or a thick tree branch, and extracting the log from the hanging container at, for me, was pretty much full stretch. I had my pen in the small waist-band bag I use when kayaking and it was fairly easy to just pull that out with one hand while holding the log and container lid in the other, but on one (a challenge cache) I wanted to take a photo of my signature in the log as well. That was quite a juggling act and in the process I dropped my pen in the water (thankfully it floated and still worked afterwards). So I'm trying to imagine how that would work if each cache had a code word or number as well. That would have required taking a photo at each cache and I'm not sure I could have managed that without dropping my phone in the water at some point. Some caches are really best kept low-tech, particularly as replacing a drowned pen is a lot easier and cheaper than replacing a drowned phone.

My cache concept always starts with the location, which inspires the cache type (traditional, multi, mystery, etc.) and its theme, so my cache description typically begins with a brief overview of what it is I'm trying to showcase. That's then followed by fairly detailed directions on how to get there and what precautions to take, as a lot of them are off the beaten track, and finally a bit of information about the container and its hiding place, with more detail in the hint. For example, see GCAEX05, my most recent traditional published in October. If I can, I try to inject a bit of humour into it as well, such as Pearl Beach Penthouse (GCABG77) which is written in the style of a resort brochure.

I've used https://garmin.opentopomap.org/ after someone suggested it in the forums a few years back.

Then you'd just get bombarded with faked photos, particularly with all the image skulduggery that's being promoted in the latest phones.

Thanks mate. I'm too tired and stiff to do much now other than reflect on the day's adventure and sip a glass of shiraz.

So I'm curious now, what happens if the first to sign never qualifies? As for today, the weather forecast held up, with it probably the best day for kayaking this summer with little wind and not too much heat and humidity. The challenge cache, number 13 in the series, had the Tree Climb attribute and I was a little dubious about whether I'd be able to reach it. But I managed, just, and signed the log after rescuing my pen from the water after it dropped in while I was climbing into position. But it didn't end there, as I was trying to get back onto my kayak, the boggy bottom under my foot gave way and I ended up waist deep in the water, giving my GPSr and phone a saltwater dunking. Both survived, fortunately. So now I guess I'm the first to complete the challenge, although not the first name in the log, and that's essentially what I wrote online. I think I'll just leave it at that.

The official app only shows traditionals and events for basic members, so challenges won't appear at all in that, regardless of D/T rating. You'll need to use the website and/or a different app.

Maybe you just need to look beyond micros. Regular-sized caches generally have proper logbooks in them, such as this one of mine, and in return finders often write more than just their name and the date: \

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm not that fussed about FTFs although they're nice when they happen, particularly if it's an awesome cache as well. I only just recently compiled a list of them, using the tools on Project GC, and it seems I've had 43 out of 1789 finds over nearly 11 years. My more recent ones have generally been at least a day after publication and several days (in one instance 6 months) before the next finder comes along, such is the nature of FTF "races" around here nowadays. If I do succeed in getting my name in the challenge cache logbook tomorrow, I'm thinking "first to complete the challenge" might be better wording than "first to find". Of course, having raised all this, the most likely outcome will probably be an unambiguous "first to DNF". On my own new virtual, published three weeks ago, a group of three claimed joint FTF the day after publication and no one has logged it or sent any answers since, so it's pretty clear-cut. Likewise on the only virtual I've been FTF on, when it was almost a month before the second finder came along, and on the only EC I've been FTF it was six weeks before the next finder.

Yes, I know FTF is a side game with no rules, but I'm just wondering what the general feeling is about this situation... Last week a series of water-access kayaking caches was published, including a challenge cache amongst them. To date, one person has signed the challenge cache's logbook but doesn't yet qualify for the challenge so they posted a WN. Assuming the weather forecast holds, my plan is to hit the water with my kayak on Monday morning before the wind picks up and, if I'm able to reach, find and sign the challenge cache, will be able to log a find as I already qualify. Assuming the other cacher, who is currently a long way short of qualifying, eventually does so and changes their WN to a find, who is FTF? The first name in the logbook or the first online find?

Yes, one of the advantages of paper logs is that they're visible to anyone visiting the cache, so if someone is routinely claiming online finds without signing the logs it soon becomes apparent to the community. Compare that to ALs which are shrouded in anonymity. Apart from the first three finders at each stage or the first ten who've completed the whole Adventure, even the owner can't see who's done it unless the finder chooses to write a log review. From all accounts, abuse of those is pretty rife by those just wanting to boost their smiley count.

I once found one of my caches rehidden 50 metres from where I'd placed it. My log for remedying that was Owner Maintenance, not Found It.

You must be way better organised than me then. If I do a day trip away to find a bunch of caches that I preloaded onto my GPSr earlier in the week, I'd be likely in the heat of the moment to lose track of which ones had codewords in them and which didn't, so when I get back home to compose my online logs, well you can guess the rest. The extra effort to remedy that is another day trip away to go back to that cache I found yesterday just to get the codeword I missed first time around. Don't think it won't happen, because that's happened to me more than once with keywords for bonus caches. Not to mention the time I drove all the way to Newcastle to drop a trackable in a cache only to realise when I got there that I forgot to bring the trackable. There's also the overhead for HQ in implementing the codeword in their database, logging flow and cache creation processes. From all accounts there's a lot of old spaghetti code under the hood and messing with it to implement your codewords is likely to break a whole lot of other stuff. It's likely a lot of the long-standing bugs being complained about in the Website section of the forums resulted from some unrelated change elsewhere in the code that had unexpected and inexplicable consequences. I still really don't get what the problem is this is meant to fix. Yes, occasionally I've come across a leaky cache whose log is just a soggy lump of paper mache, but I just do what I can to leave a mark on it, take a photo and log an NM/OAR. That last step is the most important one, as it's what's needed to start the ball rolling and get the problem addressed. But as I said, that's pretty rare, maybe two or three times a year at most. The rest of the time, I just open the cache, pull out the log, sign it, put it all back and I'm on my way with no need to be messing around with taking photos, writing codewords into a pocketbook or whatever. At least until I get home, open my backpack and discover the trackable I meant to drop off is still in there. Now if you could come up with a foolproof fix for that... As for fake logs, as a CO if I see an online log that looks suspicious, I'll firstly go and check the physical log. If there's a matching signature, great, nothing more to do. If not, I'll message the finder and, as diplomatically as possible, ask them what happened. Every time I've had a reply, it''s turned out to be an honest mistake, such as logging the wrong cache. The only times I've had to delete a log were when I didn't get any reply to my original message, my follow-up a week later or my follow-up-follow-up email in case they haven't figured out how to use Message Centre. And that's only happened maybe two or three times in my ten years of being a CO. So I still don't get it. What problem are you trying to fix?

Most of the events here are pretty low key, with the attendees themselves bringing nibblies for the table, and about all the host does during the event is draw the FTF prize. Even for my Community Celebration Event, where I provided a puzzle based on identifying ten Classic Central Coast Caches from a set of photos, most of the preparation was done beforehand and there was little for me to do other than mingle during the event.

All my caches have pencils in them, and some of the more remote ones have a spare as well (and/or a sharpener). This seems a pretty low tech and reliable solution, although i did get a "forgot my pen so didn't sign the log" once where the finder, upon realising they were penless, didn't even open the container. The trouble with "foolproof" is that there'll always be a better fool, I guess. On the (thankfully) rare occasions when I've found myself at GZ without a pen, on urban caches I've gone off to find somewhere I can buy one, and on remote bushland ones where there isn't a pen shop within a reasonable distance, I've improvised with a gumnut or twig. Another local cacher, who has something of a reputation for not having a pen, often uses charcoal, but he seems to have better luck finding some close by than I do.

Sorry, but now I'm getting confused as back in your initial post you said: What do you hope to achieve from your suggestion? Is it to eliminate logbooks and replace them with digital logging using codewords, or to provide an additional task for finders to perform when logging online? Either way, it seems to me to be a lot of extra overhead for very little benefit, as the great majority of caches have readily-signable logs and aren't being compromised by cheaters.