[government entering into Geocaching?]

I don't want to confuse "geocaching" and "promoting geocaching."

I have no objections to the government using my tax dollars to promote geocaching, I am entirely against my tax dollars being used to restrict geocaching (Parks Canada) and I am entirely against the government "hiding or listing" geocaches.

 

I have no desire to see this listing site (geocaching.com) empowered to the extent that it is the only listing service, I do contribute to make sure that we have strong central direction in defining this activity but I am glad that other listing services exist. i.e. I saw that Thunderbolt was recently archived and moved to another listing service, this cache has been on our family watch list for quite awhile and now if I want to log it I am going to have to reactivate my membership over there.

I do not see that the website mentioned is being set up as a competitor to geocaching.com, in fact the article does not mention either "hiding" or "listing" geocaches so assuming that they are going to do that may not be warranted.

Individuals contribute to the extent that they are interested and able, the activity of geocaching will grow and the requirement to provide infrastructure will grow, commercial sites have trouble cutting themselves in as geocaching.com is very focused and intends to continue the monopoly they enjoy, look at how quickly dissenting members become banned members.

 

As I said, I think any dollars being spent to promote geocaching are a good thing, tourism groups getting involved is good thing, websites that promote geocaching at the regional or local level are a good thing, attracting tourists and making geocaching accessible, another good thing. Parks Canada has already banned geocaching in the parks and I expect they intend to make the temporary moratorium a permanenet moratorium. In the process of banning geocaching in the parks they went to great lengths to co-opt the community and gain support for the restrictive views they advance when discussing geocaching, they indicated just how stupid and foolish a government department can get when they banned waypointing as well. They paid good money, my tax dollars, to gather a group that helped them cement the policy and it included many geocachers or people who run geocaching websites.

If geocachingpei.com was up and running we would have had some strong government advocates of the activity instead of a bunch of toadies reflecting the Parks Canada hard line.

 

If the governement intends to hide geocaches they will end up with "just another cache" or a "stone thrown down the well", it is harder than it looks to hide a memorable cache. If they intend to highlight some of the well liked and well placed PEI caches and they intend to offer greater access to the activity of geocaching for all visitors then we are on the same side. Visitors who do not know about geocaching are not going to load a few caches from geocaching.com website. Visitors who see that they can try this activity because the tourism group has made it accessible and they are making a GPS available might try geocaching even if they have never heard of it before.

 

I think promoting geocaching is a worthy effort and I would like to see my governement tax dollars spent that way, I wouldn't consider it a waste at all.