egami

I guess I am confused...if you are using the find caches along a route feature aren't they showing up now, or you mean just so you can filter specifically on that?

In most places the county can tell you who owns what parcels and most counties in most states seem to be online these days and searchable from the comfort of home. Are they addressed lots or no?

No idea what comment you are even referring to...you are seemingly, however, confounding my thoughts with the OP's based on the number of erroneous assumptions you've made about my position. If you read my reply, I never accused you of doing so. The irony... That's your opinion. I didn't say I am 100% sold on the idea, but I've yet to see a reasonable demonstration as to why it's such a bad idea. Pretty much most of them brought up have solutions or are actually non-issue in relation to the idea that I was interested in consideration on. However, you're right, nothing is likely to be done...it's just a discussion.

Then if you've taken it all in you know that numerous times I've expressed that concern and offered potential solutions to avoid that. I've addressed this prior with the green smiley idea. And, at the end of the day, nothing is 100% assured and it was never advertised as such, it'd merely be an enhancement that would, in theory, eliminate most of the current potential for geo-litter. See prior response...this has already been answered in the thread. Which is the point in retaining reviewer discretion, as mentioned earlier in the thread. I actually stated a couple times earlier, earlier in the thread, that this is no resolution really for saturation and that is not my personal interest in the version of archiving I said I would be interested again. It wouldn't appear to me that you've read through my replies as you suggest.

Well, again this has already been discussed and I don't disagree with that. I am just saying it's not as bad an idea that elmuyloco offered up as the OP. I understand perfect world scenario is unlikely, but it doesn't hurt to encourage it. Well, that's your opinion. However, you are ignoring much of my conversation in this thead if you've arrived at that conclusion. I've made it blatently clear that it would be critical to protect quality caches and avoid errant archiving.

I didn't say it did outside of the fact that when you agree to the user agreement to host a cache that you also agree to do the online maintenance. That's built it. You click on that now when you publish a cache. Well, I would hope to protect the integirty of what geocaching is that people might be interested in avoiding creating geo-litter. However, if the base as whole decides that's just fine and leaving unmaintained cache-trash all over the world then that's certainly their perogative. Sure you can see the reasoning behind not wanting to deliberately leave trash around the world? Maybe I should be asking why cachers as a whole wouldn't be interested in eliminating geo-litter caused by orphaned caches.

No, I don't believe so....when you agree to listing a cache on GC.com part of your end user agreement is as follows: Cache Maintenance The cache owner will assume all responsibility of their cache listings. The responsibility of your listing includes quality control of posts to the cache page. Delete any logs that appear to be bogus, counterfeit, off topic, or not within the stated requirements. So, if you were in the situation it would be prudent of you, as an owner, to give up your GC.com listing.

That's what I suggested as well....see previously the "green smiley" comments. I saw the Green smiley...my suggestion was not to have another stat. That just makes something else for the numbers hunters to go for (and conversely the others to say it's not about the number, blah, blah, blah)...if it's for the "good of the sport" than it shouldn't need a seperate stat... I understand that reasoning...personally, as you can tell by my profile, I am far from a number hunter. Yes, it'd be nice if people would do it from a purely altruistic perspective, but that is clearly failing at some level today or there wouldn't be a geo-litter issue to begin with. While I am not excited about the numbers, if the numbers can drive an issue of the game that actually enhances the integrity...I'd live with that sacrifice. We can agree to differ on that point...it's secondary to main issue and largely subjective.

Please don't confuse geocaching with Geocaching.com. Geocaching.com is a listing service owned by Groundspeak. There are other listing services out there, even if they are few and far between. Just because the cache is not maintained on this site and by a current user login does not mean that it is not listed somewhere else. The game geocaching (with a little "g") is a sport where people hide containers and use GPS coordinates to direct seekers to those coordinates. I fully understand this. I am talking specifically GC.com. If I, as a cache owner, fail to maintain my cache and disappear from sight as far as GC.com is concerned and you , as a reviewer, archive my cache....who goes and retrieves it? I don't...I am lazy, I quit geocaching, I won the lottery and retired in Tahiti and forget what geocaching is....if I don't do it, who does? I assumed that was apparent, or implied being, we were discussing altering the protocol here.

I do not like the idea of mandatory and/or automatically archiving caches, period. I have a cache that was placed in mid-July that has been found twice (within the first 2 weeks of it being published) and hasn't been found since then. Is it a problem that it hasn't been found? I don't think so...I also see no need to hike back down to the cache site just to maintain it. One could argue that that type of cache maintains itself since it gets so few visitors... Agreed, that is my concern too and why I was originally against it, but this modification suggested later makes that a non-issue. That's what I suggested as well....see previously the "green smiley" comments.

Undoubtedly. Which is unavoidable. ...which was buried on the first page in post 30. With modifications mentioned later...yes. At that point, does anyone retrieve that cache physically? This is one aspect I am vague on that leads me to believe currently it becomes geo-litter, but feel free to elaborate. Well, remember, this is in addition to the current model. It'd be more of the catch scenario than the default. Doesn't physically maintain them, but virtually does? That would fall under current monitoring...again, the suggestion isn't a replacement, but an ammendment to the existing process. That is understandable...what I would suggest is the ability for reviewer's to be able to renew it yearly for the owner and no harm done. I agree whole-heartedly and that's why numerous times I stress the importance of the human element staying involved to avoid a catastrophic end to a perfectly good cache. Are all reviewers as attentive as you? I hope so. Iowa Admin is great I know.

You could even implement some simple concept that your date to renew your caches for the year is you B-Day. As long as you get here within say 30 days either side that you can click the button to retain maintenance.

Well, this is elmuyloco's baby and I tagged on some ideas, so let me give you my answer on how I'd see that working. I mentioned it once, but with everything spread out I'll try to answer these for you... What I suggested was an addition of a "green smiley". Once a cache is archived it'd be listed as eligible for removal and cachers would probably race to be the one to get them. Knowing the vehement nature of FTFer's I could see a hot trend to get the green smiley's because they are a one-time shot deal. I am not sure of why they don't publish the info. to answer that fully, but the data is there and I am sure it'd be easy to work satisfy the goal of removing archived caches and protecting info. as they see fit. They would be "active" until the green smiley was logged. I think if you create the "green smiley" you'd be surprised at how few archived caches would become geo-litter compared to now.

Hmm, I was going to mention one of those caches myself... This issue is also not an issue with what elmuyloco proposed.

If you go back and read the proposal I added to elmuyloco's you can see that. I responded to StarBrand's similar inquiry just up the page.

As you may have read before...I don't have any qualms with the current system. That doesn't mean that the aformentioned suggested improvements are of no value.

I would argue that it's always a problem...anytime a cache is left abandoned as geo-trash that, to me, taints what Geocaching is about. On the implementation aspect, system overhaul isn't probably a fair representation of the change. Working in IT, software development specifically, I could probably write, test and implement such a change in well under a week, so the overall cost associated with it isn't terribly expensive. All I am saying is that there are some value in the benefits and certainly minimizing geo-trash is the best interest of the community and the environment. If in the process we slightly raise the bar for maintainence and enhance the back end process of caches being abandoned with implementing an adoptive program then that's good as well. And, at the end of the day, there isn't much more overhead created for cachers or approvers. Especially when weighed against an increase in integrity of caching in general. I think his suggestion is pretty reasonable.

Abandoned caches are not a problem?

Well, in fairness this system does have its issues as elmuyloco mentioned. This would really be a minor addition as I see it proposed. I mean right now it appears to me the reviewers are already doing the same amount of work on their end when they archive one because it's a manual process, but I may be overlooking something... I agree, I am not for making changes without "bettering" the system. Certainly changing one set of problems with another is pointless, but there may be some merit to this suggestion.

In the beginning, God created the GPS and the Tupperware...

I don't know...elmuyloco's idea is more reasonable and really not terribly cumbersome. Basically a cache owner would have to virtually maintain the cache once a year or so and that's it. That's less work that they are currently doing to manually maintain it. If there is no virtual maintenance being done you kick off an adoption period and if it's not adopted it gets archived. I think if you kept the local approver involved, and the notifications were done properly as they are now with e-mail, then it could be successful. I kind of added the idea in to assist in further alleviating geo-trash as well by rewarding cachers for retrieving archived caches with a green smiley. I could live with something like that. Am I missing how that is too much trouble or unfair?

Which is why I introduced keeping the reviewer in the mix for having the final action in freeing up the log. Your scenario hasn't been brought up specifically, but it's similar to StarBrand's. Certainly a legit concern... I would think that part of elmuyloco's proposal would entail that an e-mail alert would be generated to the owner so many days prior to the archive date which would then in turn alert the reviewer who would have the final action to archive it and free it up. But, yes...regardless of the scenario I think we'd want to protect the integrity of caches that are indeed active and being maintained. At this point, my biggest hesitation with the proposal is those caches that get virtually abandoned, but adopted and maintained by the area cachers. Maybe prior to the finalization of archival an "adoption" notice is sent out and it can be adopted.

I would agree with this...especially in, say, western Nebraska... Actually, you'd just take an online, virtual action to keep it active. Hence my reasoning for keeping the reviewer in the loop for such a change.

Well, this will be moved to the TB forum probably soon then those TB guru's will assist you there.

Not neccesarily. First of all, you could combat that and actually give a virtual reward (green smiley maybe) for the person that retrieves an archived/abandoned cache. Secondly, in the areas of saturation the cache location is being replaced anyway. It'd be a requirement of the new owner to remove the old cache remains. How is geo-litter being avoided now on these caches? If an owner disappears and the cache is archived is someone being prompted now to go retain those remains?