cimawr

??? I'm not in the least upset, nor do I think or feel that anyone's attacking me. I'm having an academic discussion/debate WRT the etymology and definition of a word.

I'd say people are *often* wrong about it in these forums. Asking a somewhat controversial question, a group regular needling someone for a reaction, getting mad and being insulting, putting down newbies, re-starting old and worn-out arguments about what's lame, etc., are often labeled "trolling", but that's not really what trolling is. Honestly, I get the impression that a large percentage of the people who use the term in here have never experienced or read real trolling, and that quite a few confuse "flaming" with "trolling". People who troll join and post to discussion groups ONLY for the purpose of entertaining themselves by getting people upset or starting fights. Normally, they don't have any real interest in the subject of the group, other than to think it makes the participants likely to entertain them. Occasionally, they're someone who actively dislikes what draws group members to the discussion; for example, someone who hates dogs posting to a dog discussion group because s/he gets enjoyment out of upsetting dog owners. I really haven't seeh much of that on these forums, most likely because few people who aren't actually engaged in the geocaching game bother to read or post here. Lots of angst, arguments, snide comments, old-timers trying to put down newbies, etc., and occasional attempts at starting controversy for the heck of it or because someone has an axe to re-grind, but not a whole lot that I'd consider true trolling.

As several others have pointed out, you seem to have cache type mixed up with container size as regards descriptions on the website's cache pages. Traditional is a TYPE of cache, and the container used can be any size from nano to large. Micro refers to a SIZE of cache containers, and it can be used in several different types of caches, including traditional. A traditional cache, for the purposes of cache page descriptions, is a cache which has one container - regardless of size - and a log, and for which the hider provides coordinates for the cache's direct location. Again, these caches can range in size from nano (extremely tiny) to micro (usually too small for anything but a log, sometimes has room for very small items) to small (room for a log book and writing implement, and smallish items) to regular and large. There is some crossover between adjacent sizes- for example, a cache I might call "small" somone else might call "micro" . The most common other types are: Multi , which is several caches in a stage, with coordinates provided only for the first cache; each cache contains coordinates for the next one, and the last one has the logbook. These, too, can be any size, although they tend to be micros with the exception of the final stage. Mystery or puzzle caches, which come in a variety of forms, but which don't have coordinates for the cache on the cache page. Some require driving to various locations and collecting clues to figure out the coordinates, some have crossword or sudoku puzzles to solve for the coordinates, some have cards with coordinates hidden in other caches, and so forth. These, too, can have containers of any size. Event caches are actually get-togethers, which may involve searching for temporary caches, but the posted coordinates will be for the site where people collect. CITO caches are events for the purpose of cleaning up an area. At any rate, if you want to avoid doing micros, you need to look on the page for each cache, and check the size listing on the right hand side. (Not all caches list size; IMO, it should be mandatory.) You can also sort for size of container when doing pocket queries.

Erm - it's not an analogy; it's the factual etymology of the term. Check any history of USENET, which is where the term originated in the 1980s.

We have to be a little wary of that definition. You can be as wary of it as you like, but the fact is that it IS the origin of the term "troll" - closely related to the term "trawl" - as used to refer to someone who deliberately makes posts to a discussion group for the sole purpose of baiting other people to react. The original term was "trolling for suckers".

What I find interesting about the term "troll", as used in regards to someone who posts to a newgroup or forum for the purpose of getting a reaction out of people, is how few people realize the actual meaning of the word. Most seem to think that it refers to the fairy-tale ugly creature who lives under bridges, when in fact it's a literal description of the POST, not the poster; trolling is a synonym for fishing, and someone who trolls a discussion group is fishing for a reaction. troll1 /troʊl/ Pronunciation Key - –verb (used with object) to fish for or in with a moving line, working the line up or down with a rod, as in fishing for pike, or trailing the line behind a slow-moving boat; to move (the line or bait) in doing this; to fish by trolling; the act of trolling; a lure used in trolling for fish: the fishing line containing the lure and hook for use in trolling.

Well, depending on how he singed it (matches, perhaps?) he might have burnt off the signature.... or maybe he signed in lemon juice? (Sorry, sbell! I don't usually comment on typos - heaven knows I make enough of 'em myself - but the mental image I got when reading that one was too funny to resist. Especially since it sounds like this guy might be the type to actually do it. )

Odder yet... I read back through all the logs out of curiosity, and it seems that the puzzle cache was orginally in a different location; the puzzle has seekers looking in different corners of a very large park, and at some point it was shifted from one corner to another, which put it right next to the trad. cache. Huh.

Huh! I skimmed over the hiding guidelines in the past (will read them more thoroughly if and when I decide to actually hide a cache or two), but hadn't picked up on that little bit. Reason it interests me is that we've got two caches in my area that are approximately 30 feet apart; one's a traditional cache, one is the final stage of a puzzle cache - and a LOT of the finds on the puzzle cache are made by people who spot it while looking for the other one. (The puzzle cache is in a container attached to a tree, and the container's currently broken, so you can see the cache inside from a distance.) Making it even odder, the two caches were placed only a couple of months apart, and the puzzle cache's owner knows how near the other cache is; he's got a find logged on it. They do both date back to 2003; is the saturation rule newer than that?

And again, that's irrelevant as to whether your actions were appropriate (nor to the question of whether you practice religious persecution), as you've QUITE clearly stated that you would NOT have removed the item if it had been a cross... and ducked the question as to whether you would have removed a Star of David.

Erm... there's another big difference: The diabetes initiative is via travel bugs, not caches, and AFAICT, anyone who wants to can release a TB or geocoin with an agenda. In fact, there is a geocoin currently close to release which is dedicated to raising awareness of breast cancer; it's in the form of a pink ribbon.

Hrm, well..... I "get" your posts, because what you're doing (repeating something as if you hadn't just said it) is precisely what was the first sign of my grandmother's dementia, which hit in her early 70s. I might find it funny if it weren't a painful reminder of watching a brilliantly intelligent person gradually lose her mind.

Ok, here's a new variation on the theme that I encountered a couple of days ago, which I'm curious as to others' take on it: A cache was placed on the ground in a wooded area that periodically floods. In Feb., found it notes say things in the cache are wet, and find logs after that report deterioration. In June, a finder posts a "Needs Maintenace" note stating the cache is soaked and the log is a bag of pulp. No apparent action is taken by the owner. In October, a second "needs maintenace" log is posted, in which it was reported as apparently missing; it wasn't in the place that matched the online clue, nor in any similar places in the area. (It's a cache with an easy rating, and the clue is explict.) Last week, a "big numbers" cacher from the next state over was in the area, went and looked, didn't see the cache either. So they put out another container in a different place - above the ground rather than on it, and about 40 feet from the spot the original clue indicates .. and logged it as a find, saying "We found the location".

Ah, but will anybody want the crunchy frog ones?

I got my Scorpio coin just a couple of days ago - they're nice. My only disappointment is that I wish the icon on the website was a scorpion rather than the generic zodiac thingy.

Heh, well... if you're seriously worried about whether people are telling "true stories", I bet most of them can be verified by checking the posters' profile pages. Mine certainly can. Not, mind you, that I care - I only posted because I was curious as to whether anybody would be silly enough to tell me that yes, I should have deleted my found log once I'd adopted the cache and it appeared on my "owned" list. Which I have to agree with those who've stated that It Doesn't Matter, except in that people who blatantly and repeatedly hide caches and then log them as "finds" may suffer some damage to their credibility with their local geocaching community.... which doesn't hurt anybody but themselves, so why should anybody care? Not to mention that damaging one's credibility with local cachers isn't going to have any effect except socially within the online community... which, unless your community small enough that it could have any effect OUTSIDE geocaching, is not likely to cause must of an impact on the person's "real life".

Hrm. And your evidence to support the highlighted statement is...??? My personal experience is that quite a few hiders in my area are NOT willing to maintain their caches, and that the film canisters and hide-a-keys are more likely to fall in that category. Admittedly, most of the hiders who don't maintain are people who lost interest or moved away, but some are still quite active in finding. And then there are the hides put out in a state that already needs maintenance....

I have a problem with "Big Brother" when it IS "Big Brother". There's a difference between keeping an eye on whether logged time and location match reasonably with what the GPS shows, and/or whether an employee is a habitual excessive speeder - which is what it sounds like your company is doing - and considering ANY deviation shown by the computer, no matter how small, a matter for "disciplinary action". IMO, it's a waste of supervisory time AND utter overkill to insist that there should be NO deviations from what the computer says an employee "should" be doing, and/or interrogating an employee as to why, for example, he ran the truck for 10 minutes at lunchtime on a 102-degree day, why he stopped for a few minutes on the way home, why he went up to 70 MPH for 3 minutes while driving on I-95 in the middle of the day, etc. - regardless of what the employee's work record is, or whether it's the first or 10th time you've seen the "blip". Trying not to get heat stroke while eating lunch, grabbing a soda along the route home, and passing a semi on I-95 are not reasons why a manager should be scolding a hard-working employee. Or, to put it another way, micromanaging and implying that you distrust all employees isn't a very good way to keep your employees working effectively. It's not surprising that the company in question is hemorrhaging inspectors since the units were installed. Although they have least stopped calling the inspectors every single time they exceed the speed limit by 5 mph, no matter how short the duration of the "speeding" was.

Out of sheer curiosity, would you exempt caches adopted after the fact from that? I have a find on the one cache I'm listed as owning. Why? Because when I found it, it was "owned" by somebody else, and I went out and searched for it like any other cache. However, when I went on the website to log it, I found that it was "up for adoption" and the owner planned to archive it shortly if there were no takers. The cache is in a patch of woods near my S.O.'s house, I walk my dogs there at least twice a month, it's a nice little cache, so after logging my find, I sent a note to the owner offering to "adopt", and Bob's your uncle. I see no reason not to keep the "find" on it, as it's not only a legitimate find, but part of the cache's history. Never occurred to me that anybody would see that as "cheating"; which I couldn't care less if they do, but I'm curious as to whether it would annoy "purists" that I didn't delete my own found log once the cache was in my "owned" list. .

Out of our only 68 finds, we've seen: 102 finds here.. What I've seen: 1. A small electrical box (front plate the size of a household light switch or plug plate) attached, about a foot off the ground, to a power pole at a park and ride lot. There are real electrical boxes and wires on the other side of the pole, about 4 feet up. The cache has a PVC tube on the bottom that makes it look as if there are wires leading down into the ground. On close inspection, one sees that the bottom screw is missing from the face plate; the interior is accessed by swinging the face plate to the side. Also, once you pay attention, you can see that the entire thing isn't the same color/quality as what's on the other side. I'd have to go back and look at it to be sure, but I believe the real equipment is inoperative. 2. A metal electrical box the same size as the one described in #1, camoed to be the same color as a light pole, and stuck to it with magnets. 3. Same as #2 (placed by the same hider in areas about 30 miles apart), only difference being that it's stuck to the side of the base rather than to the pole. 4. If we're counting them, four or five hide-a-keys stuck somewhere on the outside of a transformer box. 5. A micro which I declined to continue hunting for because GZ was a OPEN electrical box, and it appeared that the cache might be inside with the switches etc.. The box may have been inoperative - it was unusual that it wasn't closed/locked - but I wasn't going to mess with it!

Sorry, but.... your analogy doesn't quite hold together for me. As regards highways, there's a big difference between "playing in traffic" and walking on the shoulder, pulling over and stepping into the bushes for a bit, pulling into a rest stop, etc. Similarly, there's a significant difference between touching the OUTSIDE of a sealed transformer box and opening it up and fiddling with what's inside.

I'm reminded of something my grandmother used to say: "Common sense ain't." Which I agree with you; seems to me that common sense says that if you put something down, you're not "finding" it when next you see it... well, unless you're absent-minded like me and forget where you put things down. Then again, if I wrote down on a website every place I put my keys down, I'd not have trouble knowing where they are.

I have to disagree with this notion. "Average cachers who never step foot in the forums" are usually quite aware of the presence and numbers of other local cachers; we all see each other's stats, posts, etc. in cache logs. If you go to a local event, people very much know who's got the big numbers. Cachers DO communicate outside these forums, after all; we "talk" via public logs and notes on cache pages, regional forums, regional events, and private e-mails. On a side note, something I find interesting is that in my observation, there seem to be distinct localized sub-cultures WRT attitude, competition for FTF & numbers, etc. I cache in two general areas about 50 miles apart; both areas have a fairly high saturation of caches In one, people have a friendly rivalry in placing tricky caches, but there doesn't seem to be a big rush to place caches, nor does there seem to be any real urgency to be FTF when a new cache goes out. In the other, there are several "FTF hounds", as well as several people who seem to compete to put out as many caches as possible.

Yup. They're old enough to be ID'd as "men" by the police and news media, but young enough to be referred to as "kids" by anyone pushing 30 and upwards... especially given that they were not exactly behaving in a mature manner. ** In fact, I originally typed "kids" in my last post, then changed it to "young guys" because I was replying to someone who apparently hasn't read the news article. (Although I wouldn't refer to myself as an "old fart", I AM old enough to be a parent to the "men" in question. ) **By which, incidentally, I don't mean the game they were playing, but in the fact that they made a poor choice of where and when to play it.

? is that a real song? You bet! I think it's a bit before your time, though. (And I have to say, I'm not quite sure how it relates to geocaching... other than that caches are sometimes hidden under rocks. )