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Find Now, Log Later?

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Everything posted by Find Now, Log Later?

  1. I notice the front page now lists the 20 most recent logs. Clicking on a link brings us to a list of the 100 most recent logs. That's a decrease of 50%. The locations of the caches are also no longer listed. These are not improvements, in my opinion. I also think too much space is being allocated to "Upcoming Events." (Or perhaps just too much information is given.) I think the page would have a much more cohesive look if the "20 most recent logs" and "Upcoming Events" used similar formatting ... perhaps consisting of two lines of text.
  2. "Where's George" is an excellent example of the competitive use of statistics ruining a nice little hobby. Hank Eskin, the owner of "Where's George" and the man who makes the rules for that game, has historically been among the most flagrant violators of his "natural circulation" rules. Most of the "prolific" georgers would also be considered flagrant violators of the "natural circulation" rules if the "special geocaching rules" where applied to their methods of circulation. And Eskin is well aware of it. What hypocrisy.
  3. Not necessarily. I recall logs from people who recently did an "extreme" cache on a decrepit railway bridge. The walk to the cache over the rotted planks is probably more dangerous than the climb to the cache ... especially because potentially, many of the rotted planks could have been covered by snow. You didn't mention anything about "dangerous" (or, for that mater, 'benign,') caches placed on private or public property without the express permission of the property owner or controlling agency. Most of the "dangerous" or "extreme" caches I have encountered have fallen into that category. In addition to the example cited at the beginning of this post, I have visited: Caches placed in highly unstable boulder fields, caches placed in areas of structures not intended for public access, caches placed in abandoned buildings, caches placed in mines, caches that required rock climbing in parks where rock climbing is expressly forbidden by the park rules, caches placed hundreds of yards off-trail in parks that have rules requiring users to remain on the trails, caches placed within fenced-in areas or other areas clearly not intended for "public access." In such cases, the property owner/controlling agency has in no way agreed to assume full or partial liability for the activity, (that was reviewed and approved by Groundspeak, Inc./geocaching.com without landowner/controlling agency knowledge or consent) yet would indeed be among the primary targets should someone become injured. And despite any disclaimers to the contrary, Groundspeak, Inc., its agents and the cache owner would be among those targeted by litigation.
  4. It is entirely unnecessary to specify a reason for editing a post, especially for something as mundane as a spelling or grammar correction. If there were posts subsequent to yours that did not directly comment on your post, an "EDIT:" comment explaining any correction, addition, or deletion of factual information that changed the substance of your original post would be a nice courtesy, but again, is unnecessary because your post had not (yet) influenced the direction of the thread. If, however, a post subsequent to yours had either directly quoted your original post or commented on information/statements therein, it would be better to leave your original post unedited and post any additions or corrections in a 'follow-up' post.
  5. I just checked the "Geocaching in the News" page found by clicking on the "About Geocaching" link on the homepage. Nope; nothing about bomb squads or police interventions there.
  6. Finally a word of reason.....thank you! Sensible words, indeed. But I find it highly ironic that one of the caches owned by the individual who penned those words could easily cause precisely the type of scenario that has been discussed the past couple of days if seekers fail to take extra care to be discreet.
  7. Limiting the extent to which users enjoy free access to/usage of resources that cost money to acquire, operate and maintain can only be considered a reasonable and sound business decision. Such decisions may prove to be unpopular among those users who are not paying members, but that does not make them bad decisions. Should the change mentioned in this thread have been announced in advance? No, probably not ... I suspect TPTB took the time to estimate the number of new paid memberships that would be gained and weighed it against the number of forum threads/posts made in protest of the decision that would have made the change more difficult to implement.
  8. What precisely does a geocache look like? Listed are only the first 25 types of cache containers I've come across that come to mind: 1. ammo boxes 2. Rubbermaid/Tupperware-type boxes 3. decon containers 4. pencil cases, plastic or metal 5. film canisters, plastic or metal 6. Hide-a-Keys, plastic or metal, in a variety of styles 7. imitation rocks/stones 8. sprinkler heads 9. fake electrical outlets 10. fake tree stumps or limbs 11. bird houses 12. coffee cans 13. deli containers of every description 14. Altoids-type boxes, several sizes 15. Bison capsules 16. pharmaceutical containers of every description 17. flashlights 18. imitation beehives 19. plastic animals 20. Thermos bottles 21. children's plastic or metal lunchboxes 22. tool boxes/tackle boxes 23. plastic bags, either garbage bags or sandwich bags 24. fence post toppers/caps 25. hollowed-out books Oh yeah ... how did I forget to mention the 3 imitation pipebombs I've found? I especially liked the one with the red pushbutton.
  9. Due to their nature, cats have proven to be unreliable as terrorist devices. It is interesting to note that none of the individuals who logged the cache expressed any real concern. Is that because they saw no problem and considered the placement to be rather innocuous (which it may well have been), or are we as a geocaching community irresponsible rebels, as suggested by the news item? In defense of the cache owner, at least his cache was not of the variety designed to resemble a pipebomb. I suppose it will be only a matter of time before any "trick" that has the potential of alarming non-geocachers will be required to be divulged to the cache reviewer during the approval process. That list would necessarily include, oh, just about everything!
  10. Actually, if one is considering "consequences," I would think such action could very well lead directly to an escalation of "drama."
  11. In my region, by far the majority of caches that have failed to conform to the geocaching.com guidelines have been placed by experienced (at least in terms of length of membership) cachers. That leads one to believe that the non-conforming caches were placed knowingly and with deliberate intent. Contacting the owner of such caches with one's concerns very often proves to be somewhat less than a positive experience. If geocaching.com did not exercise final authority over the approval and listing of all caches appearing on their website, I would agree with you. But they do, and therefore contact information for the website really should be a required item for every physical cache. The fact that in many cases caches are listed on more than one geocaching website is immaterial: In order to be listed on geocaching.com, approval of the cache by geocaching.com was required.
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