Find Now, Log Later?

That is good information, but might I offer one clarification: Record stores, etc. do not sell "the originals." They sell "original copies."

No, "lunatic" is not a word to describe the typical geocacher. But clearly, a tendency towards obsessive/compulsive behavior does seem to be a characteristic shared by many geocachers. In order to enjoy the game, no one needs to drive 1000 miles in order to pick up 300 caches in a weekend. No one needs to clear every single cache within 5 (10, 50, 100, etc.) miles of their home. But a lot of people have set "goals" such as those. So be it.

Perhaps you're being "moderated" and don't know it. Mods deleting posts or topics? Why, such a thing could NEVER happen ... as recently as January 18th, someone asked in another forum "how they could delete their old forum postings?" and Jeremy responded thus: Perhaps I'm the only one who remembers several "controversial" threads from early in the history of geocaching that unfortunately disappeared with the old forums. No doubt "the new software ate 'em."

I'd have to say the things that "hooked" me on geocaching were the challenging hikes and/or hides in diverse areas ... the actual "treasure" never interested me. Unfortunately, those types of caches are, for the most part, few and far between these days. I find your comment interesting ... my opinion is the community we belong to as geocachers is actually more a "community of mutual convenience and passing acquaintances."

"Flaming" is such a subjective word. In these forums, everything from nasty "name calling" to pointing out factual inaccuracies and/or weaknesses in someone's argument have been dubbed "flaming." So no, I think that difference is not at all clear to a lot of people.

One frequently sees quotes similar to the one used by your professor. I think it's a lot of bunk, and I think it's hilarious that it was a topic in an "ethics" class. 'Innocent words on a screen' such as these are, of course, subject to a wide variety of (mis)interpretations by a wide variety of people. My interpretation of that popular quote is "It is better to be innocuous than honest, frank, and direct. In order not to potentially offend even the most "sensitive" individual, never say anything in an email or forum post that you wouldn't say directly to a young child." I checked my thesaurus, and even though it seems to be used that way so very often these days, "sensitive" is not listed as a synonym for "puerile."

While I agree with most of your post, I don't agree with the quoted statement. In my opinion, the intent of the game is to derive fun from finding a container hidden in an interesting location ... or in hiding a cache in an interesting location for others to find. Everything else is merely tangental. But it does seem to me that as the game has continued to evolve, geocaching has become, for many people, more and more a social activity and less and less a physical activity. Perhaps that helps account, in small part, for why the general quality of "the cache experience" is lower than it was two or three years ago ... the "box in the woods" is now of only secondary importance.

I don't know, but I suppose this will be a good time to observe how consistent TPTB are in enforcing their rules.

I think it is of tantamount importance to always remember that geocaching.com is merely a listing service and proponent of the game; it is not the game. With that in mind, I think it would be a great disservice to all geocachers if your personal bias in favor of one listing service (geocaching.com) caused your magazine to ignore problems or deficiencies specific to geocaching.com while also ignoring positive aspects and/or developments of other listing services (and/or proponents of the game.)

Decide that there won't be anything worth trading for prior to starting out on your cache adventure, and you won't be disappointed when there isn't. After I had been caching for a while, I even stopped leaving "Where's George" dollars, and traded only travel bugs.

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition."

Well, since I am aware of at least one example of a "Listerine Pocket Pack" micro that remains active almost three years after it was first placed, I must disagree with you. The entire point of a tiny micro is to make the find especially challenging. You did not state whether the difficulty rating of the cache you sought correctly reflected the difficulty of the cache; in every example of this type of cache I have seen, the difficulty rating matched or exceeded the true difficulty of the cache. Also, I was unaware that hints or revealing descriptions were an integral part of the cache experience. As far as I am concerned, the only information the cache owner needs to provide are the coordinates and the cache type.

The "pocket pack" containers have been used as caches for practically three years now. Ditto to what others have said: They leak badly, so use water-resistant paper and expect to perform maintenance on the cache on a regular basis.

I can't narrow it down to a single thread ... I have greatly enjoyed all of the threads concerning vacation caches, virtual caches (which are being addressed even as I type this), locationless caches, geocaching statistics, and the sharing of data.

Seems like another topic. This one is about virtuals. If you're saying "micros suck too" it is a red herring. Micros and virtuals have nothing in common except coordinates are involved. Don't try justifying a lame virtual with a lame micro. Never justify bad behavior with other bad behavior. ... Not sure why this even becomes part of the virtual issue ... The two issues are intertwined because the restrictions on one type (virtual caches) were directly led to the proliferation of the other (microcaches.) Actually, cache quality (or the lack thereof) is the tangental issue.

Yes, I agree that there have been many excellent virtual caches. I also agree that the value of many virtual caches would be diminished if the focus of the visit were to find a film canister rather than locating/reading/learning/observing something of value. I also agree that the proverbial "sneaker in the woods" would not be a worthwhile virtual cache. Now, to digress a little: I see no reason why that "sneaker in the woods" could not make a perfectly acceptable "traditional physical cache." Would it necessarily be any different than the many well-implemented fake rocks, fake birdhouses, fake beehives, fake animals, fake sprinkler heads, etc., etc. currently in place? Almost invariably, whenever a novel idea/method for hiding a cache reaches an area, it is immediately celebrated and championed as being "clever" or "original." Several imitations usually follow in quick succession, and by the third or fourth similar cache, that novel/clever/original idea is considered passe or "lame" ... even if the succeeding caches were superior to the original. That's the way it goes. Back to the quoted post: That depends entirely on one's perspective. I agree with you that such caches are worthless, but many people have demonstrated that they will eagerly travel a thousand miles or more in order to spend the weekend "bagging" a few hundred micros similar to that. Again, I happen to agree with you, but refer back to my previous comment. That is precisely the type of cache many, many geocachers prefer and welcome warmly. That's why caches with high terrain ratings are visited less frequently than caches with low terrain ratings. Is it? I never viewed the "lame" problem as being specific to virtual caches. In my area, I recall people began commenting about the proliferation of "lame" caches in early 2002, shortly after a major influx of new cachers. The way I see it, it was far easier (for the website) to severely restrict virtual caches than to address the entire problem by placing stricter requirements on all caches types. Certainly, placing stricter requirements on virtual caches eliminated a part of the problem. Unfortunately, that solution seems to have led to the creation of something many people consider to be a much larger problem. (That certain category of microcaches beloved by some and despised by others.) But isn't it their ("lame cache hiders" ...or perhaps you meant "the hiders of lame caches") game every bit as much as it is "MisterFindsNeedlesInHaystacksMountainGoat's?" Face facts: In order for the game to have the broadest appeal to the largest audience, the game must be tailored to appeal to "the lowest common denominator."

If the cache has 4 or 5 difficulty stars, it probably means "less than an hour before the typical geocacher succumbs to a massive coronary event."

I think the geocaching game is, for the most part, a watered-down imitation of what it was four years ago. But that comes as no surprise, because that is exactly what happens everytime an activity is re-engineered and marketed to have "broad appeal" to "a mass audience."

Absentee cache owner or a cache owner who is no longer active? A landowner/controlling agency that wants the cache removed? It's simple ... take the matter into your own hands. Visit the cache site, remove the cache personally or verify that it has been removed, and post that information to the cache page with a SBA log.

As a Public Service Announcement, I want to remind everyone that they have the option to disable the display of signature lines, avatars, and images appearing in posts by clicking the "My Controls" option atop this page, then selecting "Board Settings" under the "Options" menu.

That it has been, but let's look at "the numbers" from another angle ... I think it is both interesting and informative tracking geocaching activity by following the usage numbers posted to the About Geocaching page. From my observations over the past year, the percentage of active accounts rarely seems to exceed 5% of the (current at the time of observation) total number of registered accounts. I can't recall ever noting activity exceeding 10% of the (then current) number of registered accounts. A high percentage of registered accounts are now dormant and/or abandoned; I wouldn't be surprised if the number exceeds 50% of all registered accounts.

I'll preface this post by stating that I am neutral on the issue of virtual caches. Of the 100+ virtual caches I found, I don't recall one ever being missing or in a state of disrepair. I do remember I found one VC a block from where it was supposed to be, and another perhaps 1/4 - 1/2 mile from the coordinates listed. Both of those virtuals had been created by cachers local to those areas. I would also state that the percentage of "lame" VCs I visited was about the same as the percentage of "lame" physical caches I visited, and that the worst examples from each category were similarly lacking in redeeming qualities. I thought they always were/have been subject to the same rules. Have I missed the development and implementation of a cache reverification/mandatory periodic maintenance system? That would certainly appear to be at least partially true ... but reviewing the list of VCs I visited, I notice that several of them had actually been physical caches at the time I visited them. I know for fact that two of them were changed to VCs because of issues with local site managers or authorities. But for most of the others, it appears that the designation of the cache was changed from "traditional" to "virtual" simply to avoid performing maintenance. (If I recall correctly, that practice was rather rampant, and led to a further tightening of "the guidelines-that-are-rules." It has always been easy to avoid doing VCs if one doesn't like them. It is not, however, as easy to avoid the very low quality caches that have, in large part, replaced VCs. Some wonderful caches have dreadful cache pages, but unfortunately, many dreadful caches have wonderful cache pages.

I thought Mike Teague's webpage (the original geocaching "listing service") brought the game "to the attention of the masses." Isn't that how Jeremy discovered geocaching? I'd also like to see interviewed the fellow who invented the word "geocache." I've forgotten his name off the top of my head, but it's here on my computer somewhere, with all of the other information and interviews from "the old days."

Ha! Dontcha just love it when a moderator acts like a bratty 3 year old and "stomps out of the room?" I can't imagine for even a second why so many people have reservations about one or two of the moderators.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Mike Teague is the fellow I would like to see interviewed.