Corp Of Discovery

I can help you with that. Won't be able to do it until next Tuesday at the earliest tho. Will that work for you?

A few questions: What proof is required to achieve Giga status? Since you can't require a log to be signed how can it really be proven that 5K+ people were there? If you go by just the number of attended logs on the event what's to stop someone from just letting anyone log it to get a sufficient amount? How are the numbers going to be extrapolated? 1.5 possible attendees for each actual attend log? 2/1? If that's not going to be done, what if 5K people don't log it? How long do they have to see if that many people log it? Will the Giga status be rescinded if it doesn't meet the threshold? If not, how close is 'close enough'?

Why hasn't anyone placed a cache here yet? Coords:N 48 33.535, W 94 55.996 Edited to add coords.

http://coord.info/GLDYZZPF

You can use the PQ filter to select caches hidden between certain dates. This also works when you do caches along a route.

Now if only they'd let you have it for having found any of the archived ones.

Are you OK Toz? When I'm not geocaching or writing TL;DR posts in the forums, I am a software developer with over 30 years of experience. For professional reasons I have a curiosity about how software is developed and whether or not developers actual make any effort to design software for the way it get used. The smartphone apps allow users not only to find geocaches but to log their finds right from the app with the press of a button. The entire process is far different from the days when this activity required you to go on a website, print out or download the caches you planned to search for, find the caches and perhaps take field notes about what you found, and then return home, log on to a website, and log your experiences. Yet it sometimes seem that neither Groundspeak nor the denizens of the forums understand this. There was recently a whole other thread about how the Intro App could be improved to help newbies learn nuances such as that cache owners appreciate an individualized note when logging the cache online. I as I pointed out there you can lead a horse to water by you can't make it drink. I suspect there are ways to present the logging process to a newbie that lets them know a personalized note is nice to have, but you can't force the newbie to actually take the time to compose a note for each cache they find. Ahhh, that's more like it.

Are you OK Toz?

I would have responded with this: "Any local cacher can achieve this challenge.". Whether they have or not is, of course, an entirely different matter and, depending on the exact requirements, may be unknowable just by a perusal of their profile pages. The question as put in this translation seems rather irrelevant. Anyone can, potentially, achieve any requirements set forth in any challenge (barring the use of now illegal or unusable cache types- APE, LC, 10 Year events etc.). I also think asking whether anyone other than the owner has met the requirements is an undue burden placed on the CO. That being said there are some quite outlandish challenges out there. I've tried to make mine fun and doable yet still a challenge in some way. Sometimes I'll even give different options in how to qualify, yet still keeping the same basic flavor.

That's actually been around for a looong time. I've seen it referred to as 'divide & conquer'.

I think someone forgot this in another thread:

I have never seen a ban on a cacher that was not well-deserved. Think about it -- there are people who behave badly in all other areas of life; why would geocaching be any different? If someone were truly banned inappropriately you can be certain that we would hear about it. In this case, I would argue that absence of evidence is evidence for absence. Did we hear about the 30 day ban handed out to the late Sven, GeoVlogger? Yes we did. We could still debate that one, but take a look if you haven't lately, and see how many Geocaching Vlogger's are on YouTube right now. He paved the way for that, you know. This guy, on the other hand, had a well deserved ban, trust me. No one out there in their right mind could come up with anything remotely resembling an excuse for his behavior. Sven, while being perhaps the most well known geocaching vlogger, was not the first one.

The Journal

I'm pretty sure this is none of the above. I believe if people would take a deeper look into the situation, they would find an enthusiastic, energetic young man who is trying to share something joyful with others, with support and assistance from his family and community. This. It's not a spoof. The young man who owns the cache is a good kid and exuberant geocacher.

Thanks for adding the Chicago area event back on your list. I have a question about all of these: have any of them been held at the same location over the years or have they all moved about some?

The consensus was that although there have been annual events in Chicago area for the past 13 years, as it stated on the latest listing the GONIL picnic is only in it's 8th year. I agree with what COD wrote and if you look at the cache page for 8th Annual Picnic (GC4DJ58) it states that it is the 13th year for the picnic. Quote from the cache page: "Geocachers everywhere are invited to the 8th annual fall picnic sponsored by GONIL (NOTE: This is the 13th annual Chicagoland area geocaching picnic!!)." The wording on the event page definitely makes it questionable...it does say 8th annual but 13th event in the area. The debate would be, are the first 5 annual caches the same as those put on by GONIL? Just because an event is in the same area does not make it the same event. Potter's Pond is a similar situation. This would probably be best answered by the host/previous hosts of the event. Easy enough to add back onto the list if it turns out to be the same event for 13 years. Its the Here's a log on this years event from the Markwell, the host of the very first annual picnic in the Chicago area. As permit holder (altho not host) for the 2004 picnic, and a founding member (along with Markwell) of GONIL, I can speak to the fact that that all the events on my bookmark list have been seen as a continuing annual series of events. Hope that's good enough for it to be reinstated.

The consensus was that although there have been annual events in Chicago area for the past 13 years, as it stated on the latest listing the GONIL picnic is only in it's 8th year. Consensus from who? I would say that most, if not all, cachers in the Chicago area consider it a continuation of the annual Chicagoland picnic no matter what the name. It was even basically referred to as such in earlier posts in this thread:

I'd be quite fine with the 2 week recommended/1 week firm option. I had an event denied because it was submitted only a day or two late. I think the reviewer could have granted a waiver but it really wasn't worth fighting for at that point- I had a trip to Hawaii to finish planning. I think early on the 2 week minimum was necessary since this website was pretty much it for getting the word out. With all the various social media outlets available, now there are plenty of vectors for people to know about an event. The explosion in number of players and proliferation of flash mobs also plays in to why I think a shorter period should be allowed.

Saddened to hear this. I had the pleasure of meeting her a few years ago when she came up to Chicago to attend one of our annual picnics.

This one's been popping up on some caches:

To make things easier all the way around why didn't you just find another cache in order to get the souvenir?

Brief history. Cache types weren't invented "at the beginning". Events were published for a while before Jeremy invented the cache types. "Event" wasn't defined and could simply be "something happening here" - nothing like the "gathering of cachers, by and for cachers" definition of today. When he created the types, he did a bit of retro-active application of them to the database, but hardly anything thorough. The "attended" log came several years later. My early events are "found" not "attended". So "from the beginning" was never an option. Maybe when the "attended" log came along, they could have started with a separate stat, but it would have created a firestorm of trouble, especially out of the multi-logging temps at events folks. It only matters if you think that you're keeping score ;-) Good history! I think I actually looked into that once, and the "attended" log came along in 2005. And the multi-logging of temps used to be way more popular back then, although it was generally practiced in moderation. For example, people did not log that they attended the event 125 times for finding so-called caches 200 feet apart. And yes, that really does happen at an annual fall event in Ohio. Don't even ask about the Christmas one. I think the 'attended' option came along right around Nov. 1, 2004. IIRC I edited all of my event 'finds' to the new log types as soon as it was available. I was at an event on 10/30/04 that was edited (on 11/1/04) and then at another on 11/6/04 that wasn't. One additional tidbit: for a good while you could pick either 'found' or 'attended' for events. Not sure when 'found' was dropped as an option tho (2008 maybe?). Add me to the not logging my events as attended column. Never logged any temporary caches as found either. YFMV.

I hit my 10 year anniversary back in January. That's my join date tho- I didn't find my first cache until 3 months later (no GPS). TAR: your join date is my birthday.

This cache has some interesting posts about throwdowns: Under the Lamppost's Skirt? #34 The situation is also relevant to some other topics as well.

BAHAHAHAHA that is one of the funniest things I have ever read on thee forums. But sadly, it is so very very true. "afraid they might accidently burn a calorie" I love it!!! ROFL!!!! True? Really? I have done power trails, my record is 567 caches in one day and I have done some pretty intense 8-12 hr hikes with 3-4000+ feet elevatin gain and I find the power trail more physically exhausting than the hikes. My actual complaint against P&Gs has little to do with physical exertion, as how much a person sweats is an inconsistent way, for me, to measure the quality of a hide, as defined by my wholly subjective standards. A better measurement would be the amount of adventure present, or the amount of creativity involved in the hide. Sometimes both of these qualities are found in a single cache. With the power trails you drool over, neither quality is present. Like you, I have also done a power trail. It was the most tedious 36 finds of my life. The utter void of mental / physical stimulation left me gasping for an ammo can. For those who can spend all day with no creative input, power trails could be a great thing... I'd get bored doing 36 ammo can hidden under a pile of sticks, just as I would doing 36 skirt lifters in a row. I like variety- mixing up types, sizes and styles. Guess it's the ADD in me.