vipond33

I can't comment on the macro global statistics above (not smart enough, and not been in the game long enough) but I do have a micro statistic that is interesting. When replacing a stolen cache recently, I was surprised to find (via one of the DNF's) that another cache used to exist in exactly the same place in 2012. And I thought I was special. Looking it up, I saw there were 75 finds on it in 18 months. My cache, in exactly the same place with the same D&T and over the same time, netted only 5. A 15 to 1 difference. I'm not super dismayed by this, given that it's still a good cache in a great ravine, ( GC5DF7Q if you care to look) but I wonder too at how slow this game is played. Altogether I have 30 caches in an urban area (Toronto) with varying difficulty and terrain levels. The real tough ones get 2-3 finds a year; the others average about 25. This is in a city wide mild saturation of about 1000 hides. Is this slow or average now? New people seem to be coming on always here and new caches too, and for sure there is certainly a core group whose names you finally learn as a beginner The most important members of that group (and occasionally others) leave lovely interesting logs; which to me is fully 50% of why I stay in the game. For I, like anyone else, likes to see some sort of reward for their efforts. I try to leave those same kind of logs on the few that I do find, as simple payback and also to try and stem the tide of the tftc - i.e. - at a local level - encourage the newbies and show them the fun. I don't know what else to do but be the thing you want to see. The game is awfully slow at times, but there's still life in it I think, at least here, and real pleasure to be had.

I think Ockham's razor is probably the best geocaching tool needed to explain this; i.e., the simplest or most obvious explanation is that the cache does not exist. It isn't there and never was. I've toyed with the idea of doing one of these myself. How easy then to replace a damp log from the comfort of my chair. How easy to say on an CO's maintenance log that it is there, hundreds of DNF's from veteran cachers notwithstanding. Then when I tire of it, simply place a real container and archive it after the first find. All very pointless, but good fun nu?

I was one of those like minded people. Last summer I noticed fake logs on 10 of my caches and with a little physical look around on some of my previous finds - many more. Looking then through his logs I counted 1360 "finds" in Ontario and the northern US over a 30 day period (the cacher lives in the Maldives). After contacting him to no avail, I wrote Geocaching HQ. They said I needed more evidence from other members, so I wrote messages and emails to about 80 of them. 31 people eventually replied showing that they had deleted over 250 of his cheats after manually inspecting their logs. Sending this information back to HQ resulted in absolutely nothing. From them: "Hi Eugene, Thanks for writing in to us. If people report Mcassis has couch-logged their geocaches, we can delete them. Regards, Alex Community Manager" This and after a handful of my contacts had sent them a note too. I enjoy the placing hides for other peoples pleasure, and finding a few of my own when I have time, but there doesn't seem to be any point to our parent body if liars like this are simply ignored. I have read the standard response before that "they're only hurting themselves". I don't buy it. You cannot help but be hurting the game, and at the same time ratcheting down the world.