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One done only a couple years after starting (and the other 2/3rds was a FTF monster), was supposed to be at a kid's "Grandma's house". - "She can't wait to talk to people! ". So apparently we're there for her amusement as well... Six in the morning, 2/3rds searching along a hedge at the sidewalk and finds it. A man comes out, asking her what the #$** is she doing, she tells him, and he directs her next door, where the kid's Grandma lives. The container was given to "Grandma", and now she really had to watch and talk to people, until the kid got outta school. Sheesh...

Nice try. It was an interesting idea, but I agree with GS that it was misguided, so I'm happy they shut it down. I can see why you're upset about them not posting an explanation, but your description makes it clear the caches were published under false pretenses, however noble the intention, and GS usually doesn't react kindly to that. Try something else, and maybe talk it over with GS or come on the forums to discuss it before you decide unilaterally that it justifies pretending to be geocaching when you're actually doing something else. I haven't looked at the recent "virtual event" thread, but I'm guessing that's someone thinking along the same lines, so you might want to check it out.

We joke about attending Skype events in our local WhatsApp group but definitely against the rules. I you need caching talk just organise a group chat. I am sure people are not that desparate for a log.

You could always log a Note with the intention of logging a legitimate Find after signing the Log. Hard to see how HQ would have an issue with a generic Note. Since my experience informs me that HQ usually only gets wind of these things when another User complains, maybe you should invite the person/people in your area that appear to have an issue with this practice to a video chat to talk it over and find some sort of solution. Zoom Happy Hours are becoming quite the thing in my area.

This design proposal looks great! But it's not so important whether Groundspeak will agree with you, these design thing are changeable using Javascript/GM and guys behind GC little helper II will surely be fast. As for the stalker thing someone has mentioned: I am not a stalker as well but me and my friends often visit the Friends page and check out others' new finds (GClh II is very helpful in this) as we like to talk about where we were, what we experienced there, watch the pics etc. The feed will make it much easier for us. Wow, if the feed items only indicated somehow there are images attached to them, that would be something! People who don't want to share their activity with their friends can easily switch it off. One click is all it takes. No need to talk about stalking anymore.

I disabled my cache last week, when I was surprised to see someone had visited it. This is NOT essential activity. Clearly everyone should err on the side of caution and not talk about what is "most likely" while having zero experience in epidemiology. Just stop this reckless behaviour, which is now criminal, at least in the UK. Personally I think it's poor that geocaching.com haven't just turned off the data feed.

Not quite true. Groundspeak actively pushes the FTF prize on a very regular basis as one of the benefits of buying premium membership. They talk about it in mailings, sure. But they never talk about rules. They just say it's when you find "that clean, unsigned logbook...". And that's just external affairs/outreach talk--show me where Groundspeak outlines anything specific about a FTF "prize" (especially in the guidelines, or with an official mention or validity with, say, a statistic on your profile) beyond mention in some emails. Back to my popcorn. The terms of use indicate that while Groundspeak provides a service where individuals can exchange information about games and opportunities for location-based play, Groundspeak does not provide any games itself as part of its services. (I'm not sure the HQ cache or the Block Party event are?) Certainly Groundspeak can suggest games and ways to play. These are suggestions and a few requirements/guidelines that restrict certain games from being listed (or sometimes even mentioned) on their websites. Groundspeak is also free to provide premium services to support games and game play. FTF is clearly a game that can be mentioned on Groundspeak's sites. From time to time they may suggest ways to play this game and point out that their premium service can be useful for this style of play. But the actual 'rules' and game play are left to individuals to decide on. Threads like this one start because someone wants to apply their personal rules to how others play this game. They often degrade to where someone who don't want to play this game at all wants to make FTF simply a label to describe some other aspect of geocaching. While is is fun to debate what constitutes a find either for the purpose of deciding who is first or when to use 'Found' for your online log, Groundspeak's president has posted Even though there might be an FTF prize, or a cache owner may award a mention on the cache page to the FTF, there's still no reason to get your knickers in a twist about anyone else's definition of a find.

Not quite true. Groundspeak actively pushes the FTF prize on a very regular basis as one of the benefits of buying premium membership. They talk about it in mailings, sure. But they never talk about rules. They just say it's when you find "that clean, unsigned logbook...". And that's just external affairs/outreach talk--show me where Groundspeak outlines anything specific about a FTF "prize" (especially in the guidelines, or with an official mention or validity with, say, a statistic on your profile) beyond mention in some emails. Back to my popcorn.

If 10 DNFs isn't enough for a CO to self-check the cache, then it should be archived, unless it's a high D cache, in which case the NRA wouldn't really be appropriate either. The first step should be a NM to notify the CO that something might be wrong, not jump immediately to a reviewer with a suggested NRA. If no action is forthcoming from the CO, the next step is the NA. There's no need for a separate NRA log in this example because a mechanism exists and should work as it is supposed to but cachers don't want to file the correct logs to get this addressed. In this example you've provided (and assuming the NRA was in place), does that mean you would bypass the NM log (and suggest others do as well) and go directly to a NRA to initiate reviewer action on this cache? If so, then what does that say about the NM log? You've essentially rendered it irrelevant. Also, if the CO doesn't respond to this reviewer action, then the cache is archived. Basically you're asking for the reviewer to disable a cache that has no NM log (because a 10 consecutive DNF cache probably needs a CO check), see if the CO responds, and then archive the cache when they don't. And that's somehow a different process and result than the current NA log we have available now because the implication of the terminology is better and not used out of context? I'm all for changing the name of the log but I honestly can't think of how the process and possible results would differ from how they currently stand or do anything to address the issue of not using the proper logs for needed maintenance and/or reviewer action. I did and there's very little that addresses examples, only most people agreeing with the suggestion of a name change of the NA log to the NRA log. I suggested they keep both (in my initial reply) because there are some cases where immediate action/archival is needed (cache on private property without permission, for example) vs. just the normal progression of an unmaintained cache from NM to NRA. NRA makes much more sense because it applies across the board to every situation but since that hasn't happened, the NA is what we have so that's what we have to use. I still don't think there are any examples that would make sense for a community member to forego the NM log and proceed directly to a NRA log. Most examples (like the 10 consecutive DNFs) should be just as adequately addressed using what we have in place (NM then NA). The problem is that the community is hesitant to use them or refuses to use them. The NRA isn't needed if people file the correct logs and use the established process. The NRA apparently is needed when people choose not to file the correct logs and not use the established process. Creating or renaming a log that asks for reviewer action doesn't address the problem of people not using the correct log types. It doesn't change the process already in place, although if you're going to bypass the needed NM log (in the example you provide) to file the NRA log, then it completely changes the process and renders the NM log irrelevant. It only clarifies the implication of the log being used. This does nothing to address the root of the problem. It's because the community hasn't been "educated" or properly "refreshed" in their proper use. Now that the CHS and reviewers are apparently pro-actively seeking out caches like this particular example, the community doesn't feel like it's a needed action on our parts, despite the fact that it is. Some of it is related to the actions of GS, some of it is related to COs' reactions to NM/NA logs, and some of it is related to the community's hesitancy in their use. All this talk between Bruce and I about NA/NRA is completely irrelevant if the community just follows the protocols laid out for us and files the NM/NA logs and COs get over themselves and realize that it's not some personal attack but instead a plea for them to maintain their cache. They fail to maintain it and it's off the books, as it should be. Like Bruce, I wouldn't have taken action like you did but I would be just as frustrated at the lack of action by the community prior to you. I might have contacted the CO and/or written a note on the cache page but like some (but not others) I prefer to have firsthand knowledge and visit a cache before filing a NM log. I have no issues with following up later (I typically wait 4 weeks/30 days), if no action is taken by the CO, with a NA log. If I didn't file the NM log, I won't file a NA log because I'd prefer to have visited the cache to feel confident in my choice. I'm sure dprovan doesn't feel like that's needed but if a reviewer is going to take action (or is summoned to take action), then I believe they need as much firsthand information as they can get to help make their decision, not someone else acting, in essence, as a reviewer from afar. I don't think it's wrong what they do, although I'd not endorse their actions; I feel it's wrong for me based on how I choose to participate.

As a RN, I can talk about 16 hour shifts all the time. We get that. It sucks, but its our reality, COVID-19 or not. Also consider, this is not a one size fits all situation. Our policies and protocols within the hospital change several times each day. Yesterday evening we separated a brand new baby from its PUI mother five minutes after birth. Today, we would not do that; they would stay together and mom would wear a mask while breastfeeding. I am 20 miles north of the first Washington state COVID-19 case in Snohomish County and 50 miles north of Seattle. I'm not being negligent. I'm avoiding stores, crowded areas, my nursing conferences have been cancelled, practicing social distancing, etc. I'm following the recommended guidelines AND caring for patients with inadequate PPE, not nearly enough supplies, etc. However, the fresh air part is recommended by State of Emergency declared by the Skagit County Health Department that recommends people getting outside. It's also recommended that kids spend two hours playing outdoors. People who are sick should self-isolate except to seek medical care. People at higher risk of severe illness should self-isolate now. This includes physical isolation from non-household family members, including grandchildren. People at higher risk include people over 60 years of age; people with underlying health conditions including heart disease, lung disease or diabetes; people with weakened immune systems; and pregnant women. Everyoneshould limit activity outside the home to essential activities only. However, outdoor activities such as walking, running, biking, and hiking are encouraged. If you go with another person, maintain 6 feet of distance. So, to answer your question, CITOs ARE good for you, if you are healthy.

I'd argue with your cause and effect order. In my area, at least, NAs were common until reviewers started taking action based on DNFs, and only then did people stop posting NAs. If it bothers you to search for something that isn't there, then geocaching isn't the game for you. There's always a first person to search for a cache that has gone missing. Nothing can change that, and I think it's detrimental to the game to pretend otherwise. From what I've seen, the reluctance to log DNFs is entirely cultural. All the serious geocachers in my area log DNFs when they can't find the cache. I've never noticed the casual geocachers being very shy about it, either, although I'm sure there are some that don't, and that doesn't really concern me. To be honest, I'm always a little puzzled when people from other places talk about it being common for people to not file their DNFs. Even with the reviewers swooping down on caches with a couple DNFs, everyone still seems it's more important to tell everyone else that they couldn't find it and not worry about how the reviewers will react. It's kinda sad you think there are people that can't laugh at themselves when their DNF comes between two easy find logs. If you think you know someone like that, you should definitely remind them that they're geocaching so they can enjoy themselves, not so they can compare themselves to other people. Failure is an every day occurrence in geocaching, so if someone finds it embarrassing, they're not going to have much fun in this game.

I'd suggest archiving the event after a few weeks or when everyone has logged they have attended. I believe this is automatically done by the site these days after a certain period of time elapses. Also, if your event is held at a park or other such venue, I'd strongly suggest making sure the site be cleaned and trash deposited in appropriate receptacles. Make sure all travel bugs have been picked up from tables. As for things to do after an event, you could stay and talk to people, find some caches, look for waymarks, place a cache, play a Wherigo cartridge, go for a hike, do chores, do other satisfying and filling activities, or put in more unpaid overtime at your job. Whatever you decide to do, make it worth your time. You only have one life, so live it.

The more we talk about this, the more I think this is simply a matter of identification: which caches fit this "Olde Tyme" category? If they could be identified, those people that want to look only for them could find them, and, furthermore, people that liked to plant such caches would feel like it was worth while, since now, from what I gather, they feel like there's no point because their high quality, large caches with log books in wonderful places would be lost in the sea of mediocrity. The physics of identify caches is straightforward. GS might even create an attribute for them if they could be reliably identified, or bookmark lists could be created for each area, and discussions about which are and which aren't and which should be and which shouldn't be could be carried on in any forum you'd like. If there's enough interest, I'm sure we could have such a forum here. (Hmmm... it occurs to me there could very well already be such a forum that I've never heard about.) And then there's the additional complaint about the lack of an Olde Tyme community -- people that attend Olde Tyme events, people that write in physical logs, stuff like that -- but that just requires defining the community, and having an appropriate collection of caches and a place to talk about them should be enough to hold such a community together. Unless you split off and file the caches somewhere other than geocaching.com, you'll have to put up with "TFTC" and people signing the nice log books with just name and date, but that shouldn't matter as long as there are enough nice logs in both places by members of the community who have stopped to write about their experiences. So it seems to boil down to how it is decided whether any given cache deserves to be in that special class. While we're hearing lots of people talk about what they miss, I'm not sure how we decide whose preferences to use. The only approach I can think of is a kinda of Hall of Fame. Perhaps pick out a few leaders from the people reminiscing in this forum to seed the community and develop some criteria which, though subjective, could be used as guidelines for Olde Tyme caches. Then as time goes on, cachers that live up to the standard are electing into the Hall of Fame which allows them to identify qualifying caches. If an attribute is created, they could be given the power to light that attribute on their caches. Do you think anything like that might solve the problem? Or is the fun part complaining about it not being like it used to be, not actually doing it like you use to do it?

Do you mean the GIFs are in view but they don't animate? Do you have an example? You have a ton of puzzle caches, and here's one of them with animated GIFS embedded in the page and hosted on Geocaching.com, and they are animating. If you have GIFs hosted on Geocaching.com and they aren't loading properly anymore, you may have to instead host them elsewhere. If the files are especially huge, you also need a suitable server and cache page visitors who have a fast connection or patience. The thread you linked to had a "9.1 MB GIF", and it's been 3 months without publication of that cache. If it's not part of the puzzle, it could be a static JPG and exist on the page just fine. Or it can be any kind of linked file that users are likely to be able to run. I've found that I can't talk people out of a way-cool (and ill-advised) "animated GIF idea", so I tend to just post what one may try, and watch them crash and burn .

Recognizing that they're being impacted and reconsidering whether the change is really justified. Instead, all we get are people trying to talk them out of what they like. I'm pretty sure that TPTB know/recognize that cachers are being affected by their announced logging restrictions. Their official announcement was updated to clarify that they will not make exceptions for specific caches. I don't believe they would've made that clarification if they weren't aware of the discussions requesting exceptions for specific caches, and if they hadn't considered whether to make exceptions or not. I was speaking of sympathy from people here in this discussion, not from GS. I don't pretend to know what GS is thinking unless they tell me. In which case sympathy has been shown here in this thread for the impact on YOSM and brass caps. +1 I don't agree that "all we get are people trying to talk them out of what they like". There have been multiple cachers that have expressed sympathy that YOSM won't be able to continue as it has. Only a small number of cachers have seemed dismissive of YOSM fans' concerns, although they've posted multiple times in this thread and so maybe that has amplified their tone.

There was an alternate Wherigo player for iOS, but you can't talk about it since it directly "competes" with Groundspeak's app. Fun with guidelines...

I prefer both. I use "Waze" to route me to a cache area (or to hunt for a parking place for individual caches), and it cannot be pre-loaded, so it works only in an online phone and fails miserably at times. So my toughest challenge is mitigating the problems when the phone Apps fail... preparing in case they fail... in case there's a bug this month that has broken some App function. I have an old Garmin Nuvi ready to route me home, just in case. So it's more like both, plus a backup. But I have a Garmin Oregon 750. The phone can talk to it. So that setup is fluid. It's one or the other or a combination of phone and GPS. The deciding factor is just how solid, or how borderline, or how gone, the data signal is. Which you don't always know in advance.

Wow. Thanks for that. All this talk about "5G" with every carrier, and the area I'd think would be most up on this would be silicon valley.

G'Day My Fellow Geocachers, How are you doing on this fine day? I’m DARKSIDEDAN aka Daniel from Canberra, Australia. I love discovering Geocaches, Trackable items and collecting Pathtags. I hope that you all enjoy Geocaching as much as I do. For me geocaching is a way of life. When I am not Geocaching, I am thinking of Geocaching. Here is a little information about me. I have been geocaching since 2015. At the time of this post I have over 6850 finds plus 340 hides. I am the creator of the “Duck Dip” Lab Cache that won 2nd Place for the Australian Capital Territory in the State Vs State - Battle of the Lab Caches at the OzGeoMuster - The Gong Mega 2019 in Wollongong, Australia (GC7N7ZC). Now let’s talk Pathtags. Currently I have over 8000 Pathtags in my collection plus about 500 Etagz. I currently have three of my own Pathtags (45762 / 46950 / 47696) with another one in the works. https://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=2a2a54fb-66e6-4b02-ad79-fae27aa04984

So I did talk with the "culprit" briefly at school and he said he put one of the geocaches back, probably the one that had the logbook he held up to my face. I'm going to talk to him with my advisor today, and hopefully he will stop before his behavior goes to far, he's also going to say his part as well so I will let you know his side

No i dont blame anyone but you cant tell me you can search for a cache without leaving search marks or without trespassing maybe prohibited property... And you talk in one person, i talk in manny persons who seek on the wrong places because of the fact there puzzle answers is wrong.

So you did talk to your adivsor and she talked to him? Now that he's starting to receive more official attention, he may stop. He clearly doesn't respect you, but an adult with some authority might get is attention. I'd ask a real policeman to talk to him next; that'll scare him, especially since he told you not to report him. He's scared of authority. You could stop a destructive behavior from escalating into a real crime. Once he gets bored with stealing caches, it's not much of a stretch to move on to smashing mailboxes or other vandalism. Maybe one day he'll thank you for this. I already said I can't report him to the police, do you really expect me to defy my parent?

So you did talk to your adivsor and she talked to him? Now that he's starting to receive more official attention, he may stop. He clearly doesn't respect you, but an adult with some authority might get is attention. I'd ask a real policeman to talk to him next; that'll scare him, especially since he told you not to report him. He's scared of authority. You could stop a destructive behavior from escalating into a real crime. Once he gets bored with stealing caches, it's not much of a stretch to move on to smashing mailboxes or other vandalism. Maybe one day he'll thank you for this.

Pen doesn't work (empty, broken, lost in the woods). The rusty can won't open. The logbook is wet and I don't want to touch it. ... In each of the cases I have the cache in my hand and have successfully fulfilled the task given by the owner. Why do you have a problem with me not signing the log? Only because of the rules? (I don't talk about "seen it up in the tree and could not reach it" or "could not open the trick lock" or ....)

I'm trying to get a good long streak of consectutive days with finds going (currently at 51). As a freelance photographer one of the things I get to do is talk on cruise ships, which is fantastic for increasing the number of countries I have cached in but the 'sea days' do make it difficult to get a really big streak of consectutive days caching. I know there used to be such things as 'locationless' caches, but are there any caches left that could be legitimately logged on a day when I am in the middle of the ocean? I did wonder about 'banking' some earthcaches - visiting the locations, just photographing them in detail and then only answering the questions when I'm out at sea. But that feels like cheating. Thanks Ian.