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I began by answering the question, explicitly, yes. Then I addressed the current state of the topic. If Sol seeker wants the thread to remain "on topic", and it was not ever supposed to be about the politics of those who have been banned, then she needs to speak up and attempt to steer it back on course. Otherwise, yes, the thread was not purely intended to discuss "What is the value of old timers in caching?" Post #7 - knowschad first steered the topic openly towards forum politics. Then Sol Seeker: "The point is that those who have been around a while have a lot to offer the community. They have VALUE in being here. They have a lot to share. ... We need people who have been around a while. The forums belong to everyone. Or at least they should. " Seems forum politics (not just value in geocaching) are a touchy subject. Then knowschad: "There seems to be a little confusion in this thread, I think. Are you referring to Geocaching old-timers, or forum regulars when you talk about old-timers? I thought you were referring to old-time forum regulars." Then the air was cleared in TriciaG's post #25, that there is a solid underlying issue regarding recent long-time forum users. And numerous responses have agreed, quite pleasantly, that there is certainly value of old timers in geocaching. I don't think anyone would disagree. So once again, if the thread is legitimately, and sincerely to discuss the value of old timers in geocaching, then sol seeker should make that clear. Either Knowschad misunderstood by post 7, and the thread has since already derailed into more angsty forum drama not related to the OP, or the thread has always had a passive-aggressive intent to rant about forum politics ETA: I'd love if this thread were just to talk about old timers (of all types) in geocaching and their value and merit! Share some examples, help promote community and loving and caring and fun and helpfulness! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease. And most threads in these forums anymore turn angsty, and judgmental over time, in case you hadn't noticed. Please re-read your own post and think about if there's anything there that might be adding to that.

I began by answering the question, explicitly, yes. Then I addressed the current state of the topic. If Sol seeker wants the thread to remain "on topic", and it was not ever supposed to be about the politics of those who have been banned, then she needs to speak up and attempt to steer it back on course. Otherwise, yes, the thread was not purely intended to discuss "What is the value of old timers in caching?" Post #7 - knowschad first steered the topic openly towards forum politics. Then Sol Seeker: "The point is that those who have been around a while have a lot to offer the community. They have VALUE in being here. They have a lot to share. ... We need people who have been around a while. The forums belong to everyone. Or at least they should. " Seems forum politics (not just value in geocaching) are a touchy subject. Then knowschad: "There seems to be a little confusion in this thread, I think. Are you referring to Geocaching old-timers, or forum regulars when you talk about old-timers? I thought you were referring to old-time forum regulars." Then the air was cleared in TriciaG's post #25, that there is a solid underlying issue regarding recent long-time forum users. And numerous responses have agreed, quite pleasantly, that there is certainly value of old timers in geocaching. I don't think anyone would disagree. So once again, if the thread is legitimately, and sincerely to discuss the value of old timers in geocaching, then sol seeker should make that clear. Either Knowschad misunderstood by post 7, and the thread has since already derailed into more angsty forum drama not related to the OP, or the thread has always had a passive-aggressive intent to rant about forum politics ETA: I'd love if this thread were just to talk about old timers (of all types) in geocaching and their value and merit! Share some examples, help promote community and loving and caring and fun and helpfulness! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease. So your first few lines make it sound like Knowschad and I are the same person, or at least see the world the same, or think the same, or ARE thinking the same, or something. I have no idea where you got that one. I assure you that Knowschad and I are indeed separate individuals; I am not a dog. As with every single other thread in these forums, or any forums for that matter, everyone can and does make of them what they will. I made myself clear in the first post. I don't know why you decided everyone else was speaking for me in muddying my opening post.

I began by answering the question, explicitly, yes. Then I addressed the current state of the topic. If Sol seeker wants the thread to remain "on topic", and it was not ever supposed to be about the politics of those who have been banned, then she needs to speak up and attempt to steer it back on course. Otherwise, yes, the thread was not purely intended to discuss "What is the value of old timers in caching?" Post #7 - knowschad first steered the topic openly towards forum politics. Then Sol Seeker: "The point is that those who have been around a while have a lot to offer the community. They have VALUE in being here. They have a lot to share. ... We need people who have been around a while. The forums belong to everyone. Or at least they should. " Seems forum politics (not just value in geocaching) are a touchy subject. Then knowschad: "There seems to be a little confusion in this thread, I think. Are you referring to Geocaching old-timers, or forum regulars when you talk about old-timers? I thought you were referring to old-time forum regulars." Then the air was cleared in TriciaG's post #25, that there is a solid underlying issue regarding recent long-time forum users. And numerous responses have agreed, quite pleasantly, that there is certainly value of old timers in geocaching. I don't think anyone would disagree. So once again, if the thread is legitimately, and sincerely to discuss the value of old timers in geocaching, then sol seeker should make that clear. Either Knowschad misunderstood by post 7, and the thread has since already derailed into more angsty forum drama not related to the OP, or the thread has always had a passive-aggressive intent to rant about forum politics ETA: I'd love if this thread were just to talk about old timers (of all types) in geocaching and their value and merit! Share some examples, help promote community and loving and caring and fun and helpfulness! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.

I understand you think there's some kind of logic, but since I don't see it, I'm trying to understand your thinking. If a cache needs maintenance, logic says you should file a needs maintenance log. When I can tell from the logs that a cache is missing, visiting GZ will provide me with zero information: I already know I won't find it. Do you consider yourself some kind of supercacher that will always find a tricky cache that others have missed? As long as they have reasonable experience, I trust the people that filed DNFs before me. When you talk about morals and ethics, you imply that there's something wrong with filing an NM. That's exactly what the problem is. There's nothing wrong with filing a competent NM even when it turns out to be wrong. Sure, don't go off half cocked, but when you can read enough DNFs to know that plenty of expertise has looked for the cache and not found it, your one additional DNF will be meaningless. The only impact is that an NM which you could have filed right away while you're looking at the cache description will be delayed until whenever you get around to getting to GZ. And, worse, if you decide not to go to GZ -- and why would you? -- the NM will never be filed. By all means, feel uncomfortable if you don't know enough to file the NM. Gather more information if you need to, including visiting GZ if you think that will tell you anything. But visiting GZ without finding the cache is just one data point. It's as illogical to require that one specific data point as it is to file an NM based on only that one data point. Naturally I'm not demanding you file an NM even if it makes you uncomfortable. But I hope you will consider that there's really no downside to filing the NM -- worst case, you're wrong, big deal -- but there is a downside to not filing the NM when it's justified.

I just happen to have a basically unused Oregon 600 with free OSM New Mexico road maps installed. With some effort (learning curve) in Demo Mode I managed to move the focus point across state lines to a street in downtown Santa Fe. From there it was possible to route to the searchable Harry's Roadhouse POI !! Direct interpolated street address number routing is not (may not be) possible with this Oregon 600 or with the Garmin 64s and OSM maps, although there may be intermediate reference street numbers available. There are several aargh moments in starting over in the same city. The newish Garmin Drive 51 or better automotive devices with full USA maps are a pleasure to use in comparison, and they are cheap and talk to you. But then I'm not much into geocaching, except for the toys.

Link for reference: https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=38&pgid=427 Sounds like you have some strong feelings about older caches. You might want to express those in the following survey and some possible solutions to keeping them alive: https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2018/12/lets-talk-some-more-about-geocache-quality/

Why do you think so? I'd call myself experienced cache owner and I feel the opposite. Year by year, game & players are more and more driven by quantity. 10-12 years ago I could read pages of stories in my physical logbooks & online. Now - kudos to exceptions - I'm happy if I find at least a nickname in the logbook and high % of online logs are just copy-paste summaries of cacher's day, hardly relevant to my cache. I'm not complaining, I'm not hiding for logs and it does not say much about quality. Just pointing out - this trend means depersonalized geocaching to me & deteriorating importance of CO. I welcome this broad discussion & survey about quality. Finally! Finally here's serious talk about caching for adventures, instead of caching for numbers. No, these proposals are not depersonalizing geocaching. We are talking here mostly about maintenance, because many COs of hundreds of caches are worried that maintenance & ownership expectations are still important for players and HQ. They are feared of restrictive changes, personally I hope changes will be more about new, healthy motivation factors, lesser so about new restrictions. Presented ideas are much broader, targeted to praise responsible owners. Let me remind us with some of them: For me as a cache owner, these proposals sound rewarding and highlighting my importance. If implemented properly, they can motivate owners to create maybe lower amount, but better caches, for all of us.

Many people are convinced that "cache quality" is a problem, but when they talk about how to fix it, it's obvious that everone's talking about different problems, and none of them strike me as problems. Just my opinion, but the problem with "cache quality" isn't about the container, or how often it's maintained. It's a growing mentality that quality is not as important as quantity. When quantity is the primary consideration, cache owners aren't going to invest in a good container, and there is a problem with it, or it goes missing, just archive it and put out more quantity. Poor cache containers, unmaintained caches, and even choosing a location for the hide are all just symptoms of the "quality is not as important as quantity" mentality. Sorry, but don't know how to change that mentality (perhaps souvenirs are the answer ).

I took the survey because I dreamed there might be questions about whether I think there's a problem and what it is, and I hoped there was a way to answer at least some of the questions in a way that didn't support the notion that there was a problem. Unfortunately, what I found was the worst of both: questions that couldn't be answered without assuming "cache quality" was a problem despite nothing at all trying to work out what problem was being solved. Many people are convinced that "cache quality" is a problem, but when they talk about how to fix it, it's obvious that everone's talking about different problems, and none of them strike me as problems. What's worse, all of the solutions seem intent on depersonalizing geocaching and minimizing the importance of cache owners.

+me and countless others !!! +me too!!! Seriously, does Groundspeak (or whoever the shadowy characters are behind the scenes) even acknowledge that this is a problem? Have they responded at all to the complaints? I haven't seen anything but stone cold silence....no change to make the search results more readable, no change to the ridiculous 30 mile limit, not even a link on the search page to a list of instructions on how to use the darn thing, nothing! At the very least, they could simply leave a link up to the old search. + us and most of the local (Hawaii) cachers who never come to the forums... I used to have an old car. I had a mechanic who was reliable, I could call him up and talk to him (or his one assistant) on the phone. He'd help me decide if I needed to bring the car in right away or not... When he was done he'd show me the hole in the hose, or the old worn out parts and ask if I wanted them back. He always believed there was something wrong it I told him the engine was making a funny noise or the brakes were squeaking too much. Now I have new car, it's fancy enough to come with "free" routine maintenance, for which I have to return to the dealer. I don't talk to a mechanic (or anyone who works on cars). I have a "service advisor" who never answers the phone. I get to play phone tag with someone who doesn't know much about me or my car. After the visit, the service advisor seems most concerned about the ratings I will give on the survey I'm going to get in an email. I miss the mechanic. I am beginning to think Groundspeak has gone the way of the car dealer... It seems no one who works on the code or designs the site has been here to tell us why they messed with our perfectly usable search engine & why we can't keep it. jrr

Two issues strike me with regard to the plan to pick up remains of archived caches as a CITO: 1) it's locationless - ie go somewhere and pick up trash. CITO events may spread out, but they are defined by coords, and target a specific "cache friendly" place. CITO as locationless - ie, pick up some trash somewhere and meet and talk about it, is submitted from time to time. It doesn't work. ? 2) pick up geocache containers belonging to others isn't going to be advertised on the site. Geocaching.com operates from the premise that the physical container and the cache page belong to the cache owner.

Hi guys, I'm doing a talk this Friday at Amsterdam Nerd Nite on geocaching, and did the run through yesterday with the organizers. Should be a fun talk! But they had an idea that on the last slide for the Q&A session I put a picture of a treasure chest or similar as lots of people go for the "treasure" angle when first hearing about it (even tho obv that's not why people stay). So I thought it would be more fun to put a picture of a geocache that is modeled like a treasure chest. I mean, surely this exists somewhere, but Google doesn't give me too many cache-specific ones. Anyone know of one? Thanks!

As each case similar comes up for a hider, aren't we asked to talk to our Reviewer ? When we're talking about varying regional policies within every country in the world here , I guess I don't understand what kinda set, catch-all "guidance" you'd expect from HQ. Even if we could make some sort of "list" similar to the Regional Policies Wiki, it'd take some time to create.

We literally just started this after listening to a few in our network talk about it over the years. Havent set out on a day of just hunting but were taking one a day that are close and begining to enjoy the "bonus" fun it offers us when we are already out enjoying the outdoors. Being an Army guy I've already ordred a geocache kit that will offer up some Army themed swag as well as set in motion a trackable. It will be more camoflaged than even I was back in the day! Eventually we will register it and get it going. Until then...cheers folks. Easy fun that gets you some quirky looks from unknowing bystanders when you are literally on top of it with the GPS but still can't see the dang thing!

I'm pretty sure attendees will forgive you if you're late by just a couple minutes, especially if some of them are with you while hiking up. If they can forgive you, you should be willing to forgive yourself for being a minute late. If you're an hour early, continue hiking 28 minutes in the opposite direction so you have a 28 minute hike back to the summit and therefore only have 4 extra minutes. You don't have to stay at the summit if the event hasn't started yet. Go explore and enjoy your time doing the thing you love to do until it's time to be at the posted coordinates. This talk about how hard it is for a heterogenous group to figure out how long it will take to get to the summit is purely for the sake of argument. It's really nice that you care that everyone gets to the event on time, but since you're an attendee (and not the host), the only person you should worry about is yourself and getting there on time. I'm pretty sure the rest of the attendees are thinking about how long it will take them to get to the summit and planning appropriately. It will take a heterogenous group a variety of times to walk 1 Km on a paved street. It could take 4-6 minutes if they walk at a REALLY fast pace, 7-10 if at a steady and quick pace, 10-15 at a leisurely pace, and even longer under other situations. The same goes for a hike to the summit. If you don't know your pace (which in your case I find hard to believe) and how long it will take you to get there, contact the host and start asking questions. Exactly how long is the hike (or close enough to get a good time frame)? What is the trail like? Rocky? Packed dirt? Animal trail? What sort of elevation changes? Slow and steady rises? Flat except at one stretch where it's really steep? Switchbacks to increase the length to lessen the elevation changes? Once you have as much information as you need, you post to the page and say I'm meeting at the trailhead at this time to start my hike because this is how long it will take me to get to the summit and still arrive slightly before the start of the event. Some will be faster hikers, some will be slower hikers, and some hikers will be near your pace. Those that are faster might slow down to talk with slower paced hikers and slower paced hikers would be well-served to allow some extra time, just in case.

I know this sort of thing has happened to cachers before but I don't regularly read these forums. Just thought I'd share my little geocaching adventure for the weekend. Went caching with a couple friends on Saturday; one of them was driving and navigating (it was his neighborhood) so I didn't really know where we were. We went out to some business complex. There was a security guard cruising around the parking lot so we waiting for him to go away before moving in. Right by the tree the cache was in we found a busted-up safe and cash drawer with various things scattered about like a receipt book, gift cards, and what seemed to be some kind of disk drive. My friends poked about with it but I was the only one who wanted to do something about it so I looked up the address on the receipt book and found out it belonged to a local massage place. I found their number and called them and yes they had had a break in recently. I reluctantly left my cel number with them but said I couldn't stay on the scene to wait for a cop because I wasn't driving and my friends wanted to leave. I didn't even know were we were but I got one of the guys to check his gps for where we were and I gave the massage place an address. I didn't know if the cops could find the place on their own and sure enough, a cop called me about 10 minutes later while we were hunting for another cache. All I could do was tell him I really didn't have any more info for him, and that someone who knew the area should have been the one to call but I was the only one willing to do it. I had to explain geocaching for him and give him the website address because he wanted to know why we were poking around by the trees. I had to give him my address and everything which I didn't like doing but I guess he needed to fill out paperwork. I had a sneaking suspicion the media would want to talk to me if they heard about this - I'm not even quite sure why but I just had this feeling. Sure enough, while I was making dinner tonight (Sunday) the phone rang again. It was someone from the Sheriff's office, she told me FOX News wanted to talk to me. I said no without asking for details. I don't know exactly what they wanted, they might be doing a piece on that break-in and wanted someone to talk about how they found the stuff. Of course, if that security guard we saw had been paying attention, HE would have found it.

Every spring the topic re-occurs. "TICKS ARE OUT" ticks, getting them off you tick-talk tick-talk tick-talk Tick Talk Ticks Oh Man, They are REAL, ticks that is.... Proper Tick Removal - Its that season again Look before you step. Look before you touch.

Then why do you want to socialize with them? Why not? There are many people I enjoy to talk to who are not my friends. Most of the geocachers I know I do not know well enough to make them eligible for being called friend. Yeah, it's hard to make friends when you can't stand in one spot for long enough to talk to someone.

Actually. I got to thinking that the "PISA" might be because, like the best known edifice in the town, you also lean to the left. Even I got a chuckle out of that one... Keith EDIT: Talk about your coinkidinks - I just saw a news item on the tower on CTV news. It seems that engineers have straightened the tower somewhat and intend to straighten it a bit more in the future to minimize the danger of its falling over...

After finding one in my sons hair, and one on my arm, I started using my OFF spray. Previous tick threads. ticks, getting them off you tick-talk tick-talk tick-talk Tick Talk Ticks Oh Man, They are REAL, ticks that is.... Proper Tick Removal - Its that season again

Since we don't know why this task is being forbidden, I don't think we can guess whether there's a way to talk about an optional task and explain why it's only optional without tripping over the same "problem". I doubt you can get away with, "This is an optional task because some people will offended by the location, but I can't tell you why without talking about lingerie, so please go to the location and decide for yourself whether you're offended." I gather they didn't give you any justification more specific than "underwear bad"?

I have the same feeling that all those caches which may at some level require interactivity with the staff have earned lots of favorites. Here comes the question. Why this kind of contacting is not allowed? Who is against the idea? I can understand it if the staff person is working in a commercial business, but the "no commercial caches" should handle that case. I've encountered one which was in a hotel where one had to go to the concierge desk to get the container. Although the hotel is a commercial business I don't think that the concierge is going to try to talk a geocacher into checking into a room. I've also seen on in a small bar, where it would be more likely that I geocacher might feel uncomfortable asking for the cache container without buying a drink, but even for that one the logs all mentioned how nice it was to meet the bartender. Some people just might feel comfortable interacting with someone to get the cache. The way I see it, if you're uncomfortable finding a cache, just remember that you don't need to find every cache. If the no contact rule were strictly enforced it would like result in quite a few caches getting archive (and not replaced in a manner which didn't require interaction with staff). For the one in the hotel I did, it was originally placed outside the hotel and was muggled at least a couple of times before the CO moved it inside about 7 years ago where it could be protected. It hasn't had a DNF since. When I found it, it was 1 of only 2-3 cache in a city of over 3 million people and many of the logs mention that it was their first and only cache found in the country.

I agree with the statement what quality or excellence of a cache should not be an exception for compliance with the guidelines. However, as I've noted in the bolded portion above, sometimes non-compliance with a guideline does not result in a cache being "problematic". Like redsox_mark I've also geocached in 30 countries (got #30 this year) and have come across quite a few caches listings which indicate that contact with a caretaker of the cache is required. When I've looked at logs for those caches, in pretty much every case, "contact" with a caretaker of a cache has always been described as a positive experience that made the cache more enjoyable. I know of one cache at a very small school in a developing country where all of the logs talk about the experience of meeting the children and teacher at the school but don't say much about the cache itself. I suppose that if the "no contact" guideline didn't exist there would be some that would place caches which required contact with someone at a business with the intent of soliciting business but I suspect that in most/many cases the need for contact is primarily to provide a care taker of the container to avoid issues with muggles taking the cache.

The header for the forums, "Talk about trackable and oh-so-collectible Geocoins" doesn't sound like more about trading to me... We know of a few families that use a "personal trackable" for their kids, who were too young to log on their own but were present. They bought them close to when starting, and back-dated the ones done beforehand to it. When/if the kids want to open their own accounts, they have a record of all hides found. IIRC, rather than edit previous logs, most simply logged a note for that log date, so the CO was aware they "added" to the cache history.

Thank You Buka2. I got it and have replied. I found out that they use Straight Talk for the phone. So they have unlimited Talk, Text, and Data. So, the only road block is them being able to afford the phone that can geocache. Currently Straight Talk has two android phones that are GPS enabled. One is $149.99 and the other is $179.99. I think that would allow for paperless caching. In their current situation that may as well be a couple million. LOL! But, it is good knowing that the capability of the plan is there, they just need to save for the phone.