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I have no idea what GS or the reviewers think about, but I can't help but imagine that there are some areas where if they didn't allow caches that skirted some of the requirements, there's be no caches at all. If that's what's going on, I can't blame them for ignoring some of the rules once in a while. In particular, in some places, a cache not protected by a business might not last very long. Calling it "trying to fill up their maps" isn't really fair. Geocaching is a hobby, and people enjoy adding their hobby to their vacations. There's no need to belittle that by asserting that they don't enjoy it on vacation for the same reasons we all enjoy it every day and only want to look for caches on vacation because of some mindless numbers grubbing. (Is that why you're looking for these same caches?) While I generally understand the negatives of, say, business caches, are the negatives really so large that you don't want the caches available for you to seek at all? Historically, business caches have been upfront about the requirement to interact with the business, so I've never had much trouble when I'm traveling understanding that a cache had that requirement and skipping it if I didn't want to interact with anyone. But with the rules having changed, particularly if people complain, you're likely to run into more caches that do require interaction because there's no other way to have a cache in that area, yet don't talk about it because it wouldn't get through review. I'm not sure that's better.

I just went to test my theory that that version 315 was stripping a space in the action names. I renamed my action "Talk to" on the first character to "Talk". I just went to play it and i still get "Talk nothing Available". So there is a more fundamental issue. I am not using proximity. I was in the middle of a large zone. My iphone was very stable. Not sure what the issue is but it really needs to be fixed. I also just received an answer from Groundspeak saying that they are working on the issue: Hello Arnaud, The developer of the app has been notified of this issue and is working on a fix. Please let us know if the problem is not resolved in a timely manner. Best Regards, Jon ("Moun10Bike") Community Relations Liaison to Engineering Groundspeak - The Language of Location Hopefully there will be a fix soon.

I have already mentioned that we used to have events that were not bound to fixed coordinates for many years and people could find them and could use their GPS-receivers to do so. All went well and everyone who attended was happy. I have not been at an event where someone was chained to a chair either. I have attended however quite a number of events where moving around to get to talk to someone whom I wanted to talk to was almost impossible due to the crowdedness at typical indoor events in restaurants. I almost stopped to attend indoor events. I'm fully aware of the fact that there are typically more types of outdoor events in North America than in my area due to the infrastructure and the legal situation. In the very early years private gardens could be used, but these have become much too small for the exponential growth of geocaching. Hiking events have been a chance to offer an option targeted towards a particular audience for which the workaround approaches are rather ridiculous.

"Hey wait! You’re about to leave Geocaching.com. Are you sure you want to do that?" "( ) Allow dialogues from www.geocaching.com to take you to their tab" (Or similar words. I only saw it once.) What is the meaning of the tortured English I've highlighted in bold? Take you to their tab? What?!? (BTW, "dialog boxes" in Canadian English are spelt "dialog boxes", in case you're trying to translate. No need to translate that word. Dialogue isn't a computer term up here, it's when people talk.) Why did this only appear once? If that's intentional, shouldn't there be a "don't ask again" or similar gadget? *** E161118: Parse Error - unable to detect Language ***

You talk about events and I talk about event caches. It hardly makes sense. Of course Groundspeak cannot hinder cachers who visit an event cache to do something else outside of the event cache. I have the issue with how Groundspeak defines event cache and argues with socialization. All what it boils down is that Groundspeak makes it impossible to come up with great event caches which are long enough to provide ample of opportunity for socializing but are not sedentary. The fact that you go for a walk after the end of your Pi event cache, does not change the effect that your event cache is a boring 30 minutes period spent at a bakery which is of the minimum required length to make it publishable. In my opinion it is a shame that you have to write up your event cache like this. Of course it makes no sense to first sit 4 hours at the bakery and do away with the other activity as it completely changes the experience to be expected. While some write geocaching events should be about geocaching, I rather say that the guidelines seem to suggest that events are about logging attended logs.

No, I'm not argue for the sake of arguing here. I understood that your list was not exhaustive. I just tried to convey my point that while for me nothing what you listed is essential for an event that I do enjoy, some of the aspects that I enjoy are somehow banned from what is regarded as actual event by Groundspeak and I'm sad about that. Somehow I start to wonder whether socializing means something different in North America than what it means to me. Of course, socializing is the key aspect of any normal event (for CITOS something else is added). I never questioned this aspect of events. I just wonder why it is socializing to talk with others cachers about geocaching while eating pizza and drinking beer while it is not socializing to talk with other cachers while walking along a forest trail (just two arbitrary examples). I simply do not get it. In my opinion, an event along the lines of Neversummer's orginal proposal (without the addition that the event owner waits for the attendants at one fixed location for at least 30 contiguous minutes) fulfills the requirement of lasting at least 30 minutes and involve plenty of socializing. Still such an event is not publishable which of course we all have to accept. I will never understand however what makes such events less well suited for socializing than much shorter static events. As I said many times before, I have never thought of flash mobs as real events. Any attempt to think of the bigger picture would require me to understand why events where there is not someone waiting for 30 minutes for normal events and an hour for CITOS at a fixed location are not regarded as events regardless of what takes place and for how long. For CITOs the new rule seems even more absurd to me - not the fact that CITO should last for at least an hour, but that someone should be present at the header coordinates of the CITO. CITOs are for picking up trash and similar activities which are dynamic by definition.

Everyone DOES have their own way of choosing caches, just like everyone has their own methods when it comes to caching. Let me rephrase my question to you then. How do YOUR ethical values, when it comes to finding and logging a cache, have ANY impact on how Lone.R or anyone else caches? Is there ANYTHING you do when you cache, using your ethical model, that will affect the behavior of any other cacher? Do someone else's ethical standards change the way you cache? My guess is that their behavior has no effect on the way in which you cache. You choose to cache the way you do because it's all about you, not about them. As it pertains to hiding, you've already stated that you're less likely to put more effort into complex hides and you might even "give up" because of the way in which some people choose to cache. Stating it bluntly, that's a you problem, not a them problem. You're letting THEIR actions dictate YOUR actions when it comes to placing a new cache. That means they've won. You have given up (or considered giving up) because you feel it's just not worth it anymore because of something someone else did or does. I'm still fighting. I'm not going to let those actions I find questionable or unethical change either the way I cache or the way I hide. I'm confident in my choices and beliefs and I'm not going to let someone else dictate how much I enjoy this activity. I'm going to talk to newer cachers and let them know that this is the way I choose to cache, this is what I find OK, and this is what I don't find OK. I'm going to tell them to talk to other cachers to see how they cache so they get a different perspective. Then I'm going to tell them that they determine how they're going to cache and that my way isn't the right way, it's just one of many ways. Finally, I'm going to tell them that geocaching is what THEY make of it. THEY get to determine what geocaching means to them. At the end of the day, all of this means nothing really. We're not curing cancer, fighting a life or death battle, struggling to make ends meet, or any other life altering event. We're looking for a way to enjoy life and we've chosen to geocache as one aspect of that. All I know is, life is too short to worry about what others are doing when it's my enjoyment of life that's at stake.

I consider it one way. Not only is that what I sense is standard in my area, I also claim that it makes sense logically: the CO is only rating what it takes to find the cache. Getting back isn't the CO's problem. I would tend to make the terrain rating higher because of the AWD requirement, although I'm not sure exactly how. If the AWD trip isn't too long, I'd be tempted to just assume no AWD and rate the terrain based on hiking from where someone with a mere mortal's car would have to park. I'm not sure how I'd handle the possible AWD parking. Without having a specific example, I'd generally just not talk about it, hence not feel any need to explain that 2WD is ill advised.

This thread rather makes me think that many of those witing here have not the slightest issue with it. That's exactly how I understand that everyone should cache as they want to enjoy the game. It all sounds in my ears like "Feel free to share as many coordinates as you want. All what counts is signing log sheets". Not at all. I encourage people to have the richer experience you offer, and I might even make a snide remark if they shortcut it. But the point here is that if they don't accept your offer, that doesn't diminish the richer experience I'll have when I seek the cache. The way you talk, you'll be so wrapped up in thinking negatively about the people that didn't follow the path presented that you won't even notice that I visited your cache and enjoyed it as intended. In fact, you sometimes talk as if I'll never get a chance to have the experience because your negative feelings are going to drive you to archive them before I get there, and that would be a shame. If you invite me to a party, I will enjoy the fine wine and food you serve me regardless of how many people go to the fast food joint down the street.

So I was on my way home, from the biggest event to date in Colorado with 250+ attendies, the geochat,,, when i saw something florescent yellow swerve in front of me,,, I thought of you guys here and gracefully took the phone from the door of the car and had to press 1 button to snap a photo,,(i have it set up that way for a quick photo if something happends while im driving(other then that i dont talk on the phone while driving) also the only coin i took to drop at the event was a look twice coin- its nice to be apart of the project. i was susposto drop it,, but never had the chance to,,talk talk talk ..lol

What exactly is "the rest of the story", that I did NOT tell in my posting? I said that they have 5 shops in 2 Austrian cities. Would the situation be so different, if there were 3 in Vienna and 2 in Graz? And thank you for the explanation "Regional means just that - regional.". That really helps a lot. :-) I was hoping for some facts like "at least 3 cities" or "half the provinces of your country" or... anything. Instead you feel attacked and blamed for whatever. That "let's talk" sounds like you will consider it again when there is another shop in Berlin, but maybe that is a misinterpretation by me. Anyway, I know what I will do. When the "chain" opens the next shop in a different city, I will post that waymark again and I will continue to post it with every new shop they open in an additional city (they're planning to open one in Berlin, Germany and one in Bern, Switzerland too) and one day - I hope - this chain will be "regional" enough for the category. Just for the records: I'm not a fan of vegan food, but their burgers and fries are really delicious. I have the impression, that what you told us is your interpretation of the word "regional". I wonder, if the other officers have the same opinion. Or is it possible that another officer would have accepted it and another one would expect more locations than you? In other words: Is there no defined limit and if there isn't, wouldn't it be good to have one, so that waymarkers know from the start, whether their new waymark has a chance of being accepted or not?

I was the one who denied that waymark. Please PISA-caching, continue with the rest of the explanation of your waymark and tell the rest of the story. 4 of those locations were in Vienna and the single other location was Graz - not hardly a "regional" chain. Regional means just that - regional. Just getting a second city isn't a "regional" presence. If you are going to call someone out, please make sure you give all of the story. elyob, really? I would be careful making comments on things you have NO idea what you are talking about. Here are the requirements: * Franchises or chains that are confined to one country will be considered "regional" for the purposes of this category. It was considered.* Franchises or chains that have outlets in more than one country may be considered regional if it is a relatively small group and still confined a small, well-defined area. These will be evaluated on a case by case basis. (emphasis mine) 4 in one city and 1 in another isn't a small, well defined area. It's a burger idea that may become regional, it isn't at this point. Now, if that German location finally opens, let's talk - it would then be eligible, or if another Austrian location opens, or even another in Graz. Until then, though, SEE THAT LAST SENTENCE!!!!!!!!!!! My definition, as an officer of regional:. "An established chain, usually franchised, that has a wide spread footprint in one large state or many states. Too many states and international then makes it a "National" chain." Now, with the Burgers, Five Guys started as "regional" it has since gone "national", however we will still accept Five Guys. In the Pizza category. I would say that Pizza Hut, Papa John's, Domino's, Little Caesar's, and Marco's are national. Per the category description - What qualifies as a REGIONAL franchise or chain: 1. Any franchise or chain already on the list! As new waymarks are submitted, that franchise/chain will be added to the variable drop-down list and we'll try to keep the list here updated. No, Marco's Pizza does not fit here because it isn't on the list.2. Basic definition for the United States and Canada * In general a chain should have outlets in several states, although in some cases they may be confined to one large state. No, doesn't fit here because it is in LOTS of states.* If a group of businesses is family owned, or has only a few outlets in a smaller geographic area, then it is probably in independent shop. No, it is definitely NOT independent.* The line between REGIONAL and NATIONAL is more difficult to draw. We will try to be flexible on this, but in general we will follow these guidelines:- Outlets in fewer than 20 states - Marco's Pizza has MORE than 20 states and is in 2 International Countries.- Confined to a geographic region such as west coast, east coast, midwest or south. No, it has a large presence in the South, in Texas, in the upper MIDWEST, and starting to have a large presence in California and the West. (usually there will be a concentration in the original city or state, dispersed outward. So to answer the original question, the answer is no, Marco Pizza would NOT be regional, It is national. As far as changing the category - you will need to contact the category owner who just happens to be inactive. I've tried to get a new owner, but I was blocked. Also, changing category descriptions like that caused a hew and cry when the Solar group did it - probably not going to happen. My suggestion - try to start a new category, if you can, for these national chains. This could have been discussed with an email to me privately which you have done many times in the past. You did seem more than willing, however, to drag me onto this forum discussion when none of the officers were getting involved. Really not cool. Forum discussions are an optional activity - if you really wanted an answer, contact me directly, don't try to call me out here. But, by, sending this to the forums, however, I have had to defend myself on a denial on a totally unrelated issue, which I am more that willing to do, and to tell someone else to mind their own effing business as they are getting involved into something where they didn't have all of the facts. Ah well, another day of Waymarking.

While I hope that my logs are interesting to a cache owner, barring the times when I just can't think of much to say about a particular cache, I tend to look at my logs as my record of my caching and are ultimately for me. As such I will often talk about a lot more than just the cache itself and the search thereof. If particularly memorable then it might be the whole adventure that took me to that cache - some good examples here and there. I've had a few that have gone past the length of 1 log and I had to write a note to include the rest of the story. Never to pad the log for any stats though.

As I said, either confusion or to be funny. Not sure what you mean by "high maintenance". It doesn't make much difference to me. I'm imagining it's such a simple hide that I won't need other logs. Anyway, we still all agree that he shouldn't do it. That's why I mentioned I'd talk to him about it.

There is nothing funny about an LPC. Not only that but they don't exist in Europe, so it's a bit pointless to mention them. I just heard from the organizers btw that it's even shorter- it's a 20 minute talk, and then a 10 minute Q&A session. So short! Also discovered luckily tho that there's an intro presentation on the geocaching site itself, which I won't have time to go through all of but using some of the slides are a great starting point type thing, so that's nice. I was also thinking it might be interesting to mention on the nerdy side a brief start to the history of geocaching, as I doubt most people realize the reason we now have GPS everywhere is because before 2000 it just wasn't possible! Also, I realized last night that it might be cool to ask the organizers if we could host a geocaching event there too for geocachers- just have a signup sheet on a table with a box for trackables type thing- as it's free and pretty fun normally as a night out, so why not? The other things I did for my presentation was that I brought in several containers to demonstrate what someone might look for. Several people thought the nano cache was really interesting. I didn't really talk about each container type during the presentation but put them on the table for people to look at after the presentation was over.

I think it goes to the overall requirement that an earthcache be unique. "This is granite, let's talk about granite" is not unique. "This is granite, check out the inclusion at these coordinates and let's discuss it" is unique.

Yeah, I wasn't clear. I didn't mean to imply that one should talk about the cache specifically ("well, it was green, made out of metal, kinda rusted..." LOL ?) I meant people weren't keeping their log entries to talking about the experience of that cache. The day or the weather, or getting to GZ or what have you. I agree that a bit of detail about what brought you out that day, what you found interesting about the area, experiences you had getting there - totally relevant. It was the folks going on about their vacation - not even the caching part of the vacation - that made me

I don't think bullying is the right word, but you need to have some thick skin here in order to stick around. There are some posts that start out with innocuous questions or comments that tend to diverge into two divided camps who vociferously support their opinion to no end. Most of the cachers in my area don't visit this forum because of that. When I talk about being on here or talk about the threads being discussed, I get comments like, "you're crazy" "Why would you go there?" "I don't go there. They're mean."

I'm talking about events like these: - An event on a highway while having some rest and a lunch with companions. - An event in a local village near a big river in taiga during a 2-hour stop of a cruise ship. - An event in a remote monastery deeply in woods/bogs. - An event at a gas station right after the hosts crossed the border and entered the country. - An event in a hotel lobby at 6am "because we're going to leave early". Events are supposed to be a social side of the game. Geocachers meet, talk, exchange trackables, walk, spend time in a pub, whatever. It's usually quite clear if an event is published just for a souvenir in someone's profile. Formally, nothing is wrong with such "lunch events" in most cases but - in my opinion - this practice undermines the very idea of geocaching events.

Not a problem at all. Everyone her speaks the English language and would be happy to talk with you. Just give it a try. Best greetings, MB

That explains a lot. I've jumped back into catching after not being as active for a couple of years, and newly noticed these huge logs that don't really talk about the cache itself at all. I didn't realize there are log length challenges. There are challenges for every hecking thing now. ?

Talk about going off the rails. No one's advocating legislating morality. I know you're already off the rails by your own admission, but that has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion, whatsoever, which is examining the feasibility of whatever incentives could be offered for good cache ownership - their merits and their drawbacks.

You won't find anywhere to enter a cell number. As described in the instructions above, you need to determine the email-to-SMS address for your phone number. ... >snip< ... For example, to send an email as a text to a Verizon cell phone, you would use phonenumber@vtext.com where phonenumber is the 10-digit cell phone number. Each provider has their own domain (the @whatever part), but they pretty much use the phone number as the individual email recipient portion (before the @). You can do a simple web search for something like email to at&t cell phone or email to sprint cell phone to find the particulars. Some of them use a separate domain for text (example ##########@txt.att.net) versus multi-media message (example ##########@mms.att.net). I've been doing this a lot lately because I have lousy cell reception at home (need to get one of those repeater thingies), and I can sometimes receive messages, but a lot of sends fail. So I send via Thunderbird using a profile that makes it look like my cell phone sent the message. I've added contacts for a lot of my family and friends using their appropriate ##########@domain. Edit: I forgot to mention that Straight Talk (by Walmart) is a little odd. It actually uses either Verizon or AT&T as the underlying carrier. My pastor had been using Verizon with a regular contract, but he switched to Straight Talk keeping the same cell number. I tried to send him the hymn numbers for next Sunday using the Verizon #@vtext.com and it bounced back. So I tried AT&T's #@txt.att.net and it worked.

So let me get this straight: You participate in a hobby where you make things primarily for people who don't live there and don't care about you, and you're upset because they're not appreciative enough. You want GS to create something to make you feel better about yourself for creating these things when you don't see the point? In addition, there isn't enough local activity for you to be more active in the hobby, and you're upset that you can't participate at the same level as people who live in busier areas. Two suggestions: Maybe the 'hiding part of this hobby isn't for you, AND Take responsibility for your own hobby! If you don't like your caching environment, go change it! Go make more cachers to find your caches! Host events! Talk it up! Get into the local papers! Presentations at libraries or schools or places of worship or community centers! Get people to join you! Get people excited about this hobby! If you can't, then there's your answer; it just might not work where you are. You're right; this IS a game based in the US. Too bad, but that's where those guys lived when they started Groundspeak. I think Groundspeak does plenty to make accommodations for other places, but at some point you're responsible for you and your own experience.

FRS/GMRS Radios are, as the name implies, dual-band radios that can transmit on either the FRS (Family Radio Service) or GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service) bands. The European PMR radios transmit on yet another band, can have more power output and external antennas, but of course are not legal in the US. Generally the channels 1 through 15 are FRS and 16-22 are GMRS. FRS does not require an FCC license. GMRS requires a ridiculously expensive FCC license that practically no one buys. If you are old enough to remember what happened with CB licenses, same thing... it seems that the FCC learned nothing. Geocachers have chosen channel 2, an FRS channel, as the primary contact channel. What this means is that everyone monitors channel 2 and when a contact is made the participants move off to another channel to carry on the conversation. The FCC giveth and the FCC taketh away. They gave us civilian access to these bands and frequencies, then limited the type-accepted radio's power and antenna capability. Limited them so much, in fact, that if you can't hit who you are talking to with a rock then they probably can't hear you! The FRS band is limited to, I think, 3 watts and the built-in antenna. The GMRS band is limited to, I think, 5 watts and may have an external antenna. In radio it's all about the antenna, power isn't so important. Since geocachers have chosen channel 2 (FRS) as their contact channel (in order to avoid buying the GMRS license), and the built-in stubby antenna on FRS radios can't transmit or receive very well, don't expect a lot of contacts from anyone who can't actually see you. If you are properly licensed then once you make contact on channel 2 you can move to a GMRS channel and get a bit more distance. When it comes to radio specifications manufacturers lie. They do so by telling the truth in ways that you don't expect. An FRS/GMRS radio advertised to communicate 17 miles won't do it in your hands. It will do it, at night, under certain atmospheric conditions, from the upper levels between boats over salt water. Since it can do it, albeit under laboratory conditions, that's what the advertise, thereby lying to you by telling you the truth, just not the whole truth. The radio waves on both FRS and GMRS are line-of-sight. How many times can you see the person you want to talk to 17 miles away? Even 1 mile away? Rarely. If you can, if there's nothing between you, if there's no sun activity, and if atmospheric propagation is just right, you might can talk that far. Realistically... you can't. You can expect decent FRS/GMRS communications up to a maximum of one-half mile, and much less than that in an urban environment, reliably... there will be exceptions based on topography and atmospheric band conditions. {Someone will invariably reply to this "I regularly talk 7 miles on mine!" ... great... show me. You won't often do it even in Alabama's mild hills!} So, here's the interesting part... FCC type-accepted FRS/GMRS radios all have exactly the same capabilities! The $19. Cobra set from WalMart will work just as well as the $79 Motorola set from REI! The expensive sets usually have more whistles and bells, none of which you need, but they all transmit and receive under the same FCC limitations. Just read the specs for output power and if the radio transmits at 3 watts FRS and 5 watts GMRS then it's as capable as any other of its type on the market. CB Radio (11 meter) is a step up, allowing up to (I think) 7 watts and much more effective antennas, but very few geocachers have CBs, especially hand-helds. Amateur (ham) radio is another step up, with up to 100 watts output from a hand-held (Handi-Talkie), and very effective antennas with dozens if not hundreds of miles range, but extremely few geocachers use them. Where there is cell coverage, your best bet is cell phones (they are radios but without some of the limitations) and the PTT (Push-To-Talk) cell phones can be used just like a hand-held radio... in fact they are one, just with world-wide range! Where there is no cell coverage, any FRS/GMRS radio is about equal. Save your money. 73 de Ed W4AGA