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This has come up before. Encouraging a positive isn't discouraging everything else. You have to infer that everything else is a negative. They are encouraging people to create quality geocache listings. And there has been plenty of talk about 'mundane', 'run of the mill' geocaches proliferating in various places of the community, so they're not pulling this 'archive' idea out of thin air. I'd wager this advice is based on general community feedback. They didn't say no one like mundane caches. They simply asked cache owners to consider their geocache hides more carefully and aim towards quality hides. Again, I never said the wording was the best, but I never got from them that people should archive all their caches that don't get FPs or are found rarely. Seems like the people who are inferring that are more likely the ones who are or have been critical of HQ's leanings for a while - ie, have a bias already. If someone wants to hide geocaches, and they infer that they should archive their FP-less, lonely geocaches regardless of any other factors, most likely they will hide new ones, and having already 'heeded' the advice, they'll probably aim better with that mentality in mind. Or, they may keep those old hides without archiving them and just start placing more towards that mentality. Who knows how people will interpret the advice. But the fact is, the advice is entirely towards geocaches that are attempts at being more "FP worthy" (generally excellent advice) and more likely to be attractive to more geocachers to find (also generally excellent advice). And all of those concepts may be regionally interpreted; there are no objective standards or thresholds or universal definitions provided, which means one must interpret it for one's area, and consider providing geocaches that people will enjoy - whatever that may mean.

If you want to tell someone you liked their log, email works... We do that all the time. +1 - if your intent is for the CO to show appreciation to the writer of a log, a message or email will do that. It's happened to me (CO messages me with thanks for a helpful log or glad that I enjoyed their cache, etc.) and I, as a CO, have also contacted finders when I liked their write up. It's a bonus when you meet each other at an event, and can talk about each others' caches in person (which hasn't happened in a loooooong time, and I miss the interaction). Back on topic - a personal note is more direct if you want to show appreciation to the finder who wrote the log. Unless I go back to visit a previous find and read other logs, I'd have no way of knowing if the CO marked my log for "appreciation".

We kinda understand except for this jumping through hoops thing... We never knew of a "wiki" until entering the forums. Never called or emailed anyone, instead heading personally to township buildings, county offices, and the like to find out who to talk to. - One cache had the other 2/3rds attend months of township meetings before they could "fit her in" to discuss it (no parks director). We found that a plus with standing in front of a parks director is it keeps the "paper shuffling/passing the buck" at bay too. The "wiki" is only reference. It says on their page "This site may not be a complete or accurate list of land policies.", and, "if no policies for the area you’re looking for are listed, that doesn't mean no policies exist. You must still obtain permission to place your geocache from the landowner or land manager..." - We've asked for permission since starting, and never considered it "jumping through hoops", but respect to the landowner. On the page (to the right) it does say, "If you have an update, email the community reviewer(s) listed." Why not be proactive and offer known areas to your Reviewers to get things rolling?

I'm not sure in which category I should put this in. There is a Jewish cemetery in my neighbourhood. It was used from 1904 to 1941. There are no funerals here since ca. 1945. It is not abandoned, because there is a person taking care of the whole old complex. So it's not fitting in "abandoned cemeteries" You can see some part of the cemetery, because of the low situated wall. But it's also not open to public. You can't enter there just like that, you would have to talk to the keeper. So i don't really think it fits into "cemeteries worldwide". There are some graves with no names, but many of them are visible, so it's not exactly "graves of the unknown". I can't fit it in any category so it would meet the standards of it, but this is an important place on the map of my small city. What do you think?

I have read (much of) the above and cannot help thinking about a sport you do not talk about here: strolling. Not a sport, you say? Indeed it has no element of competition, you do not get any points added to whatever, heck you don't even have the effort that is associated with trekking/hiking. You only walk to a place, maybe to another place, then in the end you return. That's it. Lots of people do it, only: they are not geocachers. The latter kind of animal seems to be motivated by a treat, a reward at the end of the effort. I don't know how many geocachers are aware of Groundspeak's proprietary version of strolling, but there can't be many, as GS decided to leave out of the new dashboard the link that has been present in the old one for as long as I can remember. My guess is that hardly anybody clicked it to go visit the Waymarking.com website in the last so many years. Like AL, Waymarking has a separate website and isn't really connected to geocaching. And of course the animals don't get a treat to lure them there. As I see it, AL is the new flavour of strolling and this time, GS decided to include the reward. That's how I interpret the fact that you can increase your counter really fast with it. For the record: I don't particularly like AL, but I don't fulminate against it, I just choose to ignore it. Those who like AL should go strolling. Live and let live.

To cerberus1: Re: "Are you referring to the "frisbee rule", where people assume that if other hobbies are allowed, this hobby "must be" allowed too ? We took months at meetings until a township would talk to us about this hobby (asking for permission...), and were very restricted on what they'd allow. Within weeks people who never bothered to ask placed caches there too. Some in sensitive areas we were told to stay away from. - We knew they never bothered because the park told us to take our carp and leave, and they don't allow caching there now." I hadn't heard of the "frisbee rule" but understand what you mean. I'm actually refering to land use that is open to other hobbies such as hunting, fishing, and hiking which I consider equivilent to geocaching as they involve walking on the land while minimally disturbing it. What you point out about getting permission and then having others not bother is the inverse of my point (other's didn't get [permission but I was required to) but it makes my point rather nicely: Since a cache can't be placed without "The Reviewer" giving the "OK", that fact that you took the trouble to do so, and noted it, meant The Reviewer was aware of the land policy and who to contact yet they did not inform other cachers, nor follow the policy of the landowner which was known to them. To me this is the same issue: if The Reviewer is aware of a landowners policy then they should share that information. The fact that contact people change all the time makes no difference. They would supply what information they have and if it turned out to be dated, they could update it with the new info. Sharing information on which office to contact even if who is changeable is an improvement over not sharing. edexter

If one of my caches (usually an obscure puzzle) was coming up to a year unfound I used to flag it up on the local Facebook group as people in the UK like to "resuscitate" caches (find them more than a year since previous find) - I've left all the FB groups since they became dominated by talk of "if you go caching, everyone will die" type talk in April, though. (Culprits now often back FTFing like there's no tomorrow...) On a general maintenance theme, I've replaced about 7 of my caches this year - in most cases winter flooding and winds to blame for missing containers. Not put out a new cache for a long long time. Just looking through my hides - one series put out in April 2018, never revisited (about 35 finds on each so paper not full); another series Jan 2019, only visited the trailhead one for TB dropping. Similar number of finds. I think one bison might have lost its rubber ring but the weather has been so dry since March I'm not worried. Trad placed Sep 2017 never been back. Another Aug 2016. Puzzle placed April 2013, looked at but never touched since placement. It's a black-painted snail on the back of a black-painted urban bus stop and has never been muggled. Aren't I naughty? I think 25 of my 85 active caches have had the container replaced though.

I came here to see if there was talk about it. My DNF drafts show up as finds. As there is already a thread, I don't have to create a new one or try to recreate, lots of others see it also.

I'm curious if anyone knows of any gadget caches in Ireland. Search by field puzzle attribute turned up a few, but I know that not everyone is exceptionally diligent on their attributes and I'm sure many caches were placed before their introduction, and they do seem to be mostly visual puzzles rather than the more physical gadget caches I've seen discussed elsewhere. I see a lot of US cachers talk about these types of caches, and I do think they look very intriguing and engaging - are there any around? Or do I need to start planning some post-pandemic trips abroad?

Anything you're not sure of, feel free to ask. You may get more appropriate and / or faster replies if you join a local group on Facebook or other social media. Though I'm sure your Brother would love to go out on a caching trip with you now that you're interested and would probably talk your ear off with advice and hints if you don't live near each other. Welcome!

Sent my info to Laval K-9: Nov. 17Name received from Laval K-9:Sent my gift:My gift arrived at destination:I received a gift: I heard about this in The Geocaching Podcast and then on Geocache Talk podcast. It sounds fun for a first timer. Looking forward to the excitement.

Several other people have posted about receiving similar notes on their cache listings as well. Groundspeak has always been clear that a Wherigo geocache has to be hosted on Wherigo.com and it appears now they are enforcing the rules about this. I'm not sure why they won't allow anyone to host a Wherigo on the Foundation website, but it is unfortunate as much of Wherigo.com is out of date and does not work well, and the Foundation website works very well. It has long been the running joke in this forum, Wherigo Foundation is like Fight Club, "No one talk about Wherigo Foundation." For what it's worth you could try contacting them to see why the Wherigo Foundation is not allowed as a hosting website.

I think that challenges are so unique that they should still remain as Mystery Caches. Having own type of "challenge" would probably lead to having a lot of easy challenges, just to have a different cachetype. By the way, when we talk about new cachetypes, I think HQ will never introduce any new types ever. I'm not saying that they won't rename or change currently existing types (like they did with the CCE), but we will never see new, and the reason is somewhere deep in the webpage code.

That depends upons the agreement between the adoptee and the original CO. If the original CO says, "Please keep the cache going.", then yes. If the CO says "Do what you'd like.", then no. I have adopted a cache from the second CO to "own" it and was told that there was a slim possibility that the original CO might want it back. That mandates, at least to me, that I'm supporting that cache until such time as the first CO wants it back or the area is developed and the cache isn't viable anymore. If you're against maintaining a cache that wasn't yours to begin with because it apparently has no value to the community, then why would you support someone placing a new cache and maintaining it when the entire community won't value it either. Why can't just some of the community value the cache and find it a viable cache to keep going? That's well and good but I, like many of the earlier posters, wonder what the purpose of adopting these caches is if you have no intention of keeping them going and refreshing/maintaining them. Did you and the CO have any sort of talk about the original CO's desires regarding these caches?

how many ticks have you gotten this year? I haven't gotten one since I was a child, but I'm thinking it will be the end of that trend soon.

Yes! I hunted an AL that is found by driving, and in that subdivision, Apple and Google failed me. I had to open Waze, then guess where the icon goes, to be given proper navigation info. Due to missing features (and added complications), I had FIVE Apps open, and switched between them, to hunt the AL and its Bonus Cache. Apps that don't talk to the AL App. Wild guess, at some point The AL App will go away, and become incorporated into The Official App. So it has no extensive features at this time.

Lets see over the years I have found 2 bags of drugs in/near a cache. The second one was heroin that I had touched on the way to the airport to board a plane. I was really hoping the drug dog was not working. I was on a walking trail with another cacher when I got to GZ to find a loaded 9 mm gun next to the cache with a school across the street. Trying to talk to the police was interesting. The most interesting set of three caches was in Barstow doing the Planes/Trains series. The first cache i came across had a rusty can as cover and I lifted the can and then reached to grab the pill container that was covered in camo tape when I realized that there was way more camo there than there should be. I removed the sunglasses to find a Rattle snake under the cache. The next cache I came across had a California King snake leaving the cache. I was on the way to the third cache and rounded the corner to find a large desert tortoise in the middle of the road. At that point I figured I was 3/3 and caching for the day was over. The most bizarre situation was doing Route 66 and going off a side and driving down it when the navigator yelled at me and said look out there is a tarantula on the road. I said what did you say when I heard the squish. There was a question from the back seat asking what happens when you run over a spider of this size? Well a few hours later we were in a major Thunderstorm with very heavy rains flash flooding etc. The weird part about this was after I ran over the spider and we got back on the road on Route 66 was all the tarantula walking down the white line on the right shoulder for the next 10 miles. Yes these are a few of the weird things I have come across.

Derek from the Behind the Cache Vlogg came on the Geocache Adventures podcast to talk about creative and gadget caches. Check it out!

Don't take it personally. I can't believe someone tall would seriously be condescending towards someone not as tall, so I suggest you take it as a joke, since that's almost certainly what it was. You're input on the terrain rating on this cache seems valid, and you expressed that observation in your log. I certainly encourage you to keep making this point to COs, and feel free to talk to them in more detail. And you brought it up here. I think you've done what you can. Please try not to be irked.

What do you mean "not located at the posted coordinates"? It is. It's room coordinates, inside the building, parking coords are nearby. Also I changed the hint. I really don't understand that - "not located at the posted coordinates." No hard feelings, but my cache are really on new coordinates, hint is simple, no need to talk with workers.

I had an odd find yesterday. I stopped at a small cemetery to make a find, and there was an SUV already parked maybe 100 feet from the cache. A man was standing behind it, bent over a boxy object. It turned out to be a live trap covered with a cloth, and he was shaking out... something. Then a skunk popped out. The guy calmly put the trap and cloth back in his car, got in, and drove away. The skunk waddled down the fence line at the back of the cemetery property until it found a hole big enough to get through, and it disappeared. I didn't talk to the guy - he looked like he wanted to just be gone. I assume he trapped the skunk in his back yard, and didn't want to kill it. The land behind the cemetery is heavily wooded, and unused, so I think it's a fine place for a skunk to make a new home. The man is a braver man than I am - I would have never put a live skunk in any vehicle I planned to drive ever again.

Your vision of the tasks counting as individual finds is something I understand and feel the similar way. But I think that if HQ would make the labs only count as 1 find for the whole scenario, there would be problems if someone couldn't get the right answer for 1 out of 5 for example. Imagine you are trapped on the last question and the whole adventure cannot be finished, counted in the stats. Of course you can contact the CO, but many things can happen to us, and there is not always the possibility to talk to each other. Contact should always be optional. You've said that this is a completely different game and you're right! But... If this game would be completely separated from geocaching itself, it would just be dead. Existing of AL is also a great opportunity to show places in a different way or places blocked by the 161m / 528ft minimal distance required in regular caches.

@Goldenwattle I see you are also a TomTom user. Seems most here are using Garmin for automotive. PM me (or better, email) sometime if you like and perhaps we can talk about getting the best use in a caching environment. Depending upon which model you have (we have nearly all of them in test here), might be able to make helpful suggestions. I recall vividly my earliest attempt to find geocaches after a friend introduced me to the hobby in 2008. I didn't own a purpose built handheld and phones weren't any good for this sort of thing, so I tried to use my TomTom GO 720 to find caches by reading the coordinates off of the display. At that time, I didn't appreciate the 'road snap' function of these devices that attempted to correct for rough coordinate fixes by making assumptions about your position being on the nearest bit of road, assuming you were anywhere near one. What was weird (and later changed, largely at my request to the developers) was that the displayed coordinates on the satellite page weren't the 'real' ones, but rather, the assumed 'road snapped' coordinates! Talk about frustrating! Soon got that sorted, realized it wasn't going to work, and went out to get my first Garmin, and old and trusty Summit HC.

Once again, I set out to prove I had my finger on the pulse of the Geocaching community; and once again, I was shown to be wrong - this time by a factor of more than 2 to 1. I set up a poll on the Facebook Geocaching group (*) to see how (or if) people thought Adventure Lab finds should be incorporated into the overall Geocaching find count. The poll has been up for 21 hours, and seems to have run its course. Here are the results: A number of the comments on the post talk about the problems that would be caused by changing the current implementation, so maybe some of those votes for the first option are more for maintaining the status quo, rather than outright approval of the method. But I'm just clutching at straws. It's a pity the question wasn't asked before the current solution was implemented, but I guess the answers may not have been very different... (*) A private group with over 17,000 members worldwide.

Yes, indeed, I said: "Many cachers like it and I have to ask you, why do you want to ruin someone else's fun? " Where exactly do you see that you would ruin MY fun, did I talk about me anywhere? Same question for you as above: are you concerned it will ruin your own statistic or do you just don't like the idea that someone is getting 5 points for very little effort?