Question Of Etiquette

[+Sonoran Privateers]

Two of my TBs have been in the hands of the same dude for over a month. I e-mailed him, and asked very politely if everything was okay, to which he replied that everything was fine, but that he hadn't gone caching in over a month.

 

That was a week ago. I'm glad that he picked them up, but it seems to me that one shouldn't be grabbing TBs if one is going to be disengaged from caching for a long time.

 

What should I do? I don't want to make a huge deal out of it...but I kinda feel like he's being a little rude by not dumping them off somewhere.

[+SeventhSon]

I'm guessing most who become disengaged in caching don't know it when they're picking up the bug.

 

Most of my bugs are moving slowly, and I know all I can do is cross my fingers and wait.

 

One was picked up in Washington State heading to Kansas, and no replies to my emails. Six months later, he showed up unlogged in Hawaii!! At least he moved

[+BlueDeuce]

If they responded that at least indicates they do care to some degree

 

Give it another month or two or more (seriously) then send a VERY friendly email asking if they could drop your bug. I'll even note that I would just like to see them out caching and having fun (Which is true).

 

I have also offered to send them a SASE if they would like to get it off thier hands. Both people ended up going caching and dropping my bugs.

[PodunkPaul]

Sorry, could not resist this reply, based on the sig:lol:

 

010010010010000001110111011011110111010101101100011001000010000

001101110011011110111010000100000011101110110111101110010011100

100111100100100000011000010110001001101111011101010111010000100

000011010010111010000100000011110010110010101110100001011100010

000000100000010101010110111001101100011001010111001101110011001

000000110111101100110001000000110001101101111011101010111001001

110011011001010010000001111001011011110111010100100000011010000

110000101100100001000000111001101110000011001010110001101101001

011001100110100101100011001000000110100101101110011100110111010

001110010011101010110001101110100011010010110111101101110011100

110010000001110100011011110010000001110010011000010110001101100

101001000000111010001101000011001010110110100100000011011110110

011001100110001000000111010001101111001000000110000100100000011

001000110010101110011011101000110100101101110011000010111010001

1010010110111101101110001011100010000000100000

 

 

I would not worry about it yet. Unless of course you had specific instructions to race them off to a destination.

[+Sonoran Privateers]

All good points.

 

After I posted, I ran accross This Thread. From it, I got a much better feel for what 'long' is.

 

The dude that has my bugs is an avid cacher...some 2000 finds. So, I'm not worried that he wont drop the bugs...I was just getting a little impatient, and I shouldn't do that.

 

I can asure you, however, that my e-mail was DRIPPING with sugar and tact.

[PodunkPaul]

Hopefully that sugar will get it moving I like the concept of the TB, just hate how it makes some people act. I am talking about the collectors, not you Sonoran Privateers, I can see your point in wanting them moved along.

[+Sonoran Privateers]

Hopefully that sugar will get it moving I like the concept of the TB, just hate how it makes some people act. I am talking about the collectors, not you Sonoran Privateers, I can see your point in wanting them moved along.

I don't think this guy is a collector. He has some pretty impresive numbers.

 

It's entirely possible that he just has a life And hasn't had a chance to spend time on hobbies recently.

[+welch]

a month isn't that bad, just relax and watch the show.

 

going off topic but

01110001 01100010 00100000 01101100 01100010 01101000 00100000 01111000 01100001 01100010 01101010 00100000 01110110 01110011 00100000 01110010 01100001 01110000 01100101 01101100 01100011 01100111 01110110 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110010 01110011 01100010 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01100010 01110110 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100111 01100010 00100000 01101111 01110110 01100001 01101110 01100101 01101100 00100000 01101010 01110110 01111001 01111001 00100000 01100110 01110000 01100101 01110010 01101010 00100000 01100111 01110101 01110110 01100001 01110100 01100110 00100000 01101000 01100011 00111111

001111110011111100111111

[PodunkPaul]

More off topic, sorry, could not resist...

 

01100001011000100110001101110010

[+Lil Elephants]

Welch -

01101010011101010110110000100000011010100110001001101000011110010111000100100000011101100110011100111111

[+Sonoran Privateers]

01000011 01100001 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01111001 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00101110 00100000 01000010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100110 01101100 01100101 01100011 01110100 01110011 00100000 01100011 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100001 01100011 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110011 00101100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100100 01101111 01100101 01110011 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101111 01110010 01100100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101001 01110011 00101110

[+welch]

Welch -

01101010011101010110110000100000011010100110001001101000011110010111000100100000011101100110011100111111

01101111 01110010 01110000 01101110 01101000 01100110 01110010 00100000 01100011 01110010 01100010 01100011 01111001 01110010 00100000 01100110 01100010 01111010 01110010 01100111 01110110 01111010 01110010 01100110 00100000 01100110 01100111 01100010 01100011 00100000 01110101 01101110 01111001 01110011 01101010 01101110 01101100 00100000 01100111 01110101 01100101 01110010 01101010 00101110 00100000 01010110 01110011 00100000 01110110 01100111 00100000 01101010 01110010 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101010 01100101 01110110 01100111 01100111 01110010 01100001 00100000 01110110 01100001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01110010 01100001 01110000 01110101 00101100 00100000 01100001 01100010 01100111 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01101110 01101111 01110010 01111001 00101100 00100000 01010110 00100111 01110001 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100110 01110000 01100101 01110010 01101010 01110010 01110001 00100000 00101000 01110011 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110010 01101011 01101110 01111010 01100011 01111001 01110010 00101001 00101110

[+Sonoran Privateers]

What have I done!

[+Harry Dolphin]

Lookslike the basis for a Mystery Cache.

 

One of my TBs will be moving on its way in three weeks! Sounds good to me!!

Patience is a virtue. Of course, patients make a doctor wealthy...

[+Joypa]

There are four cachers out there I would happily strangle.

[+Eartha]

All good points.

 

After I posted, I ran accross This Thread. From it, I got a much better feel for what 'long' is.

 

The dude that has my bugs is an avid cacher...some 2000 finds. So, I'm not worried that he wont drop the bugs...I was just getting a little impatient, and I shouldn't do that.

 

I can asure you, however, that my e-mail was DRIPPING with sugar and tact.

I'm glad you're getting the idea.

[+maggieszoo]

I picked up a TB last weekend that is trying to get to Denver in time for the opening Broncos game. Well, actually it got logged as my husband's find, but anyway......we are leaving for Vegas on Monday and will get it that much closer to it's goal. We figure it has a better shot at getting to Denver from Vegas than from podunk Ohio. So whoever sent Patrick Star on his way, not to worry. He's having a blast helping us pack.

 

Now can anyone tell me how to get a TB out of your dainty things drawer?

[+Langner91]

There are 10 kinds of people in the world....

 

Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

[+MomToo!]

I purchased 4 TB's for myself and 2 other family members and fellow cachers several months ago. None of us have released our personal TB's yet, we all want to create just the right one!!!! Very exciting. ...But my son and I took the 4th TB, creatd and released "Free Share Bear TB" on June 8th....We put him in an easy local (and active) cache and eagerly awaited its first log.....and we wait.....and wait....It appears a "newbie" (ThePaigeClan) noted in the cache that they had taken Free Share Bear the very day we released him but they have yet to officially log him and did not respond to my e-mail asking about the TB.......

 

Kinda sucks, we bought these TB's so we could watch them travel, see who they meet and where they go and the first one we release gets picked up and vanishes.

 

OK OK I know some people hold onto TB's to take to caching events for trading and such or they know they are going on a trip which will get the TB closer to their goal and I suppose a certain amount of that is all in fun but I think it is very inconsiderate of people to do so without communicating to the TB's owner the intention when they are not releasing them to another cache within a few days or a week. If you can't or won't be caching for a while, then leave the TB for the next active cacher.

 

Frankly, it discusts me to hear those cachers that are bragging about having 10, 100, 250 travel bugs/ Jeeps etc. in their possession (most of them not logged and have basicly been "stolen" from the owner) and I think anyone who feels the same should express it and boycott the offenders caches, (maybe even go so far as deleting their finds from your own caches).......And why not, if they aren't going to play "nice" why should we play with them at all?.....

 

No, I don't think I am taking it too seriously, I have never heard of a cacher who spends money on TB dog tags, takes the time to design the TB, registers it and posts its photo and then releases it and asks that the finder NOT to log them.... "hey, just hold onto this TB for your personal collection" or says "please just do with this TB as you like, as long as I never see or hear from it again".........but I could be wrong!

[+welch]

Frankly, it discusts me to hear those cachers that are bragging about having 10, 100, 250 travel bugs/ Jeeps etc. in their possession (most of them not logged and have basicly been "stolen" from the owner) and I think anyone who feels the same should express it and boycott the offenders caches, (maybe even go so far as deleting their finds from your own caches).......And why not, if they aren't going to play "nice" why should we play with them at all?.....

 

If that have that many white jeeps they're probably one of the many many people that are helping distribute them. (like those picturse of boxes of them you seem to dislike). Or are you talking about something else?

Theres nothing to stop you from deleting anyones logs on your caches, but you have to remember they can do the same to you. How is you deleting their logs and maybe yours theirs going to get the TBs you think they have released?

[+Glenn]

<snip>

appears a "newbie" (ThePaigeClan) noted in the cache that they had taken Free Share Bear the very day we released him but they have yet to officially log him and did not respond to my e-mail asking about the TB.......

 

Kinda sucks, we bought these TB's so we could watch them travel, see who they meet and where they go and the first one we release gets picked up and vanishes.

<snip>

First, it isn't nice to call someone out in the forums when they themselves don't visit the forums and therefore can't respond with their side of the story. Also, since you are convinced that they are not going to log the TB you should make a log entry to remove the TB from the cache. Just go to the TBs page select mark bug missing from the drop down box. Don't worry when the TB starts to move again the missing status will automatically be removed.

 

I also very highly recomend reading Snoogans' Tb Longevity Clinic. It is pinned at the top of this forum because of all the good info about how to make a TB that lasts. I can say, first hand, that the tips in Snoogans' thread work!

 

I snooped around the TB holders profile. First I thought that they might not be very active. I was wrong, they logged on today. So that isn't it. Then I though they might not know what a TB is. Strike two. They have found and released one other TB. It looks like there is something else going on here. Whatever the case the only thing you can do wait. Since they appear active it is only a matter of time before your TB shows back up.

[+saxdiva and mr. vibes]

Okay... noob here who wants to be sure I'm on the right track...

 

I'd never seen a bug before so I stopped by a local hotel a few nights ago and found a bug that wants to visit all the Disney parks. Turns out I'm going to be living in Italy (and traveling throughout Europe, including Paris) for three months beginning in September, so I pick this one up and log it. I also sent a note to the owner, letting them know it might take me a couple of months. It's been about five days now and no response.

 

So... here's my dilemma--do I:

 

a) hold on to the bug if I don't get a reply, and turn it loose after accomplishing its Paris goal in a couple of months?

b ) send it with my brother-in-law to Europe tomorrow, with detailed directions to a few bug hotels, or

c) keep it moving locally by dropping it into another cache here in California?

 

Thanks for the help... will be releasing a couple bugs of my own tomorrow to replace the one I grabbed (oops).

Edited July 5, 2005 by saxdiva

[+DogNutz]

A few weeks ago I picked up a Travel Bug in an Idaho cache. Before I logged the find, I dropped it off in another cache. I then logged where I found the cache, but have not been able to indicated it was dropped off a week later! No drop down menus, etc. It appears that it is still in my "inventory". Does anyone have any suggestions? I don't want it to look like I'm sitting on the bug! Thanks!

[+GPS_David]

A few weeks ago I picked up a Travel Bug in an Idaho cache. Before I logged the find, I dropped it off in another cache. I then logged where I found the cache, but have not been able to indicated it was dropped off a week later! No drop down menus, etc. It appears that it is still in my "inventory". Does anyone have any suggestions? I don't want it to look like I'm sitting on the bug! Thanks!

re-enter it into the cache, I had to do that with a TB I had a few weeks ago.

 

Dave

[+GPS_David]

From a TB Owner stand point, it is indeed frustrating. I have released several bugs and one was taken from a cache and never logged out, I had one that went to Argentina (Yahoooooo!) but then the cache was plundered.

 

I have one that is in a TB Race, the Travel Bug's mission statement that is attached to the TB, it gives specific instructions... the person who picked it up appears not to be a stranger to travel bugs posted when they picked it up "I hope I did the right thing" and in two months, the person who has it has not released it even after a nice email or two.

 

It's frustrating and taking into consideration the issues that occured with the YJTB and hearing the complaints with the WJTB, I'm starting to wonder if Travel Bugs are even worth it.

 

Dave

[+The Flanders Gang]

A few weeks ago I picked up a Travel Bug in an Idaho cache. Before I logged the find, I dropped it off in another cache. I then logged where I found the cache, but have not been able to indicated it was dropped off a week later! No drop down menus, etc. It appears that it is still in my "inventory". Does anyone have any suggestions? I don't want it to look like I'm sitting on the bug! Thanks!

When logging your find at the bottom of the page it will list all the TB's in your possesion. Just highlight the one(s) you dropped and they are automatically logged.

[+the hermit crabs]

A few weeks ago I picked up a Travel Bug in an Idaho cache. Before I logged the find, I dropped it off in another cache. I then logged where I found the cache, but have not been able to indicated it was dropped off a week later! No drop down menus, etc. It appears that it is still in my "inventory". Does anyone have any suggestions? I don't want it to look like I'm sitting on the bug! Thanks!

When logging your find at the bottom of the page it will list all the TB's in your possesion. Just highlight the one(s) you dropped and they are automatically logged.

Since you've already logged the cache find, you should go back to the cache page again, click "Log your visit", and select "Write note" for the log type (not "Found it"). Write some text such as "bug drop" in the text box, and underneath it there will be a TB list (under the text "Dropped off any Travel Bugs?". Click on the bug, then click the

"Submit log entry" button.

[+DogNutz]

Dear "Crabs" -

 

Your suggestion worked! I was able to "drop" the bug and officially send it on its way! Thanks and Happy Caching!

 

DogNutz

[+ibycus]

Okay... noob here who wants to be sure I'm on the right track...

 

I'd never seen a bug before so I stopped by a local hotel a few nights ago and found a bug that wants to visit all the Disney parks. Turns out I'm going to be living in Italy (and traveling throughout Europe, including Paris) for three months beginning in September, so I pick this one up and log it. I also sent a note to the owner, letting them know it might take me a couple of months. It's been about five days now and no response.

 

So... here's my dilemma--do I:

 

a) hold on to the bug if I don't get a reply, and turn it loose after accomplishing its Paris goal in a couple of months?

b ) send it with my brother-in-law to Europe tomorrow, with detailed directions to a few bug hotels, or

c) keep it moving locally by dropping it into another cache here in California?

 

Thanks for the help... will be releasing a couple bugs of my own tomorrow to replace the one I grabbed (oops).

Most bug owners just want to see their bugs travel (unless they are part of a race). What I would probably do is bring him along with you, and log him in and out of any caches that you visit while you're traveling, and take lots of pictures.

It's always frustrating to see your bug sit in someone elses inventory not doing anything for months at a time.

If you can see him traveling around, and you know the person with your bug hasn't forgotten about him, but is in fact 'showing him a good time' I think as a bug owner I'd be satisfied.

Of course if you get a message from the bug owner asking you to release him, do so ASAP...

[+Gecko1]

Usually I don't mind if they keep the bugs for a month, but when it gets past 2 months, (I have had people keep them for 6 ) I get mad. I think you should be polite , but make it obvious that you want them to move the bug along.

[+WascoZooKeeper]

After two months, I send a POLITE e-mail asking if they will be able to get the bug back into circulation soon. I've never had to do more than that, fortunately. One person was kind enough to ask if it was OK to hold my TB for a few months as he was moving from Alaska (where he'd found it) to Hawaii and wanted to drop it in a cache there -- of course, it's OK!!!

 

I have a couple, however, that are stuck in way-out-of-the-way caches that are very infrequently visited. One of them even had a visitor who didn't take the bug along. Not much I can do about it, although I did post a note on the cache page inviting the next cacher to PLEASE take my TB and get him moving again.

 

And I've been lucky enough to only have ONE go completely missing so far. There was another that seemed to have gone missing, but suddenly popped up again after a YEAR.

[+Hoppingcrow]

I'd like to add a GOOD travel bug story here.

 

I own a bug whose goal is to reach Alice Springs, Australia. The very first person to pick it up has a trip scheduled to the Alice in December, and he wrote to me to ask if I wanted him to hold the bug that long. Well, of COURSE I did!!! We've exchanged a few emails, and today, that same person took my TB out for a little romp...dropped him in a cache, picked him back up again (if, perhaps, not physically doing so).

 

We do anthropomorphize these bugs, despite the fact that we tell ourselves they're only objects. The fact that my bug was taken out for a breath of fresh air made my day.

[+Red Iguana]

Yeah, I've got to weigh in on this topic. I don't know that there will be a concensus on what etiquite is proper, unless a solid set of rules are developed by Groundspeak.

Being a moderate, I'd hate to see that

I have set two tb's loose. In both cases, they have ended up at "trading parties". Once that happens, it seems that we are doomed! It's a game of "where's Waldo", just to figure who is in possession! From there, getting the bug released back into the field is a whole new challenge. I find that the holder has so many durn bugs in possession, they have no clue as to individual goals. In both cases, the holder seemed irratated when I made an inquiry.

A whole new problem for me is that my latest bug does not want to be flown. This was decided after its release, and was noted on the website. It is racing another bug, and my bug would had finished in just a few days, cross country. We wanted it to be a nice even paced race. Maybe a "traditional travel bug" classification would be useful ( no trade parties, hoarding; professionals not welcome type theme).

Just my $.02.

[+Gecko1]

Welch -

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Why would you post in binary and geocaching code?