Who Is Watching My Cache?

[+Iceburger]

Hi there,

 

[begin disclaimer...]

Forgive me if this has been asked and answered in the past but, I searched and couldn't find it.....

[/end disclaimer]

 

I was wondering if there is a way to see who has one of my caches on their watchlist? Thanks in advance.....

 

Iceburger

 

edited for typo

Edited August 24, 2005 by Iceburger

[+briansnat]

The short answer is no. The longer answer is still no, to a point. If you are curious you can post a note to the cache page asking, but the watchers may, or may not choose to answer.

[+robert]

Question gets asked fairly often, here is the answer in the FAQ, and a recent thread.

 

[+Iceburger]

In that case, it sounds like a good idea to a new feature to me....

[WH]

Ever feel like you're being watched?

[+Iceburger]

Actually doing one of the night caches during the tournament last weekend, I could not shake the feeling of someone / something lurking near by... hehehe and I chalked it up to it being 3:30 am and in the woods alone.... SPOOKY

[+Ollivander]

I am curious what people think they would learn from knowing who was watching their cache. For instance, I might put a cache on my watchlist for any number of reasons:

 

- The cache sounds like one I would like to visit, but was temporarily made unavailable - I will put it on so that I get updates on that status of that cache.

- If I DNF a cache and it hasn't been visited for a while before I got there, I will put it on my watchlist to see if the owner comments or if others report the same issue. In at least one case, someone else logged the find a few days later, and it confirmed to me that I just needed to go back and look harder. Once I got that confirmation, I removed it from the list.

- I only have 2 travel bugs in circulation right now. When they are checked into a cache, I usually put the cache on my watchlist. If a number of folks log finds, but nobody takes the bug, or reports it missing, I send a polite note to a recent finder just asking if they spotted the bug. (I respect that they may choose not to take the bug, I just want to be sure it hasn't gone missing.)

- There is a cache (not mine) within walking distance of my house. I put that one on my watchlist as a courtesy - if someone notes a problem and the owner cannot look into it quickly I would offer to help out. (So far, this hasn't been necessary, but I thought it was a nice thing to do.)

- Pure curiosity - I stumble over a really intersting cache listing that I may or may not be able to visit.

 

- And I do not do this, but I have heard of some non-premium members using this as a substitute for bookmarks.

[+Team Red Oak]

As someone who is watching a few caches (none of them are the OP's) let me tell you why. One of them I'm watching becasue it is on my list to do, but was temp disabled so I am waiting for it to come back online again. Two others I'm watching becasue I had to post DNF's on them and I want to know when someone else finds them or if a maintenance check gets done so I am positive they are there before trying again. The last one I would like to find, but the difficulty is high and the last few logs reported some problems and there hasn't been a logged find or DNF in over 2 months we just don't want to put forth the effort in the heat so I'd just like to know any activity on the cache. Once the weather cools down some, we'll probably go look for it unless the owner disables it.

 

So there is nothing sinister about having people watch your cache. The reasons are probably similar to mine. If a cache owner posted a note asking who was watching the cache I may or may not respond depending on the mood I'm in, at my age some days I'm cranky and some days not so much.

[+Markwell]

...and between the bookmarks and pocket queries, the ones who are "watching" may not be listed in the watchers. So, the question is kinda pointless now.

Edited August 24, 2005 by Markwell

[+Iceburger]

My reasoning for wanting to know who was watching was to see if the "watchers" were other local cachers. There is a few of us in my area that are trying hard to bring more people to our area to cache, so for me it is kind of a marketing survey, wanting to know if it is locals or more distant people watching

[WH]

The only thing you can really do is post a note on your cache page that you are interested in knowing who the watchers are. The note will be sent automatically to everyone on the watch list. Whether any of them reply or not remains to be seen.

Edited August 24, 2005 by WH

[+WhatsRNutts]

I had put a few on my watchlist to my mom and I can go to them quickly when I visit her in the dallas area. mostly I like to see what kind of activity is going on witha cache so I will watch list it. And it is a lot easire than trying to bookmark several caches cause then my bookmark folder gets terribly cluttered.

[+the hermit crabs]

My reasoning for wanting to know who was watching was to see if the "watchers" were other local cachers. There is a few of us in my area that are trying hard to bring more people to our area to cache, so for me it is kind of a marketing survey, wanting to know if it is locals or more distant people watching

In that case, the best idea would probably be to take briansnat's suggesstion and just post a note on the cache page, asking people who have the cache watchlisted or bookmarked to email you. If you explain why you're curious, you'll probably get a lot of reponses. (Only one cache that I was watching ever had such a note/request on it, and I answered it.)

 

I no longer have any caches on watchlists -- I've moved them all over to bookmark lists now. Mostly because you can temporarily disable the emails for a whole group of with a single checkmark, and then re-enable them later -- great if you're going away on vacation and don't want to come home to a flood of email. With watchlists, you can't temporarily disable the email -- you'd have to delete the cache from your watchlist, and then remember to add it back later. And you'd have to do each one individually. (I love bookmark lists! )

[+Thot]

...and between the bookmarks and pocket queries, the ones who are "watching" may not be listed in the watchers.

What are bookmarks?

[+The Leprechauns]

See the pinned thread in the Geocaching.com forum for lots of information about the premium member "bookmark list" feature. It's like a watchlist on steroids. Many people, like me, no longer use the watchlist very much, because bookmarks allow for so much more flexibility, such as the ability to turn e-mail notifications on or off, the ability to write detailed descriptions of bookmarked caches, etc.

 

So, with more and more people using bookmarks instead of the watchlist, the number of people watching a cache is a misleading statistic. I have nearly 200 caches of interest on my bookmark lists. For examples, click the links in my signature line below.

[markandlynn]

I know of some event caches that are still being watched even though its been over a year since they were permanently archived.

Must be some inactive cachers cachers out there with active watchlists ?

should this be tidied off the system ? it must cause some sort of load?

[+Thot]

See the pinned thread in the Geocaching.com forum for lots of information about the premium member "bookmark list" feature.

Oh yes, now I remember. I had just forgotten these were called bookmarks. I think of them as a list of favorite caches rather than caches whose activity you want to watch.

 

Thanks.

[+Prime Suspect]

I know of some event caches that are still being watched even though its been over a year since they were permanently archived.

Must be some inactive cachers cachers out there with active watchlists ?

should this be tidied off the system ? it must cause some sort of load?

Why would it? If no one's logging it, it's not generating any email.

[markandlynn]

I know of some event caches that are still being watched even though its been  over a year since they were permanently archived.

Must be some inactive cachers cachers out there with active watchlists ?

should this be tidied off the system ? it must cause some sort of load?

Why would it? If no one's logging it, it's not generating any email.

Thats assuming they are only watching one archived event cache isn't it

We can be pretty sure there are some inactive cachers watching active caches

[+Geo Froggy]

In my area all of the caches, in public parks, have 6 watchers, none of the others, not in public parks, do. None of them have TB's, DNF's, or were disabled. I know that one of the watchers is the approver, but am certain that the others are town employees, keeping an eye on the activity.

 

2Tango

[+wdfod]

In that case, it sounds like a good idea to a new feature to me....

There is a way to get around it, if you so desire...

 

When you set up a subscriber only cache, you can view a log of every member who has visited the page. It tells the date/time of their last visit and how many times they have visited the page. Handy info sometimes.

 

Margo

[WH]

In that case, it sounds like a good idea to a new feature to me....

There is a way to get around it, if you so desire...

 

When you set up a subscriber only cache, you can view a log of every member who has visited the page. It tells the date/time of their last visit and how many times they have visited the page. Handy info sometimes.

 

Margo

There are ways around that. I can view you Subscriber's Only cache with a PQ and you'll never know I looked.

 

Non premium members can post a log to your MO cache using the follwing URL

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?WP=GCP83Q

 

Just replace the GC number at the end with the GC number of the MO cache in question.

[+wdfod]

[There are ways around that. I can view you Subscriber's Only cache with a PQ and you'll never know I looked.

 

True, but most people realize that their cache will come up in everyone's PQs. I think what the OP was curious about is who is interested in all activity on a cache.

 

My experience, while limited, is that if is it a cache lots of people are watching, they are frequently viewing the cache page. On my subscriber only cache, I have people who have viewed the page almost 30 times. I know they are the ones most interested in finding it.

 

M.

Edited August 25, 2005 by wdfod

[4wheelin_fool]

I started watching all of my recent finds to make sure the next finder found the cache ok. But I discovered that reading the logs was interesting. Now I have MOST (about 80%) of my finds on my watchlist (about 180 of 230) I get around 20 e-mails a day, and on the weekends about 30-40. But I look forward to reading the logs, and it doesnt take more than 20 minutes on average.

[+sTeamTraen]

Why not post a note to the cache saying "first 3 people to reply to this note will win $100". Then delete it immediately, so only people who are watching will know about it. At least some of the watchers will contact you.

[+Bear Paughs]

I use my watchlist for 4 primary reasons:

 

1) Caches I'm interested in doing in the short term (although I think I'll move these over to bookmarks once I tidy up the bookmarks I already have)

2) Caches that have been temp disabled so I can be notified when they're available again, something that might not be so obvious working with PQs

3) Caches I've DNF. Watch to see if others find it, if the owner has confirmed it's still there, etc.

4) Caches I've found most recently, until after the next 1 or 2 visits. I like to see what shape they found the cache in, and if it's a regular cache I like to see if and what they traded (I know that if the items I traded are the very next things snatched up then I'm doing a good job trading even or up)