+Bob&TheGang Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 I sent out some email to get some prize donations for an event cache we are holding and I got this reply from Where's George: ------->Reply from: Hank (Sep-10-05) Geogcaching is a giant pain in my rear-end due to the manner in which people use WG bills as cache items, totally screwing up my system which was not designed or intended for that purpose. No way in hell would I support any geocaching activities. What is is up with that? If seems Goecahing and Where's George should go hand and hand. Link to comment
LitaPumpkin Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 Wow. I can see what he means, but that was harsh. Link to comment
+zoltig Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 Wow. I can see what he means, but that was harsh. Your right LP! Everybody send me your "Wheres George " Money and I'll burn it in my fireplace this winter. There! That'll teach him! Link to comment
ScottFla Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 Wow. What a great attitude. Link to comment
+dkwolf Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 In all honesty, the folks at WG are probably just on this side of illegal. It is a federal offense to deface US currency, and while they haven't been shut down or charged with anything, EVERY bill that goes through a Fed. Reserve bank bearing that ugly WG mark gets DESTROYED because it is considered unfit for circulation. I would personally call for a boycott of wheresgeorge.com and all of it's services since they are essentially causing currency to be destroyed, requiring new currency to be minted to replace it. Link to comment
ju66l3r Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 Where's George was setup to see the normal everyday flow of money. The idea was that large-scale geographic movement of money is a rare event. It's fun to see where money takes itself. In contrast, my TB has gone almost 16,000 miles in a little over 2 years (probably more than my car). When a WG$ gets into the caches, it often stays locked into a fast track of cache transmittal and not spent. Instead of random everyday people finding the little notes on the money and adding to the system, it gets turned into a bootleg TB and passed cache-to-cache in a very non-normal manner. I can understand his anger and this isn't the first time a geocacher has asked him to do something related to geocaching...so he continues to churn over each request not able to grasp why we can't see that WG$ in the geocache system ruins WG$ original concept. He's had a huge fight with the federal government just to keep the website up. And after defending his ideals, he now has to take an onslaught of good-intentioned geocachers wanting to help turn his website into TB, Jr. Best just to leave that snarling dog his bone. Unfortunately, WG$ basic concept is so like TBs that we'd never be able to convince all geocachers to give it up so that he'd be happy again. Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 What he wanted to do, and what he accomplished are two differnet things. By creating a site that tracked money he created WG Groopies who enter thousands upon thousands of bills just to track them. Some bills being trackable went into caches. Neither is "natural" by his own definitions. Anyone who uses WG to track money is altering it's natural circulation. Meanwhile I guess it's ok that I put non WG bucks into a cache, as a trade item for a foreign coin but if it's a WG buck...oh my... the WG universe collapses. Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 The have to have people on WG that take their personal pet bill with them everwhere and log it... Link to comment
+welch Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 ------->Reply from: Hank (Sep-10-05) Geogcaching is a giant pain in my rear-end due to the manner in which people use WG bills as cache items, totally screwing up my system which was not designed or intended for that purpose. No way in hell would I support any geocaching activities. I'd be somewhat suprized if he really said it like that. But you never know, maybe it was a bad day for soliciting. Whats up with that? Its what he said. Apperently some geocachers will go and record the numbers and report the bill without moving it, or in some cases just give out the number. (instead of taking the bill out of a cache, entering it as sighted at where ever, then spending it) So in effect multiple people logging a bill they never moved or seen. Thats not what WG wants to track. Everytime they find a bill thats being logged like that, someone there has to go and clear out the mess. If a lot of these problems are coming from geocachers, I could see why they wouldn't be thrilled to give you a prize. As far as defacing currency... People at WG will point out that the law says defacing is making it unfit for being re-issued (like writting obscene words on it, or blanking out washingtons face). They could also I'm sure give you examples of bills that were reported being found in money given out at a Bank! There are also a few bills that turned up at banks Thousands of Miles from the area they were last seen. Some think its may have thanks for the FED. You see if a bank finds money it thinks unfit, it bags it up and it gets sent up the line to be run threw a machine. The machine electroincally checks the bill, if the machine deems it unfit the money is marked to be destroyed, if the machine says its ok its bagged up and put into the supply that will be send back to banks to be issued. (Money is constanly being collected, evaluated, and destroyed. when some is destroyed new money is sent out in its place. One dollar bills only average 18 months before being replaced!) Since they don't nessecery return it to the bank or area it came from it might be collected in Chicago for review and after passing end up sent out to San Fransico . Link to comment
+Yamahammer Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 Statiscally speaking, the geocaching WG bills are small incidents in the grand scheme. If tracked and graphed, they would considered 'freaks', the points of which WG showed up in caches. 'Freaks' are not common enough to investigate. My belief is he is maybe venting some on GC but he shouldn't. Maybe he ought to add to his site, 'NO GC entries please' and add a small paragraph explaining why. It isn't up to the GC world to correct his tracking system. Link to comment
ju66l3r Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 (edited) Anyone who uses WG to track money is altering it's natural circulation. Meanwhile I guess it's ok that I put non WG bucks into a cache, as a trade item for a foreign coin but if it's a WG buck...oh my... the WG universe collapses. There's nothing altering about writing a log about the bill's current location and how you got it. It goes right back in your pocket and you spend it along with the bills that you don't track and away it goes Gump-feather-style. If you use non-WG dollars, then by definition, it's not tracked. Later on, if it's tracked, there's a starting point devoid of it's time in geocaches and that's fine. WG$ isn't setup to see where it went from treasury to destruction, just where it went since it started being tracked. And while geocaching now adds a new element that is possible, it wasn't within the original vision or intent of the plan. Like a TB that says "please only airport caches" ending up in a downtown mall micro...it's a fair request, but it may not always be heeded. BTW, here's a webpage where they establish how "Geocache Bills" will be handled: http://www.wheresgeorge.com/wrapper.php?page=top10bills_dgc EDIT: Yama, I think he did just that a while back and here's the link. Edited September 10, 2005 by ju66l3r Link to comment
+El Diablo Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 As far as defacing currency... People at WG will point out that the law says defacing is making it unfit for being re-issued (like writting obscene words on it, or blanking out washingtons face). Here is the actual law. It's "United States Code 18 section 333." Section 333. Mutilation of national bank obligations Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both. Pay close attention to the word "Intent". El Diablo Link to comment
+welch Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 As far as defacing currency... People at WG will point out that the law says defacing is making it unfit for being re-issued (like writting obscene words on it, or blanking out washingtons face). Here is the actual law. It's "United States Code 18 section 333." Section 333. Mutilation of national bank obligations Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both. Pay close attention to the word "Intent". El Diablo Yep Link to comment
+Right Wing Wacko Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 I sent out some email to get some prize donations for an event cache we are holding and I got this reply from Where's George: ------->Reply from: Hank (Sep-10-05) Geogcaching is a giant pain in my rear-end due to the manner in which people use WG bills as cache items, totally screwing up my system which was not designed or intended for that purpose. No way in hell would I support any geocaching activities. What is is up with that? If seems Goecahing and Where's George should go hand and hand. Thats one reason why I quit being a WheresGeorge member. I was even a long time paying "Friend of George", but no longer. Link to comment
+Glenn Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 Wheresgeorge was created to track the natural circulation of currency. It was not ment to be a less expensive alternative to travel bugs. This is were all the angst comes from. Geocaching and Wheregeorge can compliment each other as long as you follow the rules at BOTH sites. Rules for using Where's George? with Geocaching Greetings Where's George?/Geocache User. The "Top 10 Geocache Bills" report has been permanently removed from this site. Due to recent events, it has come to our attention that there is a conflict between the rules of Where's George? and Geocaching.com. Apparently, Geocaching.com allows (and even encourages) friends and family to place and remove Travel Bugs from Geocaches and log each as a separate event along the way for the Travel Bug. When a family is involved, this can cause multiple events or logs of the Travel Bug in a very short period of time. While this is fine for most Travel Bugs, it presents a serious problem for Where's George? bills placed in Geocaches as Travel Bugs. The general rules of this site (available here) specifically prohibit trading or exchanging bills with friends, family or anyone known to the bill distributor. This rule is to encourage "natural circulation" of the currency, and to prevent multiple "fake hits" from happening on any bill. Afterall, the purpose of Where's George? is to track the manner in which currency naturally circulates throughout the country and the world. Allowing people to arbitrarily enter multiple hits to track that a bill was traded among a circle of friends and family defeats the entire purpose of this site. In reality, nobody really needs Where's George? to track that they traded some bills with friends/family. When it comes to Where's George? bills being used as Travel Bugs, this rule conflicts with the Geocache site which allows such exchanging and logging of Travel Bugs. Therefore, if you are going to use Where's George? bills as Travel Bugs or in any Geocache, the rules posted below now apply. In addition, it is apparent that the existence of the "Top 10 Geocache Bills" report had created competition to get the top bill listed. As it is trivial to log entries of a bill and make any bill the "Top #1 Bill", the existence of this report was causing several bills to be hit repeatedly in violation of the general rules of the site. This is not the purpose of this site, and the report has been removed to prevent the site from being abused in this manner. In the future, if this site continues to be abused for this or similar purposes, all Geocache bills will be removed from this site. I do not want this to happen as there is great synergy between the sites, so please follow the rules and keep this site "Geocache Friendly". Thank you. Link to comment
CoyoteRed Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 We stopped putting in WG$ for this reason. We also appropriately trade out any we find and promptly log it and put into circulation. We all should respect the wishes of the WG$ folks as it is their game to be played the way they want it to be played. Link to comment
+q22q17 Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 My son recently snatched a WG $2 bill from an ammo can, and although we've found a few of the WG stamped $1 bills, we've never logged them. I can only track tupperware and ammo cans for now. BTW, the WG $2 bill is now a "lucky" bill in my son's wallet. It won't be seeing any daylight very soon. Link to comment
+BVCY Swim Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 When I see a WG bill in a cache, I just leave it. Too much hassle to log it on the WG site. Link to comment
+El Diablo Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 We stopped putting in WG$ for this reason. We also appropriately trade out any we find and promptly log it and put into circulation. We all should respect the wishes of the WG$ folks as it is their game to be played the way they want it to be played. I agree with CR...something must be wrong! What if someone evented another game and started to use caches in a manner not intended? El Diablo Link to comment
+q22q17 Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 We stopped putting in WG$ for this reason. We also appropriately trade out any we find and promptly log it and put into circulation. We all should respect the wishes of the WG$ folks as it is their game to be played the way they want it to be played. I agree with CR...something must be wrong! What if someone evented another game and started to use caches in a manner not intended? El Diablo Excellent point. I'm off to find their web site and learn their game. Then search my wallet to see if I still carry any of their dollars. Link to comment
+Yamahammer Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 Guys, it's my money. I can do with it as I please. Just cuz someone, outside the goverment, stamps a number and website on it, doesn't mean they get to decide what I do with it. If I want to put it in a cache, I can do that. If it causes them grief, so be it. It's still my money. Also, if that is where the money goes and they want to track it, then that variable should be considered in their theories and tracking data. They seem to want to track money on one direction, vending. Not trading. ~~~ Makes you wonder if a couple of WG's were logged in from a gentlemen's club, if they'd let those log in. For the record, I haven't placed any WG in caches. I've pulled some, had one sent to me for doing a kid a favor. Spent it just like any other dollar bill too. ... You cannot compare it to TB's or cache's, we, as individuals own those things and if we follow the guidelines on GC, others can enjoy them. Link to comment
+deimos444 Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 Ignore the bum and get on with life in your own fashion. If he were truely interested in actual tracking geocaching would just be another constellation and any control he puts on would be a variable which skews the results. Link to comment
+Glenn Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 Guys, it's my money. I can do with it as I please. Just cuz someone, outside the goverment, stamps a number and website on it, doesn't mean they get to decide what I do with it. If I want to put it in a cache, I can do that. If it causes them grief, so be it. It's still my money. Also, if that is where the money goes and they want to track it, then that variable should be considered in their theories and tracking data. They seem to want to track money on one direction, vending. Not trading. ~~~ Makes you wonder if a couple of WG's were logged in from a gentlemen's club, if they'd let those log in. For the record, I haven't placed any WG in caches. I've pulled some, had one sent to me for doing a kid a favor. Spent it just like any other dollar bill too. ... You cannot compare it to TB's or cache's, we, as individuals own those things and if we follow the guidelines on GC, others can enjoy them. I'm not sure where all this came from. No one is forcing you log your money at wheresgeorge.com. In fact, the opposite is true. If you trade money in and out of geocaches you are asked NOT to log the trades at wheresgeorge. Link to comment
MapheadMike Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 . ~~~ Makes you wonder if a couple of WG's were logged in from a gentlemen's club, if they'd let those log in. A Five found by a gentleman at a gentleman's club. And a single earned the old fashioned way at a different club. It's common enough to have a nickname, "Naked George". Link to comment
+Yamahammer Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 Does WG have a directive about using WGs for drug deals? Snorting coke? I mean, anyone who uses them for drugs would be foolish to 'log it' as such. Dollar bills are used for a varity of causes. To limit the way a dollar is used, like D444 said, skews the data. But it's his site - as short sited as it appears to be. Link to comment
+El Diablo Posted September 10, 2005 Share Posted September 10, 2005 Does WG have a directive about using WGs for drug deals? Snorting coke? I mean, anyone who uses them for drugs would be foolish to 'log it' as such. Dollar bills are used for a varity of causes. To limit the way a dollar is used, like D444 said, skews the data. But it's his site - as short sited as it appears to be. I believe you are taking things out of context. WG is not telling you what you can do with your money. He is only asking that you not place one in a cache and log it on his site. It's not how WG was intended to be played. I don't see a problem with respecting his wishes. It's his game. Either play it the way his rules state, or don't play it at all. Like I said, we wouldn't want someone coming up with a new game that used caches or TBs in ways not intended and caused Geocaching.com a problem. El Diablo Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 We stopped putting in WG$ for this reason. We also appropriately trade out any we find and promptly log it and put into circulation. We all should respect the wishes of the WG$ folks as it is their game to be played the way they want it to be played. I agree with CR...something must be wrong! What if someone evented another game and started to use caches in a manner not intended? El Diablo You mean like Book Crossing drop points? Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 ...I believe you are taking things out of context. WG is not telling you what you can do with your money. He is only asking that you not place one in a cache and log it on his site. It's not how WG was intended to be played.... They made their rules to encourage me to use my money they way I did before their site came along, which gets in the way of doing exactly that. Case in point. Just for kicks I'll pay my kids a buck to do some random chore. Recently I did this and the bill was a WG buck that I had not noticed until I *gasp* gave it to my kid. This was Directly in violation of their rules. They asked about the WG stamped on it and I explained about WG.com. Then they lost it, another of my kids found it and spent it. Logging what really went on would be a violation of their rules. The WG stamp caused a small riot when the first kid figured out the second kid spent their money when they in turn had mentioned the WG stamp. The riot was part of that bills natural circulation. To not log it because it's against their rules is their loss. I've given up on WG. Link to comment
+El Diablo Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 We stopped putting in WG$ for this reason. We also appropriately trade out any we find and promptly log it and put into circulation. We all should respect the wishes of the WG$ folks as it is their game to be played the way they want it to be played. I agree with CR...something must be wrong! What if someone evented another game and started to use caches in a manner not intended? El Diablo You mean like Book Crossing drop points? Like any game. WG has a following much like caching. They don't want to see their game corrupted, much like we don't want to see caching corrupted. Play by their rules, or don't play. It's very simple. If people want to start a variation of the game, knock yourself out. Meanwhile, respect theirs. I'm not a WG fan, but I do respect their game. El Diablo Link to comment
+Team Flashncache Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 ...Anyone who uses WG to track money is altering it's natural circulation. Meanwhile I guess it's ok that I put non WG bucks into a cache, as a trade item for a foreign coin but if it's a WG buck...oh my... the WG universe collapses. Whether or not they are WG$, all US currency is welcome in my cache! The larger the denomination the better... Link to comment
GeoWorms Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 What he wanted to do, and what he accomplished are two differnet things. By creating a site that tracked money he created WG Groopies who enter thousands upon thousands of bills just to track them. Some bills being trackable went into caches. Neither is "natural" by his own definitions. Anyone who uses WG to track money is altering it's natural circulation. Meanwhile I guess it's ok that I put non WG bucks into a cache, as a trade item for a foreign coin but if it's a WG buck...oh my... the WG universe collapses. Firstly, I agree that we should respect his wishes, and not log bills in and out of caches on his site. He gets to run his own sandbox however he wants--that's fair. But in a very Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle sort of way, the very act of observing your own transaction changes the transaction. I found a WG$ in a cache a few months ago, and I wanted to at least log how I spent it, but I havent gotten around looking it up on the site or writing down the numbers so it's sat next to my computer for a few months. In the meantime, I've spent hundreds of other bills "naturally." Link to comment
+welch Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 But in a very Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle sort of way, the very act of observing your own transaction changes the transaction. I found a WG$ in a cache a few months ago, and I wanted to at least log how I spent it, but I havent gotten around looking it up on the site or writing down the numbers so it's sat next to my computer for a few months. In the meantime, I've spent hundreds of other bills "naturally." ah, but how would you figure out what 'natural' is in the first place? Link to comment
hide & seekers Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 I was a WG member long before I discovered geo-caching, although I was never obsessive about it like some are. I recently took a WG dollar from a cache in Ohio. I logged it simply as "got it at a rest plaza on the Ohio Turnpike" and didn't mention that I had found it in a cache. I am including the same dollar in a new cache I'm placing. The next person who picks it up can do with it as they wish. I don't see anything wrong with it. BTW: I'm also including in that new cache a paperback that I registered with Bookcrossing.com. Again, the person who picks it up can do whatever they want with it. Someone probably mentioned that the WG website does not endorse the marking of currency with the WG website or in any other way. They discourage it, in fact. Link to comment
+joefrog Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 (edited) Makes you wonder if a couple of WG's were logged in from a gentlemen's club, if they'd let those log in. Almost every bill I log, I write "found it either at the liquor store, the strip club, or taco bell! It seems one makes me forget the others..." I would like to thank you georgers, seriously. You've bought me many a cup of coffee! Edited September 11, 2005 by joefrog Link to comment
Jake - Team A.I. Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 Well, if Where's George is going to have that kind of attitude, I think I'll start logging all my bills I find as "Sent to nearest Federal Reserve to exchange for a new unmarked bill". Link to comment
Jake - Team A.I. Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 (edited) dang double posts. Edited September 11, 2005 by Jake - Team A.I. Link to comment
+dkwolf Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 (edited) Edit: It's not worth the fight.... Edited September 11, 2005 by dkwolf Link to comment
+GeoJunkie Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 I sent out some email to get some prize donations for an event cache we are holding and I got this reply from Where's George: ------->Reply from: Hank (Sep-10-05) Geogcaching is a giant pain in my rear-end due to the manner in which people use WG bills as cache items, totally screwing up my system which was not designed or intended for that purpose. No way in hell would I support any geocaching activities. What is is up with that? If seems Goecahing and Where's George should go hand and hand. Thats one reason why I quit being a WheresGeorge member. I was even a long time paying "Friend of George", but no longer. I thnk I can now put myself in the category of "former WG participant". Especially based on this: Once any bill has been found in a Geocache, it is marked as such on this site and is removed from the summarizations and other Top 10 reports found on this site. Once a bill is tagged as a "Geocache Bill", it will not be untagged as such, even if it is returned to normal circulation For me, a dollar bill into a cache is normal circulation! I sometimes use dollar bills as trade items. To say that my bill can never be considered a trackable bill again because my normal use includes caching is ridiculous! It's a shame, too. WG is what turned me on to Geocaching, and I've enjoyed both activities for years, but to slam my hobby as an invalid use of my money is bad juju. Link to comment
+deimos444 Posted September 11, 2005 Share Posted September 11, 2005 I still say ignore the bum and spend your money just as you would anyway. There are apparently enough serious paticipants that we should just be worrying about caches and not their dumb game. Link to comment
+briansnat Posted September 12, 2005 Share Posted September 12, 2005 In reality the very act of stamping a bill and taking it out of circulation to log it alters the "the natural circulation" of a bill. People use money as trade items all the time, so I see no reason why some of that money can't be marked as a WG$ and logged on the WG.COM. Finding a bill in a cache is no less "natural" than getting it in change from the grocery store. The fact that its marked as a WG$ is irrelevant. Link to comment
magellan315 Posted September 12, 2005 Share Posted September 12, 2005 As far as I am concerned its their website and they can do as they choose. I ran into a cacher recently who I decieded to emulate, he saves any George dollars he finds and spends them at event caches to help cover any fees. Its to bad about the attitude, I found out about th George website when I found a dollar inthe wild, not in a cache. Link to comment
+Nerves Posted September 12, 2005 Share Posted September 12, 2005 ------->Reply from: Hank (Sep-10-05) Geogcaching is a giant pain in my rear-end due to the manner in which people use WG bills as cache items, totally screwing up my system which was not designed or intended for that purpose. No way in hell would I support any geocaching activities. He's uptight and needs some cheese. Link to comment
+wandererrob Posted September 12, 2005 Share Posted September 12, 2005 It is a federal offense to deface US currency Then how come you see those penny smooshing/imprinting machines at almost every tourist spot in the country?? If I remember correctly it's only illegal if you do it for some sort of fraudulent use. But getting back to the OP, I understand what the WG folks are saying. The intend is to follow the normal and natural circulation of money. I think that was an a-hole way of stating it though. Link to comment
+Ed Rad Posted September 12, 2005 Share Posted September 12, 2005 (edited) When I find a WG $ in a cache I call it.. "Lunch Money" Edited September 12, 2005 by Special Ed Link to comment
+reveritt Posted September 12, 2005 Share Posted September 12, 2005 Sounds like that guy is suffering the same sort of angst that some geocachers feel when someone comes up with a new wrinkle (like lame-a** urban micros, or "waypointing). I wouldn't do anything to spol their game, as that would be ignorant, and would invite them to try to screw up ours. Link to comment
Where's George? Posted September 12, 2005 Share Posted September 12, 2005 Well, after waiting well over 24 hours until my account was activated to post this response.. I hope to clear up some of the confusion. Originally, I didn't have much of a problem with Geocaching or Geocachers using WG, until two unfortunate events transpired by your very own users. My attitude stems from the attitude of both of these Geocachers... so if you don't like my attitude, try looking inward at yourselves, first. The first event started when a Geocacher made literally HUNDREDS of mini copies of a dollar bill, laminated them, and included instructions on how to enter THE SAME SERIAL NUMBER into WG, for each of these FAKE, PHOTOCOPIED, mini dollar bills. This breaks every possible rule on my site, as well as runs along a fine line of counterfeiting, but that's a different conversation. Anyway, this idiot of a Geocacher placed his little, fake dollar bill Travel bugs in hundreds of caches, and each time one was found, the unsuspecting finder would come to WG expecting to play along, only to find that that serial number has been blocked, due to this entire event. They get upset and write me (sometimes nice, usually not) about how they were instructed in the cache how to take the fake bill and register it on WG. In each case, I have to explain how that violates all the rules of WG, and please destroy the fake bill as to not prolong this idiocy any longer. This also is usually not greeted with a kind response, since it's not often Geocachers are asked to destroy a geocaching item. Anyway, this has transpired HUNDREDS of times, and I still don't know how many of these things are still out there, waiting to be found. Did this one person ask me if doing that was OK? Nope. Could they have and avoided this entire situation? Of course. But it's entirely MY TIME and effort that I have to take out of MY day -- nobody else's. If I add up all the time I've spent answering and responding to just this one incident, it's probably 20-30 hours worth of my time to clean up this mess. So you can see how my attitude got started. The second event happened when a family of at least 8 or 9 people found ONE WG bill in ONE CACHE, on ONE VISIT. Each member of the family took the bill out of the cache, and put it back in. Then the next family member took it out, and put it back in. Repeat this NINE TIMES. When they got home, they created NINE ACCOUNTS on WG, and proceeded to ENTER THE BILL one time for each family member, creating NINE HITS on the same dollar bill in a matter of hours. My system auto-detected this, and of course, I deleted all those hits, which set in motion an incredibly hostile sequence of events from a GEOCACHER over the course of the following few days. To make a long story short, it ended in him threatening to sue me for deleting the hits.. so I restored them. Sure, an actual legal case would have no leg to stand on, but do I need all the hassle and trouble? No. Anyway, maybe my response above was a little snippy (I didn't expect it to get re-posted in public), but maybe you can perhaps see how it all got started. And it doesn't stop. WG bills get added to geocaches everyday, making the problem that much worse, which is why I had to tag each WG bill that ends up in a geocache as "dead" - i.e. not counted in any stats or tracking on WG. I'm not sure WG and Geocaching can peacefully co-exist, since you don't need Where's George? to track the travels of Geocaching Travel Bugs, even if they are dollar bills.. doesn't the Geocaching site already track Travel bugs from cache to cache? Why does WG even need to be involved at all? I can certainly see how people who enjoy one activity can and do enjoy the other, but why they feel the need to misuse WG to track Geocaching Travel bugs is what bothers me, and I *personally* wish the practice would stop. Of course, I could ban all geocached bills on my site, and delete the thousand or so bills currently tagged as "geocache bills", but I don't need to create more problems and angst between the sites and the users who would feel the need to choose one site or the other. All I ask is if you want to use Where's George? and Geocaching, then do each as a separate hobby or activity. Follow the rules on each site as stipulated. Please don't try to do both at the same time. Finally, how would all you geocachers feel if every time any of my users went to a new city, they looked up as many geocaches as they could, located them, and then just took them home, destroyed them, or just threw them in the nearest dumpster? And then left a note on geocaching.com "I trashed this cache." That's how I feel every time a WG bill is found and reported in a geocache. -Hank Where's George? Link to comment
+deimos444 Posted September 12, 2005 Share Posted September 12, 2005 TWO examples? Gee, how fair and rational you are. I am inspired to blame all of the persons of each race on the planet for the wrongdoing of one or two individuals. Gosh, maybe this is how profiling and racism begin. Thank you for the insight Georgey. Link to comment
Where's George? Posted September 12, 2005 Share Posted September 12, 2005 (edited) TWO examples?Gee, how fair and rational you are. I am inspired to blame all of the persons of each race on the planet for the wrongdoing of one or two individuals. Gosh, maybe this is how profiling and racism begin. Thank you for the insight Georgey. Pretty quick there to play the racism card.. but you mis-understand. I'm not projecting or profiling the abuses of these two people onto all geocachers. I posted them as an example of how my attitude got to be the way it is, and as examples of how geocachers have abused my site, which is bound to happen again. I never said "I hate all geocachers" or "I blame all geocachers for abusing my site" based on these two events. I may have said "Geocaching is a pain in the a**", and that's something entirely different. If I really did feel that way, I would have deleted every trace of geocaching from my site, which I obviously have not. -Hank Edited September 12, 2005 by Where's George? Link to comment
+VegasCacheHounds Posted September 12, 2005 Share Posted September 12, 2005 I, for one, think that Hank posted a very insightful and well thought out responce to this thread. Hank, I appriciate hearing your side of this. Honestly, why do we (Geocachers) fell like we need to go against the rules of WG, and then expect them to change their rules to fit our game? Now, I don't know if considereing all WG$s that end up in a cache as "Dead" is quite right. Okay, I understand, the whole idea is to track a Dollar Bill through its normal travels. Well, I've seen plenty of money in caches that were not WG$s, so being left in a cache may be a normal part of a bills travel. Of course, this isn't my call, and this also isn't the forum to call for such changes. I believe that forum would likely be located on their site. Link to comment
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