Quick Rantable Question About "offset Caches"

[+Shifty]

Is there anyone else in this fading republic that is with me in my way of thinking that a cache that you go to the posted co-ordinates and DO NOT find a log to sign should be considered a multi???

 

More than a few times have I been caching out of state just on a wing, search for a awhile, only to discover that when I get home, I was actually supposed to do something lame like "Count the lamp posts you find here" Or "how many bricks are on the ground then divide by 2?".

 

If I have to do more than opening a cache and signing a log at the posted co-ordinates....Then it's a multi....

 

Now there are a few exceptions I have noticed, but they are different styles of hides. 1 exception is a night time cache where you have to follow trail markers, and another is in an aquaduct where your GPS is worthless. Those types of situations are fully understandible and I agree with. Because your gps is only good to a point. However I have a peeve with something listed as a "Traditional" when you still have to get other information or even other co-ordinates to find the final.

 

I would realllllllllly appreciate the reviewers making it mandatory that if someone posts a cache that takes 2 steps, it automatically turns into a multi.

 

Begin Agreements, Disagreements, or flames now.

 

Thanks

Shifty

[CoyoteRed]

Well, it clearly states in the guidelines that an offset is multi.

 

If the cache is not at the listed coordinates then it is not a traditional. Period.

[+Moose Mob]

Typically yes, you are correct.

 

If you go to the location find the cache - Traditional

Go to the location, using info found there to go to the cache or next stage - multi (in some scenarios it could be a mystery/puzzle)

Go to the location, no cache, but need to answer a question to claim the find - Virtual

Solve a puzzle to gain the coordintates or other situation - Mystery/Puzzle.

ANd of course web cams and such.

 

If you end up with something different, contact the owner or the local reviewer to get it fixed. It could have been "altered' since approved (against guidelines) or was incorrectly classified. It's fixable if it gets the attention of the right people.

[Keystone]

No argument from this reviewer. I correct cache type choices regularly. If you can't find a container and sign the log at the posted coordinates, it ain't a traditional cache.

 

If you read the listing guidelines, it flat out says that a standard offset cache ("go to these coordinates and then go 120 feet at 40 degrees") is a subset of multicaches. So usually an offset will be a multicache. But sometimes they can be mystery/unknown/puzzle caches, depending on how you figure out how to get to the endpoint.

 

There are many reasons why a cache can be listed with the wrong cache type:

 

1. It's an old cache, and was published before people paid quite so much attention to cache types.

2. It's an old cache, and the owner changed the cache type back when it was possible to do that without reviewer involvement.

3. The cache owner changed the cache description to include an offset feature, then discovered he couldn't edit the cache type, so he left it as "traditional."

4. The reviewer had a bad day or a busy day, and missed a new submission that had the wrong cache type selected. When I'm reviewing 10 or 20 caches a day, this can easily occur. Mistakes happen.

 

What we do in these situations is rely upon the community to bring problems to light. If you spot a misclassified cache, begin by writing to the cache owner and explaining your frustration. Ask the owner to work with their reviewer to correct the cache type. This is the cooperative and friendly way to fix the problem.

 

If you don't receive cooperation from the owner, write to the volunteer cache reviewer for your area. We can change an obviously incorrect cache type without involving the owner.

[+jadeskyline]

This happens to me all the time, but i dont let it bother me. i just go home figure out what i did wromg amd try again later!

[+Bob Blaylock]

Is there anyone else in this fading republic that is with me in my way of thinking that a cache that you go to the posted co-ordinates and DO NOT find a log to sign should be considered a multi???

 

More than a few times have I been caching out of state just on a wing, search for a awhile, only to discover that when I get home, I was actually supposed to do something lame like "Count the lamp posts you find here" Or "how many bricks are on the ground then divide by 2?".

    ·

    ·

    ·

I would realllllllllly appreciate the reviewers making it mandatory that if someone posts a cache that takes 2 steps, it automatically turns into a multi.

  Actually, it seems we need to redefine what exactly constitutes a “multi”.  With the advent of Waymarking as the new home for virtuals, locationlesses, Earthcaches, and such; the term Geocache is being more solidly defined as involving physical container placed by the cache owner.

 

  This being the case, it seems to me that the only thing that should really be called a multi cache is something that consists of a series of actual containers to be found, with each container containing information needed to find the next.

 

  The reviewer suggested, of one of my two puzzle caches, that I ought perhaps to call it a multi cache.  I pondered this, a bit, and decided to stick with calling it a puzzle cache.  Calling it a multi seemed legitimate at the time, if you thought of the first stage as a virtual cache, where, instead of simply emailing me information found there to verify one's find, one used that information to find the second stage.  But I decided to stick with calling it a puzzle cache.

 

  But virtual caches are no longer to be caches; they're now (or soon enough will be) Waymarks.  So it really no longer makes sense to call a “virtual” containing clues that lead to a physical cache elsewhere a multi, since the “virtual” stage can no longer, of its own accord, be considered a cache.

 

 

  I think that any cache which is not at the posted coordinates, where you must solve any kind of puzzle, mathematical problem, or other quiz in order to find the actual location of the cache container — regardless of whether there is actually anything at the posted coordinates that figured into that puzzle — should be called a puzzle cache, and not a multi.  And I think that offset caches should be considered a subset of puzzle caches.

[+The Jester]

BB- I don't think you thought this through fully. If virtual caches are not allowed any more, than any cache with a virtual component can not therefore be allowed either. So it makes no difference what you want to call them.

[+sTeamTraen]

It seems - at least, based on a number of threads that I've seen here over the last 6-9 months - that the "European" definition of multi vs mystery is gaining ground. This might make sense, given that over here we have a higher percentage of both than in North America (in Holland and Belgium, about half of all caches are multis).

 

In the "European" model, a multi typically has a start point (which is often the parking place), and you search for a sequence of clues. These might be little micro containers, but more often they are numbers on a sign, someone's birth year divided by 47, etc. The typical idea is not so much to stretch your mathematical abilities, as to get you to follow the cache owner's idea of a nice walk. (Very often the final cache is close to a road, which makes for easy maintenance, but the owner doesn't want you to do it as a drive-in!)

 

Meanwhile, a mystery usually involves some amount of work at home before you set out. There might be a mathematical puzzle, something hidden in a .GIF file, etc.

 

On this basis, a simple offset cache would likely be considered a multi here.

 

Because European cachers are used to checking the cache type before setting out, and also because our cache density is lower (so we do less of the "on the off- chance"-type paperless caching), this doesn't give too many problems. I can imagine that if you are used to loading up your GPSr with 200 waypoints, using just the name, that the average 5% or so which aren't traditionals in North America, would cause confusion.

[CoyoteRed]

Actually, it seems we need to redefine what exactly constitutes a “multi”. 

No, we just need to change the name or the way you think of "multi."

 

I've always thought "multi" not as in multiple caches, but as having multiple stages. A slight change in the definition page will be a lot easier than recategorizing thousands of caches.

 

Additionally, I wouldn't elevate clue gathering, like "What year did such-n-such found this town" put that in the blank, to the status of a puzzle. There is a difference between simple information gathering and intuiting an avenue to solving a puzzle.

[WH]

Sometimes, you run into a gray area where a cache could be classified as either a puzzle or a multi. This cache of mine per the guidelines is a multi. It's also a puzzle. The coordinates on the cache page do indeed take you to stage 1, but you have to solve a moderately difficult equation to find all the following stages.

[Keystone]

BB- I don't think you thought this through fully. If virtual caches are not allowed any more, than any cache with a virtual component can not therefore be allowed either. So it makes no difference what you want to call them.

I must have missed this Memo.

 

Seriously... the launch of Waymarking.com will have no effect on a multicache that has one or more virtual clues, and which ends with a physical container and logbook.

[Keystone]

Additionally, I wouldn't elevate clue gathering, like "What year did such-n-such found this town" put that in the blank, to the status of a puzzle. There is a difference between simple information gathering and intuiting an avenue to solving a puzzle.

That is a nice, succinct way of describing the very fuzzy boundary line between a puzzle and a multi. It really doesn't matter too much at the edge, anyways.

[+AtoZ]

There seems to be a two fold problem maybe, wrong type of cache listed and two you dont have the cache page with you. I think the greatest wrong is the second. Thought it is fun sometimes to do a cache without a page but I have tried doing one that was a multi and I didnt know if it was a trad or vir so the egg was on my face.

cheers

[+The Jester]

BB- I don't think you thought this through fully.  If virtual caches are not allowed any more, than any cache with a virtual component can not therefore be allowed either.  So it makes no difference what you want to call them.

I must have missed this Memo.

Are you sure you're still in the 'loop'?

 

I've always used the line about the listed co-ords not having anything there as the dividing line between multi's & puzzles.

[+Quiggle]

BB- I don't think you thought this through fully.  If virtual caches are not allowed any more, than any cache with a virtual component can not therefore be allowed either.  So it makes no difference what you want to call them.

I must have missed this Memo.

Are you sure you're still in the 'loop'?

Keystone is the loop.

 

As he said, there will be no effect on physical caches with "virtual" stages since there is an actual container at the end. Your "theory" is null and void.

[+Jeep_Dog]

Additionally, I wouldn't elevate clue gathering, like "What year did such-n-such found this town" put that in the blank, to the status of a puzzle.  There is a difference between simple information gathering and intuiting an avenue to solving a puzzle.

That is a nice, succinct way of describing the very fuzzy boundary line between a puzzle and a multi. It really doesn't matter too much at the edge, anyways.

It is heartening to see reviewers pointing out that the Mystery/Puzzle caches do have fuzzy boundaries, and the edge is not worthing ansgting about.

 

I have a mystery/puzzle cache where the coordinates get the cacher to a point, where they have to use a magnetic heading and a distance calculation to investigate another point. The second point has two sets of numbers, one of which completes the coordinates for the final. This is an easy puzzle, where intuitively one set of numbers makes sense to complete the coordinates, the other makes no sense. For experienced cachers, this is hardly a "puzzle," but for new cachers, it can be quite confusing. I have had two cachers come across this and state "gee, this sure feels more like a multi than a puzzle."

 

I took the first stage of this to fall under the guideline "the only commonality of this cache type is that the coordinates listed are not of the actual cache location but a general reference point, such as a nearby parking location," since it is indeed a general reference point from which to shoot an azimuth and go a short distance. I believe the two folks that differed with the type chosen found the "puzzle" part of bogus numbers and real numbers to be self-evident. I must be on the right track, since my area's excellent reviewer who is quite thorough in reviewing caches approved it without question (and I know from experience that he quite rightly questions!).

 

I suppose my point is that the line is indeed fuzzy, reviewers recognize this, and the initial determination really lies with the owner's gut feeling and/or experience.

[+Jeep_Dog]

There seems to be a two fold problem maybe, wrong type of cache listed and two you dont have the cache page with you. I think the greatest wrong is the second. Thought it is fun sometimes to do a cache without a page but I have tried doing one that was a multi and I didnt know if it was a trad or vir so the egg was on my face.

cheers

I respectfully disagree with your assessment that caching without a page is "wrong." That is the OP's point - that the cache should be listed as a multi if it is indeed a multi. If the cache is a traditional, there may very well be no need to "have the cache page with you." If sold as a traditional, and is actually a multi, and the cacher shows up with only coordinates, in my opinion, if there is any "egg" involved being smeered on visages, it is on the owner's visage this "egg" falls upon.

 

80% (estimate) of my finds were done without cache pages on me. I started off printing the pages, then went to paperless. My PDA frustrated me to no end (batteries were unpredictable and the unit insisted on turning itself on in my pocket and draining the batteries), and I soon discovered I enjoyed the challenge of hunting with only coordinates loaded in the GPSr. Plus, I am saving on paper and ink. Once in a while, I may list cache names, waypoint name, and coordinates on a single page, with small hints such as "hey, dummy, this one's a micro!" to keep them straight on a longer hunt day, or I may summarize the caches in one or two sentences if I have novice cachers along with me so they can read the description. Yet, my preferred method is to simply load the .loc files in my GPSr and head out, following the needle. Different styles for different folks...

[+The Jester]

BB- I don't think you thought this through fully.  If virtual caches are not allowed any more, than any cache with a virtual component can not therefore be allowed either.  So it makes no difference what you want to call them.

I must have missed this Memo.

Are you sure you're still in the 'loop'?

Keystone is the loop.

 

As he said, there will be no effect on physical caches with "virtual" stages since there is an actual container at the end. Your "theory" is null and void.

I'm sorry you missed the irony/humor in my original post (Keystone got it, from his "Seriously..." line). I was taking the original idea to it's most illogical conclusion. In no way do I really think virtual components should be disallowed - I use them in several of my caches. Nor do I think Keystone is out of touch - more humor in response to his.