I Joined Recently!

[+Inmountains]

This topic had been beat to death, but I would like to take a pragmatic view of the subject. So here is my first question:

 

If EVERY single cache was a "Member's Only" cache, how many of you would be in the sport today?

 

Do any of you have as a "Member Only" cache as your FIRST find?

 

Personally, I do believe it is best to join the Geocaching site, it helps the sport. But I also know that it is good to continally bring new members into the sport.

 

One thing I was wondering is if a "Member Only" cache could also include people with less than a certain number of finds, say around 50? Let people get their "feet wet" in the sport, being able to find caches, member and non member caches. Let them be able to find out if they enjoy it or not before joining?!

 

In addition and tangent to this, how do you introduce people to the sport? Do you do in only while caching? Do you do it at parties? At work? In your neighborhood? At church? Maybe some other way? I am interested in hearing your ideas!

[+gof1]

Plenty of non MOC caches out there.

One of the things people use MOCs for is to thwart cache maggots.

Dosn't always work, but if you could find fifty MOCs with out becoming a PM it would never work.

 

I got my premium membership right away.

I had gone with a family member and knew after the first cache hunt this was for me.

That hunt was a DNF.

 

As for introducing others to this addict.... spor... game Ithe answer is D) all of the above.

[Trinity's Crew]

There is a loophole which allows non-paying members to log finds on MOCs, so if you're introducing friends who create their own account they can log any MOC that you might take them to. Here is the link.

I usually talk about geocaching with friends and family that I think will enjoy it. I've actually hooked a few. They don't know whether to thank me or kill me.

 

Edit: Added link

Edited July 8, 2006 by Trinity's Crew

[+IGJoe]

Things could be different in your area but in mine I find that members only caches represent a very small percentage of the overall caches. Personally I had plenty of opportunity to hunt 'open' caches before the benefits of becoming a PM was clear.

 

I prefer they leave the service open to free use with an option to join for added benfits versus a free trial period and then you are required to join in order to continue. I realize thats not necessarily the type of free trial conditions you we're talking about but I suspect its the way it would swing if thier policy was to change.

[+wiseye]

My 1st cache wasn't a MOC, but it could have been, because I sent in the WHOLE $3 for a month before I looked for my 1st cache. Just looking at the site I could see that if I couldn't get 3 Bucks worth of pleasure out of it , then shame on me! How hard is this concept? It's 3 bucks a month or 30 bucks a year.

[+kayak-cowboy]

I don't have any "Member only" caches hidden. But if I where it would be to limit the number of visits the cache gets. IE: if I placed a cache on my personal property, I would not want it open to everybody. And yes I do have property that does not bring people directly to the house.

[+Pablo Mac]

I initiate all of my new caches as Members-Only for a couple or three weeks, then open them up to the riff-raff. I figure giving the paying cachers priorty is a reasonable thing to do.

 

("Riff-raff" is just a joke, but somebody will make an issue out of it...)

[+Criminal]

I don't like the whole concept of MOCs.

[+KKTH3]

I don't like the whole concept of MOCs.

 

to be truthful - I don't either from the concept of why should there even be MOC's... I simply answer back by making sure that all of our caches we place are available to all.

[+OHMIKY]

In my area, when I look for caches near me, only a very few are MOC. I have never made one of my caches a MOC - I enjoy seeing the logs of folks who found 'em too much to limit it I guess.

 

OTOH, it has recently come to my attention that you can see who looks at MOC - this means you might have some idea how many people are working on a puzzle - and by seeing how many of them eventually log it, whether the puzzle was as difficult or easy as you had planned - so I may try making some MOC's just for that amusement.

 

Bottom line - there are so many open caches around here that I doubt if MOC would deter anyone.

[+welch]

This topic had been beat to death, but I would like to take a pragmatic view of the subject. So here is my first question:

 

If EVERY single cache was a "Member's Only" cache, how many of you would be in the sport today?

Are you asking me? or just making a statement followed by a question mark?

I don't think I would have become interested in geocaching if buying some subscription was the first thing you had to do.

 

Do any of you have as a "Member Only" cache as your FIRST find?

I don't. Considering the number of MOCs in any given state is usually 1 percent or less of geocaches listed here, that might be sorta rare. Unless maybe you share a zip code with some hider that really really likes to make their caches MOC for some reason.

 

Personally, I do believe it is best to join the Geocaching site, it helps the sport. But I also know that it is good to continally bring new members into the sport.

 

One thing I was wondering is if a "Member Only" cache could also include people with less than a certain number of finds, say around 50? Let people get their "feet wet" in the sport, being able to find caches, member and non member caches. Let them be able to find out if they enjoy it or not before joining?!

No, the only thing MOC can filter is if people have paid for Premium membership or not, it does not screen anything else on the person (coin thief who likes to leave broken mctoys can get premium membership as long as they can get the money to Groundspeak). And then all MOC does is prevent non premium members from directly seeing the cache page.

 

In addition and tangent to this, how do you introduce people to the sport? Do you do in only while caching? Do you do it at parties? At work? In your neighborhood? At church? Maybe some other way? I am interested in hearing your ideas!

I usually wait till someone I know asks me about my gps, or see one of my local geocaching groups t-shirts and asks about it, then I explain geocaching and offer to take them caching sometime. I never had good luck just yaking to people out of the blue. Too many times their eyes just glazed over and they stopped listening...

Idea, How about you take out a billboard ad? Costly, but you could attract hundreds or thounsands in a certain area.

[+Airmapper]

I don't like the whole concept of MOCs.

 

to be truthful - I don't either from the concept of why should there even be MOC's... I simply answer back by making sure that all of our caches we place are available to all.

 

I am not a fan of MOC's either. I see no good reason for them that cannot be accomplished using other methods.

[+StarBrand]

I've set a few of mine short term to MOC - only to revert them later. Just kind of a kick to encourge membership from my point of view - thats all.

Edited July 10, 2006 by StarBrand

[+NotThePainter]

I almost always make my hides MOC cache just so I can watch the audit trail for awhile. This is especially true for puzzle hides so I have an idea of who is working on them. (And yes, if you want to hide that, that is also possible.)

 

If they made the audit trail a members feature, not a member-only-cache feature, I might stop doing this.

 

Paul