Help me please

[+j_czerwin]

Recently, there is a geocacher that is hiding about 3-6 caches a day in my area. They only have 2 finds, so they probably don't have a strong grasp on what is and is not a good hide. So they have made nearly 70 cache hides in the last two weeks, all of them the same design and hide style. - which unfortunately are horrible designs, but that is another issue I'll bypass, unless you ask...

 

They are placing them so fast, that about 10% are the wrong coordinates and run FTFs in circles and give the reviewer extra work disabling them, or fixing the coords. Sometimes I wonder why the reviewer didn't stop the post in the first place when the coords are obviously in the middle of a house.

 

Others are in bad areas -- like almost in someone's yard in a residential area, and posts I have seen by others often mention residents comming over and asking what is going on.

 

The caches that are placed poorly are muggled (about another 10%) withing a few days, and I have seen geocoins and TBs lost due to this person.

 

When the caches have a problem, the person just disables it and keeps placing more hides. There does not seem to be a lot of maintenance.

 

The person seems to have a mental problem because there are a lot of spelling errors, and strange terms used -- so I hesitate to contact them to offer help or advice in fear of causing problems on a personal level. They even have their forum name as a swear word that is less than kid friendly.

 

I know I could just ignore it. But I really feel that at this rate there is going to be a problem. It's just alarming to me...

 

Can the reviewer say something? Should he? I will probably contact the reviewer for this area and ask their opinion anyway, but I am often enlightened by folks like yourself right here.

 

Let me have it if I'm out of line. I like different viewpoints. Thank you in advance & happy geocaching, j_czerwin

Edited December 17, 2006 by j_czerwin

[+BlueDeuce]

Simply ignore any cache placed by this person.

 

That's about it.

[Clan Riffster]

Sage advice. There's a case of Geo-Tourette's Syndrome fairly close to here, and I've learned the hard way to "Ignore" anything produced by that person.

[+ePeterso2]

I would think that if you just treat that person's caches like any others, then this situation will probably take care of itself.

 

Here's what I'd do if I were in your situation. Visit the caches in question yourself. If a cache is missing or badly in need of repair, log a Needs Maintenance entry. Same thing with coordinates in the middle of a house. If the placer does not respond to the Needs Maint log, then eventually it'll get archived during a regular scrub done by the reviewers.

 

If this person's caches are placed as poorly as you described, they should end up being muggled rather quickly on their own. Plus, that person will eventually get burned out of time, money, or motivation to place such hides before too long, I'd imagine.

 

I wonder how caches with overwhelmingly poor grammar and spelling and such get past the reviewer in the first place. Maybe you're in an area with too many hides and not enough reviewers to handle the load? Maybe you or someone else could step up to the challenge of being a reviewer? I don't know what the become-a-reviewer process is, though.

Edited December 17, 2006 by ePeterso2

[+Isonzo Karst]

I suppose a brief email to the reviewer would be okay - but as he's listed some 69 caches by this guy in the last few weeks it's likely that he's noticed.

 

As long as each listing meets the guidelines the reviewer will keep listing them.

 

IF this hider were in my area (and I do have one somewhat like him) his stuff would go promptly on my ignore list.

 

I wonder how caches with overwhelmingly poor grammar and spelling and such get past the reviewer in the first place

 

The reviewer's job does not include correcting spelling and grammar, it consists almost entirely of checking the cache against the guidelines, and for bad coords (bad in the sense of being in the Pacific ocean - coords that clearly don't match the description.)

Edited December 17, 2006 by Isonzo Karst

[CoyoteRed]

Sometimes burying your head in the sand is the wrong thing to do.

 

What's going to happen when some home owners complain the just the right (wrong for us) person? You might find yourself scrambling to keep geocaching from being banned in your area.

 

If it is as bad as you say, then document each and every cache. Detail the problems with the placements. Pass it up the line to your reviewer. If he does nothing about it, pass it further up the chain of command.

 

And, yes, a reviewer can pull that emergency handle that stops new placements. I've seen it used on others. It's called "adequate permission." The reviewer simply asks the placer to demonstrate adequate permission. Works pretty well as you'll either not have a cache placed or you know a bit of effort has been put into it.

[+mgbmusic]

Had you considered contacting the placer to see what's up over there? Just a thought.

 

--MGb

[+j_czerwin]

Had you considered contacting the placer to see what's up over there? Just a thought.

 

--MGb

 

The posts look so strange that I am actually concerned about what kind of person this is. I am more open about security on the internet than most people, but geocaching really can give a person a lot of info about your life and I wanted to avoid a local person being angry/psycho towards me. (I thought it interesting that one of the posts more accurately hit the number of caches I was talking about, which means they were clever enough to look up my area, look at the caches, and find the person directly when I was trying to keep things a little vague and anonymous. -- no biggie tho, but an example of what I'm talking about.) I never want to make enemies with the mind of a geocacher!!

 

I figured the reviewer for the area has an anonymous name with no finds or caches -- and that was the advantage.

 

Maybe I open a second account to do that type of communication? I hate the idea of wasting space on geocaching.com to investigate, but maybe that's not a big deal??

[+welch]

If the locations are easily muggled and the caches are poorly thought out, and they're not being fixed, the problems may eventally work themselves out. Just wait till the caches go missing, or need fixed and start logging Needs Maintanance on those caches, and if needed (months later) then 'needs archived'. Actually that one that seems to be in someones yard (?) should be checked out, you should email your reviewer about that one now...

 

If you have qualms about posting NM NA and having the person know its you, then email your review a list of caches and explain the problems with the caches. Creating another account for that purpose might work too, but I'd worry it would look like the other account was merely to bother people and cause problems, like its a sock puppet. Which would be bad as Groundspeak is know to ban those people.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

We had a similar experience here, when a newbie hit the ground running!

 

The fella had over a hundred caches out before he had found forty, all in like one month or six weeks!

 

Lots of (dare I say it?) lame micros in thoughtles places, but some in just ridiculous locations; inside an old mattress on the side of a road, in a trash dump on the side of a steep hill behind a mall, at a notorious dump site for poachers so that you had to literally walk through piles of rotting deer carcasses (killed for their antlers, that's all the poachers take and dump the rest) - just absolutely junk caches.

 

Then he discovers that a film can is 1" in diameter, and happens to have a 1" paddle drill bit, so film cans start appearing in the side of trees in holes he's drilling. Then in wooden fenceposts at local parks!

 

Our geocaching association webmaster, a Deputy Sherriff, calls the guy to ask him to stop with the drilling, and is attacked viciously in the forums by our new geoHider buddy, who thinks he should be able to hide as many, when and how as he feels like.

 

About this time I inherit the state as the local Reviewer.

 

So I call and invite the guy on a cache run, a leisurely search for caches in his area with several other cachers.

 

I think we found 12 or so that day, but moreover we found him to be a nice, if misguided, fellow.

 

He agreed to back off the drilling and to archive all caches he had placed in that manner.

 

He became an enjoyed and valued part of our caching community and did learn a lot from us, within another month he's placing pretty well-thought-out ammo box hides, including a 4wd series that's quite nice. Local cachers who had been ignoring his hides started to find, and enjoy, them.

 

Then, after six months or so of regularly caching with many of the cachers in the area he had the inevitable falling-out.

 

He went back to his old ways, and started flaming everyone who voiced concern or complaint about his caches in our local forum.

 

When we finally got the message through to him that his thoughtless hides were not in the best interest of the game he geocided, archiving all his caches and quitting the game.

 

Invite your guy to an event; meet and talk to him in such a public venue; you will likely find out there's a reason his writting skills are poor, maybe English is his second language, maybe you will have better luck than we did!

[+Renegade Knight]

Eveyone has to cut their teeth when placing caches. They will go MIA and be archived soon enough. They will learn to like the comments on the good ones and the difference on the bad ones.

 

Ignore them as a owner if you don't like their hides. Most all of us have someone who rubs us finders wrong in some way. Bad coords, hard caches, impossible puzzles etc. The revewer probably has spoken to them about the facts of geocaching life in one form or another.

[Mr.Yuck]

We had a similar experience here, when a newbie hit the ground running!

 

The fella had over a hundred caches out before he had found forty, all in like one month or six weeks!

 

Lots of (dare I say it?) lame micros in thoughtles places, but some in just ridiculous locations; inside an old mattress on the side of a road, in a trash dump on the side of a steep hill behind a mall, at a notorious dump site for poachers so that you had to literally walk through piles of rotting deer carcasses (killed for their antlers, that's all the poachers take and dump the rest) - just absolutely junk caches.

 

Then he discovers that a film can is 1" in diameter, and happens to have a 1" paddle drill bit, so film cans start appearing in the side of trees in holes he's drilling. Then in wooden fenceposts at local parks!

 

Our geocaching association webmaster, a Deputy Sherriff, calls the guy to ask him to stop with the drilling, and is attacked viciously in the forums by our new geoHider buddy, who thinks he should be able to hide as many, when and how as he feels like.

 

About this time I inherit the state as the local Reviewer.

 

So I call and invite the guy on a cache run, a leisurely search for caches in his area with several other cachers.

 

I think we found 12 or so that day, but moreover we found him to be a nice, if misguided, fellow.

 

He agreed to back off the drilling and to archive all caches he had placed in that manner.

 

He became an enjoyed and valued part of our caching community and did learn a lot from us, within another month he's placing pretty well-thought-out ammo box hides, including a 4wd series that's quite nice. Local cachers who had been ignoring his hides started to find, and enjoy, them.

 

Then, after six months or so of regularly caching with many of the cachers in the area he had the inevitable falling-out.

 

He went back to his old ways, and started flaming everyone who voiced concern or complaint about his caches in our local forum.

 

When we finally got the message through to him that his thoughtless hides were not in the best interest of the game he geocided, archiving all his caches and quitting the game.

 

Invite your guy to an event; meet and talk to him in such a public venue; you will likely find out there's a reason his writting skills are poor, maybe English is his second language, maybe you will have better luck than we did!

 

Wow. That is a very interesting (and well-told) story.

 

As far as the hider in question that the OP is referring to, I don't know. Obviously the OP can ignore the caches personally (which I would). Of course you'll probably be frustrated when you see that almost everyone in your area will run out and gleefully find them, usually with no negative comments about the placements, no matter how "bad" they might be.

 

How about a well-respected local cacher, preferably with a high ranking position in a local geocaching organization, talking to them?

Edited December 18, 2006 by TheWhiteUrkel

[Mr.Yuck]

 

And, yes, a reviewer can pull that emergency handle that stops new placements. I've seen it used on others. It's called "adequate permission." The reviewer simply asks the placer to demonstrate adequate permission. Works pretty well as you'll either not have a cache placed or you know a bit of effort has been put into it.

 

Yes, this "emergency handle" does exist! But I am not a reviewer, nor do I play one on the internet.

[+9Key]

Sometimes burying your head in the sand is the wrong thing to do.

 

What's going to happen when some home owners complain the just the right (wrong for us) person? You might find yourself scrambling to keep geocaching from being banned in your area.

 

...

I agree with CR. We had a bad incident this weekend where a bomb squad was called out to destroy a cache that a newbie placed on a post office box. 6 cachers either found or hunted for the cache before the incident and not one of them said anything about the cache being placed illegally. If they only would have spoken up...

 

I think you should speak up and ask this guy what's going on. Voice your concerns.

[+sacred6]

Maybe they are doing errors on purpose. U never know. Who knows, If you contact them, maybe you can make a new friend and help them with caches.

[+j_czerwin]

We had a similar experience here, when a newbie hit the ground running!

 

The fella had over a hundred caches out before he had found forty, all in like one month or six weeks!

 

Lots of (dare I say it?) lame micros in thoughtles places, but some in just ridiculous locations; inside an old mattress on the side of a road, in a trash dump on the side of a steep hill behind a mall, at a notorious dump site for poachers so that you had to literally walk through piles of rotting deer carcasses (killed for their antlers, that's all the poachers take and dump the rest) - just absolutely junk caches.

 

Then he discovers that a film can is 1" in diameter, and happens to have a 1" paddle drill bit, so film cans start appearing in the side of trees in holes he's drilling. Then in wooden fenceposts at local parks!

 

Our geocaching association webmaster, a Deputy Sherriff, calls the guy to ask him to stop with the drilling, and is attacked viciously in the forums by our new geoHider buddy, who thinks he should be able to hide as many, when and how as he feels like.

 

About this time I inherit the state as the local Reviewer.

 

So I call and invite the guy on a cache run, a leisurely search for caches in his area with several other cachers.

 

I think we found 12 or so that day, but moreover we found him to be a nice, if misguided, fellow.

 

He agreed to back off the drilling and to archive all caches he had placed in that manner.

 

He became an enjoyed and valued part of our caching community and did learn a lot from us, within another month he's placing pretty well-thought-out ammo box hides, including a 4wd series that's quite nice. Local cachers who had been ignoring his hides started to find, and enjoy, them.

 

Then, after six months or so of regularly caching with many of the cachers in the area he had the inevitable falling-out.

 

He went back to his old ways, and started flaming everyone who voiced concern or complaint about his caches in our local forum.

 

When we finally got the message through to him that his thoughtless hides were not in the best interest of the game he geocided, archiving all his caches and quitting the game.

 

Invite your guy to an event; meet and talk to him in such a public venue; you will likely find out there's a reason his writting skills are poor, maybe English is his second language, maybe you will have better luck than we did!

 

Excellent example -- didn't think about the invitation one....

[crawil]

They even have their forum name as a swear word that is less than kid friendly.

I'm in the same boat - ran around on an attempted FTF with bad coords on one of their hides. J_czerwin, I know that you were able to find their forum name from their profile, but if you look up that name in the forums, there is no one listed as using that name.

 

Also, if you look at their 2 finds, one was on their own hide! I agree, I think someone needs to go out with them and have a good caching day.

[+citonyc]

you should report this person to geocaching.com, under the contact us link.. give them as much info as you can about this person includig the screen name if possible and they will be able to locate all the caches placed

by him..

if they are too close to each other ( with in 528 feet) of another cache it will be disabled or archived due to cache saturation.. they cannot be within 528 feet of another cache

but i dont know why the moderater did not catch this..

im in the process of placing my first cache and they had me get permits from the park that i placed it in ..

[+The Leprechauns]

you should report this person to geocaching.com, under the contact us link.. give them as much info as you can about this person includig the screen name if possible and they will be able to locate all the caches placed

by him..

if they are too close to each other ( with in 528 feet) of another cache it will be disabled or archived due to cache saturation.. they cannot be within 528 feet of another cache

but i dont know why the moderater did not catch this..

im in the process of placing my first cache and they had me get permits from the park that i placed it in ..

What would be the basis for the OP to "report this person to geocaching.com?" What violations of the website terms of use have occurred?

 

How did all of a sudden this become a case of reviewer negligence, by failing to catch caches that are less than 528 feet apart?

 

This posts assumes facts not in evidence. Please stick to the facts.

[+ePeterso2]

Using the clues left in this thread from the OP, I was able to find that person's profile and his big series of caches. While I'm sure many (all?) of his hides are "lame" (whoa, sorry -- wrong thread), people do seem to be going out and finding/logging them and expressing appreciation for their existence (inasmuch as "TFTC" conveys that).

 

Yes, his descriptions could be a bit more interesting and could use an editor to spell/grammar check some of them. But it looks like he's playing by the rules, as far as cache pages go (assuming he isn't drilling holes in trees and fence posts like the other poster mentioned).

 

This problem has absolutely nothing to do with the reviewers.

[+hukilaulau]

They only have 2 finds, so they probably don't have a strong grasp on what is and is not a good hide.

The caches that are placed poorly are muggled (about another 10%) withing a few days, and I have seen geocoins and TBs lost due to this person.

 

How are the missing Tb's and coins "due to this person"? You are not required to place a traveler in a bad cache, and I'm assuming since he only has 2 finds, he didn't put them there...

[+Marko Ramius]

I wonder how caches with overwhelmingly poor grammar and spelling and such get past the reviewer in the first place

 

The reviewer's job does not include correcting spelling and grammar, it consists almost entirely of checking the cache against the guidelines, and for bad coords (bad in the sense of being in the Pacific ocean - coords that clearly don't match the description.)

 

As much as I would like to correct spelling and grammar, this is not the role of a Reviewer. And Reviewers do not take any responsibillity for the "quality" of hides. There is also no rule as to how many finds someone myst have before they blanket an area with hides. Having said all that, I am cognizant of issues with the cacher in question, and I spend a little more time than usual in looking at his/her hides. Its not always easy to tell when a cache is in someone's front yard (as opposed to on a public right of way), although I do hold any cache that looks to be in someone's back yard. But please let me know via private e-mail if any hides of any cachers seem inappropriate to you. I will take action on caches that are in areas marked with No Trespassing signs, or that are on blue USPS mailboxes, or that are on the roof of a gun shop, etc... As for inappropriate content on profile pages or general unpleasantness, those issues should be reported directly to GC.com as the Reviewers do not get involved in personal issues between cachers.

 

I agree with the approach of TheAlabamaRambler, and it would be nice if someone in the area would take the initiative.

Edited December 19, 2006 by Marko Ramius

[+NotThePainter]

I agree with CR. We had a bad incident this weekend where a bomb squad was called out to destroy a cache that a newbie placed on a post office box. 6 cachers either found or hunted for the cache before the incident and not one of them said anything about the cache being placed illegally. If they only would have spoken up...

I questioned a local placement that was within sight of a post office, certainly within limits of GPS error.

 

I got royally flamed for it.

 

Makes a fellow not want to speak up.

 

Paul

[+diegoserratos]

I'm not sure if you have had the time to read an email i sent you regarding a cache in whittier and I was hoping if i could get a response. There was something wrong with its proximity to another cache and I was wondering if you could reply to me as soon as possible, if not so I could go and retrieve the cache I have already hidden. Thanks.

[+WRASTRO]

I'm not sure if you have had the time to read an email i sent you regarding a cache in whittier and I was hoping if i could get a response. There was something wrong with its proximity to another cache and I was wondering if you could reply to me as soon as possible, if not so I could go and retrieve the cache I have already hidden. Thanks.

Who are you responding to in this 5 1/2 year old thread?

[MisterEFQ]

I'm not sure if you have had the time to read an email i sent you regarding a cache in whittier and I was hoping if i could get a response. There was something wrong with its proximity to another cache and I was wondering if you could reply to me as soon as possible, if not so I could go and retrieve the cache I have already hidden. Thanks.

Who are you responding to in this 5 1/2 year old thread?

 

Im guessing to Marko Ramius, he approves caches around my area in so-cal, which is 15 miles from Whittier.

[+6NoisyHikers]

It had to be an old thread - he's referring to us as the "voice of reason".

 

[+WRASTRO]

It had to be an old thread - he's referring to us as the "voice of reason".

 

 

[Mr.Yuck]

It had to be an old thread - he's referring to us as the "voice of reason".

 

 

Actually, it was much nastier in the old days. I'm not making this up, someone back me up.

 

That was unusual to see such a prolific new cache hider in 2006. Nowadays, happens all the time. And in case anyone hasn't figured it out, the bumper obviously thought they were sending a PM to a previous poster in the thread, probably Marko, as MrEFQ said.

 

EDIT TO ADD, I can still remember reading The Alabama Rambler's post to this thread in 2006! That was a very interesting story. Bad ending, good ending, then back to (sort of) bad ending.

Edited July 6, 2012 by Mr.Yuck

[+NYPaddleCacher]

It had to be an old thread - he's referring to us as the "voice of reason".

 

 

Actually, it was much nastier in the old days. I'm not making this up, someone back me up.

 

That was unusual to see such a prolific new cache hider in 2006. Nowadays, happens all the time. And in case anyone hasn't figured it out, the bumper obviously thought they were sending a PM to a previous poster in the thread, probably Marko, as MrEFQ said.

 

It looks to me like the previous poster was NotThePainter, who live no where close to Whittier.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

It had to be an old thread - he's referring to us as the "voice of reason".

 

 

Actually, it was much nastier in the old days. I'm not making this up, someone back me up.

 

That was unusual to see such a prolific new cache hider in 2006. Nowadays, happens all the time. And in case anyone hasn't figured it out, the bumper obviously thought they were sending a PM to a previous poster in the thread, probably Marko, as MrEFQ said.

 

It looks to me like the previous poster was NotThePainter. I found one of his puzzle caches a couple of years ago in Massachusetts.

[+diegoserratos]

I'm not sure if you have had the time to read an email i sent you regarding a cache in whittier and I was hoping if i could get a response. There was something wrong with its proximity to another cache and I was wondering if you could reply to me as soon as possible, if not so I could go and retrieve the cache I have already hidden. Thanks.

Who are you responding to in this 5 1/2 year old thread?

 

I appreciate that you informed me that this was an old thread You guys live in the whittier area as well?

[+tozainamboku]

I'm not sure if you have had the time to read an email i sent you regarding a cache in whittier and I was hoping if i could get a response. There was something wrong with its proximity to another cache and I was wondering if you could reply to me as soon as possible, if not so I could go and retrieve the cache I have already hidden. Thanks.

Who are you responding to in this 5 1/2 year old thread?

 

I appreciate that you informed me that this was an old thread You guys live in the whittier area as well?

It would probably be better to contact a cacher via the email a cacher facility on the website instead of find an old thread they started in the forum. The cacher is not not likely following this thread anymore. I you must post a question about a cache in Whittier, it's better to start a new one in the regional forum here.

 

BTW, I miss Twopoms.

[+nikcap]

It had to be an old thread - he's referring to us as the "voice of reason".

 

 

Actually, it was much nastier in the old days. I'm not making this up, someone back me up.

...

 

Yup.

 

The forums are almost too civil now-a-days.

[Keystone]

Closing improvidently bumped thread.

 

If you wish to bump an old thread, please do so providently.

 

Thank you.