New log type idea

[+Aberwak]

Yesterday, a group of cachers and I were attempting Hercules Labor #6, a cache worthy of its 5-terrain: it's located up on the top of a mountain that is probably more suited for rock climbers than hikers. It's not bad until you get ~30 feet away from the cache. Then it's all up, with a significant (ie, deadly) fall. The group and I decided not to risk going for it.

 

That brought us to a realization: we didn't feel it was right to claim it a "Did not find" because we never actually looked for the cache. We chickened out had enough common sense to know our abilities. We came to the conclusion it'd be a good idea to have a "Chickened Out" log... or I guess a more PC term might be "Couldn't Attempt." This log would be used when a geocacher attempts a cache, and gets close- but for whatever reason, cannot actually look for it. Perhaps a snake is in the area (which actually happened at one cache for someone- a snake made the cache location his home and wouldn't move)... or in the case of a mountain, a person suddenly decides halfway (or almost all the way) up, it's not a good idea (they suddenly get a case of "What am I doing up here?").

[+TotemLake]

You waypointed the cache. You went to seek the cache. You backed away from the final effort due to skill levels into meeting the requirement. That's a DNF. We don't need 256 shades of grey to define a simple statement of fact. If you're ashamed of posting a DNF, use the Note. Personally, if I get that close to looking for a cache and backed off due to risk concerns, I post a DNF. There's nothing shameful about it.

Edited February 20, 2007 by TotemLake

[+BlueDeuce]

You waypointed the cache. You went to seek the cache. You backed away from the final effort due to skill levels into meeting the requirement. That's a DNF. We don't need 256 shades of grey to define a simple statement of fact. If you're ashamed of posting a DNF, use the Note. Personally, if I get that close to looking for a cache and backed off due to risk concerns, I post a DNF. There's nothing shameful about it.

 

ayep. There's are tons of reasons why we can't find a cache. DNF covers it.

Edited February 20, 2007 by BlueDeuce

[+eigengott]

a group of cachers and I were attempting Hercules Labor #6

...

we never actually looked for the cache

 

Which of these two statements is true?

[+Aberwak]

You waypointed the cache. You went to seek the cache. You backed away from the final effort due to skill levels into meeting the requirement. That's a DNF. We don't need 256 shades of grey to define a simple statement of fact. If you're ashamed of posting a DNF, use the Note. Personally, if I get that close to looking for a cache and backed off due to risk concerns, I post a DNF. There's nothing shameful about it.

 

I agree- there's nothing shameful about it. It just doesn't seem very accurate to log DNF if you didn't technically look for it. While I understand that you don't needs so many "shades of grey" log types, DNFs seem to have a drawback that too many of them in a row will sometimes cause a reviewer to archive a cache- sometimes called for, sometimes not.

 

I guess to me, DNF implies that the actual cache was looked for, but wasn't found. It's not really anything about being ashamed to log DNFs- I log them regularly when I don't find a cache. I just don't think that's an accurate log type if I didn't technically look for it.

[+The Cheeseheads]

You waypointed the cache. You went to seek the cache. You backed away from the final effort due to skill levels into meeting the requirement. That's a DNF. We don't need 256 shades of grey to define a simple statement of fact. If you're ashamed of posting a DNF, use the Note. Personally, if I get that close to looking for a cache and backed off due to risk concerns, I post a DNF. There's nothing shameful about it.

 

I agree- there's nothing shameful about it. It just doesn't seem very accurate to log DNF if you didn't technically look for it. While I understand that you don't needs so many "shades of grey" log types, DNFs seem to have a drawback that too many of them in a row will sometimes cause a reviewer to archive a cache- sometimes called for, sometimes not.

But, if you write a good log describing your adventure, that would explain why you didn't find the cache and a reviewer would never archive it because of that. A dozen "Searched for half an hour, couldn't find it" logs for a 1/1 cache is what would be archived.

[+Aberwak]

Which of these two statements is true?

 

We got within 30 feet of the cache- but getting to the cache was vertically challenging.

[+The Cheeseheads]

Which of these two statements is true?

 

We got within 30 feet of the cache- but getting to the cache was vertically challenging.

/me waits for the inevitable "When have you officially started hunting for a cache?" discussion...

[+briansnat]

Yesterday, a group of cachers and I were attempting Hercules Labor #6, a cache worthy of its 5-terrain: it's located up on the top of a mountain that is probably more suited for rock climbers than hikers. It's not bad until you get ~30 feet away from the cache. Then it's all up, with a significant (ie, deadly) fall. The group and I decided not to risk going for it.

 

There already is a log type for that situation. "Didn't Find it"

[+TotemLake]

Which of these two statements is true?

 

We got within 30 feet of the cache- but getting to the cache was vertically challenging.

Which implies you were on the hunt for it but chose not to find it due to the challenge. The list is already long enough with options. A DNF is a DNF no matter how you coat it. It's a shade of grey and once you put that in, more folks will find other reasons why they chose not to attempt to find the cache and request more shades of grey. That's a can of worms best left sealed up.

 

You already have two options and an excellent space for describing your adventure. It's a terrain 5 for a reason. You were already looking for it when you approached the site and decided not to continue. DNF accurately describes the final result.

 

Your refusal to go any further is no less a reason than this one to log it as a DNF.

[+ReadyOrNot]

Which of these two statements is true?

 

We got within 30 feet of the cache- but getting to the cache was vertically challenging.

 

So did you find the cache or not? It sounds like you didn't find it, regardless of the reason why. I agree with other posters, the reviewer is not going to archive the cache, especially considering it's a 5 terrain cache, just because of some DNF's. Just while writing this, I was thinking back to the many reasons I've DNF'd a cache. Sometimes because it was getting dark and I had to give up, or searching for an hour and getting tired, or having to go to the bathroom and not wanting to use the woods as a toilet. There are many reasons for a DNF, including fear of life and limb

[+StarBrand]

You set off to attempt to find it. You found a reason to abondon the attempt. Log a DNF.

[+CM-14]

Play the game as you see fit, log it however you want. No one individual here gets to decide how every scenario should be logged.

[+sbell111]

Which of these two statements is true?

We got within 30 feet of the cache- but getting to the cache was vertically challenging.

/me waits for the inevitable "When have you officially started hunting for a cache?" discussion...

Agreed.

 

It's really a personal decision. If you 'officially' started hunting for the cache, log a DNF. If you didn't, log a note.

[+ReadyOrNot]

Play the game as you see fit, log it however you want. No one individual here gets to decide how every scenario should be logged.

 

There are only a few options. A note, a find, a DNF. The only real alternatives here are note and DNF. Either of those choices are fine. Let's not bring the "Play the way you want" argument to this thread quite yet. Although I suppose it was only a matter of time.

Edited February 20, 2007 by ReadyOrNot

[+sbell111]

Play the game as you see fit, log it however you want. No one individual here gets to decide how every scenario should be logged.

There are only a few options. A note, a find, a DNF. The only real alternatives here are note and find. Either of those choices are fine. Let's not bring the "Play the way you want" argument to this thread quite yet. Although I suppose it was only a matter of time.

I assume that you meant 'note and DNF'. Edited February 20, 2007 by sbell111

[+TotemLake]

Play the game as you see fit, log it however you want. No one individual here gets to decide how every scenario should be logged.

Every now and then actually reading the OP helps when providing the correct answer.

[+tozainamboku]

If you don't want to log it as DNF, you can use the Note type log. No need for a new log type to handle every situation.

[+ReadyOrNot]

Play the game as you see fit, log it however you want. No one individual here gets to decide how every scenario should be logged.

There are only a few options. A note, a find, a DNF. The only real alternatives here are note and find. Either of those choices are fine. Let's not bring the "Play the way you want" argument to this thread quite yet. Although I suppose it was only a matter of time.

I assume that you meant 'note and DNF'.

 

Yikes! thanks. I'll change that!

[+Thorminator]

Well, I'd go for the

"Did not have the "cojones" to find this cache"

type of log.

Or simly "Wimped out".

That would do the trick also...

Edited February 20, 2007 by Thorminator

[+DavidMac]

DNFs seem to have a drawback that too many of them in a row will sometimes cause a reviewer to archive a cache- sometimes called for, sometimes not.

 

There may be examples of this happening, but I don't know of any examples of caches being archived when they shouldn't have been only based on DNFs. If the cache is rated easy, and there are several DNFs in a row after a history of finds, a reviewer may post a note asking the cache owner to report it's status. If there is no response from the cache owner and the DNFs continue to pile up, then yes, a cache might be archived. I've seen plenty of tough caches that get more DNFs than finds, but a reviewer never posts a note to the page or archives it. I think they can tell the difference between a DNF that reads, "went to the site but couldn't make it the last 4 feet" and one that says, "I think it's gone" or "we found no woods and no cache here, only stumps."

[+TrailGators]

Which of these two statements is true?

We got within 30 feet of the cache- but getting to the cache was vertically challenging.

/me waits for the inevitable "When have you officially started hunting for a cache?" discussion...

Agreed.

 

It's really a personal decision. If you 'officially' started hunting for the cache, log a DNF. If you didn't, log a note.

I agree. I would have logged this one as a note, if this happened to me. To me finding or not finding a cache actually involves some effort to actually search for it. Edited February 21, 2007 by TrailGators

[+S&G.Davison]

We would have logged this one as a note - or rather Sue would have sat at the bottom while G continued to the top :-) - so maybe a Half found : Half DNF log is needed (we'd need 2 already). We DNF when we feel we have spent an appropriate amount of time looking for a cache given the rating provided, once we get to the point of the GPS saying "here we are".

 

Sue

[+ePeterso2]

I don't know that I agree with logging a DNF in this case (and I've logged plenty of my share of DNFs). But here's how I play the game ...

 

If I get to the point where the GPS settles down and zeroes out and I can't find it within 30' of that spot, I'll log a DNF because I was actually looking for it. But if I *know* that I haven't gotten to the place where it makes sense to start looking, I'll log a note.

 

As a cache owner, I'd like to know the difference between visits by people who felt that they tried and couldn't find it vs. "partial" visits by people who know they didn't give themselves the opportunity to find it in the first place.

 

But in either case, existing log types seem sufficient.

[+Jhwk]

well, as soon as I hit the 'goto' button, I am looking for the cache. But, as others have said, It's your game.