Negative geocachers

[ravenmeistre]

I often put some caches on our watch list to see what other people have to say about them. And when I get the chance I go and read and see what other people thought of it.

 

What I've noticed lately is a lot of negative comments about the caches. Perhaps an indication of how a lot of people are feeling in our country, and not necessarily that the cache is so bad?

 

I'm all for speaking your mind and letting other cachers know if a cache is really not worth the effort to go and find. Each one is entitled to their own opinion, and I'm glad not a lot of people are put off by what has been said as they still go out and find the cache. It's just funny that out of perhaps 10 logs 1 person would moan about something about the cache, and then if you read up on that cacher's other finds you see him moaning a lot.

 

Some people are perhaps just like that, but what erks me is a log I read last night. The cache has been disabled for almost 2 weeks and then the person still goes and tries to find the cache. Why? They then log a DNF basically crapping on the cache owner because they could not find it, instead of just saying oops, we made a mistake and didn't read the cache entry. Stuff like that is definitely not needed and uncalled for.

 

Anyways, I'd like to know if there's anyone else that experiences the same thing?

[+Brick]

The cricket commentators were discussing the term 'Elephant in the room' yesterday. This is basically a term used when everyone feels the same way about something, but is to scared to say something, for fear of being the only one that feels that way. Take my recent trip to PE. At a cache site, the hint serves no purpose, so trying to find the cache required me to search under bushes, under rocks, with lots of broken bottles and glass lying all over the place. Now what ? Do I keep quiet and say 'oo lovely place, but unfortunaltely could not find tha cache'. Elephant again. I think th owner needs to know that from the time he/she placed the cache, the situation has changed at the site, and there is now way I'm going to put myself in harms way to look for a micro. I'm not being negative or anything. One of my own caches has been archived because I got (VALID) negative comments about safety at the site. At the time of placing it, things were fine, but vagrants moved in close of the site in the meantime. Cache owners need to be wrapped on the knuckles when weeks go by without an effort to maintan their caches, so if someone moans, it's justified. Like someone once said : "If there is an elephant in the room, introduce him !"

[+GlobalRat]

The cricket commentators were discussing the term 'Elephant in the room' yesterday.

 

Love that idiom used for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. By the sounds of it though you had a dead moose on the table. Same concept but referring to an unpleasant topic that everyone know's is there but nobody wants to deal with

 

If the cacher has consistently negative comments, perhaps they're a grumpy cacher. Sometimes it's hard, but one should rather provide constructive criticism than outright negative comments. We're not all born diplomats, so there are those that will call a spade a spade.

[+Carbon Hunter]

I agree with GR. Some cachers are more prone to write negative comments whereever they go. Even when other cachers have "raved" about a cache.

 

It is really a personality / personal disposition / events on the day / weather related etc. when doing caching.

 

So certain cachers negative commetns I take with a pinch of salt. Other who have made a lot of constructive comments after being fairly positive previopusly, I take a little mopre creedence of.

[+Louise_Gerhard]

You are obviously referring to me – but I am straight as an arrow. The best is I can take criticism without pain or as a personal insult.

 

If it is bad I tell you bad. If it is good I will tell you good. There is no middle path and that is the way I was bought up as an engineer and as a soldier. You like it or you do not like it that is your choice. There are no shortcuts. You take the knock and you learn something or you cry and do nothing. The choice is yours. But I will return in the next 6 months to this area and again I will tell you if it is bad or good. I see black and white. If it is bad you will read my comment and then it will go to my list of not to be done.

 

First we cry at the forum that no one is logging a DNF then we cry that a DNF is recorded. Go read the log on the tonteldoos 1 and you will understand a little bit better. I did not blame the owner; I blame myself as my database was not up to date. If you see this as negative then be my guess. If the tonteldoos cache was bad I would not return. But I will return. I could stay only for one day in PE and if more time was available then I would have attended to it during the night. But I will rather drop the find then to place the cache in jeopardy.

 

I was on holiday and with no Internet access. This was a three week trip. I log several DNF’s for my record to return to the cache. In some cases the area was bad and I need to tell this to the next cacher. Some caches were not log as a DNF and we will not return to them and no record is kept. If there is no DNF that means that your cache is bad and I will not return to it. So see it as a positive log and do not interpret it as negative.

 

What I can tell you is that a lot of work needs to be done on the caches in the PE area. The waypoints are not accurate, but are general. Again this is not all of them but some of them. If it is bad I tell you bad. It takes you to a general area and now it leaves you to search in a high muggle area. Go look at the cache planted at West gate. This person planted a cache inside a high muggle area but it was a highly intelligent plant and you can still get to it without placing you on the stand. The ones in PE is giving you a waypoint pointing inside a tarmac area and the poor cacher that wants to find it must scratch around to find them. The cache owner then wants to cry if the cache is gone. I can understand why it goes for a walk. Some of the caches place you in the middle of the spotlight. The people in PE are very nosey and they watch anything out of the ordinary.

 

Some of the caches I have done had very bad GPS reception, for example Herrie. But if you read the listing the owner is not giving away the location but the hint is good and well written. He even gives you the height ASL. This is a good hide. It is not easy but you can still find it. This I call cache planting intelligence and this is lacking with some of the caches in PE.

 

Maybe the arrow had struck someone and maybe change will occur. At the end there is a dynamic standard and someone must bitch or else it will remain the same. PE is a lovely town and is visited by many. Maybe we should spend our energy in getting the caches resolved and accurate and a little bit more intelligent when it gets to high muggle areas. The caches should then remain.

 

Gerhard

[+Bouts777]

Yesterday I logged a cache to be archived for reasons of being unsave and unhealthty. The owners are cachers with high standards and all of their other caches are much to be enjoyed. I believe that they will also see my point when they visit their cache and if they don't, they will tell me so.

 

If you log a find/did not find, tell about your experience, this will let the owner and other cachers know about the cache and the history of previous cachers. Or you can even PM them.

 

You have to remember that that your caches are not perfect aswell and those people you critisized may visit your sites also.

 

At least I can take critism and know what to do with it.

[+Geo.Kitten]

stupid question but why on earth would someone go find a disabled cache :/

 

I try not to be negative but to be honest sometimes you have to say how you feel - Like when it seems as if someones just chucked a nano out the car window as they drove past a rubbish dump.

 

Its nice to tell them the nice things like great views or sneaky hide so I do try put something good in if i have a rant about something else :/

 

 

K

[+Brick]

It happened to me as well, I downloaded all the caches to my GPS with the descriptions attached, but from the time I did this to the time I get to the cache, say a week later, the cache has been disabled in the meantime. In this case, the time from loading to looking has been quite a while. SO yes, it can happen that for all you know the cache is still there, but by the time you get to log your DNF, only then do you see it has been disabled. Another battled raged a while ago where a cacher went on an extended holiday, found the cache, but by the time he got to log it a month later the cache has been disabled...

[+Louise_Gerhard]

I am visiting the Port Elizabeth area in the next 6 months. This time I invite the cachers that stay in this area to come with me and to see what happens. This is more positive and you can act as observer, just stay with me because I am going to move. I will not ask you any hints or anything about the location.

 

This is more positive and you can see what I log and the reason why and you have the chance to argue with me. I can argue a lot but I can also understand and respect the viewpoint of another person. It is in my nature to probe. I test everything and I probe everything. Maybe I can learn from you and maybe you will learn something from me. It is no good to bitch about something - you need to be positive and do something about it. I am not perfect and I know that I act very quickly. If the guys do not accept this challenge then they must not complain. You were given the chance and that is more than fair. The playfield is then equal. Drop me an e-mail if you want to be present when we do the caches. Maybe we can have a beer after a nice day of arguing.

 

No one is perfect. I have a problem with waypoints on some of my caches but yet we done some averaging but other cachers do complain. I believe that they are right – the waypoint is not spot on. We had a huge discussion about this while on holiday and we tried to find a solution for this. The technique was tested on one of the problem caches in the western province and it worked.

 

I am in Pretoria next week and I am going to repair the waypoint on two of them. We will then use this very same technique on my caches that have problem waypoints. The technique is simple. We enable tracking on our GPS and we walk straight to the cache for about 10 meters. This will be done from 3 different directions and the results are then downloaded on the laptop. We then extend the lines and see where they meet. If a small triangle is formed we selected the middle of this triangle. If the triangle is too big then the complete test must be redone. We then measure the waypoint as indicated via the three lines and we enter this on the GPS and we then test this on the cache with this calculated waypoint. Theoretically the waypoint should be exact even in areas with tree coverage or in extremely difficult areas.

 

In George area there is a lot of tree cover that played havoc with the signal. We played around with the external aerial on the Quest 2. There was a remarkable accuracy difference with the aerial. But some caches were not accurate and we were back to square one. We even test this with the three line calculated method and compared that with the GPS indication and we got good results. However, even with exact measurement we had to search high and low. The normal cacher is not doing this fine tuning and we accept it. However, I will use this on my caches to ensure accuracy.

 

It is a problem if you are mobile and your information stays static inside an ever changing caching environment. It does happen that you visit a cache that is not available or that is even archived. It is a given and one should see it as normal. Most people probably do not log this and let it go. But I do log it for my records.

 

Gerhard

[+LeonW]

Thankfully I got a very nice log from a "Straight as an Arrow" cacher. Thanks for the positive logs, it is important for the hider to get that - makes the game worthy of the effort placed into it.

[+Bosveldklong]

WOW!! I cant remember when last I actually spotted such a heated debate regarding caches!Its sad coz it almost makes it an political issue,just like the polics in South Africa!

 

I think the first thing we need to ask ourselves is why are we caching...Are we doing it just for the fun or are we doing it on a competitive basis to see how high we can get on the ranking lists.

 

By this I refer to where we intend to hide a cache. I personally try and hide a cache where I think other people would like to explore or admire the beauty of the region,ie. a beautiful lake, view point, or something you dont see on a regular basis.

I know of a few caches that has been left inside a shop where a cacher happened to walk in and noticed the Geocaching sticker....that I would say is a stupid hide as anyone can go to any town and visit any shop. Afterall, its a case of 95% of finding a suitable hiding spot and only 5% of choosing the correct method of hiding a cache in the region.By that, the cache owner MUST also be familiar with the region, that way he/she would know if its a safe spot or not to do caching!

 

However,if you indend to hide a cache in the middle of town then change the way you hide a cache. Dont just hide a film canister in a post box or a cylinder in a tube next to a stop sign. I have one that I thought might be interesting,but from past logs I realised it wasnt a good idea an hence disabled it. Change the container to something unique that would actually cause another caher to say "Now that was a very sneaky hide!".

 

If you have a negative comment regarding a cache,why not try and make it constructive in order to assist the owner to improve on future caches. At the same time, if you are a cache owner, look at any negative comment as a way to improve your way of hiding a cache! I personally have learnt alot from other cachers, either via logs, personal chats or experience while searching for a new cache, and it only assisted me in improving in the future. I know for example alot of my caches are hidden in 2L ice cream containers,which I intend to change in due course, and exchange it with better sealing units.

 

To conclude, lets not forget its just a game,nothing more,nothing less. Lets have fun and help each other to improve where possible for everyones enjoyment!