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Virtual Caches


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Would it be a good idea to re-introduce these puppies?

 

Issue we are experencing many new restrictions on physical geocache hides.

 

This week, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has asked that all geocaches in our country be approved by them first. Yeah right they oviously don't see how much work that would be. Can you imagine paper work for this process? The RCMP officer said this because of 11 hours of bomb squad time at 2 sites this week. The officer interviewed suggested that all urban caches must be removed in the country.

 

If we can't have physical caches we need a new Virtual Caches permitted. Maybe we could have history caches setup to work like earthcaches. Myself and my friends are not interested in the Waymarking option, the finds should be counted within our core geocaching accounts.

 

:mad:

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Groundspeak has made it very clear they're not interested in bringing back virtuals.

 

If geocaching associations reach out to the RCMP, maybe they can educate them on how many thousands of caches there are causing NO problems and work on a process to reduce the chances for these types of calls.

 

One of the problems cited by TPTB with virtuals is that land managers can use it to eliminate ALL physical caches from their sites.

 

If an organization approached Groundspeak with an idea for a new category (like the GSA with Earthcaches), I think they might be open to it. Earthcaches have additional requirements (unlike virtuals) which reduces the chance for abuse. The problem is that our volunteer reviewers don't want to be responsible for what's a valid container-less cache and what isn't.

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Would it be a good idea to re-introduce these puppies?

 

Issue we are experencing many new restrictions on physical geocache hides.

 

This week, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has asked that all geocaches in our country be approved by them first. Yeah right they oviously don't see how much work that would be. Can you imagine paper work for this process? The RCMP officer said this because of 11 hours of bomb squad time at 2 sites this week. The officer interviewed suggested that all urban caches must be removed in the country.

 

If we can't have physical caches we need a new Virtual Caches permitted. Maybe we could have history caches setup to work like earthcaches. Myself and my friends are not interested in the Waymarking option, the finds should be counted within our core geocaching accounts.

 

:mad:

Sounds like it isn't policy yet but it will be if there is no input from the people that count (you and your friends). You have a great opportunity to ambassador a policy that works towards mutual acceptance on both sides.

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Would it be a good idea to re-introduce these puppies?

 

Issue we are experencing many new restrictions on physical geocache hides.

 

This week, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has asked that all geocaches in our country be approved by them first. ...

 

Do they also approve all other personal property that can through a series of events unrelated to the harmless nature of the personal property create a responce? I didn't think so.

 

They are outside their authority, but it's danged good time for someone with a brain and trained in risk communications (which you probably don't have among your ranges, but you can be sure the RCMP does) to open a dialog.

 

Also if you think a virtual cache can't generate a responce, you would be thinking wrong. You only need someone to call in suspicous behavior. If they come and find any kind of container or personal property that could conceal something viola you have a full fledged responce.

Edited by Renegade Knight
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This week, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has asked that all geocaches in our country be approved by them first. Yeah right they oviously don't see how much work that would be. Can you imagine paper work for this process? The RCMP officer said this because of 11 hours of bomb squad time at 2 sites this week. The officer interviewed suggested that all urban caches must be removed in the country.

 

I'm not going to talk about the Virtual cache thing because the answer that always comes back is "Waymarking".

 

As for the RCMP, if only there was some sort of database of caches where they could log on and see where things have been hidden...

 

Oh wait, there is one! gc.com and it won't even cost our government billions to set it up. :mad:

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Would it be a good idea to re-introduce these puppies?

 

Issue we are experencing many new restrictions on physical geocache hides.

 

This week, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has asked that all geocaches in our country be approved by them first. Yeah right they oviously don't see how much work that would be. Can you imagine paper work for this process? The RCMP officer said this because of 11 hours of bomb squad time at 2 sites this week. The officer interviewed suggested that all urban caches must be removed in the country.

 

If we can't have physical caches we need a new Virtual Caches permitted. Maybe we could have history caches setup to work like earthcaches. Myself and my friends are not interested in the Waymarking option, the finds should be counted within our core geocaching accounts.

 

:mad:

 

Does the RCMP realize there are already over 40,000 caches in Canada? (quick rough guess from the search page). I'm quite certain Cache Tech, Cache Drone, Mtn-man etc.. can diffuse this situation, or even the GC.com home office if necessary. It all sounds like a comment made by one officer anyways. No need to call for a return of virtuals for the Great White North. (Yet ;))

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When I was on Vancouver Island, I met a couple of the fine officers with the RCMP. They were great guys and knew what geocaching was. I see this as a local issue with an uninformed officer.

 

And no, virtual caches in the way you are thinking about them won't be coming back.

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Myself and my friends are not interested in the Waymarking option, the finds should be counted within our core geocaching accounts.

Ah, so the truth comes out. Because you don't get a smilie for it, waymarks aren't worth visiting. :mad:

Since you do get a find, er smilie, er visit for your waymark that's not the problem.

The real problem with the find, is the same one that Terracaching, and Navicaching have.

No smilie here. Smilies there are not enough for a lot.

 

There is a difference between the no smilie and no smilie here that's worth noting.

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The RCMP registered all the legal firearms in Canada and it cost the taxpayers 2 billion dollars. Today they have a nice registry of legal firearms, but nobody knows how many illegal firearms are in circulation out there, and where they are. And the illegal ones are the ones that are used to commit crimes.

 

Say you pass a law that says you have to register all opaque containers that are left in public places, you'll have to register your trash cans every week. And I'm not even touching the subject of containers left on private property.

 

I guess the officers who asked for a registry of all the geocaches are the same people who cooked up the gun registry. This is ridiculous beyond rediculous.

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This week, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has asked that all geocaches in our country be approved by them first.

 

Here is the cache that generated the recent flap, I believe.

 

I found several news articles on the web about the incident.

 

Here's one article that doesn't say the RCMP wants to have them approved by them, it does say this:

 

Suggestions from police, as well as members of Ottawa's geocaching community, have ranged from only using clear containers for caches to banning hiding caches in urban areas and registering all caches with the police.

 

With upwards of 4,000 caches in the Ottawa-Gatineau area, the latter seems unlikely.

 

Here's another version of the report. No mention here of getting RCMP approval.

.

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