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Remote Caching


burgessfour

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Is it common? I just read a log where someone was "remote" caching on their phone with two cachers who were actually at the cache site. They logged the find with the other two even though they were on their cell phone somewhere else. I was just curious how common this is? Please no flaming, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just curious....

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I can think of a lot of words to decribe this practice, but I'll spare everyone the enjoyment of hearing what I think of it. I would mention, however, that geocaching is intentionally left to be flexible in it's purpose. People enjoy it for different reasons--I personally like it because I get to spend time with my wife and it gets us out of the house and on the hiking trail. These frogs who do the remote caching must be very numbers driven. I would argue for their right to post logs for remote caching just as much as I would argue for my right to delete their logs if I owned the cache. Bamarambler summed it up the best!!

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That explains it!! I recently logged a cache and looked through the log to see when the last person visited this cache. According to the log book only one other person visited the cach this year!! When I logged my find I was surprised to find that there were 4 other people that claimed to be at that cache during this year. Who would visit a cache and not sign the log. I know they wern't on the phone because there was no service. Guess that is one way to get the numbers!!!!

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Now, granted, I like to keep my life as simple and easy as possible. But it seems to me that the rules of this game are few and very, very simple to comprehend. In this case, I highly doubt I'm oversimplifying. Sometimes it seems like it would be nice to have a different site for these kinds of numbers people to track their finds. Regular cachers at geocaching.com, do-anything-to-increase-smilie-count cachers at caching4smilies.com.

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The way I see it is if you didn't physically sign your name in the logbook, or didn't actively participate in finding the cache (for example belaying a climber while they retrieved the cache, holding a ladder while someone else reached the container etc) then you can't claim to have found the cache.

 

If you weren't there you didn't find it.

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Is it common? I just read a log where someone was "remote" caching on their phone with two cachers who were actually at the cache site. They logged the find with the other two even though they were on their cell phone somewhere else. I was just curious how common this is? Please no flaming, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just curious....

No, I almost never encounter this practice in our region, and it is definitely less common than the category of totally fraudulent finds. I personally feel that remote cache finds are no more valid than the equally inane category of totally fraudulent armchair cache finds on real caches where a physical find is required. I feel that unless a cacher found the cache themselves, or was an active, participatory and PHYSICALLY PRESENT part of a team find on a cache, it is likely not a valid find (with a few strange and odd exceptional cache types that are not worth mentioning here.)

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That explains it!! I recently logged a cache and looked through the log to see when the last person visited this cache. According to the log book only one other person visited the cach this year!! When I logged my find I was surprised to find that there were 4 other people that claimed to be at that cache during this year. Who would visit a cache and not sign the log. I know they wern't on the phone because there was no service. Guess that is one way to get the numbers!!!!

From reviewing the facts that you have offered about the case at hand, it appears to me that those 3 finds were not the type of "remote phone finds" which the OP mentioned, wherein the person claimed a find because a distant/remote buddy with a cell phone spoke with them while making the find, but rather that these 3 finds are instead simply garden-variety fraudulent finds, which tend to be far more common than remote phone finds, remote teleconference finds and remote webcam finds.

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Unlike totally fraudulent finds which are generally harmless but could cause a person to hunt for a cache they may otherwise consider likely to be missing or could cause an owner to decide an maintenance visit is not needed, these remote logs seems totally benign. Since there was someone who found the cache and signed their name (and presumably the remote co-finder's name) in the log, there is no false information provided in the logs. I believe actually lying in the logs is wrong. However, using the online "found it" log, to take credit for a find that most people would not consider caching is simply someone deciding that they were part of the find. The narrow definition of what is a find that seems to be nearly unanimous here is close to the one I personally use for logging on-line. But I could care less if someone were to claim credit for this kind of find.

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Um, how remote is remote?

To be honest, if you drive to a cache with someone and they do not get out of the car, are you going to suggest that their name not be entered into the logbook, and that they not log the cache as a find online? Even for a park-and-grab (where neither has to exit the car but only one writes on the fortune cookie paper?).

 

I do think in the case of this OP's description, it's bogus, but in the cases I describe it's not. Other may disagree.

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It's amazing what some people will do for a smiley. I'd like to think that our local cachers are better than that, but sometimes I wonder.

 

On our local forums someone brought up the idea that some people are "reverse caching". Basically, log everything you can as Found and then when you actually find the cache you delete your log -- the goal is to get to zero, but in the meantime you can delude yourself into thinking other people are impressed by your numbers. :)

 

If someone logged this sort of Find on my cache I would delete the log.

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I tried logging a find on Vinny's PUC-13 cache, since I had remotely found it by seeing the container in a picture online. He was very mean, and wouldn't allow my find, so I don't think the practice of cellular logging should be allowed either. :D

Legal Notice

Let the record show that the only reason that Clan Riffster's find log on PUC #13 was disallowed was because cleared payment of the requisite $1,111 remote finder's fee was not received within three days (i.e., 72 hours) of the date the find log was filed. Beyond that minor compliance issue, I have no find with allowing remote finds on this cache, and the record shows that when I auctioned off remote finds (aka absent finds, aka distant finds) on this cache on Ebay in April 2007, an entire elementary school (aka primary school) class of 43 students at a school located near London in Great Britain, as part of their "Outdoor Geocaching Club" activities, won the Ebay auction, and each student was allowed to log their find after the requisite fee was paid for each student. Of course, matters were facilitated by the fact that the child of an exiled deposed billionaire Russian oligarch was one of the students in the class, and that the exiled billionaire Ruskie oligarch parent footed the entire bill for all of the finds by the students in the class (he later funded finds on PUC #13 for three geoccher members of Parliament, as well, in a move which caused great furor in the British press, which alleged that these gifts were illegal "bribes" to the lawmakers.)

 

And, I was not "mean" to Clan Riffster when I deleted his find for non-compliance with remote find rules! He is saying this just to be spiteful! :):D:ph34r::D

 

 

 

 

 

:laughing:

Edited by Vinny & Sue Team
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For the record, I didn't renege on my $1,111 payment. It's simply been delayed. Once I hear back from the Nigerian bank, to whom I sent all my life savings, (at the bequest of the Nigerian Prime Minister), I will submit the requisite funds. Ebay understood my dilemma, why can't you? :D:laughing::D:)

 

Sheesh... There just ain't no love in here... :ph34r:

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For the record, I didn't renege on my $1,111 payment. It's simply been delayed. Once I hear back from the Nigerian bank, to whom I sent all my life savings, (at the bequest of the Nigerian Prime Minister), I will submit the requisite funds. Ebay understood my dilemma, why can't you? :D:ph34r::D:D

 

Sheesh... There just ain't no love in here... :D

AAARRRGGGHH! First you call me "mean", and now you claim that "there ain't no love here...". You have maligned me! I have had enough! Even though the forum guidelines specifically claim that I cannot call you names, I am about to call you names, even though this action will surely get be me banned from Groundspeak forums and hence, from earth, for ten thousand years. Here goes....

 

You, sir, are a scalawag and a pusillanimous polecat, you are a Pentatomid, a marmorated stink bug; you are no more likeable than a Scutelleroidea fourth instar larva! So there! :D:D

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:)

 

:laughing:

Edited by Vinny & Sue Team
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I'd like to thank Vinny for posting the results of the eBay auction for remote logging finds on his PUC #13. While I suspect that dollar equivalent of a smiley on this cache is higher than the average cache, and perhaps significantly higher that the value of a smiley on a lamppost cache hide, it is refreshing to know that smiley values have continue to appreciate, unlike my 401(k). I can continue to have confidence that my GC find count is safe and no government support will be needed to prevent a collapse in the value of these assets.

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No, I almost never encounter this practice in our region, and it is definitely less common than the category of totally fraudulent finds. I personally feel that remote cache finds are no more valid than the equally inane category of totally fraudulent armchair cache finds on real caches where a physical find is required. I feel that unless a cacher found the cache themselves, or was an active, participatory and PHYSICALLY PRESENT part of a team find on a cache, it is likely not a valid find (with a few strange and odd exceptional cache types that are not worth mentioning here.)

 

Hi There! How would you feel about the, probably rare, case where a person was for example a quadaplegic or similar, but was a whiz at puzzles... would you deny them the right to participate to their ability level as part of a team (with remote) as long as the TEAM logged the find, not the individual...

I can think of quite a few who would welcome the opportunity to engage in such a diversion... and would never consider it otherwise. I don`t think that anyone should do it... but there could be reasonable limits set for those that need it.

 

On a different off-topic... what is that crawl your picture shows... I`m a caver from years ago!

 

Doug VE7RXC

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Well, I thought it was a little odd but I haven't been playing the game that long so I thought I would seek other viewpoints and see if this was something new or something that has been going on for a while.

 

****This is not a personal attack**** I think it's odd that you "haven't been playing the game that long" and yet you have over 250 forum posts.... Just intrigued me.

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Well, I thought it was a little odd but I haven't been playing the game that long so I thought I would seek other viewpoints and see if this was something new or something that has been going on for a while.

 

****This is not a personal attack**** I think it's odd that you "haven't been playing the game that long" and yet you have over 250 forum posts.... Just intrigued me.

 

Wow, I have participated in too many cointests in the geocoin forums :o !

I didn't realize I have racked up that many "posts"....

 

Editing to say that now I see off to the left where it shows my posts. I assure you most have been cointests and I have only been geocaching since March, which to me means I haven't been playing the game that long.

Edited by burgessfour
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Hi There! How would you feel about the, probably rare, case where a person was for example a quadaplegic or similar, but was a whiz at puzzles... would you deny them the right to participate to their ability level as part of a team (with remote) as long as the TEAM logged the find, not the individual...

I would deny them. Plain and simple. Language of location, not the language of sitting in a chair talking to someone on speaker phone. Maybe if they went along for the ride, I would allow that to slide. I think the game is flexible enough to allow paralyzed people to participate to the point of going to some cache sites (isn't that what the "1" terrain rating is??). The line has to be drawn somewhere and not everyone can do everything. I always wanted to lead a 5.11 trad route, but it just isn't in the cards.

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Well, I thought it was a little odd but I haven't been playing the game that long so I thought I would seek other viewpoints and see if this was something new or something that has been going on for a while.

 

****This is not a personal attack**** I think it's odd that you "haven't been playing the game that long" and yet you have over 250 forum posts.... Just intrigued me.

 

Wow, I have participated in too many cointests in the geocoin forums :yikes: !

I didn't realize I have racked up that many "posts"....

 

Editing to say that now I see off to the left where it shows my posts. I assure you most have been cointests and I have only been geocaching since March, which to me means I haven't been playing the game that long.

Oh, I see. You're one of those weirdos... :laughing:

 

That makes since though. :laughing:

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I would generally disagree with the original premise of logging a find on cache where you were talking via phone to someone at the cache site, I can see where this could be a way for a injured or invalid person to participate in caching. (Yes, my situation is driving this discussion.)

 

If someone who could not get out still wanted to go caching with his buddies, he could help them conduct the search over the phone in several ways, then the folks there could put his name in the log. Theoretically, it would be no different than if he were there offering assistance and claiming a find with the group. As for the puzzle scenario, just solving the puzzle isn't enough. The solver must somehow be involved in the actual find also.

 

Yes, there are "1/1" caches out there that less capable folks can go after. Of course, if people would take the time to rate their caches properly, they would be easier to identify; but that's another topic. But eventually, the 1/1's get played out, especially for folks that can't travel much. The cacher may also be trying to experience more than yet another parking lot micro by 'going with' friends into bushwhackin' country.

 

That all being said, would I do it? No, I don't think so. Part of my rehab is getting back out there if/when I can and caching to the best of my current abilities, such as they are. But if someone else were in a similar or worse situation and this was the only way they could continue playing the game, I don't know that I'd get too concerned about it. It may be one of the few things they can enjoy at the moment or one of very few connections to the outside world and in the grand scheme of things it's just not that big of a deal.

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not to be cruel to disabled folks, but this is a physical outdoor hobby. If you can't do it, you can't do it. It's OK. It's the bummer of a disability. It's cool if they find a way to be involved.

 

Maybe some folks find other ways to play the game. I'd say they're not playing the same game, they're just using similar tools and playing it on the same field.

 

Heck, for that matter, it ain't a game, it's an activity. A game is where you play by the same rules and when end game is reached, a winner is declared.

 

From my perspective, the activity is as follows:

get coords for a cache

travel to coords

search area for cache

find cache

meet any other requirements of cache (like signing it)

put cache back

go home

log find

 

anything else probably isn't geocaching, it's similar but not the same thing. I'm cool with comparing my score with people who do the same thing. I've no interest in other folks numbers, since it's not the same thing.

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