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Premium Member Only caches are elitist!


smomofo

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C'mon KC, I've been ranting about this for years. And don't make me tell the story again how someone once emailed me through the website and asked me why I looked at her cache page. Oops, I just did.
And I've been calling BS on this for years. And I just did it again. :laughing:

I doubt very much the Mr Yuck would make up such a story.

The BS I'm calling isn't on if someone emailed him or not. What I think is BS is his interpretation of WHY they emailed him.

 

I have no doubt he got an email that was something like, "Hi there. This is XXX and I noticed on my audit log that you were looking at my cache page. Can you tell me why you were looking at it?"

 

His reaction was in line with someone emailing him and instead saying, "What the HELL do you think you're doing looking at MY cache page?!?! You have no business looking at it and I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your fat nose out of any of my cache pages in the future". And that's what I think is BS. Nobody was upset that he'd been looking at their page like he's making it sound.

 

What almost certainly happened was that someone was looking at their audit log and maybe noticed a name that they didn't recognize as being from the area. So out of curiosity they checked his profile and saw that he was 4 states away. They thought to themselves, "Cool! Someone really far away is looking at my cache. That's pretty neat. Gee I wonder what led them to the page? It might have been a friend of theirs that lives nearby that mentioned my cache was a good one. Or maybe it was mentioned in the forums? Perhaps they just randomly look at pages around the world for ideas. Since it could be anything, I think I'll email him and ask. This might be fun". And so they sent their email which was taken in the worst possible way.

 

The bolded part actually sounds like fun. One of the aspects of geocaching I enjoy most is meeting new people with similar interests, especially when they're from some distance away.

 

A CO emailing a visitor to their page just to be nosy? Weird, and innappropriate. If you don't want someone looking at your page, DON'T MAKE IT AVAILABLE!

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thanks for this discussion. after reading all this I think I'm going to change my only cache to PMO. it's a puzzle cache and nobody has been logging finds but it would be nice to know if anyone is even atempting to solve the puzzle.

 

Kameharem,

 

The coords for your puzzle are exactly where I used to park when I was heading out to hike or bike at Dash Point. That's a small park, but there's a lot of fun stuff to do there.

 

If you're interested in whether people are viewing your page, you can use something like Flag Counter to see how many visitors there are, and what state/country they're from. You won't be able to see their Geocaching info, but at least you'll see if there's activity on your page without having to turn it into a Premium Member only cache.

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thanks for this discussion. after reading all this I think I'm going to change my only cache to PMO. it's a puzzle cache and nobody has been logging finds but it would be nice to know if anyone is even atempting to solve the puzzle.

 

Kameharem,

 

The coords for your puzzle are exactly where I used to park when I was heading out to hike or bike at Dash Point. That's a small park, but there's a lot of fun stuff to do there.

 

If you're interested in whether people are viewing your page, you can use something like Flag Counter to see how many visitors there are, and what state/country they're from. You won't be able to see their Geocaching info, but at least you'll see if there's activity on your page without having to turn it into a Premium Member only cache.

 

Thanks for the info Mountainman, I'll look into that as another option.

 

k

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An opt-out option would make the audit trail totally useless, so they may as well get rid of the feature for everybody, in that case.

 

How's that? If the only purpose of the audit log is "because it's a fun thing to have", an opt-out would not make it any less fun to have. Unless it's got some other purpose that nobody mentioned yet.

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An opt-out option would make the audit trail totally useless, so they may as well get rid of the feature for everybody, in that case.

 

How's that? If the only purpose of the audit log is "because it's a fun thing to have", an opt-out would not make it any less fun to have. Unless it's got some other purpose that nobody mentioned yet.

 

You never heard me say that. Other uses have already been mentioned. You may have tuned them out.

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An opt-out option would make the audit trail totally useless, so they may as well get rid of the feature for everybody, in that case.

 

How's that? If the only purpose of the audit log is "because it's a fun thing to have", an opt-out would not make it any less fun to have. Unless it's got some other purpose that nobody mentioned yet.

 

You never heard me say that. Other uses have already been mentioned. You may have tuned them out.

 

Please enlighten me then. I'll gladly acknowledge any legitimate use that absolutely requires them to see every single visit from everybody.

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How upset would you be if you were a regular member that had just spent $20 putting a nice cache together, another $20 for gas to place it in a special spot that you would like others to see, but when you try to register it are told by a reviewer that your cache cannot be placed there because there is already one there?

 

I agree with this part. They should at least show up so someone who is not a PM can see ahead of time if the spot where they want to place a cache is already taken or not.

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An opt-out option would make the audit trail totally useless, so they may as well get rid of the feature for everybody, in that case.

 

How's that? If the only purpose of the audit log is "because it's a fun thing to have", an opt-out would not make it any less fun to have. Unless it's got some other purpose that nobody mentioned yet.

 

You never heard me say that. Other uses have already been mentioned. You may have tuned them out.

 

Please enlighten me then. I'll gladly acknowledge any legitimate use that absolutely requires them to see every single visit from everybody.

 

No thanks. Others have explained their reasons. I'm not saying that I agree or disagree. I'm just saying that auditing partial data is a waste of time.

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I'm just saying that auditing partial data is a waste of time.

 

While generally I agree with this, it doesn't really apply to the audit log. I think it's grossly misnamed, it makes it sounds like it's a safety or security mechanism. Any attempt in trying to use it that way is completely futile from the very beginning.

 

And since there are ways to get around the audit log (not convenient ones, but it's possible), the data is already incomplete anyway.

Edited by dfx
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How upset would you be if you were a regular member that had just spent $20 putting a nice cache together, another $20 for gas to place it in a special spot that you would like others to see, but when you try to register it are told by a reviewer that your cache cannot be placed there because there is already one there?

 

I agree with this part. They should at least show up so someone who is not a PM can see ahead of time if the spot where they want to place a cache is already taken or not.

Wow! This is a very good point. That is just not fair to the BM and one shouldn't have to pay $30 to ensure that one is within the saturation guidelines.

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How upset would you be if you were a regular member that had just spent $20 putting a nice cache together, another $20 for gas to place it in a special spot that you would like others to see, but when you try to register it are told by a reviewer that your cache cannot be placed there because there is already one there?

 

I agree with this part. They should at least show up so someone who is not a PM can see ahead of time if the spot where they want to place a cache is already taken or not.

Wow! This is a very good point. That is just not fair to the BM and one shouldn't have to pay $30 to ensure that one is within the saturation guidelines.

 

I wouldn't feel any differently than if I'd done the same thing only to find out a leg of a mystery cache was in the same area.

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How upset would you be if you were a regular member that had just spent $20 putting a nice cache together, another $20 for gas to place it in a special spot that you would like others to see, but when you try to register it are told by a reviewer that your cache cannot be placed there because there is already one there?

 

I agree with this part. They should at least show up so someone who is not a PM can see ahead of time if the spot where they want to place a cache is already taken or not.

Wow! This is a very good point. That is just not fair to the BM and one shouldn't have to pay $30 to ensure that one is within the saturation guidelines.

All you need to do to check is fill out the cache page and then to the left of the bottom map click the nearby caches link. PM or not the distances are shown. Of course none of hidden waypoints (multis and mysteries) are shown. And you could submit the cache page with a reviewer note that this is for proximity checks only, do not publish and you will get a yay or nay. So what was your problem again?

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How upset would you be if you were a regular member that had just spent $20 putting a nice cache together, another $20 for gas to place it in a special spot that you would like others to see, but when you try to register it are told by a reviewer that your cache cannot be placed there because there is already one there?

 

I agree with this part. They should at least show up so someone who is not a PM can see ahead of time if the spot where they want to place a cache is already taken or not.

Wow! This is a very good point. That is just not fair to the BM and one shouldn't have to pay $30 to ensure that one is within the saturation guidelines.

All you need to do to check is fill out the cache page and then to the left of the bottom map click the nearby caches link. PM or not the distances are shown. Of course none of hidden waypoints (multis and mysteries) are shown. And you could submit the cache page with a reviewer note that this is for proximity checks only, do not publish and you will get a yay or nay. So what was your problem again?

Cool! Never knew that existed.

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How upset would you be if you were a regular member that had just spent $20 putting a nice cache together, another $20 for gas to place it in a special spot that you would like others to see, but when you try to register it are told by a reviewer that your cache cannot be placed there because there is already one there?

 

I agree with this part. They should at least show up so someone who is not a PM can see ahead of time if the spot where they want to place a cache is already taken or not.

Wow! This is a very good point. That is just not fair to the BM and one shouldn't have to pay $30 to ensure that one is within the saturation guidelines.

 

The finals for puzzles and multi's don't show. I suppose there are some non-PMs that have solved all the multis and puzzles in their area that might be affected, but I really don't think it would be a huge number.

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While I do believe it isolated, we have been a "victim" of the abuse of the audit logs. We looked one too many times at a cache and got a note to either find it or stop looking. Another time, same CO, we got an email when we found a cache near theirs chiding us for not posting a DNF since we found a cache near them and had looked at theirs the same day.

 

You realize what you are describing here is a CO issue, not an audit log issue, right? Take away the audit logs and controlling COs will simply find another way to continue to manipulate the game to meet their whims.

 

You can't fix people with a technology solution.

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But that doesn't keep me from having an open mind and understanding and acknowledging the fact that some people don't like their name to pop up in somebody's audit log, for whatever reason.

 

I acknowledge some people don't like their caching name appearing in the audit log. Where you and I differ is the "understanding" part of it. I don't get it, quite frankly. I'd love someone to explain a compelling reason to me which would make me get onside with spending resources to make the change.

 

So far the reasons I keep hearing are:

- I don't like it.

- A cache owner might email me if they see me look at their cache.

 

Neither one makes a compelling argument for change in my mind. Just because I'm not convinced doesn't make me close-minded.

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While I do believe it isolated, we have been a "victim" of the abuse of the audit logs. We looked one too many times at a cache and got a note to either find it or stop looking. Another time, same CO, we got an email when we found a cache near theirs chiding us for not posting a DNF since we found a cache near them and had looked at theirs the same day. The latter ironic since the CO has on several occasions deleted many DNF logs of cachers in the area. Both of these emails are well within guidelines, however some may find bothering.

 

The correct response to the first CO is if you don't want me looking at your cache page then archive it and I'll stop.

 

And for the second CO, depending on how I feel at the time, I would either tell him since his a cruddy cache I decided not to look for it or if I was feeling nice I would just say I did not have enough time to look for the cache after looking at your page. I might point out that looking at the page does not equate to looking for the cache. In both cases they probably would have landed in my ignore list and I would never deal with them again.

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While I do believe it isolated, we have been a "victim" of the abuse of the audit logs. We looked one too many times at a cache and got a note to either find it or stop looking. Another time, same CO, we got an email when we found a cache near theirs chiding us for not posting a DNF since we found a cache near them and had looked at theirs the same day. The latter ironic since the CO has on several occasions deleted many DNF logs of cachers in the area. Both of these emails are well within guidelines, however some may find bothering.

 

The correct response to the first CO is if you don't want me looking at your cache page then archive it and I'll stop.

 

And for the second CO, depending on how I feel at the time, I would either tell him since his a cruddy cache I decided not to look for it or if I was feeling nice I would just say I did not have enough time to look for the cache after looking at your page. I might point out that looking at the page does not equate to looking for the cache. In both cases they probably would have landed in my ignore list and I would never deal with them again.

+1

 

I was thinking he used more tact than I would have had at my disposal.

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One thing i have not heard mentioned here is that MOC caches are treated better than GP caches because people who are willing to support the game by buying a membership are willing to take better care of the geocaches they find. Elitist or not. I want responsible geocachers finding my caches and a GC.com premium membership is about as good a filter as you can get.

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I have been geocaching for about 8 months, but only became a Premium Member about 2 weeks ago. I shelled out a membership fee to only support the activity and keep the site running, not because of the extra features that would come with a Premium Membership.

 

After becoming a Premium Member I noticed a couple more caches in my area, then noticed that they weren't new, but for Premium Members only! I think these are a disgusting feature. I waited a week before I posted this, giving myself time to cool off and think about it more, but I still hate the fact that they exist on this site.

 

I have no problem with any of the other features offered to Premium Members that make geocaching easier/more convenient/more fun. But to find out that regular (unpaying) members are excluded from some Geocaches is terrible.

 

I have heard the argument that the site needs to make money, so they have to offer features that will attract people to paying to become a Premium Member. That may be true, but it is my feeling that this should be done other ways. They already offer many other features to Premium Members, so they should still have membership fees coming in, plus, there is advertising on the site. I'm sure the advertisers are paying well.

 

I also argue that unpaying members are not just "freeloaders". I have several regular member friends that have placed many caches. Placing a new cache is not free: between the cost of a container, logbook, pencil, and some trade items, one can easily spend $20 to put out a cache. This site/activity depends on people placing new caches continuously, so should not be excluding those people from finding them.

 

How upset would you be if you were a regular member that had just spent $20 putting a nice cache together, another $20 for gas to place it in a special spot that you would like others to see, but when you try to register it are told by a reviewer that your cache cannot be placed there because there is already one there? One that you are not allowed to participate in because you chose to spend your money placing a cache rather than forking it over to this site to join their "Premium Members" club.

 

Am I alone here?

No,you are not alone

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I have been geocaching for about 8 months, but only became a Premium Member about 2 weeks ago. I shelled out a membership fee to only support the activity and keep the site running, not because of the extra features that would come with a Premium Membership.

 

After becoming a Premium Member I noticed a couple more caches in my area, then noticed that they weren't new, but for Premium Members only! I think these are a disgusting feature. I waited a week before I posted this, giving myself time to cool off and think about it more, but I still hate the fact that they exist on this site.

 

I have no problem with any of the other features offered to Premium Members that make geocaching easier/more convenient/more fun. But to find out that regular (unpaying) members are excluded from some Geocaches is terrible.

 

I have heard the argument that the site needs to make money, so they have to offer features that will attract people to paying to become a Premium Member. That may be true, but it is my feeling that this should be done other ways. They already offer many other features to Premium Members, so they should still have membership fees coming in, plus, there is advertising on the site. I'm sure the advertisers are paying well.

 

I also argue that unpaying members are not just "freeloaders". I have several regular member friends that have placed many caches. Placing a new cache is not free: between the cost of a container, logbook, pencil, and some trade items, one can easily spend $20 to put out a cache. This site/activity depends on people placing new caches continuously, so should not be excluding those people from finding them.

 

How upset would you be if you were a regular member that had just spent $20 putting a nice cache together, another $20 for gas to place it in a special spot that you would like others to see, but when you try to register it are told by a reviewer that your cache cannot be placed there because there is already one there? One that you are not allowed to participate in because you chose to spend your money placing a cache rather than forking it over to this site to join their "Premium Members" club.

 

Am I alone here?

No,you are not alone

Your replying to a three year old post.

But the problems mentioned on finding out a PMO cache was there is simply because this person does not know how to use the tools available to determine proximity to a cache. See this Knowledge Book article. Pay particular attention to steps 2 and steps 3. If you follow these two steps you will not have spent a dime on gas or a dime on a cache. The added benefit to step 3 is the reviewer is now aware your planning to put a cache there and will give you a chance on the spot before someone else plops a cache there blocking your spot. And if your a really clever person you can figure out exactly where the PMO cache is and using the four or five ways to log the cache you can also log your find. You see Jeremy has said geocaching will always be free. He did not say that there aren't going to be perks available to premium members. So whine all you want about PMO caches, the fact remains that they should pose no problem whatsoever to a regular member on placing a cache and only adds a bit of difficulty for a regular member to find the cache. And frog central will back you up on logging a PMO cache.

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Yep, you're alone.

 

There are plenty more regular caches for everyone as there are PMOC. As far as the location thing? The minimum alowable distance between caches is .1 miles which is not too terribly far. If the location you so desperately wanted is already taken by a PMOC then tough tooties, would you feel the same if it was just a regular cache?

 

Your rage is unjustified, as is the recent uprisings against PMOC's and PM's. Many cachers don't even realize that PMOC's exist, and exist happily just the same. I'm sorry to say that your case is not very stable.

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Your rage is unjustified, as is the recent uprisings against PMOC's and PM's. Many cachers don't even realize that PMOC's exist, and exist happily just the same. I'm sorry to say that your case is not very stable.

 

They will realise it as soon as they find one on the 'nearest caches' list and the site starts trying to sign them up to premium membership. Wasn't that awfully long for me

 

I suppose eventually nearly all geocaches will be PMO, with a few easy 'trial' geocaches strewn about the place to get n00bs started

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I have 12 hides published and 15 more in a massive series that I'm working on that will be published soon. I have some caches that are premium-only and some that are not. I make hides premium-only if the hide took a lot of time/effort/money on my part, if they are in high-muggle areas, or if they are very difficult terrain that I don't want just anyone trying for fear of them getting hurt. Hides that are open to everyone turn up missing more than hides that are premium-only. If I place a hide that was expensive and/or time-consuming I don't want anyone with a web browser to be able to go steal it and the swag I put in it, and I don't want a brand-new cacher to be spotted while searching for the cache and lead muggles to it who will then steal it and it's contents.

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I have 12 hides published and 15 more in a massive series that I'm working on that will be published soon. I have some caches that are premium-only and some that are not. I make hides premium-only if the hide took a lot of time/effort/money on my part, if they are in high-muggle areas, or if they are very difficult terrain that I don't want just anyone trying for fear of them getting hurt. Hides that are open to everyone turn up missing more than hides that are premium-only. If I place a hide that was expensive and/or time-consuming I don't want anyone with a web browser to be able to go steal it and the swag I put in it, and I don't want a brand-new cacher to be spotted while searching for the cache and lead muggles to it who will then steal it and it's contents.

 

I think this says it all. 99% of mine start out regular but if one gets muggled multiple times I make it Premium....it does help.

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Really there are so many hides out there that are not PMO IC no problem with those that choose to have their cache PMO. I really do not think their are any elitist in this hobby.

I had that viewpoint. It might be changing. I was working on the bookmark for the Portland cache machine coming up. Out of 153 caches, 45 are PMO, or 29%. I found that surprisingly high. It is certainly above the 5% many of the elitist claim. I can see where this could be problem.

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Really there are so many hides out there that are not PMO IC no problem with those that choose to have their cache PMO. I really do not think their are any elitist in this hobby.

I had that viewpoint. It might be changing. I was working on the bookmark for the Portland cache machine coming up. Out of 153 caches, 45 are PMO, or 29%. I found that surprisingly high. It is certainly above the 5% many of the elitist claim. I can see where this could be problem.

 

That number's meaningless though without knowing the ratio of active PMs to BMs in the same area...... :)

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Really there are so many hides out there that are not PMO IC no problem with those that choose to have their cache PMO. I really do not think their are any elitist in this hobby.

I had that viewpoint. It might be changing. I was working on the bookmark for the Portland cache machine coming up. Out of 153 caches, 45 are PMO, or 29%. I found that surprisingly high. It is certainly above the 5% many of the elitist claim. I can see where this could be problem.

 

That number's meaningless though without knowing the ratio of active PMs to BMs in the same area...... :)

Not quite I following this reasoning. If an area has 500 caches, 450 of which are PMO, 100 active PM's and 2 active BM's it seems to me the BM's only have 50 caches to find regardless of how you cut the numbers. In the case I cited, it seemed to me that the ratio of PMO caches to non-PMO caches were higher than I previously had experience with. I really don't see what the ratio of cachers has anything to do with the ratio of caches.

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Really there are so many hides out there that are not PMO IC no problem with those that choose to have their cache PMO. I really do not think their are any elitist in this hobby.

I had that viewpoint. It might be changing. I was working on the bookmark for the Portland cache machine coming up. Out of 153 caches, 45 are PMO, or 29%. I found that surprisingly high. It is certainly above the 5% many of the elitist claim. I can see where this could be problem.

I would venture to guess that a large percentage of the hides in the bookmark are by the same cacher, who makes all of his/her hides PMO.

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Really there are so many hides out there that are not PMO IC no problem with those that choose to have their cache PMO. I really do not think their are any elitist in this hobby.

I had that viewpoint. It might be changing. I was working on the bookmark for the Portland cache machine coming up. Out of 153 caches, 45 are PMO, or 29%. I found that surprisingly high. It is certainly above the 5% many of the elitist claim. I can see where this could be problem.

I would venture to guess that a large percentage of the hides in the bookmark are by the same cacher, who makes all of his/her hides PMO.

That could be a reasonable answer. 35 of the caches are by two CO's that have both PMO and regular. 10 are by a couple other CO's, all of which are the only ones on the bookmark. Take a look with the beta maps around the airport and south. The brown dots are worse than a windshield in Minnesota on a July evening. There are several high count hiders that put out a lot of PMO caches, but seems like nearly everyone that is a PM has a couple PMO caches. I took a look in my area and Seattle is very high on PMO caches. Your neck of the woods is mostly regular caches. So it does seem like a more region thing.

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Really there are so many hides out there that are not PMO IC no problem with those that choose to have their cache PMO. I really do not think their are any elitist in this hobby.

I had that viewpoint. It might be changing. I was working on the bookmark for the Portland cache machine coming up. Out of 153 caches, 45 are PMO, or 29%. I found that surprisingly high. It is certainly above the 5% many of the elitist claim. I can see where this could be problem.

I would venture to guess that a large percentage of the hides in the bookmark are by the same cacher, who makes all of his/her hides PMO.

That could be a reasonable answer. 35 of the caches are by two CO's that have both PMO and regular. 10 are by a couple other CO's, all of which are the only ones on the bookmark. Take a look with the beta maps around the airport and south. The brown dots are worse than a windshield in Minnesota on a July evening. There are several high count hiders that put out a lot of PMO caches, but seems like nearly everyone that is a PM has a couple PMO caches. I took a look in my area and Seattle is very high on PMO caches. Your neck of the woods is mostly regular caches. So it does seem like a more region thing.

 

A bookmark list is hardly a representative sample. Find the center cache of that list then figure out what the average of PMO to all caches in the covered area.

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Really there are so many hides out there that are not PMO IC no problem with those that choose to have their cache PMO. I really do not think their are any elitist in this hobby.

I had that viewpoint. It might be changing. I was working on the bookmark for the Portland cache machine coming up. Out of 153 caches, 45 are PMO, or 29%. I found that surprisingly high. It is certainly above the 5% many of the elitist claim. I can see where this could be problem.

I would venture to guess that a large percentage of the hides in the bookmark are by the same cacher, who makes all of his/her hides PMO.

That could be a reasonable answer. 35 of the caches are by two CO's that have both PMO and regular. 10 are by a couple other CO's, all of which are the only ones on the bookmark. Take a look with the beta maps around the airport and south. The brown dots are worse than a windshield in Minnesota on a July evening. There are several high count hiders that put out a lot of PMO caches, but seems like nearly everyone that is a PM has a couple PMO caches. I took a look in my area and Seattle is very high on PMO caches. Your neck of the woods is mostly regular caches. So it does seem like a more region thing.

 

A bookmark list is hardly a representative sample. Find the center cache of that list then figure out what the average of PMO to all caches in the covered area.

As I said in my second reply, I took a look at the (beta) map. Both Portland and Seattle had a large number of brown dots. I noticed that the dogs neighborhood the PMO's were very few. Looked at your neighborhood and the PMO's are very few. Must have something to do with snow.

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Wtf? you are hiding some object out in the wild but only want it to be found by people who open up their credit card details to some site which isn't even theirs. Definitely elitist

 

I'd be one of those "elitists" you're referring to.

 

In my little corner of the world there has been an influx of people with newly acquired GPS-enabled phones that can pull up information on geocaches without any in-depth knowledge about the game. Some actually believe (initially) that it's a treasure hunt and if they find the cache they can keep it. Others don't know the importance of treating the cache respectfully and protecting the hide from muggles by being stealthy and replacing the cache properly.

 

Short version...in our area, nice non-premium caches don't have a long shelf life.

 

Premium members are a self-selected group of geocachers that have made a determination that Geocaching is going to be a regular activity. They are more knowledgeable and more invested into the activity (on average). As a result, premium-only caches have a longer shelf life (here, anyway).

 

I just placed a cache that took over six months to accumulate the needed parts, It cost over $120 to construct and took six weeks to construct and deploy. If (when) it is muggled or destroyed it would take me months to replace with an equivalent cache. So I made it a PMO cache to extend it's life and my investment.

 

If I ever decided to throw out uninteresting film canisters and pill bottles, I wouldn't bother with the PMO. But, if I've got a lot of time, money and effort invested into a "better" cache, I'll be an "elitist" and make it a PMO.

 

Well stated.

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In regards to premium membership, I used to greatly not like them as I have been and still am basic member. I had problems when I set up my caches near other premium members only to find I was too close. But my views changed when I began to notice some time consuming caches I placed muggled just after someone made thier first or second find. I began to see that a premium membership is useful maintaining a more muggable cache for those who have had a little more experience. I remember all my mishaps when I first started. My most recent cache GC2E4YX again muggled I beleive because of a newby. It will take me a half aday to build it and replace it. Do I wish I could afford a premium membership. yes, so I can save a coulple of my caches which keep getting muggled and are hared to replace for more seasoned geocachers.

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I haven't hid many yet, but where I draw the line (currently) on future caches is that most will be normal. My PMO caches will be those where the container is expensive/fragile/hard-to-replace *OR* if the theme is heavily trackable based.

 

My assumption (and yes, there are exceptions to every assumption) is that PMs are more careful with containers and less likely to steal trackables.

 

None of my hides so far (yes, only 6) land in those 2 cases.

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I apologize if this has already been mentioned, but I did not intend on reading every post to see. I occasionally set/re-set a hide as a "Member Only" for two reasons. One, if the cache is located in a sensitive area where I wish to keep down the number of visitors. Two, in areas where a cache has been stolen or vandalized. If a non-paying member is upset by this they always have the option of becoming a paying member.

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Really there are so many hides out there that are not PMO IC no problem with those that choose to have their cache PMO. I really do not think their are any elitist in this hobby.

I had that viewpoint. It might be changing. I was working on the bookmark for the Portland cache machine coming up. Out of 153 caches, 45 are PMO, or 29%. I found that surprisingly high. It is certainly above the 5% many of the elitist claim. I can see where this could be problem.

 

That number's meaningless though without knowing the ratio of active PMs to BMs in the same area...... :)

 

I'm having an active BM right now...... :ph34r:

Edited by Shuckymomo
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Really there are so many hides out there that are not PMO IC no problem with those that choose to have their cache PMO. I really do not think their are any elitist in this hobby.

I had that viewpoint. It might be changing. I was working on the bookmark for the Portland cache machine coming up. Out of 153 caches, 45 are PMO, or 29%. I found that surprisingly high. It is certainly above the 5% many of the elitist claim. I can see where this could be problem.

 

That number's meaningless though without knowing the ratio of active PMs to BMs in the same area...... :)

 

I'm having an active BM right now...... :ph34r:

 

lalalalalalalala-roger-swezey.jpg

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One, if the cache is located in a sensitive area where I wish to keep down the number of visitors.

 

Sensitive in what way? There's nothing about paying member only caches that keeps people off the flowers. A well placed cache and proper instructions help somewhat. High difficulty levels will reduce traffic but that still won't keep people on trail unless you tell them to.

Edited by BlueDeuce
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