Reviewer marks coin in "unknown location"

[+WascoZooKeeper]

<reviewername> posted a note for The "Wright" Stuff? (Ohio Geocoin) at 11/24/2008

 

Log Date: 11/24/2008

As noted in the logs for the cache in which it was last seen, your trackable has gone missing. I am moving your trackable to an "unknown location." (This option is also available to the cache owner and to the owner of the travel bug or geocoin.) If it ever turns up again, the finder can grab it back without affecting the mileage. I am sorry that your trackable has stopped traveling.

 

<reviewername>

So, is this something new that reviewers are doing?

 

I'm not complaining about the coin be marked as missing; if I'd known about it, I would have done so myself, but the last log I got on the coin was when it was dropped in the cache in August. Every now and then I check up on all my trackables that haven't moved in six months or so, and if I find logs on the cache pages that say they're not where they're supposed to be, I mark them missing.

 

And there's only a single log that reports the coin as missing, so it's not like there's been a steady stream of logs mentioning a missing coin. And that single log was made just a few days after the coin was dropped. Since I'm not watching that cache, I wouldn't have received that log.

 

It just seems weird that a reviewer would do that based on a single, 3-month-old log. I'm assuming someone contacted him or her, but I would have thought that the reviewer would have either told that person to contact the cache owner and/or coin owner, or the reviewer would have forwarded the information to me and/or the cache owner.

 

Just curious. Maybe I'll drop a note to the reviewer, too -- not to complain, but just to satisfy my curiosity as to what prompted this.

[+Quiggle]

I typically see this with cache owners not doing it, so I give them instruction on how to clean up their cache page (as a maintenance issue) by marking it missing. I always suggest they contact the owner with an email to let them know as well since they don't get any notice.

 

A system-generated email for this would be nice, but in the meantime I continue suggesting a user-generated email.

[+WascoZooKeeper]

Well, I guess that's kind of my point. If a note had been sent to the coin owner (me) and/or the cache owner, they might have learned something new -- namely, that they are able to mark a trackable item as "missing". If a reviewer just does it themselves, then obviously the same end result occurs, but without the potential "learning opportunity".

 

I already knew about that, as I noted, so I was mainly wondering whether this was a new task the reviewers were taking on more generally. Maybe there have been a lot of complaints about cache owners and trackable owners NOT marking items as missing, even after having been notified? So the reviewers are being even nicer guys (and gals) than usual (note blatant reviewer suck-up ) and helping people avoid wild-goose chases?

[+webscouter.]

It's possible that the reviewer found the cache with their player account but can't move the trackable but can with their reviewer account.

[Keystone]

Hey! I recognize that form letter! Sure enough, this is one of two dozen trackables that I moved yesterday to an "Unknown Location."

 

As a volunteer cache reviewer, I welcome the onset of cold weather. Fewer caches get hidden during an ice storm in November or February than on a sunny weekend in May or September. I'm only publishing a dozen new caches per day on average lately.

 

What to do with all my free time? Winter time means maintenance time for Keystone! I go through cache listings in my territory, looking for things like caches with 8 consecutive DNFs and an absent owner, "Needs Maintenance" flags that haven't been re-set, and trackables listed in a cache page inventory but reported as not being in the cache container. These are once-a-year projects, in addition to my regular work throughout the year to nudge cachers whose listings have been disabled for months, to respond to "needs archived" logs, etc. Scanning a month's worth of cache listings for problems is a great way to be productive during the boring "quarterly risk management update" conference call at work, or while watching the news or a documentary on TV at home in the evening. If I do this work a little bit at a time, the cache listings in Ohio and Pennsylvania will be scrubbed squeaky clean by springtime. I'm about 30% finished with the annual sweep.

 

I see constant complaints in forum threads, here and at the local level, about going to a cache with a cool geocoin icon or an interesting travel bug on the listing, only to discover that the trackable has been missing for many months. As Groundspeak gives volunteers the power to mark trackable items missing, I am doing my part to keep the listings accurate in my review territory. When geocachers hunt for trackables in my territory, there is a reasonable chance that the item is actually in the cache.

 

This exercise is one of my biggest generators of "thank-you" notes, which is great motivation to keep doing it. The most common themes in the thank you notes are "I appreciate you letting me know what happened to my trackable," and "I had no idea about the option to move a trackable to an unknown location."

 

Since the system doesn't generate an automatic notice when a trackable is moved to an unknown location (I wish it would), I always paste my form letter as a note on the trackable's page as part of my semi-automated process. This is courteous (something I like to encourage through setting a good example) and educational (not everyone is knowledgeable like the OP about minding their trackables).

 

Recently, the "mark as missing" option was elevated so that it's the first thing that appears on the dropdown menu on a trackable's page. This was done as a result of a suggestion I made to Groundspeak several years ago. They do listen! The option has been there since December 16, 2003, but it's amazing how many people don't know about it.

 

Yes, I could just post notes suggesting that the trackable owners do this themselves. My experience is that the owners of many trackables have lost interest in them or in geocaching altogether, leaving their missing trackables to clutter up the cache pages and to give misleading information to seekers. I also have experience from a project last winter to inform cache owners about how to remove the "needs maintenance" attribute. I posted those notes and I still see the flags set on many caches, almost a full year later. This time through, if it is clear to me that the maintenance has been done, I will re-set the attribute myself. Likewise, it's more effective to mark the trackables missing myself.

 

I *wish* I could be proven wrong just once, through moving a trackable to an unknown location and then hearing a complaint that it was, indeed, still in the cache. But, having marked literally thousands of trackables as missing, I have never once heard of one that was retired in error. If I am not sure that a trackable is missing after reading the cache page and trackable page, I leave things as they are.

 

Having been entrusted with the ability to make a difference in this game through my volunteer work, I am happy to undertake these projects. Thanks for asking.

[+webscouter.]

I kinda thought this might be the work of Keystone. He was the reviewer I had in mind.

[+WRASTRO]

Many large electronic kudos are being sent in Keystone's direction at this very moment! Thanks for all of your efforts to keep our game fun.

[+BlueDeuce]

Amen to that. I always include instructions to both the bug and cache owner before going to someone like Eartha to move it out. And that's at least a three month window. Would you like to know the typical response rate I get from both the bug and cache owners?

 

Most of those bugs I act on have been sitting there for well over a year, or years, or years. I wish more of the gc folks would take action on stranded listings. It'd save me a few steps.

Edited November 26, 2008 by BlueDeuce

[Keystone]

Amen to that. I always include instructions to both the bug and cache owner before going to someone like Eartha to move it out.

Thank you for the kind words. This is probably a good time to acknowledge that Eartha is the absolute BEST at helping out with trackables issues. Eartha has the same powers as a cache reviewer when it comes to editing logs or removing a trackable to an unknown location.

 

Would you like to know the typical response rate I get from both the bug and cache owners?

I am guessing ten percent, more than half of which are along the lines of "get a life, and mind your own business."

 

Most of those bugs I act on have been sitting there for well over a year, or years, or years. I wish more of the gc folks would take action on stranded listings. It'd save me a few steps.

Once I did my first cleanup, I'm finding this year that the project is going much faster the second time around. I am only removing trackables that have gone missing in the past 18 months, not the past seven years. Still, it is very slow going and I can only devote a few hours a week to the task. Not all volunteers have even that much extra time available for this optional exercise.

[+paleolith]

I've managed to adopt five old caches, just by persistently and politely sending emails to the owners. In most cases I assumed the owners weren't getting gc.com emails at all, but repeated offers to help got responses. I cleaned up the caches (physically and the web page) and passed them on to cachers who are better situated to provide long-term care. In some cases, the clean-up involved marking as missing TBs which had been physically missing for years. In at least one case, the entire cache had gone missing 3 or 4 years ago and had been replaced by another cacher, and a TB was still on the web page from before then.

 

I did have success persuading one cache owner to mark a TB missing. His first response was that it wasn't his TB and he didn't want to step on the TB owner's toes. I pointed out that yeah it's not his TB, but it IS his cache, and he certainly has the right (and the responsibility, though I didn't say that) to say what's in the cache and what isn't. He was persuaded.

 

That said, I tend to look carefully at a single report of one of my TBs being missing. If it's just a casual "I didn't notice any TBs", then I won't immediately mark it missing, especially if the poster is inexperienced. If an experienced cacher says "I looked carefully for TB XXXXX and didn't find it", then I'll mark it missing right away. In other words, consider the source. Perhaps with more experience I might be quicker to mark them missing, but I'm not setting out a lot of new TBs, so I may not ever reach that level.

 

Edward

[Dj Storm]

I tend to look carefully at a single report of one of my TBs being missing. If it's just a casual "I didn't notice any TBs", then I won't immediately mark it missing, especially if the poster is inexperienced. If an experienced cacher says "I looked carefully for TB XXXXX and didn't find it", then I'll mark it missing right away. In other words, consider the source. Perhaps with more experience I might be quicker to mark them missing, but I'm not setting out a lot of new TBs, so I may not ever reach that level.

 

Edward

--emphasis mine--

 

I think it's better to wait a little before marking a trackable missing. Here's a situation in which I was involved:

Retrieved a coin while on vacation; next day someone posted on the cache page and coin page that it's not in the container (although I wrote about retrieving it in the physical logbook). I logged online 5 or 6 days later, when I got near a computer. Had the owner marked it missing, I would had to do extra work to clear things up, and some cachers don't have the knowledge or willingness to do that.

 

I dropped the same coin in another cache. Two weeks later someone logged online his visit, but didn't grab the coin, and didn't mention it being in the cache. I started to feel guilty, as I retrieved the coin 1 day before someone who could move it 1500 miles, only to put it on wait in another cache. 5 weeks (!) later, somebody logged their visit and coin grab, pre-dating it to few days after mine, apologising for the long delay (he broke his leg, also his computer crashed); he helped the coin to get from Europe to the US, so all for the better. Had the coin been marked missing, extra work again would be needed.

 

Sometimes the cachers are on vacation, with no internet access; sometime life gets in the way of caching; patience is a virtue, so wait a little before acting.

[+The Blorenges]

I did have success persuading one cache owner to mark a TB missing. His first response was that it wasn't his TB and he didn't want to step on the TB owner's toes...

 

I think this is quite a common reaction from cache owners. It feels as though they're 'killing' someone else's TB. They just need reassuring that it can easily be resurrected if/when it reappears somewhere else.

 

I pointed out that yeah it's not his TB, but it IS his cache, and he certainly has the right (and the responsibility, though I didn't say that) to say what's in the cache and what isn't. He was persuaded.

 

Good.

 

As others have commented, it's also surprising that many cache owners just don't realise that they can remove trackables from their cache listing if necessary.

 

MrsB

[Mr.Yuck]

 

This exercise is one of my biggest generators of "thank-you" notes, which is great motivation to keep doing it. The most common themes in the thank you notes are "I appreciate you letting me know what happened to my trackable," and "I had no idea about the option to move a trackable to an unknown location."

 

Since the system doesn't generate an automatic notice when a trackable is moved to an unknown location (I wish it would), I always paste my form letter as a note on the trackable's page as part of my semi-automated process. This is courteous (something I like to encourage through setting a good example) and educational (not everyone is knowledgeable like the OP about minding their trackables).

 

 

As far as "I had no idea about the option to move a trackable to an unknown location.", I'll bet the vast majority of geocachers have no clue. Especially the part where a cache owner can mark someone else's trackable missing from their cache. Fall is caching season for me, I've found about 60 caches in the last month in NY and Ontario (a much higher rate than most of the year for me), and I'll bet at least 10 of those caches had long missing trackables, with a handful of the caches having multiple missing trackables. I almost always say something in my cache log, but almost always nothing ever happens.

 

I guess I never thought about the system not generating an automatic notice when the trackable is marked missing, but you're right. So nice job on posting the note for your "semi-automated process".

 

I imagine the OP thought it was unusual with only one log saying the coin is missing. But in general, this is pretty much a foolproof process.

[+Lil Devil]

... Had the owner marked it missing, I would had to do extra work to clear things up, ...

I don't understand what you mean. Instead of "grabbing it from cache X" you would "grab it from an unknown location." How is this "extra work"?

[+BlueDeuce]

...yeah, me neither.

 

*answer - How may people made sense of BD's response? See above.

Edited November 28, 2008 by BlueDeuce

[+Wintonian]

As someone who has only just started caching it is disaponiting when you are looking to see what cache to do next and you see a TB or coin listed so you think I'll do that one, and when you get there you find it is missing. A couple I have visited this week have got either a bug or coin listed that hasn't moved for months and I didn't notce them in the cache.

 

I also think that it amounts to not discribing the cache accruetly if the cache owner can mark it as in 'unknown'

 

what to do?

Edited November 28, 2008 by Hampshire_Hog

[Keystone]

what to do?

Mention in your log that you didn't see the listed trackable. Example: "I searched the entire cache for the Keystone Geocoin, but it is definitely missing." This is solid information that the cache owner, trackable owner or a cache reviewer can act upon. Saying "I think the travel bug is missing, but I didn't look to closely" isn't as helpful.

 

When I review a cache with a trackable, I read the logs going back to the drop date. If nobody says it's missing then I have to presume that it's still there. But, if the drop date was February and the cache is found every weekend, a September report that the rare geocoin is missing is pretty reliable.

[+Wintonian]

Thanks that is indeed usefull advice.

 

As a newbee I havn't wanted to step on anyones toes - and have to buy them a pack of plasters to make up

 

Instead I usually just note that I didn't see it, instead of saying that it defenetly wasn't their.

 

So it's ok to say that it certanly wasn't their when I visited, and they won't get upset?

 

Third time lucky IE7 crashed every time I tried ths as a 'fast reply'

[+hukilaulau]

... Had the owner marked it missing, I would had to do extra work to clear things up, ...

I don't understand what you mean. Instead of "grabbing it from cache X" you would "grab it from an unknown location." How is this "extra work"?

Well, to keep an accurate record, he would have to "grab it from an unknown location", put it back in the cache (electronically), and then retrieve it from that cache. not a lot, but yes it is some "extra work."

Edited November 28, 2008 by hukilaulau

[+Dgwphotos]

 

As others have commented, it's also surprising that many cache owners just don't realise that they can remove trackables from their cache listing if necessary.

 

MrsB

 

That's why I try to spread the word to others. I know of at least a few caches that have had TB's listed in them for years, where it is obvious that the TB has been lost, and the owner is unaware of this ability. It might be a good idea for Groundspeak to let geocachers know in the weekly emails.

[+SimbaJamey]

I *wish* I could be proven wrong just once, through moving a trackable to an unknown location and then hearing a complaint that it was, indeed, still in the cache. But, having marked literally thousands of trackables as missing, I have never once heard of one that was retired in error. If I am not sure that a trackable is missing after reading the cache page and trackable page, I leave things as they are.

 

Well....your *wish* came true a few months back!!

 

There was a TB (TBPWYW) in GCMDFP. The cache had been archived after going missing for about a year and you posted that note to it on 6/13/08. On 10/8/08 I accidentally found the final for that multicache (it was only stage one that had gone missing) and it still contained the TB. I moved the bug to another cache and it's once again happily traveling about

[Keystone]

Hooray! Thanks for sharing that story. It is nice when a trackable returns from the grave.

[+The Blorenges]

Thanks that is indeed usefull advice.

 

As a newbee I havn't wanted to step on anyones toes - and have to buy them a pack of plasters to make up

 

Instead I usually just note that I didn't see it, instead of saying that it defenetly wasn't their.

 

So it's ok to say that it certanly wasn't their when I visited, and they won't get upset?

 

Third time lucky IE7 crashed every time I tried ths as a 'fast reply'

 

No, if a trackable is definitely not in the cache when you visit I think it's very useful to mention that in your on-line log. It's always possible that some other cacher visited the cache half an hour before you and took it with them - if that's the case perhaps they've noted it in the logbook? Many cachers don't put full details when they take a trackable: "Left geocoin, took TB" is better than nothing, but not as helpful as "Left Texas geocoin, took yellow banana TB". If a trackable goes missing and the owner tries to check back through logs to find out who may have seen it, or taken it, a little extra description is a great help

 

I may even go and 'bump' my Topic about this over on the UK Forum... If I can find it from months back!

 

MrsB