Jump to content

What is the longest Caching streak !


Recommended Posts

I don't know what others do outside of the Twin Cities but I know here that everyone that has claim on a significant streak has for sure cheated. What's funny is that the local cacher that has cheated the most even had an event to honor himself and his "streak". Now, I would never claim that I am 100% pure. But one thing is for sure, I can never imagine having an event to honor myself over what amounts to a lie.

  • Upvote 2
  • Funny 1
  • Surprised 1
Link to comment
1 hour ago, bflentje said:

I don't know what others do outside of the Twin Cities but I know here that everyone that has claim on a significant streak has for sure cheated.

...there are like 3000 caches within 10 mile radius of Minneapolis alone, over half of which are trads with D and T of 3 or less. What am I missing?

Link to comment
2 hours ago, bflentje said:

What's funny is that the local cacher that has cheated the most even had an event to honor himself and his "streak".

Sounds strangely familiar. Many years ago, exactly the same happened here in Munich. Four times, actually, because the "streaker"/cheater celebrated himself with four "milestone events" over the years.

  • Upvote 1
  • Surprised 1
Link to comment
5 hours ago, bflentje said:

I don't know what others do outside of the Twin Cities but I know here that everyone that has claim on a significant streak has for sure cheated.

Okay, I'll bite. What is the threshold for a "significant" streak? And what kind of "cheating" are you referring to?

 

I maintained a year-long streak a while back. While I did cache differently to maintain the streak, none of what I did was cheating. It was just being strategic, like leaving nearby caches unfound so I could find them later. Or if I was finding a cache after 11pm for today's find, then I'd wait a while and find another cache after 12am for tomorrow's find (especially as my blast radius expanded).

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
17 minutes ago, niraD said:

Okay, I'll bite. What is the threshold for a "significant" streak? And what kind of "cheating" are you referring to?

 

I maintained a year-long streak a while back. While I did cache differently to maintain the streak, none of what I did was cheating. It was just being strategic, like leaving nearby caches unfound so I could find them later. Or if I was finding a cache after 11pm for today's find, then I'd wait a while and find another cache after 12am for tomorrow's find (especially as my blast radius expanded).

 

I l consider that cheating, because you found a cache every day.  

 

Finding six caches along a trail, then logging each one over the next six days would be cheating.

 

Finding two caches at 11PM,  logging one immediately, then waiting until after midnight would be cheating.

 

Going on a trip that required traveling on a plane (or laying over in an airport) for 24 hours and getting a friend to write your name in a logbook so that you can post a found it log would be cheatiing.

 

Basically, if someone hasn't actually found a cache each day of a streak then the streak is broken.

  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
3 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

Basically, if someone hasn't actually found a cache each day of a streak then the streak is broken.

Agreed. And all the techniques that involve finding a cache on one day and logging it on a day when you didn't actually find a cache are cheating.

 

But I'm curious what bflentje's definition is, since supposedly "everyone" with a "significant" streak maintains it by cheating.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment

I’m closing in on two years for my streak and my 10 mile radius has about a third of the caches as Minneapolis. As I use Apple Watch to track my rides, I can prove most days that I was where the cache I logged that day is.

 

If someone starts their streak early and lives in a cache-rich area, a longish streak isn’t that hard. Easier still for couples sharing an account.

  • Funny 2
Link to comment
8 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

Finding two caches at 11PM,  logging one immediately, then waiting until after midnight would be cheating.

Just to be clear: niraD said he found a cache at 11pm, then waited until after midnight before he found another cache. He wasn't saying he found two caches at 11pm, and then waited until after midnight to log the second one.

 

The only fudge I did in my year was something most people do all the time: for one day, I accepted a CO's offer to log a find for a cache that was missing so I didn't have to go out and track down a cache late at night.

  • Upvote 1
  • Surprised 1
Link to comment
26 minutes ago, dprovan said:

The only fudge I did in my year was something most people do all the time: for one day, I accepted a CO's offer to log a find for a cache that was missing so I didn't have to go out and track down a cache late at night.

I admit, that if I tried a streak, I might be tempted to accept such an offer as well. If there is such a thing as a "cheat scale" from 1 to 10 (10 = plain armchair log; 1 = cache found, log in hand, but no signature because the pen failed), then I'd rate it not more than a "1.5" ;) .

But still, it mitigates one of the many possible problems when streaking: The unexpected DNF. Just like caching with a team account greatly mitigates the (higher) risk of personal unavailability (illness, long-range air travel, etc.).

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
4 hours ago, dprovan said:

Just to be clear: niraD said he found a cache at 11pm, then waited until after midnight before he found another cache. He wasn't saying he found two caches at 11pm, and then waited until after midnight to log the second one.

 

The only fudge I did in my year was something most people do all the time: for one day, I accepted a CO's offer to log a find for a cache that was missing so I didn't have to go out and track down a cache late at night.

 

I already said that how niraD did it (finding a cache before and after midnight) wasn't cheating.  

 

I've been offered to log a find on a missing cache twice and didn't accept either time.  Guess I'm not most people.   If you didn't even go out, how can you claim that you found a cache?  Sure, you logged a find online, but you didn't find a cache.  

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
On 2/23/2021 at 1:09 PM, NYPaddleCacher said:

If you didn't even go out, how can you claim that you found a cache?  Sure, you logged a find online, but you didn't find a cache.  


I’m fairly sure that’s not what they meant!  I’d assume the offer was made after going out and failing to find a cache that turned out to be missing.

 

I logged one like this in Spain.  Failed to find an interesting multi and logged a DNF.  The CO attended our ‘meet the tourists’ event later that day.  En route, she’d checked on the cache, replaced it, and even put our names in the new logbook.  Would have felt awkward to say ‘thanks but no thanks’, so I logged the find.

 

Edit: Never done a streak worth the name, but I’d like to think I’d resist the temptation to log a find like this just to keep one going.

 

Edited by IceColdUK
Added the ‘Edit’.
  • Upvote 1
  • Surprised 2
Link to comment
21 hours ago, mustakorppi said:

...there are like 3000 caches within 10 mile radius of Minneapolis alone, over half of which are trads with D and T of 3 or less. What am I missing?

 

I did not suggest there was a lack of options. I suggested those with significant streaks for sure cheated.. for whatever reason. Weather, laziness, other? Stockpile a load of finds on a weekend and then log them with new dates during the work week.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
3 hours ago, bflentje said:

 

I did not suggest there was a lack of options. I suggested those with significant streaks for sure cheated.. for whatever reason. Weather, laziness, other? Stockpile a load of finds on a weekend and then log them with new dates during the work week.

Your phrasing suggests that it's an opinion that all local streaks were by cheating, not hard fact.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
8 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

I already said that how niraD did it (finding a cache before and after midnight) wasn't cheating.  

If you look back, you'll see you didn't actually say that. I understood that's what you were trying to say, but because of some typo, you actually said the exact opposite, so I wanted others to be clear.

 

8 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

I've been offered to log a find on a missing cache twice and didn't accept either time.  Guess I'm not most people.   If you didn't even go out, how can you claim that you found a cache?  Sure, you logged a find online, but you didn't find a cache.

I don't accept missing cache offers, either, but I made an exception that time. I don't know what you talking about when you say I didn't even go out. I went out and found the place the cache should have been.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment

I have met most of them, the only one I can comment on is DrJay.  He works hard to keep his streak going. He only logs caches three day that he finds them, and virtual and Earthcaches the day that he visits them.

I have seen him brag himself out of bed when he's incredibly sick to grab one or two of his emergency caches that are easy, and nearby that he is left for some time.

When he's traveled on trips to Europe he's scheduled his flights specifically so he could grab a cache and then fly and have enough time to grab a geocache on the other end. Much to the annoyance of his wife that they are leaving on flights at odd times of the night.

It can be done and he admits that once in awhile it is a close call when he has a string of dnfs and is driving 40, 45 minutes away to the next geocache and running out of time.

He used to be a big first to find hunter, but eventually he gave up on it because he realized the dwindling numbers of new caches meant he was not going to be able to keep a street going.

I have rarely met a cacher that has the same ethics as him. So people saying that it's not possible, you just don't have the same drive or ethics that they do.  True at some point there will be a mistake in somebody will slip.  That's how things come to an end.  

It's true that there are some people who probably cheat.  I have seen some people with shorter streaks that have cheated. However, that does not mean that everybody cheats.

  • Upvote 2
  • Love 2
Link to comment
2 hours ago, BlueRajah said:

Much to the annoyance of his wife that they are leaving on flights at odd times of the night.

;)

 

This brings up another "must have" for a non-cheating streak: Either be single, or have a very understanding partner. E.g., my wife (who is not caching at all) gives me really a lot of freedom. But if I started to go out each and every day, no exceptions!, this would definitely stretch that freedom beyond its limits.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
3 hours ago, BlueRajah said:

It can be done and he admits that once in awhile it is a close call when he has a string of dnfs and is driving 40, 45 minutes away to the next geocache and running out of time.

 

At the point you're going 45 minutes or more out of your way, especially with any frequency to find one mundane cache just to keep your streak alive it's the point where you should ask yourself "Why am I doing this?"

 

Sure the dedication is impressive but at some point the time and gas spent becomes wasteful. Even if you can, at some point you shouldn't. 

 

I did a 28-day streak early on. When I found myself making half hour roundtrips out of my way for a GRIM or LPC I threw in the towel and have never tried again. 

 

That said, a cache-rich environment or a traveling retiree can honestly keep a streak going much longer than most others.

  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
48 minutes ago, JL_HSTRE said:

At the point you're going 45 minutes or more out of your way, especially with any frequency to find one mundane cache just to keep your streak alive it's the point where you should ask yourself "Why am I doing this?"

I only streaked for a year, so I can't really speak to those that keep it up years on end, but when I had to go far out of my way in a desperate attempt to keep my streak going with the day running out, after I found the cache, I said to myself, "This is why I geocache."

 

48 minutes ago, JL_HSTRE said:

It also helps a streak if you have friends locally, or even better yet a family member with a separate account, who can hide new caches near you so you have the quantity and a guaranteed find even without any throwdowns.

To be honest, if your friends plant caches specifically to help you continue your streak, I'd consider that cheating. Legal, admittedly, but still not really in the spirit of streaking, especially if you're streaking to satisfy a challenge. I see it as merely a small step up from having a sock puppet account to plant caches when you need one.

 

But I'm sure that's not what you meant. You just meant that your friends are so caught up in your enthusiasm for geocaching that they plant caches all the time and would whether you need them for your streak or not. Right?

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
On 2/17/2021 at 1:31 PM, baer2006 said:

Outright fake logging is not the sort of "cheating" I see here (in Germany). Instead people do things like ...

  • ... log finds online not with the date when they found the cache. E.g. doing a short trail on the weekend (and signing all logbooks), but distributing the online find logs over the following week. Sometimes the pre-planned online logging date is even noted in the paper log.
  • ... logging containerless caches (Virtual, Earth) not with the date when they were on location, but with the date they send the required answers to the CO.
  • ... logging challenge caches, where they visited the cache some time ago, with an arbitrary date later (when the challenge is fulfilled).
  • ... have friends write their name in a cache logbook on days when they cannot find a cache (e.g. because of travel or illness).

 

As long as we're listing questionable things people have done to "keep a streak alive," don't forget "attending" a virtual or live-streamed event. (Yeah, I still haven't forgotten that thread. Funny, it's a lot shorter than I remember it.)

 

2 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

At the point you're going 45 minutes or more out of your way, especially with any frequency to find one mundane cache just to keep your streak alive it's the point where you should ask yourself "Why am I doing this?"

 

Yep. That's why my longest streak only lasted 102 days, and why my find rate for the month after it ended dropped almost in half. It was fun at first, but it just got tiresome. I knew the end for me was near when I screwed up by not having enough backup caches to find when we went to Frankfurt for date night - so instead of a nice night out, like normal people do, we ended up taking the train two stops down the line and hunting for the final to a multi in a park in the dark, aided only by the light of my Nokia 3310 screen. Not the brightest (that's for both me AND the phone). I kept it going for another week or so, so I could top 100, and then I quit.

 

I think my second longest streak might be a week or so, and not because I wanted to streak, just because I had time to go out caching all that week.

 

I do have some level of admiration (perhaps mixed with horrified fascination) for those cachers who have kept legit streaks going without cheating. Not for me. But if'n it makes them happy, more power to 'em.

Edited by hzoi
Link to comment
2 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

I did a 28-day streak early on. When I found myself making half hour roundtrips out of my way for a GRIM or LPC I threw in the towel and have never tried again.

 

For the 2019 7-day Streak Week promotion, all my finds were at least an hour's round trip from home. They were three train trips to northern Sydney (including changing trains at Hornsby for the local network), a ferry trip, two buses then a T3 hike to the cache at Clareville, and drives of 35km, 36km and 52km each way.

 

StreakWeek.jpg.31d1827df10fec7ac861d393355ab091.jpg

 

If there's another Streak Week promotion, my best bet will be to go off somewhere new for a week's holiday.

 

Link to comment

Do adventure lab caches count for streaks? They work for filling up yout 365 days matrix (not on project-gc.com but on the geocaching.com website) so they should work for streaks, too? If so they might help with honest streaks if you only do one lab cache at a time. You do not have to complete the full adventure to score the daily find.

 

There is another way for a non-honest streak no one has mentioned so far. Look out for caches with an inactive owner and simply log those. No danger of your log being deleted.

I've heard of cachers that found logged caches with an old date soon after they disppeared and deactivated. What a coincidence, the lobbook has been stolen? They found it only two days before it vanished or can someone proof the contrary? That's another way for an easy find if you have missed a day.

 

Jochen

  • Surprised 1
Link to comment
20 minutes ago, frostengel said:

There is another way for a non-honest streak no one has mentioned so far. Look out for caches with an inactive owner and simply log those. No danger of your log being deleted.

 

Actually, armchair logging has been mentioned already (emphasis added):

On 2/23/2021 at 3:50 AM, baer2006 said:

I admit, that if I tried a streak, I might be tempted to accept such an offer as well. If there is such a thing as a "cheat scale" from 1 to 10 (10 = plain armchair log; 1 = cache found, log in hand, but no signature because the pen failed), then I'd rate it not more than a "1.5" ;) .

 

Link to comment
3 hours ago, frostengel said:

Do adventure lab caches count for streaks? They work for filling up yout 365 days matrix (not on project-gc.com but on the geocaching.com website) so they should work for streaks, too? If so they might help with honest streaks if you only do one lab cache at a time. You do not have to complete the full adventure to score the daily find.

 

It depends on where you live, as the website statistics assume the whole world lives in Seattle and uses that time zone for AL logs. So here, unless I go Adventure Labbing very late in the day (5pm or 7pm depending on the season), any I do get yesterday's date in the stats.

Link to comment
6 hours ago, frostengel said:

Do adventure lab caches count for streaks?

There are streak challenges that place additional limits, e.g. only physical caches or only specific cache type. If you do a streak just for your own amusement, I guess you can count whatever you want. I personally don't count lab caches, but I have days with just an event attended. Not recently of course...

Link to comment
16 minutes ago, mustakorppi said:

There are streak challenges that place additional limits, e.g. only physical caches or only specific cache type.

I wanted to point out that these are legacy challenges.  Challenge caches for streaks with additional conditions based on cache type (among other things) are no longer published.

  • Helpful 1
Link to comment

After reading this thread it seems to me that it's popular to classify streaks as "honest" or "cheating". And what is "cheating" can be debated - primarily when it comes to the difference between guideline-breaking vs I-might-do-this-occasionally-but-it's-allowed.

 

I think it's important to remember that breaking guidelines is about the "worst" strategy one can employ. And as mentioned, the safety in maintaining a streak is not doing that at all - that is, an action that if the CO or HQ learns of that may result in your log deletion and breaking of the statistical streak.

 

Otherwise, a streak is only as strong as its weakest date. It's much like the etiquette people employ for claiming an FTF, or what to some people constitutes a legitimate "find".  For one person, they will not log a find unless they physically hold and sign the logsheet themselves with their own name after doing all that the CO required (like climb the tree, not watch for below, eg). So, is it fair for them to say that anything else is "cheating" and that such people are "cheaters" in geocaching?  They might. But they'd get fought over it mainly because the implication is that being called a "cheater" isn't nice, when said person doesn't believe they were cheating (and may not be, according to the letter of the law).

 

So, point being, if someone has a 5000 day streak, I'm in agreement that almost certainly they've employed strategies that someone out there considers "cheating" even though it's within the guidelines. Cheating-for-you-but-not-for-me.

 

I like that scale baer commented, a cheatscale of 1-10 :P  At one end is breaking a guideline (which may or may not end up with a deleted log). On the other end could be ... well who knows; depends how legalistic someone wants to be about what constitutes a legitimate "find". Has anyone kept a full streak with cheatscale rating of 1 for every date?  Unlikely.

Edited by thebruce0
  • Funny 1
Link to comment
2 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Has anyone kept a full streak with cheatscale rating of 1 for every date?  Unlikely.

That depends on how you define a "cheatscale rating of 1" now, doesn't it?

 

Is being strategic a "cheatscale rating of 1"? Some people seem to think that walking past caches without finding them is somehow unnatural, but I learned to do it regularly when I was maintaining my streak.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
10 minutes ago, niraD said:

That depends on how you define a "cheatscale rating of 1" now, doesn't it?

 

Yes, which was exactly my point :P  and why I didn't provide a definitive 1.0 description - "depends how legalistic someone wants to be about what constitutes a legitimate "find""

 

The thread essentially includes the argument "Well I wouldn't have logged that as a legitimate find, therefore you are a cheater."   That's a style of sentiment that keeps a lot of people away from the forums :laughing:

Edited by thebruce0
  • Surprised 1
Link to comment
8 minutes ago, niraD said:

Some people seem to think that walking past caches without finding them is somehow unnatural, but I learned to do it regularly when I was maintaining my streak.

 

I do that even without a streak. "D4 micro in the woods? Nah, I will just continue on the trail towards the ammo can."

Link to comment
3 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

This thread essentially becomes "Well I wouldn't have logged that as a legitimate find, therefore you are a cheater."   That's a style of sentiment that keeps a lot of people away from the forums :laughing:

 

The debate over what constitutes a Find is mostly about the technicalities. If I find a cache I may not be able to log it as a find or I may not go through all the formal steps like signing the paper log, but I have still found the cache.

 

In contrast, if you find 100 caches in a day but only log 1 per day for 100 days then you have not actually maintained a streak, even if you signed all 100 logs and dated them on paper for the date you logged them online.

 

The former follows the spirit of the law but not the letter. The latter follows the letter of the law but not the spirit.

Link to comment
3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Has anyone kept a full streak with cheatscale rating of 1 for every date?  Unlikely.

 

I'm kinda with the "sooner or later something will happen that you're gonna have to cheat" group too.   :)

 - But I've driven by hundreds of low d/t caches, heading to a cache I'll do for years now, and still walk by the "on the way to..." hides to the ammo can with a great view at the end.

I feel if someone could stick with one a day, it's more than possible here...  But why

"Walk twelve feet from car, pick up cache, sign, put back, and head home", rinse/repeat daily doesn't sound like fun (to me).

 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

After reading this thread it seems to me that it's popular to classify streaks as "honest" or "cheating".

I think of the difference as being more "worthy" and "not worthy". I've never really supported the concept of "cheating" in geocaching: since we're not competing against each other, if your find count is invalid, that affects you, but not really anyone else.

 

3 hours ago, niraD said:

Some people seem to think that walking past caches without finding them is somehow unnatural, but I learned to do it regularly when I was maintaining my streak.

Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten about walking past caches. Very hard, especially when they're hard won puzzle solutions! Happily, as far as I know, "be natural" isn't in the guidelines or anyone's unofficial rule book.

 

3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

The thread essentially includes the argument "Well I wouldn't have logged that as a legitimate find, therefore you are a cheater."   That's a style of sentiment that keeps a lot of people away from the forums 

Are people saying "you are a cheater"? I guess I missed it, but maybe I'm just giving people too much credit: even if they use the word "cheater", I assume what they really mean is only that they don't consider the streak worthy. But even then, I'm not sure I've heard anyone call anyone in the forum a cheater since no one in the forum is taking a stand in favor of invalid time shifting or armchair logging. We seem to all be against those things, even in a pinch. The discussion seems to be more around which legal standards that many of us prefer to rise above are not sufficiently valid for a streak.

 

Of course, what I really think is that the people saying "cheater!" just haven't been in a streak and probably have never been interested in a streak. It's easy to pretend you would never bend the rules when you've never been in the position of working for most of a year for that year-long requirement when real life gets it in the way and threatens to end it a few days short.

  • Funny 1
Link to comment
14 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

I'm kinda with the "sooner or later something will happen that you're gonna have to cheat" group too.

That seems like a rather low opinion of you fellow cachers. At worst, I would say sooner or later, the streak will end. Most of the geocachers I know would just let the streak end before they'd cheat.

 

What I see more often, though, the streak ends because they decide to let it end. The one well known streaker in my area claimed the streak ended because he forgot, but I suspect that was just a cover story. I know I made sure to drop my streak like a hot potato as soon as I got to the one year mark I was aiming at. And I don't regret it for a minute even though someone published a 400 streak challenge a couple months later.

  • Upvote 3
  • Funny 1
  • Surprised 1
Link to comment
3 minutes ago, dprovan said:

Are people saying "you are a cheater"? I guess I missed it, but maybe I'm just giving people too much credit: even if they use the word "cheater"

 

Well, I mean, if someone says "that's cheating", that implicitly means you're a cheater. I doubt anyone who's being labeled as "cheating" would think the person means "that's okay". :) It's inherently a negative connotation based on a subjective definition of "cheating" (ref: my points in the previous post about the scale vs the guidelines)

 

4 minutes ago, dprovan said:

I assume what they really mean is only that they don't consider the streak worthy

 

Sure, but worthy of what? As soon as I call someone as "cheating" I've drawn an objective line - they've gone below the line of acceptability using shady practices with a term meant to demean. ie, cheater. 

Again it's similar for things like "most cache finds in a day" - how many times are there arguments about "legitimate" counts because of the variety of strategies people use? Arguments erupt because people claim a "high road" using a more pure strategy where others (while within guidelines) use a more 'questionable' strategy, but don't like being demeaned as "cheating". But it's all because people compare their strategies with others.  Like you say it's the competitive aspect of this comparison that gets people riled up.  Even though it really doesn't affect me if you leap-frog and I sign each by hand myself.

 

Just like in those cases, I'd say if you really want to compare, then provide context for the statistical achievement. You got 100 in a day - walking? biking? driving? leap frogging? Don't compare that number to someone using a different strategy.

 

Same thing with streaks, IMO. If you want to claim a 1000 day streak and you legitimately found and signed each physical log yourself, that's a different context than someone who on one day found a cache in a tree but watched while one person from the group climbed and signed the group in. The first person's streak would be broken. The latter's is fine. Did the 2nd person "cheat"? Only by the first person's streak ethic, not by the guidelines. So saying they cheated is just going to insult.

 

11 minutes ago, dprovan said:

Of course, what I really think is that the people saying "cheater!" just haven't been in a streak and probably have never been interested in a streak. It's easy to pretend you would never bend the rules when you've never been in the position of working for most of a year for that year-long requirement when real life gets it in the way and threatens to end it a few days short.

 

Absolutely :)

There are not objective "rules" for a "valid" streak, presuming every log is legal in the sense that it can't/won't be deleted by the CO or HQ. Outside of that, the streak is valid, but may not be one that every person doing a streak would personally accept for their own logging ethic. It's not worth arguing that "my streak is more honest and valid than yours" as if I'm taking the high road because I imposed on myself a stricter strategy for claiming finds.  It's just better for everyone's sanity, imo, if you instead say "my streak is different than yours". If I really wanted to I could try for the same statistical accomplish using the same logging ethic, and then perhaps have a better ground for comparison.

  • Funny 1
  • Surprised 1
Link to comment
5 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

I think it's important to remember that breaking guidelines is about the "worst" strategy one can employ. And as mentioned, the safety in maintaining a streak is not doing that at all - that is, an action that if the CO or HQ learns of that may result in your log deletion and breaking of the statistical streak.

 

I get the theory but in practice I don't think that is much of a concern as it requires a CO to delete a log to end the streak. 

There is no way I would do that to someone remotely local to me because it's not worth the fallout that would occur.

Anyone maintaining a long streak generally has a significant number of hides, has caching friends, and cares about their streak.

Even if 100% justified - deleting a log in that scenario is a poor battle to pick for the CO.

  • Surprised 1
Link to comment
1 minute ago, schmittfamily said:

Even if 100% justified - deleting a log in that scenario is a poor battle to pick for the CO.

Careful, if people know you won't delete invalid logs on your caches to avoid drama, they might know you could be taken advantage of. (it can happen).

If there is a known, provable invalid log on your cache, it shouldn't matter the context or circumstance - as a cache owner it's your responsibility to remove false logs. And if HQ finds out a cache owner isn't properly keeping up their ownership responsibilities, the cache owner could face repercussions.

But the blame for deleting invalid logs doesn't land on you - it lands on the person posting a false log. I mean false in actuality, not just 'questionable' practices.

 

That is to say: If you as the cache owner are 100% justified in deleting a log (that means it IS a verifiably false log) then you really should.

Link to comment
33 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Careful, if people know you won't delete invalid logs on your caches to avoid drama, they might know you could be taken advantage of. (it can happen).

 

It's not like we haven't deleted logs in the past.

But it's not a big secret that if we find 25+ caches from a CO and they find 2 of ours that they have more leverage in a log deletion exchange.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
4 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

I feel if someone could stick with one a day, it's more than possible here...  But why

"Walk twelve feet from car, pick up cache, sign, put back, and head home", rinse/repeat daily doesn't sound like fun (to me)

Maybe they really like going on drives. I spent 1.5 hours riding a bicycle and 5 minutes geocaching today. The geocaching wasn’t the fun part.

  • Funny 1
Link to comment
9 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

I think it's important to remember that breaking guidelines is about the "worst" strategy one can employ. And as mentioned, the safety in maintaining a streak is not doing that at all - that is, an action that if the CO or HQ learns of that may result in your log deletion and breaking of the statistical streak.

I don't think that any justified log deletion has ever broken a statistical streak (nice term by the way - to distinguish it from a "real" streak? ;) ). If someone resorts to fake logs, and one of those is deleted, I don't think they refrain from logging another fake log for the now missing day.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
4 hours ago, dprovan said:

Of course, what I really think is that the people saying "cheater!" just haven't been in a streak and probably have never been interested in a streak. It's easy to pretend you would never bend the rules when you've never been in the position of working for most of a year for that year-long requirement when real life gets it in the way and threatens to end it a few days short.

I think this is one of the reasons, why I would never start any "challenge" (geocaching related or otherwise), where I have to do something each and every day, and if I fail even once, I have to start all over. Would drive me nuts at the inevitable point where I'd have to decide between failure and cheating (... on a scale from 1 to 10 ;) ).

 

So, if someone really give their best effort, but once or twice a year, because of unforeseen circumstances, use slightly "creative" logging to keep the streak alive  - fine, we're all just humans ;) . But then I know cachers, who a) brag about streaks, and b) use these creative logging practices excessively. Those are the one, who I would call "cheater" straight in their face.

 

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment

I would say many people that call these people cheaters would not be able to do it, or would not be able to without cheating.  That does not mean that is the case for everyone.  So tossing out blanket statements is not really constructive.  I could not do it.  100 days was a nightmare.  Was I tempted to cheat, yes.  I got out of bed a few times to grab the cache that I needed, and had forgotten about. Many of the cachers in question are in cache rich areas, travel a lot, are retired, or have the finintial ability or willpower to go and look for them at odd times.  They have friends that will regularly place caches.   I know and follow two cachers streaks.  One is a long many year streak I mentioned above, the other is a few year streak.  I cheer then  on, and in winter months or when there are rough times I may place some that I know he will find and be appreciative of, if I find an interesting place and have the cache I wish to hide there. 

  • Upvote 1
  • Funny 2
Link to comment
10 hours ago, baer2006 said:

I think this is one of the reasons, why I would never start any "challenge" (geocaching related or otherwise), where I have to do something each and every day, and if I fail even once, I have to start all over. Would drive me nuts at the inevitable point where I'd have to decide between failure and cheating (... on a scale from 1 to 10 ;) ).

 

Yep!  And this is another reason for some of the post-moratorium guidelines on what constitutes an acceptable and/or reasonable challenge. When it comes to streaks they capped it at 1 year without requiring Feb 29. To HQ, I suppose after polling reviewers and observing general community, one year was determined the maximum reasonable period to have to 'start over' if necessary. But if I recall, that length for streaking is only allowed for general find counts, not with additional parameters, like 1 year of a specific cache type, eg.  All this is laid out in the guidelines for challenge caches, and the reasons they chose the rules they did (with examples).

 

If I was going for a one year streak, and I really wanted it, I might consider starting over if I missed a day; mainly because there are still thousands for me to find within an hour drive. But those 555, 1000, or higher streak challenges - those were one-attempts. They're in my "too hard, won't finish" List. Might find it and sign (because hey, geocache), but almost certainly won't ever qualify. And those are the ones that HQ doesn't want to allow published any more, for that very reason. Too many people simply don't want to do or find it.

My streak cap was an intentional 366 consecutive unique days (Mar 1 - Feb 29) and I'm happy with that.

 

 

Anyway, this has drifted to challenges - and those are what I'd call "statistical streaks". Regardless of logging ethic, it's a pure number analysis.  One person's 365-day streak qualification may have been much easier than another person's, if their logging ethics were vastly different. Direct/competitive comparison will benefit no one in those cases.  The person who did it more strictly can't/shouldn't say the other objectively "cheated" because (assuming all logs are fundamentally valid) they didn't. They just accomplished the same challenge goal a different way.

  • Upvote 1
  • Funny 1
Link to comment
20 hours ago, niraD said:

Is being strategic a "cheatscale rating of 1"? Some people seem to think that walking past caches without finding them is somehow unnatural, but I learned to do it regularly when I was maintaining my streak.

 

I would say:

 

* Passing ground zero and not searching for the cache isn't cheating at all. (cheating scale: 0) Why should it? Luckily no one is forced to find a cache and you might return later to find the cache regularly.

* Searching for the cache, finding (!) but not logging it (!) at that day to return later to claim the find should be allowed according to the guidelines (no one is forced to write her/his name in the found logbook!?) but in case of streaking that's a kind of cheating. (cheating scale: 2?)

* Searching for the cache, finding it and using a later date for the log ("I think I'll find it.... tomorrow.") without returning at that day is a higher cheating rate in case of the streaking. But still I don't know if this is clearly ruled by the guidelines if you use the wrong date!? (cheating scale: 5?)

 

The last one may happen quite often and I don't like that behaviour at all (but I still wouldn't rate it higher than cheating scale 5 as the actual find is involved in it).

I am not sure about the second one. Let's say there is an area of three not too easy to find caches. I visit one to get my find for this day. I plan to find the other two one before and one after midnight the following days to get two days in one trip. That's dangerous as I will have a limited time to find the first one so I am searching for one of them to assure my find next time. It shouldn't be against the rules but is it against the "unwritten rules of streaking"?

 

Jochen

 

PS: I read that some people drive hours and hours to get one cache for one day of their streak. One hint is to drive far at those days you are having much time. Don't they think of the petrol cost, lost time and environment?

I had a 111 days streak (too long for me) and made about 80 percent of if by bike only using the car when we were on a distant full day cache tour. If I had to use the car regularly I wouldn't have done the streak.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
7 minutes ago, frostengel said:

But still I don't know if this is clearly ruled by the guidelines if you use the wrong date!?

 

A few times when I've returned home from a day's caching I've realised I'd been writing the wrong date in the logbooks, and there are probably other times it's happened when I haven't realised it. My best effort was on an FTF where I'd signed the logbook but was unsure of the date so I went to check it on my phone but got carried away taking photos of the awesome scenery and forgot all about checking the date until I got home and looked at my photo of the logbook:

 

55effb31-5380-4eda-b2e6-9a4a2cab5d3b_l.j

 

I hope none of those COs decide to delete my online logs.

 

11 minutes ago, frostengel said:

PS: I read that some people drive hours and hours to get one cache for one day of their streak. One hint is to drive far at those days you are having much time. Don't they think of the petrol cost, lost time and environment?

 

Just about all of my caching now involves at least an hour's drive each way as caches within walking or cycling distance of home are pretty rare these days (in the last twelve months there've been two). If I had to restrict my caching to my local area I'd be back to being a muggle.

Link to comment
25 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

A few times when I've returned home from a day's caching I've realised I'd been writing the wrong date in the logbooks,

I once did a series and started off writing 1 date, part way round I realised I was writing the wrong date so changed, but before I got to the end I checked my phone and  both dates I'd used up to then were wrong and finished the series writing the correct date :o

 

Nowadays I don't bother writing the date most of the time.

 

Link to comment
50 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

Just about all of my caching now involves at least an hour's drive each way as caches within walking or cycling distance of home are pretty rare these days (in the last twelve months there've been two). If I had to restrict my caching to my local area I'd be back to being a muggle.

 

I wouldn't mind as you drive one hour to have a fun day (or some fun hours) of geocaching, doing some great hikes.... That's okay I think.

But driving (again and again) to get just one cache just for streaking purposes is useless in my eyes. In the end you drive one hour, find an easy cache which isn't very spectacular (you probably won't do a great hiking cache but the quick drive-in) and drive one hour back. Am I the only one thinking that this is useless throwing away of lifetime? And it degrades this special cache to what - a statistics point? That's a pity. :-(

  • Upvote 3
  • Funny 1
  • Love 1
Link to comment
3 hours ago, frostengel said:

* Passing ground zero and not searching for the cache isn't cheating at all. (cheating scale: 0) Why should it? Luckily no one is forced to find a cache and you might return later to find the cache regularly.

Yep, I did that all the time when I was maintaining a streak. I still do it because I figured out that if I want to go geocaching in a particular park in the future, it helps if I don't clear out all the caches today.

 

3 hours ago, frostengel said:

* Searching for the cache, finding (!) but not logging it (!) at that day to return later to claim the find should be allowed according to the guidelines (no one is forced to write her/his name in the found logbook!?) but in case of streaking that's a kind of cheating. (cheating scale: 2?)

Yeah, I sometimes evaluate things as good, bad, or ugly. This is ugly. It isn't really against the rules, but it runs against the spirit of finding a cache every day.

I never did that.

 

Needless to say, I never logged caches on different days from when I found them either.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...