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Online Geocacher Magazine


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Couple things . . .

 

1. A cool site, and I plan to visit often.

Although I cannot get a subscription.

I entered all my data and mistakenly added a capital letter to the user name.

EVERY time I correct it, it reverts (automatically filled-in) to the original

entry with a capital letter, so I continually get the same error message and

cannot break out of the loop.

 

2. I am still STUNNED there are no monthly printed magazines about Geocaching!??

What gives?

 

:(

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We're back!

 

Sorry if you tried to find our magazine and got a 404 error instead this last three days. Press Publisher hit a few snags when updating their magazine publishing software and we had to change domain pointers. That took a couple days to propagate, but all is resolved.

 

Come read and contribute to the only free ad-free online magazine by. for and about geocachers at http://onlinegeocacher.com

 

We would love to publish your stories about geocaching. Write about anything related to geocaching; events, cache runs, trips to GeoWoodstock or just a fun day hunting Tupperware and send it in!

 

Our address is onlinegeocacher@gmail.com

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Article #300 published!

 

Three hundred geocaching stories written by geocachers and published free and ad-free in The Online Geocacher solely for the enjoyment of other geocachers.

 

As the Owner and Publisher of The Online Geocacher I continue to enjoy your stories, but know that there are many great stories which are not being shared. Share them! Your fellow geocachers want to read them!

 

Thanks to the great cachers who have shared these first three hundred and I look forward to reading many more.

 

Ed,

Publisher, The Online Geocacher

http://onlinegeocacher.com/

TheOnlineGeocacher@gmail.com

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I created a new section - Found On The Web, for links to geocaching stories & stuff that you find on the web... blogs, newsletter, forums, logs, wherever, share the link and I will list it in the magazine for all to enjoy.

 

Of course we still love the original stories that you submit!

 

Send what you have to The Online Geocacher.

 

Enjoy the new story published today about a traveler long time gone making a reappearance!

Edited by TheAlabamaRambler
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West Bend Named “Best Small Town for Geocaching” Finalist

City to compete against four other communities for title, $20,000 prize package

WEST BEND, Wis. (September 16, 2013) – West Bend has been named a finalist for the “Best Small Town for Geocaching” in a nationwide contest run by mapping giant Rand McNally.

 

Read the full press release in The Online Geocacher

 

 

 

 

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Time to wrap up my geocaching era.

 

I haven't felt like hunting a cache in a while. I was looking forward to going to Huntsville for the GeoMaze and woke up this morning asking myself "Why?" Not having any good answer I realized that I'm no longer a geocacher. When I was a geocacher I would drive 100 miles to sign a log without hesitation. Not so much anymore.

 

So,

The DixieCachers.com forum. dixiecachers.com and www.alacache.com domains.

When I took ownership of this great forum a few years ago I promised to keep the DixieCachers.com forum alive as long as I am, and I will do that. Hosting and the domains are paid until March 2015 and I will keep paying for them at the new owner's discretion so that it will keep running no matter who runs it (although it would be nice if the new owner offers to pay the bills!).

The forum software hasn't been updated in 10 years so it pretty much runs itself, though someone with software skillz really should update it. It requires very little attention... when a new member request email comes in I check their desired username against Groundspeak.com membership and if they have an account there then I approve them under that same name. This simple measure has been effective in keeping spammers and n'er-do-wells out so far. That's about all it takes to maintain the status quo. To make it more interesting a geocacher with a known and enjoyed presence just needs to start posting. The ~1500 member audience is watching and will respond. The local (Alabama) nature of it might need be expanded to regional to involve more geocachers.

Facebook pretty much killed forum traffic and now there's very little activity here. Of the 20 new members I approved in the last ~60 days 2 have posted, I think 1 post each. Few of 'the old gang' posts though they do respond. So, it's dying if not already dead. How much of that is due to my lack of participation I don't know. I just make it available.

If anyone wants to take it over, be proactive and resuscitate it (I still think people like forums) then it is savable... It just needs a a stronger and more involved personality than I to attract user's interest.

Contact me and I will turn over control and ownership (though I will be selective as far as who takes it over, don't think just responding means you will get it) with but one caveat - you will have full control over everything about it but you can't shut it down. If you lose interest in it ownership reverts to me, thus assuring that it will live on, even if no one is paying attention.

So that nothing happens to the domains alacache.com and dixiecachers.com they will remain owned by me, with you as the Admin and registered Technical Contact (Why? Because we didn't have that agreement ten years years ago with the original forum and alacache.com domain owner, and it took great effort to rebuild when he up and quit, taking the domain with him). Other than that, it's yours to do with what you want. This was at one time one of the most active and fun geocaching forums and it can be again.

 

The Online Geocacher Magazine www.onlinegeocacher.com

I thought the geocaching community would enjoy a free ad-free geocaching magazine, created by, for and about geocachers. Evidently I was wrong. Article submissions have always been slow; lately I think I have had one article submitted about every 4 months or so. I simply cannot understand it. Perhaps someone more proactive who writes articles and actively solicits them would make it more popular. Other than to post new articles when geocachers emailed them to me I ran it hands-off and did not submit much content. I thought just making it available to all geocachers for free would be enough. It wasn't.

According to Google Analytics site data it still gets read often so you may choose to run revenue-producing banner ads so that the magazine more than pays for itself. I chose to keep it non-commercial but you can do as you see fit. With a little bit of SEO it's an instant money-maker if you are into that.

There is a secret supporter who runs a very valuable banner ad campaign on their site for the magazine for free and you can take over that account as well to make it more effective. They have donated that ad campaign for several years now and I expect that it will continue. If you start to make money from the magazine they will likely pull their free ad support, otherwise I think they will continue to silently support the magazine.

So, a well-known turn-key online magazine is up for free grabs. If you want to own and run it, I will turn over control of all but the domains to you. It currently costs $!0 a month to host and I have always paid that and the domain costs as a gift to geocachers, but that price agreement may change for the new owner based on your negotiations with the provider.

Again, the only caveat is that it must stay alive. If at any time you don't want it then by gentleman's agreement all ownership and control reverts to me and I will again pick up the costs.

Addendum: the cost of hosting and support of the banner ad were negotiated by me with friends and I can't promise that those numbers and agreements might not change with a new owner, especially if you choose to commercialize (run paid ads in or charge for membership) the magazine. Both are huge discounts from the provider's normal charges based on my commitment to keep it open to all geocachers, free and ad-free.

 

Trackables

I have 72 trackables traveling the world, some more actively than others, most missing, and will give them to anyone who wants them. I will retain Rambler Don't Drink No Fru-Fru Coffee though it's currently missing in action and my Groundspeak Takes Flight much-autographed airplane which too is currently missing (a serious bummer) but I will keep those in hopes they turn up. If you have them PLEASE move them!

 

Geocoins

This is a tough one. The small collection I have all mean something to me more valuable than money so I will instead give them away by request, mostly to cachers I know. If you see a geocoin in my inventory that you would like to own just ask.

 

As far as online participation in the game and the various forums I play in, that will continue so long as I can see to type (it's getting tough!). I have met so many wonderful people and this game has blessed me in so many ways that I will never give it up, I am just transferring stuff to more active owners who can do more with it.

 

Lastly, since I am retaining ownership of the domains you may be wondering if I am just looking for an Admin to run these sites. The answer is no - in a way. I will not be involved, what you do with them is up to you. In that sense you will own and can claim to own the forum and/or magazine. I am keeping the domains not to control them but only to assure that they do not get away if something happens to the new owner and the site is endangered.

 

TheAlabamaRambler @ gmail.com

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hey TAR!

 

I'm sorry to hear that you are going through a slump time. Maybe sometime you will feel a desire to play the game again. I always enjoy your posts, and I did have the opportunity to move on the Groundspeak Takes Flight plane at one point. I'm not near you, so I wouldn't be able to adopt any caches -- but I would be happy to adopt any trackables and keep them moving, or get them going again.

 

Happy Trails for now.

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Dude! That is some seriously old forum software! Best I can tell, it's someone who modified the well known, off the shelf packaged phpbb forum software (which is still going strong). On a quick glance, I wouldn't even know how to update that, but just about all forum software packages have mods that can "suck in" a forum from competing forum software packages. I mean why wouldn't they, they want to get people to come over from competing ones, right?

 

Sorry to hear you appear to be burned out. I would make the drive to the GPS Maze exhibit. I've told people for years it was "better than I expected". :P Meaning I previously thought it was geared towards people who didn't know about Geocaching, but it was pretty darn good for an experienced Geocacher.

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Thanks guys! I've seen the GPS Adventure twice, it is well done. I think I will give this one a pass. Yes, the forum software is old, but it works as good as it ever did. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Someone will come along and want to take it over, I'm sure, and it doesn't need anything but active posters to make it a viable forum again. I get "You need to update" messages from time to time but I've just ignored them... I am not about to start messing with something that's worked sow ell for so long. We'll see what happens. if nothing else I will just keep approving new members, three joined this weekend, surely some of them will have something to say!

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DixieCachers.com found a new owner (thanks c3warrors!) but no one took my offer of taking over The Online Geocacher. I still get comments about how much people like reading geocaching stories so I am not willing to let it die. I will keep publishing articles as they come in.

 

Subscribe for a free membership and you will get an email when each new story is published.

 

Share your geocaching stories with others by emailing them to me, TheAlabamaRambler@gmail.com

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