Why No New Virtual Caches?

[+chcknhawk]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

[+Team Cotati]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

 

Because they're popular with all the wrong people.

 

It used to be because there was no physical container, but someone pointed out that Earthcaches have no container so you don't hear that 'reason' much any more.

Edited April 4, 2010 by Team Cotati

[4wheelin_fool]

All caches are virtuals. Once you sign the log that makes them traditional.

[+narcissa]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

 

They stopped accepting them years ago. Search old threads for more information.

[+tozainamboku]

I wrote this two years (or 53 threads on Why No New Virtual Caches) ago. (I give permission to TPTB to pin it or use it an FAQ)

Why were virtuals created in the first place?

 

In the early days, Geocaching.com was far more open to new variation in the game. Everyone was still exploring what geocaching was about. Some people wanted to have caches at location where they couldn’t hide a physical cache. Perhaps there were too many muggles, or perhaps you couldn’t get permission for leaving a physical container. Many people wanted to leave caches while on vacation somewhere but knew they wouldn’t be able to maintain it. The idea of a virtual was born. The virtual was supposed to be specific target that you could find using the GPS coordinates, just like you found a physical cache. You would provide proof of your find by answering a question base on what you found or posting a picture of the object.

 

What were the issues with virtuals?

 

Most people hid virtuals because they found a place that they felt really needed a cache (i.e. they wanted to share the location with other geocachers). But sometimes a virtual had nothing special to see, it was just an easy way to hide a cache. Sometimes if a cache went missing, instead of replacing it, the owner would change it to a virtual. In order to limit the number of unimpressive virtuals and to encourage the hiding of more physical caches, the guidelines were changed to require virtuals to “be novel, of interest to other players, and have a special historic, community or geocaching quality that sets it apart from everyday subjects.” This guideline was referred to as the “Wow!” requirement. It required the volunteer cache reviewers to make judgments about whether a location deserved a virtual cache or not.

 

The existence of virtual caches also provided an easy way out for park managers who didn’t want to allow physical caches. They were able to say that virtual caches could be placed in the park and not physical caches and still say they were allowing geocaching.

 

Aside from the “Wow!” requirement, many virtual caches lost sight of the original intent of being an object to find using the GPSr. Virtual caches were place to show off a building, a park, a mountain top, or a view. Many did not even require proof of a visit to claim a find. The requirements were tightened, but not before many geocachers began to think of virtuals as a way to share interesting places to visit. Despite the change to the guidelines, the reviewers found that people kept submitting these kinds of locations. Most people were using virtuals not a substitute for where you couldn’t hide a physical container, but as a substitute for the yet to be invented waymark.

 

Some virtuals used a confirmation question that could be answered by research on the Internet. Some people allowed a find on these if you could answer the question even without visiting the site. Again the guidelines were changed to emphasize that the intent was to actually visit the cache site, but by the time this happened some people had discovered the joy of armchair logging of virtuals.

 

Once virtual caches were allowed, the next step was the locationless or reverse cache. The first locationless caches were listed as virtuals that you could find anywhere. A locationless cache asked you to find a location that fit the cache description and post the coordinates to claim a find. Once someone had found a particular location, most locationless caches would not allow another find using that site. Locationless caches didn’t really fit the model of the Geocaching.com database. For one, you had to look through all the locationless caches to find ones you could do and once you found a locationless to do you needed to check if anyone had already used your location. By the time I started geocaching, in 2003, there was a moratorium on new locationless caches while TPTB were coming up with a solution for locationless.

 

The vision of Waymarking

 

The solution that TPTB came up with for locationless caches was to have a separate website where users could suggest categories of places whose coordinates could be listed. The categories would be organized in a hierarchy so you could find the categories which were interesting to you. When you entered a new location it would check to see if there was already one close by. If this was the same site you couldn’t create a new waymark, but you could log your visit to existing one.

 

TPTB came to realize that most virtuals were really just locations that people wanted to share. There wasn’t anything to find (or if there was it was just in order to have a verification question). How much better to have a site dedicate to sharing interesting locations with other people. The overwhelming majority of what got submitted as virtual caches could be submitted to one or more Waymarking categories. A method to ask for verification of visits was provided for those who still wanted proof when someone visited their waymark. With that, TPTB decided that all the existing locationless caches could be migrated to Waymarking and no new locationless or virtual caches would be accepted on Geocaching.com. Not all locationless got migrated, as Waymarking requires a group of users to manage each category (instead of volunteer geocache reviewers) and some locationless owners were not interested in doing this.

 

Waymarking has it detractors. In addition to challenging or fun categories of some locationless, Waymarking has categories that are pretty mundane – like McDonald’s Restaurants and Starbucks Coffee. But because of the hierarchical organization of categories it is easy to ignore categories you think are too mundane and concentrate on the categories you are interested in.

 

What about the element of surprise that some virtual caches provided? Waymarking has a Waymarking games category. This is a pretty wide open area. Some of the more creative locationless cache wound up here. It is also home the Best Kept Secrets category. This category allows (but does not require) the waymark owner to provide a description that doesn’t reveal everything about the location so you can still be surprised when you visit. Other categories can still be proposed to emphasize what ever aspects of virtuals you enjoyed and are not being met by other Waymarking categories.

 

Waymarking is also lacking in ways to download waymarks and load them into your GPSr. You can get a LOC file with the coordinates of waymarks you have selected but there are still no pocket queries or GPX format that contains the waymark descriptions. Many people also enjoy visting waymarks/virtuals while out looking for physical geocaches. Perhaps a future version of both sites will allow PQs that can return geocaches along with the waymarks in your favorite categories.

[+Markwell]

The basic problem is that there is no container, so people had to have landmarks to mark as a location. People always want to push the limit, so eventually people started (literally) throwing a sneaker in the woods and said "e-mail me the brand and side (left or right) to claim credit". Hardly a god virtual cache. So the reviewers had to implement the infamous "Wow" factor, in which a cache's location had to be subjectively judged as worthy of being a virtual cache. There was constant bickering in the forums about whether a spot was worthy or not, and so in 2005, the virtuals were disallowed from submission in favor of the newly released site "Waymarking.com"

 

Many feel that the Waymarking doesn't relate well with virtual caches. But the decision of the site was to move them there, and grandfather the existing ones.

[+ThePetersTrio]

Hardly a god virtual cache.

 

That god! He sets the rules for everything!

 

[+bittsen]

There are no more virtual caches allowed because they were given their own website called "Waymarking".

[+Team Cotati]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

 

Well it appears as though you now have the reason(s). All that you now need to do is jump on over to the new home of virtuals, Waymarking.com.

 

I for one would like very much to know what you think of that place and whether it satisfies your desire for listing and finding virtual geocaches.

[+BruceS]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

 

Many of the memorials in your area are Waymarks already but I am sure there are more you would like to share. There are several other historic and art related Waymarks in your area also.

[+Cardinal Red]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

Just use this cache as a template for how to convert a Traditional into a pseudo Virtual: GCPYV8

[+narcissa]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

 

Many of the memorials in your area are Waymarks already but I am sure there are more you would like to share. There are several other historic and art related Waymarks in your area also.

 

Unfortunately, Waymarking is lame, hard to use, and isn't well integrated with Geocaching.com, so it's not really any good for those of us who want to geocache in areas that don't allow/ aren't good for physical caches.

[Dinoprophet]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

 

Many of the memorials in your area are Waymarks already but I am sure there are more you would like to share. There are several other historic and art related Waymarks in your area also.

 

Unfortunately, Waymarking is lame, hard to use, and isn't well integrated with Geocaching.com, so it's not really any good for those of us who want to geocache in areas that don't allow/ aren't good for physical caches.

Every time this subject comes up, at least one person checks out Waymarking and finds their opinion differs from this one. Who will it be this time?

 

/resuming lurking mode

Edited April 4, 2010 by Dinoprophet

[+Alkhalikoi]

And they don't give waivers, either. I am going to Korea next week and hoped to declare the far (North Korea) side of the conference table at Panmunjon as a virtual cache. Mostly, I wanted to be the first guy to claim a find in the DPRK. No dice.

[+baloo&bd]

Contrary to some misguided, evangelistic previous posts, virtuals were discontinued (with some grandfathered exceptions) with no replacement and no announcements thus far for any replacements.

[+narcissa]

 

Every time this subject comes up, at least one person checks out Waymarking and finds their opinion differs from this one. Who will it be this time?

 

/resuming lurking mode

 

There's always the guy who freaks out and posts a wall of text about how to use it, but I have yet to encounter a convincing argument in favour of Waymarking as a replacement for Virtual geocaches.

[+humboldt flier]

Yet another round

[+The Blue Quasar]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

 

Many of the memorials in your area are Waymarks already but I am sure there are more you would like to share. There are several other historic and art related Waymarks in your area also.

 

Unfortunately, Waymarking is lame, hard to use, and isn't well integrated with Geocaching.com, so it's not really any good for those of us who want to geocache in areas that don't allow/ aren't good for physical caches.

 

How offensive! If you don't like Waymarking, you have no business calling it lame. I don't appreciate your inflammatory comment one bit!

 

It isn't hard to use. You obviously haven't take the time to try and learn it.

 

BQ

[+The Blue Quasar]

Contrary to some misguided, evangelistic previous posts, virtuals were discontinued (with some grandfathered exceptions) with no replacement and no announcements thus far for any replacements.

 

Excuse me? It is quite well documented that Waymarking IS the replacement for those grandfathered concepts. Whether you like it or choose to accept it or not is no reason to call others "misguided" or "evangelistic".

 

BQ

[+The Blue Quasar]

 

Every time this subject comes up, at least one person checks out Waymarking and finds their opinion differs from this one. Who will it be this time?

 

/resuming lurking mode

 

There's always the guy who freaks out and posts a wall of text about how to use it, but I have yet to encounter a convincing argument in favour of Waymarking as a replacement for Virtual geocaches.

 

And I've yet to see anyone that has anything close to a valid reason why Virtuals are better than Waymarks.

 

BQ

[+narcissa]

 

How offensive! If you don't like Waymarking, you have no business calling it lame. I don't appreciate your inflammatory comment one bit!

 

It isn't hard to use. You obviously haven't take the time to try and learn it.

 

BQ

 

I dare you to tell me that to my face, BQ.

 

[+Team Cotati]

Contrary to some misguided, evangelistic previous posts, virtuals were discontinued (with some grandfathered exceptions) with no replacement and no announcements thus far for any replacements.

 

In this context, when you use the word 'some', what would your paper napkin, ballpark, unofficial estimate be of how large a number, as a percentage of the total population virtual geocaches 'some' might represent?

[+cldisme]

I have yet to encounter a convincing argument in favour of Waymarking as a replacement for Virtual geocaches.

 

I'll try! Instead of one ghost icon, you can collect nearly 1,000 different icons if you travel extensively enough.

 

If you consider my 17 states and 4 countries as a measly weekend trip, I challenge you to top my 650 different icons of the 950 currently available... if your screen name is not BruceS.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

I'll add my tired old plea I always enter in these threads.

 

I love virts.

 

If they were managed properly I would love their replacement, waymarks.

 

If I look at Waymarks near me one of them is an old church. It's listed six different times, once in each of six different categories. I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. List it one time. Use keyword attributes if you want it to be found in searches for multiple categories.

 

I own two waymark categories. They get about one hit per year.

 

If I could get Waymarks intermixed with Geocaches when I get a PQ I and probably a lot of others would start looking for them. As long as we have to go search the Waymarking site, no.

[+briansnat]

 

Every time this subject comes up, at least one person checks out Waymarking and finds their opinion differs from this one. Who will it be this time?

 

/resuming lurking mode

 

There's always the guy who freaks out and posts a wall of text about how to use it, but I have yet to encounter a convincing argument in favour of Waymarking as a replacement for Virtual geocaches.

 

And I've yet to see anyone that has anything close to a valid reason why Virtuals are better than Waymarks.

 

BQ

 

Sure there is. You don't get a smiley for finding a waymark. If people got smileys for waymarks it would be wildly popular. Imagine being able to get 5 smileys for visiting the same object. Imagine being able to rack up a dozen simileys in a 1 block area. The numbers hounds would be all over them.

 

The site is actually pretty easy to navigate if you take the time to learn it. My only quarrel with Waymarking is no PQs.

[+simpjkee]

 

Every time this subject comes up, at least one person checks out Waymarking and finds their opinion differs from this one. Who will it be this time?

 

/resuming lurking mode

 

There's always the guy who freaks out and posts a wall of text about how to use it, but I have yet to encounter a convincing argument in favour of Waymarking as a replacement for Virtual geocaches.

 

And I've yet to see anyone that has anything close to a valid reason why Virtuals are better than Waymarks.

 

BQ

 

Sure there is. You don't get a smiley for finding a waymark. If people got smileys for waymarks it would be wildly popular. Imagine being able to get 5 smileys for visiting the same object. Imagine being able to rack up a dozen simileys in a 1 block area. The numbers hounds would be all over them.

 

The site is actually pretty easy to navigate if you take the time to learn it. My only quarrel with Waymarking is no PQs.

 

You don't get a Geocaching smiley, but you do get a Waymarking smiley. Put them together and that is a lot of Groundspeak smiley's.

[+simpjkee]

For almost three years since I started caching, I ignored Waymarking and spouted the same arguments over and over. Waymarking is lame, the website is hard to navigate, its all fast food, etc, etc, etc.

 

For a number of reasons, I decided I'd give Waymarking a real chance. The no PQ argument is the only argument I see any validity in. Being able to download the waymark descriptions with the coords would be helpful. Why Groundspeak hasn't gotten to work on that is beyond my understanding.

 

Other than that, the results of my little experiment have been overwhelmingly positive.

[+KarateNeko2]

GC43F3 has 8,699 finds as of today

 

That seems fishy to me. And a clear example of why Virtuals shouldn't be allowed.

 

I take the opposite approach -- it's a wonderful example of what a well-done virtual cache looked like and it is one of the most beloved caches in the province. Certainly the most logged cache I know of (just to bring this back on topic!)

 

Woah woah woah now people! This cache was started March 31, 2010! That was five days ago! how could so many people go to that certain spot in five days when regular caches take years to have that many logs????

[+simpjkee]

GC43F3 has 8,699 finds as of today

 

That seems fishy to me. And a clear example of why Virtuals shouldn't be allowed.

 

I take the opposite approach -- it's a wonderful example of what a well-done virtual cache looked like and it is one of the most beloved caches in the province. Certainly the most logged cache I know of (just to bring this back on topic!)

 

Woah woah woah now people! This cache was started March 31, 2010! That was five days ago! how could so many people go to that certain spot in five days when regular caches take years to have that many logs????

 

It looks like a locationless cache, listed as a virtual, and the owner is changing the coords to move the listing around in different areas of a province in Canada. Everytime the coords are updated, the owner is also updating the 'date placed' entry to match the coord update. The listing has been around for years.

[+narcissa]

I have yet to encounter a convincing argument in favour of Waymarking as a replacement for Virtual geocaches.

 

I'll try! Instead of one ghost icon, you can collect nearly 1,000 different icons if you travel extensively enough.

 

If you consider my 17 states and 4 countries as a measly weekend trip, I challenge you to top my 650 different icons of the 950 currently available... if your screen name is not BruceS.

 

You'll have to connect the dots a little more, because I fail to see the appeal here.

 

The two closest Waymarks to my house are THE SAME THING, listed under two categories. The appeal of Waymarking is that I can collect more icons by visiting fewer things? Lame.

 

Since the two sites aren't really integrated in any way, it just seems like I'd be doing more logging with very little to show for it.

[+Taoiseach]

GC43F3 has 8,699 finds as of today

 

That seems fishy to me. And a clear example of why Virtuals shouldn't be allowed.

 

I take the opposite approach -- it's a wonderful example of what a well-done virtual cache looked like and it is one of the most beloved caches in the province. Certainly the most logged cache I know of (just to bring this back on topic!)

 

Woah woah woah now people! This cache was started March 31, 2010! That was five days ago! how could so many people go to that certain spot in five days when regular caches take years to have that many logs????

 

It looks like a locationless cache, listed as a virtual, and the owner is changing the coords to move the listing around in different areas of a province in Canada. Everytime the coords are updated, the owner is also updating the 'date placed' entry to match the coord update. The listing has been around for years.

 

Not quite. It's a Virtual Travelling cache. outforthehunt just moves the cache to another Alberta community every so often, and a bunch of people probably re-log it. Not to mention the fact that more people would have a chance to log it when it comes to their community. I bet the find rate goes through the roof every time it is moved to or near either Calgary or Edmonton.

 

For the record, March 31, 2010 is the date it was moved to Peace River.

[+simpjkee]

GC43F3 has 8,699 finds as of today

 

That seems fishy to me. And a clear example of why Virtuals shouldn't be allowed.

 

I take the opposite approach -- it's a wonderful example of what a well-done virtual cache looked like and it is one of the most beloved caches in the province. Certainly the most logged cache I know of (just to bring this back on topic!)

 

Woah woah woah now people! This cache was started March 31, 2010! That was five days ago! how could so many people go to that certain spot in five days when regular caches take years to have that many logs????

 

It looks like a locationless cache, listed as a virtual, and the owner is changing the coords to move the listing around in different areas of a province in Canada. Everytime the coords are updated, the owner is also updating the 'date placed' entry to match the coord update. The listing has been around for years.

 

Not quite. It's a Virtual Travelling cache. outforthehunt just moves the cache to another Alberta community every so often, and a bunch of people probably re-log it. Not to mention the fact that more people would have a chance to log it when it comes to their community. I bet the find rate goes through the roof every time it is moved to or near either Calgary or Edmonton.

 

For the record, March 31, 2010 is the date it was moved to Peace River.

 

I'm guessing Brass Caps are benchmarks and the coords to the virtual are listed at different brass caps in the province. How do you claim a find on the virtual?

 

Interestingly, it looks like some cachers are logging it found numerous times a day. How does this work?

[+Taoiseach]

GC43F3 has 8,699 finds as of today

 

That seems fishy to me. And a clear example of why Virtuals shouldn't be allowed.

 

I take the opposite approach -- it's a wonderful example of what a well-done virtual cache looked like and it is one of the most beloved caches in the province. Certainly the most logged cache I know of (just to bring this back on topic!)

 

Woah woah woah now people! This cache was started March 31, 2010! That was five days ago! how could so many people go to that certain spot in five days when regular caches take years to have that many logs????

 

It looks like a locationless cache, listed as a virtual, and the owner is changing the coords to move the listing around in different areas of a province in Canada. Everytime the coords are updated, the owner is also updating the 'date placed' entry to match the coord update. The listing has been around for years.

 

Not quite. It's a Virtual Travelling cache. outforthehunt just moves the cache to another Alberta community every so often, and a bunch of people probably re-log it. Not to mention the fact that more people would have a chance to log it when it comes to their community. I bet the find rate goes through the roof every time it is moved to or near either Calgary or Edmonton.

 

For the record, March 31, 2010 is the date it was moved to Peace River.

 

I'm guessing Brass Caps are benchmarks and the coords to the virtual are listed at different brass caps in the province. How do you claim a find on the virtual?

 

Interestingly, it looks like some cachers are logging it found numerous times a day. How does this work?

 

My mistake!

 

I was looking at the cache page some more, and its seems that you are right in that it's a Locationless mislisted as a Virtual.

[GT.US]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

The PROs of using Waymarking.com to get people to visit troop memorials.

 

1) Waymarking has a wider audience.

2) The people who view waymarks don't need to have a GC.com ID to get the coordinates

3) Waymarking.com is indexed in Google and other search engines

4) A visitor to Waymarking.com will know exactly what he is going to see before he goes there

5) A person doesn't have to drive to the location to enjoy the memorial

6) Waymarks are easily searchable, it's very easy to see all Vietnam Veterans memorial within a 100 mile range on a map.

 

The CONs of using Waymarking.com to get people to visit troop memorials.

1) It's harder to create a waymark than a geocache

2) You must take pictures and reseach the memorial being waymarked before it can be published

3) Your waymark must pass an officer review to ensure quality and standrads are met

4) You will get very little feedback on your waymark from visitors or viewers

5) Creating a waymark a thankless job

6) No Pocket Querys. You can only download 20 at a time.

 

The PROs of using geocaching.com to get people to visit troop memorials.

1) You will get feedback from just about every person that visits it

2) You will get thanks from most people that view it

 

The CONs of using geocaching.com to get people to visit troop memorials.

1) Only Geocachers will see your memorial

2) You must visit the sight to enjoy the memorial

3) The person visiting is going on faith that its something that interests them

[Mr.Yuck]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

Just use this cache as a template for how to convert a Traditional into a pseudo Virtual: GCPYV8

 

Now that's strange. Not to single out that cache of course. Changing a missing cache to a virtual instead of doing maintenance used to happen quite a bit actually. Some guy pulled it off in my area for a 2001 placement for about 3 years before being "caught". I myself did one at Walt Disney World in 2004. They too were "caught" but I don't remember how long it took.

 

And I've stumbled upon old virtuals whose cache descriptions indicate there was once a container there, but the owner changed them to virtuals. I mean the right way, by having a reviewer change the cache type.

[GT.US]

If I look at Waymarks near me one of them is an old church. It's listed six different times, once in each of six different categories. I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. List it one time. Use keyword attributes if you want it to be found in searches for multiple categories.

 

When I am writing up a waymark, I focus differently depending on what aspect of the location I am writing up.

 

For example, the Fisher Building in Detroit is a Beautiful building. If I am writing it up in the National Register of Historic Places, my focus is on those aspects of the building. If I am writing up the Michigan Historic Marker on that Site, my focus is different. The mural in the lobby is another focus. Why invest the time to write up separately? Because the Waymarking audience is more diverse than a GC audience. If you go to a GC, your sole purpose is to get a smiley, and you are a geocacher. Waymarking attracts people of all sorts of interests. Because of the wide variety of categories, most people aren't coming to Waymarking.com for "A" waymark, they are coming because they have an interest in a category. By having them in separate waymarks, the person interested in Murals doesn't have to scroll past the verbiage of the Historical Marker to get to their interest.

 

I own two waymark categories. They get about one hit per year.

 

You're looking in the wrong place. Click on the Waymarks folder, and scroll down to see how often and when your waymarks have been viewed. Most waymarks get viewed pretty regularly people without a GC.com logon. Just because they don't create a GC.com ID and log a visit to say "Thank-You" doesn't mean that your waymark didn't help them out in some way.

[GT.US]

OOps duplicated

Edited April 5, 2010 by GT.US

[+wimseyguy]

Oh sure, now you are just trying to inflate your post count too.

[+Juicepig]

And I've yet to see anyone that has anything close to a valid reason why Virtuals are better than Waymarks.

 

because virtuals don't/didn't have to fit into a category. One of a kind things that couldn't be categorized, and couldn't have physical caches placed near them.

 

most of the time when I try and publish these things in Waymarking I get notes from overzealous waymark category owners stating that the title must be in such-n-such format, and the involved item doesn't meet the specifications for the category.

 

No thanks! There is enough bureaucracy in the world, I don't want to deal with it as a hobby too.

[4wheelin_fool]

 

I'm guessing Brass Caps are benchmarks and the coords to the virtual are listed at different brass caps in the province. How do you claim a find on the virtual?

 

Interestingly, it looks like some cachers are logging it found numerous times a day. How does this work?

 

Nobody has the pair of brass caps needed to archive it.

[Dinoprophet]

And I've yet to see anyone that has anything close to a valid reason why Virtuals are better than Waymarks.

 

because virtuals don't/didn't have to fit into a category. One of a kind things that couldn't be categorized, and couldn't have physical caches placed near them.

 

most of the time when I try and publish these things in Waymarking I get notes from overzealous waymark category owners stating that the title must be in such-n-such format, and the involved item doesn't meet the specifications for the category.

 

No thanks! There is enough bureaucracy in the world, I don't want to deal with it as a hobby too.

Every single virtual cache has its own logging requirements, and you can't log them unless you meet them. Is that somehow better?

 

ETA: if something truly won't fit into a category (I haven't seen it, but I'm sure there's something), there's always the Best Kept Secrets category.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Dinoprophet

[+Vater_Araignee]

And I've yet to see anyone that has anything close to a valid reason why Virtuals are better than Waymarks.

 

because virtuals don't/didn't have to fit into a category. One of a kind things that couldn't be categorized, and couldn't have physical caches placed near them.

 

most of the time when I try and publish these things in Waymarking I get notes from overzealous waymark category owners stating that the title must be in such-n-such format, and the involved item doesn't meet the specifications for the category.

 

No thanks! There is enough bureaucracy in the world, I don't want to deal with it as a hobby too.

Every single virtual cache has its own logging requirements, and you can't log them unless you meet them. Is that somehow better?

That would be a big ol' AH NOPE.

 

 

Here is an idea.

Lets add a hidden container category to Waymarking.

Argument being all the arguments that are given as to why a person shouldn't have to sign the log to claim a smilie on GC.com.

Then if a person goes to a cache and doesn't sign the log they can just make it a waymark to claim it.

[GT.US]

I have yet to encounter a convincing argument in favour of Waymarking as a replacement for Virtual geocaches.

 

I'll try! Instead of one ghost icon, you can collect nearly 1,000 different icons if you travel extensively enough.

 

If you consider my 17 states and 4 countries as a measly weekend trip, I challenge you to top my 650 different icons of the 950 currently available... if your screen name is not BruceS.

 

Does 750 Categories Count?

 

Grid Count: 750 of 958

 

http://www.Waymarking.com/users/profile.as...se&mypage=4

 

Chika-Boom Chika-Boom... Don't ya just love it?

[+Ambrosia]

And I've yet to see anyone that has anything close to a valid reason why Virtuals are better than Waymarks.

 

because virtuals don't/didn't have to fit into a category. One of a kind things that couldn't be categorized, and couldn't have physical caches placed near them.

 

most of the time when I try and publish these things in Waymarking I get notes from overzealous waymark category owners stating that the title must be in such-n-such format, and the involved item doesn't meet the specifications for the category.

 

No thanks! There is enough bureaucracy in the world, I don't want to deal with it as a hobby too.

 

 

I dunno, when I look through the over 100 virts that I have found, there are extremely few that couldn't have had a physical cache placed there (maybe the ones in National Parks).

 

If you really scrutinize virts, it takes away a lot of arguments about why they are special. Very few are a total surprise about what you will find, almost all could have a physical cache there, a lot of them aren't super special (historical markers, statues) etc. etc.

 

I'm sorry that you have a difficult time submitting waymarks. I haven't had very many issues, only a couple times. But I make sure and read the description and follow the instructions. That cuts down on most things, although every once in a while something will hapeen during a submission, because the people reviewing (and submitting) are only human. But I guess the same sort of things can happen when you are submitting a geocache, as well!

Edited April 5, 2010 by Ambrosia

[+saopaulo1]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

 

You could always use a war memorial to make a stage in a multi-cache.

[+briansnat]

And I've yet to see anyone that has anything close to a valid reason why Virtuals are better than Waymarks.

 

because virtuals don't/didn't have to fit into a category. One of a kind things that couldn't be categorized, and couldn't have physical caches placed near them.

 

most of the time when I try and publish these things in Waymarking I get notes from overzealous waymark category owners stating that the title must be in such-n-such format, and the involved item doesn't meet the specifications for the category.

 

No thanks! There is enough bureaucracy in the world, I don't want to deal with it as a hobby too.

 

 

I dunno, when I look through the over 100 virts that I have found, there are extremely few that couldn't have had a physical cache placed there (maybe the ones in National Parks).

 

If you really scrutinize virts, it takes away a lot of arguments about why they are special. Very few are a total surprise about what you will find, almost all could have a physical cache there, a lot of them aren't super special (historical markers, statues) etc. etc.

 

I'm sorry that you have a difficult time submitting waymarks. I haven't had very many issues, only a couple times. But I make sure and read the description and follow the instructions. That cuts down on most things, although every once in a while something will hapeen during a submission, because the people reviewing (and submitting) are only human. But I guess the same sort of things can happen when you are submitting a geocache, as well!

 

I agree. I can't think of a virtual I found that a real cache couldn't either be hidden at the spot or worked in using an offset.

 

I've rarely encountered problems with getting waymarks published and the few times I did it was because I didn't read the requirements for the category correctly.

[+Team Cotati]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

Just use this cache as a template for how to convert a Traditional into a pseudo Virtual: GCPYV8

 

I'm curious, what are the elements of that cache listing that make it a good 'template' for people to use? I've looked it over for a while and do not see anything special.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Team Cotati

[+BulldogBlitz]

 

Now that's strange. Not to single out that cache of course. Changing a missing cache to a virtual instead of doing maintenance used to happen quite a bit actually. Some guy pulled it off in my area for a 2001 placement for about 3 years before being "caught". I myself did one at Walt Disney World in 2004. They too were "caught" but I don't remember how long it took.

 

And I've stumbled upon old virtuals whose cache descriptions indicate there was once a container there, but the owner changed them to virtuals. I mean the right way, by having a reviewer change the cache type.

 

what constitutes being "caught"? i went in search of a cache today that i found out after the fact was no longer there...and the owner was attempting to keep it as a virtual cache. after having my DNF log deleted, i figured out why. seems that if you are on top of the caches you own, the cache log can be kept pretty clean - zero traces of reality other than a single line hidden in a busy description.

[+ArcherDragoon]

Can anyone tell me why Geocaching.com stopped accepting new Virtual Caches? I think a LOT of people are missing out on some awesome opportunities and I'd like to create some to get people to visit our troop memorials in the area.

 

Many of the memorials in your area are Waymarks already but I am sure there are more you would like to share. There are several other historic and art related Waymarks in your area also.

 

Unfortunately, Waymarking is lame, hard to use, and isn't well integrated with Geocaching.com, so it's not really any good for those of us who want to geocache in areas that don't allow/ aren't good for physical caches.

"Isn't well integrated with Geocaching.com"...

 

I think you hit the reason it seems to be upopular with folks of a similar belief as yours...

 

I don't think is was ever really meant to be integrated with Geocaching.com...afterall...it is called Waymarking.com...go figure...two different websites...for two different activities...

 

I know it may not be the "popular" belief...but I wish that earthcaches would have stayed over there...every time a virt thread pops up...earthcaches are brought up as an "argument" for why virts should be added back in...and now...just take a look at all the issues that popped up with logging over in the earthcache forum...

 

Virts and Earthcaches are very different than geocaches...

 

Heck...I got an earthcache and a geocache very close to eachother...and the geocache is leading in finds by far...

 

As Briansnat said: "I agree. I can't think of a virtual I found that a real cache couldn't either be hidden at the spot or worked in using an offset."

 

...the same could be said of earthcaches...

[+baloo&bd]

Here is an idea.

Lets add a hidden container category to Waymarking.

Argument being all the arguments that are given as to why a person shouldn't have to sign the log to claim a smilie on GC.com.

Then if a person goes to a cache and doesn't sign the log they can just make it a waymark to claim it.

 

Not that bad an idea, at least then Waymarking would get some sort of traffic.