Banned Cachers

[+zx6team]

I was looking at a cacher profile and noticed that the status was "Banned Member". There was also a note about the send message feature being disabled because the member was "currently banned". What type of things causes a member to be banned and what does it mean as far a geocaching is concerned?

[+wimseyguy]

Consider it the ultimate in getting sent to the corner for being very very bad.

 

Generally it involves gross and repeated violations of the terms of use and/or guidelines. You have got to push pretty hard to earn that merit badge around here.

Edited May 17, 2010 by wimseyguy

[Andronicus]

Can a banned cacher still view cache pages?

 

I guess they could setup a new account to use untill thier ban was over.

[jholly]

Can a banned cacher still view cache pages?

 

I guess they could setup a new account to use untill thier ban was over.

 

There are two types of banning. If your banned from the forums you can read but not post in the forums. You can still use the other site facilities, i.e., visit cache pages, PQ's and email users.

 

The site wide ban, which this one is, you can not send or receive email, view or log caches or any of the other activities. You can't even log caches you have in your off line database. Your geocaching activities are on hold. The first (couple, few?) times your banning is for a specified period of time. One of the things your warned against is setting up a sock puppet account to get around the banning. If your caught your thrown out and the locks are changed. The point about email being restricted is interesting. If your a earthcache owner your not receiving the log emails and therefore you can't delete bogus logs. If you have a cache that gets a NM or NA log you won't see it and I guess your cache listing could be archived without you knowing or being able to do anything about it. You want to play nice so you don't get banned.

[+humboldt flier]

Consider it the ultimate in getting sent to the corner for being very very bad.

 

Generally it involves gross and repeated violations of the terms of use and/or guidelines. You have got to push pretty hard to earn that merit badge around here.

Soooooooooooo, if you get 21 of those merit badges do you get a Turkey Vulture Award or a Condor Award??

[+Walts Hunting]

Another cause of banning is using unauthorized applications to access the site but you get a warning first.

[+Coldgears]

Another cause of banning is using unauthorized applications to access the site but you get a warning first.

What? Why would anyone bother doing that? By apps do you mean for the iphone or android? Or a computer app? I'm confused?

[jholly]

Another cause of banning is using unauthorized applications to access the site but you get a warning first.

What? Why would anyone bother doing that? By apps do you mean for the iphone or android? Or a computer app? I'm confused?

 

There was a supplemental program used with a very popular 3rd party app that was abused by many people. Some knew they were abusing this program and did not care, others where unaware of what they were doing. The frog was not amused.

[+Coldgears]

Another cause of banning is using unauthorized applications to access the site but you get a warning first.

What? Why would anyone bother doing that? By apps do you mean for the iphone or android? Or a computer app? I'm confused?

 

There was a supplemental program used with a very popular 3rd party app that was abused by many people. Some knew they were abusing this program and did not care, others where unaware of what they were doing. The frog was not amused.

An app for what? A phone with a GPS equipped? If so how could it be abused? Apps just give you the location of geocaches... I'm really confused here. Elaborate a bit more...

[Keystone]

The topic is "Banned Cachers." Please take the side conversation to a new thread, or to PM's.

[+brslk]

I was once banned permanently from a forum.

Did I deserve it? Yup...

Say no more....

[+keehotee]

If your a earthcache owner your not receiving the log emails and therefore you can't delete bogus logs. If you have a cache that gets a NM or NA log you won't see it and I guess your cache listing could be archived without you knowing or being able to do anything about it. You want to play nice so you don't get banned.

 

Isn't that a little hypocritical of Groundspeak?

You've done something they consider so bad that they ban you from using the site - but continue to list any caches you own, without giving you the option to take down or disable the listing?

[+gpsfun]

If your a earthcache owner your not receiving the log emails and therefore you can't delete bogus logs. If you have a cache that gets a NM or NA log you won't see it and I guess your cache listing could be archived without you knowing or being able to do anything about it. You want to play nice so you don't get banned.

 

Isn't that a little hypocritical of Groundspeak?

You've done something they consider so bad that they ban you from using the site - but continue to list any caches you own, without giving you the option to take down or disable the listing?

Generally the caches are left in play so as not to deprive the community of finding and logging them. If a cache owner's account is suspended for a week, they can catch up on cache maintenance issues when the account is restored. Two weeks - still not so big of a deal. A suspension for an extended period - well, getting caught up might be more difficult.

 

A suspended cache owner can write to Groundspeak requesting actions to be taken on his or her behalf. If the requested action will benefit the caching community, Groundspeak may grant the request.

 

Account suspensions are actually pretty rare. As stated earlier in this thread, a user has to push pretty hard to earn a suspension.

[drewmm]

If there's a physical element, the cache owner can always take it down. It's there property, after all. At that point, Groundspeak would almost certainly grant an archiving request.