Someone sole my cache!

[ashnikes]

And it was only in place for half a day, i thought i hid it well, I tied it to a rope and sank it to the bottom of a lake tied off to the edge of the underside of a dock at my favorite park, and i went back to move it oday because there was apparently another cache within 50 ft, (who knew there was a proximity rule) and it was gone.

 

bummer,

 

hopefully they will return it so i can relocate it,

 

anyone else had their cache removed or stolen?

[+Chrysalides]

(who knew there was a proximity rule)

Actually, when you submitted your cache listing, you stated that you've read the listing requirements and guidelines.

 

Sorry that your first cache didn't go through. It sounds like an interesting hide. Not sure how or why it got stolen - without more information, all we can do is speculate that some girl scouts took it.

 

Is the "sole" in the post title and the fact that this is a water cache intentional? Funny either way

[+Team Cotati]

"anyone else had their cache removed or stolen?"

 

No, never. This is an exceedingly rare occurrence only happens in about 1 in 100,000 cache placements.

[+Setan Meyacha]

And it was only in place for half a day, i thought i hid it well, I tied it to a rope and sank it to the bottom of a lake tied off to the edge of the underside of a dock at my favorite park, and i went back to move it oday because there was apparently another cache within 50 ft, (who knew there was a proximity rule) and it was gone.

 

bummer,

 

hopefully they will return it so i can relocate it,

 

anyone else had their cache removed or stolen?

 

I can tell you are already gungho about geocaching, but you might want to find a few more caches and study the guidelines for placing a cache before attempting another one. The hide sounds like a good idea and probably would have 'floated' if you had read the guidlines and found another location for your cache. As to your cache going missing: 1) is it possible the rope came undone from the cache, 2) it's possible a muggle saw you place the cache and got curious about what you were doing, found it and thought they found a treasure, or 3) did you have permission to place the cache where you placed it? If it was in a park or other controlled area it is possible it was removed by an authority over the area; i.e., land manager, park manager, etc.

Good luck on your next placement; keep the same idea, just find a different location, with permission.

[BCProspectors]

(who knew there was a proximity rule)

People who read the Guidelines.

[+dorqie]

yes, I just had a cache stolen right before it was published.

sucks, now i'm going to have a hard time finding a simlar container to replace it with, but oh well, cest la vie

[+drfred]

sum'un sole yo cache?

 

I bought it. You couldn't imagine the black market for these things!

[+geodarts]

It happens. I had one cache that did not make it a day. It seemed like a perfectly good location when I placed it on a overcast, windy, and rainy day. But I was a little overconfident with that one. Find a few more caches. Read the guidelines. Get a sense of where a placement will work. Find out what kind of permission you will need. And then try it again.

Edited May 29, 2010 by Erickson

[knowschad]

Someone probably wanted to place a micro there instead.

[ashnikes]

I know where placements will work,

i was trying something new, something i hadn't encountered before,

how was i supposed to know there were a ton of divers that frequent that location?

turns out it was taken by a group of single digit kids who were diving, found it, and i guess thought they should take it home, it was pretty filled to the brim with treasure. they took the brick sinking it to the bottom of the lake, the rope anchoring it to the dock, and everything.

 

oh well....

 

as for reading the guidelines....

i think there being so many rules like that one make it unattractive to some people.

geocachers will look for and sign caches wherever they are, who cares if there are two at the same park?

i get that there could be an overpopulation of caches if this rule were not in place, but do you honestly believe people would oversaturate an area with caches? maybe a few really nice places would have like 3 or 4 but people wouldnt stand for more than that.

 

i also think the idea of a travel bug is a really cool idea, but i think its silly that they have to be bought, why cant we make our own legit travel bugs?

 

sorry to rant, but this game has some really silly aspects to it.

 

its like a private life, a private club, the whole world is invited to but rarely are we supposed to tell them in person, they need to find out online, or in private. its funny, its like people are trying to ween themselves off of the internet by playing internet games outdoors. youre still looking at a screen, even if youre walking on the earth.

[+thedeadpirate]

who cares if there are two at the same park?

Land Managers

 

why cant we make our own legit travel bugs?

 

You can. In fact, there are trackable items that aren't bought through Groundspeak. However, they're not nearly as popular.

Edited May 29, 2010 by GeoBain

[Mr.Yuck]

(who knew there was a proximity rule)

Actually, when you submitted your cache listing, you stated that you've read the listing requirements and guidelines.

 

Sorry that your first cache didn't go through. It sounds like an interesting hide. Not sure how or why it got stolen - without more information, all we can do is speculate that some girl scouts took it.

 

Is the "sole" in the post title and the fact that this is a water cache intentional? Funny either way

 

I worked at a fancy schmancy restaurant in college as a dishwasher. But we were basically the kitchen poop boys, we did everything. One of our duties was to climb 25 feet up a ladder and change the daily specials sign. We had a big dumb jock high school dishwasher. I kid you not, the special was "Fresh Sole" one day, and sure enough, he went out there and put "Fresh Soul" on the sign.

 

If your cache had a very prominent tether line, I could see someone wanting to investigate what was on the other end of the rope. Sorry it happened.

[+WRITE SHOP ROBERT]

Aww, Shucks...How was I supposed to know that this empty field is used for a RenFaire every weekend all summer and will be swarming with people...

 

Well, that's the kind of thing you need to know before tossing a Cache out the window. And this is why, Things go wrong when you don't properly plan things out.

[ashnikes]

hahahahaha... thats true,

i should have done my homework, but honestly i wasnt tooo worried about it being stolen i figured any treasure is bound to be looted at some point, it just stinks that it was so fast, and it was camouflaged tether line, i guess it was just unusual for a brick to be tied to a dock. go figure. i got some new ideas from it though, so im going to try them out this week.

 

watch out orlando, im gonna place some goodies around town for you.

[+Walts Hunting]

who knew there was a proximity rule

 

Remember those two boxes you checked at the bottom of the form that said you read, understood and complied with the guidelines. It was in there.

[+atmospherium]

turns out it was taken by a group of single digit kids who were diving, found it, and i guess thought they should take it home, it was pretty filled to the brim with treasure. they took the brick sinking it to the bottom of the lake, the rope anchoring it to the dock, and everything.

 

When I was a single digit kid, EVERYTHING was a treasure. I once rolled an enormous circular metal Esso Gasoline sign two miles through woods and fields from a dump to my back yard. I can't imagine any kid passing up a sunken treasure box. I would have squealed with joy at such a find.

 

...do you honestly believe people would oversaturate an area with caches? maybe a few really nice places would have like 3 or 4 but people wouldnt stand for more than that.

 

Oh golly, are your eyes about to be opened!

 

...sorry to rant, but this game has some really silly aspects to it.

 

Nothing wrong with venting your frustration that your hide was muggled so quickly, but your entire rant indicates more serious issues. Are you sure this is the game for you?

[+hydnsek]

who cares if there are two at the same park?

Land Managers

+1

 

To the OP: Play the game a little longer, and you might learn that the guidelines aren't "silly" but exist for a reason, and have been refined over the past 10 years based on experience.

[+narcissa]

The guidelines aren't in place because the people at Groundspeak have a rules fetish. The guidelines are there to make the game run smoothly, to protect sensitive land, and to foster good relationships with land managers, among other reasons.

 

When you tried to publish that cache, you had to check two boxes indicating that you had read and understood the rules. Clearly, that is not the case.

 

I don't want to be too hard on you, because you're new, but when you violate the guidelines and play by your own rules, you could be putting the entire game at risk. There are areas where geocaching has been banned because of the careless actions of a few geocachers, and other areas where geocaching has been banned because someone heard a horror story about the careless actions of a few geocachers.

 

As far as I can tell, if you don't care about the guidelines, you don't care about other geocachers, and you certainly don't care about the game. Perhaps it's time to consider a change in attitude or a change in hobby.

[ashnikes]

perhaps.

 

Perhaps we should change the rules to make cache boxes, and bottles earth friendly, so they decompose,

maybe that wouldnt trash the land.

 

Maybe we should limit cache collectors to only finding 1 per week, so as to knock down on the traffic,

 

maybe we should stop putting caches blatantly in front of businesses, as some sly hipster way of attracting businesses (yes i know this is illegal, but dont tell me you never found one of these before) or on maybe we should ban any paraphinilia of geocaching like shirts, bumperstickers, etc, because it attracts too many outsiders.

 

this is a game, not a way to survive,

 

i understand some people give geocaching a bad rap, by doing stupid crap, but those people give human beings a bad rap. and the people who get upset, should understand they are on this planet for how many years? private property is a joke, and mother nature always wins, even if the world is getting trashed, and the ozone is depleating, and animals are dying off, and this that and the other.... she wins in the end, all things here were made here, and even half lifes are not indefinite.

 

my point is...

i like leaving and finding caches, it gets me out of the house, it is an excuse for a cool date with the gf, and her dog, i like seeing kids rummage through my treasure box, even if they stole it. so what? they obviously need it more than i do. did my cache trash the planet? perhaps, but i guarantee, less than you do on garbage night.

 

and actually all the contents in my cache even the cache itself, the rope, and the brick used to weigh it down came from the garbage. i recycled. i planted my cache some place that was man made, and therefore no extra harm was done to the enviornment, i may not have read all the strict rules in the book, which im sure are there for good reasons, but i knew what i was doing. and i knew it wasnt bad, and i knew no one would have a problem with it, turns out, i was wrong, the only people who had a problem with it were the people verifying my cache, weird that i got banned, but those people who put caches in places they really shouldnt, with crap in them they bought, with this attitude that if things got stolen, or not replaced, or craped or peed on, or trampled, or lost or this that and the other, or that the geocachers who were looking for the caches messed the spot up where they placed the cache, get published.

 

now im rambling, i think i need a nap.

[+thedeadpirate]

Perhaps we should change the rules to make cache boxes, and bottles earth friendly, so they decompose, maybe that wouldnt trash the land.

Or maybe while they are active, they're not trashing the land. And when they are archived, they are picked up and still not trashing the land.

 

I gotta tell ya I am having a difficult time believing you are not trolling.

 

Maybe you just need someone to donate a premium membership so you can get into Off-Topic and let off some steam. I dunno. But I'm gonna try my best to listen to TAR and give you the benefit of the doubt.

[+thedeadpirate]

If you are serious about geocaching and really want to get some good advice and meet people close to you, try out Florida Geocaching Association.

[ashnikes]

eh... im not really serious about anything in life.

[+buttaskotch]

perhaps.

 

Perhaps we should change the rules to make cache boxes, and bottles earth friendly, so they decompose,

maybe that wouldnt trash the land.

 

Maybe we should limit cache collectors to only finding 1 per week, so as to knock down on the traffic,

 

maybe we should stop putting caches blatantly in front of businesses, as some sly hipster way of attracting businesses (yes i know this is illegal, but dont tell me you never found one of these before) or on maybe we should ban any paraphinilia of geocaching like shirts, bumperstickers, etc, because it attracts too many outsiders.

 

this is a game, not a way to survive,

 

i understand some people give geocaching a bad rap, by doing stupid crap, but those people give human beings a bad rap. and the people who get upset, should understand they are on this planet for how many years? private property is a joke, and mother nature always wins, even if the world is getting trashed, and the ozone is depleating, and animals are dying off, and this that and the other.... she wins in the end, all things here were made here, and even half lifes are not indefinite.

 

my point is...

i like leaving and finding caches, it gets me out of the house, it is an excuse for a cool date with the gf, and her dog, i like seeing kids rummage through my treasure box, even if they stole it. so what? they obviously need it more than i do. did my cache trash the planet? perhaps, but i guarantee, less than you do on garbage night.

 

and actually all the contents in my cache even the cache itself, the rope, and the brick used to weigh it down came from the garbage. i recycled. i planted my cache some place that was man made, and therefore no extra harm was done to the enviornment, i may not have read all the strict rules in the book, which im sure are there for good reasons, but i knew what i was doing. and i knew it wasnt bad, and i knew no one would have a problem with it, turns out, i was wrong, the only people who had a problem with it were the people verifying my cache, weird that i got banned, but those people who put caches in places they really shouldnt, with crap in them they bought, with this attitude that if things got stolen, or not replaced, or craped or peed on, or trampled, or lost or this that and the other, or that the geocachers who were looking for the caches messed the spot up where they placed the cache, get published.

 

now im rambling, i think i need a nap.

From your original post and subsequent postings perhaps you should look into finding another knock off Geocaching game site, that has less "rules," there may be a lot of problems with your expectations in the future playing the game.

This game has been around for 10 years, it suits a lot of the players, just because you don't like it doesn't mean the game needs to be suited to your liking. Recommendations can be made to Groundspeak, but more than likely they had been taken into consideration more than you may think and rejected. So, Simply enough, if you like the game, conform to the guidelines.

As for saturation rules, have you ever expanded out on the geocaching maps and actually seen how dense caches are? Yes, I know its frustrating to place a cache and find out there is a proximity issue, but its all part of the game and we have all experienced this from time to time. Do I feel some guidelines are "silly" yes, but I want to play the gams so I will conform to its guidelines.

 

My reco? Stick around for a while and get a feel for things, go to an event and speak to experienced cachers, maybe then you will start to undertand some of the finer points of the game, how to make a better hide, and more about guidelines, etc. You will hopefully then see that this is a community of like minded individuals that like to "play" outside, not some clandestine club out to make "rules" to mess with you.

[+drfred]

now im rambling, i think i need a nap.

 

yes, you do

[+StarBrand]

The guidelines have evolved over time to protect the game and those that play it. The specific wording has been altered to both cater to the players and to please the hard core land managers that allow us to access and use land all across the nation. Some of the guidelines are a bit arbitrary but do exist for a reason.

 

Some places that sound good turn out to be a bad place. It happens to all of us. One of my caches was placed along a very rural road with a nice prairie view including a windmill. It looked ideal. The container went missing just a few weeks later. I replaced it. That one went missing. I replaced it. A few months later as I travelled the road - I watched a local rancher herd cattle over the spot where my cache was hidden. I waited and sure enough - it was missing (or rather trampled to death some 70 feet away after vbeing kicked by a few dozen cows.) Bad spot for a cache. The flat grassy prairie terrain is hard to find a good hiding spot.

[+mchaos]

I know where placements will work,

i was trying something new, something i hadn't encountered before,

how was i supposed to know there were a ton of divers that frequent that location?

turns out it was taken by a group of single digit kids who were diving, found it, and i guess thought they should take it home, it was pretty filled to the brim with treasure. they took the brick sinking it to the bottom of the lake, the rope anchoring it to the dock, and everything.

 

oh well....

 

as for reading the guidelines....

i think there being so many rules like that one make it unattractive to some people.

geocachers will look for and sign caches wherever they are, who cares if there are two at the same park?

i get that there could be an overpopulation of caches if this rule were not in place, but do you honestly believe people would oversaturate an area with caches? maybe a few really nice places would have like 3 or 4 but people wouldnt stand for more than that.

 

i also think the idea of a travel bug is a really cool idea, but i think its silly that they have to be bought, why cant we make our own legit travel bugs?

 

sorry to rant, but this game has some really silly aspects to it.

 

its like a private life, a private club, the whole world is invited to but rarely are we supposed to tell them in person, they need to find out online, or in private. its funny, its like people are trying to ween themselves off of the internet by playing internet games outdoors. youre still looking at a screen, even if youre walking on the earth.

 

I don't know about you, but I would rather not have some one place a cache right next to mine. Nor do I want to find more then one in a small area.

 

Besides, 500 feet is not that far. only takes a few minutes to walk it.

 

Without rules the game would suffer. It would be a muck.

 

If you don't like the rules, you don't have to geocache do you? if you want to place a cache, you have to follow the rules.

 

I hid a cache once and it was too close to another cache. I thought I had given it enough room. I just moved it and didn't make a big deal about it. I think it was like 450 ft away.

[+Fiver1]

I'm really bothered now. People keep referring to geocaching as a "GAME". I never knew it was a game. To me this is serious business. Tromping through the woods in search of hidden treasure, lifting lamp post skirts for the elusive find, opening peanut butter jars to wonder at the contents, salivating daily for the new hides, etc... When did it become a "GAME"?

 

And now, the OP has added a new dimension. We all get to redesign how geocaching is supposed to work. We write our own rules. It can now be called "Geochaos".

 

Whatcha' think?