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Geocacher liars


germanybert

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Why do you care about somebody else's find stats? It's not a competition.

 

If someone logs a bogus find on your cache, delete. Beyond that, get over it.

I disagree totally with that. Armchair loggers should be banned from geocaching for a year minimum.

 

Well, that would certainly be a deterrent to doing it. :yikes:

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I do not care that he does it I know that it has no effect on my stats or my game. I was just wondering why someone would do this.

 

Also....just because someone is in Germany does not mean they are German. So before assuming that Germany is MY country think about how many US Military are in Germany.

 

Actually, it's the dwarf avatar that made me think you're from Germany. OK, maybe not. :sad:

 

But everything Toz said in his first post is true, about how native Germans have sort of earned a reputation for this, and many of their logs contain the phrase "greetings from Germany", which has become rather humorous in these parts.

 

Don't feel beat down by the "it doesn't affect me, and I don't care" type responses. If I had seen this for the first time, I would be quite amazed myself, and maybe even start a forum thread.

 

I have been on a short vacation this weekend and I just did my usual early morning cache near our hotel du jour (this time in downtown Buffalo). Besides needing some serious maintanence on the actual log (wet wad of paper now) this one had another piece of dry paper in a very tattered small ziplock. On the paper was "Greetings from Germany" LMAO!!!

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Here is my thought (which don't mean much) about this.

 

This is a game. It is meant to have fun. I have fun finding caches. It used to be about numbers when I started, now its about fun with the family. If I don't find them all, who cares.

There is a local cacher in our area that lies about his numbers, finds caches without even leaving his house, our goes out to find a cache and if he can't find it after 5 minutes, places a new container where he thinks it should be and off he goes.

I know this is wrong and it used to bother me a bunch, but now I don't really care. My thoughts are like this... If this is how HE is having fun with the game and it's not bothering ME or OTHER cachers, then who cares. As long as he is having fun, then more power to him.

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I have been on a short vacation this weekend and I just did my usual early morning cache near our hotel du jour (this time in downtown Buffalo). Besides needing some serious maintanence on the actual log (wet wad of paper now) this one had another piece of dry paper in a very tattered small ziplock. On the paper was "Greetings from Germany" LMAO!!!

I thought that I was the only one to go to Buffalo on vacation.

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We started geocaching when we were stationed up in Wiesbaden. This was back when more of the armchair virtuals were still up, and at first, I thought they were cool (it helped that all of my German friends had logged them). I logged a few, then thought about it, then later that day I deleted my finds, it just felt like cheating.

 

I did finally log one "armchair" cache that was close to our apartment -- Wo war ich nur? -- but I actually traveled to Marburg and visited the coordinates you had to identify to get permission to log the cache. From reading the logs, of the 871 finds on the cache, only a handful of other cachers did that.

 

Good friends of mine still claim finds on some of the more infamous armchair caches -- Four Windows, the online cache simulation up in Sweden, all of Baron von TnT's virtuals in the Midwest, the one down in Liberia, the one down in Cameroon, the one down in Antarctica, etc.

 

None of them try to hide it, and though some of my friends may have gone back and deleted their finds, most have not.

 

Unfortunately, these couch cachers did cost the geocaching world. I will very likely be traveling to Africa for my job, and I won't have a lot of free time or travel privileges. If I go to someplace like Abuja, Nigeria, that's fine, you can log the earth cache there pretty easily from downtown. But if I go to, say, Liberia, I'm out of luck, because that virtual is gone due to couch cachers. (Can't even find it on the site anymore.)

 

So to those who are saying that it is only up to individual cachers, that's crap. Unless/until virtuals come back, or unless someone has had the vision to place a durable earthcache, there are plenty of areas in the world that just will not sustain geocaching. Thanks to couch cachers abusing the system, the rest of us who actually go to those places are now missing out.

 

(By the way, Bert, have you heard of MAGC? Go sign up at militarycache.org, there is a Germany chapter, and I know they have an event coming up.)

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Here is my thought (which don't mean much) about this.

 

This is a game. It is meant to have fun. I have fun finding caches. It used to be about numbers when I started, now its about fun with the family. If I don't find them all, who cares.

There is a local cacher in our area that lies about his numbers, finds caches without even leaving his house, our goes out to find a cache and if he can't find it after 5 minutes, places a new container where he thinks it should be and off he goes.

I know this is wrong and it used to bother me a bunch, but now I don't really care. My thoughts are like this... If this is how HE is having fun with the game and it's not bothering ME or OTHER cachers, then who cares. As long as he is having fun, then more power to him.

 

But if he tosses down a new container he IS hurting the game--maybe not with the rest, but tossing down new containers definitely does harm.

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I have been on a short vacation this weekend and I just did my usual early morning cache near our hotel du jour (this time in downtown Buffalo). Besides needing some serious maintanence on the actual log (wet wad of paper now) this one had another piece of dry paper in a very tattered small ziplock. On the paper was "Greetings from Germany" LMAO!!!

I thought that I was the only one to go to Buffalo on vacation.

 

I don't believe you.

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Honestly, I really don't care how others play the game. To each his/her own. I personally would never log any armchair finds because I enjoy going to explore new areas and seeing something for myself. How someone else plays the game has no bearing on my account unless they try to log one of my caches without finding it. All finds that are not legitimate are instantly deleted.

 

That being said, I must say that I do agree with Keystone regarding the point he raises about virtual caches. Because of abuse of the system by others, my enjoyment of the game has been somewhat affected. I genuinely enjoy doing virtuals and in the 3.5 years that I have been caching, I have logged 255 virtuals and 105 earthcaches. Whenever I go to a new area, I purposely seek out the virtuals and earthcaches because they typically take me to something unique or interesting. In fact, this is one of the reasons that I love geocaching. It gives me a reason to go out and see things that I most likely would have never known were there. Granted, there are a few stinkers in the bunch, but I find those to be the exception and not the rule.

 

I too am disappointed that virtuals are no longer published and am saddened every time I see another is archived. What annoys me even more, however, is the policy now in effect that states that virtuals and webcams cannot be adopted. I would love to adopt a few nice ones to keep them going rather than see them get obliterated. However, roadblocks like this suggest that the site would rather them disappear altogether than allow them to continue for those in the community that enjoy them. I am supportive of most of Groundspeak's policies, but the adoption ban on virtuals just irks me.

Edited by mblatch
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Here is my thought (which don't mean much) about this.

 

This is a game. It is meant to have fun. I have fun finding caches. It used to be about numbers when I started, now its about fun with the family. If I don't find them all, who cares.

There is a local cacher in our area that lies about his numbers, finds caches without even leaving his house, our goes out to find a cache and if he can't find it after 5 minutes, places a new container where he thinks it should be and off he goes.

I know this is wrong and it used to bother me a bunch, but now I don't really care. My thoughts are like this... If this is how HE is having fun with the game and it's not bothering ME or OTHER cachers, then who cares. As long as he is having fun, then more power to him.

But if he tosses down a new container he IS hurting the game--maybe not with the rest, but tossing down new containers definitely does harm.
Please describe this 'harm', just so we are on the same page.

 

I have been on a short vacation this weekend and I just did my usual early morning cache near our hotel du jour (this time in downtown Buffalo). Besides needing some serious maintanence on the actual log (wet wad of paper now) this one had another piece of dry paper in a very tattered small ziplock. On the paper was "Greetings from Germany" LMAO!!!
I thought that I was the only one to go to Buffalo on vacation.
I don't believe you.
You don't believe that I thought that?
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I too am disappointed that virtuals are no longer published and am saddened every time I see another is archived. What annoys me even more, however, is the policy now in effect that states that virtuals and webcams cannot be adopted. I would love to adopt a few nice ones to keep them going rather than see them get obliterated. However, roadblocks like this suggest that the site would rather them disappear altogether than allow them to continue for those in the community that enjoy them. I am supportive of most of Groundspeak's policies, but the adoption ban on virtuals just irks me.

I feel the same way regarding Apes. Edited by sbell111
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I feel the same way regarding Apes.

 

I can at least understand the APE caches. Those were done as a one-time movie promotion. Once the movie premiere was over and the original caches disappeared, I agree that those should be archived. What I don't understand is the policy that suggests/implies that virtuals are the black sheep of the caching family that must be suppressed and ultimately destroyed at all costs. Groundspeak has done everything but hire the Ghostbusters to come in and actively trap those pesky ghosts. haha

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But if he tosses down a new container he IS hurting the game--maybe not with the rest, but tossing down new containers definitely does harm.
Please describe this 'harm', just so we are on the same page.
I've found more than one throw-down cache that was placed within inches of a much more creative hide. Off the top of my head: Those who find the throw-down cache are deprived of getting to experience the cache owner's creativity. The cache owner's reputation is tarnished when others think he/she actually hid the uncreative throw-down cache. Those who find the throw-down cache may be deprived of a smiley if the cache owner checks their online logs against the physical log of the original cache and deletes their online logs.
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Greetings from the USA, :laughing:

 

You might also think that not all people are not completely accurate with their logging. There has been a number of times that I got home from vacation and logged all my caches. At first I forgot to change the date for each day. Because I cared about accurate statistics/reporting I went back and edited about 40 caches. I also did not realize the importance of logging caches in the correct order and/or how to fix this in GSAK. Some people might not care about certain statistics so are not to concerned if these statistics are incorrect or not.

 

It took me quite a while to get me 840 found caches into the correct order in GSAK only to download my found caches PQ and find it messed up again. I have since fixed this, because I care about accurate statistics. At one point my longest day was from OH to MA to NY to MA to OH to PA to NY and back to MA. Obviously this is not how I traveled, but I logged caches with tradeables first and then others as I thought of them. If I had found GSAK statistics generator after 1000 or 1500 caches I might never have cared that my max distance in a day, or trips to the moon and back where messed up.

 

Don't jump right out and come to the conclusion that he is a liar. If someone asked me about my stats while I was trying to get them figured out, I probably would have given some flippant reply to.

 

Anyways besides the flippant remark is there any other evidence that he is couch-caching that I missed. Quite frankly I am more worried about individuals that have been caching for 2 years and have 20,000+ finds myself. How can someone find 27.5+ caches a day (on average) for/in two years.

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I have been on a short vacation this weekend and I just did my usual early morning cache near our hotel du jour (this time in downtown Buffalo). Besides needing some serious maintanence on the actual log (wet wad of paper now) this one had another piece of dry paper in a very tattered small ziplock. On the paper was "Greetings from Germany" LMAO!!!
I thought that I was the only one to go to Buffalo on vacation.
I don't believe you.
You don't believe that I thought that?

 

Yep. :laughing:

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Here is my thought (which don't mean much) about this.

 

This is a game. It is meant to have fun. I have fun finding caches. It used to be about numbers when I started, now its about fun with the family. If I don't find them all, who cares.

There is a local cacher in our area that lies about his numbers, finds caches without even leaving his house, our goes out to find a cache and if he can't find it after 5 minutes, places a new container where he thinks it should be and off he goes.

I know this is wrong and it used to bother me a bunch, but now I don't really care. My thoughts are like this... If this is how HE is having fun with the game and it's not bothering ME or OTHER cachers, then who cares. As long as he is having fun, then more power to him.

 

Well yeah, if you've personally "attended" over 700 events, I can see you subscribing to the "anything goes" thereom. :laughing: I would have to draw the line though, as a few others have above me, at the throwing down of caches not affecting anyone.

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Hi GermanyBert

I thank you for your thoughts. I am a Brit living in Germany for the past 30 yrs and whilst on div. holidays has been looked upon with discontent because I spoke in German with my wife - until they found out I was a Brit.

 

To all others, I have traveled around the world visiting about 6 or 7 countries. I have logged 1 virtual Cache that I didnt visit (in Texas) and have since stopped logging them as not to be tarred with a brush I dont deserve. Some virtual Caches have been placed in such a way that there is no log book to be signed and an E-Mail to an answer address that sends an automated answer for you to log.

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Has anyone thought that some "armchair loggers" may be disabled people that may not be able to travel great distances but enjoys Caching. I know of one, he has only 30% use of his heart, loves cacheing also virtual Caches, is he to be tarred and barred because he knows the answers but cannot travel to the virtual Caches but gets permmision to log them all the same.

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Hi GermanyBert

I thank you for your thoughts. I am a Brit living in Germany for the past 30 yrs and whilst on div. holidays has been looked upon with discontent because I spoke in German with my wife - until they found out I was a Brit.

 

 

HA!!! My wife and I almost got kick out of a camping ground in Holland for speaking German!! Once the owner found out that I am American we were allowed to stay!

 

Gruesse!

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But if he tosses down a new container he IS hurting the game--maybe not with the rest, but tossing down new containers definitely does harm.
Please describe this 'harm', just so we are on the same page.
I've found more than one throw-down cache that was placed within inches of a much more creative hide. Off the top of my head: Those who find the throw-down cache are deprived of getting to experience the cache owner's creativity. The cache owner's reputation is tarnished when others think he/she actually hid the uncreative throw-down cache. Those who find the throw-down cache may be deprived of a smiley if the cache owner checks their online logs against the physical log of the original cache and deletes their online logs.

Isn't this 'deprivement' limited to the period of time between when the throwdown happened and when the cache owner responded to the issue to make sure that 1) his cache was actually missing and 2) the throwdown met his standards? Given that in most cases, the cache WAS actually missing a the time of the throwdown, one could certainly argue that no one was deprived of anything since had the throwdown not taken place, no find would be made.
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But if he tosses down a new container he IS hurting the game--maybe not with the rest, but tossing down new containers definitely does harm.
Please describe this 'harm', just so we are on the same page.
I've found more than one throw-down cache that was placed within inches of a much more creative hide. Off the top of my head: Those who find the throw-down cache are deprived of getting to experience the cache owner's creativity. The cache owner's reputation is tarnished when others think he/she actually hid the uncreative throw-down cache. Those who find the throw-down cache may be deprived of a smiley if the cache owner checks their online logs against the physical log of the original cache and deletes their online logs.

 

Exactly, now I don't have to answer--but that's just what I meant.

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Has anyone thought that some "armchair loggers" may be disabled people that may not be able to travel great distances but enjoys Caching. I know of one, he has only 30% use of his heart, loves cacheing also virtual Caches, is he to be tarred and barred because he knows the answers but cannot travel to the virtual Caches but gets permmision to log them all the same.

Kudos to your friend for finding an activity he can enjoy. You suggested that he goes online, locates a virtual, discovers the answers, then logs a find. Is that right? If so, your friend may be enjoying a rather unique activity, but that activity is not geocaching. Armchair logging is not a good thing, and has caused many a virtual cache to be archived. Giving a person a pass on bad behavior simply because they have a physical disability is pretty cheesy, and insulting to the rest of the mobility impaired world.

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Has anyone thought that some "armchair loggers" may be disabled people that may not be able to travel great distances but enjoys Caching. I know of one, he has only 30% use of his heart, loves cacheing also virtual Caches, is he to be tarred and barred because he knows the answers but cannot travel to the virtual Caches but gets permmision to log them all the same.

 

Is it time for the subject of cheating to come to the top again?

My this month has just slipped away from me.

 

Yes, speakers corner has a point. We have no idea of the circumstances of anyone else.

 

These things used to bug me really bad when I started caching. How dare they?

 

Then I started reading what others wrote and started realizing people do cheat in all aspects of life, and I can let it get to me or not.

 

So in that spirit I logged 4 Corners (which was never meant to have anyone actually go to the site to log it; it was at the north pole and had over 3,000 "finds" on it). That's the only one I"ll ever armchair cache, and that was never intended to be anything BUT an armchair cache.

 

As far as those in Germany...

I try to remember everyone thinks differently. People in the US all think differently, and people from different cultures think even more differently. They think we think pretty weird, and perhaps we do.

But the point is that they might not see it as we do. They may think this is not cheating. So we are holding them up to our standards, when it is only a game and we're going to create an international incident out of it.

But who cares whether it is cheating, or not? Who cares whether it is right or wrong?

Yes it has been a problem with the virtuals disappearing, but it is the way it is. Some people are going to do it because they think it's OK to do. So what?

 

Everything is temporary anyway. We try to make every cache last as long as we can, but the only permanent thing is impermance. So are we going to fight each other tooth and nail along the way,

 

Or are we going to say, "Gee if it makes this guy happy, and maybe it's the only happiness he's got in his life, let him have it." There's not a lot we can do about it anyway.

 

So choose to get upset or not. Either won't help stop it. One will shorten your own life though.

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I've found more than one throw-down cache that was placed within inches of a much more creative hide. Off the top of my head: Those who find the throw-down cache are deprived of getting to experience the cache owner's creativity. The cache owner's reputation is tarnished when others think he/she actually hid the uncreative throw-down cache. Those who find the throw-down cache may be deprived of a smiley if the cache owner checks their online logs against the physical log of the original cache and deletes their online logs.
Isn't this 'deprivement' limited to the period of time between when the throwdown happened and when the cache owner responded to the issue to make sure that 1) his cache was actually missing and 2) the throwdown met his standards? Given that in most cases, the cache WAS actually missing a the time of the throwdown, one could certainly argue that no one was deprived of anything since had the throwdown not taken place, no find would be made.
I can't speak for "most cases", but I can speak for the situations I've seen. As I wrote earlier, "I've found more than one throw-down cache that was placed within inches of a much more creative hide."
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I've found more than one throw-down cache that was placed within inches of a much more creative hide. Off the top of my head: Those who find the throw-down cache are deprived of getting to experience the cache owner's creativity. The cache owner's reputation is tarnished when others think he/she actually hid the uncreative throw-down cache. Those who find the throw-down cache may be deprived of a smiley if the cache owner checks their online logs against the physical log of the original cache and deletes their online logs.
Isn't this 'deprivement' limited to the period of time between when the throwdown happened and when the cache owner responded to the issue to make sure that 1) his cache was actually missing and 2) the throwdown met his standards? Given that in most cases, the cache WAS actually missing a the time of the throwdown, one could certainly argue that no one was deprived of anything since had the throwdown not taken place, no find would be made.
I can't speak for "most cases", but I can speak for the situations I've seen. As I wrote earlier, "I've found more than one throw-down cache that was placed within inches of a much more creative hide."

I assume that most reasonable people believe that these are the exception, not the rule.
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Another Mr. Pedantic (or rather Herr Pedantisch since I am German) here for a quick OT rant:

 

And München is almost pronounced Moonchen but the oo sound is made more up on the nose then then mouth.

You can check the pronounciation here for example: http://dict.leo.org/?lp=ende&from=fx3&...ch=m%C3%BCnchen . (click the speaker icon)

Only Americans mispronounce it Moonchen. This is understandable since the ü sound doesn't exist in English.

It's pronounced like the French U.

 

Actually what the umlaut does is make the vowel long.

No, it chances the sound of the vowel.

This page sums it up quite well and gives English sound-alike samples:

http://www.suite101.com/content/how-to-pro...n-vowels-a79344

 

(not the example ü though, but there is no English sound-alike)

As the page correctly states there is unfortunately no indication whatsoever as to length

 

I hope i didn't discourage anybody to try an utter some German words when you pay a visit. I always found it where rewarding to try and speak the local lingo wherever I was and whatever the lingo was.. ;-)

(And no matter how bad I was at speaking it..;-) Locals alway love Foreigners showing some effort.. ;-) )

 

Good bye from Germany

Tschüsss (Not Tshooss! ;-))

 

 

BTT, sorry for getting OT ;-)

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Only Americans mispronounce it Moonchen.

 

Most Americans pronounce it Munich!

 

But....just like I tell my Hessische Frau when she corrects my German pronunciation , "I must be saying it correctly because I am American!" :D

 

It does not matter anyway since umlauts are going away according to this article I found in der Bild Zeitung.

 

"The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

 

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c." Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

 

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like fotograf" 20 persent shorter.

 

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

 

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by " v".

 

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

 

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

 

Ze drem vil finali kum tru. " :)

Edited by GermanyBert
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