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opencaching.com new mascot...


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How far back would I have to scroll to see the last post about the new mascot? :rolleyes: That is what this thread is about, right?

Nah, not for a while now! Threads morph and wander.

 

Speaking of not-mascot things, if Garmin decides that they need Reviewers and that Reviewers should be paid as part-time employees at, say, $12k/yr I wonder how many of our Reviewers would jump ship? :lol:

 

It would seem like a no-brainer on Garmin's part to try to hire Groundspeak's experts. :D

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I'm ready to stab the OC forums in the face. And I don't mean the posters, I mean the software. I spent 10 minutes trying to access my Account General Settings, without success. I kept getting bounced with a vBulletin error that I didn't have permission for what I was trying to do! ARGH.

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Speaking of not-mascot things, if Garmin decides that they need Reviewers and that Reviewers should be paid as part-time employees at, say, $12k/yr I wonder how many of our Reviewers would jump ship? :rolleyes:

 

 

No offense, but, I have too much respect for our local reviewers and the contribution they make to geocaching to dignify that with a response.

 

.

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My 2 cents.

 

On the first day, I went to the oc.com website simply to secure my caching name. That proved to be a challenge in itself. Then I accidentally logged a find on a cache that I have never visited. Neither the CO nor myself can delete that log. Deleting an erroneous log would seem to be a pretty basic requirement of a site. Apparently not.

 

I have not been back since and have no plans to return in the near future.

 

Garmin apparently forgot the old saying: “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression”.

 

I had really hoped that Garmin would create an environment that would extend the caching experience into new areas using things like Chirp and Wherigo type adventures that didn't require log books and containers. With control over their GPS firmware, Garmin could build technology that would emulate a virtual/Wherigo type environment and offer alternatives to the gc.com caching experience.

 

Instead it would seem Garmin decided to simply offer an alternative listing site. And, as we have seen elsewhere, that doesn't work.

 

Even the mascot looks like a beta attempt to create something simply because the other guy has a mascot.

 

My advice to Garmin: Pull the website. Apologize to the user community and come back when you are ready for prime time.

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I'm ready to stab the OC forums in the face. And I don't mean the posters, I mean the software. I spent 10 minutes trying to access my Account General Settings, without success. I kept getting bounced with a vBulletin error that I didn't have permission for what I was trying to do! ARGH.

 

I don't know if this has anything to do with your problem or not, but be sure to check the little "remember me" box when you log in. Otherwise it forgets you as soon as you navigate to a different page.

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I havent seen it since the site went "live". Speaking of the forms, there are a lot o' haters over there as would be expected (I guess) Im down with an alternative site and all, but one were you can import all your hides AND finds?

(I dont like cross listing) Plus you have the ability to import caches that are not your own. I am NOT down with that. The DB is messed up to begin with, plus the privacy issues when you create an account.

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I wonder if you can hide virtuals over there? :rolleyes:

Of course! They won't be called virts, as there is no option in the drop down box for those yet.

But since your cache won't go through a review process, just spell out on the cache page that there is no container.

 

You can't. They deleted my virtual after it had already been published.

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I wonder if you can hide virtuals over there? :rolleyes:

Of course! They won't be called virts, as there is no option in the drop down box for those yet.

But since your cache won't go through a review process, just spell out on the cache page that there is no container.

 

You can't. They deleted my virtual after it had already been published.

Ran through the Riffster Snarky Translator:

"You can, but it won't last very long". :lol:

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Funny, this is what I've been saying about Wherigo and Waymarking for years.

 

A little off topic here but the Wherigo site... yeah maybe deserves getting yanked and redone, but Waymarking isn't THAT bad.

 

My advice to Garmin: Pull the website. Apologize to the user community and come back when you are ready for prime time.

 

Opencaching.com isn't terrible right now either, for the most part it works and since it's run by Garmin I'm confident they'll iron out the bugs pretty fast. Now if they could only have some more features...

What about the bug where the only cache near me leads to a blank page?

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Y'know, Something that occurred to me is that Groundspeak, and geocaching.com are probably the biggest advertiser, and promoter of Garmin outside of themselves!

I know we alone have purchased 2 Garmin units that we would never have even considered if not for geocaching and Groundspeak, and have influenced 3 or 4 others that we introduced to geocaching to get Garmins.

 

And now Garmin turns around and pokes a thumb in Groundspeak's eye!

 

Not to mention all of the perceived problems with the lack of reviewing, caches saturating sensitive areas, etc., and possible resulting black eye for geocaching in general as seen by the general public.

 

I'm feeling a lot less genial towards Garmin and their way of doing business and probably won't promote their units any more.

 

An alternate listing service is one thing .... botching it the way they have so far is something else entirely.

 

I know my opinion doesn't amount to much, but anyway ......

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I won't be trying the Garmin site. Let someone have my user name there. I like the services that Groundspeak offers, and I like the simplicity of using the site. The reviewers sometimes get on my nerves when they kick out a new cache of mine, but they are doing their jobs well. After Christmas, I will have a GPS that will do paperless caching and be able to receive pocket queries. For $30 a year, $2.50 a month, I can have all the caching fun I want right here.

 

I'm not interested in another site. I looked into a couple of the other sites available and just am not interested. The game, as far as I am concerned, is only at www.geocaching.com. Everyone else is just a cheap knock-off in my opinion.

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And I am willing to bet their pockets are deeper than Groundspeaks.

 

They also have a heckuva lot more overhead.

 

Regardless, it would take them actually PAYING folks to hide caches to build a database that might rival this 800 pound gorilla any time in the next 10 years.

 

Their marketeers need a wake up call if they think they can pull it off without spending roughly 2 to 3 times what Groundspeak is currently worth.

But competition is GOOD. I'm still rootin' for the Frog though.

 

Just think where we would be right now if there had been another real contender of a cache listing site since 2003. About 2005 the natives were real restless around here.

 

Terracaching fizzled in a little over a year and a half because (to me) it became a hate the frog club.... and Navicache... :anicute:

 

I signed up for a few alterative cache websites. The real issue was the fact none of them had caches anywhere near me.

repeated over and over for years.

 

The Houston area was a Mecca for alternative cache listing sites. None of 'em lasted.

 

I think a main problem is time. I'm 43, married, and I have a kid. Most of the cachers I know fill that ticket and the age bracket slides up or down about 8 to 10 years.

 

There's not much pioneer spirit left to help build a new database of caches when everything you need is right here for the most part and growing exponentially.

 

Past competition didn't make the powers that be here reconsider virts or locationless caches even though their 1 off solution isn't working with loads of success. :)

 

When TC was big, I asked a few folks what the deal was. Why they wouldn't make the effort to play a different game.... :unsure:

 

The common answer was they didn't want to maintain the extra user accounts and that gc.com gave them all they needed even if they didn't like everything they were being fed.

 

That is my main problem with Waymarking. If Groundspeak merged the 2 sites, I would probably try to waymark. I don't have to log on to benchmarking.com to log a benchmark and it doesn't affect my pure geocaching stats. Get it? :)

 

Garmin's site may last awhile and die a slow apathetic death, but all it can do is make this one better if it starts to catch on and take users away from here or create a new LOYAL fan base. :D

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I won't be trying the Garmin site. Let someone have my user name there.

 

That got me thinking to lock up my user name over there and I ran into an interesting snag.... It would would only recognize my mygarmin account and automatically named me Snoogans.Geocacher.

 

I had to create an account using my work email addy just to get Snoogans.

 

On my Garmin account it offered to import my hides and finds. That's odd and paracitic to me. :anicute:

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I had the problem of having to log in again for every page.

Not the banned for failed login attempts.

I fixed it by leaving the site and probably not going back!

All I was doing was uploading all my hides and leaving them pending to prevent (hopefully) anyone on OC putting another cache on top of mine. My understanding is that pending imports will give some protection.

But who knows? :anicute:

Edited by BC & MsKitty
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A user on my local geocaching site posted this interesting little tidbit:

 

I just got the latest software upgrade for my Garmin Oregon 450, and it changed the icon on the geocaching button from the Groundspeak logo to the generic "found cache" treasure box icon. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that is due to opencaching.com.
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Really??? Have you tried to delete or modify a log?? One would think that type of functionality would be considered basic.

 

.

 

Hence the, "Now if only they had more features...." And yes, they do have about a billion bugs. I will concede to that.

 

That's not a "feature" that's basic functionality.

 

My thoughts exactly but I figure it is time to post the picture of the dead horse being beaten. :anicute:

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A user on my local geocaching site posted this interesting little tidbit:

 

I just got the latest software upgrade for my Garmin Oregon 450, and it changed the icon on the geocaching button from the Groundspeak logo to the generic "found cache" treasure box icon. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that is due to opencaching.com.

 

That happened a few weeks ago and was discussed at length in the firmware threads, as I recall.

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Y'know, Something that occurred to me is that Groundspeak, and geocaching.com are probably the biggest advertiser, and promoter of Garmin outside of themselves!

I know we alone have purchased 2 Garmin units that we would never have even considered if not for geocaching and Groundspeak, and have influenced 3 or 4 others that we introduced to geocaching to get Garmins.

 

And now Garmin turns around and pokes a thumb in Groundspeak's eye!

 

Not to mention all of the perceived problems with the lack of reviewing, caches saturating sensitive areas, etc., and possible resulting black eye for geocaching in general as seen by the general public.

 

I'm feeling a lot less genial towards Garmin and their way of doing business and probably won't promote their units any more.

 

An alternate listing service is one thing .... botching it the way they have so far is something else entirely.

 

I know my opinion doesn't amount to much, but anyway ......

 

Honestly, I don't see a problem with a lack of reviewing. It means caches will truely be the responsibility of the owner - not the website overseeing them, telling them what they can and can't do, and restricting placements based on their own personal guidelines (the website).

 

Not saying the site is good so far - lots of bugs. But not having big brother telling you what you can do may open up a lot more possibilities. And competition is good - in anything. If they take off, and do a good job, maybe Groundspeak will consider some of the things that they have not allowed, or looked down on, or restricted - to change to make the site better and more competitive. GC.com is good - its the best we have out there. A good source of competition can only make it better.

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I'm ready to stab the OC forums in the face. And I don't mean the posters, I mean the software. I spent 10 minutes trying to access my Account General Settings, without success. I kept getting bounced with a vBulletin error that I didn't have permission for what I was trying to do! ARGH.

 

I thought it was just me having that problem

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A user on my local geocaching site posted this interesting little tidbit:
I just got the latest software upgrade for my Garmin Oregon 450, and it changed the icon on the geocaching button from the Groundspeak logo to the generic "found cache" treasure box icon. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that is due to opencaching.com.
That happened a few weeks ago and was discussed at length in the firmware threads, as I recall.
Yep, old news, but OX.com does explain why they did it. :anicute:
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Honestly, I don't see a problem with a lack of reviewing. It means caches will truely be the responsibility of the owner - not the website overseeing them, telling them what they can and can't do, and restricting placements based on their own personal guidelines (the website).

 

Now we are free to put them on active railroad tracks, on school grounds and in National Parks. Gotta love anarchy.

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Honestly, I don't see a problem with a lack of reviewing. It means caches will truely be the responsibility of the owner - not the website overseeing them, telling them what they can and can't do, and restricting placements based on their own personal guidelines (the website).

 

Now we are free to put them on active railroad tracks, on school grounds and in National Parks. Gotta love anarchy.

Explain this one to me?

Where does it say that Geocaching means no caches in active railroads, school grounds and in National Parks?

Who made those rules? Why are they the rules that *every* cache has to abide?

Why does any other geocaching site have to abide to those rules?

All this talk about reviewers and rules and guidelines and stuff makes me wonder who decided that Groundspeak rules are to be enforced by everybody and if a competitor decides to have (or not) rules then it automatically has to be buried to the ground??

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Honestly, I don't see a problem with a lack of reviewing. It means caches will truely be the responsibility of the owner - not the website overseeing them, telling them what they can and can't do, and restricting placements based on their own personal guidelines (the website).

 

Now we are free to put them on active railroad tracks, on school grounds and in National Parks. Gotta love anarchy.

I don't see why it is so hard to understand the opencaching.com system for dealing with caches that don't meet the guidelines. Once the cache is published, anyone can click a button to report the cache violates the guidelines, and the Garmin lackeys take care of it much like reviewers and Groundspeak lackeys respond to Needs Archive logs.

 

You may put a cache on active railroad tracks, on school grounds, or in a National Park; but it won't stay listed very long. Opencaching.com has its own set of guidelines. They are found in the Geocaching Guide on that website, mostly in the section on How to Hide a geocache. Every cache page has a button for reporting caches that don't comply with the guidelines.

 

Major social networking sites like YouTube and facebook rely on users reporting material that violates the TOU rather than having someone review every submission. Groundspeak has certainly shown that for geocaching at least you can do a certain amount of prescreening, so opencaching can't use the excuse of YouTube or facebook that prescreening would be prohibitive. However they may be able to argue that prescreening isn't really necessary for geocaching. If landowners and managers are aware that geocaches placed without permission will quickly be archived there may not be such a big deal. If geocachers are aware that their geocaches can be archived quickly, they may take more care in ensuring that that guidelines are followed and spend less effort trying to sneak something past the reviewers.

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Honestly, I don't see a problem with a lack of reviewing. It means caches will truely be the responsibility of the owner - not the website overseeing them, telling them what they can and can't do, and restricting placements based on their own personal guidelines (the website).

 

Now we are free to put them on active railroad tracks, on school grounds and in National Parks. Gotta love anarchy.

Explain this one to me?

Where does it say that Geocaching means no caches in active railroads, school grounds and in National Parks?

Who made those rules? Why are they the rules that *every* cache has to abide?

Why does any other geocaching site have to abide to those rules?

All this talk about reviewers and rules and guidelines and stuff makes me wonder who decided that Groundspeak rules are to be enforced by everybody and if a competitor decides to have (or not) rules then it automatically has to be buried to the ground??

 

The guidelines used by this website were, for the most part, arrived at because of actual problems that arose with actual caches and actual land managers. In order to keep the activity from being totally banned, guidelines were established in hopes of avoiding future problematic situations.

 

Of course it doesn't automatically mean that caches on a site without reviewers are buried. It also doesn't mean that caches on this site are never buried. But at least a responsible approach has been taken in an effort to minimize those problems.

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Explain this one to me?

Where does it say that Geocaching means no caches in active railroads, school grounds and in National Parks?

Who made those rules? Why are they the rules that *every* cache has to abide?

Why does any other geocaching site have to abide to those rules?

All this talk about reviewers and rules and guidelines and stuff makes me wonder who decided that Groundspeak rules are to be enforced by everybody and if a competitor decides to have (or not) rules then it automatically has to be buried to the ground??

 

Ok then I guess you can change the rules to ...say .. poker so that the game plays the way you want.

Doesn't matter that others play it within the accepted framework of the rules of the game.

 

Without uniform game rules, there won't be a game for long.

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Honestly, I don't see a problem with a lack of reviewing. It means caches will truely be the responsibility of the owner - not the website overseeing them, telling them what they can and can't do, and restricting placements based on their own personal guidelines (the website).

 

Now we are free to put them on active railroad tracks, on school grounds and in National Parks. Gotta love anarchy.

Explain this one to me?

Where does it say that Geocaching means no caches in active railroads, school grounds and in National Parks?

Who made those rules? Why are they the rules that *every* cache has to abide?

Why does any other geocaching site have to abide to those rules?

All this talk about reviewers and rules and guidelines and stuff makes me wonder who decided that Groundspeak rules are to be enforced by everybody and if a competitor decides to have (or not) rules then it automatically has to be buried to the ground??

 

Being sued and jail time is a good reason to have certain rules.

 

The railroads owns the land near the tracks. In some areas its only a few feet away and in others a couple hundred feet. They can and have charge caches with trespassing and I believe someone was even sued by them. On school grounds, it can be trespassing and public nuisance.

 

In many areas it is simply illegal to leave a cache. If you don't think so, join OC.com and have at it. But don't tell the press or the police that you were geocaching since it will make us all look bad.

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Honestly, I don't see a problem with a lack of reviewing. It means caches will truely be the responsibility of the owner - not the website overseeing them, telling them what they can and can't do, and restricting placements based on their own personal guidelines (the website).

 

Now we are free to put them on active railroad tracks, on school grounds and in National Parks. Gotta love anarchy.

Explain this one to me?

Where does it say that Geocaching means no caches in active railroads, school grounds and in National Parks?

Who made those rules? Why are they the rules that *every* cache has to abide?

Why does any other geocaching site have to abide to those rules?

All this talk about reviewers and rules and guidelines and stuff makes me wonder who decided that Groundspeak rules are to be enforced by everybody and if a competitor decides to have (or not) rules then it automatically has to be buried to the ground??

 

They are common sense rules meant to preserve the long term viability of the sport. When our sport makes headlines, as when a highway is shut down during rush hour because a bridge inspector found a cache under a bridge, or when a geocacher is arrested and prosecuted for hiding a cache next to RR tracks, it doesn't serve our sport well. The guidelines are meant to reduce the probability of those incidents.

 

These sort of incidents happen infrequently thanks to these rules. If they became commonplace then the authorities will take notice and you'd soon find geocaching governed by legislation rather than this website's guidelines. If that is something that you'd like to see happen then go ahead and find a site that doesn't enforce these rules. But don't be surprised to find that in a few years geocaching becomes criminalized in many places.

 

Any competitor that doesn't have these kinds of rules doesn't have the best interests of geocaching in mind.

 

I don't see why it is so hard to understand the opencaching.com system for dealing with caches that don't meet the guidelines. Once the cache is published, anyone can click a button to report the cache violates the guidelines, and the Garmin lackeys take care of it much like reviewers and Groundspeak lackeys respond to Needs Archive logs.

 

I think you've been around long enough to know that model won't work. We've often seen caches that slip through the review process get dozens and sometimes a hundred or more finds before someone reports it. We've also seen people who report these caches derided as snitches and "cache cops" by a certain segment in this forum. Not something that exactly encourages the practice.

Edited by briansnat
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I don't see why it is so hard to understand the opencaching.com system for dealing with caches that don't meet the guidelines.

I don't think there is anyone in here that doesn't understand their process. We just find it a bit backwards.

I agree with the logic behind most of the GC guidelines, and most of the OC guidelines. Over here, many of the guideline violations get stopped before they get published, which I see as a good thing, as I believe a cache that is in violation of the guidelines has the potential to hurt this game. Over there, a cache that doesn't meet the guidelines gets published, and stays that way, until somebody reports it. The CCC thread has several examples of caches that violate the GC guidelines, slipping through the reviewer cracks, and getting gobs of found logs, with few mentioning that they might be problematic. This tells me that relying on peer pressure for guideline enforcement is ineffective at best.

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Honestly, I don't see a problem with a lack of reviewing. It means caches will truely be the responsibility of the owner - not the website overseeing them, telling them what they can and can't do, and restricting placements based on their own personal guidelines (the website).

 

Now we are free to put them on active railroad tracks, on school grounds and in National Parks. Gotta love anarchy.

Explain this one to me?

Where does it say that Geocaching means no caches in active railroads, school grounds and in National Parks?

Who made those rules? Why are they the rules that *every* cache has to abide?

Why does any other geocaching site have to abide to those rules?

All this talk about reviewers and rules and guidelines and stuff makes me wonder who decided that Groundspeak rules are to be enforced by everybody and if a competitor decides to have (or not) rules then it automatically has to be buried to the ground??

 

1) As others have said the guidelines were written due to previous incidents that endangered the hobby for everyone. These usually come from people placing caches on private property (RR), or without permission (NPS bridges, etc) No matter what site you use, you are caching and you need to think how one persons action can affect the entire hobby. If we get a rep for being law breakers the government will pass laws against geocaching regardless of site. It's come close to happening in SC.

 

Most of the people who have an issue with OX.com are concerned that a few anarchists over there may give all cachers a bad rep.

 

2) GS has two levels of review. The first level is the reviewer. The reviewer uses the limited given informtation (cache description, coords, and maps) to determine if the cache meets the guidelines. I'm sure most of the caches taht are denied are placed on land that has prohibited caching. The second level of review is every cache seeker (this is the only level OX.com relies upon). Each seeker should be aware of the guidelines and use their common sense asking themselves if this cache could negatively affect the hobby if stumbled upon by a lang manager, LEO, etc. If you are not comfortable posting a NA log then you can always shoot an email to the reviewer or contact@Groundspeak.com detailing the violations. We've all seen pictures in CCC and have found caches that broke some guidline, most of these are ignored because they're cool.

 

Each site will have rule breakers (intentional and unintentional) and I think GS has the best way of preventing more of these than OX.com.

 

I love to cache, I have no issue with competition. I'm just concerned that as it stands in it's alpha/beta phase that OX.com has some holes that can be exploited that could give all of us a bad name, and that this may lead to an all out ban.

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I think you've been around long enough to know that model won't work. We've often seen caches that slip through the review process get dozens and sometimes a hundred or more finds before someone reports it. We've also seen people who report these caches derided as snitches and "cache cops" by a certain segment in this forum. Not something that exactly encourages the practice.
This tells me that relying on peer pressure for guideline enforcement is ineffective at best.

I think it's possible - although far from certain - that a different norm could develop within a different structural framework.

 

I notice that on Wikipedia, where the users are in control, they don't hesitate to police bad actions and keep order. Sometimes there are flare-ups, but there most definitely is no stigma attached to users who actively police the site. It's possible that without the same official / anonymous reviewer system in place as a gatekeeper, a similar sense of citizenship and responsibility would develop.

 

I'm not convinced, mind you. I'd prefer for there to be an a priori review process. But I'm also not willing to categorically throw up my hands and say that relying on geocachers to report and correct infractions is doomed to fail because it doesn't work well here. The setup here is different, and different norms can develop in different places.

 

The tone of the forums here, for example, has an incredibly different feel from the tone in almost all of the local forums I've joined and browsed around the country, even though all of the forums are drawing on geocachers.

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I notice that on Wikipedia, where the users are in control, they don't hesitate to police bad actions and keep order.

 

On Wikipedia, a poorly edited page or lack of references won't result in the the banning of Wikipedia from large chunks of acreage.

 

(Hyperbole warning.)

 

Scenario: Dudley Do-Wrong posts a cache to oc.com that is in the middle of one of those fun parts of South/North Carolina where caching is verboten and punishable by hanging. Nancy Never-Cached-Before sees that there's a cache near here area in a lovely forested area and set off to find it!

 

While Nancy is in route, the peer review system notices that hey "this cache shouldn't be here". A few discussions, emails and IMs later the cache page is obliterated (because it doesn't appear that there's an "archived" listing on oc.com).

 

Meanwhile Ranger Rick is just putting Nancy in the back of the cruiser to haul her off to the oak tree in the middle of the town square. Rick thinks to himself "well I was having some productive talks with that local caching group about how a compromise could be met, but apparently they don't care so nuts to them. From now on, we'll just shoot cachers on sight."

 

(Hyperbole over, you can come out now.)

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