Saving old caches because they are old

[Clan Riffster]

A curious situation. From the first post, I've suspected that this was done with the Team's consent. So long as the adoptions were done with the consent of the owner, I am OK with Groundspeak making exceptions to their rules. If it turns out that the Team did not consent to the mass adoption, then I would be opposed to it, for whatever that's worth. As the the age issue, I too enjoy those caches which have been around for a long time. I like adding my moniker to the list of names who have found it before me. It's a quirk, I know, but it's my quirk, and I can live with it. Should these few remaining ancient caches get extra consideration from Le Frog? Maybe. Should they be allowed to circumvent the guidelines? I don't think so.

[+Mike & Jess]

I thought I would pipe up on this as I didn't see one of the issues/points we are experiencing here with the cache clean ups going on.

Over the past month or so, we have had a large number of older, ownerless caches go on the hit list and many archived.

Some, which may have been a great location when they where placed back in the early 2000's, is no long a good location.

 

One of the issues we do have in this area is still a low cache density. We're <500 caches within a 50km radius of town (POP ~135,000). Through a lot of work by the local community, these numbers are climbing, but still pretty slowly.

 

Long story short, we don't have a lot of caches that we can afford to lose. Myself and a number of others in the area have repaired/replaced caches that NM and had no owner. We have also (painfully), sat and watched a few old caches get archived because it was their time to go (mostly due to bad location for a cache today).

 

When considering if a cache is worth saving, consider it's own value, then consider if the local area can afford a few caches archived.

[+SeekerOfTheWay]

If an older, worthy cache is ownerless, and not maintained by the community, I'd have it archived and place a new one there. Course, I'm not very sentimental.

Edited July 20, 2011 by SeekerOfTheWay

[+A & J Tooling]

Ever wonder why the original team broke up? Maybe they don't want them anymore due to bad memories or some such. Glad to see we're taking the original owners feelings into consideration here. Hate to think we're doing this just for a numbers issue.

[+addisonbr]

So long as the adoptions were done with the consent of the owner, I am OK with Groundspeak making exceptions to their rules. If it turns out that the Team did not consent to the mass adoption, then I would be opposed to it, for whatever that's worth.

That's about where I am. If a CO was just a little too quick to hit the archive button but is interested in adopting them out, it seems reasonable to work with them on a solution. And I agree that if they didn't consent, it would be kind of crazy to adopt them out. I have a hard time believing that would happen.

 

As the the age issue, I too enjoy those caches which have been around for a long time. I like adding my moniker to the list of names who have found it before me. It's a quirk, I know, but it's my quirk, and I can live with it.

I hope you don't mind sharing your quirk.

[+jellis]

Ok, I didn't make this point clear enough.

My community considers these caches sacred, just because of the "age" and proliferation of the hider.

 

here is an example

My link

 

Dare I say, this cache page sucks. The cache itself is a good quality lock and lock on a great trail, but it's nothing "special" anyone could have hidden it and there are thousands of others like it.

 

My opinion, I know, subjective.

 

The CO's shut them down. Who are you people to start them back up?

So you're glad the Ape cache is gone and all the Old ones like Mingo or the Original Stash should just make room for other caches?

The year 2000 to me is part of the Geocaching history and should be treasured. To me maybe 25% of newer caches have been great. The rest are getting lame or like now power trails with no thought other then how fast can you kill yourself swapping out 1500 35mms in the least amount of time in the hot desert. Oh wait, that may happen to me soon. Still there has been a rush of lame caches lately. I thought maybe favorites would show COs how their caches need improvement by making them worth a favorite.

[+BBWolf+3Pigs]

It also seems that this team archived a bunch of caches and left the containers as trash.

 

Do we know that for sure?

 

Maybe they just haven't had time to pick them all up yet.

 

Maybe they listed them on another site.

 

At any rate, GS has a long-standing policy that says caches can't be "un-archived" in order to adopt them out, and caches can't be adopted without the owner's consent. I think those are good policies, and I don't see how suspending them in this case is going to be a good thing.

 

The owners, for whatever reason, wanted them archived. They should stay archived.

 

+1.

 

If I ever do a wholesale archive of my caches, I hope they stay that way.

[+Walts Hunting]

Since only the cache owner can offer a cache for adoption what your reviewer is doing violates the very policy they are supposed to enforce. Selective enforcement is generally been considered as inappropriate when I worked.

 

Why is everything old considered sacred dump them and put new ones in there place.

[+DanOCan]

I'm in the minority here, but I like old caches. Heck, check my profile and you'll see I've adopted a number of them over the years, including some back when Groundspeak would allow you to adopt caches where the owner had disappeared.

 

Some are fairly old (2001) and some were placed by a cacher who was well respected in the community. In a throwaway society it is kind of nice to see some things last, even if it is just a GC number. (Yes, I replaced the container on the oldest caches I adopted.)