Caching Rules in the city

[+Dode222]

Geocaching has the same rules in the world. some cities there are some rules that make hiding a cache more difficult.

For instance the 0.10 mile apart thing is hard to do in the city becuase there is a cache here and here and here and here so we say that it is 0.05 miles apart so that it might be here.

 

Feel free to post other complaints here about city geocaching and if I get a lot of complaints I'll send them to Groundspeak.

[Pup Patrol]

You already have an active thread:

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=287919

[+GeoBain]

I agree. We should increase the distance to .5 miles. Way too many caches as it is.

[+cheech gang]

Nevermind. Original comment was too snarky.

Edited January 1, 2012 by cheech gang

[+Walts Hunting]

I would vote for one mile. Leave out the decimal point. Make people actually cover some distance between caches.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Geocaching has the same rules in the world. some cities there are some rules that make hiding a cache more difficult.

For instance the 0.10 mile apart thing is hard to do in the city becuase there is a cache here and here and here and here so we say that it is 0.05 miles apart so that it might be here.

 

Feel free to post other complaints here about city geocaching and if I get a lot of complaints I'll send them to Groundspeak.

 

Since you recognize that there are rules (guidelines, actually) that are used worldwide, and specifically the proximity guideline, it might be worth looking at some other cities. Beijing, for example, one of the most populated cities in the world only has about 100 caches within 50 miles of it's center. That's just one example, but if you looked at many other large cities around the world reducing the proximity guideline to .05 of a mile just isn't warranted.

[+Chokecherry]

I say seek out some new places that haven't been discovered yet. I have park in town. Perfectly good park with a perfectly good geocache in it. I couldn't justify another geocache in the park because what's the point? People already see it with the one geocache there. Rather bring them somewhere new.

[+cache_test_dummies]

Feel free to post other complaints here about city geocaching and if I get a lot of complaints I'll send them to Groundspeak.

A better approach might be to gather suggestions as to how certain changes to the listing guidelines could possibly improve the urban geocaching experience. Nobody likes to be the recipient of "a lot of complaints".

 

Personally, I think the guidelines are fine.

[+niraD]

Okay, let's imagine that the saturation guideline is changed and the minimum distance is different for caches "in the city" and for caches "not in the city".

 

How do you determine what is "in the city"? Is any cache placed in incorporated land "in the city"? Or does there need to be a minimum population density before it is considered "in the city"? Or does the area need to be zoned a certain way before it is considered "in the city"? Or does the municipality need to call itself a "city" (e.g., the City of Saratoga vs the Town of Los Gatos) before it considered "in the city"? Or something else?

 

Personally, I think there's enough confusion over the guidelines as it is without having the saturation distance vary depending on the location. And the whole point of the saturation guideline is "to encourage you to seek out new places to hide caches rather than putting them in areas where caches already exist, and to limit the number of caches hidden in a particular area". If they just reduce the distance to allow more caches once areas get saturated, then how does that encourage anyone to seek out new places for caches, or limit the number of caches in a particular area?

[+slukster]

I have several hides in NYC and I ran into a situation where there was a beautiful park I wanted to place a cache in but it was too close to an existing cache (I believe it was about 180ft away) that was in another nice park on the next block. I tried to convice the reviewer to publish it considering there is a 50 story building in between the two parks but they stuck to the guidelines. So I moved on and found another place for a cache. That is all you can do. No need to change the proximity guidelines.

Edited January 2, 2012 by slukster

[+slukster]

Here is a map of NYC with caches:

 

Would you have thought there would be alot more caches there? Except for Central Park (or maybe there is tons of room in CP but you would have to solve all of the puzzle caches before you could make an attempt at a hide there), there is tons of room for caches, based solely on the proximity guidelines and what you see on the map. But there isn't necessarily tons of room for GOOD caches. You can put a micro/ nano on the botton of any fence around a tree or on a stop sign but if there is no reason to bring you to this area (historical building, tourist attraction, etc.) why bother? And the muggle factor in many areas makes it tough to hide and find caches. But that just is the way caching works in this area.

[+adt1982]

So since you have 28 cache finds you are now the "gripes about caching in the city" complaint representative?

[AZcachemeister]

No doubt there are some cool potential hide locations that are currently blocked by the existing proximity guideline.

 

I have even less doubt that reducing the proximity guideline would result in many more Lame Urban Micros being placed as opposed to actual quality caches being placed.

 

It doesn't make sense to reduce the proximity guideline for 'in the city' just because 'the city' is already saturated.

[+tozainamboku]

Sounds like the OP lives in a city that has a relatively high cache density. They want very much to hide a cache but can't seem to find a place to do so.

 

The solution is to go a little further away to hide your cache. Find a spot that is available. Or wait. Urban cache tend to not last as long. You'll soon find that caches get archived from time to time, opening up spots for new caches. You can even help this process along. There may be a cache that has been temporarily disabled for a while, or one that appears to be missing and the cache owner is not doing maintenance and checking on it. Post a Needs Archive to bring that to the attention of the reviewer. If the cache doesn't get maintained in a certain period of time the reviewer can archive it and then you can hide a new cache there.

Edited January 2, 2012 by tozainamboku

[+tsnyder88]

my only complaints are to many people and not enough larger caches

[+power69]

I have even less doubt that reducing the proximity guideline would result in many more Lame Urban Micros being placed as opposed to actual quality caches being placed.

A cache for every lamp post and a lamp post for every cache

[+Dode222]

Okay, let's imagine that the saturation guideline is changed and the minimum distance is different for caches "in the city" and for caches "not in the city".

 

How do you determine what is "in the city"? Is any cache placed in incorporated land "in the city"? Or does there need to be a minimum population density before it is considered "in the city"? Or does the area need to be zoned a certain way before it is considered "in the city"? Or does the municipality need to call itself a "city" (e.g., the City of Saratoga vs the Town of Los Gatos) before it considered "in the city"? Or something else?

 

Personally, I think there's enough confusion over the guidelines as it is without having the saturation distance vary depending on the location. And the whole point of the saturation guideline is "to encourage you to seek out new places to hide caches rather than putting them in areas where caches already exist, and to limit the number of caches hidden in a particular area". If they just reduce the distance to allow more caches once areas get saturated, then how does that encourage anyone to seek out new places for caches, or limit the number of caches in a particular area?

 

It would probbaly a place of pop. 50,000. although a lot of cities would qalify

Edited January 6, 2012 by Dode222

[+TheFlatline]

HAH!

 

You think you have it bad, there are 4600 caches within 25 miles of me. Granted, I'm about 50 miles out of where Los Angeles really picks up but still, 25 miles is basically my county (two cities and some outlying areas)...

 

If I up that to 100 miles it balloons up to about 27,000 caches. That gets me down to about where Orange County begins. At 125 miles (a good way into the OC), it hits 32,000 caches.

 

It's actually kind of pleasant, because with few exceptions, I can stop and cache for 20 minutes, find a cache or two, and go back to work.

[+GeoReapers]

I think .1 is more than adequate. Saturation guidelines are there for a reason, so you don't have these things everywhere. There are enough stories about people finding caches and thinking they are ordinance that effectively doubling that would be entirely too much.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

HAH!

 

You think you have it bad, there are 4600 caches within 25 miles of me. Granted, I'm about 50 miles out of where Los Angeles really picks up but still, 25 miles is basically my county (two cities and some outlying areas)...

 

If I up that to 100 miles it balloons up to about 27,000 caches.

 

To put this in perspective, that's almost 5000 more caches than there are in the entire state of New York which covers an area 300 miles wide.

[+niraD]

Okay, let's imagine that the saturation guideline is changed and the minimum distance is different for caches "in the city" and for caches "not in the city".

 

How do you determine what is "in the city"? Is any cache placed in incorporated land "in the city"? Or does there need to be a minimum population density before it is considered "in the city"? Or does the area need to be zoned a certain way before it is considered "in the city"? Or does the municipality need to call itself a "city" (e.g., the City of Saratoga vs the Town of Los Gatos) before it considered "in the city"? Or something else?

It would probbaly a place of pop. 50,000. although a lot of cities would qalify

Okay, so here in suburbia there are two adjacent municipalities. The population of PA is more than 50k. The population of adjacent MP is less than 50k. The neighborhoods in these two municipalities are essentially identical. The reason for the population difference is because PA has more incorporated land than MP. But according to your suggestion, different rules/guidelines would apply to geocaches placed in PA than to geocaches placed in MP. This makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

Furthermore, there are pockets of unincorporated county land scattered among the incorporated municipalities. One side of the street is part of a city (population 50k+). The other side of the street is unincorporated county land. Again, the neighborhoods are essentially identical, and most people wouldn't know which was which. But according to your suggestion, different rules/guidelines would apply to geocaches placed on one side of the street than to geocaches placed on the other side of the street. This makes absolutely no sense to me either.

 

So I'll repeat myself:

 

I think there's enough confusion over the guidelines as it is without having the saturation distance vary depending on the location. And the whole point of the saturation guideline is "to encourage you to seek out new places to hide caches rather than putting them in areas where caches already exist, and to limit the number of caches hidden in a particular area". If they just reduce the distance to allow more caches once areas get saturated, then how does that encourage anyone to seek out new places for caches, or limit the number of caches in a particular area?

[+BBWolf+3Pigs]

I think there's enough confusion over the guidelines as it is without having the saturation distance vary depending on the location.

 

Well actually, here in Rhode Island, we have special dispensation due to our small size. Our cache saturation distance is 400'.

 

 

 

 

 

Just kidding. Even we have 528'.

[+TheFlatline]

I think there's enough confusion over the guidelines as it is without having the saturation distance vary depending on the location.

 

Well actually, here in Rhode Island, we have special dispensation due to our small size. Our cache saturation distance is 400'.

 

 

 

 

 

Just kidding. Even we have 528'.

 

 

"Everything's smaller in Rhode Island... Everything."

Edited January 7, 2012 by TheFlatline

[+Dode222]

I think there's enough confusion over the guidelines as it is without having the saturation distance vary depending on the location.

 

Well actually, here in Rhode Island, we have special dispensation due to our small size. Our cache saturation distance is 400'.

 

Just kidding. Even we have 528'.

 

 

"Everything's smaller in Rhode Island... Everything."

 

Of course it is.

[+Turtle_Sask]

no way man just because you probably live in a larger city where there would still be lots of caches to hunt within a .5 mile radius rather then a .10 mile radius. most people live in city's where there aren't enough caches around (100 < a ). I agree that urban caches are way more fun and i see what your saying but if you take out more city caches there will not be that many to look for! you got to look at it from the other point of view to!

 

Cheers!

[+ArcherDragoon]

...nevermind...

Edited January 13, 2012 by ArcherDragoon

[+Planet]

If you decrease the distance, people would start logging the wrong cache.

I'm all for increasing the distance between caches.

[+niraD]

If you decrease the distance, people would start logging the wrong cache.

For the record, the saturation guideline isn't about people logging the wrong cache. The purposes of the saturation guideline are "to encourage you to seek out new places to hide caches rather than putting them in areas where caches already exist, and to limit the number of caches hidden in a particular area".

 

If the purpose of the saturation guideline was to prevent confusion, then the distance could be reduced significantly from 528ft/161m, there would be a minimum distance between stages of a single multi-cache, etc.

[+Dode222]

Okay, let's imagine that the saturation guideline is changed and the minimum distance is different for caches "in the city" and for caches "not in the city".

 

How do you determine what is "in the city"? Is any cache placed in incorporated land "in the city"? Or does there need to be a minimum population density before it is considered "in the city"? Or does the area need to be zoned a certain way before it is considered "in the city"? Or does the municipality need to call itself a "city" (e.g., the City of Saratoga vs the Town of Los Gatos) before it considered "in the city"? Or something else?

It would probbaly a place of pop. 50,000. although a lot of cities would qalify

Okay, so here in suburbia there are two adjacent municipalities. The population of PA is more than 50k. The population of adjacent MP is less than 50k. The neighborhoods in these two municipalities are essentially identical. The reason for the population difference is because PA has more incorporated land than MP. But according to your suggestion, different rules/guidelines would apply to geocaches placed in PA than to geocaches placed in MP. This makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

Furthermore, there are pockets of unincorporated county land scattered among the incorporated municipalities. One side of the street is part of a city (population 50k+). The other side of the street is unincorporated county land. Again, the neighborhoods are essentially identical, and most people wouldn't know which was which. But according to your suggestion, different rules/guidelines would apply to geocaches placed on one side of the street than to geocaches placed on the other side of the street. This makes absolutely no sense to me either.

 

So I'll repeat myself:

 

I think there's enough confusion over the guidelines as it is without having the saturation distance vary depending on the location. And the whole point of the saturation guideline is "to encourage you to seek out new places to hide caches rather than putting them in areas where caches already exist, and to limit the number of caches hidden in a particular area". If they just reduce the distance to allow more caches once areas get saturated, then how does that encourage anyone to seek out new places for caches, or limit the number of caches in a particular area?

 

That was an example. It woul be higher