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Most DNFs before a find


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I think A Real Challenge (Muther's Challenge) got up to about 140 before finally being found.

 

I think Shelter III in Indianapolis might have more. For some reason I'm think it had about 180 DNFs before it was first found. There are currently 223 DNF logs, four Found it logs, and 203 notes. The coolest part though is that there are 10 Onwer Mainentance logs posted after the CO verified that cache is still there and many of the notes are posted by the CO as he continues after four years to be engaged with the local community tying to find that cache.

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course in our area there are so many cachers who wont log their DNF logs, who truly knows!

 

some, not all

 

I would imagine for a caches like this that a greater percentage of those that don't find it *do* post their DNF logs than a less difficult and possibly muggled hide. Cachers seem to wear their DNFs as a badge of honor on extremely difficult hides.

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course in our area there are so many cachers who wont log their DNF logs, who truly knows!

 

some, not all

 

I would imagine for a caches like this that a greater percentage of those that don't find it *do* post their DNF logs than a less difficult and possibly muggled hide. Cachers seem to wear their DNFs as a badge of honor on extremely difficult hides.

 

Maybe :D

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Well it's quickly closing in on the record. 144 DNFs and NO finds. We've had people come from interstate just to look and go home again.

Even got the locals into geocaching, could they have started on a worse cache? :D

Next thing we'll see international visitors dropping by.

After four DNFs by us I can't think of a reason to go back... still... maybe it's in the...

 

One team has logged 11 DNFs.

 

Imagine if everyone logged their DNFs how high it would be?

A DNF on Bifrost is a badge of honour anyway!

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My high is 7 DNFs. It was a puzzle where the hide changed from a 2 star hide to arguably a 5 star hide 5 years into its lifetime so most of the locals had already found it.

 

Turns out the CO changed the puzzle without anyone noticing (first DNF was old hide, second DNF was not realizing it had move) and then at the new location, it got muggled and changed 2 or 3 times. Thus, searching 5 times at the new location I had to search every spot over and over because I eventually heard he kept moving it. There were literally 1000s of places to look for it because it was a multiple level tower and it could be inside, outside, upstairs, downstairs, in the stair well, in the other stair well, in the grounds around it, etc etc. Nightmare really. However, through that, I did meet a caching friend out of it. Misery loves company I suppose.

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My high is 7 DNFs. It was a puzzle where the hide changed from a 2 star hide to arguably a 5 star hide 5 years into its lifetime so most of the locals had already found it.

 

Turns out the CO changed the puzzle without anyone noticing (first DNF was old hide, second DNF was not realizing it had move) and then at the new location, it got muggled and changed 2 or 3 times. Thus, searching 5 times at the new location I had to search every spot over and over because I eventually heard he kept moving it. There were literally 1000s of places to look for it because it was a multiple level tower and it could be inside, outside, upstairs, downstairs, in the stair well, in the other stair well, in the grounds around it, etc etc. Nightmare really. However, through that, I did meet a caching friend out of it. Misery loves company I suppose.

boy that sounds like a borderline moving cache

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Maybe it's a cultural difference again, but could someone please explain to me why I would log a DNF? :unsure:

I don't get the point in doing so... :huh:

I personally don't log a DNF if I didn't find it. I just leave and maybe try again later...

 

Because when you hunt a cache there are two possible results, you found it or you didn't find it. Groundspeak has provided log types for both situations and they must have had a reason for doing that. I suspect one of the chief reasons was so the cache owner could be given feedback about the condition of his cache.

 

If you hunt a cache and don't find it,there is a chance it's missing. If people don't log DNFs, how is the cache owner going to know the cache might be missing and should be checked on?

 

Also, when a CO hides his cache he may not accurately assess its difficulty. I know I've hidden caches that I thought would be a piece of cake that turned out to be difficult and I've hidden caches that I thought would be tough that in practice were quite easy. If a CO rates his cache a 1 difficulty and starts seeing a lot of DNFs, he knows that he misrated the cache and can adjust the rating accordingly. Same goes if he rates a cache as difficult but everyone appears to be finding it easily. So DNFs provide the cache owner with potentially valuable information.

 

They are also helpful to other geocachers. If they see a cache with a lot of DNFs and don't find it right away, they know that they may need to put in a little more effort into the hunt. On the other hand if they can't find the cache and see nothing but Found Its in the log they might assume that the cache is gone and give up on the hunt prematurely. Also if they see a low difficulty cache that has nothing but Found Its, followed by a long string of DNFs they may choose not to waste their time and gas on a cache that is most likely missing. They won't have that information if people don't log their DNFs,

Edited by briansnat
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Thanks. :)

 

Some things are still not clear to me:

If I look for a cache and it has a lot of found its, but the last one is a couple weeks old and it hasn't been found since, chances are the thing is missing.

That's how I handle it.

Seems to be a cultural thing, because over here, you don't see a lot of DNF's in general.

 

Also, since I spent a lot of time in these forums lately, there seem to be people who are proud of their DNF's and seem to collect them.

Isn't it kind of wierd (no offence to anyone) to be proud of not having found something?

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Yes. It's feedback both for the CO and for other cachers. If I were the CO I'd want to know about failed attempts to find; they tell me there's interest in the cache, they tell me about how difficult others are finding it; they tell me it's possible the cache has gone missing. And if I were thinking of seeking the cache, again a DNF gives me additional information about the difficulty of the cache and the possibility of its having been lost.

 

But from another point of view, it's part of your story. Logs are a way of recording — for your own future self as well as for other cachers — what you've done as a cacher. Of course if you're in the habit of saying "TFTC" and nothing else when you log a find, then you're not leaving much of a record, but even then it's a record of sorts.

 

Assuming, though, that one is not just in this to rack up the highest number of finds one can — that the experiences one has as a cacher are as important as, or more important than, the numbers — then more verbose logs, both found and DNF, are a way to preserve and present those experiences. As the CO I would be interested in the experiences the searches for my cache has given to others, whether those searches were successful or not. And they often are of interest to others as well, now and in the future.

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OK, I do understand that it has it's advantages for other cachers,

and I can especially relate to the CO, who of course would want to know how his cache is doing.

 

The only point I don't get is why I as a cacher should log a DNF - I mean, I could also post a note explaining how I searched up and down and couldn't find it, instead of a DNF, and it wouldn't look so bad in my statistics...

Of course there are those who say the DNF's are part of the statistic, but I like my profile with it's (I think, not sure though)3 DNF's in 300 caches...I mean, a lot of DNF's kinda make you look bad, don't they? :huh:

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OK, I do understand that it has it's advantages for other cachers,

and I can especially relate to the CO, who of course would want to know how his cache is doing.

 

The only point I don't get is why I as a cacher should log a DNF - I mean, I could also post a note explaining how I searched up and down and couldn't find it, instead of a DNF, and it wouldn't look so bad in my statistics...

Of course there are those who say the DNF's are part of the statistic, but I like my profile with it's (I think, not sure though)3 DNF's in 300 caches...I mean, a lot of DNF's kinda make you look bad, don't they? :huh:

 

You seem to see DNFs as some sort of black mark. They aren't. They are a simple statement of fact. I have around 200 DNFs and I don't see any of them as making me look bad. They only mean that for one reason or another I set out to find the cache and came up empty.

 

Take for instance my most recent DNF. The cache brought me and my wife down a scenic dirt back road, miles from the nearest town in rural Vermont. The short walk to the cache took us past the ruins of a dam and the foundation of a mill that appeared to date to the 1800's or earlier. We continued along the stream through a beautiful hemlock grove with the water cascading through it. The cache itself was hidden in the ruins of another dam next to a scenic waterfall. We searched for quite a while but our GPS indicated that the cache could be on the other side of the stream. Due to recent heavy rains the stream was high and flowing swiftly, and the rocks and both shorelines were coated with ice, making crossing extremely dangerous. Because of this we couldn't check the other side.

 

We gave up on the cache and logged a DNF, but didn't look at it as a failure at all. The CO chose that spot for its historic interest and beauty of the area and we were thrilled to experience that, find or no find. I don't geocache for numbers, I geocache to discover interesting places so to us that was a successful cache hunt.

 

Our DNF also alerted the CO that there might be a problem with her cache. She contacted me and after some discussion, we determined that we were searching the wrong side of the stream.

 

I see you don't own any caches. I suspect that if you become a cache owner you might come to appreciate the reason for logging DNFs. Most cache owners want to know what is going on with their caches and DNFs are of particular concern to them. Why deny them that information?

Edited by briansnat
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The only point I don't get is why I as a cacher should log a DNF - I mean, I could also post a note explaining how I searched up and down and couldn't find it, instead of a DNF, and it wouldn't look so bad in my statistics...

Of course there are those who say the DNF's are part of the statistic, but I like my profile with it's (I think, not sure though)3 DNF's in 300 caches...I mean, a lot of DNF's kinda make you look bad, don't they? :huh:

 

(emphasis mine)

 

Oh boy.

 

I would personally look at that 1% DNF stat and say, "here is a geocacher that doesn't bother to log his DNFs, and is thereby hurting his local caching community". Logging DNFs is a POSITIVE contribution to the community. By NOT logging your DNFs, you are doing a disservice to other cachers and cache owners.

 

I proudly and diligently log ALL of my DNFs, which happen about 10% of the time.

 

My stats:

 

Found It!: 3,188

Didn't Find It: 303

Needs Maintenance: 64

Needs Archived: 49

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I have a couple of traditional caches that are less then 1000 feet from each other. It's not uncommon for them to pick up multiple finds in a day. Usually the way I discover that one has been muggled is not via DNFs, but because the other cache will continue to pick up a couple of dozen found it logs over the course of a couple of weeks, while the first cache simply remains silent. I'll go visit, and sure enough, it's missing, and nobody wanted to log a DNF.

 

Count me in the camp that wishes people weren't embarrassed by DNFs... They would be very helpful to me as a CO, if they were used more often.

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I would personally look at that 1% DNF stat and say, "here is a geocacher that doesn't bother to log his DNFs, and is thereby hurting his local caching community".

 

And I personally... would probably not look at that 1% DNF stat. Don't take this personally, anyone, but I don't really care what your DNF rate is. Or anyone else's. I'm not interested in keeping score.

 

In fact I don't even know how to keep score. I can figure out how to see my own DNF statistics, but I can't turn up anything but numbers of finds for other cachers. I can verify ZeLonewolf's 3189 finds (up one from yesterday) but have to take their word for it on the 303 DNFs!

 

So go ahead, log those DNFs. I won't think less of you.

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Maybe it's a cultural difference again, but could someone please explain to me why I would log a DNF? :unsure:

I don't get the point in doing so... :huh:

I personally don't log a DNF if I didn't find it. I just leave and maybe try again later...

 

IMHO there's a few reasons. As a cache owner I watch to see if the "dnf's" start adding up...This gives me a very good indication that it MIGHT be missing. (The amount of caches the cacher has found also weighs into the equation).

If I'm going to look for a cache, I am VERY interested in the attempts that have been made looking for the cache. Has it been found recently ( "TFTC" "DNF" ETC )

 

"DNF" logs with "conditions were not good to search today" or "didn't have the time I would have liked to search for this today,so it's probably just me" V.S. "Believe object that cache was in might have been removed " or "Looks like muggle activity at GZ not sure if it's still here" (Since I as a searcher do not know EXACTLY where cache was hid...I cannot say for sure that cache is missing...so I post a "DNF",unless of course I KNOW exactly where cache was hid...E.G. "cache is hid in third box from left" on cache page....but then I'd post "NEEDS MAINT." to alert the CO.

 

There's more reasons,but these are my HUGE reasons why I like people to log "DNF's".Both as a CO,and a searcher.

 

Again just my opinion.

Edited by Dog Town
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