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Bifrost


Hammerman & Trixter

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Yep, it is the case Bifrost now shares an equal number of DNF's without an FTF, with "Shelter III" in the US, which has up to now been the highest anyone has found.

 

We cannot change the difficulty rating any higher as a 5 actually means you need tools or special equipment. The hardest cache? that all depends on the criteria, there are far harder to find caches out there with a Difficulty 5, Terrain 5 rating.

 

I'll reitterate the co-ordinates are within the geocaching.com acceptable degree of accuracy, I took readings for GZ several times with a GPS accuracy of 4m, the cache is within spitting distance of GZ.

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Just wanted to say that I have been watching with interest - there was a post in the main forum about the cache and I have been watching since, you guys have a great hide there!

Once it is found will we in the Northern hemisphere get to find out what the hide was?

 

PS if it is not found in the next couple of years I am heading over...!

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Well that certainly answers my email query about GZ possibly being the start of the bridge to Asgard and the final destination being hidden in the description.

Don't ofetn get to Sydney anymore but this may well be worth the trip.

If only to post another DNF.

Oh and Peter, I can't imagine a gentleman like yourself spitting at all :P

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Hammerman, I saw one one of the Australian Geocache suppliers on the web, they are selling a sticker 'I love Bifrost' (love as in the heart symbol), I can find the site again if you haven't seen It.

 

On another note, how's the cache holding out in the rain? In your clue it states don't go in the water. Does that include in a downpour like today ?

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Crikey H&T that latest post on the Bifrost page sounds like you've had a gutful of cachers and want nothing more to do with us.

Is it because of the alleged destruction of the environment around GZ even though your hint and repeated notes say you don't need to take anything apart? Or simply because no one can find your well hidden cache?

I hope I am misreading the post and you're not chucking it as it would appear that amongst your other great hides you seem to have created one of the best ever caches!

Still looking forward to giving this one a go but won't be in Sidders till the end of Feb........ Who knows a FTF may still be on offer

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Looks like you read it right latanzi. Sounds serious. I think if it was one of my caches, I would have put out a more explicit hint by this stage, or just archive it, before I gave it all up. Who knows what is going through Team H&T's heads. Haven't had a look at their other caches, wonder what's happening with them, are they all going to Trixter too? There seems to be some serious resistance on the hint front.

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Hi, just to clarify some things.

1. Yes something from a geocaching [not an external influence] stance happened that has influenced our passion for geocacging and hiding caches (and No its nothing to do with the team structure or dynamics).

2. No it has nothing to do directly with Bifrost, but im guessing bifrost has influenced some peoples actions.

3. We have been asked specifically by MANY caches NOT to provide a hint.

4. All our other caches were archived lastnigt.

5. Bifrost has not been archived but moved to myself out of respect to all the effort that has gone into it to date.

 

Regards

The Trixter

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I've added a note to Bifrost but just in case it gets deleted,

 

It is interesting that both of the reviewers have at some point actively searched for this cache and not found it, interesting not because they searched, but because they searched using information ONLY the reviewers and no one else is privy to.

 

What is also unfortunate is that this information that is supposed to be held in confidence between a reviewer and the CO was shared with a select few other cachers either in deed or verbally.

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it's sad to see that after one particular caching team visited several of your caches they have been disabled..... disappointing..... and then the Bifrost DNF log they posted has been deleted??

 

I don't believe any DNF has been deleted.

 

Yeah Hammerman, it came through at 31/1/12 10:19pm....if you want a copy of it I can email it to you, just send a message to tigersden@live.com.au

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On logging DNF's,

 

There is a prevalent excuse for not logging a DNF something along the lines of "...oh I only seached for a few minutes..." or "...I really didn't give it a good look..." or something along those lines. I put it this way, if you actually find a cache when only searching for a few minutes or not really looking very hard do you apply the same principles and not log the find either?

 

how does a cacher justify the double standard?

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it's sad to see that after one particular caching team visited several of your caches they have been disabled..... disappointing..... and then the Bifrost DNF log they posted has been deleted??

 

I don't believe any DNF has been deleted.

 

Yeah Hammerman, it came through at 31/1/12 10:19pm....if you want a copy of it I can email it to you, just send a message to tigersden@live.com.au

 

Take a closer look, the actual log date for that one is on the 01/03/2012 and it's still there.

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On logging DNF's,

 

There is a prevalent excuse for not logging a DNF something along the lines of "...oh I only seached for a few minutes..." or "...I really didn't give it a good look..." or something along those lines. I put it this way, if you actually find a cache when only searching for a few minutes or not really looking very hard do you apply the same principles and not log the find either?

 

how does a cacher justify the double standard?

 

Don't knoiw...we always log out DNF's. We quite enjoy it really...because then we have a day out just looking for those dadgum DNF's... <_<

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it's sad to see that after one particular caching team visited several of your caches they have been disabled..... disappointing..... and then the Bifrost DNF log they posted has been deleted??

 

I don't believe any DNF has been deleted.

 

Yeah Hammerman, it came through at 31/1/12 10:19pm....if you want a copy of it I can email it to you, just send a message to tigersden@live.com.au

 

Take a closer look, the actual log date for that one is on the 01/03/2012 and it's still there.

 

My mistake...late logger...I is only human...lol...not afraid to admit when I am wrong...

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it's sad to see that after one particular caching team visited several of your caches they have been disabled..... disappointing..... and then the Bifrost DNF log they posted has been deleted??

 

I don't believe any DNF has been deleted.

 

Yeah Hammerman, it came through at 31/1/12 10:19pm....if you want a copy of it I can email it to you, just send a message to tigersden@live.com.au

 

Yes, it came through last night, but it was back-dated to 3/1/12. It has not been deleted.

 

It is a shame that it has come to this. :(

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I've added a note to Bifrost but just in case it gets deleted,

 

It is interesting that both of the reviewers have at some point actively searched for this cache and not found it, interesting not because they searched, but because they searched using information ONLY the reviewers and no one else is privy to.

 

What is also unfortunate is that this information that is supposed to be held in confidence between a reviewer and the CO was shared with a select few other cachers either in deed or verbally.

 

I guess I just assumed that once you became a reviewer you couldn't cache in certain locations anymore due to insider knowledge.....

Edited by smitchnstu
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Hammerman wasn't just p----- off with the actions of reviewers at Bifrost, but with one reviewer's heavy handed actions at their other caches, demanding that certain caches needed to be archived because they contravened sections of the caching guidelines that prohibit damaging public property.

 

What now? Will all caches in Australia be scrutinised for breaches of that guideline, not to mention the permission to hide guideline, that 99% of caches fail to meet!

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To our caching friends and the Geocaching community at large.

 

I wanted to provide an update on what has happened that has led to the break-down for our (Hammerman & Trixter) passion for geocaching. Over the past evening, four of our caches have been marked as needs archive by a cacher that is also a reviewer. The caches in question are: Shelter from the storm, Take me out to the ball game, Melaluka Park, and thewellwashere .

http://coord.info/GC37C7B

http://coord.info/GC33Z42

http://coord.info/GC2WNTN

http://coord.info/GC2TYWK

 

All 4 are listed as, and I quote

 

“After finding this one I don't see that it fits within the guidelines http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=304, specifically the following point.

Geocache placements do not deface or destroy public or private property. Geocaches are placed so that the surrounding environment is safe from both intentional or unintentional harm. Keep both natural and human-made objects safe. No object or property may be altered to provide a hiding place, clue, or means of logging a find.

The reviewer can contact me to discuss. I wont place it in a log here.”

 

I would have thought that the essence of this was to ensure no damage was made to any objects and to ensure that environment around GZ was kept safe. It seems that following the direct interpretation of the “guideline” means that these caches break the guideline and need to be archived.

 

Although these caches have in fact seen some minor modification to items, we have in all cases endeavoured to ensure GZ was maintained prior to publish, no structural damage was made AND GZ is maintained post publish. In many cases, GZ is now in a better state of repair than when we placed a cache and for two of the above caches the caretakers of the area know of the caches existence . But it seems this is not taken into consideration.

 

If we take this approach to most of our caches, then they probably breach some rule or another e.g. on the side of a bridge is actually on RTA property, a bison in a rock breaches the “No object or property may be altered” guideline. This has led to the personal archiving of all our caches apart from Bifrost. Although we cannot change what has happened to our caches I would hope this does not become a regular occurrence in caching. I would imagine that the nail in tree for night caches, caches in the cap of a fence post, caches in a rock and the list goes on would actually breach guidelines.

 

In respect to all the geocacher’s searching efforts on Bifrost we have not yet archived it but transferred it to The Trixter. This cache remains under consideration. Note that we may need to archive this one as well, and I quote from a forum log by the same person “This has not stopped people visiting the cache location and being fairly destructive with their searching techniques. Luckily it is a fairly hardy location and the owner has been very specific where not to look now to stop further damage.” While Bifrost may not in fact be the reason the above 4 caches came under close scrutiny, its popularity may have had an indirect impact.

 

As you can well imagine, this event has had an impact on our passion to continue the good search and placement of caches. We have invested many hours in developing and designing our cache’s and hope we helped in developing the caching community at least within the Hills area if not wider area. We do appreciate the community at large an apologise if this has put you out in any way.

 

Best Regards

Hammerman & Trixter

Edited by Hammerman & Trixter
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Hammerman wasn't just p----- off with the actions of reviewers at Bifrost, but with one reviewer's heavy handed actions at their other caches, demanding that certain caches needed to be archived because they contravened sections of the caching guidelines that prohibit damaging public property.

 

What now? Will all caches in Australia be scrutinised for breaches of that guideline, not to mention the permission to hide guideline, that 99% of caches fail to meet!

 

To our caching friends and the Geocaching community at large.

 

I wanted to provide an update on what has happened that has led to the break-down for our (Hammerman & Trixter) passion for geocaching. Over the past evening, four of our caches have been marked as needs archive by a cacher that is also a reviewer. The caches in question are: Shelter from the storm, Take me out to the ball game, Melaluka Park, and thewellwashere. All 4 are listed as, and I quote

 

After finding this one I don't see that it fits within the guidelines http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=304, specifically the following point.

Geocache placements do not deface or destroy public or private property. Geocaches are placed so that the surrounding environment is safe from both intentional or unintentional harm. Keep both natural and human-made objects safe. No object or property may be altered to provide a hiding place, clue, or means of logging a find.

The reviewer can contact me to discuss. I wont place it in a log here.

 

I would have thought that the essence of this was to ensure no damage was made to any objects and to ensure that environment around GZ was kept safe. It seems that following the direct interpretation of the guideline means that these caches break the guideline and need to be archived.

 

Although these caches have in fact seen some minor modification to items, we have in all cases endeavoured to ensure GZ was maintained prior to publish, no structural damage was made AND GZ is maintained post publish. In many cases, GZ is now in a better state of repair than when we placed a cache and for two of the above caches the caretakers of the area know of the caches existence . But it seems this is not taken into consideration.

 

If we take this approach to most of our caches, then they probably breach some rule or another e.g. on the side of a bridge is actually on RTA property, a bison in a rock breaches the No object or property may be altered guideline. This has led to the personal archiving of all our caches apart from Bifrost. Although we cannot change what has happened to our caches I would hope this does not become a regular occurrence in caching. I would imagine that the nail in tree for night caches, caches in the cap of a fence post, caches in a rock and the list goes on would actually breach guidelines.

 

In respect to all the geocachers searching efforts on Bifrost we have not yet archived it but transferred it to The Trixter. This cache remains under consideration. Note that we may need to archive this one as well, and I quote from a forum log by the same person This has not stopped people visiting the cache location and being fairly destructive with their searching techniques. Luckily it is a fairly hardy location and the owner has been very specific where not to look now to stop further damage. While Bifrost may not in fact be the reason the above 4 caches came under close scrutiny, its popularity may have had an indirect impact.

 

As you can well imagine, this event has had an impact on our passion to continue the good search and placement of caches. We have invested many hours in developing and designing our caches and hope we helped in developing the caching community at least within the Hills area if not wider area. We do appreciate the community at large an apologise if this has put you out in any way.

 

Best Regards

Hammerman & Trixter

God, looks like the heavy handed reviewer has opened a can of worms with their recent actions

Edited by Browngang
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The geocaching.com rules are designed such that if any cache becomes an issue for any reason, geocaching and its officious representatives have the rules to fall back on as final veto power. It is not actually possible to construct and place a cache that will not break at least one of the rules, either directly or by interpretation. This is one of the reasons I have quite literally decided not to play the game.

Edited by Hammerman.
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The geocaching rules are designed such that if any cache becomes an issue for any reason, geocaching and its officious representatives have the rules to fall back on as final veto power. It is not actually possible to construct and place a cache that will not break at least one of the rules, either directly or by interpretation. This is one of the reasons I have quite literally decided not to play the game.

Please be aware that the rules you quote are for listing a cache on the Groundspeak site. Thus they have the power to veto your listing. Do not mistake these rules as geocaching rules.

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I have written an email to the Blacktown Council advising them of what Geocaching is and have asked for a clarification on whether or not they will allow caches to be placed in ANY parks, recreational areas or streets within the jurisdiction of the Blacktown Council.

 

This council covers;

 

Riverstone

Schofiields

Rouse Hill

Colbee

Quakers Hill

Kellyville Ridge

Glenwood

Kings Park

Lalor Park

King Langley

Doonside

Maryong

Rooty Hill

Mount Druit

Minchinbury

Eastern Creek

Prospect

Blacktown

Seven Hills

 

...and all the suburbs in between.

 

Depending on the reply all caches on or in council property or streets within the Blacktown Council area may or may not have to be archived.

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Will be very interesting if they say no. If the reviewers want to talk rules then rules it is and hundreds of caches will have to be archived.

 

What is your aim here? To disrupt the game or just to annoy everyone? If your problem is with Ministro, you should take it up with him and Groundspeak. I think I'd be correct in saying that the wider geocaching community in Sydney will not appreciate your 'efforts' should Blacktown City Council come back with a negative reply.

Edited by The Spindoctors
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Will be very interesting if they say no. If the reviewers want to talk rules then rules it is and hundreds of caches will have to be archived.

 

What is your aim here? To disrupt the game or just to annoy everyone? If your problem is with Ministro, you should take it up with him and Groundspeak. I think I'd be correct in saying that the wider geocaching community in Sydney will not appreciate your 'efforts' should Blacktown City Council come back with a negative reply.

 

I agree!

 

Don't pack up your bag because has upset you.

 

Fight for what you believe. Don't accept what you see as persecution. Find out the reasons and debate them.

 

But, don't persecute me and other cachers. I did nothing wrong here and you are threatening to spoil my fun, too. Then I won't be happy with your actions.

 

This comment is from a friend to a friend.

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I guess I just assumed that once you became a reviewer you couldn't cache in certain locations anymore due to insider knowledge.....

 

That is the most absurd thing I have ever read. Why on earth would someone became a volunteer reviewer if it then excluded them from caching in certain areas!

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I guess I just assumed that once you became a reviewer you couldn't cache in certain locations anymore due to insider knowledge.....

 

That is the most absurd thing I have ever read. Why on earth would someone became a volunteer reviewer if it then excluded them from caching in certain areas!

 

What is downright deceitful is having a reviewer who is privy to the exact location/method of concealment/final gz/puzzle solution turn up to try and claim an ftf. By your standards there would be nothing wrong with creating an account for my wife and having her go out and get the FTF on Bifrost.

Edited by Hammerman.
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To elaborate on my earlier post, my aim is not to ruin geocaching in my imediate area but to highlight that nearly all hides break the most primary geocaching.com guideline in terms of permission, and to a lesser extent damaging property. If the council says no, do I think people will stop placing caches in the area? No. What it will mean though is that the illusion of permission will be gone, from a hiders point of view you should already realise a reviewer can disallow or archive your cache at any time in accordance with the geocaching.com guidelines at their whim without any sort of consistancy. A reviewer is allowed to get the FTF on your cache using the "secret" reviewer info you gave them when you created the cache, they are even allowed to tell other cachers those details.

 

This issue is actually systemic in that it is Groundspeak's own rules that allow for the above because their guidelines are designed to mean anything. Logically, to me, when you make something mean anything it actually means nothing at all and allows itself to be interpreted and implimented at random on a whim by saints or tyrants alike.

 

In our circumstance a reviewer indicated an archive order was due on several of our caches for breach of Grounspeak guidelines while being indifferent to several other caches they came accross on the same day that are actually just as technically wrong. It is those inconsistant conditions I refuse to be subjected to.

 

It has been brought to my attention that the reviewer in question may not have even had the right as a reviewer of a completely different state to make those kind of demands of us. If this is the case then the problems are worse than I suspected where the Australian review panel do not even present a unified front when dealing with each others areas, nor do they inform the subjects of their decisions, that they don't actually have the authority to say what they have, instead choosing to hide behind the "reviewer" moniker in front of an uninformed audience.

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What is downright deceitful is having a reviewer who is privy to the exact location/method of concealment/final gz/puzzle solution turn up to try and claim an ftf.

 

To be fair I don't know of any reviewer who goes out and gets FTF on caches they have published, especially in the case of multi or mystery caches where they do know the final coords. I know TheUmp has stated in the past he won't use that information in his attempt to find a cache.

 

Are you concerned that i,riblit! came out the same day I was there? He didn't offer any clues apart from think about the description which I had already done. I could discount micros/nanos. Discount anything that needed tools. I believe he was there more checking because of suggestions in some logs there may have been damage being caused. And then rang Ministro to say there wasn't any obvious damage being caused by the searches.

 

I don't know what if any information you gave the reviewers on the method of concealment but seeing as neither of the two that have tried to find it have, then they obviously aren't "cheating" in that way.

 

The question of ownership of property has been around a long time, and the sensible definition that has always been used is that if it is a publically accessible area then there shouldn't be a problem. Either that or all caches will be in the cacher's front yard. I can see your frustration at the NA logs that were placed for whatever reason by the person who did so, the fact they are a reviewer probably adds to the angst.

 

I hope there is some private discussion going on behind the scenes to try and resolve things - your hides (the few that I have found) have been creative and enjoyable. Much better than the plague of nanos around that and other areas.

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I guess I just assumed that once you became a reviewer you couldn't cache in certain locations anymore due to insider knowledge.....

 

That is the most absurd thing I have ever read. Why on earth would someone became a volunteer reviewer if it then excluded them from caching in certain areas!

 

Sorry that you think that, but it was an innocent comment - wouldn't knowing the intricate details of a cache destroy some of the fun? I don't believe it's absurd to say that..... anyway......

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