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What's the big deal about FTF?


AneMae

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Whilst I fully appreciate the point that you are making I think it would be wrong to place all FTF hunters in this category as out of control mavericks who will flaunt any laws or signage to achieve the FTF. Regularly, my experience has been that FTF hounds act responsibly and as part of the 'Beta testing' risks are the ones that have to report incorrect/dangerous co-ordinates or placements that have breached guidelines etc, etc. This often protects Geocaching as matters get amended/archived in a timely manner without any reputational damage.

 

Not around here, they tend look the other way.

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It appears to me that the only people that think FTF is a 'Big Deal' are those that say that they are not interested in a FTF.

 

That doesn't make any sense. If you don't care about something how can it be a big deal to you?

 

I was kind of surprised to read this from you.

 

First, there is a difference between "not interested in a FTF" and "not caring about something [the FTF sub-game]". For example, there have been numerous threads about FTF hounds going into a park or cemetery after closing hours in order to try and get a FTF. Someone may have no interest in going for a FTF on a cache themselves, but might care a lot about the FTF game if those that play it have no qualms about entering a park/cemetery after closing ours, and that leads to a land manager banning geocaching in all city parks in a city. If, how some play the FTF game leads to the potential of presenting geocaching in a bad light (i.e. a land manager comes away with the impression with geocachers will ignore posted signage in pursuit of their game) then we all *should* care about the FTF game even if we don't choose to play the game ourselves.

 

Anybody whose actions potentially put geocaching in a bad light is a big deal to me. As far as the FTF game per se, I have no interest in, nor do I care about it.

 

It appears to me that the only people that think FTF is a 'Big Deal' are those that say that they are not interested in a FTF.

 

That doesn't make any sense. If you don't care about something how can it be a big deal to you?

 

Because they are so blatantly, obviously and publicly "not caring about it"

 

So when a subject comes up and I happen to respond to it it means it must be a big deal to me?

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It appears to me that the only people that think FTF is a 'Big Deal' are those that say that they are not interested in a FTF.

 

That doesn't make any sense. If you don't care about something how can it be a big deal to you?

 

I was kind of surprised to read this from you.

 

First, there is a difference between "not interested in a FTF" and "not caring about something [the FTF sub-game]". For example, there have been numerous threads about FTF hounds going into a park or cemetery after closing hours in order to try and get a FTF. Someone may have no interest in going for a FTF on a cache themselves, but might care a lot about the FTF game if those that play it have no qualms about entering a park/cemetery after closing ours, and that leads to a land manager banning geocaching in all city parks in a city. If, how some play the FTF game leads to the potential of presenting geocaching in a bad light (i.e. a land manager comes away with the impression with geocachers will ignore posted signage in pursuit of their game) then we all *should* care about the FTF game even if we don't choose to play the game ourselves.

 

Whilst I fully appreciate the point that you are making I think it would be wrong to place all FTF hunters in this category as out of control mavericks who will flaunt any laws or signage to achieve the FTF. Regularly, my experience has been that FTF hounds act responsibly and as part of the 'Beta testing' risks are the ones that have to report incorrect/dangerous co-ordinates or placements that have breached guidelines etc, etc. This often protects Geocaching as matters get amended/archived in a timely manner without any reputational damage.

 

I certainly don't mean to suggest that all FTF hunter act irresponsibly or even that a significant number do. My experience with the FTF game in my area (such as it is) hasn't shown FTF hunters to be irresponsible either. What I am suggesting, however is that the FTF game provides an incentive to get there first, and there *have* been some examples which demonstrate just what some will to getting that virgin log and have bragging rights over their fellow geocachers (which, I might add, may be someone that is going to place the next cache for others to find). I think of it the same way, and I really do apologize for bringing this up, as the incentive that power trails provide to find as many caches in as short a time as possible. I'm not suggesting that *everyone* that does a power trail employs what many consider to be questionable geocaching practices, but power trails by nature provide the incentive to "cut corners".

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It appears to me that the only people that think FTF is a 'Big Deal' are those that say that they are not interested in a FTF.

 

That doesn't make any sense. If you don't care about something how can it be a big deal to you?

 

I was kind of surprised to read this from you.

 

First, there is a difference between "not interested in a FTF" and "not caring about something [the FTF sub-game]". For example, there have been numerous threads about FTF hounds going into a park or cemetery after closing hours in order to try and get a FTF. Someone may have no interest in going for a FTF on a cache themselves, but might care a lot about the FTF game if those that play it have no qualms about entering a park/cemetery after closing ours, and that leads to a land manager banning geocaching in all city parks in a city. If, how some play the FTF game leads to the potential of presenting geocaching in a bad light (i.e. a land manager comes away with the impression with geocachers will ignore posted signage in pursuit of their game) then we all *should* care about the FTF game even if we don't choose to play the game ourselves.

 

Anybody whose actions potentially put geocaching in a bad light is a big deal to me. As far as the FTF game per se, I have no interest in, nor do I care about it.

 

It appears to me that the only people that think FTF is a 'Big Deal' are those that say that they are not interested in a FTF.

 

That doesn't make any sense. If you don't care about something how can it be a big deal to you?

 

Because they are so blatantly, obviously and publicly "not caring about it"

 

So when a subject comes up and I happen to respond to it it means it must be a big deal to me?

 

My retort was specifically aimed at the OP not subsequent responses. The OP seems to have a problem with cachers seeking FTF's but doesn't appear to have elaborated on what specific harm people seeking a FTF has done to them.

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Whilst I fully appreciate the point that you are making I think it would be wrong to place all FTF hunters in this category as out of control mavericks who will flaunt any laws or signage to achieve the FTF. Regularly, my experience has been that FTF hounds act responsibly and as part of the 'Beta testing' risks are the ones that have to report incorrect/dangerous co-ordinates or placements that have breached guidelines etc, etc. This often protects Geocaching as matters get amended/archived in a timely manner without any reputational damage.

 

Not around here, they tend look the other way.

 

Commiserations.

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I like to watch FTF hogs waste their gas by placing one cache at a time. If they just wait a few days, they can find all the caches in one trip. <_<

When I get my history trail ready I'll to do that. Hide all 40 in one day and then send them to the reveiw at a rate of one day. :laughing:

 

LOL! I found out that wait a while and there will be a few more caches when you make a trip over there.

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To me it not to big of deal, i found it just the way you found it, so you got to it first & i found it 4th, or 20th. Not big deal. My big issue is Some Ftf people will skip cache, because they know that they will not be first. it does not make sense to me if big number of cache get publish and you just walk by a cache to go get the FTF, like if where on a bike path & you had go down the bike path to get the ftf & you walk right by a cache(it's that what the sport is? all about to find caches) why would skip a cache, you had to walk by it.It does not make sense. People give i did have the time(my B@@$). you had to walk down the path to get your FTF, you just walk by it, because you would not be the first, Dumb!!!!.

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all about to find caches) why would skip a cache, you had to walk by it.It does not make sense.
I've walked past unfound caches before. Just because a cache is there doesn't mean I have to stop and search for it.

 

If someone else wants to walk past a cache without searching for it, then that's fine by me. It may be the wrong size, or too easy, or too hard, or named the wrong thing, or whatever else. I really don't care why they don't want to search for it.

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all about to find caches) why would skip a cache, you had to walk by it.It does not make sense.
I've walked past unfound caches before. Just because a cache is there doesn't mean I have to stop and search for it.

 

If someone else wants to walk past a cache without searching for it, then that's fine by me. It may be the wrong size, or too easy, or too hard, or named the wrong thing, or whatever else. I really don't care why they don't want to search for it.

 

There are two parking lot LPC's 600 feet from my work (in opposite directions, obviously) which are on my ignore list. I will continue to drive/walk by them daily, even if they're there for years. Not that I have any idea what this has to do with an FTF thread. :P

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Confessions of an FTFer...

 

I wouldn't really say it is about the competition. I know lots and lots of people who have done and are doing long daily find streaks, like the 365 or 366 day challenges that are super popular now. That isn't really about competition, in that plenty of other people will have already done it before you, and it's not like you are going to do it "better" than they did. No, it's something else, it's "self competition" that drives someone to be willing to make the sacrifices, reset the priorities, weather the storms to keep a streak going. I am not a "streaker" myself, but I totally get why people do it, even when they say later "that was hard, I had to make a lot more sacrifices and overcome a lot more problems that I expected I would have had to."

 

So it is for me. I'm sitting at Buffalo Wild Wings with a friend... and all the sudden my phone is making this klaxon "general quarters" alarm noise (that is my notification-only ringtone), and right at that moment, we have to decide... Do we stay here, and finish our diet cokes, or do we shovel our wings into a to-go box and run out into the rain and go? The decision making process is fun. The preparation of needing to keep your crap in the car and your batteries charged is fun. Running into other cachers at the GZ and finding it together is fun, even more fun than finding it first. And as others have mentioned, there's a sense of adventure being the beta tester. I would say that one out of three FTF runs I have made have had significant issues... misrated, wrong container type, bad coords, private property, wrong attributes... All just adds to it for me. Some of my favorite FTFs involved overcoming HUGE posting problems that I had to overcome. I had one whose coords were about 1,000 feet off. The word dionosaur was in the cache name... And I remember a Sinclair station in that part of town... so I go check the treeline next to the Sinclair station, and bingo. Not one other cacher came up with that. And actually, some of my favorite FTFs are caches that had been DNFed for days, or weeks, by cachers with way more experience than me. I have a few where the sum of all the finds for the cachers before me that DNFed was over 100,000.

 

And finally, it's the "now or never" aspect to it. If I put a new cache off and don't go for it, then, it just sorta sits on my list until I am finally in that area. There's really no reason to go grab it today, it will always be there tomorrow, so why not just sit on the couch today and go look some other day. But the FTF... you either go now, right now, or that window is gone. I like the "incentive" that gives me to get going now.

 

I do know some hounds that take the competitive aspects of it WAY seriously, that's not really me, it's something else, something more akin to what makes people want to do the 365 day challenge.

 

Just my two cents.

Edited by Sky King 36
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The wife and I have some FTFs but we would rather see a newbie get it than us. When we first started caching FTFs seemed important so we went for them. After we got a few we saw the error in our thinking. Most cachers in our area are to the south so any posting to the north is easier to get a FTF. We do not agree that finding a new cache where the cords are way off is unpleasant. The challenge of finding a new cache that has bad cords adds to the excitement. We have found a cache where the cords were off by 275 feet. One was off by a third of a mile and one was fifty miles off. We did not drive to the fifty mile cache but posted what we thought was wrong with the cords. It turned out we were correct. I guess bad cords are kind of like working on a puzzle. Some times we can figure them out, other times we just scratch our heads and give up.

 

A cacher in our area had a novel idea. He would log all his finds as FTF. Found this Friday, Fourth to Find, Fifteenth to Find, or whatever he wished. Caching is a game with few rules so let others play the way they want and just enjoy the way you do it. Don't let anyone take the fun out of caching for you.

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