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The lines of communication are down!


Quest Master

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I am very concerned, as a cache owner, that there is no easy and straightforward way for persons who are not geocachers to contact me if there is a problem with one of my caches. I am talking about park rangers, land owners and anybody else who might want to contact me with their concerns about my geocache. The current system requires that they would have to go through the cumbersome process of signing up for an account on geocaching.com and locate my profile before they can email me. I think that it is way too complicated for somebody who just needs to have a few words with the cache owner. I also think that there should be a straightforward way for these persons to contact geocaching.com directly with such issues. I would like to know how geocaching.com handles complaints of this nature at this time. There must have been quite a few of them by now. I think that we have to recognize that it is in our best interest to have the best possible lines of communication with people outside of the world of geocaching. It is my opinion that the geocaching.com website should facilitate this communication. I regret pulling the strings of the geopuppet (sorry Jeremy), but I think that this issue should be addressed ahead of any of the many asked for bells and whistles in this topic. I would like to hear other opinions on this subject. Please excuse me if this has been discussed before. I don’t get to read these discussion boards as often as I would like.

 

Johnny

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Emails are intentionally hidden by the site because there are roving applications that grab email addresses from web sites and spam them. If this were not the case, I would spotlight them on each cache page so people could access them whenever they wanted.

 

I did notice that the contact email was missing from the profile page. This is the one in your profile you can add and change slightly so others can see it. Granted, you still need to register but that isn't really that difficult, is it?

 

Just another note, but I have email conversations with park officials every week to coordinate the communication between cache owner and park official regarding a cache or so. I believe that it has been very positive overall. Just because you don't see it happening doesn't mean that communications are down.

 

And as mikemtn has said, you can also add any contact information on your cache page. You can also put your contact information

on the actual cache. Folks should do this anyway.

 

Jeremy

 

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak Lackey and Geopuppet

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Why don't you just put your e-mail address on teh cache and say that if anyone ahs any questions or concerns about this container, please e-mail me ASAP, it's really not all that difficult.

 

You could even use a hotmail account for just that purpose.

 

If you are concerned about "lines of communication" make it easy and give them a way of contacting you.

 

Did something happen to you on a cache because you sound very frantic.

Just curious

 

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The KGB

guy.gif

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I put my hotmail email address on all my caches as well as my home phone number.

 

That's not feasible for everyone, especially in urban areas but around here, most everyone knows me or my extended family. I put my name and number in the container so accidental finders might feel better about finding a strange container in the middle of nowhere. In fact, someone who knows me found it, called me and told me they signed the log and left me a beer in the cache. I didn't tell them that food was a no-no so I just went and retrieved the beer.

 

-E

 

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N35°32.981 W98°34.631

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I am not frantic. I guess that I went a little bit overboard with the title of this thread. It's just that I prefer that I should deal with problems relating to my cache and not involve Jeremy and others at geocaching.com with problems that I have created. I'm sure that he/they have much better things to do with their time. I'm just trying to be responsible. That's all. All of my caches are clearly marked with my contact information. I do not expect a problem if they find the actual cache. What we have to consider, though, is that park rangers and the like are taking notice of what we are doing and will be checking the website to monitor our activity. If they find out about a cache that is in an inappropriate area via the website it would be a good thing if they had a quick and easy way to settle their issues directly with the cache owner. We need to accomodate them so that they will not be inclined to develop policies that adversely affect geocaching in general.

 

It may be that I am making the proverbial mountain out of a molehill. If Jeremy says that they have only a few requests per week like this that come in to geocaching.com and that it is no major problem to deal with them then it probably does not matter very much. Let's just hope that the low number of requests is not due to persons outside of geocaching being frustrated by the system. You can be sure that the authorities will become wary of geocaching if they perceive that we are being secretive of the identities of geocachers.

 

Johnny

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quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy Irish:

Emails are intentionally hidden by the site because there are roving applications that grab email addresses from web sites and spam them. If this were not the case, I would spotlight them on each cache page so people could access them whenever they wanted.

 


Excellent way to help Anti Spam stoppers icon_wink.gif

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In every one of my caches,I place a form letter that I've created along with the Geocaching explanation letter thats provided on Geocaching.com. In the letter, I give info about the cache & contact info for me, including my e-mail address, & the site. Today, I received an e-mail from the manager of a wildlife refuge here where I had placed a cache. He used the info off that form letter to contact me & inform me that he removed the cache & gave me contact info to get in touch with him. I talked to him on the phone & I'm meeting with him Friday to talk about caching & federal regulations that pertain to this type of activity. He was real good about it & told me my cache was in his office & mine to pick up at any time. In our brief phone coversation, he just said that the regulations come down from above, & they count on him to enforce them. He also stated that one of the logs on the web sites cache page,concerned him because the cacher that posted it said that he nearly got lost on his way back to the cache area. I don't know if he would have posted on the cache page that he pulled it, but I'm glad I had the info there so he could contact me direct.

 

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QuestMaster,

If a Park Ranger is looking online for a cache in his area, he'll probably log in. If he finds a cache online that he doesn't know about (either his department wasn't asked, or the person who approved it forgot) then (you are right) his issue Should be with the person who placed the cache. In his own mind, however, the issue would probably be with all of us. I'm sure that most of us could handle the issue with a Ranger effectively, but there are others among us who could turn a tense issue into bad press. Maybe the best solution is just what we have right now, where the Ranger who doesn't bother to login or find the cache himself just emails Jeremy. Jeremy can contact or us tell the Ranger how to contact us.

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I put my own email address, plus my pager's phone number on my caches, as well as on little notification cards included in the cache for people to take with them.

 

ummmm....not sure what to say here....so ummm, well errrr, uhhhh, well I guess that's it.

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