The Rules of Golf

[AZcachemeister]

Thank you Mr. Hoyle for expounding on the rules and what is acceptable. I care neither for your opinions on golf or on geocaching. If someone is having fun and they are not interfering with the play of others, it's good for me.

We all know the only thing you really care about is listening to yourself prattle on endlessly about knickers twisting. Unintentional irony seems to be a specialty in these forums. Carry on.

 

True.

But I'll defend his right to 'prattle on' to the last pixel.

 

I have been known to 'prattle on' myself from time-to-time.

 

Most of what goes on in here is pointless yammering anyway.

[+The Jester]

If golf and geocaching are synonymous, what does Putt-Putt Golf equal?

 

Park-n-Grab...?

Hmm... I was thinking more like Waymarks or Challenges or Wherigo? Not really golf but somewhat related.

[+CanadianRockies]

Certainly posting entirely bogus online finds is wrong. Couch potato logging can interfere with others caching experiences. Falsely claiming a cache is there can delay needed maintenance. However, it is up to individual cache owners to decide which logs are bogus.

I'm curious where you, as a cache owner, would draw the line on bogus finds. It sounds like you would accept an armchair find on a virtual cache that is unlikely to ever require maintenance but not on a traditional. But what if the armchair "finder" logged one of your traditionals and pre-dated the find to be a year ago (to avoid any maintenance issues)? Is that acceptable to you?

Sure. I don't see how this would be different then the kid who got his own account and went back to log all the caches he's found over the years with his parents.

You really don't see any difference? In one case, the kid actually was at the cache site when the cache was found and might even have been the person who found the cache. In the other, the armchair logger was very far away and the cache was not found. To me, online finds don't get much more "entirely bogus" than that.

[+tozainamboku]

You really don't see any difference? In one case, the kid actually was at the cache site when the cache was found and might even have been the person who found the cache. In the other, the armchair logger was very far away and the cache was not found. To me, online finds don't get much more "entirely bogus" than that.

In the interest of not making it a long 'toz' post, I deleted the paragraph where I was going to explain most of the the time the really bogus log are somewhat more obvious than just the occasional backdated log or the ones where a cacher says he forgot a pencil.

 

Real bogus logs are, IMO, extremely rare. However there are occasional incidents where some geeky person (usually a guy and usually under age 21) writes a computer program to automatically log caches and turns it loose on Geocaching.com. Or sometimes, some idiot decides that it would be fun to sit at home an log 1000 caches one day. (An intelligent person would soon realize its a lot more fun to actually find caches than it is to sit in front of a computer and log fake finds). In these cases, it quickly becomes obvious that these logs are fakes. In such a case I would delete the logs. In one case when it happened on some of my caches, I didn't even have to delete the logs. After Groundspeak banned the account, they remove the bogus logs.

 

Your hypothetical was a bit silly since you say the the log was from an armchair logger. I suppose if I knew that for sure I might delete the log. However, there is no way of knowing from a single log like this if the person is lying about being at the cache a year earlier or not. So my response remains that I would not delete the find, preferring to take someone's word even if I have the physical log in front of me to check for signatures.

 

There may be a handful of confused individuals who feel that by logging fake finds they've increased their score. But since the find count is not a score, all they really have done is posted some fictional stories on the internet. Unless their fiction is interfering with people who are trying to find my caches, I'm not likely to do anything about it.

 

I understand Groundspeak's stand on couch potato logging. They provide the logging features for geocachers to use to share their experiences geocaching, and they may feel there are more appropriate websites for writing fiction. As turns out, with liars caches and the geocaching equivalent of a fisherman's tale, fictional logs are quite acceptable (so long as the cache was really found), so that makes it even harder to determine if a log should be deleted.

[+CanadianRockies]

Real bogus logs are, IMO, extremely rare. However there are occasional incidents where some geeky person (usually a guy and usually under age 21) writes a computer program to automatically log caches and turns it loose on Geocaching.com.

So, armchair logging is okay as long as you do it manually rather than via a computer program? No, that's not your justification, because you go on to say...

 

Or sometimes, some idiot decides that it would be fun to sit at home an log 1000 caches one day.

So, armchair logging is okay as long as you only "find" 100 each day? No, that's not your justification because you go on to say...

 

In these cases, it quickly becomes obvious that these logs are fakes. In such a case I would delete the logs.

I don't think anyone's suggesting you should delete bogus finds when you aren't reasonably certain they're bogus. I'm asking where you draw the line between fake finds and legitimate finds. Earlier, you seemed to indicate that finds are only bogus if they interfere with other geocachers' experiences.

 

Your hypothetical was a bit silly since you say the the log was from an armchair logger. I suppose if I knew that for sure I might delete the log. However, there is no way of knowing from a single log like this if the person is lying about being at the cache a year earlier or not.

Of course there are ways of being virtually certain that an armchair logger is lying. I've deleted a find on one of my caches from a person who logged finds in numerous, scattered countries on that day and did not sign my cache's logbook.

 

There may be a handful of confused individuals who feel that by logging fake finds they've increased their score. But since the find count is not a score, all they really have done is posted some fictional stories on the internet. Unless their fiction is interfering with people who are trying to find my caches, I'm not likely to do anything about it.

So, we're back to your original line in the sand. An online find is okay as long as it doesn't interfere with others. As long as armchair loggers pre-date their online "finds," then it's okay if they write a computer program to do so. Or manually log 1,000 armchair finds. But wait. Up above, you said you would delete these fake logs. I'm confused.

 

I understand Groundspeak's stand on couch potato logging. They provide the logging features for geocachers to use to share their experiences geocaching, and they may feel there are more appropriate websites for writing fiction. As turns out, with liars caches and the geocaching equivalent of a fisherman's tale, fictional logs are quite acceptable (so long as the cache was really found), so that makes it even harder to determine if a log should be deleted.

I really don't think you understand Groundspeak's stand on couch potato logging. Groundspeak doesn't appear to be too concerned about fictional stories that couch potato loggers might tell. Groundspeak seems more concerned about the fictional finds they log and have this odd notion that visiting the location is an implicit requirement for finding a cache. That's why they allow cache owners to delete bogus finds but not bogus stories.

Edited July 19, 2012 by CanadianRockies

[+JJnTJ]

It's funny. I've only golfed twice, but if I did it more often, I think I'd have similar personal "rules" as I do with geocaching. They'd be stricter if I was doing it solo (i.e. no mulligans = must sign my name on a cache's log sheet if I'm going to claim a find, etc.) For group play, the rules would be a lot looser, but not like Calvinball. I'd have some limits on just how far I'd let things slide for myself, and I wouldn't attempt to enforce them with the group.

 

After all, it's my "score". In 20 years, it's not going to matter what the number is. It will matter if I don't look back on the game as time well spent.

Edited July 19, 2012 by JJnTJ

[+Sharks-N-Beans]

So you have alot going on here:

1. Multi

2. Puzzle

3. Baseball Theme

4. Probable interaction w/ worker

5. Close proximity to a building (worker was installing AC unit)

6. Lots of CO notes which adds to cacher confusion (If you are placing a trackable, just post "Bug Drop"...everything else is noise. If your cache has more notes than finds, it can appear problematic.

 

Bottom line, this cache won't be high traffic. I suspect if the puzzle aspect was eliminated you would get a little more traffic. Now, if you really like the cache, keep it and enjoy the occasional great log like you received from the third finder. We love our first multi, but it can go months w/o a find. We get really excited when someone visits.

[+Allyn56]

It's funny. I've only golfed twice, but if I did it more often, I think I'd have similar personal "rules" as I do with geocaching. They'd be stricter if I was doing it solo (i.e. no mulligans = must sign my name on a cache's log sheet if I'm going to claim a find, etc.) For group play, the rules would be a lot looser, but not like Calvinball. I'd have some limits on just how far I'd let things slide for myself, and I wouldn't attempt to enforce them with the group.

 

After all, it's my "score". In 20 years, it's not going to matter what the number is. It will matter if I don't look back on the game as time well spent.

 

You make some good points here. When you are golfing or caching alone you tend to stick by the "rules" more closely than if you are in a group prone to bending the rules. Hadnt thought of that point before.

[+tozainamboku]

I'm asking where you draw the line between fake finds and legitimate finds.

I thought you were asking me when I would delete a log.

 

Groundspeak may have a guideline telling owners to delete bogus logs, but I not sure how much of my time I want to spend enforcing this rule when it has no effect on the game.

 

Rather that take the Groundspeak guideline as an absolute rule, I'd rather leave these unless I see there may be a problem.

 

So far there haven't been many logs that I can absolutely say are bogus on my caches. What there has been was a bot created by a now banned person who used to posted a lot in the forum and someone who disagreed with me and wanted to prove a point. In one case Groundspeak removed the bogus log and the other time, the logger deleted it himself.

 

I've only seen bogus logs a few times on other caches. Sometimes cache owners delete these, sometime they don't. I haven't been bothered by them. I usually notice these when they are on caches I DNFd and was watching to see if they got found. The logs are often suspicious looking because I see someone finding a bunch of caches that nobody has found in a while. They may be looking for absentee owners who aren't going to delete the log. Often these get someone to post a NA and the cache gets archive. We had a case recently where someone posted finds on a bunch of caches where the owner had passed away. Some are still active caches and others probably need to be archived. The community will likely straighten this out.

 

I just can't get righteously indignant over logs that don't mean anything.

Edited July 20, 2012 by tozainamboku