Disabling Caches Because CO Inactive?

[+hallycat]

One of our Facebook group members posted this, two caches she found on 12/12/12 were subsequently disabled because the CO has been inactive.

Reason? Something new they are doing? This one was actively being found with no complaints.

 

Temporarily Disable Listing 12/14/2012 This is an automated message. This cache owner is currently inactive. This cache has been Temporarily Disabled by Groundspeak.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=+GC2XEC6&Submit6=Go&log=y

 

 

[+Roman!]

GS is full of surprises this week.

[+MartyBartfast]

I've also heard from a cacher who had a number of new caches in the planning, which are not yet unpublished, and they've been deleted with no warning, admittedly he created them a long time ago but was still intending to publish them and now they're gone.

[+Mudfrog]

One of our Facebook group members posted this, two caches she found on 12/12/12 were subsequently disabled because the CO has been inactive.

Reason? Something new they are doing? This one was actively being found with no complaints.

 

Temporarily Disable Listing 12/14/2012 This is an automated message. This cache owner is currently inactive. This cache has been Temporarily Disabled by Groundspeak.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=+GC2XEC6&Submit6=Go&log=y

 

There must be more to it than we know. First off, what determines "inactivity"? A week, a month, a year? Second, it shouldn't matter anyways if gc.com "thinks" a person is inactive, as long as the cache is good to go. I would even think that a person could still be considered active with caching, maintaining his caches, but simply not logging onto the website.

[hoosier guy]

Were the caches in poor repair or were they being maintained?

[+Gustav129]

Hmm that's weird. There's gotta be something more to the story. The CO's last login was 12/12/12, and the cache was last logged on the 12th.

[Pup Patrol]

One of our Facebook group members posted this, two caches she found on 12/12/12 were subsequently disabled because the CO has been inactive.

Reason? Something new they are doing? This one was actively being found with no complaints.

 

Temporarily Disable Listing 12/14/2012 This is an automated message. This cache owner is currently inactive. This cache has been Temporarily Disabled by Groundspeak.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=+GC2XEC6&Submit6=Go&log=y

 

It looks like the cacher asked for their account to be deactivated.

 

Last Visit:

Wednesday, 12 December 2012

Status:

Inactive Member

E-Mail Address:

The "send message" feature is disabled because this user is currently inactive.

 

Perhaps the answer can be found in the Help Center article about deleting accounts:

 

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=102

 

8.16. Deleting My Account

 

Although accounts are never permanently deleted, they can certainly be disabled.

 

To disable your account, you will need to send the request to contact@geocaching.com from the email address that is listed on your account. Groundspeak will reply to your email to confirm that your account has been disabled.

 

If you’re not sure which email address is listed on your account, you can look it up here:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/my/details.aspx

 

If the email listed on your account is no longer current, you may need to update your profile accordingly and validate it to make sure you can receive email from geocaching.com.

 

 

B.

[+hallycat]

Thanks, Pup Patrol

Mystery Solved!

[Keystone]

GS is full of surprises this week.

The "disable my account" functionality is several years old; it is not a new surprise. Please exercise restraint before jumping to conclusions about subjects where you are not fully informed. Learn to ask questions like hallycat did.

 

Thank you to Pup Patrol for the complete and accurate answer.

[Keystone]

I've also heard from a cacher who had a number of new caches in the planning, which are not yet unpublished, and they've been deleted with no warning, admittedly he created them a long time ago but was still intending to publish them and now they're gone.

This is an entirely separate subject. Geocaching.com's policy for quite a long time has been that a cache owner can "reserve a spot" for a cache in the planning stages, but the time period is a matter of weeks or months -- not a year. This is to be fair to other cache owners who reasonably believe that an area is free for hiding a new cache.

 

Did the cache owner post periodic updates, like "I am still working on this" or "this submission should be ready by January after I obtain land manager permission?" If not, then the archival of a page that appears unused should not come as a surprise.

 

Cache listings are never "deleted with no warning" and they are not "gone." Cache listings are "archived." Write to the reviewer to inquire about unarchival if there remains an intent to submit the archived listings for review in the immediate future.

[+Don_J]

GS is full of surprises this week.

The "disable my account" functionality is several years old; it is not a new surprise. Please exercise restraint before jumping to conclusions about subjects where you are not fully informed. Learn to ask questions like hallycat did.

 

Thank you to Pup Patrol for the complete and accurate answer.

 

Inactive is an official account status. It seems in the past that when a user requested that their account be disabled, all of their caches were automatically archived. Has this changed with a temp disable option?

[+Gustav129]

I've also heard from a cacher who had a number of new caches in the planning, which are not yet unpublished, and they've been deleted with no warning, admittedly he created them a long time ago but was still intending to publish them and now they're gone.

This is an entirely separate subject. Geocaching.com's policy for quite a long time has been that a cache owner can "reserve a spot" for a cache in the planning stages, but the time period is a matter of weeks or months -- not a year. This is to be fair to other cache owners who reasonably believe that an area is free for hiding a new cache.

 

Did the cache owner post periodic updates, like "I am still working on this" or "this submission should be ready by January after I obtain land manager permission?" If not, then the archival of a page that appears unused should not come as a surprise.

 

Cache listings are never "deleted with no warning" and they are not "gone." Cache listings are "archived." Write to the reviewer to inquire about unarchival if there remains an intent to submit the archived listings for review in the immediate future.

 

And to add on, those caches are not deleted, they are archived. I have two that I made when I began. Too close to others, they didn't get published. One was archived a while back, and the other finally archived about 9 months ago when I started back up. I was going to use the GC code for another cache, but it was archived just before I had a cache ready.

[+lamoracke]

I had a find once where the listing got locked after I found it because it was probably viewed that the cache owner was inactive, because they have not logged in a while. However, if you do email that owner, they do respond to emails. Thus, just because someone has not logged on to the site does not mean they do not see the emails that their caches generate.

[+OZ2CPU]

if a CO actively repports his account as beeing closed,

yes then all his caches gets disabled automaticly !

 

however is a CO dies, or just dont ever log in again,

change email or move to another planet,

his account stays open forever,

his caches stay active until DNF'ed 4 times, and disabled due to DNF or NM or NA logs.

[+palmetto]

A response to one of the directions this thread took, re unpublished archived caches.

If the cache owner wants to use that listing, that GC Code, they can request unarchive.

 

To find the cache go here

 

http://www.geocaching.com/my/geocaches.aspx?archived=y'>http://www.geocaching.com/my/geocaches.aspx?archived=y

 

Archived unpublished caches, if any will be in the list will be in the gray pane on right side of that page, title in strikethrough.

 

To get there, go here

 

http://www.geocaching.com/my/default.aspx

 

click on Geocaches to the right of Quick View (not Yours)

http://www.geocaching.com/my/geocaches.aspx

 

on the right side, there's a pane with Your Geocaches Awaiting Publication, and an option to "show archived"

[+wimseyguy]

if a CO actively repports his account as beeing closed,

yes then all his caches gets disabled automaticly !

 

however is a CO dies, or just dont ever log in again,

change email or move to another planet,

his account stays open forever,

his caches stay active until DNF'ed 4 times, and disabled due to DNF or NM or NA logs.

Not exactly. If a CO asks for his account to be closed, then his caches will be automatically disabled.

If a CO dies, and it's reported to Groundspeak, then his caches will be automatically disabled.

If he just drifts away and stops maintaining them, then they will stay active as long as no one posts a NA log.

The reviewers don't seek out caches with 4 DNF's or NM logs in order to disable or archive them.

The whole reason the NM log was created was to provide the community an option that didn't get the reviewers involved.

[AZcachemeister]

 

The whole reason the NM log was created was to provide the community an option that didn't (immediately) get the reviewers involved.

 

Fixed it for you.

 

Around here, an unresolved 'Needs Maintenance' log will usually get the reviewer's attention eventually.

And rightly so.

[+Lil Devil]

Around here, an unresolved 'Needs Maintenance' log will usually get the reviewer's attention eventually.

Your reviewer has too much extra time on his hands. You should hide more caches

[+SwineFlew]

GS is full of surprises this week.

The "disable my account" functionality is several years old; it is not a new surprise. Please exercise restraint before jumping to conclusions about subjects where you are not fully informed. Learn to ask questions like hallycat did.

 

Thank you to Pup Patrol for the complete and accurate answer.

Yes, I figured this was the case. Since I got the whole database of Oregon and I see this happen pretty common. They get archived in reasonable time by a local reviewer.

[+SwineFlew]

Around here, an unresolved 'Needs Maintenance' log will usually get the reviewer's attention eventually.

Your reviewer has too much extra time on his hands. You should hide more caches

My reviewer is very busy and he is known to do that as well.

[+hukilaulau]

 

Geocaching.com's policy for quite a long time has been that a cache owner can "reserve a spot" for a cache in the planning stages, but the time period is a matter of weeks or months -- not a year. This is to be fair to other cache owners who reasonably believe that an area is free for hiding a new cache.

 

 

Cache listings are never "deleted with no warning"

For example, I listed a few caches about a year ago but never activated them (reserved the spots).

Recently I got a polite note from my local reviewer asking my intentions since my listings were blocking the spots for other cachers. I immediately archived the listings. The system is working just fine out here!