Geocaching stories or geocaching spoilers?

[+-CJ-]

I've traveled a bit in Europe, mostly in Ireland, visited some great sites and would like to share my experience with Russian readers. In our country geocachers don't know much about how the game is played around the world so it could be also a bit of "geocaching education". There's no need to mention cache codes and I could easily avoid writing cache names. In some situations I'd like to add photos of e.g. a container or a camouflage technique. I would also like to describe beautiful surroundings / places of interest. The text will be in Russian only and not widely distributed (mostly at my personal non-commercial webpage). I seriously doubt that anyone who will load the page _and_ can read Russian _and_ is interested in this reading will use this indirect data as spoilers to go to Ireland and hunt for these very caches. However, I'm not sure if there's any practice/traditions/rules on that matter. I consider that I should probably contact COs to find out if they have any objections though it will definitely take much time, disturb many people, and I cannot imagine that I will have to translate my texts in English so COs could review it. At the same time, I'm not sure about whether Groundspeak has any limitations/conditions for such publicatons or not and if they are seen as abuse. I would appreciate any suggestions/thoughts/knowledge.

[+wmpastor]

Using another language doesn't really keep things confidential. A translation can be gotten online in seconds (although the quality is poor). I suggest looking at some of the forum threads that deal with unusual caches, containers, etc. They will give you some idea of how much to show and say.

[+Sivota]

I think it is not only necessary, but polite and decent to contact the CO's of the caches you are going to describe.

Explain to them what you want to do and it wouldn't surprise me if most of them are willing to help out to provide you with additional information and/or pictures for your web page.

To avoid any problems you may also want to read all about what you can or can not do in the Terms of Use.

Link

If you have any questions left, contact contact@Groundspeak.com

 

Good luck with your web page

[+StarBrand]

I would think avoiding mentioning the cache name, the cache code and the cache owners name would likely be more than sufficient to shield your page from being used as a spoiler resource. However, I will agree that it is only polite to ask the cache owners if they have any objections to any of your photos or descriptions.

[+Bear and Ragged]

I would think avoiding mentioning the cache name, the cache code and the cache owners name would likely be more than sufficient to shield your page from being used as a spoiler resource. However, I will agree that it is only polite to ask the cache owners if they have any objections to any of your photos or descriptions.

 

However... Someone may (IF they were to put in a little work) be able to use your caching name, and check which caches you found on which days, to use your information as a spoiler.

 

(Yes, some cachers would be prepared to put in the work on the web, rather than spend the time looking for the cache in it's hiding place!)

[+StarBrand]

I would think avoiding mentioning the cache name, the cache code and the cache owners name would likely be more than sufficient to shield your page from being used as a spoiler resource. However, I will agree that it is only polite to ask the cache owners if they have any objections to any of your photos or descriptions.

 

However... Someone may (IF they were to put in a little work) be able to use your caching name, and check which caches you found on which days, to use your information as a spoiler.

 

(Yes, some cachers would be prepared to put in the work on the web, rather than spend the time looking for the cache in it's hiding place!)

Its probably worth mentioning that any geotagging information in photos should be stripped out before posting online as well.

[+-CJ-]

Thank you all for your quick and useful answers.

 

In pure theory I cannot show photos and tell stories even to my close friends: who can guarantee that one day some of them won't travel to Ireland and use my remembered photo as a spoiler? From what I've been told here I conclude that if I

 

- write my text in Russian,

- don't mention codes, names, COs,

- strip geotagging from photos,

 

this will eliminate any real chances for a cheater. Well, I also see it is not enough because it's an issue of ethics so I have to ask permission from COs. This would be polite, of course, but would also ruin the idea. It would not only take much time and leave me without some percentage of responses, it's pretty clear that some people will not be happy to hear that spoilers to their caches are published wherever on the net. Period.

 

I could also split the stories about geocaches from the stories about places of interest, geographical names, dates, routes, so that geocaches would be abstract. This will make the text much less colourful and (sadly) doesn't solve the problem described above.

 

In this circumstances I think the best solution for a story teller would be to replace spoilers with some more or less similar but fictional details. E.g. a large city park in Dublin may be changed to a small park in Cork, a stone wall of a mansion (at some photo) described as one of a local pub, etc. - so the spoilers will be gone. After all, it is not a chronological story "how I spent my vacations" but an attempt to show how a cache can be hidden, what containers people use here and there, and so on.

Edited February 7, 2013 by -CJ-

[+Bear and Ragged]

 

In this circumstances I think the best solution for a story teller would be to replace spoilers with some more or less similar but fictional details. E.g. a large city park in Dublin may be changed to a small park in Cork, a stone wall of a mansion (at some photo) described as one of a local pub, etc. - so the spoilers will be gone. After all, it is not a chronological story "how I spent my vacations" but an attempt to show how a cache can be hidden, what containers people use here and there, and so on.

 

The less 'specific' and more 'general' you can be, which would add some 'vagueness' to the information you write, the less chance of someone being able to identify which specific cache you are talking about...

 

Whilst they may read you found a cache hidden in a certain way, until they are looking for that cache and realise that they've seen the tree they are looking at in a photo which shows the location -it's less of a spoiler.

 

Should you write "We found this cache..." and show a photo of an unusual container "...on our third day of caching in *place name* it does rather give part of the game away.

 

Don't let the answers here put you off writing, just take a little care! (Which you already have, by asking the question -thank you for taking that time and caring! )