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What Irks you most?


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On 5/29/2013 at 8:52 AM, ground control 1 said:

What irks me most is finding useless rubbish in geocaches. Always trade even or up! I personally would rather someone not put anything in at all rather than put in some broken piece of plastic rubbish!!

Yes, it bothers me when I check up on my caches and find less or no swag left in them, just disheartening to imagine the next cacher not provided with the original quality and variety of choice provided when it was published. "Always trade even or up!"

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On 5/29/2013 at 11:46 AM, L0ne.R said:

 

Wheelchair Use in the United States

An estimated 1.6 million Americans residing outside of institutions use wheelchairs, according to 199495 data from the National Health Interview Survey on Disability (NHIS-D).

 

Population of US 314 million.

 

If my math is right that's .5%

 

How many estimated cachers in the US? 10,000? That would mean 50 wheelchair cachers. One per state (if my math and geo population guesstimate is right).

To me, Wheelchair Accessible Attribute equals more inclusive. A majority of our active local cachers are elderly, or family's with geotykes. Two demographics that could benefit from and enjoy a clever, intentional, beautiful T1

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9 hours ago, 173Carver said:

Yes, it bothers me when I check up on my caches and find less or no swag left in them, just disheartening to imagine the next cacher not provided with the original quality and variety of choice provided when it was published. "Always trade even or up!"

 

It's a good idea to physically mark swaggable containers with a note that SAYS so - "Remember, if you take something, you should leave something of equal or greater value!"

 

You don't get in trouble with the Guidelines if you include the word "SHOULD" to make a non-implied-ALR.

 

If it's an ammo can, for example, you have the entire inside of the lid to communicate with your finders. I've started putting a laminated card severely glued to my AC's lids.

 

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12 hours ago, 173Carver said:

Yes, it bothers me when I check up on my caches and find less or no swag left in them, just disheartening to imagine the next cacher not provided with the original quality and variety of choice provided when it was published. 

 

If trading, there wouldn't be original quality stuff in there anyway. but get what you mean...   :)

Around '09 we noticed folks not too concerned with how the hobby's played, and trade became take

Ammo cans would be just-about empty, with just a broken mctoy or two someone wanted to get rid of. 

  - All pens, pencils, and even the sharpeners too...

We kept pluggin' away though, refilling, but not as much, until that one person griped that a "pen wasn't in the cache". 

Writing instruments in caches have never been required (try that with a bison/nano series...)  They shoulda had one on 'em...delete... 

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16 hours ago, 173Carver said:

To me, Wheelchair Accessible Attribute equals more inclusive. A majority of our active local cachers are elderly, or family's with geotykes. Two demographics that could benefit from and enjoy a clever, intentional, beautiful T1

It irks me when people reply to nine year old forum posts! Just kidding, it's fun.

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It's rare, but if I find something in a geocache I want, I just take it (can only offhand think of a small note book I took, a key ring to put a trackable on...and the $35 I found in one). Not swapping doesn't worry me, as I have left far, far more than that over the years than I have ever taken. And of more value, including that money. I mostly don't leave junk. At present mostly costume jewellery and fridge magnets from a deceased estate. I did get a very excited thank you email from one person who found an old pair of sparkly dangly 'diamond' earrings. So I don't swap. Mostly leave things, but if there's something I can use I take it (rarely take though), even if I have nothing that day to swap with.

 

I do find it annoying that some people think leaving a lolly or other food item is a good idea and that someone will be silly enough to eat something left from goodness knows who, goodness knows how many 'decades' ago. Or spent cigarette lighters, etc. Geocaches are not garbage bins. A wet nappy draped across the top is not exciting either.

 

It would be nice though to find more items left for adults, not just for children. However with the quality of geocache containers and the size dropping, it gets harder to find places that deserve a nice trinket. Or can fit it.

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What really irks me is the random nature of signal items in the current promotion.  Don't get me wrong, I like the bonus points but the random factor is annoying.

 

There is no group of unfound caches within a 1 1/2 hour drive from home, so I have to plan a full day trip to get enough points to escape.  At 15 points per cache I need 34 caches to guarantee 500 points.  I cache with a GPS and don't log until I get home, so I can't track my progress in the field.

 

There was a trail with 40-odd caches.  If I can get 4 items in 20 caches, I can save the other 20 for the next set.  However, if I assume that 20 will be enough I might only get 2 items and have to do another day trip.

 

The random nature makes planning impossible.  Just award an item for every 4 or 5 or 10 caches.  Or a bonus after every 100 points.  I don't care what the rules are, but remove the random factor.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

The random nature makes planning impossible.  Just award an item for every 4 or 5 or 10 caches.  Or a bonus after every 100 points.  I don't care what the rules are, but remove the random factor.

I don't think there will be any changes to the current promotion. I checked the last 20 finds of myself and a few people on my friend list to try to see a pattern, the result was 2, 2, 4, 4 items per 20 finds. From this very unscientific investigation it seems you can rely on getting 2, but 4 is a stretch.

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2 hours ago, ChriBli said:

I don't think there will be any changes to the current promotion. I checked the last 20 finds of myself and a few people on my friend list to try to see a pattern, the result was 2, 2, 4, 4 items per 20 finds. From this very unscientific investigation it seems you can rely on getting 2, but 4 is a stretch.

There's no chance they will change the current promotion.  I'm just hoping that they consider this for the next one.

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14 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

The random nature makes planning impossible.

 

I don't try to "plan" for these promotions - we just cache as we normally would.  We generally find enough caches within the 2 months to reach the 500 points and then some.  Of course, not everyone is in a cache dense area, with new caches popping up frequently, so I DO understand not being able to count on those bonus items being somewhat predictable, and how frustrating that can be.

 

1 hour ago, Gill & Tony said:

There's no chance they will change the current promotion.  I'm just hoping that they consider this for the next one.

 

All you can do is provide feedback, and hope they listen, or that enough others also share the same feedback to warrant their attention!

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15 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

The random nature makes planning impossible.

 

No it doesn't, just plan as if you get no items. If you get items, great, you speed through a little faster. Don't plan for non-guarantees, not when there's a chance you actually won't get any random items throughout a trip.

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5 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

 

No it doesn't, just plan as if you get no items. If you get items, great, you speed through a little faster. Don't plan for non-guarantees, not when there's a chance you actually won't get any random items throughout a trip.

The problem with that approach is that I will eliminate a source of caches for the next session.  In the case I gave above, I think there were 46 caches in the area.  If I take 34 of them then there are only 12 left, so I need to get a different area next time, even further from home.  If I were able to guarantee the bonus items, I may only need 22 or 23, leaving the rest for next time. 

 

A lot of the unfound caches within 50Km of home are T4 or higher and I'm just not physically capable of doing those.  The achievable ones are scattered throughout the area and not suitable as targets for this sort of exercise as it takes too long between caches.  My trip for the July/August souvenirs was over 2 1/2 hours each way, just to get to the area.  My next one could be 3 hours each way.  That doesn't leave much time for actual caching.

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14 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

The problem with that approach is that I will eliminate a source of caches for the next session.  In the case I gave above, I think there were 46 caches in the area.  If I take 34 of them then there are only 12 left, so I need to get a different area next time, even further from home.  If I were able to guarantee the bonus items, I may only need 22 or 23, leaving the rest for next time. 

But since they are random, it would be worse to plan for it when there is the possibility of getting no random items. Just plan as if there were no random items at all.  Then if you get them, the result is only good, unless you consider "well I didn't have to do those geocaches" as a bad thing.  Ignore the items. Once you're logged in them all, you'll know if you're closer to completion than expected and can adjust future plans after that.

Otherwise log'em live and know the moment you've got the points you need, including those from items.

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5 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

But since they are random, it would be worse to plan for it when there is the possibility of getting no random items. Just plan as if there were no random items at all.  Then if you get them, the result is only good, unless you consider "well I didn't have to do those geocaches" as a bad thing.  Ignore the items. Once you're logged in them all, you'll know if you're closer to completion than expected and can adjust future plans after that.

 

It is a bad thing if the supply of unfound caches is extremely limited, since any excess you find in this round will limit the available finds in the following rounds.

 

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9 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

It is a bad thing if the supply of unfound caches is extremely limited, since any excess you find in this round will limit the available finds in the following rounds.

 

But again, it makes no difference if you wouldn't actually get any items anyway. If you're not going to play ahead, then your best option is live logging. If you're not going to plan ahead and you're not going to live log, you're either going to need to assume you're not going to get any items and do one trip to guarantee the points, or break it into multiple trips to reduce the risk of excess finds.  In all cases, I still say the best option for sanity's sake is just to assume you're not going to get any items. Or at least very very few if it's almost certain you'll get a couple.

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On 9/15/2022 at 11:25 AM, Gill & Tony said:

There is no group of unfound caches within a 1 1/2 hour drive from home, so I have to plan a full day trip to get enough points to escape.

I usually get both sovenirs on the first weekend of new session without even thinking about it and without whole day trips. While I fully understand the urge to complete the task and get the souvenirs, I'd seriously change the attitude. Look for nice caches within 2 hr drive, plan a nice saturday with your caching partner, pack a small bbq and sausages and just enjoy the whole outdoor experience. The end effect is the same (it's impossible to not get both levels after whole day caching unless you end up doing one multi requiring climbing 10 mountains) and you won't be pissed about some Internet points ;)

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2 hours ago, TheVoytekBear said:

Look for nice caches within 2 hr drive, plan a nice saturday with your caching partner, pack a small bbq and sausages and just enjoy the whole outdoor experience. The end effect is the same (it's impossible to not get both levels after whole day caching unless you end up doing one multi requiring climbing 10 mountains) and you won't be pissed about some Internet points ;)

 

You're assuming there are heaps of unfound caches in the area you're visiting. My highest number of finds in a day, ever, is 22 and that was during a mega where a whole heap of caches had been put out for the event. Last weekend I did a 2 hour drive up north to place a new cache on a mountain near Bulahdelah, stopping off at the town of Karuah (about 40km south of Bulahdelah) on the way for some caching. I found every cache in Karuah, all one of them, and I couldn't increase my find count in Bulahdelah because I'd previously found the three caches there.

 

KaruahBulahdelah.jpg.b5976be84d79b4c5890fe2eadd963421.jpg

 

Then yesterday I did a train trip down to Sydney, taking the ferry across the harbour to Manly and setting out on foot to attempt a relatively new cache (it was published in May). I found it, but it was my only unfound cache within walking distance of the wharf so that was another caching day with just one smiley to show for it. Today I'm driving 100km north to attend an event near Newcastle, but the only unfound caches anywhere near the venue are a couple of challenges I have no hope of ever qualifying for, so it again will be a one-smiley day. And that's pretty typical of my caching days these days, a long drive or train trip to somewhere outside my region for just one find.

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45 minutes ago, TheVoytekBear said:

I interpreted "There is no group of unfound caches within a 1 1/2 hour drive from home, " as "there are plenty but further away".

 

While there might be plenty of caches outside that 1.5 hour drive, they're likely to be spread far apart. Bulahdelah and Karuah are pretty typical for the country towns you'll find along the highways here. Outside the major cities, Australia's population is sparsely spread across a large area and, apart from the odd cluster for a long series or geoart, so are the caches. Even my own area on the Woy Woy Peninsula, encompassing the suburbs of Woy Woy, Blackwall, Ettalong, Umina Beach, Pearl Beach and Patonga and which is a popular destination for day visitors from Sydney with easy road and rail access, has less than 30 caches and only half that if you exclude the longer T3+ hikes that you mightn't want to take a young family or non-caching spouse on. The whole Central Coast local government area, spread across 1681 square kilometres, only has about 500 caches total and, with no power trails or geoart amongst them, you'd be unlikely to be able to do more than a dozen on a single day trip simply because they're spread so widely.

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It's easy for someone who doesn't understand the situation to make suggestions which simply do  not work.  My caching partner lives 2 hours away in the opposite direction.  My wife isn't a cacher and when we go out for the day I won't make her sit in the car while I stop every 160m to get another cache.

 

 

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If the number of caches available is limited why don't you and your buddies start hiding more. That may trigger more new folks to joining and then they hide more. Or archive your existing caches and refresh them possibly moving to a nearby location as GS recommended a while back. Instead of adopting/maintaining abandoned caches, get them archived where appropriate and then hide your own. Refresh the area.  

 

As an engineer I solve problems for a living. It irks me when we just hear problems without trying to solve the problem. Try something new and if it works keep going. If it does not work try something else.

 

Start a forum thread bouncing ideas off each other. Look at maps and collaborate on desirable locations. Hide a power trail on a great country drive, I am slowly working on finding the caches along a forrest road the long way around Mt. Hood last weekend I found 3/6 had a wonderful day could have stopped for more if I had wished. 

 

Personally don't care if a cache is at an amazing location. If it is great , but most of my day to day finds are not. Some days I have 10 minutes to spend, a GRC or LPC is more than enough to get my fix. Sometimes a 5-10 minute walk in a park does the trick, my dogs like these a lot. Others an afternoon of driving in the mountains, you get the point I hope. Start hiding all different kinds of hides. If folks start caching but not hiding in your area lots of prolific hiders in my area do very little finding and more hiding.

 

One of my dumb hides which unfortunately archived as I moved out of state was titled "Why? Because every park should have a cache!", I really liked that silly little nano. Had tons of finds from all kinds of folks. But hides that are far away or multis that take a day or an afternoon will not encourage folks in my opinion. My amazing location virtual cache I published 2 weeks ago so far only has one finder, 8 hours from my home, 4 hours from the nearest major city it is not going to draw a lot of finders.But my silly nano in a park gets a find every week or so sometimes more.

 

Good luck!

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I am the only serious cacher living within 50 Km of my home.  I own most of the caches in my home area.  I also have 4 Adventures with a 5th in the planning stage.   I have introduced several locals to the game and none of them stuck.

 

None of this does me the slightest good when looking for a significant number of caches.  As I said above, my main caching partner lives two hours away, by car.

 

 

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6 minutes ago, MNTA said:

If the number of caches available is limited why don't you and your buddies start hiding more. That may trigger more new folks to joining and then they hide more. Or archive your existing caches and refresh them possibly moving to a nearby location as GS recommended a while back. Instead of adopting/maintaining abandoned caches, get them archived where appropriate and then hide your own. Refresh the area. 

 

I'm not sure if this is directed at me or Gill & Tony, but, um, I'm already the most prolific hider in my region with 45 active hides and so far this year I've hidden three new ones, the most recent a week ago, and have another planned if only I can get the national park ranger to okay the location (it's been over three months now since I hiked out to GZ with her but still no decision). I've also archived five of my hides, mostly as a result of extreme rain damage to the area around the cache or, in one instance, vandalism to some of the virtual waypoints.

 

Two of my new hides this year, GC9M6X5 and GC9TW3Y, are in spots made available following archival of previous caches but aren't very popular (3 and 6 finds respectively) because people have already visited those locations and there are much easier ways to get smileys if that's all someone wants. As for my mates, lee737 and his sons have put out 23 new caches this year, mostly around the Newcastle area where they live. Closer to home, there's less than a handful of active cachers now but a few have been adding new hides, like GC9M1RW and GC9QR5W by SeeEagles, but the latter, published in April, has still only had one finder (me). There's not much incentive for hiding new caches if no-one wants to bother finding them. Visitors to the area are mostly only interested in roadside P&Gs around the tourist areas and as for the locals, well there simply aren't enough local cachers to make much of an impact to a cache's find count.

 

With only 509 caches spread acros 1680 square kilometres, this region has lots of empty space on the cache map so there's no need to archive existing caches to make room for new ones. The game board doesn't need refreshing because the game board is already mostly empty.

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15 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

I am the only serious cacher living within 50 Km of my home.  I own most of the caches in my home area.  I also have 4 Adventures with a 5th in the planning stage.   I have introduced several locals to the game and none of them stuck.

 

None of this does me the slightest good when looking for a significant number of caches.  As I said above, my main caching partner lives two hours away, by car.

 

 

 

Your town has caches owned by several different folks that are at least logging into the website in the last few weeks and granted 200ish caches within 30 miles is not a large amount I bet the number of folks that feel similarly are higher than you'd guess.  My point is business as usual is not going to change things so try something different, all we hear is doom and gloom. 

From old GS blog: 

"`But there might be one you own that most local geocachers have already found and the location is not frequented by tourists. It could be time to archive it and free up the area, or you might consider creating a new and improved cache!"

 

As I recall this blog post was not well received here, but I agree with it.


Talk to the local hiders. Try something new something different. Encourage your unknown neighbors to hide new caches. Not everyone goes to events so they may be out there. Take that rusty tin with mushy log and throw it away and replace it with a shiny new cache. I had a local cacher approach me if I wanted to join their competition to find lonely caches as I had recently found 2, do something with hides maybe. Click on any new finders and see if they are local and encourage them to join.

Just trying to help

 

 

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3 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

With only 509 caches spread acros 1680 square kilometres, this region has lots of empty space on the cache map so there's no need to archive existing caches to make room for new ones. The game board doesn't need refreshing because the game board is already mostly empty.

 

My opinion is most new folks are not going to go far and wide to find caches. They care about maybe short radius around their home maybe 50ish  to 100ish sq km if my math is correct 4km radius or 2.5-5 miles.

 

It is not about empty area so GS suggestion is if the locals have found all the caches in the immediate area refresh the cache, give the locals more opportunity to find one nearby rather than forcing traveling hours to do a single find. Those are great but nearby ones are better.

 

Personally I have one cache that just hit 100 finds in about 4 years, reviewing the logs i can say most of the regular local cachers in my area have found it. When it goes missing again I'll probably archive it and hide another one somewhere else in the park. Bring those locals back for another try and more opportunities. Every time a new cache is published nearby the same 10 super active cachers rush out to make the find before they go missing as a lot of them do, folks should really find more than 5 caches before hiding a cache, and despite the ability to travel further away from home.

 

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OK, let's look at those caches and their hiders.

 

CooperHallgarth aka Crossed*Coopski is a teenager and lives one street away from me.  He had a burst of enthusiasm years ago, came back into the game last year, hasn't logged on since July and last found a cache in June 2021.  Like most teenage lads he has other, more pressing issues.

 

RockHopper is a keen cacher who lives the other side of Nowra.

 

NationalSteel is my son, a very enthusiastic cacher who happens to live two hours away in the Southern Highlands.

 

BlacknWhite moved out of the area and I'm doing unofficial maintenance for him.

 

J&J.au have also moved out of the area, way down South.

 

And so it goes.

 

As I said, I'm the only serious cacher within 50 Km of my home.

 

I've explained what irks me, and why.  I'm not going to keep trying to justify that to folk who don't understand the situation.  This is my last post on this particular subject.  Bye.

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2 minutes ago, TheVoytekBear said:

I'd so go there if I was in the area because it looks like a great place. It's sad when you "hide the cache you'd like to find" and then it turns out people are just too lazy to go find it :sunsure:.

I don't think it has to do with laziness at all. Looks like maybe a 3/4 mile hike but the terrain rating may be impractical for a lot of cachers. Lets say a family with small kids, or someone less sure footed.

 

You hit the problem on the head. You hide caches you'd like to find, that is not the same as hides other cachers want to find. So a variety is needed and the easier ones and easier to get to will attract more than a T3 or T4.

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1 minute ago, MNTA said:

So a variety is needed and the easier ones and easier to get to will attract more than a T3 or T4.

Oh, I've always been saying this whenever someone complains on a specific type of a cache (like LABs, fishing rod caches, power trails). One day all I need will be a rest area cache during a road trip, but another time I want an adventure or a place I'll spend half an hour taking photos. The problem I'm seeing right now that the "find and forget" caches start to dominate and push out the more ambitious caches out of the game, because why bother preparing a 10 stage night UV cache if it will get 2% of finds of a parking lot nano nearby? That's what I hate because it's not variety any more.

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19 hours ago, MNTA said:

From old GS blog: 

"`But there might be one you own that most local geocachers have already found and the location is not frequented by tourists. It could be time to archive it and free up the area, or you might consider creating a new and improved cache!"

 

That would apply to all my caches, even my most recent ones, except the 2005 one I adopted at Barrenjoey lighthouse (on the Sydney side of Broken Bay) that gets regular tourist finds. Should I archive the rest?

 

19 hours ago, MNTA said:

You hit the problem on the head. You hide caches you'd like to find, that is not the same as hides other cachers want to find. So a variety is needed and the easier ones and easier to get to will attract more than a T3 or T4.

 

There are a couple of other cachers in this region who specialise more in low-terrain hides, namely Wønka down this end of the coast (2 new hides this year) and gotztogetit up the northern end around Budgewoi (6 new caches this year). A couple of others (team novo and Elev8!on) have each hidden new challenge caches locally this year, P3sKy_Geomonkey has recently re-appeared after a long hiatus with two new caches in the Erina shopping precinct and GrumpyOldMates from Sydney has placed two new water-access caches on this side of the Hawkesbury River. This region actually has one of the greatest varieties of caches, both in cache types and D/T ratings, we just don't have very many of any of them.

 

Edit to add: This is the D/T distribution of the 22 new caches published in the NSW Central Coast region this year:

 

DTCentralCoast2022.jpg.199df92de6dd124480ac8971628a9448.jpg

 

The cache types:

   Traditional: 13

   Multi:             2

   Puzzle:          4

   Challenge:    2

   AL Bonus:     1

 

The cache sizes:

   Micro:           8

   Small          12

   Regular:       2

 

So a bit of something for everyone, I reckon, but, getting back to the original irk that started this, nowhere near enough to sustain a year-long promotion like Signal's Labyrinth.

 

Edited by barefootjeff
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4 hours ago, MNTA said:

Personally I have one cache that just hit 100 finds in about 4 years, reviewing the logs i can say most of the regular local cachers in my area have found it. When it goes missing again I'll probably archive it and hide another one somewhere else in the park. Bring those locals back for another try and more opportunities. Every time a new cache is published nearby the same 10 super active cachers rush out to make the find before they go missing as a lot of them do, folks should really find more than 5 caches before hiding a cache, and despite the ability to travel further away from home.

 

I have one cache (GC6WPQ5) that's had 9 finds in 6 years, the most recent in February 2021 and the one before that in May 2019. Another in the Chasing Waterfalls series (GC6XHHJ) hasn't fared much better with 11 finds in 6 years and I probably will end up archiving that one (if the reviewer doesn't beat me to it) as the walking track it's on has been closed due to flood damage since April and there's still no indication of when it might re-open. But if I did archive those two, there'd be little point me putting something else in those locations as those who've found them have already seen the waterfalls and it'd be way too much effort to go back again just for a second smiley.

 

My duddest of dud caches will probably end up being my most recent multi that was published in January. It had two finders come up from Sydney the day after publication to vie for FTF honours and there's only been one finder since (that was in March). A pity, because I put a lot of effort into creating it, both in the concept and the materials, and I love the location (I used it for my GC9FAVE log). There was previously another cache there that was archived by its owner last year so the locals are already familiar with the views and, being a T3.5 multi, it's going to be on the ignore list of any tourists, so in hindsight I really should have just left it as an empty spot on the map.

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1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

Host some events for non-geocachers - put an ad in the paper, 101 outdoors healthy hobby, learn how, hiking groups, walkers, that sort of thing. Find ways to bring other communities into the local geocaching community.

Great idea

 

In the US the boy scouts have a geocaching badge. See if there is a local troupe and contact their leader. 

Maybe you have a retirement community in the area. 

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4 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Host some events for non-geocachers - put an ad in the paper, 101 outdoors healthy hobby, learn how, hiking groups, walkers, that sort of thing. Find ways to bring other communities into the local geocaching community.

 

Not wishing to sound negative, but these days that's not as easy as it looks. Some years back, a large multinational media company bought up all the regional newspapers in Australia and, under the pretext of COVID, shut down the print editions and put the online editions behind their national newspaper's paywall. Notwithstanding, though, there have been occasional radio segments about geocaching, both on the local radio stations and the state-wide broadcaster, and I think at one time a presenter on one of the local stations was actually a geocacher. We also had a mega nearby in 2018 that got a lot of local publicity and I'm pretty sure Geocaching NSW ran a series of newcomer-welcoming events in recent times. As far as I can tell, though, this type of publicity has a pretty low success rate, with most of the longer-term cachers around here coming into the game by either knowing an existing cacher or discovering it through their own browsings. I saw it in an article in an outdoor adventure magazine, though I'd heard of it prior to that but hadn't paid it much attention, but it was only by actually going out into the bush on my own terms and finding some caches that I really got hooked. Just reading about it, listening to a talk or even watching a demonstration won't do that.

 

I don't know what the number of cachers as a percentage of population is nationally but I'd imagine it'd be pretty low, probably about one in ten thousand. The muggle population of my local area (the Woy Woy Peninsula) is about 36,000 and the whole of the Central Coast is about ten times that, so our number of cachers probably isn't that low as a percentage, it's just we don't have very many people to start with.

 

I think the bigger problem we have here is that the focus of the game has shifted from outdoor adventure to quick points-scoring. The newer P&G caches around here don't seem to have any shortage of finders, like GX8P7PD at Terrigal that was published in April and has 23 finders, or GC92TXE at Mooney Mooney that was published in February and has 21 finds. Top of the list on the Central Coast is the Adventure Lab bonus cache GC9M49Z that was published in January and has 35 finds. It's the bushland hides that are really languishing, like GC9QR5W that's only had one finder (me) since it was published in April, yet I really think it's the non-P&G hides that keep people in the game long-term. For me at any rate, if the only caches available in 2013 had been mint tins in parking lot guard rails, I'd have lost interest in a matter of weeks.

Edited by barefootjeff
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On 9/19/2022 at 1:29 AM, barefootjeff said:

Not wishing to sound negative, but

The point of my comment, of course, was to encourage finding a way to reach other crowds, not provide an exhaustive list of options that may not individually be feasible in every locale =P

And of course there's always the possibility that a region simply will not, at the moment or ever, having a thriving geocaching community. 

 

 

On 9/19/2022 at 1:29 AM, barefootjeff said:

I think the bigger problem we have here is that the focus of the game has shifted from outdoor adventure to quick points-scoring.

And that's only relevant for people who pay attention to marketing. HQ will focus on what it feels is most important from a business standpoint (whether at any time it's increasing revenue or boosting community reception, or reach, etc). That's not always going to be 'outdoor adventure' people. But that does not mean they don't exist. 

 

The game absolutely still has elements of outdoor adventure, as it's quite regional and based on the local community and landscape - as I mentioned above. So if for whatever reason there are simply few or no people in a region that like that aspect of the hobby, then there's nothing that could be done anyway; no amount of marketing to outdoorsy folk, and no amount of grassroots outreach. That's not marketing's fault.  And if there are folk to be reached, then find a way to reach them if it feels to you like marketing isn't doing it job for that demographic; be the marketing.

 

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On 9/15/2022 at 7:25 PM, Gill & Tony said:

What really irks me is the random nature of signal items in the current promotion.  Don't get me wrong, I like the bonus points but the random factor is annoying.

 

I just got caught out by this big time. As of last night, I was sitting on 360 points and, in looking around on the map, I saw there was a spot just north of Newcastle (100km from here) where there were three unfound caches and one uncompleted AL within about 3km walking distance of public transport. So I made a day of it, taking the train to Newcastle Interchange, the light rail to Queens Wharf and the ferry across the Hunter River to Stockton. I found all three caches (two traditionals and an LBH, so 45 points) and completed the AL (50 points), so all I needed was just one Labyrinth Item to get me over the line. Even though I've now made 16 finds since my last Labyrinth Item and have picked up only one other in this round, it was no dice so I'm still 45 points short.

 

With substantial rain forecast between now and the end of the current round next Monday, that's probably where I'll stay so, as far as the promotion is concerned, today was not only a fruitless trip but has cost me 8 finds I could have saved for the next round. Yes, sure, it was a known risk and yes, it was a pleasant day of caching, but it still would have been a pleasant day's caching if I'd waited another week to do it.

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7 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

So I made a day of it, taking the train to Newcastle Interchange, the light rail to Queens Wharf and the ferry across the Hunter River to Stockton. I found all three caches (two traditionals and an LBH, so 45 points) and completed the AL (50 points), so all I needed was just one Labyrinth Item to get me over the line.

This is why I said plan as if you won't receive any bonus items. You chose to take the risk, knowing you might not receive any item, and incurred the cost in time and funds hoping to get an item sufficient to earn enough points. Ultimately, that's on you. The promo does not guarantee anyone will receive even one item throughout the course of the campaign. So if you want to risk an extensive trip, plan for zero items and then plan accordingly.

 

It's just like risking a big trip hoping to be the FTF on a new cache, and then arriving to find that it was signed 2 days ago but not yet logged online (there is not timeline requirement for logging a cache). Outcome sucks. But it's a choice, and you have to know the risks, and there's no guarantee you'll get what you want.

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7 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

This is why I said plan as if you won't receive any bonus items.

 

So which other three caches should I have also done while I was up there to get me the extra 45 points?

 

Finds.jpg.47e2c71dea789e94577da481018b5926.jpg

 

I've now pretty much exhausted all that can be done by public transport around the Newcastle City area, including ALs, and it's much the same around central Sydney and the harbour. Only 15 of my 143 finds this year have been within the Central Coast region, most of the rest have required trips of 50km or more to Sydney, Newcastle or further afield. I think I've run out of options for this promotion.

Edited by barefootjeff
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5 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

So which other three caches should I have also done while I was up there to get me the extra 45 points?

I don't know. You chose to go there. Would I have gone there? Or would I have found another place to go? Or gone with the understanding that I might need to go somewhere else as well for more points if I didn't get an item there? Probably the latter, rather than complaining about the promo.

 

5 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I think I've run out of options for this promotion.

That's unfortunate. If I had no other caches to find within reason, then I'd probably go and cross my fingers for an item, but I'd be a fool to say that it's not fair if I didn't get an item knowing that they're 100% random and not guaranteed. I'd also appreciate (or try to appreciate) the experiences those caches provided while finding them. By choice. Also realizing that I wouldn't be the only one in the world who lived in an area that wouldn't make it even possible to complete the promo.

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16 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

I don't know. You chose to go there. Would I have gone there? Or would I have found another place to go? Or gone with the understanding that I might need to go somewhere else as well for more points if I didn't get an item there? Probably the latter, rather than complaining about the promo.

 

I spent quite some time on Monday night studying the map, seeing what options might be available that could get me over the line without relying on striking it lucky with a labyrinth item. There are a couple of new ALs around Bradley's Head on the northern side of Sydney harbour, but the ferry access is from the Taronga Zoo wharf and, being school holidays, those ferries are likely to be packed with kids so it wasn't an attractive option. In any case, I've found all the regular caches around there so it would have only netted me 100 points, still 40 shy of the target. I also looked at driving options to northern Sydney or southern Newcastle but again there weren't any high enough concentrations of unfound caches in any one area to make it a worthwhile trip. And as I said in my earlier post, the weather forecast is looking pretty horrible for the next seven days so really yesterday was my last opportunity to complete the current round of the promotion.

 

25 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

That's unfortunate. If I had no other caches to find within reason, then I'd probably go and cross my fingers for an item, but I'd be a fool to say that it's not fair if I didn't get an item knowing that they're 100% random and not guaranteed. I'd also appreciate (or try to appreciate) the experiences those caches provided while finding them. By choice. Also realizing that I wouldn't be the only one in the world who lived in an area that wouldn't make it even possible to complete the promo.

 

In my earlier post I said "Yes, sure, it was a known risk and yes, it was a pleasant day of caching, but it still would have been a pleasant day's caching if I'd waited another week to do it." All I'm trying to do is support what Gill & Tony said earlier that the random element of this promotion is problematic for anyone who doesn't have an endless supply of unfound caches close by and has to carefully plan any caching trip they do, since every excess find made in the current round is one less you can make in the subsequent rounds. Anyway, I've now given up on this promotion and will quietly ignore the rest of it.

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8 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I've now pretty much exhausted all that can be done by public transport around the Newcastle City area, including ALs, and it's much the same around central Sydney and the harbour. Only 15 of my 143 finds this year have been within the Central Coast region, most of the rest have required trips of 50km or more to Sydney, Newcastle or further afield. I think I've run out of options for this promotion.

Bummer.

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14 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

So which other three caches should I have also done while I was up there to get me the extra 45 points?

The Wherigo and the AL bonus you DNF'd when it was muggled are 30 points each. But yeah, I can see why missing out on the 50 point item would be annoying in your situation.

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9 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

All I'm trying to do is support what Gill & Tony said earlier that the random element of this promotion is problematic for anyone who doesn't have an endless supply of unfound caches close by and has to carefully plan any caching trip they do, since every excess find made in the current round is one less you can make in the subsequent rounds.

 

Problematic = Unfortunate. Not problematic. Sad to hear you don't have enough caches to guarantee the points you need to qualify. Almost certainly you're not the only one. That's not a "problem" with random items.  What could be a problem might be if random items removed points you did earn. I could get behind complaining about that. But...

 

6 hours ago, dprovan said:
15 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I've now pretty much exhausted all that can be done by public transport around the Newcastle City area, including ALs, and it's much the same around central Sydney and the harbour. Only 15 of my 143 finds this year have been within the Central Coast region, most of the rest have required trips of 50km or more to Sydney, Newcastle or further afield. I think I've run out of options for this promotion.

Bummer.

This.

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A couple of irks to revisit after my caching experience in Morocco.

It seems that some, perhaps many, geocachers cannot bare having to log a DNF in a socalled "exotic" location. This was my experience in Morocco and to a lesser extent, Qatar. I came across a DNF log from a frustrated cacher who was sick of "Found It" logs begging COs to accept their find even though caches have been obviously missing for some time. Example

"Didn't find it
14/05/2022

Nothing there unfortunately.
To those who log as found without finding and signing the logbook - you're pathetic!"

 

This was in response to

"Found it

14/05/2022

Here also, the cache was not there. I look everywhere. Then I read the comments. May I log it. Greetings from Belgium"

 

and this one on same cache and a couple of others

 

"Found it
09/05/2022

This is another one which is a great place to stroll to and the hint is fairly clear. While it seems to be missing, the likely hiding place is findable and it would be a loss to be archived, so I am logging as having found the location, subject to CO approval. FP. TftC"

 

My next irk applies to some caches I researched for cities and towns I visited in Morocco. Caches placed in businesses and private residences. Somehow the cache owners have managed to convince the owners of these premises that it could be fun to be cache maintainers. For me, I will not invade someones privacy just to add a "Found It", not to mention rules somehow  being circumvented to allow a cache on business premises where interacting with the business owner is necessary to make the Find. Could have added a heap of other examples if the now defunct "Found It, Didn't Find It" thread was still open.

 

I could go on about throwdowns too but I've said enough already.

 

OK. One final (mundane) irk.

After six weeks away I now have to go and do battle with with knee high grass that was once lawn.:o

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by colleda
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56 minutes ago, colleda said:
 

This is another one which is a great place to stroll to and the hint is fairly clear. While it seems to be missing, the likely hiding place is findable and it would be a loss to be archived, so I am logging as having found the location, subject to CO approval. FP. TftC"

 

I note the anti-log-deletion-FP has been deployed.... nicely played!  :D

 

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On a different irk, I was out doing a routine check on one of my bushland hides where I discovered someone had left a packet of "Mac and Cheese" scented pencils, placed under the container because they wouldn't fit inside it. Do people not understand about not leaving scented stuff in caches, particularly in bushland areas where there are likely to be native and not-so-native critters drawn by the smell? Fortunately the container is steel so they'd have trouble getting inside that, but I'm surprised nothing's taken a bite out of the pencil box.

 

ScentedPencils.jpg.a55b3481a98fdfa5d9f73d693879efee.jpg

 

Looking at the cache page, I see it was found yesterday by a newbie never-visited-the-website PM, so I guess because they've never visited the website they'd have no idea about what they should and shouldn't leave in caches.

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ATM it irks me the most that the automatic event archive task doesn't consider if the listing has recently been unarchived... Granted, I could have avoided this by either immediately changing the date to the future subject to further change, or having the Reviewer Retract the listing additionally (which I actually requested), but still, this could reasonably be coded into the query of which listings to archive couldn't it?

https://coord.info/GC8K0TE

 

image.thumb.png.6feffe6aca90f452d379dac6d05adfa0.png

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21 hours ago, colleda said:

I could go on about throwdowns too but I've said enough already.

For these, you don't need to go to "exotic" countries. In late August, I've been in Malta for a one-week vacation, and did some (limited) caching. The majority of caches I found were almost certainly throwdowns, with bare minimum "containers", which only hold up for a while because Malta is hot and dry in summer.

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