What is a "Not Validated Member"

[+-CJ-]

I used to think that everyone needs to be registered at the website to see coordinates and play the game, so I can contact any of visitors of my geocaches if I need.

 

Yesterday there appeared an offensive log at one of my geocaches. Nothing personal, just "....! we finally found it!" Nevertheless I had to delete it. Today I saw a new log by the same author. Now it was a spoiler describing the hiding place. I had to delete the new log too.

 

The guy appeared just 1 day ago at the website and has only 3 finds in his statistics; I believe that he's new to the game and perhaps knows little about it. I used to write a PM to such people telling them what was wrong with their logs and answer their questions. I would most probably don't delete these logs by myself but leave "as is" for a short period of time or encrypt them so the geocacher could edit his text. And there would be no need for a forum post.

 

However his account is marked as a "Not Validated Member". I cannot send him any messages since "this email address has not been validated by the user". All I can do is to leave a note in the cache's log asking people not to post spoilers and rude messages. It sounds rather awkward since logs that are present have neither spoilers nor rude language (I already deleted the controversial texts).

 

So, I see there's option at the website "to register but not to register". Do I miss anything? Is there any way to contact such person? How long a "not validated member" may act without validation?

[+Bear and Ragged]

They have registered, but have not responded to the email Groundspeak have sent.

 

(You need to reply to it, to be 'Registered' if you don't you can still see the cache information, but can't receive emails...)

 

As you say, your only option is to leave a note on the cache page, and hope they see it.

One of the Groundspeak guidelines is to keep the language on the site 'family friendly' sounds like they need to read a bit more about caching!

[AZcachemeister]

Also, there is a high probability the person is a 'smartphone cacher' who purchased an app on a whim without knowing anything about what they are doing.

 

Chances are good they will do a few caches and quickly loose interest.

[+MountainWoods]

Yeah, they may eventually lose interest.

[+-CJ-]

Thanks for the information.

[+Don_J]

Your other option is to make your cache Premium Member Only. (but then some will accuse you of being a snob). They can not become a PM without validating an email, thus they can no longer see your cache. They could still log it, but it is highly doubtful that they would know the obscure method for doing so.

 

This is the only reason why some of my caches are PMO. I wish that I didn't have to do it, but I didn't create the situation, Groundspeak did.