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Useless Hints


Jamie Z

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i agree those that purport to be a clue but instead are an insult or a "PHHHHT" are very annoying.

 

But whether or not to give a meaningful clue basically is decided by the philosophy of the cache owner and the reason for the hide.

 

If their philosophy is to make it a serious challenge, then no clue is warranted.

 

If their philosophy is that their caches be found and enjoyed, then there really should be a "spoiler" clue in the encrypted space. Lesser clues and parking coordinates belong in the unencrypted space.

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Well, yes, C-A-C, but unfortunately "bad" clues on otherwise excellent caches give other, newer hiders the idea that useless hints are a Good Idea.

We have had one hider that loves to put things like "No, really, DON'T go to the listed coords" in the hint section of a puzzle cache with "DO NOT GO TO THE LISTED COORDS" in the cache description. Since then, we've had a few others start that practice as well.

Otherwise they're excellent caches, but that's starting to drive me nuts - if I take the time to decrypt the hint, I don't want to waste my time decrypting only to find out that it says "don't go to the listed coords! Really! I mean it! The cache isn't there!"

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Some more gems I found this morning while using GSAK:

 

The additional hint is located deep down in the pit of your stomach.

 

Don't park on a hwy. There is plenty of safe parking on pubic land if you approach it right.

 

one hundred miles

 

<snip>

Ummmm... wouldn't that hurt? :laughing:

 

A couple I've run across:

 

"Yes, It's there"

(I wouldn't be here if it wasn't!)

 

"Near a tree, I know, real helpful"

(at least he knew)

 

I'm still pretty new to geocaching so I usually decrypt the hint at home when I'm reading the cache pages on the computer. When I print them, I leave them encrypted, and decrypt again out in the field if I need to. (yes, I do have that bad a memory!) I usually skim the logs too. Good thing too, once the logs contained information with corrected coords.

 

Miz :laughing:

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no hint necessary.

 

He was right, as it was a very easy hide, but still...

 

EDIT: I read a hint once (on the cache page) that said something to this effect:

"This cache is huge, spraypainted orange, and bolted to my front porch. You can see it from 100 feet away. If you can't find it, you are blind and need to find a seeing-eye dog to find caches for you."

Edited by alexrudd
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I had a clue, it said Plaese do not lock your Bicycle to the cache, and then claim you can't find it.

 

The Cache was a 6 inch diameter bright yellow POLE stuck in the summit of a hill, right outside the windows of a Dennys.

 

I had several reports of people locking their bikes to it, or "finding it by leaning on it or sitting on it."

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I had a clue, it said Plaese do not lock your Bicycle to the cache, and then claim you can't find it.

 

The Cache was a 6 inch diameter bright yellow POLE stuck in the summit of a hill, right outside the windows of a Dennys.

 

I had several reports of people locking their bikes to it, or "finding it by leaning on it or sitting on it."

 

That sounds like a pretty good hint to me!

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I only do it [useless hints] with caches that are easy finds (one star difficulty)

 

Yeah, well, what may be a 1-star to you may not be so for the rest of us. However the problem I usually run into is a missing 1-star cache. I'll be looking around for many minutes getting more frustrated and finally break down to decrypt the hint. A useless hint is worse than no hint at all -- is the cache missing? is the hider clueless as to what difficulty levels are? am I completely blind? It would be nice to know without having to ROT-13 in the field.

 

One person I cache with prints out his caches pre-decrypted. Personally I think this takes some of the fun out of the search. But after having to stand around in the rain decrypting a useless hint in the field I can see his point.

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Went to a cache today with the hint "stick with it, you'll find it". Thanks for the hint since you had that word in the title, and I kind of had an idea where to look. Guess how many sticks were in the area? Also are logs sticks? Pile of them at GZ. Also is a branch on a tree a stick? Plenty of them around making for all the ones on the ground. The bad part? I will go back and keep beating my head until I find it.

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(TREZNA) Fvaq Fvr Zhggrea? Vpu ova Vuara rvara Naunygfchaxg avpug trtrora!

 

the first TREZNA decrypts as GERMAN the hint after it's decrypted is in German, and basically is variation of the old same - no hints for you. HOWEVER, I haven't been there - so it's possible that on site there will be something that will catch your eye just on the GERMAN alone..... i

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Yesterday, I was "fortunate" enough to hit two of my "favorite" varieties of useless hints. Thank goodness I was speed caching and decrypted before I went, or I'd have been upset!

It is in the park on the west side of 120th street.

Good thing to know when I've already parked my car and found the coordinates in the middle of the park on the west side of 120th street! :grin:

None needed.

Then why not leave it blank! :anitongue:

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This "hint" is on a 3.5/1 cache:

Some people have complained this is a very hard cache to find and log - that is by design. Some people might even consider this a "5" difficulty, which was also by design. There are easy micros everywhere, but this will be a challenge, on purpose!

There is nothing like manually decrypting a long hint in the field and have the hint be no help what-so-ever. :anicute:

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Hint: No need to call for help. We have come up with 2 more hints for this cache, so if you need them just ask. Happy hunting.

 

No need to call, just ask. How I'm not sure since the cache owner was not there at the time I was looking for this one today.

 

I did find it, but no thanks to the "hint".

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At GCRE4J the hint is simply... Honestly, don't know what is it.

 

The descriptions goes like this:

 

You could find this cache with an arm behind your back...

 

and more... This cache was assembled with my left hand so you can't expect anything fancy, or a pencil...

 

The hint is amazing:

 

... really nice hints. Don't be lazy, look around a little bit harder. After all I placed this cache with one arm hanging from my neck. By the way, did you bring a pen?

 

Really helpful, han?

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The hint was "Not this time?" with a question mark. So we thought maybe it was some sort of real hint, and spent an extra half hour (on top of the half hour we'd already spent hunting for this forest cache) looking for anything that might be time-related. A tree that looked like a clock, or branches arranged like clock hands, or anything related to numbers on a clock, or a stick that could be a sundial, or... By the time we left, we were not only disappointed at not finding the cache, but we were considerably annoyed with the cache hider. I'd much rather have no hint at all than a useless hint or a sarcastic remark.

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I've given a few useless hints, but only to puzzle caches where I wanted the difficulty to be *HARD*. However, I have seen these

given as hints:

 

1) Cache is under some deadfall

Of course I was searching for the stupid thing after a huge windstorm the week before...

 

2) Between a rock and a hard place

This was used on a cache in a rock bed... ha ha...

 

3) Look for a fallen log

Same thing as for #1.

 

4) Near a beech tree

Which of the 100 beech trees is it near? Is it near any of the ones where my GPS is bouncing to zero?

 

Fortunately I haven't DNF'd but two or three (of course I've only got 130+ under my belt). Most of the hides in the area are easy enough that hints aren't usually necessary. Especially when you're driving up to a lamppost or guard rail, or walking up to a nice out-of-place pile of sticks or leaves.

 

But all of this is why I just started decoding the hints before I leave. Why would I want to decode this crap out on the trail? I understand people want to make it more difficult on themselves and that is fine, but as people say, if there is going to be so much chaff to decode, then I don't feel guilty decoding it before I go.

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I've given a few useless hints, but only to puzzle caches where I wanted the difficulty to be *HARD*.

 

Why not just leave the hint blank? Those are the ones that are really frustrating...you're looking for a cache, you're running out of ideas, and you decide to decode the hint to see if you can get a gentle push in the right direction - lo and behold, you're reading something totally useless.

 

Bottom line: If you want to keep the difficulty high and not give a hint, give no hint, not a useless one.

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After solving the puzzle and driving a maze of roads to find the final in a hidden city park, we ended up with a lot of signal bounce. We search for a bit then decide to cave in and get out the PDA for the hint.

 

"Your favorite web search engine should be all the help you need."

 

Huh? That's wonderful for the first stage. Besides no WiFi here and the laptop is .25 miles away.

 

Found it anyway while muttering over and over again.. "Leave it blank. Leave it blank"

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How would you like to decrypt all this:

 

Part one resembles another first stage style that a multi cache used here in Jupiter near the river.Find where the arrow points to.#2 is a pill vile camo'd and hidden at a big big tree, now the tree is split in half and is not tagged for removal.# 3 is at a low hanging sideways growing palmetto away from any tortois 's tucked up under for hurricane protection.
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Since there seems to be heat generated towards hiders with poor hints, I wanted to run this one up the flagpole before my latest cache is approved. It is low difficulty.

 

It is an ammo can in a fallen tree, and my hint is "If nobody was around, did it make a sound?

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Since there seems to be heat generated towards hiders with poor hints, I wanted to run this one up the flagpole before my latest cache is approved. It is low difficulty.

 

It is an ammo can in a fallen tree, and my hint is "If nobody was around, did it make a sound?

 

That's a good hint. I looked for a cache that had a similar hint, but shorter ("Did it make a sound?"). As soon as I got close to GZ, I was pretty sure it had to mean a fallen tree; which is exactly where it was. :laughing:

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In a cache located deep in the woods, after looking for a long time, I decode the hint and it says:

 

See the finger? The rest should be easy.

 

Ok, I think there is a sign with a hand on it or something like that. Nope. I look all around and try to use my imagination to see a tree or branch in some sort of finger shape. Another fruitless 1/2 hour of looking, and I say forget it and start looking up the next one in these woods and start for it.

 

As I head off in the opposite direction, of course I find the one I was originally looking for and nothing around there looked like a finger. The next time I saw that cache hider, I asked about it. Well, it seems when he placed the cache (3 yrs ago) he thought one of the young trees looked like a finger!

 

I showed him what a finger looked like.

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I've hunted a couple recently where the hint was unhelpful. At one, the hint, when decrypted, read thus:

 

Will consider adding some hint here if there are more than 2 DNFs.

 

There had been quite a few finds, but last time I checked, four folks had logged DNFs without subsequent finds...

 

Then there was the hint that said:

 

four metres from the main footpath under some logs and leaves.

 

Looks helpful, but the cache turned out to be more than 20 metres from the footpath.

 

Oh, and I just spotted a new relatively nearby cache which contains the text:

 

As the puzzle is fairly easy I think, I will not be giving any hints for the moment

 

Immediately under that there's a hint. When decoded, it reads:

 

It's too easy

 

However, the cache is marked as 3.5 difficulty, so clearly it isn't too easy...

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here is list of some useless hints i have had:

 

"Didn't I just tell you there was a sign? Read."

i did! :)

 

"next to a palmetto bush"

really which one :(

 

"This is a now a THREE leg multi-cache. The first TWO legs are business cards taped to trees.Final location; Take the coordinates and subtract .106 and .222 respectivly."

why do i need to waste my time with hunting for the cards? :)

 

"was about four feet above ground"

really? what about now? :)

 

"gol"

wtf? :)

 

"Yup, the big boat."

i can see the boat. what about the cache? :(

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My son and I went on a 4.5/4.5 last Friday. After a very long and somewhat difficult hike we arrived at a waterfall complete with steep inclines, rock walls, rushing water, etc. We looked for a couple of hours and logged a DNF. The clue was. . .

 

On the cliff behind a rock.

 

Yeah, thanks! We'll go back for this one eventually.

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I thought I gave a cute clue, but apparently people didn't get it. I'm getting too old! The cache was in an old coastal military base that has been converted to a state park. I didn't want people trampling, I wanted them to go the right way. The clue was 'Archie'. The cache was not in the wood just to one side of the search zone, it was attached to the Bunker on the other.

Oh, well...

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the ones that just say "ammo box" well thats great but where is it????? it never gives clues to where it is or "look in the tree" when its a huge tree...well obviously look in there but where in the tree.

 

I don't believe caches are hidden to be impossible to find but I do understand that people hide them b/c of muggles and others who can take the caches. But if they could at least give better hints more people would find the caches.

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"This is a now a THREE leg multi-cache. The first TWO legs are business cards taped to trees.Final location; Take the coordinates and subtract .106 and .222 respectivly."

why do i need to waste my time with hunting for the cards? :)

Uh, to get the coordinates? You subtract .106 from the coordinates on the first card and .222 from the coordinates on the second. Nothing wrong with that, although it belongs in the cache description, not the hints.
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Another oldie that I ran across this past weekend. Two simple words that made me wonder why bother? ... "not today". I guess the hider either always decodes his hints and/or has never had to decode a hint in the rain.

 

When I see a useless hint in a new cache that I am reviewing, before I publish it I send post this as a "note to the reviewer" which in these instances is actually a note to the cache owner:

 

"The only other recommendation I will make is that you delete the text you placed in the hint field, since you're not actually giving a hint. It can be frustrating for some geocachers who spend the time at ground zero to decrypt a hint only to find there is no hint."

 

In fact, I blogged about this just yesterday.

Edited by IowaAdmin
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