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Becoming a GeoLeech!


JPreto

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First of all, I am in no way promoting the activity of becoming a GeoLeech. I am just expressing my thoughts...

 

Second, and after searching in the forum for this word, I couldn´t find anything that used it. So I am going to define it:

 

GeoLeech

 

- a geocacher that only searches for geocaches and doesn´t own a active cache listing, in a specific moment. This doesn´t exclude geocachers that help the community or in any other way help the geocaching game.

 

- a geocacher that is placing FOUND IT logs when he has no active geocache listings.

 

Third, I found some topics that relate to this subject, read them and this is probably the most significant:

 

Seek but don´t hide

 

When I started placing geocaches, to share with others the places I found interesting (like some mountain caches), that you could find curious (like some building or architecture) or simply because it might be in a bike route (all of my bike series caches) I never expected to think like I am thinking in the last few months.

 

My question is, why to place geocaches, after all?

 

1) My caches disappear with no particular reason, some I really suspect stolen by other geocachers;

 

2) Because of the constant vanishing I must do maintenance on them, meaning replacing them;

 

3) The personal logs are much less common that the "TFTC" or "Another one" logs;

 

4) Other players don´t respect the guidelines, they actually try to bend them more then they try to follow them.

 

So the real motivation for placing new caches is gone, and with that the motivation for maintaining the ones I have. But I still pretty much enjoy all the places I visit while geocaching and really gives me the opportunity of making some great trips with my motorbike.

 

So I am thinking about removing and archiving all my caches and just searching for caches. This is the total opposite of what I think a community game is all about. One of the aspects of the game I think is the "Finds in my caches" vs "My Finds" (so called Karma) that I try to be over 1 (1.13 now), meaning more people log in my caches that I log in other people´s caches.

 

I am really in a stand still, regarding this issue. Can you point out more PROs and CONs of being a GeoLeech? I´m sure I am not thinking about all of them, but some opinions would be welcome before making a decision that is now more inclined on becoming a GeoLeech myself.

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I think it's in really poor taste to refer to people as "leeches" because they don't own caches.

 

Cache ownership and cache maintenance take time and effort, and you should know all too well that many cache owners fail to do the job adequately.

 

With so many people placing terrible caches just for the heck of it, and cache "saturation" becoming an issue in some places, why on earth would you shame people who choose to be finders only?

 

We should be encouraging people to hold off on placing caches if they aren't committed to placing good caches and maintaining them.

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Your term, GeoLeech, is so pejorative that it effectively ends any discussion before it's begun.

 

Geocaching is a fun light activity. Do in it what you find fun, and stop doing the things that are not fun. If that means archive your hides, then archive.

 

If you really think that people who don't own are "leeches" I'm guessing you'll be happier owning. But that's your call.

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One of the aspects of the game I think is the "Finds in my caches" vs "My Finds" (so called Karma) that I try to be over 1 (1.13 now), meaning more people log in my caches that I log in other people´s caches.

 

Just a quick comment on that statement. I do not agree. Caching experiences cannot be measured in terms of numbers.

For example, I do not own a single easy cache that is addressed to a large audience. With hiding a single such cache I could gather more find it logs than with all my existing caches together.

My caches do not get many visits, but I get much more rewarding logs than lame ones. Most of the best caches I have done have less than 50 found it logs (hiking multi caches, no puzzles involved) and some of these caches

exist for 10 years (this is an example with 49 finds in more than 11 years http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCG5J2_golden-eye?guid=8b2d68b1-26b0-4aa8-8750-c8ceca27d4b8 ). It's not about the number of logs in my opinion.

Edited by cezanne
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I am really in a stand still, regarding this issue. Can you point out more PROs and CONs of being a GeoLeech?

 

Much liking hunting for geocaches, if it ceases to be fun, then don't do it. This is supposed to be about fun. There is nothing leechy about not hiding geocaches. I prefer people only hide caches if they enjoy doing so. Doing it out of obligation only leads to problems.

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Putting to one side the emotional charge some seem to see around the term GeoLeech, I do wonder if owning a cache or two might make some people think differently about what it means to be a cache owner, the amount of effort involved etc. and if they mighr behave differently, perhaps even more responsibly toward caches owned by others.

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What about "Cache Maggots", or do we need another thread for them? <_<

 

I do not agree with this geoleech stuff. Cache ownership is not for everyone. :(

Plus one! I think this thread has a hostile tone. Bad vibes. Thumbs down. Outta here!

 

Cache ownership is not for everyone. If you force people to own caches through rules or peer pressure, you'll get junky caches.

 

Speaking of numbers, I predict a 9-1 ratio against the insulting "GeoLeech" concept.

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I don't really care about how anyone else caches but there are some that visit the forums regularly and have negative things to say about many caches.I'm not a "profiler" but I will occasionally check and , sure enough, some of the complainers ,despite having cached many years, have hidden NO caches. There wasn't a density issue 10 years ago.....they could have hidden the kind of caches they like and influenced dozens of future cachers in their area re what a hide should be but they chose not to contribute to the game. I said in another thread its like going to a pot luck supper for years but never bringing a dish and on top of that criticizing the food others brought. When we played pickup ball games as kids you took turns shagging flies in the field, many would like to just bat all the time. I recently lost a good friend and caching buddy who in a 10 year period managed to hide around 200 caches using a wheelchair or crutches.....if you can physically find a cache you can hide a cache.

While I think the OP comes on a little strong there is truth at the core of what he says.

Edited by BAMBOOZLE
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if you can physically find a cache you can hide a cache

 

That doesn't mean you can create a worthwhile cache, or maintain a cache. It's not just a matter of physical ability. There are too many cachers who rush out to place caches, and then can't keep up with them. I've learned that I'm better off owning a handful of caches I'm proud of, instead of a bunch of junk that I've put out to keep up with numbers.

 

There's no shortage of caches out there, why pressure people to put out junk?

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if you can physically find a cache you can hide a cache

 

That doesn't mean you can create a worthwhile cache, or maintain a cache. It's not just a matter of physical ability. There are too many cachers who rush out to place caches, and then can't keep up with them. I've learned that I'm better off owning a handful of caches I'm proud of, instead of a bunch of junk that I've put out to keep up with numbers.

 

There's no shortage of caches out there, why pressure people to put out junk?

 

Given what has been posted so far, I don't think anybody is encouraging anybody to pressure anyone to put out junk.

 

Nor can I fathom why encouragement to place caches automatically results in junk. Maybe I'm missing something :unsure:

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Given what has been posted so far, I don't think anybody is encouraging anybody to pressure anyone to put out junk.

 

Nor can I fathom why encouragement to place caches automatically results in junk. Maybe I'm missing something :unsure:

 

When people are made to feel that they are "LEECHES" if they don't put out a certain number of caches, some of them will just scramble to put out junk that they can't maintain.

 

The decision to place a cache should be entirely independent from your cache finding habits.

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Given what has been posted so far, I don't think anybody is encouraging anybody to pressure anyone to put out junk.

 

Nor can I fathom why encouragement to place caches automatically results in junk. Maybe I'm missing something :unsure:

 

When people are made to feel that they are "LEECHES" if they don't put out a certain number of caches, some of them will just scramble to put out junk that they can't maintain.

 

 

I very highly doubt that this thread will result in a single person scrambling to put out junk they can't maintain - so I think we're safe to have the discussion :)

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Nor can I fathom why encouragement to place caches automatically results in junk.

 

Of course it does not. However comparisons based on numbers (be it the geocaching karma or comparisons like A has hidden 100 caches and thus

has contributed much more than B who has hidden only 10 caches) do not lead to anything meaningful.

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This takes me back to a lot of drama we had in our local area around 2006-2007 and a small group of cachers who felt those who didn't hide caches were simple leeches. There was a lot of discussion around caching karma and trying to maintain a Find/Hide ratio.

 

Unfortunately, that small group was quite fond of dropping lots of low-quality caches to help maintain their ratio. The overall quality of caches in the area went through a period of rapid decline and a large wedge was driven through our caching community.

 

My philosophy was (and remains) "Hide a cache when you have a nice and/or interesting place to bring people to, otherwise don't bother."

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Nor can I fathom why encouragement to place caches automatically results in junk.

 

Of course it does not. However comparisons based on numbers (be it the geocaching karma or comparisons like A has hidden 100 caches and thus

has contributed much more than B who has hidden only 10 caches) do not lead to anything meaningful.

 

I agree with you on that one - I don't think the geocaching karma idea brings any great benefits.

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I very highly doubt that this thread will result in a single person scrambling to put out junk they can't maintain - so I think we're safe to have the discussion :)

 

I have seen this sort of discussion in person result in cachers feeling peer pressure to put out caches because they felt they had to, not because they wanted to.

 

There is only one acceptable outcome of this kind of discussion, and that is this:

 

There is no find minimum to hide a cache. There is no hide minimum to find a cache. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a CACHE BULLY.

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Ok, GeoLeech, bad term choice... but anyway there is a aspect I think you are not considering, and maybe I didn´t refer it strongly enought:

 

While is most European countries and USA geocaching is everywhere, here, where I am, in Brazil, geocaching is nothing so, one of the ways I thought to promote the game was to look at the stats and try to understand them and try to come out with solutions for people to play more.

 

After reading a lot of logs, on both active and archived caches, and talking with local players, I came to the conclusion that there were 2 big issues:

 

1) Poor or no maintenance on geocaches;

2) Because of point one, after looking for some caches and couldn´t find them, people would give up.

 

This is the actual data from Brazil at this moment:

 

Total unique caches found in Brazil

2012 - 620

2013 - 925

2014 - 1554

 

Total caches placed in Brazil

2012 - 368

2013 - 476

2014 - 829

 

Total unique active Brazilian players

2012 - 208

2013 - 322

2014 - 395

 

Total players that found Brazilian caches

2012 - 673

2013 - 993

2014 - 974

 

Since I geocache (August 2013) I placed 142 NM requests, out of those almost 100 caches were archived, many of them weren´t visited since 2012.

 

I thought that placing more caches and placing DNFs and NMs on the caches that were gone missing would help the game. Problems:

 

1) Me placing so many caches, 1 per day from 1st January until 23rd May 2014, local players felt threatened and even asked me in events why I was doing this. Many feel that numbers is important.

 

2) Me posting DNFs and NMs they had to do maintenance otherwise their caches got archived.

 

3) Me complaining to reviewers about some geocaches that didn´t follow the guidelines and got archived.

 

With all this the solution they figure out, to keep the numbers I suppose but here I am assuming, is making Power Trails that grew like flies after June 2014.

 

Maybe you can understand a bit more my way of thinking about geocaching.

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I very highly doubt that this thread will result in a single person scrambling to put out junk they can't maintain - so I think we're safe to have the discussion :)

 

I have seen this sort of discussion in person result in cachers feeling peer pressure to put out caches because they felt they had to, not because they wanted to.

 

There is only one acceptable outcome of this kind of discussion, and that is this:

 

There is no find minimum to hide a cache. There is no hide minimum to find a cache. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a CACHE BULLY.

 

Yeah - that's right - anyone who has an opinion is a bully :rolleyes:

 

So what would that make someone who tells others that there's only on acceptable outcome in a discussion?

 

I think someone earlier said that geocaching is supposed to be a fun light activity?

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1) Me placing so many caches, 1 per day from 1st January until 23rd May 2014, local players felt threatened and even asked me in events why I was doing this. Many feel that numbers is important.

 

I'm not sure whether I understand what you try to say. When someone hides a lot of caches in the same area within a short time, I'm also not necessarily very happy about that, but not because I care about numbers.

So some cachers might ask you this type of question without caring about numbers themselves.

 

Personally, I'm not a fan of caches that are put out just to increase the number of available caches. I think a cache should be hidden for its own sake and not to increase the number of searchable caches, but that's just my opinion.

 

By the way: When I started to cache, much less caches were available in the whole country than you have hidden meanwhile.

I can remember that a night cache I did together with a friend after more than half a year into geocaching turned out to be the 100-th active cache in the whole country.

One of the geocaching pioneers in my country used to write a personal e-mail to each finder of his caches during more than a year. I knew all the local cachers from that time in person.

So I definitely have experiences also with a caching scenario with few cachers and caches.

 

Cezanne

Edited by cezanne
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if you can physically find a cache you can hide a cache.

 

 

Just because you can hide a cache, doesn't mean you can maintain one. some people are not in one place long enough to take care of a cache. Military personal, some over the road truck drivers, those who must travel for their jobs. There have been numerous reasons here in the forums that some cannot maintain a cache, therefore do not want to put one out.

 

I don't want anyone to hide a cache because they feel they have to. Calling anyone a leech because they don't is extremely rude.

 

And yes making people feel they have to run out and hide a cache will result in more junk caches. (doesn't have to, but it will)

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1) Me placing so many caches, 1 per day from 1st January until 23rd May 2014, local players felt threatened and even asked me in events why I was doing this. Many feel that numbers is important.

 

I'm not sure whether I understand what you try to say. When someone hides a lot of caches in the same area within a short time, I'm also not necessarily very happy about that, but not because I care about numbers.

So some cachers might ask you this type of question without caring about numbers themselves.

I thought that hiding more caches that I would do a good maintenance (checking regularly if they were there) If someone tried to search for my caches it would be less likely for them to be gone. Understand now... I was not about me having more caches but more caches with maintenance were available for whom wanted to play.

 

My usual stats of a geocaching day were 1 DNF in every 3 searches... and most of the cases the caches weren´t really there. For a person who is just starting to geocache this can be very disappointing because you are searching some something that isn´t even there.

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My usual stats of a geocaching day were 1 DNF in every 3 searches... and most of the cases the caches weren´t really there. For a person who is just starting to geocache this can be very disappointing because you are searching some something that isn´t even there.

 

Of course badly maintained caches are an issue, but I addressed only the number of newly hidden caches in my reply.

 

I did not stop geocaching early on because almost all of the caches I found back then were caches that brought me to places for another reason than just providing me with a further cache that can be found.

 

So if I happened to have only 5 ideas for caches I believed to be attractive, I would not hide 20 to increase the number of available caches. Note that I do not know your caches. My comments are hypothethical ones with respect to the arguments based on numbers.

 

My usual stats of a geocaching day for quite some time was either 1 find or 1 DNF (possibly after a drive of more than one hour per direction).

Edited by cezanne
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Just curious, do you hide anything that is not a micro? If not, then do you seek anything that is not a micro?

 

Seems if we feel those that seek should hide, or they are a leech, it follows that those that seek larger caches should hide some of them.

 

Of course that would make me a leech, because I've found a lot of micros, but have never hidden one.

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Yeah - that's right - anyone who has an opinion is a bully :rolleyes:

It's not a matter of opinion. The site does not require any sort of ratio for hiding or finding. That's a hard fact.

I never said it did... I just mention that I had that as a goal, because this way meant that more people where finding caches, meaning more people were playing the game or at least, more often.

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Just curious, do you hide anything that is not a micro? If not, then do you seek anything that is not a micro?

 

Seems if we feel those that seek should hide, or they are a leech, it follows that those that seek larger caches should hide some of them.

 

Of course that would make me a leech, because I've found a lot of micros, but have never hidden one.

Fine arguments! It shows the absurdity of the premise of this thinly-veiled bullying thread!

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I very highly doubt that this thread will result in a single person scrambling to put out junk they can't maintain - so I think we're safe to have the discussion :)

 

I have seen this sort of discussion in person result in cachers feeling peer pressure to put out caches because they felt they had to, not because they wanted to.

 

There is only one acceptable outcome of this kind of discussion, and that is this:

 

There is no find minimum to hide a cache. There is no hide minimum to find a cache. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a CACHE BULLY.

 

Yeah - that's right - anyone who has an opinion is a bully :rolleyes:

 

So what would that make someone who tells others that there's only on acceptable outcome in a discussion?

 

I think someone earlier said that geocaching is supposed to be a fun light activity?

I think that it is perfectly fine to discuss whether cachers who find have an "obligation" to hide. If we could discuss that calmly, it would be an interesting discussion. Unfortunately, Preto's initial post makes that extremely difficult. He fouled the well by calling those who don't hide GeoLeeches. Namecalling is a classic bullying technique.

 

The host is entitled to an opinion but not to start namecalling in post #1. With that kind of beginning, I predict that this thread eventuallly will be locked, sad to say. The opening salvo is not consistent with starting a spirited but respectful and friendly discussion, it is more like a provocation to a street fight. Since I left my switchblade at home, I think I'll step aside.

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Ok, GeoLeech, bad term choice... but anyway there is a aspect I think you are not considering, and maybe I didn´t refer it strongly enought:

 

While is most European countries and USA geocaching is everywhere, here, where I am, in Brazil, geocaching is nothing so, one of the ways I thought to promote the game was to look at the stats and try to understand them and try to come out with solutions for people to play more.

 

After reading a lot of logs, on both active and archived caches, and talking with local players, I came to the conclusion that there were 2 big issues:

 

1) Poor or no maintenance on geocaches;

2) Because of point one, after looking for some caches and couldn´t find them, people would give up.

 

This is the actual data from Brazil at this moment:

 

Total unique caches found in Brazil

2012 - 620

2013 - 925

2014 - 1554

 

Total caches placed in Brazil

2012 - 368

2013 - 476

2014 - 829

 

Total unique active Brazilian players

2012 - 208

2013 - 322

2014 - 395

 

Total players that found Brazilian caches

2012 - 673

2013 - 993

2014 - 974

 

Since I geocache (August 2013) I placed 142 NM requests, out of those almost 100 caches were archived, many of them weren´t visited since 2012.

 

I thought that placing more caches and placing DNFs and NMs on the caches that were gone missing would help the game. Problems:

 

1) Me placing so many caches, 1 per day from 1st January until 23rd May 2014, local players felt threatened and even asked me in events why I was doing this. Many feel that numbers is important.

 

2) Me posting DNFs and NMs they had to do maintenance otherwise their caches got archived.

 

3) Me complaining to reviewers about some geocaches that didn´t follow the guidelines and got archived.

 

With all this the solution they figure out, to keep the numbers I suppose but here I am assuming, is making Power Trails that grew like flies after June 2014.

 

Maybe you can understand a bit more my way of thinking about geocaching.

 

Okay, interesting stuff. Thanks for reconsidering the harsh words toward those who don't place caches. I understand better the problem with caches that you are having locally. I don't have an answer right now, but maybe you can discuss this at meetings with local cachers. Any luck so far?

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Yeah - that's right - anyone who has an opinion is a bully :rolleyes:

It's not a matter of opinion. The site does not require any sort of ratio for hiding or finding. That's a hard fact.

I never said it did... I just mention that I had that as a goal, because this way meant that more people where finding caches, meaning more people were playing the game or at least, more often.

 

Is there a particular reason you chose to use the term "LEECH" for this, or were you just being inflammatory?

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Yeah - that's right - anyone who has an opinion is a bully :rolleyes:

It's not a matter of opinion. The site does not require any sort of ratio for hiding or finding. That's a hard fact.

I never said it did... I just mention that I had that as a goal, because this way meant that more people where finding caches, meaning more people were playing the game or at least, more often.

 

Is there a particular reason you chose to use the term "LEECH" for this, or were you just being inflammatory?

He was being inflammatory. But let's take him at his word when he later admits it was a "bad term choice."

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I think it's in really poor taste to refer to people as "leeches" because they don't own caches.

 

Cache ownership and cache maintenance take time and effort, and you should know all too well that many cache owners fail to do the job adequately.

 

With so many people placing terrible caches just for the heck of it, and cache "saturation" becoming an issue in some places, why on earth would you shame people who choose to be finders only?

 

We should be encouraging people to hold off on placing caches if they aren't committed to placing good caches and maintaining them.

 

I'm what the OP would call a geoleech.

 

For the longest time I worked enough hours in the day that I had very little time to do much else. Would anyone really want people to place caches unless they had both time and inclination to maintain them? When my work and home commitments were such that the only time I really had to call my own was a few hours on Saturdays, if I had placed caches and one needed maintenance the chances of me getting out to even look at it in less than a month were very slim. Sure, I could disable them, but if I'm only going to get to disabled caches some weeks after disabling them there's not much point placing them.

 

Frankly I'd rather see someone being a "leech" than throwing lots of caches out there and not maintaining them. Better to not have a cache than have something that's slimy and mouldy because the owner isn't looking after it.

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I've been told since this is post #3500 for me, I should say something profound, so here goes:

 

We have limited time on this earth. One day, possibly sooner than you think, you will die.

 

Stop getting wrapped up in who's right and who's wrong. 1000 years from now, they'll still be trying to figure it out.

 

Think of something you've always wanted to do and go do it.

 

Go out and live!

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I've been told since this is post #3500 for me, I should say something profound, so here goes:

 

We have limited time on this earth. One day, possibly sooner than you think, you will die.

 

Stop getting wrapped up in who's right and who's wrong. 1000 years from now, they'll still be trying to figure it out.

 

Think of something you've always wanted to do and go do it.

 

Go out and live!

That would make a boring forum. :anibad:

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Ok, GeoLeech, bad term choice...

Okay, interesting stuff. Thanks for reconsidering the harsh words toward those who don't place caches. I understand better the problem with caches that you are having locally. I don't have an answer right now, but maybe you can discuss this at meetings with local cachers. Any luck so far?

I was calling myself a leech also... but again I say: "Bad term choice". The answer to your question is yes...I tried to go to some meetings in the beginning.

 

1st - They said I shouldn´t write my logs in English and that I should at least write in Portuguese and English. I explained that since most geocachers in Brazil are foreigners/tourists (300 Brazilians to around 600 tourists per year) and most cache descriptions were only in Portuguese, this was a way the help them and I didn´t want to write my logs in both languages, like I did in my own geocaches.

 

2nd - In one of the cases, probably the one that most local geocachers criticize me, was the archival of a TB Hotel in the most famous park of São Paulo. The listing was approved and after approval 2 names were added as a hint. I went to visit the cache and it was inside a cafeteria and the 2 names where from the owners that you should ask them to give you the cache. I explained this to the reviewers and the cache was later archived. Fact is, a couple of months before the listing was approved this subject came out on the table of that cafeteria and I mentioned that if they submitted the listing it would not be approved because it would be against the guidelines.

 

So yes, I tried talking to them in many ways... They don´t like DNFs, they say less geocachers would visit a cache if a DNF is placed and they hate maintenance requests because it forces them to visit the cache. Some have caches 600km-800km from where they live and they can´t do proper maintenance.

 

Frankly I'd rather see someone being a "leech" than throwing lots of caches out there and not maintaining them. Better to not have a cache than have something that's slimy and mouldy because the owner isn't looking after it.

Me too, definitely, in my opinion, throwdowns are the worse... and again, I say, from the original post, that I am thinking about becoming a leech. So if I meant it to be as bad as I thought you would all interpret I would never had used that term.

 

I used that term based on file sharing services that use .torrent files and people that do more downloads than uploads are called leeches. This was the reason behind the use of the word.

Edited by JPreto
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I've been told since this is post #3500 for me, I should say something profound, so here goes:

 

We have limited time on this earth. One day, possibly sooner than you think, you will die.

 

Stop getting wrapped up in who's right and who's wrong. 1000 years from now, they'll still be trying to figure it out.

 

Think of something you've always wanted to do and go do it.

 

Go out and live!

That would make a boring forum. :anibad:

Okay, so then go watch professional wrestling on TV! :rolleyes:

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One of the aspects of the game I think is the "Finds in my caches" vs "My Finds" (so called Karma) that I try to be over 1 (1.13 now), meaning more people log in my caches that I log in other people´s caches.

Some people think they can up their geocaching karma by leaving throwdowns.

Trademark that ratio and call it the "Preto Ratio."

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Interesting how the replies in this topic are more about the word (geo)leech than about the essence of the topic: the CO notices his motivation for placing new caches is gone, and with that the motivation for maintaining the ones he has is gone as well.

 

JPreto gives a lot of reasons why he doesn't enjoy being a CO anymore, reasons many CO's around the world can relate to. I totally get this, I can even sum up some more reasons why I feel exciting CO's get discouraged in maintaining or placing caches.

 

I don't mind the word GeoLeech, since I first associated it with a cacher who sucks out all fun/energy of CO's by offending/demotivating them (stealing, TFTC-logs, not treat caches properly, placing lousy caches etc. etc). To me GeoLeeches are those who suck out the fun for others and therefor they can be CO's as well, because CO's who dump uninteresting caches, do no maintenance etc. give a bad example to newbies and this leads to other lousy caches, which on their turn have their negative effects on other caches and CO's.

 

So JPreto, I totally get that being a CO might have become frustrating, but don't archive (all) your caches. Take extra care of the ones that stand out, the caches you think are worth to be maintained for many years. The caches that you think that are perfect examples on how a cache should be. And archive the ones you are less proud of, the ones that cost you to much energy to maintain.

 

Because every cacher's interests changes over the years. Lots of cachers go through a period where they think "it's all about the numbers", and what these numbers are can be very different per person. But this gets boring eventually, lots of those cachers do it for just a short while and COs of powertrails won't maintain a powertrail for many years, so those disappear (and resurrect again somewhere else) as well.

 

What lasts are the stories people tell, the memories they have about certain/great caches. Statistics also leads to new more interesting goals, for instance cachers who not want to find many caches, but instead search for the oldest caches. Since caches that are maintained for over 10 years are special for many reasons. Others only do caches with many favorites, so some CO's try to make a cache that earns the most favorites in an area. Of course this also can have some negative side effects, but at least the thrown down not maintained caches in those areas will get less attention.

 

Focusing on the good/nice/interesting/challenges aspects of being a CO can be rewarding, especially if you work together with some other CO's and share ideas (and frustrations) to keep the spirits up and make the game more enjoyable for everyone.

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I think that it is perfectly fine to discuss whether cachers who find have an "obligation" to hide. If we could discuss that calmly, it would be an interesting discussion. Unfortunately, Preto's initial post makes that extremely difficult. He fouled the well by calling those who don't hide GeoLeeches. Namecalling is a classic bullying technique.

 

So what name shall we give the described practice then, so that the interesting discussion can continue calmly?

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Given what has been posted so far, I don't think anybody is encouraging anybody to pressure anyone to put out junk.

 

Nor can I fathom why encouragement to place caches automatically results in junk. Maybe I'm missing something :unsure:

 

When people are made to feel that they are "LEECHES" if they don't put out a certain number of caches, some of them will just scramble to put out junk that they can't maintain.

 

The decision to place a cache should be entirely independent from your cache finding habits.

 

+1

 

I've never really understood the mentality of "if a cacher just finds caches but doesn't hide any, he/she is not contributing to the game". It's a fallacy. Finders contribute to the game as much as cache owners. This isn't Waymarking. If noone visits/finds your caches, would you continue to hide them?

 

Also, as has been pointed out many, many, many times...those who hide caches out of some percieved pressure will do the bare minimum to get a cache published. Almost never any creativity and often the cache ends up totally abandoned by its owner. It's not surprising, since they're not interesting in owning a cache, only in placing a cache.

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Also, as has been pointed out many, many, many times...those who hide caches out of some percieved pressure will do the bare minimum to get a cache published. Almost never any creativity and often the cache ends up totally abandoned by its owner. It's not surprising, since they're not interesting in owning a cache, only in placing a cache.

 

This could equally be said of many, many, many caches though - not just those arising out of some perceived pressure.

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if you can physically find a cache you can hide a cache.

 

 

Just because you can hide a cache, doesn't mean you can maintain one. some people are not in one place long enough to take care of a cache. Military personnel...

I would beg to differ on this one. We've been on active duty in the Army since we started and have hidden 149 caches since 2007. That's over the course of four moves: Germany, Virginia, Alabama, and Oklahoma. Each time we've moved, we have arranged for local cachers to help us maintain a handful of caches that they wanted to keep going, gathered up the rest and archived the listings, and then moved on to the next assignment and started over. I've also tried to develop more earthcaches, as they don't require replacing.

 

There is absolutely nothing stopping my brothers and sisters in arms from hiding caches, and many do. We just need to have an exit strategy when we hide 'em.

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I think that it is perfectly fine to discuss whether cachers who find have an "obligation" to hide. If we could discuss that calmly, it would be an interesting discussion. Unfortunately, Preto's initial post makes that extremely difficult. He fouled the well by calling those who don't hide GeoLeeches. Namecalling is a classic bullying technique.

 

So what name shall we give the described practice then, so that the interesting discussion can continue calmly?

 

Why don't we call it... GEOCACHING?

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