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What would YOU do?


Ibar

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Hi,

 

Imagine the following situation:

 

- You go on vacation to a remote country thousands of miles from home

- In that country you log 10 caches, half of them virtual

- One of those virtuals require you to answer three questions by mail to the CO ...and you do so

- Suprisingly the CO replies back (90% of the virtual caches I've done so far were "placed" by CO's that stopped playing years ago), and he tells you that "one answer is wrong"

- You tell him that "ok, maybe the answer is not xxxx but yyyy, and that if that answer is wrong as well,he should feel free to delete the found, because you want to play fair"

- He replies back that "yyyy is not the right answer, but I will not delete your log"

 

So ... what would you do:

 

a) Thank him for the answer and for not deleting your log, and just keep the cache as "found"

B ) Thank him for the answer and for not deleting your log, but tell him that in order to be fair, you will delete the "found" yourself

c) Nothing, just keep the cache as "found"

 

...and please answer honestly B)

Edited by Ibar
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I would thank him for his answer and change my found log into a write note.

I always make pictures and I want to post them even if I haven't found the cache.

(In this case I've "found" the cache, but because my answer is not complete I would choose to log with a write note.)

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The rare time a CO even responded, if we were slightly off, they'd explain where.

"yyyy is not the right answer" - and that's it - isn't a good response if the COreally meant you to learn/experience something.

 

I wouldn't respond to his reply at all.

- I'm not gonna genuflect or anything for a smiley.

I was there, I did my best, I'd keep it as found.

Edited by cerberus1
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Hi,

 

Imagine the following situation:

 

- You go on vacation to a remote country thousands of miles from home

- In that country you log 10 caches, half of them virtual

- One of those virtuals require you to answer three questions by mail to the CO ...and you do so

- Suprisingly the CO replies back (90% of the virtual caches I've done so far were "placed" by CO's that stopped playing years ago), and he tells you that "one answer is wrong"

- You tell him that "ok, maybe the answer is not xxxx but yyyy, and that if that answer is wrong as well,he should feel free to delete the found, because you want to play fair"

- He replies back that "yyyy is not the right answer, but I will not delete your log"

 

So ... what would you do:

 

a) Thank him for the answer and for not deleting your log, and just keep the cache as "found"

B ) Thank him for the answer and for not deleting your log, but tell him that in order to be fair, you will delete the "found" yourself

c) Nothing, just keep the cache as "found"

 

...and please answer honestly B)

 

I'd be fine logging as found if i made it to the coordinates of the virtual, made an honest attempt to note the answers correctly, but then screwed up and made a mistake somewhere. I might also be ok keeping the find if i had made notes then somehow lost those notes and then relied on my lousy memory which ended up giving the wrong answer. I know i was there and it's probably likely that the cache owner knew you were there because of the other two correct answers given. I figure that's why he said it was ok with him.

 

In this case, it's up to you. If you feel you accomplished in good faith, what the CO wanted, then log it. If it doesn't feel right, then forget about it.

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I would thank him for his response and keep the Find. After all, you were there and you made an honest effort to answer the questions. I have been to some Virtuals and EarthCaches where the questions had me scratching my head and wondering what did they mean by that? Often a question is obvious to the person who knows the answer but open to alternate interpretations by others. I learned many years ago when I was working on designing tests for schools that sometimes there's just a bad question. You found it, so log it and don't lose any sleep over it.

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I would thank him for his response and keep the Find. After all, you were there and you made an honest effort to answer the questions. I have been to some Virtuals and EarthCaches where the questions had me scratching my head and wondering what did they mean by that? Often a question is obvious to the person who knows the answer but open to alternate interpretations by others. I learned many years ago when I was working on designing tests for schools that sometimes there's just a bad question. You found it, so log it and don't lose any sleep over it.

 

+1 and I agree some qualifying questions are really strange.

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- You go on vacation to a remote country thousands of miles from home

- In that country you log 10 caches, half of them virtual

- One of those virtuals require you to answer three questions by mail to the CO ...and you do so

- Suprisingly the CO replies back (90% of the virtual caches I've done so far were "placed" by CO's that stopped playing years ago), and he tells you that "one answer is wrong"

- You tell him that "ok, maybe the answer is not xxxx but yyyy, and that if that answer is wrong as well,he should feel free to delete the found, because you want to play fair"

Stop. Try this instead:

 

- "Okay, I assumed that xxxx was the answer because yadda, yadda, yadda. But since you said that xxxx isn't the answer, then I'm going to assume that yyyy is the answer because blah, blah, blah."

 

- He replies back that "yyyy is not the right answer, but I will not delete your log"

 

So ... what would you do:

 

a) Thank him for the answer and for not deleting your log, and just keep the cache as "found"

But did he give me the answer?

 

He told me that xxxx was not correct, so clearly it isn't yadda, yadda, yadda. And he told me that yyyy is not correct, so clearly it isn't blah, blah, blah.

 

So if he didn't mean yadda, yadda, yadda, and if he didn't mean blah, blah, blah, then what did he really mean? (And why wasn't that clear from the cache description?)

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Since the point of the verification info is to prove I was there, and I actually was there, I'd keep the log if the CO was OK with it.

 

There is a similar discussion in another thread related to earth caches. For earth caches, one of the requirements is to provide a learning experience, and questions/answers are often used to show that learning occurred from visiting the location of the EC. Several EC owners have said that they don't require correct answers to all questions. If someone give an incorrect answer, providing the correct answer will still provide a learning experience and as long the CO is confident that the the finder visited the location, all is good.

 

Since the point of a virtual cache is to bring someone to a specific location, and the questions/answers are used to verify that one did in fact go to that location, getting 2 out of 3 correct ought to convince any CO that one did visit the location. Keep the log, but I might respond "out of curiosity, what is the right answer?" As a CO I would probably appreciate the interest in learning about the location rather than have the perception that the finder was just trying to rack up another smiley.

 

 

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Imagine the following situation:

 

- You go on vacation to a remote country thousands of miles from home

- In that country you log 10 caches, half of them virtual

- One of those virtuals require you to answer three questions by mail to the CO ...and you do so

- Suprisingly the CO replies back (90% of the virtual caches I've done so far were "placed" by CO's that stopped playing years ago), and he tells you that "one answer is wrong"

- You tell him that "ok, maybe the answer is not xxxx but yyyy, and that if that answer is wrong as well,he should feel free to delete the found, because you want to play fair"

- He replies back that "yyyy is not the right answer, but I will not delete your log"

 

So ... what would you do:

 

a) Thank him for the answer and for not deleting your log, and just keep the cache as "found"

B ) Thank him for the answer and for not deleting your log, but tell him that in order to be fair, you will delete the "found" yourself

c) Nothing, just keep the cache as "found"

 

...and please answer honestly B)

First, the "thousands of miles from home" part is irrelevant to me. My personal caching ethics do not change based on the cache's proximity to home.

In this case, I would keep the Find. I was there and I made a legitimate attempt to answer the questions.

 

I had a situation recently with a Virtual cache at a museum where one of the qualifications was to answer questions and one of the questions required seeing something inside one of the buildings. On the day we visited, that specific building was closed for maintenance so we couldn't get inside to get that answer. Despite answering the other two questions (and trying to talk a museum worker to let us into the building for two minutes to get the answer), I didn't feel comfortable claiming the Find in that case.

 

One could argue the two cases are similar yet in one I take the smiley and in the other I don't. I guess I see a difference between gathering information and getting the answer wrong versus not getting the information at all.

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I don't really see the issue here. If you visited the site, made an honest attempt to answer and bungled it a little bit somehow, but the cache owner is satisfied with your response, what's the problem? Virtuals and Earthcaches aren't meant to be exams that you need to ace. What do you mean by "fair?"

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Since the point of the verification info is to prove I was there, and I actually was there, I'd keep the log if the CO was OK with it.

 

It depends on the virtual cache. My own is a combination of a virtual and a mystery cache and only a part of the tasks is to prove that the visitor was there, the

remaining ones (the more important ones) are rather of the EC educational type, but are not earth science related.

 

If cachers send me wrong answers, I will tell them first only what is wrong and provide them with the chance to come up with correct answers. I offer help

if needed. It's not a good idea in case of my virtual to provide them with the correct answers right away. I made good experiences with this approach.

Edited by cezanne
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Since the point of the verification info is to prove I was there, and I actually was there, I'd keep the log if the CO was OK with it.

 

It depends on the virtual cache. My own is a combination of a virtual and a mystery cache and only a part of the tasks is to prove that the visitor was there, the

remaining ones (the more important ones) are rather of the EC educational type, but are not earth science related.

 

If cachers send me wrong answers, I will tell them first only what is wrong and provide them with the chance to come up with correct answers. I offer help

if needed. It's not a good idea in case of my virtual to provide them with the correct answers right away. I made good experiences with this approach.

 

Have you deleted the logs from someone that didn't get the correct answers right away when it was evident that they *had* visited the location? I'd be curious to see how GS would respond if you deleted the log from someone that "found" one of your caches, didn't get all the answers correct and didn't want to get into an extended dialog with you to come up with the correct answer,

 

 

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Have you deleted the logs from someone that didn't get the correct answers right away when it was evident that they *had* visited the location? I'd be curious to see how GS would respond if you deleted the log from someone that "found" one of your caches, didn't get all the answers correct and didn't want to get into an extended dialog with you to come up with the correct answer,

 

No, I did not. So far only a single person has logged before I could reply (I typically reply very quickly, often within 5-10 minutes) and they got the essential parts correct.

 

I also offered some to log right away despite small parts missing or being wrong but many of them are ambitious and wanted to get everything correct as they got interested into the background themselves.

 

As the cache is not about visiting a single location and the main lesson is not the visit of the location, typically those who decided to deal with the cache are really interested into the topic and decide to spend further time even if not required to get everything complete.

 

My reply was not dealing with log deletions just with pointing out that the objective of a virtual cache is not necessarily just visiting a location. My virtual includes elements of a multi cache, a mystery cache and a bonus cache at the same time (it can only be done when having found another cache of mine before). The only logs I deleted where fake logs of cachers who clearly have not been at the location, have not found my other cache and have not sent in answers. This happened about 3-4 times and all the time it concerned foreigners who have not been in Graz at all.

 

No dialogue at all with me is needed to get the answers right which has been proved by many cachers. All questions are clearly defined. However for foreigners or people with a lower level of education the questions are more difficult and they might need extra help which I provide. Typically those for whom the cache is completely out of reach decide to stay away from it which is the same I do for other caches. There is also no risk that someone ends up visiting the virtual without knowing what to expect as it can only be done when one first has visited the associated physical cache which is complex, too. Otherwise one does not even know to which location to go - no coordinates are provided in the description of the virtual except the header coordinates which are just arbitrary coordinates like for mystery caches.

Edited by cezanne
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No, I did not. So far only a single person has logged before I could reply (I typically reply very quickly, often within 5-10 minutes) and they got the essential parts correct.

 

I also offered some to log right away despite small parts missing or being wrong but many of them are ambitious and wanted to get everything correct as they got interested into the background themselves.

 

Cannot require the information BEFORE the cache is logged.

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No, I did not. So far only a single person has logged before I could reply (I typically reply very quickly, often within 5-10 minutes) and they got the essential parts correct.

 

I also offered some to log right away despite small parts missing or being wrong but many of them are ambitious and wanted to get everything correct as they got interested into the background themselves.

 

Cannot require the information BEFORE the cache is logged.

 

Still what I wrote above is true. The cachers around here prefer to wait for my reply and to send the answers before logging even if it cannot be required (any longer). As I said before, the focus of the cache

is not a visit to some location - so most feel that waiting for my reply is better in order to know whether what they sent me makes sense. I would not want to log a find for such a cache without knowing whether I at least got the main

aspects right. It's like not logging a find for a physical cache when I have serious doubts whether what I found was the cache. There is no rule which forbids the latter, but it's not the way that makes sense to me.

 

Typically cachers cannot do many caches on the day they do the multi-mystery cache and the virtual as they take quite some time and effort. It is more common that cachers need

hours or days after my reply to write their log and not the other way round. My virtual is very different from any other virtual I have seen so far.

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No, I did not. So far only a single person has logged before I could reply (I typically reply very quickly, often within 5-10 minutes) and they got the essential parts correct.

 

I also offered some to log right away despite small parts missing or being wrong but many of them are ambitious and wanted to get everything correct as they got interested into the background themselves.

 

Cannot require the information BEFORE the cache is logged.

 

Still what I wrote above is true. The cachers around here prefer to wait for my reply and to send the answers before logging even if it cannot be required (any longer). As I said before, the focus of the cache

is not a visit to some location - so most feel that waiting for my reply is better in order to know whether what they sent me makes sense. I would not want to log a find for such a cache without knowing whether I at least got the main

aspects right. It's like not logging a find for a physical cache when I have serious doubts whether what I found was the cache. There is no rule which forbids the latter, but it's not the way that makes sense to me.

 

Typically cachers cannot do many caches on the day they do the multi-mystery cache and the virtual as they take quite some time and effort. It is more common that cachers need

hours or days after my reply to write their log and not the other way round. My virtual is very different from any other virtual I have seen so far.

 

Sure, not disputing any of that. I was just hoping you weren't acting like prior contact IS REQUIRED. Because it's not. No issues with anything else you mentioned.

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