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Why isn't geocaching organised by a non profit organisation?


pingurus

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Hi,

 

Some days ago someone asked me if I don't find it sad that geocaching is marketed by a for profit company. I answered that I find it okay to pay my 30€ to a firm which tries to generate profit out of it.

 

Since then I was thinking a bit about this subject and became curious how it actually came to the current situation. I don't know if I only have done bad searching but as far as I could get is that the same person who registered geocaching.com also set up Groundspeak. Was there any controverse at that time? Was there a community decision or was it just happening?

 

Thanks for any answer that helps me understanding the how and why.

 

Pingurus

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For a private enterprise they are doing a very good job (especially in not comercializing it like Pokemon Go (pokestops at MacDonalds). Not everything private held is bad.

 

Those same McDonald's were listed as Waymarks long before Pokemon GO. Most McDonalds have geocaches on their property, as I have found several and own a few myself.

 

We can play here for free, and the other non-profit geocache listing services don't get used much. I don't see a problem with the official geocaching site selling their services, but I do wish they would invest more back into their company for the paying members here.

 

So why isn't geocaching organised by a non profit organisation? Because geocaching is a business. :)

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There's a history of this site in the Help Center.

 

There was some controversy at the time about a site to host listings that would try to generate income, ie operate commercially. (Not that it did, much, at first.) But I believe that had no seen the need to create a commercially viable site back then, there would likely be little or no geocaching now.

 

There have been numerous attempts at non-profit geocaching sites. Some still around, sort of.

Because they run without income they have no features, no staff, no one minding the store, most of the time. Because they have no features, they have no (few) listings. And the listings that they do have are years old, belonging to people who have not logged on those sites in years; the caches have not been present for years, either.

Edited by palmetto
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There's a history of this site in the Help Center.

 

There was some controversy at the time about a site to host listings that would try to generate income, ie operate commercially. (Not that it did, much, at first.) But I believe that had no seen the need to create a commercially viable site back then, there would likely be little or no geocaching now.

 

There have been numerous attempts at non-profit geocaching sites. Some still around, sort of.

Because they run without income they have no features, no staff, no one minding the store, most of the time. Because they have no features, they have no (few) listings. And the listings that they do have are years old, belonging to people who have not logged on those sites in years; the caches have not been present for years, either.

 

Thanks for the answer + link!

Okay, I see why the decision was taken.

To my knowledge non profit doesn't mean that there is no revenue, so staff and so on can be still payed.

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Was there any controverse at that time?

Was there a community decision or was it just happening?

 

Thanks for any answer that helps me understanding the how and why.

 

 

Have a read of http://geocaching.gpsgames.org/history/

 

And the biggest "rival" these days is opencaching.org, which I understand is really small in the US, but is bigger in Eastern Europe, and is an "open source" version of Geocaching.

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Was there any controverse at that time?

Was there a community decision or was it just happening?

 

Thanks for any answer that helps me understanding the how and why.

 

 

Have a read of http://geocaching.gpsgames.org/history/

 

And the biggest "rival" these days is opencaching.org, which I understand is really small in the US, but is bigger in Eastern Europe, and is an "open source" version of Geocaching.

 

Thanks for the answer + link!

Opencaching.org just shows a placeholder page, opencaching.org.uk or opencaching.de do exist.

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Given the amount of infrastructure that underlies the services they provide, I don't think a non-profit would have gotten us as far, as quickly. Just thinking about how so many players are able to play this game with a broad array of devices by different manufacturers, it's hard for me to imagine that sort of development being well-coordinated by a non-profit group.

 

I think Groundspeak generally does a good job of providing services without completely selling out the game to external corporate interests.

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For a private enterprise they are doing a very good job (especially in not comercializing it like Pokemon Go (pokestops at MacDonalds). Not everything private held is bad.

 

Those same McDonald's were listed as Waymarks long before Pokemon GO. Most McDonalds have geocaches on their property, as I have found several and own a few myself.

 

We can play here for free, and the other non-profit geocache listing services don't get used much. I don't see a problem with the official geocaching site selling their services, but I do wish they would invest more back into their company for the paying members here.

 

So why isn't geocaching organised by a non profit organisation? Because geocaching is a business. :)

I'm not familiar with Waymarking so I'm not going to discuss that. What I meant was that GS is not selling out to the potential ad buyers, e.g.there is no suvenir for visiting a MCD cache. You having a cache there is a different story and nowhere near GS initiative (or am I wrong?). This is the subtle difference between selling out and just allowing people to play where ever they want.

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Groundspeak has done a pretty good job overall. Non-profits have their place but in the recreation field they seldom can match a for-profit. I have my quibbles over some commercial partnerships Groundspeak has made (e.g. the Ape caches, that Grisham novel) and the push into smart phones, but it certainly hasn't gone the evil ways of Pokemon Go or Munzee. There are other geocaching sites out there, but the very fact that the OP had never heard of them before rather proves the point.

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For a private enterprise they are doing a very good job (especially in not comercializing it like Pokemon Go (pokestops at MacDonalds). Not everything private held is bad.

 

Those same McDonald's were listed as Waymarks long before Pokemon GO. Most McDonalds have geocaches on their property, as I have found several and own a few myself.

 

We can play here for free, and the other non-profit geocache listing services don't get used much. I don't see a problem with the official geocaching site selling their services, but I do wish they would invest more back into their company for the paying members here.

 

So why isn't geocaching organised by a non profit organisation? Because geocaching is a business. :)

I'm not familiar with Waymarking so I'm not going to discuss that. What I meant was that GS is not selling out to the potential ad buyers, e.g.there is no suvenir for visiting a MCD cache. You having a cache there is a different story and nowhere near GS initiative (or am I wrong?). This is the subtle difference between selling out and just allowing people to play where ever they want.

 

Waymarking was Groundspeak's alternative to virtual geocaching, and the very first Waymark was a McDonalds, and visiting a McD's fills a grid in Waymarking. Kinda like Pokemon Go and the gotta catch em' all. Waymarking is owned and operated by the same company, and it's played everywhere too,and just like the other non-profit geocaching services it's little used or known about.

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I've heard about the local caching service in Poland. Some caches are even registered in GC and OC. The "problem" is that GC just seems more user friendly: all countries in one place (instead of .pl, .cz, .de and so on), trackables in the same place, overall user interface on the web site, up to date information (disabling, archiving). Some OC caches are really nice, but eventually they become registered in GC.

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I've heard about the local caching service in Poland. Some caches are even registered in GC and OC. The "problem" is that GC just seems more user friendly: all countries in one place (instead of .pl, .cz, .de and so on), trackables in the same place, overall user interface on the web site, up to date information (disabling, archiving). Some OC caches are really nice, but eventually they become registered in GC.

 

I have looked at the source code and there is nothing in it that prevents the .pl, .cz, and .de sites to only included caches from Poland, Czech republic, and Germany. There's a single file with a list of countries and the admin for the site can select which countries that site will represent. The .us site actually includes all countries in North America and the Caribbean. Not all caches on the site become registered in GC. The OC platform allows some caches types which are not allowed on GC.

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Some OC caches are really nice, but eventually they become registered in GC.

 

No, that's not correct. I know that there are many cross-listings, but there are lots of listings rejected here that are dumped there. :(

Todays count of Active Caches on the .us site is only 1675, and I would guess that 80% of them are virtuals.

 

User palmetto pretty much nailed it here in post #8.

 

I like virtual caches, and they have them. My problem with them is the site lacks features, and uploading photos there is a PITA for me.

And like I was told, the site is funded by some guy's credit card because they are a non-profit. B)

 

Edit to correct. According to the nasty gram from the site admin of OCNA that I PO'd with this post, only 28% of those 1675 active listings are virtuals. The site is worse off than I thought. WOW.

Edited by Manville Possum
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For a private enterprise they are doing a very good job (especially in not comercializing it like Pokemon Go (pokestops at MacDonalds). Not everything private held is bad.

 

Those same McDonald's were listed as Waymarks long before Pokemon GO. Most McDonalds have geocaches on their property, as I have found several and own a few myself.

 

We can play here for free, and the other non-profit geocache listing services don't get used much. I don't see a problem with the official geocaching site selling their services, but I do wish they would invest more back into their company for the paying members here.

 

So why isn't geocaching organised by a non profit organisation? Because geocaching is a business. :)

 

Really? Is the bolded part true? What part of the country is that? I'd say that its probably likely over half of Wal-Marts have caches, and at one time I understand a good chunk of Cracker Barrels had caches, but over 50% of McDonald's?

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For a private enterprise they are doing a very good job (especially in not comercializing it like Pokemon Go (pokestops at MacDonalds). Not everything private held is bad.

 

Those same McDonald's were listed as Waymarks long before Pokemon GO. Most McDonalds have geocaches on their property, as I have found several and own a few myself.

 

We can play here for free, and the other non-profit geocache listing services don't get used much. I don't see a problem with the official geocaching site selling their services, but I do wish they would invest more back into their company for the paying members here.

 

So why isn't geocaching organised by a non profit organisation? Because geocaching is a business. :)

 

Really? Is the bolded part true? What part of the country is that? I'd say that its probably likely over half of Wal-Marts have caches, and at one time I understand a good chunk of Cracker Barrels had caches, but over 50% of McDonald's?

Seems to be by location, kinda like Red Box maybe.

When the other 2/3rds was a ftf nut, a lotta caches were in that tiny little Micky Ds curbed grass strip, with only a tree or two on it. :)

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To the OP, what do you envision the geocaching world to be like if it was non-profit? Perhaps no annual "dues"? I work for a non-profit--one of the Blue Cross Blue Shield programs. As a whole, the Blue world is mostly non-profit, but have billions of $ in surplus. The medical coverage they provide is not free.

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To the OP, what do you envision the geocaching world to be like if it was non-profit? Perhaps no annual "dues"? I work for a non-profit--one of the Blue Cross Blue Shield programs. As a whole, the Blue world is mostly non-profit, but have billions of $ in surplus. The medical coverage they provide is not free.

 

Good question. "Why not non-profit" is an interesting question, but what would the effect be?

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To the OP, what do you envision the geocaching world to be like if it was non-profit? Perhaps no annual "dues"? I work for a non-profit--one of the Blue Cross Blue Shield programs. As a whole, the Blue world is mostly non-profit, but have billions of $ in surplus. The medical coverage they provide is not free.

I'm not long enough part of Geocaching to properly evaluate this, but I believe that in a business where the profit "goes into someone's private wallet" decisions are rather made for the sake of the profit, whereas I think that in a non-profit business the decisions would rather be in favour of the community. I am aware that both do not exclude each other, as the community is also the costumer.

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Was there any controverse at that time?

Was there a community decision or was it just happening?

 

Thanks for any answer that helps me understanding the how and why.

 

 

Have a read of http://geocaching.gpsgames.org/history/

 

And the biggest "rival" these days is opencaching.org, which I understand is really small in the US, but is bigger in Eastern Europe, and is an "open source" version of Geocaching.

Actually that site has s*** down. It was merely a way for Garmin to,try and supplant GS and a miseranle failure. They finally gave up

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Was there any controverse at that time?

Was there a community decision or was it just happening?

 

Thanks for any answer that helps me understanding the how and why.

 

 

Have a read of http://geocaching.gpsgames.org/history/

 

And the biggest "rival" these days is opencaching.org, which I understand is really small in the US, but is bigger in Eastern Europe, and is an "open source" version of Geocaching.

Actually that site has s*** down. It was merely a way for Garmin to,try and supplant GS and a miseranle failure. They finally gave up

 

No it hasn't you're talking about opencaching.com, I'm talking about opencaching.org; they are completely different. As you say the .com was a Garmin manoevre, but the .org is a true opensource, free cache listing co-operative, and it's still active.

Edited by MartyBartfast
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Let me see if I got this. Some private individuals risk their own money, put in time and energy to create something that is successful. Now you want to take away and give it to someone else to run. You should take a closer look at the salary structure for many non-profits. You would find many of them making more to run it that a private person who creates a business does and without the effort.

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"Why isn't geocaching organised by a non profit organisation?"

 

I'll answer that question with one of my own ....

 

Why should it be?

Because caches are placed by individuals who don't see any monetary profit. Reviewers also don't get paid, so it sounds like an open source project to me. Openstreetmap is non profit, and the maps are sometimes far better than google maps, especially for hiking.

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Some private individuals risk their own money, put in time and energy to create something that is successful. Now you want to take away and give it to someone else to run.

 

That's not quite how it happened though is it? It was created by a bunch of individuals doing it ad-hoc, Jeremy & co jumped on the bandwagon and just created a website, which in itself wasn't without some controvesy at the time, and effectively monopolised the game. They get us lot to do all the donkey work of placing caches, at our expense; they've recruited a bunch of people to do a lot of their work for nothing (the reveiwers). So in reality it was a free & open source game, until GS hijacked it.....

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I'm not long enough part of Geocaching to properly evaluate this, but I believe that in a business where the profit "goes into someone's private wallet" decisions are rather made for the sake of the profit, whereas I think that in a non-profit business the decisions would rather be in favour of the community. I am aware that both do not exclude each other, as the community is also the costumer.

You have it exactly backwards. When a company is doing something for profit, then they have to do what the community thinks is good and will pay them to do. When someone does it only for "the good of the community", they're the ones that decide what's good for the community. That makes it more likely that they'll earnestly and sincerely drive the enterprise into the ground for lack of concrete feedback.

 

The current era offers a good example, I think. I see the main complaints about GS stemming from an obvious attempt to grow the market, forsaking some time honored standards in order to make things more accessible to new users. Guess what? That's exactly what a non-profit geocaching organization would be doing at this point, except a non-profit wouldn't have to worry about losing revenue from it's existing base.

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Some private individuals risk their own money, put in time and energy to create something that is successful. Now you want to take away and give it to someone else to run.

 

That's not quite how it happened though is it? It was created by a bunch of individuals doing it ad-hoc, Jeremy & co jumped on the bandwagon and just created a website, which in itself wasn't without some controvesy at the time, and effectively monopolised the game. They get us lot to do all the donkey work of placing caches, at our expense; they've recruited a bunch of people to do a lot of their work for nothing (the reveiwers). So in reality it was a free & open source game, until GS hijacked it.....

In theory you can play for free (using 3rd party apps where the only limitation is lack of PMO caches). As for the community doing all the work (placing the caches) this is the only way the game can be as it is right now. The company provides the service (cache catalog) for everybody for free. Those who feel like they need extra features, pay. For me seems pretty decent.

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You have it exactly backwards. When a company is doing something for profit, then they have to do what the community thinks is good and will pay them to do.

 

Unless of course, they have a monopoly, then they can do whatever they want up until a majority of customers stops paying.

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Unless of course, they have a monopoly, then they can do whatever they want up until a majority of customers stops paying.

That's what I said: they have to worry about people not paying them. A not-for-profit would be just as much of a monopoly, but they wouldn't even have to worry about how people react to their actions.

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Unless of course, they have a monopoly, then they can do whatever they want up until a majority of customers stops paying.

That's what I said: they have to worry about people not paying them. A not-for-profit would be just as much of a monopoly, but they wouldn't even have to worry about how people react to their actions.

 

A non-profit could still charge user fees to cover their expenses. Non-profit isn't synonymous with "completely free." If they need fees to cover the operating costs they would still be beholden to the people paying those fees.

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Unless of course, they have a monopoly, then they can do whatever they want up until a majority of customers stops paying.

That's what I said: they have to worry about people not paying them. A not-for-profit would be just as much of a monopoly, but they wouldn't even have to worry about how people react to their actions.

 

It's not that simple. Should there be an alternative with enough caches they would worry but the only alternative now is quit caching or using a site with a only handful of caches.

Should there be a site with enough content I would have been out of here a few years ago already :ph34r:

 

I don't think it would be a big difference if geocaching were to run by a non-profit organization but it may be a bigger difference if it would be a non-US company.

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For a private enterprise they are doing a very good job (especially in not comercializing it like Pokemon Go (pokestops at MacDonalds).

Well, to be fair, McDonald's (and any other businesses) can buy GeoTour from Groundspeak to create commercial caches. I think they'll help McDonald's by forcing archival of existing caches within .1 mile from where McDonald's wants to place the geocache.

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A non-profit could still charge user fees to cover their expenses. Non-profit isn't synonymous with "completely free." If they need fees to cover the operating costs they would still be beholden to the people paying those fees.

All you're saying is that a non-profit can use the same techniques that for-profits use. That's true, but to the extent they do so, they act like for-profits, so there's every reason to think they'd have the same problems as for-profits, yet still with the negatives of being a non-profit.

 

It's not that simple. Should there be an alternative with enough caches they would worry but the only alternative now is quit caching or using a site with a only handful of caches.

My guess is that if geocaching.com were non-profit, there wouldn't be enough caches for us to worry about. If no one were getting rewarded for its success, I think geocaching would have likely died out by now.

 

I don't think it would be a big difference if geocaching were to run by a non-profit organization but it may be a bigger difference if it would be a non-US company.

My guess is that a non-profit being the same would be the best case. I can't rule it out, but it seems likely the difference would be a somewhat worse than best case.

 

I can't think of a single reason it would be better if GS were a non-US company, so you'll have to explain your thinking on that one.

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I can't think of a single reason it would be better if GS were a non-US company, so you'll have to explain your thinking on that one.

 

EU privacy legislation, consumer protection.

No more "secret" VAT number (which all other companies gladly supply on their webpage and/or invoices).

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For a private enterprise they are doing a very good job (especially in not comercializing it like Pokemon Go (pokestops at MacDonalds).

Well, to be fair, McDonald's (and any other businesses) can buy GeoTour from Groundspeak to create commercial caches. I think they'll help McDonald's by forcing archival of existing caches within .1 mile from where McDonald's wants to place the geocache.

 

There go half the world's LPCs. :rolleyes:

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I expect it's a question of motivation. The 3 who founded Geocaching.com spent their own money and their own time getting the site up and going.

 

My recall is that 2 of the 3 were still employed full time outside of Geocaching.com when I started reviewing, and the last of the 3 to be able to quit an outside job, and come to work full time at Geocaching.com wasn't until 2007. For those years, they worked two jobs (the Geocaching.com job being way way more than simply full-time), supporting the site, themselves, their families, and each other.

 

I just don't see anybody doing that to create a non-profit. Maybe for True Cause - beating cancer, refugee relief, etc, but to support a game?

 

The motivation to slog through all those hours, that much time, essentially giving your money away for years is the ultimate ownership of a successful business. Not the stewardship of a non-profit that supports a game.

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I see the main argument for non-profit geocaching being the use of volunteers (Reviewers). Not many for-profit businesses have them.

 

I don't think the people who hide caches are volunteers anymore than someone who runs a fantasy football league on Yahoo is a volunteer for Yahoo.

 

Mostly though the main reason I see that Groundspeak shouldn't be non-profit is that is entertainment. (Professional sports leagues like the NFL getting nonprofit status seems ludicrous to me.) Groundspeak is not a charity, not educational, not cultural, not health care, not any kind of necessary service. It doesn't provide a public service nor preserve anything. Sure geocachers may improve their health and learn things while geocaching, but this is incidental to the actual service Groundspeak provides.

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Yeah. I don't see that Jeremy or Bryan are living in mansions and driving around in a Rolls Royce. It seems to me that a lot of money goes right back into Groundspeak. They know that the biggest thing holding back new updates and site maintenance is money, so they keep doing their best to build that up to create a better running business.

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I see the main argument for non-profit geocaching being the use of volunteers (Reviewers). Not many for-profit businesses have them.

 

I don't think the people who hide caches are volunteers anymore than someone who runs a fantasy football league on Yahoo is a volunteer for Yahoo.

 

Mostly though the main reason I see that Groundspeak shouldn't be non-profit is that is entertainment. (Professional sports leagues like the NFL getting nonprofit status seems ludicrous to me.) Groundspeak is not a charity, not educational, not cultural, not health care, not any kind of necessary service. It doesn't provide a public service nor preserve anything. Sure geocachers may improve their health and learn things while geocaching, but this is incidental to the actual service Groundspeak provides.

 

The rules for operating a non-profit organization vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Charities are a type of non-profit organization, but not all non-profits are charities. In Canada, social clubs, sports associations, and other recreational groups can operate as non-profits.

 

Still, it's difficult to imagine something with Groundspeak's international scale operating on a non-profit basis.

 

I can sort of imagine a loose collective of regional organizations with geocache listings eventually coming together to share resources and some sort of common platform, but it would be a long and complicated process.

 

Just thinking locally, there have been a couple of instances where people operating websites or doing other things for the local geocaching community just took everything away because they didn't like the way things were going. At least with Groundspeak's online services, I'm fairly certain they won't shut down the website in the middle of the night and hold onto the domain name forever out of spite.

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I just don't see anybody doing that to create a non-profit. Maybe for True Cause - beating cancer, refugee relief, etc, but to support a game?

As already stated, opencaching.org is up and running totally non-profit. Until now, their (and other listing services) cache number isn't comparable to geocaching.com (Groundspeak). This tells us at least two things:

• customers are happy enough with Groundspeak's game management and pricing to support them. Which isn't a bad thing.

• there are alternatives, if Groundspeak's customers may get unhappy or if you don't want to support a private business (for whatever reason). Not enough caches on the non-profit site(s)? Start placing them and listing (only) there!

 

There is room for more than one geocaching database, and they already exist.

 

Just my 0.02€

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