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Ban adoptions by maintanance shirkers


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Other than being about adoption versus placement, is there a reason this couldn't just be part of your other thread? (Or do you just want to see the word "shirkers" in the forum more often?)

 

I mean, I'm all about people coming to the forum to spend 100+ posts talking about the same thing over and over, but I'm not sure we needed an extra thread to do it when there's already a beaten horse we can just re-assault from a different angle.

 

ed: sp

 

For Pete's sake can we leave the dead horse out of it.

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So you are suggesting that instead of allowing someone you've identified as a shirker to adopt caches so that they may or may not survive, the caches should just be archived right away? How is that better?

 

I don't agree with your idea that a cache in bad shape is worse than no cache at all, but at least I see the logic in it. But there's no logic to arguing that no cache at all is better than a cache that might possibly at some future time not be maintained up to your standards.

 

In Geocaching an unmaintained cache in bad shape is one of the worst things I can think of.

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Someone I've identified? I'm thinking more that the Health Score mechanism will handle the identification.

 

That's why another option afforded by this suggested measure is to allow the caches to be adopted by someone else, someone who can cope comfortably with their maintenance, so that those caches have a better chance of remaining in good order :)

 

First, quite often caches are adopted by cachers with already many caches because no one else wants to take them over. Many newer cachers prefer to own no caches.

Second, one always can adopt caches with a new account and many will actually do that regardless of their maintenance policy. I would never adopt a cache using my standard account.

 

Why would you never adopt a cache using your standard account? Would it be that you'd actually be responsible for it?

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In fact, considering the fact that, in theory, there's nothing to stop me adopting a cache on the other side of the planet that I'm never going to maintain, I'd have thought that some human intervention might be a good idea - not that I want to create extra work for volunteer reviewers either.

Do you have any evidence that abuse of the adoption system is a problem? It's one thing to argue for more work when it's possible you might be solving a problem, but I have no interest at all in a new procedure to stop a problem you can only imagine might happen.

 

Like the Cache Health Score - it doesn't need to be perfect.

It doesn't have to be perfect, but it does have to be better than nothing. I don't think this is. If such a problem came up, I think GS could step in right now and sort it out. Having specific rules might leave GS with less discretion to handle it.

 

A reviewer has already stated that the cache score helps.

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I'm going to take your refusal to answer the question as your acceptance that judgements about future events (also known as predictions) can be made and are made, every day in every country of the world.

 

That's wrong. I just did not want to become offtopic. I actually do not know whether I will still live in the evening though it's likely to happen.

As predictions are concerned, they need data and that's the key problem when it comes what you suggest. You would indeed need to restrict adoptions and those allowed to adopt to come up with meaningful predictions of the way you would like them to make and that's where we largely disagree upon as I do not want to restrict adoption to accounts with a record of owned caches.

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Why would you never adopt a cache using your standard account? Would it be that you'd actually be responsible for it?

 

It's not a question of responsibility at all. I would never take over a cache without being willing to take care.

 

To answer your question: Because I do not want to take the credit and the quite likely existing FPs for something I have not created. I also would not want that those who log with templates thank me for placing the cache.

 

Moreover, in many cases I would like to separate the mails that come in from the mails that come in for the caches I have hidden. This becomes even more important when sharing maintenance with others (for example for very long and complex caches where everyone is in charge of some part). So it could easily happen that someone who thinks like me ends up with even more than adoption account - one for each different project.

Edited by cezanne
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I'm going to take your refusal to answer the question as your acceptance that judgements about future events (also known as predictions) can be made and are made, every day in every country of the world.

 

That's wrong. I just did not want to become offtopic. I actually do not know whether I will still live in the evening though it's likely to happen.

As predictions are concerned, they need data and that's the key problem when it comes what you suggest. You would indeed need to restrict adoptions and those allowed to adopt to come up with meaningful predictions of the way you would like them to make and that's where we largely disagree upon as I do not want to restrict adoption to accounts with a record of owned caches.

 

I asked you a direct question. To then claim that your response was off topic would be silly of me. Claiming that your reason for not answering the question was the wish to stay on topic is equally silly.

 

Predictions NEED data = false

 

Predictions are likely to be more accurate when they are based on accurate data = true.

 

The greater in number the accurate data available on which to base predictions, the more likely those predictions are to be accurate = true.

 

If I saw a cache owner who had completely failed to maintain any of their caches and then had all their caches archived by a reviewer, I'd count that as a fairly strong indicator that they were not a good candidate for cache adoption. This is just an example, based on actual experience.

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To answer your question: Because I do not want to take the credit and the quite likely existing FPs for something I have not created. I also would not want that those who log with templates thank me for placing the cache.

 

Moreover, in many cases I would like to separate the mails that come in from the mails that come in for the caches I have hidden. This becomes even more important when sharing maintenance with others (for example for very long and complex caches where everyone is in charge of some part). So it could easily happen that someone who thinks like me ends up with even more than adoption account - one for each different project.

 

This is where it leaves the rails - put your head between your knees - brace for impact :ph34r:

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To answer your question: Because I do not want to take the credit and the quite likely existing FPs for something I have not created. I also would not want that those who log with templates thank me for placing the cache.

 

Moreover, in many cases I would like to separate the mails that come in from the mails that come in for the caches I have hidden. This becomes even more important when sharing maintenance with others (for example for very long and complex caches where everyone is in charge of some part). So it could easily happen that someone who thinks like me ends up with even more than adoption account - one for each different project.

 

This is where it leaves the rails - put your head between your knees - brace for impact :ph34r:

 

In how many large geocaching projects are you involved?

I know many different examples where cachers decided to hide or adopt caches with different accounts than their main player account. That's not something rare but quite common.

 

When a cache has originally been set up as a group hide and maintained in that manner, it's quite natural that also a group will take over when it comes to adoption.

 

There are also many cachers who care about the badges at project-gc and some of them want to earn them and not to profit from achievements of others.

 

There are many more reasons for using different accounts for adoptions which are not at all related to my personal preferences and quite comming.

 

A reason not yet mentioned is also that sometimes one does not want that everyone in the community knows that one took over a certain cache.

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Why would you never adopt a cache using your standard account? Would it be that you'd actually be responsible for it?

 

It's not a question of responsibility at all. I would never take over a cache without being willing to take care.

 

To answer your question: Because I do not want to take the credit and the quite likely existing FPs for something I have not created. I also would not want that those who log with templates thank me for placing the cache.

 

Moreover, in many cases I would like to separate the mails that come in from the mails that come in for the caches I have hidden. This becomes even more important when sharing maintenance with others (for example for very long and complex caches where everyone is in charge of some part). So it could easily happen that someone who thinks like me ends up with even more than adoption account - one for each different project.

 

Personal preference. I buy that, although none of your reasons would prompt me to create and monitor a second account.

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To answer your question: Because I do not want to take the credit and the quite likely existing FPs for something I have not created. I also would not want that those who log with templates thank me for placing the cache.

 

Moreover, in many cases I would like to separate the mails that come in from the mails that come in for the caches I have hidden. This becomes even more important when sharing maintenance with others (for example for very long and complex caches where everyone is in charge of some part). So it could easily happen that someone who thinks like me ends up with even more than adoption account - one for each different project.

 

This is where it leaves the rails - put your head between your knees - brace for impact :ph34r:

 

In how many large geocaching projects are you involved?

I know many different examples where cachers decided to hide or adopt caches with different accounts than their main player account. That's not something rare but quite common.

 

When a cache has originally been set up as a group hide and maintained in that manner, it's quite natural that also a group will take over when it comes to adoption.

 

There are also many cachers who care about the badges at project-gc and some of them want to earn them and not to profit from achievements of others.

 

There are many more reasons for using different accounts for adoptions which are not at all related to my personal preferences and quite comming.

 

A reason not yet mentioned is also that sometimes one does not want that everyone in the community knows that one took over a certain cache.

 

Group hides are fine as long as someone, not a group, is ultimately responsible. A separate account for these types of caches now makes sense. If the group is not maintaining the cache properly and it gets archived the "dummy" account takes the hit. The responsible persons own account still looks squeaky clean. It all sounds shady to me. If your serious about something why not put your name on it for everyone to see?

 

Why would you not want someone to know you adopted a particular cache?

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In Geocaching an unmaintained cache in bad shape is one of the worst things I can think of.

Well, I disagree that it's the worst thing. How about a good cache getting archived for no good reason? Wouldn't that be worse? But I agree that bad caches are undesirable. But we aren't talking about bad caches. We're talking about caches that are in good enough shape for someone to want to adopt, and we're predicting that they'll soon be trash without any actual evidence that they will or any examples of such a thing being a serious problem in the past.

 

I've only seen it once. UK caches adopted by a US owner. Unsurprisingly they didn't get maintained.

OK, so one example of an unknown number of caches in unknown condition that lasted for an unknown period of time before something unstated happened. Should that convince me that there's a problem that requires this solution? (Hint: if you go ahead and list the details and end up providing enough information to convince me this case was an actual problem, you'll have presented enough information to convince a reviewer at the time that it was an actual problem, too, thus demonstrating that this automated mechanism isn't necessary.)

 

I've also seen cachers leave the UK, abandoning their UK caches and then start placing caches in their new country of residence.

Why are you bringing up this case? It seems unrelated. I've seen people move away, I've seen people lose interest, I've seen people die. And I've seen caches go bad for none of those reasons. The same mechanism handles all those cases equally by ignoring what happened to the CO and focusing on the cache. In my experience, the caches left behind by someone moving out of town are the least likely to have sustained problems.

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Group hides are fine as long as someone, not a group, is ultimately responsible. A separate account for these types of caches now makes sense. If the group is not maintaining the cache properly and it gets archived the "dummy" account takes the hit. The responsible persons own account still looks squeaky clean. It all sounds shady to me.

 

Suppose you have a cache which covers 500km and involves a number of stages. If say 10 cachers work together and take perfect care of the cache and everyone knows for what he/she is responsible that is perfectly ok and nothing shady in my eyes.

 

It also allows to have a joint e-mail account to which all involved cachers have access which makes sense of course so that everyone can answer for what he/she is responsible for without having to make the private e-mail account of cacher A available to all involved cachers.

 

If someone has projects with different participants, it makes a lot of sense to have different accounts.

 

Why in the world are you always already from the start assume that there are problems and that something is not maintained properly and abandoned? The majority of caches out there with a maintenance issue are not caches that ran into troubles due to a weakness of the adoption process.

 

If your serious about something why not put your name on it for everyone to see?

 

Why would you not want someone to know you adopted a particular cache?

 

There could be many reasons. One very obvious one is that one does not want to be contacted by phone or means other than officially over sending a mail or message to the owning account.

There are many other reasons. For example, one can decide to adopt a cache to help some people who feel attached to the cache but cannot keep them but one does not want to include the cache in one's own portfolio because it does not match one's personal geocaching philosophy. For example, I would not want to adopt certain types of mystery caches under my account but under certain circumstances would adopt them with a different account.

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In Geocaching an unmaintained cache in bad shape is one of the worst things I can think of.

Well, I disagree that it's the worst thing. How about a good cache getting archived for no good reason? Wouldn't that be worse? But I agree that bad caches are undesirable. But we aren't talking about bad caches. We're talking about caches that are in good enough shape for someone to want to adopt, and we're predicting that they'll soon be trash without any actual evidence that they will or any examples of such a thing being a serious problem in the past.

 

I've only seen it once. UK caches adopted by a US owner. Unsurprisingly they didn't get maintained.

OK, so one example of an unknown number of caches in unknown condition that lasted for an unknown period of time before something unstated happened. Should that convince me that there's a problem that requires this solution? (Hint: if you go ahead and list the details and end up providing enough information to convince me this case was an actual problem, you'll have presented enough information to convince a reviewer at the time that it was an actual problem, too, thus demonstrating that this automated mechanism isn't necessary.)

 

I've also seen cachers leave the UK, abandoning their UK caches and then start placing caches in their new country of residence.

Why are you bringing up this case? It seems unrelated. I've seen people move away, I've seen people lose interest, I've seen people die. And I've seen caches go bad for none of those reasons. The same mechanism handles all those cases equally by ignoring what happened to the CO and focusing on the cache. In my experience, the caches left behind by someone moving out of town are the least likely to have sustained problems.

 

If it's a good cache with an active owner why would it be getting archived?

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I've only seen it once. UK caches adopted by a US owner. Unsurprisingly they didn't get maintained.

OK, so one example of an unknown number of caches in unknown condition that lasted for an unknown period of time before something unstated happened. Should that convince me that there's a problem that requires this solution? (Hint: if you go ahead and list the details and end up providing enough information to convince me this case was an actual problem, you'll have presented enough information to convince a reviewer at the time that it was an actual problem, too, thus demonstrating that this automated mechanism isn't necessary.)

 

Oh heck - damned if I do, damned if I don't. I'm all in a tizzy <_<

 

You asked a question - I answered it. I don't consider it appropriate to go into specific detail here on individual caches or cache owners in some misguided bid to convince you the case is a problem. It became a problem, the reviewer had to intervene and archive the caches after they'd been left to rot for a considerable period of time.

 

I've also seen cachers leave the UK, abandoning their UK caches and then start placing caches in their new country of residence.

Why are you bringing up this case? It seems unrelated. I've seen people move away, I've seen people lose interest, I've seen people die. And I've seen caches go bad for none of those reasons. The same mechanism handles all those cases equally by ignoring what happened to the CO and focusing on the cache. In my experience, the caches left behind by someone moving out of town are the least likely to have sustained problems.

 

Just because it popped into my head as I was answering your question :) I consider it related to the overall topic of the thread. It demonstrates that there's another metric which might be leveraged in scoring cachers as potential cache adopters based on where the caches are in relation to the cacher.

Edited by Team Microdot
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Group hides are fine as long as someone, not a group, is ultimately responsible. A separate account for these types of caches now makes sense. If the group is not maintaining the cache properly and it gets archived the "dummy" account takes the hit. The responsible persons own account still looks squeaky clean. It all sounds shady to me.

 

Suppose you have a cache which covers 500km and involves a number of stages. If say 10 cachers work together and take perfect care of the cache and everyone knows for what he/she is responsible that is perfectly ok and nothing shady in my eyes.

 

It also allows to have a joint e-mail account to which all involved cachers have access which makes sense of course so that everyone can answer for what he/she is responsible for without having to make the private e-mail account of cacher A available to all involved cachers.

 

If someone has projects with different participants, it makes a lot of sense to have different accounts.

 

Why in the world are you always already from the start assume that there are problems and that something is not maintained properly and abandoned? The majority of caches out there with a maintenance issue are not caches that ran into troubles due to a weakness of the adoption process.

 

If your serious about something why not put your name on it for everyone to see?

 

Why would you not want someone to know you adopted a particular cache?

 

There could be many reasons. One very obvious one is that one does not want to be contacted by phone or means other than officially over sending a mail or message to the owning account.

There are many other reasons. For example, one can decide to adopt a cache to help some people who feel attached to the cache but cannot keep them but one does not want to include the cache in one's own portfolio because it does not match one's personal geocaching philosophy. For example, I would not want to adopt certain types of mystery caches under my account but under certain circumstances would adopt them with a different account.

 

I thought we were talking about not allowing bad cache owners to adopt caches. If I were a bad cache owner and my reviewer was not allowing me to publish any more caches, adoption would seem to be the way around that, No? I've seen more than a few "avid" cache hiders get out of control only to have the bulk of their caches eventually archived and not always by their own hand. As it pertains to the cache score, wouldn't it make sense to flag anyone trying to adopt a cache with a bad cache score and allow a reviewer to take a look at it before it's transferred?

 

I'm sure there are some good reasons why someone would feel the need to create a separate account but only the obvious bad reasons come to mind and it's these bad reasons were talking about here.

 

I don't make distinctions regarding my caches. If I feel strongly enough to adopt a cache then it's listed on my own account.

 

Why would someone call you regarding a cache you've adopted, other than the original owner if you've given them your phone number?

 

If a cache doesn't match your personal geocaching philosophy than why are you adopting it in the first place?

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I thought we were talking about not allowing bad cache owners to adopt caches.

 

We are, but by the time Cezanne's finished the thread will be unrecognisable.

 

I know and I'm sorry. I'm feeding the fire and I just can't stop myself.

 

No apology required - don't let me stop you - maybe, just maybe you will succeed where everyone else has failed :laughing:

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I thought we were talking about not allowing bad cache owners to adopt caches.

 

We are, but by the time Cezanne's finished the thread will be unrecognisable.

 

I know and I'm sorry. I'm feeding the fire and I just can't stop myself.

 

In fact, it's given me an idea for a thread where the challenge is to come up with the most extreme, complex and detailed edge case scenarios imaginable. I think it would probably have to go in the Off Topic forum though if it were to survive.

 

It reminds me of

:laughing: Edited by Team Microdot
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I thought we were talking about not allowing bad cache owners to adopt caches.

 

We are, but by the time Cezanne's finished the thread will be unrecognisable.

 

I know and I'm sorry. I'm feeding the fire and I just can't stop myself.

 

No apology required - don't let me stop you - maybe, just maybe you will succeed where everyone else has failed :laughing:

 

I get the feeling that most everyone on this forum is a good cacher (cezanne included). I just can't understand why some of these promising ideas are getting dragged through the mud.

 

I have to believe that we all want to see a healthier geocaching.

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I thought we were talking about not allowing bad cache owners to adopt caches.

 

We are, but by the time Cezanne's finished the thread will be unrecognisable.

 

I know and I'm sorry. I'm feeding the fire and I just can't stop myself.

 

In fact, it's given me an idea for a thread where the challenge is to come up with the most extreme, complex and detailed edge case scenarios imaginable. I think it would probably have to go in the Off Topic forum though if it were to survive.

 

It reminds me of

:laughing:

 

Perfect!

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I thought we were talking about not allowing bad cache owners to adopt caches.

 

I do see this only as a measure used by GS in extreme cases and not something which should become common and as a result of some health score.

In the case that it is a GS measure they have means to detect if someone is trying to circumvent a hiding ban if there are suspicious things happening.

Such cases will be even more rare than hiding bans by GS.

 

As it pertains to the cache score, wouldn't it make sense to flag anyone trying to adopt a cache with a bad cache score and allow a reviewer to take a look at it before it's transferred?

 

I'm not in favour of such a procedure as it would restrict the freedom of too many others who should not be affected.

 

I'm sure there are some good reasons why someone would feel the need to create a separate account but only the obvious bad reasons come to mind and it's these bad reasons were talking about here.

 

I know many, many examples of cache owners with several accounts and none of these examples has anything bad involved.

 

I don't make distinctions regarding my caches. If I feel strongly enough to adopt a cache then it's listed on my own account.

 

An adopted cache is nothing which I consider as something owned by the person who adopts it. It's rather taking care of something which belongs to someone else.

 

Why would someone call you regarding a cache you've adopted, other than the original owner if you've given them your phone number?

 

When they are out in the field and get stuck for example and have your phone number anyway (for a different purpose and reason).

 

If a cache doesn't match your personal geocaching philosophy than why are you adopting it in the first place?

 

Many reasons come to my mind:

 

To do the cache owner a favour.

 

To rescue a cache for the community.

 

I could e.g. imagine to adopt a decent traditional near one of my caches but I never would want it in my portfolio of owned caches where I would not want to have a traditional or a cache with a German only description.

I would not want to change an adopted cache however more than necessary. As an owner I would not have an issue to paint the walls of a house in a new colour, as a caretaker I would not do that.

Edited by cezanne
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An adopted cache is nothing which I consider as something owned by the person who adopts it. It's rather taking care of something which belongs to someone else.

 

Well, regardless of what you consider, once you've adopted the cache, it is now your responsibility. You don't have to take credit for the initial idea - but you HAVE to take credit for the condition of the cache. You adopt it, you own it. Regardless of what "you consider".

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I have to believe that we all want to see a healthier geocaching.
Sure, we all want to see "a healthier geocaching". That's right up there with motherhood and apple pie. Who could argue against it?

 

That doesn't mean everyone agrees on whether or not any given proposal will improve geocaching (i.e., make it "healthier").

 

That doesn't even mean everyone always agrees on what "healthier geocaching" looks like.

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An adopted cache is nothing which I consider as something owned by the person who adopts it. It's rather taking care of something which belongs to someone else.

 

Well, regardless of what you consider, once you've adopted the cache, it is now your responsibility. You don't have to take credit for the initial idea - but you HAVE to take credit for the condition of the cache. You adopt it, you own it. Regardless of what "you consider".

 

Yes, it is my responsibility to take care of the cache if I adopt it. I regard myself as caretaker and not as owner. That's why I would choose a separate account for separating these caches from the ones I created. A cache is much more than its condition and also more than a container or a set of containers. Of course it is me as person who has to go out to fix a problem for an adopted cache and not the person who adopted the cache out or someone else.

The accounts on gc.com are however not a 1:1 assignment to persons. Also without adoptions I can have several accounts and still I'm of course responsible for what I do with all these accounts.

 

The adopting account owns the listing but the listing is not the same as the cache.

Edited by cezanne
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I thought we were talking about not allowing bad cache owners to adopt caches.

 

I do see this only as a measure used by GS in extreme cases and not something which should become common and as a result of some health score.

In the case that it is a GS measure they have means to detect if someone is trying to circumvent a hiding ban if there are suspicious things happening.

Such cases will be even more rare than hiding bans by GS.

 

As it pertains to the cache score, wouldn't it make sense to flag anyone trying to adopt a cache with a bad cache score and allow a reviewer to take a look at it before it's transferred?

 

I'm not in favour of such a procedure as it would restrict the freedom of too many others who should not be affected.

 

I'm sure there are some good reasons why someone would feel the need to create a separate account but only the obvious bad reasons come to mind and it's these bad reasons were talking about here.

 

I know many, many examples of cache owners with several accounts and none of these examples has anything bad involved.

 

I don't make distinctions regarding my caches. If I feel strongly enough to adopt a cache then it's listed on my own account.

 

An adopted cache is nothing which I consider as something owned by the person who adopts it. It's rather taking care of something which belongs to someone else.

 

Why would someone call you regarding a cache you've adopted, other than the original owner if you've given them your phone number?

 

When they are out in the field and get stuck for example and have your phone number anyway (for a different purpose and reason).

 

If a cache doesn't match your personal geocaching philosophy than why are you adopting it in the first place?

 

Many reasons come to my mind:

 

To do the cache owner a favour.

 

To rescue a cache for the community.

 

I could e.g. imagine to adopt a decent traditional near one of my caches but I never would want it in my portfolio of owned caches where I would not want to have a traditional or a cache with a German only description.

I would not want to change an adopted cache however more than necessary. As an owner I would not have an issue to paint the walls of a house in a new colour, as a caretaker I would not do that.

 

If your a good cache owner the health score shouldn't effect you in any way. No reminder e-mails, No adoption restrictions, nothing.

 

If you adopt a cache you assume responsibility for it. In effect you own it.

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I have to believe that we all want to see a healthier geocaching.
Sure, we all want to see "a healthier geocaching". That's right up there with motherhood and apple pie. Who could argue against it?

 

That doesn't mean everyone agrees on whether or not any given proposal will improve geocaching (i.e., make it "healthier").

 

That doesn't even mean everyone always agrees on what "healthier geocaching" looks like.

 

If this tool helps reviewers identify unmaintained caches wouldn't that constitute an improvement in geocaching?

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That doesn't even mean everyone always agrees on what "healthier geocaching" looks like.
I'm prepared to go out on a limb and say that most people would agree that it doesn't look like this:[snip]
Sure, clearly there's a problem there. But there are a lot of gray areas in the middle about which reasonable people disagree.

 

And even with that "out on a limb" example, I think "healthier geocaching" has a lot more to do with what happens in response to the situation shown, than with the fact that the situation shown occurred in the first place.

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If this tool helps reviewers identify unmaintained caches wouldn't that constitute an improvement in geocaching?

 

This thread is about adoption bans and adoptions restrictions and so the health score tool which should help reviewers is only a side issue.

 

As the OP here I can confirm that the health score tool and potential extensions to it and how those things might assist reviewers are, and always have been completely relevant to this thread.

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That doesn't even mean everyone always agrees on what "healthier geocaching" looks like.
I'm prepared to go out on a limb and say that most people would agree that it doesn't look like this:[snip]
Sure, clearly there's a problem there. But there are a lot of gray areas in the middle about which reasonable people disagree.

 

And even with that "out on a limb" example, I think "healthier geocaching" has a lot more to do with what happens in response to the situation shown, than with the fact that the situation shown occurred in the first place.

 

So let's at least agree that we can agree on what healthier geocaching does not look like and then move forward from there.

 

Let's not waste time ringing our hands in despair at our alleged inability to come to an agreement on the holy grail of what healthier geocaching looks like. For me the opposite of that photograph is an adequate place to start.

 

I'm reminded of the idiom An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

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If this tool helps reviewers identify unmaintained caches wouldn't that constitute an improvement in geocaching?
If this tool encourages the owners of healthy caches to archive them, then wouldn't that constitute a diminishment in geocaching?

 

IF

 

I know that in my local area new ones would spring up to replace them in no time at all.

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If this tool helps reviewers identify unmaintained caches wouldn't that constitute an improvement in geocaching?
If this tool encourages the owners of healthy caches to archive them, then wouldn't that constitute a diminishment in geocaching?

 

How would this tool cause a cache owner to archive a healthy cache??? Like I said, A good cache owner wouldn't even know this tool was being used.

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How would this tool cause a cache owner to archive a healthy cache???
This is hardly a new idea in these forums, but perhaps false positives are not handled appropriately. Perhaps the owner tried to adopt the listing to someone, but the system has incorrectly identified that account as a "maintenance shirker". And perhaps the owner is then sent a message encouraging them to archive the cache rather than adopt it to a "maintenance shirker".
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If this tool helps reviewers identify unmaintained caches wouldn't that constitute an improvement in geocaching?
If this tool encourages the owners of healthy caches to archive them, then wouldn't that constitute a diminishment in geocaching?

 

If the tool discourages cache owners from creating high D/T caches that would inherently have more DNFs and found less frequently than a 1.5./1.5 caches (simply due to the nagging email) then that, to me, would constitute a degradation in geocaching as well.

 

 

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If this tool helps reviewers identify unmaintained caches wouldn't that constitute an improvement in geocaching?

If this tool encourages the owners of healthy caches to archive them, then wouldn't that constitute a diminishment in geocaching?

 

In my area, the cachers who use to hide good caches and maintain them are gone. It's for-the-numbers style cache hides now.

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If this tool helps reviewers identify unmaintained caches wouldn't that constitute an improvement in geocaching?
If this tool encourages the owners of healthy caches to archive them, then wouldn't that constitute a diminishment in geocaching?

 

If the tool discourages cache owners from creating high D/T caches that would inherently have more DNFs and found less frequently than a 1.5./1.5 caches (simply due to the nagging email) then that, to me, would constitute a degradation in geocaching as well.

 

Fingers crossed the clever people at Groundspeak can weight DNF's appropriately in the overall algorithm that those sensitive souls for whom an email is a major imposition won't be troubled :)

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If this tool helps reviewers identify unmaintained caches wouldn't that constitute an improvement in geocaching?
If this tool encourages the owners of healthy caches to archive them, then wouldn't that constitute a diminishment in geocaching?

 

If the tool discourages cache owners from creating high D/T caches that would inherently have more DNFs and found less frequently than a 1.5./1.5 caches (simply due to the nagging email) then that, to me, would constitute a degradation in geocaching as well.

 

It shouldn't discourage anyone form doing anything. It's a tool to be used by human reviewers which should be able to distinguish between a bad owner and a relatively difficult cache.

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If your a good cache owner the health score shouldn't effect you in any way. No reminder e-mails, No adoption restrictions, nothing.

You keep saying this but it simply isn't true. The cache health score is catching caches that are fine and sending emails to good COs, because it considers just DNF logs or even a cache that simply hasn't been found for a while to be an indicator of poor health.

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If your a good cache owner the health score shouldn't effect you in any way. No reminder e-mails, No adoption restrictions, nothing.

You keep saying this but it simply isn't true. The cache health score is catching caches that are fine and sending emails to good COs, because it considers just DNF logs or even a cache that simply hasn't been found for a while to be an indicator of poor health.

 

Is this still a problem?

 

Do we have any statistics to back this up?

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If this tool helps reviewers identify unmaintained caches wouldn't that constitute an improvement in geocaching?
If this tool encourages the owners of healthy caches to archive them, then wouldn't that constitute a diminishment in geocaching?

 

If the tool discourages cache owners from creating high D/T caches that would inherently have more DNFs and found less frequently than a 1.5./1.5 caches (simply due to the nagging email) then that, to me, would constitute a degradation in geocaching as well.

 

It shouldn't discourage anyone form doing anything. It's a tool to be used by human reviewers which should be able to distinguish between a bad owner and a relatively difficult cache.

It's also a tool that sends emails to COs telling them they need to perform immediate maintenance, disable the cache until they can, or archive it, with no way to say "hey you got it wrong" other than to ignore it and hope it goes away. And presumably, although this is pure speculation, if the CO does ignore it, somewhere in the system that CO is flagged as a maintenance shirker.

 

If the cache in question is a high T cache that can be difficult or time-consuming to visit at the drop of a hat or at certain times of the year, the CO might well decide, perhaps even out of spite, to archive it.

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If this tool helps reviewers identify unmaintained caches wouldn't that constitute an improvement in geocaching?

 

This thread is about adoption bans and adoptions restrictions and so the health score tool which should help reviewers is only a side issue.

 

As the OP here I can confirm that the health score tool and potential extensions to it and how those things might assist reviewers are, and always have been completely relevant to this thread.

 

But the way the tool assists reviewers to identify unmaintained caches has nothing to do with your wish to restrict adoptions.

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If this tool helps reviewers identify unmaintained caches wouldn't that constitute an improvement in geocaching?

 

This thread is about adoption bans and adoptions restrictions and so the health score tool which should help reviewers is only a side issue.

 

As the OP here I can confirm that the health score tool and potential extensions to it and how those things might assist reviewers are, and always have been completely relevant to this thread.

 

But the way the tool assists reviewers to identify unmaintained caches has nothing to do with your wish to restrict adoptions.

 

As the OP here I can confirm that the health score tool and potential extensions to it and how those things might assist reviewers are, and always have been completely relevant to this thread.

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If your a good cache owner the health score shouldn't effect you in any way. No reminder e-mails, No adoption restrictions, nothing.

You keep saying this but it simply isn't true. The cache health score is catching caches that are fine and sending emails to good COs, because it considers just DNF logs or even a cache that simply hasn't been found for a while to be an indicator of poor health.

 

Is this still a problem?

 

Do we have any statistics to back this up?

It's what the recently updated Help Centre page describing the Cache Health Score says it's based on:

 

This algorithm is based on a combination of logs and circumstances, including

•Did Not Find (DNF)

•Needs Maintenance (NM)

•Needs Archived (NA)

•Caches that have not been found in a long time

•Difficulty and terrain rating

 

If it's been modified to require at least an NM or NA that the CO hasn't responded to in a reasonable time, then fine, but to date no-one has said anything that would imply this has happened.

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If your a good cache owner the health score shouldn't effect you in any way. No reminder e-mails, No adoption restrictions, nothing.

You keep saying this but it simply isn't true. The cache health score is catching caches that are fine and sending emails to good COs, because it considers just DNF logs or even a cache that simply hasn't been found for a while to be an indicator of poor health.

 

Is this still a problem?

 

Do we have any statistics to back this up?

It's what the recently updated Help Centre page describing the Cache Health Score says it's based on:

 

This algorithm is based on a combination of logs and circumstances, including

•Did Not Find (DNF)

•Needs Maintenance (NM)

•Needs Archived (NA)

•Caches that have not been found in a long time

•Difficulty and terrain rating

 

If it's been modified to require at least an NM or NA that the CO hasn't responded to in a reasonable time, then fine, but to date no-one has said anything that would imply this has happened.

 

I didn't ask whether or not the algorithm has changed.

 

I asked if

 

The cache health score is catching caches that are fine and sending emails to good COs, because it considers just DNF logs or even a cache that simply hasn't been found for a while to be an indicator of poor health.

 

is still a problem and if we have any statistics to back this up.

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If your a good cache owner the health score shouldn't effect you in any way. No reminder e-mails, No adoption restrictions, nothing.

You keep saying this but it simply isn't true. The cache health score is catching caches that are fine and sending emails to good COs, because it considers just DNF logs or even a cache that simply hasn't been found for a while to be an indicator of poor health.

 

Is this still a problem?

 

Do we have any statistics to back this up?

It's what the recently updated Help Centre page describing the Cache Health Score says it's based on:

 

This algorithm is based on a combination of logs and circumstances, including

•Did Not Find (DNF)

•Needs Maintenance (NM)

•Needs Archived (NA)

•Caches that have not been found in a long time

•Difficulty and terrain rating

 

If it's been modified to require at least an NM or NA that the CO hasn't responded to in a reasonable time, then fine, but to date no-one has said anything that would imply this has happened.

 

I didn't ask whether or not the algorithm has changed.

 

I asked if

 

The cache health score is catching caches that are fine and sending emails to good COs, because it considers just DNF logs or even a cache that simply hasn't been found for a while to be an indicator of poor health.

 

is still a problem and if we have any statistics to back this up.

Huh? If the algorithm hasn't been changed, then it must surely still be a problem, unless you're saying those of us who were pinged by it a few months back really are evil maintenance shirkers. And no, to answer your question directly, I'm not privy to any statistics since HQ don't publish any, and in any case they don't provide any mechanism for false positives to be reported to them so in their eyes there never were and never are any.

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