Mystery caches - Challenge caches

[+FloridaPanther]

Recently a geocacher "found" 5 of my Challenge caches all in the same day.  They fullfilled the requirements for each but never signed the log in any of the 5.  Should I delete their log as they never physically hiked to the cache location to sign the log?

Also, after looking at their Profile, they "found" 31 Challenge caches in 18 states on the same day.  Two of those 31 "finds" were archived and the container/log was gone before this cacher logged them in.  Thoughts??

Edited October 27, 2017 by FloridaPanther

[+arisoft]

There is no reason not to delete bogus logs immediatelly after you have verified that they are unsigned. If you want, you can also inform other cache owners about your consern.

[+barefootjeff]

Yes, you should delete the logs as they didn't satisfy the cache's requirements. I suggest you politely message or email them explaining that - you could include this Help Centre link as well.

It might also be a good idea to make it clear on the cache page that you have to both sign the cache's logbook and meet the challenge qualification before logging a find online.

[+Isonzo Karst]

I wonder if this multi-state challenge logger understands that there IS a log to be signed. Sometimes people really don't understand.

The article barefootjeff linked is the right way to go. First sentence clarifies well that there's a physical cache. Also within the article,you can link to  signing the log: 

https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=127&pgid=206#signingLog

Edited October 27, 2017 by Isonzo Karst

[+noncentric]

I agree with the earlier cachers about feeling free to delete the cacher's Found It logs, but also send them an email immediately afterward to explain why you deleted their logs - because Challenge Caches require that the challenge requirements are met AND the physical cache container is found/signed.

If it's the cacher that I'm looking at, then it seems odd to me that they wouldn't understand this after 7+ years of caching.  From looking at their find history, it looks like they learned about Challenges in the past year and have been logging Finds on challenge caches (230+) all over the country in the past few months.

It's pretty disappointing if none of the Challenge Cache CO's before you took action to verify that this cacher fulfilled the physical and ALR requirements.

 

[+WarNinjas]

Here in the San Fransisco bay area we get this about twice a year. Not exactly the same as this cacher seemed to say they met the requirements but just cachers logging something like "Found it!" I have out a bunch of harder terrain caches that require a boat or some work to get to.  I would expect more then found it.  Especially when they say they found 10 of them in different areas that I know would be hard to get to in a day. I will usually look them up and see they also found hard puzzles that they didn't certitude and some that are kind of known to be missing as you said. 

  I bring it up on our local facebook page and usually someone goes and verifies they didn't sign some and then we contact them.  I don't recall ever getting a response and then we try and delete them as much as possible. I still don't understand what fun someone would get from doing it but it happen often and those are only on the ones we find.

[+FloridaPanther]

Thanks for the help.  Yes, the geocacher in question has been caching over 7+ years and should no better.  I've sent him the link to both of his contacts.

[+MartyBartfast]

For challenges some cachers sign the paper log when they find the container, and then they log the online find when they finally qualify. So it's quite possible that they found those now archived caches while they were still active, it's also possible that they recently did a trip which qualified them for 31 challenges and so they're now logging finds online for those caches which they may have physically found over the course of several years.

Just sayin....

[+bobandclaire]

It is not just challenge caches where cachers do not sign the log.  And yes a name should be deleted from the activity log if the log book is not signed.

Consider including the following statement or similar on your cache page.

"If a name is not in the cache’s log book, you cannot expect to see that name in the cache’s activity log"

It may or may not deter them from cheating but it will not come as a surprise to them when the activity log is deleted.

[+noncentric]

13 hours ago, MartyBartfast said:

For challenges some cachers sign the paper log when they find the container, and then they log the online find when they finally qualify. So it's quite possible that they found those now archived caches while they were still active, it's also possible that they recently did a trip which qualified them for 31 challenges and so they're now logging finds online for those caches which they may have physically found over the course of several years.

Just sayin....

I thought about this possibility as well, but then I looked through the cacher's profile.  They have found caches in almost every US State, but only a few caches in most states and in some states they have only 1 or 2 cache finds.  Those finds are the Challenge Caches.  Seems unlikely that they'd visit almost every US state and find only CC's.  The cacher seems to like the 'Souvenir' challenges and they use their state souvenirs to prove qualifications for some of those challenges. So, they're armchair logging a CC in a state, they get s souvenir for that state, and then they use that state souvenir to qualify for other armchair-logged CC's.

Fortunately, for them, their state souvenirs won't disappear when/if their CC Finds in a state get deleted and they end up with no actual 'Finds' in a state.

They currently have 247 Mystery finds. I think that number was a handful higher yesterday. All but ~20 are CC's.