A bit of confusion

[+Gill & Tony]

The old bridge over Burrill Lake has been replaced with a new one and I decided to place a cache there.  Although the bridge is open to traffic and pedestrians, there is a lot of work still going on there.  Lots of workmen.

I put a blinkie there as a test and, when I checked a few days later, I couldn't find it.  I put in a completely different type of hide, much harder than a blinkie and hit the submit button.

About 7 finds and one FP later one found log claimed to be the first name on the log sheet.  When I checked there was only 1 name in the log and since I know at least 3 of the finders personally, I knew that they hadn't armchair-logged it.  Eventually I discovered that the first 7 had found and signed the blinkie!  I went back, found and removed the blinkie and only the real container is there now,

What is the best way to proceed?  Given that I have no problems with the finds - it was my problem that the blinkie was there to be found - I can see two basic options:

1.  Do nothing.  The cache stays as it is, but the people who found it already didn't get the real experience.

2.  Archive it and re-submit it.  This way the folk who found the blinkie get a chance to find the real cache and the first chap to find the real cache can claim the FTF on the new one.  I'll just ask them to write a new found log on the new cache.

3.  Is there an option C?

What would you do?

 

[Keystone]

Option 2 raises the issue of "cache churning."  If your reviewer is in a bad mood, they may make you wait two months before letting you list a new cache in the same area as a cache page you just archived.  See the "Cache Permanence" section of the listing guidelines.

Footnotes:

1.  I am usually in a bad mood.

2.  Many reviewers are dogs.  Dog moods are difficult to predict, and are subject to change.

[+Manville Possum]

16 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

  I went back, found and removed the blinkie and only the real container is there now,

 

I'm confused. What are you calling a blinkie, and what is the real container?

[+Gill & Tony]

6 minutes ago, Manville Possum said:

 

I'm confused. What are you calling a blinkie, and what is the real container?

A blinkie is one of those tiny cylindrical magnetic nano containers.  The real container is something completely different - which I don't want to describe as a spoiler.

[+Gill & Tony]

11 minutes ago, Keystone said:

Option 2 raises the issue of "cache churning."  If your reviewer is in a bad mood, they may make you wait two months before letting you list a new cache in the same area as a cache page you just archived.  See the "Cache Permanence" section of the listing guidelines.

Footnotes:

1.  I am usually in a bad mood.

2.  Many reviewers are dogs.  Dog moods are difficult to predict, and are subject to change.

Maybe I should contact my reviewer to see if option 2 is acceptable, assuming that is worth worrying about in the first place.

[+Wacka]

Do nothing.  

[+TriciaG]

My opinion:

Message those who found the blinkie, saying you'll let their find stand, but they may want to go find the other container to get the full cache experience.

[+Gill & Tony]

14 minutes ago, TriciaG said:

My opinion:

Message those who found the blinkie, saying you'll let their find stand, but they may want to go find the other container to get the full cache experience.

That sounds the perfect option C.  Thanks for the advice.

[+Manville Possum]

1 hour ago, Gill & Tony said:

 

2.  Archive it and re-submit it.  This way the folk who found the blinkie get a chance to find the real cache and the first chap to find the real cache can claim the FTF on the new one.  I'll just ask them to write a new found log on the new cache.

3.  Is there an option C?

What would you do?

 

 

I'm still confused. Is this something to do with FTF?  From my view, the only thing that has changed is containers. 

[+Harry Dolphin]

1 hour ago, Gill & Tony said:

I put a blinkie there as a test and, when I checked a few days later, I couldn't find it.  I put in a completely different type of hide, much harder than a blinkie and hit the submit button.

About 7 finds and one FP later one found log claimed to be the first name on the log sheet.  When I checked there was only 1 name in the log and since I know at least 3 of the finders personally, I knew that they hadn't armchair-logged it.  Eventually I discovered that the first 7 had found and signed the blinkie!  I went back, found and removed the blinkie and only the real container is there now,

What is the best way to proceed?  Given that I have no problems with the finds - it was my problem that the blinkie was there to be found - I

It seems to me that that all the cachers have found the cache/s that you have hidden.  The fact that there were two containers on site does not mean that the cachers did not find the cache.  The blinkie is/was a 'real container'.   You put it there.  I see no problem.

[+Gill & Tony]

41 minutes ago, Manville Possum said:

 

I'm still confused. Is this something to do with FTF?  From my view, the only thing that has changed is containers. 

I put in one container, couldn't find it when i went back and assumed that workers had removed it.  I then put in a different, harder to find, container and published the cache.

7 people found the container which I had assumed was missing.  Then one found the new container.  I have removed the original container.

[+Gill & Tony]

7 minutes ago, Harry Dolphin said:

It seems to me that that all the cachers have found the cache/s that you have hidden.  The fact that there were two containers on site does not mean that the cachers did not find the cache.  The blinkie is/was a 'real container'.   You put it there.  I see no problem.

I have no problem with their finds.  My only issue was that they had not had the experience that I  intended, due to my error.  My reason for raising the matter here was whether it would be feasible to give the folk who found the easier container the chance to find the one I intended them to find.   Keystone suggested that ar chiving was problematic, so I'm planning to do as Tricia suggested.

[+Manville Possum]

29 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

I put in one container, couldn't find it when i went back and assumed that workers had removed it.  I then put in a different, harder to find, container and published the cache.

7 people found the container which I had assumed was missing.  Then one found the new container.  I have removed the original container.

 

Why do anything? You had 2 containers at the same location, both were found. Is it your geocache listing? I looked at your account, no hides or finds. Now I'm more confused.

[+Gill & Tony]

11 minutes ago, Manville Possum said:

 

Why do anything? You had 2 containers at the same location, both were found. Is it your geocache listing? I looked at your account, no hides or finds. Now I'm more confused.

That couldn't have been my account.  Possibly the "&" in the middle is confusing things.  I have 1300-odd finds and 31 hides.

Anyway, I've decided that I'm going with TriciaG's suggestion.  So I'm happy things are now resolved.

[+Manville Possum]

8 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

That couldn't have been my account.  Possibly the "&" in the middle is confusing things.  I have 1300-odd finds and 31 hides.

 

I checked the account you are posting with here. It shows as Gill being the user name. It's not important, I just like to view geocaches brought up here in the forums so I peeked. 

[+kunarion]

11 minutes ago, Manville Possum said:

18 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

That couldn't have been my account.  Possibly the "&" in the middle is confusing things.  I have 1300-odd finds and 31 hides.

 

I checked the account you are posting with here. It shows as Gill being the user name. It's not important, I just like to view geocaches brought up here in the forums so I peeked. 

 

The site does strange things with symbols and spaces in user names.  Try this.

Edited November 4, 2017 by kunarion

[+cerberus1]

11 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

That couldn't have been my account.  Possibly the "&" in the middle is confusing things.  I have 1300-odd finds and 31 hides.

Anyway, I've decided that I'm going with TriciaG's suggestion.  So I'm happy things are now resolved.

Yep.  There's a lot of accounts now that show no finds, hides, nada.  One (because of that weird shuffle of names) I thought was a hacker or something and reported him.  Turned out they were around for some time, with a buncha hides/finds.   

Similar to the finned one, I wouldn't do anything.  They simply found a cache that you put out.  Why take the chance on creating an issue  by emailing people about "missing an experience" they didn't miss?   

[+Gill & Tony]

17 minutes ago, kunarion said:

 

The site does strange things with symbols and spaces in user names.  Try this.

That's me.

[+kunarion]

6 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

That's me.

 

Where possible, I'm still using my Microsoft Chat username from 1990.  Max 8 letters, no spaces nor special characters. Internet servers can handle it without messing up.

[+Manville Possum]

16 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

That's me.

When I click on your user name here in the forums it pulls up this account. Gill

How strange. 

[+WarNinjas]

I also wouldn't do anything.  You can message the ones you know but in my experience they won't go back out there special just to see the new container.

 

[+Gill & Tony]

2 hours ago, Manville Possum said:

When I click on your user name here in the forums it pulls up this account. Gill

How strange. 

What I suspect is happening is that it tries to get the account, but chokes on the &.  So it gets an account Gill, which is probably not valid.  However, the system knows the account is valid (because I'm logged in) so it builds the best page it can.   Of course, that is just a theory.

[+barefootjeff]

I wouldn't be overly concerned, just put it down as an initial teething problem that's now been sorted. Those who found the original container have got what they looked for, will have moved onto other things and are unlikely to be perturbed that the container they found was different to what it is now.

I have a similar situation with my most recent hide. I'd bought a really nice themed container for it which I thought was fired earthenware but, after a month in a semi-exposed location, it went all soft and it turned out to be made of lacquered cardboard or paper mache or some such thing. By the time I discovered the problem it was beyond repair so for now I've replaced it with a stock-standard Sistema, but in the course of my travels over the coming months I'll be keeping an eye out for a more weatherproof container fitting the cache's theme and if so, will swap it over again.

[+arisoft]

11 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

What is the best way to proceed?

What would you do?

This is easy one. I would like to learn from the case and next time I would try to avoid making the same mistake. There is no reason to punish the finders of the cache owner's own mistake. Really this is just a funny incident that makes people remember this cache better.

 

[+Isonzo Karst]

7 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

What I suspect is happening is that it tries to get the account, but chokes on the &.  So it gets an account Gill, which is probably not valid.  However, the system knows the account is valid (because I'm logged in) so it builds the best page it can.   Of course, that is just a theory.

That Gill account is real. It's not 'built from scratch' to your request.  This forum software is broken, has been since the forum software update, in that it can't handle special characters in usernames.  Not only can I not get to your profile from the these forums, i can't get to your forum posts from your profile!

Try the "see the forum posts for this user" link from your profile. What happens? nada...

 

To your original question, I think the OM log you've posted on the cache page is perfect.

 

[+Mudfrog]

18 hours ago, Manville Possum said:

 

I'm still confused. Is this something to do with FTF?  From my view, the only thing that has changed is containers. 

Same here. I'm not seeing the dilemma at all.

If the new container is something special, or its size has changed, then i suppose you could email the finders of the nano and let them know a different container is in place. Let it be up to them as to whether or not they want to go back out and/or delete their find. Myself, i would make sure i had everything straightened out on my end (cache description, listed container size, hint, etc,,). Wouldn't worry about it otherwise...

[+Gill & Tony]

10 hours ago, arisoft said:

There is no reason to punish the finders of the cache owner's own mistake.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't understand which part of either of my suggestions would be punishing the finders.  Could you clarify, please?

[+Gill & Tony]

57 minutes ago, Mudfrog said:

Same here. I'm not seeing the dilemma at all.

If the new container is something special, or its size has changed, then i suppose you could email the finders of the nano and let them know a different container is in place. Let it be up to them as to whether or not they want to go back out and/or delete their find. Myself, i would make sure i had everything straightened out on my end (cache description, listed container size, hint, etc,,). Wouldn't worry about it otherwise...

The issue is not that the container has changed.  The problem was caused by there being two containers at GZ simultaneously.  The intended one and the unintended one.  People were finding the unintended one and I was trying to find some way to allow them to find the intended one if they wished to do so.

As far as I am concerned, the issue is now resolved.  Following TriciaG's suggestion and Isonzo Karst's comments I am now happy with the outcome.

Thanks to all who offered advice here.

[+Mama514]

So confusing. Don't put two cache containers in the same GZ. Weird!

 

[+colleda]

1 hour ago, Mama514 said:

So confusing. Don't put two cache containers in the same GZ. Weird!

 

Did you actually read the OP?

[+Mama514]

21 hours ago, colleda said:

Did you actually read the OP?

Yes. 

[+Hynz]

On 11/4/2017 at 0:55 AM, Gill & Tony said:

The old bridge over Burrill Lake has been replaced with a new one and I decided to place a cache there.

So your intention in the first place was to show people the location and not a blinkie, right?

On 11/4/2017 at 0:55 AM, Gill & Tony said:

1.  Do nothing.  The cache stays as it is, but the people who found it already didn't get the real experience.

So did you change you mind and now the different container is the "experience"?

On 11/4/2017 at 10:00 PM, Gill & Tony said:

The issue is not that the container has changed.  People were finding the unintended one and I was trying to find some way to allow them to find the intended one if they wished to do so.

Maybe it's me who is not interested in containers but in locations, but why would anybody been at the new bridge and finding the blinkie would feel he or she is missing an important aspect of your cache?

Do you want to be informed of the hiders of all your found caches that they decided to change the "experience" of their cache by modifying the container?