Surely there has to come a point?

[+barefootjeff]

9 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

Did you read the title of the thread?

We've gone back and forth from one extreme to the other, into areas which have nothing to do with the subject matter.

Small wonder so many threads on here descend into chaos.

 

So I ask again - what is the problem? Is it everyone who hides more than some unspecified X caches, or is it a handful of irresponsible people? Maybe those people would be just as irresponsible and abusive if they were only allowed to own a dozen caches, in which case your solution solves nothing. Or are you saying that everyone who owns more than X caches is irresponsible and abusive?

[+barefootjeff]

23 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

Did you read the title of the thread?

Now I'm confused. Your original post said:

Quote

A CO flings out caches wherever they go - well outside any comfortable maintenance radius - usually in poor quality containers which will leak and in locations where a cache isn't likely to remain hidden and will soon go missing.

Evidence shows that CO almost never performs maintenance but instead threatens to archive caches and waits for someone to replace them just to claim a smiley, blaming other cachers for the state of the cache, or its absence, in the process.

and your proposed solution to this one CO is a global restriction of:

Quote

• No more than X caches per CO
• No more than X miles from home / their caching centroid

I still don't know how your solution fixes your problem without incoveniencing a whole lot of other innocent people.

[+Team Microdot]

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

Now I'm confused.

Yes.

[+on4bam]

This is a problem that can't be fixed easily. There will always be CO's who are able to maintain many caches at a large distance and there will always be CO's who don't maintain their few caches close by.

[+barefootjeff]

32 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

Now I'm confused.

Yes.

I'm even more confused by your suggestion to use a CO's geocaching centroid as part of your distance limit. I've found some caches in New Zealand and on Lord Howe Island, so my centroid is well off the coast. In that case, all my caches would have to be T5 - submarine required!

[+Team Microdot]

16 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

40 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

Now I'm confused.

Yes.

I'm even more confused by your suggestion to use a CO's geocaching centroid as part of your distance limit. I've found some caches in New Zealand and on Lord Howe Island, so my centroid is well off the coast. In that case, all my caches would have to be T5 - submarine required!

It's an option, a possible. People move home - they might not update their home coordinates - or in fact might intentionally fake them in which case caching centroid might offer more insight as to their likely maintenance capability in terms of radius.

 

[+Team Microdot]

10 minutes ago, on4bam said:

Cache centroid is useless. Mine is 84Km away in an area I haven't found caches yet. I think calculating a centroid from caches within xxx Km from my home location would be more accurate.

Is that over your entire caching career or within a shorter time frame?

[+on4bam]

Cache centroid is useless. Mine is 84Km away in an area I haven't found caches yet. I think calculating a centroid from caches within xxx Km from my home location would be more accurate.

[+barefootjeff]

16 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

24 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

I'm even more confused by your suggestion to use a CO's geocaching centroid as part of your distance limit. I've found some caches in New Zealand and on Lord Howe Island, so my centroid is well off the coast. In that case, all my caches would have to be T5 - submarine required!

It's an option, a possible. People move home - they might not update their home coordinates - or in fact might intentionally fake them in which case caching centroid might offer more insight as to their likely maintenance capability in terms of radius.

So, um, I should be banned from placing caches on land because I've found too many in New Zealand, just to catch the bad people who move and don't update their home coordinates or intentionally fake them. Yep, that sounds fair.

[+Team Microdot]

12 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

So, um, I should be banned from placing caches on land because I've found too many in New Zealand, just to catch the bad people who move and don't update their home coordinates or intentionally fake them. Yep, that sounds fair.

Sigh - yeah - whatever.

You carry on deliberately misunderstanding if that's what floats your boat.

[+L0ne.R]

3 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I can't help wondering how big a problem this is. Across Australia, there are only two cachers with more than 1000 hides and 50 with more than 200. Project-gc doesn't want to give me world-wide numbers, but in the whole USA it looks like there are 67 with more than 1000 hides. Even if they were all irresponsible, is it enough to be a problem?

ETA: It looks like those numbers include archived caches so would be inflated on what's actually out there.

If you live near or cache in the area of those COs it’s a big problem. 

[+coachstahly]

4 hours ago, mr.jonesy said:

So, is this acceptable? issues for over 3+ months, wrench clearing without actually doing any maintenance.... let me just go check the GS placement / ownership guidelines again I might have missed a paragraph or two somewhere....

Nope.  Now, he's not really demeaning you with regard to the NM log, but he's certainly being dramatic.  Let him archive it, although it's my guess he really won't.  Sadly, there's really nothing you can do except to swing by the cache (repeatedly) and post a NM log if you're close enough to the cache to do so.  You could always offer to adopt the cache, but that's going down a different road.

[+Rebore]

18 minutes ago, coachstahly said:

Nope.  Now, he's not really demeaning you with regard to the NM log, but he's certainly being dramatic.  Let him archive it, although it's my guess he really won't.  Sadly, there's really nothing you can do except to swing by the cache (repeatedly) and post a NM log if you're close enough to the cache to do so.  You could always offer to adopt the cache, but that's going down a different road.

He could also log NA or contact a reviewer directly explaning the situation.

[+coachstahly]

47 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

If you live near or cache in the area of those COs it’s a big problem. 

But that's not the premise of the OP.  If you live near or cache in the area where those CO's have placed caches that are inconvenient and unrealistic with regard to maintenance, then it's a problem.  However, addressing both points, if you live in their area or the area with caches outside of a "regular" maintenance area, be diligent with those NMs and NAs (if needed) and don't rely on TPTB to do what should be done by the community.  If they get abusive, report them.  If they threaten to archive them, let them.

Groundspeak isn't really interested in this problem as they are tacitly giving approval to these COs by allowing them to hide more caches, even though, IMO, there's no way all of them can be maintained by the CO.  

On an aside, I wonder how many of these types of COs garnered a virtual reward.  My guess is that it's 0.

[+Team Microdot]

12 minutes ago, Rebore said:

He could also log NA or contact a reviewer directly explaning the situation.

One problem with this is that it sweeps things under the carpet.

Archived caches disappear from the map and behind-the-scenes review communication tends not to send out a message to the masses that bad practices such as shoddy cache ownership shouldn't be accepted as the norm.

Something like a publicly visible Cache Owner score might be one way of encouraging CO's to stick to good practices.

 

[+Team Microdot]

15 minutes ago, coachstahly said:

Groundspeak isn't really interested in this problem as they are tacitly giving approval to these COs by allowing them to hide more caches, even though, IMO, there's no way all of them can be maintained by the CO.

I'd say that's a fairly fundmental part of the problem.

[+coachstahly]

21 minutes ago, Rebore said:

He could also log NA or contact a reviewer directly explaning the situation.

But there's no way that accomplishes anything.  The reviewer would almost be required to take the CO's word about their OM logs, as there's no proof that they didn't.  The only thing that could be done for proof is photos showing a before and after photo that shows no maintenance done, despite the OM log.  What would GS do in that case?  Probably send a note to the CO, saying that's not acceptable?  That has real teeth (dripping with sarcasm).  Sadly, it's a problem without a realistic solution.  

The problem boils down to a supply and demand issue. Groundspeak NEEDS cache hiders more than they need cache finders.  Without the hides, there's nothing to do.  They'd be  limiting their supply, which would effectively limit their demand.  I don't have the stats (or even know where to get them), but I wonder what percentage of players are hiders and finders vs. just finders?  If it's a small percentage, then they'd truly be limiting their supply and that would severely limit their growth.

Edited February 2, 2018 by coachstahly
explaining sarcasm? LOL

[+Team Microdot]

10 minutes ago, coachstahly said:

I don't have the stats (or even know where to get them), but I wonder what percentage of players are hiders and finders vs. just finders?  If it's a small percentage, then they'd truly be limiting their supply and that would severely limit their growth.

On the other hand - I wonder how many cachers - hiders or finders - actively encourage new blood into the game?

Or how many, like me, are too often embarrased by the carp that's out there and the seemingly constant race to the bottom to tell others what they do?

I've stopped telling people about geocaching as by and large all its best aspects can be enjoyed just by standard hiking. Does that sort of thing have the potential to impact growth? I would say more than likely.

[+coachstahly]

43 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

On the other hand - I wonder how many cachers - hiders or finders - actively encourage new blood into the game?

And that right there is the crux of the issue, but instead of just limiting it to cachers, it should include Groundspeak (to some extent).  That new blood could become the supplier(hider) that drives continued growth.  Most new blood gets into geocaching to find caches, not necessarily hide them.  Once they get into it, some choose to hide.  It's not a high percentage and if I had to guess, I think it would be a 1/4 ratio.  Most newer cachers don't hide more than 10 or so in their first year (again an assumption on my part, but based on my area, that seems to be the norm) and most of the cachers in my area with more than a hundred hides have been part of geocaching for more than 5 years.  So rather than alienate the members who have been around for an extended period of time and who are also the lifeblood of the activity, Groundspeak allows them to continue placing hides in the hopes that it draws newer players to the game.  However, with all those hides placed by cachers who have been in the game longer, the opportunity for newer players to become hiders is severely limited due to saturation within their area.  It's a catch .22.  You can't get new players to join without hides, but the new players can't really become hiders in areas with a high saturation rate due to prolific hiders that have been in the game for an extended period of time, so there's little retention of new members, despite Groundspeak's wanting just that.  They can't limit the hides that cachers place because that would decrease the number of caches, which in turn, limits the growth factor, limits the potential finds of cachers who have been playing for a longer time (which in turn, could cause a decline in membership), and decreases the overall supply of what they are offering.  

That's why I believe more of the monitoring of this type should come from the community because we have no stake in growing the game for profit's sake.  We want the game to become better, with higher quality caches, better hides, more caches, and new cachers injecting life into an area that might once have been active but is now just stagnant.  Constant NMs and NAs improve the quality of the caches, providing better experiences for new cachers, open new areas up for hides (hopefully by a newer cacher) that were previously occupied by a cache that wasn't being maintained , and keep older cachers responsible for their older caches.  Groundspeak should have a role in this, but we need to remember that their motivating factor is growth and profit, so asking them to actively limit their supply chain goes directly against their business model.

I'm sure some people are going to question MY activity as it pertains to the paragraph above, so let me state that I don't file lots of NMs or NAs, but that's more due to my caching style than my desire to do so.  I rarely go after traditional caches, focusing more on non-traditional caches.  Since I've been caching over 7 years, I've found most of the non-traditional caches in my area, which means that the ones I find now are relatively young in age and therefore in pretty good shape.  It also means that most of the cachers who place these types of caches aren't the types of hiders who place a cache with a crappy container and have no plans to maintain their hides.  Therefore, you won't see me posting many NMs or NAs because they just don't usually need them.  I'll encourage those who do go after more traditional caches to post those NMs and NAs.

Edited February 2, 2018 by coachstahly
spelling

[+Team Microdot]

16 minutes ago, coachstahly said:

So rather than alienate the members who have been around for an extended period of time and who are also the lifeblood of the activity

I'm certainly aware of a few who think they are the lifeblood of the activity and deserve special treatment and some of those deserve to be alienated.

Edited February 2, 2018 by Team Microdot
typo

[+justintim1999]

11 hours ago, coachstahly said:

It's my guess that the people here on the forums are already being proactive.  We're not the ones that need to get actively engaged as we most likely already are.  We're a drop in the bucket amongst an ocean of cachers.  The problem lies with the local communities and those who probably don't even know the forums exist.  Since being on the forums for my first post, I've run across maybe 5 cachers I know that post here (infrequently) who live in and around my state (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky).  The cachers on here are great to engage with but we're not going to be able to affect more than our own little corner of the world, regardless of the ideas that might be found here.  I can't even really do much outside of my city, much less the doughnut counties around Indianapolis or the state of Indiana.  Saying that this small group of posters who have responded on this thread will have an effect on geocaching for everyone is a bit of a stretch, IMO.  

I see more and more new cachers posting questions here all the time.  All it take to make a difference is for one person to adopt a piece of good advice and decide to apply it in their own caching practice.

 I know this forum is made up of a small sample of the Geocachers out there,  but it's a start.   

The same is true for bad advice.   This is probably the reason I get involved in topics that stretch on for 200+ posts.   

[+Team Microdot]

1 hour ago, mr.jonesy said:

Alas I don't live nearby so adoption is not on the table.

Good - because adoption would achieve the opposite of discouraging people from placing far more caches than they can be bothered to maintain. If anything, it would likely fuel it.

[+thebruce0]

1 hour ago, Rebore said:

2 hours ago, coachstahly said:

Nope.  Now, he's not really demeaning you with regard to the NM log, but he's certainly being dramatic.  Let him archive it, although it's my guess he really won't.  Sadly, there's really nothing you can do except to swing by the cache (repeatedly) and post a NM log if you're close enough to the cache to do so.  You could always offer to adopt the cache, but that's going down a different road.

He could also log NA or contact a reviewer directly explaning the situation.

And if the location is really so amazing, then maybe someone else will come along and place a cache there. Or offer to adopt. But that CO is not willing to maintain his cache, despite legitimate requests and cnocern from community - even though no one has, in good will, fixed the log for the CO, which cannot be an expectation or an obligation.  The CO has to deal with it.  Maybe if no one wants to fix the log, the location isn't as wondrous as the CO believes?  In any case, the CO is shirking their responsibilities.  Playing victim doesn't change anything.

[+Team Microdot]

10 minutes ago, mr.jonesy said:

13 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Maybe if no one wants to fix the log, the location isn't as wondrous as the CO believes?  In any case, the CO is shirking their responsibilities.  Playing victim doesn't change anything.

this ^^^^^

Maybe the reason no one wants to fix the log is that they've already seen or been on the receiving end of the CO's less than friendly remarks / attittude...

[+thebruce0]

1 hour ago, coachstahly said:

But there's no way that accomplishes anything.  The reviewer would almost be required to take the CO's word about their OM logs, as there's no proof that they didn't.  The only thing that could be done for proof is photos showing a before and after photo that shows no maintenance done, despite the OM log.  What would GS do in that case?  Probably send a note to the CO, saying that's not acceptable?  That has real teeth (dripping with sarcasm).  Sadly, it's a problem without a realistic solution.  

To my knowledge, reviewers do remember problem cachers. If a CO has repeated issues, even though things might seem 'swept under the rug', reviewers can and do recommend action by TPTB if issues persist. Lots of things can happen behind the scenes. Yeah that doesn't make things publicly known, but I don't think reviewers & hq are here to publicly 'shame', in a sense, problem cachers. Community does that well enough .  Anyone watching the cache at hand will see what's going on, plus logs remain visible - especially in extreme cases when a listing may get locked to keep important logs there, and dissuade further commentary (directly).  If that happens, it usually GS has put its foot down. Community can make do with that as they please elsewhere [on social media most likely].

[+NYPaddleCacher]

3 hours ago, on4bam said:

Cache centroid is useless. Mine is 84Km away in an area I haven't found caches yet. I think calculating a centroid from caches within xxx Km from my home location would be more accurate.

Mine is about 190 miles (305km) almost directly north of me (in Canada), which is pretty surprising as  my furthest E/W/N/S finds are on four different continents.  

[+thebruce0]

1 hour ago, justintim1999 said:

I see more and more new cachers posting questions here all the time.  All it take to make a difference is for one person to adopt a piece of good advice and decide to apply it in their own caching practice.

This.

Also social media. GS is all over the twitter, instagram and a bit of youtube. But you know there are a load of geocaching vloggers out there who share their experiences. Many are actually "good cachers" with good ethics. If the videos that promote a healthy activity and mentality bubble to the top, that also helps the game.  Prolific geocaching tweeters (like a number of stores) also try to help by encouraging discussion and sharing experiences.

On the other hand, I think I see more of the 'I do it my way' types of players avoiding these avenues and keeping to themselves and their cohorts, more often. Those cachers (the keep-to-self problem cachers) aren't addressed as well or directly as these common means. So how does 'the community' deal with them, or help keep them on track? If the rest of the community properly and appropriately posts logs that are needed when they're needed.  I think that's about all the community can do together in that context.  Then if things get too much out of hand, HQ would need to step in (either by community complaints to reviewers or hq, or by reviewer feedback directly to hq)

[+justintim1999]

4 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

This.

Also social media. GS is all over the twitter, instagram and a bit of youtube. But you know there are a load of geocaching vloggers out there who share their experiences. Many are actually "good cachers" with good ethics. If the videos that promote a healthy activity and mentality bubble to the top, that also helps the game.  Prolific geocaching tweeters (like a number of stores) also try to help by encouraging discussion and sharing experiences.

On the other hand, I think I see more of the 'I do it my way' types of players avoiding these avenues and keeping to themselves and their cohorts, more often. Those cachers (the keep-to-self problem cachers) aren't addressed as well or directly as these common means. So how does 'the community' deal with them, or help keep them on track? If the rest of the community properly and appropriately posts logs that are needed when they're needed.  I think that's about all the community can do together in that context.  Then if things get too much out of hand, HQ would need to step in (either by community complaints to reviewers or hq, or by reviewer feedback directly to hq)

Not much you can do with people who are set in their (bad) ways.   All you can do is continue being vigilant posting your logs and try to educate the next generation.   Sooner or later those problem cachers will burn out or be exposed.    The system was designed to weed out these people only if other cachers consistently posted the proper logs.  I think if people did that combined with the cache health score,  GS would stand a much better chance of identifying these people and get them to step up or step off.

[+barefootjeff]

9 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

Sigh - yeah - whatever.

You carry on deliberately misunderstanding if that's what floats your boat.

Huh? I'm NOT deliberately misunderstanding anything! I'm really trying to get my head around what your problem is and how your solution of limiting all COs to some maximum number of caches and maximum distance from their home or centroid would fix that without causing problems for other cachers. I've read your intitial post and your suggested solution several times and still can't make sense of it, apart from deducing that you have ONE problem CO in your area and want to fix that by restricting everyone else. Am I right or wrong, and if I'm wrong, what exactly is it you're wanting to do?

[+barefootjeff]

10 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

13 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I can't help wondering how big a problem this is. Across Australia, there are only two cachers with more than 1000 hides and 50 with more than 200. Project-gc doesn't want to give me world-wide numbers, but in the whole USA it looks like there are 67 with more than 1000 hides. Even if they were all irresponsible, is it enough to be a problem?

ETA: It looks like those numbers include archived caches so would be inflated on what's actually out there.

If you live near or cache in the area of those COs it’s a big problem. 

Is it though? The highest number of hides by a CO in Australia is 1735, and these appear to be mostly a long power trail following a dirt road through outback South Australia. The description on the first one says "Please log all DNF and Needs Mintenance to allow us to maintain the series" and looking at a few of them, I haven't seen any NM logs although the trail is less than a year old. Time will tell, I guess, but given its remote location well away from cities and towns and its linear layout (it follows a single road, rather than carpet-bombing an area), it's unlikely to impact on other cachers. Australia is a country with lots of open space and very few caches outside the cities and larger towns, so why should this CO be curtailed or banned purely on the number of caches he or she has hidden?
 

[+dprovan]

On 2/1/2018 at 0:58 PM, The A-Team said:

To be clear, it's my understanding that a ban on new placements has already been done in the recent past, but it only seems to be used in the worst-of-the-worst cases. All we want is for it to be used just a bit more.

I have no problem with GS banning or curtailing a CO that's acting badly. I assume that's always been done quietly in the background and always will be in the future. The proposal I was reacting to is to make a formal policy with a CO Health Score that would lead to it happening automatically because the "objective" health score leads no room for exceptions, just like the cache health score leads to good caches being archived.

On 2/1/2018 at 0:58 PM, The A-Team said:

On 2/1/2018 at 10:54 AM, dprovan said:

No, I don't mean community maintenance. I mean the community has to deal with bad COs as members of the community, not as criminals.

That sounds good in theory, but it can be very difficult to do in practice. It's hard to tactfully tell someone "You're a bad CO and you should stop hiding new caches", especially if someone is worried about blowback like cerberus1's other 2/3 has experienced.

I admit that when someone becomes a real jerk, it's a hard situation which may not have a good solution. And I also have no idea what was going on the specific case cerberus1 mentioned. But it's a lot harder to get away with cr*p when no one in the community will put up with it. My guess is that if that happened in my community, news would get around and the jerk would get way more grief than he dealt out.

But to be honest, the effect I worry about is more subtle. There have been a couple COs I can think of in my area over the last few years that I can imagine would have gone to the dark side in the way described in the OP given half a chance. But instead of getting "woohoo another +1!" logs to encourage them to continue publishing marginal caches, their caches would get logs detailing the problems or complaining about them so often being missing. That helped everyone recognize what was going on and, I suspect, made both of those COs decide hiding caches wasn't for them, so instead of continuing hiding 50 caches a year, they petered out and don't even cache anymore. I worry that if it becomes standard practice for GS to "deal with" bad COs, people will no longer feel they need to waste their time filing logs pointing out the deficiencies of a lax CO.

[+The A-Team]

I think we need to get past the idea of restricting numbers of hides or by distance from home. There's no way there could ever be a good limit chosen for either of these, and they wouldn't fix the issue anyway.

The issue isn't necessarily COs with lots of hides, though it may be more prevalent with those. It's any CO who has demonstrated a pattern of being unwilling or unable to maintain the caches they've hidden. This pattern could be demonstrated on as little as a handful of caches close to home, or it could be demonstrated on 1000 scattered over a wide area. The issue is the CO, not the number of caches or how far away they are.

There really isn't any way that we can come up with objective guidelines that could be written down to cover this issue. We already have this in the guidelines:

Quote

Cache owners who do not maintain their existing caches in a timely manner may temporarily or permanently lose the right to list new caches on Geocaching.com.

...so HQ just needs to exercise this power more often.

[+Gill & Tony]

My Found caches centroid is 1244Km from home, in the middle of the Coral Sea

My placed caches centroid is up near Gosford NSW, 4 hours by car and 300 Km away from home - due, in the main, to overseas events.

I agree with barefootjeff, that there isn't an overall problem.  A few folk are misbehaving and for TPTB to set a limit (number or location) on all cachers because of the bad few is an overreaction.  It won't solve any problem but it will cause much bad feeling amongst the good guys who get caught in the trap.

A better solution is to call their bluff.  If the bad guy archives everything, takes his ball and goes home, who cares.  We now have plenty of space for good guys to place better caches.

[+Team Microdot]

17 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

A better solution is to call their bluff.  If the bad guy archives everything, takes his ball and goes home, who cares.  We now have plenty of space for good guys to place better caches.

Except when it isn't a solution because the bad guy never actually intends to archive any caches, just to make anyone reporting an issue feel bad or stupid or feel that it's their civic duty to maintain or replace any caches with problems.

The long term impact is that people just stop reporting problems and instead accept crappy caches as the norm.

Yay.

[+Team Microdot]

37 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

I think we need to get past the idea of restricting numbers of hides or by distance from home.

On that basis, vacation caches should be allowed and the related guideline should be scrapped.

[+barefootjeff]

35 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

48 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

A better solution is to call their bluff.  If the bad guy archives everything, takes his ball and goes home, who cares.  We now have plenty of space for good guys to place better caches.

Except when it isn't a solution because the bad guy never actually intends to archive any caches, just to make anyone reporting an issue feel bad or stupid or feel that it's their civic duty to maintain or replace any caches with problems.

The long term impact is that people just stop reporting problems and instead accept crappy caches as the norm.

Have you spoken to the bad guy? Have you spoken to anyone in your community that the bad guy might respect? Have you spoken to your reviewer? Do you have a regional or national association that might be better placed to put pressure on him/her or make representations to HQ to help find a solution? Placing arbitrary global limits on cache ownership or distance won't fix it, there's too much variety in landscape, cache type and cachers for a one-size-fits-all solution to work. A solution designed for central London isn't going to work in outback Australia or vice versa. Local problems need local solutions, not global ones.

[+Gill & Tony]

52 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

On that basis, vacation caches should be allowed and the related guideline should be scrapped.

Does the term "straw man argument" mean anything to you?  Nobody, except you, is suggesting that vacation caches be allowed.  What we are saying is that an arbitrary limit on the number of caches or distance from home won't solve any perceived problem.

There is a cacher who used to live near me and who has now moved to California.  He still has family in the area and still visits once or twice a year.  He has placed a cache near here while living in California.  It was allowed because a local cacher (me) has agreed to perform necessary maintenance while he is overseas.

[+barefootjeff]

48 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

On that basis, vacation caches should be allowed and the related guideline should be scrapped.

As I understand it, the current guidelines give discretion to the reviewer in deciding how far away is okay, based on the CO's caching radius and the local lay of the land. For someone relying on a bicycle or bus in the middle of a big city, 10km might be a fair limit, but in sparsely populated outback areas, hundreds of kilometres could be fine, or even further if air travel is a viable option. What about a broad-acre grazier who owns a helicopter? Or a businessman who makes weekly trips interstate?

And yes, vacation caches are allowed if the CO can satisfy the reviewer that they have someone local who can maintain the cache. For example, the CO of some of the Lord Howe Island caches has family living on the island and he generally visits annually for routine checks. Not all caches require constant TLC - it's not rocket science to make a container that'll remain in good nick for many years without attention, particularly if it's in a place that gets few visitors and with a climate that's not subject to freezing or other extremes.

[+Gill & Tony]

59 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

Except when it isn't a solution because the bad guy never actually intends to archive any caches, just to make anyone reporting an issue feel bad or stupid or feel that it's their civic duty to maintain or replace any caches with problems.

The long term impact is that people just stop reporting problems and instead accept crappy caches as the norm.

Yay.

So, we call the bad guy's bluff.

Option 1 is that he archives everything and give up.  Good result.  Problem solved.

Option 2 is that he doesn't archive anything.

Option 2a.  He cleans up his act.  Good result.  Problem solved.

Option 2b.  He leaves the red wrenches in place.  The local reviewer will get involved, temp disable and eventually archive things.  Good result.  Problem solved.

Option 2c.  He starts making false OM logs and write notes asking for community maintenance.  The bluff-caller contacts the local reviewer and points out the situation and the reviewer takes appropriate action.  Good outcome.  Problem solved.

Of course, if the bluff caller does nothing, as you seem to be suggesting, then we get your bad outcome and have nobody to blame but ourselves. 

Barefootjeff and I live in different parts of NSW and have two almost completely unconnected communities.  Both our communities do the right thing with regards to NM and NA logs.  Our reviewers are proactive and keep on top of things.  We simply don't have the problems that you describe. 

[+L0ne.R]

28 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

So, we call the bad guy's bluff.

Option 1 is that he archives everything and give up.  Good result.  Problem solved.

Option 2 is that he doesn't archive anything.

Option 2a.  He cleans up his act.  Good result.  Problem solved.

Option 2b.  He leaves the red wrenches in place.  The local reviewer will get involved, temp disable and eventually archive things.  Good result.  Problem solved.

Option 2c.  He starts making false OM logs and write notes asking for community maintenance.  The bluff-caller contacts the local reviewer and points out the situation and the reviewer takes appropriate action.  Good outcome.  Problem solved.

Of course, if the bluff caller does nothing, as you seem to be suggesting, then we get your bad outcome and have nobody to blame but ourselves. 

Barefootjeff and I live in different parts of NSW and have two almost completely unconnected communities.  Both our communities do the right thing with regards to NM and NA logs.  Our reviewers are proactive and keep on top of things.  We simply don't have the problems that you describe. 

Option 2d. This one happens most often: Someone comes along with a pill bottle. Logs a find and tells the CO it's good to go. The CO posts an OM and thanks the guy for the throwdown. This gets repeated over and over and becomes the norm.

[+barefootjeff]

23 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

So, we call the bad guy's bluff.

Option 1 is that he archives everything and give up.  Good result.  Problem solved.

Option 2 is that he doesn't archive anything.

Option 2a.  He cleans up his act.  Good result.  Problem solved.

Option 2b.  He leaves the red wrenches in place.  The local reviewer will get involved, temp disable and eventually archive things.  Good result.  Problem solved.

Option 2c.  He starts making false OM logs and write notes asking for community maintenance.  The bluff-caller contacts the local reviewer and points out the situation and the reviewer takes appropriate action.  Good outcome.  Problem solved.

Of course, if the bluff caller does nothing, as you seem to be suggesting, then we get your bad outcome and have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Conversely, if the OP gets their way and HQ imposes a blanket limit on hides per CO and distance from home or centroid, what will happen?

1. Will your bad guy say "oh shucks" and either leave the game or mend his ways? Unlikely I think. If they're intent on their evil ways, they'll find workarounds like sock puppet accounts with fake home locations, or whatever.
2. Responsible COs with more than that arbitrary number of hides, which are well-made and sufficiently maintained, will be forced to archive some of them through no fault of their own.
3. Remote places like Lord Howe Island will lose all their caches. How is this a good outcome for anyone?

[+Gill & Tony]

26 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

Option 2d. This one happens most often: Someone comes along with a pill bottle. Logs a find and tells the CO it's good to go. The CO posts an OM and thanks the guy for the throwdown. This gets repeated over and over and becomes the norm.

But throwdowns are not encouraged by TPTB.  If a cache gets repeated throwdowns - tell the reviewer.  They are capable of dealing with a situation if it is brought to their attention.   

[+dprovan]

1 hour ago, Team Microdot said:

Except when it isn't a solution because the bad guy never actually intends to archive any caches, just to make anyone reporting an issue feel bad or stupid or feel that it's their civic duty to maintain or replace any caches with problems.

This is a good example of why I stress community as a solution. In my area, no one would maintain a CO's cache if he tried to browbeat people into it, so we don't have to worry about that exception.

[+L0ne.R]

13 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

But throwdowns are not encouraged by TPTB.  If a cache gets repeated throwdowns - tell the reviewer.  They are capable of dealing with a situation if it is brought to their attention.   

The guideline language is wishy washy about reporting throwdowns:

Quote

Cache owners are responsible for maintenance. When you are aware of throwdowns, check if your cache is still there and remove the throwdown cache. Consider disabling the cache until you can remove the throwdown or replace the original cache. If you do not disable the cache, you may want to honor Found It logs for the throwdown. However, the geocacher who placed the throwdown does not have a strong claim to log the cache as found.

The cache owner is supposted to go out and remove the throwdown. But what if the owner insists it's not a throwdown and points to this part of the guideline:

Quote

Geocaches should never be replaced without the permission of the cache owner.

Technically the CO gives permission for the throwdown.

And this part of the guideline...

Quote

If you do not disable the cache, you may want to honor Found It logs for the throwdown. However, the geocacher who placed the throwdown does not have a strong claim to log the cache as found.

I've never seen it enforced, i.e. the guy who threw down the cache getting his Found log changed to a Write Note (and locked) by a reviewer or TPTB. I suppose that it really means is the CO could delete the find, not that a reviewer or TPTB could or would. If only reviewers/TPTB removed finds on  throwdown caches (even if the CO gives permission), we'd see a drastic decrease in throwdowns.

[+Gill & Tony]

25 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

I've never seen it enforced, i.e. the guy who threw down the cache getting his Found log changed to a Write Note (and locked) by a reviewer or TPTB. I suppose that it really means is the CO could delete the find, not that a reviewer or TPTB could or would. If only reviewers/TPTB removed finds on  throwdown caches (even if the CO gives permission), we'd see a drastic decrease in throwdowns.

So, lets start reporting it and see what happens.  If nobody reports it, the reviewer is unlikely to know about it and nothing will be done.

If we do report it, the reviewer may take the approach that there's nothing wrong, in which case we are no worse off.  However, they may decide to do something (possibly after consulting with TPTB) in which case things can only improve.  It seems to be a "heads I win, tails I break even" situation.  What's to lose?

[+Team Microdot]

13 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

Does the term "straw man argument" mean anything to you?

Enough, I think, to know that there are a number of them within this thread not of my making - along with other logical fallacies and no small amount of mind reading.

And enough, I think, to realise that you are more in danger here of making one than I am.

Logical fallacies themselves constitute an interesting topic - they are so many and varied and probably very useful in debate for those that can wield them with skill. Personally I lack the confidence to try on the basis that I'll probably make a hash of it and fall flat on my face.

At the outset of this thread I raised the spectre of vacation caches because they seem to be flat-out refused solely on the basis of distance from (presumably) the prospective CO's home coordinates.

I'd still like to know if that's the case or if other factors come into play and, if it does come down to distance alone, what that distance is.

Taking on board the comment earlier which, I think, claimed that distant caches should be allowed on the basis that it's not rocket science to come up with a waterproof container, we can apply that equally to vacation caches so that's another vote in favour of them

And to all the arguments along the lines of You can't do that because you'll upset X / discriminate against X I can't help but wonder how those making these claims know this to be true. I expect they'll come back with a full report based on a detailed survey.

It does seem though that those wanting to place vacation caches are being discriminated against because they won't get maintained while 'national' caches which won't get maintained are allowed to proliferate.

We've even seen threads on here frustrated by the lack of growth of geocaching because there's nobody local placing caches and all the vacation caches have already been found - yet more discrimination against someone trying to achieve something positive

Edited February 3, 2018 by Team Microdot
typos

[+Rebore]

3 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

At the outset of this thread I raised the spectre of vacation caches because they seem to be flat-out refused solely on the basis of distance from (presumably) the prospective CO's home coordinates.

I'd still like to know if that's the case or if other factors come into play and, if it does come down to distance alone, what that distance is.

As far asI know there is no distance limit on vacation caches, you just have to come up with a reasonable maintainance plan. A friend of mine placed a cache in South Africa (about 8000km away from home) and didn't even know a cacher there, but one of his guides agreed to look after it in case something goes wrong. 

Of course "The next cacher should maintain it" won't be accepted as a reasonable maintainance plan.

[+barefootjeff]

7 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

And to all the arguments along the lines of You can't do that because you'll upset X / discriminate against X I can't help but wonder how those making these claims know this to be true. I expect they'll come back with a full report based on a detailed survey.

It'd be helpful if you'd actually put some numbers on your limits of X caches and X kilometres, but I'm pretty sure that CO in outback South Australia wouldn't be too happy if your number of hides limit forced them to immediately have to archive many hundreds of caches or be banned from placing any new hides until they did so. Similarly any absolute distance limit that's likely to have an impact on your problem cacher in the UK would kill off the excellent caches on Lord Howe Island which are adequately maintained by the CO's resident family and by the CO himself when he visits.

Why does it always have to be one extreme or the other? The present system with "vacation" caches seems to work pretty well here, where the reviewer looks at each case individually and assesses whether a detailed maintenance plan is needed. Likewise, HQ has in the past taken action in individual cases of rogue COs. Maybe the process needs to be improved, but I really can't see how placing hard and fast limits on everyone is going to solve the problem of one troublemaker running amok in one community.

[+Team Microdot]

18 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

Why does it always have to be one extreme or the other

 

18 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

I'm pretty sure that CO in outback South Australia wouldn't be too happy if your number of hides limit forced them to immediately have to archive many hundreds of caches or be banned from placing any new hides until they did so.

Nothing tickles me more than the sort of person who does something while criticising others for doing the same thing

20 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

It'd be helpful if you'd actually put some numbers on your limits of X caches and X kilometres

I'm not deciding any limits here - I'm hoping to find out what limits already exist - did you not get that?

[+Team Microdot]

3 hours ago, Rebore said:

As far asI know there is no distance limit on vacation caches, you just have to come up with a reasonable maintainance plan.

So presumably there IS a distance limit beyond which an explicit maintenance plan is required, yes?