Cache Owner Score (COS)

[+L0ne.R]

I think the best suggestion that has come out of the "Surely there has to come a point?" discussion is:

Quote

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

 

[+dprovan]

People can tell when a CO's not sticking to good practices, they don't need a score. A score would invent a new way for good COs to look bad and give bad COs a new way to game the system to look good. So I don't want GS wasting time inventing a score and then defending it against the inevitable endless complaints.

And that's presupposing there's a general problem of CO's not sticking to good practices. From the other discussion -- and lots of other threads over the years -- I think every times there's one bad CO -- I'm guess either one so minimal to be ignored or one so flagrant GS could handle it quietly -- it gets blown out of proportion and made to look like it's a common problem everywhere. So I suggest this discussion start by listing specific cases, one by one, so we can all look at how bad the problem is and what other ways might solve the specific problems brought up. (Hint: It's a trick: if you posted that list, GS would sort those COs out and the problem would be solved before you could get around to telling GS what automated system they should put in to solve it.)

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, L0ne.R said:

Quote

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

Sounds like an effective source of drama...

[+barefootjeff]

What globally endemic problem does this solve? How do you deal with those falsely maligned by it? Or those gaming the system to falsely boost their score?

[+WarNinjas]

I can see how in theory it sounds like a good idea but my vote would still be no.

[Blue Square Thing]

People will just game it. Everyone eventually figures out who they want to avoid or who they want to try to find caches from. It's not hard to do.

More useful by far would be the ability to filter out all hides by specific users from maps or searches.

[+HHL]

This CO score idea sounds like it was invented in a totalitarian country like china, russia and the like.
It's not a good idea treating COs that way.
When will the COS turn into a Yellow Badge? Never ever!

Hans

Edited February 3, 2018 by HHL

[Blue Square Thing]

4 hours ago, HHL said:

This CO score idea sounds like it was invented in a totalitarian country like china, russia and the like.
It's not a good idea treating COs that way.
When will the COS turn into a Yellow Badge? Never ever!

Hans

Actually it sounds exactly the like something such as a credit rating score.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

38 minutes ago, Blue Square Thing said:

Actually it sounds exactly the like something such as a credit rating score.

It sounds more like the Social Credit System in China.  From the article:

"For instance, people with low ratings will have slower internet speeds; restricted access to restaurants, nightclubs or golf courses; and the removal of the right to travel freely abroad with, I quote, "restrictive control on consumption within holiday areas or travel businesses". Scores will influence a person's rental applications, their ability to get insurance or a loan and even social-security benefits. Citizens with low scores will not be hired by certain employers and will be forbidden from obtaining some jobs, including in the civil service, journalism and legal fields, where of course you must be deemed trustworthy. Low-rating citizens will also be restricted when it comes to enrolling themselves or their children in high-paying private schools."

[+Rebore]

I would prefer a "Ignore caches owned by this user" option, but this has been often suggested already. I don't know why Groundspeak won't implement that.

[Blue Square Thing]

3 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

It sounds more like the Social Credit System in China.  From the article:

<snipped...>

Not really, but I think the key point is that it's not really like either a system used by a so-called "totalitarian country" or one used in capitalist societies to control access to credit or something in between.

[+HHL]

There will be always people that use it in that shabby way. Believe me. It's better not to open Pandora's box.

Hans

[+cerberus1]

17 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

I think the best suggestion that has come out of the "Surely there has to come a point?" discussion is:

17 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

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

I remember years ago, this was asked for in a few creative ways.    As Rebore, I'd like to see the often asked for "Ignore User" , since on PMOs I'd have to enter each cache just to ignore it (when simply ignoring the CO  much more practical).

 - But it has also been explained that HQ will not "rate" cachers negatively.   

 

[+HHL]

22 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

[...] As Rebore, I'd like to see the often asked for "Ignore User" , [...]

Yes, I would like to have that feature as well.

Hans

[+L0ne.R]

On 2/2/2018 at 8:17 PM, dprovan said:

People can tell when a CO's not sticking to good practices, they don't need a score

Not necessarily. When traveling I can't tell who the good COs are. 

Please don't say Favorite Points....the number of guideline breaking caches with high FP counts increases yearly. I'm really tired of inadvertently being part of the problem and having to stick my neck out by reporting the problem. I'd just rather not even visit those COs' caches.

[+L0ne.R]

On 2/2/2018 at 8:17 PM, dprovan said:

A score would... give bad COs a new way to game the system to look good.

After a bit of thinking about it this weekend, I agree.  After yet another cache owner in my area logged an OM without checking their broken cache, and allowed subsequent finders to log a find on a lid. I expect a COS will mean more OMs without checking their caches, and more "please log a find and not a DNF if the cache is missing" so my score remains high. 

No wonder I've become an Eeyore when it comes to the change in the geocaching culture I've seen, especially since 2010. Anytime I see a flicker of hope for those of us who would like to filter for the bit of quality hides that are out there, it gets dashed. Sigh. 

Edited February 6, 2018 by L0ne.R
removed redundant word

[+L0ne.R]

On 2/3/2018 at 1:25 PM, cerberus1 said:

 - But it has also been explained that HQ will not "rate" cachers negatively.   

Or positively.

But I see now see why that would get ruined.

[+dprovan]

1 hour ago, L0ne.R said:

On 2/2/2018 at 5:17 PM, dprovan said:

People can tell when a CO's not sticking to good practices, they don't need a score

Not necessarily. When traveling I can't tell who the good COs are.

You have a point, but in my opinion, the justification for a Cache Owner Score would be strategic identification of COs that behave badly so they can be educated or eliminated, not a tactical identification of bad COs so they can be ignored (and left to fester) when deciding which caches to look for. So that's why I wasn't considering outsiders when I made that statement.

[+Team Microdot]

On 03/02/2018 at 4:58 AM, barefootjeff said:

How do you deal with those falsely maligned by it? Or those gaming the system to falsely boost their score?

How would these things come about?

[+barefootjeff]

9 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

How would these things come about?

If the COS is based on an amalgamated CHS, which I suspect would be the most likely scenario if it were introduced, it'll suffer all the same false positive problems inherent in DNF-counting. So what other ways could you measure CO quality?

• Count NMs? NMs aren't all created equal - an NM for a missing pencil is quite a different animal to one for a missing cache. Urban nanos will tend to produce a lot more NMs than remote ammo cans, but even in any one class of cache, there'll be huge variations depending on visitor numbers, muggle density, micro-climate, etc, etc.
• Measure responsiveness to NMs? Can a CO of an LPC 100 metres from home respond quicker than the owner of a T4.5 at the end of a multi-day remote wilderness trek that can only be undertaken under the most favourable weather condtions? How do you rate a CO's responsiveness to NMs if none of his or her caches have ever received an NM?
• Count OMs? Caches aren't created equal or need equal CO attention. Is there any difference between a pill bottle thrown under a bush in a park and an ammo can under a ledge atop a mountain peak at the end of a two-day hike? How is your measuring system going to produce equivalent COS scores for the COs of those, using only information available on the cache pages and logs?
• Count archivals? There are many reasons caches are archived by COs, reviewers or HQ. Just recently all moving caches were summarily archived by HQ. Would they count against the COs? A cache could be archived by a reviewer because of a previously public reserve being absorbed into a national park or sold to private developers. One of our reviewers keeps a close watch on national park boundaries and will pounce on any cache that suddenly finds itself inside a park through no fault of its owner.

If you can suggest a COS algorithm that'd never cast a good CO in a poor light, please do. I'm all ears.

Gaming the system? If the COS can be improved by logging OMs, people will log fake OMs. If it's based on FPs, they'll get their mates to give them FPs. If it's based on NM responsiveness, they'll get there mates to log fake NMs and follow each with an armchair OM seconds later. Whatever the COS uses to measure CO quality, there'll be some who will find a way to boost their score without actually improving their caches. Sadly it's human nature.

[+Team Microdot]

I can't really argue with any of that.

[+coachstahly]

17 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

Not necessarily. When traveling I can't tell who the good COs are. 

Please don't say Favorite Points....the number of guideline breaking caches with high FP counts increases yearly. I'm really tired of inadvertently being part of the problem and having to stick my neck out by reporting the problem. I'd just rather not even visit those COs' caches.

They can be a starting point, though.  You always say FPs aren't a reliable source for "good" caches.  I (and others) always say that they are a good starting point for filtering the caches that you start with and then narrow it down even more.  Size, % of FPs, and the logs (these more than anything), all provide more information for cachers to filter out undesirable hides of the type they don't want to find.  

With the proliferation of hides out there, it's hard to be selective when it comes to caching.  It's not an easy task, yet you want it to be as easy as something like an "ignore CO" or some other thing that currently doesn't exist.  I, too, would like to find the types of caches I enjoy in a manner that doesn't involve so much work on my part, but that's an unrealistic expectation as things currently stand.  So, I do the work and am rewarded with mostly enjoyable caches that I targeted through some extended filtering. It doesn't catch everything (I've been let down occasionally) but I'll take it because, for me, it works.

As to your OP, this would be a horrible idea.  Even though we can't see them, the CHS scores, in a manner of speaking, reflect the concept you originally desired.  Low CHS across the board would, to me, indicate a poor CO.  The inverse would hold true as well.

[+thebruce0]

1 hour ago, coachstahly said:

As to your OP, this would be a horrible idea.  Even though we can't see them, the CHS scores, in a manner of speaking, reflect the concept you originally desired.  Low CHS across the board would, to me, indicate a poor CO.  The inverse would hold true as well.

That's my opinion on it as well. The only additional factor that might be relevant to a "cache owner" score that isn't already addressed directly or indirectly by individual CHS score is interpersonal interactions; if reviewers could could +/- points based on very positive or very negative interactions or observations related to community.  I don't see that happening any time soon - especially since reviewers can remember names that stand out, both good and bad, and I think they'd rather leave it at that.

[+hzoi]

You can't force or automate integrity.

As far as counting archivals against a CO, if this is contemplated, it better be done right. 

Since the Army moves me around every couple years, I have made a point of only putting out as many caches as I can maintain during my tour.  When a move approaches, I pick up our caches and archive the listings before we move, with the exception of a few caches that were left standing and have maintenance plans in play.  I like to think I'm practicing responsible cache management.

As I move from community to community, I run across plenty of caches that were left behind by cachers (military or otherwise) with no plan in place, which slowly but inevitably devolve into unmaintained messes.  While sometimes a well worded note, NM, or NA log spur the absentee owners into adopting out or archiving caches, the norm is that they're left to the local community to call out and the local reviewer to kill off.

Hopefully the difference between these two scenarios is plain.  But if one just goes off number of caches archived, then on paper, there's no difference being made between me and the second group, and I find that absolutely unacceptable.

Edited February 6, 2018 by hzoi
sp

[+cerberus1]

36 minutes ago, hzoi said:

You can't force or automate integrity.

As far as counting archivals against a CO, if this is contemplated, it better be done right. 

Agreed.  We archived an entire  series when trees started falling all around the narrow trail.  It was bad enough that the game commission stepped in and cut down dead n dying trees themselves months later.   We archived for safety reasons, when two trees fell (one missing the other 2/3rds by feet) while we were doing maintenance.  

We archived another entire series when we found that numbers folks placed a power trail in-between so accurately that one could find our mysteries with an easy battleship (the only spots open).  I didn't think it fair to others who did them earlier. 

15 caches.  None needing a Reviewer involved.  You'd think  common sense can see there isn't/wasn't an issue.  An algorithm doesn't have common sense.  IIRC, even AI hasn't been able to have common sense... yet.     

 

[+cerberus1]

On ‎2‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 1:25 PM, cerberus1 said:

 - But it has also been explained that HQ will not "rate" cachers negatively.   

21 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

Or positively.

But I see now see why that would get ruined.

Doesn't the site still have "geocacher of the month" ?  

 

[+barefootjeff]

17 hours ago, coachstahly said:

Even though we can't see them, the CHS scores, in a manner of speaking, reflect the concept you originally desired.  Low CHS across the board would, to me, indicate a poor CO.  The inverse would hold true as well.

The CHS places a lot of emphasis on DNF logs, sometimes doing its thing on caches that don't need maintenance at all simply because one or two people couldn't find it.

But even leaving that aside, one thing the Help Centre says that can reduce a cache's CHS is it being a long time since the last find. Just because a cache might require considerable effort to solve or find, or if it happens to be in an area with little caching activity, and so gets few finds, or none at all after the local enthusiasts have all found it, it shouldn't infer that the CO is rotten. Two of my hides have already passed a year since the last find and another two will likely join the club in April, so I'd imagine that, while not sufficient to trigger the email and widget, my overall combined CHS is probably far from shining.

As for the inverse, an unscrupulous CO can presumably fool the CHS by posting lots of armchair OMs.

The CHS might well be a useful tool for reviewers to use when scanning for potentially problematic caches, but beyond that, the metrics it uses (DNFs and time between finds) are poor indicators of cache quality.

Edited February 7, 2018 by barefootjeff

[+JL_HSTRE]

There's a South Florida CO who may or not be active anymore. CO writes all their cache pages in all caps and would delete DNFs if they found the cache still present. I think they also had a tendency to have soft coords, although not necessarily intentionally.

I've been ignoring all their hides for years. Would most other people think this was a bad CO? Would an automated system be able to notice them?

[+L0ne.R]

I wonder if these 2 things would be immune from abuse:

• The last login date
• The number of caches that were archived by a reviewer

Edited February 7, 2018 by L0ne.R

[+NYPaddleCacher]

1 hour ago, JL_HSTRE said:

There's a South Florida CO who may or not be active anymore. CO writes all their cache pages in all caps and would delete DNFs if they found the cache still present. I think they also had a tendency to have soft coords, although not necessarily intentionally.

I've been ignoring all their hides for years. Would most other people think this was a bad CO? Would an automated system be able to notice them?

I would assume (though I could be wrong) that the CHS is smart enough to recognize a deleted DNF and still factor it into the algorithm.  A tendency to have soft coordinates, even if unintentional would likely increase the number of DNFs.

This is clearly academic as GS hasn't even acknowledged that a Cache Owner Score is something even being considered but if it were, as some suggested an aggregate of the CHS on all of a COs cache that would suggest a couple of things.

If a CO has a cache or two that is bringing down the overall COS then the obvious solution would be to perform maintenance on those caches and post OM logs.  Unfortunately, the other solution would simply be to place more caches so that the caches with a low CHS have less of an impact.  

That would also mean that a CO that had a few caches that were getting a lot of false positives, they wouldn't have a big impact on on their overall COS if other owned caches had a good CHS.  

Simply averaging the CHS for all of a COs caches wouldn't give a total picture though.  There are many geocachers that rather than maintain a cache will just archive it.  An archived cache would not have a CHS (what would be the point?) but having a lot of archived caches should have an impact on a COS if they're only being archived because the CO isn't maintaining them.  

[+Team Microdot]

19 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

There are many geocachers that rather than maintain a cache will just archive it.  An archived cache would not have a CHS (what would be the point?) but having a lot of archived caches should have an impact on a COS if they're only being archived because the CO isn't maintaining them.

I doubt GS would care, on the basis that the guideline re cache longevity indicates that a cache should be expected to last as little as three months. (Assuming the guideline hasn't changed, because I'm too lazy to go check.)

[+barefootjeff]

5 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

I wonder if these 2 things would be immune from abuse:

• The last login date
• The number of caches that were archived by a reviewer

These days, I don't think the last login date means much as most things can be done from the app. About all you really need to log in to do is create or edit a cache page. As long as a CO is monitoring their emails and acts on any that suggest action is needed, does it really matter how long it's been since they last logged into the website? Conversely, the type of bad CO that's being mentioned, one who throws out truckloads of rubbish caches and never maintains them, may well be a numbers chaser who goes to the website every day to log their finds.

As for caches archived by a reviewer, that probably is a good indicator of a slack or absent CO. There may be rare occasions when a reviewer will archive a cache without giving the CO the opportunity to do anything - perhaps that might happen if a neighbour complained to HQ - and I suppose a cunning evil CO could let his rubbish caches be disabled by the reviewer after an NA was logged then wait 29 days before archiving it himself (or logging a fake OM). But by and large that'd probably be a fair indicator of CO propriety.

 

[+barefootjeff]

4 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

There are many geocachers that rather than maintain a cache will just archive it.  An archived cache would not have a CHS (what would be the point?) but having a lot of archived caches should have an impact on a COS if they're only being archived because the CO isn't maintaining them. 

We recently had a cacher in this area who had many well-maintained hides, but archived them all when she moved interstate. I see that as a sign of a good CO, not a bad one.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Yes.  I removed and archived 34 caches when my caching partner died.  Not an area I would go to anymore.  I think that makes me a good CO.  They were good caches, but they did need a lot of maintenance.

[+niraD]

How would an automated system distinguish between a good CO who gets a NM log, visits the site, decides that the site is no longer viable, and archives the cache listing, and a bad CO who gets a NM log, then simply archives the cache listing because it's too much bother to maintain caches?

[+dprovan]

4 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

We recently had a cacher in this area who had many well-maintained hides, but archived them all when she moved interstate. I see that as a sign of a good CO, not a bad one.

Meh. That doesn't strike me as good or bad. A good CO would have containers that likely wouldn't need maintenance, and friends to pick up containers that become unviable when that's needed, so whether they archived them immediately before leaving the area would be a personal choice, not a sign of good or bad cache ownership.

[+barefootjeff]

5 hours ago, dprovan said:

9 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

We recently had a cacher in this area who had many well-maintained hides, but archived them all when she moved interstate. I see that as a sign of a good CO, not a bad one.

Meh. That doesn't strike me as good or bad. A good CO would have containers that likely wouldn't need maintenance, and friends to pick up containers that become unviable when that's needed, so whether they archived them immediately before leaving the area would be a personal choice, not a sign of good or bad cache ownership.

Isn't it a condition of cache ownership that the CO regularly visit their caches? That's a bit hard when you're a thousand kilometres away with no desire to return to the area. She did ask on the local FB groups if anyone wanted to adopt any of them, and perhaps some were adopted, but those that weren't she removed and archived just before leaving. I always thought that's what you were supposed to do, not leave them for the community to look after in absentia, but I guess I'm wrong again.

And yes, good quality containers shouldn't require much maintenance in themselves, but ones in places frequented by muggles can get muggled, ones in popular caching locations can have their logbook become full, and calamities like floods, fires or tree or rock falls can happen that require some action by the CO, and from my own experience of such things, it's far better to have the CO on the spot than relying on third hand accounts from the other side of the country.

[Blue Square Thing]

6 hours ago, dprovan said:

Meh. That doesn't strike me as good or bad. A good CO would have containers that likely wouldn't need maintenance, and friends to pick up containers that become unviable when that's needed, so whether they archived them immediately before leaving the area would be a personal choice, not a sign of good or bad cache ownership.

What I *need* to have friends to be a good cache owner?

I, quite deliberately, avoid events and so on - for all sorts of reasons. That means I don't know anyone who geocaches. That makes me a bad cache owner? Blimey...

Whilst I'm here, I generally think every container requires some maintenance every now and again as well.

[+barefootjeff]

46 minutes ago, Blue Square Thing said:

Whilst I'm here, I generally think every container requires some maintenance every now and again as well.

I dunno, I reckon this one ought to outlast me. It's stainless steel so it won't rust and it's hidden deep inside an alcove under a rock ledge at the top of a mountain so it'll never get wet. In the six months it's been out there, it's only had four finds, two of which were vying for FTF, so it's unlikely to suffer much wear and tear. That's not to say I won't go and check on it occasionally, as there's still a slight chance it could be muggled where it is, but that or a rock fall are probably the only problems it's likely to have in the years I have left as its CO.

 

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by barefootjeff
Removed my phone number from the image - oops!

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

Isn't it a condition of cache ownership that the CO regularly visit their caches?

Huh... It looks like the language of the guidelines changed. It used to have language that could be interpreted as saying that the CO was responsible for making sure someone (the CO or someone else) visited the cache site. Now it says "the cache owner must [v]isit the geocache regularly."

That makes it harder to use my third great-aunt twice removed to claim that I have a viable maintenance plan.

[+justintim1999]

7 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Isn't it a condition of cache ownership that the CO regularly visit their caches? That's a bit hard when you're a thousand kilometres away with no desire to return to the area. She did ask on the local FB groups if anyone wanted to adopt any of them, and perhaps some were adopted, but those that weren't she removed and archived just before leaving. I always thought that's what you were supposed to do, not leave them for the community to look after in absentia, but I guess I'm wrong again.

And yes, good quality containers shouldn't require much maintenance in themselves, but ones in places frequented by muggles can get muggled, ones in popular caching locations can have their logbook become full, and calamities like floods, fires or tree or rock falls can happen that require some action by the CO, and from my own experience of such things, it's far better to have the CO on the spot than relying on third hand accounts from the other side of the country.

This sums it up quite nicely. 

[+cerberus1]

10 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I dunno, I reckon this one ought to outlast me. It's stainless steel so it won't rust and it's hidden deep inside an alcove under a rock ledge at the top of a mountain so it'll never get wet. In the six months it's been out there, it's only had four finds, two of which were vying for FTF, so it's unlikely to suffer much wear and tear. That's not to say I won't go and check on it occasionally, as there's still a slight chance it could be muggled where it is, but that or a rock fall are probably the only problems it's likely to have in the years I have left as its CO.

 

 

Cool container.  Guessing an arid environment? 

Tried similar in stainless, and had condensation issues so bad that we put another container inside it, and asked "not to leave trackables or swag" on the cache page.  

[+K13]

I am aware of a Premium Member cache owner who adopts out their caches to their regular member sock account.  Their regular account has zero archived caches associated with it.

There is always a way to 'game the system'.

[+barefootjeff]

3 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

Cool container.  Guessing an arid environment? 

Tried similar in stainless, and had condensation issues so bad that we put another container inside it, and asked "not to leave trackables or swag" on the cache page.  

It's pretty arid at the moment as we've had no significant rainfall all summer. It's in a subtropical dry sclerophyll forest, in a well ventilated sandstone alcove atop the peak at about 230 metres above sea level, so not a place where I'd expect condensation to be a problem. In any case, the logbook is a waterproof "stone paper" tradesman's notebook and the National Parks approval conditions don't allow swag or trackables.

Edited February 8, 2018 by barefootjeff
Spelling

[+dprovan]

14 hours ago, Blue Square Thing said:

I, quite deliberately, avoid events and so on - for all sorts of reasons. That means I don't know anyone who geocaches. That makes me a bad cache owner? Blimey...

Yes, I will stand by my sentiment that a good CO is connected to the community. That doesn't mean you're a bad CO, it just means you're not good enough for me to support you leaving all your caches in place when you move.

[Blue Square Thing]

2 hours ago, dprovan said:

Yes, I will stand by my sentiment that a good CO is connected to the community. That doesn't mean you're a bad CO, it just means you're not good enough for me to support you leaving all your caches in place when you move.

I'm convinced that it's a really good idea to remove or adopt out caches in those circumstances - I can see no way that I would be able to visit caches often enough to justify keeping them in place otherwise.

I'll agree to disagree over being connected to the community.

[+TeamRabbitRun]

On ‎2‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 3:02 PM, barefootjeff said:

<...>

As for caches archived by a reviewer, that probably is a good indicator of a slack or absent CO. There may be rare occasions when a reviewer will archive a cache without giving the CO the opportunity to do anything - perhaps that might happen if a neighbour complained to HQ - and I suppose a cunning evil CO could let his rubbish caches be disabled by the reviewer after an NA was logged then wait 29 days before archiving it himself (or logging a fake OM). But by and large that'd probably be a fair indicator of CO propriety.

 

Say there was a CO with 100 caches, at all levels of the D/T scales. Some puzzles in there, too, with FPs galore.

Long illustrious caching career. Well-liked and respected by the community. Sticks to a regular maintenance schedule and visits every one over the course of each year, with the result that they're all in good shape. Any NMs are dealt with promptly. He's never had to take down a cache because they were all planned and executed correctly with an eye to permission, and sustainability.

Then, he or she passes away. Nobody knows this for a while, and NMs and a few NAs pile up.

Eventually, GS is notified by the family or another cacher who knows them. With sadness, a reviewer archives all 100 caches.

Hearing about this guy, a new player looks him up. What he finds is a CO score that reports that 100% of his hides had to be archived by a reviewer. Lots of NMs and NAs, without responses.

"Overall," the new cacher surmises, "Good riddance."

Some legacy your beloved pastime bestows on you.

[+Team Microdot]

16 minutes ago, TeamRabbitRun said:

Say there was a CO with 100 caches, at all levels of the D/T scales. Some puzzles in there, too, with FPs galore.

Long illustrious caching career. Well-liked and respected by the community. Sticks to a regular maintenance schedule and visits every one over the course of each year, with the result that they're all in good shape. Any NMs are dealt with promptly. He's never had to take down a cache because they were all planned and executed correctly with an eye to permission, and sustainability.

Then, he or she passes away. Nobody knows this for a while, and NMs and a few NAs pile up.

Eventually, GS is notified by the family or another cacher who knows them. With sadness, a reviewer archives all 100 caches.

Hearing about this guy, a new player looks him up. What he finds is a CO score that reports that 100% of his hides had to be archived by a reviewer. Lots of NMs and NAs, without responses.

"Overall," the new cacher surmises, "Good riddance."

Some legacy your beloved pastime bestows on you.

Seems unnecessarily dramatic.

If this new cacher goes to all that trouble they'll probably also see the explanatory note posted by the reviewer on every archived cachr and thus not draw unhelpful and misguided conclusions.

[+L0ne.R]

28 minutes ago, TeamRabbitRun said:

Say there was a CO with 100 caches, at all levels of the D/T scales. Some puzzles in there, too, with FPs galore.

Long illustrious caching career. Well-liked and respected by the community. Sticks to a regular maintenance schedule and visits every one over the course of each year, with the result that they're all in good shape. Any NMs are dealt with promptly. He's never had to take down a cache because they were all planned and executed correctly with an eye to permission, and sustainability.

Then, he or she passes away. Nobody knows this for a while, and NMs and a few NAs pile up.

Eventually, GS is notified by the family or another cacher who knows them. With sadness, a reviewer archives all 100 caches.

Hearing about this guy, a new player looks him up. What he finds is a CO score that reports that 100% of his hides had to be archived by a reviewer. Lots of NMs and NAs, without responses.

"Overall," the new cacher surmises, "Good riddance."

Some legacy your beloved pastime bestows on you.

If there's an active cache owner that fits the description of the owner above, please please give me a way to filter for those owners.  I want to find their caches and not waste time and money looking for poor quality set-em-and-forget-em for-the-numbers caches.

FYI regarding death. We take great pride in our caches and maintaining them. We've had some great logs from people who say our caches never disappoint. We don't want them propped up. In our profile there's a statement asking reviewers to archive all of our caches if they hear we have died, or if there is no account activity--no login for more than 2 months, no response to NMs, NAs and reviewer notes. Hopefully a reviewer will see the note, or another cacher will see it and will alert the reviewer. We do not want our reputation sullied by deteriorating caches that are propped up with litter throwdowns. That would be worse then a low COS. The low COS tells others, if you want a good caching experience don't find our caches because we're dead and those caches are in bad shape. 

[+TeamRabbitRun]

35 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

Seems unnecessarily dramatic.

<...>

Oh, of course it is. I'm on my lunch break, having fun.

My point is just in support of those that have said that one objective criterion means squat.