Locking out a CO

[+Fah-Troop]

It seems there has been a local (Western NY) cacher/CO that has been "locked".  All caches have been disabled, no logging allowed to caches, No messages to CO.  I was just wondering how someone can be locked out and what has to be done to unlock the CO?

[+Isonzo Karst]

Accounts can be disabled by request. Locked  could indicate issues relating to terms of use violations, though it could also be as requested (unsure). 

Regardless, account status is between the cacher and Geocaching.com.

Edited April 7, 2018 by Isonzo Karst

[+Touchstone]

If the Listings are Disabled, chances are the User is under a temporary suspension, usually caused by a TOU violation of some sort. If the Listings are Archived, chances are it's a permanent ban from the website. 

[+Wacka]

From the scuttlebutt I heard today, he was suspended from the website, but he requested  that his caches be locked while he is under suspension.

From knowing the reviewers where I used to live, you have to do something  pretty bad to be suspended.

Edited April 8, 2018 by Wacka

[+arisoft]

15 hours ago, Wacka said:

From knowing the reviewers where I used to live, you have to do something  pretty bad to be suspended.

Reviewers do not have powers to ban users.

What I have been told is that a banned user did not get any explanation why the ban has been set.

[+hukilaulau]

17 minutes ago, arisoft said:

Reviewers do not have powers to ban users.

What I have been told is that a banned user did not get any explanation why the ban has been set.

extremely unlikely to the point of being unbelievable. Oh, I can believe a banned user SAID they were not given any explanation...

Edited April 8, 2018 by hukilaulau
typo

[+dprovan]

15 minutes ago, hukilaulau said:

extremely unlikely to the point of being unbelievable. Oh, I can believe a banned user SAID they were not given any explanation...

Have you been banned? I haven't been banned from the website, but I've been banned and suspended from forums a couple times, including this one, and the message telling me I've been banned invariably says something about as informative as "you've been bad". And I understand it perfectly: the last thing an authority wants when banning someone is to open it up to discussion by trying to justify the ban. They presume the offender is being intentionally offensive and doesn't need an explanation, so an actual explanation will accomplish nothing yet will be sure to arouse a heated exchange. Unfortunately, that thinking's a real problem when the person being banned has no idea what they did wrong. To this day, as far as I know, I got banned from this forum because I said "Is not" once to many times when someone else was saying "Is to".

[Keystone]

2 hours ago, dprovan said:

Have you been banned? I haven't been banned from the website, but I've been banned and suspended from forums a couple times, including this one, and the message telling me I've been banned invariably says something about as informative as "you've been bad". And I understand it perfectly: the last thing an authority wants when banning someone is to open it up to discussion by trying to justify the ban. They presume the offender is being intentionally offensive and doesn't need an explanation, so an actual explanation will accomplish nothing yet will be sure to arouse a heated exchange. Unfortunately, that thinking's a real problem when the person being banned has no idea what they did wrong. To this day, as far as I know, I got banned from this forum because I said "Is not" once to many times when someone else was saying "Is to".

Your one suspension from these forums was communicated in a 125 word message from the Lackey in charge of overseeing the forums, specifically describing the behavior that led to the suspension.  I think you've proven hukilaulau's point.  I cannot speak for forums other than the Geocaching forums, of course.

Similarly, geocachers who have their accounts locked receive a message explaining why that was done (usually as a last resort after prior warnings), and describing the duration of the suspension.

[+hukilaulau]

I've never been bannanated or suspended. I've been warned, and I was told exactly why. Although I didn't agree with the reasoning, it was clear. Some folks do come to the forums to complain about suspensions and bans and I always find the conversations entertaining. As for you thinking your childish antic was not sufficient grounds for being banned, all I can say is, "is too."  

(OK I promise I'll stop now... but that there was funny...)

[+thebruce0]

I was wondering the same about this Western NY situation. I find it a little odd that it's possible to have active, findable, non-issue caches being shown but unable to be logged. I understand Disabled implies they are not available to be found, but I did find one of these last weekend (no dnfs, string of finds, just disabled and locked with a vague one sentence explanation), and not realizing that there's no way to log it as found; or even to write a note that it's been found to change to a Find later... There's no indication of how long the locking will be in place either, so now I have to put it on watch and hope that at some point I'll find out when it's available to be logged again, and then back-date my find log.  This seems very strange to me. Why lock all the listings from public posting?  If because the CO can't deal with potential individual listing issues (as banned, they can't maintain their listings), then should the cache really still be listed even if disabled? In all other cases temporary disabled caches can still be logged.

I dunno, I'm bouncing back and forth about this now. I can sort of understand both directions... it just seems weird to be able to find a non-archived good-standing cache but be completely unable to log it found. Backdated Find log it'll have to be...

[+hzoi]

3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

I was wondering the same about this Western NY situation. I find it a little odd that it's possible to have active, findable, non-issue caches being shown but unable to be logged. I understand Disabled implies they are not available to be found, but I did find one of these last weekend (no dnfs, string of finds, just disabled and locked with a vague one sentence explanation), and not realizing that there's no way to log it as found; or even to write a note that it's been found to change to a Find later... There's no indication of how long the locking will be in place either, so now I have to put it on watch and hope that at some point I'll find out when it's available to be logged again, and then back-date my find log.  This seems very strange to me. Why lock all the listings from public posting?  If because the CO can't deal with potential individual listing issues (as banned, they can't maintain their listings), then should the cache really still be listed even if disabled? In all other cases temporary disabled caches can still be logged.

I dunno, I'm bouncing back and forth about this now. I can sort of understand both directions... it just seems weird to be able to find a non-archived good-standing cache but be completely unable to log it found. Backdated Find log it'll have to be...

I saw those when I was up that way.  As it happened, I hadn't put any into my pocket query prior to the trip, but I did check them out when I saw there were many grayed out caches on the map.

They were all disabled back in February, as far as I can tell -- so while they're still visible on the map, I wouldn't call them active.  Assuming this is a temporary lock, that's about the best that can be done - if it was a permanent ban, they'd all have been archived.

[+thebruce0]

1 minute ago, hzoi said:

I saw those when I was up that way.  As it happened, I hadn't put any into my pocket query prior to the trip, but I did check them out when I saw there were many grayed out caches on the map.

They were all disabled back in February, as far as I can tell -- so while they're still visible on the map, I wouldn't call them active.  Assuming this is a temporary lock, that's about the best that can be done - if it was a permanent ban, they'd all have been archived.

Yep, I got that. It's just weird to go to a cache, find it, sign it, even though it's listed as disabled, and be unable to record anything about it. Usually if a listing is locked it's to block a listing-related abuse directly (like discussion in notes), notsomuch a CO-related concern not directly related to the cache, while leaving the listings still showing on the map.  That's all

[+Wacka]

The local talk is that he requested that his  caches should be locked while he is suspended.Not going to get any info rom him or the Mods. Just don't look for them.  Besides the weather has been dreadful since they were locked.

[+thebruce0]

huh. Odd. But good to know. Still odd. Since the containers are there to be found I guess I'll be back-dating a find once it's unlocked. *shrug*

[+Team Christiansen]

I had been wondering about that for some time. Last fall I flew out to Dallas to visit my daughter and her family. I had planned the visit for months and wanted to take my grandson caching particularly to what looked like a real fun travel bug hotel close to the airport. The day before I flew out, I saw that the travel bug hotel was disabled by HQ rather than a reviewer or CO. The log said "This cache has been disabled and locked until this player is able to return to the game." I suspected CO did something wrong, but didn't want to ask. We ended up not going to the cache - what a bummer. I see now that the cache was enabled two months later.