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11 minutes ago, Rikitan said:

This one? GC31B9

Well, according to logs, your multi had unresponded issues since 2017 - that could take part in reviewer's decision too.

In addition, he has explained to you, that he can't hold so many physical locations for so long. 

Fair enough?

There was a log in 2017 that indicated the finder struck out at a couple waypoints, but then later they got a hint from someone and figured it out to make the find.  It's not clear to me that there were problems with those two WP's or if they just missed them.

Then there wasn't another log on the cache until early 2018. A multi with that many stops and covering that much distance just doesn't get a lot of interest around here.  I don't think it's fair to say that the cache had been problematic since 2017.

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7 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

A lot of COs seem to feel that archival is the responsibility of the reviewer. Especially if a reviewer disables the cache.  Many of these people, at least in my area, are stewards of the community (host events and group outings, have been caching for decades). I don't understand why they do this. It comes across as antagonistic. 

 

If only somebody had warned Groundspeak about these unintended consequences of their actions....

Edited by fizzymagic
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20 hours ago, Keystone said:

Beginning in 2003 when I became a reviewer, until around 2009, when I disabled a cache (or reminded a CO of a long-disabled cache) I gave the cache owner two weeks to react.

From 2009 until 2017, I gave three weeks instead of two.

Beginning in 2017, I give four weeks before archiving a cache for lack of a response from the CO, extended to six weeks in the heart of the winter months if I am initiating the action.

Sounds reasonable. 3 or 4 weeks is about what I've seen from reviewers. I wasn't talking about how long reviewers wait. Things have changed since 2017 or so, and now after a string of DNFs, the CHS kicks in, and you disabled the cache. Before, it would take about 2 or 3 weeks before someone filed a NM and another 2 or 3 weeks before someone filed an NA which would then get the reviewer involved, and then those times you're talking about would start.

 

There's no getting around the fact that the goal is the reduce the time a cache is bad. The mantra is "there are too many bad caches", and the dogma is "And, therefore, bad caches need to be identified and eliminated more quickly." That has very little to do with how much time you personally have decided to give COs between disabling a cache and archiving it.

 

20 hours ago, Keystone said:

Meanwhile, the percentage of cache owners in my review territory who respond to my notes in any way has declined steadily.  Thus far in 2019 it's at less than 10%.  Increasing the time given to the CO has not led to a proportionate increase in "revived" caches that are maintained.

I wouldn't have any idea why that's happening, but I think there are several trends here that make COs feel less important to the process, so it's no surprise to me that over the last couple years, they've statistically started participating less. (I say "statistically" because I think it's probably because the types of people that are COs has changed over that period, not the individual COs have changed to become less responsive. Although that might also be true.)

 

23 hours ago, Keystone said:

And remember, from my past posts, all it takes is ANY response from the CO in order to buy more time. 

I'm not complaining that COs don't have enough time. I'm complaining that the COs are being minimized.

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On 2/3/2019 at 11:32 PM, Keystone said:

Meanwhile, the percentage of cache owners in my review territory who respond to my notes in any way has declined steadily.  Thus far in 2019 it's at less than 10%.  Increasing the time given to the CO has not led to a proportionate increase in "revived" caches that are maintained.

I know this is an order of magnitude more difficult to deal with than with details of an CHS-algorithm but wouldn't it be much more desirable to figure out how to discourage or even prevent those 90% from placing caches in the first place?

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1 hour ago, Hynz said:

I know this is an order of magnitude more difficult to deal with than with details of an CHS-algorithm but wouldn't it be much more desirable to figure out how to discourage or even prevent those 90% from placing caches in the first place?

 

If you did that in my area there wouldn't be many caches at all. A good proportion of what we have now were placed by people who are no longer playing, but as long as those caches are in good condition and no issues arise that require a CO's attention, I don't see it as a problem. When those caches eventually deteriorate or go missing, sure they can be archived then. The concern I have is I don't think the CHS is always a good judge of when "then" is.

 

I doubt many people placing their first caches even think about what will happen when they quit the game. Everything's rosy, there are heaps of caches on their doorstep waiting to be found, so they hide a few of their own, but then after a year, two, five or maybe ten, they've cleared their local area, their family and work commitments dominate and they lose interest. In an ideal world you'd hope at that point they'd archive or adopt out their caches, but the loss of interest is usually a gradual thing and there's no moment in time when they suddenly think I'm not caching anymore; it's more likely they just stop thinking about caching altogether. I suspect it's always been that way and, short of archiving every cache who's owner doesn't jump the moment someone shouts Boo!, I don't think there's much that can be done to make the problem go away. There will always be COs who lose interest (or die for that matter) and leave abandoned caches in their wake.

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1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:
2 hours ago, Hynz said:

I know this is an order of magnitude more difficult to deal with than with details of an CHS-algorithm but wouldn't it be much more desirable to figure out how to discourage or even prevent those 90% from placing caches in the first place?

 

If you did that in my area there wouldn't be many caches at all. A good proportion of what we have now were placed by people who are no longer playing, but as long as those caches are in good condition and no issues arise that require a CO's attention, I don't see it as a problem. When those caches eventually deteriorate or go missing, sure they can be archived then. The concern I have is I don't think the CHS is always a good judge of when "then" is.

Are you saying that even when you know that a new owner will soon loose interest and will neither perform maintenance nor even react to mail you would prefer that he or she is placing caches since otherwise there are too less caches for you to search?

I don't but I completely agree that an absent or inactive owner of a good and established cache is not a sufficient condition for calling it a problem or even archiving a cache.

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7 hours ago, Hynz said:

I know this is an order of magnitude more difficult to deal with than with details of an CHS-algorithm but wouldn't it be much more desirable to figure out how to discourage or even prevent those 90% from placing caches in the first place?

It's not a crime or even a sign of poor ownership abilities to accept the fate of a cache because of a timeout. I've had a couple caches where I wasn't convinced there was a problem but also didn't have time to check, so I didn't react until they were finally disabled. I still wasn't convinced there was a problem, but because the timer went off, I had to accept the reviewer's decision that there was and archive the cache.

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9 minutes ago, dprovan said:

I've had a couple caches where I wasn't convinced there was a problem but also didn't have time to check, so I didn't react until they were finally disabled. I still wasn't convinced there was a problem, but because the timer went off, I had to accept the reviewer's decision that there was and archive the cache.

 

Wait how did you jump from a reviewer disable giving you time to go and check and verify it's findable in order to re-enable, to "accept the reviewer's decision that there was [a problem] and archive the cache"?

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2 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

 

Wait how did you jump from a reviewer disable giving you time to go and check and verify it's findable in order to re-enable, to "accept the reviewer's decision that there was [a problem] and archive the cache"?

 

Because the process is now almost completely automatic, and the default action is archival.  Before you stop me and say "it's ultimately the reviewer's decision," consider that once the reviewer has disabled the cache they require evidence from the owner that it is there and in good shape in order to not archive it.  The default is archival.  That's not an opinion; it's a fact.

Edited by fizzymagic
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I never said there wasn't a process that starts. But it's a reviewer that archives. The reviewer decides that a cache owner responsibility has been shirked - whether the cache is "good" or "bad" is irrelevant. dprovan said he "accepted the reviewer's decision that there was a problem" and then archived the cache. That is NOT the same thing as you describe. That more like a defeatist attitude - "Oh, this guy thinks there's a problem and disabled my cache, so it's pointless me trying to say there isn't, so I may as well archive it. *boom* archived". I don't get the jump from a reviewer disable to "well I've got to archive it then."

And don't tell me that that is an "automated process".

Edited by thebruce0
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4 hours ago, Hynz said:

Are you saying that even when you know that a new owner will soon loose interest and will neither perform maintenance nor even react to mail you would prefer that he or she is placing caches since otherwise there are too less caches for you to search?

I don't but I completely agree that an absent or inactive owner of a good and established cache is not a sufficient condition for calling it a problem or even archiving a cache.

 

But how do you know at the time someone submits their first hide whether they're going to stick with it or lose interest in a couple of months or years? Everyone must stop playing eventually - there's a good chance that sometime in the next twenty years they'll cart me off to the boneyard, and unless you can log an OM via a ouija board, that'll be that.

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1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

there's a good chance that sometime in the next twenty years they'll cart me off to the boneyard,

 

Same here and when that happens I've noted in our account profile that if we stop logging in and responding to our cache listings, we do not want our caches propped up and would like them retrieved and archived. We have too much pride and it's unlikely that anyone else will maintain our remaining caches as we would have wanted. There's every likelihood that the cache would just rot, people would log caches on the remaining junk and eventually someone will leave a pill bottle. It's not how we would want to be remembered. 

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2 hours ago, dprovan said:

It's not a crime or even a sign of poor ownership abilities to accept the fate of a cache because of a timeout.

 

You would have very likely had at least 2 months of notice that there was something wrong with the cache via the online logs.

Then if somehow you got an NM within 2 months of a problem, you would have probably have months maybe even years before a reviewer would notice.

If the cache were missing, a string of DNFs that would get a reviewers attention usually takes a couple of months to accumulate.

Then the reviewer disable which would give you another month. So I'm guessing that from when the problems started to the archival, it was a minimum of 6 months to go check the cache. 

 

But I thank you for being honest about how you feel and why you did not archive the cache yourself. I think a lot of owners in my area feel the same. A push-back kind of response that says 'if you want it archived, go ahead and archive it, I'm not going to do it', when what the community actually wants is not archival, but instead a maintained (not missing) active cache. 

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8 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

You would have very likely had at least 2 months of notice that there was something wrong with the cache via the online logs.

Then if somehow you got an NM within 2 months of a problem, you would have probably have months maybe even years before a reviewer would notice.

If the cache were missing, a string of DNFs that would get a reviewers attention usually takes a couple of months to accumulate.

Then the reviewer disable which would give you another month. So I'm guessing that from when the problems started to the archival, it was a minimum of 6 months to go check the cache.

 

In the one I quoted earlier in this thread, the last find was on the 27th of November, the first DNF was three days later, the NM was logged on the 8th of January, the CO responded with his WN on the 13th of January and the reviewer TDd it on the 27th of January, starting the 28-day countdown to archival. We're talking weeks now, not months or years, and this on a D3 cache that wasn't actually missing.

Edited by barefootjeff
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2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Wait how did you jump from a reviewer disable giving you time to go and check and verify it's findable in order to re-enable, to "accept the reviewer's decision that there was [a problem] and archive the cache"?

I'm not sure what you're asking. I can't quite parse the first part of your question. But, anyway, I wasn't considering reviewer disables, just generally saying that owner inaction isn't a reason to revoke owner privileges.

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2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

The reviewer decides that a cache owner responsibility has been shirked - whether the cache is "good" or "bad" is irrelevant.

I think it's exactly the reverse. The reviewer decides that the evidence supports believing that the cache is bad. I don't think he gives a rat's behind about the cache owner's responsibility. And my original point was that it's not shirking responsibility to wait for and accept the reviewer archiving the cache. It's just letting nature runs it course.

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2 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

In the one I quoted earlier in this thread, the last find was on the 27th of November, the first DNF was three days later, the NM was logged on the 8th of January, the CO responded with his WN on the 13th of January and the reviewer TDd it on the 27th of January, starting the 28-day countdown to archival. We're talking weeks now, not months or years, and this on a D3 cache that wasn't actually missing.

 

Quote

We're talking weeks now

 

Weeks would suggest 3 weeks to respond to problems otherwise a reviewer will archive a cache. Not so. 

 

GC61K94 - the last find was in October 2018. In November, December and January there were a string of DNFs on this D1 rated cache. Followed up with a reviewer disable in January. Still no response from the owner who has a track record of not fixing his caches. When it is eventually reviewer archived it is the fault of this cache owner for not replying. 4 months is a generous amount of time to respond. 

 

GC5CXWJ was last found in July 2018. A D1 large peanut butter jar style cache. 6 DNFs in a row from September to December. That's 4 months with no response from the owner, then another month to respond before the January disable, and still no response from the owner. The cache isn't archived yet. 5+ months is a generous amount of time to respond. 

 

Eventually if these kinds of caches clog up the database and people who actually want to find a cache, and don't want to find a junk cache, will lose interest. All you have left are the people who play for the smiley, or would prefer a Waymarking-style or grid-filling game - get to ground zero claim a smiley, fill a grid, light up the map. 

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24 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

You would have very likely had at least 2 months of notice that there was something wrong with the cache via the online logs.

Then if somehow you got an NM within 2 months of a problem, you would have probably have months maybe even years before a reviewer would notice.

If the cache were missing, a string of DNFs that would get a reviewers attention usually takes a couple of months to accumulate.

Then the reviewer disable which would give you another month. So I'm guessing that from when the problems started to the archival, it was a minimum of 6 months to go check the cache.

Well, in my case it wasn't 6 months, but that does seem like a reasonable timeline, both in the sense that that's was typical back when people posted NMs and NAs, and reasonable in the amount of time allowed to pass when the cache's status isn't clear.

 

But that's nothing like what I had. I wasn't really expecting my examples to get so much scrutiny, but I'll go ahead and open the kimono. For one cache, there were 4 DNFs by inexperienced cachers, so I didn't really have a strong sense that it was missing, but Nomex did and disabled it 2 weeks after the 4th DNF. I could have waited out his 4 week grace period, so that would have given me a month and a half, not 6 months. But this wasn't that hard of a hide and I was already pretty worried, so I just accepted his decision and archived it right away. For another cache, Nomex disabled it after 4 DNFs with 3 out of 4 being newbies, but since it was a particularly tricky hide that's often missed, I just waited out Nomex's 4 week grace period in case someone found it in the meantime. They didn't so Nomex archived it, thus making me one of his non-responsive COs. Since Nomex disabled it the day after the 4th DNF, that means I had one month to go check the cache.

 

I'm not complaining. I think Nomex's grace period is sufficient, and the total time I had to react makes sense given the current climate. I just object that that's our current climate. But I do want to point out that it's a small fraction of the 6 months you conjectured I was given.

 

26 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

But I thank you for being honest about how you feel and why you did not archive the cache yourself. I think a lot of owners in my area feel the same. A push-back kind of response that says 'if you want it archived, go ahead and archive it, I'm not going to do it', when what the community actually wants is not archival, but instead a maintained (not missing) active cache.

I'm honest to a fault. But you might be confused: I did this for specific reasons on a couple caches with unique characteristics. I'm not saying I habitually do this whenever a cache exhibits a problem.

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44 minutes ago, dprovan said:
3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Wait how did you jump from a reviewer disable giving you time to go and check and verify it's findable in order to re-enable, to "accept the reviewer's decision that there was [a problem] and archive the cache"?

I'm not sure what you're asking. I can't quite parse the first part of your question. But, anyway, I wasn't considering reviewer disables, just generally saying that owner inaction isn't a reason to revoke owner privileges.

 

Sure, alone I agree. But if the reviewer thinks there might be a problem (ie feels the cache status implies that there might be a problem) and the CO does nothing especially after a nudge from a reviewer and/or the CHS, then reviewer has the power to take action if they feel it's necessary. If there is a problem and a CO does nothing, that certainly warrants disabling and archival due to CO inactivity.  If there is no problem, then... well owner "inaction" is what happens when a cache is findable (they have nothing to but enjoy Find logs), so of course a reviewer won't do anything if there' isn't even a sense of a potential problem.

 

So yeah, "owner inaction isn't a reason to" disable a cache (I don't know how "owner privileges" comes into play - they're still an owner, just one that needs to maintain their cache) ** but only when there is no implication that there might be a problem with it. If there is, and a reviewer thinks there is, and has taken action, then you'd better bet the owner should be active and responsive. It's always been that way. If a reviewer takes action, the owners needs to respond, in whatever period of time is provided to them.

 

39 minutes ago, dprovan said:
3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

The reviewer decides that a cache owner responsibility has been shirked - whether the cache is "good" or "bad" is irrelevant.

I think it's exactly the reverse. The reviewer decides that the evidence supports believing that the cache is bad. I don't think he gives a rat's behind about the cache owner's responsibility. And my original point was that it's not shirking responsibility to wait for and accept the reviewer archiving the cache. It's just letting nature runs it course.

 

1. I think reviewers care very deeply about cache owners' responsibilities. They want good, active, responsive cache owners in play. As I'm sure everyone does. I don't think they have any qualms about archiving caches that have effectively been abandoned - for any reason - by their owners. And, the physical container is not the reviewers' responsibility - the listings are. A listing implying a bad shape (outstanding NM/NA/Disabled/Strings of DNFs) will attract the attention of a reviewer (with or without the CHS). So cache owners must deal with it.

2. Actually, ignoring the state of your cache, or ignoring a request to followup by a reviewer, IS shirking responsibility. If you don't respond to an outstanding call to action, you are effectively abandoning your listing. Therefore you are shirking your responsibility. As we've heard, many if not most reviewers just want to hear from a CO about the listing, and all may be fine. If not, that's why it'll get archived. Simply the fact of being disabled is not reason for archival. In any sense. Non-response is. As a CO you have the next move. If you do nothing, the cache gets archived because you did nothing. And, in turn, just a guess, but that may well affect future CHS ratings on your caches because of such prior abandoned listings.

 

10 minutes ago, dprovan said:

I could have waited out his 4 week grace period, so that would have given me a month and a half, not 6 months. But this wasn't that hard of a hide and I was already pretty worried, so I just accepted his decision and archived it right away

 

That was 100% your call, and imo, if you thought the cache was fine, a note or a contact or some activity on the listing (let alone an actual checkup) would have had the cache continue thriving. You chose archival as the next step. Not Nomex.

 

10 minutes ago, dprovan said:

Nomex disabled it after 4 DNFs with 3 out of 4 being newbies, but since it was a particularly tricky hide that's often missed, I just waited out Nomex's 4 week grace period in case someone found it in the meantime. They didn't so Nomex archived it, thus making me one of his non-responsive COs.

 

If it was disabled because of DNFs, why didn't you either A] visit and confirm it's findable, B] post a note explaining your opinion not to physically check it, C] post a note or contact nomex to inform of your next reasonable checkup date?  It was archived because you did nothing in response to the cache being disabled due to the potential for a problem.

 

10 minutes ago, dprovan said:

I'm not complaining. I think Nomex's grace period is sufficient, and the total time I had to react makes sense given the current climate. I just object that that's our current climate. But I do want to point out that it's a small fraction of the 6 months you conjectured I was given.

 

I don't think it's any kind of climate. I think you legitimately (and admittedly) ignored calls to action within reasonable timeframes, thus the caches were archived. The turn of events wouldn't have surprised me if I was watching the cache.

 

And sure, I see caches get archived "naturally" by reviewers locally owned by cachers whom I know are active. They are choosing to let them "die a natural death", as it were. And this, arguably, is one of the problems as mentioned earlier.

Edited by thebruce0
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15 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

Weeks would suggest 3 weeks to respond to problems otherwise a reviewer will archive a cache. Not so.

It was 4 weeks in the case I just cited. Although I notice you're starting the timer from the last find, which seems remarkably unreasonable.

 

17 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

Eventually if these kinds of caches clog up the database and people who actually want to find a cache, and don't want to find a junk cache, will lose interest. All you have left are the people who play for the smiley, or would prefer a Waymarking-style or grid-filling game - get to ground zero claim a smiley, fill a grid, light up the map.

I never saw a area that was clogged up with bad caches. And while I have heard of a person or two that said they were going to quit because "all they found" was bad caches, when I've looked at their examples, it turned out to be bad luck, not a map filled with lots of bad caches. And I absolutely at no time saw any kind of shift towards geocachers being interested only in the numbers. In fact, I haven't personally met anyone that's mainly interested in the numbers. Even the most jaded, high volume cachers I've seen in my area will still stop to comment on a remarkable cache, and they reliably hide excellent caches themselves.

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4 minutes ago, dprovan said:

And while I have heard of a person or two that said they were going to quit because "all they found" was bad caches, when I've looked at their examples, it turned out to be bad luck, not a map filled with lots of bad caches.

 

Well, "bad luck" from our perspective. From theirs it's quite disconcerting. Understandably, if their first experience is bad, with no explanation of why or how it could be better, then yeah, they're going to quit. That is precisely one example of why GS is working towards "better geocache quality".   A "higher chance" of people finding good (quality) caches, unlike the ones in the above example, and having a much more generally positive experience.

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1 hour ago, L0ne.R said:

Weeks would suggest 3 weeks to respond to problems otherwise a reviewer will archive a cache. Not so.

 

The reviewer's TD was logged 3 weeks after the NM and 2 weeks after the CO's WN saying he was pretty sure the cache wasn't missing and would check on it soon when next in the area. That TD itself gave the CO 4 weeks to respond or it would be archived without further notice. I'd class those timeframes as several weeks, not several months.

 

I know from personal experience that the CHS email goes out just a couple of days after the DNF that lowered the cache's score below the threshold was logged, and earlier in this thread it was said that reviewers give the CO a week to respond to that before they'll step in with a TD. So here you're looking at potentially a week and a half's notice before action is taken.

 

1 hour ago, L0ne.R said:

Eventually if these kinds of caches clog up the database and people who actually want to find a cache, and don't want to find a junk cache, will lose interest. All you have left are the people who play for the smiley, or would prefer a Waymarking-style or grid-filling game - get to ground zero claim a smiley, fill a grid, light up the map.

 

I'm not arguing that decrepit or missing caches shouldn't be removed from the database, but just counting DNFs and the time since the last find doesn't always tell the whole story. The cache I mentioned above had 6 DNFs in a row and an NM but wasn't missing. Then consider GC664DZ, last found in December 2016 followed by a DNF in May 2017. I suppose that one's just clogging up the database too as it's not generating smileys for anyone, but I'm pretty sure it's still there - the trouble is all the locals have found it and visitors aren't interested in doing multis. I don't know, perhaps there's an argument to be made that caches like this that have outlived their usefulness should also be pruned.

Edited by barefootjeff
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Just now, thebruce0 said:

So yeah, "owner inaction isn't a reason to" disable a cache (I don't know how "owner privileges" comes into play - they're still an owner, just one that needs to maintain their cache) - but only when there is no implication that there might be a problem with it.

I said "Owner inaction isn't a reason to revoke owner privileges." You're in the wrong conversation. Reviewers disable caches. Perfectly reasonable for whatever reasons. Hynz was suggesting non-responsive owners not be allowed to publish caches. Completely different issue.

 

5 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

I think reviewers care very deeply about cache owners' responsibilities. They want good, active, responsive cache owners in play. As I'm sure everyone does.

Exactly. Everyone loves responsible owners. My point was that reviewers don't worry about it -- and shouldn't pay attention to it -- when taking action against a specific cache.

 

7 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Actually ignoring the state of your cache, or ignoring a request to followup by a reviewer, IS shirking responsibility. If you don't respond to an outstanding call to action, you are effectively abandoning your listing.

No, I'm not abandoning my listing. I'm just busy. Your implying that nothing else in my life should have higher priority than geocaching, and that's just not the case. It's just a game for COs, too.

 

10 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

If it was disabled because of DNFs, why didn't you either A] visit and confirm it's findable, B] post a note explaining your opinion not to physically check it, C] post a note or contact nomex to inform of your next reasonable checkup date?

My choice was D] wait 4 weeks to see if anything happened and let Nomex archive it if nothing did. Isn't that a valid choice?

 

12 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

It was archived because you did nothing in response to the cache being disabled due to the potential for a problem.

What are you babbling about? In no way did I give any indication whatsoever that I didn't understand why the cache was archived or was complaining that it had been. In fact, I think I made it pretty clear I wanted it to be archived because I agreed with the decision to archive it.

 

14 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

I don't think it's any kind of climate. I think you legitimately (and admittedly) ignored calls to action within reasonable timeframes, thus the caches were archived. The turn of events wouldn't have surprised me if I was watching the cache.

I was responding to someone that was talking about a 6 month delay, so I stand by my claim that the 1 month delay indicates a different climate than what he was thinking about.

 

Three years ago, I would have been shocked by cache being archived 4 weeks after a 4th DNF. That was normal in your area back then?

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14 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Well, "bad luck" from our perspective. From theirs it's quite disconcerting.

What's important is that it was bad luck, so nothing anyone anywhere with any amount of monitoring could have prevented. It is disconcerting to them, but it's foolish for us to try to prevent them from having that experience because it would be impossible.

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16 minutes ago, dprovan said:

What's important is that it was bad luck, so nothing anyone anywhere with any amount of monitoring could have prevented. It is disconcerting to them, but it's foolish for us to try to prevent them from having that experience because it would be impossible.

 

Who said prevent? It's certainly possible to reduce the chance by reducing negative instances. That's all it is. An effort. Not a guarantee.

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32 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

and earlier in this thread it was said that reviewers give the CO a week to respond to that before they'll step in with a TD.

 

That reviewer said that was the time he gives. In the cache's case in question that reviewer decided on that time range. This is not a universal mandate of all reviewers. Case by case, remember.

 

33 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

Then consider GC664DZ, last found in December 2016 followed by a DNF in May 2017. I suppose that one's just clogging up the database too as it's not generating smileys for anyone, but I'm pretty sure it's still there - the trouble is all the locals have found it and visitors aren't interested in doing multis. I don't know, perhaps there's an argument to be made that caches like this that have outlived their usefulness should also be pruned.

 

I believe there was already controversy about the "periodic maintenance" requirement of COs where after some period of time unfound - even if the last log was found - a CO may be asked or required to check on the cache. Drama! What if it's in the wilderness and days' travel to get there only to find it's in good condition? Bad bad bad bad! (even though a reasonable reviewer likely would not require a CO to check such a cache within an unreasonable timeframe)

 

25 minutes ago, dprovan said:

Hynz was suggesting non-responsive owners not be allowed to publish caches. Completely different issue.

My bad

 

25 minutes ago, dprovan said:
48 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

I think reviewers care very deeply about cache owners' responsibilities. They want good, active, responsive cache owners in play. As I'm sure everyone does.

Exactly. Everyone loves responsible owners. My point was that reviewers don't worry about it -- and shouldn't pay attention to it -- when taking action against a specific cache.

 

*shrug* If they want to they can. If they feel a cache owner has a reputation for bad ownership, they can't simply shrug that off when they make a decision about what call to action they require of such a cache owner. It flavours the decision. And they're allowed to make that judgment. It's a part of the judgment. Ever hear of the "bad books"?  Yeah, reviewers can 'be tough' on cachers who want to place caches; same thing. Be a good cache owner, chances are you'll get more leniancy in every aspect of the game.

 

27 minutes ago, dprovan said:
50 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Actually ignoring the state of your cache, or ignoring a request to followup by a reviewer, IS shirking responsibility. If you don't respond to an outstanding call to action, you are effectively abandoning your listing.

No, I'm not abandoning my listing. I'm just busy. Your implying that nothing else in my life should have higher priority than geocaching, and that's just not the case. It's just a game for COs, too.

 

I'm, I'm saying if you're busy, then tell the reviewer that. Make plans for someone else to check on the cache. Or if you are too busy to do anything with your cache, then adopt it out or archive. That's the definition of a good active responsible cache owner. Ignoring calls to action isn't being "busy".  Tell someone. Make a plan, even if it's a plan to put off maintenance until it's reasonable. The reviewer can judge if that falls within your cache ownership allowance.

 

29 minutes ago, dprovan said:
51 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

If it was disabled because of DNFs, why didn't you either A] visit and confirm it's findable, B] post a note explaining your opinion not to physically check it, C] post a note or contact nomex to inform of your next reasonable checkup date?

My choice was D] wait 4 weeks to see if anything happened and let Nomex archive it if nothing did. Isn't that a valid choice?

 

Sure it is. If you're happy being considered an owner who effectively has abandoned the listing due to lack of responsiveness to a call to action.

 

29 minutes ago, dprovan said:
52 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

It was archived because you did nothing in response to the cache being disabled due to the potential for a problem.

What are you babbling about? In no way did I give any indication whatsoever that I didn't understand why the cache was archived or was complaining that it had been. In fact, I think I made it pretty clear I wanted it to be archived because I agreed with the decision to archive it.

Ignoring your rhetoric...

 

If you wanted it archived, then why didn't you just archive it?

 

Because you were waiting to see if there actually was a problem?  ie, letting an outstanding call to action ("please check to make sure it IS findable") sit ignored. You did nothing in the reasonable time allotted to you. That is why it was archived. As you know.  But you just admitted you wanted it archived because you agreed it should be archived, but you let it sit, intentionally ignoring the reviewer call to action, so that the reviewer would archive it.

 

31 minutes ago, dprovan said:

Three years ago, I would have been shocked by cache being archived 4 weeks after a 4th DNF. That was normal in your area back then? 

 

Oh come on. If there was NO OTHER CALL TO ACTION on the cache, then yes, I would be surprised if a cache was archived after 4 weeks with only 4 DNFs in its relevant history.  If there was a temp disable - for any reason - then around here yes that means 1 month before archival if the CO does nothing to convince the reviewer to let it stand.

 

 

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This kind of discussion will always be around, there's no best solution, which would satisfy everyone.

It will only be around more often, as the game age - and more and more owners are leaving.

  • Players will always be complaining about lost caches, bad shape, unmaintained, abandoned.
  • And CO's will always be unhappy how much maintainence is required, how often. For many of us, Geocaching is only 3rd, 4th, x-th hobby, understandably so! Behind work, behind family, that's okay.

HQ? They are only doing their best to find right balance in between.

Reviewers? Volunteering to ease the pressure from both sides, trying to:

  • Help players to have better experience of finding geocaches - instead of piling DNFs up, instead of droping pill bottles everywhere.
  • Understand the owners - not to push too much, too quickly, to keep them in the game & motivated. Because owners are ones who create the game.

Clearly, these goals are going against each other.

There is human decision in between. It's not easy, not pleasant, it's not the best activity you can imagine for long evenings guys.

Let's help reviewers by simple responsiveness, at least. When asked to reply, just reply. It helps to avoid conflicts.

 

And if someone's out of the game, not replying?

So what? Archived cache is not the end of the world. Go out and hide new one instead.

 

And when I'm busy, because of other priorities? Of course there are more important than game!

Again, I have options. I can adopt troubled cache to friend and after some time take it back.

Or I can get rid of such cache, archive it by myself .. and hide new one once I'll have more time again.

 

I have respect to all the finders, I'm glad they took their time to look for my cache. I want them to be successful and to find it in a good shape. If I'm not able to maintain it, I'll take it off. In happened many times and it often gave me freedom to realize new ideas.

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4 hours ago, thebruce0 said:
5 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Then consider GC664DZ, last found in December 2016 followed by a DNF in May 2017. I suppose that one's just clogging up the database too as it's not generating smileys for anyone, but I'm pretty sure it's still there - the trouble is all the locals have found it and visitors aren't interested in doing multis. I don't know, perhaps there's an argument to be made that caches like this that have outlived their usefulness should also be pruned.

 

I believe there was already controversy about the "periodic maintenance" requirement of COs where after some period of time unfound - even if the last log was found - a CO may be asked or required to check on the cache. Drama! What if it's in the wilderness and days' travel to get there only to find it's in good condition? Bad bad bad bad! (even though a reasonable reviewer likely would not require a CO to check such a cache within an unreasonable timeframe)

 

I visited the lower waypoints of that cache a couple of months ago, but until my knee fully heals I'm not going to risk the T3.5 climb to the final as it's a steep slope with a loose crumbly surface designed for injuring knees. While the cache itself is in a hiding place that's well protected from muggles and the elements, the same isn't true of the lower waypoints and it's been a relatively high maintenance cache over the years, so if it did get pinged I'd probably just archive it rather than put up much of a defence even if there wasn't anything wrong with it. The thing is, it's a fairly challenging cache, compounded by very poor GPS reception up in the gully and no mobile data coverage, so getting some DNFs and going for two or more years without a find shouldn't paint it as a bad cache per se, at least for those increasingly rare old school cachers who like a challenging hide.

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4 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

I visited the lower waypoints of that cache a couple of months ago, but until my knee fully heals I'm not going to risk the T3.5 climb to the final as it's a steep slope with a loose crumbly surface designed for injuring knees. While the cache itself is in a hiding place that's well protected from muggles and the elements, the same isn't true of the lower waypoints and it's been a relatively high maintenance cache over the years, so if it did get pinged I'd probably just archive it rather than put up much of a defence even if there wasn't anything wrong with it. The thing is, it's a fairly challenging cache, compounded by very poor GPS reception up in the gully and no mobile data coverage, so getting some DNFs and going for two or more years without a find shouldn't paint it as a bad cache per se, at least for those increasingly rare old school cachers who like a challenging hide.

 

Right, so, as a reasonable, responsible cache owner who now knows that there are physical objects out in nature, what should you do? Leave them for litter? Or maybe find some way, if you know you won't be able to maintain it, for someone to go and pick up the litter? Archive the cache, and pick up your property from nature; or adopt it out to someone else who can properly maintain it. That is the way it should be done. Not abandon the listing and let the reviewer do your work (while letting the community possibly have a bad geocaching experience) leaving abandoned stuff out in nature.

There's no shame in that. Life changes. Circumstances change. But if you clean things up without littering, then why not do it?

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23 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

 

Right, so, as a reasonable, responsible cache owner who now knows that there are physical objects out in nature, what should you do? Leave them for litter? Or maybe find some way, if you know you won't be able to maintain it, for someone to go and pick up the litter? Archive the cache, and pick up your property from nature; or adopt it out to someone else who can properly maintain it. That is the way it should be done. Not abandon the listing and let the reviewer do your work (while letting the community possibly have a bad geocaching experience) leaving abandoned stuff out in nature.

There's no shame in that. Life changes. Circumstances change. But if you clean things up without littering, then why not do it?

 

If it got pinged tomorrow and I decided to archive it, I'd go out and collect the lower waypoints straight away, either leaving the final for another couple of months until I'm okay with the climb or coercing a mate into doing it. But until that happens I'm content to leave it there and keep a regular watch on those lower waypoints, in the hope that perhaps sometime in the future someone else might attempt it. Looking at the summary on the cache page (7 OMs, 4 disables and 4 enables for only 13 finds) it's got to be my most troublesome cache by far so if it wasn't a key chapter in my Bushranger series I'd have probably axed it already.

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Well, the way you describe it, I see no reason why a reviewer wouldn't like to hear all of that in determining how to treat the listing. They may recommend archiving it right away. They may recommend adopting it. They may just do the dirty for you. Who knows. But the point is - they would want to know, to make the best, most informed decision. Not sit in the dark, waiting for a listing to be considered abandoned. Communicate. Even if you might not like the result. It's just better all around.

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5 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Well, the way you describe it, I see no reason why a reviewer wouldn't like to hear all of that in determining how to treat the listing. They may recommend archiving it right away. They may recommend adopting it. They may just do the dirty for you. Who knows. But the point is - they would want to know, to make the best, most informed decision. Not sit in the dark, waiting for a listing to be considered abandoned. Communicate. Even if you might not like the result. It's just better all around.

 

I guess the picture I'm trying to paint here is that for caches like this that require a lot of CO effort for little return, it doesn't take much to make one decide enough is enough and hit the archive button. For me on this cache, an NM or a CHS ping would do that, especially if there was nothing wrong with it.

 

I've just spent half the day doing a routine check on another cache, one which I adopted from a mate when he was thinking that archival was easier than upkeep for the small number of finds it got. Yet these are the sort of caches I thrive on and would much prefer to do one like that than a hundred P&Gs, so I'll keep them going if I can do so at my own pace in my own time. Its last find was in 2017 and it had none in 2016, so rushing out to attend to imagined issues so the hordes of potential finders won't risk disappointment doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

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22 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

I'm saying if you're busy, then tell the reviewer that. Make plans for someone else to check on the cache. Or if you are too busy to do anything with your cache, then adopt it out or archive. That's the definition of a good active responsible cache owner. Ignoring calls to action isn't being "busy".  Tell someone. Make a plan, even if it's a plan to put off maintenance until it's reasonable. The reviewer can judge if that falls within your cache ownership allowance.

Why should I post a note when everything is already going to play out exactly as it should. Why should I post a note telling the reviewer I can't get to it, so it's OK for him to archive it in 4 weeks when he's already going to archive it in 4 weeks? It's ridiculous even before we considering that I might be too busy to look at geocaching at all in which case I'd no idea this is going on. That's still OK. I didn't promise to devote my life to geocaching, I merely conceded that if I don't do my part, my caches can be archived.

 

22 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

If you wanted it archived, then why didn't you just archive it?

I didn't [thanks, The Jester] want to archive it until after there had been 4 weeks for someone to find it. In other words, I didn't archive it for exactly the same reason the reviewer didn't archive it instead of disabling it: someone could discover the cache was fine in those 4 weeks.

Edited by dprovan
Edited to add a missing negative pointed out by The Jester
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7 hours ago, Rikitan said:
  • Players will always be complaining about lost caches, bad shape, unmaintained, abandoned.
  • And CO's will always be unhappy how much maintainence is required, how often. For many of us, Geocaching is only 3rd, 4th, x-th hobby, understandably so! Behind work, behind family, that's okay. 

Yes, some people will always complain when something doesn't go their way. It's our job to look at their complaints and ask whether they're reasonable. I have yet to see any evidence that the complaints about bad caches are reasonable. In every case I've seen, the complaints were always about what is reasonable expect from day-to-day stuff happening.

 

And, no, I never heard any CO complain about how much maintenance was required until a few years ago when people started demanding more maintenance than was warranted for keeping their caches in good working order.

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2 hours ago, dprovan said:

Yes, some people will always complain when something doesn't go their way. It's our job to look at their complaints and ask whether they're reasonable. I have yet to see any evidence that the complaints about bad caches are reasonable. In every case I've seen, the complaints were always about what is reasonable expect from day-to-day stuff happening.

 

And, no, I never heard any CO complain about how much maintenance was required until a few years ago when people started demanding more maintenance than was warranted for keeping their caches in good working order.

 

I acknowledge "reasonability of complaints" and "good working order" are very relative terms. 

There's no mechanism, no reviewer who can satisfy all the people, we all are different.

Let me help to express myself by classic histogram with normal distribution.
 

histogram.png.a8d93e5b1b4191d8c0cc406d92c1f6c0.png

 

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4 minutes ago, Rikitan said:

 

I acknowledge "reasonability of complaints" and "good working order" are very relative terms. 

There's no mechanism, no reviewer who can satisfy all the people, we all are different.

Let me help to express myself by classic histogram with normal distribution.
 

histogram.png.a8d93e5b1b4191d8c0cc406d92c1f6c0.png

 

 

I guess I'm in category 1, and the same is probably true of most of the cachers in my local area. It's a regional district with an ocean frontage to the east and an ancient eroded sandstone hinterland that provides great opportunities for cache placement. Forty percent of caches within 16km of my home are T3 or higher, with smalls outnumbering micros by a considerable margin. We're also small in number so caches get few finds which quickly dwindles off to almost nothing once all the locals have found them. The more established cachers (those that have been in the game for a year or more) pretty much all know each other and often problems are sorted out through messaging (GC and FB) rather than formal NM/OM logs. DNFs generally just mean it was a tough hide or the weather turned bad or the mozzies were biting. When caches do go missing or become unservicable and the CO is no longer playing, it's been readily handled through the traditional NM followed by NA route - it might take three to six months for it to be archived but no-one's in a rush here. Even FTF races happen over days or weeks, not minutes! And in our humid subtropical climate it's probably a bit much to send COs off to check on T4+ caches until the cooler months.

 

That's why it came as a bit of a rude shock to see a cache get a TD from a reviewer just a few weeks after an NM (not an NA) and a bunch of DNFs from inexperienced searchers on a D3 hide, when the CO had already responded with a note saying he was pretty sure the cache was fine but would check soon. Thoughts of there but for the grace of God go I and such, wondering how I'd respond if that happened on one of my T4 hides right now in the middle of summer (and what is the hottest summer on record). Not pleasant thoughts.

 

In this new age of proactive CHS/reviewer-driven cache monitoring, I fear the community has lost something, something valuable and important but not easily explained.

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I agree with you, it is helpful (imho also important) to consider all the circumstances you outlined.

  • diff / terrain
  • experience of players who logged DNFs
  • were they in one group, or one after each other?
  • cache saturation in area - is there competition for free places, or not at all?
  • climate / weather conditions
  • CO situation, may be ill or travelling

And many more. 

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2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

When caches do go missing or become unservicable and the CO is no longer playing, it's been readily handled through the traditional NM followed by NA route - it might take three to six months for it to be archived but no-one's in a rush here. Even FTF races happen over days or weeks, not minutes! And in our humid subtropical climate it's probably a bit much to send COs off to check on T4+ caches until the cooler months.

 

That's why it came as a bit of a rude shock to see a cache get a TD from a reviewer just a few weeks after an NM (not an NA) and a bunch of DNFs from inexperienced searchers on a D3 hide, when the CO had already responded with a note saying he was pretty sure the cache was fine but would check soon.

 

It's understandable that your region will play out differently. First, local reviewers should know your region and the general community attitude towards situations like yours. Second, if this cache isn't in your region, then it's understandable you'd be surprised at the turn of events given a reviewer in a different region reviewing a cache in a different region.  We have to watch the proxy-outrage habit many of us have because the limited exposure we have to worldwide geocaching. I can't imagine some of things Germans can do, for example, that reviewers wouldn't bat an eyelash at denying here.  That's why forums aren't all that good far garnering a relevant consensus because many people play in different community and regional climates with some likely variant local guidelines and reviewer practices.

 

2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

In this new age of proactive CHS/reviewer-driven cache monitoring, I fear the community has lost something, something valuable and important but not easily explained.

 

I don't see anything lost. I see an additional effort, with unncessecary by cachers and possibly avoidable by hq, side effects.   People can and should continue to do things they always have (or as the cache owner guidelines continue to both imply and require).

 

 

7 hours ago, dprovan said:

Why should I post a note when everything is already going to play out exactly as it should.

 

Well first, if that's what the reviewer has requested then that's why (else take it to appeals).  Second, what is "play out as it should"?  You ignoring and being unresponsive to a reviewer request thus forcing them to archive your listing over reasonable time period while leaving what you believe to a "good container" out in the wild as trash, when you could come up with a way to ensure the listing is good and positive for the community and can live on beyond your apparent desire for its archival?

Or, maybe you don't desire for its archival (despite believing that it should be, which doesn't make sense to me)? Then do something about it.

 

7 hours ago, dprovan said:

Why should I post a note telling the reviewer I can't get to it, so it's OK for him to archive it in 4 weeks when he's already going to archive it in 4 weeks?

 

Because that's entirely irresponsible, for numerous reasons which should seem obvious by now.

 

7 hours ago, dprovan said:

It's ridiculous even before we considering that I might be too busy to look at geocaching at all in which case I'd no idea this is going on. That's still OK. I didn't promise to devote my life to geocaching, I merely conceded that if I don't do my part, my caches can be archived.

 

Effectively saying you're willing to leave litter in the wild. Set-it-and-forget-it, got it.

Take 5 minutes - find someone to adopt the cache. You can't be THAT BUSY to spend a few minutes to ensure the physical stuff you left in nature is well attended. No, there's no excuse unless you're dead. EVEN IF it's an email to the reviewer saying as much. If it has to get archived without you collecting your junk, well then it's ultimately your responsibility to make that happen somehow. Or not. Depends what kind of person you want to be when it comes to respecting nature (or playing on a different website).

Some would say if you placed a cache without understanding and accepting due responsibility for its entire life then you should not be placing caches. Some would say.

 

7 hours ago, dprovan said:
15 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

If you wanted it archived, then why didn't you just archive it?

I did want to archive it until after there had been 4 weeks for someone to find it. In other words, I didn't archive it for exactly the same reason the reviewer didn't archive it instead of disabling it: someone could discover the cache was fine in those 4 weeks.

 

If it's disabled, it doesn't matter the state of the cache. You have to respond, to demonstrate you're not inactive and ignorant, and convince the reviewer that it is not worthy of archival.  If the reviewer has already judged that it should be checked (whether they think it's missing or not) then you have to check or convince them otherwise.  If you think your cache should be archived, then archive it. Don't care if you think it should live out its life "just in case" someone else might find it good. At that point you've already stated by your own words and actions that it's not worth your time to check on in a reasonable time frame. In a reasonable time frame - that means a time frame you are able to check on it which is also agreed upon with a reviewer (other than adopting or straight up archiving). If you can't get that far, then IMO, you should not own that cache. That's basic ownership 101, per the guidelines.

 

You agreed to own and be responsible for the container when you list it on geocaching.com. If for any reason that's no longer feasible (which is not a bad thing in and of itself) part of that responsibility is dealing with that situation, not stringing it out like you just don't care and making someone else do the work because you won't.  Yes, it is a privilege to have caches listed on geocaching.com, which means reviewers have every right to apply the guidelines to their best, most reasonable judgment, so that the caches listed on said website are reasonably findable and have a reasonable chance of providing a positive experience. You still own your junk. If it looks like you've abandoned your listing, you'll probably not gain any favour or sympathy from those who maintain geocaching.com.

Sorry for getting blunt, but to me it seems like you're making excuses for doing nothing and shirking basic geocache listing responsibility for geocaching.com. Which is exactly one of things reviewers are there to watch out for.

Edited by thebruce0
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Is it the button nano on a park bench? In 2017 you posted an OM that said:
 
 
Quote

01/14/2017

It turns out that, for reasons I won't go into, this is likely to be the last time I'm ever here to check on xxx's cache that I adopted, so I made sure to check it out when I walked past.

 

 

 

So in 2018 when it got DNFs for 3 months in a row, maybe the reviewer read your 2017 OM that said you were not coming back. Seems reasonable because there is no longer a maintenance plan.  

Edited by L0ne.R
typo
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10 hours ago, dprovan said:

I did(n't?) want to archive it until after there had been 4 weeks for someone to find it. In other words, I didn't archive it for exactly the same reason the reviewer didn't archive it instead of disabling it: someone could discover the cache was fine in those 4 weeks.

But how many cachers look for disabled caches?  I filter them out of my GPSr load until they've been fixed or archived.  Your expecting another cacher to be that someone (to discover the cache is fine - pretty unlikely), while the reviewer is expecting you to be that someone.

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6 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

It's understandable that your region will play out differently. First, local reviewers should know your region and the general community attitude towards situations like yours. Second, if this cache isn't in your region, then it's understandable you'd be surprised at the turn of events given a reviewer in a different region reviewing a cache in a different region.  We have to watch the proxy-outrage habit many of us have because the limited exposure we have to worldwide geocaching. I can't imagine some of things Germans can do, for example, that reviewers wouldn't bat an eyelash at denying here.  That's why forums aren't all that good far garnering a relevant consensus because many people play in different community and regional climates with some likely variant local guidelines and reviewer practices.

 

There are seven reviewers in Australia, nominally one for each state/territory although a couple of the smaller ones are grouped together, but most of those state reviewers only do new cache publication. A couple of the smaller states' reviewers also do country-wide maintenance enforcement, handling caches disabled for too long, caches with NAs logged, and now it seems caches pinged by the CHS. So the reviewer who TDd that cache (which is about 30km from my home) wasn't local to the area, since his coverage area for that role is the whole country.

 

6 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

I don't see anything lost. I see an additional effort, with unncessecary by cachers and possibly avoidable by hq, side effects.   People can and should continue to do things they always have (or as the cache owner guidelines continue to both imply and require).

 

What's lost I suppose is the sense that the community was in control. Before, the only time a reviewer would step in was after an NA was logged or if a cache had been left disabled for too long, the former being initiated by the community while the latter is solely in the hands of the CO. Now, with the CHS being enforced (which only seems to have started in the last few months), that sense has diminished and there's a feeling of having to be a bit more circumspect in logging DNFs and NMs as these can now have unintended consequences beyond just being a statement of the seeker's inability to find the cache and a heads-up to the CO respectively. There's also a sense that the system is now geared against caches that are challenging to find.

Edited by barefootjeff
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4 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

So in 2018 when it was got DNFs for 3 months in a row, maybe the reviewer read your 2017 OM that said you were not coming back. Seems reasonable because there is no longer a maintenance plan.

I'm not sure why you're looking for a special explanation. Nomex has said in this very thread that this is his normal approach: disable after CHS, and archive after 4 weeks. No need to conjecture about him carefully reading logs years back to do what he's said plainly is his standard procedure.

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10 hours ago, Rikitan said:

There's no mechanism, no reviewer who can satisfy all the people, we all are different.

Right. So who do we try to satisfy? The current approach seems to be an attempt to satisfy the loudest. The result is an attempt to satisfy the ones that are literally impossible to satisfy because the problems they're complaining about are normal, not an anomaly caused by rampant irresponsibility by cache owners.

 

10 hours ago, Rikitan said:

Let me help to express myself by classic histogram with normal distribution.

I'm not sure I understand your graph. Other than in the forums, I've found that most seekers are content with the quality, understanding when there's a problem, and point out problems which COs fix. Is that the center of your graph? Those people were satisfied, so I don't see any reason they'd understand changing the approach any more than the left hand group does.

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7 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Well first, if that's what the reviewer has requested then that's why (else take it to appeals).

What did the reviewer request? As far as I can see, he requested that I look at the cache within 4 weeks. When I didn't, he archived it. Would it meet with your approval if I'd archived it a minute before he did? I don't see the point.

 

7 hours ago, thebruce0 said:
14 hours ago, dprovan said:

Why should I post a note telling the reviewer I can't get to it, so it's OK for him to archive it in 4 weeks when he's already going to archive it in 4 weeks?

Because that's entirely irresponsible, for numerous reasons which should seem obvious by now.

Not only is it not obvious, I've presented a case why it's not irresponsible at all, but you seem to be oblivious to what I'm saying.

 

7 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Effectively saying you're willing to leave litter in the wild.

Huh? The hypothesis is that the cache is missing. How can something that's not there be litter?

 

7 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Set-it-and-forget-it, got it.

You're not paying any attention.

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3 hours ago, The Jester said:

But how many cachers look for disabled caches?  I filter them out of my GPSr load until they've been fixed or archived.  Your expecting another cacher to be that someone (to discover the cache is fine - pretty unlikely), while the reviewer is expecting you to be that someone.

But the same argument that says my wish probably won't come true also makes it unimportant that I waited. No one's going to look for it, so they won't find it for me but they also won't be in a position to be upset because they looked for it and it was missing.

 

As it happens, I don't filter out disabled caches, and I look for them if there's a reason to think it will be worth the effort. I sometimes make it a priority to look for a cache that's disabled when the logs make it seem likely it's still there. In fact, I've been known to look for archived caches because I doubt they should have been archived.

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On 2/5/2019 at 6:35 PM, dprovan said:

I've had a couple caches where I wasn't convinced there was a problem but also didn't have time to check, so I didn't react until they were finally disabled.

 

15 minutes ago, dprovan said:

The hypothesis is that the cache is missing. How can something that's not there be litter?

 

This seems like a bit of a contradiction.  I’d make the trip to check for litter.

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2 hours ago, IceColdUK said:

This seems like a bit of a contradiction.  I’d make the trip to check for litter.

Very thorough of you. I understand your thinking, but when the process has led to the conclusion that the cache is missing, it's more of a contradiction to think there was a requirement for me to go look for it, to my way of thinking.

 

Although to be honest, I don't really see the logic behind thinking that a cache that's still where it's always been somehow becomes terrible and has to be collected just because it was accidentally archived. It's not doing any more damage to the environment than it ever did.

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3 hours ago, dprovan said:

Would it meet with your approval if I'd archived it a minute before he did?

 

It would not meet my definition of good stewardship (and I believe it also does not meet the guidelines about proper ownership-- but I don't want to go check again). 

 

The course of action that would be best for the community and reputation of the activity....

  • Visit the cache's location
  • Check to see if it is actually missing
  • Replace with a new cache container if the container is missing
  • If the cache is there (perhaps moved to the wrong spot), return the container to the proper spot and post an OM to let everyone one know the gamepiece is back in play
  • Or archive the cache (after removing it if it's there but you no longer want or can maintain it)

When you last visited the cache and posted that you would not be back, that would have been the ideal time to retrieve the container and archive the cache listing.  

Edited by L0ne.R
Addition to clarify the last bullet
  • Upvote 3
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19 minutes ago, dprovan said:

Very thorough of you. I understand your thinking, but when the process has led to the conclusion that the cache is missing, it's more of a contradiction to think there was a requirement for me to go look for it, to my way of thinking.

 

Although to be honest, I don't really see the logic behind thinking that a cache that's still where it's always been somehow becomes terrible and has to be collected just because it was accidentally archived. It's not doing any more damage to the environment than it ever did.

 

We may agree to differ on the merits and consequences of the CHS, but these are Geocaching 101 basics of cache ownership: without maintenance, today’s cache is tomorrow’s litter.

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