Why is deletion of adoption logs possible?

[+Max and 99]

15 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

Well GS has a double standard about FTF they don't track them but at the same time encourage us to go run for them...

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2019/07/dogs-of-geocaching/?newsletter=PM

I do not disagree!

[+coachstahly]

While the actions of this CO are certainly "shady" and I would never even consider doing something like this, you can bet I'd call them out on it if I saw them at an event or anywhere else.  Honestly, as Max has stated, other than the FTF side game, which isn't "officially" recognized by GS, this cacher's actions don't appear to affect the integrity of the caches themselves, only the ability of the CO to log them as found to add to their find count and to claim FTF honors, unless there's something I'm missing in between the lines.  I don't see how this really affects anything other than the egos and ethical mores of those involved.  I'm not saying that's not important, but I'm not going to get all upset about this cacher's actions, other than to call them out if I run into them.  I think we all can think of a cacher who skirts the boundaries of caching guidelines/etiquette but unless it physically affects the caches in question and prevents them from being found in the manner in which they were intended, I don't see how this is truly a problem to agonize over, specifically as it pertains to the caches.  The behavior certainly is negative and not normal but as far as the caches go and the experiences other cachers might have at any of the caches in question, I don't get how this impacts things in a manner that would make me think Korea is a horrible place to cache with a horrible reputation.  I'd question the reputation of the cacher, not the reputation of the caching community.

 

As to the OP's question, I've adopted quite a few caches and I would never consider deleting the adoption log nor any other legitimate log that was posted (unless it was a spoiler log or photo or a denigrating log toward the CO), as they are the history of the cache.  The bad logs belong on there just as much as the logs that Canada can mark as "good/helpful" logs.

[+dprovan]

If you know the person that planted the cache is the one claiming the FTF, when you find the cache next, just claim FTF and mention why you consider yours the real FTF. Problem solved.

[+Max and 99]

3 minutes ago, dprovan said:

If you know the person that planted the cache is the one claiming the FTF, when you find the cache next, just claim FTF and mention why you consider yours the real FTF. Problem solved.

That's exactly what I would do.

[+cerberus1]

5 hours ago, dprovan said:

If you know the person that planted the cache is the one claiming the FTF, when you find the cache next, just claim FTF and mention why you consider yours the real FTF. Problem solved.

5 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

That's exactly what I would do.

 

I sorta agree.  In this instance, it seems the caches were  "adopted" by the same person who placed them, and simply started over.

Guess I'd mention "First to find this 're-issued' cache without being the CO himself.    " or similar tongue-in-cheek (just to bust the CO's chops), but not really count it for anything (back when we counted them...).  

The most they could do would be delete your log, and an email to HQ, already aware of this knucklehead, fixes that too. 

Maybe they'd realize it's just not worth it (to them) anymore, and give up that silliness.   

[+Wet Pancake Touring Club]

Regarding the OP's example cacher, it appears this cacher spent a lot of time just to claim FTF? I've never adopted a cache, but I imagine that you can only adopt one cache at a time. I wonder how much time it took this guy to change ownership on all of his caches. He must of wanted that FTF pretty badly. Last time I checked, FTF has no advantages. It doesn't get you a discount off the $20 cup of coffee at Starbucks, it doesn't increase your height, it has no impact on cholesterol. 

 

As for taking over a deceased person's account, there could be legitimate reasons. We have a very prolific hider pass away a couple of years ago. In that case, one of the members of his family took over the account. They adopted a number of caches out, archived some others, and continue to maintain the remainder. Without the details of how he gained access to an account not his own, I cannot offer a meaningful opinion on that.

[+Crazedllama]

On 7/31/2019 at 7:48 AM, Max and 99 said:

Similar to my area. Honestly it doesn't bother me very much since their finds don't affect me. I get the impression from the OP that the community is bothered that their logger is claiming FTF on his own caches, and my first thought was why would Groundspeak get involved in that matter. I also read that the community is upset that the finder's activity makes his rank  #1.  Thank rank would mean nothing to me anyway, but especially considering the logging behavior. I wouldn't take any notice of his rank or FTF stats. Meaningless.

 

In the USA, I agree, I wouldn't care so much because it wouldn't affect the general geocaching population. That and more cachers are likely to call out the bad behavior. However, over the past several years we've seen the geocaching community shrink to around 15 geocachers Korea-wide because of these kinds of actions. Also it has become near impossible to recruit new geocachers and keep them in the game. They start playing and then quit soon afterwards when they notice the "#1 Korean Geocacher" puffing up their numbers so much. 

I think this is a case where Groundspeak has misunderstood Asian, especially Korean, culture where being #1 and the actions of the #1 person in a community really matter a lot. I think the reason this geocacher has done it in the way he has (by placing a cache, adopting it over to a previously legitimate account, deleting adoption logs, changing the name associated with the cache, then logging a find) is to #1 avoid scrutiny from the reviewers who knew about the previous players' death or inactivity. #2 Avoid scrutiny from the geocaching community by using a name they all recognize. #3 Avoid the shame of cheating and being found out by the community. 

Our local reviewers (who understand Korean culture quite well) when they found out what this cacher did permanently locked the adopt notes on all the caches he had adopted so as to expose the shame. Then Groundspeak locked the account as soon as they knew what was going on. Groundspeak's biggest mistake came when they allowed him to readopt all of the caches back to his original account. In the short time span they gave him, he archived all of the account's original caches (close to 500) and then adopted all of the other caches with locked adopt notes to another puppet account and archived them too (to hide his shame). So now, there isn't any proof on active caches that he had ever done it. In the end to avoid the shame he archived hundreds of caches across the country just to avoid being shamed. 

So maybe meaningless to you, but if Groundspeak actually wants to attract new geocachers in Asia who will pay for subscriptions, they're going to have to deal with this kind of behavior more aggressively. Otherwise, the community will continue to decline. 

[+Crazedllama]

On 7/31/2019 at 12:05 PM, coachstahly said:

While the actions of this CO are certainly "shady" and I would never even consider doing something like this, you can bet I'd call them out on it if I saw them at an event or anywhere else.  

This seems nice, and I would definitely call out this cacher if I saw them somewhere, but I'm the odd one out in a country where the culture almost strictly forbids calling someone out in public. Shaming someone in public, even for something that everyone knows they did, can actually get you sued for slander. Reputation is everything in Korean culture, but publicly calling someone out for something wrong they did is considered even more shameful. I know, seems weird.... 

A good example of this is when we had a different cacher a few years back hiding caches upwards of 80 meters off coordinates and just supplying a photo spoiler. The Korean geocachers would log only positive things or quick logs like tftc, when the foreign cachers started complaining, the cacher archived 1000 caches countrywide to avoid the public shame. 

In reality, I think only Groundspeak can do something to stop this kind of behavior and I think previous suggestions from above like making adoption logs a new log type and locking them like a publish log would be locked will help. There would still be ways that this cacher could log their own caches ( ex. team/puppet accounts), but everyone would know it was him so I doubt he would continue. 

[+arisoft]

44 minutes ago, Crazedllama said:

This seems nice, and I would definitely call out this cacher if I saw them somewhere, but I'm the odd one out in a country where the culture almost strictly forbids calling someone out in public. Shaming someone in public, even for something that everyone knows they did, can actually get you sued for slander. Reputation is everything in Korean culture, but publicly calling someone out for something wrong they did is considered even more shameful. I know, seems weird.... 

A good example of this is when we had a different cacher a few years back hiding caches upwards of 80 meters off coordinates and just supplying a photo spoiler. The Korean geocachers would log only positive things or quick logs like tftc, when the foreign cachers started complaining, the cacher archived 1000 caches countrywide to avoid the public shame. 

In reality, I think only Groundspeak can do something to stop this kind of behavior and I think previous suggestions from above like making adoption logs a new log type and locking them like a publish log would be locked will help. There would still be ways that this cacher could log their own caches ( ex. team/puppet accounts), but everyone would know it was him so I doubt he would continue. 

 

Thank you for this explanation. It may put things another order - more complicated. It shows that it was mistake to prevent posting finds to own caches from the beginning. As almost every event host is posting attented for their own event it should be equally correct to post found it to own caches. Being allowed there would be no negative impact for a such behaviour.

 

[+Max and 99]

6 hours ago, Crazedllama said:

Reputation is everything in Korean culture, but publicly calling someone out for something wrong they did is considered even more shameful. 

But that's exactly what you've done.

[+cerberus1]

7 hours ago, Crazedllama said:

This seems nice, and I would definitely call out this cacher if I saw them somewhere, but I'm the odd one out in a country where the culture almost strictly forbids calling someone out in public. Shaming someone in public, even for something that everyone knows they did, can actually get you sued for slander. Reputation is everything in Korean culture, but publicly calling someone out for something wrong they did is considered even more shameful. I know, seems weird.... 

A good example of this is when we had a different cacher a few years back hiding caches upwards of 80 meters off coordinates and just supplying a photo spoiler. The Korean geocachers would log only positive things or quick logs like tftc, when the foreign cachers started complaining, the cacher archived 1000 caches countrywide to avoid the public shame. 

In reality, I think only Groundspeak can do something to stop this kind of behavior and I think previous suggestions from above like making adoption logs a new log type and locking them like a publish log would be locked will help. There would still be ways that this cacher could log their own caches ( ex. team/puppet accounts), but everyone would know it was him so I doubt he would continue. 

 

Wow.   This seems like a good time to ask about "ignore a cacher" in website again.  The site previously said it doesn't like the negative.

Not being able to call a cheater out as a cheater because of shame just seems odd to me, and unfair to others.

 - If a person's reputation is a cheat, no matter how bizarre this behavior is , they should own that.

[+coachstahly]

7 hours ago, Crazedllama said:

This seems nice, and I would definitely call out this cacher if I saw them somewhere, but I'm the odd one out in a country where the culture almost strictly forbids calling someone out in public. Shaming someone in public, even for something that everyone knows they did, can actually get you sued for slander. Reputation is everything in Korean culture, but publicly calling someone out for something wrong they did is considered even more shameful. I know, seems weird.... 

A good example of this is when we had a different cacher a few years back hiding caches upwards of 80 meters off coordinates and just supplying a photo spoiler. The Korean geocachers would log only positive things or quick logs like tftc, when the foreign cachers started complaining, the cacher archived 1000 caches countrywide to avoid the public shame. 

In reality, I think only Groundspeak can do something to stop this kind of behavior and I think previous suggestions from above like making adoption logs a new log type and locking them like a publish log would be locked will help. There would still be ways that this cacher could log their own caches ( ex. team/puppet accounts), but everyone would know it was him so I doubt he would continue. 

 

I understand the cultural differences (having lived in Japan for 3 1/2 years, which has similar societal mores), but I still think that the public shaming could deter the actions of the cacher enough to prevent this from occurring.  They obviously know that there are other cachers who don't approve of the actions, yet they still continue to do it.  Seems to me that they don't really care about their public perception, which seems to be at odds with the societal norms.  However, I still don't understand how this really affects things for other cachers, either local or visiting, other than the FTF side game (again, not an official thing) or the competition aspect with regard to the most finds.  

[+coachstahly]

1 hour ago, Max and 99 said:

But that's exactly what you've done.

 

They said they were outliers.  I think the point was that it wasn't done face to face, vs. being done here in the forums, which a large percentage of the world caching community don't actually visit.

 

7 hours ago, Crazedllama said:

This seems nice, and I would definitely call out this cacher if I saw them somewhere, but I'm the odd one out in a country where the culture almost strictly forbids calling someone out in public.

 

 

[+Crazedllama]

5 minutes ago, coachstahly said:

However, I still don't understand how this really affects things for other cachers, either local or visiting, other than the FTF side game (again, not an official thing) or the competition aspect with regard to the most finds.  

The FTF thing is really just an annoyance. The bigger issue is that this cacher wasn't using a puppet account, but actual people's accounts to hide their activity. Also, when they were caught and called out they archived hundreds of caches, that they shouldn't have been able to access to in the first place, which are now more difficult to find. It's also been near impossible to keep geocachers active after they see the #1 cacher acting this way and getting away with it. Just isn't as fun any more. 

 

Also, you're right Japan has similar customs, but somehow they've been able to avoid similar problems. They've also been able to grow their community of cachers, something that Korea has been unable to do. 

[+coachstahly]

3 minutes ago, Crazedllama said:

The FTF thing is really just an annoyance. The bigger issue is that this cacher wasn't using a puppet account, but actual people's accounts to hide their activity. Also, when they were caught and called out they archived hundreds of caches, that they shouldn't have been able to access to in the first place, which are now more difficult to find. It's also been near impossible to keep geocachers active after they see the #1 cacher acting this way and getting away with it. Just isn't as fun any more. 

 

Access to others' accounts is certainly an issue that deserves some sort of attention from TPTB and is something that  shouldn't have been allowed,.  That action alone certainly would have reprecussions within the community.

 

With less caches out there, I would think/hope that others would step into the void to help fill those holes so that others would have the opportunity to find more caches.  I'm not sure how the actions of the #1 cacher should adversely affect the activity of the rest of the community in the manner in which you describe.  Yes, they acted in a manner that goes against what most of us would consider "ethical" but other than the removal/archival of the caches, it shouldn't detract from the fun that's still available, especially if the community rallies to the cause and places caches to fill the void.  Condemn their actions, but don't let their actions affect the enjoyment that can still be had out there.