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Does a sticker or ink count as a physical waypoint?


MegaGengar

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Hi, I am looking to hide a multi and am seeking some clarification on the guidelines:

 

I want to take the geocacher on a tour of little free libraries. Most of them already have a logbook. With permission from the owner, if I wrote the next waypoints coordinates into the logbook would that count as a physical waypoint? Also, if I put a sticker on a plant or something would that count? Yes, it’s something I’m placing but the plant was already there. 

 

Thanks

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An interesting problem. For those libraries with proximity issues to other caches, since you can't add anything yourself, you can try to leverage what's already there. Pick letters out of the title page of the log book to construct the coordinates of the next stage, for example. Or even grab numbers off a nearby sign or telephone pole. I've seen people use the address of the house the free library is in front of.

 

Don't tell Keystone I suggested this, but if you're working with the library owners, maybe they'd be interested in chaining their libraries together. If *they* put "for the next free library in our neighborhood, go to Nxx xx.xxx Wyyy yy.yyy", then technically it wouldn't be *you* placing anything there. Kinda muddy waters, especially if you volunteer to "help" them by doing it for them...

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On 8/15/2019 at 4:20 AM, Keystone said:

Anything that you place into the environment counts as a physical waypoint, and must be at least .1 miles away from any other physical element of a different cache.  Yes, the plant was there, but you placed the sticker.

I see. Thanks for replying. So ink also counts (like writing in a logbook) as you placed the ink?

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On 8/15/2019 at 9:53 AM, dprovan said:

An interesting problem. For those libraries with proximity issues to other caches, since you can't add anything yourself, you can try to leverage what's already there. Pick letters out of the title page of the log book to construct the coordinates of the next stage, for example. Or even grab numbers off a nearby sign or telephone pole. I've seen people use the address of the house the free library is in front of.

 

Don't tell Keystone I suggested this, but if you're working with the library owners, maybe they'd be interested in chaining their libraries together. If *they* put "for the next free library in our neighborhood, go to Nxx xx.xxx Wyyy yy.yyy", then technically it wouldn't be *you* placing anything there. Kinda muddy waters, especially if you volunteer to "help" them by doing it for them...

Thanks for the clarification! Appreciate it. I wonder what I’ll do. Hmm

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On 8/19/2019 at 4:58 PM, MegaGengar said:

I see. Thanks for replying. So ink also counts (like writing in a logbook) as you placed the ink?

 

Your kind of in a grey area here.   I assume that the logbook was a pre-existing item that was in the LFL.  Writing coordinates on it might not be considered leaving a physical item, but might run afoul of the "do not alter or deface" guideline.   If writing a set of coordinates in a book was okay, someone else might think it's okay to write coordinates on a street sign or brick wall.  Rather than draw a line, reviewers may enforce a "do not alter or deface" guideline strictly with no exceptions.  

 

Sometimes they have to be strict, when there are so many that seem to try and find loopholes and semantically interpret rules to their advantage.  

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5 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

Your kind of in a grey area here.   I assume that the logbook was a pre-existing item that was in the LFL.  Writing coordinates on it might not be considered leaving a physical item, but might run afoul of the "do not alter or deface" guideline.   If writing a set of coordinates in a book was okay, someone else might think it's okay to write coordinates on a street sign or brick wall.  Rather than draw a line, reviewers may enforce a "do not alter or deface" guideline strictly with no exceptions.  

 

Sometimes they have to be strict, when there are so many that seem to try and find loopholes and semantically interpret rules to their advantage.  

For exactly the reasons you've presented, I don't think this is grey at all: if the CO wrote coordinates in a log book, that's something he left, just as it would be if he wrote the coordinates on a street sign. If someone else wrote the coordinates, then it gets a little grey, but I think the cache would be OK as long as the CO discovered the coordinates someone else wrote. If anything suggested that the CO was responsible for someone else leaving those coordinates, then I think we're back to something he left.

 

I have a multi based on some trail signs with incorrect coordinates on them. I had to make sure to explain to the reviewer that I found them that way and just made a multi out of them, but once I did that, it was approved.

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On 8/22/2019 at 1:31 PM, dprovan said:

For exactly the reasons you've presented, I don't think this is grey at all: if the CO wrote coordinates in a log book, that's something he left, just as it would be if he wrote the coordinates on a street sign. If someone else wrote the coordinates, then it gets a little grey, but I think the cache would be OK as long as the CO discovered the coordinates someone else wrote. If anything suggested that the CO was responsible for someone else leaving those coordinates, then I think we're back to something he left.

 

I have a multi based on some trail signs with incorrect coordinates on them. I had to make sure to explain to the reviewer that I found them that way and just made a multi out of them, but once I did that, it was approved.

 

I was assuming that the logbook in a LFL was put there by the creator of the library,  for users of the library to log books borrowed and added to the library.  I would think that a reviewer would be a bit too picky if they required that the owner of the LFL write coordinates in a logbook intended to be written in rather than the CO.   There have been a few caches mentioned in the forum that were some kind of pre-existing graffiti wall that was subsequently used as a geocache log.   I'm on the fence on those as it would be hard to characterize a wall/fence like that as defacement, but it also kind sets a precedent that it's okay to use walls/fences as a logbook.   In this case, a pre-existing book created by someone else specifically so the general public could write in it, could hardly be characterized as defacement nor that the CO has placed a physical object.  

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