Some COs don't take kindly to NM, and then the NA (because the NM was ignored)

[+thebruce0]

21 hours ago, arisoft said:

21 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Note the bold. The key word being "can". It's an exception.

 

This is important. We can maintain caches collectively in Finland. Couple of days ago I found a cache lying on ground. The hook was missing. I made a new hook and moved the cache back to the ground zero. No reviewer has archived the cache yet.

 

That... is not at all the impression you're giving. This happens all the time, all over the world. You're implying there's some kind of special case, an organization of people who somehow have an accepted right to maintain other people's caches with absolutely no risk of repercussion on the cache owners because that's just how things are done.  I find that hard to believe (and that's an understatement).

 

Of course someone coming across a cache that's not on its hook and placing it back on its hook is not going to cause a cache archival! Nowhere did I or anyone else give the impression that is the kind of 'community maintenance' that is disallowed...

Edited September 24, 2019 by thebruce0

[+thebruce0]

4 minutes ago, arisoft said:

8 minutes ago, rapotek said:

I would like to know specifically how a community member knows she/he is allowed to maintain a particular cache.

 

There is a public list of players engaged to this activity.

 

I would love to hear from a local reviewer what the official policy is on having a whitelist of geocachers who are allowed to regularly proxy-maintain geocaches for cache owners so they are not obligated to perform their own cache maintenance.

[+coachstahly]

7 minutes ago, arisoft said:

 

There is a public list of players engaged to this activity.

 

This is what Bruce and I are talking about.  You're saying that you have a cache, that was published by a reviewer, that states that you allow all of these people to maintain your cache, and that they are your maintenance plan instead of you maintaining your own cache?  

[+arisoft]

2 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

I would love to hear from a local reviewer what the official policy is on having a whitelist of geocachers who are allowed to regularly proxy-maintain geocaches for cache owners so they are not obligated to perform their own cache maintenance.

 

This is quite exact description of what is going on. The problem is that no one knows who is the real cache owner as we are using pseudonyms. As I told earlier. I have made one of these caches. It is maintained regularly by someone else than me. I don't even know who did the maintenance.

[+thebruce0]

4 minutes ago, arisoft said:

This is quite exact description of what is going on. The problem is that no one knows who is the real cache owner as we are using pseudonyms. As I told earlier. I have made one of these caches. It is maintained regularly by someone else than me. I don't even know who did the maintenance.

 

That seems completely backwards. Again, I'd love to hear from a reviewer that this is officially allowed and condoned.  It may well be. But right now, I'm finding that quite hard to believe.

[+rapotek]

27 minutes ago, arisoft said:

 

There is a public list of players engaged to this activity.

 

Let me put it this way: does a community member feel to be allowed to maintain each cache she/he meets anywhere? Or does this community maintenance affect only caches belonging to players engaged? Or maybe not every cache of engaged player but a selected set?

[+arisoft]

12 minutes ago, rapotek said:

 

Let me put it this way: does a community member feel to be allowed to maintain each cache she/he meets anywhere? Or does this community maintenance affect only caches belonging to players engaged? Or maybe not every cache of engaged player but a selected set?

 

I am not in the list but I feel free to make maintaining as I told in the missing hook case.

 

What comes to the community cachers they are free to replace a community cache when it is missing. (selected set is correct)

Edited September 23, 2019 by arisoft

[+rapotek]

6 minutes ago, arisoft said:

 

I am not in the list but I feel free to make maintaining as I told in the missing hook case.

 

What comes to the community cachers they are free to replace a community cache when it is missing. (selected set is correct)

 

That is a relief, because I started becoming afraid about spreading this trend over the see and having here a group of people doing every cache maintenance even if a CO deliberately writes in a cache listing that similar activities are not welcome.

[+arisoft]

4 minutes ago, rapotek said:

That is a relief, because I started becoming afraid about spreading this trend over the see and having here a group of people doing every cache maintenance even if a CO deliberately writes in a cache listing that similar activities are not welcome.

 

Yes, there is nothing fishy It just happens to be an example of caches maintained by a community.

[+thebruce0]

It's fishy if it's not official condoned or allowed but has survived because it's flown under the radar.

Again, I'd love to see a reviewer state that this is an agreed-upon strategy for cache maintenance in that region. If so, great. But it still seems entirely contrary to some of the reasoning behind the terms of use of cache ownership.

Edited September 24, 2019 by thebruce0

[+arisoft]

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

It's fishy if it's not official condoned or allowed by has survived because it's flown under the radar.

 

What radar you are referring? No reviewer is obligated to verify who did a maintenance for a cache.

[+dprovan]

4 hours ago, coachstahly said:

While I understand where you're going with this, it still doesn't seem to make sense in this case.  Here's the reply offered up.

Yes, I understand you. I agree I was responding to someone that wasn't really doing maintenance for a friend, but I was, nevertheless, agreeing with the principle he was presenting of a CO meeting his responsibilities of maintenance by having friends maintain his cache for him.
 

On 9/21/2019 at 5:20 PM, thebruce0 said:

Oh we've had instances of proxy-maintenance being noticed by reviewers and being dealt with. It gets to the point that people won't mention in find logs that the cache was missing and so a replacement was set in place (whether knowing beforehand or not, with permission or not). It happens. And when it happens regularly, and the CO continues to allow it as if it's the norm, then reviewers will take action.

It's possible your reviewer reacts differently. It's possible your reviewer suspects these other caches aren't really acting under the direction of the CO. In my area, it is quite common for a cache to be "replaced after conferring with the CO", and I've never seen a reviewer react as if there's any issue with that.

[+thebruce0]

15 minutes ago, dprovan said:

In my area, it is quite common for a cache to be "replaced after conferring with the CO", and I've never seen a reviewer react as if there's any issue with that.

Yes, again, not on an individual basis, but on a habitual basis. If a reviewer judges that a CO is not being a CO - ie shirking their reponsibilities - that is what can get attention. Not individual cases of a proxy maintenance, the vast majority of which are essentially harmless. For the most part, this is not strictly about proxy maintenance - it's about whether the user is upholding their responsibilities as a CO. And yes, reviewers in different regions may have different thresholds for what warrants taking followup actions.

[+dprovan]

7 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Yes, again, not on an individual basis, but on a habitual basis.

If a CO habitually has failing caches, I can see a reviewer viewing it darkly regardless of who was fixing them over and over.

[+thebruce0]

1 hour ago, dprovan said:

If a CO habitually has failing caches, I can see a reviewer viewing it darkly regardless of who was fixing them over and over.

Sure, but, a reviewer won't take action against a cache owner just because they happen to have caches that fail often. There's no guideline that says your caches must meet an arbitrary level of "good condition".  Reviewers can only enforce owner responsibiilties.  They could offer suggestions and tips, especially if such an owner decides to keep placing caches... AND, some cachers around here have had temporary 'bans' on new cache placements, whether for excessive current caches needing maintenance, or just simply excessive cache ownership.  Granted this reviewer level of action is quite likely very regional. But it happens.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

19 hours ago, arisoft said:

 

This is important. We can maintain caches collectively in Finland. Couple of days ago I found a cache lying on ground. The hook was missing. I made a new hook and moved the cache back to the ground zero. No reviewer has archived the cache yet.

 

 

 

I can rob a bank.  Whether or not I get to keep the money depends on if I'm caught.  

 

Caches can be maintained by members of the community and for that isn't close to where one lives some sort of maintenance plan is required.   I suspect that as a maintenance plan, in most places in the world, reviewers would require someone more specific than "the community".  

[+JL_HSTRE]

On 9/16/2019 at 4:41 PM, thebruce0 said:

And if you or I decide that it's worth picking up a container because we believe it to be abandoned litter, we run the risk of being wrong and effectively stealing someone's property.

 

Ah, yes, the risk of being wrong.

 

It's effectively a 99% chance of being right and a 1% chance being wrong. If you won't play those odds...

[+thebruce0]

28 minutes ago, JL_HSTRE said:

On 9/16/2019 at 4:41 PM, thebruce0 said:

And if you or I decide that it's worth picking up a container because we believe it to be abandoned litter, we run the risk of being wrong and effectively stealing someone's property.

 

Ah, yes, the risk of being wrong.

 

It's effectively a 99% chance of being right and a 1% chance being wrong. If you won't play those odds...

 

Just don't take someone else's property unless you know they've abandoned it, or your personal moral choice to "clean up the environment" is more important to you than your potential theft of someone else's property. It's not your responsibility or obligation. It's a really simple concept.

Edited September 26, 2019 by thebruce0

[+dprovan]

8 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Ah, yes, the risk of being wrong.

 

It's effectively a 99% chance of being right and a 1% chance being wrong. If you won't play those odds...

Well, yes, but if you're wrong, it matters that you've picked up the container that the CO wants, yet if you're right, it's not really a big deal whether you pick up the container or not.

[+colleda]

I've picked up a few neglected, archived containers without checking with COs. A few were rusty old mint tins containing pulp. Have no hesitation at all. If the CO has a whinge about it, heck, I'll send him a new one, I have plenty. Another was a Sistema container after a CO spat the dummy and committed geocide. After about a year I took that one (before it was totally consumed by a blackberry bush) and swapped it out on another rusty mint tin (one the same CO didn't archive) in a guard rail. That one is still going after about four years but there are many logs on it about the log book being full. It, as the man said "is not really a big deal".

Edited September 26, 2019 by colleda
spelling typo

[+colleda]

The same CO mentioned in my post above, prior to to his geocide, whinged about NMs on some of his other mint tin caches. Finders logs noted missing lids, torn baggies and wet log sheets. He could not comprehend why  finders were not fixing these issues.

[+niraD]

2 hours ago, colleda said:

Finders logs noted missing lids, torn baggies and wet log sheets. He could not comprehend why  finders were not fixing these issues.

Yeah, expecting finders to replace broken containers is rather presumptuous. And baggies and dry log sheets don't address the issue of a container that isn't weatherproof.

Edited September 27, 2019 by niraD

[+Goldenwattle]

On 9/24/2019 at 1:59 AM, arisoft said:

 

There is a public list of players engaged to this activity.

That's a good idea for caches away from urban areas.

[+VAVAPAM]

11 hours ago, niraD said:

12 hours ago, colleda said:

Finders logs noted missing lids, torn baggies and wet log sheets. He could not comprehend why  finders were not fixing these issues.

Yeah, expecting finders to replace broken containers is rather presumptuous. And baggies and dry log sheets don't address the issue of a container that isn't weatherproof.

That's when I STOP providing friendly community service:  When it becomes obvious the CO won't - and expects the community to - maintain his/her nasty broken caches.

I also won't replace a pill bottle.  Hate 'em; don't carry 'em.  Might or might not slap some duct tape on it; probably would replace the log ... depends again on the above situation.

[+VAVAPAM]

As far as the OP,  COs should expect an NM if they don't maintain their caches, and an NA if they continue to ignore the need for maintenance. 

 

And I'm going to go ahead and say it:  Especially for PTs/series.  Why?  A CO's long line of caches all needing logs is different from doing simple cacher maintenance for a couple of individual caches, due to the sheer number of logs needing to be replaced.  Besides the disregard for CO obligations, it's unrealistic to expect the community to maintain a power trail or many in a series of caches.  That's not only an expense that finders shouldn't be expected to finance, it's also tedious as heck after a while.

 

Private discourse (i.e., messaging the additional text in the NA log) might [or might not, admittedly] preclude the rather public display of disaffection.  Obviously it didn't, in this case.  Perhaps the CO referred to in the OP struck out in anger because he/she is naturally thin-skinned; perhaps he/she was embarrassed by the public statement. 

 

At any rate, attempting to shame a cacher for logging NA, by posting an Attack Note on the cache page is inappropriate.  I'm glad to see that the reviewer stepped in to counter ... and kudos for resisting the urge escalate further.

[+JL_HSTRE]

22 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Just don't take someone else's property unless you know they've abandoned it, or your personal moral choice to "clean up the environment" is more important to you than your potential theft of someone else's property. It's not your responsibility or obligation. It's a really simple concept.

 

Somebody else's problem! Precious property rights! (Property that usually cost no more than a few dollars new - even an ammo can can usually still be had for under $20 - and, after years in the wild, is usually worth much less, often verging on worthless.)

 

This is why we live in the world we do. People making excuses why they shouldn't do the right thing.

[+thebruce0]

4 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Somebody else's problem! Precious property rights! (Property that usually cost no more than a few dollars new - even an ammo can can usually still be had for under $20 - and, after years in the wild, is usually worth much less, often verging on worthless.)

 

This is why we live in the world we do. People making excuses why they shouldn't do the right thing.

 

1. People's "the right thing" is all over the board this day and age.

2. I never said or implied picking up trash was not 'the right thing'.

3. If you start inserting your arbitrary opinions of value or property as objective rights and wrongs, you are going to be in for a world of problems when other people do the same to you. And that's an understatement.

 

I'll say it again: Don't take someone else's property unless you know they've abandoned it, or your personal moral choice to "clean up the environment" is more important to you than your potential theft of someone else's property*. It's not your responsibility or obligation. It's a really simple concept.

 

* Read: This is where CITOs apply, this is where garbage collection applies, this is where laws and common sense about littering apply.

[+JL_HSTRE]

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

It's not your responsibility or obligation.

 

If there's a problem happening in front of you then it becomes your responsibility and your obligation to do something about the problem because you know the problem exists whereas most other people do not.

 

(I don't mean community maintenance. NM/NA is responsible, just like calling 911 instead or in addition to performing CPR yourself, if you have adequate knowledge.)

[+thebruce0]

1 minute ago, JL_HSTRE said:

If there's a problem happening in front of you then it becomes your responsibility and your obligation to do something about the problem because you know the problem exists whereas most other people do not.

 

(I don't mean community maintenance. NM/NA is responsible, just like calling 911 instead or in addition to performing CPR yourself, if you have adequate knowledge.)

 

Wow, I don't know about your country, but no, there is no legal responsibility to pick up what you think to be trash. Picking up trash is not like calling 911 or saving someone's life.

There are laws about littering. Not about picking up other people's litter.

[+coachstahly]

18 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

That's a good idea for caches away from urban areas.

 

The implication being that it's a bad idea for caches in urban areas.  When the stated standard for maintenance is the same, regardless of where the cache is placed, then the application of that standard needs to be consistently applied as well.  You can't condone two different sets of standards for a single standard that applies to everything in the same manner.  Either this type of maintenance is accepted across the board or it's rejected across the board.  You're actually doing both - applying CO maintenance expectations and rejecting CO maintenance expectations.

 

By applying your double standard, that means that remote caches should be published without maintenance plans that follow the established guidelines and urban caches must have maintenance plans in place that strictly adhere to the guidelines or run the risk or archival due to CO inaction.  You've only talked about maintenance of current existing ones but this concept is basically following the same thread of logic, just pre-publication.  Reviewers don't have that luxury, which means that remote caches without maintenance plans in place aren't allowed.  

 

Caches that require/need/desire maintenance from the community to keep in good standing are either abandoned or purposefully ignored by the CO who placed them.  There are plenty of forum users who complain about these types of COs (including you, per your OP), yet you apparently have chosen to help some of these non-maintainers by propping up their caches with the maintenance you do.  However, you also claim in this thread that another CO is shirking their responsibilities and not performing the required maintenance.  In essence, you believe the CO to be abandoning their duties and therefore deserving of a NA log.  Two COs, two caches, and two different actions by you for the same type of CO - one who either abandoned their cache or is purposefully ignoring maintenance needs (which is what you claim when you filed the NA - a lack of CO action to perform maintenance).

[+dprovan]

38 minutes ago, JL_HSTRE said:

If there's a problem happening in front of you then it becomes your responsibility and your obligation to do something about the problem because you know the problem exists whereas most other people do not.

Abandoned geocaches are a big problem where you live? I'm fairly certain no one would ever notice one in my area, so I have a hard time imagining them being a problem of any sort, let alone a problem so extreme it's a moral imperative for every one of us to help solve it.

[+Goldenwattle]

6 hours ago, coachstahly said:

 

The implication being that it's a bad idea for caches in urban areas.  When the stated standard for maintenance is the same, regardless of where the cache is placed, then the application of that standard needs to be consistently applied as well.  You can't condone two different sets of standards for a single standard that applies to everything in the same manner.  Either this type of maintenance is accepted across the board or it's rejected across the board.  You're actually doing both - applying CO maintenance expectations and rejecting CO maintenance expectations.

 

By applying your double standard, that means that remote caches should be published without maintenance plans that follow the established guidelines and urban caches must have maintenance plans in place that strictly adhere to the guidelines or run the risk or archival due to CO inaction.  You've only talked about maintenance of current existing ones but this concept is basically following the same thread of logic, just pre-publication.  Reviewers don't have that luxury, which means that remote caches without maintenance plans in place aren't allowed.  

 

Caches that require/need/desire maintenance from the community to keep in good standing are either abandoned or purposefully ignored by the CO who placed them.  There are plenty of forum users who complain about these types of COs (including you, per your OP), yet you apparently have chosen to help some of these non-maintainers by propping up their caches with the maintenance you do.  However, you also claim in this thread that another CO is shirking their responsibilities and not performing the required maintenance.  In essence, you believe the CO to be abandoning their duties and therefore deserving of a NA log.  Two COs, two caches, and two different actions by you for the same type of CO - one who either abandoned their cache or is purposefully ignoring maintenance needs (which is what you claim when you filed the NA - a lack of CO action to perform maintenance).

I've pretty much given up arguing; that's why I have not responded for awhile. I am so bored with it. In fact I feel harassed. Too much blame has been placed on me, where the blame actually lies with lazy COs who expect others to maintain their caches. I maintain my caches and don't expect anyone else to do it for me. What I do expect is the courtesy of finders to log a NM on my caches if there is a problem, so that I know about it and will go and fix it. As I did with the example I gave. The difference is that I wouldn't ignore the NM, as this CO did, expecting others to fix the cache for them. If I ignored the NM, then I hope and expect someone to log a NA, because either I am dead, or I deserve the kick up the back side, so to speak.

As for which caches I am prepared to do any maintenance on, that is entirely my choice, because I don't have to do any if I choose, so please stop telling me I have double standards, because what I do is my choice and what you do is your choice. I am over this constant bombardment. I am so bored with it. Go bombard the COs who don't maintain their caches, instead of those reporting unmaintained caches.

[+coachstahly]

On 9/27/2019 at 10:36 PM, Goldenwattle said:

where the blame actually lies with lazy COs who expect others to maintain their caches

 

On 9/27/2019 at 10:36 PM, Goldenwattle said:

Go bombard the COs who don't maintain their caches

 

On 9/27/2019 at 10:36 PM, Goldenwattle said:

they simply ignore the NM and hope someone else will fix their cache problem

 

On 9/27/2019 at 10:36 PM, Goldenwattle said:

Unfortunately too many COs ignore comments in logs. Log after log might have log is full for instance and the CO does nothing. I now often log NMs to lesson the chance of the maintenance issue being ignored.

 

On 9/27/2019 at 10:36 PM, Goldenwattle said:

The CO is fully responsible.

 

On 9/27/2019 at 10:36 PM, Goldenwattle said:

The CO ignored the lot.

 

You either don't understand the point I'm making or you're willfully ignoring it.  I'm fully on board with the statements above.  I've never said that COs who either abandon their caches or willfully ignore maintenance shouldn't be held accountable. They should.  That's a big part of the deal when signing up to be a CO.  I'm also not blaming you (blaming you for what?).  I'm telling you that your actions are sending mixed messages and completely undermine the point you are raising, that cache maintenance is the sole responsibility of the CO.

 

A CO is fully responsible for maintenance OR a CO is not fully responsible for maintenance.  You can't say you believe in one of these statements and say you also believe in the other statement but that's exactly what you've done.  Your actions taken in the examples you've provided support both of these statements, which are antithetical to each other.  Your actions actually show you to believe that COs are fully responsible AND show you to believe that COs aren't fully responsible, which are logically incompatible statements.

[+VAVAPAM]

1 hour ago, coachstahly said:

Your actions actually show you to believe that COs are fully responsible AND show you to believe that COs aren't fully responsible,

 

which are logically incompatible statements.

 

Perhaps they are conditional statements focused on maintenance, rather than absolute statements regarding CO responsibility. 

[+Goldenwattle]

9 hours ago, coachstahly said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

You either don't understand the point I'm making or you're willfully ignoring it.  I'm fully on board with the statements above.  I've never said that COs who either abandon their caches or willfully ignore maintenance shouldn't be held accountable. They should.  That's a big part of the deal when signing up to be a CO.  I'm also not blaming you (blaming you for what?).  I'm telling you that your actions are sending mixed messages and completely undermine the point you are raising, that cache maintenance is the sole responsibility of the CO.

 

A CO is fully responsible for maintenance OR a CO is not fully responsible for maintenance.  You can't say you believe in one of these statements and say you also believe in the other statement but that's exactly what you've done.  Your actions taken in the examples you've provided support both of these statements, which are antithetical to each other.  Your actions actually show you to believe that COs are fully responsible AND show you to believe that COs aren't fully responsible, which are logically incompatible statements.

I gave my answers.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Goldenwattle

[+Goldenwattle]

9 hours ago, coachstahly said:

A CO is fully responsible for maintenance OR a CO is not fully responsible for maintenance.  You can't say you believe in one of these statements and say you also believe in the other statement but that's exactly what you've done.  Your actions taken in the examples you've provided support both of these statements, which are antithetical to each other.  Your actions actually show you to believe that COs are fully responsible AND show you to believe that COs aren't fully responsible, which are logically incompatible statements.

I was not going to answer this again, but okay I will.

 

Remote cache: If this is not maintained by others there will be few, or even no caches for a long distance, which could be 100s of kms. Very unlikely that new caches will be (can be) placed here, so there will be no replacement if this cache is not maintained and it's archived. So there therefore could be NO caches. The CO likely doesn't live nearby; maybe even 100s, or even 1000s kms away.

 

Cache in urban area, or country areas where there are people living and plenty of caches. If one cache is not maintained and is archived; so what. There are plenty more, and new ones can be placed also. There will likely always be caches available in this area to find and new ones can be placed. The CO also likely lives close.

 

That is the difference between remote and populated areas. I have explained this before and I don't know why some people just can't get the difference.

[+colleda]

11 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

I was not going to answer this again, but okay I will.

 

Remote cache: If this is not maintained by others there will be few, or even no caches for a long distance, which could be 100s of kms. Very unlikely that new caches will be (can be) placed here, so there will be no replacement if this cache is not maintained and it's archived. So there therefore could be NO caches. The CO likely doesn't live nearby; maybe even 100s, or even 1000s kms away.

 

Cache in urban area, or country areas where there are people living and plenty of caches. If one cache is not maintained and is archived; so what. There are plenty more, and new ones can be placed also. There will likely always be caches available in this area to find and new ones can be placed. The CO also likely lives close.

 

That is the difference between remote and populated areas. I have explained this before and I don't know why some people just can't get the difference.

There are many remote places where there are no caches. I don't miss them so why would I miss an archived one? If there is one in a remote spot and I find it I will log it. If it needs maintenance I'd log that too.

[+Goldenwattle]

5 minutes ago, colleda said:

There are many remote places where there are no caches. I don't miss them so why would I miss an archived one? If there is one in a remote spot and I find it I will log it. If it needs maintenance I'd log that too.

Spoilsport, especially if it's an old one, placed in the early days before there was the distance rule, and knowing the owner (if they are still active) very likely won't be able to get to it. Why not treat them as historic and maintain them?

[+colleda]

44 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

Spoilsport, especially if it's an old one, placed in the early days before there was the distance rule, and knowing the owner (if they are still active) very likely won't be able to get to it. Why not treat them as historic and maintain them?

Sorry, but I'm not the sentimental type. Age of a cache, to me, is irrelevant. Others, like yourself, may see it differently and that's their choice. Personally, I don't believe that a geocache should have an indefinite lifespan which is really being suggested. I probably would not go out of my way for Mingo for example. What if Mingo happened to be an LPC? - Runs for cover -

[+barefootjeff]

16 minutes ago, colleda said:

1 hour ago, Goldenwattle said:

Spoilsport, especially if it's an old one, placed in the early days before there was the distance rule, and knowing the owner (if they are still active) very likely won't be able to get to it. Why not treat them as historic and maintain them?

Sorry, but I'm not the sentimental type. Age of a cache, to me, is irrelevant. Others, like yourself, may see it differently and that's their choice. Personally, I don't believe that a geocache should have an indefinite lifespan which is really being suggested. I probably would not go out of my way for Mingo for example. What if Mingo happened to be an LPC? - Runs for cover -

 

I'm starting to agree with colleda on this. Last year I adopted a couple of very old caches (circa 2005) on Barrenjoey Headland as their current owner, who had adopted them from the original CO many years earlier, was getting too old for their T rating. Being sentimental and not wanting to see them go, I put my hand up when no-one on the Sydney side of Broken Bay showed any interest. But one of them is turning into something of a maintenance headache due to the huge number of muggles now swarming over the headland and some heavy-handed cachers who managed to break my replacement container. Yesterday someone reported that its logbook is damp, which surprises me since it's in a relatively protected hiding spot and the container ought to be waterproof, so I went to take the ferry over to check on it this morning only to discover that the ferry service has been cancelled until further notice. I guess unless I have better luck finding someone in Sydney to take them on, I might have to archive them myself and then make the half-day drive there and back sometime to remove the carcasses.

 

So anyone in Sydney reading this who'd like to adopt a couple of historical caches let me know!

[+fizzymagic]

2 hours ago, colleda said:

There are many remote places where there are no caches. I don't miss them so why would I miss an archived one? If there is one in a remote spot and I find it I will log it. If it needs maintenance I'd log that too.

 

Well, OKAY.  If it doesn't bother you then it shouldn't bother anyone.  It's all about you.  Got it.

[+JL_HSTRE]

On 9/27/2019 at 3:28 PM, thebruce0 said:

Wow, I don't know about your country, but no, there is no legal responsibility to pick up what you think to be trash. Picking up trash is not like calling 911 or saving someone's life.

 

I didn't say anything about legal responsibility. I'm talking moral responsibility. 

 

You pick up trash because it's the right thing to do. You call 911 when someone has a heart attack because it's the right thing to do. One situation is more serious than the other, but doing nothing is irresponsible regardless of how serious the situation is.

[+JL_HSTRE]

On 9/27/2019 at 4:07 PM, dprovan said:

Abandoned geocaches are a big problem where you live? I'm fairly certain no one would ever notice one in my area, so I have a hard time imagining them being a problem of any sort, let alone a problem so extreme it's a moral imperative for every one of us to help solve it.

 

Ah, I see: if nobody notices the problem then it's not really a problem. Let's just brush it under the rug. What's one more piece of litter?

 

That's like saying homelessness isn't a problem because you've never seen a homeless person.

 

It's easy not to notice archived caches that are abandoned. They disappear from maps and searches. Rarely do they get revisited after that, and usually only by accident. 

Edited September 30, 2019 by JL_HSTRE

[+coachstahly]

8 hours ago, VAVAPAM said:

 

Perhaps they are conditional statements focused on maintenance, rather than absolute statements regarding CO responsibility. 

 

Conditional on what?  Cache location?  Cache age?  Cache type?  Cache size?  Cache D/T rating?  So there are conditional exceptions to the maintenance standards outlined in the guidelines?  Is that what you're saying?

 

One can't come on here and complain about COs who have either abandoned their caches or chosen to ignore maintenance issues on their caches and then go and do maintenance on someone else's cache who has either abandoned it or willfully ignored it and say everything is just as it should be.  The justification is that there's this "huge difference" between remote caches and caches closer to everything else.  The only difference I see is that it's farther away from everything else, including other caches. That's the ONLY difference; in all other respects, it's just like every other cache.  At some point a CO went out there, placed a cache, submitted it for publication, knew and accepted the maintenance expectations that went with cache ownership, but now has either abandoned it because they're inactive or has chosen to ignore needed maintenance and is relying on the community that visits it to perform any needed maintenance.  I fail to see why we should glorify or single out the cache of a CO who has either abandoned their cache or has chosen to ignore maintenance needs by saying that it needs to be saved and maintained because nothing else is out there and nothing will take its place while at the same time calling out the cache of a CO who has chosen to ignore maintenance needs and claiming that they've failed in their maintenance duties so their cache should be archived.

 

9 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

Remote cache: If this is not maintained by others there will be few, or even no caches for a long distance, which could be 100s of kms. Very unlikely that new caches will be (can be) placed here, so there will be no replacement if this cache is not maintained and it's archived. So there therefore could be NO caches. The CO likely doesn't live nearby; maybe even 100s, or even 1000s kms away.

 

Cache in urban area, or country areas where there are people living and plenty of caches. If one cache is not maintained and is archived; so what. There are plenty more, and new ones can be placed also. There will likely always be caches available in this area to find and new ones can be placed. The CO also likely lives close.

 

That is the difference between remote and populated areas. I have explained this before and I don't know why some people just can't get the difference.

 

I don't know how many times I need to tell you that I understand the difference between the two types of caches and that I would also probably do the type of maintenance that you've done (up to putting out a throwdown) because of the exact reasons you state.  I don't like seeing caches in cache poor areas disappear.  If I can help out and it makes sense to help out (container is in good shape and still watertight and the maintenance is minor in scope), I will.  If not, I'll file my NM log and move on.  If a cache has outlived its time as a cache because no one has maintained it and it makes no sense to help out (container is in bad shape and NOT watertight), it's time to file the NM, regardless of where it's located, and hope that the CO can take care of it to keep it going or adopt it out so someone else can properly maintain the cache.  Why do you think no one will place any caches in remote areas?  It's because they know that they can't live up to the maintenance expectations that come with cache ownership and they don't want to rely on the community to maintain it because Groundspeak doesn't allow it.

 

However, just because a cache is remote and the CO may live a long way away, it does NOT absolve the CO of the expectation of maintenance on their part, yet you seem to think it does.  It's great that you help those COs out but when you complain about and call out other COs who are lazy and irresponsible and expect them to do what is required, it rings sanctimonious and false because those COs of remote caches are the same type of lazy and irresponsible COs you go on about.  In fact, they might even be worse because you have stated that it's expected that those remote caches are maintained by the community, not the CO, and such maintenance is traditional and therefore expected by the CO.  However, you let them off the hook and do their maintenance for them. You are holding the exact same type of CO to two different standards;  the lazy, irresponsible, or inactive COs that have caches close to civilization you want to hold accountable for maintenance - the lazy, irresponsible, or inactive COs that have caches in remote areas you don't want to hold accountable for maintenance.  

[+colleda]

1 hour ago, fizzymagic said:

 

Well, OKAY.  If it doesn't bother you then it shouldn't bother anyone.  It's all about you.  Got it.

WT? OK, that one went over my head.

[+dprovan]

3 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Ah, I see: if nobody notices the problem then it's not really a problem. Let's just brush it under the rug. What's one more piece of litter?

Physically, a container is exactly as much of a problem, exactly as much of an ecological nightmare, while it's an active geocache as when it's a hypothetically abandoned geocache. Your logic leads to the conclusion that it's a moral responsibility to pick up any cache, active or not.

[+Goldenwattle]

5 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Barrenjoey Headland

This is my opinion, but I wouldn't consider that cache remote. There are other caches in the area, and it's on the doorstop to Sydney.

[+barefootjeff]

19 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

5 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Barrenjoey Headland

This is my opinion, but I wouldn't consider that cache remote. There are other caches in the area, and it's on the doorstop to Sydney.

 

I didn't say it was remote, just that it's old (GCMHXX) and has a lot of history, which was why I stuck my hand up to adopt it last year when its previous CO was preparing to archive it. In hindsight it might have been better just to have let that happened, especially since another cache on the headland has since been published.

[+Goldenwattle]

8 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

I didn't say it was remote, just that it's old (GCMHXX) and has a lot of history, which was why I stuck my hand up to adopt it last year when its previous CO was preparing to archive it. In hindsight it might have been better just to have let that happened, especially since another cache on the headland has since been published.

It was good of you to volunteer to adopt it, but I can understand your feelings about it now. It takes commitment to maintain caches. That's why I don't have many caches, as I am not prepared to commit to too many, because they need maintenance.

[+barefootjeff]

2 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

It was good of you to volunteer to adopt it, but I can understand your feelings about it now. It takes commitment to maintain caches. That's why I don't have many caches, as I am not prepared to commit to too many, because they need maintenance.

 

It's not so much a commitment thing as a combination of it turning out to be a high-maintenance cache (5 OMs plus a disable and enable after a muggling in the 14 months since I adopted it) and what is becoming problematic access from here. It's 8km from home as the crow flies and only half an hour across on the ferry to Palm Beach, but by road it's 100km and some two hours of driving in heavy traffic. The ferry's only good when it's actually running, though, as I found out today. I've also come to realise it's very much a tourist cache rather my usual style of adventure caches so it's something of the odd man out. It's in a beautiful spot, though, which is why I still think it would be sad to see it archived. It's a pity there don't seem to be any active cachers living anywhere locally to it.