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2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

But now, in light of the blog's recommendations for caches like this, I'm left wondering whether it's worth bothering the ranger and her boss to get the permission extension or if it's just one to put down to experience and try to come up with something and somewhere better for next time. Maybe a bison tube on one of Lee's rubber snakes at the parking coordinates would better fit today's expections.

 

Jeff, there's nothing wrong with your caches.  If you're happy to continue maintaining them, then continue maintaining them.  (And if you want to add a rubber snake to attract a few more FPs, go for it!)

 

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The cache owner dashboard may also help you decide if it’s time to make room for a new cache on the geocaching gameboard.

 

To me, what follows is on the assumption that room needs to be made for new caches.  In your part of the world - particularly in the locations you choose to hide your caches - clearly this is not the case.  Where I live, maybe...

 

Edited by IceColdUK
Reworded a bit.
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1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

But now, in light of the blog's recommendations for caches like this, I'm left wondering whether it's worth bothering the ranger and her boss to get the permission extension or if it's just one to put down to experience and try to come up with something and somewhere better for next time. Maybe a bison tube on one of Lee's rubber snakes at the parking coordinates would better fit today's expections.

This forum definitely needs a "Sad" response.

:sad:

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13 minutes ago, papu66 said:

How about you can log a new find  on a cache if it's more than say 5 years from your previous visit? In that time you have probably forgotten about it anyways so it will seem new.

I can't keep up with the published caches. If you could log a cache again after five years, that would likely mean the nice yellow faces would disappear. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.... I would NEVER be able to find all the caches near me.

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6 minutes ago, IceColdUK said:

 

This was discussed earlier this year.  Maybe a little OT here?

Just a little. I was just pointing out that there are other solutions to solve the present problem (that caching has becoming a numbers game). Other than archiving

perfectly good caches,  GS can allow multiple finds on caches or scratch the saturation rule (yes, that too has been discussed to death).

Obviously it would be easier to place caches where there previously was one, but why would you archive the cache so that you or someone else could make one at the same spot?

If multiple finds were allowed, those that are in this for numbers can get their 1+ and the rest of us can choose which places we like to visit again. I sometimes visit old caches taht I have found just for the fun of it.

 

IMO there's two good guidelines to making cache. 1) I make caches that meself likes. It's just like in public elections: You stick to your candidate even though he's not polling well. That's how democracy (supposedly) works and that applies to caching too. My cache is my vote and popularity is not a factor. 2) I publish caches with intent that they are for forever ( 10+ years ).

 

I'm in quite good position here. I live in urban "city". I think I'm a prolific cacher with  my 1000 finds per year but  I'm still about 40% through the caches here after five years and they are putting out new caches faster than I can find. I know my 1000 finds/y is nothing these days, but I think that's plenty and I hate it when people archive caches before I had chance to find them because "they have run their course".

 

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1 hour ago, Goldenwattle said:

I can't keep up with the published caches. If you could log a cache again after five years, that would likely mean the nice yellow faces would disappear. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.... I would NEVER be able to find all the caches near me.

Even more embarrassing, the yellow face can turn blue if you are not able to find the cache again ^_^

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2 hours ago, papu66 said:

If multiple finds were allowed, those that are in this for numbers can get their 1+ and the rest of us can choose which places we like to visit again.

I sometimes visit old caches taht I have found just for the fun of it.

 

If you recall,  multiple finds on the same cache was a thing until two years after you started (2017).     :)

IIRC, Groundspeak canned that idea, after folks started to get testy with each other over it. 

Incredibly, some COs were logging a "find" every time they did maintenance on their own caches.      :D

I didn't think that silliness would ever come back, but was proven wrong yet again with that adventure lab thing...

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On 12/1/2020 at 9:14 PM, mysterion604 said:

Like I said, I have not placed any caches yet, but I am hoping to one day. And part of my plan is to not place it somewhere I would have trouble going back to if I needed to freshen it up.

 

It's good that you're keeping the ability to maintain your future caches in mind, but often some of the best caches (IMHO) are those that are not in places that are easy to get to.  It's easy to drive to a nearby strip mall, but that doesn't mean I want to find a cache there.

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On 12/1/2020 at 3:39 PM, barefootjeff said:

From today's blog article that was linked from the newsletter:

 

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The cache owner dashboard may also help you decide if it’s time to make room for a new cache on the geocaching gameboard. 

  • Sort by “Last found” date to see which caches haven’t been found in awhile. If the cache isn’t found as much as it used to be, maybe it’s time to consider archival so something new can be placed.
  • Sort by “Favorites” to learn which of your hides are most popular. Is there something about your most Favorited cache(s) that could be incorporated into a new cache? Do you own some caches that have never received Favorite points? Maybe it’s time to consider retiring those caches.

 

 

So caching is now a popularity competition with no room in the game for losers. I'm curious, though, if all the unfavourited caches should be archived, how are you supposed to find those other 9 caches in order to give the 10th one an FP? Don't there have to be unfavourited caches for the favourite point system to work?

 

Thoughts anyone?

 

Jeff, for a guy who consistently bemoans new souvenir promotions because you don't have enough new local caches to find, it strikes me as more than a little ironic that you object to a blog post suggesting that cachers consider archiving hides that aren't getting found and plant new ones to refresh the board.

 

You seem to be a tough customer to please.

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Didn't HQ do some auto-sweeps for a similar purpose not long ago? I think they were testing the process - send out messages to CO's (who seemed inactive?) and auto-disable some caches, in order to clear out the board to make way for fresh caches... How did this turn out??

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2 hours ago, hzoi said:

Jeff, for a guy who consistently bemoans new souvenir promotions because you don't have enough new local caches to find, it strikes me as more than a little ironic that you object to a blog post suggesting that cachers consider archiving hides that aren't getting found and plant new ones to refresh the board.

 

I'm just questioning why the old ones have to be removed when there's already plenty of room for new caches if anyone wants to place them. Caches are already being archived through natural attrition faster than new ones are appearing. Archiving a bunch of old caches won't generate new ones in most places outside the cache-dense cities, it'll just create more empty space on the map and result in fewer caches for newcomers and visitors to find.

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1 hour ago, lee737 said:

Didn't HQ do some auto-sweeps for a similar purpose not long ago? I think they were testing the process - send out messages to CO's (who seemed inactive?) and auto-disable some caches, in order to clear out the board to make way for fresh caches... How did this turn out??

 

I'm not sure if they've done auto-disables and messages for inactive caches owned by inactive owners. 

 

In my area reviewers monitor for lengthy rows of DNFs,  and multiple NMs that are ignored by COs. Reviewers in my location often respond more quickly to NMs placed on caches owned by delinquent and absent COs.

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44 minutes ago, lee737 said:

I thought it had been trialled in a couple of areas in the US...

 

 

21 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

Yeah, it was a couple of years ago I think. The conditions were something like the CO hadn't been active for more than five years but caches from the very early years were excluded.

 

1 hour ago, L0ne.R said:

 

I'm not sure if they've done auto-disables and messages for inactive caches owned by inactive owners. 

 

In my area reviewers monitor for lengthy rows of DNFs,  and multiple NMs that are ignored by COs. Reviewers in my location often respond more quickly to NMs placed on caches owned by delinquent and absent COs.

 

Yeah I know 2020 has been a long year and we forgot stuff but no one use the research founction in the forum?

 

 

Georgia and North Carolina in January here the Help Center link 7.18 https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=38&pgid=946

 

 

Edited by Lynx Humble
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5 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

Yeah I know 2020 has been a long year but no one use the research founction in the forum?

 

I tried looking in the Release Notes and Announcements subforums but couldn't find anything and since I couldn't remember which states they were I couldn't think of any keywords that might have led to it in the general discussion forum. I hadn't realised it had been added to the Help Centre.

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11 hours ago, papu66 said:

How about you can log a new find  on a cache if it's more than say 5 years from your previous visit? In that time you have probably forgotten about it anyways so it will seem new.

I have commented, but I also should have said, if that happened it would make me a LOT less interested in this game and going out and finding caches. I like to look at a map of yellow faces and see the few I still have to find. If every five years the yellow faces disappeared and the caches reverted to unfound caches, so we could find them again, my previous efforts to find the caches would become as nothing. It would be depressing, and I'm not sure I would want to continue bother finding caches, knowing that in five years, all previous efforts would become null and void. It's having found so many, that's one driver for me to find more. The suggestion is extremely depressing, as the icons would need to change to let people know they can now refind those caches, and their previous efforts are null and void.

If you want to refind a cache now, you can log a note. But why not if you have run out of nearby caches, don't you go travelling. I do a lot of that. Travelling costs what you want to pay. I have often slept in my car for instance to save money.

If this happened, the fairest thing would be to first give COs the option of allowing their caches to be ones which can be found again. And secondly, allowing cachers to opt out of this and to keep their finds, so they don't need to go find them again to keep the icon as it is now. And to allow cachers to change their mind later (after five years), so that their finds can reappear, as when people actually see their icons revert, or change some other way to let them know they can now go refind these caches, they mightn't like the look on the map.

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29 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

 

 

Yeah I know 2020 has been a long year and we forgot stuff but no one use the research founction in the forum?

 

 

Georgia and North Carolina in January here the Help Center link 7.18 https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=38&pgid=946

 

 

 

Thanks for remembering this and providing the thread.

 

Maybe GCHQ needs to do more of this. Asking COs to do something isn't going to amount to much, especially when many COs of old-inactive-caches have done nothing for years (and are not likely to read a blog post or the forums if they are still playing). Isono K noted:

 

Quote

I think the experiment did show that 5 years of no logs  and not logging onto the site is a pretty good check of whether there's an owner monitoring their caches.  The response number in that first month was tiny in both states.

 

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2 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

I have commented, but I also should have said, if that happened it would make me a LOT less interested in this game and going out and finding caches. I like to look at a map of yellow faces and see the few I still have to find. If every five years the yellow faces disappeared and the caches reverted to unfound caches, so we could find them again, my previous efforts to find the caches would become as nothing. It would be depressing, and I'm not sure I would want to continue bother finding caches, knowing that in five years, all previous efforts would become null and void. The suggestion is extremely depressing, as the icons would need to change to let people know they can now refind those caches, and their previous efforts are null and void.

 

My reading of the suggestion was to allow a second find after five years, not nullify existing finds. Not that I'd want to do either, as for me caching is mostly about discovering new and interesting places and, well, they're not new and not as interesting the second time around. There are some T4 and T4.5 caches that really pushed me out of my comfort zone and, while I'm glad I plucked up the courage to do them, they're not the sort of places I'd want to keep going back to. That's probably why I don't own any T4.5s as even just doing routine visits to my T4s leaves me scratched and sore and needing a day or two to recover.

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6 hours ago, hzoi said:

Jeff, for a guy who consistently bemoans new souvenir promotions because you don't have enough new local caches to find, it strikes me as more than a little ironic that you object to a blog post suggesting that cachers consider archiving hides that aren't getting found and plant new ones to refresh the board.

If people aren't placing caches now in the huge distances between caches in Jeff's area, and in other similar places, there's no reason they would place a cache if one of the rare, few caches were removed. Instead there would be less caches.

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3 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

My reading of the suggestion was to allow a second find after five years, not nullify existing finds. Not that I'd want to do either, as for me caching is mostly about discovering new and interesting places and, well, they're not new and not as interesting the second time around. There are some T4 and T4.5 caches that really pushed me out of my comfort zone and, while I'm glad I plucked up the courage to do them, they're not the sort of places I'd want to keep going back to. That's probably why I don't own any T4.5s as even just doing routine visits to my T4s leaves me scratched and sore and needing a day or two to recover.

The icons would likely need to change in some way at least, so people knew they could find those caches again, and so that the caches would be included in a bulk load.

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15 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

Maybe GCHQ needs to do more of this. Asking COs to do something isn't going to amount to much, especially when many COs of old-inactive-caches have done nothing for years (and are not likely to read a blog post or the forums if they are still playing). Isono K noted:

 

There's a lot of bushland caches around here that were placed in the first decade of the game and many have owners who are no longer active (or even have died). They're mostly ammo cans or similar rugged containers with big hundred-page logbooks hidden in dry locations under rock ledges or in caves.

 

20201030_124903.jpg.802a7dbae8507e53eb0d8879ed469c3b.jpg

 

Those caches are fairly remote and are often the only ones for many kilometres around, so they're not blocking anyone from hiding new caches and are still providing enjoyment to searchers even if their owners are long gone. I just don't understand the push to archive them or how the community benefits from that. For sure, if they go missing or are damaged, go through the usual NM and NA processes, but before then, what harm are they doing?

 

Edited by barefootjeff
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2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I just don't understand the push to archive them or how the community benefits from that.

 

I didn't read that into the article - it could have been worded better, but I read into it 'think about archiving to make room for new caches', implying this advice was primarily aimed at areas with saturation problems....

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17 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

But now, in light of the blog's recommendations for caches like this...

 

...is to consider archival. Not to archive.  Have you considered it? And chosen not to? That's just fine :)

 

6 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I'm just questioning why the old ones have to be removed


Except they don't have to be. HQ didn't say archive your old caches.

 

1 hour ago, lee737 said:

I didn't read that into the article - it could have been worded better, but I read into it 'think about archiving to make room for new caches', implying this advice was primarily aimed at areas with saturation problems....

 

This. :ninja:

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42 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

...is to consider archival. Not to archive.  Have you considered it? And chosen not to? That's just fine

 

Well no, it's not fine. It's not my caches I'm concerned about, I only listed those as examples of what the blog appears to be targeting, rather it's any COs who might take its recommendations, suggestions, inuendo or whatever you want to call it to heart and start archiving their less popular caches, because it will be their communities and particularly newcomers who will suffer the loss.

 

Yes it's just a suggestion, but one I think is pointing the game in the wrong direction where popularity is more important than diversity.

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48 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:
1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

...is to consider archival. Not to archive.  Have you considered it? And chosen not to? That's just fine

 

Well no, it's not fine. It's not my caches I'm concerned about, I only listed those as examples of what the blog appears to be targeting, rather it's any COs who might take its recommendations, suggestions, inuendo or whatever you want to call it to heart and start archiving their less popular caches, because it will be their communities and particularly newcomers who will suffer the loss.

 

Yes it's just a suggestion, but one I think is pointing the game in the wrong direction where popularity is more important than diversity.

 

Sure, the wording could be improved, but you can't make the argument that HQ is telling people to archive old caches. They're not. And if you're not making that argument, great. Someone has to infer a meaning that's not being said.  And IMO, if someone reads into that announcement that they should archive their old caches (especially if they don't want to) then it's probably ultimately not a Bad Thing. Most likely they'll republish another one somewhere if they (mistakenly) think this one is still good enough to keep active (assuming they properly maintain it).

You have to take a big leap to say that what HQ is implying is a bad thing overall. So many factors have to be in play for bad things to happen and that to be the case.

I would say the net potential result is certainly positive.

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1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

 

Sure, the wording could be improved, but you can't make the argument that HQ is telling people to archive old caches. They're not. And if you're not making that argument, great. Someone has to infer a meaning that's not being said.  And IMO, if someone reads into that announcement that they should archive their old caches (especially if they don't want to) then it's probably ultimately not a Bad Thing. Most likely they'll republish another one somewhere if they (mistakenly) think this one is still good enough to keep active (assuming they properly maintain it).

You have to take a big leap to say that what HQ is implying is a bad thing overall. So many factors have to be in play for bad things to happen and that to be the case.

I would say the net potential result is certainly positive.

 

I'm imaging you're seeing a map saturated with pill bottles under lamp post covers and thinking it'd be a whole lot better if they were pruned and replaced with some well-thought-out themed and novelty hides, and you're probably right. Here, though, I'm seeing a map with a small number but diverse range of caches, from urban P&Gs that get lots of finds but few FPs, urban puzzles and multis that get fewer finds but more FPs and a spread of higher terrain bushland hides like mine that get few finds and FPs even though some have quite high percentage FPs. I'm sure if I replaced all my Chasing Waterfalls caches (which across all 7 have less finds in total than Lee's Green Tree Snake) with bison tubes and rubber snakes at their parking coordinates, I'd get a lot more finds and possibly even a lot more FPs, but I would hope at least some in the community here would see that as a loss. I know I would if some other owner of remote waterfall caches followed the blog's suggestion and did that.

Edited by barefootjeff
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6 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

if someone reads into that announcement that they should archive their old caches

 

You can't go past the fact that the turn of phrase "you might want to consider <action>" is one that implies that there is a problem and they are suggesting the solution.  What's more is that often it is tinged with sarcasm, in that the problem, which may be a serious one, and the suggested solution are obvious and you should have thought of it yourself without it needing to be pointed out to you.  "If you want to stop getting hit by cars, maybe it's time to consider sticking to the sidewalk" or "If you want to stop getting into bar fights, you might want to consider cutting back on the booze".  It might be a mistake that it was worded that way, or it might not, since it was mentioned twice, but that's the way that phrase reads.

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1 hour ago, funkymunkyzone said:

You can't go past the fact that the turn of phrase "you might want to consider <action>" is one that implies that there is a problem and they are suggesting the solution

 

It implies there may be a problem.

 

If I said "You might want to consider retirement" you might have good reasons not to retire.

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Groundspeak often makes suggestions on how to make geocaches better. There's nothing wrong with that.

 

But I think the problems with geocaching are less about the geocaches and more about the geocachers.

 

Urban spew. Power trails. An unwillingness to seek caches that require a modest hike.

 

Early on I think geocaching was primarily something for outdoorsy people. Certainly most of the people I've met that have been around since the early days were that way. Now there are entirely too many people who can't be persuaded to seek caches out of sight of pavement. Some people do grow into being more outdoorsy through this hobby, but as lose outdoorsy people and ammo cans out in the woods faster than we replace them there are fewer people to show them the way.

Edited by JL_HSTRE
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I've done 3 entire trails locally where a CO has archived a trail then re-published caches on the same route. The latest of the 3, the CO has made an effort to put most of the 35 caches in new places (and we did the walk in the opposite direction); one of the other 2, it was the same containers in the same hiding places! They had new log papers in, which was nice. But I did them, if only for the numbers (needed 28 in a day for a challenge) and the exercise.

 

I've only archived my caches after repeated DNFs indicate I chose a bad place. Looking at the days/find column on Project-gc, hardly any of mine are under 10 days, most in the 20s and 30s up to 70. But they're mostly non-trads.

 

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4 minutes ago, Oxford Stone said:

I've done 3 entire trails locally where a CO has archived a trail then re-published caches on the same route.

 

That could be the unintended consequences of encouraging some COs to archive their caches to freshen up an area. Instead of freshening up the area, they will churn. 

I would prefer to see an organic filling of a trail with a variety of cache containers, hiding styles, and owners. 

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On 12/2/2020 at 10:59 AM, L0ne.R said:

 

 

In my experience the caches that tend to get the most favourite points  are guideline breakers (example: hole drilled into a tree or pole, something attached by nails/screws):

 

 

Yes!! And buried caches always get lots of FPs--and then get imitated, without bothering for permission.

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2 hours ago, Oxford Stone said:

I've done 3 entire trails locally where a CO has archived a trail then re-published caches on the same route.

The latest of the 3, the CO has made an effort to put most of the 35 caches in new places (and we did the walk in the opposite direction); one of the other 2, it was the same containers in the same hiding places! They had new log papers in, which was nice. But I did them, if only for the numbers (needed 28 in a day for a challenge) and the exercise.

Yep.

Fell for this twice.   Many areas I've walked well-before this hobby was around, so I'd appreciate at least something new if returning.   :)

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3 hours ago, Oxford Stone said:

I've done 3 entire trails locally where a CO has archived a trail then re-published caches on the same route. The latest of the 3, the CO has made an effort to put most of the 35 caches in new places (and we did the walk in the opposite direction); one of the other 2, it was the same containers in the same hiding places! They had new log papers in, which was nice. But I did them, if only for the numbers (needed 28 in a day for a challenge) and the exercise.

 

 

Yes, I've seen that happen in a few places - most prominently near to where my mother lives where the same person seems to place pretty much the same caches in very similar spots every two years - on about four or five different "sets" of caches. I just don't understand how that adds anything very much, but then I guess I'm not interested in repetitive geoart style "puzzles". Maybe it's the best thing for some people.

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6 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Urban spew. Power trails. An unwillingness to seek caches that require a modest hike.

 

Early on I think geocaching was primarily something for outdoorsy people. Certainly most of the people I've met that have been around since the early days were that way. Now there are entirely too many people who can't be persuaded to seek caches out of sight of pavement. Some people do grow into being more outdoorsy through this hobby, but as we bleed outdoorsy people and ammo cans out ib the woods faster than we replace them there are fewer people to show them the way.

I see this thought process a lot on the forums, and I'm genuinely curious - why are these problems? If you're an outdoorsy type, you like a good hike, you're interested in those kinds of caches, then the urban caches aren't exactly in the way. They're not taking up space that could be for caches with long hikes. As for power trails, as much as I am growing to like longer hikes and more outdoorsy cache adventures, a power trail would certainly make the exercise of a walk more engaging or exciting with several caches along the way. What's wrong with people wanting to cache differently from the way you do?

 

As for the topic of lonely caches or not-very-favourited caches, I think it would be a loss to archive caches for that reason. Turnover I do think would be a benefit (coming from a newer cacher) but I think there's better ways to encourage it. Maybe save the adoption of caches for exceptional circumstances, such as an extremely popular or significant cache. Maybe incentivize the voluntary archiving of caches in some way for cache owners. Not claiming to have all the answers, they're only suggestions, but those caches shouldn't just be archived because they're less popular.

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7 hours ago, jaysonC said:

As for power trails, as much as I am growing to like longer hikes and more outdoorsy cache adventures, a power trail would certainly make the exercise of a walk more engaging or exciting with several caches along the way.

 

It use to be exciting to plan a trip along a trail to find a small variety of caches. Caches not placed for numbers, owned by at least a couple of different owners. Differerent containers, different sizes, different hiding styles.  If one cache was a dud (poor container, poor hide) there was a chance the next one might be a good one, especially if the next cache had an owner with a good reputation.  Cache owners who put time, thought and spend a bit of money on containers, and maintain what they hide rarely hide PTs. But they might hide a couple along a trail, leaving room for others to also hide caches. Often, part of the fun of walking the trail was looking for a nice spot for my own potential hide. 

 

 

Edited by L0ne.R
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38 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

It use to be exciting to plan a trip along a trail to find a small variety of caches. Caches not placed for numbers, owned by at least a couple of different owners. Differerent containers, different sizes, different hiding styles.  If one cache was a dud (poor container, poor hide) there was a chance the next one might be a good one, especially if that cache owner had a good reputation.  Cache owners who put time, thought and spend a bit of money on containers, and maintain what they hide rarely hide PTs. But they might hide a couple along a trail, leaving room for others to also hide caches. Often, part of the fun of walking the trail was looking for a nice spot for my own potential hide.

 

Most trails here either have only one cache on them or, if there are several, they're likely to be by the same owner, as we have far more trails than COs willing to place caches along them. In 2017 I joined lee737 and a group of other cachers on a 6.5km hike in the Watagan Mountains from McLean Lookout to Heaton Lookout. There were six caches along the way, all hidden by Marcus Vitruvius. The seventh cache on the map at Heaton Lookout, also by MV, was added more recently.

 

McLeanToHeatonWalk.jpg.253da1fca7f0535cf885a58e658ef064.jpg

 

From memory they were all ammo cans and in interesting places like cliff-top vantages, waterfalls, caves, rock overhangs and deep gullies.

 

WataganCaching.jpg.5f76524f5ee0871966f1c7bd1eb5ba70.jpg

 

Those caches don't get many finds, the middle one having had 26 in its six years of life and the most recent in June 2019, but there's plenty of room for someone else to hide something along there. It's a tough walk and most sensible people would only want to do it once in a lifetime, so churning them to put a new set of caches along there would serve no purpose.

 

That was one of the most memorable days of my caching career and captured just about everything I find appealing in geocaching. We can only give FPs to one in ten finds but I gave out two on that hike which was probably all I had available at the time.

 

To me, the worth of a cache isn't measured in the number of finds or FPs it gets, it's in the enjoyment it gives to those who take on the challenge of finding it.

 

 

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2 hours ago, jaysonC said:

I see this thought process a lot on the forums, and I'm genuinely curious - why are these problems? If you're an outdoorsy type, you like a good hike, you're interested in those kinds of caches, then the urban caches aren't exactly in the way. They're not taking up space that could be for caches with long hikes.

I have nothing against urban/suburban caches. I've certainly found my share of them. Where I see problems is when rules and policies are designed for urban/suburban caches, and then applied to remote caches with the effect of discouraging remote caches (or encouraging the archival of remote caches).

 

2 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

Often, part of the fun of walking the trail was looking for a nice spot for my own potential hide. 

Yep. When I started, there was an etiquette among cache owners to leave room for others to hide caches in the same park where you hid yours. (Before that, there was an etiquette not to hide another cache in a park that already had one, but that was before my time.)

 

Now, a new park/trail opens, and someone fills it with a series of caches, rather than leaving room for others to hide caches too. :(

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1 minute ago, niraD said:

Yep. When I started, there was an etiquette among cache owners to leave room for others to hide caches in the same park where you hid yours. (Before that, there was an etiquette not to hide another cache in a park that already had one, but that was before my time.)

 

Likewise. When I placed my Fernleigh Track series of 21 caches over seven years ago I allowed approximately 400 metres or so between caches, including two or three placed by another cacher. After mine were published the other CO promptly archived theirs - I'm not sure why. At the time I thought that leaving plenty of room between mine would allow anyone else to place some if they wished. To date no one has so I am now thinking of placing a few more as an alternative trail.

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40 minutes ago, colleda said:

Likewise. When I placed my Fernleigh Track series of 21 caches over seven years ago I allowed approximately 400 metres or so between caches, including two or three placed by another cacher. After mine were published the other CO promptly archived theirs - I'm not sure why. At the time I thought that leaving plenty of room between mine would allow anyone else to place some if they wished. To date no one has so I am now thinking of placing a few more as an alternative trail.

 

Best guess is that they didn't want the Power Trail traffic. PTs often bring cookie cutter logs that give no feeling of thanks back to hiders who get mixed up in that.

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8 minutes ago, fbingha said:
49 minutes ago, colleda said:

Likewise. When I placed my Fernleigh Track series of 21 caches over seven years ago I allowed approximately 400 metres or so between caches, including two or three placed by another cacher. After mine were published the other CO promptly archived theirs - I'm not sure why. At the time I thought that leaving plenty of room between mine would allow anyone else to place some if they wished. To date no one has so I am now thinking of placing a few more as an alternative trail.

 

Best guess is that they didn't want the Power Trail traffic. PTs often bring cookie cutter logs that give no feeling of thanks back to hiders who get mixed up in that.

 

The Fernleigh Track is hardly what I'd consider a power trail. It's a 15km bike path along an old rail corridor that currently has colleda's 21 caches plus a few others (including a virtual) near the northern end and more recently an Adventure Lab. If you want hundreds of finds in a day you won't get them there.

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20 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I'm imaging you're seeing a map saturated with pill bottles under lamp post covers and thinking it'd be a whole lot better if they were pruned and replaced with some well-thought-out themed and novelty hides, and you're probably right.

 

Why would you assume that's what I'm seeing, or that I'm even looking?  My comments had nothing to do with any regional caching landscape, only the language used by HQ encouraging cache owners to consider whether their longer unfound geocaches should be archived; and that they're not being told TO archive them.
 

20 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I'm seeing a map with a small number but diverse range of caches, from urban P&Gs that get lots of finds but few FPs, urban puzzles and multis that get fewer finds but more FPs and a spread of higher terrain bushland hides like mine that get few finds and FPs even though some have quite high percentage FPs. I'm sure if I replaced all my Chasing Waterfalls caches (which across all 7 have less finds in total than Lee's Green Tree Snake) with bison tubes and rubber snakes at their parking coordinates, I'd get a lot more finds and possibly even a lot more FPs, but I would hope at least some in the community here would see that as a loss. I know I would if some other owner of remote waterfall caches followed the blog's suggestion and did that.

 

Why are you assuming that the caches on your map, merely because they haven't been found in a long time, regardless of their hide style, are caches that HQ is telling people to archive?

 

These are rhetorical questions. Surely my point is being made.

 

15 hours ago, funkymunkyzone said:
21 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

if someone reads into that announcement that they should archive their old caches

 

You can't go past the fact that the turn of phrase "you might want to consider <action>" is one that implies that there is a problem and they are suggesting the solution

 

Once again, I agree with a prior comment that the wording could be improved. But I see no problem with the literal meaning of that sentence. It doesn't imply there's a problem. The premise is only that the cache hasn't been found for a long time. So, consider if it should be archived. If you don't think it should, then don't. Maybe it'll prompt the CO to think if better idea for a cache - whether or not it's in the same place, nearby, or irrelevant to that cache. All of it simply encouraging the cache owner to consider how much people want to find your caches - whether it's twice a year in its context, or 10 times a day. That's irrelevant to the question.

It's a relative call for the cache owner to consider. Not an objective call to tell people to archive lonely caches.

 

 

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11 hours ago, Oxford Stone said:

I've done 3 entire trails locally where a CO has archived a trail then re-published caches on the same route. The latest of the 3, the CO has made an effort to put most of the 35 caches in new places (and we did the walk in the opposite direction); one of the other 2, it was the same containers in the same hiding places! They had new log papers in, which was nice. But I did them, if only for the numbers (needed 28 in a day for a challenge) and the exercise.

 

At least they tried to make new experiences. Quite often in my region we've had trails archived, then new trails published using the same containers, same locations, even the same logbooks.  Mainly challenge trails - the CO can update the challenge requirements if they get easier over time. Well, better hope the general finding experience is worth it to geocachers to revisit the same locations over and over again :lol:.  Nothing says a CO can't do that, but .. enh.

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5 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

In 2017 I joined lee737 and a group of other cachers on a 6.5km hike in the Watagan Mountains from McLean Lookout to Heaton Lookout.

 

It was a great day too - a huge effort for Samuel who was only 7 or 8 at the time too..... I'd do it again, maybe not in summer though.... :)

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6 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

It use to be exciting to plan a trip along a trail to find a small variety of caches. Caches not placed for numbers, owned by at least a couple of different owners. Differerent containers, different sizes, different hiding styles.  If one cache was a dud (poor container, poor hide) there was a chance the next one might be a good one, especially if the next cache had and owner with a good reputation.  Cache owners who put time, thought and spend a bit of money on containers, and maintain what they hide rarely hide PTs. But they might hide a couple along a trail, leaving room for others to also hide caches. Often, part of the fun of walking the trail was looking for a nice spot for my own potential hide. 

 

Yep, agreed, however there are days when I'm not out with the intent to find new and invigorating experiences with each and every geocache found. Sometimes I do enjoy just a hike with a couple of friends down a simple trail to find easily placed and spotted mundane containers. The caches took us there for a good hike, even if the caches themselves aren't individually enjoyable. People have different things they enjoy while geocaching. I often fall to either side of the fence depending on my mood :)

 

 

3 hours ago, niraD said:

I have nothing against urban/suburban caches. I've certainly found my share of them. Where I see problems is when rules and policies are designed for urban/suburban caches, and then applied to remote caches with the effect of discouraging remote caches (or encouraging the archival of remote caches).

 

Agreed. Until "encouraging the archival of remote caches", for obvious reasons :P (that I don't believe that's what they are doing, objectively)

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1 minute ago, lee737 said:

 

It was a great day too - a huge effort for Samuel who was only 7 or 8 at the time too..... I'd do it again, maybe not in summer though.... :)

 

Yes, he did great! I did it a second time when I went through there in 2018 on my Great North Walk hike and I'm sure it was twice as steep as it had been the first time.

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11 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Why are you assuming that the caches on your map, merely because they haven't been found in a long time, regardless of their hide style, are caches that HQ is telling people to archive?

 

Nowhere have I said that HQ is telling people to archive caches. But they are suggesting people consider archiving those caches that aren't getting regular finds or FPs and I don't think that's a good direction to be going. As long as the cache is in good condition and those that make the effort to find it enjoy the experience, why should it matter how many finders or FPs it gets? Cache ownership isn't, or shouldn't be, a competition, or caches churned simply to allow some finders to turn 1 smiley into 2, 3, 4, etc. But I guess I'm in the minority here and numbers rule supreme.

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