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Reviewer publishing own caches?


Coland

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Hi, I am just wondering if it is allowed/not allowed/discouraged for reviewers to publish their own caches? There is a reviewer in mind that seems to be publishing their own earthcaches, which in my opinion would be more problematic than publishing regular caches/events.

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I don't know exactly how it works with EarthCaches, as they are a little bit different, but this should not happen.

In my country all caches sent to review by a reviewer are checked by a different reviewer from a different area. There is never a situation where the local reviewer is publishing his own caches. It is highly discouraged as everyone can make a mistake or misunderstand some rules - even a reviewer!

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Interesting thought. A reviewer will have all information about other caches, so finding free locations is then trivial, often a tough problem for the rest of us.

 

Speaking of that, I wish us "common folks" could get a level of trust where we could find free spots in myst-heavy areas. Personally, I know the locaction of literally hundreds of mysteries that I havn't solved, given to me by other caches simply for finding free space, and I do not log a single one of them without solving them myself. But I know, how can GS know that I am to trust on that with thousands of people logging other's solutions, or having other cachers putting their name in the log while they stand besides just waiting?

 

Reviewers are expected to have their own regular account so why should they not publish their own? IMHO, the knowledge of final locations of mysts and multis is must more sensitive and where they must be given the highest level of trust.

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Reviewers being able to look up final locations of unknowns is separate discussion. Regarding publishing ones own caches, I believe that there could be a conflict of interest and, as sernikk wrote, they might forget some rule when placing their own cache. When it comes to earthcaches I think that it would be more problematic, since there are more guidelines to be met and more grey areas wether a cache is publishable or not. I dont think one should evaluate wether ones own listing is educational, the logging tasks are well-developed etc. I think that is quite different than if a reviewer would publish his/hers micro in the woods.

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Geocache Reviewers are expected to ask a colleague to review and publish our caches.  This has been the case for a number of years, and helps avoid the appearance of any conflict of interest.

 

I do not know the expectations for GeoAwares in the same level of detail.  Since the question arose regarding a GeoAware, I would be happy to move this thread to the Earthcaching forum section upon request.

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23 minutes ago, Ragnemalm said:

Reviewers are expected to have their own regular account so why should they not publish their own?

 

Most Reviewers have a separate personal account, but not all of then.

 

"Why shouldn't a Reviewer publish their own caches?" is like asking "Why does a good author need an editor or proofreader?"

 

While anyone trusted enough to be a Reviewer of course has the tools to check proximity and property ownership, and should be trusted not to deliberately violate Guidelines, it would still be good to have another Reviewer do the review. They might notice something that the person who created the listing overlooked or forgot. It's harder to effectively check your own work than work you're seeing fresh for the first time.

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Agreeing with RuideAlmeida above.  Either a geoaware is or is not publishing their own caches.  This topic seems to be resting on a supposition that either a Geoaware owns an Earthcache under their Geoaware account which they published, ie, obviously publishing their own cache --> quite possibly after asking another Geoaware to look at it.

 

Or, there is a player whom you believe is a Geoaware, and they own an Earthcache, publish by the Geoaware account that you believe belongs to the same person.  You could be wrong, or you could be right. In either case, there's  no way to know whether the cache was eyeballed by a different reviewer before being published.

 

Also to Keystones' point, I published my own caches for some years. Now I don't. However some reviewers who wish to remain anonymous do publish their own caches.  I'm not sure that there are many (any?) such left, ie, anonymous reviewer accounts. Publication of their caches,  first some other reviewer says yes, then they publish their own. Otherwise the caches of a particular player would be the only caches locally not published by the local reviewer.

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30 minutes ago, RuideAlmeida said:

 

It is strange how you are not sure... otherwise why you would say "seems"?

Very disturbing to create such a thread based on suppositions.

 

This thread was not made to publicly denounce what one particular reviewer is doing, which is why I did not mention the account. I was wondering wether such an action is allowed or not, since I could not find any info on that

 

Since it is brought up, I cannot be 100% certain without actually knowing the person, but I can assure that this is not just based on a small hunch.

Edited by Coland
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1 minute ago, RuideAlmeida said:

 

But you are aware that while not shaming a given volunteer, you shed a suspicion over all of them?

 

No, I havent claimed that this is common practice among reviewers. I know that the reviewers in my area let their colleagues publish their own caches, and I think that the overwhelming majority of other reviewers do too. 

 

I made the post because I was wondering if it is okay, and since that question has been answered I guess the thread could be closed.

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1 hour ago, RuideAlmeida said:

 

But you are aware that while not shaming a given volunteer, you shed a suspicion over all of them?

 

And since we can tell roughly where you are, suspicion falls more heavily on YOUR local reviewer, even though you don't say it's your local reviewer. Another assumption, this time on our part.

 

What you ask is certainly a valid question, but the public discussion is perhaps not the best place to ask it.

 

That being said, I do think it should be standard procedure to have someone else review your own caches, even if it's you that actually publishes them. When I write an official memo at work, I always have one of my people review it before it goes out.

 

What I DON'T worry about is any reviewer having access to final locations, and the clearance map, etc., as has been mentioned above.  Most of us have all manner of secret stuff floating around in our heads because of our jobs or our relationships. I seriously doubt that there's a significant number of people who assume the responsibilities of a Volunteer Reviewer without the requisite ethics. Remember, the audition for that job is your entire detailed caching history!

 

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3 minutes ago, TeamRabbitRun said:

 

And since we can tell roughly where you are, suspicion falls more heavily on YOUR local reviewer, even though you don't say it's your local reviewer. Another assumption, this time on our part.

 

 

Well that assumption is wrong. My area have two geoawares and only one of them have made earthcaches since they became geoawares, and they have not published them with their own geoaware-account. I know both geoawares personally and I have great confidence and respect for them, they are always helpful with my earthcaches.

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1 hour ago, Coland said:

 

Well that assumption is wrong. My area have two geoawares and only one of them have made earthcaches since they became geoawares, and they have not published them with their own geoaware-account. I know both geoawares personally and I have great confidence and respect for them, they are always helpful with my earthcaches.

 

Yes, thank you. That makes my point, building on what RuideAlmeda said. The assumption is just an assumption, but that's where the suspicion would naturally go because people wouldn't most likely write about reviewers from far away.

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Normally I'd post this with my reviewer account. But I'm at the office and haven't saved my reviewer password to this computer, so you don't get @geoawareUSA9, you get me. (Almost as good, I hope.)

 

There is no per se rule against a reviewer publishing his or her own cache submission. As Keystone mentioned, there is an expectation. I am unaware of a general exception for earthcache reviewers. But as for specifics, I can only say that I have not asked for an exception for myself. I lived outside my own reviewing area for my first two years as a geoaware, so it didn't come up for me until last month, when I came up with an idea for a new earthcache. I'd like to think that as an active geoaware I'm pretty familiar with the earthcache guidelines, and I was pretty sure that my earthcache was compliant. But I asked another geoaware if they'd be so kind as to review it for me, and they did.

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10 hours ago, RuideAlmeida said:

But you are aware that while not shaming a given volunteer, you shed a suspicion over all of them?

How is asking whether it's forbidden or discouraged "shaming"? It seems clear to me that the OP is merely wondering about the issue from the conflict of interest angle. I don't see anything in the OP that suggests that the EarthCaches wouldn't have been published by someone else. If you're going to worry about unwarranted suppositions, let's start with the one that assumes the OP is making an accusation.

 

On the other hand, this just goes back to one of the original points raised: Why don't you just ask them what's going on? The reviewer in question can tell you. We can only guess.

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On 1/11/2021 at 6:55 AM, palmetto said:

Also to Keystones' point, I published my own caches for some years. Now I don't. However some reviewers who wish to remain anonymous do publish their own caches.  I'm not sure that there are many (any?) such left, ie, anonymous reviewer accounts. Publication of their caches,  first some other reviewer says yes, then they publish their own. Otherwise the caches of a particular player would be the only caches locally not published by the local reviewer.

 

I have no quarrel with my local reviewer and in fact respect the thankless job that he does. He does it well. But he's published his own caches for years and years.. and isn't anonymous. I always thought it was a serious conflict of interest but have never been so filled with angst about it that I felt a need to question it out loud.

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On 1/11/2021 at 1:52 PM, JL_HSTRE said:

"Why shouldn't a Reviewer publish their own caches?" is like asking "Why does a good author need an editor or proofreader?"

 

You are perfectly right, I misread/misunderstood the question. Of course it is questionable for them to review their own caches. Then the question makes more sense.

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