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Long term "needs maintenance"


A J Pombo

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In Portugal there are about 43000 caches. Some of that  (>7900) have the atribute "needs maintenance".
Some of these caches have the atribute "needs maintenance" since long time ago (one year, some years, many years).
Some cache owners don't care about it or are absent from geocaching.
Therefore maintenance requests have no practical effect on their caches, keeping the attribute "needs maintenance" eternally.
To minimize this problem, there could be an automatic process that would disable caches after, for example, 60 days (since "needs maintenance" request).
What do you think about this?
It is acceptable to have caches with "forever needs maintenance"?
These caches must be deactivated and archived?

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Until the geocache health score was introduced reviewers in Sweden did disable caches with the needs maintenance attribute twice a year when they had bigger sweeps of all caches in Sweden.

Nowadays it's only when the health score gets low that reviewers gets an notice in there system. And if caches are continued being logged as found the health score never gets low enough to be flagged in that system.

 

So the only way today is that players logs needs archive on caches that are abandoned by the owners when no maintenance are made by the owner.

 

Sadly very few players bothers cares doing this is my experience. And those who log needs archive in my area are shamed and hated in logs by a few others loudly cachers. Which makes less cachers caring which result in an lower cache quality as weta log book and missing containers become normal.

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I know there are cache's with NM logs simply because a person did not find the cache - the cache did not jump up and say "Here I am". It is not where they looked so it must be missing and needs attention.

 

And quite possibly a cache logged NM was attended to by the CO and merely not logged as fixed, restored, or still in place. 

 

And very possibly as mentioned above the CO may no longer be an active cacher -- or uses another name now. 

 

There maybe should be a time limit for them as stated. Several NM with no finds among those logs could be a trigger.

 

But when for example a cache has twelve logs, a few NM are logged, then a few finds are logged , then a few NM and finds alternate, what is the CO or reviewer to think? If logged as found with no other data, I would think it is okay and simply missed by some.

 

Regular maintenance checks by COs would certainly help. And log entries stating any problems such as wet log, damaged container, cache apparently moved, coordinates  seem off etc. would help, but such entry is not required but suggested.

 

I know it is irritating that when looking for caches to visit a cacher sees many NM logs on a cache - should I take/waste time looking for it? 

 

Maybe a trigger for a cache with many NM logs would be somehow to verify the CO is still active, if not then may be archived. But I have no idea how that could be done other than one cache at time.

 

Since caching is basically a game maybe the problems associated with caching need not be as much a focal point as the positive aspects.

 

Maybe soon I can get away from problems associated with my wife's health and care and get some caches logged. Last find was in early December.

 

With my luck, the caches I see that I "Need" to find will have those NM logs!

 

 

 

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The problem I see is that nm is a wide net. Could be Log is wet or full next finder adds a baggie or a piece of paper fixed. Or it could be hey your very specific placement is missing CO needs to address. The later ones file the NA after a month that does not get their attention it will get archived. 

 

 

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10 hours ago, A J Pombo said:

What do you think about this?
It is acceptable to have caches with "forever needs maintenance"?
These caches must be deactivated and archived?

 

I NA a cache a year go that was only the top of a nano.  It had NM a year earlier, and one just before I got there.

 - Yet it was "found" by numerous "cachers" for over a year.  Most were people we know well, and why numbers mean nada to us...

I NA it, as the CO was active, had many other caches out, and the top of a nano's not a cache.

Archived by the Reviewer, the "CO" got a hissy fit, archived the rest of his caches, and left them there.

I removed the top next time in the area.  There's a buncha junk now scattered all over...

When Groundspeak uses their CHS zapper next time, maybe the ones in your area will be attended to.  Hopefully the junk is picked up too.

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7 hours ago, Jayeffel said:

I know there are cache's with NM logs simply because a person did not find the cache - the cache did not jump up and say "Here I am". It is not where they looked so it must be missing and needs attention.

 

And quite possibly a cache logged NM was attended to by the CO and merely not logged as fixed, restored, or still in place. 

 

And very possibly as mentioned above the CO may no longer be an active cacher -- or uses another name now. 

 

There's a cache near here, a traditional placed in 2008 by a CO who hasn't found any caches since 2015 and last visited the website in 2016. At around that time someone logged an NM on it as a heads-up to the CO that major roadworks were going on at GZ and he might need to check that the cache is okay once they've finished, but it turned out the cache survived and continues to be found to this very day even though that NM has never been cleared.

 

7 hours ago, Jayeffel said:

There maybe should be a time limit for them as stated. Several NM with no finds among those logs could be a trigger.

 

But when for example a cache has twelve logs, a few NM are logged, then a few finds are logged , then a few NM and finds alternate, what is the CO or reviewer to think? If logged as found with no other data, I would think it is okay and simply missed by some.

 

If there are several NMs with no finds, the CHS ought to be triggered which will hopefully result in some reviewer action if the CO doesn't immediately respond. But there's a traditonal in Sydney I've been watching after DNFing it a few years back. From what I can see, its last legitimate find was in July 2020 but since then its had 8 DNFs but in amongst those are people logging finds because they've spotted a sticker with some numbers on it at GZ (probably the telephone number of the local house of ill repute). Someone even logged a find saying they couldn't find it. An NA was logged on it last October but the reviewers here don't seem to be acting on NAs any more, and since then it's had another find by someone who added a scrap of paper to the sticker and signed that. As long as it keeps getting those fake finds, the CHS won't ping it so maybe the only option left is for someone to muggle the sticker.

 

 

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3 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

 

I NA a cache a year go that was only the top of a nano.  It had NM a year earlier, and one just before I got there.

 - Yet it was "found" by numerous "cachers" for over a year.  Most were people we know well, and why numbers mean nada to us...

I NA it, as the CO was active, had many other caches out, and the top of a nano's not a cache.

Archived by the Reviewer, the "CO" got a hissy fit, archived the rest of his caches, and left them there.

I removed the top next time in the area.  There's a buncha junk now scattered all over...

When Groundspeak uses their CHS zapper next time, maybe the ones in your area will be attended to.  Hopefully the junk is picked up too.


I've picked up a few abandoned containers this way myself. Few months after archival pop in for a check and if still there log the cache if not previously found  and collect the container and recycle if in good shape..

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NM tells the owner the cache needs maintenance. If the CO does nothing to fix the problem, someone needs to post an NA to tell the *reviewer* it needs taken off the books. So my guess is that the problem here is NAs are not used when they should be in Portugal.

 

Other responders have talked about the health score, which is basically the automated process you're suggesting, but that's just GS's solution the the basic problem that in some areas, people don't post NAs. So start posting NAs and start solving the problem without GS's help.

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