Active caches in UKR

[+towheadedmule]

Why are the Ukrainian caches still active?  Groundspeak should pause them till the danger passes. And that might be awhile. Some of the cluster munitions could be mistaken for caches. 
 

not to mention that their location, coupled with map, can give some fairly accurate location data for artillery.  
 

I don’t post this to cause division. Just trying to protect as many innocents as possible. 

[+Viajero Perdido]

Are you on the ground there?  Is the situation dangerous uniformly across the whole fairly large country?

 

Is Groundspeak responsible for your safety?

 

EDIT:  I know the OP means well, but I gather there's a legal principle that if Groundspeak did do something like this, it waters down the disclaimer, and they could get sued if they didn't disable caches at some other future occasion.  Lawyers, feel free to correct me on this (billed to the OP).

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Viajero Perdido

[+lee737]

I bet Vlad has already grabbed a PQ of the caches, for their strategic value! So there is no point disabling now.... 

 

[+JL_HSTRE]

On 3/2/2022 at 7:56 PM, towheadedmule said:

Some of the cluster munitions could be mistaken for caches.

 

Caches can still be sought and logged while Disabled. And cluster munitions can outlast the war.

 

I think geocaches were still allowed in Iraq and Afghanistan even when insurgents were active there. I don't think Groundspeak disabled caches during the Libyan Civil War.

Edited March 5, 2022 by JL_HSTRE

[+JL_HSTRE]

Can we petition Groundspeak to Lock all caches in Russia until international sanctions are lifted?

[+Flintstone4]

I want the countries and powers of the world to hit Putin where it hurts most.  And, I want us all to do whatever we can to uplift and support Ukraine in this selfish war.  But, I am not sure locking caches has much political value.  And, it's not up to GC HQ to decide who can and can't cache and where one can or can't cache in scenarios like this.  Cachers need to decide for themselves what their own level of risk is in either country at this time.

[+Ain'tWastin'Time]

It looks like people are using Geocaching to inform the Russian citizens about what is happening in Ukraine. Check out the logs and pictures for this cache in Moscow. 

Leninka (Russian State Library) GC2M3M6

[+-NZ-]

I am from Russia

I apologize for what is happening in Ukraine right now

I don't speak English very well, my blog in Russian I wrote down (maybe someone can translate it more accurately).

Now geocaching.com in Russia are died. There are about 20-30 players who can read these messages.  I'm not sure that blocking Russian caches can change something. No people - no reaction. But the messages in the cache logs will not change anything - there is no one to read them.

 

Сейчас в России geocaching.com по сути мертв. Его просто нет с 2020 года. Осталось 20-30 игроков, которые постоянно заходят на сайты и могут вызывать эти сообщения. Я не уверен, что блокировка российских тайников может чего-то решить. Нет людей - нет и реакции. Но и записи в блокнотах тайников не могут ничего изменить - их некому читать, кроме европейских игроков.

 

Всем мира! Везде!

[+KRON family]

18 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Can we petition Groundspeak to Lock all caches in Russia until international sanctions are lifted?

 

I don't think politics is part of a family-friendly game. However, geocaches in Russia need some HQ intervention.

 

The first reason is the current appeal for spamming cache listings in Russia (e.g. GC2Q7KY). The authors of this appeal probably have no idea about Geocaching guidelines. They also don't know that Russians have their own geocaching server and western Geocaching.com is a predominantly tourist hobby in this country. For example, one of the Czech players has already read the logs that he is a criminal and will be punished, and his son will die a cruel death. Just because he owns one geocache in Belarus. Geocache owners from Russia also do not know what to do (e.g. GL16Q6JFF). 

 

The second reason is related to the first. Sentences like Putin is dictator, criminal and genocide or f*** Putin in logs are the direct way to get Geocaching.com on the Russian blacklist. By the way, it currently contains 571283 records, including 3340 blocked subdomains of amazonaws.com (geocaching images are hosted on amazonaws.com subdomains).

 

The third reason - many caches in Russia are lost for several years and nobody cares. To illustrate, the 8km radius from Moscow's geographical center contains 129 caches. A third of them have some long-term problem. This is not a good example for players.

Only DNF* since last year: 16 geocaches

Only DNF* logs since 2020:  17 geocaches

Only DNF* logs since 2018-19:  5 geocaches

Unsolvable mystery since 2015: 1 geocache

Disabled more than 6 months: 3 geocaches

* FI, WN, NM and DNF logs from the current spam appeal are not included

[+MNTA]

7 hours ago, KRON family said:

 

 

The third reason - many caches in Russia are lost for several years and nobody cares. To illustrate, the 8km radius from Moscow's geographical center contains 129 caches. A third of them have some long-term problem. This is not a good example for players.

Only DNF* since last year: 16 geocaches

Only DNF* logs since 2020:  17 geocaches

Only DNF* logs since 2018-19:  5 geocaches

Unsolvable mystery since 2015: 1 geocache

Disabled more than 6 months: 3 geocaches

* FI, WN, NM and DNF logs from the current spam appeal are not included

 

This is not unique to just one area of the world. Takes active cachers to police and clean things up. I agree it is a bad experience to have unmaintained caches.

Personally I think dedicated reviewers is what is needed to help focus on cache maintenance. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by MNTA
typo

[+dedmoroz]

No geocaching reviewer can fix what's going on in and around RU nowadays.