+Faye & Brad Posted August 4, 2003 Share Posted August 4, 2003 My first post in ages, as this is something I think you shjould be aware of... After all the hassle in the past, it looks like they have decided to now not co-exist after all Look here And here... In both threads, there are hints that they are actively geotrashing people's caches. It's such a shame they are like this as there is so much that could be achieved if they were more reasonable and open-minded. Quote Link to comment
+MarcB Posted August 4, 2003 Share Posted August 4, 2003 They *really* don't like geocaching do they? I'm also getting the strangest sense of Deja Vu... MarcB Quote Link to comment
+The Hornet Posted August 4, 2003 Share Posted August 4, 2003 Well I've read the threads and the various follow ups. I had a pretty low opinion of these people after the last debacle but it's even lower now.I suggest people read their threads and then treat them with the contempt they deserve and ignore them. _________________________________________________________ Enthusiastic user of GeocacheUK - Information, not control. It is better to regret something you did, rather than to regret something you didn't do. _________________________________________________________ Quote Link to comment
+stu_and_sarah Posted August 4, 2003 Share Posted August 4, 2003 quote:Originally posted by The Hornet:I suggest people read their threads and then treat them with the contempt they deserve and ignore them. Agreed. Please, PLEASE ignore them! Stu Quote Link to comment
Team Tate Posted August 4, 2003 Share Posted August 4, 2003 A later addition to the ModAnts thread is that they feel that they have a rogue trasher and it does seem that most (I think) are happy to leave our caches alone. As long as we don't spoil their sites etc and hide the caches well, then we should all live in harmony! IT seems to me that they are keen on us adhereing to our guidelines which I'm sure that the majority of us do.... Sarah x Team Tate Remember - if it's moving, it's not dead... Quote Link to comment
+Omally Posted August 4, 2003 Share Posted August 4, 2003 Yup. Ignore 'em. Stick to guidelines, show respect for the countryside, be nice to eachother, leave it at that. "Woof" quoth he. Oh, and "Grrr" also. Omally Quote Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted August 4, 2003 Share Posted August 4, 2003 Does that group have a purpose in life? Quote Link to comment
Moss Trooper Posted August 4, 2003 Share Posted August 4, 2003 Not the sort of comment we need right now. Moss the Boss... Sorta Quote Link to comment
Seifer Posted August 4, 2003 Share Posted August 4, 2003 I agree with Mozzie! Mike Of course..... Quote Link to comment
Cholo Posted August 4, 2003 Share Posted August 4, 2003 quote:Originally posted by The Hornet:Well I've read the threads and the various follow ups. I had a pretty low opinion of these people after the last debacle but it's even lower now.I suggest people read their threads and then treat them with the contempt they deserve and ignore them. I did read them, and have finally seen why you're so p.o.'d at them. They sure seem to have a "holier than thou" attitude. I hate to admit this, but if this sort of stuff was happening in the U.S., there'd be violent confrontations. At least I found out what you mean by 'tat'. I used to think it was making lace or what Tweety Bird called Sylvester. Good luck, I doubt if they can be ignored, and certainly can't be dealt with "tit for tat". Sorry for that last one. Quote Link to comment
+Teasel Posted August 5, 2003 Share Posted August 5, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Renegade Knight:Does that group have a purpose in life? Very much so! While we geocachers are passionate about our hobby, many of the MAs regard ancient monuments as sacred sites to be religiously protected. quote:Agreed. Please, PLEASE ignore them! Certainly if you've got nothing constructive to say to the MAs, or you have no respect for their position, then say nothing! A flame war could lead to trashing of caches or, worse, ancient monuments. The HCC rules state no caches near SAMs. I'm currently trying to get the English Heritage SAM database onto G:UK, so we can more easily obey this rule. But if we accept as geocachers that SAMs should be protected, then why not also protect the other ancient monuments which do not (yet?) have statutory protection? The TMAs have gone to a lot of effort to catalogue the UKs heritage and I believe both sides can benefit from a little cooperation. I for one would like to see more dialog between the two groups. GeocacheUK - resources for the UK Geocaching community. [This message was edited by Teasel on August 05, 2003 at 04:49 PM.] Quote Link to comment
Wilting Posted August 6, 2003 Share Posted August 6, 2003 Teasel, as usual everything you say is absolutely correct. However the postings on the TMA forum were not from the "reasonable" wing, they consisted mainly of simple abuse, plus "trashing" suggestions. Such postings ought to be ignored. I agree with you that ancient sites should be respected so that they can be enjoyed by all - Geocachers, TMA's and "Normal People" As happy as a piggy in ordure. Quote Link to comment
+plaid-dragon Posted August 6, 2003 Share Posted August 6, 2003 [sarcasm filter: on]They are a friendly sounding bunch. I particularly like the way they are so polite to each other, and obviously have a great deal of tolerance for people with hobbies other than their own. Quote Link to comment
+Lassitude Posted August 6, 2003 Share Posted August 6, 2003 Well all this is new to me. I think these people do not understand what Gecoaching is about. Visiting interesting places that we would otherwise pass by is what it is really about. Although some caches are dubiously placed I think a majority are placed responsibly. I know some of the TMA members read this forum and would like to say that a broad spread of people are involved with this hobby. We are not a geeky bunch of lunchbox hunters. We get more out of the hobby than that and lets face it if that was all it was about we would soon get bored with it. More importantly Geocaching is getting teenagers and children interested in the outside world. If the next generation are not particularly interested in out ancient sites and more interested in their Playstation 2's then how are these sites going to fare in the future? I think if a TMA member feels they are not happy with a cache location they can by all means report it and it will probably be archived based on their objections if they are valid. Trashing them without informing us is likely to cause more damage to one of the areas they feel they have to protect as teams will search more thoroughly if they cannot find it (However a cache should never be placed in a location likely to cause damage to the ancient site). They may well have a point in some instances and confronting this group rather than cooperating is going to be counter productive. Perhaps a new forum should be started on this site to enable non-Geocachers to place objections to any caches they are unhappy with.... Over to you TMA Thanks Chris LASSITUDE- (noun) Tiredness and apathy: a state of weariness accompanied by listlessness or apathy[15th century. Via French from Latin lassitudo , from lassus 'weary'.] Quote Link to comment
+Kouros Posted August 6, 2003 Share Posted August 6, 2003 I'll mark this one up as a "Been There, Done That" Oh wait, wrong site... ------ An it harm none, do what ye will Quote Link to comment
+Lassitude Posted August 6, 2003 Share Posted August 6, 2003 quote:Does that group have a purpose in life? Renegade Knight In answer to your question: Based on Julian Cope's epic guidebook of the same name, The Modern Antiquarian website is a community-based project that invites the user to add their own knowledge & experiences of the ancient sites of the UK & Ireland – distilled into the colour-coded categories of News, Images, Fieldnotes, Folklore, Miscellaneous, Weblinks & Nearby Facilities. Currently The Modern Antiquarian website carries information on over 2,500 megalithic sites with over 9,000 user contributions (including over 4,500 images). This was taken from their website and we should be batting from the same wicket as far as our respect for ancient monuments are concerned. Thanks Chris LASSITUDE- (noun) Tiredness and apathy: a state of weariness accompanied by listlessness or apathy[15th century. Via French from Latin lassitudo , from lassus 'weary'.] Quote Link to comment
Mod Antonio Posted August 6, 2003 Share Posted August 6, 2003 Teasel has posted on TMA, so perhaps you’ll allow me to post here, briefly. Please note about us: the overwhelming majority of us aren’t religious about the sites, we simply think they’re great. They are under constant attack from agriculture, development, vandalism and the modern world in general and large numbers have been irrepairably damaged or lost forever. It’s happening on a weekly basis. We’re therefore very sensitive about them and are forever removing candles and grease and plastic goddesses etc left by New Age people. You practise Cache in Trash Out, we just like to see these places kept as perfect as possible for people to enjoy them as they have been for millennia. There are far, far more members of the public who enjoy them in this way than there are geocachers. You pride yourselves as being responsible sensible people, as I’m sure you are, and therefore assume that the odd “rogue” amongst you doesn’t matter, but he DOES. To hope that we, or landowners are going to happily deal with misplaced caches by going to the trouble and delay of informing you and waiting for a cache to be archived is just not realistic. It's your responsibility to our joint heritage that it never happens, no-one else's. So to my mind, you’ll have yet more run-ins with the likes of us and the landowners and the Heritage Bodies until hell freezes over unless and until you make your guidelines into mandatory rules. Thanks. Quote Link to comment
MCL Posted August 6, 2003 Share Posted August 6, 2003 Mod Antonio, Oh if only we *could*!! Firstly, you are welcome to post here, and thanks for doing so. The fact is that caching is an activity that is also carried out by people who are not members of GC.COM, and not members of GAGB (the newly constituted association in Britain). We cannot stop people who want to go and cache and never tell anyone else about it, since we live in a free country. We can no more make our rules mandatory on everyone who might do caching than you can make any of your rules mandatory on anyone who might visit an ancient monument! All you can do is denounce someone who does damage to a monument, and possibly ban them from your site. But that doesn't stop them visiting again and doing more damage does it? By the same token, we on this site can denounce a person who's caches are doing damage or filled with dangerous items or whatever (in other words, a rogue cacher) and we can stop them from certain things like posting on this board. But even if we rescinded membership of this website, the information is still available to them, either from this site or indeed from other listing sites on the net over which we have no control whatever. I can't understand why you think we would be any more able to enforce mandatory rules on the general public than you guys are. The GAGB is striving (for the first time) to get as many different parties in the caching world to agree to and adhere to good sound guidelines, and in conjunction with the landowners, to enforce what we can where we can. We have made great strides with one pareticular landowner/manager, Hants County Council. We hope to take the guidelines that were hammered out with them, and get them agreed to by other landowners, but this is going to take time. We cannot compel anyone who doesn't want to, to stick to our rules or guidelines, whether we want to or not.Really the only people with any legal muscle in the area of enforcement is the landowners themselves. But thats not going to stop us trying our best. Please realise that what you are asking is just not possible. Sure we can say that the rules are mandatory on our memebrs, but the trouble is you don't have to be a member in order to place and find caches, any more than you have to be a Mod Ant to go and enjoy ancient monuments. Does that make sense? No trees were harmed during the production of this posting, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.... Quote Link to comment
Mod Antonio Posted August 7, 2003 Share Posted August 7, 2003 Yes, I understand what you’re saying. The trouble is, “would that we could” isn’t a viable proposition to a landowner. He’s more likely to say “that’s no concern of mine, and you must. Oh, and if you’re going to tell the whole world you’ve put caches on my land, rather than just your own members, then forget it. You can play here if you’re strict and exclusive, and I know you and trust you, but not if you bring Tom, Dick and Harry. So come back to me when you’ve sorted it into a format that’s acceptable to ME, not merely one that's practicable to you”. Just how it seems to me as an outsider. Thank you for your civility and for letting me rabbit on. Now I'm off to worship some stones Quote Link to comment
+Nobby Posted August 7, 2003 Share Posted August 7, 2003 I don’t normally get involved in these kind of debates as I prefer to get out there and enjoy the game, but this ‘hollier-than-thou’ attitude that the Mod Ant seem to have adopted does make me angry. They seem to have the opinion that these ancient monuments and alike are there purely for their benefit and enjoyment, and that nobody else should make use of them because it is outside the scope of their opinion. These sites have been around for hundreds (thousands) of years, surviving all manner of misfortune (wars and battles, development, environmental extremes) and during that time have been used by many different people throughout the ages, for their own purposes. Who is to say that these new age religious types were not using these sites hundreds of years ago to follow their beliefs. Perhaps they have more right to them than the Mod Ants? Everybody has an equal right to our countries heritage and should be allowed to enjoy it in a responsible manner. I enjoy caching because it takes me to many places that I would never normally have visited or even known about. Some these places have been sites that are listed on Mod Ant and I have found them to be very interesting. I am usually accompanied by my young children who learn about these places and grow up respecting them. Why can’t GC and Mod Ant be mutually beneficial to each other? If someone has placed a cache in an unsuitable spot, make the effort to tell them. Try explaining why you don’t think it should be in that particular place. To say that you can’t be bothered to take the time to email someone shows that you don’t really care about these places you claim to protect. We may not fully understand all the issues, but unless you take an adult attitude and help people to understand, we never will. Sure there are rouge elements within GC.com, but that goes for society as a whole. It doesn’t matter how many guidelines, rules, regulations or laws you have, there will always be those that choose to ignore them. In the most part geocachers are responsible people who respect the countryside. If someone has hidden a cache at an ancient site in a responsible manner, then what harm does it do to have maybe 30-40 extra visits to the site in a year. These 30-40 people will have had the privilege of visiting part of our heritage, will hopefully have learnt a little more about the place we live in, and improved their awareness of our surroundings. If you look at many of the cache description pages you will see that they do not just tell you where to find a hidden box, but often include a potted history or explanation of the location. I have learnt a great deal from geocaching. Why can’t we all pull together for the benefit of the country (planet) as a whole. Perhaps we should all try and be a little more tolerant of others. A war of vandalism will help nobody. Rant over, going back out to play now Nobby Quote Link to comment
cain mosni Posted August 7, 2003 Share Posted August 7, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Mod Antonio:Yes, I understand what you’re saying. The trouble is, “would that we could” isn’t a viable proposition to a landowner. He’s more likely to say “that’s no concern of mine, and you must. Oh, and if you’re going to tell the whole world you’ve put caches on my land, rather than just your own members, then forget it. You can play here if you’re strict and exclusive, and I know you and trust you, but not if you bring Tom, Dick and Harry. So come back to me when you’ve sorted it into a format that’s acceptable to ME, not merely one that's practicable to you”. Personally, I don't think that's at issue. A landowner is within his rights to do anything he damned well pleases (within legal limits) on his own land. As a matter of courtesy the landowner should know and approve anyway. What IS at issue is that third parties, whatever their chosen badge of recognistion - in which I include TMAs, ramblers, geocachers - have no right whatsoever to impose their individual preferences or principles on any other, amongst their own or globally. And whatever the landowners' rights are morally or legally, they do not confer themselves to any busy-body third party claiming to act in the landowners' interests. I have the greatest respect for our monumental sites, as TMAs would claim for themselves. But lets not get this out of proportion. The distilled reality is that these sites are the litter of past societies on an architectural scale. What they are now is not what they were. What they will be is not what they are. Time moves on and takes its toll. It is that very passage of time and people that endows these places with their significance. It is not within my own moral code to wilfully damage anything that anyone else holds respect or reverence for. I respect differing positions - even those in diametric opposition to my own - and accept them at face value. But when someone demonstrates a lack of reciprocal respect they start to lose mine. When they demonstrate clear disdain for any position than their own, they lose it completely. And I'm sorry to say that the attitudes expressed by some of your associates in the TMA demonstrates exactly that disdain. If they cannot appreciate that something they find tedious and valueless is a constructive and educational pastime for others then I'm afraid they are too steeped in their own self-rigteousness to take seriously. (And no, I don't normally get involved in such things these days. I served my time on the newsgroups...) Quote Link to comment
cain mosni Posted August 7, 2003 Share Posted August 7, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Nobby:I don’t normally get involved in these kind of debates as I prefer to get out there and enjoy the game, but this ‘hollier-than-thou’ attitude that the Mod Ant seem to have adopted does make me angry. Given the difference between what Mod Ant has written and what some of his cohorts have expressed elsewhere, I'd not characterise his comments as particularly self-righteous. He states an impractical ideal, and I think he is misguided, and makes a false association between landowners' rights and those of other interested parties. But unlike some of his colleagues he's clearly more inclined to live and let live. quote:They seem to have the opinion that these ancient monuments and alike are there purely for their benefit and enjoyment, and that nobody else should make use of them because it is outside the scope of their opinion. These sites have been around for hundreds (thousands) of years, surviving all manner of misfortune (wars and battles, development, environmental extremes) and during that time have been used by many different people throughout the ages, for their own purposes. Who is to say that these new age religious types were not using these sites hundreds of years ago to follow their beliefs. Perhaps they have more right to them than the Mod Ants? Everybody has an equal right to our countries heritage and should be allowed to enjoy it in a responsible manner. I'm 50/50 with you here. I'm less than supportive of the people who do silly things like burning torches, and wax candles - they don't do stone any good, and whils the odd bit of damage isn't much in itself it's like junk e-mail - if everyone did a little ultimately the cumulative result is unmanageable. And most of the totems that people chose to leave are pretty tacky and clearly devoid of any significance to the depositer other than it was something to leave behind. On the flip side - as you say thses sites have been around for centuries of not millenia, and have survived much less enlightened periods in history. It's not unreasonable to want to try to protect and preserve what little remains, given the history of plundering until recently, though. quote:I enjoy caching because it takes me to many places that I would never normally have visited or even known about. Some these places have been sites that are listed on Mod Ant and I have found them to be very interesting. I am usually accompanied by my young children who learn about these places and grow up respecting them. Why can’t GC and Mod Ant be mutually beneficial to each other? The dogmatic nuts aside, I think the main concern of these people is that the act of geocaching, which necessarily involves tramping around rummaging and searching is going to have an undue impact not only on the monuments but also on their surrounding environment. If this is the position, then I tend to agree. Just how beautiful or respected is a site if it becomes a dustbowl or a mess of trampled ragged vegetation? quote:If someone has placed a cache in an unsuitable spot, make the effort to tell them. Try explaining why you don’t think it should be in that particular place. To say that you can’t be bothered to take the time to email someone shows that you don’t really care about these places you claim to protect. We may not fully understand all the issues, but unless you take an adult attitude and help people to understand, we never will. More accurately it demonstrates that they have no real interest in educating people, and that it's the sleight of having their beliefs intruded on that offends them. (It's a brand of religious fervour, although of course they'd never admit it.) quote:Sure there are rouge elements within GC.com, but that goes for society as a whole. Please don't refer to geocaching.com as if it represents the be-all and end-all of geocaching. It doesn't, in spite of the impression it tries to give. quote:It doesn’t matter how many guidelines, rules, regulations or laws you have, there will always be those that choose to ignore them. In the most part geocachers are responsible people who respect the countryside. If someone has hidden a cache at an ancient site in a responsible manner, then what harm does it do to have maybe 30-40 extra visits to the site in a year. These 30-40 people will have had the privilege of visiting part of our heritage, will hopefully have learnt a little more about the place we live in, and improved their awareness of our surroundings. If you look at many of the cache description pages you will see that they do not just tell you where to find a hidden box, but often include a potted history or explanation of the location. I have learnt a great deal from geocaching. So have I, but ironically I've learnt more from the site placed in parks and green spaces and modern monuments, not ancient sites. Most of the places (such as Avebury and its environs, which I have yet to visit for a geocaching expedition) I already know about. quote:Why can’t we all pull together for the benefit of the country (planet) as a whole. Perhaps we should all try and be a little more tolerant of others. A war of vandalism will help nobody. Stop it. You're talking sense. That's not allowed! Quote Link to comment
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