Owner Maintenance logged without maintaining the cache

[+Cachy]

I am not sure if this is a worldwide problem or based in misleading translations:

 

Within the last few weeks I was trying to find FOUR Caches with the **requirement** of owner maintenance (because of missing containers and or stages). But all four caches were logged with "Owner Maintenance" by the owners, naming in these logs that their caches are definitely not okay!

 

There seems to be a misunderstanding what the log "Owner Maintenance" means, and I highly recommend to change the log type and/or its description to

 

* Owner Maintenance FINISHED

* Owner Wartung ERLEDIGT

 

Less experienced owners seems think that they have to log Owner Maintenance WHILE they are maintaining their Caches. Maybe the misunderstanding comes from the handling within the app (what I am not using). I can't remember that I had this problem in the past.

 

Another way could be to add a confirmation

* You are going to log an Owner Maintenance. Is your cache already well maintained and ready to be found again by other Geocachers?

* Du möchtest die Owner Wartung loggen. Ist Dein Cache jetzt gewartet und bereit, wieder von anderen Geocachern gefunden zu werden?

 

Groundspeak should explain the basics of real Geocaching by the newsletter from time to time. Less "advertising", more "How To".

 

Cachy

[+Max and 99]

I have seen so many examples of this locally. It is definitely not a misunderstanding in most of these cases!! It's laziness. They will log an owner maintenance, and say something like "I plan on checking on this soon", or " I'm working on a fix". They are experienced geocachers and they know better. 

 

I just looked up an example: 

 

At this point, the plan is to still re-place this cache, but the container is not fixed and ready yet.

Edited October 6, 2024 by Max and 99

[+Cachy]

4 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

It is definitely not a misunderstanding in most of these cases!! It's laziness. They will log an owner maintenance, and say something like "I plan on checking on this soon", or " I'm working on a fix". They are experienced geocachers and they know better. 

 

The log type Owner Maintenance ist currently not defined. Is it...

...planned?

...in progress?

...finished?

 

What If owners are thinking to poste a note IS a valid kind of maintenance?

Why not defining the meaning by just adding a simple word?

 

Not to log "I plan to" when there is a word like "finished" should be selfexplaining and WILL reduce the amount of wrong logs! Not all but many... e.g. the two of my four owners, saying "Sorry I didn't knew".

[+Max and 99]

15 minutes ago, Cachy said:

 

The log type Owner Maintenance ist currently not defined. Is it...

...planned?

...in progress?

...finished?

 

What If owners are thinking to poste a note IS a valid kind of maintenance?

Why not defining the meaning by just adding a simple word?

 

Not to log "I plan to" when there is a word like "finished" should be selfexplaining and WILL reduce the amount of wrong logs! Not all but many... e.g. the two of my four owners, saying "Sorry I didn't knew".

When you log an owner maintenance, this message appears: 

 

 

[+TriciaG]

 

I sympathize.

Depending on how aggressive you are, you could log a Needs Reviewer Attention log to get a reviewer involved...

[+arisoft]

10 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

I just looked up an example: 

 

At this point, the plan is to still re-place this cache, but the container is not fixed and ready yet.

 

Was the cache disabled or not?

 

If the cache was disabled, the log was informal only. Telling that the owner is active. Otherwise, it would be another story.

 

Edited October 7, 2024 by arisoft

[+Max and 99]

Yes.

[+Deepdiggingmole]

This has been going on for some time now -
I am aware experienced cachers use it to get rid of the spanner - even though they haven't been out to the cache to check 
Inexperienced cachers use it because they don't know what it is really for 

I have added another NM/OAR log when I have seen it on caches that I had originallyplaced NM/OAR logs - the CO may not be happy with that but may eventually realise they have to actually do the maintenance 
 

[+Sottiwotti]

These kind of people are everywhere, even here in Belgium. A little too common for my taste

[+thebruce0]

On 10/6/2024 at 6:05 PM, Max and 99 said:

I have seen so many examples of this locally. It is definitely not a misunderstanding in most of these cases!! It's laziness. They will log an owner maintenance, and say something like "I plan on checking on this soon", or " I'm working on a fix". They are experienced geocachers and they know better. 

It's like it's seen to such people as more like "Owner Addressed", rather than 'maintenance performed'.

 

Owner Attention Requested -> Owner Maintenance could be seen as a bit of a hop over the middle option, but there is not "Owned Addressed"; in practice, that would be more like a Note posted by the CO.

 

In a way, the prior wording made more sense: Needs [Owner] Maintenance -> Owner Maintenance, inferring that the latter is performed (despite it still be used wrong as above).

So if you infer a meaning to the OM log, with the new OAR label, the OM is likely being inferred to mean 'attention provided' or addressed.

 

 

In reality, it should be OAR -> Note Posted (addressed) and/or OM (performed). But, a posted Note doesn't clear the 'attention requested' flag. It's a little convoluted.

 

Of course, common sense should imply the expected process. But clearly people will not use the log types their intended way anyway.

[+Goldenwattle]

Then there's a CO who keeps doing OM logs, without replacing the cache. The reviewer just archived one, but plenty more. Although most people are doing logs, some just put photographs and claim a find. Normally I wouldn't put a GC number here, but this CO needs shaming. Samples. There's more.

https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC85KH0_vuelta-de-rocha

https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC9XD01_club-espanol

https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC9XCQ4_monumento-a-roca

 

I walked and walked there, up to 13kms a day, and had lots of DNFs. VERY disappointing.