NEW POLL: Logging a "team" find...

[+TEAM 360]

Say a geocaching "team" consists of several members, such as a family, or friends that are in the "team". During the day, Mom and Dad are at work, and the third person (son or daughter) decides to go out caching. Or maybe Mom is at work, and Dad decides to run out during the day and track down a few, between beers, mowing the lawn, and doing the dishes. Can this person who went out caching claim a find for the "team", or are all team members required to be in attendance at the time of the find? Viewpoints, PLEASE!

[+Renegade Knight]

Do all members of a relay race team run at the same time?

 

Hell no. A team is a team. They can work apart or together.

 

though it would be nice if we do get into team geocaching if there was a limit so Team Everyone didn't just wail on Team Quasit's 5 members.

 

=====================

Wherever you go there you are.

[+TotemLake]

An interesting question. I'm looking at any hobby can be a family effort. Whether they all work on it together or separately, the end result is the same; the furtherment of the hobby interest. Why shouldn't geocaching be considered the same way? The problem a team effort ends up with, is scheduling conflicts along with if the individual finds it, they would be forced to repeat the find just to be part of the "team find". That would get old pretty quick and discourage the team effort.

 

Cheers!

TL

[+TEAM 360]

Now, what if those friends (or family) on the "team" happen to live across town from each other, or even in different states? Still the same? This could open a can of worms here....

[Pantalaimon]

I think the team should do it however they want.

 

If the team wants the account only to reflect finds that the whole team was present for, do it that way. If the team wants the account to reflect any cache anyone on the team has ever found, do it that way.

 

I don't think its for others to dictate how you or your team log your finds.

 

Pan

 

"The internet to tell me where. A GPS to get me there."

[Northern-Lights]

Almost getting into ethics here........ it would be easy for several people all across the nation to "team up" and really blast thier cache count up.... Who cares? My wife and I have three daughters....when they are at home..and if they want to cache with us.....fine. We log each cache we find or not find. When they get married, if they want to start their own Team,,,, then I suppose they could go back and re-lot the caches they were part of.......and put them into their records if they wanted. Sometimes I go without my wife....so what? Usually we are together..... since we don't compete against anyone.....I can't see that it makes much difference. It's not like my daughter in college in Florida is caching and logging caches on our team name.....

 

If God is your co-pilot, it's time to change seats!!!

[+parkrrrr]

quote:

---

Originally posted by TEAM 360:

Now, what if those friends (or family) on the "team" happen to live across town from each other, or even in different states?

---

My "team" lives across town from each other. The question's come up, but only rarely, because there are so few caches here that we choose to do them all as a team with two exceptions:

 

On one cache, Warm went and collected information from some multi stages while I guided her to the proper spot by cellphone.

 

The other exception was DruMorgan's Sin City Micro, which I didn't find and for which I logged the DNF on my own account. If I'd found it, we probably would have logged it on the team account. It just wasn't practical for us both to go to Vegas at the same time.

 

[+Navdog]

Well, a find is a find. It's up to the team members to decide how they want to handle individual finds. I cache under my name, but when I visit my friends over a hundred miles away, we use the moondog3 name. Every once in a while they may do a cache on there own or there may be only two of us out caching, but we always note if there was not all three on a hunt.

 

The adventures of Navdog, Justdog, and Otterpup

[+flask]

i think it's up to the team. what if one member wants to get the find that s/he didn't originally get to visit? can s/he log credit then? two finds?

 

it doesn't matter if you get to camp at one or at six. dinner is still at six.

[claypigeon58]

As long as those not present provide the finder new GPS batteries and trading items for the next cache, they can log the find as a team.

[+TeamJiffy]

My wife and I are, collectively, TeamJiffy. TeamJiffy has found 409 caches; I have found about 10-11 of those individually, and my wife has found about 5 of those individually. That means the remainder, about 390+ were found together.

 

All of these finds are logged as TeamJiffy - and that's how it will continue.

 

Actually, at this discussion, I've reached a limit. No fault of TEAM 360, who are thinking it is OK to have team members work this way! Just rather, I see too much on the forums about controlling others' behavior.

 

There's too much discussion about how people should do this, or that, in caching and what is appropriate, or not.

 

Bluntly:

 

I am not going to open a separate account (nor is she) to log the approximately 4% of caches that we find apart. We want one geocaching.com account, because multiple accounts are a hassle.

 

If that causes anyone problems, well, that's just too bad. Get over it.

 

Geocaching is a leisure activity folks. Nothing more. I am not going to add inconvenience to my life to accommodate anybody else's whims about how we operate as a team. We're not hurting you. We don't log caches neither of us has found, we are honest in our logs, don't trash other people on the forums, or in our cache logs, trade up, and try to provide a decent number of good hides for others to find, and floss after every meal []

 

That should be sufficient.

[+TEAM 360]

quote:

---

Originally posted by TeamJiffy:

No fault of TEAM 360, who are thinking it is OK to have team members work this way!

---

 

Actually, I don't recall voicing my opinion or what I was thinking on this issue at all, I was simply trying to get what other cachers thought of it, hence the poll.

 

I will agree with you that there seems to be a lot of micro-management about rules, when instead, cachers should be out seeking instead of debating. Guess it's time to go look for one or two myself.

 

By the way, last time I checked, NOT doing the dishes was winning the poll.

 

[This message was edited by TEAM 360 on May 16, 2003 at 02:29 PM.]

[+eroyd]

There's no prize in the end for the one with the most caches so really, WHO CARES! Just have fun and enjoy the activity, playing it anyway you like it. In fact, if you think about it, having hundreds of finds may suggest something about ones life, (or lack of),(or neglect of) that may not be something to be proud of. Myself included.

 

Most TEAM members have their own individual accounts but unless the member was there, I don't think a TEAM find should be logged as an individual find.

 

Is it just me or does this thread make for hard reading?

 

[This message was edited by eroyd on May 16, 2003 at 02:35 PM.]

[+Moore9KSUcats]

We are a geocaching family. We don't have the word "team" in our name, yet we are a group that logs only once for the cache. We really don't want more than one account. Sometimes there are 6 or more (if friends come), sometimes just 2 or 3, and there are a few that my husband has found without me, and a few I have found without him. Neither of us feel compelled to go to the caches the other found alone. Others may feel differently, and create their own subset of rules. For us, it is a fun family sport, and it will remain that way.

[+Dave_W6DPS]

I don't see a problem if any one of them claims a find for the team.

 

Of course, I'm not especially concerned with the numbers for other people...

 

Where do I claim my beer for mowing the grass?

 

Dave_W6DPS

 

My two cents worth, refunds available on request. (US funds only)

[+ZingerHead]

While I confess to keeping an eye on the local stats, I have no problem with teams and couldn't care less how they log their finds. Since I usually cache by myself I would be hard pressed to keep up with a "team", since more eyeballs usually means quicker finds. Does that mean it's not fair and that I'm going to whine until everybody caches my way? Get serious! Repeat after me:

it's a G A M E !

 

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary numbers, and those who don't.

[+Team GPSaxophone]

My wife and kids don't know how to use the GPSr, so they don't cache without me. They usually help a great deal with the finds, however!

I don't always take them, because the 3 kids are all under 7 and can't always (hike that far, go out that late at night, etc). All of our finds are under the team account (I don't have a separate account)

I've even taken each of my parents along, and included them on the team. They both live near San Diego (800+ miles from here). They don't own a GPSr or know how to use one, but each of them has found at least one cache!

So, as far as our 'team' is concerned, I have been present on every one of our hunts (be it a FOUND or NOT FOUND) and the other team members have been involved in a vast majority of them. With 87 finds to date, it would be much too difficult to go back and figure out who was present on which cache. It would also confuse the cache owners when if we were to add logs after the fact (especially since we've been caching for over a year)

To paraphrase many others: There are no prizes for finding more caches than someone else.

We all share in our cache count. Whether we all hunt and find one, or I recount the story to the kids (or wife, since she is sometimes working when I go hunting). Sometimes I even take them to the cache location later if it was a really clever hide.

 

[+opey one]

In light of other posts- I HAVE READ NONE!

 

Are you a team or not a team?

 

You must clarify THAT first.

 

Seems like a team should be in unity.

 

Kinda like going to the bar with a couple of your buddys and:

 

1. The only "hot" chick available isn't hot at all.

 

2. You're plastered anyway (and married), but you don't care.

 

3. You try and do anything possible to "score" before they do.

 

4. If you DO succeed despite of the drunken stupor, you head out the door and hop in the ride that brought all three of you anyway.

 

5. You end up in jail and call everyone BUT your wife to come post your bail...Your buddy's don't care and won't answer the phone cause they made it home by another means and you sheistered them in the first place.

 

Who needs a team anyway?

[+Mudfrog]

This is a fun hobby for many and except for a few basic rules, can be played however you like. How a person/team logs their finds or not finds is unimportant and shouldnt cause anyone heartaches.

 

Now, there could be some sort of GeoCaching contest, maybe an event, where the winner of a prize or trophy was the one with the most caches found during the contest. If the winner happened to be a team that split up to make their finds, then i might raise an eyebrow... Even then, it would still be fun and i wouldnt lose any sleep over it!!!

[+Dread Pirate Roberts']

The other side of the argument...my husband and I have done probably 90% of our caches with another couple. They've done a lot more than us on their own. We are two different teams.

 

What I hate about it is that whenever we do a cache together we both have the same stuff to mention in the found logs. B-O-R-I-N-G. That's why I think the team should get credit if just one member finds it...too much redundancy.

[+BDC]

Who cares! It's all about fun especially when It's a team effort. If other's don't like It well that can be fun too. As long as you have some good times and a few laugh's It don't matter.

 

Don't hunt what you can't kill!

[Bender]

Gas up the mower and gimme that beer

 

Bender

 

Searching, for the lost Xanadu

[+BVCY Swim]

I voted 'Any one of them can go out and claim the find for the team'. I just wish there would have been a choice of 'Any one of them can go out and claim the find for the team as long as the team is not separated by hundreds of miles from each other'

[+Ladybuggers!]

We are a married couple that cache together as much as possible. Schedules sometime determine whether we can go together or not. If we are both caching at the same time, then we are caching together.

 

The only rule that we use is: A team cannot seek different caches at the same time.

[+Team Shredded Bark]

I hate mowing.

 

Seriously, I changed to a team name after discovering that my wife and 4-year-old like caching, too. They don't always accompany me, however, especially on those lunchtime caches. The team count really reflects caches that I have been present for. So it isn't really a good indicator of how many caches my wife has found.

 

I gotta go with the previous poster who said "who cares?" It's all pretty much on the honor system anyway.

 

I have a geocolleague who logs family finds as a team, and his own finds separately under his own ID. The problem is, he still has to (double?) log team finds under his own ID in order to get them off his "unfound caches" list. So that method is imperfect as well.

 

--

"I saw two shooting stars last night,

I wished on them--but they were only satellites!

Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?

I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care."

--Billy Bragg, "A New England"

[+Team Mixster]

When I first started it was just me and one (or both) of the kids. It was a nice way for my wife to have quiet time. At that point I logged them as Mixster. Now, she runs the laptop, she runs the GPS, she uses the compass and I... um, log their finds? j/k - I really don't think it matters as I don't really see it as a competition to get the biggest numbers, but I like LadyBuggers' approach - you can't split your team up, expect for fanning out to look for the same cache at the same time. Either way, it's a hobby, a relaxing pastime. In through the nose, out through the mouth. (Don't eat the bugs, and don't let them eat you).

 

-Mike from TEAM Mixster

[+carleenp]

Do what you want! Consider this: The situation of multiple "teams": Between my boyfriend, his son and my parents, my mother is the only parent with an account even though Dad is involved, and my boyfriend and son also share an account for now (the son is about to get his own I think), so I guess they are kind of "teams." I have my own account. We often find caches together in varying combinations, but sometimes on our own. Can you imagine the problems if we tried to figure out which "team" should log at any given time? So, we don't have a "team" account and just log them separately. If some of us are are together, someone logs and lists what we all took and left and the others also log and write something like "I was there with ____ (see below)." I figure that if you want to go the "team" route, it is fair to log it if not all are present.

 

Also, If you don't log a team find when all are not present, then wouldn't the default have to be that it doesn't get logged at all? That would be weird, because the cache was found and the owner and future finders would want to know! So, I say log away even if all are not present!