Use of Wheregeorge bills in geocaches

1.7k · October 26, 2003

I got this from the wheresgeorge.com web site.

It seems that using wheresgeorge bill in geocaches is skewing the purpose of the site which is to track the natural circulation of the bills.

From www.wheresgeorge.com:

The "Top 10 Geocache Bills" report has been permanently removed from this site.

Due to recent events, it has come to our attention that there is a conflict between the rules of Where's George? and Geocaching.com.

Apparently, Geocaching.com allows (and even encourages) friends and family to place and remove Travel Bugs from Geocaches and log each as a separate event along the way for the Travel Bug. When a family is involved, this can cause multiple events or logs of the Travel Bug in a very short period of time. While this is fine for most Travel Bugs, it presents a serious problem for Where's George? bills placed in Geocaches as Travel Bugs.

The general rules of this site specifically prohibit trading or exchanging bills with friends, family or anyone known to the bill distributor. This rule is to encourage "natural circulation" of the currency, and to prevent multiple "fake hits" from happening on any bill. Afterall, the purpose of Where's George? is to track the manner in which currency naturally circulates throughout the country and the world. Allowing people to arbitrarily enter multiple hits to track that a bill was traded among a circle of friends and family defeats the entire purpose of this site. In reality, nobody really needs Where's George? to track that they traded some bills with friends/family.

When it comes to Where's George? bills being used as Travel Bugs, this rule conflicts with the Geocache site which allows such exchanging and logging of Travel Bugs. Therefore, if you are going to use Where's George? bills as Travel Bugs or in any Geocache, the rules posted below now apply.

In addition, it is apparent that the existence of the "Top 10 Geocache Bills" report had created competition to get the top bill listed. As it is trivial to log entries of a bill and make any bill the "Top #1 Bill", the existence of this report was causing several bills to be hit repeatedly in violation of the general rules of the site. This is not the purpose of this site, and the report has been removed to prevent the site from being abused in this manner.

In the future, if this site continues to be abused for this or similar purposes, all Geocache bills will removed from this site. I do not want this to happen as there is great synergy between the sites, so please follow the rules and keep this site "Geocache Friendly".

DustyJacket

Not all those that wander are lost. But in my case...

October 26, 2003

Perhaps Geocache WG's and normal WG's should be listed seperately - it might actually be of interest to see when Geocache WG's actually 'fall' back into circulation again, and where.

Perhaps the Top 10 should omit any WG's that have been placed in Geocaches? Of course, that would rely on whoever logs them ticking a box or somesuch to say that it had been in a cache, but still...

------

"There's Sparticus. That's him, over there."

October 26, 2003

I would call it natural. Geocaching has changed it. Big deal. Nature itself changes, so why can't the nature of the bill's circulation change too?

October 26, 2003

Placing a bill that you own in a geocache is natural circulation in my book. YOu own the dollar and you decide where to spend it. In this case you spent it in a geocache. If I find a WG in a geocache I never place it back in a cache. I always spend it anyway. However it's WG's game and they make the rules. Maybe just a one time placement rule should go into effect to keep everyone happy?

2.6k · October 26, 2003

I have to agree with wg.com. I'm tracking Eurobills and I've interested in hits that are coming from only natural circulation. To me, putting a WG$ in a geocache is almost the same that giving one to my friend and tell him to log it in the wg.com. I'm not interested in that. I also don't mark my bills with any URLs, that's not 'natural circulation' either, IMO. (And probably because of this, I still wait my first Eurobill hit.)

When asked, Eurobilltracker.com administration has also announced that they probably will moderate the multi hits that come from geocsche bills. So far I've seen 1 geocache hit, from Sweden. Not moderated the last time I checked.

- I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory. -

1k · October 26, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Kouros:
Perhaps Geocache WG's and normal WG's should be listed seperately - it might actually be of interest to see when Geocache WG's actually 'fall' back into circulation again, and where.

Perhaps the Top 10 should omit any WG's that have been placed in Geocaches? Of course, that would rely on whoever logs them ticking a box or somesuch to say that it had been in a cache, but still...

They were being listed separately on Where's George? after some people were abusing the system to get a bill in the top ten.

Apparently, what triggered this was a geocache bill that was dropped into a cache, then virtually lifted and dropped in a cache by every member of the search party that day. Everyone then went home and logged the bill as separate entries. This is in clear violation of the Where's George rules which state that you have to have the bill in your possession when you log the bill. Clearly, these people did not have the bill in their possession when they logged the bill and thus the rules of Where's George were violated, and probably caused the post by the Where's George webmaster.

I have placed Where's George bills in geocaches, but I don't do anything extra to the bill. If a cacher finds it, I hope that they log it, but if they don't, oh well. I'm not going to put a sign on it saying, "LOG THIS AT WHERES GEORGE.COM! I don't feel that's natural circulation, it's like your soliciting for a hit. Usually, when I find a Where's George bill in a cache, I usually do not put it in another cache, but spend it to get it back into Natural circulation.

Webfoot

Veni...Vidi...Vicachi.

I came...I saw...I geocached.

Southern California Geocaching

3k · October 26, 2003

The funniest thing is, there are so many examples of Hank Eskin (the owner of "Where's George") breaking his own rules. Bills one Georger has mailed to another, who then mailed it to Hank, who then mailed it to someone else, etc.. There's "natural circulation" for you.

That rule also means that you can't log Georges you receive from a bank teller, grocery store clerk, restaurant server, or any other person you have crossed paths with previously.

3k · October 26, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Kouros:
Perhaps Geocache WG's and normal WG's should be listed seperately - it might actually be of interest to see when Geocache WG's actually 'fall' back into circulation again, and where. Perhaps the Top 10 should omit any WG's that have been placed in Geocaches?

That's the way it was being done.

October 26, 2003

Just out of interest, and going a little OT, but I've just started listing my bills on Doshtracker (the British version of WG) but I've noticed that the vast majority of the notes there only have the one hit.

Is that par for the course?

------

"There's Sparticus. That's him, over there."

3k · October 26, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Webfoot:
They were being listed separately on Where's George? after some people were abusing the system to get a bill in the top ten.

I don't believe that is accurate ... I believe they were listed separately after several of the "more vocal" participants of the "Where's George" forums whined Hank Eskin into submission.

quote:
Apparently, what triggered this was a geocache bill that was dropped into a cache, then virtually lifted and dropped in a cache by every member of the search party that day. Everyone then went home and logged the bill as separate entries.

I agree that would be a violation; did such an event actually transpire?

quote:
I have placed Where's George bills in geocaches, but I don't do anything extra to the bill. If a cacher finds it, I hope that they log it, but if they don't, oh well. I'm not going to put a sign on it saying, "LOG THIS AT WHERES GEORGE.COM! I don't feel that's natural circulation, it's like your soliciting for a hit. Usually, when I find a Where's George bill in a cache, I usually do not put it in another cache, but spend it to get it back into Natural circulation.

I usually trade "Where's Georges" at caches. To me, that is "natural circulation." But I agree with something you alluded to in your post ... the very act of marking a bill and returning it to circulation in any manner impacts the "natural circulation" of that bill. Not all people who receive it will enter it, others might enter it inappropriately, others will remove it from circulation.

Therefore, "Where's George" should ban the practice of marking bills in order to track their circulation, and people should be permitted only to enter/track unmarked bills.

2.6k · October 26, 2003

I understood the concept of WG without reading any of their rules. It's pretty simple.

I'm surprised at the contempt some of you are expressing towards their concerns.

I've only taken a couple of WG bills, and I released them back into circulation.

I remember a Ripley's Believe it or not kind of story. Where a lady reacquired a bill she had received from a family member as a child. I thought that was pretty cool. I remember writing my name on some bills to see if I would get them back later in life. Now WG has come along and we can track them. I support their decision.

3k · October 26, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by leatherman:
I understood the concept of WG without reading any of their rules. It's pretty simple. I'm surprised at the contempt some of you are expressing towards their concerns. ... I remember writing my name on some bills to see if I would get them back later in life. Now WG has come along and we can track them. I support their decision.

Yes, you can track them ... and if "Where's George" had existed when you had written your name on those bills and you had entered them, and long after you had died someone who was related to you, or had ever heard of you, received one of those bills, they would be barred from entering it because of "unnatural circulation." It's just a silly, ill-conceived rule.

4.8k · October 26, 2003

I think the placing of WG in a geocache does enhance the chances of a hit, but SO WHAT. I think the only thing your selecting for is that the person picking up the WG is geeky enough to log it. It's still circulated.

I'm not sure I understand this tempest in a teapot problem. Is WG.com concerned about using WG's in geocaches, or that a WG may get passed on to a friend or relative which is against their policy?

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. The rest go geocaching.

2.6k · October 26, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by BassoonPilot:
someone who was related to you, or had ever heard of you, received one of those bills, they would be barred from entering it because of "unnatural circulation." It's just a silly, ill-conceived rule.

I'm sorry. I didn't read the rule. I was responding to the comments in this thread.

Your right. If it's that strict, it is unreasonable.

October 26, 2003

If I read it right, the 6th paragraph states that this is a problem only if you attache a travel bug dog tag to the bill. If you but a bill in a geocache, thats ok.

Somewhere In ND

South of the hill

North of the tree

3k · October 26, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by SomewhereInND:
If I read it right, the 6th paragraph states that this is a problem only if you attache a travel bug dog tag to the bill. If you but a bill in a geocache, thats ok.

No; read this excerpt from the "Where's George" site. Especially interesting are the last three sentences:

#1. Natural Circulation of bills in a Geocache

The purpose of Where's George? is to track the natural and geographic circulation of currency. This means that any bills you enter should be spent by you in the normal course of everyday life. Giving bills to friends, relatives and/or associates for the purpose of re-entry into the website or simply exchanging any bill though any Geocache violates the whole premise of Where's George?. After you have logged any Where's George? bill you have found in a Geocache, you can either spend it normally or place it in another Geocache. You can not, however, allow any friends, family, or other known Geocachers remove the bill to generate their own entry on the bill. If subsequently found, it must be found by a Geocacher unknown to the previous Geocacher who placed the bill in the Geocache. In general, the Where's George? definition of natural and geographic circulation is spending your cash in the course of any normal transaction with any unknown person/entity.

22k · October 26, 2003

Apparently, what triggered this was a geocache bill that was dropped into a cache, then virtually lifted and dropped in a cache by every member of the search party that day. Everyone then went home and logged the bill as separate entries. This is in clear violation of the Where's George rules which state that you have to have the bill in your possession when you __log the bill.__ Clearly, these people did not have the bill in their possession when they logged the bill and thus the rules of Where's George were violated, and probably caused the post by the Where's George webmaster.

Webfoot

===========

This is how I read it too. I would say they are far, far less concerned about where a bill is placed, than mass loggings by people who were shown the bill rather than 'discovering' one, like in a geocache or in your change at a gas station.

22k · October 26, 2003

Fact is I found my first WG today. (Not in a cache). I thought I would hold it till I go San Francisco the November and release it into circulation there.

Is that not following the rules and I am supposed to just spend it as I normally would?

3k · October 26, 2003

Allowing the fact that it is a marked bill to influence where, when, or how you return it to circulation is, according to "Wheres George," a rules infraction.

Of course, even the most earnest Georgers break that rule daily ... read their forums and see how aware they are about where NOT to spend marked bills, the minimum/maximum number of marked bills to use in any transaction, etc.. Read how they frequent or avoid specific tellers, cashiers or establishments. Every such action disrupts the "natural circulation" of the bills and is thus a violation of the rules.

Most reasonable people would say it's your money and you can do with it as you please.

[This message was edited by BassoonPilot on October 26, 2003 at 08:40 AM.]

22k · October 26, 2003

Edited to change opinion after hearing other people's take on this.

[This message was edited by TeamX40 on October 26, 2003 at 10:12 AM.]

4.5k · October 26, 2003

The only bill I found and posted to Where's George was a twenty, two years ago and there's been no update. Maybe some old lady stuck it under her mattress and took it out of circulation. We ought to send her to jail for taking a US greenback out of circulation. Isn't there some federal law against that? There should be.

Hmm. Just remembered I found a couple of Where's Georges in caches and took them and put in other caches without posting it to the Where's George website. Maybe they'll give me and that old lady the same cell.

Alan

October 26, 2003

Methinks I will become a WG pirate. I could actually make money at it.

___________________________________

Moondog3.com - Portland Geocaching

2.6k · October 26, 2003

It's pretty simple. The bill tracking services want to see their hits come from normal circulation. If someone puts a bill to a certain place (e.g. a geocache) for someone else to grab it and log it, it's not normal circulation. If someone gives a bill to someone else to log it, it's not normal circulation. If someone not knowing about tracking services receives a bill with a tracking service url written on it and logs it because of that, it's not normal circulation (that's only my opinion, some trackers support url writings on bills).

If an old lady sticks a bill she got from a grocery store under a mattress, it is normal circulation. If I get a eurobill with a ebt.com url written on it and I log it, it is normal circulation - I enter every bill I receive anyway so the url doesn't affect my bill logging. The point is that enforcing hits is not normal circulation. Whatever else happens to the bill is normal circulation for tracker services.

Sure you can say that it's your money and you can do whatever you please with it, but enforcing hits just is not the spirit of game in tracker services. Yup, it's only a game.

- I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory. -

4.5k · October 26, 2003

quote:
The bill tracking services want to see their hits come from normal circulation.

well, not exactly. What they want to do is create rules and procedures so they can have maximum parcipitation in their site making their site more successful so they can maximize their profits.

Kind of like this site.

Alan

October 26, 2003

The problem isn't so much with the slight bending of rules. There are varying degrees to which you can take the notion of natural circulation. Granted, there are several actions which are definitely not approved. Depositing large quantities of stamped bills to the bank is one of these unapproved actions.

I ran across on Georger who never spends his Georged bills outside of his home town -- his version of natural circulation.

Personally, I don't see a problem dropping Georged bills into Caches. The problem arises when logging the bills is abused. Having everyone in the group log the same bill, especially when they don't have it in hand, is definite abuse.

The one time I found a Georged bill in a cache, I exchanged it for one of mine and introduced the newly found bill back into circulation.

38.2k · October 26, 2003

Hey, you're all preaching to the choir here. Georges have been a big part of geocaching since the beginning and their new stance is ridiculious. If one group abused the system, then deal with that group and that bill. Perhaps this conversation should be held over at WG.COM so the right people see it.

"You can't make a man by standing a sheep on his hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position, you can make a crowd of men" - Max Beerbohm

October 26, 2003

Well if it's any consolation to the WG folx, tell them to reeeeelax, team Cat'N'Geo is on the case!!!

When we find bills we spends them in a totally random manner!

Except for one that we had so much trouble reading that we could tell right off if the Fed found it again they would destroy it without so much as a by your leave to the WG database.

BTW usung a yellow highlighter on a faded green dollar bill, does not make it easier on the colorblind like me, whoever did it!!!

That one I put back in a cache to protect it's longevity. This weekend 13 caches, 2$ in Circulation baybeee!

Let Peace between GC.com & WG.com officially commence!

"Medals, Parades, Next!" -Commander Zlotny

They say this universe is bound to blow,

I say we crank up the Calypso Control!

~Jimmy Buffett

~Someday I Will~

24.7k · October 26, 2003

I find and leave bills in caches all the time. Most don't have the WG logo. If one does I really don't go out of my way to treat it special.

Here is the rub. WG by it's very existance changed the way bills are handled. Geocaching in general is a more natural use of a bill than logging them into a website.

4.8k · October 27, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Renegade Knight:
I find and leave bills in caches all the time. Most don't have the WG logo. If one does I really don't go out of my way to treat it special.

Here is the rub. WG by it's very existance changed the way bills are handled. Geocaching in general is a more natural use of a bill than logging them into a website.

Aah yes, it all comes back to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We can't know it's exact location becuase by merely looking at it we've changed its properties

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. The rest go geocaching.

October 27, 2003

Not to mention the way some WG registrars super overstamp the bills dramatically shortens the bills life spans when they hit the Feds automatic bill scanners.

They say this universe is bound to blow,

I say we crank up the Calypso Control!

~Jimmy Buffett

~Someday I Will~

1.6k · October 27, 2003

I used to log them, then I got static from the WG site after I found a WG bill, wrote down the number and moved it to a new cache. It would not let me post the bill as I didn't have possession of it at that time. Now I find them and I spend them. Some one else can log them.

_____________

7 3 10 13 23 36 59 95 ...

Use of Wheregeorge bills in geocaches

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