What's up with wheresgeorge.com??

July 25, 2002

What's up with wheresgeorge.com?? Looks like theyre collecting links to bills that have visited geocaches. Are they trying to get rid of them? That would be too bad.

I'm new to geocaching and to wheresgeorge but it looks to me like the two could complement each other. I have found 3 marked bills, and when I find one, I leave one of my marked bills.

Anyone else here leave wheresgeorge dollars?

July 25, 2002

I have left a good many Wheresgeorge bills in caches, and also retrieved a few. I always enter them on the site when I find one. I agree that the two compliment each other and wonder why the WG.com would censor our attempts to get the bills traveling. Oh well, I can live without Wheresgeorge.com. As for geocaching, I am not about to give it up.

Sabaharr

2.6k · July 25, 2002

Anyone ever tip a stripper with a where's george dollar? Would kind of give a new meaning to "see where I've been".

george

Remember: Half the people you meet are below average.

3k · July 25, 2002

How about explaining it a little better ... or provide an example. I haven't noticed anything different at Where's George.

38.2k · July 25, 2002

What do you mean by collecting links? I just checked out the site and don't see anything different.

I did notice that using Georges in Geocaches is technically a violation of their "user guidelines" where it states that:

"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 violates the whole premise of Where's George?..."Sending bills via US mail or any transportation methods to people in other locals does not constitute natural and geographic circulation. 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".

Well the heck with that, I'll still trade Georges in caches. In fact my next planned cache is a Wheresgeorge exchange

"Life is a daring adventure, or it is nothing" - Helen Keller

1.3k · July 25, 2002

All that's happening is geocache bills will be tagged so they won't appear in the top ten lists. Nothing else will change.

See this thread:

http://www.wheresgeorge.com/pf_main3/messages/1027347341_31625.html

You don't have to do anything differently.

However, I'd avoid placing a cache solely for the purpose of exchanging Where's George bills.

July 26, 2002

For the last few days in the public forum they have been posting links to 'geocache bills' to be tagged (whatever that means) Some of those bills have zero or one hit, but (I guess) mention geocache in the user notes.

That's why I asked if anyone knows whats up. I'm not sure what's going on. So I thought I'd ask here.

If all they are doing is keeping them out of the top ten, I guess we can say, nothing's up.

I do recall about 2 weeks ago a couple of malcontents were needling the heck out of the moderator about 'geocache georges' (HEY, did I just make up a new word??).

Just asking if something is up. At the same time I thought I might get some folks to talk about combining geocaching and wheresgeorge. Since I am new to this, I am interested in what you got to say about that.

Thanks for your replies to my original post!

July 26, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by HJS:
'geocache georges' (HEY, did I just make up a new word??).

GeoGeorges?

20.7k · July 26, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by BrianSnat:
"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".

I don't know about everybody else, but trading items is a normal transaction for me. Certainly when a 'Where's George' dollar is placed in a cache, it is transacted with some unknown person/entity (ie future finder of the cache, plunderer, squirrel, et al). It is also important to note that 'spend' is defined as:

2) to pay out (money); disburse

3) to give or devote (time, labor, thought, or effort) to some enterprise or for some purpose

5) to waste; squander

1) to pay out or use up money, etc

Therefore, it appears that trading Where's George dollars in caches is completely appropriate based on the user guidelines.

The only difference is that we have a population that is aware of 'Where's George' and is willing to log the bills.

July 26, 2002

(1) Geocached Where's George bills are being marked as such, and cannot appear in the regular Top 10 bills listing, but there is now a separate Top 10 just for the geocached ones.

(2) Yes, they are being call GeoGeorges.

(3) If you saw postings of geocache bills by Bob D, that's me.

July 26, 2002

(1) Geocached Where's George bills are being marked as such, and cannot appear in the regular Top 10 bills listing, but there is now a separate Top 10 just for the geocached ones.

(2) Yes, they are being call GeoGeorges.

(3) If you saw postings of geocache bills by Bob D, that's me.

July 26, 2002

But I think that since NON-Where's George dollars are often left in caches, to put one that IS in a cache wouldn't violate the 'natural' movement of the bill.

To that end, to be given away and mailed, etc., is all 'natural'. How often have we received a buck in a card from Grandma? What do we do with it? Spend it. It all contributes to how money gets around the WORLD.

SO MARK UP THOSE BILLS, AND GET THEM OUTTA THE COUNTRY! WHERE'S GEORGE? UK! IRELAND! NORWAY! JAPAN!

---------------

Go! And don't be afraid to get a little wet!

July 26, 2002

As long as the bills left in caches aren't being removed from the database altogether, I guess I'm not concerned. Hank's even set up a new Top 10 list just for Geo-bills. All this talk about "tagging" Geocache bills and asking others to report them sounds a little familiar and scary, though.

I didn't realize the potential for hits on these types of bills! The ones I've found have travelled very slowly. I did find one that was specifically a cache-only bill, stapled in its own little plastic bag with instructions.

--

July 26, 2002

As long as the bills left in caches aren't being removed from the database altogether, I guess I'm not concerned. Hank's even set up a new Top 10 list just for Geo-bills. All this talk about "tagging" Geocache bills and asking others to report them sounds a little familiar and scary, though.

I didn't realize the potential for hits on these types of bills! The ones I've found have travelled very slowly. I did find one that was specifically a cache-only bill, stapled in its own little plastic bag with instructions.

--

1.7k · July 26, 2002

At least they haven't completly disquailifing bills that are placed in Geocaches. I simply will not say that I found the bill in a cache anymore. Just that I got in the city I live in.

1.4k · July 26, 2002

I'm hoping to run across one of the bills that reached the top 10 "naturally," just so I can stick it in this cache...

1.4k · July 26, 2002

I'm hoping to run across one of the bills that reached the top 10 "naturally," just so I can stick it in this cache...

24.7k · July 26, 2002

So let me get this straight.

When I find a dollar bill in a cache that someone left in the natural and normal course of their life, that's ok.

But if that same bill happens to be a wheresgoerge bill, now it's not ok.

At this point in time I've seen more natural bills in caches than wheresgeorge bills.

Their pickyness is artificial. Not only that it's extra work.

They will probably start tracking those stripper bills next. After all it would be pretty dadgum cool to see how many strippers the same bill as tipped in it's lifetime. Someone could make a stamp of that mudflap silohette for the stripper bills...er wheresgoeroge bills.

July 27, 2002

Check it out....

The Mountain Bike Guy.

Long Live Long Rides!

1.1k · July 27, 2002

Well, I mean it is their game and all. If you want to influence change on their site, comment on their site. Seems like a good solution to me. At least they aren't ceasing to allow where's george bills as geocaching "travel bugs." As solutions go it doesn't seem to be very offensive.

If you have a serious issue with it, create your own where's george style site and create your own stamps that point to your site.

Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location

1.1k · July 27, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by BrianSnat:

"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".

quote:
Originally posted by sbell111:

I don't know about everybody else, but trading items is a normal transaction for me.

In my opinion, it would count as a normal transaction as long as you didn't trade it for another bill. If you're trading it for a trinket, that's a transaction similar to what happens in the outside world. But to trade one dollar for another shouldn't count.

By the way, I logged a bill once that I got as change from buying Girlscout cookies. Since I knew the person who was collecting the money, was that a violation of the rules?

P.S. I think, rather than GeoGeorges, it should simply be shorted to GEOrges.

-------

"I may be slow, but at least I'm sweet!"

July 27, 2002

There is nothing going on that is extremely out of the ordinary at Where's George?

All Hank is doing is putting a very nice banner on top of certain bills that are being left in GeoCaches, that says they are GeoCache bills.

These bills will no longer be eligible for the Top 10 Bills, but they are NOT, I repeat, NOT being deleted or disabled, etc.

They are, in a sense, getting their own recognition on Where's George?, and that's it. The banner is even an active link to HERE as a matter of fact(well, the main page of this site, anyway.} ) They even have their OWN top 10 list now.

Nothing big and earth shattering.}

So please stop ragging on Hank. He provided a solution that should(hopefully) please everyone in the long run.

-Wolf

Here's a few links to a few GeoGeorge bills-(courtesy of Bob D and Christian Trekker at WheresGeorge.com)

Go Ahead, Make My Day Cache GeoBill

Little Box on the Prairie Cache GeoBill

[This message was edited by Wolf_SilverOak on July 27, 2002 at 02:07 PM.]

July 27, 2002

There is nothing going on that is extremely out of the ordinary at Where's George?

All Hank is doing is putting a very nice banner on top of certain bills that are being left in GeoCaches, that says they are GeoCache bills.

These bills will no longer be eligible for the Top 10 Bills, but they are NOT, I repeat, NOT being deleted or disabled, etc.

They are, in a sense, getting their own recognition on Where's George?, and that's it. The banner is even an active link to HERE as a matter of fact(well, the main page of this site, anyway.} :mad: ) They even have their OWN top 10 list now.

Nothing big and earth shattering.}

So please stop ragging on Hank. He provided a solution that should(hopefully) please everyone in the long run.

-Wolf

Here's a few links to a few GeoGeorge bills-(courtesy of Bob D and Christian Trekker at WheresGeorge.com)

Go Ahead, Make My Day Cache GeoBill

Little Box on the Prairie Cache GeoBill

[This message was edited by Wolf_SilverOak on July 27, 2002 at 02:07 PM.]

July 27, 2002

quote:
Don't you people have anything better to do than get upset over NOTHING, and create controversy and confusion based solely on non-information?

There has been alot of debate about the "natural-ness" of geocaching with WG bills. There are equal numbers of people on both sides of the debate.

ALL I DID WAS CREATE A SOLUTION THAT SOLVES THE PROBLEM FOR EVERYONE. If you bothered to read and understand the solution, rather than have a knee-jerk reaction to something you clearly don't understand, all of this could have been avoided in the first place.

I am not going to debate whether or not GeoGeorging is "natural" or not - I don't need to. All I did was separate these bills into their own category. People interested in GeoGeorging now have their own Top 10 List, and for people who do not like GeoGeorging, these bills are not included on the other Top 10 Lists. A simple solution to a simple problem - nothing more than that.

I am not "trying to get rid of them?" nor trying to "censor their attempts to get the bills traveling." Saying that my "pickiness is artificial" is clearly not understanding the problem nor solution.

And finally, the source of the problem IS NOT the user guidelines I have set up. It is the thousands of people who interpret them differently, and in this country, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I merely created a solution to appease everyone with respect to GeoGeorges and "natural circulation".

-Hank

I think what he is doing is a great idea, we get a new "Top Ten" list for GeoBills, cool! Look here! Keep doing what you are you Jeremy and Hank! You both are great and have created two awsome sites!

The Mountain Bike Guy.

Long Live Long Rides!

[This message was edited by MTBguy on July 27, 2002 at 05:12 PM.]

[This message was edited by MTBguy on July 27, 2002 at 05:19 PM.]

July 27, 2002

OK - I've seen the controversy on both sites, and here's my two-cents worth...

Years ago, when Hank Eskin created Where's George, one of the primary objectives was to see where money went *naturally* in the course of day-to-day commerce. This concept is embraced by nearly every participant at the site, and has rarely seen challenge, but there are User Guidelines established by Hank that are designed to eliminate some of the confusion over what 'natural circulation' is. Basically, they were designed to keep the practices of the participants consistent, keep bulk bill deposits from reaching banks (invoking the wrath of bankers and the Secret Service, who have paid Hank a visit at least once when the site was younger), and discourage meaningless trading by participants in an effort to garner long 'hit lists' on bills.

Statistics tables are provided for various categories of bills and their accomplishments; the oft-mentioned 'Top Ten' list includes those bills that have been reported back to the database by 'finders' the greatest number of times while in the course of 'natural circulation'.

In the meantime, Geocaching was born, this site created, and somewhere along the way, the two hobbies met. They both seem to have an appeal to many participants of either, and at some point, the overlap of folks doing both saw the creation of 'geogeorges' - bills that were put into caches as part of the normal goodies trade, or as a sort of travel bug unto themselves with the intent of visiting more than just one cache.

Over time, however, something happened that stirred the waters a little. It seems that some of those 'geogeorges' were ending up being a little *too* successful in their mission, and many racked up an impressive list of 'hits' as they moved from cache to cache. Fact is, there are a few groups of cachers (one in the California/West Coast area comprised of names familiar to many, as example) that make a regular habit of trading their 'geogeorges' back and forth from cache to cache on a regular basis, sometimes in a rather tight geographical area. It doesn't take long before the number of 'hits' that they've garnered gets up to levels unheard of by bills in 'natural' circulation.

But, some say, this *is* natural circulation - after all, we sometimes leave dollars behind in a cache anyway as part of our exchange, right? Sure, you might, but this type of circulation is no more natural than if a certain dollar bill could only be spent at, say, McDonalds franchises - and after doing so, given back in change to another person that immediately took it to *another* McDonalds, and so on, never to see any other type of business establishment. This isn't 'natural', it's controlled circulation, in the sense that regular everyday events don't see the bill ending up at any number of possible destinations - it only has the chance to keep making the same kind of stop, over and over, being subjected to the same conditions. I don't think that this is what the creator of Where's George had in mind.

Now, this isn't exactly a 'problem'. It's just that many participants at WG *don't* geocache, and don't see any reason why every bill on, say, a 'Top Ten Most Travelled' list should end up being a bill that is being traded about in geocaches by folks that are *much more likely* to hit the bill and then pass it back along into an environment where it will be given a much greater chance of having the process repeat itself.

To help prevent this from happening, Hank, the creator of Where's George, has decided to tag bills that are known to have been in geocaches as such. They now have their own special 'Geocaching' banner when you bring up the bill report, and they won't be included in 'Top Ten' lists. Other than that, they are treated in exactly the same way as other bills in the database. They have not been 'removed' or eliminated. This is an elegant solution allowing for the criteria for 'natural circulation' being met without allowing the undue influence of a few individuals to tarnish the experience of thousands of others who do not participate in both hobbies. And, inclusion on a 'top ten' list at Where's George shouldn't be the main objective by a geocacher, anyway, since it really isn't the main focus of that activity. So there really is much ado about nothing when it comes to the subject.. both hobbies can co-exist and overlap, and be enjoyed by anyone interested in either, without one exerting undue influence on the other.

I know that this works; I'm an active cacher with over 200 finds, and a WG participant with over 15,000 bills entered, and I'm not seeing my enjoyment of *either* hobby being affected by the decision. Basically, I think that Hank found an excellent solution to the 'controversy'.

July 28, 2002

Another solution is to trade in a new George, and spend the found one to get it back into "natural" circulation.

"All of us are standing in the mud, but some of us are looking at the stars." Oscar Wilde

38.2k · July 29, 2002

I almost always put the Georges I find in caches back into circulation. I thought this was the point, but I've since learned that some people use them almost like travel bugs and they go from cache to cache. I've seen a few that had 10-15 hits and not one was outside a geocache. This is probably what pisses off non geocaching Wheresgeorgers.

"Life is a daring adventure, or it is nothing" - Helen Keller

3k · July 29, 2002

Yes, people are always looking for a reason to be P.O.'d, aren't they? And if there isn't one handy, they'll gladly create one for ya.

1.5k · July 29, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by BassoonPilot:
Yes, people are always looking for a reason to be P.O.'d, aren't they? And if there isn't one handy, they'll gladly create one for ya.

Your avatar makes me angry.

j/k

--== http://www.bigfoot.com/~rbatina ==--

1.5k · July 29, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by BassoonPilot:
Yes, people are always looking for a reason to be P.O.'d, aren't they? And if there isn't one handy, they'll gladly create one for ya.

Your avatar makes me angry.

j/k

--== http://www.bigfoot.com/~rbatina ==--

July 29, 2002

I thought Georges were for Big Gulps!

July 29, 2002

I appear as Bob D when I'm doing Where's George bills. I placed both of the bills mentioned by Wolf_SilverOak.

If I find somebody else's georged bill I will log that at Wheres George, and then spend it somewhere else than at another cache.

What's up with wheresgeorge.com??

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