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The "Common Sense" rule


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I notice everytime I log on to geocaching.com there are several new threads from well meaning people proposing new rules, rule clarifications or restrictions to the sport we all love so much.

 

Rules serve a purpose. But maybe we could cut the number of rules needed by implementing the 'Common Sense Rule". I think it would solve so many problems.

 

For example;

 

1. Should I put a pocket knife in a cache as a trade item?

 

A: What does common sense tell you?

 

2. How 'bout placing a cache in an area while requires the finder to enter private property or illegally park?

 

A: What does common sense tell you?

 

3. Caches under highway overpasses. Good idea or no?

 

A; What does.....

 

Well, you get the idea.

 

Jolly R. Blackburn

http://kenzerco.com

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Jolly asks us to all apply common sense, and trust that others do so.

 

The trouble is that the common sense I had when I was 18 was very different, and far more superficial, than the common sense I have now. At 18, I never was in a car accident, never suffered any real personal setbacks, never had a friend die, never saw a child I loved in the hospital, never waited by the phone for someone to call who is hours late arriving in bad weather, never really understood fear, etc. Now that I am (sigh) past 40, and have had all of the above experiences, and more, my idea of what sense is "common" has changed quite a bit. At 18, I might have been more careless about what I placed in a cache, for example.

 

This isn't a matter of trusting other cachers - it's about common sense. In Geocaching, when we seek a cache, we willingly put ourselves (just a little bit) in the hands of those who have placed the cache. We trust others to show us, with their cache, a bit of an enjoyable diversion, at least, and not to make the cache out and out suprisingly dangerous. One of the subtler, but real, pleasures of Geocaching for me is seeing that trust paid off, repeatedly, in most every cache I find. Honestly, Geocaching has made me feel better about people in general. And that's a real good thing.

 

But I'm afraid that, while I generally trust other cachers with the big things, I don't necessarily trust their common sense with the little things. Example: I'll open the cache and assume it won't explode, but I'll WASH the plastic souvenier cup placed in the cache before drinking out of it.

 

OK - what to do. I'm not a big fan of rules, and I think I agree with Jolly. But, I'd certainly give a lot of suggested examples of good practice to give people a 'baseline' of learned wisdom from other cachers to consider - and suggest that, for any of the rules, the particular circumstances surrounding a cache may make some of the guidelines invalid.

 

-Jif

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I pride myself on having good common sense. Your first statement about putting a knife in a cache does require this very thing, but it sounds if though you think its not a good idea anytime. Its not a good idea to hide knives and multitools in most caches but there are exceptions. A cache that is out in the woods and not in an area frequented by unsupervised children is an example where one might be placed. Here again, common sense!

 

Guess it doesnt matter now since common sense wasnt used in the past and now there seems to be a rule about putting knives in any cache!

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I think it helps to remember that there ARE folks like the characters from Seinfeld living out there in the real world. (I'm thinking of Karmer and George in particular).

 

Can you imagine them caching together? The Common Sense rule would definitely break down here.

 

I can see Kramer using a 55 gallon oil drum as a Cache Container.

 

"Best cache EVER, Jerry!!!"

 

And George would take five items from a cache and leave a Mint he took from the Restaurant they hang out at.

 

Darn. Too bad the show is off the air. That might make a good episode.

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Your right, it would make a most excellent episode.

 

Then, Elaine and Putty are "making out" by the cache, and keep getting interrupted by cachers.

 

Ok people, continue with the episode here ! Or start a whole new thread about caching in sitcoms.

 

Two roads diverged in the woods and I,

I took the one less traveled,

and that is how I found the cache.

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Oh come on now. If we all had common sense would we spend all this time tromping around in the tick infested woods and scorpion covered desert looking for tupperware containers? icon_biggrin.gificon_rolleyes.gificon_confused.gif

 

quote:
quote:

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

Never underestimate the stupidity of others.

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Usually stated by someone immediately before inserting their foot in their mouth


 

Famous Southern last words: Hey y'all watch this!

 

These changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes;

Nothing remains quite the same.

Through all of the islands and all of the highlands,

If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane

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My "common sense" tells me putting a knife in one the caches we hide is not a bad thing to do. Maybe it is wrong to assume that the parent will tell the child NO you cannot have it.

We place some of our caches where the view is spectacular, but by doing so we place a responsibilty on the parent to pay attention to their children and keep them from falling off a sheer drop.

If we worry about everything being safe that is put into a cache then there is nothing left to put in it. It should be up to the parent or end user to see that the item is handled safely.

If you do not think you can handle the item properly then do not take it (or let the kids take it!).

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quote:
The "pocket knife" rule is to stop criminals (who are apparently cleaning up parks and wilderness areas), from having access to knives.


that is the second biggest line of bull**** I have ever heard,first is "I'm from the goverment I'm here to help you

 

I'm a man and I can change if I have to,I guess.

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quote:
Originally posted by Jacksons:

 

that is the second biggest line of bull**** I have ever heard,first is "I'm from the goverment I'm here to help you


 

I could not agree more!!! ... a criminal cleaning the park finds a pocket knife inside a cache ???

 

Come on people that is almost laughable. If you follow that type of logic, then you had better keep out all screwdrivers, combs, pencils, pens, forks, sticks and spoons. Oh yeah, spoons, can make one hell of a mess if you jab someone in the gut hard enough.

 

And as far as kids go, the parent needs to step up and be a ... PARENT!!! Wake up and be a parent for once in your life. Tell your kid, NO. Come on say it with me ... NO, NO, NO!!!

 

No, son, you can not have that pocket knife inside the cache, wait until you are a little older.

 

See that wasn't so hard. I dare you, try it again. No, No, NO.

 

If you don't say NO to your kids every once in awhile, then after they are older, and they grow up to be a freakin juvenile deliquent because YOU didn't have the guts to be a PARENT, then maybe they will stumble across a pocket knife of their own, in the park, while they are cleaning the park serving a 10 year prison sentence for being a worthless dumbs#@t.

 

Keeping pocket knives out of caches is a joke!

 

"heck, that scares me and I'm fearless"

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quote:
Originally posted by Criminal:

 

I don't do much park cleaning other than the trashing out, but I have plenty of pocket knives anyway. Yo got a problem with me having a knife? icon_wink.gif


 

No, I don't care if you have a POCKET knife. Besides, you like Van Morrison, one of the best musician that has ever lived. (I looked at your website.)

 

"heck, that scares me and I'm fearless"

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quote:
I don't do much park cleaning other than the trashing out, but I have plenty of pocket knives anyway. Yo got a problem with me having a knife?

 


heck,I dont care if you have a gun,as long as its not pointed at me icon_wink.gif

 

I'm a man and I can change if I have to,I guess.

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quote:
Originally posted by Captain Chaoss:

Your right, it would make a most excellent episode.

 

Then, Elaine and Putty are "making out" by the cache, and keep getting interrupted by cachers.

 

Ok people, continue with the episode here ! Or start a whole new thread about caching in sitcoms.


 

Ok, Jerry is dating a woman who works for Magellan, and he only caches with an Garmin, but is afraid to tell her. She goes ballistic when she finds out, thus tipping over the oil drum cache, setting free the chinchillas Kosmo Kramer started to raise in the bottom of the cache. dadgum I miss Seinfeld.....

 

Make a sanity check.migo_sig_logo.jpg

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quote:
The "pocket knife" rule is to stop criminals (who are apparently cleaning up parks and wilderness areas), from having access to knives.

 

The "criminals" who clean up parks are either trustees, who are non-violent offenders, with clean prison records and are usually close to being released, or minor offenders (DUI, shoplifting, etc...) who are assigned to work crews in lieu of jail time.

 

It's not like they're letting Charles Manson, or a Ted Bundy type out to clean up a park.

 

"Au pays des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois"

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quote:
Originally posted by naffita:

Put knives in caches? Well, if your imagination is so limited that you can't think of anything else


Did someone indicate that knives are the only thing they can think of? I didn't see that.

 

- From the shallow end of the gene pool. -

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quote:
Originally posted by naffita:

Put knives in caches? Well, if your imagination is so limited that you can't think of anything else, I don't suppose you can imagine there would be a problem.


 

You missed the key word, "pocket" knife. They are generally small knives that are only good for opening letters, cleaning finger nails and tightening an occasional screw. They fold up to a safe position and Boy Scouts use them to carve animal figures from blocks of wood.

 

Just because your imagination is rather limited and doesn't allow you to see the potential use of a small POCKET knife don't try and ruin the fun for the rest of the group.

 

"heck, that scares me and I'm fearless"

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quote:
You missed the key word, "pocket" knife.

No, I didn't, I do seem to have missed the bit about 'small' and only fit for opening letters.

I take it that we are not talking about the type I use for gutting rabbits and cleaning fish, you know, a pocket knife that folds up and is safe. But then unfolds and would take off a childs finger in no time.

I also didn't miss the guidelines of this group that state 'no knives in caches'.

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Common sense told me that pocket knifes were disallowed in caches by request of the park depts. Common sense would also indicate that there is no way to enforce the rule, until some one gets hurt. The same common sense would allow me to understand why a park dept. might not allow caches, after their request to not allow pocket knifes was ignored. I have left pocket knifes in the past. I have also found pocket knifes. I am a parent and will parent my kids. Evidently though a cache may be found by a child out in woods with their parent/s, who thought the woods were safe as they did not know about a game where people might leave a pocket knife out for others to find.

 

Just my two cents

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quote:
Originally posted by kusanagi:

Common sense told me that pocket knifes were disallowed in caches by request of the park depts.


 

That's not an example of common sense. That is either factual information ... or it is not. If it is factual, please reference the source.

 

quote:
Common sense would also indicate that there is no way to enforce the rule, until some one gets hurt.

 

But in your very next sentence you stated how the rule could be enforced, so please don't rely on your common sense.

 

quote:
Evidently though a cache may be found by a child out in woods with their parent/s, who thought the woods were safe as they did not know about a game where people might leave a pocket knife out for others to find.

 

Common sense would indicate a child out in the woods has a better chance of being exposed to poison ivy or infected ticks and mosquitos, or of being mauled by a bear, coyote, rabid squirrel or "angry beaver" than of accidently finding a well-hidden cache that by chance contains a pocket knife ... and subsequently injuring him/herself or someone else with it.

 

[This message was edited by Zaphod Beeblebrox on May 28, 2003 at 04:12 AM.]

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Not to go against the grain here, but it's not an issue of common sense (or the more common lack thereof) but of liability.

 

If the parents are negligent and allow their kids to use an old barbed wire fence as a trampoline, they'll sue the town for leaving it there.

 

If the parents negligently allow their kids to take a knife from a cache and use it nefariously, someone might sue Geocaching.com if ambiguous guidelines promote "common sense" as compared to specifically "no knives".

 

The other day I kicked the neighborhood children out of my yard for the very same reason. Not because I'd love for them to learn to play (or in the future climb trees) in my bigger yard, but because if they get hurt it becomes my liability.

 

So yes, while common sense is a nice reasonable sentiment, I'm afraid it wouldn't hold up in court--and that matters more.

 

IMHO,

 

Randy

 

PS: The good news is, per person, there are fewer frivolous lawsuits now than historically--despite the ignorant media hype to the contrary.

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quote:
Originally posted by BrianSnat:

Common sense would indicate that if a parent lets their young child wander the woods unsupervised, they have a lot more potential problems than the kid finding a pocket knife in a geocache.


 

Gosh, Brian, when I was a kid, the woods were the safe place to play unsupervised.

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quote:
Originally posted by clearpath:

[Pocket knives] fold up to a safe position and Boy Scouts use them to carve animal figures from blocks of wood.


 

After 27 years involvement in Boy Scouting, I've only met a handful of Scouts who could actually carve a recognizable animal from a piece of wood. Most of them just slice their fingers, mangle the fish they're attempting to clean, or play mumbly-peg with a pocket knife. Then they use it to pry the top of the can of Spaghetti-O's they're going to burn for their dinner... icon_wink.gif

 

web-lingbutton.gif ntga_button.gif

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quote:
Originally posted by Web-ling:

 

After 27 years involvement in Boy Scouting, I've only met a handful of Scouts who could actually carve a recognizable animal from a piece of wood.


 

True, most Boy Scouts are not the "artist" type. However, in our Scout Pack, the pocket knife is by far the most popular item that a scout gets to pick out of a catalog of fun items.

 

Next to BB guns and archery, the pocket knife and whittling wood is there favorite thing to do. They are supervised by PARENTS and if they are a registered Scout, then the Pack is covered from any liability.

 

Personally, I think the pocket knife (not the big folding hunting knives used for gutting rabbits) is a rite of passage for boys who are lucky enough to have parents that will take the time to supervise the activities and use of the pocket knife.

 

I have carried a pocket knife in my pocket for many years. It is a very handy tool.

 

"heck, that scares me and I'm fearless"

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quote:
So yes, while common sense is a nice reasonable sentiment, I'm afraid it wouldn't hold up in court--and that matters more.

 

I'm not a huge priciples guy, but on this I am. I refuse to be responsible for some other jacka$$es bad decisions. If that results in litigation, so be it. I'll tell the judge the same thing. Common sense still guides me. The threat of litigation is a non-issue.

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quote:
Originally posted by kusanagi:

Jeremy says knifes are no longer allowed due to the request of many land managers.


 

He also goes on to say (in the same thread) that it is up to us to decide what is a "Knife". A so called "pocket knife" can easily be called a "tool". In fact, if a crazed lunatic was going to attack me with something I would rather be stabbed by a pocket knife than a srewdriver, wood chisel, trim saw, pencil, ruler, etc. icon_wink.gif

 

"heck, that scares me and I'm fearless"

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A pocket knife is a useful tool, not a weapon (at least until the PC, zero tolerance crowd got their way). I was given a pocket knife by my grandfather when I was 9ish and carried it to school, church and play. It was never even questioned.

 

Yeah, switchblades and Bowier knives were banned from schools, but the pocket knife never was. Heck, before 9/11, I boarded dozens of planes and even got into the Senate gallery with my Wenger.

 

But we're living in a time where 6 year old kids are expelled from school for pointing a finger at someone and saying bang.

 

"Au pays des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois"

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Jolly B good has a good point, if your sensible like he. Ask these questions to many of our newest cachers, and they would astound the many of us with the answers they provide. My brother answered the sample questions all wrong. Many people do. That is common sense. Maybe we need a GOOD SENSE rule.

 

Team Hunter (Our last names)

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Jeesh all we need in this world is more rules to protect us from ourselves. Natural selection does work if you let it. To many rules breeds a complacent society. If we would spend more time with our children and help breath common sense into them these things wouldn't be necessary.

 

Half the laws that protect us from ourselves, that are here today weren't here when we we kids, and look we're still alive.

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