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On a whole 'nuther topic, Jeremy, you admonished someone in the forums last week for using sarcasm in their posting.  You stated something to the effect that sarcasm doesn't work well in online forums.  Yet every posting you've made in this thread has been dripping in sarcasm.  What's that all about? 

It is a whole 'nuther topic, probably best taken in PM. Though if you did pick up on sarcasm I suppose it does work well in some cases. Most of my posts were satire though. But I am a lying, scheming megalomaniac so you shouldn't believe me anyway.

 

I'll increase my warn level by 10% for that one.

 

(edited for misspelling)

Edited by Jeremy
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So, limit the number of lame caches that can infringe upon someone else's well-placed caches. I suppose that dances out the quandary.

 

We disagree as to whether that is a solution.

I wholeheartedly agree that it is not a solution, but it is one step forward instead of two steps back.

 

I'll trade you 2 criticisms for one solution anyday. Do you have a solution?

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Well, the last time I wore my park ranger hat, RobertM crapped all over my post, and when that happens, The Leprechaun knows enough to step back from the keyboard.

 

Since then, Jeremy has done a far better job of making the same points which I had wanted to make, and would have taken 4,000 more words to make. So on the substance of this topic, I will shut up.

 

But darn it, I was having a respectful dialogue with Criminal on a topic that was of interest to both of us. I was interested in hearing his response and then advancing the discussion, much as Jeremy has since done. Criminal and I disagree sometimes, but only to an extent. By communicating in the forums with each other, we can learn that perhaps we have more views in common than we first realized. I enjoy doing that.

 

I don't enjoy getting crapped on.

 

No wonder people don't post in the forums.

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It is a whole 'nuther topic, probably best taken in PM. Though if you did pick up on sarcasm I suppose it does work well in some cases. Most of my posts were satire though. But I am a lying, scheming megalomaniac so you shouldn't believe me anyway.

 

I'll increase my warn level by 10% for that one.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy nothing better than good sarcasm, and you sling it well. And some of my favorite people are lying, scheming megalomaniacs. So maybe you're not such a bad guy after all. :D You should come to the Belcarra Mini-Blitz on the 27th - it should be fun and some of your favorite forum members will be there. :D

 

And here I thought it would be me getting the 10%. :D

 

_______________

Gorak

Geo 141 104 114

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I wholeheartedly agree that it is not a solution, but it is one step forward instead of two steps back.

 

I'll trade you 2 criticisms for one solution anyday. Do you have a solution?

Yes, I do. You stated it yourself several posts back:

Normally, by courtesy, most people honor the placement of someone else's cache and don't place one of their own there.

No rule/guideline needed then.

 

I recognize that I am not going to change your opinion or GC.com's policy. I understood that several months ago. And I will now chastise myself for jumping into the fray.

 

As Lep just pointed out, I know why I don't participate.

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QUOTE:

 

Naaaaaaah...

 

Geez, people take themselves soooooooooo freakin' seriously around here! It's just a silly hobby about hiding little toys in the woods!

 

 

They are banning caches from forests, parks, towns, etc. It is serious unfortunately. Govern ourselves, or others WILL do it for us. I'll go "below the radar", but I want to be able to enjoy the sport legitimately with my family for decades to come if possible.

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Rogue caching is part of the evolution. You don't have to like it, but it's coming. If not Criminal then someone else. Will it undo all the work of geocachers? Probably not. Will it help? Definitely not. It’s the opposite of what the organization I’m working on is about, but I would be utterly stupid to not recognize it and factor it into the big picture.

 

Geocaching is here to stay. One way or another, but probably both.

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Normally, by courtesy, most people honor the placement of someone else's cache and don't place one of their own there.

No rule/guideline needed then.

As was mentioned earlier, the guidelines that are currently in place are all the result of incidents that have occurred and in some way created problems for the game. While people normally don't do this, some did and ruined things for those who exercise common sense. Hence the guideline.

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No rule/guideline needed then.

 

I recognize that I am not going to change your opinion or GC.com's policy. I understood that several months ago. And I will now chastise myself for jumping into the fray.

There wasn't a guideline. Now there is. Nothing spontaneously happend. We weren't sitting around our jewel encrusted table at Groundspeak HQ at the top of the Seattle Space Needle having latte's and deciding what new guidelines to spring on the geocaching community.

 

The moderators said "Crap. People keep placing caches within view of each other and folks are logging the wrong caches. When we say that there is one already there people yell us and say there is no rule saying they can't, then say that Jeremy hates handicapped children when the cache doesn't get approved." Of course this is hypothetical. It was a rumble of issues that finally turned into a roar. So the .1 mile guideline was created.

 

So you can't hide a cache 500 feet from another cache. If it is common sense for you, why do you care? Apparently we both have the same common sense parameters but some others don't.

 

In summary, we pretty much agree on the same thing. The .1 mile guideline is silly. But I differ with you whether the guideline is necessary.

 

As Lep just pointed out, I know why I don't participate.

 

I didn't tell you to get a life. I just disagree with you. You disagree with me. It's all part of a healthy debate.

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They are banning caches from forests, parks, towns, etc. It is serious unfortunately. Govern ourselves, or others WILL do it for us. I'll go "below the radar", but I want to be able to enjoy the sport legitimately with my family for decades to come if possible.

I think someone is going to start talking about SHTF any minute here... :D:D:DB)B)

 

Hobbies die all the time, and new ones arise. If geocaching goes the way of the dodo, we'll find another thing to get us outdoors. I honestly don't think that if Crim hosts a few X-cachers on his site that the world will come to an end.

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Rogue caching is part of the evolution.

Devolution is more like it. But no, it wouldn't make much of a difference if there was a rogue site deciding to circumvent the rules. Geocaching.com would still run a site that caters to a law abiding and family-friendly audience that cooperates with land managers. In the open, for better or worse.

 

I can only speak for Groundspeak "brand" Geocaching. If someone decides to ruin their own brand of geocaching it is a lesson in futility for us to try and stop it except by denouncing it.

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I honestly don't think that if Crim hosts a few X-cachers on his site that the world will come to an end.

Trivializing it doesn't help. Neither does permissive behavior. Yeah, it's just hiding toys in the woods. I never imagined running a site that lists plastic containers in the woods. But here I am and people like to do it, and I'd like for people to continue to do it. Lawfully.

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You know, it never seems to amaze me how much crap goes on here in the forums. But almost 100% of the time when you uncover the pile of s*** that gets stirred up it you seem to find the same ole 8-10 "rebels" laying under the pile that started it in the first place.

 

As far as the points in this particular topic, "the wheel on the bus goes round and round, round and round......................(you know the rest)". Off topic or on topic, why don't the same ole 8-10 that constantly try (and most of the time suceed) to stir up the s*** just go off in your own little world, create a "anti rules, anti regulations, anti almost everything" rebel site and discuss it yourselves?

 

I agree with Jeremy, some people just have too much time on thier hands behind the keys of the keyboard. Get out there out from behind your keyboard in the wild, find a few caches that do meet the guidelines and quit crying so much.

 

And as far as the "X" site, my money is on that it will not even get off the ground. If it does and it creates confusion and halts the good things we do have going in the current realm of things, I hope the folks involved are happy. It would not surprise me if they were happy though because after all, they type on here more that they obviously look for caches (by the looks of number of finds versus number of posts).

 

My 2 cents worth, have at it! If my warn percentage goes up after this then so be it, I for one am tired of being silent when the bashing continues each and every day from the same ole 8-10!

 

Happy cachin'!! :D

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I'm not trivializing anything. Caching is already trivial.

 

And I like permissive behavior. "An it harm none, do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law."

Heh. I didn't mean to target you personally. Just the whole idea that "relax, don't worry about it" ultimately gets you into more trouble. Most can relax, but often Hydee or Bryan or myself end up in the hot seat with these land managers. I'd rather if it happened less and less.

 

The thread was going reasonably well ,Cache Couple, as threads go. I don't want it to get into a flame fest.

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Yeah, it's just hiding toys in the woods. I never imagined running a site that lists plastic containers in the woods.

 

Man, I haven't laughed so hard in months after I read that! Nothing against you, it just sounded funny!

 

Glad you got that PhD in Theoretical Thermonuclear Physics huh? :D

 

Smiles, everyone, smiles...welcome to Fantasy Island! Now get out there and cache!

 

Merry Christmas! Peace on Earth, and here in the Forums! :D

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For anyone interested in the ideas in this thread, it mirrors the book Anthem by Ayn Rand. It's a classic and a free read at Project Gutenburg. Here's a teaser:

 

ANTHEM

 

by Ayn Rand

 

PART ONE

 

It is a sin to write this. It is a sin

to think words no others think and to put

them down upon a paper no others are to see.

It is base and evil. It is as if we were

speaking alone to no ears but our own.

And we know well that there is no transgression

blacker than to do or think alone.

We have broken the laws. The laws say

that men may not write unless the Council

of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!

 

But this is not the only sin upon us.

We have committed a greater crime, and for

this crime there is no name. What punishment

awaits us if it be discovered we know not,

for no such crime has come in the memory

of men and there are no laws to provide for it.

 

...sorry, couldn't help it :D

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Heh. I didn't mean to target you personally. Just the whole idea that "relax, don't worry about it" ultimately gets you into more trouble. Most can relax, but often Hydee or Bryan or myself end up in the hot seat with these land managers. I'd rather if it happened less and less.

Not taken personally. No prob.

 

I see your point about landowners. Crim might not know what he's getting into. :D

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Well, that was an interesting read! I gotta say, I enjoyed most of it. I also gotta say that I tend to lean toward the gc.com side of this argument...almost to the point of laying down in submission. I used to coach college debate tourneys in my spare time, and this one would be pretty much a one-sided decision in favor of gc.com.

 

BTW, self-deprecation? Isn't that also known as crapping on one's self? Oh, never mind, that's defecation! :D

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OK, home from work now and trying to catch up.

 

The history of this thread:

 

This weekend, a local cacher hid a beer cache. Obviously, it couldn’t be listed on the site. But it did get me thinking about the undesirable (for Groundspeak) caches and how people with enough common sense to tie their shoes without tying them together can hide a time limited or similar cache.

 

It doesn’t matter if it’s me or someone who’s never heard of geocaching who does this, if it is done, what are you going to do? Are you going to go vigilante and start chasing down anybody who places caches that don’t conform to your standards?

 

My intent in listing X-caches is not to compete with this site or as a rebellion against the rules of this site. It’s simply to list a few local caches amongst friends. This poses no threat to geocaching.com whatsoever. Jeremy and I did drift off the topic to discuss rules and the like. Again, I am not asking for all the rules to go away. I would like to see common sense be rule #1 though. My comment about the SOG tool seems to have been ignored. Guidelines or not, you’re still going to get crappy caches submitted.

 

As for all those crappy caches that get submitted, I mentioned a solution to that. Create a forum (a one way, no replies) that lists these un-approvable caches. People can learn from the mistakes of others, and the message will be clear. Do not post the names, it isn’t necessary. The only people who can post to this forum should be the approvers who review them.

Edited by Criminal
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It’s simply to list a few local caches amongst friends. This poses no threat to geocaching.com whatsoever.

I didn't really feel defensive about whether such a site competes with geocaching.com - more-so that an open site with geocaches that flippantly disobey the rules would be a Bad Idea.

 

Your idea has a lot of merit. If anything it sounds like you just want the ability to create temporary caches for a small group of friends. It's an intriguing idea. I'd personally love to go out and find a beer cache, but I don't think it would be appropriate as an open listing service cache, for obvious reasons.

 

Heck, in the early days I was out on the lake and our boat was out of gas. I had Moun10bike create a cache listing so someone could come out and rescue us. The rescuer missed us by 15 minutes.

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BTW, I'm not saying that Crim (or someone else) shouldn't put up an X-cache site. But anyone that does should realize what might come of it. (For instance, anyone with a gripe against you can stick your URL on the inside of the lid.)

 

Maybe Crim, or someone else, will find a way to make the hobby work that relies less heavily on rules. Maybe we'll get a model more like ARRL than like PADI, if you know what I mean. We'll never know unless someone tries.

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Speaking only from a U.S.A perspective,

 

On May 29th 1765, Patrick Henry, newly elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses delivered his speech to the house that would make him famous. Seven resolutions condemning the Stamp Act. In the end, Virginia didn't protest the Stamp, Virginia rejected it outright, in effect declaring it illegal in the colony. The rest is history.

 

:D I just thought that note would be fun to add. But there is a subtle point here, one that those in the "for the better of the geocaching community" camp would do well to consider. Why is all the emphasis placed on the courtesy and malleability of the geocaching community rather than on OUR governmental authorities? GC.com may be able to trademark the name, their logo and institute a host of other considered protections but the IDEA of using a GPS and hiding and finding "treasure boxes" isn't owned or controlled by anyone. In the very face of freedom itself, you should be expecting the government agencies to DEAL with this "change in society." Maybe it's the Park Rangers that better get it through their skulls that we the people are going to do this, period. On it's face, that's how we got bicycle paths you know, and not everyone that rides on them is a member of the USA Bicycle Riders Association (hypothetical) they're free for everyone to use.

 

Now don't misunderstand, I'm not suggesting GC.com or anyone in the community that WANTS to consider the "good of the geocaching community" should simply put that want aside. By all means, work for the good. But work for the good and accept our freedoms and know just where the boundaries are between what YOU think the geocaching community is what anyone else might think. Work to make a distinction between your view of the "good" GC.com community and any other. Just as Girl Scouts might work to promote their vision of a good and productive girls club over some other alternative. But above it all, let freedom ring. You can and should work to futher your communities guidelines and ideas. But between the three, don't choose your way and the Ranger's way and loath the third option, promote your way and the third option and work to make the Ranger see they're just going to have to bend to the will of the people!

 

Such a small box.... did that make sense? :D

 

/j/pearland/tx

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Woh. Just read this entire thread. First let me say this... (not that either of you give a crap but) The dialog between Jeremy and Criminal maybe one of the most courteous and productive debates I've seen since I've been involved in the forums. I commend both of you. I didn't see anybody complaining as was suggested, just offering a different perspective.

 

OK, enough sucking up. :D

 

I don't think the idea of a small local x-cache type of site would damage sport. More than likely the only people that would even know about the caches would be the few locals that frequent the site. I had an idea for for my area. The North fork of Long Island is famous for it's vineyards/ My idea was to make a member only cache that had a few bottles of wine and some wine related item (bottle openers, wine glass charms...etc) I even emailed my admin about it. Obviously the response some like: you're kidding me right? And he was right, how can you prevent kids from getting there hands on it? A site like that would have to have someway to regulate who is invited to view the listings. Oops, that sounds kind of like a rule. Rule #1: You must be 18/21 to view this cache. Ok. so whats next. I love the idea that common sense should supersede everything, however as we all know sense is not so common. So you have a nice little site going with a few listings, nobody gets hurt, just a few caches among Friends. Then one day someone submits a cache that contains a couple of dime bags, an eight ball and some pipes. Criminal says woh, you can't put drugs in a cache! Cacher says well it's not on the site that I can't. Rule #2: No drugs in caches. Common sense right? Then someone submits a cache with m-S, and other fireworks. What do you do? Sooner or later you've got a whole bunch of rules and before you know it you've got a mini GC.com. The point is no matter your intention the site is inevitably going to grow and as it does there will be more and more idiots that get involved. Basically, you've got to run the site as if you're the only one in the world with common sense. I don't know if I'd want to be responsible for running the site. Call me a sissy but seems like the liability would be a problem. Anyway, carry on.

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Too bad the domain xcache.com is already registered. (Some Web accelerator product -- there's a stupid-looking graphic of a turtle with a rocket tied to its back on the home page. Poor turtle! :D )

 

A couple of people have suggested that any caching site will quickly degenerate into an ugly snarl of rules. Well, the only rules that a site owner can really enforce are the rules about his or her own site. All others require the consent of the governed.

 

Which, BTW, leads me to another suggestion for an X-cache site: The registered members get to vote on the rules.

 

It'd be very easy to arrange the logistics if you've got a board with polling already in place. In the heyday of Usenet, Tale* used voting for newsgroup creation, and it worked fine. Plus the rules that do get created would be more likely to make sense and help the hobby, and it avoids the appearance of government by fiat.

 

 

* Tale had some problems with martinethood, but that's beside the point. Except to note that ir's part of the reason why Usenet is now a backwater.

Edited by Team Og Rof A Klaw
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Cool, never seen those, just threw that one together to see what it'd look like.

 

I worked on F-4Es and OV-10As (ECM Tech) when I was in the AF.

Cool. I like those because they seem to be pretty unique. In fact I don't even know what unit they're from, but I remembered seeing them in one of the dozens of 'motivational' airpower video clips we have around here, so I pulled out a frame from one of them.

 

Now this is getting off topic - who would have ever thought that there would be a discussion comparing rogue cache emblems to USAF fighter tail art!!!

 

Have a good one everybody

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I would just like to take a moment to speak for the literally hundreds and probably thousands of people who are out there actively working with local, state and federal land managers to get geocaching back into restricted areas. These areas only became geocaching banned zones after a bad experience with an irresponsible cacher. I know that in Tennessee the state parks system booted geocaches based on the activities of just one cacher. The rules and guidelines have come about out of necessity. If you could count on everyone to be responsible all of the time, there would be no need for rules and guidelines, or laws for that matter. These rules and guidelines and the fact that Geocaching does have one united front in GC.com are what is making it possible for us to get our sport/adventure/hobby back into the state parks.

 

To the selfish few who would rather get online and complain about "the man" and who it is this week that is holding them down, I would like to say thank you. Thank you for working to make my job harder. I like a challenge and if you could track down the rangers I am working with and give them a kick in the knee from geocaching that would probably work well too. Is this really about geocaching freedom for everyone, or just the selfish wants of the few.

 

Don't forget that many of the guidelines and rules also have deeper liability issues tied to them, or just try to start your own and see how quickly you get sued for not including the legalspeak.

 

Did anyone out there really read Anthem, did you pick up on the fact that they used the system to beat the system. Study Ayn Rand a little further and you will see this as a recurring theme, using the sytem to beat the sytem. You have to be in the game to win it. Standing on the sidelines and complaining will not get you there. This thread and most of the threads started by this same small group of "rebels without a clue" remind me more of Atlas Shrugged where those who can't or won't finally drive the doers out of the game, and suddenly find themselves without anyone to complain to or about. I know John Galt, we are meeting a land manager this afternoon. What are you doing for your sport?

Edited by Monkeybrad
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These areas only became geocaching banned zones after a bad experience with an irresponsible cacher.

I'm sorry, but I disagree with this statement. I think that most "land managers" try to ban or control geocaching in some manner or another is because they have the ability not for any other reason. GC.com caters to their control and allows low level government employees set policy is part of this. Another part is that the "land managers" have access to the same information as the rest of us and wish to control the use of "their" piece of land. There has been many threads that point this out.

 

I ask the question once. "What's wrong with geocaching that should require permission?" Never did see a real good answer.

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Did anyone out there really read Anthem, did you pick up on the fact that they used the system to beat the system.  Study Ayn Rand a little further and you will see this as a recurring theme, using the sytem to beat the sytem.

I've read all her works, too bad there weren't more. In Anthem, the system hadn't been beat yet, but I see your point in how the fact that the forests were uncharted was used to escape the system.

Edited by cachew nut
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The real problem that geocaching has when working with land managers is that what we are doing in their eyes is essentially organized littering. It takes a while to show them that this can be a good thing. Let's try looking at it through their eyes. They have been charged with responsibility for their area. They are to keep it clean, safe and protected. Why would they want anyone bringing things into their park and leaving them which may or not be safe and may or may not be in protected areas. It is not like playing with a frisbee. At the end of the day you take your frisbee home with you, unless you lost it and then when a ranger finds it he either moves it to the station's lost and found or throws it away. Without education they will treat caches the same way. I have not yet found a land manager who has a problem with geocaching once they understand how it works and that we do have rules and guidelines in place to keep dangerous items out of their parks. As a side note, the reason they do not want knives in caches in Tennessee is that inmates often do the cleanup in state parks. There is a documented case where a minimum security inmate found a knife in a cache, smuggled it back into the jail, where he literally "traded it for cigarettes" to a convicted felon awaiting transfer from the county facility to a state maximum security prison. The knife was found during a random search of cells at county. So you see, our actions do have consequences. The land manager for the park where this knife was found never found out about this, thank goodness. Common courtesy dictates that you get permission from the party responsible for the land where you leave a cache. No one seems to have a problem with getting permission from private property owners when placing a cache, why not extend this courtesy to those responsible for the stewardship of the land we all own together. Remember, that just because you are a tax payer that does not mean you own these public areas. It means that you share them with the other 265 million tax payers, insert your own figures for state and city managed areas. My right to place a geocache, is not more important than a non-geocachers right to a litter-free park. So we must learn to work together and find a way where we can both enjoy our chosen activities without infringing on each other's rights. I wish that this were not the case, but when it comes down to it, geocaching is organized littering, we take things into the parks and leave them there, the fact that we tell others where to find it does not change this core truth. Our hobby goes against the whole "leave no trace" philosophy that most of these peolpe were brought up on. It is up to us to teach them that CITO and responsible cachers can outweigh the fact that there is a box of stuff hiding in their woods. We are like a toothache, no one notices us unless we cause pain, and then more often than not it is easier to have us extracted, than to try to fix the problem.

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Monkeybrad, those were two fine posts. My thoughts exactly. What you wrote was what I was leading up to writing way back towards the beginning of this topic before I was told to "get a life."

 

The reason that Monkeybrad's posts resonate with me is that we both obviously have firsthand experience working with land managers on the state and regional level, not just the park worker who locks up the recreation building at XYZ park at the end of the day. These are good, intelligent people who care about the land they manage AND in ensuring that the public can enjoy it. They were happy to work with geocachers towards a solution that made more sense than an outright ban... once they had an organization to deal with.

 

I am personally grateful to Monkeybrad and others for the hard work they've obviously done. Because of him, when I go to Tennessee I will be able to enjoy geocaching in what I'm sure are some beautiful state parks. If caches were banned there, I'd have to content myself with finding 100 micros in Nashville. If Monkeybrad or JoGPS or other geocachers in Tennessee ever travel to Pennsylvania, they can find geocaches in "my" state parks because of the work that a few dozen geocachers did here over a nine month period.

 

We gladly did the work so that everyone else could continue to enjoy the sport instead of seeing it banned in more places. Introduce "underground caching" and you undermine all that's been done. Gee, thanks a lot.

 

Of course, not all land managers behave the same way. Byron & Anne, I am curious, what has been your personal experience when discussing these issues with land managers?

 

A final note: I am glad that Criminal clarified what he had in mind for an X-Cache. A short-term cache stocked with microbrewery beer, that couldn't be listed on GC.com, and which was hidden someplace where it didn't upset an existing working relationship with land managers, is fine by me. I'd hunt for one of those. I'd have a beer with Criminal any day if I were lucky enough to make another geocaching trip to Washington.

 

But this topic has expanded beyond what Criminal was thinking about. If my earlier posts contributed to that, I apologize to him for derailing his thread.

 

[EDIT: to recognize BOTH of Monkeybrad's posts, the second of which was being typed while I typed mine.]

Edited by The Leprechauns
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I have no problems with the views and opinions above, they were all well stated. Here are a couple of my opinions, I don't assume that they are shared by everyone else.

 

When you take a job like State park manager, you need to keep in mind that the job involves serving the public. A manager who would outright ban geocaching on his own is not properly performing his job.

 

Some folks might not care if their temporary x-cache is discarded like an old lost frisbee. They may want to play their game by different rules than the ones used here. I don't know if that's what I would want, but I would like to think that if I was playing a game independently, I would not be bound by the rules of some other organization.

 

It's not the responsibility for geocachers to keep knives out of prisons. The prisoner could just as easily smuggled in a lead pipe or some shards of broken glass, or some other makeshift weapon like a hard cased ball point pen. The fact that a pocket knife was smuggled into a prison means the prison has a security problem, not that a small pocket knife is a bad trade item. Taxpayers foot the bill for these cleanup programs and should expect that they are being performed properly, which includes proper searches of the prisoners.

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Introduce "underground caching" and you undermine all that's been done.  Gee, thanks a lot.

Correction. Private, unlisted caches have existed for practically as long as this website has. I was invited to search for my first "underground" cache over two years ago. I most recently did one last month.

Edited by BassoonPilot
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At the end of the day you take your frisbee home with you, unless you lost it and then when a ranger finds it he either moves it to the station's lost and found or throws it away.  Without education they will treat caches the same way.

 

Why is this any different than a non-geocacher finding and taking "your" cache?

 

Common courtesy dictates that you get permission from the party responsible for the land where you leave a cache.

 

I guess I should get premission to loose my frisbee.

 

No one seems to have a problem with getting permission from private property owners when placing a cache, why not extend this courtesy to those responsible for the stewardship of the land we all own together.

 

On private property I'm trespassing, on public lands open to the public I'm not trespassing. Big Big difference.

 

We are like a toothache, no one notices us unless we cause pain, and then more often than not it is easier to have us extracted, than to try to fix the problem.

 

Yup, and we cause pain everytime we feel the need to ask permission to play in "their" park or on "their" land. (In this case "their" = public lands)

Edited by Byron & Anne
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The registered members get to vote on the rules.

 

It'd be very easy to arrange the logistics if you've got a board with polling already in place. In the heyday of Usenet, Tale* used voting for newsgroup creation, and it worked fine. Plus the rules that do get created would be more likely to make sense and help the hobby, and it avoids the appearance of government by fiat.

True, no one likes dictatorship which in my opinion is "sort of" the way things are here. But that's just my opinion. But it's also their website (not mine) and they can run it any way they like. Nothing wrong with that. It's a fact of life. Just agreeing with your statement / post. :-)

 

RobertM

Geo 140, 134, 116

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I didn't really feel defensive about whether such a site competes with geocaching.com - more-so that an open site with geocaches that flippantly disobey the rules would be a Bad Idea.

 

So who made the rules? Perhaps if GC.com hadn't done that they could have remained a 'listing site'. But I think once they made rules and approved caches maybe they should be held responsible for them.

 

Now if there was a network of caches that could be listed something like Kazaa, or Bearshare then whoever placed it would be the only one responsible for it. I believe that cachers are smart enough to know where to and not to place something or to go retrieve it from, at least I am.

 

Do you feel that it is GC.com that persuades the parks, cities, etc to allow caching, or the thought of increased visitors and the money they will spend?

 

at least that's one man's opinion....

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So who made the rules? Perhaps if GC.com hadn't done that they could have remained a 'listing site'. But I think once they made rules and approved caches maybe they should be held responsible for them.

Read Jeremy's posts above and also think back on your two years as a member here. The rules for cache placements have popped up one at a time as either land managers or public officials complained about cache placements (in national parks, under highway bridges, etc.) or because the Geocaching community complained (vacation caches, cache density, etc.). I tend to agree that Jeremy doesn't sit in an ivory tower looking for new rules to impose.

 

Now if there was a network of caches that could be listed something like Kazaa, or Bearshare then whoever placed it would be the only one responsible for it. I believe that cachers are smart enough to know where to and not to place something or to go retrieve it from, at least I am.

 

That is sort of how the site started out. But with enough cachers who did NOT apply common sense to their cache placements, that's changed.

 

Do you feel that it is GC.com that persuades the parks, cities, etc to allow caching, or the thought of increased visitors and the money they will spend?

I believe that it's individual geocachers and their local and regional geocaching organizations who are responsible for the vast majority of successful relationships with land managers. Geocaching.com plays a role in facilitating this, by doing things such as forwarding correspondence which they receive.

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I’m considering the listing of local X-caches on my web page, ... 

 

Does anybody have any cool ideas to add?

You gonna have a discussion forum on your website? Who's gonna moderate it? ;)

I think there is a misconception as to the scope of what I want to do, even though I have made it clear down to the fourth grade level.

 

I am not looking to mirror this site. I am looking for a way for responsible adults to hide a cache for other responsible adults. I will post the lat/long and a brief description on my site, people who know about my site or are invited may peruse the available caches and make the adult decision to hunt them or not.

 

For example:

Name:  Microbrew Madness

Latitude: N 47° 15.xxx  W 122° 35.xxx

Description:  This Cache is hidden along the Tacoma Narrows, on the beach.  The theme is, bring a microbrew and trade it for one in the cache.  The cache container is a waxy cardboard box hidden at the coordinates provided.  It is also a time limited cache, and will only be available from 5 January until 15 January.  The trail to the cache is on land that has indeterminate ownership, but is commonly used by the public to access the beach.

 

NOTE:  This cache will be iced down ready to drink on 5 January, the cache owner will be present between 6 until 7 pm if you’d like to say hello.  Give a call on FRS 02 as you enter the area. 

 

If you have a problem with that cache concept, stay home. Not to difficult. :mad:

 

EDIT: Typo

Edited by Criminal
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