Why Do People Get So Fired Up About Caching?

[lowracer]

I don't think I've ever participated in a hobby where people get so fired up as they do about geocaching. On this site and off, decisions are made, some folks get upset, and harsh words are posted. Plans are made to take the ball elsewhere, people commit geo-cide in the forums (yeah I did that once too, ain't proud), flame wars erupt, players and admins are compared to Hitler. Yikes! Why do we do this? What is it about Geocaching that makes people get so fired up about it?

 

Been thinkin' about my other 'silly' hobbies that I've had at various times, perhaps you can think of some others... Model rocketry: can't ever recall launching into any fiery arguments there. Ham Radio: they only get keyed up over losing radio spectrum. Genealogy: they'll kick up a little dust from time to time but usually their forums are quite dead. Kite flying: they have some wind-bags under tension, but no flames. Photography: someone's always taking a shot, but usually nothing serious develops. Recumbent Cycling: they're always laid-back.

 

So what other hobbies do you know of where people get so fired up as they do for caching? The sillier the hobby, the better. Let's hear your theories on why people get so fired up about geocaching.

 

[+Mopar]

I just have to beg to differ about ham radio (see, we're starting already!)

There are tons of rifts there. I can think of a few that have even led to physical violence. There are the 13wpm code purists vs the no/slow code hams. There are the SSB vs AM wars on 75m. There is HF vs VHF, QRP vs kilowatt, DX vs local chitchat. Contesters vs everyone else. Maybe thats part of it. They have so many different things to disagree over. All we have is one; how to hide a logbook.

[+shunra]

I just have to beg to differ about ham radio (see, we're starting already!)

There are tons of rifts there. I can think of a few that have even led to physical violence. There are the 13wpm code purists vs the no/slow code hams. There are the SSB vs AM wars on 75m. There is HF vs VHF, QRP vs kilowatt, DX vs local chitchat. Contesters vs everyone else. Maybe thats part of it. They have so many different things to disagree over. All we have is one; how to hide a logbook.

Thanks for the perspective - I was wondering too!

[Pto]

My favorite was in Jr High -

It was the "bikers" vs the "10-speeders"

(see, this was before mountain bikes

 

We rode 20' "freestyle" bikes, believed Dave Mira, Matt Hoffman etc to be "gods"

 

"They" rode clunky ole 10 speeds - skinny street tires, high center of gravity, etc-

 

They could sure go faster then us, but never catch us since we could go up/down curbs, etc. There were a few scraps I can recall based solely on the bike.

 

Stupid- even back then....

[+Prairie Dog]

Skiers vs Snowboarders.

Stay out of my terrain park and keep those ski poles away from me!

[+Renegade Knight]

For one thing this RASH is young. We are making up the rules as we go. It's not as cut and dry as some would like it to be. Common sense? Ha! Nothing is common yet.

 

We still don't know exactly what burial is. Most of us just think we do.

We still don't know when this site will fire a volunteer for crossing the line.

We don't know what the line is to be crossed.

We don't know what maintaing a cache is in length of time.

We still haven't nailed down maintainable distance.

We still are split over stats.

We are split over WOW factors.

We are split over "No lame caches" vs. "Owners can place what caches they like"

We are split over "all rules on this site are for the good of geocacing" vs. "quite a few rules on this site are arbitrary and only cause problems.

We are split over how many caches you should find before placing one (none vs. some arbitary number).

We are split over what exactly a find is.

We are split over logging event caches multiple times for every other cache at the even that wouldn't qualify to be listed on this site.

We are split over that a cache that doesn't qualify to be listed on this site is a "bad" cache vs. a perfectly good cache that just doesn't meet an arbitary rule.

We are split over whether approvers should approver their own caches.

We are split over slamming newbies for being newbies and presetning ideas that have been discussed before.

We are split on pocket knives in caches.

We are split on an Off Topic forum.

We are split on Whether the issue was "The cache was archived due to maintenance" or "The archived was for spite"

We are split on forum content. Are we a community who discusses whatever (see AS a community if I ever saw one) or are we only here to discuss geocaching and nothing else.

We are split over what the site should do. vs what the site is obligated to do.

We are split over any ruling that says "you have to use a GPS for this sport." WFT?

We are split over whether a virtual is a cache at all.

 

I could go on but I'm tired of typing.

Edited June 29, 2004 by Renegade Knight

[+rusty_tlc]

Land Cruiser vs. Jeep.

 

These arguments make the ford/chevy squabbles look like pre-school playground fights.

 

No matter what the sport arguments are usually silly. Usually it all comes down to preference

 

Oh yeah, AT's are soooo much better for the casual offroader trhan MT's.

[uperdooper]

check out the food channel forums. the threads about martha stewart make us look tame.

[+harleycache]

Not necessarily hobby, but -- Harley's vs. every other motocycle

(Love my Harley-Davidson)

[+Beta Test]

check out the food channel forums.  the threads about martha stewart make us look tame. 

Can I get a link in here?

Edited June 29, 2004 by Beta Test

[+tirediron]

I just have to beg to differ about ham radio (see, we're starting already!)

There are tons of rifts there. I can think of a few that have even led to physical violence. There are the 13wpm code purists vs the no/slow code hams. There are the SSB vs AM wars on 75m. There is HF vs VHF, QRP vs kilowatt, DX vs local chitchat. Contesters vs everyone else. Maybe thats part of it. They have so many different things to disagree over. All we have is one; how to hide a logbook.

13wpm is not considered slow code?

[uperdooper]

check out the food channel forums.  the threads about martha stewart make us look tame. 

Can I get a link in here?

you can get there at www,footv.com. click on the community button at the top. you will have to register to get to their forums.

[+clearpath]

The reason there are 'flare-ups' is because people have passion. The reason people have passion is because they care. Why do they care? Probably, because they 'want' to. Or maybe they have invested themselves into an activity. Passion is, after all, one of the things that separate us from our cousins (the rest of the mammals on earth). Passion is like a drug, too much of it can have devastating effects. On the other hand, can you even imagine a world 'without' passion? I hate to say it, but moderation is probably the key to 'healthy' passion.

[+rusty_tlc]

check out the food channel forums.  the threads about martha stewart make us look tame. 

Can I get a link in here?

Try here.

 

I just got back, what a cat fight!

[+briansnat]

Take a look at the REC.SKIING.ALPINE Usenet group if you think things are bad here. There have been death threats, tires slashed, lawsuits, people have been fired from jobs and even a judge banned someone from posting there, all over stuff that's been posted in the forum. The flaming is constant and even a thread that starts out as innocently as "what is the best ski for a beginner?" soon degenerates to the most vile name calling, complete with 4 letter words, allegations of child abuse, thievery and attacks on family members.

 

Or stop by REC.BACKCOUNTRY, the backpacking Usenet group and you'll wade through pages of flaming on subjects varying from politics and carrying firearms, to mountainbike use.

 

This place is quite tame in comparison.

Edited June 29, 2004 by briansnat

[+bigredmed]

Back to the central theme, I see one reason that people fight over junk in geocaching is that TPTB never seem to do anything other than ignore stuff until some other event takes the place of the first.

 

We have been arguing about people who take TB's and never log them in for ever.

We still have people doing it. We still don't have anything we can really do about it from a user's perspective.

 

We still have arguments over whether some kind of Quality Control should be enforced on new cache placers or on VC's to be sure that the caches placed are legal and properly designed. (As a new HAM, they have us BEAT there. I get mucho help from more experienced HAM's in our club. HAM's even have a term for a bad operator, a "lid". No one wants to be called a lid, so all of us newbies pay close attention to form and nuance. Wouldn't it be nice if we could convince new cachers to do the same? (yes and some old cachers...)

 

Bottom line, we need to deal with real shortcomings of the game and get these problems addressed and hopefully solved. Its fun to play this game and it gives me an excuse to see some neat areas, but without some agreed up rules and instructions, this game just gets more chaotic as it grows.

[+CO Admin]

For the most part, all the cachers i know are Type A personality's. Therefore they are passionate about whatever they do. Passionate people tend get REALLY involved. This causes sparks to fly at times. But I would rather have to try to tone down people who are impassioned than motivate those that arnt.

[+clearpath]

Back to the central theme, I see one reason that people fight over junk in geocaching is that TPTB never seem to do anything other than ignore stuff until some other event takes the place of the first.

 

We have been arguing about people who take TB's and never log them in for ever.

We still have people doing it.  We still don't have anything we can really do about it from a user's perspective.

 

We still have arguments over whether some kind of Quality Control should be enforced on new cache placers or on VC's to be sure that the caches placed are legal and properly designed.  (As a new HAM, they have us BEAT there.  I get mucho help from more experienced HAM's in our club.  HAM's even have a term for a bad operator, a "lid".  No one wants to be called a lid, so all of us newbies pay close attention to form and nuance.  Wouldn't it be nice if we could convince new cachers to do the same? (yes and some old cachers...)

 

Bottom line, we need to deal with real shortcomings of the game and get these problems addressed and hopefully solved.  Its fun to play this game and it gives me an excuse to see some neat areas, but without some agreed up rules and instructions, this game just gets more chaotic as it grows.

I say less government is better than complete control. I like the fact that TPTB stay out of a lot of the flare-ups that take place. I don't see anything chaotic. I go out and look for caches, sometimes I even hide a cache. I come home kiss the wife and hug the kids and life goes on. But what do I know, I'm just a guy with a liberal heart and a conservative mind, talk about 'flare-ups'.

[+Beta Test]

For the most part, all the cachers i know are Type A personality's. Therefore they are passionate about whatever they do. Passionate people tend get REALLY involved. This causes sparks to fly at times. But I would rather have to try to tone down people who are impassioned than motivate those that arnt.

You said it! Its much better to have people who care than the maggots that don't.

[+bigredmed]

I say less government is better than complete control. I like the fact that TPTB stay out of a lot of the flare-ups that take place. I don't see anything chaotic. I go out and look for caches, sometimes I even hide a cache. I come home kiss the wife and hug the kids and life goes on. But what do I know, I'm just a guy with a liberal heart and a conservative mind, talk about 'flare-ups'.

 

The problem isn't that TPTB don't act as nannies fixing every little thing, no one wants that. The problem is that there are bugs in the program that never get fixed and this tends to yank people off.

 

Other groups seem to get after these permanent problems better than we do and with good results.

 

People complain all the time. Even if the central authority were more active, people would complain. Fixing the problems that exist would not change that. It would reduce the number of legitimate beefs that go unfixed. These are important.

 

The legitimate issues turn into background irritation and when some new prob comes along that is really 3/10, it gets argued like it was 6/10 on the severity list. Take care of these legitimate problems and the noise goes down.

 

We don't do this as well as other groups do. Ski resorts used to fix the fights betwen skiers and snowboarders by banning the snowboarders, till they found that they made more profit off of boarders, so they now deal with them by having boarding areas and skiing areas that are separate. Now neither group feels crapped on, and both are happier and the ski resorts make money off both groups. GC should think about this and start working on some of the permanent problems (like travel bugs).

[dampeoples]

Because this is our sport, and the listing service doesn't listen to our needs as well as they should, or as well as people think they should. I dunno.

[Dino Hunters]

Try rec.backcountry and check out the wars between mountain bikers and hikers !

 

"You tear up the turf!"

"No you do."

 

etc. forever and ever.

 

I almost started a war when I asked how to attach a hipbelt to a pack. One fellow pointed out what a piece of junk my pack is, and then the defenders of my brand name jumped in.........

 

Ironic that they can both be done in places that caching is not allowed.

[+Bilder]

Check out some of the online gaming forums.

 

So and so hacked my account!

So and so steals kills!

This game update stinks!

I am leaving never to reutrn!

I am back! (2 weeks later)

This group are a bunch of dweebs!

Oh yeah! You momma is ugly!

 

Never ending source of drama.

 

I find the GC forums rather tame. Sure some folks get bent out of shape from time to time, but usually it lasts a week or two and then fades away till the next flame war.

[+GentleWhisper]

Can't help myself, I have to mention how well the OP was written. Very funny.

[+Ham Man]

Me thinks the original post was meant to be humorous.

[+wildearth2001]

My favorite was in Jr High -

It was the "bikers" vs the "10-speeders"

(see, this was before mountain bikes

 

We rode 20' "freestyle" bikes, believed Dave Mira, Matt Hoffman etc to be "gods"

 

"They" rode clunky ole 10 speeds - skinny street tires, high center of gravity, etc-

 

They could sure go faster then us, but never catch us since we could go up/down curbs, etc. There were a few scraps I can recall based solely on the bike.

 

Stupid- even back then....

now its BMX and MTB vs Roadies, if you called us 10 speeders you would get odd looks because a 10 speed back in you day was 2 chain rings on the front and 5 cogs on the rear cassett, now we have 10 cogs just on the back and 2 on the front, or up to 9 on the back and 3 on the front

[ucmike]

i used to read a nhb fighting board. you could actually arrange a fight in the real world and get a crowd to come watch then get color commentary on how the fight went.

[+Mechanics Hands]

Me thinks the original post was meant to be humorous.

LOL very true Ham. Read the original post again and you'll catch the nuances and I laughed silly while at work. Now my coworkers are looking at me strangely, oh well they do that all the time.

 

And CO I agree totally, its so nice to see people here that care, even if they dont really express things as well as they should at times.

 

MH

[+Beta Test]

My favorite was in Jr High -

It was the "bikers" vs the "10-speeders"

(see, this was before mountain bikes

 

We rode 20' "freestyle" bikes, believed Dave Mira, Matt Hoffman etc to be "gods"

 

"They" rode clunky ole 10 speeds - skinny street tires, high center of gravity, etc-

 

They could sure go faster then us, but never catch us since we could go up/down curbs, etc.  There were a few scraps I can recall based solely on the bike.

 

Stupid- even back then....

now its BMX and MTB vs Roadies, if you called us 10 speeders you would get odd looks because a 10 speed back in you day was 2 chain rings on the front and 5 cogs on the rear cassett, now we have 10 cogs just on the back and 2 on the front, or up to 9 on the back and 3 on the front

I have three and seven.

[+TeamJiffy]

People get "so fired up" because this hobby, unlike so many, has a single authority figure (Groundspeak.com) that effectively monopolizes control of the hobby. Talk all you want about the other geocaching web sites, or point out all you want that you could hide private caches, the pragmatic fact is that geocaching.com is in all real senses the owner and controller of this hobby.

 

So, we are a hobby with a boss or manager or whatever term you want to use.

 

This boss chooses to exercise authority, such as establishing the minimum distance between caches, guidelines for the subjective worthiness of a virtual cache.

 

Human Nature: We like to complain about any exercise of authority on the part of our boss, if that exercise happens to not be in our favor, or to our liking.

 

I am not commenting on if our boss is a good or bad poss. I am simply saying that we have a boss, so we will complain.

 

-Jif

[+harleycache]

Why is this starting to sound like a continuation of Now You're Getting Nasty? It sure didn't sound like it when this thread started.

[+2Est8Attys]

For an actual OT reply,

 

They don't pull any punches over in the martial arts forum. Everyone there kicks and screams until they get board.

 

The poeple in the Bingo forum are out of line most of the time until the server goes down in a blackout.

 

Some of the posts in the astronomy forum are out this world. They are running rings around each other about the upcoming Saturn flyby.

 

And finally, in the joggers' forum, they are constantly running off at the mouth.

[+Cache Viking]

My favorite was in Jr High -

It was the "bikers" vs the "10-speeders"

(see, this was before mountain bikes

 

We rode 20' "freestyle" bikes, believed Dave Mira, Matt Hoffman etc to be "gods"

 

"They" rode clunky ole 10 speeds - skinny street tires, high center of gravity, etc-

 

They could sure go faster then us, but never catch us since we could go up/down curbs, etc.  There were a few scraps I can recall based solely on the bike.

 

Stupid- even back then....

now its BMX and MTB vs Roadies, if you called us 10 speeders you would get odd looks because a 10 speed back in you day was 2 chain rings on the front and 5 cogs on the rear cassett, now we have 10 cogs just on the back and 2 on the front, or up to 9 on the back and 3 on the front

As one who puts in his share of both Road and Mountain bike miles I love to ride up to one of our hard core riders when they get a new bike and ask them "When did you get the new 10 Speed" they about choke and go over the bars. People just take life too serious somtimes.

[+Imajika]

I don't think I've ever participated in a hobby where people get so fired up as they do about geocaching. On this site and off, decisions are made, some folks get upset, and harsh words are posted. Plans are made to take the ball elsewhere, people commit geo-cide in the forums (yeah I did that once too, ain't proud), flame wars erupt, players and admins are compared to Hitler. Yikes!

Obviously, you have never played Everquest (PC version or PS2 version).

 

Go read the forums over there. It's like a high school/soap opera/Jerry Springer show all rolled into one!

 

But I love playing Everquest and I don't let the forum posts stop me. My hubby and I play the PC version and the PS2 version and we enjoy it.

 

Just like we enjoy geocaching! I'm not letting forum posts stop me from doing that either.

 

Ignore the drama and enjoy your hobby! (Whether it's Everquest, caching, or both!)

[+Lazyboy & Mitey Mite]

People disagree here???