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Imho, Major Reason For Missing Bugs


Gonzo-YT

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This is of course, only my own opinion, but I suspect that a lot of bugs go missing with newbie cachers because of the tags themselves. Quite frankly, if I don't know what a travel bug is or does, reading the little tag won't help me know anything about it or what to do with it.

 

"I go from place to place, picking up stories along the way. Visit www.Groundspeak.com to learn more about me and add your own!"

 

This little bit of cutesy-wootsy text doesn't say what needs to be said. Nowhere does it tell me that I can't keep this item, or that I need to log it and move it on. Hell, it doesn't even suggest that I need to be left in a geocache. "I go from place to place..." -- does this mean I could leave a TB in a coffee shop, like a bookcrossing book?

 

The message needs to be more clear, something like:

 

If you take me, you must log your find on-line at www.geocaching.com. You can't keep me! Please place me in another geocache as soon as you can. Check the website to learn my goal and try to move me in the right direction, but above all keep me traveling!

Edited by Gonzo-YT
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I'm with you on the newby bit. But perhaps the reasons might be a little different. Every tb of ours that had a cool hitchhiker has been taken. Sometimes by low find cachers who never responded to gentle email requests to put the bug back in action and who subsequently left the sport. Other cool looking hitchhikers were grabbed from caches and not reported.

 

An uninteresting bug might last longer but sure is fun to see cool looking ones.

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I'm not really talking so much about the goal thing. If you're serious about it meeting a goal, I understand why you'd want to attach a sheet.

 

The point I'm getting at is, the way the tags are worded now, they don't say that you can't just keep a travel bug. You shouldn't need to attach a sheet to explain that a person can't just take the thing and keep it -- the tag should do that.

 

Agreed, there are many other reasons that these things are taken and go missing. But having such an ambiguously worded tag sure isn't helping matters.

Edited by Gonzo-YT
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If you go to Sissy-n-CR's online store you can buy tags for really cheap to add to your bug that say to move them along.

 

 

With that said, Rusty Spike went missing (note, he was just an old, ugly, rusty spike), definately a no on the cute factor.

 

You want your bug to not go missing because it's cute, do something to permanantly affix the tag to the item (drilling holes, pop rivits, etc)

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