Why The Dislike Of Micro's????

[+ziatriguy]

I have been reading alot in the forums. It seems like there are an aweful lot of people that dislike(or worse) micro's? Whats the big deal? Is it the lack of swag space? I have found only a couple of micro's but had fun non the less. Can anyone enlighten my tadpole brain?

[+necron]

they tend to be in really crappy locations... parking lots, lamp posts, gas stations... i see those every day.

 

take me somewhere interesting that i wouldn't get to see normally

[+ziatriguy]

I see...so a micro in a scenic location(nice park?) would be less disliked? I sure have enjoyed all of the sunsets I've been taking in while caching after work.

[+ibycus]

If you get too many Micros all in a row, it can be very ego bruising. The hide tends to be not necessarily all that great, but its hard to find because its so darn small. That's not to say you can't get some really neat micros, but they aren't as fun to go after on a regular basis. For me the joy of finding it comes from seeing the terrain from just that angle that lets you go, hey there's a cache over there. If after an hour's search you find some silly little film canister in a really bad spot, it kind of sucks the fun out of it.

A month or so back, we had a glut of micros come through. It seemed every cache that came out was a micro. Not that I particularly minded the micros, I just wanted to go for something else other than a micro. It doesn't take a lot of skill to somewhat conceal a micro (or even totally) and hence most of the time with micros that is just what you get, either a really simple cache (hey look, ma it's a film canister hanging from a tree), or a next to impossible cache (here's a 10m square bush, somewhere in the bush there is a film canister, now find it).

Not that I mind people placing micros, by all means if that is what you like to find, go for it, just like a little variety in what I go after.

[+ziatriguy]

Gracias!

[+Kit Fox]

There are different types of micros, lame and cleverly hidden/ enjoyable ones.

 

Examples of lame micros include:

 

Magnetic containers hidden under newspaper racks, in crappy, shady shopping centers.

Micros hidden under lamp poles, in walmart parking lots.

 

Once you have done a few of these, the wow factor is gone.

 

 

Cleverly hidden micros include:

 

Caches disguised to match their environment (pine cones, or fake fruit in trees, that also are located in a scenic and or highly used area. Bolts that have hollowed out centers, that look like they belong on whatever they are attached too. These have cache logs hidden inside of them.

 

 

Caches that are hidden in such a manner that you have to think outside the box. Examples include:

 

They require you to use water to retrieve the cache.

They require you to use available tools to retrieve the cache.

Hiding a micro cache on a 3 story parking garage, that is not on the top floor.

[+Renegade Knight]

Everybody has something they don't like. I am not a fan of Micro's in the woods. Amazingly I tend not to hunt those, and if I do choose to hunt one I don't complain about the choice I made. Amazing how that works.

[+Mudinyeri]

Knight, that's just plain crazy! You're leaving yourself no logical path to a good belly ache session in the forums.

[+tirediron]

I like 'caches. I like them a lot!

[+fly46]

I think it's just after you do a bunch in a row it gets monotonus.

Personally, I like micros in lightpoles because I live with a non cacher, so it's nice to get to do a park and grab when I go shopping or whatever.

 

Plus, the three closest micros to me are wonderful!

One is at my all time favorite restaurant/store (Cracker Barrell)

One is at a beautiful paved walking path that I will use when the weather gets better

One took me to a spot at the lake where I got to see a Crane (the bird, not the heavy machinery) up close for the very first time in my life.

[+sbell111]

In the past, I have been pretty vocal in the forums regarding micros. The truth is, however, that I like them. I like them very much.

 

When I am in a new town, I like to be shown the city through geocaching. I like to see all the history and the cool little places that I would normally never know about. My visits to Louisville and Cincinnati were terrific because I had so many cool experiences chasing micros.

 

I don't enjoy going to a new town for a tour of all the local Ralphs' grocery stores, however. This gets tedious after six or eight.

[+Team Perks]

People tend to use micros as the poster-child for lame hides. There's certainly some truth to it--it seems logically easier to create a lame micro than a lame regular-sized cache. This may be more true for some areas, but in my area some of the best caches are micros. And in my opinion, it doesn't take a whole lot more thought to throw a piece of Gladware under a bush than it does to toss a hide-a-key onto a guardrail.

[+Robespierre]

Now Fly, I like that avatar. But I'm not too crazy about micros -I don't hunt 'em much and it's all cool.

[+briansnat]

I have been reading alot in the forums. It seems like there are an aweful lot of people that dislike(or worse) micro's? Whats the big deal? Is it the lack of swag space? I have found only a couple of micro's but had fun non the less. Can anyone enlighten my tadpole brain?

There are very few people who have issues with well thought out micro caches.

 

The problem is that because micros are cheap and easy to put together, hide and maintain, that they tend to attract the lazy cache owners who place caches just for the sake of increasing their hide counts. These are often placed in uninteresting and/or unappealing places and are usually nothing more than a film canister holding a damp slip of paper torn from a notebook (its amazing how often the owners of these are too lazy to even use scissors to cut the sheet and add a pencil).

 

After you've found dozens of micros on lamp posts in Walmart lots, tossed in the bushes outside Burger King, or attached to dumpsters behind shopping malls it, gets old very fast for a lot of people.

[+wolves shepherd]

1. No Swag so the kids loose the wow factor real quick.

2. No travel bugs!

3. I like easy finds in hard to get to places. Micros are often the inverse of that and thus my anti-cache.

 

But hey, to each his own. I don't persecute 'em, I just choose not to hunt 'em.

[+PC Painter]

I do not dislike micros, as a general rule. However, I DO dislike micros in the following situations...

 

1) I do not like micros where a regular size cache would have worked just fine. To me, it says that the cache owner couldn't be bothered to place a "real" cache. You know...it's called a cache for a reason.

 

2) I do not like micros that are put there, just because they could. They don't offer any good reason to be there, except to find a film canister/key holder, in the middle of a parking lot/field. A good micro needs to have some sort of uniqueness to it, or it needs to give me the reaction of "Oooohh....I know why he/she put it here!".

[+fly46]

Now Fly, I like that avatar. But I'm not too crazy about micros -I don't hunt 'em much and it's all cool.

Thank you! That's a purple slorg.

[+Doggiewoggie]

Micros--good. Most micro locations--BAD! BADBADBAD!

[Radman Forever]

I like micros if they are hidden in an interesting way or if they are in an interesting place. The two micros I have put out are in two extremely small towns. I give the history of the towns and why they are near-ghost towns. I try to make the place surrounding the micro interesting to help those that are tired of lame micros in the lamposts.

[+Nurse Dave]

Plus a micro is really not a cache of anything.

[+JohnnyVegas]

Micros in urban areas are one thing, but micros in a place that would support a large cache are placed by cachers that are to cheap to spend the money on a cache that is going to cost more that 10 cents to put together, I do not meind caches under a light post as much as I mind a micro in a large park. Remember, most of us thought it was cool when we found our first micro under a lamp post, ans most of us may have hid one just like that finding it.

[+Clueless&Clumsy]

Why would you put something the size of a film canister in the middle of the woods?

[+JohnnyVegas]

Because it's cheap. Part on the problem may be the dificulty in posting a new Virtual, the approvers tend to request an offset or multi, this tends to add to the problem of micros being spread like a bad habit.

[+briansnat]

Why would you put something the size of a film canister in the middle of the woods?

Because you don't have to worry about buying a logbook and a decent, watertight container, selecting nice items to stock it with and choosing a good hiding place. Just grab a film canister, tear off a strip of paper (the margin of a newspaper works well for this) and shove it in a knothole.

 

Part on the problem may be the dificulty in posting a new Virtual, the approvers tend to request an offset or multi, this tends to add to the problem of micros being spread like a bad habit

 

I agree. Before virtuals were effectively eliminated, these micros were almost unheard of. Once the guidelines for virtuals were tightened, the kind of people who were waypointing fence posts and sneakers in the woods and submitting them as virtuals resorted to sprinkling around film canisters.

[+Runaround]

I agree. Before virtuals were effectively eliminated, these micros were almost unheard of. Once the guidelines for virtuals were tightened, the kind of people who were waypointing fence posts and sneakers in the woods and submitting them as virtuals resorted to sprinkling around film canisters.

It's almost fitting. The crappy virtual was replaced by the crappy micro.

 

The first key case/film canister hidden on the bottom of a newspaper box was interesting. The 100th attached to newspaper box, dumpster, light pole, guard rail, etc. got old.

 

Some of the new micros are good, especially if it's a new idea. The copycat caches that follow aren't as fun.

[+AuntieWeasel]

Ha! Sometimes, reading the forums makes me feel blessed. In my little corner of Southern New England, we have high cache density with low micro density. All the micros I've done needed to be micros, and none of them were lame.

 

Granted, after the first rush of gotta-cache-them-all, I've been pretty selective. But I think, overall, we have a consistently high quality of cache 'round these parts.

[+kingsting]

Why would you put something the size of a film canister in the middle of the woods?

Film can with camo tape hanging from a tree in the woods = Lame hide.

 

Film can in the mouth of big scary rubber animal = Funny and enjoyable find.

 

I found one of these recently. The rubber animal was pretty large but it was the same color as the surroundings and very tough to spot. It made me jump at first and then I saw what it was. Some of the logs for this cache were good too.

 

[+bigredmed]

I have hunted clever micros that are hidden really well. These are fun. I have hidden a micro as part of a cache cafe' concept (one micro with coords to additional caches that are further away (one is an ultra micro and the other is a trad.)

 

I don't like micros for the reasons that are already expressed. The other thing about them is that they don't take much to create, thus they tend to be spewed. We have a set in Omaha that have been spewed. The cache pages are practically cut and paste of each other. We have a dozen or more of them and they just get annoying. Trads take more of a financial investment and more time to set up, so they tend not to get spewed all over.

[+briansnat]

Ha! Sometimes, reading the forums makes me feel blessed. In my little corner of Southern New England, we have high cache density with low micro density. All the micros I've done needed to be micros, and none of them were lame

 

Seems to be a regional thing. NJ is pretty much the same as southern NE. Micros are a relatively small percentage of caches and the majority of the time, they are there for a good reason. Then you go to places like Jacksonville and Nashville and micros reign.

 

I think it goes back to what type of cache the "pioneers" in the region hid, because people tend to copy what they find.

[Mr. TSP]

Maybe if someone left real honest constructive criticism regarding the lameness of a cache in their log instead of the common TNLN or TFTC, maybe, just maybe the cache owner would try to improve his/her hide and it would improve the quality of their next hide. Granted, some might take offense to comments meant to improve the quality of their caches, but it might help too.

 

Then again, some probably don't know any better when hiding a lame cache because they only have their previous lame finds to use as an example of how to hide a new cache.

[+Markwell]

Maybe if someone left real honest constructive criticism regarding the lameness of a cache in their log instead of the common TNLN or TFTC, maybe, just maybe the cache owner would try to improve his/her hide and it would improve the quality of their next hide.  Granted, some might take offense to comments meant to improve the quality of their caches, but it might help too.

I think the problem comes with knowing what is constructive critisism and what's bashing. Many people (and I'll count myself in these ranks) lack the finesse and diplomacy to be able to carry off helpful tips on the internet.

 

And how do you provide constructive critisism for a cache that is a microcache film canister in a lamppost base a Walmart parking lot? The best I could come up with is...

 

I am concerned about this cache and its placement. Is there a reason that you're bringing me here to this Walmart parking lot? I realise the excitement in wanting to place a cache, but IMO the location should be the primary reason for placing a cache, not the cache itself. Once a cachers finds 5-10 of these type of caches in an area, they lose their appeal. I would humbly suggest that you could put your creative talents into placing a more thoughtful cache as far as location or method of hiding.

 

Then again, some probably don't know any better when hiding a lame cache because they only have their previous lame finds to use as an example of how to hide a new cache.

And herein lies the problem (IMO) with saturating an area with lame micros (not micros, lame micros). If I looked at a proximity search around my home and all I saw were lame micros for the first 3 pages, I'd probably think that this was the best way to hide a cache.

 

Why The Dislike Of Micro's????

 

I think everyone has pretty much said it: I don't really mind micros if they are well done. I have my top 10% favorite caches on the my profile page and 2 of them are micros. One was a very clever camo and one was hidden in such a way that it was difficult, but not impossible to find. Both were hidden in forest preserves, one near the parking (and there were other caches in the area to find).

 

I'm babbling here, but: What makes a cache memorable for me? There are a couple of characteristics, and any combination or single characteristic may make it stand out as "cool" for me:

1) A nice hike in the forest;

2) Interesting or clever hide;

3) Cool trading stuff for my kids;

4) A little history about the area;

5) Something unexpected (a travel bug, seeing a deer, etc.)

 

I can't see finding a film canister under a Walmart parking lot fulfilling any ONE of those.

[+drat19]

I think the problem comes with knowing what is constructive critisism and what's bashing. Many people (and I'll count myself in these ranks) lack the finesse and diplomacy to be able to carry off helpful tips on the internet.

You mean, "Your cache sucked. Thanks for the stat!" is not use of appropriate diplomacy?

 

-Dave R.

[+Mopar]

Why would you put something the size of a film canister in the middle of the woods?

Because you don't have to worry about buying a logbook and a decent, watertight container, selecting nice items to stock it with and choosing a good hiding place. Just grab a film canister, tear off a strip of paper (the margin of a newspaper works well for this) and shove it in a knothole.

 

Part on the problem may be the dificulty in posting a new Virtual, the approvers tend to request an offset or multi, this tends to add to the problem of micros being spread like a bad habit

 

I agree. Before virtuals were effectively eliminated, these micros were almost unheard of. Once the guidelines for virtuals were tightened, the kind of people who were waypointing fence posts and sneakers in the woods and submitting them as virtuals resorted to sprinkling around film canisters.

I like good virtuals, as well as good micros.

The lame virtuals being replaced by lame micros is a good thing in my opinion.

Back in the day, once a lame virtual was listed, it was essentially there forever. Unless the owner decided to archive it on their own, it's probably still out there among the active caches, years later.

Now that we have lame micros instead of lame virtuals, we at least have a CHANCE of something better coming along in that location. Lame micros rarely last long. They get wet, disabled, and archived. They go missing, disabled, and archived.

There's always the chance that the next person to hide a cache there will do something better. With lame virtuals, we never got even that glimmer of hope.

Edited December 8, 2004 by Mopar

[+fly46]

Then you go to places like Jacksonville and Nashville and micros reign

 

I'd like someone who can do a PQ to do one and find this out for me.

 

Chose any regular town where people say they don't have a lot of micros and do a PQ with a 50 mile search radius. How many are micros, how many are other types of caches? Now chose Nashville (my zip is 37214, but i'm on the edge of town), do a PQ with a 50 mile search radius. How many are micros, how many are other caches?

 

I'd be interested to see if there's a huge difference in percentage. MonkeyBrad used an example (I don't know where his center was or how far out he went) that there are 300 micros from 1600 caches. Just under 19%.

 

I grew up in Ashtabula County, Ohio. In Ashtabula county, there are 15 caches. Yes, 15 in the largest county in the state. Of those 15 caches, 5 are micros. That's 33%. Of those five micros, two are in the woods where you could hide a full sized cache.

 

So, yeah, we have alot of micros. But we have a whole lotta caches all together.

[+Mopar]

Then you go to places like Jacksonville and Nashville and micros reign

 

I'd like someone who can do a PQ to do one and find this out for me.

 

Chose any regular town where people say they don't have a lot of micros and do a PQ with a 50 mile search radius. How many are micros, how many are other types of caches? Now chose Nashville (my zip is 37214, but i'm on the edge of town), do a PQ with a 50 mile search radius. How many are micros, how many are other caches?

 

I'd be interested to see if there's a huge difference in percentage. MonkeyBrad used an example (I don't know where his center was or how far out he went) that there are 300 micros from 1600 caches. Just under 19%.

 

I grew up in Ashtabula County, Ohio. In Ashtabula county, there are 15 caches. Yes, 15 in the largest county in the state. Of those 15 caches, 5 are micros. That's 33%. Of those five micros, two are in the woods where you could hide a full sized cache.

 

So, yeah, we have alot of micros. But we have a whole lotta caches all together.

50 miles out returns too many caches for a PQ, so I did 15 miles. I used coords for major cities. The coords are for the cache closest to the name of the city on the map.

 

Nashville (centered on N36°09.995 W086°47.037):

715 total caches within 15 miles.

443 of those are micros.

62% of all caches are micros.

 

Cleveland, OH (centered on N41°30.062 W081°41.466):

137 caches within 15 miles.

57 of which are micros.

41.5% of all caches are micros.

 

Los Angeles, CA (centered on N34°03.113 W118°13.003)

516 caches within 15 miles.

194 of which are micros.

37.5% of all caches are micros.

 

Stratford, CT (zipcode 06614):

161 caches within 15 miles.

38 of those are micros.

23.5% of all caches are micros.

 

Kinnelon, NJ, Briansnat's caching area (zipcode 07405):

319 caches within 15 miles

37 of those are micros.

11.5% of all caches are micros.

Edited December 8, 2004 by Mopar

[+Team Perks]

My PQ maxed out at 33 miles from my home zip code (93534).

 

498 total caches within 33 miles.

156 are micros.

31.3% of all caches are micros.

[+slapshot52]

As a neebie I have found some good micros and some lame ones in the last month since I started. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that in Colorado with as much wooded space as we have, why there are so many micros here. Which brings me to two points:

 

First. I like the openness of the geocaching community, so I say let people set/post as many micros as they want. I do agree with several posts that if the cache is lame, leave a polite log entry that gives some suggestions to the owner on how to improve the cache. Also, MAKE IT CLEAR the size of the container on the description! I was disappointed when I hauled my first TB to a sight to find a 2’ x 2’ tin can that wouldn’t hold the bug.

 

Secondly. As I read this, I realize that I’m part of the problem. I like to find traditional caches, but I have not contributed to the community by setting a cache. I plan to find a good spot for a traditional cache, spend the money on a good container and swap items and set it before Christmas. If we all did that in the next 90 days, the percentage of micros would go way down.

 

You can complain, but you get out something what you put into it. You want to find more traditional caches? Place a few.

 

Now off to put my money where my mouth is.....

Edited December 8, 2004 by slapshot52

[+Stunod]

50 miles from Downers Grove, IL - Suburban Chicago

 

563 Total caches

252 Micro

 

45% are micro

[+Mopar]

Jacksonville, FL (centered on N30°20.107 W081°39.215):

655 caches within 15 miles.

408 of which are micros.

62.5% of all caches are micros.

[+The Leprechauns]

15 miles from downtown Pittsburgh, PA:

 

209 caches

32 are micros

15.3%

 

50 miles from the same zipcode:

 

539 caches

51 are micros

9.5%

 

There are many vocal critics of micros in my area, yet the percentages are relatively low. Cause and effect?

[+bigredmed]

Maybe if someone left real honest constructive criticism regarding the lameness of a cache in their log instead of the common TNLN or TFTC, maybe,

But then some of our more prolific cache finders couldn't find two hundred in a day. If the requirement for a find was at least 1 three sentence paragraph and a review of the find, the typing alone would cut them down.

 

Not that that would be a bad thing....

[+Mopar]

Seattle, WA (Not quite center, but I just HAD to use GCK25B!)

760 caches within 15 miles

261 of which are micros.

34.5% of all caches are micros.

[+Markwell]

50 miles from Downers Grove, IL - Suburban Chicago

563 Total caches

252 Micro

45% are micro

For the 1,341 caches I consider in the Chicago area...

 

624 (46.5%) Micro

573 (42.7%) Regular

055 (04.1%) Not chosen

033 (02.5%) Other

027 (02.0%) Small

020 (01.5%) Virtual

009 (00.7%) Large

 

So Stunod is right on the money.

[+Bjorn74]

15 miles from the Ohio Statehouse (Columbus, 43240)

 

N 39° 57.728 W 082° 59.952

21 micros out of 112 (19%)

 

50 miles:

 

45 micros out of 258 (17%)

 

Now, I know at least 5 of them (inside the 15) should be reclassified as small, but haven't been. A couple also are rated as micro because stage one of the multi is a micro even though the end is an ammo can.

 

The underlying question, thoug, is how many of these are lame micros. The local discussion has pointed people toward making a micro fit one of two criteria.

 

1) Could it almost be a Virtual, in the Coolness factor mostly? If it is and you can find a place for a micro, it's cool.

 

2) Is there a puzzle or a multi circuit that makes the find the lesser part of the cache? For instance, if you have a lot of math or puzzle solving, it's acceptible to make the "prize" be the actual log of the completion. I have one where the micro can easily be found without coordinates. The real cache is the puzzle that returns the coordinates of that location. It's almost a differant type of reverse cache. Oh, and it's next to a field of concrete corn.

 

If one of those is satisfied, I don't think you'll end up with any lameness complaints. Unless they just like to call things lame. I don't think we have more than a couple low-value micros. But even they are borderline. Everything in moderation.

[+Mopar]

Philadelphia, PA

205 caches within 15 miles.

45 of which are micros.

22% of all caches are micros.

 

San Francisco, CA

429 caches within 15 miles.

135 of which are micros.

31.5% of all caches are micros.

 

Orlando, FL

234 caches within 15 miles

107 of which are micros.

45.5% of all caches are micros.

 

From what's been posted so far, the average urban area runs around 40% micros.

Even high cache density areas like Chicago and Los Angeles. Nashville and Jacksonville are 20% higher. Is that bad? I dunno.

But so far it seems to be true that micros reign supreme in Jacksonville and Nashville.

Edited December 8, 2004 by Mopar

[+nfa]

Lake Clear, 12945

34 caches within 15 miles

3 (8.8%) are micros (and not one of them is lame )

 

17 (50%) were placed by me, including all 3 micros

 

nfa-jamie

Edited December 8, 2004 by NFA

[+carleenp]

Lincoln, Nebraska 65803

 

85 caches within 15 miles

21 micros

24 % micros

 

462 caches within 50 miles

106 micros

22% micros

[adampierson]

Micros caches...

 

If a micro is clever, I have no problem with them. I mean clever to be something out in the open and cammoed very well so you wouldn't think to look at it twice if you were just to pass by.

 

On occasion I've come across a micros where they have no business being. How many of you had to look for a micro in....

 

1) A sea of ivy

2) A rock pile that runs along the shoreline of a creekbed

3) A densely forest like environment with a lousy GPSr reading

 

Don't hide a microcache where a regular cache will do.

 

Micros simply lack substance for some some people.

[+Mopar]

Well, a few people have commented privately about the Lancaster, PA area having an excessive amount of micros. So here we go:

 

Lancaster, PA

185 caches within 15 miles.

64 of which are micros.

34.5% of all caches are micros.

 

1360 caches within 50 miles

385 of which are micros.

28% of all caches are micros.

[+Renegade Knight]

Geowoodstalk should be sponsored by the area with the #3 density of micros next. This is looking like a tradition.