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Can We Move On Please?


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The last few days have been difficult and unpleasant for the UK and wider Geocaching communities. Things have been said the shouldn't have and things have been done that maybe in quieter moments might not have been, I don't know.

 

However can we make today the first day of our collective Geocaching lives? Can we all please remember why we are here - "hunting lunchboxes" :unsure:

 

Can we please end the nationalistic stereotyping, name calling and other accusations that have been flying around lately? Can we return both to the serious and light hearted "discussions" that have characterised this forum over the past couple of years?

 

Eckington and I remain here to serve UK (and Irish :rolleyes: ) geocachers by reviewing your cache submissions, moderating this forum and generally helping where we can.

 

Where possible we will leave existing threads open but I would urge you not to continue any unhelpful arguments.

 

Many thanks.

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Moderated official chat is every week at 8:30pm (CST) on Mondays, which is 2:30am (UTC) on Tuesday. That's not very convenient for much of the world, I'd imagine.

 

The official chats have been going on successfully for over two years.

 

Perhaps we have a Official Eastern Hemisphere Geocaching chat time, that is scheduled at a more convenient time for our European and Australian counterparts.

 

I'd like to come away from here knowing that y'all don't have some horrible impression of US citizens. I think a real-time chat atmosphere is inherently more friendly than the more-anonymous forum board.

 

Actually, this post is getting off-topic from the OP. Anyway, move on. Maybe a new thread is in the makings.

 

Jamie

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It is time to move on, but how long until this will happen again? It appears to me that someone at Groundspeak put a great big foot in it.

 

As a relative newcomer to the pastime of Geocaching, it seems to me that GC.com has become too monopolistic and with that comes the need to make the sport commercial (Jeep TBs!!).

 

I know there are other sites, but they will always stuggle to compete from their disadvantaged position (after all, I keep meaning to add my caches to the Navicache database but never get round to it).

 

My greatest hope would be that some non-commercial non-profit commercial central database could be set up for EVERY geocacher to use.

 

Anyway.....that's my last word for now. Off to test a new GPS!!

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It seems to me that now there is a Tsunami link on the GC.com page, the London Tsunami cache should be restored as an ordinary micro in memory of the Tsunami victims.

 

If not, I may have to return next time I am in the area as the container is just what I need to unarchive one of the St James Park caches!

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On that note.. why is it we rarely see a Brit in the geocaching chat room? Sure would be nice to have a more global crowd in there.

 

Jamie

My mum has told me to stay out of chat rooms. :rolleyes:

 

Yeah, you never know who you might meet! :unsure:

 

Actually, I met my husband in an internet chat room! :P

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On that note.. why is it we rarely see a Brit in the geocaching chat room? Sure would be nice to have a more global crowd in there.

 

Jamie

My mum has told me to stay out of chat rooms. :rolleyes:

 

Yeah, you never know who you might meet! :unsure:

 

Actually, I met my husband in an internet chat room! :P

i think i have meet lots of other peoples wifes and husbands in internet chat rooms

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I'd like to come away from here knowing that y'all don't have some horrible impression of US citizens

 

Every country has a few unsavory characters, including the UK, and Ireland (I'm Irish so can personally comment about that :rolleyes: ) so the majority of us, don't Tar all US citizens with the same brush. Just those whose actions prove that they need Tarring, as well as any English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh citizens, who need tarring.

 

Nette

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(snip)don't Tar all US citizens with the same brush.(snip)

Been meaning to say this for a little while now.

 

Let's now put down our arms and get on with the game - I trust that in the background the problems caused by a non-uk mod who took it upon themselves to moderate our forum will be dealt with in due course. And lets be honest it is only really that problem that is causing the anger and not the thoughts of the rest of the US.

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I trust that in the background the problems caused by a non-uk mod who took it upon themselves to moderate our forum will be dealt with in due course.  And lets be honest it is only really that problem that is causing the anger and not the thoughts of the rest of the US.

Since this seems to be a reoccuring theme, and hasn't been corrected yet, let me do so.

The mod who closed those topics is not just some yank mod overstepping his bounds.

The mods here have no modding power outside the forum they handle. The mod who closed the topics here is one of only a handful of supermods. He is special in that he's entrusted to enforce the forum guidelines system-wide. There are a few others like him. Jeremy, Hydee, and Rothafari are the others you might occasionally deal with. He was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing, and that is enforcing the forum guidelines anywhere and everywhere on the website. The only issue that should be dealt with is the apology for all the nasty comments and emails he's received for doing the exact thing Groundspeak asked him to do.

Edited by NJ Admin
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From the guidelines you quote...

Please understand that we are not attempting to censor any messages or opinions posted, but this is a moderated discussion forum. We simply want to preserve the spirit of an open, interactive discussion without offending participants. This means that we (Groundspeak and the volunteers for Groundspeak) reserve the right to edit/remove inappropriate messages, or to lock a discussion thread. Before taking any of these actions, a moderator will attempt to steer the discussion back to the topic, if this is possible and appropriate. The additional step of editing or deleting a post will only be taken in appropriate circumstances; again, the intent is not to censor legitimate discussion or to change the meaning of any post. If we edit a post and you do not like the changes please feel free to notify us and we will delete your post. Examples of posts that may be edited or deleted include posts containing profanity, chain letter and other spam postings, posts that disclose the tracking number codes for Groundspeak travel bugs or posts that reveal private information about another community member. Other examples are discussed in the guidelines below.

 

I know im only another dadgum noob round here but i like rules to make sense when they are used...

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Since this seems to be a reoccuring theme, and hasn't been corrected yet, let me do so.

The mod who closed those topics is not just some yank mod overstepping his bounds.

The mods here have no modding power outside the forum they handle. The mod who closed the topics here is one of only a handful of supermods. He is special in that he's entrusted to enforce the forum guidelines system-wide.

Thanks for that.

 

It should say that in his forum quote then IMHO. And just to clear things up - if he was acting on behalf of Groundspeak as their representative then we might have a whole different attitude to the whole dadgum mess!

 

Si [bowing out]

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I can't see anywhere in the guidlines where it says that topics discussing the policies of GC.com i na civil way will be closed for no good reason at all.

 

The person concerned used a single sentence about discussion of a certain cache, to justify the closing of a whole range of related and very important discussions. Some of the discussions only just touched on the T word - the fundemental discussion was about something else. The impression given was that UK members have no place discussing how the hobby should operate. UK members have no place discussing the moderation of their own forum, UK members have no place doing anyhting but bowing to the supreme magnificence that is the United States. UK members pay the same as US members and get fewer benefits. If we can't even be trusted to discuss the hobby in our own country then why should we bother paying anything at all?

 

We are now being told that everything is now OK - we have learnt our lesson and everything will be better in the future - the only problem it is the UK cachers who are expected to adopt this posture, and not the TPTB who decided to act in such a heavy handed and inappropriate way.

 

Other than a cache which seems perfectly valid to me, but maybe should not have had a link to a charity on the page, what is it that we UK cachers are suppose to feel so contrite about? What did we do that justified the absurd moderating behaviour yesterday?

 

In the spirit of moving on I listened to an hour of relaxing Buddhist chanting today, and visited the Ghandi Peace Cache - which is set in a London Square set aside for contemplation. The result of this quiet contemplation is that I feel no less offended by what happened yesterday.

 

I have just gone back and looked at those forum guidlines again - I still can't see why discussion of a cache elsewhere that lead ot offensive language lead to a blanked ban on all sorts of light hearted and serious discussions that were fully within the guidlines. Sorry for this long message - but NJ admin's message does not resolve anythign for me - if anything, it makes the matter more serious. It says that GC.com endorse what happened yesterday, see anything to put right or apologise for, and despite the guidlines not justifying the actions, they seem to want to do it again if they feel like it. Sorry, as a paying customer, it is not good enough.

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:rolleyes:

 

There are those who on threads like this, try and tell people to go out and do some caching instead of sitting typing stuff into a forum.

 

That only works to a point, since a lot of the time, you post on forums in the evening and night time, and you cache during the daylight (generally!)

 

So to point out that someone is wasting valuable caching time reading forums at 2am is really quite a dumb thing to do in most cases.

 

If it is so dumb to take part in a forum discussion, then why are they provided? They are here to give a cacher something to do while he CAN'T cache.

 

Sorry to have to point out the bleedin' obvious!

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My mum has told me to stay out of chat rooms.  :rolleyes:

 

Yeah, you never know who you might meet!  :unsure:

 

Actually, I met my husband in an internet chat room!  :P

I met my wife-to-be in a chatroom too (hopefully thats a little less ambiguous (or however you spell it)) We've been married 5 years now.

However it was open all hours so a lot more sociable to meet

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Sorry, as a paying customer, it is not good enough.

At this point, what would be good enough and what would "set thing right"?

 

Glenn

For me? An acknowledgment that what was done, while maybe being done for good reasons, was done the wrong way.

 

There are ways and ways of doing things. In the UK we prefer the diplomatic, behind-the-scenes approach. The thread owners should have been made to close their own threads (some of them did actually and I'm OK with that) and the cache approvers should have been made to archive the caches they approved, so every one gets the same result, just without the bad feeling and heavy handed approach.

 

It is truly a clash of cultures I have to admit. When someone needs getting rid of, there is something in the british culture that allows for a bit of waffling, an affable shake of hands and pint in the pub, followed by the person quietly disappearing in the dead of night....which our US friends achieve by going in with guns blazing at the Main Street saloon. I don't think it is anybody's fault in particular, but it does so often happen that way.

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maybe TPTB could set up an off-topic section in the forum where people could discuss things other than geocaching, it seems to work for other 'strictly controlled' forums.

 

even though my daddy said it was bad, I still managed to talk to people from south of the tyne without scalping them or cooking their kids... and you know what....

 

some could even talk back :rolleyes:

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What would put it right for me.

An admision that, the basic courtesy of asking the thread owner or the moderators of the forum to close the thread (s), was not followed. And that in any future occasions this courtesy of ask first act later would be followed by these "super" admins who are not fully versed in ALL cultural differneces.

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maybe TPTB could set up an off-topic section in the forum where people could discuss things other than geocaching, it seems to work for other 'strictly controlled' forums.

Is THIS what you're looking for ? :rolleyes:

 

[EDIT... whoops, beaten to it... the story of my life!!]

Edited by Pharisee
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Enough people. This achieves nothing. I leave for a couple of hours to get a sick relative from hospital and it all starts over again.

 

Please can you all respect my wishes as expressed in the title of this thread. I'm closing this topic and if it starts again I'll do the same again. I don't like closing threads but I will do so until we get some decency back.

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