Wheresgeorge Going With This?

[+TeamZebra]

I don't know if this is old news or not, but I just ran across some interesting policy www.wheresgeorge.com has come up with regarding WGs being left in caches.

 

Once a WG is logged as being found in a cache that bill is marked on the WG site as a "Geocache Bill" and even if it's returned to normal circulation by the finder, the bill is banned from any summaries and Top 10 lists on the site.

 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here but they seem to think people are using WGs strictly as travel bugs and therefore creating "false" hits. Seems to me there's no reason why a normal unmarked bill couldn't make it's way into a cache and continue to be traded... so why is trading a WG considered cheating?

 

I'm registed on WG and have entered several bills... none of which have gotten ANY hits in the past year. I thought "Hey! I'll stick a few in some caches and see if I can't jump start 'em that way"... but now WG is threatening to cancel the accounts of cachers.

 

Geocachers who intentionally exchange Travel Bugs or Where's George? in and out of Geocaches to generate hits risk having their accounts terminated.

[+TotemLake]

To each game their own. The real intention of WG was to track real circulation of the dollar bills in terms of commerce, not in terms of another game.

[+Cool Librarian]

First I've heard about it.

 

I also had logged several WG bills - which haven't had any hits either in more than a year. As a result, I stopped much attention to them - unless I find one in a cache.

 

I love the "travel" aspect of sites like WG and Bookcrossing. But, it's been my experience that unless you live in a geographic location that is just "into it," the average person has little interest in any of these things. I spent a lot of time releasing books for Bookcrossing in cool locations that corresponded to the book title, but quickly learned that people in my area couldn't have cared less. Even most of the books in my book cache which were registered on bookcrossing were never logged by the cachers who took them.

 

Bottom line is that WG's policy doesn't surprise. No matter how similar the activities (or goals) are, it just seems that "organized" groups of people can't seem to get along. Too much competition, too much ego.

 

Look at the animosity between some Letterboxers and Geocachers. I mean, what's that about? Two groups of people hiding boxes in the woods to be found by others playing the game. But even though the games have a similar goal and similar concerns, because they are "played" differently, one group invariably considers itself "better" than the other. Ridiculous.

 

"Can't we just all get along?"

 

Apparently not.

[+sept1c_tank]

To each game their own. The real intention of WG was to track real circulation of the dollar bills in terms of commerce, not in terms of another game.

Commerce: an interchange of goods or commodities.

 

To me, this seems inclusive of games, bribes, extortion, laundering or whatever else one desires.

 

Poo on the WG? administrators!

[+Cool Librarian]

To each game their own. The real intention of WG was to track real circulation of the dollar bills in terms of commerce, not in terms of another game.

 

That's a good point.

 

I'll have to take a closer look at the website to see where WG tracking is the highest. Like I said, around here, not many "regular" people pay any attention to this type of stuff.

 

And that may be the case in many areas - which, perhaps, is why cachers took to putting WG dollars in caches - to generate some interest. I almost always put WG money back into circulation after finding one in a cache - and as I said, I've never had a hit.

 

Interesting.

Edited March 13, 2005 by Cool Librarian

[+sbell111]

It's not a new policy. I think it's silly.

 

'Took something, left a buck'. Sounds like commerce to me.

[+welch]

old news

unless they've changed it the geocache bills are just 'banned' from the normal top ten.

[+briansnat]

ce a WG is logged as being found in a cache that bill is marked on the WG site as a "Geocache Bill" and even if it's returned to normal circulation by the finder, the bill is banned from any summaries and Top 10 lists on the site.

 

This really isn't true. They only seem to tag bills that have been traveling from cache to cache. One or two stops in a geocache doesn't necessarily mean the bill will be tagged as a geocache bill.

 

Here is an example that came in my inbox today:

http://www.wheresgeorge.com/report.php?key...4c561061c6c69e0

 

Here's another:

http://www.wheresgeorge.com/report.php?key...bd414c&entcnt=2

[+reveritt]

...

Look at the animosity between some Letterboxers and Geocachers. I mean, what's that about? Two groups of people hiding boxes in the woods to be found by others playing the game. But even though the games have a similar goal and similar concerns, because they are "played" differently, one group invariably considers itself "better" than the other. Ridiculous.

This reminds me of another thread I was in recently, in which some members were complaining about the use of the word "muggle" in geocaching. They felt that because it was from Harry Potter, which is for children, using it is demeaning. And who were these folks? Members of the so-called "science fiction/fantasy" community. I guess if we called non-players Romulans, that would be OK.

 

From where I stand, Harry Potter is about half a click away from SFF. It all depends on your perspective (or lack thereof). Personally, I break my eggs at the little end, and anyone who breaks their eggs at the big end is suckin' around for a fat lip.

 

But I'm off topic...back to WG$.

[+Divine]

FWIW, similar tracking service for Euro bills has same kind of rules for Euro bills in geocaches.

 

In my book that is great. Myself, I'm not interested in deliberately moving tracked bills from one location to another in order to enforce hit possibilties. Although it's very common among Eurobilltrackers to actually exchange large amounts of cash in banks just to get more bills to enter, I find the fascination in randomness, not messing the 'natural' circulation of money. Sure, I enter all the bills serials I get to see, but I'm not doing anything to them because of EBT. I just let them go as if there was no such thing as EBT at the first place.

[+flask]

my usual entry of "found in geocache, magically turned into snacks" does not seem to get bills banned.

[+Cool Librarian]

my usual entry of "found in geocache, magically turned into snacks" does not seem to get bills banned.

 

Hey, that's what I meant when I said I get my WG bills back into circulation!!!!

[+thumperness]

My son likes to take WG $ and log them and we just put "found in..." whatever city and state the cache was in then put them into circulation. We figure they don't need anymore info then that then we won't "offend" them thinking geocaching was involved

[Shoobie & the Sand Crabs]

wheres george is kinda a part of geocaching I've found four in caches and only one in circulation.

[+terri and billy]

There are a lot of georgers who also cache. Unfortunately, some of them would put a marked bill in a cache and have a friend "find" it who would then put it in another cache and have another friend "find" it. This made bills that were put in caches suspect of someone cheating. Let's face it when a bill gets 10 or 11 hits in a couple of months you know natural circulation is probably not happening. So, the rule is if a bill is continously hit from caches it is "marked" a geocache bill and can't be listed in the top ten. No big deal. This has been the rule for over a year. I've found bills in caches and I've had friends who put bills in caches. Sometimes, I'll put a bill I've gotten from a cache into another cache and sometimes I just spend it. It's just a game, just like this one. Everyone plays slightly different and as long as everyone is having fun and hurting no one, who cares.

 

Terri

[+fly46]

I'm not reading the thread, I'm just responding, so if there's redundancy, you'll know why.

 

Here's the problem. A WG dollar should be treated the same as a regular dollar. Except that a non WG-er will find one in a cache and then take it and move it to another cache instead of trading for it and putting it in their wallett and spending it like they should.

 

So WG, who's purpose is to track fairly normal circulation of currency, decided that they wouldn't allow these bills to appear in top lists since the bill isn't being used normally.