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Caches Reclassified, Now For Premium Members Only


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A local cacher has recently reclassified all his caches as being for "premium members only". I am not a premium member, but since I printed out the web pages prior to the reclassification, I still have the info to look for them. Suppose that I go ahead and search for one of them and find it. Technically, I can still get to the "log it" page, but do the "rules" allow me to proceed and log it as found?

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It was my understanding that you can't see a MOC (members only cache) if you're not a premium member. With that theory you wouldn't be able to log them.

 

I would talk to the cache placer and tell them your situation and see if they would work with ya.

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I enjoy finding caches so I might consider just going out and finding it without logging it on line. My personal opinion is that if they want to make it members only, it's their cache, I can always log other ones.

Becoming a premium member does have benefits. It would also make your question a moot point.

 

Edit: to cross I's and dot T's

Edited by BlueDeuce
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I am happy to pay $3/month just to do pocket queries. So being able to do MOC is another benefit.

 

If you can access the cache to log it. Just go ahead and try. Either way you win!!!! You got to the cache.. you logged in the book.. you had a good time. If the online log dont take..no big deal.

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If the cache used to be open to everybody, just say in your log that it was open to everyone when you printed the page.

I doubt there'll be a problem.

 

PS, jeremy.. I love the 'loophole' - I don't seek out MO caches to do, but it's good to know that if I'm with a group of people who are members I can log a cache if I happen to find it - a good example would be Monkeybrad's webcam... I was the only person out of about 20 who wasn't a premium member.

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I am aware of that "loophole" but honestly don't see a real need to close it for reasons like Lil Devil has shown.

I don't really have much of an opinion on MOC's one way or the other. However, they ARE one of the perks of being a premium member. Hopefully there is not a 'loophole' for other things that are supposed to be for paying members only. Otherwise, why am I paying $30.00 per year? Please don't take this the wrong way. Just making an observation.

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Hopefully there is not a 'loophole' for other things that are supposed to be for paying members only. Otherwise, why am I paying $30.00 per year? Please don't take this the wrong way. Just making an observation.

I believe this is the first and only loophole I have become aware of and haven't closed. If you know of another, let me know and I'll close it.

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I've never questioned when a non-PM has managed to find one of my few MOC's. As far as I'm concerned, if they found the cache, then by gum, they found the cache. I've never had a problem with them logging the find either.

 

My MOC's have never been about exclusivity but rather trying to limit the number of finders on a handful of delicate containers...so other cache owners may disagree. It can't hurt to try though.

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Otherwise, why am I paying $30.00 per year? Please don't take this the wrong way. Just making an observation.

Uh, perhaps to support this wonderful service/website? :)

 

I liked what I saw, thought it worth supporting, and sent the $$. Then again, before I switched to satellite radio, I also supported NPR. Guess I'm just freakish that way. :)

 

The PQs were beyond my wildest imagination in utility, though, and there's no loophole for that. Frankly, if every feature had a "loophole," I wouldn't feel slighted in the least.

 

To each their own, I suppose.

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I agree, logging a members-only cache by a non-premie should be fine; Its the cache listing, the coords, desc, and hint, which are members-only, not the physical cache itself.

I thought it was all about finding the cache, not the online logging. If a cache is found, and log signed, it is a found cache.... but if you log a find and don't go to the cache, then it is not a find (ok, except for locationless caches).

 

I've got family members who cache and log the caches, but choose not to go online to log them (due to not caring about online logs, not having a computer, etc). In my view, those are still "finds."

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I agree with you JD, as I suspect many of the previous posters do. The original question was regarding online logging, however.

 

That being said, I don't really see the logging method as a loophole. As Snazz stated, the cache page is restricted for MOCs. I don't see why the logging page should be.

 

edited because this darn old keyboard's shift key is a little sticky.

Edited by sbell111
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I have logged one MOC cache. I started looking for it before it became MOC. The owner graciously allowed me to log it. There were two that I logged before they changed over. I understand the problems in the Lehigh Valley. Oh, well.

The two new MOC caches nearby will remain unfound, until I can raise the money to buy membership, if I so choose. Sometimes it is a matter of money. :)

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Hopefully there is not a 'loophole' for other things that are supposed to be for paying members only. Otherwise, why am I paying $30.00 per year? Please don't take this the wrong way. Just making an observation.

I believe this is the first and only loophole I have become aware of and haven't closed. If you know of another, let me know and I'll close it.

Don't know of any. Well, maybe that one where you can find an unlisted cache by using travel bug movements. You and your crew do an excellent job taking care of those types of problems as far as I can see.

 

Edit: I also think that TB trick was used to find MOC's.

 

Otherwise, why am I paying $30.00 per year? Please don't take this the wrong way. Just making an observation.

Uh, perhaps to support this wonderful service/website? :)

 

I liked what I saw, thought it worth supporting, and sent the $$. Then again, before I switched to satellite radio, I also supported NPR. Guess I'm just freakish that way. :)

 

The PQs were beyond my wildest imagination in utility, though, and there's no loophole for that. Frankly, if every feature had a "loophole," I wouldn't feel slighted in the least.

 

To each their own, I suppose.

Ahhhh....but you see this is a business. I am a customer. I paid for (semi) exclusive rights to hunt MOC's, among other benefits. So if it appears that anyone can do that, and the owner of the business does not prevent it from happening, what am I to think? Now, I do not truly care if someone who is not a member can log MOC's or not. But that is just MY opinion. I would be much more worried if it was PQ's or even OT being accessed without having been paid for. I am willing to bet there is at least one member out there that DOES care about anyone other than members logging MOC's. That person has paid good money and is not getting what they paid for.

 

An example. You ever go to a movie? Let's say it's not even a movie you like. You pay your $10.00 or so for your ticket and as you are entering, you see others just walking in, right in front of the owner, without paying. The owner does nothing to stop them. You would be OK with that?

Edited by Corp Of Discovery
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I don't see the problem. The non-member can't see the coords or description, unless s/he happens to go out caching with a paying member. Someone in the group payed for the privilege of searching for the cache- why not let everyone log it?

 

Similarly, even for regular caches hunted by a group, in most cases only one person really found it. The others just walked up and signed their name. But it's commonly accepted that they can all log online.

 

Why should MO caches be any different?

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I am willing to bet there is at least one member out there that DOES care about anyone other than members logging MOC's. That person has paid good money and is not getting what they paid for.

Does the member agreement specifically state that you're getting exclusive access to both search and log MOCs?

 

So far as I know, and truthfully I'm far to lazy to actually do the research, the member agreement lets you search for MOCs, the TOS for the caches prevents you from sharing the MOCs, but nothing contractual says that members are the only ones who can log the MOCs.

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Hopefully there is not a 'loophole' for other things that are supposed to be for paying members only. Otherwise, why am I paying $30.00 per year? Please don't take this the wrong way. Just making an observation.

  I can't speak for others, but for me, I paid the thirty bux because I get a lot of enjoyment out of geocaching, because I know that it costs a lot of money and manpower to run this site, and because I felt I should do my part to support it.  That I get some improved functionality out of the site as a result of being a paid member is a nice bonus.

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I can't speak for others, but for me, I paid the thirty bux because I get a lot of enjoyment out of geocaching, because I know that it costs a lot of money and manpower to run this site, and because I felt I should do my part to support it.  That I get some improved functionality out of the site as a result of being a paid member is a nice bonus.

Hear, Hear and Huzzah! My reasons for joining up so many years ago myself

Edited by fishingfools
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Lil Devil & Mr. Snazz, in response to your most recent posts: the way the website is set up you should be a member in order to log a MOC. If you can't see the cache page you shouldn't be able to access the link to log that cache. The loophole lets you get around that apparently.

 

Again, I really don't care that it can be done. I do understand that it is allowed to be done to be fair to someone who has found a MOC in some way without being a member. That seems fine to me. Somebody else might not feel that way tho. I'm sort of playing devil's advocate on that point.

 

I would have a problem if other things also had loopholes that let you bypass their protocols. There does come a point where it would be senseless to pay for something one could get for free. Where that line is, is decided by each of us on an individual basis. Would I contribute $30.00/year if I didn't have to or didn't get any special features? I honestly don't know. I think I would contribute something, but that, in large part, would depend on my finances.

 

Sorry to have veered this thread off on a tangent somewhat. It has been an interesting discussion tho.

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I noticed the posting describing a movie theatre owner allowing people to walk in without paying.

I would not be happy with the owner if he allowed people to walk in the FRONT door either, but if the owner padlocked the BACKDOOR that was used as the EMERGENCY exit......That would make me even madder.

 

And I'd pay to see a good movie, so that the movie maker can continue making additional GREAT movies.

 

Thanks Jeremy, continue the great work.

Edited by Gary and Mary Adventurers
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Ahhhh....but you see this is a business. I am a customer. I paid for (semi) exclusive rights to hunt MOC's, among other benefits. An example. You ever go to a movie? Let's say it's not even a movie you like. You pay your $10.00 or so for your ticket and as you are entering, you see others just walking in, right in front of the owner, without paying. The owner does nothing to stop them. You would be OK with that?

Ahhhh. No, I don't see. I do not view geocaching.com a business.

 

I consider it a service provided by a business (Groundspeak). Indeed, if your theory was correct, that this is a "business" and premium members were "customers," then you would see preferential treatment in all regards to premium members. This certainly does not happen, in fact I think TPTB do a remarkable job about not discriminating between members on this site (charter members, premium members, or basic members). All seem to have the same vote.

 

So, you and I see the site very differently, and is the reason for our difference of opinion.

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Bottom line: You are only paying for what services are defined in the service agreement.

 

From the Premium Memberships page:

 

A Groundspeak Premium Membership provides you with additional features that a normal (free) membership does not provide. Through Pocket Queries  you can bulk download caches based on precise search criteria, have the ability to create and view member-only caches, and have additional power-user options on the web site by panning and zooming the Geocaching.com online maps.

 

I see nothing about the logging of MOCs being exclusive.

 

Member only caches: Some caches will only be available to premium members. This has been a request of many geocachers who want to put more energy into designing a cache for dedicated geocachers. As the cache owner, you can make any of your caches "subscriber only," so folks will need a subscription to seek it out. (Note: member only caches may not be any better than public geocaches. Each cache is managed by their cache owner.)

 

Poor wording perhaps, but again, nothing about logging.

 

And, there is nothing restrictive towards logging in the Terms of Service, either.

 

If you're expecting to be entitled to something that was never promised, you havn't been cheated, you've simply been ignorant of your actual purchase.

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Poor wording perhaps, but again, nothing about logging.

How so? About the poor wording, I mean. It would be nice to correct it if there's something missing. It isn't supposed to be a legal document so I wouldn't expect any "party of the first part" gobbledygook.

 

Whether you think it is a courtesy, or whatever, there is no direct link to the logging functionality for MOC except from the MOC page. So it is a loophole, workaround, hack, what have you.

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Hopefully there is not a 'loophole' for other things that are supposed to be for paying members only. Otherwise, why am I paying $30.00 per year? Please don't take this the wrong way. Just making an observation.

I believe this is the first and only loophole I have become aware of and haven't closed. If you know of another, let me know and I'll close it.

I pay to be a premium member because I want to support the sport and because I enjoy some of the premium member advantages. I couldn't care less if Jeremy wants to leave loopholes open. That's his prerogative, just as paying for the service is my prerogative.

 

Thanks for a good and well maintained system Groundspeak.

 

Actually, I think having a few loopholes is kinda fun.

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Poor wording perhaps, but again, nothing about logging.

How so? About the poor wording, I mean. It would be nice to correct it if there's something missing. It isn't supposed to be a legal document so I wouldn't expect any "party of the first part" gobbledygook.

Firstly, my statement about poor wording was mostly to defuse a potential rebuttal to my post. ;) I do realize that it isn't a legal document, but I was using it to show the lack of promises about exclusivity of logging.

 

I just thought that the part about preventing non-members from seeking out MOCs was a bit deceptive. You can prevent non-members from accessing MOC details, and TOS-prevent them from sharing those details, but realistically you can't prevent non-members from seeking out MOCs.

 

Perhaps rather than "so folks will need a subscription to seek it out", "so folks will need a subscription to view it" may be more accurate. But its kinda nitpicky. B)

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I still think that it's up to the cache owner to allow/disallow non-members to log MOC caches. Personally, I'm glad to see from the posts above that apparently most owners allow such logs. But I wouldn't have a problem if an owner decided to delete a non-member log in an MOC because as an MOC owner I could easily interpret the GC.com wording for MOC caches as being exclusive for members:

 

Some caches will only be available  to premium members.

 

If I had any MOC caches (I don't), but chose to interpret the above as exclusionary (I wouldn't), I could feel justified in doing so. The way this is worded, the caches are available for premium members, not just the cache listings. Obviously, you can't stop somebody from actually finding a cache if they can figure out where it is, but I think the wording above would provide an owner with a legitimate argument for deleting non-member find logs. I think it also supports the issue which Corp Of Discovery raised concerning 'member entitlement'.

 

But, I'm glad the 'loophole' is available to allow such logging to take place to handle the cases which others have mentioned.

 

An example. You ever go to a movie? Let's say it's not even a movie you like. You pay your $10.00 or so for your ticket and as you are entering, you see others just walking in, right in front of the owner, without paying. The owner does nothing to stop them. You would be OK with that?

 

I see what you are saying, but I think in this case, since the ability to view MOC listings is only one in a number of features available to paying customers (and arguably a minor one), a better analogy would be if the theater owner allowed non-paying customers to hover outside the door and listen to the movie without actually being able to see it. As a paying customer, this wouldn't bother me in the least - those who don't pay don't get the full benefits available to paying customers, as it should be.

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...
An example. You ever go to a movie? Let's say it's not even a movie you like. You pay your $10.00 or so for your ticket and as you are entering, you see others just walking in, right in front of the owner, without paying. The owner does nothing to stop them. You would be OK with that?

 

I see what you are saying, but I think in this case, since the ability to view MOC listings is only one in a number of features available to paying customers (and arguably a minor one), a better analogy would be if the theater owner allowed non-paying customers to hover outside the door and listen to the movie without actually being able to see it. As a paying customer, this wouldn't bother me in the least - those who don't pay don't get the full benefits available to paying customers, as it should be.

I would be ok with the movie thing, if you could sit down on a log and find the movie underneath entirely by accident.

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I find it hard to believe that you can afford a gps and a pc to get on the internet that you can't afford to become a member.

Being unable to find work for over a year and trying to live on one income will do that to you. Our toys were purchased when I was still working. Luckily I've just started a new job, but as of last week, an extra $3 a month for a website subscription was too much to justify.

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Just wanted to say thank you Jeremy, for being so cool with the "loophole." I am a premium member since two weeks into this game, but my wife is not. However she still uses this feature for when we are on vacation. And now that my children are getting old enough to enjoy the game I am creating accounts for them to log their adventures too. $30 is very fair for all the great services, but $150 per family to log the finds would be kind of steep. Thanks for your consideration :ph34r:

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Awhile back I changed a bunch of my caches to members only after a cache thief got one of mine. In the process, I shut out a group that had found a couple of them but not logged yet. At the time I offered to let them log the find on one of my archived caches and said I would copy it over as a note from myself to the pages so the history would be there. They didn't and said they would either get a premium membership or wait until I made them regular again (I plan to do that soon). Now that I know about the url thing, I might tell them to do that to log. The upshot is that I say ask the owner. Some might say it is fine and others might not. In my case, I would happily let a non-premium member log the cache and would give them coords to find it if they wrote to me so I knew who they were. But that is specific to my reasons for making the caches members only.

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I find it hard to believe that you can afford a gps and a pc to get on the internet that you can't afford to become a member.

Hm. Actually, we're "sort of" in that boat. We have a four-year-old hand-me-down computer, internet access cause the neighbor in the duplex pays it and lets me use it in exchange for keeping her 'puter running, and a intermittantly borrowed non-WAAS gps. And we're still having fun. And wish we could help support the site, but can't justify it at this time. Most weekends, we can't justify gas money, either, so we suggest outings with people who have room in their car for us, or make stops on trips we have to make for other [necessary] reasons.

 

And yes, unfortunately, I'm serious.

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A thought about the comments regarding owners who would delete non-PMs' logs...

 

While I don't own any MOCs, it occurs to me that neither the cache page, nor the emails I get when someone logs my caches state that an individual is a PM. I've never had the desire to look up someone's profile to verify that he/she is a member. I can't imagine anyone actually going to this extent just to delete a valid log. Can you imagine the bad juju involved?

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Hopefully there is not a 'loophole' for other things that are supposed to be for paying members only. Otherwise, why am I paying $30.00 per year? Please don't take this the wrong way. Just making an observation.

I believe this is the first and only loophole I have become aware of and haven't closed. If you know of another, let me know and I'll close it.

I found one today. I would have never known about it if my membership hadn't lapsed. Since I'm not paying for it, I'll refrain from using it.

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Poor wording perhaps, but again, nothing about logging.

How so? About the poor wording, I mean. It would be nice to correct it if there's something missing. It isn't supposed to be a legal document so I wouldn't expect any "party of the first part" gobbledygook.

 

Whether you think it is a courtesy, or whatever, there is no direct link to the logging functionality for MOC except from the MOC page. So it is a loophole, workaround, hack, what have you.

Where is the service agreement located?

 

I'm guessing it becomes a legal document pretty quickly if I allow non-subscribers access to my pocket queries...

 

Just a thought.

 

Ed

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Where is the service agreement located?

 

I'm guessing it becomes a legal document pretty quickly if I allow  non-subscribers access to my pocket queries...

Here is the Terms of Use and Waypoint License Agreement, which are obviously legal agreements. The latter is the one that says you can't share your Pocket Queries.

 

The text quoted earlier in this thread is from the Premium Membership offering page. That reads more like advertising than a legal agreement.

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It's quite easy for a non-member to log MOC's by manipulating the url of the log page. I do this quite often when my wife (who is a regular member) and I go caching together. I've never had a cache owner question it.

How do you manipulate the url ?

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