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OMG What Happened to Geocaching?


GarminArmin

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We have taking a few years off from Geocaching only to return to Log only caches placed every .10 a mile in bushes for numbers.

This is not what Geocaching started out to be. When we started it was to bring hunters to a location interesting or a nice view.

Shame on Groundspeak and the approvers for letting this get out of the scope and sprit of the hunt.

Edited by GarminArmin
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Gee, welcome back. <_<

 

We're no longer called "approvers" - that went out more than ten years ago. We're "Reviewers" who "Publish" caches submitted by community members.

 

If I only published caches that I approved of, I would publish a whole lot fewer caches.

 

Reviewers used to have discretion to stop power trails from forming. The wailing from the cache owners was overwhelming, and eventually the cache saturation guideline was modified. If it's 529 feet from the nearest cache, and meets all the other guidelines, I have to publish it. (But if it's at 527, I don't give as many exceptions like I used to!)

 

Kindly direct your anger towards the cache hiders in your area.

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Gee, welcome back. <_<

 

We're no longer called "approvers" - that went out more than ten years ago. We're "Reviewers" who "Publish" caches submitted by community members.

 

If I only published caches that I approved of, I would publish a whole lot fewer caches.

 

Reviewers used to have discretion to stop power trails from forming. The wailing from the cache owners was overwhelming, and eventually the cache saturation guideline was modified. If it's 529 feet from the nearest cache, and meets all the other guidelines, I have to publish it. (But if it's at 527, I don't give as many exceptions like I used to!)

 

Kindly direct your anger towards the cache hiders in your area.

 

I'm not going to be trolled into a debate approver/reviewer thing. Point being we went out recently for a few caches after a long layoff and were greatly disappointed on the placement and quality found.

And why would we direct our anger towards the hider if your So called "reviewers" are "approving" crap hides like these. 527' from each other (Power trails)(numbers).

Groundspeak and company has let it get out of hand for the numbers which don't mean anything if I can get a find a so called cache every 527' Edited to add that we use to get excited back in the early days when a cache popped up and we had to drive a few miles to start a nice hike just to find it. It wasn't a log only cache but a Real cache placed with care. Seems now days a cacher is driving in a 4X4 and tossing a film canisters out their window into a bushes and marking it as a cache hide.

Edited by GarminArmin
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And why would we direct our anger towards the hider if your So called "reviewers" are "approving" crap hides like these.
I am not a volunteer reviewer. I am not a lackey. I am not a fan of the numbers-oriented caches that I think you're complaining about.

 

But Groundspeak doesn't hide these numbers-oriented caches. Numbers-oriented cache owners do.

 

And my recollection is that Groundspeak held out against the numbers-oriented cache owners for years, trying to block caches hidden "every 600 feet just because you can" for years. But the numbers-oriented cache owners were persistent, and found workarounds for all the objective criteria that were developed to block such caches.

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We have taking a few years off from Geocaching only to return to Log only caches placed every .10 a mile in bushes for numbers.

Dunno where you're looking, but I've cached in several states and a few countries, and I've only seen tightly placed caches a few times, and they've never gotten in my way, so perhaps your sample size is too small.

 

This is not what Geocaching started out to be. When we started it was to bring hunters to a location interesting or a nice view.

So I've been told. Apparently geocaching started out to be some minor addition to hiking. It's grown way beyond that, into its own thing, and, as much as I like hiking, I say thank goodness it has. There are only so many places you can put hiking caches.

 

Shame on Groundspeak and the approvers for letting this get out of the scope and sprit of the hunt.

Oh, nonsense. GS doesn't plant caches or determine the "spirit of the hunt". They can try to direct things as much as they want, but they can't force people to plant power trails, and they certainly don't force anyone to do power trails. There are plenty of good caches out there, way more -- way more -- than there were 10 years ago. Anyone that complains now is forgetting what it was like to wait a month for the next geocache to be planted in your area. If you only liked geocaching because of the hikes and views, I dare say that in most areas, you still have many more caches of the type you enjoy today than you did back in those golden days, it's just that there's an order of magnitude more caches of other types that -- I gather -- you'll want to ignore.

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dprovan Well said.

Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy dusting off my old gps and getting out again. I was just surprised/saddened at the quantity of log only caches in our area so close together that could have easily supported a regular cache. I wish I could post a picture of the cache over lay around here.

It's nuts.

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You do seem to have a lot of trails of caches very close together. Many along dirt roads.

 

I'm sure there are caches nearby of the type you would like, but it may take some searching the maps or filtering PQs by size and D/T to find them.

 

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That's what I'm talking about. Most of those on the map are log only in desert fields. They use to be down on power caching trails back in the day. I guess power caching towns are ok now days. Trust me there is nothing interesting about the area they are hidden in. Years ago we did probably one of the first real power caching trails that was a hike in difficult terrain hidden by different cachers with different styles that was quite enjoyable.

Edited by GarminArmin
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There are plenty of good caches out there, way more -- way more -- than there were 10 years ago. Anyone that complains now is forgetting what it was like to wait a month for the next geocache to be planted in your area. If you only liked geocaching because of the hikes and views, I dare say that in most areas, you still have many more caches of the type you enjoy today than you did back in those golden days, it's just that there's an order of magnitude more caches of other types that -- I gather -- you'll want to ignore.

 

10 years ago I did not have to wait a month for the next geocache - that happened back in 2003 and early 2004.

There are now certainly more good caches when good comprises all sorts of caches people might enjoy. For example there are many more gadget caches and caches with special containers now.

There are fewer hiking multi caches however up to the extent that they do not exist in some areas - they have been replaced by series of many caches (I call them powertrails, you will probably not call them powertrails) hidden by the same cacher at the same day which get visited in one run and all caches get typically the same log entries, so do all intermediary caches which existed previously. Also caches along the way that get missing are routinely logged as finds nevertheless (that's also what the owners of these series typically suggest to do).

 

There are many areas which I visit only occasionally or have not been there at all for geocaching and even then I hardly can find caches that appeal to me which demonstrates that what you write above is not true in general - it might be true in your area. It's however pretty much obvious that areas where hiking multi caches have never been very numerous have suffered less from the removal of the no powertrail rule. Many years ago a Swiss reviewer even went that far that he required caches of the same owner hidden at the same day to be at least 1km apart and also limited in number - otherwise he required to set things up as a multi cache.

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Single biggest mistake.

 

I said that in, I think it was late 2009 when GS changed the guideline that Keystone mentions (Don't place a cache every 600' just because you can). Although the ET trail was placed in 2011 it wasn't the first power trail. The area just outside of Denver was the first to get strings of caches all placed at the same time and became a destination for a few that want to get a number of caches in a day that was rarely seen. A short time after that the Trial of the Gods trail (800' caches, if I recall) was created. After it was subsequently archived, the ET trail was created. It was after that that things really started to change. With a 1500' cache trail as justification, 100-200' (and more) caches trails started to spring up all over the place. Prior to the guideline change, someone might put 3-4 caches new caches in a park in spots that had the best views, or interesting features, but now that park will be completely saturated with caches intended to be quickly found so that others could find as many caches as possible by going to that park. If a new rail trail opened up, instead of a few caches at the best locations along the trail, the trail was saturated from end to end with locations, not because they were the "best" spots along the trail, but based on the proximity of the nearest film can or pill bottle they had previously placed.

 

In the monkey see, monkey do world that is common in geocaching, creating 50-100 strings of caches became that "standard" for cache placement rather than 5-8 "quality" hides. For those that bought into the numbers mentality, where the find count became a score it was easy to say "it's not hurting anyone". For those that still wanted quality hides, where some thought was put into creating a unique experience, there were fewer and fewer places they could go because large swaths of real estate were taken up by caches placed for no other reason than to increase find counts.

 

 

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I'm not going to be trolled into a debate approver/reviewer thing.

Great, stop posting then. You started the thread. Perhaps instead spend some time reading about how the game has changed in your absence, including the current roles of Community Volunteer Reviewers.

And why would we direct our anger towards the hider if your So called "reviewers" are "approving" crap hides like these. 527' from each other (Power trails)(numbers).

I can't order a cache hider to go out and only hide the types of caches that I like to find (which may be different from what you like to find). The hiders create the caches. If they meet the listing guidelines then I am obligated to publish them, otherwise there would be forum threads claiming that I'm making up my own rules.

 

You should consider asking for the cache saturation guideline to be increased from 528 feet to a quarter mile between caches, and to prohibit any one hider from placing more than 10 caches in a given park or along a given trail or road. See what the community thinks about such a proposal. Once those standards are adopted, I will review to those standards and only publish caches that meet them.

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Single biggest mistake.

 

I said that in, I think it was late 2009 when GS changed the guideline that Keystone mentions (Don't place a cache every 600' just because you can). Although the ET trail was placed in 2011 it wasn't the first power trail. The area just outside of Denver was the first to get strings of caches all placed at the same time and became a destination for a few that want to get a number of caches in a day that was rarely seen. A short time after that the Trial of the Gods trail (800' caches, if I recall) was created. After it was subsequently archived, the ET trail was created. It was after that that things really started to change. With a 1500' cache trail as justification, 100-200' (and more) caches trails started to spring up all over the place. Prior to the guideline change, someone might put 3-4 caches new caches in a park in spots that had the best views, or interesting features, but now that park will be completely saturated with caches intended to be quickly found so that others could find as many caches as possible by going to that park. If a new rail trail opened up, instead of a few caches at the best locations along the trail, the trail was saturated from end to end with locations, not because they were the "best" spots along the trail, but based on the proximity of the nearest film can or pill bottle they had previously placed.

 

In the monkey see, monkey do world that is common in geocaching, creating 50-100 strings of caches became that "standard" for cache placement rather than 5-8 "quality" hides. For those that bought into the numbers mentality, where the find count became a score it was easy to say "it's not hurting anyone". For those that still wanted quality hides, where some thought was put into creating a unique experience, there were fewer and fewer places they could go because large swaths of real estate were taken up by caches placed for no other reason than to increase find counts.

 

 

Yep. The ET trail was the tipping point.

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For those that still wanted quality hides, where some thought was put into creating a unique experience, there were fewer and fewer places they could go because large swaths of real estate were taken up by caches placed for no other reason than to increase find counts.

 

 

And it's impossible to filter for, or sift through all the chaff for those few containers.

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I'm not going to be trolled into a debate approver/reviewer thing.

Great, stop posting then. You started the thread. Perhaps instead spend some time reading about how the game has changed in your absence, including the current roles of Community Volunteer Reviewers.

And why would we direct our anger towards the hider if your So called "reviewers" are "approving" crap hides like these. 527' from each other (Power trails)(numbers).

I can't order a cache hider to go out and only hide the types of caches that I like to find (which may be different from what you like to find). The hiders create the caches. If they meet the listing guidelines then I am obligated to publish them, otherwise there would be forum threads claiming that I'm making up my own rules.

 

You should consider asking for the cache saturation guideline to be increased from 528 feet to a quarter mile between caches, and to prohibit any one hider from placing more than 10 caches in a given park or along a given trail or road. See what the community thinks about such a proposal. Once those standards are adopted, I will review to those standards and only publish caches that meet them.

 

It strikes me that it's similar to government. We could get rid of laws and regulations and the government could say, don't blame us, blame the criminals.

 

Human nature has to be taken into consideration. For some reason we like to devolve. We have to be saved from our primal instincts sometimes.

 

P.S. I thought the reviewers got the PT rule removed because they didn't like all the hounding. Can't blame reviewers for not liking the abuse they were getting, but it wasn't a good idea to give in to the people that wanted to turn the hobby/pastime into a numbers game.

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I can agree that there are too many crappily placed caches. However, nice scenery and a special place to visit can include areas not in the deep woods. Now, I only learned about geocaching in 2006 and learned a little about it but didn't start playing until about 2 years ago. I wish I could understand what the long-time geocachers saw but I hear stories and it does sound like there was more appreciation and eloquence within the community and probably because it was a much smaller community. Those who loved the outdoors would be the ones out there hunting for a cache. Nowadays there are geocaches that are placed for those who don't like putting on a pair of hiking boots. Is that so bad? There are many cool/ interesting places to visit with micro containers hidden nearby. They may not offer the pleasant walk in the woods or the sounds of the rusty ammo can opening to a notebook full of personally written stories...but might have some nice history or bring people to a neat urban area. I think the problem comes with the inablitiy to control the greater amounts of people that don't have the same appreciation for geocaching and don't exactly follow the rules provided by Groundspeak. Because these people don't rehide caches well or even sign logs, or trade fairly etc, it seems SOME of the owners, not all, get frustrated with having to keep replacing until the containers are not as nice. I wouldn't blame Groundspeak too much because they have done what they can to accommodate the newcomers and this included changing a lot about the game. Reviewers can't always tell what's going to be a crappy hide unless they were to personally go out and check for themselves( although the "reviewer note" could give them more info but people can always lie) In many cases, almost ANYONE can hide a cache even if they never found a cache. All they have to do is meet the .10 mile guideline and skim over some of the other rules. So those newer cachers that have found crappy made/placed caches? Well they can also become the ones placing them too. It's a bad cycle. I recently saw a newer cacher hide a tin can on top of a metal vent sticking out of a building ....Basically in plain sight for anyone to stop by and throw it away thinking it was a piece of trash.

Powertrails aren't such a bad thing if they're good hides because I think it's kinda fun to go for a long bike ride and look for a few caches on the way.However, a half taped pill bottle with a moldy log thrown into the side of the road isn't fun to find....

All I can say is, I hope you keep playing and finding geocaches! There are still great ones out there that offer those great views and adventures. Plus, it's good to hear from older geocachers and get help, advice, whatever you want to call it, from them so we can keep this game amazing and be reminded that it's not about the numbers.

Edited by candlestick
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You should consider asking for the cache saturation guideline to be increased from 528 feet to a quarter mile between caches, and to prohibit any one hider from placing more than 10 caches in a given park or along a given trail or road. See what the community thinks about such a proposal. Once those standards are adopted, I will review to those standards and only publish caches that meet them.

 

Sounds like a good proposal to me,, Where do i register to vote? ;)

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P.S. I thought the reviewers got the PT rule removed because they didn't like all the hounding. Can't blame reviewers for not liking the abuse they were getting, but it wasn't a good idea to give in to the people that wanted to turn the hobby/pastime into a numbers game.

I think a big factor was that the sneaky found ways around the rule. And when some made the cut and others didn't it caused a lot more headaches. If there's a single objective standard, rather than an arbitrary term ('power trail'), then it's a lot less frustration just abiding by the rule and not attempting to subjectively judge the term. If GS had kept the "no power trail" rule, I'm sure there would still be what many qualify as power trails; and the headaches would still be around.

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We have taking a few years off from Geocaching only to return to Log only caches placed every .10 a mile in bushes for numbers.

This is not what Geocaching started out to be. When we started it was to bring hunters to a location interesting or a nice view.

For us, it seemed once this hobby turned into a game (games require "points" and usually stats), awesome views and unique locations kinda took a backseat to, "a cache every 600 feet just because you can".

 

We still cache, just that we don't cache near as often, and travel further to do it.

There's a buncha multis not finished (missing stages/high terrain), and we now wait for at least another close-by to warrant the extra time/fuel needed to finish 'em. :)

 

We usually remind folks grumbling that they could lead by example, placing caches they'd like to find.

If one starts out placing low D/T hides, it's kinda tough to complain when others follow suit.

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P.S. I thought the reviewers got the PT rule removed because they didn't like all the hounding. Can't blame reviewers for not liking the abuse they were getting, but it wasn't a good idea to give in to the people that wanted to turn the hobby/pastime into a numbers game.

I think a big factor was that the sneaky found ways around the rule. And when some made the cut and others didn't it caused a lot more headaches. If there's a single objective standard, rather than an arbitrary term ('power trail'), then it's a lot less frustration just abiding by the rule and not attempting to subjectively judge the term. If GS had kept the "no power trail" rule, I'm sure there would still be what many qualify as power trails; and the headaches would still be around.

 

In the Golden Horseshoe area I don't recall any hides getting published that circumvented the PT rule back before it was lifted. But I imagine the reviewers had to say no to a lot of people trying to circumvent those rules or getting angry when they were told it had to be a multi.

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We have taking a few years off from Geocaching only to return to Log only caches placed every .10 a mile in bushes for numbers.

This is not what Geocaching started out to be. When we started it was to bring hunters to a location interesting or a nice view.

Shame on Groundspeak and the approvers for letting this get out of the scope and sprit of the hunt.

So I guess if I understand your post correctly, what you're advocating is some sort of unwritten (aka secret), policy/guideline, that institutes some quality standard (aka Wow! factor).

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dprovan Well said.

Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy dusting off my old gps and getting out again. I was just surprised/saddened at the quantity of log only caches in our area so close together that could have easily supported a regular cache. I wish I could post a picture of the cache over lay around here.

It's nuts.

Well, at least it demonstrates to you quite clearly how much geocaching missed you while you were gone and weren't hiding those regular caches out where they can't fit any longer.

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We have taking a few years off from Geocaching only to return to Log only caches placed every .10 a mile in bushes for numbers.

This is not what Geocaching started out to be. When we started it was to bring hunters to a location interesting or a nice view.

Shame on Groundspeak and the approvers for letting this get out of the scope and sprit of the hunt.

 

I can imagine what a difference it would make to step away and come back for a while.

 

Your area may be a bit different, but what I find here is that there are still lots of the geocaches I have always loved to find (there may even be more), but I have to put in more effort to filter for them. The less interesting caches are often in places that wouldn't have had caches at all, before. When we do go after the caches that have less to offer in terms of placement or creativity, we find other ways to make them fun. Maybe we challenge ourselves to grab them before dark, or see if we can spot them from the car. Kind of silly, but at least adds a layer of goofiness to caches that are otherwise unremarkable.

 

It's been said already, but I just want to put a word in for the reviewers. They're here to make sure caches meet the publication guidelines, which allow for a considerable amount of variety. They don't judge the quality of the cache or the place it's hidden.

 

Regardless of the hide, so much of the fun in this game is about the finder's attitude. The coolest cache can be a bad experience if I'm feeling grumpy and miserable because of the weather or something, and really uninteresting caches can become quite memorable if they're done in the right company. If you go into this game expecting everyone to cater to a particular set of tastes, it's bound to be disappointing.

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It strikes me that it's similar to government. We could get rid of laws and regulations and the government could say, don't blame us, blame the criminals.

Are you seriously saying it's criminal to hide a cache where there isn't one simply because you don't like the cache?

 

The better analogy would be that the proposed solutions are like the government passing a law restricting how close together coffee shops can be. People that don't like coffee shops would get a smug satisfaction but would otherwise be unaffected, but the people that go to coffee shops would have to walk twice as far and wait four times as long for their coffee.

 

Human nature has to be taken into consideration. For some reason we like to devolve. We have to be saved from our primal instincts sometimes.

Rather than presume your negative view of human nature, I prefer to expect that individuals will step up and make things the way they want. Forcing one particular view on a community seldom works, anyway, yet it's always a sure source of friction when the proscribed values differ from the community's actual values.

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Gee, welcome back. <_<

 

We're no longer called "approvers" - that went out more than ten years ago. We're "Reviewers" who "Publish" caches submitted by community members.

 

If I only published caches that I approved of, I would publish a whole lot fewer caches.

 

Reviewers used to have discretion to stop power trails from forming. The wailing from the cache owners was overwhelming, and eventually the cache saturation guideline was modified. If it's 529 feet from the nearest cache, and meets all the other guidelines, I have to publish it. (But if it's at 527, I don't give as many exceptions like I used to!)

 

Kindly direct your anger towards the cache hiders in your area.

 

I'm not going to be trolled into a debate approver/reviewer thing. Point being we went out recently for a few caches after a long layoff and were greatly disappointed on the placement and quality found.

And why would we direct our anger towards the hider if your So called "reviewers" are "approving" crap hides like these. 527' from each other (Power trails)(numbers).

Groundspeak and company has let it get out of hand for the numbers which don't mean anything if I can get a find a so called cache every 527' Edited to add that we use to get excited back in the early days when a cache popped up and we had to drive a few miles to start a nice hike just to find it. It wasn't a log only cache but a Real cache placed with care. Seems now days a cacher is driving in a 4X4 and tossing a film canisters out their window into a bushes and marking it as a cache hide.

 

There are over 10,000 caches in the Twin Cities metro area and yet somehow I still found a nice county park to hike in last weekend. I hiked about four miles and only scored 4 caches. Yes, there is garbage out there. But others have said, your kind of geocaching still exists.

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For those that still wanted quality hides, where some thought was put into creating a unique experience, there were fewer and fewer places they could go because large swaths of real estate were taken up by caches placed for no other reason than to increase find counts.

 

 

And it's impossible to filter for, or sift through all the chaff for those few containers.

 

I disagree. Good caches get favorite points, and it's easy to sort for those. I've also found that most power trail caches are micros, and it's pretty easy to shake those out of a pocket query. Or use GSAK, filter for the power trail caches (I've yet to find one that doesn't have some identifying character combination, like "ET Highway"), and then put them all on your ignore list.

 

My point is, there are plenty of options for filtering out the chaff.

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10 years ago I did not have to wait a month for the next geocache - that happened back in 2003 and early 2004.

I stand corrected, although I also feel vindicated: I thought I might be exaggerating about the month wait, so it's good to know I was right about that and simply not accurate enough about when.

 

There are fewer hiking multi caches however up to the extent that they do not exist in some areas - they have been replaced by series of many caches (I call them powertrails, you will probably not call them powertrails) hidden by the same cacher at the same day which get visited in one run and all caches get typically the same log entries, so do all intermediary caches which existed previously. Also caches along the way that get missing are routinely logged as finds nevertheless (that's also what the owners of these series typically suggest to do).

While the hiking caches certainly sound more interesting to me than an unmaintained series, I have a hard time justifying giving one priority over the other. As bland as you make the series sound, I see no reason to think the series should be prevented in the hopes that something better would be planted in that area. If something better was likely to be there, why wouldn't it already be there before the space was taken up by the series?

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While the hiking caches certainly sound more interesting to me than an unmaintained series, I have a hard time justifying giving one priority over the other. As bland as you make the series sound, I see no reason to think the series should be prevented in the hopes that something better would be planted in that area. If something better was likely to be there, why wouldn't it already be there before the space was taken up by the series?

 

It's a question of personal preference and not of being better or worse in an objective manner. Unmaintained caches can be of any type though it increases the likelyhood that something needs to be fixed if there are many containers. I wrote about changes and not about preventing anything. The time when cache series like they are known today were not published were good for cachers like me and less good for those with other preferences.

The focus on stats has increased enormously and has changed the scene a lot. It's easy to hand out a FP for the bonus of a series of 10 caches as the series creates that FP and it's also typically what the cachers around here do when most of them hand out a FP to one of the caches of such a series (sometimes more for a larger series). None of the individual caches would get a comparable number of FPs if there were not the other ones around.

Forget FPs to sort out caches of interest when you have preferences that differ from the mainstream.

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For an understanding of what has happened in geocaching, think about Gresham's Law for a few minutes.

Gresham's law is a monetary principle stating that "bad money drives out good." In currency valuation, Gresham's Law states that if a new coin ("bad money") is assigned the same face value as an older coin containing a higher amount of precious metal ("good money"), then the new coin will be used in circulation while the old coin will be hoarded and will disappear from circulation.

 

A P&G roadside micro has the same value (one smilie) in the game as an eight stage multi through a forest, or a single stage half mile walk in the woods, etc. Since Groundspeak makes no attempt to maintain quality, the only measure of value is the smilie, (AKA the Find). Folk who care about placing or finding quality caches can do so by expending more effort (sorting through the power trails and guard rails) to find the stuff they want, but you have to hunt for them as they are more rare and are being added at a much slower pace. (It takes little effort to place a nano on a sign post; it takes considerable time and effort to create, place and maintain a quality cache)

 

Now some folks say "it's all good" and it's just a matter of taste and nothing has really changed, there's just more of it. Think about that for a while, too...

edexter

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I disagree. Good caches get favorite points, and it's easy to sort for those.

 

The issue is just that "good" is subjective.

I often find caches which end up with many FPs and a high rate of FPs that I would not recommend to Lone.R. Most of them are specially assembled containers which probe that the owners are very skillful but there is only space for a log sheet and nothing more even though the object itself is often larger.

 

Also compare these two caches

 

https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC1VF3J_hoch?guid=ee0cb471-feb3-48a2-819d-024355bd9ba3

and

https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC6XDFE_lego-minimalism?guid=ed45d8b0-0e99-484a-a9af-9b3f23781878

(The latter would have a 100% FP ratio right now if it were not for one cacher who does not give out FPs)

 

The first matches my preferences well, the second is not what appeals to me.

Edited by cezanne
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I was just surprised/saddened at the quantity of log only caches in our area so close together that could have easily supported a regular cache.

 

I agree that this has been one of my pet peeves/frustrations as well. When I find a whole grouping (or powertrail) of micros using up some nice locations that could easily support larger or higher quality hides, it bugs me a little.

 

I think the problem comes with the inablitiy to control the greater amounts of people that don't have the same appreciation for geocaching and don't exactly follow the rules provided by Groundspeak. Because these people don't rehide caches well or even sign logs, or trade fairly etc, it seems SOME of the owners, not all, get frustrated with having to keep replacing until the containers are not as nice.

 

I imagine that some of the cache owners hide micros for this very reason. Too many finders who don't respect the rules and appreciate the work that was put into a quality cache - so the cache gets vandalized or stolen, damaged, looted. Eventually the hiders get tired of spending their own time and money replacing expensive containers, filling them with nice SWAG,etc. So they just hide cheap micros instead.

 

And, there are many threads on this topic... much of this was brought on by the free phone apps which have made it so much easier for everybody to try caching.

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I disagree. Good caches get favorite points, and it's easy to sort for those.

 

The issue is just that "good" is subjective.

I often find caches which end up with many FPs and a high rate of FPs that I would not recommend to Lone.R. Most of them are specially assembled containers which probe that the owners are very skillful but there is only space for a log sheet and nothing more even though the object itself is often larger.

 

Also compare these two caches

 

https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC1VF3J_hoch?guid=ee0cb471-feb3-48a2-819d-024355bd9ba3

and

https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC6XDFE_lego-minimalism?guid=ed45d8b0-0e99-484a-a9af-9b3f23781878

(The latter would have a 100% FP ratio right now if it were not for one cacher who does not give out FPs)

 

The first matches my preferences well, the second is not what appeals to me.

 

My point is that Lone.R said it was "impossible" to find good caches. Would you agree that favorite points, while not 100% accurate, are a potential indicator of quality, and thus it is not "impossible" to find good caches?

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My point is that Lone.R said it was "impossible" to find good caches. Would you agree that favorite points, while not 100% accurate, are a potential indicator of quality, and thus it is not "impossible" to find good caches?

 

For some people they are an indicator that works reasonably well. For others they are not usable as indicator as caches they would enjoy get hardly any FPs while they would not enjoy the majority of caches with many FPs.

So let's rephrase what Lone.R meant. In her area it is very difficult for her to find what she likes among the huge amounts of what she does not like.

 

The example I made above was not to provide you with one counterexample where FPs would lead me to the wrong conclusion - it was meant as an example for the general picture for me. FPs are not a reasonable indicator in my area for me or sometimes they rather are an indicator of "be careful, you probably will not enjoy the cache".

Edited by cezanne
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For those that still wanted quality hides, where some thought was put into creating a unique experience, there were fewer and fewer places they could go because large swaths of real estate were taken up by caches placed for no other reason than to increase find counts.

 

 

And it's impossible to filter for, or sift through all the chaff for those few containers.

 

I disagree. Good caches get favorite points, and it's easy to sort for those. I've also found that most power trail caches are micros, and it's pretty easy to shake those out of a pocket query. Or use GSAK, filter for the power trail caches (I've yet to find one that doesn't have some identifying character combination, like "ET Highway"), and then put them all on your ignore list.

 

My point is, there are plenty of options for filtering out the chaff.

 

Favourite points don't work anymore. They are too old. 5 FPs on a cache could have been earned 2 years ago, but since then the cache has gone to waste, no maintenance, maybe a micro throwdown has replaced it. You can't tell from the logs if the cache is still worth visiting. Maybe if we could get a bar graph showing when those FPs were earned, it would be a useful indication of how good a cache is now.

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My point is that Lone.R said it was "impossible" to find good caches. Would you agree that favorite points, while not 100% accurate, are a potential indicator of quality, and thus it is not "impossible" to find good caches?

 

For some people they are an indicator that works reasonably well. For others they are not usable as indicator as caches they would enjoy get hardly any FPs while they would not enjoy the majority of caches with many FPs.

So let's rephrase what Lone.R meant. In her area it is very difficult for her to find what she likes among the huge amounts of what she does not like.

.

 

True. I don't want to find a moldy mess. I'd like to find a swag size cache that uses a good quality container that is maintained by the owner whenever anyone reports a problem. You can't filter for that.

 

I'd like a nice walk on a forest trail or pleasant nature space, with my dog. Surprisingly well-maintained authentic Lock & Locks hidden under a log in a pleasant part of a forest tract rarely gets an FP.

 

When I filter out micros it means I don't enjoy log-only caches. So I don't want to visit a cache listed as small to find a film canister, or a pill bottle. I don't want to find something screwed or drilled in to a tree or utility pole or trail marker or fence (those get a LOT of FPs).

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(The latter would have a 100% FP ratio right now if it were not for one cacher who does not give out FPs)

 

Math is not my strongest subject, but it appears you've made a mistake:

 

29f80fd3-d195-47ce-8419-48f8a7b598aa.jpg

 

4210d9cb-27b2-4757-bf26-597539ba313d.jpg

 

Only Premium Members can award favorite points. 13 out of 14 PMs favored the cache. The one basic member with a find on the cache is the cited poster.

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we use to get excited back in the early days when a cache popped up and we had to drive a few miles to start a nice hike just to find it. It wasn't a log only cache but a Real cache placed with care.

 

I wonder if, should you search them out, you would still find some real caches placed with care a gew miles drive away? It's just that the intervening miles, which would have been empty back in your day, now have lots of "log only" caches. In which case the quality you long for might still be there but you just need to put in the effort to search them out.

 

Doing a search based on size, D/T, favourite points, and discarding obvious power trails, might give you what you're looking for.

Edited by MartyBartfast
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I disagree. Good caches get favorite points, and it's easy to sort for those. I've also found that most power trail caches are micros, and it's pretty easy to shake those out of a pocket query. Or use GSAK, filter for the power trail caches (I've yet to find one that doesn't have some identifying character combination, like "ET Highway"), and then put them all on your ignore list.

 

My point is, there are plenty of options for filtering out the chaff.

 

The local power trail has over 200 caches listed as 'small'. Over 90% of them are micros. That keeps them from being filtered out for micros.

  • Upvote 1
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For those that still wanted quality hides, where some thought was put into creating a unique experience, there were fewer and fewer places they could go because large swaths of real estate were taken up by caches placed for no other reason than to increase find counts.

 

 

And it's impossible to filter for, or sift through all the chaff for those few containers.

 

I disagree. Good caches get favorite points, and it's easy to sort for those. I've also found that most power trail caches are micros, and it's pretty easy to shake those out of a pocket query. Or use GSAK, filter for the power trail caches (I've yet to find one that doesn't have some identifying character combination, like "ET Highway"), and then put them all on your ignore list.

 

My point is, there are plenty of options for filtering out the chaff.

 

Favourite points don't work anymore. They are too old. 5 FPs on a cache could have been earned 2 years ago, but since then the cache has gone to waste, no maintenance, maybe a micro throwdown has replaced it. You can't tell from the logs if the cache is still worth visiting. Maybe if we could get a bar graph showing when those FPs were earned, it would be a useful indication of how good a cache is now.

Really? That's sounds very pessimistic. If the recent logs are along the lines of, "Another fantastic cache. Fortunately the hubby was willing to venture into the dark and get wet. Love this creepy cache. Yes worth another favourite point from me", I'd think there's a fair chance it's in good nick. If they're all just "TFTC" or "another smilie for me", perhaps not, but even then, the absence of a red wrench and any recent OM logs might help decide if it's worth visiting.

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I disagree. Good caches get favorite points, and it's easy to sort for those. I've also found that most power trail caches are micros, and it's pretty easy to shake those out of a pocket query. Or use GSAK, filter for the power trail caches (I've yet to find one that doesn't have some identifying character combination, like "ET Highway"), and then put them all on your ignore list.

 

My point is, there are plenty of options for filtering out the chaff.

 

The local power trail has over 200 caches listed as 'small'. Over 90% of them are micros. That keeps them from being filtered out for micros.

They also list them as unknown to not be filtered out.

 

With regard to the original issue the definition of what should get a favorite point is individual. A couple of years ago at a mega-event and went to a cache that had a large amount of points and it was a micro on a fence post with no redeeming value. I am guessing it is friends trading points.

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we use to get excited back in the early days when a cache popped up and we had to drive a few miles to start a nice hike just to find it. It wasn't a log only cache but a Real cache placed with care.

 

I wonder if, should you search them out, you would still find some real caches placed with care a gew miles drive away? It's just that the intervening miles, which would have been empty back in your day, now have lots of "log only" caches. In which case the quality you long for might still be there but you just need to put in the effort to search them out.

 

Doing a search based on size, D/T, favourite points, and discarding obvious power trails, might give you what you're looking for.

 

It is definitely going to help but it's not working in some areas. Go for a high FP regular size cache and you might find a falling apart cuckoo clock, screwed to a tree, in a garbage strewn corner of park, with a centrifuge tube cache container inserted into a small hole in the warped, moldy clock face.

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