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High numbers cachers--


NanCycle

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I was just looking up some caches that I plan to hunt this weekend and came across this series of logs:

 

Owner Maintenance 08/20/2014

Instead of spending the morning signing logs and adding smileys to my collection, we had to do a maintenance run of our Memory Lane series after a group of NorCal cachers ripped through town and destroyed this whole series. Leapfrogging containers, they placed containers, with the clues in them, in different spots along the road. I had 2 containers that were replaced completely by what looked to be cache containers that were taken from Abunai's Cache a Day series.(and obviously, no hints for the final) At one GZ, we had 2 of my containers in the same spot, neither of which were supposed to be there, and two containers missing completely. (My guess is that they are somewhere out east, now part of another series or cache). To make matters worse, I am hearing about the same issues from other CO's who have had their series demolished by this same group.

This is a complete disrespect of the hard work it takes to place these caches and maintain them, not to mention disrespecting the game of Geocaching.

For all future cachers heading to ANY of my caches.. If you cannot respect my hides, and treat them as asked, then please put me on your ignore list and move along.

 

As for the NorCal group: Please do not come back to Colorado until you can learn respect. You may care about your numbers, but we care about our caches.

 

Write note 08/16/2014

Cant find it when caches GC51CVX an GC51CNH are missing their clues :-(

 

Premium Member 32827 Found it 07/19/2014

The California Cachers having lots of fun exploring the beautiful state of Colorado. Enjoying the great weather and all the nice caches. We have stamped the logs with "X Country Cachers". Really enjoyed the series - we all have our trips down memory lane. Thanks - gets a favorite from me.

 

Premium Member 23724 Found it 07/19/2014

There were eight cachers from California to find these fine Colorado. Thank you for putting them out.

 

Premium Member 23667 Found it 07/19/2014

8 of us from Northern California flew out to cache the new GCCO GeoArt and surrounding area. We have been working on these Puzzles and making plans for weeks, great group effort. We stamped the logs with "X Country Cachers" (includes NAMES REDACTED.) Having a great time chasing after smilies through the state. TFTC

 

Charter Member 106669 Found it 07/19/2014

We spent a week caching in Colorado with a great group of caching buddies from NorCal. All logs were stamped ""X-Country Cachers". Thanks for the fun series.

 

Premium Member 8005 Found it 07/19/2014

We have finished the artwork and are on to more power trails and challenges! There is no shortage here! Kept us busy all day! We are loving Colorado, except for the change in altitude which has left me with a headache most of the time. Many thanks to all the cache owners for so many caches!

 

Premium Member 25483 Found it 07/19/2014

8 of us came from Northern California to have fun caching in Colorado. we signed as the X-country cachers. we had a blast in your great state. thanks

 

I removed all the usernames, but it won't be difficult for anyone to figure out who they were. All are Premium members and even two Charter members. The number between "Premium Member" and "Found it" is the number of finds each has, as of today. The 2 who have not posted logs for this cache yet have 19,723 and 15,270 Smilies respectively .

 

Does anyone want to defend this behavior, which I find abhorrent, or deny that it was their group that destroyed this cache series? (At lease one member of the group is a frequent poster in these forums--over 5000 posts.)

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I have a similar gripe:

 

Mine, however, is toward the middle school teachers and their student cachers who descend on my cache sites in their foul mouthed littering behaviors.

 

Cache containers left unclosed and chewed bubble gum stuffed inside.

 

If ONE MORE APP BASED CLASS, ***(geo-unprepared for responsibility as cachers)***, Geo-Bombs another of my caches, I may archive the whole shee-bang.

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One more reason I do not trust anyone with numbers higher than mine.

I don't trust your response, as your find count is greater than 4022

But yes, I find that some high numbers players are among the least respectful in the game.

It appears to me that most of the blatant unauthorized throwdowns are by high numbers folks.

Of course there are some high numbers folks who are shining stars for excellent standards and ethics.

Offhand I think of MortonFox (Stayfloopy back in the day) and Macatac1961 as high numbers cachers that I try to emulate.

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It doesn't surprise me. Another thing the high-numbers cachers often do is drop throwdowns whenever they can't find a cache instead of posting a DNF log. Now...I'm absolutely not saying they all do that, but it certainly seems to happen more often when the numbers approach or exceed 20,000. I don't know if they got to those numbers by behaving that way or if they feel like having a number than high entitles them to behave that way. Either way it is something I would not tolerate on any of my own caches.

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Do you know that CO personally, or do you know for a fact that this really happened?

 

If it did, I agree it is reprehensible. Some proof would be good though.

 

The owner maintenance log for another one of the caches in the series indicates that something happened and from the sequence of logs, perhaps some conclusions can be drawn:

 

Out fixing the mess left by a group of cachers that came through this summer. All hints for the final are back in play

 

But treat it as a cautionary tale. No need to go further than that.

Edited by geodarts
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Charter Member 106669 Found it 07/19/2014

We spent a week caching in Colorado with a great group of caching buddies from NorCal. All logs were stamped ""X-Country Cachers". Thanks for the fun series.

 

Three guesses who at least one of the cachers is... <_<

Edited by Arthur & Trillian
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But treat it as a cautionary tale. No need to go further than that.

You have more finds than me, which means I don't trust you :D

 

Nor should you. I am also way over 30. However I make some personal exceptions.

 

You both have me beat, and I've been doing this longer. Much longer, in Chrysalides case. I do, however, have more forum posts. Funny though, I'll refer to "high number cachers" on occasion. And I don't consider myself as one, with less than 3,000 finds in over 11 years. Carry on though, reprehensible behavior here. At least from what we've heard so far. :)

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Do you know that CO personally, or do you know for a fact that this really happened?

 

If it did, I agree it is reprehensible. Some proof would be good though.

 

I do not know this CO personally and I have no personal knowledge of what happened. I only know that I read the logs. Anyone can contact the CO and ask them personally.

 

The other thing I heard, and this is just hearsay, is that this group rented 8 cars and drove off in different directions, with just one person actually visiting each cache and stamping it for the group, then all members of the group claiming finds on all the caches.

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Charter Member 106669 Found it 07/19/2014

We spent a week caching in Colorado with a great group of caching buddies from NorCal. All logs were stamped ""X-Country Cachers". Thanks for the fun series.

 

Three guesses who at least one of the cachers is... <_<

 

Yes, this cacher also visited my neck of the woods recently and left a wave of "throwdowns" in his wake. I guess you can't have that many finds with DNF's <_<

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Do you know that CO personally, or do you know for a fact that this really happened?

 

If it did, I agree it is reprehensible. Some proof would be good though.

 

I do not know this CO personally and I have no personal knowledge of what happened. I only know that I read the logs. Anyone can contact the CO and ask them personally.

 

The other thing I heard, and this is just hearsay, is that this group rented 8 cars and drove off in different directions, with just one person actually visiting each cache and stamping it for the group, then all members of the group claiming finds on all the caches.

Why, they are lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut!

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I live in this area and this group recently came to Northeast Colorado and Northwest Kansas in late July to do the GCCO Geoart and some popular caches in Kansas. I'm pretty sure what they did was split up the 1000+ caches among the 8 and all stamped the logs the same and all took credit for the all the "finds".

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The other thing I heard, and this is just hearsay, is that this group rented 8 cars and drove off in different directions, with just one person actually visiting each cache and stamping it for the group, then all members of the group claiming finds on all the caches.

Thought I heard this before.

Sure enough, a search had a few mentions almost identical Oct and Nov last year.

If true, sad.

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One thing for sure, when you find that many caches you're not spending time reading the forums . Maybe for every find you should have to make one post to the forum......but they would post " TFTP " 5000 times using GSAK.

Kind of sad really but I guess in their way they're having fun but I feel sorry for the CO's.

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Does anyone want to defend this behavior, which I find abhorrent, or deny that it was their group that destroyed this cache series? (At lease one member of the group is a frequent poster in these forums--over 5000 posts.)
I find it abhorrent too, and it certainly isn't geocaching. Unfortunately, this isn't the first unwilling cache owner whose caches have been subjected to the three cache monte, and it probably won't be the last as long as the behavior is encouraged by the owners of some numbers run trails. Fools will get the idea that any series of caches is fair game for this kind of vandalism.
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I'm from California and have high numbers and I cached Colorado in June. I only cached part of the GeoArt and was not leapfrogging since I left my vehicles at home. I respected every cache I found and even notified the CO of possible problems happening with the caches like blowing away or finding some are within rows of corn and even waved and said Hi to the farmers. Part of the trip I was with my caching sister from Utah. We traveled and cached our way to Kansas and Mingo.

I know the group that went and from what I heard I would not put the whole group to blame.

Well if you read one of the logs on 07/01/2014

We replaced a couple of the Geoart caches as it was clear that they were missing based on the hints.

For us there were numerous caches where the coordinates were anywhere from 40 to over 100 feet off. Also some of the hints did not coincide. We also found more than one container at some of the sites. There were quit a few caches that were out in the open so either people are not putting them back properly or they are getting blown around by mother nature. But you can't blame mother nature for just shoving the logs in the container Thank you to all the cache owners for placing and maintaining these caches for our enjoyment.

Found multiple containers and the NorCal group haven't even arrived yet.

A group who cached after Norcal said.

Completed this series in 3 days with HiDude_98. What an amazing adventure following the garmin route of finding them. Many times we questioned the method but everything worked out awesome! Great times knocking each cache out. Recent storms made many of either drenched or missing. We replaced over 60 of them. We found a few extras from cachers that had replaced caches that were still present.

There were groups of cachers before and after the NorCal group.

Edited by jellis
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I live in this area and this group recently came to Northeast Colorado and Northwest Kansas in late July to do the GCCO Geoart and some popular caches in Kansas. I'm pretty sure what they did was split up the 1000+ caches among the 8 and all stamped the logs the same and all took credit for the all the "finds".

Some went to Kansas and some didn't because the ones did wanted to get Mingo and the ones that didn't have found it already and didn't want to go.

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A timeless quote from the early days of geocaching, when finding 50 caches in one day got you labeled as an obvious cheater:

Ever notice that anyone that caches less than you do is a moron, while anyone that caches more than you do is a maniac?

Well said. The same principle holds for a lot of things. We make ourselves the benchmark.

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Well if it helps ya out to know this op... nobody really cares about peoples e-manhoods... that is to say I couldn't care less if someone has 50,000 finds under their belt nor do I care if someone has 10,000 posts... and this behavior mentioned... splitting up into groups of 8 to claim a bunch of finds on caches not visited... I don't see the point. I don't go through my logs to see if people signed though so as long as they dont destroy the cache or put down a throwdown I dont care what they do. One of the reasons I tend to keep my hides easy is theres a bit less work maintaining.... that and I prefer to find easy caches myself as I really dont have time while traveling to spend 30 minutes in one spot, much less 60 or 90.

Edited by sholomar
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I know the group that went and from what I heard I would not put the whole group to blame.

 

That's what teamwork is all about. One for all and all for one. Why log as a team if there is no correlation between what the others are doing? Your find log is on the page based on the team name being present but suddenly you don't want to associate yourself with what happened. Someone needs to take responsibility over what occurred, and it seems to certainly be the team. It's rather annoying when experienced cachers behave like noobish teenagers. It should not be a defining factor of high numbers, as there are plenty of other high number cachers that don't do that, and don't want to be known for that.

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I know the group that went and from what I heard I would not put the whole group to blame.

 

That's what teamwork is all about. One for all and all for one. Why log as a team if there is no correlation between what the others are doing? Your find log is on the page based on the team name being present but suddenly you don't want to associate yourself with what happened. Someone needs to take responsibility over what occurred, and it seems to certainly be the team. It's rather annoying when experienced cachers behave like noobish teenagers. It should not be a defining factor of high numbers, as there are plenty of other high number cachers that don't do that, and don't want to be known for that.

Then you should be blaming all cachers who log as Teams not just the NorCal. I mentioned they weren't the only Team out there as they were using group stamps too. To me it may have been some of their fault but I see it as they are pointing fingers just because WHO was in the Team. How do you know it wasn't the Team before them or after them? Did someone go out there as they did it to check or did they wait til after they logged the finds and a few other Teams with through after they did?

It has been mentioned to me that cache containers from a Nevada Power Trails that had specific Logsheets printed up have been found clear across the country. Couldn't be NorCal since they were the ones who placed them in Nevada for a CO to help him out. The remaining containers were left with him for replacements. That is called Teamwork helping other cachers in need.

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I know the group that went and from what I heard I would not put the whole group to blame.

 

That's what teamwork is all about. One for all and all for one. Why log as a team if there is no correlation between what the others are doing? Your find log is on the page based on the team name being present but suddenly you don't want to associate yourself with what happened. Someone needs to take responsibility over what occurred, and it seems to certainly be the team. It's rather annoying when experienced cachers behave like noobish teenagers. It should not be a defining factor of high numbers, as there are plenty of other high number cachers that don't do that, and don't want to be known for that.

Then you should be blaming all cachers who log as Teams not just the NorCal. I mentioned they weren't the only Team out there as they were using group stamps too. To me it may have been some of their fault but I see it as they are pointing fingers just because WHO was in the Team. How do you know it wasn't the Team before them or after them? Did someone go out there as they did it to check or did they wait til after they logged the finds and a few other Teams with through after they did?

It has been mentioned to me that cache containers from a Nevada Power Trails that had specific Logsheets printed up have been found clear across the country. Couldn't be NorCal since they were the ones who placed them in Nevada for a CO to help him out. The remaining containers were left with him for replacements. That is called Teamwork helping other cachers in need.

 

Well now, with all the container switcharoo business going on, along with team logging, nobody really knows what happened? It makes a great case for condemning the entire practice, along with anyone who participates. Somebody did it, and if nobody likes finger pointing they need to all accept responsibility, rather than try to avoid it and pretend it never happened.

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I remember being annoyed in a state on vacation when doing some geoart, I DNFed like 5 caches and then someone from out of the area, without CO permission, replaced them on his/her own and claimed the finds. Was annoying as I got confirmation from the CO they were not there and this person logged them all the day before me or so but its hard to prove they were not there if you have no log to prove it. Either way, yeah, I do find it annoying that some cachers will do whatever it takes to make a log on a cache even if its not there. What is so wrong about a DNF? I have replaced a few containers in my day but I always try to get owner approval either in advance or in rare cases if I think I know the person, after I mention it to them to see if they are cool with it.

 

However, have over 10k finds, so I won't be taken seriously in this and have done over 100 a day twice.

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I know the group that went and from what I heard I would not put the whole group to blame.

Sure, it wasn't the whole group that destroyed each cache, because only 1 of the 8 visited each cache, but there is no way to tell which person was at which cache, and the whole group is taking credit for all the finds, so by extension the whole group gets blamed for all the destruction.

 

There were groups of cachers before and after the NorCal group.

This is true for the GeoArt caches, but not for the Memory Lane caches. The Memory Lane caches have had only individual cachers, or small groups of 2 or 3, who did not leave mass destruction in their wake. (One of the Memory Lane caches seems to have been missing before the NorCal group arrived.)

 

I have no real interest in how these high numbers cachers achieved their high numbers--and maybe I should have chosen a different title for this thread--but I do have a real concern about the cache vandalism involved. That affects me because I also cache in this area from time to time, in fact on July 20 (the day after their logs claim that they were there) I was caching just a few miles to the south of the Memory Lane caches, and these caches are on my list to do tomorrow. I could just as easily have been attempting to do them in July.

 

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I live in this area and this group recently came to Northeast Colorado and Northwest Kansas in late July to do the GCCO Geoart and some popular caches in Kansas. I'm pretty sure what they did was split up the 1000+ caches among the 8 and all stamped the logs the same and all took credit for the all the "finds".

Some went to Kansas and some didn't because the ones did wanted to get Mingo and the ones that didn't have found it already and didn't want to go.

Thank you you just proved my suspicions. All 8 logged some of my caches in Western Kansas...

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I live in this area and this group recently came to Northeast Colorado and Northwest Kansas in late July to do the GCCO Geoart and some popular caches in Kansas. I'm pretty sure what they did was split up the 1000+ caches among the 8 and all stamped the logs the same and all took credit for the all the "finds".

Some went to Kansas and some didn't because the ones did wanted to get Mingo and the ones that didn't have found it already and didn't want to go.

Thank you you just proved my suspicions. All 8 logged some of my caches in Western Kansas...

Not really. Just because they didn't do Mingo doesn't mean they weren't in Kansas. I meant I have no idea where they ALL were all the time.

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Boy I'm glad this isn't a murder trail on the evidence you have. No eye witnesses and plenty reasonable doubt since so many cachers besides the NorCal came through.

 

Who are you talking to? The OP was about the Memory Lane caches and very few other cachers besides the NorCal came through. The thread has expanded to include the GeoArt and other caches. Please be clear what you're referring to.

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I remember being annoyed in a state on vacation when doing some geoart, I DNFed like 5 caches and then someone from out of the area, without CO permission, replaced them on his/her own and claimed the finds. Was annoying as I got confirmation from the CO they were not there and this person logged them all the day before me or so but its hard to prove they were not there if you have no log to prove it. Either way, yeah, I do find it annoying that some cachers will do whatever it takes to make a log on a cache even if its not there. What is so wrong about a DNF? I have replaced a few containers in my day but I always try to get owner approval either in advance or in rare cases if I think I know the person, after I mention it to them to see if they are cool with it.

 

However, have over 10k finds, so I won't be taken seriously in this and have done over 100 a day twice.

 

Oh c'mon. One comment about "I don't trust anyone with more finds than me" made by a person with 9,000 or so finds, if I remember correctly, and a few of us took the ball and ran with it for comedic effect. :P We apparently had leapfrogging going on with caches that had clues to a final in them, and this is inexcusable. So is logging finds for caches you were not physically present at. All "power trails" are not the ET trail, or Route 66, or where ever else people who are into that stuff congregate.

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I remember being annoyed in a state on vacation when doing some geoart, I DNFed like 5 caches and then someone from out of the area, without CO permission, replaced them on his/her own and claimed the finds. Was annoying as I got confirmation from the CO they were not there and this person logged them all the day before me or so but its hard to prove they were not there if you have no log to prove it. Either way, yeah, I do find it annoying that some cachers will do whatever it takes to make a log on a cache even if its not there. What is so wrong about a DNF? I have replaced a few containers in my day but I always try to get owner approval either in advance or in rare cases if I think I know the person, after I mention it to them to see if they are cool with it.

 

However, have over 10k finds, so I won't be taken seriously in this and have done over 100 a day twice.

 

Oh c'mon. One comment about "I don't trust anyone with more finds than me" made by a person with 9,000 or so finds, if I remember correctly, and a few of us took the ball and ran with it for comedic effect. :P We apparently had leapfrogging going on with caches that had clues to a final in them, and this is inexcusable. So is logging finds for caches you were not physically present at. All "power trails" are not the ET trail, or Route 66, or where ever else people who are into that stuff congregate.

 

Was just continuing the sarcasm of high # of finds, nothing more.

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I remember being annoyed in a state on vacation when doing some geoart, I DNFed like 5 caches and then someone from out of the area, without CO permission, replaced them on his/her own and claimed the finds. Was annoying as I got confirmation from the CO they were not there and this person logged them all the day before me or so but its hard to prove they were not there if you have no log to prove it. Either way, yeah, I do find it annoying that some cachers will do whatever it takes to make a log on a cache even if its not there. What is so wrong about a DNF? I have replaced a few containers in my day but I always try to get owner approval either in advance or in rare cases if I think I know the person, after I mention it to them to see if they are cool with it.

 

However, have over 10k finds, so I won't be taken seriously in this and have done over 100 a day twice.

 

Oh c'mon. One comment about "I don't trust anyone with more finds than me" made by a person with 9,000 or so finds, if I remember correctly, and a few of us took the ball and ran with it for comedic effect. :P We apparently had leapfrogging going on with caches that had clues to a final in them, and this is inexcusable. So is logging finds for caches you were not physically present at. All "power trails" are not the ET trail, or Route 66, or where ever else people who are into that stuff congregate.

 

Was just continuing the sarcasm of high # of finds, nothing more.

 

Oh, not a problem. :lol:

 

Hey, in between mine and lamoracke's posts, I looked at this relatively short series amongst power trails. One person, in their copy and paste logs, mentions 8 cachers, but only 6 of them logged this series. So I will come on board with Jellis' thoughts that not everyone is guilty here. I am surprised by one person who DOES show in all the logs for the series referenced in the OP, however, they could very well have been to all caches in this particular series. Then again, there's the whole "splitting up" allegation. :o

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I don't know if the OP follows the Colorado Facebook but the Memory Lane was old news there. They admitted to the tragic mistake by not reading the cache pages because there were so close to other PT runs. An apology was even sent to the CO of that series and responded and posted it on the FB. That does not have to be dragged up again.

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The issue is not numbers cachers but generic cachers. These are cachers who view caches as being generic. Replacing a missing generic cache is not a problem (and may in some case even be good). But in deciding which caches are generic, generic cachers take a risk. The hide might not be generic. Perhaps is is just more difficult. Maybe the CO threw on different cache in in the middle of the power trail just to break it up. Or perhaps that cache in the middle isn't even a part of the powertrail. A CO might even have hints for a bonus or other puzzle hidden in what otherwise appears to be a generic cache.

 

I don't mind generic caches. Sometimes I get vanilla ice cream. I can even understand why the store puts more vanilla in the freezer when the pistachio sold out, I would really prefer they just order more pistachio. :mmraspberry:

 

If geocachers are going to replace missing generic caches, I'd like them to be certain that what they are replacing is really a generic cache. I think this is only possible if they get permission from the owner first.

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I don't know if the OP follows the Colorado Facebook but the Memory Lane was old news there. They admitted to the tragic mistake by not reading the cache pages because there were so close to other PT runs. An apology was even sent to the CO of that series and responded and posted it on the FB. That does not have to be dragged up again.

 

Yes, this does appear to be old news, seeing as the offending logs were posted in July, and the "cleaning up of the mess" occurred in August. So there was obviously some leap frogging going on there? I did not previously believe one of those 6 loggers out of the 8 mentioned in a copy and paste log engaged in, or condoned leapfrogging. :o

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I'm confused here.

 

From what I understand a group of cachers, all with individual accounts, split up and each found a bunch of different caches. They all stamped the logs with a generic one size fits all signature and then everyone claims Smileys for every cache?

 

That can't be right? Surely.

Edited by Gill & Tony
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Not leapfrogging, swapping and that is how they got messed up

 

Leapfrogging and Swaping are not the same thing? Sorry, I guess I'm not a high number cacher. :ph34r: Why in the heck would you be in posession of another cache, and leave it at the location of one?? Don't get me wrong, I've met him and cached with him (for like a good hour and a half on foot on a long trail), and have defended him several times from allegations of cheesiness here. :)

Edited by Mr.Yuck
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