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Are souvenirs a good idea?


Harry Dolphin

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I'm using the new souvenir as inspiration to publish a new one, so folks in the area who have already found the local earthcaches can still get the souvenir. (Whether they do so or not is of course their problem.)

 

I got decent business on our earthcaches last summer due to the souvenir. Whatever helps people understand that geocaching is more than just micros hidden under lamp skirts in Walmart parking lots is a good thing, in my opinion.

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I am not a big earthcache finder, so a souvenir that encourages me to try different things is a Good Thing in my book. Last year, I found an earthcache in Washington State for the Seven Souvenirs of August promotion. I learned something about volcanos from that visit.

 

There are exactly 50 earthcaches within 50 miles of my house. I've found one of them. For this year's souvenir, I will likely seek an earthcache far away from home, where I'm not as familiar with the local geology. To me, that's in the spirit of a "geocaching roadtrip."

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I think this latest marketing bit was thought out enough to cache kinda the way you normally would, and maybe do one you're not comfortable with/don't care for, to grab that souvi.

- A good example is the sorta closest near me for the "10+ favorites" is one I'd normally never touch.

New folks think a "fill the pipe with water" cache is unique I guess...

 

We like Earthcaches, though we have to travel a bit for 'em now.

My other 2/3rds, who has little time herself, said she'd like to get 'em (souvis), but realizes I won't stress myself out over it.

I'm pretty-much (really) only looking forward to the T5, a few I should/could have gotten long before it got so darn hot. :laughing:

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I'm pretty-much (really) only looking forward to the T5, a few I should/could have gotten long before it got so darn hot. :laughing:

 

Think I'm going for a D5 for this. I don't think the El Paso summer will be kind to me if I try for a T5. (It's not like I can get a boat cache round here.)

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I am not motivated by souvenirs, since I look at them only long enough to hide them in my profile. But I am glad that Groundspeak is encouraging people to find caches that are out of the ordinary (T/D 5) and earthcaches.

 

I expect to get the T5 sourvenir - whether asked for or not -- simply because I enjoy kayaking. And I expect to get an earthcache because they (along with virtuals) are the first things that I pay attention to when making any trip -- and there are several ones of interest during a weekend trip we will be making within the time frame.

 

The primary roadtrip that we will be taking, however, will be during the labor day weekend when we will be kayaking out to camp at Paoha Island for a 4.5/5 star earthcache -- assuming that winds and waves are not so strong as to prevent anyone from being on the water without risk to life. I think my wife would draw the limit at that, which is probably a good thing given the dangers involved once the winds hit the lake. That might have taken care of both aspects of the summer challenge except that for some reason Groundspeak ends the road trip promotion a few days before. Isn't summer supposed to last through labor day?

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I’ve noticed an increase in my EC finds during times of souvenirs. I’m sure most cachers see/use souvenirs as an incentive or a challenge. I’m bit baffled by this, given the GS recent stance on Challenge Caches….

 

Their stance is that challenge caches are a huge burden for reviewers and the appeal system. What does that have to do with souvenirs?

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Ah. I received notice that there is a souvenir available Sunday for finding an EarthCache. (Not much time for planning...) Nope. Not going for the one I helped my nephew hide nearby.

That leaves a fairly tough one ten miles north. (At least a half hour driving.)

21 miles south east. Too congested an area.

23 miles west. If I find it worth the effort, that might be the one I'll go for.

As I said in my original post, local EarthCaches: It seems that local EarthCaches should be ignored (and held on hold) until the opportunity for a souvenir exists.

This is really sad! But an EarthCache souvenir is available Sunday. Glad I saved those, but sorry that I had to.

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Ah. I received notice that there is a souvenir available Sunday for finding an EarthCache. (Not much time for planning...) Nope. Not going for the one I helped my nephew hide nearby.

That leaves a fairly tough one ten miles north. (At least a half hour driving.)

21 miles south east. Too congested an area.

23 miles west. If I find it worth the effort, that might be the one I'll go for.

As I said in my original post, local EarthCaches: It seems that local EarthCaches should be ignored (and held on hold) until the opportunity for a souvenir exists.

This is really sad! But an EarthCache souvenir is available Sunday. Glad I saved those, but sorry that I had to.

 

Once again, it falls on Canadian Thanksgiving, making it a little tricky. I'll be going for a drive to get my find.

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I’ve noticed an increase in my EC finds during times of souvenirs. I’m sure most cachers see/use souvenirs as an incentive or a challenge. I’m bit baffled by this, given the GS recent stance on Challenge Caches….

Personally, I take it as both. It is always more to the side of incentive, as I am not achieving something extraordinary, because I see it as a way for everybody to celebrate a "festive" day. I've strived to get all these time related souvenirs, as it is works as a real souvenir: Look, I've been out geocaching to celebrate the International EarthCache Day, and along with me, so have other thousands of geocachers! :smile:

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I’ve noticed an increase in my EC finds during times of souvenirs. I’m sure most cachers see/use souvenirs as an incentive or a challenge. I’m bit baffled by this, given the GS recent stance on Challenge Caches….

Personally, I take it as both. It is always more to the side of incentive, as I am not achieving something extraordinary, because I see it as a way for everybody to celebrate a "festive" day. I've strived to get all these time related souvenirs, as it is works as a real souvenir: Look, I've been out geocaching to celebrate the International EarthCache Day, and along with me, so have other thousands of geocachers! :smile:

 

Yes. And I am ignoring the local EarthCaches, except for getting new souvenirs. On a trip, I will go for them. But I will save the local ones for souvenirs. And that is pathetic.

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I’ve noticed an increase in my EC finds during times of souvenirs. I’m sure most cachers see/use souvenirs as an incentive or a challenge. I’m bit baffled by this, given the GS recent stance on Challenge Caches….

Personally, I take it as both. It is always more to the side of incentive, as I am not achieving something extraordinary, because I see it as a way for everybody to celebrate a "festive" day. I've strived to get all these time related souvenirs, as it is works as a real souvenir: Look, I've been out geocaching to celebrate the International EarthCache Day, and along with me, so have other thousands of geocachers! :smile:

 

Yes. And I am ignoring the local EarthCaches, except for getting new souvenirs. On a trip, I will go for them. But I will save the local ones for souvenirs. And that is pathetic.

 

The souvenir only happens once a year and you only need one to get it. How many do you need to save?

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The souvenir only happens once a year and you only need one to get it. How many do you need to save?

 

Two souvenirs a year: August and Earth Day. There are six between 21 and 27 miles from the Dolphinarium. Only one new one this year. Probably an hour's drive to any of them. Pretty much at the far range of my geocaching. So I think I'll save them for future souvenirs. That covers pretty much all of North Jersey. I do not go into New York City anymore, so ignore anything east of the Hudson River.

I did find one on a vacation the year. 189 miles away, near The Spot.

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There was a new EC published close to me in April and I saved it until EC Day. Although it was only 6 km as the crow flies from my house, it was still a 2 hour round trip. The next closest EC to me is about 45 minutes away. After that there are 4 about 2.5 hours away (in multiple directions) and 3 more 3 hours away. There are a bunch more in the 3 hour range if I head to Calgary, but I avoid cities unless absolutely necessary.

 

I was able to satisfy the requirements of the August souvenir with a CITO.

 

So yes...that EC 45 minutes away from me won't get found anytime soon, even though I drive past the location all the time. I'll be saving it for next summer/fall.

 

For me, I love finding EarthCaches and will always look for them first when I'm travelling. However, around home I find the souvenirs to be a dis-incentive to find them earlier. I am hoping to place a new one or two, but I need to come up with a good location and information first!

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To get to be a Platinum EC Master, I found Earth Caches in 10 states and got 3 published in Oregon. I don't care when you find them but please come find them when you are near.

I found at least 1 cache on 2/29/08 and 2/29/12 so now they want me to attend an event this year for a souvenir? No events are listed for Oregon and I'm not going to CA for it.

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To get to be a Platinum EC Master, I found Earth Caches in 10 states and got 3 published in Oregon. I don't care when you find them but please come find them when you are near.

I found at least 1 cache on 2/29/08 and 2/29/12 so now they want me to attend an event this year for a souvenir? No events are listed for Oregon and I'm not going to CA for it.

 

Host your own and attend it. :anibad:

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To get to be a Platinum EC Master, I found Earth Caches in 10 states and got 3 published in Oregon. I don't care when you find them but please come find them when you are near.

I found at least 1 cache on 2/29/08 and 2/29/12 so now they want me to attend an event this year for a souvenir? No events are listed for Oregon and I'm not going to CA for it.

This coming from someone that has found at LEAST 20 Challenge Listings! Somehow I would have thought that doing that many Challenge's would have made you somewhat numb to jumping through such hoops.

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There was a new EC published close to me in April and I saved it until EC Day. Although it was only 6 km as the crow flies from my house, it was still a 2 hour round trip. The next closest EC to me is about 45 minutes away. After that there are 4 about 2.5 hours away (in multiple directions) and 3 more 3 hours away. There are a bunch more in the 3 hour range if I head to Calgary, but I avoid cities unless absolutely necessary.

 

I was able to satisfy the requirements of the August souvenir with a CITO.

 

So yes...that EC 45 minutes away from me won't get found anytime soon, even though I drive past the location all the time. I'll be saving it for next summer/fall.

 

For me, I love finding EarthCaches and will always look for them first when I'm travelling. However, around home I find the souvenirs to be a dis-incentive to find them earlier. I am hoping to place a new one or two, but I need to come up with a good location and information first!

 

Yup! A new souvenir for finding an EarthCache on October 9. I'm glad I've saved the local ones. Forty within forty-five miles. Some not easy or interesting. And, as I've mentioned before, I won't spend $15 in tolls for the ones on Staten Island, Long Island nor NYC. Glad I've saved the local ones. Yes, I've found some interesting ones trips through Pennsylvania. But I'm not travelling 224 miles for a souvenir!

Find EarthCaches on trips, but save the local ones for the souvenirs. And I still find this sad, and pathetic.

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Yup! A new souvenir for finding an EarthCache on October 9. I'm glad I've saved the local ones. Forty within forty-five miles. Some not easy or interesting. And, as I've mentioned before, I won't spend $15 in tolls for the ones on Staten Island, Long Island nor NYC. Glad I've saved the local ones. Yes, I've found some interesting ones trips through Pennsylvania. But I'm not travelling 224 miles for a souvenir!

Find EarthCaches on trips, but save the local ones for the souvenirs. And I still find this sad, and pathetic.

 

Yes, I still have that EC saved up. I will be out of town on a course on Oct 9, conveniently in a town about 3 hours away where I've never bothered to get off the highway and find the ECs, so I will have a couple to choose from. Otherwise, I would have been visiting family for Thanksgiving in a place where getting away to drive across a city to find an EC would be highly unlikely. Either way, that one about 45 minutes from my house is still getting saved, probably for next year at this point! Might be time to put some effort into hiding another one though...

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Originally this was a good idea, but linking a souvenir to it has screwed up the whole idea.

 

As EC owner, I was already used to having people start logging without effective visiting the ECs.

Answers for the ECs are apparently massively circulating within certain circles.

 

Some do that so clumsy that they log all virtual caches of the world in 1 day. Unless one has supersonic powers, this is of course impossible.

 

The latest fashion this year is to ante and post-date the logs, whether or not they visited the location at all.

 

One does everything in order to have that GIF image on their profile page.

 

If one dares to give a comment about it, one becomes apparently the game breaker (instead of them).

Apparently, the essence of the EC is for them only a side issue or not even interesting at all.

 

This even more unfortunate because, as owner, my EC needs to comply to all kinds of (unwritten) rules. That requires a lot of time and work in order to have an EC published.

After being published, I need to spent a lot of time and work on top in order to check the answers and delete the fake logs.

 

On the other hand, the logger can log condition-less with impunity. Complaints to appeals about the log behavior of certain people are dismissed.

 

As an EC lover, I find this an unfortunate evolution.

Edited by searchjaunt
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Is this what geocaching has become? Chasing souvenirs?

Since around 2010, pretty much for some people. For others it's become chasing numbers in general. And for those of us who are happy to skip the parking lots and power trails and look for beautiful areas to hike and find regular caches in the woods and the like, it's still the same game it was before.

 

It's what you make of it -- if you want something to complain about, you can find it, but if you want to be content, you can find contentment as well.

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Originally this was a good idea, but linking a souvenir to it has screwed up the whole idea.

...

As an EC lover, I find this an unfortunate evolution.

Yes, it's true, stupid people do stupid things. I sympathize with you having to deal with them, and I appreciate that it annoys you when the stupid people use souvenirs to be even stupider than usual.

 

But I was on the other side of the coin yesterday. The souvenir encouraged me to look around for EarthCaches, and that reminded me of series of EarthCaches along a trail up a mountain. For a number of reasons -- including "it's too steep!" -- I had forgotten about them, but they were a perfect way to pick up the souvenir, and we had a great walk. So for people that aren't stupid and don't do stupid things, the souvenirs work exactly as intended. I hope you can find it in your heart to think more about those kinds of people and less about the annoying people abusing the system at your EarthCache's expense. I'm not asking your to not be mad. I'm sure I'd be furious. But I'm suggesting you focus your anger at the perpetrators without letting it spill over on the souvenir system just because it encourages idiots as much as it encourages the rest of us.

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I had 3 new logs from yesterday on 11 of my EarthCaches. Since I only saw 2 logs from all of September, I suppose you could say that was an increase, but it sure doesn't support the idea that hordes of cachers are out there for the souvenirs. However, it might support the contention that some people who don't normally go for EC's might get out and try one. That's a good thing.

I also saw 11 logs from Sunday on my newest EC, but that was because I held an International EC Day event right there. With 19 attendees at the event, and only 11 going for the EC, that doesn't support the idea that most cachers are souvenir driven. (And since I was hosting, I couldn't run out to log an EC, so I did not get a souvenir!! But I had enough fun to make up for that crushing disappointment.)

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I had 3 new logs from yesterday on 11 of my EarthCaches. Since I only saw 2 logs from all of September, I suppose you could say that was an increase, but it sure doesn't support the idea that hordes of cachers are out there for the souvenirs. However, it might support the contention that some people who don't normally go for EC's might get out and try one. That's a good thing.

 

I notice that like dprovan you are from the US. It might well be that the "souvenirmania" plays a greater role in Europe. On each EC day I encounter tons of EC logs where it is evident that they have not been visited on the day of the log just by chance without searching for such logs.

 

In my experience the group of cachers that take the souvenir as motivation to visit an EC just on that very day forms a minority. The majority just feels they need to get the souvenir.

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I was Sunday busy from 9AM till 11PM in responding the souvenir hunters claiming their visit. Since I spent a lot of time and energy in creating the EC, I do the same for the (so-called) visits.

Many don't seem to expect that and aren't happy when they have been exposed as non legit.

But at the end, they win after all - and all work is worthless - since the souvenir isn't deleted together with the log.

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I didn't count all the finds, but I think we got in the neighborhood of 50 logs on the 11 earthcaches that were logged Sunday (so far). Logs were still coming in this morning.

 

edit to add: other than our Naerofjord cache, all those are on earthcaches in the US, and most of the finds were by US cachers.

Edited by hzoi
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I was Sunday busy from 9AM till 11PM in responding the souvenir hunters claiming their visit. Since I spent a lot of time and energy in creating the EC, I do the same for the (so-called) visits.

Many don't seem to expect that and aren't happy when they have been exposed as non legit.

But at the end, they win after all - and all work is worthless - since the souvenir isn't deleted together with the log.

Why do you own caches then?

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[

I was Sunday busy from 9AM till 11PM in responding the souvenir hunters claiming their visit. Since I spent a lot of time and energy in creating the EC, I do the same for the (so-called) visits.

Many don't seem to expect that and aren't happy when they have been exposed as non legit.

But at the end, they win after all - and all work is worthless - since the souvenir isn't deleted together with the log.

 

Why do you own caches then?

 

Wrong question. Why do people fake logs/dates?

 

That's a separate issue, logs have to be reviewed regardless... the awarding of a souvenir is immaterial to the situation.

 

Here is a cache owner essentially complaining about the amount of "work" they spent reviewing log entries for many hours. That's a part of cache ownership...

 

Their secondary objective was to "expose" the "non-legit" logs. That's also a part of cache ownership...

 

Based on tone and word choice there is obviously a little confirmation bias and the cache owner seems to value their responsibilities as "worthless" against not being able to deny someone a souvenir...

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That's a separate issue, logs have to be reviewed regardless... the awarding of a souvenir is immaterial to the situation.

 

Here is a cache owner essentially complaining about the amount of "work" they spent reviewing log entries for many hours. That's a part of cache ownership...

 

Their secondary objective was to "expose" the "non-legit" logs. That's also a part of cache ownership...

 

Based on tone and word choice there is obviously a little confirmation bias and the cache owner seems to value their responsibilities as "worthless" against not being able to deny someone a souvenir...

 

I didn't see it as "complaining" about the work involved in checking logs/answers but more as doing the extra work involved to filter out the logs where people didn't visit the EC.

 

I believe that GS should remove souvenirs if the logs on which they were awarded are proven fake and are deleted. As things are now you could spend a day logging caches for which souvenirs are available and even delete your own logs afterwards and still keep all souvenirs. That makes souvenirs worthless.

 

BTW, I've done (found) one of Searchjaunt's ECs and the answers are not so difficult that founds have to be faked (date or answers) and it was a nice area on top of that.

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I was Sunday busy from 9AM till 11PM in responding the souvenir hunters claiming their visit. Since I spent a lot of time and energy in creating the EC, I do the same for the (so-called) visits.

Many don't seem to expect that and aren't happy when they have been exposed as non legit.

But at the end, they win after all - and all work is worthless - since the souvenir isn't deleted together with the log.

Why do you own caches then?

 

I would guess because he like Earth sciences and likes to teach people about some topics from that area.

 

It's certainly not motivating if x% of the people who log ECs on international EC day have visited the EC site at another date (some years ago) and just log the EC on EC day to obtain the souvenir and if another y% percent obtain the answers from someone else (sometimes even from the cache owner - I encountered some logs of the type "thank you for the present on occasion of EC day" and have not even been at the location (that could even be in a country abroad where that person never has been) and only a minority fraction really visited the EC on EC day.

 

The EC souvenirs have led to the effect that a big bulk of EC logging happens on international EC day while this does not motivate Ec visits that would not happen otherwise in my area. I do not have an issue with occasional Ec logs that are dated with the day the answers are sent if obtaining the answers took time but what happens for EC day when it comes to the souvenir is of a different type. Lots of cachers in my area think one needs to get that souvenir and they do not care what leads them to that goal.

 

Like it's not a nice job to look through homework when you know that the person submitting it just copied it from someone else and put no effort into it (and even more so if you know that the cheater cannot get punished), it's not a nice job for EC owners in certain areas on EC day.

 

I might also add that many EC owners do not respond to answers sent in and that most cachers do not expect them to answer. EC owners which respond with corrections or comments that something is missing are not generally appreciated. Most cachers either prefer no answer or a quick ok as they only care about their find log and not about learning.

Edited by cezanne
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That's a separate issue, logs have to be reviewed regardless... the awarding of a souvenir is immaterial to the situation.

 

Here is a cache owner essentially complaining about the amount of "work" they spent reviewing log entries for many hours. That's a part of cache ownership...

 

Their secondary objective was to "expose" the "non-legit" logs. That's also a part of cache ownership...

 

Based on tone and word choice there is obviously a little confirmation bias and the cache owner seems to value their responsibilities as "worthless" against not being able to deny someone a souvenir...

 

I create ECs because I want to share the geological value of an area. Creating an EC is already a long process, because I want to make sure that the people can learn from it. On top it needs to comply to a lot of (unwritten) rules of the reviewer, which doesn't make it easier. But it gives a good feeling when one can share something where somebody would otherwise walk by.

 

I don't mind the work afterwards at all, in the contrary, as long as the log is legit. After all, the purpose of the IEC day is to put ECs and their geological value in the picture.

 

But the souvenir degrades an EC to an LPC or effortless throw away cache. It's really unimaginable what one does (or tries to do) in order to get that souvenir. Besides the people not understanding what ECs are about or take the time/effort to do it properly, it attracts a lot of cheating (in all it forms). One gets away with it, since the souvenir remains when a non legit logs is deleted.

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I didn't see it as "complaining" about the work involved in checking logs/answers but more as doing the extra work involved to filter out the logs where people didn't visit the EC.

 

I believe that GS should remove souvenirs if the logs on which they were awarded are proven fake and are deleted. As things are now you could spend a day logging caches for which souvenirs are available and even delete your own logs afterwards and still keep all souvenirs. That makes souvenirs worthless.

 

BTW, I've done (found) one of Searchjaunt's ECs and the answers are not so difficult that founds have to be faked (date or answers) and it was a nice area on top of that.

 

I create ECs because I want to share the geological value of an area. Creating an EC is already a long process, because I want to make sure that the people can learn from it. On top it needs to comply to a lot of (unwritten) rules of the reviewer, which doesn't make it easier. But it gives a good feeling when one can share something where somebody would otherwise walk by.

 

I don't mind the work afterwards at all, in the contrary, as long as the log is legit. After all, the purpose of the IEC day is to put ECs and their geological value in the picture.

 

But the souvenir degrades an EC to an LPC or effortless throw away cache. It's really unimaginable what one does (or tries to do) in order to get that souvenir. Besides the people not understanding what ECs are about or take the time/effort to do it properly, it attracts a lot of cheating (in all it forms). One gets away with it, since the souvenir remains when a non legit logs is deleted.

 

If they simply stated "On a souvenir day the number of my EC logs naturally goes up, however there is often an increase of logs that don't pass muster most likely due to the promotion. Therefore souvenirs are bad..." (Correlation does not equal causation?) Most of us here probably would have even have been interested in the raw numbers too (xx logs, yy passed, zz didn't) to appreciate the scale of the problem. My EC (0, 0, 0) so the complete opposite experience.

 

It's complaining when you talk about the time you took to review logs, when you evaluate your time as worthless, and when you ruminate on others "motivations" for a souvenir in relation to your expectations for your cache...

 

It's all a matter of perspective in my view caches should provide an experience. As a CO (or an EC CO) those experiences are designed so that cachers enjoy the area, the cache, the container, and/or may learn something. However, once you publish that experience I have no control over how cachers choose to approach that experience nor what they get out of it.

Edited by MKFmly
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That's a separate issue, logs have to be reviewed regardless... the awarding of a souvenir is immaterial to the situation.

 

Here is a cache owner essentially complaining about the amount of "work" they spent reviewing log entries for many hours. That's a part of cache ownership...

 

Their secondary objective was to "expose" the "non-legit" logs. That's also a part of cache ownership...

 

Based on tone and word choice there is obviously a little confirmation bias and the cache owner seems to value their responsibilities as "worthless" against not being able to deny someone a souvenir...

 

I create ECs because I want to share the geological value of an area. Creating an EC is already a long process, because I want to make sure that the people can learn from it. On top it needs to comply to a lot of (unwritten) rules of the reviewer, which doesn't make it easier. But it gives a good feeling when one can share something where somebody would otherwise walk by.

 

I don't mind the work afterwards at all, in the contrary, as long as the log is legit. After all, the purpose of the IEC day is to put ECs and their geological value in the picture.

 

But the souvenir degrades an EC to an LPC or effortless throw away cache. It's really unimaginable what one does (or tries to do) in order to get that souvenir. Besides the people not understanding what ECs are about or take the time/effort to do it properly, it attracts a lot of cheating (in all it forms). One gets away with it, since the souvenir remains when a non legit logs is deleted.

 

There is still value in creating Earthcaches and maintaining them. Cache owners of all cache types occasionally must deal with poor behaviour from geocachers. Sometimes a souvenir or another promotion increases traffic. Oh well.

 

I have never once looked at the souvenirs on someone else's profile. If someone wants to falsely log my Earthcache, their log is getting deleted. That's it. I don't care if their profile contains a worthless vestige of their dishonesty.

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I have never once looked at the souvenirs on someone else's profile. If someone wants to falsely log my Earthcache, their log is getting deleted. That's it. I don't care if their profile contains a worthless vestige of their dishonesty.

 

For the record: I don't check someone else's profile. I have enough work with answering EC logs.

 

Souvenir not being deleted with the log is a fact, elaborated on multiple times in the forums and Groundspeak doesn't seem to be willing to fix this. People just get away with their misbehaviour and remain rewarded for it.

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I have never once looked at the souvenirs on someone else's profile. If someone wants to falsely log my Earthcache, their log is getting deleted. That's it. I don't care if their profile contains a worthless vestige of their dishonesty.

 

For the record: I don't check someone else's profile. I have enough work with answering EC logs.

 

Souvenir not being deleted with the log is a fact, elaborated on multiple times in the forums and Groundspeak doesn't seem to be willing to fix this. People just get away with their misbehaviour and remain rewarded for it.

 

I didn't dispute that it's a fact. My point is that it's unimportant and not worth the fuss people make over it. Groundspeak will remove an incorrect souvenir from your profile if you ask nicely.

 

The souvenir is only a "reward" if you perceive the souvenir as valuable in any way. It isn't. Its only value is that this petty little person looks at it on their own profile and feels pleased with themselves for being a bad person.

 

Policing other people's profiles and being miserable about it is a fast way to suck any kind of fun out of this game.

Edited by narcissa
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The souvenir is only a "reward" if you perceive the souvenir as valuable in any way. It isn't. Its only value is that this petty little person looks at it on their own profile and feels pleased with themselves for being a bad person.

 

 

A lot of people do find - driven by the marketing by Groundspeak - a souvenir valuable.

The argument has been that it would help discover ECs where one wouldn't do otherwise.

In reality, people are only interested in the specific souvenir and don't care about the IEC day, the EC itself, the geological value of it and the way an EC should be properly visited and logged, as long as they gain that souvenir.

Having said this, my conclusion is that souvenirs devaluate ECs to throw away caches and other LPCs. This is i.m.o. deplorable.

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The souvenir is only a "reward" if you perceive the souvenir as valuable in any way. It isn't. Its only value is that this petty little person looks at it on their own profile and feels pleased with themselves for being a bad person.

 

 

A lot of people do find - driven by the marketing by Groundspeak - a souvenir valuable.

The argument has been that it would help discover ECs where one wouldn't do otherwise.

In reality, people are only interested in the specific souvenir and don't care about the IEC day, the EC itself, the geological value of it and the way an EC should be properly visited and logged, as long as they gain that souvenir.

Having said this, my conclusion is that souvenirs devaluate ECs to throw away caches and other LPCs. This is i.m.o. deplorable.

 

Earthcache owners are still able to remove fraudulent logs when they occur, whether or not the log is related to the souvenir. The fact that the souvenir remains on someone's profile is uninteresting and unimportant.

 

It is always a nuisance when someone tries to log the find without putting in the effort, but managing disappointment and coping with that nuisance is part of our responsibility as Earthcache owners.

 

I don't at all mind souvenirs generating a slight increase in interest in my caches. Most geocachers are good people and fraudulent logging is rare. Flipping out about poor behaviour among a small minority of geocachers is silly when I have the power to delete their logs anyway.

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My point is that it's unimportant and not worth the fuss people make over it. Groundspeak will remove an incorrect souvenir from your profile if you ask nicely.

Let's imagine a bug where whenever you log a find, if there happens to be a cache exactly 1000 miles from it, that other cache gets logged as found, too, and you cannot unlog it as found. That would be something to make a fuss over even if GS will remove the incorrect find if you ask nicely. That's the way I see this. It doesn't make any difference to me who gets what souvenir, but it's still a bug that the souvenir doesn't go away when the mistaken find is deleted.

 

Having said that, I can see that souvenirs are a simple implementation, and that makes it very complicated and, frankly, not worth the effort to fix this problem, so I'm prepared to live with it even as I recognize that it's a bug worthy of talking about.

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My point is that it's unimportant and not worth the fuss people make over it. Groundspeak will remove an incorrect souvenir from your profile if you ask nicely.

Let's imagine a bug where whenever you log a find, if there happens to be a cache exactly 1000 miles from it, that other cache gets logged as found, too, and you cannot unlog it as found. That would be something to make a fuss over even if GS will remove the incorrect find if you ask nicely. That's the way I see this. It doesn't make any difference to me who gets what souvenir, but it's still a bug that the souvenir doesn't go away when the mistaken find is deleted.

 

Having said that, I can see that souvenirs are a simple implementation, and that makes it very complicated and, frankly, not worth the effort to fix this problem, so I'm prepared to live with it even as I recognize that it's a bug worthy of talking about.

 

Imagine a bug where when you log a cache, all of your other finds disappear.

 

That bug would also be completely irrelevant to this topic.

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The fact that the souvenir remains on someone's profile is uninteresting and unimportant.

 

It is important since the souvenir is clearly the only motivation/key driver for them to visit an EC and NOT the EC or IEC day itself. Leaving the souvenir untouched encourages them to maintain this kind of behavior, which is i.m.o. against the philosophy of the IEC day where one celebrates ECs and their geological value.

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The fact that the souvenir remains on someone's profile is uninteresting and unimportant.

 

It is important since the souvenir is clearly the only motivation/key driver for them to visit an EC and NOT the EC or IEC day itself. Leaving the souvenir untouched encourages them to maintain this kind of behavior, which is i.m.o. against the philosophy of the IEC day where one celebrates ECs and their geological value.

 

I simply can't muster up any concern about the exceedingly small fraction of geocachers who are going to falsely log Earthcaches once a year in order to get a picture on their profile that nobody else will ever see. These people are rare and beneath concern. It would be a spiteful overreaction to end something that most participants seem to enjoy in a manner that is fair and respectful.

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