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Fast track to approval?


L0weB0ys

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Currently, I am waiting for six caches I hid yesterday to be approved by a reviewer. I intended to have them out last weekend, and I tried, but it turned out that my GPS coordinates weren't accurate, so I had to go back out and collect them and re-hide them once I found a better/more reliable method of recording accurate GPS locations.

 

I specifically hid these because my 8-year-old loves these kid-friendly caches with trinkets/swag/toys to trade, etc. I only see him every other weekend, and I am wanting to go out with him this weekend and let him search for these. Another issue is that the weather is supposed to turn ugly by tomorrow (Saturday) evening, which makes it that much more urgent that we can hopefully knock these out together this evening and early tomorrow before the storm hits.

 

Is there anything I can do to help my caches get approved and put live onto the official map? The first time I submitted my caches, they were approved within a few hours, but then I had to archive them because my coordinates were no good.

 

Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to provide!

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The fact that you submitted them and then archived them quickly likely won't help your cause.

 

If the coordinates were off, you would have been better to disable them, update the coordinates, and then re-enable them.

 

EDIT: I'm only seeing one cache that was published under your username. Are the others under a different account?

Edited by BlackRose67
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These aren't the same caches, though. They are the same containers, but it turned out that the original area I had planned to hide them in was already over-saturated with caches, so I went out and picked them all up and then re-hid them in a different part of town, with different hints, different descriptions, different cache names, etc. Should I have used the original caches and just changed out all the information to match where I re-hid them? I was trying to do things right, but obviously I'm new at this. It was pretty depressing to have to go back out for a 3+ mile hike in the woods to go collect all the containers it had taken me 3 hours to place the day before!

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EDIT: I'm only seeing one cache that was published under your username. Are the others under a different account?

 

The one that was published is the only one that I left out where I had originally hid the lot of them. I went back and collected the other 7, and I rehid them yesterday, in a completely different area of town. Then I submitted new information for all 7 new caches, and those are the ones I'm waiting for to be approved.

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Your caches are happily sitting in the queue waiting for your local reviewer to look at them. In the meantime, please review the Geocache Listing Requirements / Guidelines, specifically the section on saturation and note that it applies to your own caches, too.

 

I'm aware of these rules, and I was conscientious about keeping my caches 0.10 mi apart. I wanted to keep them all in the same area, so they could be done as a "series," but keep them the minimum distance apart as well. I actually screwed up in one instance, because one of my hides ended up being too close to another pre-existing cache, so I could not submit that one, and I have to go back out and move it a few feet to make it "legal."

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I'm aware of these rules, and I was conscientious about keeping my caches 0.10 mi apart. I wanted to keep them all in the same area, so they could be done as a "series," but keep them the minimum distance apart as well. I actually screwed up in one instance, because one of my hides ended up being too close to another pre-existing cache, so I could not submit that one, and I have to go back out and move it a few feet to make it "legal."

While I am not your reviewer, I can tell you not a single one of these is 0.1 miles from the next. It is harder to tell because your caches aren't published but for example, put the coordinates of Don't Fence Me In and Bike Trail Booty into here and it will spit out the distance between them. You will see the problem for yourself.

 

I would suggest checking all of these that way (how close it is to the next closest).

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I'm actually kind of confused, because I was basing my placement on making sure that my waypoints were at least as far apart visually as other existing caches on the official map in the offical app. I find it frustrating that those two are too close together, but I guess I will have to go back out and move one of them. I can't imagine the others are too close together as well, but I didn't enter them in the actual order that I walked the trail, so without my notes (which are not with me), it would be hard for me to go back and check the others to be sure that they are far enough apart, since I don't know which is closest to the next. I guess 1/10 mi. is a a farther distance than it seems like.

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I'm actually kind of confused, because I was basing my placement on making sure that my waypoints were at least as far apart visually as other existing caches on the official map in the offical app.

Which caches? I just looked at the map in that area and I don't see any 2 caches that are closer than 0.12 miles apart.

 

... it would be hard for me to go back and check the others to be sure that they are far enough apart, since I don't know which is closest to the next.

Check your messages on the website or in the geocaching app.

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I'm actually kind of confused, because I was basing my placement on making sure that my waypoints were at least as far apart visually as other existing caches on the official map in the offical app. I find it frustrating that those two are too close together, but I guess I will have to go back out and move one of them. I can't imagine the others are too close together as well, but I didn't enter them in the actual order that I walked the trail, so without my notes (which are not with me), it would be hard for me to go back and check the others to be sure that they are far enough apart, since I don't know which is closest to the next. I guess 1/10 mi. is a a farther distance than it seems like.

 

You measured visually? :unsure:

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Thanks for all the help, guys. I've disabled my caches so as not to waste a reviewer's time, and I am working on figuring out which are too close and how to move them. Sorry to waste your time. :-(

Not a waste at all. Thank you for being open to learning. I've seen others get mad and take their ball and go home in lessor situations. If I'm ever in your area, I hope to be able to look for your caches.

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Thanks for all the help, guys. I've disabled my caches so as not to waste a reviewer's time, and I am working on figuring out which are too close and how to move them. Sorry to waste your time. :-(

I don't consider the time I spent reading and responding to this discussion to be a waste of my time.

 

Don't be discouraged by all of the intricacies of getting a cache published. Check out the help system, look at the proximity checker, and work with your reviewer on getting your caches published. My only suggestion is to start a little smaller, just a single cache. Get familiar with the process and tools, then expand to placing a series.

 

I hope you and your son have many happy years together geocaching. I know that I enjoy getting out with my kids and grandkids. I applaud your taking the time and effort to make it enjoyable for him.

 

Skye.

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Thanks everyone. It is a little discouraging, but I'll get it, eventually. I'm going to have to find a better method of proximity checking. I haven't found that yet. I was relying on just looking at the map and trying to keep mine roughly as far apart as I see existing caches on the map, and that obviously is a terrible method, because mine are way too close together.

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I specifically hid these because my 8-year-old loves these kid-friendly caches with trinkets/swag/toys to trade, etc. I only see him every other weekend, and I am wanting to go out with him this weekend and let him search for these

You've gotten great help in getting them published, but I don't think anyone's pointed out that you and your 8-year-old can go look for them even though they aren't published. After all, you have the coordinates, and, in fact, since you can see the cache pages, you should be able to download them manually. Naturally neither of you could log them on-line until they're published, and I'd be reluctant to claim the finds even after they're published, especially if any of them have to be moved. But presumably logging the find online is a minor part of the fun adventure you've planned.

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I'm not sure how to do this with your phone, but this is the idea of what you need to do:

 

When you set one in place, mark that waypoint. Make sure it is not within .10 miles of any other existing caches.

Then set that as your 'goto' cache, and head down the trail. Make sure you are at least .1 away from that cache before you try to place the next. And when you find a spot, look for nearest others too and make sure there are no others within .1 either.

 

Note that the .1 is 'as the crow flies' and that is what your GPS location will tell you. It may be more than .1 down the trail, depending on how straight (or not straight) the trail is.

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Well, I know the app will pull up a list of all nearby caches and the distances to them (obviously not accounting for any "hidden" ones like mysteries or multi-cache stages). That would be the first step in finding a hiding spot. Next would be submitting a "proximity check" listing with waypoints for all potential hiding spots in case you suspect there might be a mystery cache or physical stage of a multi nearby.

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Well, I know the app will pull up a list of all nearby caches and the distances to them (obviously not accounting for any "hidden" ones like mysteries or multi-cache stages). That would be the first step in finding a hiding spot. Next would be submitting a "proximity check" listing with waypoints for all potential hiding spots in case you suspect there might be a mystery cache or physical stage of a multi nearby.

 

How does one submit a "proximity check"? Is that something you can do from the Android app, or from the website?

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You basically just create a "dummy" listing. Different reviewers may do it different ways, but mine likes them titled "**LZ33 Proximity Check**" (or something like that...LZ33 is his nickname) and I use preferred coordinates, with any additional coordinates listed as waypoints in the listing. Then you just submit it for review as though it were a real cache listing. This brings it to the reviewer's attention and they can see what you are trying to do right away. It will usually go faster for you than trying to email...it does in my case, at least.

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Don't take this the wrong way - have you bitten off more than you can chew at present?? With half a dozen finds, are you ready/prepared to hide this many in one go? I would suggest maybe hiding one cache, get it right, learn the methods involved (measuring distances/proximity etc), then go from there.... And maybe gather experience by finding a lot more caches in the process.... To be honest I can't remember seeing a great hide from someone with only a handful of finds (I'm sure they do exist though), it usually seems to be a mess of bad coordinates and inappropriate containers/locations..... Take your time mate....

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This is a secondary account I created in order to hide some, so that my son can keep using his account with all his finds etc, to find these that I hide. I didn't think that he would be able to log a find if I hid them using our same account.

 

That being said, there is more of learning curve than I anticipated. I think we're getting it down. Just had to figure out some best practices like with anything new. Thanks again for all your help.

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If you're using a smartphone to geocache, and not a dedicated GPS, I can see why you want published caches.

But there are GPS apps you could try.

I have an iPhone and use Free GPS to plug in waypoint coordinates and navigate to the waypoint.

 

I don't think I was clear. I'm suggesting that you hide your caches then use a GPS app like Free GPS to navigate to the cache with your son. You won't be able to log a find but it might be fun anyway. Log them once they are published.

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Well, I know the app will pull up a list of all nearby caches and the distances to them (obviously not accounting for any "hidden" ones like mysteries or multi-cache stages). That would be the first step in finding a hiding spot. Next would be submitting a "proximity check" listing with waypoints for all potential hiding spots in case you suspect there might be a mystery cache or physical stage of a multi nearby.

 

How does one submit a "proximity check"? Is that something you can do from the Android app, or from the website?

Another reason I like using a GPS. I can create waypoints for the caches I drop and I know how far away I am from each one and I can add coords for any existing caches and still know the distance. Only issue would be puzzles and multi.

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Another reason I like using a GPS. I can create waypoints for the caches I drop and I know how far away I am from each one and I can add coords for any existing caches and still know the distance.

 

That's possible with a smartphone too when done in the right manner - it's just that a lot of those who use a smartphone for caching just use the GS app and have hardly any background knowledge.

It's also not true that the accuracy of coordinates taken from a smartphone is necessarily worse - it depends on the smartphone and very much on the user. I have encountered many nice caches with all waypoints spot on (also in difficult reception scenarios) where all these points were taken with a smartphone.

 

What is true is that the less knowledge the user of a smartphone has, the worse the results can get in terms of hiding geocaches - less can go wrong with a dedicated GPS as there are less choices to make which tool should be used for which purpose.

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Thanks everyone. It is a little discouraging, but I'll get it, eventually. I'm going to have to find a better method of proximity checking. I haven't found that yet. I was relying on just looking at the map and trying to keep mine roughly as far apart as I see existing caches on the map, and that obviously is a terrible method, because mine are way too close together.

Finding an acceptable location in a cache-dense area can be challenging. What I do is make sure I have the caches in the area downloaded and showing on the map. When I find a location I like that appears to be an appropriate distance from the others, I select each one at a time and select Navigate. The GPS or App will tell you how far away it is. Check the surrounding caches one at a time and move if any of them say they are less than .1 miles or 528 feet away.

 

Some of the phone apps can be set to show proximity circles on the map display. That REALLY makes it easy to find "clear" areas. Geosphere on iPhone and CacheSense on Android both do this, and perhaps others, too. With a little fiddling, my Garmin GPS will do that, too. If it shows your current position is outside the other's proximity circles, you're good to go.

 

You'll still have trouble if there any hidden puzzle or multi-cache stages in the area, of course.

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This is a great thread- valuable tips & advice- you can't beat that! I'm fairly new to geocaching too-welcome! I'm having mostly successful hides using google maps on my desktop mac. It's has been a huge help with the planning of a cache and double checking my coordinates. I use my desktop computer for this part as I have a dumb-phone....only good for calling a tow truck. In Google Maps plug-in the coordinates of surrounding caches and save those- they'll come up as stars on the map now. Now right click on one of the stars and you'll get a submenu with 'measure distance' as an option. Click that and it will start measuring from that point, then you can save a point on the map where it's safe to place a hide. Once you've saved your spot, plug them into your gps and off you go. I usually give myself some wiggle room of about 30 feet because my garmin GPS is a bit dumb too. Watch out for mystery caches that have hidden final coordinates..I ran into an overlap with two of those and had to solve in a hot hurry so that I could get my caches out there.

 

I think it's really sweet you want to build an adventure in geocaching for your son. You rock!

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