GIN51E asked a question or two a bit back in this thread.
Now if you still say caches being reviewed will not improve overall quality then why are you a reviewer? whats the point in GC.com having guidlines?
The guidelines are there because the owners of Groundspeak Inc., the company that owns geocaching.com have decreed that in order to be listed on that site, caches must meet minimum requirements with regard to maintainability, location (with respect to prohibited places, not scenic beauty), distance from other caches etc. Some of these are in response to local (American) laws with respect to placing caches on city owned property etc, others, like the dropping of movable caches and the restriction on the amount of coordinate "juggling" that can be applied after a cache is listed came from a requirement that all locations be checked to ensure they were not too close to railway lines, schools, under or on bridges, on private property, in shops etc. Descriptions have to be checked to ensure they were not commercial in nature, did not push an agenda, did not solicit, etc.
All this helps to ensure that the company is seen to be a good 'corporate citizen' and reduces the chance of the owners being sued for negligence in the event someone is hurt or killed. Remember, behind the website is a for profit company, not a collection of individuals.
Yes, I know there are disclaimers all over the place saying the listing is the cache owner's responsibility, however it could be argued that the action of reviewing the listings places some responsibity on the listing site.
You might have noticed that the word "approved" has been replaced with either "reviewed" or "listed" in most documents. The above is one of the reasons for the wording chance.
Seeing that all caches listed there have to go through a review process there is a choice of having local reviewers who understand local conditions or an overseas reviewer who may know very little of the country. The local reviewers believe that having someone local is a better proposition for Australian caching.
As if they don't help fix the above concerns then whats the point.
Point of reviewing? Because the company that runs the site want it.
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