A little perspective on the state of caches...
Posted: 05 November 10 10:26 am
Some idle thoughts for a Friday morning, from an equally idle person.
There’s been a fair bit of moaning for a period of time about the falling quality of caches. And to be honest, I’ve contributed to that – both in the forums and in logs. I’ve noticed myself getting a little disappointed with caches in my local area and being almost immediately suspicious when I see new caches appear, especially by new cachers. I find myself whinging to my spouse about ‘that crap cache’ or beginning to nark on logs about how it should be improved.
And to be honest I’m a little embarrassed with myself about that.
Because in the end, I still enjoy this. (OK – I’m only on 500 or so finds, but still) – And I still go and find the ‘crap’ caches. So I’ve forced myself to reflect on whether it’s all as ‘crap’ as we really go on about, and how much of it is reality and how much is perspective.
First off, yes, I reckon there are more very ordinary caches out there now than when we started. But then, there are way more caches full stop – so of course there will be more bad ones. And with the phone apps we’re seeing a lot more new and casual cachers, so it’s understandable that the dodgy % will increase. But is it really that bad?
I have some vague, unproven theories that perhaps we’ll always feel that things were better ‘in the old days’. Firstly because I think we all were more impressed with hides when we were new. I look back on my early finds and I was thrilled at almost any hide, whereas now I find myself fussier and more critical. “Oh, another sistema crammed in a tree. How unimaginative” , I say - when my first find was such a hide and I was delighted (thanks Geodes!). So it’s not the caches getting worse, it’s my expectations getting higher simpler because I’ve done so many of the same kind. That’s my problem, not the cache hiders responsibility.
I also reckon (again, unproven) that the crap caches come and go, so they are always going to seem to be the ‘newer’ ones. We all see the unimaginative, badly placed micros. But when I see one published I know it’s probably not going to be around for long. It’ll get lost, damaged, and the owner will probably lose interest or just not bother maintaining . In which case eventually (and we won’t go into the archiving discussion here) it will disappear… So in that sense, there’s probably been a fair number of dodgy micros and other caches in the past but since they are no longer around, most of what we see in the past is ‘quality’ caches. Time has cleaned the database of the chaff. I hope that will continue to happen so when we look back at caches placed in 2010 all we’ll see is the better ones. Again, this is perhaps an inevitable process that we just need to accept.
I think the collective criticism doesn’t always help either. The more I hang around these forums, the more critical and disappointed I find myself getting – So I’m watching myself for that now… (Marge: “You know Homer, it’s very easy to criticize”. Homer: “Fun too!”) And if I lament the quality of caches, well, the best thing for me to do is go out there and plant some really excellent ones. Not only to ‘give newbies the right idea’, but simply to just give people a good time with a great cache. That should be my first response.
I’m also learning to reframe my own approach to this. This week I did a cache by a new cacher locally. Even before I got there, due to its description and some other stuff, I knew it would be a pretty ordinary micro. And it was by those standards – Bad container, ordinary placement, bad description, no real ‘need’ for it to be there. BUT – I did it. And why? Well, not just for the numbers (although that’s always there which is why I’ll always do a cache rather than ignore it), but also – It got me outside. It took me out of the office and out of my car and into a lovely park. Yes, a park I’ve been to before, but it was a lovely walk on a nice evening. Yes, the cache was ordinary, but when I found it there was still that little squirt of adrenalin that said “yay”. And there was the satisfaction of going home to log the find knowing that today had been more than just work and home, but that I’d had a little experience that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, as small as it may be. And the cache owner is to be thanked for that…
I may not be able to control who puts what out there, but I can control how I respond to it - And as such, caching will always be fun for me, regardless.
There’s been a fair bit of moaning for a period of time about the falling quality of caches. And to be honest, I’ve contributed to that – both in the forums and in logs. I’ve noticed myself getting a little disappointed with caches in my local area and being almost immediately suspicious when I see new caches appear, especially by new cachers. I find myself whinging to my spouse about ‘that crap cache’ or beginning to nark on logs about how it should be improved.
And to be honest I’m a little embarrassed with myself about that.
Because in the end, I still enjoy this. (OK – I’m only on 500 or so finds, but still) – And I still go and find the ‘crap’ caches. So I’ve forced myself to reflect on whether it’s all as ‘crap’ as we really go on about, and how much of it is reality and how much is perspective.
First off, yes, I reckon there are more very ordinary caches out there now than when we started. But then, there are way more caches full stop – so of course there will be more bad ones. And with the phone apps we’re seeing a lot more new and casual cachers, so it’s understandable that the dodgy % will increase. But is it really that bad?
I have some vague, unproven theories that perhaps we’ll always feel that things were better ‘in the old days’. Firstly because I think we all were more impressed with hides when we were new. I look back on my early finds and I was thrilled at almost any hide, whereas now I find myself fussier and more critical. “Oh, another sistema crammed in a tree. How unimaginative” , I say - when my first find was such a hide and I was delighted (thanks Geodes!). So it’s not the caches getting worse, it’s my expectations getting higher simpler because I’ve done so many of the same kind. That’s my problem, not the cache hiders responsibility.
I also reckon (again, unproven) that the crap caches come and go, so they are always going to seem to be the ‘newer’ ones. We all see the unimaginative, badly placed micros. But when I see one published I know it’s probably not going to be around for long. It’ll get lost, damaged, and the owner will probably lose interest or just not bother maintaining . In which case eventually (and we won’t go into the archiving discussion here) it will disappear… So in that sense, there’s probably been a fair number of dodgy micros and other caches in the past but since they are no longer around, most of what we see in the past is ‘quality’ caches. Time has cleaned the database of the chaff. I hope that will continue to happen so when we look back at caches placed in 2010 all we’ll see is the better ones. Again, this is perhaps an inevitable process that we just need to accept.
I think the collective criticism doesn’t always help either. The more I hang around these forums, the more critical and disappointed I find myself getting – So I’m watching myself for that now… (Marge: “You know Homer, it’s very easy to criticize”. Homer: “Fun too!”) And if I lament the quality of caches, well, the best thing for me to do is go out there and plant some really excellent ones. Not only to ‘give newbies the right idea’, but simply to just give people a good time with a great cache. That should be my first response.
I’m also learning to reframe my own approach to this. This week I did a cache by a new cacher locally. Even before I got there, due to its description and some other stuff, I knew it would be a pretty ordinary micro. And it was by those standards – Bad container, ordinary placement, bad description, no real ‘need’ for it to be there. BUT – I did it. And why? Well, not just for the numbers (although that’s always there which is why I’ll always do a cache rather than ignore it), but also – It got me outside. It took me out of the office and out of my car and into a lovely park. Yes, a park I’ve been to before, but it was a lovely walk on a nice evening. Yes, the cache was ordinary, but when I found it there was still that little squirt of adrenalin that said “yay”. And there was the satisfaction of going home to log the find knowing that today had been more than just work and home, but that I’d had a little experience that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, as small as it may be. And the cache owner is to be thanked for that…
I may not be able to control who puts what out there, but I can control how I respond to it - And as such, caching will always be fun for me, regardless.