Geocaching Australia

There has recently been a bit of a trend towards some very large logs in certain circles. Unfortunately they are not particularly informative, and usually take the form of a general chat about the day, the company, the weather, anything really, but very little about the caching experience, which is what logs are supposed to be about. AND they are copied into every single cache for that day, with very little variation. For those of us, and there are many, who like to look at logs for little hints as to the cache location, or even for general interest, they are a bit of a pain. And I say that knowing that I have good friends who do them. (Sorry Guys!)

The reason that they do them of course, is for that badge that is produced from their stats - the one that gives them a Diamond badge for logs averaging over 100 words. So they try vainly to make 100 word logs as interesting as they can. Or in some cases they don't even try to do that. As a consequence, IMHO, the reason for, and a large part of the interest in, logs, has been compromised.

Does anyone else feel the same, or am I just being a pendant?

The answer might be to make the Diamond badge available at a much more ideal number for the game - say 30 words.

Alansee wrote:
Does anyone else feel the same, or am I just being a pendant?

No. Just a pedant.


I've never heard of this badge or this practice. We have our own locationless here on GCA of course which I think is 80 words?

As someone who generally writes longer descriptive logs I still would never cut and paste it into multiple caches. If there's a day of a lot of caches (more than 10 for us) then I will still write something different for each one but it certainly won't be as long as the normal log. Ones that involve long treks into the bush or diabolical puzzles will always get the longest logs of course.

I must admit, having received them on a number of mine, it does irk me a little. Mainly because I get excited at first that someone has chosen to write a long, meaty log about their cache experience on my cache.... only to discover that it is only the last paragraph that refers to it.

I'd never made the connection with those long logs and the badge, but it does make sense. Pity though... Still won't stop me looking for, writing and loving the long log though, at least not until this practice got a bit more widespread.

I enjoy reading (and writing) longer logs but also abhor Cut and Paste logs. Those power trails are a challenge though

I'm sure to get my head bitten off, but I am a bit of an offender here. On the other hand, I make a really big effort to ensure that less than half of my log is the 'copy pasted' bit. In my own defense, one the first day that badge came out, I had an average log length of 35 odd words per log before I tried to get the badge, and have always tried to write useful logs. Sorry Alansee, I'll make sure to never do it to yours again.


On a side note, I have always found it easier to write logs for caches who I have met the owner of. Odd

Makes mental note - TFTC not "waffle" for Alansee's cache in future...
I guess the badge did trigger long-log writing for me rather than a line or two, but now its not deliberate exactly, it's just the way I write...

There can be a bit of a fine line between giving little hints and getting a rap over the log-writing knuckles from the CO for giving too much away, I guess I opt for the safer option...

I'll try to be a little more cache-focussed in the future... Maybe...

What is this badge you speak of?

rogerw3 wrote:
What is this badge you speak of?

(If not rhetorical) http://www.badgegen.com/badges.html "The Author (awarded based on average found log word count)"

The only time it irks me is when people try to write a long log on a cache that you can only muster 20-30 good words on...eg drive by film cannister. I dod like to see people put efforts into their logs, but you can see through the ones who overdo it.

You're not the only one who dislikes waffle in logs for the sake of word count - unless it is reasonably interesting and about the cache experience it shouldn't be in the log.

quiet1_au wrote:

rogerw3 wrote:
What is this badge you speak of?

(If not rhetorical) http://www.badgegen.com/badges.html "The Author (awarded based on average found log word count)"

Oh gawd, how awful! I mean what is the point of all that? I mean all the badges, not just that one.

Those massive pasted logs do annoy me. It always means skipping to the end to see if there's anything that relates directly to the cache. Most of the time there isn't much at all.

quiet1_au wrote:

rogerw3 wrote:
What is this badge you speak of?

(If not rhetorical) http://www.badgegen.com/badges.html "The Author (awarded based on average found log word count)"

Thanks mate, I had never heard of this. Lots of work went into the site but for the life of me I don't see why anyone would bother.

I love the badges. To me it's just another way of playing the game. When I first found the badges, I was after trying to get lots of finds in one day, or solving tricky puzzles. I still like to do both of those thing, but the badges give me other challenges.
Also, I have to admit as an ex-guide and ex-scout leader, I just love badges, and the idea of urning them. Sad but true. (Also, I might have a badge maker and might have made a few up as actual badges.)

Obviously each to his own, but anything that can challenge me and gets me outside finding caches is a good thing in my book.

Oh well, back to the old "TNLN TFTC".

I tend to like descriptive logs on my caches so I tend to write longer logs too.
When I do a number of caches in a day I tend to write a boiler plate overview log which I use as a template in GSAK,
and then add a paragraph of individually descriptive stuff for each particular cache's log. I feel good about writing a longer log as I feel most hiders appreciate it.
I don't particularly mind if I get a waffly log on my caches, I just skip through it.
Things which to me are of much higher annoyance value are :-
- The proliferation of "no personal investment caches" such as mint tins with no time spent on an interesting cache page.
- The poor standard of cache listings - spelling errors, typos (especially in cache titles), poor grammar, meaningless text (why do reviewers ignore this or why isn't it in their scope of review)
- Abandoned caches that are let loose into the world like little orphans left to fend for themselves.

I guess we can always improve our logs from a number of perspectives but it all gets back to how we like to play the game.