Food for Thought...

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riblit
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Food for Thought...

Post by riblit » 12 November 07 9:47 am

This arrived via the support system overnight.


" Jen
email address

Hi. A little while ago myself, my children, a friend and her children were at the park. There is a little area of trees and bushland not far from the playground where our kids were playing. A man pulled up in his car, got out and stood behind the trees and watched us for a little while. He spoke very rudely to one of the kids in our party. He then left and our kids checked behind the trees to see what he'd been up to. It has since come to light that he was playing Geocache (from the notes left in his parcel). The concern myself and my friend had was that he was a paedophile (or something just as bad) as his mannerisms and behaviour were awful. I'm not suggesting that he was a member of your website as I have no idea who he is but just wanted to let you know about it as it was very upsetting to us. Thanks for listening."

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Post by caughtatwork » 12 November 07 10:08 am

The individual was doing nothing illegal.
The individual may not have excerised the appropriate caution in not being spotted.
The individual could have considered not doing the cache while there were people around.
The indivual chose to compromise the cache location for a find.

One of the reasons for not placing caches in parks near playgrounds?
One of the reasons to consider moving on rather than focussing on the find?

Hmmmm.

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Post by swampgecko » 12 November 07 10:47 am

caughtatwork wrote:The individual was doing nothing illegal.
Doesn't matter, but to a concerned parent such actions as detailed, would appear to be suspect and possibly threatening.
caughtatwork wrote:The individual may not have excerised the appropriate caution in not being spotted.
The individual could have considered not doing the cache while there were people around.
The indivual chose to compromise the cache location for a find.

One of the reasons for not placing caches in parks near playgrounds?
ne of the reasons to consider moving on rather than focusing on the find?

Hmmmm.
The cacher concerned may have be feeling frustrated that there were kids about and possibly been time limited, but they choose to compromise a cache for the sake of a smiley, and manage to tar the rest of us with a bad name over one incident, with atleast one parent anyway.

The whole thing just re-enforces that placing a cache in any location, you need to consider more that just what great hiding spot you have found.

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Post by pprass » 12 November 07 11:15 am

Pesky! wrote:I hope someone has replied on OUR behalf.
Yes - has a reply been drafted or already sent? If it has we wouldn't mind having a look at the response as we are always concerned about how to deal with these situations. The Geocaching community needs to make sure it deals with these issues quickly and firmly.

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Richary
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Post by Richary » 12 November 07 12:16 pm

I don't think publicly naming the cache and location would be that helpful as then we could all go and look at the logs and take a guess as to who the culprit was. That sort of thing leads to a witch hunt.

If the moderators know then one of them could forward on the note so they know what they have done wrong.

Like others, if there are too many muggles I will leave the cache for another day. Frustrating if it is on an interstate visit and you don't know when or if you will be back, but better than exposing the cache.

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Post by Alansee » 12 November 07 12:34 pm

While what appears to have happened is not the best, I think we have all found that cachers as a group are considerate, friendly people and the apparent incident is an exception.

We virtually all try to avoid compromising caches, and also avoid potential situations near playgrounds for obvious reasons. I particularly appreciate Team Crackers "One for the kids" series as they enable caching from a discrete distance. That having been said we also generally know when to make ourselves scarce and leave a cache till next time.

I support the level headed approach being taken. :)

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riblit
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Post by riblit » 12 November 07 2:14 pm

The message arrived via the GCA support web page and the email address she supplied is one of the public webmail systems. At this stage we are assuming that she is somewhere in Australia.

All we know is what I posted at the beginning of this thread.


Support has replied, apologised for the rude cacher, explained that more than likely the cacher was watching to see if he could access the cache without compromising its position, rather than watching her children, and pointed her at some information about geocaching (the wiki media page). We also asked if she could get the cache waypoint code, with an explanation as to what it looks like.

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Post by pprass » 12 November 07 8:24 pm

riblit wrote:... explained that more than likely the cacher was watching to see if he could access the cache without compromising its position, rather than watching her children........,
Well done Support - we like it when the situation is explained from the other persons point of view.

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Post by riblit » 14 November 07 12:26 pm

Jen has not replied to the Support email. The ticket has been closed.

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Post by pprass » 14 November 07 9:38 pm

riblit wrote:The ticket has been closed.
What's a ticket?

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Post by caughtatwork » 14 November 07 9:54 pm

The thing that people often buy on themselves :-)

A trouble ticket is a file / case opened when someone write in to the support line. riblit has now closed off that file / case.

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Post by Geof » 15 November 07 9:30 am

On 12th November We wrote:This arrived via the support system overnight.
On 12th November We wrote:The message arrived via the GCA support web page and the email address she supplied is one of the public webmail systems.
On 14th November We wrote:Jen has not replied to the Support email. The ticket has been closed.
Could we be moving a little fast here? :wink: :)

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riblit
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Post by riblit » 15 November 07 7:34 pm

Geof wrote:
On 12th November We wrote:This arrived via the support system overnight.
On 12th November We wrote:The message arrived via the GCA support web page and the email address she supplied is one of the public webmail systems.
On 14th November We wrote:Jen has not replied to the Support email. The ticket has been closed.
Could we be moving a little fast here? :wink: :)
If she replies in the future the reply will automatically reopen the ticket..

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