Love and Hate

[caughtatwork]

Again, not specifically directed at you.

The point seems to be "hide caches I like finding". What? Why?
A cache is set up however the owner wants it to be set up. If it's a case of monkey see, monkey do, then yes, what they find is what they will hide. However, what they hide is not always what you like to find. That is irrelevant.

The expectation that owner should only hide caches that I like to find is arrogant in the extreme. I expect that there will be a mix of micro, small, regular, large as well as being urban, regional, rural, country, as well as being easy, hard, impossible and a mix of mystery, traditional, multi etc.

To try and have a conversation suggesting that your (not your, the generic your) requirements are what people should meet is rude and condescending. We should embrace the differences in caches and not try and embarrass people into hiding what we want to find.

What if every cache was an ammo can under a bush? How very boring that would be. Walk up, look at the bush, open the cache, make your log, say ho hum, another boring cache.

The difference in hide style, the container, the type of log book, the area, the size, the clever puzzles, the long walks in the bush, they all make the game such a wonderful opportunity for something for everyone.

Trying to make the game a standard / norm / accepted activity of walk up to the bush and find an ammo can would drive me away from the game.

There are over 30,000 caches in Australia. Normal distribution will have some good, some bad, some excellent, some crappy. If all 30,000 were an ammo can under a bush how exciting would that be? Even if there were 30,000 ammo cans under a bush people would then seek to complain about other things.

It was the wrong color. It was slightly rusty. The log book only had 50 pages, not 100. The pen was blue, not black. The log book wasn't in a plastic bag. The swaps were for kids. There were no swaps for kids. I had to bend down to get the cache. The cache wasn't painted. It was a 30 calibre can, not a 50 calibre can. There was no sistema inside. It was just a box of junk. I prefer flouro containers. I prefer black containers. The container was brown. The paint was peeling off.

See, all of that to complain about and those caches would be "the norm".

Celebrate the differences, don't try to force people to play the game you want to play.

[rogerw3]

It seems to me that you can't please everybody, there will always be cachers expecting something different from what the hider has placed.
I am not a fan of nanos or micros, but why should it be a problem, I check the listing, the logs and maybe I will go for it after all, or I may ignore it altogether. The choice is mine.
The beauty of Geocaching is the wide diversity of caches and locations, I would not want to see everything standardized, how boring it would become then!
I am sure that many cachers find my caches just plain boring or even horrible, I can live with that. I place them as well as I can with mostly a reason to attract cachers. My reasons may not be to everybody's liking but again you can't please all of the people all of the time.
Yes I have been on occasion disappointed with some caches I found, but by and large I am always glad I went and made the effort to look for it.
Enjoy the diversity, and don't be afraid to express your opinion!

[Big Matt and Shell]

There is a wealth of information on the cache page and previous logs. Use them to decide what to seek, not just be a numbers whore and find everything then disparage the owner because you didn't like what the listing said you would find.

That's a very good point (and sort of makes me flinch a bit), however I wouldn't want other cachers (new cachers specifically) to come across caches like that and think that that is the norm and therefore that is how a cache should be set up.

I have been lurking in this post here for a while but the above post is a very good point. All too often we have been critical of what we have found even though it is exactly what the page says that we will find. Might be a deep breath moment here.

That said I think we still have a right to be able to question such a placement, not on the grounds of that the description was not accurate but surely it doesn’t hurt to ask the owner why? If it is in a playground or next to a school or play group even if it says that on the page, I think it doesn’t hurt to question why.

Just some thoughts to the original post,

2. Pouring over maps to work out how to get to interesting locations and being able to navigate a course to minimise effort. (i.e. walking )

I’m sure to some this would be a hate, I have seen logs from people who have no navigation skills who get lost, bogged or caught on private property because their GPS has sent them in this “road”

3. Difficulty/Terrain ratings that either over or understate the real conditions.

Remember every cache hider has different fitness levels and experience. While we have done the 40+ km walks to a 4.5 star terrain cache others have only walked 2 km to a cache hidden up a hill to a 4.5 star terrain cache. Personally I think we need more stars but then the issue would probably be even more skewed!

4. Cachers that don’t follow up on “needs maintenance” logs or ignore multiple DNF logs.

I agree here to a point, there are a few tricky hides around that I’m sure owners don’t just run out and check straight away. We used to for Bay Bridge, you would get an experienced hider come through and emphatically state that it wasn’t there but it would turn out to be. I just let it plod along now. (You don’t get a 4.5 star difficulty cache for nothing)

6. Explicit hints that render the use of a GPS useless.

I don’t have an issue with this so long as the difficulty reflects it. Sometimes with urban caches due to building interference this can be what you need to be able to find the cache.

7. Cachers that find caches that are 20 metres out by obviously looking at the explicit hint and then not providing corrected co-ordinates to help those that don’t dive for the hint before they even leave the house.

It’s not their listing, it’s not the finders responsibility to help out future finders. It would be nice but to say that we hate them is a bit strong.

I suppose at the end of the day what I’m getting at is that I have accepted that everyone gets different things from caching and we can’t change everyone to the way “we” want to cache. The forum seems to be more and more filled up with people trying to get people to chance the way they cache without fully understanding the huge demographic of people involved in this hobby. I’ll leave you with the Serenity Prayer,

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Matt

[Yurt]

At the end of the day even the crappiest cache is a cache. If no one put them out then we'd all have nothing to find.


In terms of caching karma the guy who placed one cache ever and never found one has infinity karma!

[Big Matt and Shell]

At the end of the day even the crappiest cache is a cache. If no one put them out then we'd all have nothing to find.

Imagine if you hadn't of found a rather crappy cache at Dalmeney?

[Yurt]

At the end of the day even the crappiest cache is a cache. If no one put them out then we'd all have nothing to find.

Imagine if you hadn't of found a rather crappy cache at Dalmeney?

Exactly! All those years of holidays down there and it all changed then! Luckily I sort of knew what it was when I found it. I must have seen a story about it on TV a few years earlier. What amazes me is that when I go back over the old logs, some going back to 2001, that this whole world existed for so long without us knowing!

[pprass]

The point seems to be "hide caches I like finding". What? Why?

No - the point is here are 8 things we like about geocaching, which I believe to some extent co-incides with the original intension of the game and also supported by such publications as the geocaching creed (http://www.geocreed.info/) and here are 8 things we don't like about the game which we would prefer that it does not continue in that direction.

Also the discussion seems to be heading towards "standardisation", which is a completely different terminoligy to "maintaining a standard" which is what I am on about.

[caughtatwork]

The point here is also 8 things you hate about geocaching.

1. Cache placements in lame locations – garden beds, playgrounds, outside public conveniences, places that have no particular attraction, or the cacher has not written anything interesting on the cache page to warrant a cache placement in that location.

No one is forcing you to go find that cache. Live and let live. Let the hider hide the way they want. You admit that the cache does nothing for you, is not interesting, has no redeeming quality, yet you seem to go find it then hate it. That doesn't make sense.

You want to lift the standard, but there is no standard. The higher you lift the standard (every cache is an ammo can), the more people will find levels within that standard and dodge the ones that don't meet the new standard.

It's a futile exercise which leaves people who don't meet your standard feeling belittled.

[pprass]

..All too often we have been critical of what we have found even though it is exactly what the page says that we will find.

Lots of us question those type of placements - and overtime with the right comments in our logs the cache owner should realise what cachers are looking for - we have seen this happen a few times in Victoria!

..Pouring over maps... I’m sure to some this would be a hate, I have seen logs from people who have no navigation skills who get lost, bogged or caught on private property because their GPS has sent them in this “road”.

This is an integral part of geocaching isn't it? Finding your way to GZ? And we love it.

..Incorrect Difficulty/Terrain ratings... Remember every cache hider has different fitness levels and experience.

Then I am not sure why we have these ratings if they are going to be someones own assessment of the rating in isolation from what the general caching community has experienced? There is a guide which although not perfect assists the cache owner in rating their cache.
If a cache owner has rated a cache a difficulty of say 4.0 and it is just because you have to walk to the end of a breakwall that has a gravel path, we will usually send a note to the cache owner with examples of other caches that have been rated a 4.0 to show them the difference in terrain difficulty - that usually helps in calibrating the ratings.

..Cachers not providing corrected co-ordinates.... It’s not their listing, it’s not the finders responsibility to help out future finders. It would be nice but to say that we hate them is a bit strong.

It's not the finders responsibility to do anything from a lot of comments in this thread, but isn't it a matter of courtesy and being part of a community to provide the correction and not just saying - "Well it was tough for me to find, so let the next b@#$d suffer too". After all why is there a "Corrected Co-ord" function in the log page?

I suppose at the end of the day what I’m getting at is that I have accepted that everyone gets different things from caching and we can’t change everyone to the way “we” want to cache...

Yes I am fully aware of that and I am not here to change everyone's approach to the game and to play it the way I want to. As per my original note - I would like to make people aware of what we have found as positives and negatives in the game, which may or may not give them food for thought.

[caughtatwork]

After all why is there a "Corrected Co-ord" function in the log page?

Nope.
Add a coordinate to this log
No mention of corrected or not.

[pprass]

You admit that the cache does nothing for you, is not interesting, has no redeeming quality, yet you seem to go find it then hate it. That doesn't make sense.

That's right - it's like doing French in highschool - hated it/disliked it, but I did it. Part of the coarse!

...but there is no standard. .

Of coarse there is. Have a look at the guidelines and publications that geocachers have written to explain what makes a good cache. I can't find it now, but there was a really good document written by an American cacher on how to place a cache, write logs etc.

...It's a futile exercise which leaves people who don't meet your standard feeling belittled.

Gosh - I don't think that would happen. I would rather think that the ones who read this and can't be bothered with anything said will just continue with what they have been doing. On the other hand I am hoping some others will look at this and say -
"oh maybe I should respond to that persons email asking me if I have checked that cache that has had 4 DNF's in the past month", or
"oh maybe I should say a little more than "Thanks for the cache" after all I really enjoyed it", or
"oh maybe I better not place this cache out the front of these toilets - it could look bad for cachers searching in some circumstances", or
"oh maybe I will give a slightly cryptic clue here to give the cacher a bit to think about rather than just laying it out for them", or
"oh maybe I had better check on my cache after all of these "Needs Maintenance" logs.

I am pretty sure that these are not just "my" standards and expectations - don't you think?

[pprass]

After all why is there a "Corrected Co-ord" function in the log page?

Nope.
Add a coordinate to this log
No mention of corrected or not.

Oh so it used to put off other cachers from where the cache really is, no wait - it is used to tell the owner where a better place was to place his cache, or maybe it used to for nothing at all which appears to be the case

[caughtatwork]

...but there is no standard. .

Of coarse there is. Have a look at the guidelines and publications that geocachers have written to explain what makes a good cache. I can't find it now, but there was a really good document written by an American cacher on how to place a cache, write logs etc.

By the definition of GC, there is a container with a logbook.
That's the standard.
Caches meet that standard.
Anything else is not standard it's icing.
A plastic takeaway container with some post it notes meets the defined standard.
You want standards applied to much, much more than the standards set for a geocache.

[Geodes]

By the definition of GC, there is a container with a logbook.
That's the standard.
Caches meet that standard.
Anything else is not standard it's icing.
A plastic takeaway container with some post it notes meets the defined standard.
You want standards applied to much, much more than the standards set for a geocache.

There's no enforceable law that says I can't go and find one of your caches and jump on it, throw it in a rubbish bin or just plain souvenir it either (cf geocoin theft) but the game becomes unplayable if anarchy reigns too much. I don't think it's unreasonable, via forums such as this one, to try to establish some unwritten, informal rules (moral or ethical standards - a Code of Conduct) to try to raise (or, at least, maintain) the standard of community behaviour. After all, this sort of thing is an on-going process in society at large and it's only when, what is considered to be, acceptable behaviour is transgressed too often, or by too much, that it becomes law. Note too, that the notion of what constitutes acceptable behaviour in society is a dynamic and, sometimes, rapidly evolving concept.

I think c@w took a double dose of pain-in-the-arse pills this morning

[caughtatwork]

I'll put aside the comments about destruction of someone else's property. I think there might be a law against that, but that's for a different thread.

The forums reach no where near enough people to make a difference. Even the people that it does reach aren't likely to pay attention. They will continue to play the game they want. There can never be a law about how to play geocaching. To expect people to play the game nice is fine, but don't set an expectation onto them to play it your way.

A code of conduct does not try to embarrass me into complying with it and is voluntary anyway.