Disabled Caches

WGA Member Joined: 2004-05-19 Posts: 730

Call it the meaningless question of the day if you like but I was wondering how long a cache should be kept "temporarily disabled" before it gets "archived"? There are several in our area that have been temporarily disabled for almost a year. Is a year considered temporary or is it time to archive these to make way for new ones?

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 6:55 am

being a somewhat obsessive compulsive person needing neatness and order, i just wanted to say that this is a small pet peeve of mine. it is frustrating to see caches temporarily disabled with no apparent attention from the owner. there should be some kind of standard for such caches.

i suppose the other course of action is to contact the owner, find out their intentions (if possible), and see if you can adopt the cache.

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 7:31 am

Many of the other reviewers for geocaching.com have a procedure for "cleaning house" regards to long disabled caches. They typically follow the steps below:

* If a cache sits disabled for more than a certain amount of time (say 90 days), then contact the cache owner via E-mail, asking them what's up?
* If the owner responds, work with them to either fix up the cache or archive it.
* If the owner does not respond within a given amount of time (typically 2 weeks to 30 days), then the cache is archived along with a polite note posted to the page explaining the situation.

Anybody interested in having the Wisconsin geocaching.com reviewers adopt such a system?

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 7:53 am

This is one of those things I feel there should be very little leeway for then it allows time to stretch to far.

After a cache is disable for 90 days it should be archived no if, and, or buts, about it. If an owner can’t resolve the issue in that time then they don’t seem to have the time to properly maintain it.

This also should not be an approver’s job as well. GC.com could easily set up a filter to auto archive caches that were disable beyond the 90 days. This way approvers are not tasked with another job and owners have no one to blame but themselves. If an owner so interested in keeping the cache then they should resolve situation which caused it to get disable or archive it.

90 days is a long time.

From GC.com “You may temporarily disable your cache to let others know not to hunt for it until you have a chance to fix the problem. This feature is to allow you a reasonable time – normally a few weeks – in which to arrange a visit to your cache. In the event that a cache is not being properly maintained, or has been temporarily disabled for an extended period of time, we may archive or transfer the listing.” http://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx#maint

A few weeks – I think 90 days more than covers that since I take a “few” as being 5 weeks MAX.

If people have unexpected trouble in their life and can’t resolve the problem with the cache then let it get archived and that will be one less problem.

Hope I don’t sound to stern, just don’t think this needs to be one of those grey areas.

After 90 days it gets archived.

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PCFROG

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 10:18 am

Interestingly enough, that would cause problems for some really good caches like a couple of watery caches in the Submarine series that Geopink disabled for the winter when they're inaccessible, and I've seen that on WISSearchers' Monopoly series too. I know that I look at some of those crossed out caches too and wish I could do them or not look at them. I've requested a couple to be archived. One the owner had removed it before moving, but forgot to archive it, and it was archived within a day, the other several people were unable to find it, the owner was unresponsive to my e-mails and admin's and it was archived after a month wait. A blanket might not be appropriate, but if one's been down for awhile, e-mail the owner. Not everybody is involved in geocaching as much as we are. Maybe they haven't thought about it in awhile.

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 10:26 am

Ditto
all of the above

For those caches that may require more than 90 days to return to the RASH, They might be reactivated by approvers at the owner's request.
~tb

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:26 pm

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy & the beast:
...return to the RASH, ...

Huh? I don't want to get any kind of a rash.

Seriously though, if you folks think we (as Wisconsin Geocchers) need some sort of a policy (or not)on long-disabled, keep the comments coming.

Personally I think archiving long-disabled caches is a good idea, and from the admin side, it would be handled with courtsey and with tact.

Joined: 2002-02-18 Posts: 3399 Location: West Allis, Wi

My approver duties keep me way too busy to seek out disabled caches to clean them up. I'm more reactive then proactive. I only address them if a cacher has contacted me to request action.

Better yet, if you see one that has been disabled for way to long, leave an 'should be archived' (SBA) note on the cache page. Groundspeak forwards these notes to the local admins so we can see there is a problem

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 5:42 pm

by archiving those long disabled caches, we would also be opening up that area to new caches. my vote goes to fix it and get it back up, or it's out.
by the way, i just read a log by a cache owner that said his cache had been taken by the police in association with a robbery. the cache was not even disabled.

WGA Member Joined: 2004-05-19 Posts: 730

Some good comments indeed.

I think there does need to be some leeway and action should be taken on a case by case basis. The example that Honeybunnies used on the Sub Series is a good one. Also being a cache owner myself I recently had a foot injury that kept me out of commission for a month and a half. There are certainly circumstances where 90 days may not be enough time to get the problem corrected.

There are a lot of new cachers in our area and it would be nice to see some of them plant some caches. I can also understand where it would be a good thing to archive some of these so new ones can be planted.

I can also understand Grousetales point that the approvers really do not have extra time to be policing these issues and I do think that we the cachers should be the ones contacting owners. I would also add that if we contact someone about their cache, we should also be willing to offer assistance fixing it if needed.

This is off topic but how many approvers are there? Also, if the approvers are having trouble keeping up with getting caches approved in a timely manner, why can't you add another approver or two? I MAY be willing to help with that if I knew what was all involved.

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:36 am

quote:
Originally posted by AstroD-Team:
... I recently had a foot injury that kept me out of commission for a month and a half. There are certainly circumstances where 90 days may not be enough time to get the problem corrected.

I would envision a policy whereby the cache owner would be contacted in 90 days, and if there was a reason that the cache had to remain disabled (under water etc...), it would be no problem to leave it alone.

What the proposed system would be meant to weed out, is those caches that are abandoned.

quote:
Originally posted by AstroD-Team:
...approvers really do not have extra time to be policing these issues ...

This is off topic but how many approvers are there? Also, if the approvers are having trouble keeping up with getting caches approved in a timely manner, why can't you add another approver or two?

Often during the summer, it takes up to two hours a night to go through all of the submitted caches. The fortunate part about here in Wisconsin, is that we have two geocache reviewers, and we alternate weeks. Grousetales takes a week, then I take a week. This leaves us with our "off" week to resolve any pending issues that came up during our "on" week.

I am NOT proposing a system whereby when a cache hits 91 days that the owner immediately gets contacted. I'm thinking that, as time permits, a couple of 2 or 3 times a year, go through and perform the "house cleaning" task.

If anybody is interested in becoming a geocaching.com reviewer, my best advice is to get elected to the Board Of Directors for the WGA. Groundspeak has given the WGA-BOD 2 geocache reviewer positions.

Joined: 2002-02-18 Posts: 3399 Location: West Allis, Wi

quote:
Originally posted by AstroD-Team:

This is off topic but how many approvers are there? Also, if the approvers are having trouble keeping up with getting caches approved in a timely manner, why can't you add another approver or two? I MAY be willing to help with that if I knew what was all involved.

The more geocachers we have, the more geocaches that are likely to be submitted. What really seems to be bogging down the process this summer is the amount of caches that individuals are hiding. We used to see people hiding one a week. Now the norm seems to be people submitting 5-10 at a time. Everyone else then pays the price in approval delays.

Sorry to stray off topic