I think this is outstanding. I can propose 2 improvements.

1. I think there needs to be some allowance for seasonal caches. There are certain caches out there that really should be disabled during the winter (or maybe the anti-winter, although I haven’t run into any of those). Perhaps a requirement that specific open and closed dates be listed on the cache page would address this.

2. Perhaps you might want to add some verbiage allowing for a greater than 4 weeks for repair in “special circumstances”, leaving it up to the reviewer to decide if the circumstances are, indeed, special. I can’t really think of anything I would approve, but it is probably worthwhile to leave an official “out.”

Thanks for pursuing this.

Question:

What if you disable your cache for the winter, with full intent of making it active once the snow/ice leaves?? Will this be written in as a exception??

@GOJeepers wrote:

The only thing I would add is something that I recently ran into (thanks for helping, Tie!). There should also be a provision for neglected caches. If a cache has apparently gone missing but the owner makes no move to check on, repair or disable the cache (in this case since October) then the same procedure should apply. Using disabling of a cache as the trigger for this procedure may not cache all of the caches that need help. Perhaps adding some sort of “reporting” form would work.

This is a fabulous idea that would greatly enhance the sport in our state. Thanks for the hard work!

Yep on in agreement with this I know of two caches which the owners have not replaced or marked as disabled…How do we make these go away? One has been this way for 8 months and the other for three.

Most of the idea sounds good. I would like to see you allow 4 weeks for an owner to respond rather than just 2 weeks. There have often been times in the past where I haven’t been able to view my e-mail for 3-4 weeks. 😛

@Cheesehead Dave wrote:

How about something along the lines of what MiGo has set up?

I really like what they did with that. Makes a lot of sense to make sure that any archived caches actually are missing/picked-up because if they are accidentally discovered and the public panics it could be a publicity nightmare.

@Buy_The_Tie wrote:

1. All caches that have been disabled more than 3 Months would get a friendly note posted to the cache page by a geocaching.com administrator.

In addition to this or as an alternative, you should probably contact owners through their geocaching.com profile page… especially since we know some people no longer read all the logs made for their caches. 😉

@OuttaHand wrote:

Do we know if doing one of those MI cleanups actually adds a “Found It” to the cacher’s find count at GC.com ?

I’m pretty sure there is no tie in with geocaching.com here (so no finds for rescuing a cache). I’d think that allowing people to log finds for caches that are not really there or for picking up the pieces of a destroyed cache would elicit a negative response from the cache logging nazis (the same people who hate multiple Attended logs for events).

Since one of the top requested features by the beta testers of the new site was a Cache Rescue system, I will work with Brian (Tie) to come up with something. If a couple other members feel strongly about this and want to be involved in defining this feature, let me know. In addition to posting and recording rescue “missions” like the MiGO site, we could also have functionality that would help the approvers identify caches that have been disabled too long and let members report neglected caches that aren’t yet disabled.