At the last board meeting, I shared with BOD my view that we need to phase out the practice of allowing people to log multiple “attended” logs. This post is to go into detail as to my thinking on this, in hopes that WGA members will consider my view, and perhaps some of you will also vote NO for some of the same reasons.

First some hard data:

1. About 35 people logged multiple “attended” logs at each of the last 2 events. Hartman had an attendance of 241, and Wildcat somewhat less, though I don’t have the number easily available.

2. Of the 35 teams logging multiple “attended” at the last 2 events, about 20 are newbies, and the other 15 are the big numbers cachers, who can be expected to have strong feelings about any change. All 15 of them are well known to all of us, and good friends of many of us, which makes any change particularly difficult.

3. Logging of multiple “attended” is slowly declining, even without action by the Board. The number of logs reached maximum at the Lake Wissota event, with 2371 logs (not all multiples). At Hartman, there were 1894 logs and at Wildcat 893 (again, not all multiples).

4. Geocaching.com changed the practice of allowing mulitple “founds” at events in early 2005, so temps were logged as “founds” prior to 2005, which is no longer possible. The intent of Groundspeak at that time is clear: they wanted the logging of multiple temps to stop. However, the culture has been to continue to just log multiple “attended” logs, despite Groundspeak’s intention that multiple logging cease.

5. According to Boulter.com more people attend events in Wisconsin than anywhere else in the world. All 10 of the top 10 people who have attended loggers (doing so by logging multiple “attended” logs) are cachers who have logged some of those logs at WGA events. It is possible for anyone in the world to see who has logged the most “attended” logs by going to the Boulter site, and in fact is that many of the WGA detractors on the gc.com forums do just this, and have hard data to support their view that multiple attending of events is higher in Wisconsin than anywhere else in the world. If interested, go to this link to see the numbers yourself: http://boulter.com/geocaching/leaders/?groupID=3&sort=eventFound

6. Most successful events do not resort to placing temps. MWGB and GeoWoodstock are successful with out temps. Instead, local people place a lot of permanent caches in the area. In Missouri, MOGA placed 80 permanent caches in the park to support their event. Even in Wisconsin, at smaller events, many people have placed permanent caches to support their events, so one has to wonder why temps are needed.

So that is some of the hard data. Now, to the issue of how I feel about logging temps personally.

As an individual, I do not care at all. I do not see geocaching as a competition, and I do not see the number anyone has found as a “score.” Since there is no score, why should any of us really care how someone else logs their finds?

Furthermore, I do not feel that logging multiple “attended” logs is cheating, as many on the national boards claim. The temps hidden by the WGA are very high quality hides, that take some real effort and real geocaching skills to find, much more so than many of the urban “real” caches that I have found in guardrails. So, those who call temps “fake finds” or “fraud” are wrong because they have never hunted a WGA temp, and they really do not know what they are talking about.

To be honest, my view as an individual of logging temps is not much different than King Boreas who has this on his profile page: “For the Geocaching “purists” and Geopolice: My “found” count includes multiple attended logs on event pages for temporary caches at the event. If this offends your delicate sensibilities, feel free to deduct for those finds- or even ignore the event cache logs completely. Better yet, just skip looking at my stats altogether. They are my own stats, for my own enjoyment- not for you to look at and judge how I play the game or your opinion of my personal ethics. If you don’t like it, frankly I don’t care.”

So as an individual, I really dont care if folks log temps or not. It is not really any of my business how other people log their finds

However, it is my business how caches that I owned are logged, and really all WGA members “own” the cache page that describes our event. Looking at it as the owner of the event, really changes things for me.

Over the past year I have started to think about the issue as it relates to being an owner of the cache listing. If any of us had a cache that was frequently slagged on the cache page, and in the national forums, it would prompt us to rethink our position. And really, all of us are owners of the cache page that describes the event, so when we see our event slagged, it should at least make us reconsider our position.

Here is one of the logs placed on the cache page for the Hartman event: “June 24, 2007 by LifeOnEdge! (2739 found)
Good God. It looks like Team Ridge Runners found 522 “finds” at THIS EVENT! Way to go guys!!! LMAO Really guys. I know the beer runs cold and free up there, but nearly 1800 finds with 18 persons saying they would attend. Thats almost 100 “finds” on average, per person. While I proudly state that everyone has a right to play the game their own way, you have to realize that if you play a sketchy game, you WILL be talked about. I’m glad to see so many talented cachers in one place. Your typing fingers must really be tired.”

Now, while I can point out flaws with this fellow’s math and logic, I cannot discount his main point, that he and many people are making on the national boards, that is if you allow a sketchy game to be played, you will be talked about. So I have to wonder if the black eye that the WGA gets from allowing multiple temps to be logged is really worth it.

The other thing that changed my opinion on the practice of logging temps, is the well reasoned thoughts of my friend Lil Otter, whose opinion I value and who has the long experience of geocaching in Wisconsin. Here are a few Lil Otter quotes, that remain true, though the WGA has not yet acted on them:

“I saw a better way down in IL at an Event.. (years ago) What they did was make/hide actual ‘approved’ caches a few weeks before the event.. then had the approver ‘release’ them online a day or two before the event.. had printouts or downloads with these newly created caches at the event, for those that didn’t get a chance to grab them from online.

All I’d wish to happen after that is to have a few of the board members (or volunteers) walk to each and check out the condition of the cache, after the event. They then could post a need to “archive” any that have been too abusive to the lands.

Each year we in Wisconsin get hammered for all these multi “attends”… we then mentor newer players that it’s alright to do this to “score” up the temps.. We have so many caches in Wisconsin that those wishing to only “cache” could find plenty within each area.. As I have said before.. Events were changed from “found it” to “attended”… I saw that as GC.com’s polite way to mentor us.. I would have found it highly embarrassing for any to question my count (my integrity)… with stating I attended multi times at an event, so that was why I had not logged temps after “attended” came into the picture.. as well as to change my past finds of temps to Notes… It changed none of my memories of each hide.. nor did it take away from all the adventures I had at the events..

We can keep playing the game as we all wish to.. but I’ve also heard of events/temps being abused (none really hidden) where those ‘event temps’ were just there to add “points”.. Back when I was a board leader, we used to check ‘stamped’ books to have them ‘qualify’ as ‘legal’ temp cache “finds”… is that yet done? It is the responsibility of the cache/event owner to remove/delete faked logs… but we call it the “honor” system.. we change the rules to suit our own needs.. yet we worry that no one would come to events if no temps are hidden.. I proved that wrong with my CITO Rochi-a-Cri event.. we busted butt and had a blast… so do we keep looking for ways to get around GC’s rules on legal caches (so those can Count) or do we actually hide caches that can stand on their own and be enjoyed by others after the event is long over?” — Posted by The Lil Otter on 6/7/07

In a related post she said: “I feel that the WGA represents us all and any official events done by them should follow all GC.com current rules and our by-laws. Why teach new members to just “ignore” what others say in regards to temp hides ‘counting as multi attends’.. why not just do it right and place (prior to the event).. some quality perm. caches. When we first placed caches in State Parks, it was under the radar.. now we have a bit more flexibility than we had ‘way back then’.. But after the event, check on each cache to see how much it may have been trampled.. tweak it a bit so that volunteer trails from the event can heal..” — Posted by The Lil Otter 6/8/07

So in summary, it appears to me that the minority of Wisconsin geocachers are still logging multiple “attended” at events, and the practice has declined since Groundspeak changed the rules on this in early 2005. Clearly, our current practice is not endorsed by geocaching.com and equally clearly, it gives the WGA a blackeye in the general geocaching community.

If we do choose to phase out the practice at this point, only about 35 teams would be affected, with 20 those teams not caring a lot. There will be 15 teams that can be expected to care a great deal, and as I said the issue is complicated by the fact that those teams are well known to all of us and are our friends.

But as the owners of the cache listing of the event, do we really think that allowing the current practice is worth it? Personally, I do not care who logs temps and who does not, but I do not like to see the WGA get a black eye over this, when it benefits so few people. I believe that our reputation as an association is worth something, and we should not allow our reputation to be ruined by continuing the practice of logging multiple attended posts. I would much rather see us support our events with good quality permanent hides, and the types of games that we introduced last year that encourage socializing and interaction.

Zuma