› Forums › Geocaching in Wisconsin › General › What the heck is going on in Oshkosh?
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mapmakerj.
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04/13/2009 at 9:29 pm #1728069
I’m getting flooded with new caches in Oshkosh over the last couple days, all from new hiders, with no home coordinates entered, coordinates in the middle of the street, right on top of other caches, coordinates in the water, coordinates inside people’s homes, etc., etc. Out of around 40 of these submissions, I have managed get ONE of these published. I usually see this in the summer, when some “day camp” decides to have a geocaching program and all the 12-13 year olds create accounts and place bad caches all at the same moment. I’m guessing this is some sort of university program (too early for day camps) where the 18-20 year olds are doing the same thing. Anybody have any additional info?
04/13/2009 at 9:31 pm #1905851Sorry, no but if you think they are coming from Oshkosh Rec, I would be happy to call them for you.
AuntieNae04/13/2009 at 9:43 pm #1905852I kind of doubt it is coming from the P&R folks. They usually do a better job of training the kids. Thanks for the offer, though. I keep waiting for someone to tell me that their “teacher” never mentioned that there are guidelines, so I can probe more.
04/13/2009 at 9:56 pm #1905853Interesting…
I can’t help any in explaining but I have definitely noticed the “trend”. Lot’s of new accounts with little or no finds hiding new caches in Oshkosh.
Considering I’ve been asking around for help on where to find existing geocaching training sessions/classes etc in the area and have had only a few responses it’s interesting this is happening in Oshkosh. Perhaps it’s the result of a spring semester highschool/middle school (or perhaps college) course or something… definitely not a public offering that I am aware of.
Have you asked if any of them know each other?? 🙂
Maybe they’re all just friends of someone who explained geocaching to them…
By the sounds of it, I wouldn’t want your volunteer job 😉
04/13/2009 at 11:40 pm #1905854Was there some program on recently that was about geocaching aimed at kids? There are 2 new caches in Richfield hidden by 2 different 13 year olds in the same subdivision ( GC1PV68 & GC1PJMZ ). I met them at one of the caches. They search and hide with Google maps, no gps’rs.
The one cache was 80′ off the first day. Both containers were cottage cheese containers with no camo. No baggies and post it pads for logs. Most of their cache page logs show their inexperience. They use “found it” to write notes so it appears the one hider has found his own cache 5 times. I’m wondering if something like this might be happening in Oshkosh?04/14/2009 at 12:00 am #1905855We noticed that about a week ago.
A few of our caches went missing recently. Found some remnants at GZ but no logs. Since all our logs have geocache.com info on them (per caching guidelines), I’m thinking that the web address was accessed from one of them, and some youngsters thought it would be fun to “hide” some Gladware! The physical logs have twice as many signatures as the online logs, so it must mean that only 1 or 2 have access to the internet. The D/T stars are not accurate on the hides, either.
Not wanting to discourage new cachers, we limited our comments on the online logs. Maybe this hive of activity will pass, but it is the reason we haven’t been rushing out for any FTF’s. I am concerned that if there is a problem, some “pirating” of caches may occur. If they know how to hide ’em, they know how to muggle them!
For now it’s “wait and see”.
04/14/2009 at 2:48 pm #1905856I’d like to say the decline has been because I left town but thats probably not it 😛
I think it was two years ago there was a push at the UDUB for caching, might’ve been a part of a class. That spawned a few caches on the campus and one or two off. A couple of those original people seem to be around yet as do their hides.
They may have run another class or could just be a rogue group messing with the system. I’d say deny them all, stick to the code.
04/15/2009 at 4:11 pm #1905857@Mister Greenthumb wrote:
Was there some program on recently that was about geocaching aimed at kids? There are 2 new caches in Richfield hidden by 2 different 13 year olds in the same subdivision ( GC1PV68 & GC1PJMZ ). I met them at one of the caches. They search and hide with Google maps, no gps’rs.
The one cache was 80′ off the first day. Both containers were cottage cheese containers with no camo. No baggies and post it pads for logs. Most of their cache page logs show their inexperience. They use “found it” to write notes so it appears the one hider has found his own cache 5 times. I’m wondering if something like this might be happening in Oshkosh?I gave these new cachers a nice note in my log encouraging them about the hides, (they are not weather friendly, no bag for the log, etc…) Seems they also claim each other’s caches as FTF – not that I care about that, but you can tell they really are inexperienced. I don’t think they have found any either other than each other’s if I am remembering correctly.
04/15/2009 at 5:26 pm #1905858I found one of the caches Mr. Greenthumb mentioned and was 80 feet off with my coords (I had the original inncorrect coords in my GPS when I went out). I was a bit wowed that they hid the cache using Google Earth/Maps….and I sure hope that is not a sign of things to come. I wonder if GC should think about stepping in and adding a box on the submission page asking what type GPS was used to hide the cache thus providing a flag for the reviewers if they select “Other” or some other telling choice.
04/15/2009 at 9:13 pm #1905859I noticed that a couple of the Oshkosh hides were disabled. I think that once the logs start coming in for the DNF’s, Mom and Dad start wondering who all these strange named people are that are sending these strange e-mails to them! Can you imagine your Mom getting a message from someone, and it says “they couldn’t find it”? And it’s signed, “MindFuQ”?(just an example).
We’ll see what happens now…But, in the future, send the DNF logs right away, instead of waiting. This will solve a few problems sooner than later!
And I do believe that Google Earth was used for these hides. Most coordinates were 80 – 100 feet off of the hint.
04/15/2009 at 10:56 pm #1905860@JimandLinda wrote:
And I do believe that Google Earth was used for these hides.
Are you sure seldom|seen isn’t placing these??? 😈
On the Left Side of the Road...04/15/2009 at 11:17 pm #1905861@gotta run wrote:
@JimandLinda wrote:
And I do believe that Google Earth was used for these hides.
Are you sure seldom|seen isn’t placing these??? 😈
😛 😆 🙄 😳 8) 😯
04/16/2009 at 3:17 am #1905862In response to gotta run…the thought occurred to me, but I let it pass!
That reminds me. I haven’t received my path tag from the “Only the Lonely” Event. Been standing by the mailbox for weeks now! 😯
04/16/2009 at 7:56 pm #1905863We ran into one of those Oshkosh caches today. We tried to be FTF but we were not comfortable going to the location. It looked like we had to walk thru someones yard to get to the cache area, which also looked like it could be part of that homeowners’ property. It was hidden by a newbie with only two finds and two hides, so we were especially suspect of the location. It looked like someone just found a nice patch of trees in the city and thought “well, that looks like a good cache spot” without actually researching who owned the property. As far as we know, that whole area is now privately owned (a portion used to belong to the govt. years ago but is now owned by Mercury Marine) I did some research on the Winnebago Cty website and checked the plat map and could not find any public land in that area. We posted a note on the cache page and are waiting for a response.
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