Many of you have probably noticed the process we use for unmaintained and long-disabled caches. Typically, for unmaintained caches, we wait for someone to post a Needs Maintenance or Needs Archived log (or otherwise complain) before we even look at a cache, then apply some additional criteria to decide whether or not action is warranted. After consulting with reviewers in other areas, I believe we can improve this process by also looking at caches with a large number of DNF logs, even if no “complaints” are filed. By doing this, we can eliminate those situations where we have caches that no one is even looking for anymore, as “everyone knows” the cache is gone, but no one says anything.
So, how can this affect you as a cache owner? Well, it probably won’t, if you regularly check your caches when you receive DNF logs. If I see an owner log indicating that you have checked on the cache, it won’t be caught in the net. On the other hand, if you like to place very difficult caches and list the difficulty as 1 or 1.5 stars, you probably will get bothered a lot. My recommendation is to accurately rate your difficulty based on how much trouble people have in finding your cache. Obviously we will not pull the trigger as quickly on a 5 star difficulty as we would on a 1 star. Additionally, if you check on your cache after some DNFs, be sure to post a note indicating that you checked on the cache.
In the end, I think this will make geocaching in Wisconsin better for everyone. The vast majority of caches I’m seeing with this problem are owned by people who no longer play the game. For the few with active owners, well, it is probably time to check on those anyway.
See ya on the trails,
Dave
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