Alderman giving cachers a bad name.

[Eclecticpeople]

@Miata wrote:

My thought was to plant a bunch flats of flowers, almost to the point of being ridiculous. 😈

I might stop over there to view the “destruction” myself.

My mom’s idea was that each one of us go over there and drop off a plant, and ask him what he’s going to do with them now? We could each drop off a flat Miata! 😉

[Miata]

@Eclecticpeople wrote:

@Miata wrote:

My thought was to plant a bunch flats of flowers, almost to the point of being ridiculous. 😈

I might stop over there to view the “destruction” myself.

We could each drop off a flat Miata! 😉

That’s SICK! 😆

[Ray]

I read the article and reread it. The writer is only relating what the alderman said. hearsay!
then I read this: http://www.postcrescent.com/contact/xethics.shtml
I really don’t see any evidence of research on the part of the author.
Perhaps the editor should speak to his reporter about hipocracy.
~tb

[Jeremy]

Now it looks like today the Post-Crescent has totally redeemed themselves by publishing an introduction to geocaching type article:

Article: Technology, outdoors meet in scavenger hunt called geocaching

Fox Valley folks, is this a new article or one that was published in the past that they reprinted due to the interest/response generated by what they printed yesterday?

[edit]I think I just answered my own question. I think it is the same article mentioned in this WGA forum topic as being published in July 2005. I thought it sounded awfully familiar…[/edit]

[shine_like_a_star]

@shine_like_a_star wrote:

But! What the heck are people doing digging up and trampling flowers and damaging trees? Shame on them! It seems more like the cachers are giving themselves the bad name if they can’t act responsibly. 🙁

It looks like I spoke too soon. 😳 After looking back at the article, since they don’t give reasons for blaming cachers, who should know better, then I should hold judgment. They’re lacking an awful lot of info for me to be sure it was cachers who were being irresponsible.

-katy-

[Jeremy]

@Trudy & the beast wrote:

I read the article and reread it. The writer is only relating what the alderman said. hearsay!

In the author’s defense, more than one source was used when writing the article… he talked to the Parks and Recreation Director who said there was geocaching going on in the parks but it wasn’t causing a problem. Also it is OK to publish a quote from somebody without substantiation, even if they are accusing someone or if the quote has factual errors.

But what the author did wrong was not try to get the other side of the story… which would have meant contacting and interviewing a geocacher (ideally the cache owner). So basically the article is one sided and has been passed off as “news” while it really just the speculation of a single individual.

If you look at the previous articles that this guy has written, many involve the Common Council and some have quotes from Kalata. It was probably a slow news day, the author got a call from acquaintance Kalata about his garden problems, and this gem was produced… hey, everyone has a bad day. 🙂

[Eclecticpeople]

What annoys me the most is the assumption that because there is a geocache there, geocachers must be responsible for the damage. So if anything goes wrong in another park with a cache in it, according to this article it must be geocachers? 🙄

And as Jeremy said, the article couldn’t be more one-sided. It appears the author went to geocaching.com to find out who runs it. But he didn’t bother to read anything there.

It must have been a slow news day to make the front page. There isn’t enough going on in the world, or even in the area with layoffs, etc. We’d better print an article about the evil Flower wrecking geocachers who belong to the cult run by the organization known as Groundspeak 😉

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

If you go into the cache page GCQ2B5 you will see in the logs that it had recently been “Muggled.” There was a note at the cache saying “Sorry Suckers.” Knowing that geocachers do not dig up flowers to find a cache, do you suppose that the “Muggle” might also dig up flowers?

Now my conspiracy theory……

A geocacher was seen at the cache shaking tree limbs.

They know this cause there was a GPSr in their hand.

A woman was seen digging up flowers.

There is a cache in this park.

The cache was recently muggled.

What I believe we have here is a woman who likes to garden but cannot afford her own flowers. She also has a split personality as a serial Muggler getting her coordinates from a free membership to GC.com.

[cacheseekers]

@Team Hemisphere Dancer wrote:

If you go into the cache page GCQ2B5 you will see in the logs that it had recently been “Muggled.” There was a note at the cache saying “Sorry Suckers.” Knowing that geocahers do not dig up flowers to find a cache, do you suppose that the “Muggle” might also dig up flowers?

Now my conspiracy theory……

A geocacher was seen at the cache shaking tree limbs.

They know this cause there was a GPSr in their hand.

A woman was seen digging up flowers.

There is a cache in this park.

The cache was recently muggled.

What I believe we have here is a woman who likes to garden but cannot afford her own flowers. She also has a split personality as a serial Muggler getting her coordinates from a free membership to GC.com.

Or it could have been local yard gnomes. They’re evil and I hear tend to do things like this. 😉

[K0rpl]

I will chime in with my two Cents worth. as it looks like I was the last to find!

It all started for me on July Eigth. I went looking for this cache. There were two other cars in the parking lot for one of the bars across the street. I spent about two minutes looking for the cache, never leaving the concrete patch. I saw a white note hanging in the tree near the cache location. The note said

” No prize here Suckers, how does it feel to be had??
HaHaHa”

I posted my DNF, and mentioned that the cache container was not there.

That was it until I read the post from Crazy Buzzard saying that the cache was there a few days later. I then went to attempt it again on my lunch break. This was about 1:30. Cache container was again gone, and in it’s place, another white note. I took the note home with me, and was planning on giving it to Crazy buzzard at the Puzzle event in manitowoc that Thursday.

I then went back again the next day at 7:00am the next day, and the cache container was back, so I sighned the log, and there was no note. Same day four hours later at about 11:30, cache container was gone, and another note.

Absolutely no flowers were destroyed before, or during, or after the time when I was there. As I stated before, you didn’t have to come anywhere near the flowers or even leave the concrete!!! I never even searched near the flowers, as that is not where the GPS was leading!!!.

With how the note was there, then gone, then there, then gone, someone was obviously playing games, and I would tend to beleive they had some doing with this.

We all know, a “Geocacher” would have no reason to dig up flowers, and I for sure know myself, and all of the geocachers that I have meet would not trample them either.

I think what we are dealing with here, is a Gentleman who planted flowers on his own time, in a park that he does not own, and then complains when they don’t last. I wonder if any of the “under the influence: patrons from the local drinking establishments had anything to do with this?

I will be more than happy to speak with anybody in regards to this, and hope all is resolved soon.

Justin
920-471-8008
Geocaching.com ID K0RPL

[Ray]

Maybe..

We should put together a “Meet and Greet” event and invite the alderman and the reporter. I’m thinking breakfast at Old Country Buffet with big discussions about geocaching in the Fox Valley. Follow that with caching and allow the afore mentioned duo to tag along with one of our more high power caching machines… 😀

[Crazy Buzzard]

I just checked the morning edition of the Post Crescent and there is another front page article about the “Thrashing” of Union Springs Park.

http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060719/APC0101/607190625/1979

Aside from the author quoting the email i sent about the cache being removed, he apparently didn’t feel it was necessary to contact me and get any other information about my cache or geocaching.

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

@Trudy & the beast wrote:

Maybe..

We should put together a “Meet and Greet” event and invite the alderman and the reporter. I’m thinking breakfast at Old Country Buffet with big discussions about geocaching in the Fox Valley. Follow that with caching and allow the afore mentioned duo to tag along with one of our more high power caching machines… 😀

I was thinking something similar to this as well. I was thinking of inviting my alderman to go out caching just to show him what it is all about. Then if it got to the table then he could defend us, as he would then know what it is about.

[Eclecticpeople]

@Crazy Buzzard wrote:

I just checked the morning edition of the Post Crescent and there is another front page article about the “Thrashing” of Union Springs Park.

He didn’t have to get any more information Mark–he had all he needed to take what you said and add it to the article to make it look like geocachers did it.

I also like that little bit about his home being adjacent to the park. So these flowers aren’t for the park’s benefit, or even the public’s benefit. He needed a garden. 🙁

[K0rpl]

I just read the paper as well. I can only surmise that the alderman lives in one of the “Low Income apartments” above the Tavern that is across from the park. That is the only “residences” any where near the park that is in the middle of parking lots.

Justin

[Author]

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