Armchair logging to boost find counts

[Todd300]

@furfool wrote:

Today I started planning my route to and fro for the planned march to the “Eagle Source”. I figure if time allows, I could collect a couple of counties and DeLorme pages along the way. While looking at a page for a virtual, I noticed that there were two finds a day or two apart. Both finders are from Germany. After looking at the profile for one of them, and looking at their stats and finds, it turns out that they have cached in numerous states, from the midwest to the southwest. Unless I missed something, all of their 88 finds in this country, are virtuals. How odd I thought. So I looked at all of their traditional finds and found them to be almost 100% in Germany and France. I also noticed that they cached in quite a few foreign countries. Imagine, such world travelers and only finding virtuals? After seeing their finds in the US of virtuals, and where they found their traditionals, I quit looking any further. I was just too pi__ed off. Talk about arm chairing it.

Furfool, I’m guessing that finder is Geocachingdog. He’s since been banned by Groundspeak. More info on my blog as I wrote about it last week.

[furfool]

@Todd300 wrote:

@furfool wrote:

Today I started planning my route to and fro for the planned march to the “Eagle Source”. I figure if time allows, I could collect a couple of counties and DeLorme pages along the way. While looking at a page for a virtual, I noticed that there were two finds a day or two apart. Both finders are from Germany. After looking at the profile for one of them, and looking at their stats and finds, it turns out that they have cached in numerous states, from the midwest to the southwest. Unless I missed something, all of their 88 finds in this country, are virtuals. How odd I thought. So I looked at all of their traditional finds and found them to be almost 100% in Germany and France. I also noticed that they cached in quite a few foreign countries. Imagine, such world travelers and only finding virtuals? After seeing their finds in the US of virtuals, and where they found their traditionals, I quit looking any further. I was just too pi__ed off. Talk about arm chairing it.

Furfool, I’m guessing that finder is Geocachingdog. He’s since been banned by Groundspeak. More info on my blog as I wrote about it last week.

The specific cache that I was looking at is
GC9AED. I didn’t take a very close look at the latest log, from Dec. 9th, but looked pretty good at the one prior to that.

[Todd300]

That’s the problem with virtuals. Anyone can log them without actually making the visit. It’s up to the cache owner to ensure each log is legit. I’ve seen a few logs of other virtuals and earthcaches saying “unable to send e-mail” or “will send e-mail later”.

If the cache owner does not take action to verify the log, then nothing we can do.

[Team Deejay]

@furfool wrote:

@Todd300 wrote:

@furfool wrote:

Today I started planning my route to and fro for the planned march to the “Eagle Source”. I figure if time allows, I could collect a couple of counties and DeLorme pages along the way. While looking at a page for a virtual, I noticed that there were two finds a day or two apart. Both finders are from Germany. After looking at the profile for one of them, and looking at their stats and finds, it turns out that they have cached in numerous states, from the midwest to the southwest. Unless I missed something, all of their 88 finds in this country, are virtuals. How odd I thought. So I looked at all of their traditional finds and found them to be almost 100% in Germany and France. I also noticed that they cached in quite a few foreign countries. Imagine, such world travelers and only finding virtuals? After seeing their finds in the US of virtuals, and where they found their traditionals, I quit looking any further. I was just too pi__ed off. Talk about arm chairing it.

Furfool, I’m guessing that finder is Geocachingdog. He’s since been banned by Groundspeak. More info on my blog as I wrote about it last week.

The specific cache that I was looking at is
GC9AED. I didn’t take a very close look at the latest log, from Dec. 9th, but looked pretty good at the one prior to that.

Amazingly, that cache has the required answer in the hint. Gee, I wonder why they get armchair loggers….

Seriously, the maintenance guidelines are much more strict for virtuals and webcams than for other caches. As the owner of a virtual, you are expected to monitor the logs and ensure they are legitimate. If someone complains about an unmaintained virtual to a reviewer or to Groundspeak, the owner will receive a “maintain it or archive it” letter. This happened to a handful of virtuals in the Milwaukee area, where the owner had added “you don’t have to email me the answers” to the cache description. (Gee, I wonder why they got armchair loggers…) They did start deleting logs, but by that time, their caches were on certain websites in Germany with lists of caches which could be logged without visiting. 50-60% of the logs had to be deleted. Eventually, they just gave up and archived them.

Now, you may think that Groundspeak should take some action against the armchair loggers, but their policy is to not do this unless the logging becomes abusive (such as repeatedly relogging the cache after the owner deletes the logs). I don’t really agree with this, but that is the policy.

[Lostby7]

Well clearly GS doesn’t want to lose $ by suspending the armchair loggers…but I think it really sucks that they (loggers) pull this crap.

[furfool]

The hint says what the item is, but doesn’t give the answer. Of course, I don’t know the song myself, so maybe it states it in there somewhere.

[marc_54140]

Miata must be sleeping ………..

[Lostby7]

GS has tried to stop this….here is a thread in the German forums which deals with the topic…if your German is rusty paste the link into Google language tools.

http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=229768

…doesn’t seem to have stopped the practice though…I just keep deleting them when I catch them.

[RSplash40]

In that particular cache (and 2 others nearby) you can’t email the owner. I drove to and completed them all in one day got all the required info and even had a nice chat with the owner of one of the subjects. I’m not so sure I get the point of the dylanesque one but the others had some historical stuff related.

It also is a bit of a bummer that GS will not let someone adopt a cache when its very obvious the original owner is long gone. I understand the why but wonder if it couldn’t be re-evaluated and possibly changed. Maybe something like (oh geez, I just got marc’s posting) allowing someone to make a new virtual and archive the other(in the case where there was existing one, not saying allow virtual creation again, just replacement ones).

But pretty sure that won’t happen.

[gotta run]

Out of all the unsportsmanlike behavior that goes on in this game, this (armchair logging) is the one that is most baffling to me…completely pointless.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[Team Deejay]

@RSplash40 wrote:

In that particular cache (and 2 others nearby) you can’t email the owner. I drove to and completed them all in one day got all the required info and even had a nice chat with the owner of one of the subjects. I’m not so sure I get the point of the dylanesque one but the others had some historical stuff related.

It also is a bit of a bummer that GS will not let someone adopt a cache when its very obvious the original owner is long gone. I understand the why but wonder if it couldn’t be re-evaluated and possibly changed. Maybe something like (oh geez, I just got marc’s posting) allowing someone to make a new virtual and archive the other(in the case where there was existing one, not saying allow virtual creation again, just replacement ones).

But pretty sure that won’t happen.

I just sent him a mail through the site that seemed to go through. Why do you say you can’t send an email?

[RSplash40]

@Team Deejay wrote:

I just sent him a mail through the site that seemed to go through. Why do you say you can’t send an email?

Well cool, between my visit and now the site changed from something like “email is not verified” to showing a real link and a visit on the 9th.

Look at the log on dec 4th, “unable to send email”, there is another post on sept 28th “unable to send”.

I actually lamented to TBC shortly after making the trip that these will probably go the way the one in superior did (it was archived after I found it this summer for just this reason).

GC9AF6 was the one I was most concerned with, quite a interesting national registry location. I got to meet Dave who I think was a owner(?), gave me a quick tour and let me in to check out some of the stuff inside for answers.

[Team Deejay]

Yes, but the problem is that it 80% of the logs on those caches are coming from Germany. Obviously he needs to add some sort of requirement that is not internet searchable. Maybe you could contact him and suggest that he adopt these caches to you (since I have already sent him a nastygram, maybe he will be amenable.)

[jerrys dad]

I found one person through the logs that only have virtual finds. 245 or so. In one week, they went from Utah to China to Oregon to Pennsylvania etc… That is truly an armchair logger!

[Team Black-Cat]

@Team Deejay wrote:

Yes, but the problem is that it 80% of the logs on those caches are coming from Germany. Obviously he needs to add some sort of requirement that is not internet searchable. Maybe you could contact him and suggest that he adopt these caches to you (since I have already sent him a nastygram, maybe he will be amenable.)

GS won’t allow adoptions of virts anymore, will they?

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