Boycott club

[kc9gbo]

Here is a post on the Coulee Region Cacher group from The Weasel from Marion Iowa who has cached in the LaCrosse area for some perspective:

“I can only speak as a guy from Iowa who has come across the border to the LaCrosse area for some caches only to find some mushy and moldy logbooks, and or/missing caches all together. I know we have some habitual people who don’t like to do any maint in my neck of the woods, so I know the feeling. Heck, I have a powertail that I put out a BUNCH of caches with another cacher that all have some thought in them and we are ALWAYS out there doing maint on. If we get a DNF on one of them, we are usually out in a day or 2 to find or fix it. We have had a LOT of people come to our area just to do that trail. It deff sucks the big one to have a bunch of caches by somebody who likes DNF’s and thinks that maint is archiving a cache and placing another cache in the same spot. Just remember there is a guy here in Iowa who feels your pain and is behind your effort of cleaning up the bad caches!!”

[Putterizer]

I completely agree with TheBalks and kc9gbo.

The things that they mentioned are the things that people in this area have been ignoring and/or putting up with for 2 years. No one has said anything about it until now apparently.

The final straw for me was when you finally admitted to moving your caches around. I know for a fact also that you did not have permission to hide that cache on the Fire Departments sign. I even ignored the fact and let it go until you brought up the moving of the cache deal on that sign. That is finally when I decided to take the action that I did and report it to Groundspeak.

I also agree with the previous posters about the quality of the caches and logs. I don’t believe the ideal cache container is a listerine breath strip box with some paper scraps of post it notes in there that get wet after the first rain.

I believe alot of the people that replied to this intitial post may not be aware of how questionable some of your hides are/were as far as being located on private property or in places they should not have been, the quality of the cache containers and/or the logs, soft coords, a multi with no coords in stage 1 container at all as well as the final being 400′ from another cache.

I will say that you did have some very nice hides out there in the earlier stages of your hiding career. But it seems like in about the last year and a half it was more about quantity than quality. We’d all rather have quality caches over multiple questionable caches

I an guessing that before there were some replies here you might think that I am the only one that had these issues with your caches and singling you out. That is not the case. Since you left the Coulee Region Cacher group on Facebook last week, there have been multiple people that have posted the same opinions as myself.

Like Paul, I would encourage you to rejoin the group and catch up on more of this areas local finders. Anyone else here is also to join the FB group. It is located here: Coulee Region Cachers

[Todd300]

I’m supposed to go to La Crosse this spring to visit a muggle friend. I was gonna bring my GPS to do a little caching on the side.

Now, reading about all this, I probably won’t go to Lax. My friend did say she was gonna come up to my area to visit her family in the summer so I’ll see her then.

It’s a shame that a CO lets his caches go to waste on purpose just to see DNF logs.

[Putterizer]

Todd-

I wouldn’t let this one thread stop you from caching in our area. There are still plenty of great caches to find in our area. You will just need to do a little filtering.

[kc9gbo]

@Todd300:
I wouldn’t let this deter you from caching in the LaCrosse area, in fact this should show that we are a passionate bunch and only want the best for caching in this area.
I started a bookmark list a while ago of caches I though showed be visited in the area. Along with that the area facebook group has started a cache of the month starting this month focusing on a 60? mile radius around 54601.
I highly recommend Gforce, Wisundevil, Trekkin and Birdin, TheBalk’s, Drhaas and many others who have hides as caches to do. Gforce has one up for COTM at the moment, that is spread out along the bike trail where alot of the locals have hidden caches to highlight what is available and to make it easier for folks to find caches that are of better quality.

[TheBalks]

@Todd300 wrote:

I’m supposed to go to La Crosse this spring to visit a muggle friend. I was gonna bring my GPS to do a little caching on the side.

Now, reading about all this, I probably won’t go to Lax. My friend did say she was gonna come up to my area to visit her family in the summer so I’ll see her then.

It’s a shame that a CO lets his caches go to waste on purpose just to see DNF logs.

I would encourage you to still come to the area, there are lots of other cache placers here, dean just happens to have hundreds more hides than anyone else. I would also encourage you to judge for yourself his hides, maybe they will apeal to you. I chose not to do them on past experiences, but I think each person should judge for them selves. There are some fantastic caches in this area, they tend to be overshadowed by 1 persons quantity of hides however.

[Todd300]

I’m more into quality, not quantity. Hence my low numbers (just 997 finds in 3 years). I would rather walk 5 miles in the woods for 2 or 3 caches than hit a power trail of 100 caches.

You’re right. I do need to filter certain caches. I still have to work things out with the friend on the best weekend to visit her then go from there.

Thanks.

[raslas]

@TheBalks wrote:

As a local cacher let me add a bit of insight to this whole conversation. I have found LOTS of deans caches, and at first I was a fan of all the caches that he placed, but about 2 years ago that changed when he decided he liked getting DNF notifications more than he liked smileys. He told that to me and many others in this area that he LOVES getting DNF notifications, this led to him not doing maintenance and then just archiving his caches and placing a new one very close to were the old one was. On more than one occasion, I have gone after one of his caches that was placed by an old one, and went over and get a free container since he didnt retrieve the old one he archived.

Dean if you want people in the area to like getting your caches again, go back to the old way. If you want to get the DNF notifications still make them HARD as hell but make sure they are there.

I stopped looking for your stuff shortly after you told me how much you like getting the DNF’s, until then I had put up with caches missing half the time, the containers that werent water proof and the logs were always wet, the post it notes for logs which are a disaster after a short ammount of time, and walking away from i don’t even know how many caches because they were in questionable locations, private property or just places that made me feel uncomfortable looking in.

How can I recommend a cache to someone if I dont know if its still there or if its been archived and replaced by something else.

I have found great caches by Dean, but once his attitude from wanting people to collect smiles turned to having them rather get frowny faces, I stopped lookign for his stuff also.

The other and probably even worse part about this style of hiding is new people to this sport see his hundreds of caches in bad containers, not maintained, and in questionable locations and adopt the same type of caching.

Dean place tons of caches like you used to but be an inspiration to the area, not someone who people put in gsak scripts to avoid. I liked your old caches, I can not say I enjoy your new ones at all.

If you archive everything I can’t say I will be sad, but I would rather have lots of findable maintained caches in the area, that follow the placement rules from groundspeak.

I’m not the greatest at writing but TheBalks said it real well. We play to have fun and this takes the fun out of it. Lots of times when we go out caching we just follow the gps to the next nearest unfound cache and end up where we may! Other times we do have set destinations in mind but we enjoy caching to much to let this spoil our fun so our decision is to use discretion when we choose which caches to seek. I am sad to say this is the first time since we started caching that we have made the choice to avoid certain caches.

Todd300: Don’t let this stop you from caching in the area. We do have many good and well maintained hides in the area.

[Ashen15]

@Todd300 wrote:

I’m more into quality, not quantity. Hence my low numbers (just 997 finds in 3 years). I would rather walk 5 miles in the woods for 2 or 3 caches than hit a power trail of 100 caches.

You’re right. I do need to filter certain caches. I still have to work things out with the friend on the best weekend to visit her then go from there.

Thanks.

Perrot State Park, a small trip north of LaX (at least for people like us not minding driving) is a beautiful place to hike and we’ve found a decent chunk of our finds there and in the surrounding area.

[Smashing Ground]

Wow I retract my last post,I had no clue how bad this has gotten over there.For me I would hate this game to have to come to filtering out certain cachers hides.as I am someone that picks a certain cache and then usually goes one to another making my way to another chosen cache.
I have been archiving some of my easy caches and putting out harder ones,but they are meant to be found and if you give it enough time you will.
I prefer favorite points and great logs then a DNF or a TFTH with a needs maintenance log attached to it.

[Todd300]

I actually filter out caches by certain owners in Green Bay, Appleton and the rest of the Fox Valley. I won’t mention their names but they do have a habit of either crappy hides or non maintained hides. I’ll do the same when I visit Lax.

I love visiting creative caches with my favorites being those owned by 2277 in Marquette, MI. He’s awesome with creative hides.

[Ashen15]

Hmm, well, the log I c/p goes back to the 2 year mark almost. 😕

[sandlanders]

Most of the issues brought up here are not exclusive to the Coulee Region, and most places in the state have caches that people ignore. The difference here is that it has gotten personal, and things have been said in the forums here that are better left to the private FB group or, better yet, discussed rationally and productively in person amongst all parties involved to air grievances and come up with some kind of solution.

If this had been kept general, it would be more meaningful to Wisconsin cachers. The “discussion” here has devolved into something that does not show Wisconsin geocaching in a favorable light. One of the missions of the WGA is to promote geocaching in the state of Wisconsin, not tear it down.

I would like to see the mean-spiritedness and personal agendas on both sides stop.

[Mister Greenthumb]

Here’s a perspective from a hiders point of view. We have hidden over 400 caches. We held an event last Saturday that drew many out of the area cachers and all of our local friends. Between the 10 new hides and our others in the area we had over 300 “found it” logs and less tha 5 dnf’s. I felt bad about those who had the dnf’s and gave out hints to help to a few of them. While we hide our caches to be found we up the challenge through terrain and longer hikes at times. I don’t know the hider being questioned so I won’t criticize his motives, but I don’t see the point of hiding large quantities of caches that are either poor quality or deceptive in nature. The point that I agree with most strongly that someone else brought up is how discouraging this can be for new geocachers. I will disagree with the notion of simply putting these caches on “ignore”. If the majority of our hides were poor quality and too difficult to find I know I would be criticized similarly for that and taking up space where quality caches could be placed. Geocaching would not exist if it wasn’t for the minority of those participating who hide the majority of the caches for everyone to find. With that being said I always tell new cachers who want to start placing hides that it is not your right to do so, but a privealage. So I hope everyone will hide resposibly and preserve this activity that we all enjoy.

[Lostby7]

@Mister Greenthumb wrote:

Here’s a perspective from a hiders point of view. We have hidden over 400 caches. We held an event last Saturday that drew many out of the area cachers and all of our local friends. Between the 10 new hides and our others in the area we had over 300 “found it” logs and less tha 5 dnf’s. I felt bad about those who had the dnf’s and gave out hints to help to a few of them. While we hide our caches to be found we up the challenge through terrain and longer hikes at times. I don’t know the hider being questioned so I won’t criticize his motives, but I don’t see the point of hiding large quantities of caches that are either poor quality or deceptive in nature. The point that I agree with most strongly that someone else brought up is how discouraging this can be for new geocachers. I will disagree with the notion of simply putting these caches on “ignore”. If the majority of our hides were poor quality and too difficult to find I know I would be criticized similarly for that and taking up space where quality caches could be placed. Geocaching would not exist if it wasn’t for the minority of those participating who hide the majority of the caches for everyone to find. With that being said I always tell new cachers who want to start placing hides that it is not your right to do so, but a privealage. So I hope everyone will hide resposibly and preserve this activity that we all enjoy.

LOL…I myself am responsible for almost 50% of the DNF total 😳

There are always going to be hiders you do not gel with…get over it and move along. I have a lengthy ignore list but I don’t go around waving it in peoples faces. If caches are not properly maintained or are contrary to the rules of the game report them and they will be taken care of. I have done this in the past and the system works great. Please try and keep the comments here civil. Discussion not attack.

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