This topic contains 7 replies, has 8 voices, and was last updated by 
AuntieNae 4 years, 9 months ago.
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Congrats to all of the nominees. You are all very worthy and I wish all of you good luck come voting time.
Sometimes being on the board you have to deal with sensitive situations. I am going to pose a situation and would like to know how you would handle it.
A cacher from another state finds caches that the WGA owns. That cacher starts putting things in their logs ridiculing a WGA member yet they are out of state members of the WGA. What would you do?
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
-Henry David Thoreau
Ahhh, an internet troll, lovely!! It seems that there is nowhere one can go to avoid such individuals.
Much like dealing with sensitive issues with my students, I would first message the finder individually. I would kindly remind the finder that the find log is supposed to be a thank you to the cache owner and about your experience finding the cache. I would remind the finder that the focus of the log is the cache, and not members of the organization. I would ask if there was a conversation I could have with the finder. Additionally, I would ask that the log be changed to reflect a renewed focus on the experience. I always give the original writer (since I usually deal with plagiarism issues) the opportunity to change because perhaps it was a heat of the moment emotional type outburst.
If things weren’t to change, much like if a student were not to fess up to their mistakes, I would move up the chain of command which could potentially result in a removed log.
The views expressed here are that of myself only and do not necessarily represent that of the WGA Board of Directors
I guess the first thing I would do is assess the situation. Id want to do is talk to both parties and try to get a story. I’m not sure if the logs ridiculing the other Wisconsin cacher are sarcastic or not. It’s hard to determine intent from a written message. Maybe it’s an inside joke between the 2 cachers? If it is mean spirited I’d ask the person that posted the log to revise it. If they did not, I would consider bringing it up the chain with ultimate deletion of the log.
Please note: my comments are mine alone and may not necessarily reflect an official stance of the WGA Board of Directors.
I had to ask for clarification on this question as I wasn’t completely understanding the context. You can live in any state and be a member of the WGA, however, to have voting rights, you must reside in Wisconsin. Thanks for unpacking that.
I would find it very disheartening that someone would do this. However, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I would definitely contact the person writing the logs directly to ask if there had been something that happened or if there had been a miscommunication of some sort. If the outcome of that correspondance turned out favorably and we were able to resolve the issue amicably, I would leave it at that. If not, I would ask that they refrain from using a public platform to air their grievances and encourage them to contact the WGA member directly. If that still did not resolve the issue, I would discuss it with other members of the WGA BOD to see what course of action we wanted to take as an organization.
The views expressed here are that of myself only and do not necessarily represent that of the WGA board.
First, I would politely reach out to the person putting these ridiculing logs on the cache pages through a message on geocaching.com. The point of my message would be to ask the person if they could simply edit their log so that any mention of the other cacher being ridiculed is removed from the log. More specifically, no mention of the named cacher at all would be the best policy. I personally don’t think there would be any reason whatsoever to dig further into the why or what of the matter. Obviously, if this negative logging happens on multiple caches there is some reason behind it and it is not done mistakenly, but that really is none of my business.
If the log is not changed in a timely fashion, I would bubble it up. I think at that point in time it becomes a BOD issue to discuss and a decision on what to do with those logs can be made by the BOD as a whole.
I would like to state up front that I don’t care if they are out-of-state or local, there are still some decency rules that apply. I try to put myself in the Cache Owner’s shoes, and think of how excited I am when I put out a new cache. I always want to make the CO glad that I found their cache and share my experience.
In both my personal life and my professional/work life, I have always been a big proponent of going to the person who is doing something that I perceive as non-constructive. I like to discuss with them what their perspective is and see if perhaps there is a more constructive way for them to solve the issue. If it is just a personal conflict, I would try to get them to edit their log so that it wasn’t negative toward the WGA or another cacher. As a general rule, I’ve usually found that it was just a misunderstanding or a “heat of the moment” log. Heck, I’ve written logs that I re-read and edited when I realized that I wrote something when I was annoyed, and really didn’t mean to come off as negative toward someone who worked hard to put out a cache. If a personal conversation didn’t help, I would bring it to the BOD for attention.
jodibee
Views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent that of the WGA Board of Directors.
Communication and thoughtfulness is going to be key in a situation like this. I agree with all here as communicating with the disgruntled geocacher first. I agree it could be an inside joke however, internet trolling is never ok in any situation on any site. In cases like Facebook, it leads to the post being removed. If things are not remedied and the cacher chooses not to edit his/her logs, a removal of the log may be needed.
It is important to recognize the role of the WGA, and that is WGA is not the “geocaching police”. The WGA was created to promote and support geocaching in our state. As BOD members, have we been called upon by members when they see something that is not quite “right” or “questionable”, of course we have. Many times it is just reaching out to people, person to person and asking them what their issue is and asking if they wouldn’t mind changing their log or moving their hide. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a BOD member doing it either. A few times, it has been reminding people to reach out to geocaching.com to bring ongoing issues between geocachers to their attention. Years ago, I was part of a group that was being harassed by another geocacher and geocaching.com did step in after reviewing their continued inappropriate emails to us.
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