This topic contains 11 replies, has 8 voices, and was last updated by 
GrouseTales 20 years, 1 month ago.
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Call it the meaningless question of the day if you like but I was wondering how long a cache should be kept “temporarily disabled” before it gets “archived”? There are several in our area that have been temporarily disabled for almost a year. Is a year considered temporary or is it time to archive these to make way for new ones?
being a somewhat obsessive compulsive person needing neatness and order, i just wanted to say that this is a small pet peeve of mine. it is frustrating to see caches temporarily disabled with no apparent attention from the owner. there should be some kind of standard for such caches.
i suppose the other course of action is to contact the owner, find out their intentions (if possible), and see if you can adopt the cache.
Many of the other reviewers for geocaching.com have a procedure for “cleaning house” regards to long disabled caches. They typically follow the steps below:
* If a cache sits disabled for more than a certain amount of time (say 90 days), then contact the cache owner via E-mail, asking them what’s up?
* If the owner responds, work with them to either fix up the cache or archive it.
* If the owner does not respond within a given amount of time (typically 2 weeks to 30 days), then the cache is archived along with a polite note posted to the page explaining the situation.Anybody interested in having the Wisconsin geocaching.com reviewers adopt such a system?
Interestingly enough, that would cause problems for some really good caches like a couple of watery caches in the Submarine series that Geopink disabled for the winter when they’re inaccessible, and I’ve seen that on WISSearchers’ Monopoly series too. I know that I look at some of those crossed out caches too and wish I could do them or not look at them. I’ve requested a couple to be archived. One the owner had removed it before moving, but forgot to archive it, and it was archived within a day, the other several people were unable to find it, the owner was unresponsive to my e-mails and admin’s and it was archived after a month wait. A blanket might not be appropriate, but if one’s been down for awhile, e-mail the owner. Not everybody is involved in geocaching as much as we are. Maybe they haven’t thought about it in awhile.
Ditto
all of the aboveFor those caches that may require more than 90 days to return to the RASH, They might be reactivated by approvers at the owner’s request.
~tbquote:
Originally posted by Trudy & the beast:
…return to the RASH, …Huh? I don’t want to get any kind of a rash.
Seriously though, if you folks think we (as Wisconsin Geocchers) need some sort of a policy (or not)on long-disabled, keep the comments coming.
Personally I think archiving long-disabled caches is a good idea, and from the admin side, it would be handled with courtsey and with tact.
My approver duties keep me way too busy to seek out disabled caches to clean them up. I’m more reactive then proactive. I only address them if a cacher has contacted me to request action.
Better yet, if you see one that has been disabled for way to long, leave an ‘should be archived’ (SBA) note on the cache page. Groundspeak forwards these notes to the local admins so we can see there is a problem
by archiving those long disabled caches, we would also be opening up that area to new caches. my vote goes to fix it and get it back up, or it’s out.
by the way, i just read a log by a cache owner that said his cache had been taken by the police in association with a robbery. the cache was not even disabled.Some good comments indeed.
I think there does need to be some leeway and action should be taken on a case by case basis. The example that Honeybunnies used on the Sub Series is a good one. Also being a cache owner myself I recently had a foot injury that kept me out of commission for a month and a half. There are certainly circumstances where 90 days may not be enough time to get the problem corrected.
There are a lot of new cachers in our area and it would be nice to see some of them plant some caches. I can also understand where it would be a good thing to archive some of these so new ones can be planted.
I can also understand Grousetales point that the approvers really do not have extra time to be policing these issues and I do think that we the cachers should be the ones contacting owners. I would also add that if we contact someone about their cache, we should also be willing to offer assistance fixing it if needed.
This is off topic but how many approvers are there? Also, if the approvers are having trouble keeping up with getting caches approved in a timely manner, why can’t you add another approver or two? I MAY be willing to help with that if I knew what was all involved.
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Originally posted by AstroD-Team:
… I recently had a foot injury that kept me out of commission for a month and a half. There are certainly circumstances where 90 days may not be enough time to get the problem corrected.I would envision a policy whereby the cache owner would be contacted in 90 days, and if there was a reason that the cache had to remain disabled (under water etc…), it would be no problem to leave it alone.
What the proposed system would be meant to weed out, is those caches that are abandoned.
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Originally posted by AstroD-Team:
…approvers really do not have extra time to be policing these issues …This is off topic but how many approvers are there? Also, if the approvers are having trouble keeping up with getting caches approved in a timely manner, why can’t you add another approver or two?
Often during the summer, it takes up to two hours a night to go through all of the submitted caches. The fortunate part about here in Wisconsin, is that we have two geocache reviewers, and we alternate weeks. Grousetales takes a week, then I take a week. This leaves us with our “off” week to resolve any pending issues that came up during our “on” week.
I am NOT proposing a system whereby when a cache hits 91 days that the owner immediately gets contacted. I’m thinking that, as time permits, a couple of 2 or 3 times a year, go through and perform the “house cleaning” task.
If anybody is interested in becoming a geocaching.com reviewer, my best advice is to get elected to the Board Of Directors for the WGA. Groundspeak has given the WGA-BOD 2 geocache reviewer positions.
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Originally posted by AstroD-Team:
This is off topic but how many approvers are there? Also, if the approvers are having trouble keeping up with getting caches approved in a timely manner, why can’t you add another approver or two? I MAY be willing to help with that if I knew what was all involved.
The more geocachers we have, the more geocaches that are likely to be submitted. What really seems to be bogging down the process this summer is the amount of caches that individuals are hiding. We used to see people hiding one a week. Now the norm seems to be people submitting 5-10 at a time. Everyone else then pays the price in approval delays.
Sorry to stray off topic
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