Ethics and Geocaching – Second Part

[wzbt03]

Please remember that these questions are being raised for clairification and to promote healthy discussion on the WGA board.

The ethics of Team caching.
Family unit teams are a great idea and I would be the first to encourage all families to cache together.
What if the members of a “team” decided to go different directions on a given day to record more caches while separated but logging them all as team finds?

Granted numbers are not important in geocaching (wink, wink).

What if I decided to team up with 7 other cachers from other states who had 4 digit numbers and formed “Team Superstar”. We all logged all of our finds we had at that point and end up with Team Superstar having 9000 finds and being the top number cacher in the world.
Of course that would be totally unethical but it really is not much different then a team splitting up to gather higher numbers.

Of course the example is quite silly but it helps point out the issue.

I personally liked what KBraband did when he started caching as a team with Mary and became Active2gether. They started with cache one as a team and when Ken caches alone he logs them as KBraband. I think that is the logical solution. If your team caches – you log it as a team. If you cache alone you log it as a personal find under a different name. Unless it about the numbers (wink wink) which we all know it is not.

[ecorangers]

First let me say that you raise all valid points. Among our 4-person family team (two of which are under the age of 8) we own one GPS. We may get a second one from Santa this year because everyone wants to hold the gps when we get close to ground zero. Tami

[GeoPink]

Team GeoPink is anyone who lives under my roof. They find a cache, it gets logged. There are only a handful which I have not personally visited my self as leader of Team GeoPink (incidentally they were temp finds at an event ) When my kids get older and they want thier own gc account; they are more than welcome to it. So long as I don’t have to enter thier logs for them. When that happens, they are no longer part of Team GeoPink (for the purposes of gc.com logging). Luckily this is quite a ways down the road as the oldest is only 10.
Like ecorangers eluded to: we have one GPS; whatever caches it visits get logged under Team GeoPink (arcangl7).

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later,
Team GeoPink
Co-conspirators to make the world a better place…

[kbraband]

quote:

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Originally posted by wzbt03:
They started with cache one as a team and when Ken caches alone he logs them as KBraband.

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Ah, but I never cache alone. However, sometimes I may geocache alone.

Sorry, I just had to raise that topic again.

[Cashing Out]

I’ve often cached solo, yet continue to log under Cashing Out. Pat on the otherhand has rarely gone out without me, I believe I can count them on one hand. Regardless, we have never split up to find more caches than could be done together. To keep track however, when I have gone alone I always sign the log with just my name, and when we hunt together both our names are signed.
Bob

[Ray]

This is a very interesting subject. To start off, There is one find logged under T&tb that was found by Trudy solo and three more found by the beast solo. For all others, we have walked the walk together. We have seen several teams log independently when they cache independently, and log as a team when they cache as a team. We have had some adventures with a couple of “Super Teams”, Team Synergy and Team Badger, but every member of each team walked the walk.

I am disheartened by a recent rumor of a Super Team that has taken the other course. They take to the trails independently and sign each others names on the log books. They will quickly score some big numbers. I believe that it will not be long before their “victory” will become rather empty and they will drop out of the game. Their mark will be a scar.

The marks left by cachers such as Active2gether or Pharmteam will be much more worthy of emulating.

[This message has been edited by Trudy & the beast (edited 11-11-2004).]

[Mama Fishcacher]

For our *team* (fishcachers), there’s Mama, Papa, and Little Fishcacher. Never in a million years would we consider splitting up on the same day to find caches just to pump up the numbers. (Besides the fact that there’s just one GPSr for the family, lol.) But to “divide and conquer” seems pretty unethical to me. Now if some people wanted to do that, well, so be it. Personally, I like the satisfaction of finding the cache and looking around to see why the cache placer brought us there. That’s the fun for me. But if other people think it’s fun just to watch the numbers fly higher and higher, well, that’s the fun they get out of it, and as T&TB said, it would feel pretty empty after awhile.

Now with all that said, I do cache alone quite often. Papa just isn’t into it as much as I am (and besides, he works 7pm-3am so his awake times are very different than mine). The little guy is in school and doesn’t quite enjoy geocaching as much as I do. (I don’t want to force it on him.) So lately, most of the caches found under our team name are after I drop Little Fishcacher off at school then I take of and go caching for the day when I’m off work. I have considered registering each of us separately, but decided that was more of a pain in the tushie than anything. So I state in the log if I was there or if it was me and the the little guy or if it was all 3 of us. I have no *guilt* and no unethical feelings regarding it the way I do it. If I were competing with someone to get higher numbers, I could see the draw the *divide and conquer* method would have. But since it’s an individual sport as opposed to a competitive sport, there’s no reason to do that in my book.

~Mama Fishcacher, apologizing if this sounds disjointed as she hasn’t finished her cup of coffee for the am yet, lol.

[GrouseTales]

Team GrouseTales usually consists of Me, myself, and I. Sometimes my wife and kids come along for the adventure, but they don’t log caches under seperate names. They don’t geocache without me.

For the sake of the ethics discussion, I’m sure it is perfectly ethical for family units to log finds under a common name, even if some members are missing at times.

On the flip side of the coin, say GrouseTales, kbraband, and jvechinski cached as a team and created a username for the 3 of us. It would be perfectly acceptable for us to log finds under our team name if we all found the caches together. It would be a way to commemorate caches we found together as friends.

Now, if our team of supercachers ( ) went out caching seperately, I think it would be unethical if we each logged finds under our team name. It would be real easy for us each to split up, hit a bunch of caches and sign the other guys names to the logs. If we split up and each guy found 10 caches, at the end of the day we could make 30 “found it” logs for the “team”. In my opinion, this type of logging would be completely unethical, and a outright attempt to be deceitful by falsly increasing the teams numbers. This completely goes against the spirit of honesty and intregrity that cachers have when logging their finds.

I would doubt that anyone would stoop to this level just to increase their numbers on paper. Honesty is the best policy. In my opinion, if you sign a log for a cache you didn’t find, you’re in the same boat as someone that steals geocache containers and their contents.

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“There are two kinds of hunting: ordinary hunting and grouse hunting.”
-Aldo Leopold, A sand county Almanac

Brian
WGA President
Grousetales at wi-geocaching dot com
KC9GMW

[Linus4Cache]

I am reading the posts on this subject, and trying to stay out of it, but it grows increasingly tougher to do that because I can give facts and instances and dates and names of players who do the “divide and conquer” method of caching. The thing is that it’s not just “teams” that are doing it. There are people who “travel together” on the cache pages who are logging hundreds of caches this way.
One member of a team going out and grabbing a few caches without the other member(s) and logging them is a lot different than both/all members going out on the same day, in the same area, splitting the list up and signing each others names to the logbooks!
A couple of months ago I was invited to cache with a certain group of people. Not a team, a group (though one in the group does log under a team name). One of the people emailed me and told me not to go…that I wouldn’t like it…that it would “piss me off” and I needed to skip it. I told that person that I like caching with new people and that I thought it would be fun to do. Again I was told not to go. When I asked why I wasn’t given a reason, so I decided to travel with the group and decide for myself if I’d like it. Upon finding this out, the above mentioned emailed me again and told me why I wouldn’t like it…I was told that the group uses the “divide and conquer” method of caching. I played dumb and asked what that was, I wanted this person to tell me EXACTLY what was meant by the statement. This is when I was told about the “list splitting” and signing of logs for each other. They go into an area together (usually a highly cache rich area), split the list between however many of them there are, each goes in a different direction and signs all names to the logbooks they find. They keep track of who they list as finder, compare lists at the end of the day, log each person’s finds as if they were all in attendence and run the numbers through the roof. Those looking in from the outside think they are doing amazing things and getting tons of caches. Those looking in think they are earning their logs and are making comments about them being “Super Teams” or doing fantastic things on the trails.
So here’s the thing, while some may find this to be fun, and others find it wrong, the thing that saddens me is that there are so many out there walking each and every one of their logs, while others are basically cheating because “that’s the way they want to play the game”…If the names of this group of cachers was mentioned there would be a lot of people put in shock! I would love for them to be reading this and just stop what they’re doing! I would love for them to start caching like everyone else…TOGETHER! I would love for them to start signing only if they are physically in attendence when their names are placed on the page of a logbook. But I don’t see that happening because for this group of cachers IT IS ALL ABOUT THE NUMBERS!
I am not perfect…early on in the game I logged a few caches that I didn’t walk at the time. (I wanted to get to a certain point before a trip, or an event.) But when I logged these I knew that I would be out soon to walk them myself, so I didn’t worry about it. A few months ago my name was signed to some logbooks when I wasn’t there…same thing happened…I went out and walked the caches within a couple of days. In fact, I walked those 2 to three times more when I took others to get them. I learned that while I enjoy watching my numbers rise on the stats pages, it isn’t the numbers that make the sport…it’s the caching! (If I was in it for the numbers, I wouldn’t have a stack of cache pages sitting in my file cabinet waiting to be logged…I would have done them in August and September when I went cache crazy and walked about 300 caches in 2 weeks. I was having a blast walking them , but got sick of logging them so I stopped and just never started logging again. Maybe I should do that, huh?) Caching is the places you get to see and the people you get to meet. It’s being outside and walking hand in hand with nature, going where you never thought you’d go and pushing yourself to do things you didn’t know you had in you. It’s a lot of things, but it’s not doing what the above mentioned group is doing! And yes, I know…that how they want to play the game! So while others may think that each person has the right to cache as they want to, for me, I’ll just keep counting the ones I see! If I don’t see the logbook, you won’t see it on my cache page! But that’s how I choose to play the game!
Oh yeah, as for team/individual caching…the members of my family each have their own names and log as such. Gee that’s too bad because TravellingFlyboy is in Ohio caching as we speak…I could have added another state to a different thread. LOL!

[GrouseTales]

quote:

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Originally posted by Linus4Cache:
This is when I was told about the “list splitting” and signing of logs for each other. They go into an area together (usually a highly cache rich area), split the list between however many of them there are, each goes in a different direction and signs all names to the logbooks they find. They keep track of who they list as finder, compare lists at the end of the day, log each person’s finds as if they were all in attendence and run the numbers through the roof. Those looking in from the outside think they are doing amazing things and getting tons of caches. Those looking in think they are earning their logs and are making comments about them being “Super Teams” or doing fantastic things on the trails.

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YOU HAVE TO BE FREAK’N KIDDING ME !!!!

Maybe it’s best that I don’t find out the names of the people that are doing this. I’ve heard from several sources that people suspected this was going on. I was really hoping it wasn’t true.

Here is a message for those who are fradulently signing logs…. YOU WIN !! You are the best geocachers with the most finds, so there. Go to Geocaching.com and pick up all the prizes which you have earned. Get your picture taken with your trophy and it will be seen in Time Square and on Bill Boards around the world. Now that you have so many finds and notariety, you can go back to the honest way to log geocaches…the way you are supposed to log them. Here is a link to the GC.com FAQ’s so you can read how you’re suppose to play: http://www.geocaching.com/faq/

Most people agree that Geocaching is about having a quality experience, whatever your style is. Logging a cache you didn’t find is dishonest, deceitful, and disgrace to the sport. There are no prizes in this game. The true reward is the hunt itself. This is an individual sport, it’s not a competition. It’s amazing what some people will do for a little number next to their name.

As one of the founders of the WGA, we’ve always been concerned that some features on our website may make it look like we are numbers driven. We are not. We agree that everyone has a different aspect of the sport they enjoy whether it’s quality or quantity. We’ve always stressed a quality outdoors experience. Perhaps remove statisical links on our page will get people to focus back on the hunt and not on some meaningless number next to their name.

I challeng the “winners” to go back and make things right. Delete your logs from cache pages you didn’t find. If I see this in my cache’s I’ll delete them for you.

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“There are two kinds of hunting: ordinary hunting and grouse hunting.”
-Aldo Leopold, A sand county Almanac

Brian
WGA President
Grousetales at wi-geocaching dot com
KC9GMW

[This message has been edited by GrouseTales (edited 11-11-2004).]

[rpaske]

Ok, so I’ll bite! I was satisifed just to lurk in the background until the last couple of posts. I hope, that when I posted caches as a find they were ethical posts. I never stopped to ask if it was the right thing to do. I have stopped and admired the scenery which many caches presented. I have stopped and thought about the friends I have met along the way. I have stopped and thought about the rock piles which have been sorted through. I have stopped and thought about the strange places I have reached.
But, now, I am wondering if this issue has been drawn out of proportion. I think that all cachers enjoy the sport. There are many reasons to do so: for some it’s the numbers, for others, it’s the challenge, or it’s the nice walk through well groomed trails, for others it the crawling through brush and briars.
I am always happy to meet others at caches. But, now I will wonder if it is right to log it, since I am not the one who actually found it.

[EnergySaver]

quote:

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Originally posted by GrouseTales:

We’ve always stressed a quality outdoors experience. Perhaps remove statisical links on our page will get people to focus back on the hunt and not on some meaningless number next to their name.

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Excellent points GT! Regarding the point I quoted above … Excellent x2. As a cache owner, the creative side of my is always looking at the log entries below my caches, awaiting “cool log entries” that express the great experience finders of my caches have had … it could be something about my cache OR just a great experience (ie. deer, funny things that happened, finding a new favorite park to treasure, etc.). I’ve found that no longer do I even glance at the number of finds next to the finders team name, but go straight to the “meat” of the text of their log.

What hooked me on the people-side of this whole thing and created a desire to place more caches were the log entry comments of teams like “econrangers” and “pharmteam” and others like them that have left memorable logs, which only come from memorable experiences. Examples, check out the first few finders in May 2004 of GCJH8E … ecorangers beating out Lost Boyscout as first to find because the latter decided to stop first for a donut … Pharteam checking out the birds and bushes … or the great entry by BunnyFuFu on May 27th. I don’t know how many caches these people have found any more, I know it’s a lot … but I do remember their great log entries and could almost recite them from memory … now that’s enjoying GCing.

[This message has been edited by EnergySaver (edited 11-11-2004).]

[WISearchers]

It’s definitely NOT a numbers game to us, although sometimes our sprees in Rockford, Chicago or Milwaukee may imply that. Ms. WISearcher and I have not been (geo) caching (almost slipped, Ken! in almost 2 months. For us IT IS about enjoying the sunset, killing mosquitoes, getting wet, singing the praises of a well hidden cache, hearing & seeing absolutely nothing manmade, and spending time with friends, your significant other and family.

We’re not the ones in question, but for about 4 caches one time, we did split up and pair off so that each team was represented was present at the cache signed, if that makes sense. I don’t see any difference in that to caching without all members of the team. If one has a problem with that, I won’t apologize. That said we don’t purposely cache that way. I am proud of ALL of the caches we’ve done and logged; we’ve earned ALL of them with blisters, sweat, and blood. Apparently some cannot say the same.

I’m aware of the cachers in questions. I’m neither surprised nor do I care much. While I don’t approve of logging a cache for other teams who were not there or represented at all, we all seem to be calling this cheating or unethical.

Devil’s Advocate: Is it really cheating or unethical if the numbers don’t really matter? (to you?) Is it really cheating if it’s not a competition or a game? It’s not either. It’s a unique activity with blogging. People who log a cache as discussed with a coordinated effort, will quickly lose interest (I hope).

So take the stats down, take the milestones forum down, and we’re back to where we should be, an individual challenge. People react to positive reinforcement, and by continuing to applaud these teams, WE (WGA Members) are partially to blame. If it’s still important after deemphasizing numbers on the forum, they will still continue to climb.

These few teams who ARE about the numbers, will continue to artificially inflate numbers and sign generic logs (that don’t verify they were actually there,) will overtake the top of the board eventually and be king or queen of the WGA, & IGOTMESTUFF web page. Hooray!(<

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Extreme sarcasm)

Remember this WGA royalty: A king is not a king without loyal subjects.

Tony

typo edit

[This message has been edited by WISearchers (edited 11-11-2004).]

[Ray]

The assides that have popped up here have been very refreshing… No Randy, I don’t think you have an unethical bone in your body. Stop feeling guilty.

Unfortunately, this thread gives just enough information to figure out who it is about. The recent finds and stats are heavily incriminating, and point to a select few cachers. I regret that I made the effort because the result is very disappointing. Their absence from this thread is doubling my confidence in my conclusions.

~ ruin my day
tb

[GrouseTales]

quote:

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Originally posted by rpaske:
I am always happy to meet others at caches. But, now I will wonder if it is right to log it, since I am not the one who actually found it.

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I don’t think this is the issue Randy. It’s more like this- Example:

lets form an alliance. Everytime you find a cache somewhere, sign my name in the log, even if i’m not there. I’ll do the same and sign your name in logs. When you get home email me a list of caches you found and forged my name in. I can then go to the cache pages and make up a bogus story how I was there and liked the cache. You can do the same with the list of caches I found and wrote your name in. If you found 10 caches and forged my name, and I found 10 caches and forged your name, then we can each claim 20 caches. Athough we each only physically went to 10 caches.

I don’t think this is an issue of a group of people looking for a cache at the same time, and only one actually found the cache first. It’s an issue of forging someone’s name in a cache log even though they never physically were at the cache. Then the person who never even went to the site, lies and makes up a bogus log entry on the internet that they found the cache.

– This is very wrong !!
– Notice I didn’t say this is unfair.
– It’s just an outright lie !
– Play the game how you want, but don’t lie about it.

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“There are two kinds of hunting: ordinary hunting and grouse hunting.”
-Aldo Leopold, A sand county Almanac

Brian
WGA President
Grousetales at wi-geocaching dot com
KC9GMW

[This message has been edited by GrouseTales (edited 11-11-2004).]

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