This topic contains 19 replies, has 14 voices, and was last updated by 
GrouseTales 20 years, 4 months ago.
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While I’m still relatively new at geocaching I come across a cacher that has hidden more caches than they have found. This cacher is way out side of the state – not referring to any in this group — if by any chance a member of this group meets this its purely by chance.
Part of me says who cares. The other side of me think its kind of wrong that a person will hide 15 caches yet have only found 10. What’s worse, is this cacher only found the ten over 4 years, since 2001. Ten found in 4 years but hides 15 of them. So, one part of me says it does not make a difference as long those visiting the cache like the place and it was thought out. While other side thinks that one should not exceed # caches found, especially if the number of caches is below 20.
I hid one cache and at 1st and personally was not planning on doing one until I hit 50 found. Yet with summer ahead and opportunity for people to visit it before winter, I broke down knowing I would probably not hit 50 tell close to fall.
I also wonder about how many caches can a person hide and still properly maintain. This is a vague thought since the variables on how many each person can handle would greatly vary.
So here what I’m just wondering – NOT TRYING TO MAKE A NEW RULE OR REGULATION – just want to see what others think. Below are various options to express an opinion on.
Do you think people should only be able to hide a percentage of caches based upon number found? Example: I have found 30 caches and I’m allowed to hide 10% of that.
Do you think a person can only hide a flat number of caches regardless of # found? Example: All cachers can only hide 25 caches. Once max is reached if person wants to establish another they would have to remove a cache and disable it.
Do you think what does it matter long as they are good caches and just not randomly thrown around?
PCFROGSome people enjoy the hunt more than the hide… while others, enjoy the hide more than the hunt. Lately, my family’s been enjoying hiding them equally to finding them.
This should turn out to be quite an interesting thread. Tami
Some people hide a cache and list it on several sites. (I personally think that stinks) There’s a guy in IL that does that. And not only are most of his hides “crap” (eg. 20ft off rd, guardrails, literally under trash, often in dangerous places and occasionally in known private areas (but he thinks it’s okay because he give parking from a location w/ no signs posted)…then he leaves the caches for a month or so before archiving them and placing another in the same area, a few yards away. He’s even stated “I’m closing this cache because all the locals have found it.” This particular guy has been caching since AUG 03, 1st hide: Aug 03, Last cache logged: Jan 05, Last hide: Jan 05, Total cache hides: 137 w/ only 38 active. How’s that for a bunch of sh#$!!!
While I do appreciate that people are out there placing caches (more often than not they are done well), it is kind of annoying to see people spending more time hiding than finding. Even better are the ones who think that because they hide a bunch of caches they’re better and/or smarter cachers than the rest of us. I say, “If you want to impress me, go find a few 4/4’s, then maybe your 1/1’s won’t seem so cool!”
MajorBrat
I see two sides to this-
First, I don’t think one really understands geocaching until they have hunted a good number of caches. Until one experiences many of the different types of placements, chances would be slim at best that they are able to create a cache that appeals to the majority of geocachers.
But- There have been a few cachers who placed outstanding caches or brought me to some awesome places, that I would have never expected by looking only at their number of finds.
It really comes down to the individual. There are some super-creative people out there that can and will suprise us. There are also some awesome places that we have yet to see. Can a newbie go out and place a bunch of awesome caches? Although possible, chances are that we will have to continue sifting through marginal ones to find the diamonds in the rough.
Perhaps someday geocaching.com will implement some of the ideas that sites like terracaching.com have put to good use. It should be about quality over quanity and not the other way around.
another POSSIBILITY is that the person HAS found lots of caches; but just hasn’t logged them online. Some people search them just for fun and not the numbers. So this hider MAY actually have found hundreds.
Given what you wrote that many of them are garbage, then maybe they really DO only have a few finds. If that’s the case, then they probably should have found several more before deciding to hide one.
All-in-all, they are, at least, providing some caches for people to find. They may not be the BEST, but they are there. Compare it to movies: Not everything that comes out of Hollywood is a timeless classic. But at least they’re trying.Whatever the ratio and reasons for it, I think the rules (as found on the site I use–geocaching.com) are sufficient. Every geocaching site that I know of posts the cache owner’s ID on the cache listing. The default setting on the GSAK software I use to get the waypoints into the GPS adds this ID to the comments, so if I didn’t like a series of caches placed by person X, I’d know what to avoid pretty quickly. (I changed the software settings to not upload names, and I’m actually happy to discover I found caches placed by person X or Y when logging on line.)
I think most sites have feedback areas too, similar to the logs on GC.com, making it easier to post notes for others to see. You can also e-mail the owner in most cases if you have a suggestion to help them improve placement. Granted, not everyone provides feedback in an appropriate manner, and not every hider takes safety and other factors into consideration.
Finally, you can probably complain to the site if a person is abusing their system or the rules that govern cache placement. If the site isn’t responsive or up to your standards, you can choose another site for locating caches.
Lots of good points … good discussion topic. Thanks for bringing it up.
My opinion … I think a person should have a fair amount of finds, before they do hides. Now maybe, early on they find a real perfect place to hide a cache, or maybe they are just itching to hide one … then fine, go for it … but before they hide MORE, they should have a good feel for what their areas caches are like. Now maybe they are much more into hiding than finding … maybe that means (for example) they should have 50+ finds and then go nuts with the hides. So maybe a record of 50 finds to 100 hides is ok … but NOT 5 finds to 100 hides.
I don’t think anyone should make an official rule on this … just common sense … maybe it would be nice if on the top of each geocache listing, it would show the owners find/hide stats, right on the listing screen … the rest of the geo-world could make their own judgment on seeking that owner’s caches then.
We discuss this between us frequently as one of us would like to put out a few more the other wants to wait. I think it would be very hard if not impossible to enforce any rules pertaining to who can hide or where. We have very thoughtfully placed 12 and have done well over 600. We check ours often just to make sure they are in good shape and no critter has messed with them. Our “peeve”in this area is when a person places them from far away and does not mantain them. It would be great to see a “rule” that one can not place them more than 50 or 75 miles from their home coords or if they vacation in an area often then that would be okay. I know this would open up a whole new can of worms and would never happen… just our 2¢.
Timberline Echoesquote:
Originally posted by Timberline Echoes:
It would be great to see a “rule” that one can not place them more than 50 or 75 miles from their home coords or if they vacation in an area often then that would be okay. Timberline EchoesHow odd!!!! I really thought this was already a rule. I went back to Geocaching.com and could not find it mentioned in the Cache Listing Requirements/Guidelines ( http://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx#maint ) and the Hiding Your First Geocache ( http://www.geocaching.com/about/hiding.aspx ) pages at all.
Unless I missed it, I’m wondering where I think I read it.
PCFROGquote:
Originally posted by pcfrog:
… I’m wondering where I think I read it.
How about here: Vacation Caches
The territory in which a geocacher is able to maintain caches responsibly will vary from one person to the next. An active geocacher who regularly visits areas hundreds of miles apart can demonstrate their ability to maintain a cache 100 miles from home. A geocacher whose previous finds and hides are all within 25 miles of their home would likely not see their cache listed if placed 250 miles away from their home.
Edited for UBB Code Error.
[This message has been edited by Buy_The_Tie (edited 06-17-2005).]
Wow. Missed this great thread while on vacation, and Cathunter really hit our opinions on the head. It’s pretty disappointing to see, for example, less than ten finds and five hides over three years, and all the frowns in their cache logs. We ran into one like this in our first 20 or so and it led to a lot of our questions in this forum.
It really set a tone for us. We felt pretty good until we hit this wall, and went back 3 times to try to find a cache that it turned out wasn’t maintained. We’re stubborn enough that we kept trying others and got over our hump, but what if that was someone’s first cache?
Thanks for the dime. Be cool Honeybunny!quote:
Originally posted by Team Honeybunnies:
We felt pretty good until we hit this wall, and went back 3 times to try to find a cache that it turned out wasn’t maintained. We’re stubborn enough that we kept trying others and got over our hump, but what if that was someone’s first cache?
A tip … anytime I can’t find a geocache on the first attempt, or if the last geocacher could not find it, or if it’s not been logged as found in a while … I click on the hidders profile and look at their “Last Visit” date; if they’ve not even “tickled” their own profile in a while, that means they’re not paying attention to geocaching and their own geocaches … at that point I don’t waste any time on those caches.
I’m aware of a geocacher in my area that has 2 geocaches and only seems to log into geocaching.com once every 6 months or so. In my opinion, that’s not very responsible when you have geocaches hidden out there. I’ve got their geocaches on my “watch list” and take care of any problems that have come up with the geocaches, since they have been unresponsive to the logs and emails of other geocachers. For one of them, I’ve replaced the container twice now when it’s been damaged … very frustrating to me that they do this.
Getting back to Energysaver’s comments, after all the advice we got here, we were going to babysit that one and drop a container in it, but Cigarmonkey beat us to it, many thanks to him. We logged that one but the same source has some other unmaintained caches and they haven’t answered our e-mail. Just wanted you to know that we’re trying to implement the suggestions we get from the forum.
Be cool Honeybunny!There have been a lot of good comments here. I hope that my remarks will be as well received. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the first cache was placed by a cacher that had no finds. We have seen some excellent caches placed by newbies and I would not want to say that anyone must have this many finds before they place one. Each of us comes to this game with different ideas and ideals. We need the opportunity to see how these fit the wishes of the community. The only restriction that would be reasonable in my view, would be to place no more caches than you can maintain, and maintain all that you place. ~tb
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