Premium member logging help?

[Northwoods Tom]

This is an interesting discussion and I don’t intend to steal the thread here, but with an active discussion going on by premium members about similar caches, I would like to ask a quick question. Do premium members find there is more respect for their caches being found by premium members only? I guess I don’t understand the subtle reasons for a PM only cache.

Some Background: No need to expound on the benefits of premium membership. I understand all the great additional features and how it helps support this activity. I even realize there is a short term membership. I don’t have one yet because of my location of residence (Island) and the difficulty I have to leave for a cache run. Don’t forget that there are also a lot of non premium caches to be found. The additional features are something I’m not yet interested in. When I do decide to get that premium status, it will be to finally recognize with favorite points some of the caches I found have and get some of those PM only caches in areas I frequently visit.

I have no ill reason to single you out personally Zuma, but I notice you have some challenges in the Eau Claire area that are premium and some that aren’t. I just wonder why and if its none of my business I except that. If uws22 were to chime in, I would ask him also about two of his Mellen, Wisconsin caches also.

Again, I don’t intend to offend or point at anyone negatively. These are examples that I have found and I just want to understand the subtle reasons for premium only caches by members.

Thanks!

Tom

[gotta run]

As many actions over time have shown, the fact that someone is a premium member does not mean they will treat another cache or cacher with any more respect.

About the only advantage I can see to having a PMO cache is to keep the traffic down.

YMMV.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[uws22]

I have one in Verona that is PMO, due to it’s difficult nature. It helps me keep tabs on who is looking at the page and even looking for the cache but not necessarily logging the DNFs. By having it PMO, it also has protected the area a bit more since I feel that if you have invested $30 as a PM, you have invested yourself to the game and are more likely to take care with the cache and the surrounding area… and so far it has worked.

As far as the Mellen caches go, the reason is because Vol 1 has required a lot more maintenance than all of my other northern caches combined. I didn’t want the same to happen to Vol 2 since it is also located in town. Since making Vol 1 PMO, I have not run in to any issues. This is a big plus since I don’t get up there as often as I want.

Both of my active AZ are also PMO. I can see who is looking at the pages before attempting them and send them a message if I need any maintenance help before they go after it.

[kungfuhippie]

The only caches of mine that are PMO are the one in my yard and one that has a resident coin. By making the cache at my house PMO, I had hoped to reduce the likelihood that people would show up in the middle of the night. As far as my other one, since the coin owner was nice enough to send his coin to live in my cache, I want to be able to see who is checking it out and limit people who are new to caching and may not understand that the coin wants to stay where it is. Neither of these are foolproof, but it is what I can do to feel comfortable with the caches.

[Northwoods Tom]

Interesting and Thank You. I was not aware of the feature or ability to see who is checking out your cache for PMO. Does this feature include who is on the watch list?

[uws22]

cannot see the watch list… but this is the info I see on the audit log:

last visit / time / first visit/ / times visited

04/22/2012 09:51 03/29/2009 uws22 81

[BeccaDay]

I only have one PMO cache. The reason why I did that was because it is for trading Legos. I put a lot of time into the container and a lot of money into stocking it. I’d rather it was found by serious geocachers and not someone who has only 2 finds and won’t respect the “rules” of trading and cache etiquette.

Not all who wander are lost. -J.R.R. Tolkien

[Northwoods Tom]

@gotta run wrote:

YMMV.

Excuse my lack of knowledge, but does YMMV mean “you may miss visitors”?

[uws22]

your mileage may vary

[STEMmom]

I do not have a membership for either of my two children(4 and 6 yrs old). I just make sure some where in my found it log I include them if they were along. Sometimes I have none, one, or two children with me. When they get old enough I will consider a membership for them.

[hack1of2]

So far all 5 of our caches are premium member only caches. Since we live in Milwaukee county and none of our caches are micros, the likelihood of the caches getting muggled is much higher. There’s 900,000 people here in a relatively condensed area. Many of the public caches near us have disappeared or the contents have been scattered on the ground – we’ve witnessed it ourselves numerous times.

Two of our caches are challenge caches and I think if made public a lot of people would try to log finds without qualifying. In fact I have to let one cacher with 8 finds know he doesn’t qualify. 🙁 And 4 of our 5 caches have “props” with them to make the container more interesting. We fear those would disappear with the multitude of students with smartphones and free accounts in the Milwaukee area. As was pointed out by others, premium members are likely to be more responsible with the rules, trade up or trade even, use stealth when needed, and be more respectful of the environment (all of ours are in or near the woods in parks; no PnG’s).

Currently we are working on hiding a series of caches that will most likely all be public. We also may convert most of our premium-only caches to public after a year or two (except the challenge caches), expecting that at that time that they may have their unique features taken or the cache may disappear altogether. That’s not necessarily bad; it makes room for new caches to be placed by others.

[zuma]

@hack1of2 wrote:

So far all 5 of our caches are premium member only caches. Since we live in Milwaukee county and none of our caches are micros, the likelihood of the caches getting muggled is much higher. There’s 900,000 people here in a relatively condensed area. Many of the public caches near us have disappeared or the contents have been scattered on the ground – we’ve witnessed it ourselves numerous times.

Two of our caches are challenge caches and I think if made public a lot of people would try to log finds without qualifying. In fact I have to let one cacher with 8 finds know he doesn’t qualify. 🙁 And 4 of our 5 caches have “props” with them to make the container more interesting. We fear those would disappear with the multitude of students with smartphones and free accounts in the Milwaukee area. As was pointed out by others, premium members are likely to be more responsible with the rules, trade up or trade even, use stealth when needed, and be more respectful of the environment (all of ours are in or near the woods in parks; no PnG’s).

Currently we are working on hiding a series of caches that will most likely all be public. We also may convert most of our premium-only caches to public after a year or two (except the challenge caches), expecting that at that time that they may have their unique features taken or the cache may disappear altogether. That’s not necessarily bad; it makes room for new caches to be placed by others.

I am making more of caches premium member only, for pretty much the same reasons.

Even premium members need to do a better job of leaving caches concealed when you are done signing the log. Ammo cans are too expensive to loose just because some Melvin was in too much of a rush to get to the next cache to hide it better than you found it.

[-cheeto-]

@gotta run wrote:

As many actions over time have shown, the fact that someone is a premium member does not mean they will treat another cache or cacher with any more respect.

About the only advantage I can see to having a PMO cache is to keep the traffic down.

YMMV.

I was just making that same point on Saturday to a few cachers. As a cache owner you must come to terms with the fact that no one will act as you want or expect. If you can’t or won’t do that, you won’t enjoy being a geocache owner.

They won’t hide it as it was, they won’t trade fairly, they will post spoilers, they will find puzzles they haven’t solved, they will log TFTC, they wont read the page, they wont park where you say to park, and they will log premium only caches on non premium accounts.

It does limit traffic but is that not the opposite goal of placing a cache? If you must limit traffic, then maybe it’s not the greatest cache hide spot or idea.

And thanks for the pointers, I always wondered how this was done but was too lazy to search it out.

[-cheeto-]

I know the intent of the thread was not to debate PMO caches but one negative is most land managers and officials do not know of them because they aren’t going to go out of their way to spend the money.

We hope cache owners get permission thus alleviating some of this concern but is permission sought on all placements?

I can tell you that I had a cache confiscated that was placed with permission and the main reason it was removed was because it was PMO and the geocacher consulted at the time was not a premium member. “nope i don’t think there’s a cache there…”. Course that would go for puzzles and multi’s too..

[Northwoods Tom]

I really appreciate all the responses. Thanks!

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