Premium Members

[Timberline Echoes]

Mr. TE and I have been discussing many things that come up on these boards. Lately the talk of how many new cachers are getting into this game because of a free app on the phones and they really don’t get the ettiquitte of it. We have been thinking if more caches were for premium members only maybe that would help. Our latest one is and we noticed that a local guy has been doing that.

We were wondering also if we could take a regular cache and change it to premium? Or would that open a can of worms?

Mrs. TE

[Team Black-Cat]

Hmmm… I never considered PMO caches as a way to help fix the phoner problem. This should be a GREAT topic for discussion.

It won’t help overall since there will always be more than enough craptastic caches for them to find, and they may never see a “good” cache.

Yes, you can change a cache to PMO. Shouldn’t cause any issues.

[goirish75]

Interesting points TE. I tend to lean towards the side that says Premium members, or anyone that has more invested into the hobby than just an iphone, will respect your caches a bit more, or at least understand the etiquette a bit more. I recently placed a night cache that involved a bit of time and financial investment on my part thats more than just a 35mm film canister and I made it a Premium Member only cache. I like to reward the more serious cachers in our area with quality caches that I know (well not totally know) won’t get ransacked or destroyed or improperly put back by new cachers just getting their legs. On that same note though, I have some fun and invested ones for everyone as well. Like BlackCat said, if all the good ones were Premium only, then they may never see what a good cache looks like. So its nice to spread it around a little bit, and hopefully hook them as a new Premium member.

[-cheeto-]

If your goal is to have lots of people find your cache then don’t make it premium. If your goal is to have a lot less people find your cache then make it premium.

Premium member caches (like puzzles and multi’s) can cause issues with authorities and land managers who can’t look up the information online. I mention this because it’s fresh in my mind…

It will certainly filter out the smartphone “newbie” crowd as they are the least likely to become premium members. What advantage would they have since they don’t really need to run a pocket query.

[Timberline Echoes]

So changing the status of a regular to premium cache will not nulify a non permium members find?

We have a premium in our yard and it has been hit quite a bit.
TE

[Team Black-Cat]

@Timberline Echoes wrote:

So changing the status of a regular to premium cache will not nulify a non permium members find?

We have a premium in our yard and it has been hit quite a bit.
TE

No, all finds will stay.
Also, there is still a way for non-premium cachers to log a premium cache, but one needs to know the secret handshake. (or a little help from a premium member)

[CodeJunkie]

@Team Black-Cat wrote:

Also, there is still a way for non-premium cachers to log a premium cache, but one needs to know the secret handshake. (or a little help from a premium member)

Send me a PM on this. I’m curious because my girls sometimes cache with me, but not enough to justify a premium membership. I’ve had a couple of CO’s agree to switch it for a day or two so they could log them, which is really great of them considering the family situation.

[Mister Greenthumb]

For me I use Premium Members only for unique containers. Out of over 260 hides I think I have only used Premium Member only about 10 times. We hide our cache to be found and making them Premium Member would make them unavailable to many of the new cachers. I haven’t seen a recent number, but 2 years ago I saw that only 25% were Premium Members. One cacher in this area makes all of his hides Premium Member only and that didn’t stop someone from stealing a series he had of 25 caches. They took all but 2 or 3 that were harder finds.

[BeccaDay]

Just my two cents. This may help the problem a bit but I’m not sure it would do too much. I personally became a premium member after only about 2 months of caching (if I remember correctly). I was self-taught so even though I was a PM I still didn’t know what I was doing, just that I liked geocaching. What has helped me the most learn the ins and outs of the game was having veteren cachers contact me and give me advice. And attending events where I got to have real conversations was very helpful. The advice that helped me the most was of course when it was done in a kind and helpful way, not condemning. I have really appreciated this. So I guess my suggestion for fixing the problems I have been reading about on the boards would be for experienced cachers to reach out to new ones and teach them the rules and etiquette. Maybe if someone logs your caches and they have a very small amount of found caches you could just shoot them a quick email to check in and see if they have any questions or need help. I think that some of this etquette is not being breached because of unreasonable people, it’s just that the consequences of certain behavior just didn’t occur to them in their limited experience. Also, just getting the word out about the WGA and all that it has to offer would be really helpful to new cachers. I saw the logo on cache pages but didn’t really know what it was until I’d been caching seriously for at least half a year. Anyway, just my opinion.

I’d also like to thank all of you who have reached out and helped me while I was learning the ropes. I think Mr. Greenthumb has helped me the most. Thanks Mr. G! I still have a lot to learn but maybe one day I’ll be a helpful veteren too!

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

[jseymour84]

I don’t think Premium Member vs Regular Member has anything to do with caching etiquette as much as ignorance of the guidelines for etiquette. One thing I would love to do is to put together a one day workshop for people who are interested in caching but not really sure how to go do it.

I become a Premium Member to get access to the Pocket Query feature and the ability to filter out caches that I had already found. For me it wasn’t because I became an expert on etiquette or knew a lot about the game, I just wanted some functionality that I couldn’t get without paying for it.

[beezers958]

I had experiences with caches being vandalized in Maryland and the ones which were hit were NOT PMO caches. So I have made most of my caches PMO because I am superstitious about them staying available to regular cachers.

[Team_Sandman]

This is a great topic. I never thought of making my caches PM caches. I think it oulw be a good Idea since I have some very tough caches and would like them to be a well special find sonce some of them take multiple trips :twisted:. Like the cache I made that cost me I think it was $54 I think that would be a good cache to b a PM since I dont wanna have that one muggled. I really never considered a PM only cache I thought everyone should find the caches. But with all the use of smartphones I will be considering it alot more. I know I will be changing a few of my caches to PM now.

I do use a smartphone my self for FTF oppertunities (spelling) since im not always able to DL the cache to the Oregon so in that case the smartphone is great but if its a PM cache would you still be able to see it on a SP if your a PM.

[Barry Butrymowicz]

And maybe with the Smart Phone players seeing more caches in their areas that they can not get the coords to, might make them want to pony up the $30 for the Premium Membership

[Astro_D]

We changed 99% of our caches to PMO caches. And will be changing over our son’s as well. Great decision on our part. Far less traffic which means less maintenance runs for us. And it’s giving back to those who are willing to invest in this game instead of catering to all the “fly-by-night”, smartphone, or geomate cachers out there.

Is it a PITA for those who have families where everyone has their own account and not everyone is a premium member? Sure. We ran into this problem several times before we bought our son his own premium membership. If there’s one thing we’ve learned here is that cache owner wishes should be respected and everyone is not going to be able to find/log all those caches out there, so we see no problem excluding a certain percentage of people from finding/logging caches when we made them PMOs. That’s just the way the game is played.

[MawandPawKettle]

Dang it I just hide two new caches in the middle of the Kettle Moraine State Forest. Still waiting for them to be published. My question is how accurate are the smart phones? Do they get good reception under semi heavy tree cover?
Dawn

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